BOOK III

_Sylvia Loses_

§ 1

Sylvia returned to New York, where she had some shopping to attend to,

and where also Celeste was waiting for her, expecting to be taken to

theatres, and treated to a new hat and some false curls and boxes of

candy. Celeste had heard all about van Tuiver, it appeared, and was

“thrilled to death”—her own phrase. There was no repressing her

questions—“Is he nice, Sylvia?”—“What does he look like?”—and so on. Nor

was there any concealing her surprise at Sylvia’s reticence and lack of

interest in this subject.

The elder sister got a sudden realization of the extent to which she had

changed during this last couple of weeks. “They will call you an

Anarchist at home,” Frank had predicted; and now how worldly and hard

seemed Celeste to her—how shameful and cruel her absorption in all the

snobbery of Miss Abercrombie’s! Could it be that she, Sylvia, had ever

been so “thrilled to death” over millionaire beaux and millionairess’

millinery? Her sister had grown so in the few months that Sylvia hardly

knew her; she had grown, not merely in body but in mind. So serene she

was, so self-possessed, so perfectly certain about herself and her life!

Such energy she had, such determination—how her sharp, black eyes

sparkled with delight in the glories of this world! Sylvia found herself

stealing glances at her during the matinee, and wondering if this could

be “Little Sister”?

Sylvia had dismissed her multimillionaire from her mind; but she was not

to get rid of him as easily as that. (“He persists and persists,” Bates

had said.) One afternoon, feeling tired, she sent her aunt forth to

attend to some of the family commissions; when to her amazement there

was sent up a note, written upon the hotel stationery, in the familiar

square English handwriting.

“My dear Miss Castleman,” it ran. “I know that you will be angry when

you see I have followed you to New York. I can only plead with you to

have pity upon me. You have put upon me a burden of contempt which I can

simply not bear; if I cannot somehow manage to win your respect, I

cannot live. I ask only for your respect, and will promise never to ask

for anything else, nor to think of anything else. However bad I may be,

surely you cannot deny me the hope of becoming better!”

You see, it would have been hard for Sylvia to refuse the request. He

struck the right chord when he asked for her pity, for she pitied all

things that suffered—whether they deserved it or not.

She pitied him when she saw him, for his face was drawn and his look

haunted. He, the man of fashion, the exemplar of good taste, stood

before her like a whipped schoolboy, afraid to lift his eyes to hers.

He began, in a low voice, “It is kind of you to see me. There is

something I wish to try to explain to you. I want you to know that I

have thought over what you have said to me. I have hardly thought of

anything else. I have tried to see things from your point of view, Miss

Castleman. I know I have seemed to you monstrously egotistical—selfish,

and all that. I have felt your scorn of me, like something burning me. I

can’t bear it. I simply must show you that I am really not as bad as I

have seemed. I want you to realize my side of it—I mean, how much I’ve

had against me, how hard it was for me to be anything but what I am.”

He paused. He had his hat in his hands, and Sylvia observed to her

dismay that he was twisting it, for all the world like a nervous

schoolboy.

“I want to be understood,” he said, “but I don’t know if you are

willing—if I bore you——”

“Pray go on, Mr. van Tuiver,” she said, in a gentler tone of voice than

she had ever used to him before.

“This is the point!” he burst out. “You simply can’t know what it’s

meant to be brought up as I was! I’ve come to realize why you hate me;

but you must know that you’re the first who ever showed me any other

viewpoint than that of money. There have been some who seemed to have

other viewpoints, but they were only pretending, they always came round

to the money viewpoint, they gave the money reaction. If you try things

by a certain measure, and they fit it, you come to think that’s the

measure they were made by. And that’s been my experience; since I was a

little child, as far back as I can remember—men and women and even

children, everybody I met was the same—until I met you.”

He stopped, waiting for her to give some sign. Her eyes caught his and

held them. “How was I able to convince you?” she asked.

“You—” he said—and then hesitated. “You’ll be angry with me.”

“No,” she said, “go on. Let us talk frankly.”

“You refused to marry me, Miss Castleman.”

“That was the supreme test?” He shrank, but she pursued him. “You hadn’t

thought that any woman would really refuse to marry you?”

He replied in a low voice: “I hadn’t.”

Sylvia sat, absorbed in thought. “What a world!” she whispered, half to

herself; and then to him: “Tell me—is Mrs. Winthrop like that?”

Again he hesitated. “I—I don’t know,” he replied. “I never thought about

her in that way. She already has her money.”

“If she still had to get it, then you don’t know what she’d be?”

She saw a quick look of fear. “You’re angry with me again?” he

questioned. By things such as this she realized how thoroughly she had

him cowed.

“No” she said, gently, “I’m really interested. I do see your side

better. I have blamed you for being what you are, but you’re really only

part of a world, and it’s this world that I hate.”

“Yes,” he exclaimed, with a sudden light of hope in his eyes. “Yes,

that’s it exactly! And I want you to help me get out of that world—to be

something better, so that you won’t have to despise me. I only ask you

to be interested in me, to help me and advise me. I won’t even ask you

to be my friend—you can decide that for yourself. I know I’m not worthy

of you. Truly, I blush with shame when I think that I asked you to marry

me!”

“You shouldn’t say that,” she smiled. “It was only so that you really

came to trust me!”

But he would not jest. He had come there in one last forlorn effort, and

he poured himself out in self-abasement, so that it hurt Sylvia merely

to listen to him. She made haste to tell him that his boon was

granted—she would think of him in a kindlier way, and would let him

write to her of his struggles and his hopes. Some day, perhaps, she

might even see him again and be his friend.

While they were still talking there came an interruption—a bell-boy with

a telegram addressed to Sylvia. She glanced at it, tore it open and read

it; and then van Tuiver saw her go white. “Oh!” she cried, as if in

sudden pain. “Oh!”

She started to her feet, and the man did the same. “What is it?” he

asked; but she did not seem to hear him. She stood with her hands

clenched, staring before her, whispering, “Papa! Papa!”

She looked about her, distracted. “Aunt Varina’s gone!” she cried. “And

I don’t know where she is! We’ll be delayed for hours!” She began to

wring her hands with grief and distress.

Van Tuiver asked again, more urgently, “What is it?”

She put the telegram into his hands, and he read the message: “Come home

at once. Take first train. Let nothing delay. Father.”

“He’s ill!” she cried. “I know he’s ill—maybe dead, and I’ll never see

him again! Oh, Papa!” So she went on, quite oblivious to the presence of

the man.

“But listen!” he protested. “I don’t understand. This telegram is signed

by your father.”

“I know!” she cried. “But they’d do that—they’d sign his name, even if

he were dead, so that I wouldn’t know. They’d want me home to break the

news to me!”

“But,” he asked, “have you reason to think——”

“He was ill. I didn’t know just how ill, but that’s why I was going

home. He must be dying, or they’d never telegraph me like that.” She

gazed about her, wildly. “And don’t you see? Aunt Varina’s out. I’m

helpless!”

“We’ll have to find her, Miss Castleman.”

“But I’ve no idea where she’s gone—she just said she would be shopping.

So we’ll miss the four o’clock train, and then there’s none till eight,

and that delays us nearly a whole day, because we have to lie over. Oh,

God—I must do something. I can’t wait all that time!”

She sank on a chair by the table and buried her face in her hands,

sobbing like one distracted. The man by her side was frightened, never

having seen such grief.

“Miss Castleman,” he pleaded, “pray control yourself—surely it can’t be

so bad. There are so many reasons why they might have telegraphed you.”

“No!” she exclaimed, “no, you don’t understand them. They’d never send

me such a message unless something terrible had happened! And now I’ll

miss the train.”

“Listen,” he said, quickly, “don’t think anything more about that—let me

solve that problem for you. You can have a special, that will start the

moment you are ready and will take you home directly.”

“A special?” she repeated.

“A private car. I’d put my own at your disposal, but it would have to be

sent around by ferry, and that would take too long. I can order another

in a few minutes, though.”

“But Mr. van Tuiver, I can’t let you——”

“Pray, don’t say that! Surely in an emergency like this one need not

stand on ceremony. The cost will be nothing to speak of, and it will

give me the greatest pleasure.”

He took her bewildered silence for consent, and stepped to the ’phone.

While he was communicating with the railroad and giving the necessary

orders, she sat, choking back her sobs, and trying to think. What could

the message mean? Could it mean anything but death?

She came back to the man; she realized vaguely that he was a great help,

cool, efficient and decisive. He phoned for a messenger, and wrote a

check and an order for the train and sent it off. He had a couple of

maids sent up by the hotel to do the packing. “Now,” he said, “do not

give another thought to these matters—the moment your aunt comes you can

step into a taxi, and the train will take you.”

“Thank you, thank you!” she said. She had a moment of wonder at his

masterfulness; a special train was a luxury of which she would never

have thought. She realized another of the practical aspects of

Royalty—he would of course use a private car.

But then she began to pace the room again, her features working with

distress. “Oh, Papa! Papa!” she kept crying.

“You really ought not to suffer like this, when it may be only a

mistake,” he pleaded. “Give me the address and I will telegraph for

further particulars. You can get the answer on your train, you know. And

meantime I’ll try, and see if we can get your home on the long-distance

’phone.”

“Can we talk at this distance?” she asked.

“I don’t know, but at least we can relay a message.” So again she let

him manage her affairs, grateful for his prompt decisiveness, which set

all the machinery of civilization at work in her behalf.

“Now try to be calm,” he said, “until we can get some more definite

information. People are sometimes ill without dying.”

“I’ve always known that I was going to lose my father suddenly!” she

broke out. “I don’t know why—he has tragedy in his very face. If you

could only see it—his dear, dear face! I love him so, I can’t tell you.

I wake up in the night, sometimes, and the thought comes to me: ‘Papa

has to die! Some day I’ll have to part from him.’ And then the most

dreadful terror seizes me—I don’t know how I can bear it! Papa, oh,

Papa!”

She began to sob again; in his sympathy he came and stood by her.

“Please, please,” he murmured.

“I’ve no right to inflict this upon you,” she exclaimed.

“Don’t think of that. If I could only help you—if I could suggest

anything.”

“It’s one of those cases,” she said, “where nothing can be done.

Whatever it is, I’ll have to endure it, somehow. If he’ll only live

until I get there, so that I can see him, speak with him again, hear his

voice. I’ve never really been able to tell him how much I love him. All

that he’s done for me—you see, I’ve been his favorite child, we’ve been

like two playmates. I’ve tended him when he was ill, I’ve read to

him—everything. So he always thinks about me. He wants me to be happy,

and so he hides his troubles from me. He hides them from everybody; and

you know how it is—that makes people lean on him and take advantage of

him. He’s a kind of family drudge—everybody comes to him, his brothers

and sisters, his nephews and nieces—anybody that needs help or advice or

money. He’s so generous—too generous, and so he gets into difficulties.

I’ve seen his light burning till two or three o’clock in the morning,

when he was working over his accounts; and then he looks pale and

haggard, and still he smiles and won’t let me know. But I always know,

because he stays close to me, like a child. And now there’s been an

overflow, and maybe this year’s whole crop is ruined, and that’s a

terrible misfortune, and he’s been worrying about it——”

Suddenly she stopped. This was Douglas van Tuiver she was talking

to—telling him her family affairs! She had a sudden thrill of fear about

it—she ought not to have let him know that her father was in

difficulties as to money!

It was only for a moment, however; she could not think very long of

anything but her father. What floods of memories came sweeping over her!

“He was always so proud of me,” she continued. “When I came out, two

years ago—dear old Daddy, he wore his wedding-suit, that he’d had put

away in a cedar chest in the attic. He stood beside mother, under the

lilies and the bright lights, and both of them would look at me and

beam.”

She had risen to her feet, and was pacing the room, talking brokenly,

but eagerly, as if it were important to make her listener realize how

very lovable her father was. “Just think!” she said. “He had an old

purse in his hand—one that my mother had given him on their wedding

journey. In it was an orange-blossom from their bridal-bouquet, and some

rose leaves that she had bitten off and let fall at his feet, once when

he was courting her. He had treasured them for twenty years; and now

some one brushed against his hand and knocked the dead leaves to the

floor, and they broke and went all to dust, and he got down on his knees

and searched for them with tears in his eyes. I remember how mother

scolded him for making a spectacle of himself, and he got up and went

off by himself, to grieve because his bridal-flowers had turned to

dust.”

Van Tuiver had listened in silence. When he spoke, his voice held a

strange note. “Never mind,” he said, “you will make it up to him. You

will give him flowers from your bridal wreath.”

Again Sylvia found herself uncomfortable. But they were interrupted by

the telephone—the connections with her home had been established. She

flew to the booth downstairs, but she could hear nothing but a buzzing

noise, and so there were some torturing minutes while her questions were

relayed—she talking with “Washington,” and “Washington” with “Atlanta,”

and so on. What she finally got was this: No one was ill or dead, but

she must come at once—nothing must delay her. They could not explain

until she arrived. And of course that availed her simply nothing. She

was convinced that they were hiding the truth until she was home.

When she went back to her room, she found that Aunt Varina had come.

Their trunks were ready, and so they set off for the station, van Tuiver

with them. He saw them settled in their car, and the girl perceived that

at so much as a word from her he would have taken the long journey with

her. She shook hands with him and thanked him—so gratefully that he was

quite transported. As the car started and he hurried to the door and

leaped off, he was a happier-looking van Tuiver than Sylvia had ever

expected to see.

§ 2

By the time that Sylvia’s train reached home, she had gotten herself

together. Although still anxious, she no longer showed it. Whatever the

tragedy might be, she was ready to face it, not asking for help, but

giving help to others. It was surely for that that they had summoned

her.

She was on the car platform as the train slowed up; and there before her

eyes stood her father. He was haggard, and gray, and old-looking—but

alive, thank God!

She flew to his arms. “Papa! What’s the matter?”

“Nothing, my child,” he answered.

“But who is ill?”

“Nobody is ill, Sylvia.”

“Tell me the truth!”

“No one,” he insisted.

“But then, why did you send for me?”

“We wanted you home.”

“But, Papa! In this fashion—surely you wouldn’t—” She stopped, and the

Major turned to greet his sister.

Sylvia got into the motor, and they started. “Is Mamma well?” she asked.

“Yes,” he replied.

“And the baby?”

“Everybody is well.”

“And you, Papa?”

“I have not been so very fine, but I am better now.” Sylvia suspected he

had got up from his sick-bed to come and meet her, and so her sense of

dread increased. But she put no more questions—she knew she would have

to wait. The Major had begun to talk about the state of the crops.

The car reached home; and there on the steps were her mother, and the

baby shouting a lusty welcome, and Peggy and Maria dancing with glee—to

say nothing of troops of servants, inside the house and out, grinning

and waiting to be noticed. There was noise and excitement, so much that

for several minutes Sylvia forgot her anxiety. Then everybody wanted to

know if she had brought them presents; she had to stop and think what

she had purchased, and what she had delayed to purchase, and what she

had left behind in the rush of departure. Aunt Varina said something

about the special train, and there were questions about that, and about

Douglas van Tuiver, who had provided it. And still not a word about the

mystery.

“But, Mamma,” cried Sylvia, at last, “why did you bring me home like

this?”

“Hush, dear,” said “Miss Margaret.” “Not now.”

And so more delay. Aunt Nannie was expected shortly—she had said she

would run over to greet the returning voyagers. Sylvia scented trouble

in this, and would no longer be put off, but took her mother aside.

“Mamma,” she pleaded, “please tell me what’s the matter!”

The other colored. “It isn’t time now, my child.”

“But why _not_, Mamma?”

“Wait, Sylvia, please. It is nothing——”

“But, Mamma, did you send me such a telegram for nothing? Don’t you

realize that I have been almost beside myself? I was sure that somebody

was dead.”

“Sylvia, dear,” pleaded “Miss Margaret,” “please wait—I will tell you by

and by. There are people here now——”

“But there’ll always be people here. Come into the library with me.”

“I beg you to calm yourself——”

“But, Mamma, I want to _know_! Why should I be tormented with delay?

Can’t I see by the manner of all of you that something is wrong? What is

it?” She dragged her mother off to the library, and shut the door. “Now,

Mamma, tell me!”

The other looked towards the door, as if she wished to make her escape.

Something about her attitude reminded Sylvia of that “talk” she had had

before her departure for school. “My dear Sylvia,” began the mother, “it

is something—it is very difficult——”

“For heaven’s sake, go on!”

“My child, you are going to be dreadfully distressed, I fear. I wish

that I could help you—oh, Sylvia, dear, I’d rather die than have to tell

you this!”

Sylvia clutched her hands to her bosom in sudden fear. Her mother

stretched out her arms to her. “Oh, my child,” she exclaimed, “you must

believe that we love you, and you must let our love help! We tried to

save you from this—from this——”

“Tell me!” cried the girl. “Tell me!”

“Oh, my poor child!” wailed “Miss Margaret” again, “Why did you have to

love him? We were sure he would turn out to be bad! We——”

Sylvia sprang towards her and shook her by the arm.

“Mamma, answer me! What is it?”

“Miss Margaret” began searching in the bosom of her dress. She drew out

a crumpled piece of paper—a telegram. Sylvia took it with trembling

fingers, and spreading it out, read these words:

“Frank Shirley arrested in disorderly house in Boston, held to await

result of assault on another student. Possibly fatal. Get Sylvia home at

once. Harley.”

She stood perfectly rigid, staring at her mother. She could not realize

the words, they swam before her in a maze. The paper fluttered from her

fingers. “It’s false!” she cried. “Do you expect me to believe that?

It’s a plot! It’s some trick they’ve played on Frank!”

Her mother, frightened by the pallor of her face, put her arms around

her. “My daughter—” she began.

“What have you done about this? I mean—to find out if it is true?”

“We telegraphed Harley to write us full particulars.”

“Oh, why did you send for me?” the girl exclaimed, passionately. “If

Frank is arrested, I ought to be there!”

“Sylvia!” cried her mother, aghast. “Have you read the message? Don’t

you see _where_ he was arrested?”

Yes, Sylvia had read, but what could she make of it? In her mind was a

medley of emotions: horror at what Frank had done, disbelief that he had

done it, shame of a subject of which she had been taught not to think,

anxiety for her lover in trouble—all these contended within her.

“The wretch!” exclaimed “Miss Margaret.” “To drag my child’s name in the

mire!”

“Hush!” cried Sylvia, between her teeth. “It is not true! It’s somebody

trying to ruin him! It’s a horrible, horrible lie!”

“But, Sylvia! The telegram came from your cousin!”

“I don’t care! It’s some tale they’ve told to Harley!”

“But—he says Frank is arrested!”

“Oh, I ought to go to him! I ought to find out the truth! Frank is not

that kind of man!”

“My child,” ventured “Miss Margaret,” “how much do you know about men?”

Sylvia stared at her mother. Vague questions trembled on her lips; but

she saw there was no help in that quarter. “I have always kept my

daughter innocent!” the other was saying. “He ought to be killed for

coming into our home and dragging you into such shame!”

Sylvia stood silent, utterly bewildered. She knew that there were

dreadful things in the world, of which she had gathered only the vaguest

hints. “A disorderly house!” She had heard the name—she had heard other

such names; she knew that these were unmentionable places, where wicked

women lived and vile things were done; also she knew that men went

there—but surely not the men she knew, surely not gentlemen, not those

who ventured to ask for her love!

But why should she torment herself with such thoughts now? This charge

against Frank could not be true! “How long will it be,” she demanded,

“before we can have the letter from Harley?”

“At least another day, your father says.”

“And there is nothing else we can do?” She tried to think. “We might

telephone to Harley.”

“Your Aunt Nannie suggested that, but your father would not have such a

matter talked about over the ’phone.”

Sylvia racked her brains, but there was no other plan she could suggest.

She saw that she had at least one day of torment and suspense before

her. “Very well, Mamma,” she said. “Let me go to my room now. I’ll try

to be calm. But don’t let anybody come, please—I want to be alone.”

She could hardly endure to go out into the hall, because of her shame,

and the fear of meeting some member of the family. But there was no need

of that—they all knew what was happening, and went about on tiptoe, as

in a house of mourning. Everyone kept out of her way, and she went up to

her room and shut herself in and locked the door. There passed

twenty-four hours of agony, during which she by turns paced the floor,

or lay upon the bed and wept, or sat in a chair, staring into space with

unseeing eyes. They brought her food, but she would not touch it; they

tempted her with wine, with coffee, but for nothing would she open the

door. “Bring me Harley’s letter when it comes,” was all she would say.

§ 3

On the morning of the next day her mother came to her. “Has the letter

come?” asked Sylvia.

The mother hesitated, and so Sylvia knew that it had come. “Give it to

me!” she cried.

“It was addressed to your father, Sylvia——”

“Where is Papa?”

She started to the door. But “Miss Margaret” stood in her way. “Your

father, my child, has asked your Uncle Basil to come over.” And then, as

Sylvia persisted, “Sylvia, you can’t talk of such things to your father.

He thinks it is a matter which your Uncle Basil ought to attend to.

Please spare your father, Sylvia—he has been ill, and this has been such

a dreadful blow to him!”

“But for God’s sake, Mamma, what is in the letter?”

“It justifies our worst fears, my child. But you must be patient—it is

not a thing that a young girl can deal with. Where is your modesty,

Sylvia? Your father will lose respect for you if you do not calm

yourself. You ought to be hating the man who has so disgraced you—who

cares no more for you—”

“Hush!” cried Sylvia. “You must not say it! You don’t know that it is

true!”

“But it is true! You will see that it is true. And you ought to be

ashamed of yourself, to cling to a man who has been willing to—to—oh,

what a shameful thing it is! Sylvia, get yourself together, I implore

you—do not let your father and your uncle see you in such a state about

a man—an unworthy man!”

So there was another hour of distracted waiting, until the Bishop came

up, his gentle face a picture of grief. “Miss Margaret” fled, and Sylvia

shut and locked the door, and turned upon her uncle. “Now, Uncle Basil,

let me see the letter.”

He put it into her hands without a word. There was also a

newspaper-clipping, and she glanced first at that, and went sick with

horror. There was Frank’s picture, and that of another man, with the

label: “Harvard student who may die as a result of injuries received in

a brawl.” Sylvia’s eyes sped over the reading matter which went with the

pictures; it was from one of the sensational papers, the kind which

revel in personal details, and so she had the whole story. Frank had got

into a fight with a man in a “resort,” and had knocked him down; in

falling, the man had struck his head against a piece of furniture, and

the doctors had not yet determined whether his skull was fractured. In

the meantime, Frank was held in three thousand dollars bail. The account

went on to say that the arrested man had been prominently mentioned as

candidate for class-president, on behalf of the “Yard” against the “Gold

Coast;” also that he was the son of Robert Shirley, who had died in

State’s prison under sentence for embezzlement.

It seemed hardly necessary to read any more; but Sylvia turned to

Harley’s letter, which gave various additional details, and some

comments. There was one point in particular which etched itself upon her

mind: “There need be no doubt as to the character of the place. It is

one of the two or three high-class houses of prostitution in Boston

which are especially patronized by college men. This is not mentioned in

the newspaper accounts, of course, but I know a man who was present and

saw the row, so there can be no question as to that part of the matter.”

Sylvia let the letter fall, and sinking down upon the bed, buried her

face in her arms. The Bishop could see her form racked and shuddering.

He came and sat by her, and put his hand upon her shoulder, waiting in

silence. “My poor child!” he began in a whisper, at last. “My poor, poor

child!”

He dared not let her suffer too long without trying to help her. “My

dear,” he pleaded, “let me talk to you. Make an effort, hear me. Sylvia,

you have to bear it. My heart bleeds for you, but there’s no help—it has

to be borne. Won’t you listen to the advice of an old man, who’s had to

endure terrible grief, and shame—agony almost as great as yours?”

“Well?” she demanded, suddenly. Her voice sounded strange and hard to

him.

“Sylvia, dear, I tried to prove God’s words to you by logic, and I could

not. God was never proved by logic, my child—men don’t believe in Him

for that reason. They believe because at some awful moment they could

not face life alone—because suffering and grief had broken their hearts,

and they were forced to pray. Sylvia, there is only one way of help for

you—and that is through prayer.”

He waited to know what effect his words were having. Suddenly he heard

the strange, hard voice again. “Uncle Basil.”

“Well, my child.”

“I want you to tell me one thing. I have to understand this, but I

can’t—I can’t ask anybody.”

“What is it, Sylvia?”

“I want to know—do men do such things?”

The Bishop answered, in a low tone, “Yes, my child, I am sorry to

say—many of them do.”

“Oh, I hate them!” she cried, with sudden fierceness. “I hate them! I

hate life! It’s a shameful, hideous world, and I wish that I could die!”

“Ah, don’t say that, my child!” he pleaded. “I beg you not to take it

that way. If we let affliction harden us, instead of chastening and

humbling us, then we miss all the purpose for which it is sent. Who

knows, Sylvia—perhaps this is a punishment which God in His wisdom has

adjudged you?”

“Punishment, Uncle Basil? What have _I_ done?”

“You have denied His word, my child. You have presumed to set your own

feeble mind against His will and doctrine. And now——”

“Oh, Uncle Basil, stop!” she exclaimed. “Your words have no meaning to

me whatever!” She buried her face in the pillow, and terrible sobbing

shook her, burst after burst of it, as a tempest shakes a tree. “Oh, I

loved him so! I loved him so!”

The old man had tried speaking as a Bishop; now he thought that the time

had come for him to speak as a Castleman. His voice became suddenly

stern. “Sylvia,” he said, “the man was not worthy of your affection, and

you must manage to put him from your thoughts. You are the child of a

proud race, Sylvia—the daughter of pure women! You must bear this

trouble with character, and with the consciousness of your purity.”

“Uncle Basil,” she answered, “please go. I can’t bear to talk to anyone

now. I must be alone for a while.”

He rose and stood hesitating. “There’s no way I can help you?” he asked.

“Nobody can help me,” she answered. “Thank you, Uncle Basil, but please

go.”

§ 4

And so began the second stage of Sylvia’s ordeal. For days she roamed

the house like a guilt-haunted ghost. She could hardly be got to speak

to any one—she avoided even people’s eyes, so great was her shame. She

would not eat, and she could not sleep—at least, not until she had

managed to bring herself to the point of utter exhaustion. Knowing this,

she would pace the room until she sank upon the bed almost fainting. In

their terror they sent for the doctors, but these could do nothing for

her. The Major came several times a day, and made timid efforts to talk

to her about her roses and the new plants he had got for her. But she

could think about nothing but Frank, and sent him away. Once after

midnight he crept to her room and found that she was gone, and

discovered her in the rose-garden, pacing back and forth distractedly,

bare-footed and clad only in her nightgown. He led her in, and found

that her feet were cut and full of gravel and thorns; but she did not

mind this, she said—the pain was good, it was the only way to distract

her mind.

What made the thing so cruel to her was that element of obscenity in it,

which was like an extinguisher clapped down upon her mind, making it

impossible for her to talk of it, even to think of it. Sylvia had never

discussed such things, and now she hated Frank for having forced them

upon her. She felt herself degraded—made vile to the whole world, and to

her own soul. She knew that everybody she met was thinking one dreadful

thing; she felt that she could never face the world again, could never

lift up her head again. She had given her heart to a man to keep, and he

had taken it to a “high-class house of prostitution!”

On the third day the Major came to her room and knocked. He had a

painful duty to perform, he explained. (He did not add that there had

been a family council for nearly an hour past, and that he had been

assigned to execute the collective decision.) There had come a letter—a

letter addressed to Sylvia from Frank Shirley.

The girl sprang to her feet. “Give it to me!”

“My daughter!” exclaimed the Major, with a shocked face.

She waited, looking at him with wondering eyes. “What do you mean,

Papa?”

He took the missive from his pocket, and held it in his hand as he

spoke. “Do you think,” he asked, “that it would be consistent with my

daughter’s dignity to read such a letter? My child, this man has dragged

your name in the mire; do you think that you ought to continue in any

sort of relationship with him? Is he to be able to boast that he had you

so under his thumb, that even after such an outrage as he had inflicted

upon you——”

The Major stopped, words failing him. “Papa,” pleaded Sylvia, “might

there not be some explanation?”

“Explanation!” cried the other. “What explanation—that my daughter could

read?” His voice fell low. “That is the point—I do not wish my

daughter’s mind to be soiled with explanations of this subject. Sylvia,

you cannot know about it!”

There was a silence. “What do you want me to do, Papa?”

“There is but one thing a proud woman can do, Sylvia. Send back this

letter, with a note saying that you cannot receive communications from

Mr. Shirley.”

There was a long silence. Sylvia sank down upon the bed, and he heard

her sobbing softly to herself. “Sylvia!” he exclaimed, “this man had

your affection—he kissed your pure young lips!” He saw her wince, and

followed up his advantage—“He kissed you when you were in Boston, did he

not?”

She could hardly bring herself to answer. “Yes, Papa.”

“And do you realize that two or three days later he had gone to

this—this place?” He paused, while the words sank into her soul. “My

daughter,” he cried, “where is your pride?”

There was something commanding in his voice. She looked up at him; his

face was white, his eyes blazing. “Sylvia,” he exclaimed, “you are a

Castleman! You have wept enough! Rise up, my daughter!”

She rose, like one under a spell. Yes, it was something to be a

Castleman. It meant to be capable of bearing any torture for the sake of

pride, of facing any danger for the sake of honor. How many tales she

had heard of that Castleman honor! Had not the man who stood before her,

the captain of a regiment when only a half-grown youth, marched and

fought with a broken shoulder-blade, and slept in mud and rain without

shelter or even a blanket, living for weeks upon an allowance of six

grains of corn a day?

She drew herself up, and her face became cold and set. “Very well,

Papa,” she said, “he deserves my scorn.”

“Then write as I say.” And he stood by her desk and dictated:

“Mr. Shirley: I have received the enclosed letter, but do not care to

read it. All relationship between us is at an end. Sylvia Castleman.”

And to such a height of resolution had she been lifted by her Castleman

pride, that she addressed an envelope, and took Frank’s letter, and

folded it and put it inside, and sealed and stamped the envelope, and

gave it to her father. Nor did she give a sign of pain or grief until

after she had dismissed him, and closed and locked the door.

§ 5

In the days that followed, Sylvia’s longing for her sweetheart overcame

her pride many times; she paced her room, tearing at the neck of her

gown like one suffocating, flinging out her arms in abandonment of

grief, crying under her breath (for she must not let others know that

she was suffering), “Oh, Frank, Frank! How _could_ you?” Anger would

come; she hated him—she hated all men! But again the memory of his slow

smile, his straight-forward gaze, his voice of sincerity. She would find

herself whispering, incoherently, “My love! My love!”

For the sake of her family, she labored to repress her feelings. But she

would have nightmares, and would toss and moan in her sleep, sometimes

screaming aloud. Once she awakened, bathed in tears, and hearing faint

sobbing, put out her hand, and found her mother, crouching in the

darkness, watching, weeping.

They besought her to let her mind be diverted by others. For many days

there was a regular watch kept, with family consultations daily, and

some one always deputed to be with her—or at least to be near her door.

Little by little, as she yielded to their persuasions, Sylvia got the

views of the various members of her family upon what had occurred.

Aunt Varina put her arms about her and wept with her. “Oh, it is

horrible, Sylvia,” she said—“but think how much better that you should

find it out before it’s too late! Oh, dear girl, it is so awful to find

it out when it’s too late.” Thus the voice of Aunt Varina’s wasted life!

Aunt Nannie came later, as tactful as could have been expected. She did

not say, “I told you so,” but she managed to leave with Sylvia the idea

that the outcome was within the limits of human understanding. It was a

matter of “bad blood;” and “bad blood” was like murder—it would always

out. Also Aunt Nannie ventured to hint that it might be that Sylvia had

allowed Frank Shirley to “take liberties” with her; and this, of course,

made its impression upon the girl, who persuaded herself that she must

be partly to blame for her own disgrace.

She became bitter against men; she did not see how she could ever

tolerate the presence of one. Her mother, discussing the subject,

remarked, “The reason I married your father was that he was the one good

man I knew.”

“How did you know that he was good?” demanded the girl.

“Sylvia!” exclaimed her mother, in horror.

“But how? Because he told you so?”

“Miss Margaret” answered hesitatingly, choosing her words for a

difficult subject. “I had heard things. Your Aunt Lady told me—how the

young men in your father’s set had tried to get him to—to live the

wicked life they lived. They made fun of him—called him ‘Miss Nancy’—.”

She broke off suddenly. “I cannot talk about such things to my

daughter!”

Even from “Aunt Mandy,” the old “black mammy” who had been the first

person to hold Sylvia in her arms, the girl now received counsel. “Aunt

Mandy” served the coffee in the early morning, and stood in the bedrooms

and grinned while the ladies of the family gossiped; she often took part

in the conversation, having gathered stores of family wisdom in her

sixty-odd years. “Honey, I’se had my cross to bear,” she said to Sylvia,

and went on to discuss the depravity of the male animal. “I’se had to

beat my old man wid a flatiron, when I ketched him lookin’ roun’ too

much—an’ even dat didn’t help much, honey. Now I got dem boys o’ mine,

what’s allus up in cou’t, makin’ de Major come to pay jail-fines. But

how kin I be cross wid ’em, when I knows it’s my own fault?”

“Your fault, Mammy?” said Sylvia. “Why, you are as good a mother——”

“I know, honey, I’se tried to be good; I’se prayed to de Lord—yes, I’se

took dem boys to de foot o’ de cross. But de Lord done tole me it’s my

fault. ‘Mandy,’ he says, ‘Mandy—look at de daddy you give dem niggers!’

Oh, honey, take dis from yo’ ole mammy, ef you’se gwine ter bring any

chillun into de worl’—be careful what kind of a daddy you gives ’em!”

The family had gathered in a solid phalanx about Sylvia. Uncle Barry,

whose plantation was a hundred miles away, and who was a most

hard-working and domestic giant, left his overseers and his family and

came to beg her to let him give her a hunting party. Uncle Mandeville

came from New Orleans to urge her to go to a house party he would give

her. Uncle Mandeville it was who had assured Sylvia as a little girl

that he would protect her honor with his life; and now he caused it to

be known throughout Castleman County that if ever Frank Shirley returned

and attempted to see his niece, he, Frank Shirley, would be “shot like a

dog.” And this was not merely because Uncle Mandeville was drunk, but

was something that he soberly meant, and that everybody who heard him

understood and approved.

Just how tight was the cordon around her, Sylvia learned when Harriet

Atkinson arrived, fresh from a honeymoon-voyage to the Mediterranean and

the Nile.

“Why, Sunny, what’s this?” she demanded. “Why wouldn’t you see me?”

“See you?” echoed Sylvia. “What do you mean. I haven’t refused to see

you.” It transpired that Harriet had been writing and ’phoning and

calling for a week, being put off in a fashion which would have

discouraged anyone but the daughter of a self-made Yankee. “I suppose,”

she said, “they thought maybe I’d come from Frank Shirley.”

Sylvia’s face clouded, but Harriet went on—“My dear, you look like a

perfect ghost! Really, this is horrible!” So she set to work to console

her friend and drag her out of her depression. “You take it too

seriously, Sunny. Beauregard says you make a lot more fuss about the

thing than it deserves. If you knew men better——”

“Oh don’t, Harriet!” cried the other. “I can’t listen to such things!”

“I know,” said Harriet, “there you are—the thing I’ve always scolded you

for! You’ll never be happy, Sunny, while you persist in demanding more

than life will give. You say what you want men to be—and paying no

attention at all to what they really are.”

“Are you happy?” asked Sylvia, trying to change the subject.

“About as I expected to be,” said the other. “I knew what I was

marrying. The only trouble is that I haven’t been very well. I suppose

it’s too much rambling about. I’ll be glad to settle down in my home.”

She was going to Charleston to live in the old Dabney Mansion, she

explained; at present she was paying a flying visit to her people.

“Well, Sunny,” she remarked, “you are going to give him up?”

“How can I do otherwise, Harriet?”

“I suppose you couldn’t—with that adamantine pride of yours. And of

course it _was_ awkward that he had to get into the papers. But Beau

says these things blow over sooner than one would expect. Nobody thinks

it’s half as bad as they all pretend to think it.” (Harriet, you must

understand, felt rather sorry for Frank, and thought that she was

pleading his cause. She did not understand that her few words would do

more to damn him than all that the family had been able to say.)

But she perceived that Sylvia did not want to talk about the subject.

“Well, Sunny,” she said, after a pause, “I see you’ve got a substitute

ready.”

“How do you mean?” asked Sylvia, dully.

“I mean your Dutch friend.”

“My Dutch friend? Oh—you are talking about Mr. van Tuiver?”

“You are most penetrating, Sylvia!”

“You’ve heard about him?” said the other, without heeding her friend’s

humor.

“Heard about him! For heaven’s sake, what else can one hear about in

Castleman County just now?”

Sylvia said nothing for a while. “I suppose,” she remarked, at last,

“it’s because I came in a special train.”

“My dear,” said the other, “it’s because _he_ came in a special train.”

“_He_ came?” repeated Sylvia, puzzled.

And her friend stared at her. “Good Lord,” she said, “I believe you

really don’t know that Mr. van Tuiver’s in town!”

Sylvia started as if she had been struck. “Mr. van Tuiver _in town_!”

she gasped.

“Why, surely, honey—he’s been here three or four days. How they must be

taking care of you!”

Sylvia sprang to her feet. “How perfectly outrageous!” she cried.

“What, Sunny? That you haven’t seen him?”

“Harriet, stop joking with me!”

“But I’m not joking with you,” said Harriet, bewildered. “What in the

world is the matter?”

Sylvia’s face was pale with anger. “I won’t see him! I won’t see him! He

has no right to come here!”

“But Sunny—what’s the matter? What’s the man done?”

“He wants to marry me, Harriet, and he’s come here—oh, how shameful! how

insulting! At such a time as this!”

“But I should think this was just the time for him to come!” said

Harriet, laughing in spite of herself. “Surely, Sylvia, if you haven’t

gone formally into mourning——”

“I won’t see him!” cried the other, passionately. “He must be made to

understand it at once—he’ll gain nothing by coming here!”

“But, Sunny,” suggested her friend, “hadn’t you better wait until he

_tries_ to see you?”

“Where is he, Harriet?”

“He’s staying with Mrs. Chilton.”

“With Aunt Nannie!” Sylvia stood, staring at Harriet with sudden fear in

her face. She saw now why van Tuiver had made no attempt to see her, why

nothing had been said to her as yet! She clenched her hands tightly and

exclaimed, “I won’t marry him! They sha’n’t sell me to him—they sha’n’t,

they sha’n’t!”

Her friend was gazing at her in wonder, not unmixed with alarm. “Good

God, Sunny,” she exclaimed, “can he be so bad that you’d refuse to marry

him?”

§ 6

All this while, you must understand, there was Sylvia’s “world” outside,

looking on at the drama—pitying, wondering, gossiping, speculating.

Frank arrested, Frank out on bail! Frank let off with a fine, because

the man did not die! Frank leaving college and coming back to his

plantation! Would he try to see Sylvia, and what would Sylvia do about

it? Would Mandeville Castleman carry out his threat to shoot him? How

was Sylvia taking it, anyway? Would she be seen at the next club-dance?

And then—interest piled upon interest—Douglas van Tuiver had come! Was

it true that the Yankee Crœsus wanted to marry Sylvia? Was it true that

he had already asked her? Could it be that she had actually refused to

see him? And what would the family do about that?—All this, you

understand, most decorously, most discreetly—and yet with such thrills,

such sensations!

When the audience is stirred, the actors know it; and people so

sensitive and proud as the Castlemans could not fail to be aware that

the world’s attention was focussed upon them. So Sylvia was not left for

long to indulge her grief. As soon as her relatives had made sure of her

breach with Frank, they turned their energies to persuading her to

present a smiling front to “society.” “You must not let people see that

you are eating your heart out over a man!”—such was their cry. There

were few things worse that could happen to a woman than to have it known

that she was grieving about a man. Just as a savage laughs at his

enemies while they are torturing him, so must a woman wear a smile upon

her face while her heart was breaking.

From the first moment, of course, her old suitors rallied to protect

her—a kind of outer phalanx, auxiliary to the family. They wrote to her,

they sent flowers, they called and lingered in the hope that she might

see them. When the time for the club-dance came, the siege of the

suitors became a general assault. A dozen times a day came her mother or

Aunt Varina to plead with her, to scold her. “I don’t want to dance—I

couldn’t dance!” she wailed; but it would be, “Here’s Charlie Peyton on

the ’phone—he begs you to speak to him just a moment. Go, Sylvia,

please—_don’t_ let people think you are so weak!”

At last she told one man that he might call. Malcolm McCallum it was—the

same who had crawled upon his knees to prove his devotion to her. She

had long ago convinced him that his suit was hopeless, so now he was

able to plead with her without offense. Her friends wanted so to help

her—would she not give them a chance? They were indignant because of the

way a scoundrel had treated her; they wanted somehow to show her their

loyalty, their devotion. If only she would come—such a tribute as she

would receive! And surely she was not going to give up her whole life,

because of one such fellow! She had so many true friends—would she

punish them all for the act of one? No, they would not have it! No, not

if they had to raid the house and carry her away! The belle of Castleman

Hall should not wither up and be an old maid!

Sylvia promised to think it over; and then came Aunt Nannie, to protest

in the name of all her cousins against her inflicting further notoriety

upon the family. For Sylvia to be exhibiting such unseemly grief over

Frank Shirley was almost as bad as to be engaged to him. She must

positively take up her normal life again; she must go to this dance!

Sylvia, perceiving that it would be necessary to have the matter out

sooner or later, inquired, “Is Mr. van Tuiver to be there?”

She was surprised at the answer, “He is not.”

“Where is he?” she asked; and learned that the visitor had gone with two

of the boys on a fishing-trip. Sylvia and her aunt exchanged looks—as

two swordsmen might, while their weapons are being measured and the

ground laid out for their duel. The girl could imagine what had

happened, almost as well as if she had been present. Van Tuiver, with

his usual crude egotism, had come post-haste to Castleman Hall; it was

Aunt Nannie who had persuaded him to wait, and let her handle the affair

with tact. Sylvia must first be drawn out into social life, and then it

would be less easy for her to avoid van Tuiver. But although Sylvia felt

sure of this, she could not say so. When she hinted the charge, her aunt

had a shrewd retort ready: “I have daughters of my own—and may I not

have plans of my own for so eligible a young man as Douglas van Tuiver?”

§ 7

Sylvia said that she would go to the dance; and great was the

excitement, both at home and abroad. All day long, between fits of

weeping, she labored to steel herself to the ordeal. When night came,

she let herself be arrayed in rosy chiffon, and then went all to pieces,

and fell upon the bed in a paroxysm, declaring that she could not, could

not go. One by one came “Miss Margaret,” Aunt Varina, and Celeste,

scolding her, beseeching her—but all in vain; until at last they sent

for the Major, who, wiser than all of them, arrayed himself in his own

evening finery, and put a white rosebud in his button-hole, and then

went with cheerful face and breaking heart to Sylvia’s room.

“Come, little girl,” he said. “Daddy’s all ready.”

Sylvia sat up and stared at him through her tears. “You!” she exclaimed.

“Why, of course, honey,” he smiled. “Didn’t you know your old Papa was

going with you?”

Sylvia had not known it, nor had anybody else known it up to a few

minutes before. Her surprise (for the Major almost never went to dances)

was sufficiently great to check her tears; and then came “Miss Margaret”

with a glassful of steaming “hot toddy.” “My child,” she said, “drink

this. You’ve had no nourishment—that’s why you go to pieces.”

So they washed her face again, and powdered it up; they straightened her

hair and smoothed out the wrinkles in her dress, and got her bows and

ribbons in order, and took her down stairs to where Aunt Nannie was

waiting, grim and resolute—a double force of chaperones for this

emergency!

You can imagine, perhaps, the excitement when they reached the

club-house; how the whisper went round, and the swains crowded in the

doorway to wait for her. The younger ones cheered when she entered—“Hi,

yi! Whoop la! Miss Sylvia.” They came jumping and capering across the

ball-room floor—one of them tearing a great palmetto-leaf from the

decorations on the wall, and performing a wonderful, sprawling salaam

before her. “I’m the King of the Cannibal Islands!” he proclaimed. “Will

you be my Queen, Miss Sylvia?” Several others locked arms and executed a

cake-walk, by way of manifesting their delight. The dance of the

country-club was turned into a reception in her honor. They worshipped

her for having come—it took nerve, by George, and nerve was the thing

they admired. And then how lovely she was—how perfectly, unutterably

lovely! Just a little more suffering like this, and she would be ready

to be carried up in a chariot of fire and set among the seraphim!

Of course, in the face of such a welcome, it was unthinkable that she

should not carry the thing through triumphantly. In the refreshment-room

were egg-nog and champagne-punch, and she drank enough to keep her in a

glow, to carry her along upon wings of excitement. One by one her old

sweethearts came to claim a dance with her, and one by one they caused

her to understand that hope was springing eternal in their breasts. She

found herself so busy keeping them in order that life seemed quite as it

had always been in Castleman County.

Save for one important circumstance. There had come a new element into

its atmosphere—something marvellously stimulating, transcending and

overshadowing all that had been before. Sylvia found out about it little

by little; the first hint coming from old Mrs. Tagliaferro—the General’s

wife, you may remember. She had come to Sylvia’s _début_ party, hobbling

with a gold-headed cane; but now, the General having died, she had

thrown away her cane, and chaperoned her great-grandchildren at dances,

because otherwise people would think she was getting old. She shook a

sprightly finger at the belle of the evening, and demanded, “What’s this

I hear, my child, about your latest conquest? I always knew you’d be

satisfied with nothing less than a duke!” Sylvia’s face clouded, and the

other went on her way with a knowing cackle. “Oh, you can’t fool me with

your haughty looks!”

And then came Mabel Taylor, a girl who had been a hopeless wallflower in

her early days, and had been saved because Sylvia took pity upon her,

and compelled men to ask her to dance. Now she was Sylvia’s jealous

rival; and greeting her in the dressing-room she whispered, “Sylvia, is

he really in love with you?”

“When Sylvia asked, “Who?” the other replied, “Oh, it’s a secret, is

it!”

The girl perceived that she must take some line at once. “Are you really

going to marry him?” asked Charlie Peyton, with despair in his voice.

“We can’t stand that sort of competition!” protested Harvey Richards.

“We shall have to have a protective tariff, Miss Sylvia!” (Harvey, as

you may recall, was a steel manufacturer.)

The thing had got upon Sylvia’s nerves. “Are you so completely awed by

that man?” she demanded, in a voice of intense irritation.

“Awed by him?” echoed Harvey.

“Why don’t you at least mention his name? You are the fourth person

who’s talked to me about him to-night and hasn’t dared to utter his

name. I believe it’s not customary for Kings to use their family names,

but they have Christian names, at least.”

“Why, Miss Sylvia!” exclaimed the other.

“Let us give him a title,” she pursued, savagely. “King Douglas the

First, let us say!” And imagine the seven pairs of swift wings which

that saying took unto itself! She called him a King! King Douglas the

First! She referred to him as Royalty—she made fun of him as openly and

recklessly as that! “What sublimity!” exclaimed her admirers. “What a

pose!” retorted her rivals.

But even so, they could not but envy her the pose, and the consistency

with which she adhered to it. She could not be brought to discuss the

King—whether he was in love with her, whether he had asked her to marry

him, whether he had come South on her account; nor did she show any

particular signs of being impressed by him—as if she really did not

consider him imposing, or especially elegant, or in any way unusual. Oh,

but they were a haughty lot, those Castlemans—and Sylvia was the

haughtiest of them all! The country-club began to revise its estimates

of Knickerbocker culture, and to remember that, after all, the only real

blood in America was in the South.

§ 8

The next afternoon came Harriet Atkinson, to bid Sylvia farewell, and

incidentally to congratulate her upon her triumph. After they had

chatted for a while, she put her hand upon her friend’s, and remarked in

a serious tone, “Sunny, I’ve had a letter from Frank Shirley.”

She felt the hand quiver in hers, and she pressed it more firmly. “He

wanted to explain things to me,” she said.

“What did he say?” asked Sylvia, in a faint voice.

But Harriet did not answer. “I wrote to him,” she continued, “that I

declined to have anything to do with the matter.” Seeing her friend’s

lip beginning to tremble, she added, “Sunny, I did it for your own

good—believe me. I don’t want you to open up things with that man

again.”

“Why not, Harriet?”

“After what’s happened, you ought to know that your people would never

stand for it—there’d surely be some kind of a shooting-scrape. And even

supposing that you got away with him—what sort of an existence would you

have? Frank Shirley is no money-maker, and somehow I don’t seem to feel

that you were cut out for cottage-life.”

She stopped and fixed her gaze upon her friend. “Sunny,” she said, “I

want you to marry the other man.” Then, as Sylvia started—“Don’t ask me

what other man. I’m no Mabel Taylor.”

Sylvia perceived that her words were being cherished these days.

“Harriet,” she exclaimed in an agitated voice, “I can’t endure Douglas

van Tuiver.”

“Now, Sunny, I want you to listen to me. This may be the last chance

I’ll have to talk to you—I’m going off to-morrow, to settle down to

domestic virtue. I want to give it to you straight—to take the place of

your Aunt Lady in this crisis. You fall in love at first sight, and it

brings you wonderful thrills, and you marry on the strength of it—and

then in a year or two the thrills are gone, and where are you? Take my

advice, Sunny, there’s a whole lot more in life than this young-love

business. Try to look ahead a little and realize the truth about

yourself. If ever there was a creature born to be a sky-lark, it’s you;

and here’s a man who could take you out and give you a chance to spread

your wings. For God’s sake, Sunny, don’t throw the chance away, and

settle down to be a barnyard fowl here in Castleman County.”

“Harriet!” cried Sylvia, frantically, “I tell you I can’t endure the

man!”

“I know, Sunny—but that’s just nonsense. You’re in love with one man,

and of course it sets you wild to think of another. But women can get

used to things; and one doesn’t have to be too intimate with one’s

husband. The man is dead in love with you, and so you’d always be able

to manage him. I told you that about Beau—and I can assure you I’ve

found it a convenient arrangement. From what I can make out, Mr. van

Tuiver isn’t a bad sort at all—he seems to have charmed everybody down

here. He’s not bad-looking, and he certainly has wonderful manners. He

can go anywhere in the world, and if he had you to manage him and do

things with him—really, Sunny, I can’t see what more you could want!

Certainly it’s what your family wants—and after all, you’ll find it’s

nice to be able to please your people when you marry. I know how you

despise money, and all that—but, Sylvia, there aren’t many fortunes made

out of cotton planting these days, and if you could hear poor Beau tell

about what his folks have been through, you’d understand that family

pride without cash is like mustard without meat!”

So Harriet went on. She was a sprightly young lady, and generally able

to hold her audience; but after several minutes of this exhortation, she

stopped and asked, “Sunny, what are you thinking about?”

And Sylvia, her face grown suddenly old with grief, caught her by the

hand. “Oh, Harriet,” she whispered, “tell me the truth—do you think I

ought to hear his explanation?”

§ 9

There were more dances and entertainments; and each time, of course, it

was harder for Sylvia to escape. She had been to one, and so people

would expect her at the next. There was always somebody who would be

hurt if she refused, and there was always that dreadful phenomenon

called “people”—it would say that the task had been too much for her,

that she was still under the spell of the man who had flaunted her. So

evening after evening Sylvia would choke back her tears, and drink more

coffee, and go forth and pretend to be happy.

It was at the third of these entertainments that she met Douglas van

Tuiver. No one had told her of his return—she had no warning until she

saw him enter the room. She had to get herself together and choose her

course of action, with the eyes of the whole company upon her. For this

was the meeting about which Castleman County had been gossiping and

speculating for weeks—the rising of the curtain upon the second act of

the thrilling drama!

He was his usual precise and formal self; unimpeachably correct, and yet

set apart by a something—a reserve, a dignity. This extended even to his

costume, which tolerated no casual wrinkle, no presumptuous speck. There

was always just a slight difference between van Tuiver’s attire and that

of other men—and somehow you knew that this was the difference between

the best and the average.

It seemed strange to Sylvia to see him here, in her old environment;

strange to compare him with her own people. She realized that she would

have to treat him differently now, for he was a stranger, a guest. She

discovered also a difference in him. He may have been touched by the

change he saw in her; at any rate he was very gentle, and very cautious.

He asked for a dance, and promised that he would not ask for more. To

her great surprise he kept the promise.

“Miss Sylvia,” he said, when they strolled out after the dance, “may I

call you Miss Sylvia, as they all seem to here? I want to explain

something, if you will let me. I’m afraid that my being here will seem

to you an impertinence. I hope you will accept my apology. When I got

back to Cambridge I learned from your cousin what—what the news would

mean to you; and I came because I thought perhaps I might help. It was

absurd, I suppose—but I didn’t know. Then, when I got here, I did not

dare to ask to see you. I don’t know now if you will send me away——”

He stopped. “I am sure, Mr. van Tuiver,” she said, quietly, “you have a

perfect right to stay here if you wish.”

“No right, Miss Sylvia, but the right you give me!” he exclaimed. “I

won’t take refuge in quibbles. I thought that if I promised not to

bother you, and really kept the promise—if I never asked to see you

unless you desired it——”

It was not easy to send him away upon those terms. She did not see what

good it would do him to stay, but she refrained from asking the

question. He paused—perhaps to make sure that she would not ask. “Miss

Sylvia,” he continued, finally, “I am afraid you will laugh at me—but I

want to be near you, I don’t want to be anywhere else. I want to see the

world you belong in; I want to know your relatives and your friends—your

home, the places you go to—everything. I want to hear people talk about

you. And at the same time I’m uncomfortable, because I know you dislike

me, and I’m afraid I’ll anger you, just by being here. But if you send

me away—you see, I don’t know where to go——”

He stopped, and there was a long silence. “You are missing your

examinations,” she said, at last.

“I don’t care anything about Harvard,” he replied. “I’ve lost all

interest—I shall never go back.”

“But how about the reforms you were going to work for? Have you lost

interest in them?”

He hesitated. “They’ve all—don’t you see?” He stopped, embarrassed. “The

movement’s gone to pieces.”

“Oh!” said Sylvia, and felt a slow fire of shame mounting in her cheeks.

It had not occurred to her to think of the plight of the would-be

revolutionists of the “Yard” after their candidate had landed himself in

jail.

They turned to go in, and van Tuiver asked, timidly, “You won’t send me

away, Miss Sylvia?”

“I wish,” she answered, “that you would not put the burden of any such

decision upon me.” And so the matter rested, van Tuiver apparently

content with what he had gained. Sylvia’s next partner claimed her, and

she did not see “King Douglas the First” again; a circumstance which,

needless to say, was duly noted by Castleman County, to its great

mystification. Could it be that rumor was mistaken—that he was not

really after Sylvia at all? Could it be that her flouting of “Royalty”

was a common case of “sour grapes”?

§ 10

Sylvia would not be content to drift and suffer indefinitely. It was not

her nature to give up and acknowledge failure, but to make the best of

things. Her thoughts turned to those in her own home, and how she could

help them.

All through the tragedy she had been aware of her father, moving about

the house like a ghost, silent, wrung with grief; her heart bled for the

suffering she had caused him. Her chief thought was to make it up to

him, to be cheerful and busy for his sake—to put him into the place in

her heart which Frank Shirley had left empty. After all, he was the one

man she could really trust—the one who was good and true and generous.

She sought him out one night, while the light was burning in his office.

She drew up a chair and sat close to him, so that she could look into

his eyes. “Papa,” she said, “I’ve been thinking hard—and I want to tell

you, I’m going to try to be good.”

“You are always good, my child,” he declared.

“I have been selfish and heedless. But now I’m going to think about

other people—about you most of all. I want to do the things I used to be

happy doing with you. Let us begin to-morrow and take care of our roses,

and have beautiful flowers again. Won’t that be nice, Daddy?”

There were tears in his eyes. “Yes, dear,” he said.

“And then I must begin and read to you. I know you are using your eyes

too much, and mine are young. And Papa—this is the principal thing—I

want you to let me help you with the accounts, to learn to be of some

use to you in business ways. No, you must not put me off, because I

know—truly I know.”

“What do you know, dear?” he asked, smiling.

“I know you work too hard, and that you have things to worry you, and

that you try to hide them from me. I know how many bills there are, and

how everybody wastes money, and never thinks of you. I’ve done it

myself, and now it’s Celeste’s turn—she must have everything, and be

spared every care, and write checks whenever she pleases. Papa, if it’s

true that this year’s crop is ruined, you’ll have to borrow money—”

“My child!” he began, protestingly.

“I know—you don’t want me to ask. But see, Papa—if I married, I’d have

to know about my husband’s affairs, and help him, wouldn’t I? And now

that I shall never marry—yes, I mean that, Papa. I want you not to try

to marry me off any more, but to let me stay at home and be a help to

you and Mamma.”

The other was shrewd enough to humor her. They would get to work at the

roses in the morning, and they would take up Alexander H. Stephens’

Confederate History without delay; also Sylvia might take the bills as

they came in each month, and find out who had ordered what, and prevent

the tradesmen from charging for the same thing twice over. But of

course, he did not tell her any of his real worries, nor let her see his

bank-books and accounts; nor could he quite see his way to promise that

Aunt Nannie should let her alone while she settled into old-maidenhood.

Aunt Nannie came round the next morning, as it happened. Sylvia did not

see her, being up to the wrists in black loam in the rose-garden; but

she learned the purpose of the visit at lunchtime. “Sylvia,” said her

mother, “do you think it’s decent for us to go much longer without

inviting Mr. van Tuiver over here?”

“Do you think he wants to come?” asked Sylvia, with a touch of her old

mischief.

“Your Aunt Nannie seems to think so,” was the reply—given quite naïvely.

“I wrote to ask him to dinner. I hope you won’t mind.”

Sylvia said that she would find some way to make the occasion tolerable.

And she found a quite unique way. It was one of her times for

bitterness, when she hated the world, and especially the male animals

upon it, and herself for a fool for not having known about them. It

chanced to be the same day of the week that she had prepared for Frank’s

coming, and had introduced him to the family with so many tremblings and

agonies of soul. So now, when she came to dress, she picked out the gown

she had worn that evening, and had them bring her a bunch of the same

kind of roses: which seemed to her a perfectly diabolical piece of

cynicism—like to the celebrating of a “black mass”!

She descended, radiant and lovely, in a mood of somewhat terrible

gaiety. She laughed and all but sang at the dinner-table; she joked with

van Tuiver, and flouted him outrageously—and in the next breath charmed

and delighted him, to the bewilderment of the family, who knew nothing

about her adventures with Royalty, and the various strange moods to

which its presence drove her.

In the course of that meal she told him a story—one of the wildest and

most wonderful of her stories. So at least it seemed to me, who for

years have been longing for a poet to take it up and make a ballad of

it—a real American ballad! It is curious, but I can hear the very rhyme

and rhythm of that ballad, which I cannot write. I wonder if I may not

awaken in some grey dawn, and find it all complete, singing itself in my

mind!

The story of the burning of “Rose Briar,” it was. “Rose Briar” was the

old home of one of the Peytons, which had stood for three generations on

a high bluff on the river-bank a mile or so from Sylvia’s home. It had

the largest and most beautiful ball-room in the county, and was a centre

of continuous hospitality. One night had come a telephone-message to the

effect that it was on fire, and the neighbors gathered from miles

around; on a wild night, with a gale blowing and the whole roof and

upper part of the house in flames, they saw that the place was doomed.

And there was the splendid ball-room, in which they and their fathers

and their grandfathers had celebrated so many festivities! “One last

dance!” cried the young folks, and in they trooped. The servants were

trying to get the piano out, but the master of the house himself stopped

them—what was a piano in comparison to a romantic thrill? So one played,

and the rest danced—danced while the fire roared deafeningly in the

stories above them, and creeping veils of smoke gathered about their

heads. They danced like mad creatures, laughing, singing in chorus.

Eddying gusts of flame poured in at the windows, and still they sang—

“When you hear dem bells go ting-a-ling-a-ling,

All join hands and sweetly we will sing—

There’ll be a hot time in the old town to-night!”

And so on, until there came a crashing of rafters above them, and

showers of cinders and burning wood through the windows. Then they fled,

and gathered in a group upon the lawn, and watched the roof of their

pleasure-house fall in, sending a burst of flame and sparks to the sky.

And here, thought Sylvia, was the roof of her pleasure-house falling in!

There was something terrifying in the symbol; the house of civilization

was falling in, and people were dancing, dancing! “Don’t you feel that,

Mr. van Tuiver?” she asked. “It seems to me sometimes that I can see the

world going to destruction before my eyes, and people don’t know about

it, they don’t care about it. They are dancing, drunk with dancing! On

with the dance!”

She laughed, a trifle hysterically, for her nerves were near the

breaking point. Then she happened to look towards her sister Celeste,

and caught a strange look in her eyes. She took in the meaning of it in

an instant—Celeste was conscious of the presence of Royalty, and shocked

by this display of levity upon a solemn occasion! “Sister, how _dare_

you?” the look seemed to say; and the message gave a new fillip to the

mad steeds of Sylvia’s fancy. “Never mind, Chicken!” she laughed.

(“Chicken” was a childhood nickname, which, needless to say, was

infuriating to a young lady soon to make her _début_.) “Never mind,

Chicken! The roof will last till you’ve had your dance!”

And then, the meal at an end, Sylvia took her guest into the library.

She put him in the same chair that Frank had occupied, and turned on the

same lights upon her loveliness; she took her seat, and looked at him

once, and smiled alluringly—and then suddenly looked away, and bit her

lip until it bled, and sprang up and fled from the room, and rushed

upstairs and flung herself upon her bed, sobbing, choking with her

grief.

§ 11

There were ups and downs like this. The next day, of course, Sylvia was

ashamed of her behavior; she had promised to be happy, and not to

distress her people—and this was the way she kept her promise. She began

to make new resolutions, and to think of ways of atoning. She took her

father out into the garden, and pretended deep interest in the new

cinnamon-roses. She spent a couple of hours going over his old

check-stubs and receipted bills, and with evidence thus discovered went

into town and made a row with a tradesman, and saved her father a couple

of hundred dollars.

Then, after lunch, she took him for a drive behind the new pony which

Uncle Mandeville had given her. She got him out into the country, and

then opened up on him in unexpected fashion. “Papa, it isn’t possible

for people like us to economize, is it?”

“Not very much, my child,” he answered smiling. “Why?”

“I’ve been thinking,” she said. “It’s all wrong—but I don’t know what to

do about it. You spent so much money on me; I didn’t want it, but I

didn’t realize it till it was too late. And now comes Celeste’s turn,

and you have to spend as much on her, or she’ll be jealous and angry.

And Peggy and Maria will see what Celeste gets, and they will demand

their turn. And the Baby—he’s smashing his toys now, and in a few years

he’ll be smashing windows, and in a few more he’ll be gambling like

Clive and Harley. And you can’t do anything about any of it!”

“My child,” he said, “I don’t want you to worry about such things——”

“No, you want to do all the worrying yourself. But, Papa, I have to make

my life of some use. Since I can’t earn money, I’ve been thinking that

perhaps the most sensible thing would be for me to marry some rich man,

and then help all my family and friends.”

“Sylvia,” protested the Major, “I don’t like one of my daughters to have

such thoughts in her mind. I don’t want a child of mine to marry for

money—there is no need of it, there never will be!”

“Not while you can sit up all night and worry over accounts. But some

day you won’t be able to, Papa. I can see that you’re under a strain,

and yet I can’t get you to let me help you. If you make sacrifices for

me, why shouldn’t I make them for you?”

“Not that kind of a sacrifice, my child. It’s a terrible thing for a

woman to marry for money.”

“Do you really think so, Papa? So many women do it. Are they all bad,

and are they all unhappy?”

Thus Sylvia—trying to do her duty, and keep her mind occupied. They got

back home, and she found new diversions—Castleman Lysle had been feeding

himself in the kitchen, and had been picked up black in the face with

convulsions. This, you understand, was one of the features of life at

Castleman Hall; one baby had been lost that way, since which time “Miss

Margaret” always fainted when it occurred. As poor Aunt Varina had not

the physical strength for such emergencies, Sylvia had to get a tub of

hot water, and hold the child in it—while some one else held a spoon in

his mouth, in order that he might not chew his tongue to pieces!

Thus the afternoon passed busily, and in the evening was the spring

dance of the Young Matrons’ Cotillion Club. Sylvia absolutely had to go

to that, in order to dance with Douglas van Tuiver and atone for her

rudeness. She had promised it by way of pacifying Aunt Nannie; and also

her father had made plans to accompany her again.

So she put on a new “cloth of silver” gown which she had bought in New

York, and drank a “toddy” of the Major’s mixing, and sallied forth upon

his arm. There were lights and music, happy faces, cheery greetings—so

she was uplifted, dreaming of happiness again. And then came the most

dreadful collapse of all.

She had strolled out upon the veranda with Stanley Pendleton. Feeling

chilly, she sent her partner in for a wrap; and then suddenly came a

voice—_his_ voice!

If it had been his ghost, Sylvia could not have been more startled. She

whirled about and stared, and saw him—standing in the semidarkness of

the garden, close to the railing of the veranda. It had rained that day,

and the roads were deep in mire, and he had ridden far. His clothing was

splashed and his hair in disarray; as for his face—never had Sylvia seen

such grief on a human countenance.

“Sylvia!” he whispered. “Sylvia!” She could only gaze at him, dumb.

“Sylvia, give me one minute! I have come here to tell you——”

He stopped, his voice breaking with intensity of feeling. “Oh!” she

gasped. “You ought not to be here!”

“I had to see you!” he exclaimed. “There was no other way——”

But he got no farther. There was a step behind Sylvia, and she turned,

and at the same moment heard the terrible voice of her father—“What does

this mean?”

She sprang to him with a quick cry. “Papa!” She caught his arm with her

hands, trying to stop what she feared he might do. “No, Papa, _no_!” For

one moment the Major stood staring at the apparition in the darkness.

She could feel him trembling with fury. “Sir, how dare you approach my

daughter?”

“Papa, _no_!” exclaimed Sylvia, again.

“Sir, do you wish to make it necessary for me to shoot you?”

Then Frank answered, his voice low and vibrant with pain. “Major

Castleman, I would be grateful to you.”

The other glared at him for a moment; then he said, “If you wish to die,

sir, choose some way that will not drag my daughter to disgrace.”

Frank’s gaze had turned to the girl. “Sylvia,” he exclaimed, “I tell you

that I went to that place——”

“Stop!” almost shouted the Major.

“Major Castleman,” said Frank, “Allow me to speak to your daughter. It

has been——”

Sylvia was clutching her father in terror. She knew that he had a

weapon, and was on the point of using it; she knew also that she had not

the physical force to prevent him. She cried hysterically, “Go! Go

away!”

And Frank looked at her—a last look, that she never forgot all the days

of her life. “You mean it, Sylvia?” he asked, his voice breaking.

“I mean it!” she answered.

“Forever?”

For the smallest part of a second she hesitated. “Forever!” commanded

her father; and she echoed, “Forever!” Frank turned, without another

word, and was gone in the darkness; and Sylvia fell into her father’s

arms, convulsed with an agony that shook her frame.

§ 12

They got her home, where her first action, in spite of her exhaustion,

was to insist upon seeing her Uncle Mandeville. So determined, so

vehement she was, that it was necessary to rout the worthy gentleman out

from a poker-game at two o’clock in the morning. There had been other

witnesses of what Frank had done, and Sylvia knew that her uncle must

hear; so she told him herself, with her arms about him, clinging to him

in frenzy, and beseeching him to give her his word of honor that he

would not carry out his threat against Frank Shirley.

It was not an easy word to get; she would probably have failed, had it

not been for the Major. He could see the force in her argument that a

shooting-affair would only serve to publish the matter to the world, and

make it seem more serious. After all, from the family’s point of view,

the one thing to be desired was to make certain that there would be no

further communication between the two. And Sylvia was willing to assure

them of that, she declared. She rushed to her desk, and with trembling

fingers wrote a note to “Mr. Frank Shirley,” informing him that the

scene which had just occurred had been intolerable to her, and

requesting him to perform her one last service—to write a note to her

father to the effect that he would make no further attempt to

communicate with her. The Major, after some discussion, decided that he

would accept this as a settlement; and he being the elder brother, his

word was law with Mandeville—at least so long as Mandeville was sober.

I remember Sylvia’s account of the state of exhaustion in which she

found herself after this ordeal; how for two days she had the sensation

that her mind was breaking up. Yet—a circumstance worth noting—at no

time did she blame those who had put her through this ordeal. She could

not blame the men of her family; if any one were at fault, it was

herself, for being at the mercy of her emotions, and capable of a secret

longing to have parleyings with a man who had dragged her name in the

mire. You see, Sylvia believed in her heritage. She was proud of the

Castlemans—and apparently you could not have rare, aristocratic virtues

without also having terrifying vices. If one’s men-folk got drunk and

shot people, one’s consolation was that at least they did it in a bold

and striking and “high-spirited” way.

You will perhaps find yourself impatient with the girl at this stage of

her story. I recall my own frantic protests while I listened. What a

cruel, needless tragedy! I cried out for the evidence of some gleam of

sense on the part of any one person concerned. Surely Sylvia, knowing

Frank, must have come to doubt that he could have been unfaithful to

her! Surely, with the hints she got at that meeting, she must have

realized that there was something more to be said! Surely he, on his

part, would have found some way of getting an interview with her, or at

least of sending an explanation by some friend! Surely he would never

have given up until he had done that!

I have claimed for Sylvia the possession of clear-sightedness. She

displayed it when it was a question of revising her religion, she

displayed it when it was a question of managing her family, and

obtaining permission to be engaged to a convict’s son. But, if you look

to see her display anything of that sort in the present emergency, you

will look in vain. Sylvia could be bold in a matter of theology, she

could be bold in a matter of love, but she could not possibly be bold in

a matter of a house of prostitution. If I were to give you illustrations

of the completeness of her ignorance upon the subject of sex, you would

simply not be able to believe what I told; and not only was she

ignorant, she could not conceive that it was possible for her to be

other than ignorant. She could not conceive that it was possible for a

pure-minded girl to talk about such a subject with any human being, man

or woman.

I doubt very much, if it had come to an actual test, whether Sylvia

would have been capable of marrying against her family’s will. She had

opposed them vehemently, but this was because she knew that she was

right, and that they, in their inmost hearts, knew it also. The Major

and “Miss Margaret” were good and generous-hearted people, and they

could not sincerely condemn Frank Shirley for his father’s offense. But

how different it was now! In the present matter she faced the phalanx of

the family, not on an open field where she could manœuvre and outwit

them—but in a place of darkness and terror, where she dared not stir a

foot alone.

And let me tell you also that you mistake Frank Shirley if you count

upon the mere physical fact that he could have got an explanation to

Sylvia. It was not easy for him to explain about such matters to the

woman he loved; and if you think it was easy, you are a modern,

matter-of-fact person, not understanding the notions of an old-fashioned

Southerner. The simple fact was that when Frank wrote to Harriet

Atkinson, to ask her to hear his plea, he felt that he was doing

something desperate and unprecedented; and when Harriet wrote, coldly

refusing to have anything to do with the matter, he felt that she had

rebuked him for his boldness. As for the last effort he had made to see

Sylvia, it was the act of a man driven frantic by love—a man willing to

sacrifice his life, and even his self-respect. I have portrayed Frank

poorly if I have not made you realize that from the first hour he

approached Sylvia with a sense of inferiority and of guilt; that he had

remained her lover against the incessant protests of his pride. People

are making money rapidly these days in the South, and so becoming like

us “Yankees”; yet it will be a long time, I think, before a Southerner

without money will make love to a rich woman without feeling in his

heart that he is acting the knave.

§ 13

There came another long struggle for Sylvia, another climb out of the

pit. For the sake of her father, she could not delay; as soon as she was

able to move about, she was out among her roses again, and reading

Alexander Stephens in the evenings. Within a week she had been to a

card-party and a picnic, and also had received a call from Douglas van

Tuiver.

Never before had Sylvia worn such an ethereal aspect; he was gentle,

even reverent, in his manner to her. He had a particular reason for

calling to see her, he said. He owned a yacht, considered quite a

beautiful vessel; it was now in commission, but idle, and he had taken

the liberty of ordering it to the Southern coast, and wished to beg her

to use it to bring the color back into her cheeks. She might take her

Aunt Varina, her sister—a whole party, if she chose—and cruise up the

coast, to Maine and the St. Lawrence, or over in the North Sea—wherever

her fancy suggested. He would go with her and take charge, if she would

permit—or he would stay behind, and be happy in the knowledge that she

was recovering her health.

Of course, Sylvia could not accept such a favor; she insisted that it

was impossible, in spite of all his arguments and urgings. She thanked

him so cordially, however, that he went away quite happy.

Then came Mrs. Chilton, and there was a conclave of the ladies. Why

should she not accept the offer? It was the very thing she needed to

divert her mind, and get her out of this disgraceful state.

“Aunt Nannie,” cried the girl, “how can you think of wanting me to

accept such a gift from a comparative stranger? It must cost hundreds of

dollars a month to run such a yacht!”

“About five thousand dollars a month, my dear,” said the other, quietly.

Sylvia was aghast; once in a while even a fiery revolutionist like

herself was awe-stricken by the actuality of Royalty. “I don’t want

things like that,” she said, at last. “I want to stay quietly at home

and help Papa.”

“You need a change,” declared the other. “So long as you are here you

are never safe from that evil man; and anyway you are surrounded by

reminders of him. A yachting-trip would force you to put your mind on

other things. The sea-air would do you good; and if you took Celeste

with you—think what a treat for her!”

“Oh, Sylvia, please do!” cried Celeste.

Sylvia looked at her sister. “You’d like to go?”

“Oh, how can you ask?” she replied. “It would be heaven!”

Sylvia said that she would think it over. But in reality she wanted to

think about something else. She waited until they left her alone with

her sister, and then she said, “You like Mr. van Tuiver, don’t you?”

“How could I fail to like him?” asked Celeste.

The other tried to draw her out. Why did she like him? He had such

beautiful manners, such dignity—there were no loose ends about him. He

had been everywhere, met everybody of consequence; compared with him the

men at home seemed like country-fellows. It was that indescribable thing

called elegance, said Celeste, gravely. She could not understand her

sister’s attitude at all; she thought Sylvia treated van Tuiver

outrageously, and her eyes flashed a danger-signal as she said it. It

was a woman’s right to reject a man’s advances if she chose to; but she

ought not to humiliate him, when his only offense was admiring her to

excess.

“I only wish it was you he admired,” said Sylvia, who was in a gentle

mood.

“No chance of that,” remarked the other, with a touch of bitterness in

her voice. “He has no eyes or ears for anybody else when you are about.”

“I’m going to try to lend him eyes and ears,” responded Sylvia. For that

was the idea that had occurred to her—van Tuiver must be persuaded to

transfer his interest to Celeste! Celeste would marry him; she would

marry him without the least hesitation or distress; and then the elder

sister might settle down with her family and her rose-gardens and her

Confederate History!

§ 14

Sylvia became quite excited over this scheme. When van Tuiver asked

permission to call again, she was glad to say yes; but she kept Celeste

with her, guiding the conversation so as to show off her best qualities.

But alas, “Little Sister” had no qualities to be shown off when van

Tuiver was about! She was so much impressed by him that she trembled

with stage fright. Usually a bright and vivacious girl, although

somewhat hard and shallow, she was now dumb, abject, a booby! Sylvia

raged at her inwardly, and when van Tuiver had taken his departure, she

said, “Celeste, how can you expect to impress a man if you let him see

you are afraid to breathe in his presence?”

Tears of humiliation came into her sister’s eyes. “What’s the use of

talking about my impressing him? Can’t you see that he pays no more

attention to me than if I were a doll?”

“_Make_ him pay attention to you!” cried the other. “Shock him, hurt

him, make him angry—do anything but put yourself under his feet!” She

went on to give a lecture on that awe-inspiring phenomenon, the Harvard

manner; trying to prove to her sister that it was an idol with feet of

clay, which would topple if one attacked it resolutely. She told the

story of her own meeting with King Douglas the First, and how she had

been able to subdue him with cheap effrontery. But she soon discovered

that her arguments were thrown away upon Celeste, who was simply shocked

by her story, and had no more the desire than she had the power to

subdue van Tuiver. At first Sylvia had thought it was mere awe of his

millions, but gradually she realized that it was something far more

serious—something quite tragic. Celeste had fallen in love with Royalty!

But still Sylvia could not give up the struggle. It would have been such

a marvelous solution of her problem! She let van Tuiver call as often as

he wanted to; but she became, all at once, a phenomenon of sisterly

affection. She took Celeste horseback riding with them—and Celeste rode

well. If van Tuiver asked to go automobiling, she found shrewd excuses

for having Celeste go also. But in the end she had to give up—because of

the “English system.” Van Tuiver did not want Celeste, and was so

brutally unaware of her existence that Celeste came home with tears of

humiliation in her eyes. Sylvia went off by herself and shed tears also;

she hated van Tuiver and his damnable manners!

She realized suddenly to what extent he was boring her. He came the next

day, and spent the better part of an hour talking to her about his

experiences among the elect in various parts of the world. He had been

shooting last fall upon the estates of the Duke of Something in

Scotland. You went out in an automobile, and took a seat in an

arm-chair, and had several score “beaters” drive tame pheasants towards

you; you had two men to load your guns, and you shot the birds as they

rose; but you could not shoot more than so many hundred of a morning,

because the recoil of the gun gave you a headache. The Duke had a couple

of guns which were something special—he valued them at a thousand

guineas the pair.

“Mr. van Tuiver,” said the girl, suddenly, “there is something I want to

say to you. I have been meaning to say it for some time. I think you

ought not to stay here any longer.”

His face lost suddenly its expression of complacency. “Why, Miss

Sylvia!” he exclaimed.

“I want to deal with you frankly. If you are here for any reason not

connected with me, why all right; but if you are here on my account, I

ought not to leave you under any misapprehension.”

He tried hard to recover his poise. “I had begun to hope”—he began.

“You—are you sure it is true?”

“I am sure. You realize of course—it’s been obvious from the outset that

my Aunt Nannie has entered into a sort of partnership with you, to help

you persuade me to marry you. And of course there are others of my

friends—even members of my family, perhaps—who would be glad to have me

do it. Also, you must know that I’ve been trying to persuade myself.”

Sylvia lowered her eyes; she could not look at him as she said this. “I

thought perhaps it was my duty—the only useful thing I could do with my

life—to marry a rich man, and use his money to help the people I love.

So I tried to persuade myself. But it’s impossible—I could not, _could_

not do it!”

She paused. “Miss Sylvia,” he ventured, “can you be sure—perhaps if you

married me, you might——”

“No!” she cried. “Please don’t say any more. I know you ought not to

stay! I could never marry you, and you are throwing away your time here.

You ought to go!”

There was a silence. “Miss Sylvia,” he began, finally, “this is like a

death-sentence to me.”