THE patient had so far recovered that she could be propped up in
bed, where she straightened out the bungling work of her inexperienced
hair-dresser, and made her glorious hair a fit embellishment of her
beauty. She was pale, and her cheeks had lost the roundness and her eyes
the brilliancy of their wont. But she was regaining the flesh that she
had lost, and the brightness of spirit that her afflictions had dimmed;
and her pallor only softened and refined a beauty that likely had been
somewhat too showy in health.
Something even better than that had been accomplished. It was not
conceivable that her strong and rebellious spirit had been ever before
brought under other than the ordinary restraints of a conventional
life. She had developed the good sense to make the most of her present
uncomfortable situation, and the will to bear its hardships. In the eyes
of her host the superiority of her character entitled her to admiration,
which he gave her simply and unconsciously, without any regard to her
sex and beauty. Her acute insight had informed her of this admiration,
and her spirit chafed under its character. One day she said,--
“It seems strange to me, Dr. Malbone, that you have never taken any
interest in my past life.”
He looked at her quickly and curiously, and somewhat awkwardly
replied,--
“I did not wish to intrude, Miss Andros.”
“Would that have been intrusion? I hadn’t thought of it.”
“You must know that I feel an interest in everything that concerns you.”
He said this readily, simply, and naturally, and she wondered if he was
sincere.
“Of course,” she went on, “lack of all companionship between us means
mutual distrust.” This was a sharp thrust, and it found him unguarded.
Then she saw that she had gone too far at the start; and this impression
was confirmed when, after a pause, he remarked,--
“You and I have been strangely placed. I knew that the conventions of
the best-bred people mean much to you, and I have merely respected your
natural and proper regard for them. Under these circumstances it was not
possible for me to make the first effort to be--friendly, if you will
permit the expression.”
She smiled, but the manliness of the rebuke and its entire justice made
her secretly resent it. She was determined to hold herself perfectly in
hand, for a serious purpose now moved her, and she would not be balked.
“That is all in the past now,” she said. “I have learned to know you
as a man of the finest sense of honor, proud, reserved, and
self-sacrificing. It would not have been possible for any other sort
of man to treat a woman as you have treated me. No, don’t interrupt
me. There is nothing but common sense and simple justice in what I am
saying, and unless you let me say it you will be harsh and cruel. After
all that you have done for me, it is my right to tell you how I feel
about it.”
He looked so embarrassed and miserable that she laughed outright; and
the music of that rare note sounded in his heart; for it was not a
cruel laugh, but merry and hearty, as one would laugh at the comical
discomfiture of a friend; and as such it fulfilled its purpose.
Thus the ice that had filled the cabin was broken, in a measure, at
last, and this at once eased the gloom and coldness of the wretched
lives imprisoned therein.
From that beginning the convalescent drifted easily and gracefully into
an account of her world of wealth and pleasure and fashion. She realized
that she must first open her own life before she could expect her host
to give her a view of his and of the nearer and stranger things
that impinged upon her. Her voice was smooth and musical. She dwelt
particularly upon the lighter and fashionable side of her life, because
she believed that the tact and refinement of the man who listened
so well, yet so silently, were born of such a life, and that he had
deliberately withdrawn himself from it.
Matters went more smoothly after that day. But the young woman was
finally forced to accept her defeat,--she had opened her own simple,
vacant life, but had gained not a glimpse into his. And she realized,
further, that all the advances toward a friendlier understanding had
been made by her, and none by him; that his manner toward her, with all
its tireless watchfulness, its endless solicitude, its total extinction
of every selfish thought, its impenetrable reserve, had not changed one
jot or tittle. Then a bitter resentment filled her, and she hated him
and determined to torture him.
He had not been so guarded but that she had found a vulnerable spot in
his mail. This was what she regarded as the silly, sentimental side of
his nature. She had led him into this disclosure by a long series of
adroit moves, the purpose of which he had not suspected. Assuming a
profound appreciation of the softer and tenderer things of life, she had
brought herself into the attitude of one who cherishes them, and thus
led him into the trap. Their talk concerned love, and he opened his
heart and displayed all its foolish weakness.
“Can there be anything more sacred,” he asked, warmly, “than the love
of men and women? Is there anything to which trifling should be more
repugnant? The man who loves one woman with all in him that makes him
a man, has taken that into his soul which will be its refining and
uplifting force to the end of all things with him; and, noble as that
is, the love of a woman for one man who loves her surpasses it beyond
all comprehension, and is the truest gleam of heavenly radiance in human
lives.”
It was spared him to see the amused and contemptuous curl of lip that
bespoke a world-worn heart; but he had let down his guard, and his
punishment would come.
It was some days afterward that the blow fell. The convalescent was now
sitting on a chair, where her ever-solicitous nurse had placed her.
She was now ready to strike. She would hold up to him a mirror of
himself,--a weak, sentimental, pusillanimous man. Fortunately, she could
relate from an experience in her own life a tale whose ridiculous
hero she judged had been just such a man as Dr. Malbone. She would be
violating none of the rules of hospitality. Her host had permitted her
to walk into a humiliating position, and her desire to punish him should
not be denied gratification.
She had brought the talk round to the mistakes that men and women make
in the bestowal of their affection, and remarked carelessly that men
were proverbially stupid in estimating the loveliness of women. Almost
without exception, she declared, they preferred girls for their beauty,
their softness, their negative qualities, their genuine or pretended
helplessness; and she added that a woman of strength and true worth
would scorn a love so cheaply won and held in so light esteem by its
bestowers.
“But some girls,” she added, “are even worse than men. You may generally
expect stupidity from a man, but not always folly from a girl. A rather
distressing case of a girl’s folly once came to my notice. There was a
girl who had been my classmate in school. It was there that we formed
for each other the girlish affection which all girls must have at that
age. Yet the difference between us was great even then, and it increased
after we had gone out into the world. She and I moved in the same
circle. Her parents were wealthy, and she had every opportunity to see
and learn life and get something of value from it. Instead of that, she
grew more and more retired, and less fitted for the life to which she
belonged. She was the most unpractical and romantic girl that ever
lived. Her girl friends dropped her one by one. I was the last to
remain, and I did all I could to get some worldly sense into her soft
and foolish head. She would only smile, and put her arms round me, and
declare that she knew she was foolish, but that she couldn’t help it.
“She was very fond of music and poetry, and at last I learned that she
was taking lessons on the violin from some fiddling nobody who made his
living by playing and teaching. I never happened to see him, or I might
have done something to stop the mischief that was brewing. Her parents
were blind to her folly, but that is a common weakness of parents.
“There never had been any great exchange of confidences between Ada and
me since our school-days. I could have told her a great deal about the
ways of men,--you see,” the narrator hastened to add, “I had been a very
good observer, and had learned some things that it is to the advantage
of every girl to know. I mean, you understand, about love. It is only
people with a silly view of that subject that ever get into trouble.
Girls of Ada’s disposition have no sense; they invariably suffer through
lack of perception and strength.
“Although I did not see much of her, it at last became evident that
something serious was the matter. Her manner became softer and gentler,
her sympathies were keener, and there was a light in her eyes that an
observing woman cannot misunderstand. I was somewhat older than she,
and that gave me an advantage in the plan that I decided upon; but of
greater advantage was her reliance upon me. It was necessary that I
should gain her full confidence, as I didn’t wish to take any step in
the dark, nor one that might have proved useless. You will understand
that in all I afterward did and caused to be done I acted solely from a
regard for her welfare. I believed that she had formed an attachment for
this--this fiddler--bah! Everything in me revolts when I think of it.
Here was a girl that was pretty, sweet, gracious, the soul of trust and
fidelity, ready to throw herself away upon an unspeakable fiddler! And
there was no excuse whatever for it. A score of men adored her,--men of
her own station in life,--men of wealth, men of culture, men of strength
and character, men of birth, men of consequence in the world. Incredible
as it may seem, they passed over other girls far more capable in every
way, and sighed for this shy violet.
“I knew that there was something wrong in her refusal to accept the
attentions of any of them. I knew that her inherited tastes, the
examples all around her, and her natural regard for the wishes of her
parents and friends, ought to have induced her to give her affections
to a man worthy of her. I determined to find out what that obstacle was;
and it was solely for her own good that I did so. I knew that if
she married this--this low musician, her life would be filled with
bitterness, disappointment, and regrets. I knew that she would soon come
to be ashamed of the alliance. I knew----”
“How did you know all that?” came in a voice so strange, so constrained,
so distant, that she turned in wonder toward her host. He sat looking
into the fire, the ruddy glow of which concealed the death-like pallor
that during the last few minutes had been deepening in his face.
“How did I know it?” she responded in surprise. “That is a singular
question from one who ought to be as well aware of it as I.”
He made no reply, and she turned her head to the window and watched the
snow steadily rebuilding the bank that her host had so recently cleared
away.
“Perhaps,” she remarked, with a slight sneer, “you asked that question
to get an argument with me, for I have heard you express romantic
and sentimental views on the subject of love. But of one thing I am
confident: I know that you have been a man of the world, and that you
understand life and human nature; and I know that while men like to
assume a sentimental attitude toward love, it is merely a pose. I
will not argue the matter with you. You know as well as I that such a
marriage would have been a fatal mistake.”
She said this in a hard, emphatic way that indicated her desire to end
the discussion. Then she resumed her story.
“I got into her confidence by professing sympathy with her, and adopting
her point of view,--by anticipating it, I mean, for she was too guarded
to disclose it. The poor little idiot fell into the trap. She had been
carrying her secret for months, and the burden of it was wearing her
out. You know, a nature of that kind must have sympathy, must have some
one to listen, must have a confidant. She had not dared to trust her
parents, for she knew that they would put a stop to her folly. When she
found, as she thought, that I was in full sympathy with her, she laid
her poor foolish heart completely open. And what do you think she was
going to do?”
She turned toward her host as she asked the question, and found him
still sitting immovable and looking into the fire. He seemed not to have
heard her, for he made no answer; and his stony silence and stillness
gave her a strange sensation that might have weighed more with her
had she not been so deeply interested in her narrative, and so well
satisfied with her part in its happenings. She turned her glance again
toward the window, and resumed:
“She had decided to run away with this vulgar--fiddler. There was but
one thing lacking,--he had not asked her; but she believed that he loved
her with all his soul, and that he was having a fight with himself to
decide whether it would be right for him to bring so scandalous a thing
upon her. She and he both realized that it would be worse than useless
for him to ask her parents for her. She said to me, ‘He fears that I
shall be unhappy in the poverty that would be my lot if we should go
away and marry. He fears that I should miss the luxuries to which I had
been accustomed. He fears that my friends will think he had married me
for my fortune. He has so many fears, and they are all for me. Yet I
know that he would cheerfully lay down his life for me. There never
was a man so unselfish, so generous, so ready to sacrifice himself for
others.’
“I could hardly keep from laughing while the poor child was telling me
all that rubbish. Before employing harsh measures to check her foolish
purpose, I resorted to milder ones. While continuing to be sympathetic,
I nevertheless said a great many things that would have set her thinking
if she had had any sense. I gave her to understand, as delicately
as possible (for I was careful not to rouse any resentfulness or
stubbornness in her), that her lover undoubtedly was a worthless fellow,
as persons of his class are; that he was weak in character and loose in
morals; that he was merely a sly adventurer, playing adroitly upon her
innocence and confidence, and anxious to leave his laborious life for
one of ease at her expense. I compared her station as his wife with that
as the wife of a man in her own sphere.
“The trouble was that she cared nothing for the position that she
occupied. She honestly believed, poor idiot! that she could be as happy
poor as rich. But the great obstacle was her infatuation for the man,
and her belief that he was finer and better than the men of her own
station. She was dreamy and romantic, and that is why she idealized this
fiddling nobody. The more she told me of his gentleness, his refinement,
his unselfishness, his poetic nature, the more I saw that he lacked the
sterling qualities of manhood, the more I realized that he had made a
careful study of her weaknesses and was playing upon them with all the
unscrupulous skill of his species. She implored me to meet him, to know
him, to study him. Of course that was out of the question. She was sure,
she said, that I should come to admire and respect him as she had. I
firmly declined to see him. I have even forgotten his name.”
There was a pause in the narration. The young man was so still that his
guest looked round at him, and found his gaze fastened upon her. She
started, for she saw that it held a veiled quality that she did not
understand, and that for a moment filled her with uneasiness. He quickly
and without a word looked again at the fire.