her lips break into a glad smile, though it made her face look all the
lovelier and sweeter, in reply to George's greeting; and when she came
toward us, as he beckoned her to do, every one immediately and gladly
made room for her to pass. Perry and I gave our seats to Mrs. Herbert
and her little girl; and I found myself speculating, as I leaned against
one of the pillars, on the difference of expression in the eyes of the
two, which were otherwise so much alike,--the same deep shade of brown,
the same soft look, the same lashes, and yet what a vast difference when
one thought of the combined effect of all these similar details. I spoke
to Perry of it, and he good-naturedly poked fun at me, saying I was
forever trying to see a romance or a history in people's eyes.
"Well, I suppose you will say she isn't even lovely," I exclaimed, with
impatience.
"I'm no judge," he replied, with exasperating carelessness; "but a
little too pale, I should say. I wish George hadn't introduced her to
me."
"Why?"
"Oh, it made me feel cheap to have to back into old Billy Gait's bony
legs and try to bow and shake hands before everybody,--in the eyes of
the assembled community, as Charley McWenn would say."
McWenn was the stupid block of a journalist,--for I do think him a
stupid block, in spite of his cleverness,--and I realized then that I
had forgotten for a moment all about Lucretia. I could not see her from
my new position, so I amused myself by imagining how she was carrying
on.
At last George and Mrs. Herbert rose up to go, and the former, as he
asked our forgiveness for leaving us, told us to come to his office when
we had enough of the Third House, and, if he wasn't there, to wait for
him. "We'll go over to Bertrand's and have some oysters," he said, with
his confidence-inspiring smile. I have always thought that if George had
not had so pleasant a smile and such a soulful laugh we should never
have been such friends.
We found him waiting for us at the foot of the Academy of Music stairs,
with a cigar in his mouth and one for each of us in his hand, and we
knew from experience that his case was filled with a reserve.
"It's a pleasant night, boys, isn't it?" he said, looking up at the
stars (wonderfully bright they were in the clear, cold atmosphere) as we
went, crunching the snow under our feet, along the deserted streets to
the little back-entrance we knew of to Bertrand's.
"Yes," said Perry; "but you missed the best thing of the whole circus by
leaving before Colonel Bouteille made his speech in favor of the
prohibition amendment." And he gave a _résumé_ of the colonel's
laughable sophistry for George's benefit,--and for mine as well, for I
had paid no attention to the old toper's remarks.
We could see the glimmer of lights behind the shutters of the faro-room
over Sudden's saloon and hear the rattle of the ivory counters as we
passed.
"Do you ever go up there?" asked George, interrupting Perry.
"Why, yes; sometimes," we answered.
"Play a little now and then? I suppose?"
"We don't like to loaf around such a place," said Perry rather grandly,
considering our circumstances, "without putting down a few dollars."
"That's all right," said George; "but once or twice is enough, boys.
After you have seen what the thing is like, keep away from the tiger.
She is a greedy beast, and always hungry; and of course you can't think
of sitting down at a poker-table with the professional players."
Direct advice was rather a new strain for Randall, and we were not
surprised when he dropped it abruptly as we filed into a little private
room at the restaurant.
"Yes, I fancy old Bouteille might have made a humorous speech," he said,
after ordering the oysters. "Three?" he added, looking at me, "or four?"
"Quarts?" I asked in reply.
George nodded.
"Two, I should say."
"Oh, bother!" exclaimed Perry. "We should only have to trouble the
waiter again."
So George ordered four bottles of beer.
"It's after ten o'clock, sir," said the waiter doubtfully. It is
needless to say that he was a new one.
"That's the reason we came here," answered George, with a calm manner of
assumption that dissipated the waiter's doubts while it evidently filled
him with remorse. "Where's Auguste?"
"He's gone to bed, sir; but I guess 'twill be all right." And the waiter
started to fetch the beer.
"I should think so," growled Perry.
"I suppose it is not good form to drink beer with oysters," I suggested
mildly.
"I don't know, I'm sure," said George.
"I suppose not," said Perry; "they go so well together. I hope it isn't,
at any rate: I like to do things that are bad form."
So I relapsed into silence, and my speculations about George's outbreak
against gambling, and Mrs. Herbert's beautiful face and sad eyes, and
Lucretia Knowles's wicked light-heartedness.
When we had finished eating and had opened the last bottle of beer, I
asked George, as he stopped his talk with Perry for a moment to relight
his cigar, who Mrs. Herbert was.
"She is the noblest and most unfortunate woman in the world," he
replied, "I will tell you her story some time, perhaps."
"Let us hear it now," I cried, looking at Perry with triumph.
"Yes, let us," said Perry, nothing to my surprise, for I knew his heart
was in the right place, if his ways were a little rough and
unimpressionable-like. "We have no recitations, no lectures, no
anything, to-morrow, and there is no one else in the restaurant but the
waiter, and he is asleep."
And, in fact, we could hear him snoring.
"No, I would rather not tell it here," George said simply; "but if you
will come with me to the office you shall hear it." And when we had
heard it we respected the feeling that had prompted him to consider even
the walls of such a place as unfit listeners. To be sure, it was a very
comfortable restaurant, where the waiters were always attentive and
skilful and the mutton-chops irreproachable, and many a pleasant evening
had we three had there over our cigars and Milwaukee, and sometimes a
bottle or two of claret. But so had Tom Hagard, the faro-dealer, and
Frank Sauter, who played poker over Sudden's, and Dick Bander, who got
his money from Madame Blank because he happened to be a swashing
slugger, and many another Tom, Dick, and Harry whose reputations were,
to say the least, questionable. Of course we never associated with such
characters, and plenty of estimable people besides ourselves frequented
Bertrand's. The place was not in bad odor at all, but merely a little
miscellaneous, and suited our plebeian fancies all the more on that
account. If young fellows want to be really comfortable in life, we
thought, and see a little at first hand just what sort of people make up
the world, they must not be too particular. So we used to sit down at
the next table to one where a gambler or a horse-jockey would perhaps be
seated, or a man of worse fame, and order our humble repast with a quiet
conscience and a strengthened determination never to become one among
such people. We would even see the gay flutter of skirts sometimes, as
the waiter entered one of the private rooms with an armful of dishes,
and hear the chatter and laughter of the wearers.
We did not wonder, therefore, at George's preference for his own office,
whose four walls had never looked down upon anything but innocent young
fellows smoking and talking whatever harmless nonsense came into their
heads, or playing chess or penny-ante, or upon his own generous thoughts
and solitary contemplations, or hard work on some intricate lawsuit. So
we aroused the sleeping waiter, and walked back to the Academy of Music
building in silence.
"It is rather a long story," said George, when we had at last made
ourselves comfortable, "and I have never told it before. I don't know
why I should tell it now, but somehow I want to. I felt this evening
after I left the Capitol that I would, and I asked leave of Mrs. Herbert
while we were walking to her home together. I knew she would let me: I
am the only friend, I suppose,--the only real friend, I mean, whom she
trusts and treats as an intimate friend,--that she has in the world. I
know I am the only person who knows the whole story of her sad life.
"When I was in the university," he slowly continued, holding his cigar
in the gas-jet and turning it over and over between his fingers, with an
evident air of collating his reminiscences, "Phil Kendall and I were
great friends. I don't know how we ever came to be so: it was natural, I
suppose, for us to like each other. I used to notice that he did not
associate much with the other fellows; and yet he was the best runner
and boxer in the class. He was the only fellow in the university who
could do the giant swing on the bar, and, though he had never taken
lessons, it was next to impossible for any one but Wayland, the
sub-professor in chemistry, to touch him with the foils. Somehow we were
drawn together, and before long were hardly ever apart. We used to get
out our Horace together, he with the pony and text and I with the
lexicon, for he was too impatient to hunt up the words. I believe you
study differently now."
"We still have the pony," said Perry.
"And we used to puzzle our heads together over Mechanics, for we didn't
have election as you do, and take long walks, and play chess, and get up
spreads in our room for nobody but us two. Not such elaborate affairs as
are called spreads now, but I warrant you they were fully as much
enjoyed. I fancy we were rather sentimental. We used to hold imaginary
conversations in the person of some favorite characters in fiction; but
we were very young and boyish."
Perry glanced at me sheepishly, but George went on without noticing:
"Phil's father lived here, and was proprietor of the only wholesale
grocery-store the town then boasted of. He had been captain of a
volunteer company in the war, and, I fancy, had a romance too. At any
rate, his wife had been dead since Phil was a little fellow in
knickerbockers; and not very long after her death a certain Mrs. Preston
had sent a little girl, about a year older than Phil, with a dying
charge to the captain to care for the friendless orphan for the sake of
their early love. No one but Grace could ever get anything out of the
old gentleman about her mother, and she never learned much. Mrs. Preston
had been unhappy at least, and perhaps miserable, in her marriage. We
always thought she had forsaken Mr. Kendall in their youth and made a
hasty marriage; but never a word was uttered by him about Grace's
father.
"I used to imagine Mr. Kendall cared more for his adopted daughter than
for his son, from what I saw of them, and I was at the house a good deal
with Phil. I am sure they were very affectionate; and it was only
natural that the melancholy old man--that is the way he always struck
me--should have loved the daughter of the woman who had deserted him and
then turned toward him in her hour of supreme need. It showed that her
trust and belief in him and his goodness had never really left her. And,
besides, Grace was always so airy and light-hearted,--nothing could put
her out of humor,--so kind and gentle, and as lovely as a flower. She is
a splendid-looking woman yet, but one can have no idea of what she was
in those days, from the sad-eyed Mrs. Herbert who smiles so rarely on
any one but her little girl. Nannie is going to make much such a young
lady as her mother was, but I don't believe she will ever be quite so
beautiful.
"Well, I was not long in discovering that Phil was in love with his
father's adopted daughter. I was never quite sure whether he knew it
himself at the time or not, but I could see easily enough that she
didn't dream of such a thing, nor the old captain either. They were so
much like brother and sister it used to make me feel wofully sorry for
Phil to see her throw her arms around his neck and kiss him for some
little kindness or other that he was always doing her: the difference of
mood in which the caress would be given from that in which Phil would
receive it was somehow always painful to me. Phil would never offer to
kiss her on his own account; and it is still a mystery to me why she
never discovered how he felt toward her until he became jealous. The
tenderness and gentle considerateness of his bearing were always so
marked that to a less innocent and pure nature, I fancy, it would have
been noticeable at once.
"When we were Juniors, Phil took her to a party one night, just after
Easter. The captain was a scrupulous Churchman, and Grace was always by
him in the pew. She had not been confirmed, however, and never said a
word to Phil and me about our persistency in staying away from church,
though the captain used to lecture Phil quite soberly about it. This
party was given at the house of one of the vestrymen, and they had
refreshments, and, after the rector had gone home, dancing. They called
it a sociable, and took up a collection for the ladies' aid society just
after the cake and coffee and whipped cream had been served. There was
where Grace first met George Herbert. He was a handsome young fellow,
well educated, a graduate of some Eastern college, clever and talented,
and his family in Rochester, New York, were considered very good people.
He had come to Lincoln to take a place on the 'Gazette,' and every one
thought him a young man of good parts and fair prospects.
"He made up to Grace from the start. They were laughing and talking
together all the evening on a little sofa, just large enough for two,
that stood in the bow-window. There was a little crowd of young people
around the two most of the time, and she was saying bright things to
them all, but never, I noticed, at the expense of young Herbert, who
made most of his remarks so low that no one but Grace could hear them.
She always smiled and often broke out into her musical laugh at what he
said; and when Phil, who had been trapped into a game of whist with some
old fogies, finally came back into the parlor and made his way to where
Grace was having such a happy time, she even launched a shaft or two of
her wit at him.
"I saw that the poor fellow was hurt: he turned away without answering,
though, and, coming over to where I was, sat down and began looking at
an album, trying hard all the time to hide his feelings. But in a moment
Grace was hanging over his shoulder, oblivious of her surroundings, and
lovingly begging his pardon if she had hurt him. I have sometimes
thought that Phil then fully realized for the first time how he cared
for her. The way in which her affection disregarded the presence of the
crowd smote him, I imagine, with something like despair. I saw him turn
pale and catch his breath, and I knew his laugh too well to be deceived,
as Grace was, when he made light of her self-accusations and declared
that than taking offence at her words nothing had been further from his
thoughts. This was in a sense true, of course, for ordinarily he would
have answered as light-heartedly almost as Grace herself; and it was
only the feeling of jealousy, unconscious perhaps, at any rate
irresistible, that gave her words undue--no, not that exactly, but
unusual influence over his feelings.
"For a while Phil acted as considerately as ever, and made himself
thoroughly agreeable to several young ladies, whereat Grace was highly
pleased and soon took up again her mood of gayety. But when Phil brought
her a plate and napkin and some things to eat, and found her and Herbert
already served and with mock gravity breaking a piece of cake together
on the stairs,--'they were only doing it,' Phil declared to me
afterward, 'that they might touch each other's hands,'--he lost his
head. He must have spoken very bitterly, else he would never have
aroused Grace's anger. I don't know what he said, except that he
complained about having come to such a thing as a church sociable, which
he despised, and, inasmuch as he had done it for the sake of her
enjoyment and pleasure, she might at least have shown him the same
politeness she would have accorded to any of the insufferable prigs whom
she seemed delighted to honor.
"Herbert started to reply, but Grace silenced him by a look, and said,
'We have been as brother and sister since childhood.' It was probably
well for Herbert's handsome face that he did not enter into a discussion
with Phil. They were both hot-tempered, and Phil had no scruples against
asking him out of doors, and would have been as cool in his manner and
as terrible in his strength as an iceberg.
"Grace led Phil away, and tried to tell him how she had not supposed he
would care; that she had imagined he would prefer to serve the young
lady with whom he had been talking; how she had never known him to put
such store by trivialities before; how 'at least we,' Phil told me,
bitterly quoting her words, 'at least we ought to be sure of each
other's hearts,' and did everything to pacify him. But he would listen
to nothing, and, coming to me, asked me to walk home with Grace, as he
was going away immediately. I imagined the trouble, and got him to admit
that he and Grace had said unkind words to each other. But he would say
nothing more about the matter till I found him in my room after it was
all over, when he raved about Grace until near morning, and cursed the
fate that had turned the bread of her kind affection for him into a
stone. 'How can I ever hope to win her love when she thinks that way of
me?' he would ask sorrowfully, after telling of some pure and loving
freedom she had taken. I was full of pity for the miserable fellow, but
I felt as if I ought to do all I could to discourage him. I was sure he
was right; he never could hope to, and I thought the sooner he learned
this, and to submit to it, the better it would be for him.
"I persuaded him not to leave the party in the height of his resentment,
though, and he was so quiet before the dancing that I began to hope he
would beg Grace's pardon and take her home repentantly and in peace. But
he insisted on my going and offering to dance with her the first set in
his place. She had already promised, she said, to dance it with Mr.
Herbert, and it was in vain that I told her she must look upon me as
acting for Phil, and advised her for his sake to excuse herself to
Herbert and dance with either Phil or myself. 'If Phil should come and
ask me himself on his knees I would not do it,' she declared, with
superb grandeur, 'He has acted wrong, and imputed to me the worst
motives for trivial things which I did unthinkingly even, and, heaven
knows, without deliberate calculation.'
"I saw it was no use to talk with her, and that in her present mood even
entreaty, to which she was usually so yielding, would be of no avail. I
felt very helpless and miserable about it, but I could do nothing. I saw
that Phil had made a grave mistake by accusing her of partiality for
Herbert, and that her acquaintance with him might possibly be forced
into a closer relation by Phil's jealousy. I kept away from him for a
while, and almost made Miss Scrawney think I had fallen in love with
her, in order to keep Phil from getting a word with me. At last,
however, just as the music began, he pulled my sleeve and asked in a
whisper if I wasn't going to take Grace out and dance with her.
"'She was already engaged,' I answered.
"'To whom?' said Phil. 'But there is no need to ask.' And at the moment,
indeed, almost as if in answer to his question, Grace entered the room
from the hall on Herbert's arm. I was afraid for an instant that Phil
would make a scene. The veins on his forehead swelled, and he started
forward as they passed within a few feet of where we were standing,
Grace smiling and talking to Herbert, apparently as oblivious of us as
if we had not been within a thousand miles of her; but he mastered the
impulse, whatever it was, and I have often speculated as to whether it
was to upbraid Grace or to strike Herbert.
"'Look at her, George,' he said, with a calmness that was belied by the
look in his eyes. 'You wouldn't think that three hours ago she had never
known him, would you? nor that we had lived in the same house since we
were no higher than that. Her mother, I know, did her best to break my
old man's heart, and I warrant you it was for some such worthless fool
as that, who wasn't fit to black the dear old fellow's boots. Poor old
dad! we shall be together in the boat: when I begin to handle hams and
barrelled sugar we will write ourselves 'Kendall & Son' with a
flourish.' And as we went up the stairs to get his coat and hat he told
me to stay and offer to go home with Grace. 'It wouldn't do for me to
leave her unless you do, George,' he said; 'but if she wants to go with
Herbert, let her; but she shall not say I went away and left her without
an escort.'
"I promised readily enough, and even hurried him away. There was no good
in his staying; in fact, I thought it better that he should leave; and
after he had gone I went to Grace. I managed the matter rather badly,
but I suppose the most consummate tact on my part would not have changed
things. I should have waited until I saw her alone, or until the party
was breaking up; but I went directly I saw they had stopped dancing. She
was leaning on the piano and letting Herbert fan her, and looking almost
too beautiful for real life as she turned her face toward him, flushed
with her exercise and beaming with excitement. There was something grand
to me in the expression of individuality and proud insistence that had
come to her so suddenly. It was no factitious strife of her nature
against the dependence of her position as an adopted daughter, I knew,
for she had never felt in the least but that she was perfectly free; it
was no caprice or stubbornness; it was merely her womanly assertion of
self and her unconscious protest against what she thought injustice. She
would not have believed from any one but Phil himself that he was in
love with her and jealous.
"'Phil has gone away,' I said bluntly, interrupting their talk. She
looked at me for a moment and raised her eyebrows slightly.
"'Has he?' was all she asked.
"'Yes: he was feeling badly,' I went on. 'He asked me to walk home with
you when you were ready to go. I thought I would tell you now, so you
would not be at a loss in case you should want to leave before the party
breaks up.'
"'You are very kind, I am sure, Mr. Kendall' (she usually called me
George), 'but I shall not want to go for ever so long yet. It was
needless for Phil to trouble you; he knew I should get home all
right,--but it was like him. I am awfully sorry to keep you waiting: I
know you are anxious to get back to your pipe and books.'
"Here Herbert said something with the appearance of speaking to us both;
but she only could hear what it was. I, however, imagined readily
enough.
"'Will you?' she answered him, in a pleased tone, and I fancied her
smile was grateful. 'Mr. Herbert is going to stay and dance a while
longer,' she went on, turning to me, 'and if he takes me home it will
not seem as if I were troubling any one too much, and--'
"'Very well, Miss Preston,' I interrupted, making my best bow; 'as you
like.' And when I saw the smile on Herbert's face I didn't wonder much
at the way Phil had felt. 'Let me bid you good-night,' I said, bowing
again, and started off.
"Grace followed me rapidly into the hall. 'Now, please don't you be
angry too, George,' she said, laying her hand on my arm.
"'I am not angry,' I said.
"'Do you think it right, George,' she asked earnestly,--and there was a
pleading look in her eyes,--'or manly to desert one's friends in
trouble?'
"'I am doing the best I know how,' said I, 'to be true to my friend.'
"'Oh, George, I am so sorry!' Her voice trembled, and all her
queenliness had gone. 'You must not go off this way. You don't blame me
as Phil does, do you? Wait, I will get my things, and you shall walk
home with me now. I will see Phil and tell him--'
"'He has gone to my room,' I said.
"'Well, I will wait till you bring him home. You must tell him I forgive
him,--or no, tell him I am sorry and ask his forgiveness. Oh, George, we
cannot be this way. Only think how sad it would make his father--and--'
There were tears on her lashes, and her lips were trembling piteously.
She put her hand to her throat and could not go on. God forgive me if I
was wrong,--and I know I was,--but I couldn't help it then,--I asked,
almost with a sneer, if she didn't dislike to slight her estimable
friend Mr. Herbert's kindness; and she turned away without a word, as if
regretting, from my unworthiness, the emotion she had shown.
"I was in very nearly as bad a state as Phil for a while. I told him
just how I had acted, and he was rather pleased than otherwise at my
cruelty. We tried hard to make ourselves believe that Grace had deserved
it, and to a certain extent succeeded.
"'She probably thought it was too high a price,' said Phil, 'when she
saw both of us going off offended, and she concluded not to give it.
But, then, it was just like her,' he added, in a kindlier spirit than
the natural interpretation of his words seemed to indicate.