WARREN HILLAND
The closing scenes of the preceding chapter demand some explanation.
Major St. John had spent part of the preceding summer at a seaside
resort, and his daughter had inevitably attracted not a little
attention. Among those that sought her favor was Warren Hilland, and in
accordance with his nature he had been rather precipitate. He was
ardent, impulsive, and, indulged from earliest childhood, he had been
spoiled in only one respect--when he wanted anything he wanted it with
all his heart and immediately. Miss St. John had seemed to him from the
first a pearl among women. As with Graham, circumstances gave him the
opportunity of seeing her daily, and he speedily succumbed to the
"visitation of that power" to which the strongest must yield. Almost
before the young girl suspected the existence of his passion, he
declared it. She refused him, but he would take no refusal. Having won
from her the admission that he had no favored rival, he lifted his
handsome head with a resolution which she secretly admired, and
declared that only when convinced that he had become hateful to her
would he give up his suit.
He was not a man to become hateful to any woman. His frank nature was
so in accord with hers that she responded in somewhat the same spirit,
and said, half laughingly and half tearfully, "Well, if you will, you
will, but I can offer no encouragement."
And yet his downright earnestness had agitated her deeply, disturbing
her maiden serenity, and awaking for the first time the woman within
her heart. Hitherto her girlhood's fancies had been like summer
zephyrs, disturbing but briefly the still, clear waters of her soul;
but now she became an enigma to herself as she slowly grew conscious of
her own heart and the law of her woman's nature to love and give
herself to another. But she had too much of the doughty old major's
fire and spirit, and was too fond of her freedom, to surrender easily.
Both Graham and Mrs. Mayburn were right in their estimate--she would
never yield her heart unless compelled to by influences unexpected, at
first unwelcomed, but in the end overmastering.
The first and chief effect of Hilland's impetuous wooing was, as we
have seen, to destroy her sense of maidenly security, and to bring her
face to face with her destiny. Then his openly avowed siege speedily
compelled her to withdraw her thoughts from man in the abstract to
himself. She could not brush him aside by a quiet negative, as she had
already done in the case of several others. Clinging to her old life,
however, and fearing to embark on this unknown sea of new experiences,
she hesitated, and would not commit herself until the force that
impelled was greater than that which restrained. He at last had the
tact to understand her and to recognize that he had spoken to a girl,
indeed almost a child, and that he must wait for the woman to develop.
Hopeful, almost confident, for success and prosperity had seemingly
made a league with him in all things, he was content to wait. The major
had sanctioned his addresses from the first, and he sought to attain
his object by careful and skilful approaches. He had shown himself such
an impetuous wooer that she might well doubt his persistence; now he
would prove himself so patient and considerate that she could not doubt
him.
When they parted at the seaside Hilland was called to the far West by
important business interests. In response to his earnest pleas, in
which he movingly portrayed his loneliness in a rude mining village,
she said he might write to her occasionally, and he had written so
quietly and sensibly, so nearly as a friend might address a friend,
that she felt there could be no harm in a correspondence of this
character. During the winter season their letters had grown more
frequent, and he with consummate skill had gradually tinged his words
with a warmer hue. She smiled at his artifice. There was no longer any
need of it, for by the wood fire, when all the house was still and
wrapped in sleep, she had become fully revealed unto herself. She found
that she had a woman's heart, and that she had given it irrevocably to
Warren Hilland.
She did not tell him so--far from it. The secret seemed so strange, so
wonderful, so exquisite in its blending of pain and pleasure, that she
did not tell any one. Hers was not the nature that could babble of the
heart's deepest mysteries to half a score of confidants. To him first
she would make the supreme avowal that she had become his by a sweet
compulsion that had at last proved irresistible, and even he must again
seek that acknowledgment directly, earnestly. He was left to gather
what hope he could from the fact that she did not resent his warmer
expressions, and this leniency from a girl like Grace St. John meant so
much to him that he did gather hope daily. Her letters were not nearly
so frequent as his, but when they did come he fairly gloated over them.
They were so fresh, crisp and inspiring that they reminded him of the
seaside breezes that had quickened his pulses with health and pleasure
during the past summer. She wrote in an easy, gossiping style of the
books she was reading; of the good things in the art and literary
journals, and of such questions of the day as would naturally interest
her, and he so gratefully assured her that by this course she kept him
within the pale of civilization, that she was induced to write oftener.
In her effort to gather material that would interest him, life gained a
new and richer zest, and she learned how the kindling flame within her
heart could illumine even common things. Each day brought such a wealth
of joy that it was like a new and glad surprise. The page she read had
not only the interest imparted to it by the author, but also the far
greater charm of suggesting thoughts of him or for him; and so began an
interchange of books and periodicals, with pencillings, queries, marks
of approval and disapproval. "I will show him," she had resolved, "that
I am not a doll to be petted, but a woman who can be his friend and
companion."
And she proved this quite as truly by her questions, her intelligent
interest in his mining pursuits and the wild region of his sojourn, as
by her words concerning that with which she was familiar.
It was hard for Hilland to maintain his reticence or submit to the
necessity of his long absence. She had revealed the rich jewel of her
mind so fully that his love had increased with time and separation, and
he longed to obtain the complete assurance of his happiness. And yet
not for the world would he again endanger his hopes by rashness. He
ventured, however, to send the copy of Emerson with the quotation
already given strongly underscored. Since she made no allusion to this
in her subsequent letter, he again grew more wary, but as spring
advanced the tide of feeling became too strong to be wholly repressed,
and words indicating his passion would slip into his letters in spite
of himself. She saw what was coming as truly as she saw all around her
the increasing evidences of the approach of summer, and no bird sang
with a fuller or more joyous note than did her heart at the prospect.
Graham witnessed this culminating happiness, and it would have been
well for him had he known its source. Her joyousness had seemed to him
a characteristic trait, and so it was, but he could not know how
greatly it was enhanced by a cause that would have led to very
different action on his part.
Hilland had decided that he would not write to his friend concerning
his suit until his fate was decided in one way or the other. In fact,
his letters had grown rather infrequent, not from waning friendship,
but rather because their mutual interests had drifted apart. Their
relations were too firmly established to need the aid of
correspondence, and each knew that when they met again they would
resume their old ways. In the sympathetic magnetism of personal
presence confidences would be given that they would naturally hesitate
to write out in cool blood.
Thus Graham was left to drift and philosophize at first. But his aunt
was right: he could not daily see one who so fully satisfied the
cravings of his nature and coolly consider the pros and cons. He was
one who would kindle slowly, but it would be an anthracite flame that
would burn on while life lasted.
He felt that he had no reason for discouragement, for she seemed to
grow more kind and friendly every day. This was true of her manner,
for, looking upon him as Hilland's best friend, she gave him a genuine
regard, but it was an esteem which, like reflected light, was devoid of
the warmth of affection that comes direct from the heart.
She did not suspect the feeling that at last began to deepen rapidly,
nor had he any adequate idea of its strength. When a grain of corn is
planted it is the hidden root that first develops, and the controlling
influence of his life was taking root in Graham's heart. If he did not
fully comprehend this at an early day it is not strange that she did
not. She had no disposition to fall in love with every interesting man
she met, and it seemed equally absurd to credit the gentlemen of her
acquaintance with any such tendency. Her manner, therefore, toward the
other sex was characterized by a frank, pleasant friendliness which
could be mistaken for coquetry by only the most obtuse or the most
conceited of men. With all his faults Graham was neither stupid nor
vain. He understood her regard, and doubted whether he could ever
change its character. He only hoped that he might, and until he saw a
better chance for this he determined not to reveal himself, fearing
that if he did so it might terminate their acquaintance.
"My best course," he reasoned, "is to see her as often as possible, and
thus give her the opportunity to know me well. If I shall ever have any
power to win her love, she, by something in her manner or tone, will
unconsciously reveal the truth to me. Then I will not be slow to act.
Why should I lose the pleasure of these golden hours by seeking openly
that which as yet she has not the slightest disposition to give?"
This appeared to him a safe and judicious policy, and yet it may well
be doubted whether it would ever have been successful with Grace St.
John, even had she been as fancy free as when Hilland first met her.
She was a soldier's daughter, and could best be won by Hilland's
soldier-like wooing. Not that she could have been won any more readily
by direct and impetuous advances had not her heart been touched, but
the probabilities are that her heart never would have been touched by
Graham's army-of-observation tactics. It would scarcely have occurred
to her to think seriously of a man who did not follow her with an eager
quest.
On the other hand, as his aunt had suggested from the first, poor
Graham was greatly endangering his peace by this close study of a woman
lovely in herself, and, as he fully believed, peculiarly adapted to
satisfy every requirement of his nature. A man who knows nothing of a
hidden treasure goes unconcernedly on his way; if he discovers it and
then loses it he feels impoverished.