HOLDING HER HAND.
For the first three days Roseleaf gave most of his time to reading the
MSS. that Miss Fern had written. He could not say that he liked it,
exactly, but that was not necessary. To fill in the time, he consented
to let the girl read his own story that Gouger had rejected, though he
did this with trepidation, having a dread that she would think it
insipid. When she had finished it, however, her delight was unbounded.
"It is lovely!" she exclaimed, in response to his inquiring eyes. "I
cannot see why they refused it. I haven't been so interested in a story
in years."
When he had read _her_ story through he began to rewrite it, departing
as little as possible from the original. As soon as he had a chapter
finished he would give it to her, for comparison, and criticism, if she
chose to make any. She proved, however, a most charming critic, her
shafts falling mainly upon herself, for she declared that her novel
seemed unworthy of its elegant new dress. She conceived a shyness toward
this quiet youth, and blushed when the striking situations and bold
language of her tale came into the conversation. It was so different
from his own work!
"It is too bold. I am sure it is," she said, repeatedly. "I ought to
begin again. My plot has too much freedom, too little conventionality.
People will say a very strange girl must have written it."
And he would tell her that he did not think so; that the strength of her
ideas was very great, and that the public would find excuses enough for
anything that interested and entertained it. He even added that he
wished he possessed her knowledge, her insight into life, her
fearlessness to tread on any ground that her subject made desirable.
Between them they were doing very good work, without doubt. Mr. Weil
took some of the completed chapters to Lawrence Gouger, who returned
them with a smile that spoke volumes. Cutt & Slashem would take the
story when it was ready, if the subsequent pages kept up to the mark of
the first ones.
"Don't forget your own book," said Gouger, in a note he enclosed for
Roseleaf.
Mr. Weil was not backward in accepting the cordial invitation he had had
to join the Ferns at dinner whenever he could make it convenient.
Besides this he called frequently at the wool office, and ingratiated
himself into Mr. Fern's good graces in many ways. Within a fortnight he
knew all there was to be known about wool, in which he seemed to have
conceived a great interest. In his talks with Roseleaf he spoke
learnedly on this subject, referring to the foreign and domestic
staples, like one who had made the matter a life study.
"What a queer thing trade is!" he exclaimed, on one of these occasions.
"Here we find a man who ought to adorn an atelier, or a seat in
Congress, and yet is obliged to guide his entire existence by the price
of such a confoundedly dull thing as the hair on a sheep's back. He
votes a certain political ticket on account of the attitude of the party
on Wool; he dines off mutton and lambs' tongues; he casts his lot with
the Sheep at church. I don't know but he would feel a genuine pleasure
in having Wool pulled over his eyes. And still I am convinced that he
never ought to have been in the Wool business at all, and that
Boggs--what a drop--is right in his impression that it will eventually
swamp him."
Roseleaf asked how Mr. Fern got into the trade in the first place.
"Well, as I understand it, Boggs was looking for a partner. Mrs. Fern
had some cash and her husband wanted to put it into a good thing, from a
financial standpoint. They did well while they were together. When Boggs
pulled out they had a clear $200,000 apiece. Boggs--confound him!--has
his yet; Fern hasn't. He's proud as the devil, and didn't tell me this,
by any means. It would break him up completely to have to go into
bankruptcy. Really, I wish I could do something for him."
Roseleaf looked up inquiringly.
"Why, I've got a fair amount of money," explained Archie, "and perhaps a
lift over these hard times might be the making of him. I'm not
particularly a philanthropist, but I like this fellow wonderfully well
for such a new acquaintance. I shall give him a delicate hint in a day
or two, and if I can fix things without too much risk--we have to
protect ourselves, you know--I am willing to do so."
This struck Shirley Roseleaf as rather odd. He had never thought about
Mr. Weil in that way. Whether he was rich or poor had never entered his
head. He began to wonder if he was very wealthy. He certainly lived
well, and had no visible occupation of the sort the census takers call
"gainful."
"It is an interesting family, though," pursued Archie, in his rambling
way. "I wish I could get into it as you did, you rascal, and observe it
at shorter range. Even the servants are worth studying. Look at that
Hannibal; who can say that the African race is inferior when it produces
such marvels! I can hardly take my eyes off the black paragon when he is
present. How he passes the soup--as if it were some heavenly decoction,
made by the gods themselves and sent to earth by their favorite
messenger! With what grace he opens the carriage door! with what majesty
he mounts to his seat by the driver! I wonder if he has a sister. She
would be worth a journey to see. I have met such women on their native
soil, statuesque, slender, full-breasted, square-shouldered, with jars
of water on their heads and clinking silver anklets. What a cursed thing
is our American prejudice against color! No other people carries it to
such an extent. In the Latin Quarter the West India blacks are prime
favorites with the pretty grisettes."
The young man could not help a slight shiver at this information. He did
not in the least agree with the sentiments his friend was advancing, but
neither did he think it wise to contradict him.
"Then there is the little one--Miss Daisy"--continued Weil, branching
suddenly into that topic. "So quiet, so self-abased, as if she would not
for the world attract one glance that might be claimed by her elder
sister, who is perfectly willing to be a monopolist of attention. A nice
girl, sweet as a fresh-plucked lily. There must be treasures hidden
under all that reticence. Still waters run deep, the silent swine devour
the milk. I think I ought to investigate the child. If you are to have
that aggregation of beauty known as Millicent, what prevents me from
securing a slight hold in the affections of the junior?"
Roseleaf shook his head in a way that might have meant almost anything.
He never could tell how much in earnest his friend was when he took up a
vein like this. Neither could he imagine little Daisy in the role of an
entertainer for such a very wise man as Archie, not only much her senior
but a thousand times her superior in knowledge and acquaintance with
things that people talk about.
"Keep your eye on her--she will be worth watching," said Weil, with one
of his laughs at the sober face before him. "She is worth almost as much
to a rising author as the negro--not quite, but nearly. Then there is
the pater-familias; is there anything in him? No, he will be of no
service to you. And that brings us back to our superb Millicent, with
whom you must now be wildly infatuated."
Roseleaf shook his head again.
"No--not yet," he said.
"But, what do you do all the time? How can you sit by the side of a
pretty girl, and kiss her cheeks, and put your arm around her, and yet
keep from falling in love?"
The younger man gasped at each of these suggestions, like one who has
stepped into icy water and feels it gradually creeping upward.
"I have done none of those things," he faltered.
"None of them! Then I shall not let you stay here!" cried Archie. "What
does the girl expect? That we are going to make her reputation in the
literary world and get nothing for ourselves? I never heard such
effrontery! She refuses to give you the least opportunity, does she--the
jade!"
More and more confused grew the other at these expressions.
"You don't understand--you are quite in error," he articulated.
"She--she has refused me nothing, because--because I have asked
nothing."
Mr. Weil uttered a disheartened groan.
"But this will not do, my dear fellow!" he said. "How can you accomplish
anything unless you make a beginning? Rewriting the story that she has
written will not advance you one step on the path you profess such
anxiety to tread. That is only an excuse--a make-believe--a pretence
under which you have been given quarters in this house and allowed every
chance in creation to learn your lesson. Are you afraid of her, or what
is the matter? Does she overpower you with her beauty? Tell me where
your difficulty lies."
But Shirley could hardly answer these apparently simple questions. He
said he feared the trouble might be in the formality of the situation.
How could Mr. Weil expect, he asked, that a spontaneous case of
love-making would develop from such a condition of things.
"Stuff!" cried Archie, with a grimace. "If you and she were members of a
theatrical company, and were cast as a pair of lovers, you wouldn't find
so many pitfalls. You would go ahead and repeat the lines of your part,
wouldn't you? All you want is to do the same now."
"But what _are_ the 'lines of my part?'" inquired the other, dolefully.
"Take her hand once in yours and they will come to you," retorted Weil.
Roseleaf reddened so much that Archie regretted the severity of his
tone, and hastened to turn the conversation to something more agreeable.
He made up his mind, however, to have a talk with Miss Fern, and at the
first opportunity he did so. It was on an afternoon when he knew
Roseleaf was in the city, and he came to the point at once, after his
own fashion.
"How are you and my young friend getting along?" he asked her.
"Oh, as well as possible," she responded. "I am learning to like him
more and more. I really shall be sorry when his task is done."
Mr. Weil shrugged his shoulders.
"There's a bit of selfishness in your words, Miss Fern," he said. "Have
you forgotten that he is not here to be useful to _you_ alone; that you
agreed to do what you could for _him_, as well?"
The girl cast down her pretty eyes in confusion.
"I am sure I have tried to be agreeable," she replied, gently.
"That is not enough," replied Archie, gravely. "What he needs is
something--some one--to stir his blood, to awaken his fancy. I told you
in the first place that you ought to make him fall in love with you--for
literary reasons. He must feel a sensation stronger than mere friendship
for a woman before he can write such a story as will bring him fame."
Miss Millicent did not grow more comfortable under this suggestion. She
remarked, after a long wait, that she did not see how the end sought was
to be accomplished. Love, she said, was not a mere expression, it was a
deep, actual entity. Two people, playing at love with each other, might
afterwards find that they were experimenting with fire.
"I have heard," she continued, her fair cheeks growing crimson, "that
there are women--"
Then she paused and could go no further. But he understood.
"There are women--thousands of them," he admitted, "who would willingly
do what I ask. If it is necessary, he must go to them."
She wanted to say that she hoped it would not come to that--she wanted
to convey to her companion the horror she felt for what she supposed his
words implied--but she could not. It was so much easier to write of
things than to talk of them to a man like him.
"Do you call it quite fair," he asked, "to claim all and give nothing?
He does not require much. Could you not let him take your hand, and--"
"And--"
"Possibly, touch your lips with his?"
Miss Fern rose to her feet with a fierce gesture.
"Sir!" she exclaimed.
"Very well," replied Mr. Weil, shortly, turning away.
The girl resumed her seat, with rapidly rising and falling bosom. She
was in a quandary. The suggestion she had heard would have sounded from
any other lips like a premeditated insult. Coming from this man the
venom seemed to have vanished.
Roseleaf felt somewhat discouraged after his latest talk with Weil. He
wanted to make a start, to do something, no matter how little, toward
the object he fully believed was to be attained. That evening while
walking with Miss Fern (for it was their frequent habit to go out of
doors unchaperoned) he found himself unconsciously taking her hand--that
hand for which he had until now felt a genuine fright. And she, after
all her resolutions never to permit anything of the sort, gave it to
him, as they strolled together along an unfrequented byway.
"I want so much to make a Name," he was saying fervently. "I have tried
and tried to begin such a book as Mr. Gouger wants, but I cannot. Won't
you help me, dear Miss Fern? Won't you show me what I lack? I know you
can, if you will. They tell me I have had no experiences, and that I
must have--not a real affair, you know, but an inkling of what it is
like. I have tried to say things to you and have been in fear that you
would not like them, and have held my peace. But now, I can wait no
longer."
In his exuberance Roseleaf spoke at last with ardor, and even went so
far as to attempt to put one of his arms around the waist of the fair
creature by his side. On her part Miss Fern was nearly overcome by
surprise.
In one instant the timid young gentleman had changed into the similitude
of a most ardent swain; but in the next he became again his natural
self, with the added confusion resulting from his excited and mortified
state.
"Let me take you home," he said, when he saw that she could find no
words even to chide him. "Let me take you home; and to-morrow I will go
away."
Go away! She did not like that idea! Her book was not yet finished, for
one thing; and besides he was a nice young fellow, and had meant no
offense.
"There is no reason why you should go," she stammered. "I forgive you, I
am sure."
"Do you!" cried Roseleaf, grasping her hand again in his joy. "You are
kindness itself to say so. I must appear very stupid" (here he half put
his arm around her again, checking himself with difficulty from
completeing the movement) "and dull, and wanting in manners, but you are
the only young lady I have ever known on terms of the least intimacy."
Miss Fern replied that she did not mind what had occurred, and hoped he
would forget it. She added that she would do anything she could for
him, and had the most earnest wish that they should be friends.
At the gate they paused, and in some way their eyes were looking into
each other. The girl laughed, a relief to feelings that had been for the
past ten minutes somewhat overcharged.
"Well, you have made a beginning," she said, mischievously, for she
wanted to drive the sober expression from his clouded face.
"A beginning?" he echoed.
"Yes," she said. "You have held my hand."
He crimsoned.
"You said you would forgive me," he murmured.
"With all my heart," she responded, putting the hand in his again.
He felt a thrill go through him, but it was a pleasant sensation.
"I came very near putting my arm around you," said he, looking away from
her. "Do you forgive that, too?"
She took the hand away and struck him playfully on the cheek with the
palm of it.
Then, before he surmised what she intended, she ran brightly up the
steps of the house and vanished.