OUTSIDE THE DUTCH DOOR
Before leaving, Dr. Merriweather found an opportunity to draw Barnes
one side.
“Boy,” he said, “I didn’t realize until to-night to how great an extent
Mr. Van Patten’s condition is due to his mental state. He is already
wonderfully improved.”
“You mean you think there is now hope for him?”
“I don’t want to put it too strongly--but there’s a chance.”
“You’ve told the others?”
“No. We’ll wait a while before we do that. But I wanted you to know and
to thank you.”
They were in the dark. The doctor struck a match for his cigar. As the
match flickered down, he smiled a little.
“You’ll reap your reward for this somewhere,” he concluded.
After the doctor had gone and the three were alone again, Aunt
Philomela confronted Barnes.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were going to confess the truth to Dr.
Merriweather?”
“Because I didn’t know it myself until I saw him.”
“You placed me in a very embarrassing position.”
“I thought to rescue you from one,” exclaimed Barnes with concern.
“After I had repeated to him that mess of stuff you told me!”
“But my wish was to save you from further committing yourself.”
“You had no business getting me into the pickle.”
“It was quite by accident.”
“That is always a young man’s plea. I saw these complications coming
from the first. Deceit never succeeds.”
“On the contrary, this has succeeded perfectly,” Barnes protested. “I’m
quite sure the doctor thinks none the worse of us.”
“He’ll never believe another word I say,” complained Aunt Philomela.
“And will trust you in delicate matters as never before,” affirmed
Barnes.
“To tell him was the only honorable thing to do,” broke in Miss Van
Patten.
“Then why don’t you tell Carl?” Aunt Philomela challenged.
And with this shot Aunt Philomela promptly withdrew before the enemy
could fire back, forgetting, however, that she was deserting her most
important outpost in so doing. Barnes could scarcely believe his good
fortune as he saw her skirts switch upstairs.
“Well,” he sighed in relief, “that is over.”
“Aunt really quite approves,” breathed the girl.
“Of course she does,” he agreed.
“But she is probably waiting for me,” she added.
“That gives me the strategical position,” he declared cheerfully.
“You should be in the army,” she commented with heightened color.
“What’s the use when you have given me the soldier’s privilege?”
“I?” she exclaimed in astonishment.
“At dinner,” he reminded her.
“I don’t remember,” she murmured, trying hard to recollect the
conversation.
“When I spoke of the picture you are painting.”
“You must have been talking to yourself,” she declared with sudden
light.
“So you were, too!” he challenged.
She appeared startled. He realized that this was a good guess.
“You said I looked more like a soldier than an artist,” he asserted,
making a still wilder guess.
She drew back a little now in genuine consternation.
“Oh, you shouldn’t read one’s thoughts,” she protested.
She looked very tall and dark and beautiful.
“That is as far as I can go,” he admitted reluctantly.
“It is as far as you have any right to go,” she said hurriedly.
“You see I talked to you all the while the doctor talked to Aunt
Philomela.”
“Really?” she asked.
The Princess stalked in and, glad of the relief, she picked up the
handsome cat. She herself looked like a princess out of a story-book.
“You answered all my questions very evasively,” he complained.
“Perhaps they were not proper questions,” she suggested as she stroked
the silken back of the other princess.
“They were somewhat direct,” he admitted.
“There are some things it is very much wiser to keep to oneself,” she
affirmed, looking up sharply at him.
Again he saw a resemblance between her eyes and the night sky over the
orchard.
“There are some things in which that matter of so-called wisdom does
not enter at all,” he returned.
“In that case caution should prompt us.”
“Caution is but a lame dog yelping at the heels of Wisdom. Shall I tell
you what we discussed?”
She hesitated. There was that about him to-night which bewildered her.
He was less a stranger. Perhaps it was the drowsy night; perhaps it was
the fact that they stood here for the first time alone, with the dark
closing about them. There seemed less to fear in him, more to fear in
herself. She answered:
“I think you had better not.”
“Well,” he submitted reluctantly, “perhaps my conversation _was_ in
the nature of a confidential communication to myself. Yet it is almost
impossible for me to believe you did not actually share it.”
It was still more difficult for her to resist the invitation to share
it now. The candle sputtering on its last quarter ate its course
voraciously as though in haste to blend this room with the rest of the
dark.
“There seems so much we cannot share with others,” she ventured.
“I never felt it as I do this moment,” he replied. “I think it must
be a wonderful experience to lead another through our own peculiar
treasure-house of memories. Out of the past we gather so many
things--alone; beautiful things, so precious and fine that we hide them
deep within ourselves lest the light of merely curious eyes should
fade them. Perhaps some of us have partly shared them with the world,
in pictures or in verse or in songs, but at best these are but feeble
copies. We haven’t done much but suggest their form and color or the
tune to which they are set. But some day along comes one--to share
them. Then we go back to the Thames, the Seine, and over the saffron
road to the Schuyler brook and take that other with us through all the
long galleries. So we know for the first time why we have stored them
all so carefully.”
Barnes paused. His eyes had grown distant. Her eyes had come nearer.
The cat purred contentedly.
“If I were to make a definition of happiness,” he concluded, “it would
be this; the privilege of sharing utterly.”
She knew. She had her own treasures--her own gallery. But it had never
occurred to her that any other should ever see them. These pictures
were to be kept tight locked forever. They were to be reviewed even by
her only when alone in the dark with the rest of the world tight asleep
around her. And now he had made her feel that after all her greatest
joy might come in showing them to another. She looked up to find his
eyes upon her. They were so brilliant and yet so gentle that they made
her fear lest even now they might pierce too deep.
“We may share most things,” she hastened to speak, “but always there
will be something left for ourselves alone, won’t there?”
“Most always,” he admitted.
They had remained standing. She leaned back now against the door frame.
“Won’t you sit down?” he pleaded.
“No! Oh, no!” she objected quickly.
But he brought a chair and with a smile placed it near the door, as
though to assure her of an easy line of retreat. She passed it, and
crossing the room sat near the window.
“When making definitions,” he continued, seating himself near the
other window, “we have for once an opportunity to speak without
equivocation. In reality, things go no further than ‘most always.’
We seldom attain the absolute. But,” he added, lowering his voice
a little, “I believe that it’s possible in that one thing which I
defined as ‘sharing utterly.’ I believe that once we may live up to our
definition. I believe it is within us all to share once--utterly and
without quibbling.”
“It doesn’t _seem_ possible,” she answered weakly.
“No. But it is.”
“I should think it would be quite confusing.”
“I should think it would be quite dizzily clarifying.”
“Isn’t that the same mental condition?” she laughed timidly.
“The difference is the difference in the effect produced by champagne
and the effect produced by mountain air,” he stated.
“I suppose some such freedom is what we all strive for,” she said
quickly, with broad generalization.
“There is but little striving in it,” he affirmed. “It is the one time
when the mountain comes to Mahomet.”
“But even then Mahomet must climb the mountain,” she suggested.
“He soars to the top, winged,” he answered.
The candle began to give warning. The unsnuffed wick leaned over
drunkenly and unfairly ate down its sides. But a candle may not be
criticised, however unjust its acts. Barnes saw that it was too late
to correct its knavish course though the evening was still young; in
two minutes it would unceremoniously snuff out the girl’s eyes. It gave
fair warning.
Miss Van Patten arose. He had nothing to do but to arise also.
“I shall emulate Mahomet,” he declared. “I shall soar to the top of the
stairs, winged.”
She answered only,
“Good-night.”
But the simple words set his pulse to beating faster. There was in them
something of the ’cello note.
He bowed as she passed before him. She hurried on to Aunt Philomela,
and he crossed to the candle and blew it out. He found that after all
the dark did not make so much difference.
Barnes made his way to the little Dutch door, opened it and stepped out
into the night. As he did so a man who was retreating down the path
turned and came back. It was Langdon.
“Hello!” he called. “I had hoped to catch you, but when I saw the light
go out, I thought you must have retired.”
“You wished to see me?” Barnes asked in surprise.
“You, Joe,” answered Langdon nervously. “You don’t mind if I call you
Joe?”
“Not at all,” answered Barnes, indifferently.
But the name instantly destroyed some beautiful dreams he had come out
there to dream.
He sat down on the stone step but Langdon remained standing.
“I thought,” Langdon began, “that as long as Mr. Van Patten is so ill
and you’re the man of the family now, I ought to come to you.”
“Yes,” answered Barnes in surprise.
Langdon faltered on.
“Since I’ve been down here this summer my music has meant more to me
than it ever did before. I’ve been able to express things through it.”
He paused.
“Your sister sort of makes a man understand,” he ventured.
Barnes drew a deep breath.
“What are you driving at?” he demanded.
“I’m trying to tell you,” answered Langdon, earnestly, “but I want you
to understand me first. I know how business men feel about music.”
“Business men?”
“They think music and such things are for women, don’t they? They
think Art doesn’t test you like gold hunting.”
“I suppose some do.”
“Well, it doesn’t--like gold hunting. It doesn’t make you muscular.
But for two years now I’ve stood in front of a mirror and drawn a bow
across a fiddle for eight hours, then stopped an hour, and done it
again. It isn’t easy to do that--all alone. It takes a sort of brawn,
doesn’t it?”
“I should think it might,” agreed Barnes.
“It’s been nothing but work up to now,” Langdon ran on. “I’ve just been
learning to play. I couldn’t see what it was leading to--until this
summer.”
“And now?” inquired Barnes.
“Now I’ve found out. Eleanor has made me see.”
Barnes ran his hand over his brow.
“Joe, she’s made me hope for big things; she’s filled my soul full of
big songs. Don’t you understand now?”
“You mean--you love her?”
Langdon came nearer and held out his hand.
“Yes,” he answered.
Barnes took his hand. The purple of the night sky turned to leaden
gray.
“Have you told her?” he asked.
“No. I--I thought I ought to tell you first. You know what a wonderful
creature she is.”
“Yes.”
“So--so I thought you ought to know something about the man who wants
to ask for her hand.”
“That’s very decent of you. But--I haven’t anything to say about it.”
“She thinks a great deal of you,” said Langdon.
Barnes did not answer.
“I don’t think she’d marry anyone you didn’t approve of,” Langdon
laughed nervously. “I never heard a sister admire her brother as she
does you.”
“Don’t!” gasped Barnes.
“Don’t?”
“You--you oughtn’t to repeat those things.”
“I’d almost be glad to be just her brother if she talked that way about
me.”
There was a long pause. Then Langdon resumed,
“Have I your permission to ask her?”
“_My_ permission?”
“If you’d rather, I’ll wait.”
Barnes took a long breath. Then he grasped Langdon’s hand again.
“No,” he said earnestly, “I don’t think I’d wait very long.”
“Thank you. And I may tell her I have your consent?”
Barnes smiled grimly.
“If you wish.”
Langdon gripped his hand once more. Barnes turned abruptly.
“You’ll excuse me? I’m going in now. Good-night.”
Barnes closed the little Dutch door behind him. And instead of soaring,
winged, to the top of the stairs, he plodded up as though he were
carrying a great weight upon his shoulders.