"How is Bertha?" Tredennis asked.
The professor sat down in his chair and took up the poker quite
carefully.
"She is at a party to-night," he said, poking the fire, "though it is
late in the season for parties. She generally is at a party--oftener
than not she is at two or three parties."
"Then she must be well," suggested Tredennis.
"Oh, she is well," the professor answered. "And she gets a good deal out
of life. She will always get a good deal out of it--in one way or
another."
"That is a good thing," remarked Tredennis.
"Very," responded the professor, "if it's all in the one way and not in
the other."
He changed the subject almost immediately, and began to discuss
Tredennis' own affairs. His kindly interest in his career touched the
younger man's heart. It seemed that he had taken an interest in him from
the first, and, silent as he had been, had never lost sight of him.
"It used to strike me that you would be likely to make something of your
life," he said, in his quiet, half-abstracted way. "You looked like it.
I used to say to myself that if you were my son I should look forward to
being proud of you. I--I wish you _had_ been my son, my boy."
"If I had been," answered Tredennis, earnestly, "I should have felt it a
reason for aiming high."
The professor smiled faintly.
"Well," he said, "you aimed high without that incentive. And the best of
it is that you have not failed. You are a strong fellow. I
like--a--strong--fellow," he added, slowly.
He spoke of Bertha occasionally again in the course of their after
conversation, but not as it had been his habit to speak of her in her
girlhood. His references to her were mostly statements of facts
connected with her children, her mode of life, or her household. She
lived near him, her home was an attractive one, and her children were
handsome, healthy, and bright.
"Amory is a bright fellow, and a handsome fellow," he said. "He is not
very robust, but he is an attractive creature--sensitive, poetic
temperament, fanciful. He is fanciful about Bertha, and given to
admiring her."
When he went away, at the end of the evening, Tredennis carried with him
the old vague sense of discomfort. The professor had been interesting
and conversational, and had given him the warmest of welcomes, but he
had missed something from their talk which he had expected to find. He
was not aware of how he had counted upon it until he missed it, and the
sense of loss which he experienced was a trouble to him.
He had certainly not been conscious of holding Bertha foremost in his
mind when he had turned his steps toward her father's house. He had
thought of how his old friend would look, of what he would say, and had
wondered if he should find him changed. He had not asked himself if he
should see Bertha or hear of her, and yet what he had missed in her
father's friendly talk had been the old kindly, interested discussion of
her, and once out in the night air and the deserted streets he knew that
he was sadder for his visit than he had fancied he should be. The
bright, happy, girlish figure seemed to have passed out of the
professor's life also--out of the home it had adorned--even out of the
world itself. His night's sleep was not a very peaceful one, but the
next morning when he rose, the light of day and the stir of life around
him seemed to have dispelled the reality of his last night's fancies.
His mind had resolved itself into a condition with which he was
familiar, and he was aroused to interest and pleasure in his
surroundings. His memory was once more the ghost of a memory which he
had long accustomed himself to living without. During the morning his
time was fully occupied by his preparations for his new duties, but in
the afternoon he was at liberty, and remembering a message he was
commissioned to deliver to the sister of a brother officer, he found his
way to the lady's house.
It was a house in a fashionable street, and its mistress was a
fashionable little person, who appeared delighted to see him, and to
treat him with great cordiality.
"I am so glad you were so good as to call to-day," she said. "Mr.
Gardner heard that you had arrived, but did not know where you were, or
he would have seen you this morning. What a pity that you were not in
time for the inauguration! The ball was more than usually successful. I
do hope you will let us see you to-night."
"To-night?" repeated Tredennis.
"Yes. We want you so much," she continued. "We give a little
party,--only a little one,--and we shall be so glad. There will be
several people here who will be delighted to meet you,--the gentleman
who is spoken of as likely to be the new Secretary of the Interior, for
instance. He will be charmed. Mr. Gardner has told me what interesting
things you have been doing, and what adventures you have had. I shall
feel quite sure that my party will be a success, if you will consent to
be my lion."
"I am afraid my consenting wouldn't establish the fact," said Tredennis.
"You would want a mane, and a roar, and claws. But you are very kind to
ask me to your party."
The end of the matter was that, after some exchange of civilities, he
gave a half-promise to appear, mentally reserving the privilege of
sending "regrets" if he did not feel equal to the effort when night
arrived. He was not fond of parties. And so, having delivered the
message with which he had been commissioned, he made his adieus and
retired.
When night came he was rather surprised to find lurking in his mind some
slight inclination to abide by his promise. Accordingly, after having
taken a deliberate, late dinner, read the papers, and written a letter
or so, he dressed himself and issued forth.
On arriving at his destination he found the "little party" a large one.
The street was crowded with carriages, the house was brilliantly
lighted, an awning extended from the door to the edge of the pavement,
and each carriage, depositing its brilliant burden within the protection
of the striped tunnel, drove rapidly away to give place to another.
Obeying the injunctions of the servant at the door Tredennis mounted to
the second story and divested himself of his overcoat, with the
assistance of a smart mulatto, who took it in charge. The room in which
he found himself was rather inconveniently crowded with men,--young,
middle-aged, elderly, some of them wearing a depressed air of wishing
themselves at home, some bearing themselves stolidly, and others either
quietly resigned or appearing to enjoy themselves greatly. It was not
always the younger ones who formed this last class Tredennis observed.
In one corner a brisk gentleman, with well-brushed, gray beard, laughed
delightedly over a story just related to him with much sprightliness by
a companion a decade older than himself, while near them an unsmiling
youth of twenty regarded their ecstasies without the movement of a
muscle.
Tredennis' attention was attracted for a moment toward two men who stood
near him, evidently awaiting the appearance of some one at the door of
the ladies cloak-room, which they could see from where they stood.
One of them leaned in a nicely managed labor-saving attitude against the
door-post. He was a rather tall, blonde young man, with a face eminently
calculated to express either a great deal or absolutely nothing at all,
as he chose to permit it, and his unobtrusive evening dress had an air
of very agreeable fitness and neatness, and quite distinguished itself
by seeming to belong to him. It was his laugh which called Tredennis'
attention to him. He laughed in response to some remark of his
companion's,--a non-committal but naturally sounding baritone laugh,
which was not without its attractiveness.
"Yes, I was there," he said.
"And sang?"
"No, thank you."
"And she was there, of course?"
"She?" repeated his friend, his countenance at this moment expressing
nothing whatever, and doing it very well.
"Oh, Mrs. Amory," responded the other, who was young enough and in
sufficiently high spirits to be led into forgetting to combine good
taste with his hilarity.
"You might say Mrs. Amory,--if you don't object," replied his companion,
quietly. "It would be more civil."
Then Tredennis passed out and heard no more.
He made his way down the stairs, which were crowded with guests going
down and coming up, and presented himself at the door of the first of
the double parlors, where he saw his hostess standing with her husband.
Here he was received with the greatest warmth, Mrs. Gardner brightening
visibly when she caught sight of him.
"Now," she said, "this is really good of you. I was almost afraid to let
you go away this afternoon. Mr. Gardner, Colonel Tredennis is really
here," she added, with frank cordiality.
After that Tredennis found himself swallowed, as in a maelstrom. He was
introduced right and left, hearing a name here and seeing a face there,
and always conscious of attaching the wrong names to the faces as he
struggled to retain some impression of both in his memory. Mrs. Gardner
bore him onward, filled with the most amiable and hospitable delight in
the sensation he awakened as she led him toward the prominent official
in prospective before referred to, who leaned against a mantel-piece and
beguiled his time by making himself quite agreeable to a very pretty
young _débutante_ who was recounting her experience at the inaugural
ball. Here Tredennis was allowed to free himself from the maelstrom and
let it whirl past him, as he stood a little aside and conversed with his
new acquaintance, who showed deep interest in and much appreciation of
all he had to say, and evidently would have been glad to prolong the
interview beyond the moment, when some polite exigency called him away
in the midst of an animated discussion of the rights of Indian agents
and settlers.
When he had gone Tredennis still remained standing where he had left
him, enjoying his temporary seclusion and the opportunity of looking on
with the cool speculation of an outsider.
He had been looking on thus for some moments,--at the passing to and
fro, at the well-bred elbowing through the crush, at the groups
gathering themselves here and there to exchange greetings and then
breaking apart and drifting away,--when he suddenly became aware of a
faint fragrance in the atmosphere about him which impressed itself upon
him with a curious insistence. On his first vague recognition of its
presence he could not have told what it was, or why it roused in him
something nearer pain than pleasure. It awakened in him a queer sense of
impatience with the glare of light, the confusion of movement and
voices, and the gay measure of the music in the next room. And almost
the instant he felt this impatience a flash of recognition broke upon
him, and he knew what the perfume was, and that it seemed out of place
in the glare and confusion simply because his one distinct memory of it
associated itself only with the night when he had sat in the fire-light
with Bertha, and she had held the heliotrope in her hand. With this
memory in his mind, and with a half smile at his own momentary
resentment of the conditions surrounding him, he turned toward the spot
near from which he fancied the odor of the flowers came, thinking that
it had floated from some floral decoration of the deep window. And so,
turning, he saw--surrounded by what seemed to be the gayest group in the
room--Bertha herself!
She was exquisitely dressed, and stood in the prettiest possible pose,
supporting herself lightly against the side of the window; she had a
bouquet in her hand and a brilliant smile on her lips, and Tredennis
knew in an instant that she had seen and recognized him.
She did not move; she simply retained her pretty pose, smiling and
waiting for him to come to her, and, though she said nothing to her
companions, something in her smile evidently revealed the situation to
them, for, almost immediately, the circle divided itself, and room was
made for him to advance within it.
Often afterward Tredennis tried to remember how he moved toward her, and
what he said when he found himself quite near her, holding the gloved
hand she gave him so lightly; but his recollections were always of the
vaguest. There scarcely seemed to have been any first words--he was at
her side, she gave him her hand, and then, in the most natural manner,
the group about her seemed to melt away, and they were left together,
and he, glancing half unconsciously down at her bouquet, saw that it was
made of heliotrope and Maréchal Niel roses.
She was so greatly and yet so little changed that he felt, as he looked
at her, like a man in a dream. He tried to analyze the change and could
not, and the effort to do so was a pain to him. The color in her cheeks
was less bright than he remembered it, but her eyes were brighter; he
thought also that they looked larger, and soon recognized that this was
not only because her face was less girlishly full, but arose from a
certain alertness of expression which had established itself in them.
And yet, despite their clear brightness, when she lifted them to his
own, his sense of loss was for the instant terrible. Her slight, rounded
figure was even prettier than ever,--more erect, better borne, and with
a delicate consciousness and utilizing of its own graces,--but it was
less easy to connect it mentally with the little gray gown and lace
kerchief than he could ever have believed possible.
Her very smile and voice had changed. The smile was sometimes a very
brilliant one and sometimes soft and slow, as if a hidden meaning lay
behind it; the voice was low-pitched, charmingly modulated, and
expressed far more than the words it gave to a listener, but Tredennis
knew that he must learn to know them both, and that to do so would take
time and effort.
He never felt this so strongly as when she sat down on the cushioned
window-seat, and made a little gesture toward the place at her side.
"Sit down," she said, with the soft smile this time,--a smile at once
sweet and careless. "Sit down, and tell me if you are glad to be
stationed in Washington; and let me tell _you_ that papa is delighted at
the prospect of your being near him again."
"Thank you," answered Tredennis; "and as to the being here, I think I
like the idea of the change well enough."
"You will find it a great change, I dare say," she went on; "though, of
course, you have not devoted yourself to the Indians entirely during
your absence. But Washington is unlike any other American city. I think
it is unlike any other city in the universe. It is an absorbingly
interesting place when you get used to it."
"You are fortunate in finding it so," said Tredennis.
"I?" she said, lightly. "Oh! I do not think I could resign myself to
living anywhere else; though, when you reflect, of course you know that
is a national quality. All good Americans adore the city they confer
distinction on by living in, and asperse the characters of all other
places. Englishmen believe in London, and Frenchmen in Paris; but in
America, a New Yorker vaunts himself upon New York, a Bostonian glories
in Boston, and a Washingtonian delights in the capital of his country;
and so on, until you reach New Orleans."
"That is true enough," said Tredennis, "though I had not thought of it
before."
"Oh, it is true," she answered, with an airy laugh. Then she added, with
a change of tone, "You have been away for a long time."
"Eight years," he replied.
He thought she gave a slight start, but immediately she turned upon him
with one of the brilliant smiles.
"We have had time to grow since then," she said,--"not older, of course,
but infinitely wiser--and better."
He did not find it easy to comprehend very clearly either her smile or
her manner. He felt that there might be something hidden behind both,
though certainly nothing could have been brighter or more inconsequent
than her tone. He did not smile, but regarded her for a moment with a
look of steady interest, of which he was scarcely conscious. She bore it
for an instant, and then turned her eyes carelessly aside, with a laugh.
"I do not think you are changed at all," she said.
"Why?" he asked, still watching her, and trying to adjust himself to her
words.
"You looked at me then," she said, "just as you used to when you were
with us before, and I said something frivolous. I am afraid I was often
frivolous in those days. I confess I suspected myself of it, and one day
I even made a resolution"--
She did start then--as if some memory had suddenly returned to her. She
lifted her bouquet to her face and let it slowly drop upon her knee
again as she turned and looked at him.
"I remember now," she said, "that I made that resolution the day you
brought me the heliotrope." And now it seemed for the instant to be her
turn to regard him with interest.
"I don't know what the resolution was," he said, rather grimly, "but I
hope it was a good one. Did you keep it?"
"No," she answered, undisturbedly; "but I kept the heliotrope. You know
I said I would. It is laid away in one of my bureau drawers."
"And the first party?" he asked. "Was it a success?"
"Oh, yes," she replied, "it was a great success. I am happy to say that
all my parties are successes, inasmuch as I enjoy them."
"Is this a success?" he inquired. She raised her bouquet to her face
again and glanced over it at the crowded room.
"It is an immense success," she said. "Such things always are--in
Washington. Do you see that little woman on the sofa? Notice what bright
eyes she has, and how quickly they move from one person to another--like
a bird's. She is 'our Washington correspondent' for half-a-dozen Western
papers, and 'does the social column' in one of our principal dailies,
and to-morrow you will read in it that 'one of the most brilliant
receptions of the season was held last night at the charming home of
Mrs. Winter Gardner, on K street.' You will also learn that 'Mrs.
Richard Amory was lovely in white brocade and pearls,' and that
'noticeable among even the stateliest masculine forms was the imposing
figure of Colonel Tredennis, the hero of Indian adventure and'"--
She had been speaking in the quietest possible manner, looking at the
scene before her and not at him; but here she stopped and bent toward
him a little.
"Have you," she said, softly, "such a thing as a scalp about you?"
He was by no means prepared for the inquiry, but he sustained himself
under it in his usual immovable manner. He put his hand up to his breast
and then dropped it.
"I am afraid not," he said. "Not in this suit. I forgot, in dressing,
that I might need them. But I might go back to the hotel," he added,
suggestively.
"Oh, no, thanks," she said, returning to her former position. "I was
only thinking how pleased she would be if you could show her a little
one, and tell her the history of it. It would be so useful to her."
"I am very sorry," said Tredennis.
"You would be more sorry," she went on, "if you knew what an industrious
little person she is, and with what difficulty she earns her ten dollars
a column. She goes to receptions, and literary and art clubs, and to the
White House, and the Capitol, and knows everybody and just what
adjectives they like, and how many; and is never ill-natured at all,
though it really seems to me that such an existence offers a premium to
spitefulness. I am convinced that it would make me spiteful. But she
never loses control over her temper--or her adjectives. If I weighed two
hundred pounds, for instance, she would refer to my avoirdupois as
'matronly _embonpoint_;' and if I were a skeleton, she would say I had a
'slight and reed-like figure,' which is rather clever, you know, as well
as being Christian charity."
"And she will inform the world to-morrow that your dress," glancing down
at it, "was white"--
"And that my hair was brown, as usual," she ended for him. "And that I
carried a bouquet of heliotrope and roses."
"I hope you like it," he said.
"Oh, very much indeed, thank you," was her response. "And if I did not,
somebody else would, or it is plain that she would not get her ten
dollars a column. It has struck me that she doesn't do it for amusement,
or with the deliberate intention of annoying people. For my part, I
admire and envy her. There is no collection so valuable as a collection
of adjectives. Everything depends on adjectives. You can begin a
friendship or end it with one--or an enmity, either."
"Will you tell me," said Tredennis, "what adjective you would apply to
the blonde young man on the other side of the room, who has just picked
up a lady's handkerchief?"
She looked across the room at the person indicated, and did not reply at
once. There was a faintly reflective smile in her eyes, though it could
scarcely be said to touch her lips. The man was the one who had
attracted Tredennis' attention at the door of the cloak-room, and since
coming down-stairs he had regarded him with some interest upon each
occasion when he had caught sight of him as he moved from room to room,
evidently at once paying unobtrusive but unswerving attention to the
social exigencies of his position, and finding a decent amount of quiet
entertainment in the results of his efforts.
"I wish you would tell me," said Bertha, after her little pause, "what
adjective _you_ would apply to him."
"I am afraid," said Tredennis, "that our acquaintance is too limited at
present to allow of my grasping the subject. As I don't chance to know
him at all"--
Bertha interposed, still watching the object of discussion with the
faintly reflective smile.
"I have known him for six years," she said, "and I have not found his
adjective yet. He is a cousin of Mr. Amory's. Suppose," she said,
turning with perfect seriousness and making a slight movement as if she
would rise,--"suppose we go and ask Miss Jessup?"
Tredennis offered her his arm.
"Let us hope that Miss Jessup can tell us," he said.
His imperturbable readiness seemed to please her. Her little laugh had a
genuine sound in it. She sat down again.
"I am afraid she could not," she said. "See! he is coming to speak to
me, and we might ask him."
But she did not ask him when he presented himself before her, as he did
almost immediately. He had come to remind her that dancing was going on
in one of the rooms, and that she had promised him the waltz the
musicians had just struck into with a flourish.
"Perhaps you will remember that you said the third waltz," he said, "and
this is the third waltz."
Bertha rose.
"I remember," she said, "and I think I am ready for it; but before you
take me away you must know Colonel Tredennis. Of course you do know
Colonel Tredennis, but you must know him better. Colonel Tredennis, this
is Mr. Arbuthnot."
The pair bowed, as civility demanded. Of the two, it must be confessed
that Tredennis' recognition of the ceremony was the less cordial. Just
for the moment he was conscious of feeling secretly repelled by the
young man's well-carried, conventional figure and calm, blond
countenance,--the figure seemed so correct a copy of a score of others,
the blond countenance expressed so little beyond a carefully trained
tendency to good manners, entirely unbiassed by any human emotion.
"By the time our waltz is finished," said Bertha, as she took his arm,
"I hope that Mr. Amory will be here. He promised me that he would come
in toward the end of the evening. He will be very glad to find you
here."
And then, with a little bow to Tredennis, she went away.
She did not speak to her companion until they reached the room where the
dancers were congregated. Then, as they took their place among the
waltzers, she broke the silence.
"If I don't dance well," she said, "take into consideration the fact
that I have just been conversing with a man I knew eight years ago."
"You will be sure to dance well," said Arbuthnot, as they began. "But I
don't mind acknowledging an objection to persons I knew eight years ago.
I never could find any sufficient reason for their turning up. And, as
to your friend, it strikes me it shows a great lack of taste in the
Indians to have consented to part with him. It appeared to me that he
possessed a manner calculated to endear him to aboriginal society beyond
measure."
Bertha laughed,--a laugh whose faintness might have arisen from her
rapid motion.
"He's rather rigorous-looking," she said; "but he always was. Still, I
remember I was beginning to like him quite well when he went West. Papa
is very fond of him. He turns out to be a persistent, heroic kind of
being--with a purpose in life, and the rest of it."
"His size is heroic enough," said Arbuthnot. "He would look better on a
pedestal in a public square than in a parlor."
Bertha made no reply, but, after having made the round of the room
twice, she stopped.
"I am not dancing well," she said. "I do not think I am in a dancing
mood. I will sit down."
Arbuthnot glanced at her, and then looked away.
"Do you want to be quiet?" he asked.
"I want to be quieter than this," she answered; "for a few minutes. I
believe I am tired."
"You have been going out too much," he said, as he led her into a small
side-room which had been given up to a large, ornate punch-bowl, to do
reverence to which occasional devotees wandered in and out.
"I have been going out a great deal," she answered.
She leaned back in the luxurious little chair he had given her, and
looked across the hall into the room where the waltz was at its height,
and, having looked, she laughed.
"Do you see that girl in the white dress, which doesn't fit," she
said,--"the plump girl who bags at the waist and is oblivious to it--and
everything else but her waltz and her partner?"
"Yes," he responded; "but I hope you are not laughing at her,--there is
no need of it. She's having a fascinating time."
"Yes," she returned. "She is having a lively time; but I am not laughing
at her, but at what she reminds me of. Do you know, I was just that age
when Colonel Tredennis saw me last. I was not that size or that shape,
and my dresses used to fit--but I was just that age, and just as
oblivious, and danced with just that spirit of enjoyment."
"You dance with just as much enjoyment now," said Arbuthnot, "and you
are quite as oblivious at times, though it may suit your fancy just at
the present moment to regard yourself as a shattered wreck confronted
with the ruins of your lost youth and innocence. I revel in that kind of
thing myself at intervals, but it does not last."
"No," she said, opening her fan with a smile, and looking down at the
Cupids and butterflies adorning it, "of course it won't last, and I must
confess that I am not ordinarily given to it--but that man! Do you know,
it was a curious sort of sensation that came over me when I first saw
him. I was standing near a window, talking to half-a-dozen people, and
really enjoying myself very much,--you know I nearly always enjoy
myself,--and suddenly something seemed to make me look up--and there he
stood!"
"It would not be a bad idea for him to conceal his pedestal about him
and mount it when it became necessary for him to remain stationary,"
said Arbuthnot, flippantly, and yet with a momentary gravity in his eyes
somewhat at variance with his speech.
She went on as if he had not spoken.
"It was certainly a curious feeling," she continued. "Everything came to
me in a flash. I suppose I am rather a light and frivolous person, not
sufficiently given to reflecting on the passage of time, and suddenly
there he stood, and I remembered that eight years had gone by, and that
everything was changed."
"A great many things can happen in eight years," commented Arbuthnot.
"A great many things have happened to _me_," she said. "_Everything_ has
happened to me!"
"No," said Arbuthnot, in a low, rather reflective tone, and looking as
he spoke not at her, but at the girl whose white dress did not fit, and
who at that moment whirled rather breathlessly by the door. "No--not
everything."
"I have grown from a child to a woman," she said. "I have married, I
have arrived at maternal dignity. I don't see that there is anything
else that could happen--at least, anything comfortable."
"No," he admitted. "I don't think there is anything comfortable."
"Well, it is very certain I don't want to try anything uncomfortable,"
she said. "'Happy the people whose annals are tiresome.' Montesquieu
says that, and it always struck me as meaning something."
"I hope it does not mean that you consider your annals tiresome," said
Arbuthnot. "How that girl does dance! This is the fifth time she has
passed the door."
"I hope her partner likes it as much as she does," remarked Bertha. "And
as to the annals, I have not found them tiresome at all, thank you. As
we happen to have come to retrospect, I think I may say that I have
rather enjoyed myself, on the whole. I have had no tremendous emotions."
"On which you may congratulate yourself," Arbuthnot put in.
"I do," she responded. "I know I should not have liked them. I have left
such things to--you, for instance."
She said this with a little air of civil mocking which was by no means
unbecoming, and to which her companion was well used.
"Thank you," he replied, amiably. "You showed consideration, of
course--but that's your way."
"I may not have lived exactly the kind of life I used to think I should
live--when I was a school-girl," she went on, smiling; "but who
does?--and who would want to when she attained years of discretion? And
I may not be exactly the kind of person I--meant to be; but I think I
may congratulate you on that--and Richard. You would never have been the
radiant creatures you are if I had ripened to that state of perfection.
You could not have borne up under it."
She rose from her seat and took his arm.
"No," she said, "I am not the kind of person I meant to be, and Colonel
Tredennis has reminded me of the fact and elevated my spirits. Let us go
and find him, and invite him to dinner to-morrow. He deserves it."
As they passed the door of the dancing-room she paused a moment to look
in, and as she did so caught sight of the girl in the white dress once
more.
"She is not tired yet," she said, "but her partner is--and so am I. If
Richard has come, I think I shall go home."