A REVELATION.
Philip Wentworth, when he began his impulsive declaration, had no more
intention of making her a definite proposal of marriage than he had of
hanging himself. It had been, and still was, his one aim in life to marry
Mollie Heatherford, just as soon as his college course was completed.
Mr. Heatherford was numbered among New York’s richest men, and, as Mollie
was his only child, Philip was looking forward to the handling of her
magnificent inheritance, “when the old man should pass in his checks,” as
he was wont to express it to himself.
The moment he stood committed to Miss Athol he could almost have bitten
his tongue out with mingled anger and chagrin. He had simply been amusing
himself in seeking her society, and making love to her something after
the fashion of the story which they had read and discussed in “The
Glen” on the day of Minnie’s accident, but, even though he saw he was
winning the girl’s heart, he had never intended carrying the affair to a
point-blank offer of marriage.
But egotism, vanity, and obstinacy were the strongest characteristics
of his nature, and when Gertrude had so dauntlessly turned upon him,
expressing her contempt for his conduct in no measured terms, and so
fearlessly manifesting her admiration for, and espousing the cause
of, Clifford Faxon, he had been goaded to jealous fury beyond all
self-control, and a rash determination to conquer her and make her
confess her love for him had taken possession of him. But instead of
entangling her helplessly in his net, he had unthinkingly fallen into his
own trap.
Gertrude was startled, to say the least, with the turn the conversation
had taken. She had been conscious for some time that Philip Wentworth
held a very warm place in her heart. He was handsome and brilliant, and
had made himself attractive to her by those thousand and one flattering
little attentions which render men captivating in the eyes of women.
But at heart she was a noble and most conscientious girl, and she had
been bitterly disappointed upon discovering such weak and despicable
traits in the character of her admirer as Philip had manifested, and the
suffering which this had caused had carried her beyond herself, and thus
she had given vent to the scorn that has been described.
But a sudden revulsion of feeling had come when he confessed his
affection for her, and appealed so humbly, apparently, for her
forgiveness, and she began to feel that it would not be so very difficult
to pardon him and influence him to nobler sentiments, and, womanlike, she
at once began to reproach herself for her harsh judgment of him.
“Why,” she exclaimed, with crimson cheeks and averted eyes when he paused
for her reply to his suit, “you have literally taken my breath away, Mr.
Wentworth.”
“And what have you done to me, I should like to know?” he retorted, as he
shot her a roguish look, while he lifted one of her hands and imprinted a
deferential caress upon it. “You have just flayed me alive, figuratively
speaking.”
“Forgive me,” she murmured. “I am afraid I have said more than I ought.”
“Ah! but the sting lies in the fact that you could have thought such hard
things of me,” Philip replied, in a tone of tender reproach. “Still,” he
continued, drawing her gently toward him, “if you will only forgive the
sinner and try to help make him a better man in the future, all that will
be wiped out. Dearest, you can mold me to your own sweet will. I know
that I am full of faults, but I am also your willing slave, eager to be
led where you will. Gertrude, command me and love me, and no one was ever
more tractable than I will be.”
Little by little he had drawn her toward him while he was speaking, until
he had slipped his arms around her unresisting form, and she lay upon his
breast, all her scorn, contempt, and indignation merged and swallowed up
in her all-absorbing love for him.
It was very easy to forgive such an earnest pleader, and she told herself
that one so ready to confess his faults would be easily reformed, and she
was not averse to undertaking the task.
“Darling, you do love me; you will be mine?” he pleaded, in a tender
whisper, with his lips close to her glowing cheek.
“Yes, Phil, I am forced to confess that I do love you,” Gertrude replied,
in low, tremulous tones.
“And you are mine—you give yourself to me,” he persisted.
“Yes, dear, when the proper times comes—when you have completed your
college course and are ready for me.”
A wave of triumph swept over the young man’s features. He had won his
cause, he had gained his point, and that was the most he cared for.
It mattered little to him that he was desecrating holy ground in winning
the love of this pure and lofty-minded girl. His own future he had marked
out for himself, and if Mollie Heatherford returned safe and sound from
Europe, and with her fortune intact, he had not the remotest idea of
redeeming his troth to Gertrude Athol. He was simply fooling her to the
top of his bent, for the sake of conquest and the want of something more
to occupy his time.
How he was to get out of the scrape he had so unwittingly got into he did
not know; but he did not trouble himself about that just then—he would
find a way when the right time came. Meanwhile he would enjoy the present
and let the future adjust itself.
So, the two were pledged—at least, so Gertrude understood their
relations. But they agreed among themselves that they would preserve the
matter a secret until Phil should be through college. It was sufficient,
the fair girl said, with a trustfulness worthy of a better return, to
know that they belonged to each other, and there would be time enough for
their friends and the world to know it when their plans were more mature.
That same day by the evening post there came to Philip Wentworth a dainty
missive from across the water, and it was full of entertaining incident
and charming descriptions, and bore at the end the signature of Mollie
Heatherford.
“By Jove!” the young man exclaimed, with an amused laugh, after he
had read the epistle, “this is getting to be highly entertaining—one
lady-love in Europe whose thought centers upon me; another here who
firmly believes her life to be bound up in mine, and vice versa. Mollie,
however, is but a child as yet, and hardly the companion I crave just at
present. Gertrude is more to my mind for the time being. She is lovely,
bright, and charming, and delightful company, so I will enjoy her society
while I may.”
Such were the spirit and reflections of this vain and pleasure-seeking
egotist, in whom selfishness was the mainspring of life.
The Athols remained at the mountains only a few days longer, as they had
promised to visit some friends living upon the Hudson, while Philip, now
that his object had been accomplished, had consented to give up his trip
to Maine, and rejoin his mother at Saratoga.
But before their separation Philip—to keep up the farce he was
playing—had slipped upon Gertrude’s finger a costly diamond.
“I did not have it marked,” he explained, “because of our agreement to
keep our own counsel, but that can easily be done later,” and she, having
the utmost confidence in him, was content.
Before her departure Gertrude sought an opportunity to have a little talk
with Clifford. She found him, on the morning of the day she was going to
leave, on the upper veranda of the hotel, where he was repairing a broken
blind.
“You are always busy, Mr. Faxon,” she observed, with a cordial smile, as
she seated herself in a rocker near him.
“Yes, Miss Athol,” the young man respectfully replied, as he removed his
hat and tossed it upon the floor; “to be busy is a condition inevitable
to my position, you know.”
This was said without the slightest evidence of self-consciousness, or of
false pride because of the necessity which obliged him to occupy a humble
position.
Gertrude watched him in silence for several minutes, admiring his fine,
stalwart figure, his easy bearing, and feeling an additional respect for
him because he did not pause in his work on account of her presence, and
the fact that she had opened a conversation with him.
“I believe you love to work—you always appear to be absorbed in whatever
you are doing,” she remarked, at length.
Clifford turned a smiling glance upon her, and she was impressed more
than she ever had been before with the frank and genial expression of his
face and the depth and earnestness of his clear brown eyes.
“Thank you,” he said. “I am sure that is a tribute worth winning. Yes, I
do love to work—that is, I love to do well whatever I have to do.”
“That is certainly a most commendable spirit,” replied the girl, a
slight shadow falling over her face as she thought of the aimless,
pleasure-loving life that her lover was in the habit of leading—drifting
with the tide, culling whatever was agreeable that was within his reach,
and seduously avoiding everything that required personal effort, or
anything of a self-sacrificing nature. “And I dare say,” she added, “you
do your studying with the same cheerfulness and energy. I understand you
are a Harvard student.”
Clifford colored a trifle, and wondered why she should be so interested
in what concerned him.
“Yes,” he replied, after a slight pause, and with a thrill of feeling
in his tones that betrayed more than his words, “I love to study; but,
perhaps”—with a light laugh—“my interest in my present occupation is not
prompted so much by a genuine love for it as for the privileges I expect
to secure by means of it during the coming year.”
“I think you need not have qualified your previous statement, Mr.
Faxon,” Gertrude gravely remarked, as she watched the shapely hand that
was dexterously manipulating the screw-driver; “or, if it required any
qualification at all, I should say that something higher than a mere
liking or love for your work prompts you in whatever you do.”
Again Clifford turned a smiling look to her, and the light in his eyes
thrilled her strangely.
“Can one be actuated by a higher motive than love?” he questioned.
“Well, I suppose not,” she thoughtfully responded, “and yet I have always
regarded duty, or a conscientious desire to do what is exactly right, as
a pretty high motive.”
“But what governs conscience?” inquired Clifford.
“God,” said Gertrude gravely.
“Yes, and God is—love,” was the quick, earnest response. “So love
fulfills all law, moral as well as civil. Don’t you see that one must
have a love for truth and justice in order to obey the dictates of
conscience and feel a desire to do what is exactly right?”
“But conscience might sometimes prompt one to do that which would be very
disagreeable. My duty to my neighbor or mankind in general might require
something of me that I would absolutely hate to do,” Miss Athol argued.
“Where would love come in in that case?”
“Yet it would be the very highest type of love that would lead one to
obey such a demand of conscience or duty,” Clifford replied, his earnest
eyes meeting hers; “it would be love for the principle of right-doing.”
“That seems almost paradoxical, doesn’t it, Mr. Faxon?” said Gertrude,
smiling, “that one could love to do what one absolutely hated to do?”
“But the love of the principle that would incite one to adhere to that
which was right and just would bring results which would annihilate or
make one lose sight of the hatred, and so, after all, it would be love
alone that would be the mainspring of the act,” Clifford returned, in a
quiet, matter-of-fact tone, which plainly indicated that he was wont to
argue along this line, and had settled some knotty problems for himself
according to this rule.
“Yes, you are right,” Gertrude remarked, after a moment of thoughtful
silence, while Clifford, having completed his work, gathered up his tools
and arose to go about other business.
She arose, also, and went nearer to him.
“I thank you, Mr. Faxon,” she continued, “for having revealed to me
what the highest type of love is; it is, indeed, as you have said, ‘a
principle,’ and not a mere sentiment, and if the world were governed by
it, according to your interpretation, we should make rapid strides toward
the millennium. But, really,” she interposed, with a silvery laugh, “I
had no idea we should have such a grave discussion. We have, almost
unconsciously, wandered quite deeply into a metaphysical argument, and I
have had something of a revelation.”
“A revelation?” Clifford repeated inquiringly.
“Yes; I have learned that love, according to the common acceptation of
the term, is a synonym for selfishness; that is, that human affection,
when actuated simply by personal attachment, is a selfish love. But,
according to your higher interpretation of the word, it is a divine
principle. Is not this a revelation?”
“Yes, and you are very receptive to have grasped it so readily,” Clifford
replied, while he regarded her expressive face earnestly.
“I am going away after lunch,” Gertrude continued, smiling up at him,
“but I shall not forget our little chat of this morning; it has done me
good, and, let me add, you have been very kind to us all since we have
been here. I am glad to have known you, and I hope we shall meet again
some time.”
She frankly extended her jeweled hand to him as she concluded, and her
beautiful eyes held something like an expression of reverence in them as
they swept the fine face before her. He took her hand in the same spirit
of friendliness that it was offered.
“Thank you, Miss Athol,” he said, “it will certainly give me great
pleasure if I am ever so fortunate as to have my path cross yours again
in the future.”
He bowed courteously to her as he concluded, then turned and quietly left
the veranda.
Gertrude Athol’s sweet face was very grave as she stood where he left
her, and thought over their recent conversation.
“‘An upstart,’ the ‘window-washer and drudge of Beck Hall,’” she
repeated, under her breath and with clouded eyes. “Why, there is the
stamp of true royalty on every feature of his grand face! He is the
truest gentleman, in every sense of the word, that I have ever met. I am
sure he is a man with a wonderful career before him, and he is certainly
one of whose acquaintance I shall ever be proud. I wonder——”
What she wondered she did not frame in words, but she lifted her left
hand and gazed at the ring which she had worn less than three days, with
a look which held in it something of anxiety and doubt.