“You look tired, Mr. Stoughton. You have been working too hard.”
Thus said Mrs. Percy-Bartlett to Richard, as her brown eyes rested
questioningly on his pale countenance. When a woman frankly comments on
a man’s appearance to his face it is evident that her friendship for
him is on a very firm basis.
“Perhaps so,” returned Richard, smiling gratefully. “I sometimes get
very tired of pouring water through a sieve; of rolling a stone to the
top of a hill every day to find it at the bottom the next morning.”
She bent toward him, and looked up into his face earnestly.
“But it must be a glorious privilege, Mr. Stoughton, to feel that what
you write is read by thousands and tens of thousands of people; that
you are an important part of that great force in modern life, the daily
press.”
“In one sense,” he returned thoughtfully, “it is a satisfaction to know
that you are addressing a large audience--an audience that is powerless
to hiss you off the stage if it is not pleased with your words. But at
its best my editorial work is both ephemeral and anonymous.”
She smiled at him sympathizingly.
“I know what is in your mind,” she exclaimed. “You desire the
recognition and applause of the public. But that is sure to come to
you in time. You have great talents, Mr. Stoughton; and--pardon me for
saying so--you are young, and can afford to wait.”
They were silent for a time, proof positive that their friendship had
made great progress. It is not so much what people say to each other
as what they conceal from each other, that marks the status of their
intercourse. A long silence between a man and woman seated alone
together is very eloquent; and its significance is in direct ratio to
their mental alertness. There is no dynamic repression in the silence
of a stick and a stone; but when the gods on Olympus cease to speak,
the earth trembles with apprehension.
“Do you know,” remarked Richard at length, “that I have lost something
of the ambition that inspired me some months ago? Perhaps I have
grown weary of work, or this great city has had a depressing effect
upon my aspirations. Whatever may be the reason, however, I find that
I no longer build the castles in the air that I raised with so much
enthusiasm not long ago. Why is it, do you think?”
He glanced at her searchingly; and, as their eyes met, her cheeks lost
something of their color.
“Ambition may sleep, but it never dies, Mr. Stoughton. You are
suffering from the reaction of your sudden and remarkable success.”
“My success!” he exclaimed. “Yes; I have won one great and gratifying
success since I came to New York; and only one.”
“And that is?” she asked softly, and with averted eyes.
“I have made you my friend,” he said, bending toward her until the
perfume of her luxuriant hair thrilled him with vague ecstasy, and the
smile on her lips seemed almost a caress.
Suddenly she looked up at him, and in her eyes lay a troubled and
beseeching gleam.
“And the price of my friendship--are you willing to pay it?” she asked
gently.
“Of course I am!” he exclaimed. “No sacrifice on my part is too great
to make in such a cause. Bargains like this one are made in heaven, are
they not?”
She glanced at him with an expression in her eyes that told him he had
wounded her. Without a word she arose and walked into the music-room,
and he followed her with a repentant look in his face. Seating herself
at the piano, she played softly some of the Lenten music she had heard
at the afternoon service.
The prayer of a heart-broken world breathed in the sobbing chords. Then
the movement changed, and the harmony seemed to promise rest and peace
to the weary sons of men. The spirit of the penitential season had been
crystallized in sound, and touched the heart as though a voice had
whispered from another world.
The music died away, as if the infinite had taken to its breast the
tired soul of one who cried aloud, then passed away in peace; and she
turned and looked into the face of the youth at her side.
“Is it not restful?” she asked gently. “How wonderful it is that music
should so change our mood and aspirations.”
“And you forgive me?” he asked penitently.
She laughed almost gayly.
“Is it not a habit I’ve fallen into? I am always granting you pardon,
am I not? Do you remember, the very first time I met you you were
obliged to ask forgiveness for what you said. How many times since then
I’ve pardoned you I can hardly say. You have been very rebellious.”
“How could I be otherwise?” he exclaimed, his eyes avoiding hers.
“Does the prisoner feel less impatient because of his chains. It is so
difficult, is it not, to be civilized?”
“I hardly understand you, Mr. Stoughton,” she said, trying hard to
speak very coldly.
“Cursed be the social lies that warp us from the living truth,”
he quoted.
“How thoroughly Tennyson gives expression to the revolt of youth
against the shackles that civilization, so called, has thrown around
it! I think I know, to my cost, how he felt when he wrote certain lines
in ‘Locksley Hall.’”
Richard took a few steps up and down the room, and then threw himself
into a chair and looked steadfastly at Mrs. Percy-Bartlett. Her face
had lost its color, and there were dark shadows beneath her eyes, while
a smile of sadness, perhaps of regret, hovered round her mouth.
“I have something to say to you,” she remarked, after a moment’s
silence, her voice low and firm. “You must sit where you are and listen
to me attentively. Will you promise me to weigh my words carefully
and--and--not misunderstand me?”
He saw that she was essaying a difficult task, and he said gently,--
“I promise; go on.”
“Then,” she continued, smiling at him gratefully, “I want to say
frankly that I have taken a great deal of pleasure in our friendship.
It is hardly necessary, however, to tell you that. I think I have
proved it to you in many ways. But the time has come when it rests with
you as to what the future shall hold for us. If you are willing to be
a true and unselfish friend to me,--to be ‘civilized’ in the highest
sense of the word,--we can go on as we have gone before. But if--if
your chains fret you too much, or if there is the slightest danger that
you will ever break them, then it is better that we should part. It is
so easy for a man to misunderstand a woman--therefore, I am frank with
you. Are you not grateful? Don’t you thank me?” There was a note of
pleading in her voice.
Richard arose, and moved restlessly up and down the room a moment.
Civilization decreed that he should remain seated and suppress all
evidences of emotion; but there is a strong vein of savagery in youth,
and Richard Stoughton was very young.
“‘They also serve who only stand and wait!’” he exclaimed irrelevantly.
Mrs. Percy-Bartlett laughed outright.
“The quotation does you credit in one way, Mr. Stoughton, even if it
doesn’t seem to be very _àpropos_.”
“Perhaps not,” he acknowledged, reseating himself. “But somehow it has
relieved the situation. At least, let it indicate that I accept your
ultimatum.”
“If I knew you well enough,” commented Mrs. Percy-Bartlett smilingly,
“I should say that that sounded rather cross. I hate to think that I
have formulated an ultimatum. That seems unwomanly, does it not?”
“I hardly know,” he said musingly. “It is hard to tell in these days
what is womanly and what is not. A few years ago we would have said
that it was unwomanly for a girl to stand before a miscellaneous
audience and make a political speech. No one would dare to take that
ground now.”
Mrs. Percy-Bartlett smiled sympathizingly.
“I am sure,” she said, “that you don’t approve of the effort of woman
to break away from the old restrictions.”
“Not altogether,” he answered frankly. “I have a strong vein of New
England conservatism in my make-up. It revolts against many of the
end-of-the-century ideas that are making such progress in this city.”
And so they talked on for a time, in a vein that proved the thorough
efficacy of Mrs. Percy-Bartlett’s ultimatum.
“It is so much better,” she said, as she arose to give him her hand
at parting, “it is so much better to talk about the ‘new woman’
than--than”--
“Than the old Adam,” he added. “Yes, I agree with you--for the sake of
friendship.”
“And you are my friend,” she cried impulsively, while he still held her
hand, suddenly grown cold.
“Yes,” he murmured in a muffled tone, bending and kissing the slender
fingers in his grasp.
She stood at the entrance to the music-room until she heard the
hall-door close. Then she turned, and seated herself at the piano. It
was here that Percy-Bartlett found her, idly weaving strange melodies
as the night grew old.
“You look pale and tired, dear,” he said gently, as he bent and kissed
her colorless cheek. “I did not think that you would wait up.”
“Is it late?” she asked wearily. “I had lost all track of time.”
“I shall be very glad,” remarked her husband, seating himself and
lighting a cigar, “when my affairs and the nation’s are so arranged
that I won’t be obliged to talk business at night. Has no one been in,
Harriet?”
“Yes,” she answered in a careless tone, and striking a few soft chords
on the instrument; “Mr. Stoughton called, and stayed an hour or so.”
Percy-Bartlett flicked the ashes from his cigar impatiently. He was
silent for some time, firmly suppressing any feeling of annoyance that
her words had caused.
“You find the boy interesting?” he asked coldly.
She looked at him calmly an instant, and then said indifferently,--
“Well--I prefer him to solitude, at least.”
Then she arose and said “good-night,” leaving Percy-Bartlett to such
comfort as he could derive from his thoughts and his tobacco.