In the evening, at our house, Margaret described the scene in the park.
"It's dreadful," was the comment of Miss Forsythe. "The authorities ought
not to permit such a thing."
"It seemed to me as heroic as pitiful, aunt. I fear I should be incapable
of making such a testimony."
"But it was so unnecessary."
"How do we know what is necessary to any poor soul? What impressed me
most strongly was that there is in the world still this longing to suffer
physically and endure public scorn for a belief."
"It may have been a disappointment to the little band," said Mr. Morgan,
"that there was no demonstration from the spectators, that there was no
loud jeering, that no snowballs were thrown by the boys."
"They could hardly expect that," said I; "the world has become so
tolerant that it doesn't care."
"I rather think," Margaret replied, "that the spectators for a moment
came under the spell of the hour, and were awed by something supernatural
in the endurance of that frail girl."
"No doubt," said my wife, after a little pause. "I believe that there is
as much sense of mystery in the world as ever, and as much of what we
call faith, only it shows itself eccentrically. Breaking away from
traditions and not going to church have not destroyed the need in the
minds of the mass of people for something outside themselves."
"Did I tell you," interposed Morgan--"it is almost in the line of your
thought--of a girl I met the other day on the train? I happened to be her
seat-mate in the car-thin face, slight little figure--a commonplace girl,
whom I took at first to be not more than twenty, but from the lines about
her large eyes she was probably nearer forty. She had in her lap a book,
which she conned from time to time, and seemed to be committing verses to
memory as she looked out the window. At last I ventured to ask what
literature it was that interested her so much, when she turned and
frankly entered into conversation. It was a little Advent song-book. She
liked to read it on the train, and hum over the tunes. Yes, she was a
good deal on the cars; early every morning she rode thirty miles to her
work, and thirty miles back every evening. Her work was that of clerk and
copyist in a freight office, and she earned nine dollars a week, on which
she supported herself and her mother. It was hard work, but she did not
mind it much. Her mother was quite feeble. She was an Adventist. 'And
you?' I asked. 'Oh, yes; I am. I've been an Adventist twenty years, and
I've been perfectly happy ever since I joined--perfectly,' she added,
turning her plain face, now radiant, towards me. 'Are you one?' she
asked, presently. 'Not an immediate Adventist,' I was obliged to confess.
'I thought you might be, there are so many now, more and more.' I learned
that in our little city there were two Advent societies; there had been a
split on account of some difference in the meaning of original sin. 'And
you are not discouraged by the repeated failure of the predictions of the
end of the world?' I asked. 'No. Why should we be? We don't fix any
certain day now, but all the signs show that it is very near. We are all
free to think as we like. Most of our members now think it will be next
year.'--'I hope not!' I exclaimed. 'Why?' she asked, turning to me with a
look of surprise. 'Are you afraid?' I evaded by saying that I supposed
the good had nothing to fear. 'Then you must be an Adventist, you have so
much sympathy.'--'I shouldn't like to have the world come to an end next
year, because there are so many interesting problems, and I want to see
how they will be worked out.'--'How can you want to put it off'--and
there was for the first time a little note of fanaticism in her
voice--'when there is so much poverty and hard work? It is such a hard
world, and so much suffering and sin. And it could all be ended in a
moment. How can you want it to go on?' The train approached the station,
and she rose to say good-by. 'You will see the truth some day,' she said,
and went away as cheerful as if the world was actually destroyed. She was
the happiest woman I have seen in a long time."
"Yes," I said, "it is an age of both faith and credulity."
"And nothing marks it more," Morgan added, "than the popular expectation
among the scientific and the ignorant of something to come out of the
dimly understood relation of body and mind. It is like the expectation of
the possibilities of electricity."
"I was going on to say," I continued, "that wherever I walk in the city
of a Sunday afternoon, I am struck with the number of little meetings
going on, of the faithful and the unfaithful, Adventists, socialists,
spiritualists, culturists, Sons and Daughters of Edom; from all the open
windows of the tall buildings come notes of praying, of exhortation, the
melancholy wail of the inspiring Sankey tunes, total abstinence melodies,
over-the-river melodies, songs of entreaty, and songs of praise. There is
so much going on outside of the regular churches!"
"But the churches are well attended," suggested my wife.
"Yes, fairly, at least once a day, and if there is sensational preaching,
twice. But there is nothing that will so pack the biggest hall in the
city as the announcement of inspirational preaching by some young woman
who speaks at random on a text given her when she steps upon the
platform. There is something in her rhapsody, even when it is incoherent,
that appeals to a prevailing spirit."'
"How much of it is curiosity?" Morgan asked. "Isn't the hall just as
jammed when the clever attorney of Nothingism, Ham Saversoul, jokes about
the mysteries of this life and the next?"
"Very likely. People like the emotional and the amusing. All the same,
they are credulous, and entertain doubt and belief on the slightest
evidence."
"Isn't it natural," spoke up Mr. Lyon, who had hitherto been silent,
"that you should drift into this condition without an established
church?"
"Perhaps it's natural," Morgan retorted, "that people dissatisfied with
an established religion should drift over here. Great Britain, you know,
is a famous recruiting-ground for our socialistic experiments."
"Ah, well," said my wife, "men will have something. If what is
established repels to the extent of getting itself disestablished, and
all churches should be broken up, society would somehow precipitate
itself again spiritually. I heard the other day that Boston, getting a
little weary of the Vedas, was beginning to take up the New Testament."
"Yes," said Morgan, "since Tolstoi mentioned it."
After a little the talk drifted into psychic research, and got lost in
stories of "appearances" and "long-distance" communications. It appeared
to me that intelligent people accepted this sort of story as true on
evidence on which they wouldn't risk five dollars if it were a question
of money. Even scientists swallow tales of prehistoric bones on testimony
they would reject if it involved the title to a piece of real estate.
Mr. Lyon still lingered in the lap of a New England winter as if it had
been Capua. He was anxious to visit Washington and study the politics of
the country, and see the sort of society produced in the freedom of a
republic, where there was no court to give the tone and there were no
class lines to determine position. He was restless under this sense of
duty. The future legislator for the British Empire must understand the
Constitution of its great rival, and thus be able to appreciate the
social currents that have so much to do with political action.
In fact he had another reason for uneasiness. His mother had written him,
asking why he stayed so long in an unimportant city, he who had been so
active a traveler hitherto. Knowledge of the capitals was what he needed.
Agreeable people he could find at home, if his only object was to pass
the time. What could he reply? Could he say that he had become very much
interested in studying a schoolteacher--a very charming school-teacher?
He could see the vision raised in the minds of his mother and of the earl
and of his elder sister as they should read this precious confession--a
vision of a schoolma'am, of an American girl, and an American girl
without any money at that, moving in the little orbit of Chisholm House.
The thing was absurd. And yet why was it absurd? What was English
politics, what was Chisholm House, what was everybody in England compared
to this noble girl? Nay, what would the world be without her? He grew hot
in thinking of it, indignant at his relations and the whole artificial
framework of things.
The situation was almost humiliating. He began, to doubt the stability of
his own position. Hitherto he had met no obstacle: whatever he had
desired he had obtained. He was a sensible fellow, and knew the world was
not made for him; but it certainly had yielded to him in everything. Why
did he doubt now? That he did doubt showed him the intensity of his
interest in Margaret. For love is humble, and undervalues self in
contrast with that which it desires. At this touchstone rank, fortune,
all that go with them, seemed poor. What were all these to a woman's
soul? But there were women enough, women enough in England, women more
beautiful than Margaret, doubtless as amiable and intellectual. Yet now
there was for him only one woman in the world. And Margaret showed no
sign. Was he about to make a fool of himself? If she should reject him he
would seem a fool to himself. If she accepted him he would seem a fool to
the whole circle that made his world at home. The situation was
intolerable. He would end it by going.
But he did not go. If he went today he could not see her tomorrow. To a
lover anything can be borne if he knows that he shall see her tomorrow.
In short, he could not go so long as there was any doubt about her
disposition towards him.
And a man is still reduced to this in the latter part of the nineteenth
century, notwithstanding all our science, all our analysis of the
passion, all our wise jabber about the failure of marriage, all our
commonsense about the relation of the sexes. Love is still a personal
question, not to be reasoned about or in any way disposed of except in
the old way. Maidens dream about it; diplomats yield to it; stolid men
are upset by it; the aged become young, the young grave, under its
influence; the student loses his appetite--God bless him! I like to hear
the young fellows at the club rattle on bravely, indifferent to the whole
thing--skeptical, in fact, about it. And then to see them, one after
another, stricken down, and looking a little sheepish and not saying
much, and by-and-by radiant. You would think they owned the world.
Heaven, I think, shows us no finer sarcasm than one of these young
skeptics as a meek family man.
Margaret and Mr. Lyon were much together.
And their talk, as always happens when two persons find themselves much
together, became more and more personal. It is only in books that
dialogues are abstract and impersonal. The Englishman told her about his
family, about the set in which he moved--and he had the English frankness
in setting it out unreservedly--about the life he led at Oxford, about
his travels, and so on to what he meant to do in the world. Margaret in
return had little to tell, her own life had been so simple--not much
except the maidenly reserves, the discontents with herself, which
interested him more than anything else; and of the future she would not
speak at all. How can a woman, without being misunderstood? All this talk
had a certain danger in it, for sympathy is unavoidable between two
persons who look ever so little into each other's hearts and compare
tastes and desires.
"I cannot quite understand your social life over here," Mr. Lyon was
saying one day. "You seem to make distinctions, but I cannot see exactly
for what."
"Perhaps they make themselves. Your social orders seem able to resist
Darwin's theory, but in a republic natural selection has a better
chance."
"I was told by a Bohemian on the steamer coming over that money in
America takes the place of rank in England."
"That isn't quite true."
"And I was told in Boston by an acquaintance of very old family and
little fortune that 'blood' is considered here as much as anywhere."
"You see, Mr. Lyon, how difficult it is to get correct information about
us. I think we worship wealth a good deal, and we worship family a good
deal, but if any one presumes too much upon either, he is likely to come
to grief. I don't understand it very well myself."
"Then it is not money that determines social position in America?"
"Not altogether; but more now than formerly. I suppose the distinction is
this: family will take a person everywhere, money will take him almost
everywhere; but money is always at this disadvantage--it takes more and
more of it to gain position. And then you will find that it is a good
deal a matter of locality. For instance, in Virginia and Kentucky family
is still very powerful, stronger than any distinction in letters or
politics or success in business; and there is a certain diminishing
number of people in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, who cultivate a good
deal of exclusiveness on account of descent."
"But I am told that this sort of aristocracy is succumbing to the new
plutocracy."
"Well, it is more and more difficult to maintain a position without
money. Mr. Morgan says that it is a disheartening thing to be an
aristocrat without luxury; he declares that he cannot tell whether the
Knickerbockers of New York or the plutocrats are more uneasy just now.
The one is hungry for social position, and is morose if he cannot buy it;
and when the other is seduced by luxury and yields, he finds that his
distinction is gone. For in his heart the newly rich only respects the
rich. A story went about of one of the Bonanza princes who had built his
palace in the city, and was sending out invitations to his first
entertainment. Somebody suggested doubts to him about the response. 'Oh,'
he said, 'the beggars will be glad enough to come!'"
"I suppose, Mr. Lyon," said Margaret, demurely, "that this sort of thing
is unknown in England?"
"Oh, I couldn't say that money is not run after there to some extent."
"I saw a picture in Punch of an auction, intended as an awful satire on
American women. It struck me that it might have two interpretations."
"Yes, Punch is as friendly to America as it is to the English
aristocracy."
"Well, I was only thinking that it is just an exchange of commodities.
People will always give what they have for what they want. The Western
man changes his pork in New York for pictures. I suppose that--what do
you call it?--the balance of trade is against us, and we have to send
over cash and beauty."
"I didn't know that Miss Debree was so much of a political economist."
"We got that out of books in school. Another thing we learned is that
England wants raw material; I thought I might as well say it, for it
wouldn't be polite for you."
"Oh, I'm capable of saying anything, if provoked. But we have got away
from the point. As far as I can see, all sorts of people intermarry, and
I don't see how you can discriminate socially--where the lines are."
Mr. Lyon saw the moment that he had made it that this was a suggestion
little likely to help him. And Margaret's reply showed that he had lost
ground.
"Oh, we do not try to discriminate--except as to foreigners. There is a
popular notion that Americans had better marry at home."
"Then the best way for a foreigner to break your exclusiveness is to be
naturalized." Mr. Lyon tried to adopt her tone, and added, "Would you
like to see me an American citizen?"
"I don't believe you could be, except for a little while; you are too
British."
"But the two nations are practically the same; that is, individuals of
the nations are. Don't you think so?"
"Yes, if one of them gives up all the habits and prejudices of a lifetime
and of a whole social condition to the other."
"And which would have to yield?"
"Oh, the man, of course. It has always been so. My
great-great-grandfather was a Frenchman, but he became, I have always
heard, the most docile American republican."
"Do you think he would have been the one to give in if they had gone to
France?"
"Perhaps not. And then the marriage would have been unhappy. Did you
never take notice that a woman's happiness, and consequently the
happiness of marriage, depends upon a woman's having her own way in all
social matters? Before our war all the men who married down South took
the Southern view, and all the Southern women who married up North held
their own, and sensibly controlled the sympathies of their husbands."
"And how was it with the Northern women who married South, as you say?"
"Well, it must be confessed that a good many of them adapted themselves,
in appearance at least. Women can do that, and never let anyone see they
are not happy and not doing it from choice."
"And don't you think American women adapt themselves happily to English
life?"
"Doubtless some; I doubt if many do; but women do not confess mistakes of
that kind. Woman's happiness depends so much upon the continuation of the
surroundings and sympathies in which she is bred. There are always
exceptions. Do you know, Mr. Lyon, it seems to me that some people do not
belong in the country where they were born. We have men who ought to have
been born in England, and who only find themselves really they go there.
There are who are ambitious, and court a career different from any that a
republic can give them. They are not satisfied here. Whether they are
happy there I do not know; so few trees, when at all grown, will bear
transplanting."
"Then you think international marriages are a mistake?"
"Oh, I don't theorize on subjects I am ignorant of."
"You give me very cold comfort."
"I didn't know," said Margaret, with a laugh that was too genuine to be
consoling, "that you were traveling for comfort; I thought it was for
information."
"And I am getting a great deal," said Mr. Lyon, rather ruefully. "I'm
trying to find out where. I ought to have been born."
"I'm not sure," Margaret said, half seriously, "but you would have been a
very good American."
This was not much of an admission, after all, but it was the most that
Margaret had ever made, and Mr. Lyon tried to get some encouragement out
of it. But he felt, as any man would feel, that this beating about the
bush, this talk of nationality and all that, was nonsense; that if a
woman loved a man she wouldn't care where he was born; that all the world
would be as nothing to him; that all conditions and obstacles society and
family could raise would melt away in the glow of a real passion. And he
wondered for a moment if American girls were not "calculating"--a word to
which he had learned over here to attach a new and comical meaning.
V
The afternoon after this conversation Miss Forsythe was sitting reading
in her favorite window-seat when Mr. Lyon was announced. Margaret was at
her school. There was nothing un usual in this afternoon call; Mr. Lyon's
visits had become frequent and informal; but Miss Forsythe had a nervous
presentiment that something important was to happen, that showed itself
in her greeting, and which was perhaps caught from a certain new
diffidence in his manner.
Perhaps the maiden lady preserves more than any other this sensitiveness,
inborn in women, to the approach of the critical moment in the affairs of
the heart. The day may some time be past when she--is sensitive for
herself--philosophers say otherwise--but she is easily put in a flutter
by the affair of another. Perhaps this is because the negative (as we say
in these days) which takes impressions retains all its delicacy from the
fact that none of them have ever been developed, and perhaps it is a wise
provision of nature that age in a heart unsatisfied should awaken lively
apprehensive curiosity and sympathy about the manifestation of the tender
passion in others. It certainly is a note of the kindliness and charity
of the maiden mind that its sympathies are so apt to be most strongly
excited in the success of the wooer. This interest may be quite separable
from the common feminine desire to make a match whenever there is the
least chance of it. Miss Forsythe was not a match-maker, but Margaret
herself would not have been more embarrassed than she was at the
beginning of this interview.
When Mr. Lyon was seated she made the book she had in her hand the excuse
for beginning a talk about the confidence young novelists seem to have in
their ability to upset the Christian religion by a fictitious
representation of life, but her visitor was too preoccupied to join in
it. He rose and stood leaning his arm upon the mantel-piece, and looking
into the fire, and said, abruptly, at last:
"I called to see you, Miss Forsythe, to--to consult you about your
niece."
"About her career?" asked Miss Forsythe, with a nervous consciousness of
falsehood.
"Yes, about her career; that is, in a way," turning towards her with a
little smile.
"Yes?"
"You must have seen my interest in her. You must have known why I stayed
on and on. But it was, it is, all so uncertain. I wanted to ask your
permission to speak my mind to her."
"Are you quite sure you know your own mind?" asked Miss Forsythe,
defensively.
"Sure--sure; I have never had the feeling for any other woman I have for
her."
"Margaret is a noble girl; she is very independent," suggested Miss
Forsythe, still avoiding the point.
"I know. I don't ask you her feeling." Mr. Lyon was standing quietly
looking down into the coals. "She is the only woman in the world to me. I
love her. Are you against me?" he asked, suddenly looking up, with a
flush in his face.
"Oh, no! no!" exclaimed Miss Forsythe, with another access of timidity.
"I shouldn't take the responsibility of being against you, or--or
otherwise. It is very manly in you to come to me, and I am sure I--we all
wish nothing but your own happiness. And so far as I am concerned--"
"Then I have your permission?" he asked, eagerly.
"My permission, Mr. Lyon? why, it is so new to me, I scarcely realized
that I had any permission," she said, with a little attempt at
pleasantry. "But as her aunt--and guardian, as one may say--personally I
should have the greatest satisfaction to know that Margaret's destiny was
in the hands of one we all esteem and know as we do you."
"Thank you, thank you," said Mr. Lyon, coming forward and seizing her
hand.
"But you must let me say, let me suggest, that there are a great many
things to be thought of. There is such a difference in education, in all
the habits of your lives, in all your relations. Margaret would never be
happy in a position where less was accorded to her than she had all her
life. Nor would her pride let her take such a position."
"But as my wife--"
"Yes, I know that is sufficient in your mind. Have you consulted your
mother, Mr. Lyon?"
"Not yet."
"And have you written to any one at home about my niece?"
"Not yet."
"And does it seem a little difficult to do so?" This was a probe that
went even deeper than the questioner knew. Mr. Lyon hesitated, seeing
again as in a vision the astonishment of his family. He was conscious of
an attempt at self-deception when he replied:
"Not difficult, not at all difficult, but I thought I would wait till I
had something definite to say."
"Margaret is, of course, perfectly free to act for herself. She has a
very ardent nature, but at the same time a great deal of what we call
common sense. Though her heart might be very much engaged, she would
hesitate to put herself in any society which thought itself superior to
her. You see I speak with great frankness."
It was a new position for Mr. Lyon to find his prospective rank seemingly
an obstacle to anything he desired. For a moment the whimsicality of it
interrupted the current of his feeling. He thought of the probable
comments of the men of his London club upon the drift his conversation
was taking with a New England spinster about his fitness to marry a
school-teacher. With a smile that was summoned to hide his annoyance, he
said, "I don't see how I can defend myself, Miss Forsythe."
"Oh," she replied, with an answering smile that recognized his view of
the humor of the situation, "I was not thinking of you, Mr. Lyon, but of
the family and the society that my niece might enter, to which rank is of
the first importance."
"I am simply John Lyon, Miss Forsythe. I may never be anything else. But
if it were otherwise, I did not suppose that Americans objected to rank."
It was an unfortunate speech, felt to be so the instant it was uttered.
Miss Forsythe's pride was touched, and the remark was not softened to her
by the, air of half banter with which the sentence concluded. She said,
with a little stillness and formality: "I fear, Mr. Lyon, that your
sarcasm is too well merited. But there are Americans who make a
distinction between rank and blood. Perhaps it is very undemocratic, but
there is nowhere else more pride of family, of honorable descent, than
here. We think very much of what we call good blood. And you will pardon
me for saying that we are accustomed to speak of some persons and
families abroad which have the highest rank as being thoroughly bad
blood. If I am not mistaken, you also recognize the historic fact of
ignoble blood in the owners of noble titles. I only mean, Mr. Lyon," she
added, with a softening of manner, "that all Americans do not think that
rank covers a multitude of sins."
"Yes, I think I get your American point of view. But to return to myself,
if you will allow me; if I am so fortunate as to win Miss Debree's love,
I have no fear that she would not win the hearts of all my family. Do you
think that my--my prospective position would be an objection to her?"
"Not your position, no; if her heart were engaged. But expatriation,
involving a surrender of all the habits and traditions and associations
of a lifetime and of one's kindred, is a serious affair. One would need
to be very much in love"--and Miss Forsythe blushed a little as she said
it--"to make such a surrender."
"I know. I am sure I love her too much to wish to bring any change in her
life that would ever cause her unhappiness."
"I am glad to feel sure of that."
"And so I have your permission?"
"Most sincerely," said Miss Forsythe, rising and giving him her hand. "I
could wish nothing better for Margaret than union with a man like you.
But whatever I wish, you two have your destiny in your own hands." Her
tone was wholly frank and cordial, but there was a wistful look in her
face, as of one who knew how roughly life handles all youthful
enthusiasms.
When John Lyon walked away from her door his feelings were very much
mixed. At one instant his pride rebelled against the attitude he had just
assumed. But this was only a flash, which he put away as unbecoming a man
towards a true woman. The next thought was one of unselfish consideration
for Margaret herself. He would not subject her to any chance of social
mortifications. He would wait. He would return home and test his love by
renewing his lifelong associations, and by the reception his family would
give to his proposal. And the next moment he saw Margaret as she had
become to him, as she must always be to him. Should he risk the loss of
her by timidity? What were all these paltry considerations to his love?
Was there ever a young man who could see any reasons against the
possession of the woman he loved? Was there ever any love worth the name
that could be controlled by calculations of expediency? I have no doubt
that John Lyon went through the usual process which is called weighing a
thing in the mind. It is generally an amusing process, and it is
consoling to the conscience. The mind has little to do with it except to
furnish the platform on which the scales are set up. A humorist says that
he must have a great deal of mind, it takes him so long to make it up.
There is the same apparent deliberation where love is concerned.
Everything "contra" is carefully placed in one scale of the balance, and
it is always satisfactory and convincing to see how quickly it kicks the
beam when love is placed in the other scale. The lightest love in the
world, under a law as invariable as gravitation, is heavier than any
other known consideration. It is perhaps doing injustice to Mr. Lyon not
to dwell upon this struggle in his mind, and to say that in all honesty
he may not have known that the result of it was predetermined. But
interesting and commendable as are these processes of the mind, I confess
that I should have respected him less if the result had not been
predetermined. And this does not in any way take from him the merit of a
restless night and a tasteless breakfast.
Philosophizers on this topic say that a man ought always to be able to
tell by a woman's demeanor towards him whether she is favorably inclined,
and that he need run no risk. Little signs, the eyes alone, draw people
together, and make formal language superfluous. This theory is abundantly
sustained by examples, and we might rest on it if all women knew their
own minds, and if, on the other hand, they could always tell whether a
man was serious before he made a definite avowal. There is another
notion, fortunately not yet extinct, that the manliest thing a man can do
is to take his life in his hand, pay the woman he loves the highest
tribute in his power by offering her his heart and name, and giving her
the definite word that may be the touchstone to reveal to herself her own
feeling. In our conventional life women must move behind a mask in a
world of uncertainties. What wonder that many of them learn in their
defensive position to play a game, and sometimes experiment upon the
honest natures of their admirers! But even this does not absolve the
chivalrous man from the duty of frankness and explicitness. Life seems
ideal in that far country where the handsome youth stops his carriage at
the gate of the vineyard, and says to the laughing girl carrying a basket
of grapes on her head, "My pretty maid, will you marry me?" And the
pretty maid, dropping a courtesy, says, "Thank you, sir; I am already
bespoken," or "Thank you; I will consider of it when I know you better."
Not for a moment, I suppose, is a woman ever ignorant of a man's
admiration of her, however uncertain she may be of his intentions, and it
was with an unusual flutter of the heart that Margaret received Mr. Lyon
that afternoon. If she had doubts, they were dissipated by a certain
constraint in his manner, and the importance he seemed to be attaching to
his departure, and she was warned to go within her defenses. Even the
most complaisant women like at least the appearance of a siege.
"I'm off tomorrow," he said, "for Washington. You know you recommended it
as necessary to my American education."
"Yes. We send Representatives and strangers there to be educated. I have
never been there myself."
"And do you not wish to go?"
"Very much. All Americans want to go to Washington. It is the great
social opportunity; everybody there is in society. You will be able to
see there, Mr. Lyon, how a republican democracy manages social life.
"Do you mean to say there are no distinctions?"
"Oh, no; there are plenty of official distinctions, and a code that is
very curious and complicated, I believe. But still society is open."
"It must be--pardon me--a good deal like a mob."
"Well, our mobs of that sort are said to be very well behaved. Mr. Morgan
says that Washington is the only capital in the world where the principle
of natural selection applies to society; that it is there shown for the
first time that society is able to take care of itself in the free play
of democratic opportunities."
"It must be very interesting to see that."
"I hope you will find it so. The resident diplomats, I have heard, say
that they find society there more agreeable than at any other capital--at
least those who have the qualities to make themselves agreeable
independent of their rank."
"Is there nothing like a court? I cannot see who sets the mode."
"Officially there may be something like a court, but it can be only
temporary, for the personnel of it is dissolved every four years. And
society, always forming and reforming, as the voters of the republic
dictate, is almost independent of the Government, and has nothing of the
social caste of Berlin or London."
"You make quite an ideal picture."
"Oh, I dare say it is not at all ideal; only it is rather fluid, and
interesting, to see how society, without caste and subject to such
constant change, can still be what is called 'society.' And I am told
that while it is all open in a certain way, it nevertheless selects
itself into agreeable groups, much as society does elsewhere. Yes, you
ought to see what a democracy can do in this way."
"But I am told that money makes your aristocracy here."
"Very likely rich people think they are an aristocracy. You see, Mr.
Lyon, I don't know much about the great world. Mrs. Fletcher, whose late
husband was once a Representative in Washington, says that life is not
nearly so simple there as it used to be, and that rich men in the
Government, vying with rich men who have built fine houses and who live
there permanently without any Government position, have introduced an
element of expense and display that interferes very much with the natural
selection of which Mr. Morgan speaks. But you will see. We are all right
sorry to have you leave us," Margaret added, turning towards him with
frank, unclouded eyes.
"It is very good in you to say so. I have spent here the most delightful
days of my life."
"Oh, that is charming flattery. You will make us all very conceited."
"Don't mock me, Miss Debree. I hoped I had awakened something more
valuable to me than conceit," Lyon said, with a smile.
"You have, I assure you: gratitude. You have opened quite another world
to us. Reading about foreign life does not give one at all the same
impression of it that seeing one who is a part of it does."
"And don't you want to see that life for yourself? I hope some time--"
"Of course," Margaret said, interrupting; "all Americans expect to go to
Europe. I have a friend who says she should be mortified if she reached
heaven and there had to confess that she never had seen Europe. It is one
of the things that is expected of a person. Though you know now that the
embarrassing question that everybody has to answer is, 'Have you been to
Alaska?' Have you been to Alaska, Mr. Lyon?"
This icy suggestion seemed very inopportune to Lyon. He rose and walked a
step or two, and stood by the fire facing her. He confessed, looking
down, that he had not been in Alaska, and he had no desire to go there.
"In fact, Miss Debree," he said, with effort at speaking lightly, "I fear
I am not in a geographical mood today. I came to say good-by, and--and--"
"Shall I call my aunt?" said Margaret, rising also.
"No, I beg; I had something to say that concerns us; that is, that
concerns myself. I couldn't go away without knowing from you--that is,
without telling you--"
The color rose in Margaret's cheek, and she made a movement of
embarrassment, and said, with haste: "Some other time; I beg you will not
say--I trust that I have done nothing that--"
"Nothing, nothing," he went on quickly; "nothing except to be yourself;
to be the one woman"--he would not heed her hand raised in a gesture of
protest; he stood nearer her now, his face flushed and his eyes eager
with determination--"the one woman I care for. Margaret, Miss Debree, I
love you!"
Her hand that rested on the table trembled, and the hot blood rushed to
her face, flooding her in an agony of shame, pleasure, embarrassment, and
anger that her face should contradict the want of tenderness in her eyes.
In an instant self-possession came back to her mind, but not strength to
her body, and she sank into the chair, and looking up, with only pity in
her eyes, said, "I am sorry."
Lyon stopped; his heart seemed to stand still; the blood left his face;
for an instant the sunshine left the world. It was a terrible blow, the
worst a man can receive--a bludgeon on the head is nothing to it. He half
turned, he looked again for an instant at the form that was more to him
than all the world besides, unable to face the dreadful loss, and
recovering speech, falteringly said, "Is that all?"
"That is all, Mr. Lyon," Margaret answered, not looking up, and in a
voice that was perfectly steady.
He turned to go mechanically, and passed to the door in a sort of daze,
forgetful of all conventionality; but habit is strong, and he turned
almost immediately back from the passage. Margaret was still sitting,
with no recognition of his departure.
"I beg you will make my excuses, and say good-by to Miss Forsythe. I had
mentioned it to her. I thought perhaps she had told you, perhaps--I
should like to know if it is anything about difference in--in
nationality, about family, or--"
"No, no," said Margaret; "this could never be anything but a personal
question with me. I--"
"But you said, 'some other time:' Might I ever expect--"
"No, no; there is no other time; do not go on. It can only be painful."
And then, with a forced cheerfulness: "You will no doubt thank me some
day. Your life must be so different from mine. And you must not doubt my
esteem, my appreciation," (her sense of justice forced this from her),
"my good wishes. Good-by." She gave him her hand. He held it for a
second, and then was gone.
She heard his footstep, rapid and receding. So he had really gone! She
was not sorry--no. If she could have loved him! She sank back in her
chair.
No, she could not love him. The man to command her heart must be of
another type. But the greatest experience in a woman's life had come to
her here, just now, in this commonplace room. A man had said he loved
her. A thousand times as a girl she had dreamed of that, hardly
confessing it to herself, and thought of such a scene, and feared it. And
a man had said that he loved her. Her eyes grew tenderer and her face
burned at the thought. Was it with pleasure? Yes, and with womanly pain.
What an awful thing it was! Why couldn't he have seen? A man had said he
loved her. Perhaps it was not in her to love any one. Perhaps she should
live on and on like her aunt Forsythe. Well, it was over; and Margaret
roused herself as her aunt entered the room.
"Has Mr. Lyon been here?"
"Yes; he has just gone. He was so sorry not to see you and say good-by.
He left ever so many messages for you."
"And" (Margaret was moving as if to go) "did he say nothing--nothing to
you?"
"Oh yes, he said a great deal," answered this accomplished hypocrite,
looking frankly in her aunt's eyes. "He said how delightful his visit had
been, and how sorry he was to go."
"And nothing else, Margaret?"
"Oh yes; he said he was going to Washington." And the girl was gone from
the room.