AND IS GRANTED A YEAR OF GRACE
"And so all your privations and hardships went for nothing," said
Mildred Wayland, when Boyd had recounted the history of his pilgrimage
into the North.
"Yes," he replied; "as a miner, I am a very wretched failure."
She shrugged her shoulders in disapproval.
"Don't use that term!" she cried. "There is no word so hateful to me as
'failure'--I suppose, because father has never failed in anything. Let
us say that your success has been delayed."
"Very well. That suits me better, also, but you see I've forgotten how
to choose nice words."
They were seated in the library, where for two hours they had remained
undisturbed, Emerson talking rapidly, almost incoherently, as if this
were a sort of confessional, the girl hanging eagerly upon his every
word, following his narrative with breathless interest. The story had
been substantially the same as that which, once before, he had related
to Cherry Malotte; but now the facts were deeply, intimately colored
with all the young man's natural enthusiasm and inmost personal
feeling. To his listener it was like some wonderful, far-off romance,
having to do with strange people whose motives she could scarcely grasp
and pitched amid wild scenes that she could not fully picture.
"And you did all that for me," she mused, after a time.
"It was the only way."
"I wonder if any other man I know would take those risks just for--me."
"Of course. Why, the risk, I mean the physical peril and hardship and
discomfort, don't amount to--that." He snapped his fingers. "It was
only the unending desolation that hurt; it was the separation from you
that punished me--the thought that some luckier fellow might--"
"Nonsense!" Mildred was really indignant. "I told you to fix your own
time and I promised to wait. Even if I had not--cared for you, I would
have kept my word. That is a Wayland principle. As it is, it
was--comparatively easy."
"Then you do love me, my Lady?" He leaned eagerly toward her.
"Do you need to ask?" she whispered from the shelter of his arms. "It
is the same old fascination of our girl and boy days. Do you remember
how completely I lost my head about you?" She laughed softly. "I used
to think you wore a football suit better than anybody in the world!
Sometimes I suspect that it is merely that same girlish hero-worship
and can't last. But it _has_ lasted--so far. Three years is a long time
for a girl like me to wait, isn't it?"
"I know! I know!" he returned, jealously. "But I have lived that time
with nothing but a memory, while you have had other things to occupy
you. You are flattered and courted by men, scores of men--"
"Oh!"
"Legions of men! Oh, I know. Haven't I devoured society columns by the
yard? The papers were six months old, to be sure, when I got them, but
every mention of you was like a knife stab to me. Jealousy drove me to
memorize the name of every man with whom you were seen in public, and I
called down all sorts of curses upon their heads. I used to torture my
lonely soul with hideous pictures of you--"
"Hideous pictures of me?" The girl perked her head to one side and
glanced at him bewitchingly, "You're very flattering!"
"Yes, pictures of you with a caravan of suitors at your heels."
"You foolish boy! Suitors don't come in caravans they come in cabs."
"Well, my simile isn't far wrong in other respects," he replied, with a
flash of her spirit. "But anyhow I pictured you surrounded by all the
beautiful things of your life here, forever in the scent of flowers, in
the lights of drawing-rooms, in the soft music of hidden instruments.
God! how I tortured myself! You were never out of mind for an hour. My
days were given to you, and I used to pray that my dreams might hold
nothing but you. You have been my fetish from the first day I met you,
and my worship has grown blinder every hour, Mildred. You were always
out of my reach, but I have kept my eyes raised toward you just the
same, and I have never looked aside, never faltered." He paused to
feast his eyes upon her, and then in a half-whisper finished, "Oh, my
Lady, how beautiful you are!"
And indeed she was; for her face, ordinarily so imperious, was now
softly alight; her eyes, which other men found cold, were kindled with
a rare warmth of understanding; her smile was almost wistfully sweet.
To her lover she seemed to bend beneath the burden of her brown hair,
yet her slim figure had the strength and poise which come of fine
physical inheritance and high spirit. Every gesture, every unstudied
attitude, revealed the grace of the well born woman.
It was this "air" of hers, in fact, which had originally attracted him.
He recalled how excited he had been in that far-away time when he had
first learned her identity--for the name of Wayland was spoken
soundingly in the middle West. In the early stages of their
acquaintance he had looked upon her aloofness as an affectation, but a
close intimacy had compelled a recognition of it as something wholly
natural; he found her as truly a patrician as Wayne Wayland, her
father, could wish. The old man's domain was greater than that of many
princes, and his power more absolute. His only daughter he spoiled as
thoroughly as he ruled his part of the financial world, and wilful
Mildred, once she had taken an interest in the young college man so
evidently ready to be numbered among her lovers, did not pause half
way, but made her preference patent to all, and opened to him a realm
of dazzling possibilities. He well remembered the perplexities of those
first delirious days when her regard was beginning to make itself
apparent. She was so different, so wonderfully far removed from all he
knew, that he doubted his own senses.
His friends, indeed, lost no opportunity of informing him that he was a
tremendously favored young man, but this phase of the affair had caused
him little thought, simply because the girl herself had come so swiftly
to overshadow, in his regard, every other consideration--even her own
wealth and position. At the same time he could not but be aware that
his standing in his little world was subtly altered as soon as he
became known as the favored suitor of Wayne Wayland's daughter. He
began to receive favors from comparative strangers; unexpected social
privileges were granted him; his way was made easier in a hundred
particulars. From every quarter delicately gratifying distinctions came
to him. Without his volition he found that he had risen to an entirely
different position from that which he had formerly occupied; the mere
coupling of his name with Mildred Wayland's had lifted him into a
calcium glare. It affected him not at all, he only knew that he was
truly enslaved to the girl, that he idolized her, that he regarded her
as something priceless, sacred. She, in turn, frankly capitulated to
him, in proud disregard of what her world might say, as complete in her
surrender to this new lover as she had been inaccessible in her reserve
toward all the rest.
And when he had graduated, how proud of her he had been! How little he
had realized the gulf that separated them, and how quick had been his
awakening!
It was Wayne Wayland who had shown him his folly. He had talked to the
young engineer kindly, if firmly, being too shrewd an old diplomat to
fan the flame of a headstrong love with vigorous opposition.
"Mildred is a rich girl," the old financier had told Boyd, "a very rich
girl; one of the richest girls in this part of the world; while you, my
boy--what have you to offer?"
"Nothing! But you were not always what you are now," Emerson had
replied. "Every man has to make a start. When you married, you were as
poor as I am."
"Granted! But I married a poor girl, from my own station in life.
Fortunately she had the latent power to develop with me as I grew; so
that we kept even and I never outdistanced her. But Mildred is spoiled
to begin with. I spoiled her purposely, to prevent just this sort of
thing. She is bred to luxury, her friends are rich, and she doesn't
know any other kind of life. Her tastes and habits and inclinations are
extravagant, to put it plainly--yes, worse than extravagant; they are
positively scandalous. She is about the richest girl in the country,
and by virtue of wealth as well as breeding she is one of the American
aristocracy. Oh! people may say what they please, but we have an
aristocracy all the same which is just as well marked and just as
exclusive as if it rested upon birth instead of bank accounts."
"You wouldn't object to our marriage if I were rich and Mildred were
poor," Emerson had said, rather cynically.
"Perhaps not. A poor girl can marry a rich man and get along all right
if she has brains; but a very rich girl can't marry a very poor man and
be happy unless she is peculiarly constituted. I happen to know that my
girl isn't so constituted. She is utterly impossible as a poor man's
wife. She can't _do_ anything: she can't economize, she can't amuse
herself, she can't be happy without the things she is accustomed to; it
is in her blood and training and disposition. She would try, bless you!
she would try all right--for a while--but I know her better than she
knows herself. You see, I have the advantage of knowing myself and of
having known her mother before her. She is a hothouse flower, and
adversity would wither her. Mind you, I don't say that her husband must
be a millionaire, but he will need a running start on the road to make
her happy, and--well, the fellow who gets my girl will make her happy
or I'll make him damned miserable!" The old fellow had squared his jaws
belligerently at this statement.
"You have nothing against me--personally, I mean?"
"Nothing."
"She loves me."
"She seems to. But both of you are young and may get over it before you
reach the last hurdle."
"Then you forbid it?" Boyd had queried, his own glance challenging that
of her father.
"By no means. I neither forbid nor consent. I merely ask you to stand
still and use your eyes for a little while. You have intelligence.
Don't be hasty. I am going to tell her just what I have told you, and I
think she is sensible enough to realize the truth of my remarks. No!
instead of forbidding you Mildred's society, I am going to give you all
you want of it. I am going to make you free at our house. I am going to
see that you meet her friends and go where she goes. I want you to do
the things that she does and see how she lives. The more you see of us,
the better it will suit me. I have been studying you for some time, Mr.
Emerson, and I think I have read you correctly. After you have spent a
few months with us, come to me again and we will talk it over. I may
say yes by that time, or you may not wish me to. Perhaps Mildred will
decide for both of us."
"That is satisfactory to me."
"Very well! We dine at seven to-night; and we shall expect you."
That Mr. Wayland had made no mistake in his judgment, Emerson had soon
been forced to admit; for the more he saw of Mildred's life, the more
plainly he perceived the barriers that lay between them. Those months
had been an education to him. He had become an integral part of
Chicago's richer social world. The younger set had accepted him readily
enough on the score of his natural good parts, while the name of Wayne
Wayland had acted like magic upon the elders. Yet it had been a cruel
time of probation for the young lover, who continually felt the
searching eyes of the old man reading him; and despite the fact that
Mildred took no pains to conceal her preference for him, there had been
no lack of other suitors, all of whom Boyd hated with a perfect hate.
They had never discussed the matter, yet both the lovers had been
conscious that the old man's words were pregnant with truth, and after
a few months, during which Emerson had made little progress in his
profession, Mildred had gone to her father and frankly begged his aid.
But he had remained like adamant.
"I have been pretty lenient so far. He will have to make his own way
without my help. You know he isn't my candidate."
Recognizing the despair which was possessing her lover, and jealous for
her own happiness, Mildred had arranged that both of them, together,
should have a talk with her father. The result had been the same. Mr.
Wayland listened grimly, then said:
"This request for assistance shows that both of you are beginning to
realize the wisdom of my remarks of a year ago."
"I'm not asking aid from you," Emerson had blazed forth. "I can take
care of myself and of Mildred."
"Permit me to show you that you can't. Your life and training have not
fitted you for the position of Mildred's husband. Have you any idea how
many millions she is going to own?"
"No, and I don't care to know."
"I don't care to tell you either, but the Wayland fortune will carry
such a tremendous responsibility with it that my successor will have to
be a stronger man than I am to hold it together. I merely gathered it;
he must keep it. You haven't qualified in either respect yet."
Mildred had interrupted petulantly. "Oh, this endless chatter of money!
It is disgusting. I only wish we were poor. Instead of a blessing, our
wealth is an unmitigated curse--a terrible, exhausting burden. I hear
of nothing else from morning till night. It gives us no pleasure,
nothing but care and worry and--wrinkles. I can do without horses and
motors and maids, and all that. I want to live, really to _live_." She
had arisen and gone over to Boyd, laying her hand upon his shoulder. "I
will give it all up. Let us try to be happy without it."
It had been a tense moment for both men. Their eyes had met defiantly,
but, reading in the father's face the contempt that waited upon an
unmanly decision, Boyd's pride stood up stiffly.
"No," he replied, "I can't let you do that. Not yet, anyhow. Mr.
Wayland is right, in a way. If he had not been so decent I would have
married you anyhow, but I am indebted to him. He has shown me a lot
more of your life than I knew before, and he has made his word good. I
am going to ask you to wait, however; for quite a while, it may be. I
am going to take a gambler's chance."
"What is it?"
"A gold strike has been made in Alaska--"
"Alaska!"
"Yes! The Klondike. You have read of it? I am told that the chances
there are like those in the days of '49, and I am going."
So it was that he had made his choice, fixing his own time for
returning, and so it was that Mildred Wayland had awaited him.
If to-day, after three years of deprivation, she seemed to him more
beautiful than ever--the interval having served merely to enhance her
charm and strengthen the yearning of his heart--she seemed in the same
view still further removed from his sphere. More reserved, more
dignified, in the reserve of developed womanhood, her cession was the
more gracious and wonderful.
His story finished, Boyd went on to tell her vaguely of his future
plans, and at the last he asked her, with something less than an
accepted lover's confidence:
"Will you wait another year?"
She laughed lightly. "You dear boy, I am not up for auction. This is
not the 'third and last call.' I am not sure I could induce anybody to
take me, even if I desired."
"I read the rumor of your engagement in a back number of a San
Francisco paper. Is your retinue as large as ever?"
She smiled indifferently. "It alters with the season, but I believe the
general average is about the same. You know most of them." She
mentioned a number of names, counting them off on her finger-tips.
"Then, of course, there are the old standbys, Mr. Macklin, Tommy
Turner, the Lawton boys--"
"And Alton Clyde!"
"To be sure; little Alton, like the brook, runs on forever. He still
worships you, Boyd, by the way."
"And there are others?"
"A few."
"Who?"
"Nobody you know."
"Any one in particular?" Boyd demanded, with a lover's insistence.
Miss Wayland's hesitation was so brief as almost to escape his notice.
"Nobody who counts. Of course, father has his predilections and insists
upon engineering my affairs in the same way he would float a railroad
enterprise, but you can imagine how romantic the result is."
"Who is the favored party?" the young man asked, darkly. But she arose
to push back the heavy draperies and gaze for a moment out into the
deepening twilight. When she answered, it was in a tone of ordinary
indifference.
"Really it isn't worth discussing. I shall not marry until I am ready,
and the subject bores me." An instant later she turned to regard him
with direct eyes.
"Do you remember when I offered to give it all up and go with you,
Boyd?"
"I have never forgotten for an instant,"
"You refused to allow it."
"Certainly! I had seen too much of your life, and my pride figured a
bit, also."
"Do you still feel the same way?" Her eyes searched his face rather
anxiously.
"I do! It is even more impossible now than then. I am utterly out of
touch with this environment. My work will take me back where you could
not go--into a land you would dislike, among a people you could not
understand. No; we did quite the sensible thing."
She sighed gratefully and settled upon the window-seat, her back to the
light. "I am glad you feel that way. I--I--think I am growing more
sensible too. I have begun to understand how practical father was, and
how ridiculous I was. Perhaps I am not so impulsive--you see, I am
years older now--perhaps I am more selfish. I don't know which it is
and--I can't express my feelings, but I have had sufficient time since
you went away to think and to look into my own soul. Really I have
become quite introspective. Of course, my feeling for you is just the
same as it was, dear, but I--I can't--" She waved a graceful hand to
indicate her surroundings. "Well, this is my world, and I am a part of
it. You understand, don't you? The thought of giving it up makes me
really afraid. I don't like rough things." She shook herself and gave
voice to a delicious, bubbling little laugh. "I am frightfully
spoiled." Emerson drew her to him tenderly.
"My darling, I understand perfectly, and I love you too well to take
you away from it all; but you will wait for me, won't you?"
"Of course," she replied, quickly. "As long as you wish."
"But I am going to have you!" he cried, insistently. "You are going to
be my wife," He repeated the words softly, reverently: "My wife."
She gazed up at him with a puzzled little frown. "What bothers me is
that you understand me and my life so well, while I scarcely understand
you or yours at all. That seems to tell me that I am unsuited to you in
some way. Why, when you told me that story of your hardships and all
that, I listened as if it were a play or a book, but really it didn't
_mean_ anything to me or stir me as it should. I can't understand my
own failure to understand. That awful country, those barbarous people,
the suffering, the cold, the snow, the angry sea; I don't grasp what
they mean. I was never cold, or hungry, or exhausted. I--well, it is
fascinating to hear about, because you went through it, but _why_ you
did it, how you _felt_"--she made a gesture as if at a loss for words.
"Do you see what I am trying to convey?"
"Perfectly," he answered, releasing her with a little unadmitted sense
of disappointment at his heart. "I suppose it is only natural."
"I do hope you succeed this time," she continued. "I am growing deadly
tired of things. Not tired of waiting for you, but I am getting to be
old; I am, indeed. Why, at times I actually have an inclination to do
fancy-work--the unfailing symptom. Do you realize that I am
_twenty-five years old!_"
"Age of decrepitude! And more glorious than any woman in the world!" he
cried.
There was a click outside the library door, and the room, which
unnoticed by them had become nearly dark, was suddenly flooded with
light. The portieres parted, and Wayne Wayland stood in the opening.
"Ah, here you are, my boy! Hawkins told me you had returned."
He advanced to shake the young man's hand, his demeanor gracious and
hearty. "Welcome home. You have been having quite a vacation, haven't
you? Let's see, it's two years, isn't it?"
"Three years!" Emerson replied.
"Impossible! Dear, dear, how time flies when one is busy."
"Boyd has been telling me of his adventures," said Mildred. "He is
going to dine with us."
"Indeed." Mr. Wayland displayed no great degree of enthusiasm. "And
have you returned, like Pizarro, laden with all the gold of the Incas?
Or did Pizarro return? It seems to me that he settled somewhere on the
Coast." The old man laughed at his own conceit.
"I judge Pizarro was a better miner than I," Boyd smiled. "There were
plenty of Esquimau princes whom I might have held for ransom, but if I
had done so, all the rest of the tribe would have come to board with
them."
"Have you come home to stay?"
"No, sir; I shall return in a few weeks."
Mr. Wayland's cordiality seemed to increase in some subtle manner.
"Well, I am sorry you didn't make a fortune, my boy. But, rich or poor,
your friends are delighted to see you, and we shall certainly keep you
for dinner. I am interested in that Northwestern country myself, and I
want to ask some questions about it."