All turned expectantly toward the door, pausing in their several
occupations; even Warner's eyes were raised from his book, although his
attention was involuntary and grudging. The attitude of the little
circle attested the influence which the coming man wielded over every
member of it; an influence which extended insensibly to every one with
whom Nesbit Thorne's association was intimate. He was Mrs. Smith's
nephew, and much in the habit, whenever he was in New York, of making
her house his home--having none now of his own.
He was a slender, dark man, with magnificent dark eyes, which had a
power of expression so enthralling as to disarm, or defy, criticism of
the rest of his face. Not one man in fifty could tell whether Nesbit
Thorne was handsome, or the reverse--and for women--ah, well! they knew
best what they thought.
In his air, his carriage, his expression, was that which never fails to
attract and hold attention--force, vitality, individuality. He was
small, but tall men never dwarfed him; plain, but the world--his
world--turned from handsomer men with indifference, to heap
consideration upon him. To borrow the forceful vernacular of the
street, there was "something in him." There was no possibility of
viewing either him or his actions with indifference; of merging him in,
and numbering him with, the crowd.
There are men whose lives are intaglios, cut by the chisel of destiny
deep into the sard of their generations; every line and curve and
faintest tracing pregnant with interest, suggestion, and emotion. Men
who are loved and hated, feared, adored and loathed with an intensity
that their commonplace fellows are incapable of evoking. They are
loadstones which attract events; whirlpools which draw to themselves
excitement, emotion, and vast store of sympathy.
Some years previous to the opening of this story, Nesbit Thorne, then a
brilliant recent graduate of Harvard, a leader in society, and a man of
whom great things were predicted, whose name was in many mouths as that
of a man likely to achieve distinction in any path of life he should
select, made a hasty, ill-advised marriage with a Miss Ethel Ross, a
New York belle of surpassing beauty and acumen. A woman whose sole
thought was pleasure, whose highest conception of the good of life was
a constantly varied menu of social excitement, and whose noblest
reading of the word duty was compassed in having a well ordered house,
sumptuous entertainments, and irreproachable toilets. A wife to
satisfy any man who was unemotional, unexacting, and prepared to give
way to her in all things.
Nesbit Thorne, unfortunately, was none of these things, and so his
married life had come to grief. The first few months were smoothed and
gilded by his passionate enjoyment of her mere physical perfection, his
pleasure in the admiration she excited, and in the envy of other men.
Life's river glided smoothly, gayly in the sunshine; then ugly snags
began to appear, and reefs, fretting the surface of the water, and
hinting of sterner difficulties below; then a long stretch of tossing,
troubled water, growing more and more turbulent as it proceeded,
boiling and bubbling into angry whirlpools and sullen eddies. The boat
of married happiness was hard among the breakers, tossed from side to
side, the sport of every wind of passion; contesting hands were on the
tiller ropes. The craft yawed and jerked in its course, a spectacle
for men to weep over, and devils to rejoice in; ran aground on
quicksands, tore and tangled its cordage, rent the planking, and at the
end of a cruise of as many months as it should have lasted years, it
lay a hopeless wreck on the grim bar of separation.
The affair was managed gracefully, and with due deference to the
amenities. There was gossip, of course--there always is gossip--and
public opinion was many sided. Rumors circled around which played the
whole gamut from infidelity to bankruptcy; these lived their brief
span, and then gave place to other rumors, equally unfounded, and
therefore equally enjoyable. The only fact authenticated, was the fact
of separation, and the most lasting conclusion arrived at in regard to
the matter was that it had been managed very gracefully.
The divorce which seemed the natural outcome of this state of affairs,
and to which every one looked, as a matter of course, was delayed in
this instance. People wondered a little, and then remembered that the
Thornes were a Roman Catholic family, and concluded that the young man
had religious scruples. With Mrs. Thorne the matter was plain enough;
she had no reason, as yet, sufficiently strong to make her desire
absolute release, and far greater command over Thorne's income by
retaining her position as his wife.
When his domestic affairs had reached a crisis, Thorne had quietly
disappeared for a year, during which time people only knew that he was
enjoying his recovered freedom in distant and little frequented places.
There were rumors of him in Tartary, on the Niger, in Siberia. At the
expiration of the year he returned to New York, and resumed his old
place in society as though nothing untoward had occurred. He lived at
his club, and no man or woman ever saw him set foot within the
precincts of his own house. Occasionally he was seen to stop the nurse
in the park, and caress and speak to his little son. His life was that
of a single man. In the society they both frequented, he often
encountered his wife, and always behaved to her with scrupulous
politeness, even with marked courtesy. If he ever missed his home, or
experienced regret for his matrimonial failure, he kept the feeling
hidden, and presented to the world an unmoved front.
In default of nearer ties, he made himself at home in his aunt's house,
frequenting it as familiarly as he had done in the days before his
marriage. In his strong, almost passionate nature, there was one great
weakness; the love and admiration of women was a necessity to him. He
could no more help trying to make women love him, than the kingfisher
can help thrusting down his beak when the bright speckled sides of his
prey flash through the water. It was from neither cruelty nor vanity,
for Thorne had less of both traits than usually falls to the lot of
men; it was rather from the restlessness, the yearning of a strong
nature for that which it needed, but had not yet attained; the
experimental searching of a soul for its mate. That sorrow might come
to others in the search he scarcely heeded; was he to blame that fair
promises would bud and lead him on, and fail of fruition? To himself
he seemed rather to be pitied; their loss was balanced by his own.
Thorne had never loved as he was capable of loving; as yet the _ego_
was predominant.
As he entered the room, after an absence of weeks, with a smile and a
pleasant word of greeting, the younger members of the circle fell upon
him clamorously; full of themselves and their individual concerns.
Even Warner, in whose mind lurked a jealousy of his cousin's influence,
forgot it for the nonce, and was as eager to talk as the rest. Nesbit
found himself listening to a demand for advice, an appeal for sympathy,
and a paean of gratulation, before he had made his salutations, or
gotten himself into a chair.
"Hold on!" he cried, putting up his hand in protest. "Don't all talk
at once. I can't follow. What's the matter, Norma?"
His eye turned to his favorite involuntarily, and an almost
imperceptible brightening, a lifting of the clouds on that young lady's
horizon, began to take place. She answered his look, and (assisted by
the irrepressible Percival) unfolded to him the family plans. Thorne,
with good-humored enthusiasm, threw himself into the scheme, pronounced
it delightful, and proceeded to indulge in all manner of cheerful
prognostications. Percival was enchanted, and, establishing himself
close beside the arm of his cousin's chair, commenced a series of
vehement whispers, which lasted as long as the visit. Norma's brow
cleared more and more, and when Thorne declared his intention of paying
them a long visit during the hunting season, she allowed a smile to
wreathe her full crimson lips, and snubbed poor little Blanche
unmercifully for still daring to be lachrymose.
The talk grew momentarily merrier, and the mother listened, smiling;
her eyes, with a tender glow in them, fixed on Warner's face. The sick
boy was in raptures over the old house mossed over with history and
tradition, which would be his future home. Noting the eagerness of his
interest, her heart gave a sudden bound, hope took her by the hand, and
she dreamed dreams. There might come a reaction and improvement. At
times the intuition of an invalid was the voice of nature, crying out
for that which she needed. Warner's longing for this change might be
the precursor of his cure. Who could read the future?