To the New Yorker March is the vilest month of all the year. In the
South it is usually serene. Mrs. Metuchen, who gave herself the airs of
an invalid, and who possessed the invalid's dislike of vile weather, was
aware of this; and while the first false promises of February were being
protested she succeeded in persuading Miss Dunellen to accompany her out
of snow-drifts into the sun. It was Aiken that she chose as refuge; and
when the two ladies arrived there they felt satisfied that their choice
had been a proper one--a satisfaction which they did not share alone,
for a few days after their arrival Roland Mistrial arrived there too.
During the intervening weeks he had seemed idle; but it is the thinker's
characteristic to appear unoccupied when he is most busily engaged, and
Roland, outwardly inactive, had in reality made the most of his time.
On the morning succeeding the encounter with Thorold something kept
coming and whispering that he had undertaken a task which was beyond his
strength. To many of us night is apt to be more confident than are the
earlier hours of the day, and the courage which Roland had exhibited
spent itself and went. It is hard to feel the flutter of a bird beneath
one's fingers, and, just when the fingers tighten, to discover that the
bird is no longer there. Such a thing is disappointing, and the
peculiarity of a disappointment consists in this--the victim of it is
apt to question the validity of his own intuitions. Thus far--up to the
looming of Thorold--everything had been in Roland's favor. Without
appreciable effort he had achieved the impossible. In three days he had
run an heiress to earth, gained her father's liking, captivated her
chaperon, and, at the moment when the air was sentient with success,
the highway on which he strode became suddenly tortuous and obscure. Do
what he might he could not discern so much as a sign-post; and as in
perplexity he twirled his thumbs, little by little he understood that he
must either turn back and hunt another quarry, or stand where he was and
wait. Another step on that narrowing road and he might tumble into a
gully. Did he keep his word with Thorold he felt sure that Thorold would
keep his word with him. But did he break it, and Thorold learn he had
done so, several consequences were certain to ensue, and among them he
could hear from where he stood the bang with which Mr. Dunellen's door
would close. The only plank which drifted his way threatened to break
into bits. He needed no one to tell him that Justine was not a girl to
receive him or anyone else in the dark; and even fortune favoring, if in
chance meetings he were able to fan her spark of interest for him into
flame, those chance meetings would be mentioned by her to whomsoever
they might concern. No, that plank was rotten; and yet in considering
it, and in considering too the possibilities to which, were it a trifle
stronger, it might serve as bridge, he passed that morning, a number of
subsequent mornings. A month elapsed, and still he eyed that plank.
Meanwhile he had seen Miss Dunellen but once. She happened to be driving
up the Avenue, but he had passed her unobserved. Then the weather became
abominable, and he knew it was useless to look for her in the Park; and
once he had visited her father's office and learned again, what he
already knew, that in regard to the lost estate, eternity aiding,
something might be recovered, but that the chances were vague as was it.
And so February came and found his hunger unappeased. The alternate
course which had suggested itself came back, and he determined to turn
and hunt another quarry. During his sojourn abroad he had generally
managed a team of three. There was the gerundive, as he termed the
hindmost--the woman he was about to leave; there was another into whose
graces he had entered; and there was a third in training for future use.
This custom he had found most serviceable. Whatever might happen in less
regulated establishments, his stable was full. And that custom, which
had stood him in good stead abroad, had nothing in it to prevent
adoption here. Indeed, he told himself it was because of his negligence
in that particular that he found himself where he was. Instead of
centring his attention on Miss Dunellen, it would have been far better
to wander in and out of the glittering precincts of Fifth Avenue, and
see what else he could find. After all, there was nothing like being
properly provisioned. If one comestible ran short, there should be
another to take its place. Moreover, if, as Jones had intimated, there
were heiresses enough for export purposes, there must surely be enough
to supply the home demand.
The alternate course alluded to he had therefore determined to adopt,
when an incident occurred which materially altered his plans. One
particularly detestable morning he read in public print that Mrs.
Metuchen and Miss Dunellen were numbered among the visitors to South
Carolina, and thereupon he proceeded to pack his valise. A few days
later he was in Aiken, and on the forenoon of the third day succeeding
his arrival, as he strolled down the verandah of the Mountain Glen
Hotel, he felt at peace with the world and with himself.
It was a superb morning, half summer, half spring. In the distance a
forest stretched indefinitely and lost itself in the haze of the horizon
beyond. The sky was tenderly blue, and, beneath, a lawn green as the
baize on a roulette-table was circled by a bright-red road. He had
breakfasted infamously on food that might have been cooked by a butcher
to whom breakfast is an odious thing. Yet its iniquity he accepted as a
matter of course. He knew, as we all do, that for bad food, bad service,
and for futility of complaint our country hotels are unrivalled, even in
Spain. He was there not to enjoy himself, still less for the pleasures a
blue ribbon can cause: he was there to fan into flame the interest which
Miss Dunellen had exhibited; and as he strolled down the verandah, a
crop under his arm, his trousers strapped, he had no intention of
quarrelling with the fare. Quite a number of people were basking in the
sunlight, and, as he passed, some of them turned and looked; for at
Aiken men that have more than one lung are in demand, and, when Roland
registered his historic name, to the unattached females a little flutter
of anticipation came.
But Roland was not in search of flirtations: he moved by one group into
another until he reached a corner of the verandah in which Mrs.
Metuchen and Miss Dunellen sat. Merely by the expression on the faces of
those whom he greeted it was patent to the others that the trio were on
familiar terms; and when presently he accompanied Miss Dunellen off the
verandah, aided her to mount a horse that waited there, mounted another
himself, and cantered off with the girl, the unattached females declared
that the twain must be engaged. In that they were in error. As yet
Roland had not said a word to the charge he might not have said to the
matron. Both of these ladies had been surprised when he reached Aiken,
and both had been pleased as well. In that surprise, in that pleasure,
Roland had actively collaborated; and taking on himself to answer before
it was framed the question which his advent naturally prompted, he
stated that in journeying from Savannah to Asheville he had stopped over
at Aiken as at a halfway house, and that, too, without an idea of
encountering anyone whom he knew. Thereafter for several days he managed
to make himself indispensable to the matron, companionable to her
charge; but now, on this particular morning, as he rattled down the red
road, the courage which had deserted him returned; and a few hours
later, when before a mirror in his bedroom he stood arranging his
cravat, he caught a reflection of Hyperion, son-in-law of Croesus.