man who thought much and told little. His illness baffled Dr. DeLancey at
first; but then he knew what the disease was; although to it he could
give no polysyllabic name of Latin, and for it he could prescribe no
remedies; for the cure had gone from the hands of man into the hands of
God. And to the hands of God, John Stuyvesant Schuyler went, at length,
to find it; and who shall say that his quest was unsuccessful?
He, too, on his dying bed called his son to him; and to this son he said
many things; and among these things was that it had ever been the dearest
wish of her that had gone as well as of him that was about to go that
their son should wed the daughter of the widow of Jimmy Blair.
And Jack Schuyler, sobbing by the side of the great, mahogany bed in the
great, dark room, even as he had sobbed beside the same bed in the same
room so short a time before, promised, as Tom Blake had promised, that
all that he might do to bring to wife the girl his parents desired for
him as wife, he would do; and not from any obeisance to filial reasons,
but because he wanted to--because he loved her--had always loved her.
It was good old Dr. DeLancey who repeated his offices in this case, as in
the other; and he repeated them in the same way, patting the broad,
throbbing young shoulders--reiterating with twitching lips, his "There,
there, boy! There, there, there!"--reiterating it uselessly--and knowing
that it was uselessly that he reiterated--and yet helpless in the vast
profundity of helplessness that was his.
And that same year did Dr. DeLancey lose yet another friend that was a
patient--a patient that was a friend. It was the violet-eyed widow of
Jimmy Blair. And all night long, from gray dusk until crimson dawn, Dr.
DeLancey had sat in the darkened parlor of the warm little house of red
brick; he had sat in a rocking chair, and on either old knee he had held
a sob-wracked, grief-torn, motherless girl, the one herself almost old
enough to be a mother. And again he had cried. Some doctors may lose
through oft-recurrence visualized their susceptibility to suffering; but
Dr. DeLancey was not of them. And when he stumbled on stiffened legs out
of the darkened parlor and into the incongruous mellow radiance of the
spring sunshine, his eyes were still wet, and he didn't care who knew it.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER TEN.
TWO BOYS AND A DOCTOR.
Young Jack Schuyler and young Blake, a week later, went to see the
doctor in his office. He looked up from his paper.
"Well?" he said.
Tom Blake cleared his throat.
"We wanted to ask you, Doctor," he began, "if--"
"Eh," assisted Jack Schuyler; "that is, we wanted to know--"
"--you see, that is--I--"
"--yes, we thought--"
"--you know, Mrs. Blair--"
The doctor rose; he stood between the two broad-shouldered, erect young
men, placing a hand on the arm of each.
"It's all right," he assured them. "Don't you worry."
"But," protested Tom Blake, "we've got so much money, and they--Isn't
there some way that you can fix it, doctor? You know how to do these
things; and we're so helpless."
"And," elaborated Jack Schuyler, "they'd never suspect you, you know."
"I tell you it's all fixed," returned the doctor, with testiness that
from him was cordiality rampant. "Jimmy Blair left a very comfortable
estate, in trust. They'll have all they want as long as they live."
He didn't tell them--that is, not then, though later he did--that one of
the last acts of John Stuyvesant Schuyler and Thomas Cathcart Blake had
been to walk solemnly, side by side, across the street and tell the widow
of Jimmy Blair, that, in accordance with the ante-mortem desires of her
late husband, they had devoted a certain portion of the fortune that he
had left to the establishment of a trust fund that would yield her an
annual income of $12,000. He didn't tell them, then. Later he did. He
couldn't help it. But at that time--
He slapped them both on the back, and sent them from the room. He stood,
on the top step of the flight that led from sidewalk to front door, and
watched them swing, broad-shouldered, supple, erect, down the bright
Avenue.
"Now why in thunder," he asked of himself, slowly, "didn't I ever get
married?" And then, "Shut up, you old fool," he soliloquized. And he
turned, and, re-entering the house, slammed the door behind him.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER ELEVEN.
A PROPOSAL.
Blake waited in the embrasure of the window, gazing down upon the Avenue
below, with its confusion of moving vehicles and pedestrians. The June
sun was overhead, warming the earth with gentle, kindly glow. The breath
of summer was in the air; it came to him, brushing the curtains against
him, cooling his brow. It was grateful to his nostrils, and to his lungs;
and he took of it a great, deep breath. His broad shoulders squared; his
deep, full chest heaved.
An omnibus stopped on the corner. He watched the horses throw themselves
against their collars; he watched the bulky vehicle gather headway, and
move on, with ever increasing momentum, through the maze of brougham and
cab and coach and landau.
As the coach was lost to view there came steps, light and quick, upon the
stairs; the door opened and there stood before him the daughter of Jimmy
Blair. She had been abroad, under chaperonage, for a year....
He did not know that she could be so beautiful--he did not know that
anyone could ever hope to be as beautiful as was she who stood before
him. Violet eyes were no deeper--lips no more red--teeth no whiter--nor
was the perfect oval of her sun-kissed cheek any the more perfect. Yet,
there was something--the indefinable something that marks the transition
of a beautiful girl from beautiful girlhood to glorious womanhood.... He
felt a strange emptiness within him; it was almost as though he were
appalled by so much beauty--so much glory.
There was a gladness--a natural, unaffected, real gladness in her violet
eyes that glowed in greeting. She thrust forth a tiny white hand.... He
had been wont to kiss her, on meeting and on parting. Now it never
occurred to him.
"Tom!" she cried. "I'm so, so glad to see you again. It's been terribly
lonely. As fast as I'd begin to learn one language, they'd move me
somewhere else and I'd have to start all over again! And now I hardly
know whether or not I know any language at all! ... Where's Jack? I
expected that, of course, he would come with you."
"He'll be here bye-and-bye, Kate...." Blake replied.
She seated herself, crossing one knee above the over, interlocking about
it slender, white fingers.
"You must have so much to tell me, Tom!" she bubbled, all animation,
gladness, eagerness. "Begin! Please, begin! And then I'll tell you
everything. Oh, isn't it exciting to go away and come back again!"
"I have a lot to tell you," he said, slowly.
"Why, you speak so seriously, Tom. Aren't you glad to see me?"
"I'm afraid nobody but myself knows how glad.... Kate, I hardly know how
to begin what I want to say. I--it's hard; not having seen you so long,
makes it harder. I--"
She cried, in pretty amazement: "But what in the world is it? Tom! You
almost frighten me! I haven't done anything wrong, have I? Shall I be put
to bed without my supper? ... Do speak, Tom. Tell me what all this mystery
is."
Still slowly, hands folding and unfolding, dark eyes upon hers of violet,
he continued:
"Kate, Jack Schuyler loves you; and I lo--"
He had intended to say more; and what that more was one would but have
had to look into his eyes to tell; but he had been looking into hers; he
had seen the gleam that had leaped there at his words; and that is why he
did not finish.
"Tom!" she exclaimed, softly.... And then, "Did Jack tell you that--
himself?"
He nodded.
"He was afraid to tell me himself?"
Again he nodded. It was not so. But he lied; as would you, or I, had we
been as good a man as he. He had come there knowing that a woman loves
but one man. He had come there knowing that, if Schuyler were not the man
she loved, thereby he would be saved, and she would be saved, much
unpleasantness. He had hoped that it was he himself that she loved. Yet
he had feared that it was not. And he had known that whether it were he
who asked, or Schuyler, or any man, it would make no difference; for when
a woman like that loves a man, it is that man alone she loves; and the
rest means nothing. No thought of an unfair advantage was in his mind. In
such a case there could be no such thing as that. It was only whether or
not she loved one of them, and if so, which one; and beyond that there
was nothing--nothing except that he wished to take from Schuyler any
unhappiness that might lie there for him. For he was a friend such as few
men may ever have and, having, may pray to keep.
And now he knew the answer. It was in the depths of the violet eyes--in
the eagerness of lips and lithe, supple body--it was of her--about her.
Blake's lips became thin; his jaws set; his eyes half shut. To have lost
a father, and a mother, and such a girl as was she, and all within an
eighteen month, was bitter, indeed.
He heard her say, as from a great distance:
"It was fine of you to come like this, Tom.... I do love Jack; I thought
once, that I loved you, Tom.... That was strange, wasn't it? It's strange
to sit here now, with you, telling you of it.... Though, of course, you
don't care.... He will come soon, won't he? You don't know how I've
missed him, Tom.... It would be a strange situation, wouldn't it, if we
hadn't known one another so well, and cared for one another, so deeply in
such a friendly, brother-and-sisterly sort of way.... I think, in some
ways, I ought to be angry with Jack for not coming himself.... But it's
as though you were my big brother, Tom.... You know how Jack feels toward
me; and so you are anxious to act as sort of a buffer, in case everything
isn't--eh--as it should be.... It was fine of you, Tom; and you know how
I appreciate it! ..."
What else she said, he did not know. It seemed a thousand, thousand years
ere he rose to his feet. He was suffering--When a woman loves, her
intuition is dead....
At length he found himself on the street. But the sunshine was gone, and
the air was dead....
He found Schuyler, and told him.... He watched him leap through the door,
forgetting his hat--heard him pounding down the hall--heard the street
door as it slammed behind him. And then--
It's pretty hard, you know, to lose a father, and a mother, and such a
girl as the daughter of Jimmy Blair; and all within an eighteen month.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER TWELVE.
A FOREIGN MISSION
In the next few years, God was indeed good to John Schuyler. Health he
kept; honors came to him, and the respect of men and of women. There were
those who loved him, many; and of those who hated him there were a few;
which is well, inasmuch as the hatred of some men may be the highest
praise--the highest favor--that they have to bestow.
A child came to them, at length--to him and to the daughter of Jimmy
Blair; and that child was as like to the daughter of Jimmy Blair as the
daughter had been like her mother.
A part of the time they lived in the city; but most of their days were
spent out at the Larchmont place, on the Sound, that John Stuyvesant
Schuyler had built so long ago. And there they were very, very happy.
The quiet, peaceful beauty of "Grey Rocks" more than ever appealed to the
soul of Tom Blake as he stood upon the bridge of his yacht, "The
Vagrant," and watched the ever-enlarging lawn apparently rush toward him.
He closed his eyes, a little. The sun was very bright.... He turned
toward the Long Island shore, hazy and unreal in the mists of the
morning.... When he turned back again, the huge, sea-going craft, a thing
of glistening white and shining brass, was making a wide, graceful sweep
in the churning water, and the house had ceased to rush down upon him. It
now stood inviting, beckoning, as close at hand as it were safe to be.
A launch was lowered, and the owner's gangway dropped. And in another
moment, Blake stood, balancing himself nicely against the rolling of the
little craft, as it rushed through the blue-gray water toward the landing
pier at the foot of the velvet lawn.
Like one who, in haste, yet longs to loiter Blake made his way across the
sward to where, jutting out from a corner of the house, a tiny bay window
thrust itself forth among a confusion of tangled nasturtiums, copper-
colored, yellow, crimson son. With the privileged assurance of one long
known and long loved, he thrust open the left hand window, which extended
to the ground, and entered the room.
There came a little, delighted cry of surprise; a rather uncertain, "Oh,
Mr. Tom!" and in another instant he was enveloped in a tiny cloud of lace
and ribbons and primly starched linen while two bare, brown little legs
waved wildly about his breast, a pair of very sticky lips were set
against his own, and his neck found itself in the clasp of tiny fingers
that had known orange-juice and oat-meal and sugar--and possibly jam--
since they had had intimate association of water.
At length he set her down upon the floor, gently.
"Well, well, little partner," he said, grinning sociably, "that most
surely was a succulent salute.... I perceive from the remainder of your
repast" his eyes had fallen upon the little breakfast table and the over-
turned high-chair which, with infinite dignity unbent, the butler was
rescuing from prostration "that you like a little oatmeal on your sugar."
"I do," confessed the child, friendly. "But Woberts doesn't. Do you,
Woberts?" Without waiting for the corroboration of the somewhat perturbed
Roberts, she turned again to Blake. "I like heaps and heaps of sugar....
Woberts gives it to me when there isn't anyone looking, don't you,
Woberts?" And then, very seriously, she added, "I like Woberts"
Blake laughed, a low, rumbling, ringing laugh.
"I don't blame you," he said. "I used to have sugar once.... I liked
those who gave it to me."
He picked her up and set her again in the high-chair, moving it close to
the table with its dainty china and center-piece of pink carnations.
The child looked up at him, half wondering. She was pretty--very pretty--
with serious, round violet eyes, sun-kissed cheeks, and hair of the soft
brown that is of kin to gold.
"Don't you get any sugar now?" she asked, very seriously.
He shook his head.
"Not any?" she persisted. "Never?"
"Not any," he replied, gravely. "Never."
Swiftly she picked up the little silver sugar jar; she cast an
investigative eye up at the solemn visage of the butler.
"Mr. Tom can have some of ours, can't he, Woberts?" she inquired, gravely
tendering the bowl to Blake, who accepted it just as gravely.
"I thank you," he said, very seriously. "It is kind of you.... But, do
you know, I was speaking rather of figurative sugar."
The child shook her head, perplexedly.
"I don't think we have that kind," she ventured. "We have powdered sugar,
and loaf sugar, and gran--granulated," she syllablized it, calling it
"gran-u-lat-ed"--"and we have pulverized sugar, too. But I don't believe
we have fig--the kind you said.... I'm sorry."
He smiled a little--a smile of the lips.
"It doesn't matter," he said, slowly. "Really it doesn't. You know I
haven't had any for so long that I've quite forgotten the taste of it....
Where's daddy this morning?"
"Daddy and mother dear are saying goodbye to Auntie," the child replied,
making in the oatmeal before her a miniature Panama Canal and watching
the thick cream trickle slowly from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
Blake turned to the butler.
"How is Mrs. VanVorst this morning, Roberts?" he asked. "Still very ill,
sir," returned the butler. "Very ill indeed."
"Not dangerously?"
"We 'opes not, sir. But she's still very low, sir."
Blake turned one fist in the palm of the other hand.
"Why, I though from the wireless that Mr. Schuyler sent me that she was
getting along splendidly. I--"
He stopped, abruptly. There had entered the breakfast room the wife of
John Schuyler. She saw Blake and came forward, hand outstretched, welcome
in her eyes. She had come to be very like her child--her child and
Schuyler's--had the daughter of Jimmy Blair--she was like her child grown
up, glorified into womanhood. Her hair was the same gold-brown, a little
unruly, clinging against her temples, nestling at neck-nape. Her eyes
were the same deep violet--perhaps a little darker--a little softer--a
little less wondering; for years bring knowledge, and when one begins to
know, then one must cease, somewhat, to wonder. She had the soft, brown,
sun-kissed cheeks of her child, too, rounded and smooth, with the red
blood tinting them to a delicate pink. She had the finely-modelled,
cleanly-cut nose, and the expressive, sensitive mouth with its red lips,
and white teeth. And her chin was both beautiful and firm.
She moved lithely across the room to where Blake stood. He took her hand.
"Tom," she began, cordially. Her voice was low and deep, and very soft.
"We're so glad to see you.... You got Jack's message, then? We were
afraid you wouldn't."
Blake nodded.
"Caught it off Point Judith," he replied. "You should have seen us 'bout
ship and come spattering down the Sound. Those blockade-running persons
could have gained points from us We burned the bulwarks, the cargo and
most of my cigars. It looks as though we did so wisely, too; for we
haven't much time to spare, have we?"
"We leave in half an hour," she returned. "Sit down, Tom.... Jack will be
here soon."
"But what's it all about?" he asked. He sank into a chair, elbows on
knees, fingers clasped.
"Jack's trip abroad?"
He nodded.
"It's something at the Court of St. James. I don't know exactly; but it's
very imposing, and important, and epoch-making. Jack spent all day
yesterday with the President and Secretary of State."
"Well, well, well! That certainly is immense!" She was standing beside
the table. Slowly her fingers plucked a carnation from the cluster before
her. Violet eyes were upon it.
"Is it?" she asked, slowly.
"Isn't it?" he queried, surprised.
She paused a moment; and then, swiftly:
"Oh, I don't know. I--"
Blake waited. But she did not go on. At length he spoke:
"How long will he be gone?"
"Maybe two months," she returned.... "It will be the first time that
we've been apart for more than a day or two since we were married.... I--
I suppose that's silly, isn't it?
"If that's silly, it's too bad anyone ever gets sensible," was his
assuring reply.
She had risen. Slowly she went around behind the little high chair.
Leaning lithely over, she laid her cheek against that of her child, soft,
rounded arms pressing her close. And then she looked at Blake, eyes to
eyes.
"I don't like it, Tom," she said, very slowly.
"But," he protested, "it's a big honor--a great honor--an appointment
like this, from the President."
"Yes," she answered, thoughtfully. "It is a big honor. And I suppose that
I should be very, very happy--Of course, in a way, I am." Then, suddenly:
"But I'm not. I don't like it, Tom. I try to like it. I tell myself that
I ought to like it. And yet I can't. Happiness is more than honors; and
we are happy here--as happy as it is possible for two people" her eyes,
laden of the mother love, fell upon the child that was hers, "for three
people," she corrected, "to be. We have everything we need--everything we
ought to want. I'd rather have just peace, and quiet and contentment,
than all the honors there are."
"And yet--"
"I mustn't stand in the way of his advancement, you mean. I know that;
and I haven't.... You know he left it all to me; and I said, 'Go.' It
hurt, too, Tom.... I didn't want that he should go. I don't know why....
I--" she stopped. The child had finished her oatmeal. Lithely, the
mother, stooping, lifted her from the chair, held her close for a tiny
minute and then, kissing her, set her down upon the floor.
"Run along, dearie," she directed. "Tell Mawkins to get you dressed."
She watched the graceful, pretty child until she vanished through the
door. Slowly she walked to the window. Hands clasped behind her she
stood, gazing across the sunlit lawn--across the dancing, flashing waters
of the Sound. A big, black schooner, a mountain of bellying whiteness
superimposed upon a tiny streak of hull, was standing off for the Long
Island shore. Her eyes followed it.
Blake, lids half closed, as a man who seeks within the denseness of
masculine brain for something that lieth not therein, considered for a
long moment, eyes upon the perfect figure of perfect womanhood before
him. At length he spoke.
"It doesn't seem to me," he began, "that it means either very much or
very little." He went on, more lightly: "Two months isn't such a long
time, you know, after all. He'll soon be back, laden with honors. And
then, because he was raised on the seacoast and doesn't know the
difference between a Lima bean and a bole weevil, they'll probably make
him Secretary of Agriculture."
She was still gazing at the vanishing sail; she had not heard his words.
He leaned back in his chair, a little, watching her. At length he sighed,
and murmured to himself:
"To him that hath, shall be given all they can take away from him that
hathn't."
[Illustration]
CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
THE GOING.
John Schuyler had come to be a big man and a broad one--big in the great
things of life that sometimes are so small, big in the small things of
life that sometimes are so great. Broad of mind, as well as broad of
shoulder he was. Forty years of age now, his hair, by the habit of
thought, was tinged with gray at the temples; yet skin and complexion
were as those of a boy. Quick in movement, agile, alert, thrilling with
vitality and virility, his pleasures were, as they had always been, the
pleasures of the great out-of-doors. A yachtsman, his big yawl, the
"Manana," was known in every club port from Gravesend to Bar Harbor. He
motored. He rode. He played tennis, and golf, and squash, and racquets.
He was an expert swimmer, a skilful fencer, a clever boxer. And, more
wonderful than the combination of these things was the fact that he found
time away from his work to do them all, and to enjoy them with the
youthful, contagious, effervescent enthusiasm of a man of half his age.
It showed in his well-set-up, well-poised body. It showed in the
expression of his clear-cut bronzed features. It showed in every little
shift of pose, every little turn of his well-shaped head, as he stood,
leaning gracefully against the ledge of the bay window, talking with
Blake; for Mrs. Schuyler and Muriel had gone to make ready for the trip
to the city, and to the dock.
"I don't like to leave it, Tom," he said slowly, his eyes roaming over
the bright, little room. "I don't like to leave it even to hobnob with
crowned heads, and to take tea with dukes, earls, princes and kings, to
say nothing of mere lords. My world is right here; and it's all the world
I want, Tom. It's bounded on the south by the sound, on the north by the
property of the municipality, on the east and west by somebody else's
worlds, and above by eternity." Blake lighted a cigar.
"Then what are you going for?" he asked, practically.
Schuyler shrugged his shoulders.
"I wonder," he replied.
"Want me to tell you?" queried the other.
"I should be obliged," he said with a smile.
"Well," began Blake, placing finger ends to finger ends, judicially. "In
the first place, you're ambitious. You like the plaudits of the populace.
You see here a chance to get about a million per cent on your investment.
Whereby you stick two months time and a little effort into the
proposition and draw down a position that means sitting beside the chief
executive and trying to look as though you knew what he was talking
about. Also a chance to live in Washington and cut figure eights in the
diplomatic circles. All of which is perfectly natural, nothing at all to
your discredit, and furthermore shows whence come the few good men, who,
sticking their heels in, are trying to keep the country from going to the
demnition bow-wows. Am I right?"
Schuyler watched a little ring of blue smoke rising to the ceiling.
"No," he answered, slowly, "you're wrong. I care nothing for the plaudits
of the populace. I'm ambitious, in a way; but when that way requires me
to leave the people--the things--that I love, then ambition chameleonizes
and I become ambitious antithetically. Furthermore, I loathe the climate
of Washington; and all the society I want, I can find right in my home--
with the exception of yourself."