"My daughter, I must tell you that I am watching very impatiently for the announcement of your acceptance of Herriott."
"Father, you will never hear it."
"I distinctly refuse to believe you will persist in defying my wishes. Hitherto you have very sweetly yielded to my guidance in all matters of importance, but if you obstinately and foolishly thwart a cherished plan that concerns me more deeply than you know, you will forfeit my forgiveness."
"I will never marry a man I do not love——"
"No silly rodomontade, if you please, my dear. You quite understand my wishes."
"Father, even if my own feelings had changed sufficiently to induce me to give him a different answer, I am absolutely sure Mr. Noel will never renew his offer; and this fact is most welcome, because it removes all possibility of my obeying you. You must see that he is now simply my friend."
"Then you have only a short time in which to recall him. Women whistle lovers back as easily as traps catch mice. It depends solely on you, and I warn you now of bitter consequences unless you comply with——"
Miss Roberts and Mr. Stapleton entered the library, and Eglah retreated to her own room. During dinner Eliza and Mr. Herriott noticed the unusual flush on her cheeks, the strained, restless expression of her eyes; but neither had opportunity for questioning, and, shielded by general conversation, she escaped comment. Sitting opposite at table, her father had once looked steadily at her.
"Eglah, you chance to have the fruit I covet close to your hand. Will you peel me a peach?"
The garden walk she had followed divided, and into a narrow path she plunged, finding a resting place on a miniature rockery covered with fern and periwinkle. The night was so still she could hear the dip of oars as the boat left shore, and far away the throbbing of a steamer whose lights flashed across the foam as it sped onward. With her face in her hands, Eglah recalled Eliza's exasperating question: "Why was Senator Kent afraid of Mr. Herriott?" Was he? What could be the nature of the trouble concealed? If Noel were cognizant of impending misfortune she felt absolutely sure he would never consent to precipitate it. Because she could share her perplexity with no one, her habitual repose of manner forsook her. In the unexpected rift between her father and herself she dispassionately canvassed the possibility of an available bridge, and, feeling confident no second proposal would be made by Mr. Herriott, she rejoiced in the belief that his silence would effectually bar compliance with a command she entertained no thought of obeying. She saw that he had deliberately surrendered her, and, unlike most women, she was profoundly glad. Now and then, when he looked unusually handsome in his yachting suit, and again in full evening dress, presiding with ease and dignity at his table, Eglah compared her host with his guests, with some brilliant men she had met in Washington and New York, and always he seemed aloof and superior as an ivory image among terra-cotta figurines. Conscious that his serene self-poise sprang in no degree from personal vanity or pride of wealth, she admired his physical perfection, and wondered why all his excellences had no more power to stir her heart than a stained-glass saint in a cathedral window, or a flawless head of Hylas. At such moments she decided God had designed her to be only a daughter, and wifehood had no alluring charms, no rosy glamour.
Out of the dense shadow behind the mound of periwinkle came a sudden rushing sound, a sharp bark, and the large collie Pilot sprang over a stone wall and bounded up to the rockery. A moment later Mr. Herriott whistled, vaulted over the same wall, and stood peering into the clumps of shrubbery. Eglah patted the dog, hushed him in a whisper, and shrank closer to the ground.
"Eglah! Where are you? Eglah!"
The dog barked, and his master came forward.
"How could you suspect I was here?"
"I have a Turk's nose for perfume. I am partial to prussic acid odors, and no heliotrope blooms on this side of the garden. Who dared send you to Coventry? For what are you doing penance, here in the dark?"
"Simply enjoying the delicious, perfect peace that surrounds this special nook like a velvet mantle. Were you hunting for me?"
"No. I supposed you were in the loggia. I went for a few minutes to the small house beyond the wall, where Amos and Susan live. She has been sick several days, and nothing appeases her wrath if I neglect to say good night to her. One of her childish whims is that I shall crack her almonds and filberts, and yesterday when I demurred and turned the nut-crackers over to Amos she shed tears, declaring his hands were not always above suspicion, and that as she had performed this service for me before I was promoted to trousers and vests, I owed it to her now since she has lost her teeth. By jumping the fence, this is the short cut from her house to the courtyard."
"Susan was your nurse?"
"Yes, since I was a year old, and she has been very faithful to my family."
"I should like to see her."
"Then you shall make her a little visit to-morrow morning, but she can never see you; she is entirely blind. Eglah, come out of this damp corner. The moonlight is brilliant, and there is a beach-walk I wish to show you."
As she rose and shook her draperies, he walked in advance, saying over his shoulder:
"You would not accept my arm, for I am sure you need both hands to guard your lace and silk frills from thorns and twigs. Here is the garden boundary. Take care not to trip crossing this stile; come on, only three steps. Now look at that sickle of the beach, with its long row of silver poplars outlining a frieze around the land side of the curve. Once in a furious gale that drove a steamer ashore—just beyond the point—I watched those distracted trees toss their whitening leaves, as though hands in prayer, and they lean always inward, shivering with prevision of wrecks."
Over the burnished lake a full moon shone, and here and there a sinuous ripple flashed like a fiery serpent as it glided to land, then slipped back, while across the waste of water floated the tinkling of Beatrix's mandolin and the tenor voice of her escort. Mr. Herriott took off his hat, and when he turned suddenly to his companion she noticed a brilliant smile on his face.
"Dana is very happy to-night, and I am glad to carry away the pleasant consciousness that I have done everything possible in smoothing the path to his heart's goal."
"You believe he will win her?"
"I certainly hope success for him. Her heart is already his, and, if he can only be patient, she must ultimately yield."
"You think that in such matters persistency is invincible?"
"On the contrary, many Jacobs never win their Rachels; and my prediction fits only the lovers out yonder. Aunt Trina will wail and invoke all the Manning family ghosts, but the pretty hand of Miss Beatrix will follow her heart."
Looking up at him, she admitted that in personal charm he surpassed all men she had ever met, but into this verdict entered no emotional element sufficiently strong to shiver the crystal calm of her heart, and she found it difficult to identify this handsome, placid, smiling countenance with a white, drawn, twitching face whose keen pain had recently wrung tears from her in Washington.
The unusual flush had faded, leaving her cheeks cool and stainless as the petals of a white rose, and the restless spark in her eyes had been extinguished by drops that were never allowed to fall. Mr. Herriott had studied her face too many years not to detect the new strained expression, the compression of lips that would quiver, and all his jealous surmises focussed on one dread—Father Temple.
"Shall we walk on slowly? Not far off is a seat. I have been wishing for a quiet, uninterrupted talk before we say good-bye for an indefinite period, and this is my last opportunity. Eglah, when did you hear from Vernon Temple?"
"I cannot recall the exact date, but it was several weeks ago. We do not really correspond, and his occasional notes are so impersonal that in replying I sometimes feel as if I were addressing an abstraction. At first he interested me extremely, but one cannot easily maintain his mystical elevation of spirit."
"I thought you were really fond of him."
"Knowing as you do that I have absolutely no faculty for growing fond of people, I am surprised you should have made the mistake. He enlisted my interest in some of his benevolent schemes, especially a 'sisterhood' for care of infirm indigents; but father has no sympathy with Vernon or his vocation, and, therefore, I have been less impressed."
"At one time you were extravagant in praise of his 'saintly, magnetic face.'"
"So I possibly am, or have been, about several fine pictures of handsome, bleeding flagellants and tormented martyrs, but I should prefer not to hang them permanently in my dining-room."
"Do you know anything of your cousin's early life, or of the reasons that induced him to join his 'Order'?"
"Nothing whatever, except that while at college he was ill, and one of father's sisters had him removed to her farmhouse, where he remained for months before he could discard crutches."
Mr. Herriott stopped and turned towards her. Holding his hat behind him, he leaned forward and scanned her closely.
"Vernon is a married man, and his wife is living."
"Is it possible! If any one else had told me, I should doubt it. I am sure father knows nothing of the wife. Where is she?Cherchez la femmeis rarely a satire."
In the flood of moonlight her fair face—expressive only of surprise—showed no vestige of emotion that could disquiet him, and so intense was his relief that for a moment he dared not trust his voice; then he put on his hat and whistled to his dog. As they walked slowly along the margin of the lake, he told her briefly the history of Father Temple and the recent discovery of his wife and child.
"Thank you for telling me such pleasant news. I am very glad poor Vernon will have that angelic boy to comfort him—but 'Juno'? So beautiful, so hard, so bitter! How can any meek priest ever hope to manage her?"
They had reached the point of the sickle, and looking back the swelling curves of wooded hills, masses of glossy shrubbery, the irregular profile of the house, outlined by its twinkling lights, and the vast shimmering mirror of the great lake, all lay bathed in liquid gold. Somewhere in a neighboring copse a bird, disturbed by the dog or misled by the splendor of the night, twittered, and then, to reassure his brooding mate near by, broke into a rapture of song. Clasping her hands behind her head, Eglah lifted her face to listen, and Mr. Herriott watched the moisture glisten on her lashes.
"Sweet as any aubade of the olden time, under olive and ilex, is it not?"
For a moment she did not reply, then, with a sweep of her arm toward the house on the rocks, she said:
"So beautiful, so full of peace—of such profound repose—how can you—why will you leave it?"
"Because I do not forget 'le repos est une bonne chose, mais l'ennui est son frère.' I love and enjoy my home, but I prefer not to stagnate. Garnering the bright and charming memories of the past few days, it can never again seem quite as lonely as I have sometimes found it. I am glad you have met Professor Cleveden, who is one of my best friends. His domestic relations are so happy, and so perfect in their adjustments, that no forlorn bachelor, once admitted to his home, could escape pangs of envy. His wife is literally partner in his joys, sorrows, studies, and diversions, and their only child—the 'little maid' Violet—is spelling in the alphabet of science. Cleveden swears she shall be locked up in his laboratory, safe from the social microbes that he fancies infest the atmosphere of female clubs and 'emancipated women.' Some day I hope you will meet Mrs. Cleveden. She is very beautiful and gracious, though he assures me he has one grievance against his 'sweetheart,' and Patmore expressed it:
"'Her manners, when they call me lord,Remind me 'tis by courtesy;Not with her least consent of will.'"
"'Her manners, when they call me lord,Remind me 'tis by courtesy;Not with her least consent of will.'"
"Father distrusts the professor, and cautioned me not to discuss any religious questions, because he considers him a brilliant casuist."
"Cleveden has one apostle whom he follows at all hazards—simple, stern, scientifically established truth—and to him the natural laws are as sacred as those Moses brought directly from the same God who framed them all. For mere dogma in science or religion he has no tolerance, and I shall never forget the profound emotion with which, in a lecture, he quoted: 'These sciences are the real steps in the great world's altar-stairs that slope through darkness up to God.' Revealed religion lets down a ladder from heaven; natural sciences are the solid rungs by which men like Cleveden build and climb. Side by side these ladders rise, never crossing at sharp angles, both ending, resting at the feet of God. Up one spiritual faith runs easily; along the other some souls of different mould toilsomely ascend, each and all seeking and finding the same goal—the eternal Ruler of the universe. Cleveden scoffs at nothing but shallow shams, and we have heard him repeat passages from Job and David, then declaim from the Iliad, and declare that as between the thunder roll of Hebrew and Greek, the latter was as the rustle of rushes in a summer wind to the pounding of Atlantic surf on rock-walled shores."
"Nevertheless, father regrets that you cling to such an unsafe guide."
"He is worthy of my trust. Conscientiously hunting only for truth, he admonishes his students:
"'Hath man no second life?Pitch this one high!'
"'Hath man no second life?Pitch this one high!'
"To a young man groping in the mist of agnosticism, he repeated the declaration of one of the most subtle scientific thinkers of this century: 'That he had scrutinized every agnostic hypothesis he knew of, and found that they one and all needed a God to make them workable.'
"I wish I could respect myself as I respect and honor my friend. Eglah, knowing your reticent nature, I am perhaps presumptuous in taking a rash step. There is some trouble that annoys you. Before I go away for such a long, uncertain absence, will you trust me? I may not be able to remove the burden, but I should be glad to share it. Can you tell me what distresses you?"
She looked at him steadily, then away at the brooding water, where voices of the night had begun to croon.
"Mr. Noel, let us go back; the boat is at the terrace."
When they reached the stone stile, she said:
"Do you know why father resigned the senatorship?"
"He has not confided his reasons to me."
"Having known him so long, should you think that his state of health demanded such a step?"
"His appearance at present does not indicate any cause for alarm, and you ought not to conjure a spectre with which to frighten yourself."
"His physician did the conjuring."
She sat down on the stile, and in her strained, sad gaze he measured the depth of her disquietude.
"Mr. Noel, if you know any outside circumstances that appear to necessitate or warrant this sudden abandonment of a brilliant senatorial career, I beg you will be once more your old, kind, candid self and tell me. If I understood I could bear it better."
"You think your father is perfectly well?"
"I cannot see the change he insists has overtaken him of late; can you?"
"Yes. Within the year his nervousness and want of equipoise have been apparent, and when the newspapers stated that his 'medical adviser' had recommended rest and Aix-les-Bains I was rejoiced. The atmosphere of Washington is the worst possible for him. When do you sail?"
"On the twenty-fifth."
"Mrs. Mitchell accompanies you?"
"Of course. You scarcely understand what all this means to me. I have no life outside of father's. His political future is my sole horizon. To help, follow close, watch his ascent, was my world. This sudden, inexplicable surrender, this stepping down and back into obscurity and inaction leave me no foothold on coming years, and I feel adrift. Mr. Noel, would it be unreasonable for me to hope that when father returns in vigorous health a Cabinet seat or a foreign mission might be offered him by the Republican party he has served so long, so faithfully?"
The wistful pathos of uplifted eyes that searched his stirred all the tenderness of his nature, but he allowed himself no manifestation.
"If you anticipate such reward for your father, and then lose it, disappointment would intensify the annoyance. By dismissing the expectation, the charm of surprise will be added to the value of promotion. You have passed the age of soap bubbles, and ought to know that upon political preferment no man can depend with certainty, especially in a republican country."
"I shall not, will not, accept defeat. I must be patient until next year, and then, somehow—in some way—we shall recover our kingdom. I am so proud of father—ah, so proud!"
She rose, and he put out his hand to assist her, but she crossed the stile without touching his fingers, and they silently approached the courtyard.
At a late hour, when the party dispersed, Judge Kent was the first person who reached his own room. Soon after, Eglah tapped at his door. As he opened it, a flood of light streamed over her cold, proud face, and his keen gaze seemed to probe her soul.
"Well?"
She shook her head and stretched her arms towards him.
"Father——"
He laid a finger heavily on her trembling lips, then turned her around, pushed her gently but firmly back from the threshold, and locked the door on the inside.
The remaining hours of the night Mr. Herriott spent pacing slowly the beach-walk, realizing anew the hopelessness of any change in conditions that barred him from his heart's desire, and the wisdom of his determination to travel as far as possible. The moon, magnified by mist into a vast sphere of silver, swam in the west, tipping each wavelet with a glittering fringe, and now and then crooning whispers of the great expanse of water seemed to swell and fill the echoing hollows of the brooding night.
The intense bitterness of Mr. Herriott's reflections crept into his voice.
"Loyal soul! Nobody can help her now. Rude winds have blown wide the guarded gate of her temple, and she will spend her life on her knees, trying to regild the clay feet of her one image."
"My son, Leighton Dane Temple, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen."
Other than baptismal drops fell on the boy's head, as with unsteady lips and brimming eyes Father Temple bent over him; and the hand that administered the rite clung tenderly to the damp curls. The room was very dim and still, the atmosphere heavy with the breath of tuberoses clustered on the pillow, and the figure sitting at the foot of the cot with her arms folded, manifested by sound or motion no more interest than a stone image. On the mantel shelf was the tin box bearing her name, and many days before letters, newspapers, and money had testified to the truth of her husband's statements, but to its contents she made no allusion, allowed none. Their estrangement was too complete to be bridged even by words when avoidance was possible. Occasionally, as he entered or left the room, she acknowledged his salutation by a slight inclination of her head; but usually sullen silence and apparent unconsciousness of his presence showed how bitterly she resented a presentation of facts that pleaded his exculpation. She hugged her wrongs, and any attempt to minimize his guilt infuriated her. Her ruined life was an acrid dead sea, into which no sweetness could fall, and she clung to its most loathsome aspects with a grim stubbornness unnatural and incomprehensible in women of a different type. The boy's death had seemed imminent more than once, and though he rallied again and again, the sands were surely near the end, running low.
Two weeks after his baptism, Father Temple secured for him and his mother rooms at an old farmhouse on Long Island, not very far from a railroad village.
To the weary child, sick of city heat, city din, and all the complex elements that make tenement life an affliction to sensitive natures, there seemed a foretaste of that heaven to which he was hastening, in the cool, vine-laced porch where wrens nested, the elm-shaded yard, blue with larkspurs, and the green-carpeted orchard of low-spreading apple and towering cherry trees, that formed a quivering loom of boughs casting gilt network of braided sunbeams on purple heads of clover. Outside the picket fence that enclosed the fruit trees a meadow rolled seaward, and in one of its deep dimples a small clear pond shone like a mirror whereon an enormous willow trailed its branches and watched itself grow old. Across this meadow ox-eye daisies ran riot, so densely massed, so tall, they seemed great stretches of snow, and only when the wind swept them into billows were green stems discernible.
Father Temple had found convenient quarters in the neighboring village, and each day he walked to the little farm, where the feverishly bright eyes of the boy glowed with more intense brilliance at his approach. Leighton's sensitive nature responded to every spiritual appeal his father attempted, as though some subtle, dormant chord of sympathy once set in vibration would never cease to thrill. Sometimes, watching the happy, rapt expression on her child's face as the priest read or talked or prayed with him, a jealous rage seized the mother, shaking her into fierce revolt, and she shut her eyes, set her teeth, put her hands to her ears, and mutely fought down her fury. On such occasions, conscious of her suffering, he shortened his visit, carrying away an accession of heartache over the utter hopelessness of any form of reconciliation.
On the morning of the anniversary of his marriage, as he walked along the lane leading to the farmhouse, a flood of reminiscences drowned all the intervening years, and once more he stood under the stars at the Post, holding Nona in his arms. Could she forget the date? Would the sweet, warm wind of tender memory fresh from the happy day their love had sanctified, breathe no melting magic on her frozen nature? Until recently he had shared the current belief—"tout comprendre c'est tout pardonner"—because of the limitless, patient, condoning affection inhering in true wifehood, but the teamster's daughter was a law unto herself, and taught him that some women, who love most intensely and faithfully, forgive not at all.
As he entered the sick room he detected in Leighton's usually gentle voice a note of fretfulness. His mother stood beside the bed, holding a cluster of daisies, which he had rejected.
"My darling, I gathered them where they grew finest, and these are as pretty indoors as out on the meadow."
She laid them beside him, but he turned his face away.
"There's father! He will understand."
She moved away to the window and stood with face averted. Father Temple took the child's outstretched hand.
"Father, why can't I be carried out yonder, where the daisies are spread like sheets? I want to lie down a little while, and feel them cover me, and listen to the bees—and out there I can breathe easier. Mother will not let me, says I might catch cold; as if the sunshine could make me worse. Why can't I go?"
"My son, I fear you had a bad night, and your mother is a better judge than I, because she never leaves you. If she approved, I would gladly take you to the daisies."
"She refused to move me down here, but you brought me."
"It was the doctor, not I, who induced her to consent."
"Oh, I want to go where the daisies are calling me! Don't you see how they turn and beckon and——" His feeble voice broke in a sob.
"Mother's man must have his milk punch," said Nona, going into the next room to prepare it.
Instantly the boy whispered:
"Father, pick me up, and carry me; quick!"
After a moment Father Temple went into the adjoining apartment. His wife stood shaking the milk into froth, and her glance slipped from his face with no more evidence of recognition than if she had looked at the wall.
"Nona, there has been a dreadful change since yesterday. The time will soon come when you can find comfort only in remembering you denied him nothing. Well wrapped up, a few moments in the sunshine will not harm him."
She passed him without reply, and when the milk punch had been given, she stooped suddenly and kissed her child twice. His wasted arms crept feebly to her neck.
"Please, mother—the daisies."
"If I let you go a little while, you must not ask to stay."
She buttoned his flannel dressing-gown about his throat, wrapped him in her shawl, and put on his little grey cloth cap.
Taking a light blanket from the bed, Father Temple lifted the emaciated form, cradled him tenderly in his arms, and bore him across the orchard. The mother preceded them, opened and closed the gate, and, when they reached the meadow, she withdrew to the brink of the pond, sat down under the ancient willow, and locked her hands in her lap. Close by, on a knoll, the blanket had been spread; Leighton was laid upon it, and feebly stretching his arms drew the daisies over him until they veiled the shrunken figure, and only the wan face and golden curls were visible. In a pale-blue sky the sun shone hot; white butterflies swam lazily to and fro, like drifting blossoms from interstellar gardens; a sheep bell tinkled now and then, and from the south, a freshening wind bore echoes of the ceaseless chant of the heaving sea.
Out of the flowery coverlet Leighton's hand stole, feeling for his father's fingers, and a happy light shone in the boy's violet eyes, but his breathing had grown quick and painfully labored. Suddenly he struggled up, leaning against his father's shoulder.
"What ails the sun? Mother! Where's mother?"
One of those swift, ghostly fogs that spring without warning from the ocean was sweeping inland, and as sunlight smote the advancing pillars of mist it seemed transmuted into battlements and towers of some city of silver. Strained maternal ears had caught the boy's faint cry, and Nona knelt, clasping him close, resting his head on her bosom. His wide and wondering eyes were fixed on the strange, shining wall drawing swiftly nearer.
"The gates of heaven! Mother, mother——"
A moment later the chill waves of mist flowed over them, blotting out the sun.
Under that grey pall, daisy-dotted, the blue eyes closed; the pure, lovely face, still smiling, lay white against his mother's cheek.
Not always comes imperial death as pacificator; now and then the flame of vengeance leaps through the shroud of shadows, and sometimes open graves typify wider, deeper chasms that know no closing. There are natures who prefer total surrender rather than any sharing of that which they hold dearest; and of such was the pallid, dry-eyed mother, lying hour after hour on the bed where her fragile boy slept his last sleep.
His head rested on her right arm, and with her left hand she had drawn his icy fingers inside her dress, trying to warm them on the breast where in infancy they toyed. Since the moment she had snatched him from the meadow couch of daisies and borne him unaided to the farmhouse, no one was allowed to touch him, and the angel who called and guided the young soul to God was more welcome than the human father daring to claim him. During the long night of her last vigil, the priest, pacing an adjoining room, wondered at the stern repression of her grief; and only once, through the half-open door, came a frantic cry, ending in a low, quivering wail.
"Mother's man! Mother's own pretty—pretty—darling baby! Oh——"
An hour later, when he ventured to re-enter the room, he knew the one passionate outbreak signalled her final surrender. She had lifted the little wasted form from the bed and laid him in a coffin resting on a low table; covering all but the delicate, chiselled face and shining hair with a thick shroud of daisies.
Now, with hands locked in her lap, she sat leaning her head against the coffin. Tears he could not repress fell as the father bent down to the casket, but she put her arm across it, barring him.
"Don't! You must not touch my baby."
Sinking to his knees he put his hand on the fingers lying in her lap.
"Oh, Nona! Eleven years ago to-night!"
She pushed his hand aside, and when he bowed his head on her knee, she moved her chair back to avoid the touch.
"My wife——"
"No. I am no man's wife. I can't forget, and I don't wish to forgive, even if I could. I want you to understand that I would rather see my darling where he is than have him live for you to come between us. The Nona you knew died ten years ago, when insulted, and slandered, and despised I washed and ironed for money to clothe and feed my little fatherless one—my own beautiful little baby."
She laid her hand on the cold head and fondled the golden rings of hair, but no moisture dimmed the large, mournful eyes that defied her husband's pleading.
A moment later she added, in a stinging tone:
"After to-morrow you will have no excuse to intrude upon me; with a childless, hopeless, desperate woman you can meddle no more, and I shall contrive to save myself the intolerable sight of your face. In your tin box you will find the money I have not touched, but the papers I burned to-night; because in the grave—my baby's grave—certificates of legitimacy are not required. I wish no record retained of any association or tie with you, and henceforth I want to hear neither from nor of you. For ten years what heart I had left beat only for my baby, and his precious little hands will always hold it tight in his coffin. After to-morrow my work waits for me, and your path and mine will cross no more."
Up and down the room Father Temple walked, striving to master his emotion. Pausing in front of her, he asked very tenderly:
"May I know where and what is the work my son's mother has selected?"
"It is everywhere; the struggle of the poor to loosen the strangling clutch of the rich on their throats; the cruel war which will end only with the downfall of aristocrats, when millionaires will be hunted like other criminals, when cowardly sons of rich army officers can dare to marry publicly the daughters of their regimental teamsters, and when a pure woman, because she is pure, will be as much respected as a crowned head. You preach 'he that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord.' We have a different doctrine, a broader gospel. When justice reigns there will be no poor, no hoarded surplus of dishonest riches, no 'benevolent fund' doled out by 'philanthropic' pharisees to the workers whose labor created it. In that day, no poor girls in reeking tenements will be goaded by the sight of fashionable society women, who drink, and smoke, and gamble, and loll half clad in opera boxes, and hug their lap dogs and their lovers instead of their children. In that day society lines will vanish, and only two classes exist—workers and drones, governed by beehive laws. To aid in this is all I care for now—all that remains for me—and my work will be well done."
She had spoken in a cold, defiant tone, keeping her eyes on the coffin and her fingers on the child's curls, but after a moment a spasm of anguish shook her mercilessly, and, rising, she pointed to the door, saying, between strangling sobs:
"Leave me, and shut the door. I have all I can bear now. Leave me alone with my little one."
Aix-les-Bains proved a successful prescription, and Judge Kent declared himself cured; but two silent women knew he could obtain only a modicum of sleep, and noted the fact that when the daily mail—nervously expected and handled—had been scanned he grew gay and chatty. After sixteen months on the continent, he settled for a while at Taormina, and here his companions were surprised to learn that his business agent had sold every foot of real estate he owned in America, including the Herriott house in New York, and the old homestead built in an elm grove among the bleak, stony hills of New England.
"Father, when was the house in Thirty-eighth Street sold?"
"Soon after we reached Aix."
"And you never told me?"
"Why should I? Herriott might cherish some sentiment about it, but the matter touched you in no way."
"At least I should like to know who bought it."
"Herriott. While at Greyledge I told him it would be on the market, and he instructed his agent to make the purchase."
"Had I known in time, Mr. Whitfield might have invested some idle money. I like those cool, big, old-fashioned rooms."
"I entertain no doubt that sooner or later they will be yours. Mrs. Mitchell, may I trouble you for the 'Figaro' at your elbow?"
"Who owns the old homestead that has belonged to some Kent for two hundred years?"
"The town has grown until it needs a juvenile 'reformatory,' and one is now in course of erection where my old barn stood so long. A better site could not have been found, or one more vigilantly patrolled by orthodox puritan ghosts."
"Have you no regrets when you think of strangers possessing the little family burying ground where some of your ancestors long ago crumbled to dust?"
Eglah lifted her hand to brush away an orange petal that drifted down to the velvet collar of his coat, and Eliza knew that the perpendicular line between her brows indexed profound dissatisfaction.
"Regrets are unprofitable, and what remains of my life must pay dividends. My dear, will you kindly hand me my match box?"
"Then you are homeless?"
Smiling blandly, he bowed to her.
"I trust not, while my daughter owns thousands of acres of the finest land in the South."
"Do you forget how often you have declared you would never again live south of Washington?"
"I forget nothing, but circumstances are not as fixed as parallels of latitude, and changed conditions demand readjustment of plans. Irrevocability travelled into limbo with ancient Medes and Persians, and after the first of May I hope I may count upon the traditional hospitality of Nutwood. You are of age, and have the right to occupy it."
Slowly but steadily the barrier between father and child had risen and strengthened since the visit to Greyledge—a wall as of crystal, which she could neither level nor penetrate. Close to him, having him apparently within touch, yet conscious always that a transparent obstacle divided them. To the cause of estrangement he never referred, even indirectly, and he was neither irritable nor stern, but mercilessly cold and punctiliously courteous. Why he had selected Taormina in preference to Palermo was known only to himself, but one morning Eliza and Eglah saw a letter postmarked Catania, and both recognized Mr. Herriott's peculiarly bold handwriting. Judge Kent read it, returned it to the envelope, which he put in his pocket, and unfolded a New York newspaper. Mrs. Mitchell moved away to a distant window, carrying her embroidery frame and silks, and Eglah opened the piano and played softly two of Chopin'snocturnes. In the mirror opposite she saw that her father was listening, beating time with the index finger of his right hand. When she ended and approached him, he shut his eyes and hummed the final bars.
"Father, why did you come here for so long a stay?"
"It is convenient to Catania and on the road to Messina."
"You knew that Mr. Herriott expected to be there?"
"I know that he has a scientific friend there who is an expert in all that pertains to seismology, and that he wishes Herriott to see his seismographs."
"That fact should in no degree influence our movements."
"Speak solely for yourself, my dear. I particularly desire to see Herriott before he starts from Tromsö on his trip to the midnight sun."
Leaning forward, his fine dark eyes fixed on hers, he lowered his voice.
"A separation of eighteen months must have brought you to a realization of your blind folly, and it is necessary that you should have an opportunity to retrieve your error. Herriott comes to-day."
"A lifetime—a thousand years would make no difference with me. I am glad to know that he will never ask me a second time to marry him, and if he should, I could not, and I would not. Oh, father! Put that idea out of your mind, and give me back my own place in your heart."
She came close and tried to embrace him, but he held her back at arm's length.
"I love only those who obey me; and defiance I never forgive. Until you come to an appreciation of your duty as regards my unalterable wishes, I must request you not to touch me, not to expect any notice from me, except such social courtesies as one cannot avoid."
"I am the price of something Mr. Herriott alone can sell you? What is it you wish to buy?"
"Your future happiness, and my peace of mind."
"Distinctly, I decline to be sold."
He smiled, put her aside, drew his chair out upon a balcony, and resumed reading his newspaper.
The conversation had been inaudible to Eliza, but, putting out her hand, she rose quickly at sight of a white face where the large eyes glowed as on the memorable day in the pavilion at Nutwood.
Looking steadily before her, Eglah passed into an adjoining room and locked the door. Some hours later she laid a note on Mrs. Mitchell's lap.
"I am going to sit a while in the old Greco-Roman theatre. I shall come back when I am tired. Please ask no questions."
Through one of the arches, built twenty-three centuries ago, she looked out, wondering if any change could enhance the charm that lay like a magic mantle over the visible world. The purple sea broke in a tangled fringe of silver on the curving beach, Ætna, snow hooded, rose a vast altar far away, with thin, tapering feather of smoke floating as incense from its Plutonian cavern; and gaunt, gnarled olive orchards made a luminous grey background for pink plumes of almond trees, scarlet pomegranates, rose oleanders, and orange and lemon groves white with bloom that fell like a fragrant shower on crimson tulips and waxen cyclamen. In the witchery of her surroundings, thronged with beckoning spectres of Greek, Roman, Saracen, and Norman legends, Eglah had hitherto been able to forget on this spot all but the entrancing beauty of the wonderful old cliffs; yet this afternoon sombre shadows seemed to shroud a smiling sea and land, menacing as the smoking mountain that cast its perpetual challenge to a sapphire sky.
The vague anxiety, the tenderly regretful pain long gnawing at her heart, had given place now to angry indignation, and a humiliating consciousness of her father's persistent and increasing desire to barter her, body and soul, for something that Mr. Herriott possessed. Not his great wealth, her own fortune was sufficiently ample; not his social influence, since political aspirations had come to an untimely end; there was no animosity to be conciliated, no strained personal relations existed, only a mild friendship manifested by occasional correspondence. Her conjectures ran around a baffling circle marked only by the starting post, "what?" "why?" Nemesis is not always so intent on pursuit of the culprit that she can forego the parenthetic pastime of striking at the innocent who may chance to stand between, and Eglah had begun to entertain a bitter resentment against Mr. Herriott—the only visible factor in her father's alienation—despite her firm conviction that he would never, by a renewed proposal, smooth the way to a consummation of the desired sale.
The strong sense of dispassionate justice on which she prided herself upbraided her sharply, but the intolerable disappointments of the last eighteen months shook her from the calm, cool heights of impersonal reasoning. As she leaned her bare head against the pillar of an arch through which presageful Greek chorus chants—ages ago—had drifted away to sea, her upturned face was shown in clear relief, like ivory features on a dull-red background. Gowned in grey cloth, she had clustered lemon blossoms around the cameo fastening her belt, and across her lap lay a branch of acanthus, its pale, delicate lilac flowers springing among the curved, glossy leaves.
From a neighboring angle in the portico, to which Mr. Herriott had noiselessly ascended, his eager, hungry eyes watched her, studied her, and through a mist of unconquerable tenderness he noted the changes time had printed on the frank, fair face—so much older, so pale, so hard, so sullen rather than sorrowful. The light of youthful hope in her lovely eyes had been driven away by some ugly fact always confronting her, and the sensitive lips were set tight, stern, pitiless. Who or what was the Gorgon that had frozen the exquisite face he loved so passionately? More than grief was written there, and he who had so long interpreted its phases read the dominant emotion, indignant protest against some wrong. Over the crest of Ætna the sinking sun hovered, and in the wonderful radiance, that seemed woven of vast rainbows into some celestial garment for sea and land, Mr. Herriott came out of his niche and stood before her.
"I am very glad to see you here, Eglah. It seems so long since we parted at Greyledge."
He held out both hands, and, without rising, she put up one of hers, but he saw the swift frown, the undisguised annoyance his presence caused. There had been no opportunity for fastening a mask, or forcing perfunctory smiles, and upon her frank truthfulness and scorn of dissimulation he relied implicitly. Very tenderly he covered her cold fingers with his warm palms, and, as she withdrew them, he seated himself on a stone at her side.
"Who has put me in your black books? Not a word of welcome for a travel-weary vagrant starving for friendly recognition?"
She looked coldly at him, but something in his fine, magnetic eyes, his caressing tone, touched her into self-reproach.
"If ever you should get into my black book, you will have put yourself there. Mr. Herriott, I am very glad to see you looking so remarkably well."
"Have I so many grey locks, to warrant my promotion to Mr. Herriott?"
She glanced at the silky black head bent toward her.
"Not a white hair visible. Your promotion comes by brevet, in honor of perfect behavior as well as additional years. Of course you have seen father?"
"No, I met only Mrs. Mitchell, who told me you had gone to watch the sunset, and I knew this must be your coign of vantage."
"This is not your first visit?"
"No. The island attracts me more than any other part of Italy, and justifies what has been said: 'Sicily is the smile of God.'"
"Then surely His frown must be Ætna—'the pillar of heaven, the nurse of sharp, eternal snows.' A few moments ago it was dazzling, now how grim and sombre it looms, and that wavering jet of smoke crawls against the purple sky as a dying candle flame flickers over the head of a corpse. I sometimes wonder if God——"
She had lifted the acanthus spray and touched it with her cheek, and her eyes followed the ascending smoke which suddenly glowed from crater lights beneath as sunset splendors faded; but the sentence was not finished, and her lips paled. Turning toward her companion, she smiled.
"You have been feeling the old earth's pulse while she was in an ague?"
"Yes. On the surface our ancient mother appears so absolutely in repose, and yet, when we get down nearer her mighty heart, we find the earth is never still; it trembles and thrills ceaselessly. This was my first view of the seismic pendulum records, in a subterranean vault that suggested the workshop of Hephæstus."
"I should think you would tire of wandering about, and prefer to go home."
"If I had one, doubtless I should; but roof, walls, and fields and gardens do not exactly constitute the home that would content me."
"Mr. Noel, you are wedded to science, and nothing else will ever satisfy you."
"Yes, I am very faithful to my vast spouse, and I find her loyal. She never flirts, never is inconsistent or petulant; when I work hard she smiles divinely, and, like that other sorceress of the Nile, 'age cannot wither her nor custom stale her infinite variety.' Domesticity is not one of her charms, hence hand in hand we roam the world, making a perpetual bridal tour. No connubial quarrels disturb our sweet repose, even when I write to you, her only rival; but if I grow indolent, or over wise or conceited, she simply lays her great finger on her lips of stone and turns her huge planetary back upon me. Now, Eglah, you are due in the confessional. Why did you fail to answer my letter from Fort Churchill, Hudson Bay?"
"Because it contained no address, and to reach you seemed as uncertain as mailing a letter to that wild new comet pious people are praying will not make a carrom with earth and moon and sundry stars. Have you heard that Beatrix and Mr. Stapleton were married in November?"
"Yes, I received a long wail from Aunt Trina, in which she came as near boxing my ears as intervening distance permitted. Dana and Trix will be as happy as a pair of Java finches in a gilt cage."
"I imagined that Miss Manning's objection arose solely from the fact that the cage was not gilded."
"Wall Street is a wonderful matchmaker, and smiled on the lovers. Sometimes Hymen corners stocks, and Dana's kite was lucky."
Having learned from Judge Kent that Mr. Herriott had assisted Mr. Stapleton in financial matters, Eglah smiled, and the old look of kindly trust came back to her eyes as they steadily met his.
"What a treat it would be to read Miss Manning's letter!"
"Because you think my ears deserve boxing, and you enjoy seeing justice meted out? How unkind to your faithful old friend! Nevertheless, I would lay the letter before you, but it is in my trunk at Brindisi, where I am due to meet Chalcott for the next steamer to Cyprus. Chalcott has questioned the accuracy of statements relative to the recent excavations there, and wants local data, and as he is also at odds with Schliemann over the Troad, we go there to debate the claim of HissarlikversusBunárbashi."
"I did not know you were so deeply interested in classical archæology."
"I am not, and it does not attract me; but it is a special line of study with Chalcott, who wishes me to accompany him, not as co-worker, but merely as a friend."
"You prefer Hopi and Haida legends, and 'Walam-Olum,' and 'glacial moraines,' and 'kettle holes'? You see, as an old friend, I thought it really my duty to read those two reports you sent to father."
"I dare say you found them very tiresome; but pre-glacial conditions and anthropological problems appeal powerfully to me. In tossing up balloons we do not all select the same color."
"After burrowing in the Troad, where next?"
"Tromsö, Hammerfest and the midnight sun. We shall have a pleasant party: two Americans, a German professor, an English scientist, and a Russian astronomer. I must go on to Brindisi to-morrow, but I could not resist the temptation to see you and spend a few hours."
"It will be a long time before you reach home?"
"So long that I have fixed no date for return."
The unmistakable expression of relief that crossed her face was not lost upon him, and involuntarily he clenched his right hand resting on his knee.
"Eglah, your countenance is honest as your heart, and you are not glad to see your old friend. May I ask why?"
Without hesitation she looked at him frankly.
"To-day something annoyed me very sorely, and I came here to fight it out alone. I fear I have at times the temper of a Tartar, and the evil one possessed me at the very moment you appeared and spoke to me. Just then nothing would have given me pleasure, but your patient courtesy makes me ashamed; and now, Mr. Noel, you must believe me when I assure you I am heartily glad to be with you, and hear of your various expeditions."
Smiling cordially, she held out her hand, but he took no notice of it, and for a moment his eyes rested on the sea, where a freshening wind crimped the long swells of water dyed by the after-glow into the gold of a daffodil. Turning, he bent over her.
"May I ask you a question?"
"Certainly, if I may be allowed discretionary powers as regards answering. I do not think Mr. Noel could make an unkind inquiry, or that he would distress me in any way."
"Am I responsible for the annoyance you referred to?"
Keen as was his gaze, she did not waver.
"Personally it was impossible that you could have been responsible. When it occurred you were in Catania."
She saw that he was not satisfied, and, rising, put on her hat.
"We must go back; father will have so much to talk over with you. Please carry my acanthus; I shall make a sketch of this spray, it is so laden with blossoms."
In silence they walked some distance, and rather suddenly she exclaimed:
"I must have been rude indeed, when you, so generous and kind, will not forgive me. Mr. Noel, I am not quite my old self, and to-day have felt at odds with the world. Father's incomprehensible retirement from public life grieves and perplexes me, because his health is perfect, and I cannot patiently accept the forfeiture of all my hopes for his political future. Without his knowledge, I wrote early in the new Administration to two prominent officials, close personal friends of the President, and asked their influence in securing a foreign ministerial position for my father. With elaborate circumlocution they expressed regrets, and 'tendered kindest remembrance and best wishes.' I presume it is wise to wage no war with the inevitable, but I simply cannot reconcile myself to the most bitter disappointment of my life. You see, I trust you so entirely I am opening my heart to you, that you may quite understand I did not intend to show any lack of cordiality to you."
He laughed, and tapped her shoulder twice with the acanthus spray.
"With all my heart I absolve you. Rude you could not be, and I trust the time will never come when I deserve to be treated less cordially than in the past. When do you go back to America?"
"In May or June. Ma-Lila will stay away no longer; she is so anxious to look after her little fifty-acre farm."
"In the South, of course?"
"Yes; it is a corner of one of the 'bend plantations,' and with a new, pretty cottage, well furnished, grandmother gave it to her as a bridal present. None of us can ever forget that her father was killed while bringing my dying grandfather off the battle-field."
"Has Judge Kent decided where he will live?"
"He has sold the old homestead in New England, and we expect to settle down in the only remaining home, Nutwood, which, in accordance with grandmother's will, we now have the right to occupy. Until this year the trustees controlled and closed it."
"Do not forget that whenever you and your father wish to visit New York the house in Thirty-eighth Street will be entirely at your disposal—at least for a couple of years. A telegram to my old butler Hawkins will always insure a comfortable reception. Here comes the Judge. How remarkably well he looks."
Very late that night, when adieux had been spoken and only father and daughter remained in the small salon, Eglah rose, and they looked steadily at each other. In her dark brown eyes two defiant stars glowed, but the clear, sweet voice was low and tender.
"Father, after what was said this morning, I of course can only wish you good-night. Your conditions make it impossible for me to attempt to kiss you, and until you choose to remove the embargo, I certainly shall observe it, in accordance with your orders. Good-night, dear father."
He bowed as if to a duchess.
"Good-night, Eglah."
When Mr. Herriott went down the steps leading from the Kent apartments to the street, Mrs. Mitchell beckoned him into a niche between two stone pillars, and said, almost in a whisper:
"Excuse me, sir, but will you tell me what is behind this trouble between Eglah and her father?"
"She says it is the result of his refusal to re-enter politics."
"Exactly; but what is behind his refusal? She is fretting herself ill, because she cannot find out. Ever since our last day at Greyledge they have been estranged. This morning, when your letter arrived, something very unpleasant occurred; and you see Eglah is not like herself."
"My letter was a most innocent paper bomb—the mere announcement that I intended to stop here a few hours on my way to Messina. It contained absolutely nothing more, and you must have mistaken the cause of her annoyance. Perhaps you wish to intimate that you think my presence enhances the trouble, whatever it may be? I shall be glad to have you speak frankly."
For a moment she was silent, but she patted his coat sleeve approvingly.
"Mr. Herriott, she is all I have in this world, and I can't see the child breaking her heart over Judge Kent's selfish secretiveness. There is something about him I do not understand, and I thought you might be able to explain it to me."
"As you have known him so much longer and more intimately than I, it seems probable that you can estimate him accurately without my assistance. Mrs. Mitchell, it will be a long time before I see any of you again, and going so far away, I shall remember with great pleasure that our dear Eglah will have you always at her side, in dark and stormy as well as sunny hours. Good-bye; my very best wishes for you all."
He understood most thoroughly. Eglah's struggle to receive cordially an evidently unwelcome visitor had pained him inexpressibly, wounding his pride even more than his heart, and since his absence contributed to her peace, he resolved that henceforth she should know no disquietude. If, despite his efforts to surrender, he had cherished a faint, unacknowledged hope, he strangled it effectually now, and in after years he thought of Ætna only as a monument whose shadow lay ever across the acanthus-covered grave of his last beautiful illusion.
Longer than usual Eglah knelt beside her bed that night, and when she rose, Mrs. Mitchell, waiting to brush out and braid her hair, noted in the pale young face traces of mental wrestling.
"Little mother, does God answer your prayers?"
"Not always in the way I may have wished, but when they are denied I seem to receive instead an increased assurance that He knows best; and as to a child crying for sharp-edged tools, His refusal springs from omniscient mercy."
"Do you think Mr. Noel is really a Christian? Father believes him a mere rationalist."
"His is such a fine character, only Christianity could have moulded him."
"I wish I knew whether he prays every night."
"Why?"
"If he does, his prayers and mine must clash like crossed swords before the Lord, and Mr. Noel is better than I, and deserves to receive that which he wants most; but he will not—he shall not!"
"Eglah, dearie! The Lord alone will decide."
"No. If we are free agents, human will can not be coerced by Him who gave it. Even our great, dear, good God cannot give him what I pray he will be denied. Never—never!"
"For what is he praying?"
"A razor—that would cut his fingers—so he must not have it. Now, lest you should 'imagine vain things,' I wish you to know that Mr. Noel has not renewed his proposal of marriage, and I hope never will. It is only just to him that you should fully understand he is now no suitor. He is simply my loyal, noble friend, in whom I trust implicitly. Good-night,Madrecita."
It had been a cold, cloudy January day in one of the great northern cities, and with night came flurries of snow that powdered telegraph wires and danced like thistledown around the corners. Two and a half years had elapsed since the angel of death stooped to swing his sickle in the daisy meadow on Long Island, and in a low, wide basement room, fronting the street, Mrs. Dane sat at her sewing machine, hemming a child's check aprons piled on a chair. The apartment was plainly but comfortably furnished, and filled now with the pungent odor of ginger, cloves, and cinnamon from a pan of small cakes on the top of an oil stove. The gas jet above her heightened the metallic lustre of her abundant hair, and deepened fringy shadows cast by her thick, dusky lashes. Upon the beautiful face time had softly pressed its velvet palm, smoothing the angles of bitterness and wrath that had been intensified by the struggle with her husband, whom she now believed she had eluded forever by removing to another city. On the broad windowsill at her right stood an oval, brass filigree frame holding a photograph of Leighton in his chorister vestments, and in front of the picture a dozen violets filled a wine-glass. As she finished and folded an apron, leaning forward to place it on the chair, her glance fell on the photograph, rested there, and the ocean of the past moaned, surged, broke over her. Despite her persistent scoffing moods, she had found it impossible to forget the few lines Father Temple had repeated with a faltering voice after the grave closed over the sweet young singer of St. Hyacinth's. They haunted some chamber of her defiant soul, and when she gazed at the holy face of her boy they stole out and whispered: