Chapter VI
He was unprepared for the size and magnificence of the Overton house. If he had been an older resident of Hilltop, he would have known that to visit the daughter of Balby Overton was a thing not to be done unadvisedly or lightly. It was an occasion to be dressed for, and mentioned afterward, with a casualness only apparent.
But Vickers knew nothing of this,—only knew that a pretty girl had asked him to visit her, and that an evening had soon presented itself when he found it convenient to go. Nor would he, for his nature lacked reverence, have been very much impressed at knowing that Overton was thought a great man in the neighborhood. He had begun life like allthe other men in Hilltop, had skated and swum in the river with the rest, had gone to school with the other boys, and had not, as they delighted to remember, been very wise or very industrious. Afterward he had studied law and then gone into a law-office in the nearest large town. From that moment he had begun to rise; so that the old conservative firm which had consented to receive him as a clerk was now generally spoken of as “Overton’s partners.” He was considered the first lawyer in the state, and spoken of as the next senator. He was known, too, to have made money.
And yet he had never moved away from Hilltop. Hilltop itself expected it, and waited anxiously for the first symptom; waited to hear him complain of the heat of summer, or the exigencies of his daughter’s education. He never spoke of either. Perhaps political reasons chained him, or perhaps he was notabove enjoying the position of a big man in a small place, or possibly he was bound by an affection for the neighborhood where he was born and bred. In any case, he built himself a new house, and an anomalous being, whose position Hilltop never clearly understood, came and laid out the grounds—a “landscapegardener” was understood to be his official title. Hilltop on the whole disapproved of him. He planted strange trees, and they asked each other why it was, “if Balby wanted trees so bad, he didn’t build his house down in the woods.”
But Overton himself remained unchanged—unchanged at least as far as any one could judge. He still came to town meetings and quarreled with Dr. Briggs just as he had always done. It is true that certain people who had always called him “Balby,” or even “Scrawny” (for he was thin), began now to let slip an occasional “Mr. Overton,” buthe still took the 8.12 train in the morning, and the 5.37 in the afternoon; his daughter still went among them like all the other daughters of Hilltop; and if he had not had a big house, and strange, obscure, but very expensive objects understood to be “first editions,” no one could have laid a finger on any alteration in him.
Vickers did not, of course, know anything of all this, did not notice the impressive gate, or the iron palings, or anything until a large stone house loomed up before him in the moonlight. Then, after he had rung the bell, he turned to look at the view, and as he withdrew his eyes from the soft shadowy rolling country, he saw that in the foreground was a long marble balustrade, and beyond this, marble seats and fountains that stood out sharply against a background of cedars.
The servant who answered the door said that Miss Overton was on the piazza, andled the way to the back of the house, where Vickers found that he had been anticipated by two young men, who were sitting on the steps of the piazza, looking up at the girl in her low wicker chair. It struck Vickers that the conversation had languished, for there was a decided pause as he approached. But this illusion was dispelled by Miss Overton’s greeting, which was so markedly constrained, so totally different from the manner in which she had invited him to come, that Vickers did not need much perception to guess that she had been warned he was not a desirable acquaintance.
He did not allow that knowledge, however, to chill his pleasant manner. He took his place on the steps, although there were a number of luxurious looking chairs standing about. He was punctiliously introduced to both of the young men, and he remarked at once that it was very kind in Miss Overtonto let him come, as he seemed to be in the way at home.
“Oh, I suppose Mr. Emmons was there,” said Miss Overton; and it presently appeared that Miss Overton did not think Mr. Emmons half good enough for Nellie. One of the young men said rather gruffly that he did not think so either, and was greeted by so many sly giggles and innuendoes that Vickers gathered that he too had had pretensions in this direction.
Vickers contented himself by remarking that Emmons did not seem to him a romantic figure, and Miss Overton burst out:
“And Nellie of all people, who might have married so many nice men.”
“The deuce you say,” cried Vickers, and was rewarded for his interest by hearing all the gossip of Nellie’s love-affairs for the last six years.
He turned to Miss Overton. “And whydid not Nellie accept any of these eligible proposals?” he asked.
There was a short but awkward pause, and then Miss Overton replied in a low voice that she understood Nellie did not feel she could leave her uncle.
The answer, though not painful for the reason they thought, was nevertheless painful to Vickers. It seemed to set a new obstacle between him and Nellie. A woman might forgive you for overworking her, even for robbing her, but for coming between her and a man she fancied—never. No wonder he had not found it easy to establish pleasant relations with her. The task looked harder than ever.
He had no difficulty in thawing little Miss Overton’s manner. She was a type he understood better. She giggled so delightedly every time he opened his mouth, that he felt emboldened to stay even after the two youngmen had risen together. As soon as they had gone the former constraint returned to the girl’s manner. She asked stiffly:
“Do you find Hilltop much changed, Mr. Lee?”
“I find myself changed,” answered Vickers. He had no intention of losing any of the advantages of his position, nor was he going until he had drawn her back to a more friendly tone. “You see I have been living among another people. Did it ever strike you, Miss Overton, what is the distinguishing trait of the Anglo-Saxon race?”
Miss Overton, who was not quite sure what the Anglo-Saxon race was, answered that it had not.
“Why, their ability to pick out another person’s duty. Ever since I’ve been here every one has been telling me what my duty is—except you.”
“But isn’t that a help, sometimes, Mr.Lee?” the girl asked shyly. She had heard that her visitor was sometimes in need of a little advice in this matter.
“Ah, but how do they know my duty, Miss Overton? They all think they do; but do they? There are so many different kinds of duty, just as there are so many different kinds of virtue.”
“But are there many?” asked Miss Overton, trying to think how many she had learned there were at school. Was it nine virtues, or nine Muses? She was sure about the seven deadly sins.
“Oh, all sorts and kinds. I had a servant once in Central America, who was the kindest little chap to animals. When my macaw was ill, he insisted on sitting up all night with it, and yet I found out afterward that just before he came to me he had murdered his mother and grandmother, because he said they nagged him.”
“What an interesting life you must have had, Mr. Lee,” said the girl, for this casual mention of crimes was startling to Hilltop notions.
“And courage is a queer thing,” Vickers went on; “I knew a native down there who cried when an American knocked him down, and yet when it came to sheer crazy courage——”
Just at this moment a tall figure came through the window.
“What a beautiful night,” said a quiet voice.
“Father, this is Mr. Lee,” said the girl, and there was a something anxious, almost appealing, in her tone.
The anxiety seemed unnecessary, for Overton answered pleasantly: “What, Bob Lee? glad to see you here!” As he spoke he stepped out into the moonlight, and Vickers saw his long, thin, clever Yankee face. “Just going?” he went on, glancing at his guest,who as a matter of fact had no such intention. “I’ll walk a little way with you.”
Vickers was surprised at the Great Man’s cordiality, but his surprise was short-lived. Indeed it lasted no further than the corner of the piazza.
“I always think, Mr. Lee,” Overton began at once, “that if a disagreeable thing has to be said, the sooner the better. Now I hope you will come and see me again, come and see me as often as you feel like it; but I do not desire your friendship for my daughter.”
In his day Vickers had knocked men down for less, but there was something so calm and friendly and reasonable in Overton’s manner that it never occurred to him to do more than ask quite mildly:
“And why this difference, sir?”
“Oh,” said Overton, “I allow myself a great many things I don’t permit Louisa—whiskey and cigars, and acquaintances withreformed characters. I assume that you have reformed, Mr. Lee, or else you would not have come to see us at all.”
“There is something very frank about the way you assume that I needed to,” retorted Vickers.
“I make it a point even in court,” said Overton, “not to dispute the obvious.”
It struck Vickers that there was no use in resenting insults to a past with which he was so little connected that he was in complete ignorance of its dark places. Hoping to throw a little light upon the subject he began:
“Perhaps you will tell which incident or incidents of my past you——”
Overton cut him short with a smile. “No,” he said, “I won’t. In the first place I don’t mean to walk so far, and in the second it wouldn’t be pertinent. The point is that you are a reformed character. In my experience there is nothing so dangerous to theyoung. Their admiration for the superb spectacle of Satan trodden underfoot is too apt to include an admiration of Satan himself. In short, my dear sir, I don’t think you have any ground for quarreling with me because I think you a dangerous fellow for young girls.”
“It is not exactly a compliment,” said Vickers.
“Either of those young sparks who have just gone would have given ten years of his life for such an accusation.” Both men laughed at the incontestable truth of this assertion, but Vickers felt it necessary to say:
“But I am a good deal older than they are.”
“And a good many other things as well.” They had reached the impressive gate-post, and Overton stopped. “Suppose you come and dine with me to-morrow night,” and he added, in exactly the same tone, “Louisa is dining with a friend.”
Vickers looked at him a moment and then exclaimed candidly: “Now I wonder why in thunder you asked me to dinner.”
Overton smiled. “Let me tell you,” he answered. “I must confess I was an eavesdropper this evening. Sitting in the house I could hear your voice, and I amused myself trying to guess who you could be that I could not place in Hilltop. I could not even guess your family. It was principally to satisfy my curiosity that I came out.”
“Do you remember me, Mr. Overton, before I went away?” asked Vickers eagerly.
“I have an excellent memory,” answered the lawyer briefly.
“Do I seem to you to have changed?”
“Physically changed, you mean?”
“Yes.”
Overton looked at him reflectively in the moonlight.
“More than physically,” he returned at length.
“Mentally?”
“Mentally, if you like. It seems to me, Lee, that you have changed your soul, and you will forgive my saying that it seems to me a damned good thing. Good-night.”
Vickers went on his way whistling. The interview had raised his spirits with its suggestion that his own personality might yet triumph over Lee’s. It seemed a very fitting climax to the evening, when he saw Nellie standing at the door, most evidently looking for him.
“Ah, Nellie,” he said, “you were afraid I had bolted.”
“I was not,” she answered firmly; “only I did not want to lock up the house, until you were in.”
“Nellie,” he said again, “you were most mortally afraid in the depths of that hardlittle heart of yours that I had run away.”
“I don’t know whether I am most afraid you will run away, or disgrace us by staying. Where have you been, Bob?”
Vickers looked down at her and felt inclined to refuse her the information, but seeing possibilities in telling her, he almost instantly answered:
“I have been most safely engaged in a visit to Miss Overton.”
“Louisa Overton? Oh, Bob, how could you?”
“But why not? I had supposed it one of the very most respectable——”
“You know that is not what I meant.”
“Perhaps you will tell me what you do mean.”
“You must not go and see little Louisa. She is a perfect child. She has seen nothing, and knows no one. I do not think she would even amuse you very much, Bob. She is toosimple and innocent. I can not think what put it into your head to go.”
“Well, one thing was that she asked me.”
“You must not go again.”
“I can hardly avoid it. I am dining there to-morrow night.”
“Sheaskedyou to dinner?”
“Certainly I did not invite myself.”
There was a short pause, and then Nellie said, with determination: “Bob, I am to a certain degree responsible for your being here at all.”
“You are entirely responsible.”
“I feel the responsibility. I feel it is my duty to make you behave rightly while you are here. It is not behaving rightly to try and acquire an influence over an inexperienced child like Louisa Overton.”
“My dear Nellie, how women jump to conclusions! Is an evening visit a sure prelude to acquiring an influence?”
“Yes, for a man like you.”
“Be careful, or I shall interpret that as a compliment, if you don’t change the form of your sentence.”
“You may interpret it as you like,” returned she. “I repeat that it is quite possible that your looks, your size, your manner, and your adventures might be very dazzling to a girl, who,” she added relentlessly, “did not know much about you.”
“But every one here seems to know everything about me, to judge by their disapproving glances.”
“I don’t believe that Louisa does. But I tell you frankly, Bob, if you go there again——”
“Another threat, Nellie? I never knew any one who believed so completely in government by threat.”
“How else can I treat you?”
“Well, you might try being a little bit niceto me. Don’t you think that would be rather more likely to make me stay at home? But to be left alone in the garden, while you and Emmons——”
“You do not need to be told that you were at liberty to join us.”
“Ay, there’s a prospect to keep a man at home. Three of us, so congenial, sitting up making conversation. A dangerously alluring proposition, Nellie, upon my word!”
“You can hardly expect me to refuse to see Mr. Emmons because you have come home.”
“I do not say what I expect: I ask you to be a little more civil to me. I don’t make it a business proposition, and I don’t make it a threat, like you; but if you really want me to stay at home, and behave myself, there is only one way to do it.”
Nellie looked very grave and then began to smile.
“You know that sounds rather like a threat to me,” she said.
“Then you see the force of bad example. I did not use to threaten my friends.”
“I am not your friend,” she answered quickly.
“What are you?”
If he had expected to hear her reply “your enemy,” he was wrong.
“It seems to me that for six years I have been your slave——”
“I wish I had known it.”
“And now I intend that you shall be mine.”
He laughed. “Well, you are frank, at least. But let me tell you that it has never been found good commercial policy to treat even slaves too badly. Your whole position is based on the assumption that I shall always prefer this house to State’s Prison. But be careful. There is many a good criminal whom I should prefer to Emmons as a companion,and a warder is tender and human compared to you, Nellie. Have a little common sense, my dear girl. If I am to stay, you must be civil.”
She turned sharply away from him, and he made no effort to detain her. They walked side by side across the hall, absorbed in their own thoughts. Nellie’s were obvious. She was plainly weighing the claims of an excellentfiancéagainst those of a worthless cousin. Vickers was asking himself, for the first time, whether, after all, he any longer wanted to prove to her that he was not Lee. If he had the proofs in his hand at that moment, would he show them to her? There would be one splendid scene, one instant of triumph. It would be worth a great deal to see Nellie humble; but would it be worth going away for all time? He had to choose between leaving her, a rehabilitated character, or at least partially rehabilitated, but still leavingher; or remaining to be despised. It struck him with some force that on the whole he preferred to remain.
It was at best a very pretty question.