"I don't see," said my wife, "any mention in this account of the thousands who have been reduced to poverty by this operation."
"No," said Morgan; "that is not interesting."
"But it would be very interesting to me," Mrs. Fletcher remarked. "Is there any protection, Mr. Morgan, for people who have invested their little property?"
"Yes; the law."
"But suppose your money is all invested, say in a railway, and something goes wrong, where are you to get the money to pay for the law that will give you restitution? Is there anything in the State, or public opinion, or anywhere, that will protect your interests against clever swindling?"
"Not that I know of," Morgan admitted. "You take your chance when you let your money go out of your stocking. You see there are so many people who want it. You can put it in the ground."
"But if I own the ground I put it in, the voters who have no ground will tax it till there is nothing left for me."
"That is equality."
"But it isn't equality, for somebody gets very rich in railways or lands, while we lose our little all. Don't you think there ought to be a public official whose duty it is to enforce the law gratis which I cannot afford to enforce when I am wronged?"
"The difficulty is to discover whether you are wronged or only unfortunate. It needs a lawyer to find that out. And very likely if you are wronged, the wrongdoer has so cleverly gone round the law that it needs legislation to set you straight, and that needs a lobbyist, whom the lawyer must hire, or he must turn lobbyist himself. Now, a lawyer costs money, and a lobbyist is one of the most expensive of modern luxuries; but when you have a lawyer and lobbyist in one, you will find it economical to let him take your claim and all that can be made out of it, and not bother you any more about it. But there is no doubt about the law, as I said. You can get just as much law as you can pay for. It is like any other commodity."
"You mean to say," I asked, "that the lawyer takes what the operator leaves?"
"Not exactly. There is a great deal of unreasonable prejudice against lawyers. They must live. There is no nobler occupation than the application of the principle of justice in human affairs. The trouble is that public opinion sustains the operator in his smartness, and estimates the lawyer according to his adroitness. If we only evoked the aid of a lawyer in a just cause, the lawyers would have less to do.
"Usually and naturally the best talent goes with the biggest fees."
"It seems to me," said my wife, musing along, in her way, on parallel lines, "that there ought to be a limit to the amount of property one man can get into his absolute possession, to say nothing of the methods by which he gets it."
"That never yet could be set," Morgan replied. "It is impossible for any number of men to agree on it. I don't see any line between absolute freedom of acquisition, trusting to circumstances, misfortune, and death to knock things to pieces, and absolute slavery, which is communism."
"Do you believe, Mr. Morgan, that any vast fortune was ever honestly come by?"
"That is another question. Honesty is such a flexible word. If you mean a process the law cannot touch, yes. If you mean moral consideration for others, I doubt. But property accumulates by itself almost. Many a man who has got a start by an operation he would not like to have investigated, and which he tries to forget, goes on to be very rich, and has a daily feeling of being more and more honorable and respectable, using only means which all the world calls fair and shrewd."
"Mr. Morgan," suddenly asked Margaret, who had been all the time an uneasy listener to the turn the talk had taken, "what is railroad wrecking?"
"Oh, it is very simple, at least in some of its forms. The 'wreckers,' as they are called, fasten upon some railway that is prosperous, pays dividends, pays a liberal interest on its bonds, and has a surplus. They contrive to buy, no matter of what cost, a controlling interest in it, either in its stock or its management. Then they absorb its surplus; they let it run down so that it pays no dividends, and by-and-by cannot even pay its interest; then they squeeze the bondholders, who may be glad to accept anything that is offered out of the wreck, and perhaps then they throw the property into the hands of a receiver, or consolidate it with some other road at a value enormously greater than the cost to them in stealing it. Having in one way or another sucked it dry, they look round for another road."
"And all the people who first invested lose their money, or the most of it?"
"Naturally, the little fish get swallowed."
"It is infamous," said Margaret—"infamous! And men go to work to do this, to get other people's property, in cool blood?"
"I don't know how cool, but it is in the way of business."
"What is the difference between that and getting possession of a bank and robbing it?" she asked, hot with indignation.
"Oh, one is an operation, and the other is embezzlement."
"It is a shame. How can people permit it? Suppose, Mrs. Fletcher, a wrecker should steal your money that way?"
"I was thinking of that."
I never saw Margaret more disturbed—out of all proportion, I thought, to the cause; for we had talked a hundred times about such things.
"Do you think all men who are what you call operating around are like that?" she asked.
"Oh, no," I said. "Probably most men who are engaged in what is generally called speculation are doing what seems to them a perfectly legitimate business. It is a common way of making a fortune."
"You see, Margaret," Morgan explained, "when people in trade buy anything, they expect to sell it for more than they gave for it."
"It seems to me," Margaret replied, more calmly, "that a great deal of what you men call business is just trying to get other people's money, and doesn't help anybody or produce anything."
"Oh, that is keeping up the circulation, preventing stagnation."
"And that is the use of brokers in grain and stocks?"
"Partly. They are commonly the agents that others use to keep themselves from stagnation."
"I cannot see any good in it," Margaret persisted. "No one seems to have the things he buys or sells. I don't understand it."
"That is because you are a woman, if you will pardon me for saying it. Men don't need to have things in hand; business is done on faith and credit, and when a transaction is over, they settle up and pay the difference, without the trouble of transporting things back and forth."
"I know you are chaffing me, Mr. Morgan. But I should call that betting."
"Oh, there is a risk in everything you do. But you see it is really paying for a difference of knowledge or opinion."
"Would you buy stocks that way?"
"What way?"
"Why, agreeing to pay for your difference of opinion, as you call it, not really having any stock at all."
"I never did. But I have bought stocks and sold them pretty soon, if I could make anything by the sale. All merchants act on that principle."
"Well," said Margaret, dimly seeing the sophistry of this, "I don't understand business morality."
"Nobody does, Margaret. Most men go by the law. The Golden Rule seems to be suspended by a more than two-thirds vote."
It was by such inquiries, leading to many talks of this sort, that Margaret was groping in her mind for the solution of what might become to her a personal question. Consciously she did not doubt Henderson's integrity or his honor, but she was perplexed about the world of which she had recently had a glimpse, and it was impossible to separate him from it. Subjected to an absolutely new experience, stirred as her heart had never been before by any man—a fact which at once irritated and pleased her—she was following the law of her own nature, while she was still her own mistress, to ponder these things and to bring her reason to the guidance of her feeling. And it is probable that she did not at all know the strength of her feeling, or have any conception of the real power of love, and how little the head has to do with the great passion of life, the intensity of which the poets have never in the least exaggerated. If she thought of Mr. Lyon occasionally, of his white face and pitiful look of suffering that day, she could not, after all, make it real or permanently serious. Indeed, she was sure that no emotion could so master her. And yet she looked forward to Henderson's coming with a sort of nervous apprehension, amounting almost to dread.
It was the susceptible time of the year for plants, for birds, for maids: all innocent natural impulses respond to the subtle influence of spring. One may well gauge his advance in selfishness, worldliness, and sin by his loss of this annual susceptibility, by the failure of this sweet appeal to touch his heart. One must be very far gone if some note of it does not for a moment bring back the tenderest recollections of the days of joyous innocence.
Even the city, with its mass of stone and brick, rectangles, straight lines, dust, noise, and fever of activity, is penetrated by this divine suggestion of the renewal of life. You can scarcely open a window without letting in a breath of it; the south wind, the twitter of a sparrow, the rustle of leaves in the squares, the smell of the earth and of some struggling plant in the area, the note of a distant hand-organ softened by distance, are begetting a longing for youth, for green fields, for love. As Carmen walked down the avenue with Mr. Lyon on a spring morning she almost made herself believe that an unworldly life with this simple-hearted gentleman—when he should come into his title and estate—would be more to her liking than the most brilliant success in place and power with Henderson. Unfortunately the spring influence also suggested the superior attractiveness of the only man who had ever taken her shallow fancy. And unfortunately the same note of nature suggested to Mr. Lyon the contrast of this artificial piece of loveliness with the domestic life of which he dreamed.
As for Margaret, she opened her heart to the spring without reserve. It was May. The soft maples had a purple tinge, the chestnuts showed color, the apple-trees were in bloom (all the air was full of their perfume), the blackbirds were chattering in convention in the tall oaks, the bright leaves and the flowering shrubs were alive with the twittering and singing of darting birds. The soft, fleecy clouds, hovering as over a world just created, seemed to make near and participant in the scene the delicate blue of the sky. Margaret—I remember the morning—was standing on her piazza, as I passed through the neighborhood drive, with a spray of apple-blossoms in her hand. For the moment she seemed to embody all the maiden purity of the scene, all its promise. I said, laughing:
"We shall have to have you painted as spring."
"But spring isn't painted at all," she replied, holding up the apple —blossoms, and coming down the piazza with a dancing step.
"And so it won't last. We want something permanent," I was beginning to say, when a carriage passed, going to our house. "I think that must be Henderson."
"Ah!" she exclaimed. Her sunny face clouded at once, and she turned to go in as I hurried away.
It was Mr. Henderson, and there was at least pretense enough of business to occupy us, with Mr. Morgan, the greater part of the day. It was not till late in the afternoon that Henderson appeared to remember that Margaret was in the neighborhood, and spoke of his intention of calling. My wife pointed out the way to him across the grounds, and watched him leisurely walking among the trees till he was out of sight.
"What an agreeable man Mr. Henderson is!" she said, turning to me; "most companionable; and yet—and yet, my dear, I'm glad he is not my husband. You suit me very well." There was an air of conviction about this remark, as if it were the result of deep reflection and comparison, and it was emphasized by the little possessory act of readjusting my necktie—one of the most subtle of female flatteries.
"But who wanted him to be your husband?" I asked. "Married women have the oddest habit of going about the world picking out the men they would not like to have married. Do they need continually to justify themselves?"
"No; they congratulate themselves. You never can understand."
"I confess I cannot. My first thought about an attractive woman whose acquaintance I make is not that I am glad I did not marry her."
"I dare say not. You are all inconsistent, you men. But you are the least so of any man in the world, I do believe."
It would be difficult to say whether the spring morning seemed more or less glorious to Margaret when she went indoors, but its serenity was gone.
It was like the premonition in nature of a change. She put the apple blossoms in water and placed the jug on the table, turning it about half a dozen times, moving her head from side to side to get the effect. When it was exactly right, she said to her aunt, who sat sewing in the bay-window, in a perfectly indifferent tone, "Mr. Fairchild just passed here, and said that Mr. Henderson had come."
"Ah!" Her aunt did not lift her eyes from her work, or appear to attach the least importance to this tremendous piece of news. Margaret was annoyed at what seemed to her an assumed indifference. Her nerves were quivering with the knowledge that he had arrived, that he was in the next house, that he might be here any moment—the man who had entered into her whole life—and the announcement was no more to her aunt than if she had said it rained. She was provoked at herself that she should be so disturbed, yes, annoyed, at his proximity. She wished he had not come —not today, at any rate. She looked about for something to do, and began to rearrange this and that trifle in the sitting-room, which she had perfectly arranged once before in the morning, moving about here and there in a rather purposeless manner, until her aunt looked up and for a moment followed her movements till Margaret left the room. In her own chamber she sat by the window and tried to think, but there was no orderly mental process; in vain she tried to run over in her mind the past month and all her reflections and wise resolves. She heard the call of the birds, she inhaled the odor of the new year, she was conscious of all that was gracious and inviting in the fresh scene, but in her sub-consciousness there was only one thought—he was there, he was coming. She took up her sewing, but the needle paused in the stitch, and she found herself looking away across the lawn to the hills; she took up a book, but the words had no meaning, read and reread them as she would. He is there, he is coming. And what of it? Why should she be so disturbed? She was uncommitted, she was mistress of her own actions. Had she not been coolly judging his conduct? She despised herself for being so nervous and unsettled. If he was coming, why did he not come? Why was he waiting so long? She arose impatiently and went down-stairs. There was a necessity of doing something.
"Is there anything that you want from town, auntie?"
"Nothing that I know of. Are you going in?"
"No, unless you have an errand. It is such a fine day that it seems a pity to stay indoors."
"Well, I would walk if I were you." But she did not go; she went instead to her room. He might come any moment. She ought not to run away; and yet she wished she were away. He said he was coming on business. Was it not, then, a pretense? She felt humiliated in the idea of waiting for him if the business were not a pretense.
How insensible men are! What a mere subordinate thing to them in life is the love of a woman! Yes, evidently business was more important to him than anything else. He must know that she was waiting; and she blushed to herself at the very possibility that he should think such a thing. She was not waiting. It was lunch-time. She excused herself. In the next moment she was angry that she had not gone down as usual. It was time for him to come. He would certainly come immediately after lunch. She would not see him. She hoped never to see him. She rose in haste, put on her hat, put it on carefully, turning and returning before the glass, selected fresh gloves, and ran down-stairs.
"I'm going, auntie, for a walk to town."
The walk was a long one. She came back tired. It was late in the afternoon. Her aunt was quietly reading. She needed to ask her nothing: Mr. Henderson had not been there. Why had he written to her?
"Oh, the Fairchilds want us to come over to dinner," said Miss Forsythe, without looking up.
"I hope you will go, auntie. I sha'n't mind being alone."
"Why? It's perfectly informal. Mr. Henderson happens to be there."
"I'm too stupid. But you must go. Mr. Henderson, in New York, expressed the greatest desire to make your acquaintance."
Miss Forsythe smiled. "I suppose he has come up on purpose. But, dear, you must go to chaperon me. It would hardly be civil not to go, when you knew Mr. Henderson in New York, and the Fairchilds want to make it agreeable for him."
"Why, auntie, it is just a business visit. I'm too tired to make the effort. It must be this spring weather."
Perhaps it was. It is so unfortunate that the spring, which begets so many desires, brings the languor that defeats their execution. But there is a limit to the responsibility even of spring for a woman's moods. Just as Margaret spoke she saw, through the open window, Henderson coming across the lawn, walking briskly, but evidently not inattentive to the charm of the landscape. It was his springy step, his athletic figure, and, as he came nearer, the joyous anticipation in his face. And it was so sudden, so unexpected—the vision so long looked for! There was no time for flight, had she wanted to avoid him; he was on the piazza; he was at the open door. Her hand went quickly to her heart to still the rapid flutter, which might be from pain and might be from joy—she could not tell. She had imagined their possible meeting so many times, and it was not at all like this. She ought to receive him coldly, she ought to receive him kindly, she ought to receive him indifferently. But how real he was, how handsome he was! If she could have obeyed the impulse of the moment I am not sure but she would have fled, and cast herself face downward somewhere, and cried a little and thanked God for him. He was in the room. In his manner there was no hesitation, in his expression no uncertainty. His face beamed with pleasure, and there was so much open admiration in his eyes that Margaret, conscious of it to her heart's core, feared that her aunt would notice it. And she met him calmly enough, frankly enough. The quickness with which a woman can pull herself together under such circumstances is testimony to her superior fibre.
"I've been looking across here ever since morning," he said, as soon as the hand-shaking and introduction were over, "and I've only this minute been released." There was no air of apology in this, but a delicate intimation of impatience at the delay. And still, what an unconscious brute a man is!
"I thought perhaps you had returned," said Margaret, "until my aunt was just telling me we were asked to dine with you."
Henderson gave her a quick glance. Was it possible she thought he could go away without seeing her?
"Yes, and I was commissioned to bring you over when you are ready." "I will not keep you waiting long, Mr. Henderson," interposed Miss Forsythe, out of the goodness of her heart. "My niece has been taking a long walk, and this debilitating spring weather—"
"Oh, since the sun has gone away, I think I'm quite up to the exertion, since you wish it, auntie," a speech that made Henderson stare again, wholly unable to comprehend the reason of an indirection which he could feel—he who had been all day impatient for this moment. There was a little talk about the country and the city at this season, mainly sustained by Miss Forsythe and Henderson, and then he was left alone. "Of course you should go, Margaret," said her aunt, as they went upstairs; "it would not be at all the thing for me to leave you here. And what a fine, manly, engaging fellow Mr. Henderson is!"
"Yes, he acts very much like a man;" and Margaret was gone into her room.
Go? There was not force enough in the commonwealth, without calling out the militia, to keep Margaret from going to the dinner. She stopped a moment in the middle of her chamber to think. She had almost forgotten how he looked—his eyes, his smile. Dear me! how the birds were singing outside, and how fresh the world was! And she would not hurry. He could wait. No doubt he would wait now any length of time for her. He was in the house, in the room below, perhaps looking out of the window, perhaps reading, perhaps spying about at her knick-knacks—she would like to look in at the door a moment to see what he was doing. Of course he was here to see her, and all the business was a pretext. As she sat a moment upon the edge of her bed reflecting what to put on, she had a little pang that she had been doing him injustice in her thought. But it was only for an instant. He was here. She was not in the least flurried. Indeed, her mental processes were never clearer than when she settled upon her simple toilet, made as it was in every detail with the sure instinct of a woman who dresses for her lover. Heavens! what a miserable day it had been, what a rebellious day! He ought to be punished for it somehow. Perhaps the rose she put in her hair was part of the punishment. But he should not see how happy she was; she would be civil, and just a little reserved; it was so like a man to make a woman wait all day and then think he could smooth it all over simply by appearing.
But somehow in Henderson's presence these little theories of conduct did not apply. He was too natural, direct, unaffected, his pleasure in being with her was so evident! He seemed to brush aside the little defenses and subterfuges. There was this about him that appeared to her admirable, and in contrast with her own hesitating indirection, that whatever he wanted—money, or position, or the love of woman—he went straight to his object with unconsciousness that failure was possible. Even in walking across the grounds in the soft sunset light, and chatting easily, their relations seemed established on a most natural basis, and Margaret found herself giving way to the simple enjoyment of the hour. She was not only happy, but her spirits rose to inexpressible gayety, which ran into the humor of badinage and a sort of spiritual elation, in which all things seemed possible. Perhaps she recognized in herself, what Henderson saw in her. And with it all there was an access of tenderness for her aunt, the dear thing whose gentle life appeared so colorless.
I had never seen Margaret so radiant as at the dinner; her high spirits infected the table, and the listening and the talking were of the best that the company could give. I remembered it afterwards, not from anything special that was said, but from its flow of high animal spirits, and the electric responsive mood everyone was in; no topic carried too far, and the chance seriousness setting off the sparkling comments on affairs. Henderson's talk had the notable flavor of direct contact with life, and very little of the speculative and reflective tone of Morgan's, who was always generalizing and theorizing about it. He had just come from the West, and his off-hand sketches of men had a special cynicism, not in the least condemnatory, mere good-natured acceptance, and in contrast to Morgan's moralizing and rather pitying cynicism. It struck me that he did not believe in his fellows as much as Morgan did; but I fancied that Margaret only saw in his attitude a tolerant knowledge of the world.
"Are the people on the border as bad as they are represented?" she asked.
"Certainly not much worse than they represent themselves," he replied; "I suppose the difference is that men feel less restraint there."
"It is something more than that," added Morgan. "There is a sort of drift-wood of adventure and devil-may-care-ism that civilization throws in advance of itself; but that isn't so bad as the slag it manufactures in the cities."
"I remember you said, Mr. Morgan, that men go West to get rid of their past," said Margaret.
"As New Yorkers go to Europe to get rid of their future?" Henderson inquired, catching the phrase.
"Yes"—Morgan turned to Margaret—"doubtless there is a satisfaction sometimes in placing the width of a continent between a man and what he has done. I've thought that one of the most popular verses in the Psalter, on the border, must be the one that says—you will know if I quote it right 'Look how wide also the East is from the West; so far hath He set our sins from us.'"
"That is dreadful," exclaimed Margaret. "To think of you spending your time in the service picking out passages to fit other people!"
"It sounds as if you had manufactured it," was Henderson's comment.
"No; that quiet Mr. Lyon pointed it out to me when we were talking aboutMontana. He had been there."
"By-the-way, Mr. Henderson," my wife asked, "do you know what has become of Mr. Lyon?"
"I believe he is about to go home."
"I fancied Miss Eschelle might have something to say about that," Morgan remarked.
"Perhaps, if she were asked. But Mr. Lyon appeared rather indifferent toAmerican attractions."
Margaret looked quickly at Henderson as he said this, and then ventured, a little slyly, "She seemed to appreciate his goodness."
"Yes; Miss Eschelle has an eye for goodness."
This was said without change of countenance, but it convinced the listener that Carmen was understood.
"And yet," said Margaret, with a little air of temerity, "you seem to be very good friends."
"Oh, she is very charitable; she sees, I suppose, what is good in me; and I'll spare you the trouble of remarking that she must necessarily be very sharp-sighted."
"And I'm not going to destroy your illusion by telling you her real opinion of you," Margaret retorted.
Henderson begged to know what it was, but Margaret evaded the question by new raillery. What did she care at the moment what Carmen thought of Henderson? What—did either of them care what they were saying, so long as there was some personal flavor in the talk! Was it not enough to talk to each other, to see each other?
As we sat afterwards upon the piazza with our cigars, inhaling the odor of the apple blossoms, and yielding ourselves, according to our age, to the influence of the mild night, Margaret was in the high spirits which accompany the expectation of bliss, without the sobering effect of its responsibility. Love itself is very serious, but the overture is full of freakish gayety. And it was all gayety that night. We all constituted ourselves a guard of honor to Miss Forsythe and Margaret when they went to their cottage, and there was a merry leave-taking in the moonlight. To be sure, Margaret walked with Henderson, and they lagged a little behind, but I had no reason to suppose that they were speaking of the stars, or that they raised the ordinary question of their being inhabited. I doubt if they saw the stars at all. How one remembers little trifles, that recur like the gay bird notes of the opening scenes that are repeated in the tragedy of the opera! I can see Margaret now, on some bantering pretext, running back, after we had said good-night, to give Henderson the blush-rose she had worn in her hair. How charming the girl was in this freakish action!
"Do you think he is good enough for her?" asked my wife, when we were alone.
"Who is good enough for whom?" I said, a yawn revealing my want of sentiment.
"Don't be stupid. You are not so blind as you pretend."
"Well, if I am not so blind as I pretend, though I did not pretend to be blind, I suppose that is mainly her concern."
"But I wish she had cared for Lyon."
"Perhaps Lyon did not care for her," I suggested.
"You never see anything. Lyon was a noble fellow."
"I didn't deny that. But how was I to know about Lyon, my dear? I never heard you say that you were glad he wasn't your husband."
"Don't be silly. I think Henderson has very serious intentions."
"I hope he isn't frivolous," I said.
"Well, you are. It isn't a joking matter—and you pretend to be so fond of Margaret!"
"So that is another thing I pretend? What do you want me to do? Which one do you want me to make my enemy by telling him or her that the other isn't good enough?"
"I don't want you to do anything, except to be reasonable, and sympathize."
"Oh, I sympathize all round. I assure you I've no doubt you are quite right." And in this way I crawled out of the discussion, as usual.
What a pretty simile it is, comparing life to a river, because rivers are so different! There are the calm streams that flow eagerly from the youthful sources, join a kindred flood, and go placidly to the sea, only broadening and deepening and getting very muddy at times, but without a rapid or a fall. There are others that flow carelessly in the upper sunshine, begin to ripple and dance, then run swiftly, and rush into rapids in which there is no escape (though friends stand weeping and imploring on the banks) from the awful plunge of the cataract. Then there is the tumult and the seething, the exciting race and rage through the canon, the whirlpools and the passions of love and revelations of character, and finally, let us hope, the happy emergence into the lake of a serene life. And the more interesting rivers are those that have tumults and experiences.
I knew well enough before the next day was over that it was too late for the rescue of Margaret or Henderson. They were in the rapids, and would have rejected any friendly rope thrown to draw them ashore. And notwithstanding the doubts of my wife, I confess that I had so much sympathy with the genuineness of it that I enjoyed this shock of two strong natures rushing to their fate. Was it too sudden? Do two living streams hesitate when they come together? When they join they join, and mingle and reconcile themselves afterwards. It is only canals that flow languidly in parallel lines, and meet, if they meet at all, by the orderly contrivance of a lock.
In the morning the two were off for a stroll. There is a hill from which a most extensive prospect is had of the city, the teeming valley, with a score of villages and innumerable white spires, of forests and meadows and broken mountain ranges. It was a view that Margaret the night before had promised to show Henderson, that he might see what to her was the loveliest landscape in the world. Whether they saw the view I do not know. But I know the rock from which it is best seen, and could fancy Margaret sitting there, with her face turned towards it and her hands folded in her lap, and Henderson sitting, half turned away from it, looking in her face. There is an apple orchard just below. It was in bloom, and all the invitation of spring was in the air. That he saw all the glorious prospect reflected in her mobile face I do not doubt—all the nobility and tenderness of it. If I knew the faltering talk in that hour of growing confidence and expectation, I would not repeat it. Henderson lunched at the Forsythe's, and after lunch he had some talk with Miss Forsythe. It must have been of an exciting nature to her, for, immediately after, that good woman came over in a great flutter, and was closeted with my wife, who at the end of the interview had an air of mysterious importance. It was evidently a woman's day, and my advice was not wanted, even if my presence was tolerated. All I heard my wife say through the opening door, as the consultation ended, was, "I hope she knows her own mind fully before anything is decided."
As to the objects of this anxiety, they were upon the veranda of the cottage, quite unconscious of the necessity of digging into their own minds. He was seated, and she was leaning against the railing on which the honeysuckle climbed, pulling a flower in pieces.
"It is such a short time I have known you," she was saying, as if in apology for her own feeling.
"Yes, in one way;" and he leaned forward, and broke his sentence with a little laugh. "I think I must have known you in some pre-existent state."
"Perhaps. And yet, in another way, it seems long—a whole month, you know." And the girl laughed a little in her turn.
"It was the longest month I ever knew, after you left the city."
"Was it? I oughtn't to have said that first. But do you know, Mr.Henderson, you seem totally different from any other man I ever knew."
That this was a profound and original discovery there could be no doubt, from the conviction with which it was announced. "I felt from the first that I could trust you."
"I wish"—and there was genuine feeling in the tone—"I were worthier of such a generous trust."
There was a wistful look in her face—timidity, self-depreciation, worship—as Henderson rose and stood near her, and she looked up while he took the broken flower from her hand. There was but one answer to this, and in spite of the open piazza and the all-observant, all-revealing day, it might have been given; but at the moment Miss Forsythe was seen hurrying towards them through the shrubbery. She came straight to where they stood, with an air of New England directness and determination. One hand she gave to Henderson, the other to Margaret. She essayed to speak, but tears were in her eyes, and her lips trembled; the words would not come. She regarded them for an instant with all the overflowing affection of a quarter of a century of repression, and then quickly turned and went in. In a moment they followed her. Heaven go with them!
After Henderson had made his hasty adieus at our house and gone, before the sun was down, Margaret came over. She came swiftly into the room, gave me a kiss as I rose to greet her, with a delightful impersonality, as if she owed a debt somewhere and must pay it at once—we men who are so much left out of these affairs have occasionally to thank Heaven for a merciful moment—seized my wife, and dragged her to her room.
"I couldn't wait another moment," she said, as she threw herself on my wife's bosom in a passion of tears. "I am so happy! he is so noble, and I love him so!" And she sobbed as if it were the greatest calamity in the world. And then, after a little, in reply to a question—for women are never more practical than in such a crisis: "Oh, no—not for a long, long, long time. Not before autumn."
And the girl looked, through her glad tears, as if she expected to be admired for this heroism. And I have no doubt she was.
Well, that was another success. The world is round, and like a ball seems swinging in the air, and swinging very pleasantly, thought Henderson, as he stepped on board the train that evening. The world is truly what you make it, and Henderson was determined to make it agreeable. His philosophy was concise, and might be hung up, as a motto: Get all you can, and don't fret about what you cannot get.
He went into the smoking compartment, and sat musing by the window for some time before he lit his cigar, feeling a glow of happiness that was new in his experience. The country was charming at twilight, but he was little conscious of that. What he saw distinctly was Margaret's face, trustful and wistful, looking up into his as she bade him goodby. What he was vividly conscious of was being followed, enveloped, by a woman's love.
"You will write, dear, the moment you get there, will you not? I am so afraid of accidents," she had said.
"Why, I will telegraph, sweet," he had replied, quite gayly.
"Will you? Telegraph? I never had that sort of a message." It seemed a very wonderful thing that he should use the public wire for this purpose, and she looked at him with new admiration.
"Are you timid about the train?" he asked.
"No. I never think of it. I never thought of it for myself; but this is different."
"Oh, I see." He put his arm round her and looked down into her eyes. This was a humorous suggestion to him, who spent half his time on the trains. "I think I'll take out an accident policy."
"Don't say that. But you men are so reckless. Promise you won't stand on the platform, and won't get off while the train is in motion, and all the rest of the directions," she said, laughing a little with him; "and you will be careful?"
"I'll take such care of myself as I never did before, I promise. I never felt of so much consequence in my life."
"You'll think me silly. But you know, don't you, dear?" She put a hand on each shoulder, and pushing him back, studied his face. "You are all the world. And only to think, day before yesterday, I didn't think of the trains at all."
To have one look like that from a woman! To carry it with him! Henderson still forgot to light his cigar.
"Hello, Rodney!"
"Ah, Hollowell! I thought you were in Kansas City."
The new-comer was a man of middle age, thick set, with rounded shoulders, deep chest, heavy neck, iron-gray hair close cut, gray whiskers cropped so as to show his strong jaw, blue eyes that expressed at once resolution and good-nature.
"Well, how's things? Been up to fix the Legislature?"
"No; Perkins is attending to that," said Henderson, rather indifferently, like a man awakened out of a pleasant dream. "Don't seem to need much fixing. The public are fond of parallels."
Hollowell laughed. "I guess that's so—till they get 'em."
"Or don't get them," Henderson added. And then both laughed.
"It looks as if it would go through this time. Bemis says the C. D.'s badly scared. They'll have to come down lively."
"I shouldn't wonder. By-the-way, look in tomorrow. I've got something to show you."
Henderson lit his cigar, and they both puffed in silence for some moments.
"By-the-way, did I ever show you this?" Hollowell took from his breast-pocket a handsome morocco case, and handed it to his companion. "I never travel without that. It's better than an accident policy."
Henderson unfolded the case, and saw seven photographs—a showy-looking handsome woman in lace and jewels, and six children, handsome like their mother, the whole group with the photographic look of prosperity.
Henderson looked at it as if it had been a mirror of his own destiny, and expressed his admiration.
"Yes, it's hard to beat," Hollowell confessed, with a soft look in his face. "It's not for sale. Seven figures wouldn't touch it." He looked at it lovingly before he put it up, and then added: "Well, there's a figure for each, Rodney, and a big nest-egg for the old woman besides. There's nothing like it, old man. You'd better come in." And he put his hand affectionately on Henderson's knee.
Jeremiah Hollowell—commonly known as Jerry—was a remarkable man. Thirty years ago he had come to the city from Maine as a "hand" on a coast schooner, obtained employment in a railroad yard, then as a freight conductor, gone West, become a contractor, in which position a lucky hit set him on the road of the unscrupulous accumulation of property. He was now a railway magnate, the president of a system, a manipulator of dexterity and courage. All this would not have come about if his big head had not been packed with common-sense brains, and he had not had uncommon will and force of character. Success had developed the best side of him, the family side; and the worst side of him—a brutal determination to increase his big fortune. He was not hampered by any scruples in business, but he had the good-sense to deal squarely with his friends when he had distinctly agreed to do so.
Henderson did not respond to the matrimonial suggestion; it was not possible for him to vulgarize his own affair by hinting it to such a man as Hollowell; but they soon fell into serious talk about schemes in which they were both interested. This talk so absorbed Henderson that after they had reached the city he had walked some blocks towards his lodging before he recalled his promise about the message. On his table he found a note from Carmen bidding him to dinner informally—an invitation which he had no difficulty in declining on account of a previous engagement. And then he went to his club, and passed a cheerful evening. Why not? There was nothing melancholy about the young fellows in the smoking-room, who liked a good story and the latest gossip, and were attracted to the society of Henderson, who was open-handed and full of animal spirits, and above all had a reputation for success, and for being on the inside of affairs. There is nowhere else so much wisdom and such understanding of life as in a city club of young fellows, who have their experience still, for the most part, before them. Henderson was that night in great "force"—as the phrase is. His companions thought he had made a lucky turn, and he did not tell them that he had won the love of the finest girl in the world, who was at that moment thinking of him as fondly as he was thinking of her—but this was the subconsciousness of his gayety. Late at night he wrote her a long letter—an honest letter of love and admiration, which warmed into the tenderness of devotion as it went on; a letter that she never parted with all her life long; but he left a description of the loneliness of his evening without her to her imagination.
It was for Margaret also a happy evening, but not a calm one, and not gay. She was swept away by a flood of emotions. She wanted to be alone, to think it over, every item of the short visit, every look, every tone. Was it all true? The great change made her tremble: of the future she dared scarcely think. She was restless, but not restless as before; she could not be calm in such a great happiness. And then the wonder of it, that he should choose her of all others—he who knew the world so well, and must have known so many women. She followed him on his journey, thinking what he was doing now, and now, and now. She would have given the world to see him just for a moment, to look in his eyes and be sure again, to have him say that little word once more: there was a kind of pain in her heart, the separation was so cruel; it had been over two hours now. More than once in the evening she ran down to the sitting-room, where her aunt was pretending to be absorbed in a book, to kiss her, to pet her, to smooth her grayish hair and pat her cheek, and get her to talk about her girlhood days. She was so happy that tears were in her eyes half the time. At nine o'clock there was a pull at the bell that threatened to drag the wire out, and an insignificant little urchin appeared with a telegram, which frightened Miss Forsythe, and seemed to Margaret to drop out of heaven. Such an absurd thing to do at night, said the aunt, and then she kissed Margaret, and laughed a little, and declared that things had come to a queer pass when people made love by telegraph. There wasn't any love in the telegram, Margaret said; but she knew better—the sending word of his arrival was a marvelous exhibition of thoughtfulness and constancy.
And then she led her aunt on to talk of Mr. Henderson, to give her impression, how he looked, what she really thought of him, and so on, and so on.
There was not much to say, but it could be said over and over again in various ways. It was the one night of the world, and her overwrought feeling sought relief. It would not be so again. She would be more reticent and more coquettish about her lover, but now it was all so new and strange.
That night when the girl went to sleep the telegram was under her pillow, and it seemed to throb with a thousand messages, as if it felt the pulsation of the current that sent it.
The prospective marriage of the budding millionaire Rodney Henderson was a society paper item in less than a week—the modern method of publishing the banns. This was accompanied by a patronizing reference to the pretty school-ma'am, who was complimented upon her good-fortune in phrases so neatly turned as to give Henderson the greatest offense, and leave him no remedy, since nothing could have better suited the journal than further notoriety. He could not remember that he had spoken of it to any one except the Eschelles, to whom his relations made the communication a necessity, and he suspected Carmen, without, however, guessing that she was a habitual purveyor of the town gossiper.
"It is a shameful impertinence," she burst out, introducing the subject herself, when he called to see her. "I would horsewhip the editor." Her indignation was so genuine, and she took his side with such warm good comradeship, that his suspicions vanished for a moment.
"What good?" he answered, cooling down at the sight of her rage. "It is true, we are to be married, and she has taught school. I can't drag her name into a row about it. Perhaps she never will see it."
"Oh dear! dear me! what have I done?" the girl cried, with an accent of contrition. "I never thought of that. I was so angry that I cut it out and put it in the letter that was to contain nothing but congratulations, and told her how perfectly outrageous I thought it. How stupid!" and there was a world of trouble in her big dark eyes, while she looked up penitently, as if to ask his forgiveness for a great crime.
"Well, it cannot be helped," Henderson said, with a little touch of sympathy for Carmen's grief. "Those who know her will think it simply malicious, and the others will not think of it a second time."
"But I cannot forgive myself for my stupidity. I'm not sure but I'd rather you'd think me wicked than stupid," she continued, with the smile in her eyes that most men found attractive. "I confess—is that very bad?—that I feel it more for you than for her. But" ( she thought she saw a shade in his face) "I warn you, if you are not very nice, I shall transfer my affections to her."
The girl was in her best mood, with the manner of a confiding, intimate friend. She talked about Margaret, but not too much, and a good deal more about Henderson and his future, not laying too great stress upon the marriage, as if it were, in fact, only an incident in his career, contriving always to make herself appear as a friend, who hadn't many illusions or much romance, to be sure, but who could always be relied on in any mood or any perplexity, and wouldn't be frightened or very severe at any confidences. She posed as a woman who could make allowances, and whose friendship would be no check or hinderance. This was conveyed in manner as much as in words, and put Henderson quite at his ease. He was not above the weakness of liking the comradeship of a woman of whom he was not afraid, a woman to whom he could say anything, a woman who could make allowances. Perhaps he was hardly conscious of this. He knew Carmen better than she thought he knew her, and he couldn't approve of her as a wife; and yet the fact was that she never gave him any moral worries.
"Yes," she said, when the talk drifted that way, "the chrysalis earl has gone. I think that mamma is quite inconsolable. She says she doesn't understand girls, or men, or anything, these days."
"Do you?" asked Henderson, lightly.
"I? No. I'm an agnostic—except in religion. Have you got it into your head, my friend, that I ever fancied Mr. Lyon?"
"Not for himself—" began Henderson, mischievously.
"That will do." She stopped him. "Or that he ever had any intention—"
"I don't see how he could resist such—"
"Stuff! See here, Mr. Rodney!" The girl sprang up, seized a plaque from the table, held it aloft in one hand, took half a dozen fascinating, languid steps, advancing and retreating with the grace of a Nautch girl, holding her dress with the other hand so as to allow a free movement. "Do you think I'd ever do that for John the Lyon's head on a charger?"
Then her mood changed to the domestic, as she threw herself into an easy-chair and said: "After all, I'm rather sorry he has gone. He was a man you could trust; that is, if you wanted to trust anybody—I wish I had been made good."
When Henderson bade her good-night it was with the renewed impression that she was a very diverting comrade.
"I'm sort of sorry for you," she said, and her eyes were not so serious as to offend, as she gave him her hand, "for when you are married, you know, as the saying is, you'll want some place to spend your evenings." The audacity of the remark was quite obscured in the innocent frankness and sweetness of her manner.
What Henderson had to show Hollowell in his office had been of a nature greatly to interest that able financier. It was a project that would have excited the sympathy of Carmen, but Henderson did not speak of it to her—though he had found that she was a safe deposit of daring schemes in general—on account of a feeling of loyalty to Margaret, to whom he had never mentioned it in any of his daily letters. The scheme made a great deal of noise, later on, when it came to the light of consummation in legislatures and in courts, both civil and criminal; but its magnitude and success added greatly to Henderson's reputation as a bold and fortunate operator, and gave him that consideration which always attaches to those who command millions of money, and have the nerve to go undaunted through the most trying crises. I am anticipating by saying that it absolutely ruined thousands of innocent people, caused widespread strikes and practical business paralysis over a large region; but those things were regarded as only incidental to a certain sort of development, and did not impair the business standing, and rather helped the social position, of the two or three men who counted their gains by millions in the operation. It furnished occupation and gave good fees to a multitude of lawyers, and was dignified by the anxious consultation of many learned judges. A moralist, if he were poor and pessimistic, might have put the case in a line, and taken that line from the Mosaic decalogue (which was not intended for this new dispensation); but it was involved in such a cloud of legal technicalities, and took on such an aspect of enterprise and development of resources, and what not, that the general public mind was completely befogged about it. I am charitable enough to suppose that if the scheme had failed, the public conscience is so tender that there would have been a question of Henderson's honesty. But it did not fail.
Of this scheme, however, we knew nothing at the time in Brandon. Henderson was never in better spirits, never more agreeable, and it did not need inquiry to convince one that he was never so prosperous. He was often with us, in flying visits, and I can well remember that his coming and the expectation of it gave a kind of elation to the summer—that and Margaret's supreme and sunny happiness. Even my wife admitted that it was on both sides a love-match, and could urge nothing against it except the woman's instinct that made her shrink from the point of ever thinking of him as a husband for herself, which seemed to me a perfectly reasonable feeling under all the circumstances.
The summer—or what we call summer in the North, which is usually a preparation for warm weather, ending in a preparation for cold weather —seemed to me very short—but I have noticed that each summer is a little shorter than the preceding one. If Henderson had wanted to gain the confidence of my wife he could not have done so more effectually than he did in making us the confidants of a little plan he had in the city, which was a profound secret to the party most concerned. This was the purchase and furnishing of a house, and we made many clandestine visits with him to town in the early autumn in furtherance of his plan. He was intent on a little surprise, and when I once hinted to him that women liked to have a hand in making the home they were to occupy, he said he thought that my wife knew Margaret's taste—and besides, he added, with a smile, "it will be only temporary; I should like her, if she chooses, to build and furnish a house to suit herself." In any one else this would have seemed like assumption, but with Henderson it was only the simple belief in his career.
We were still more surprised when we came to see the temporary home that Henderson had selected, the place where the bride was to alight, and look about her for such a home as would suit her growing idea of expanding fortune and position. It was one of the old-fashioned mansions on Washington Square, built at a time when people attached more importance to room and comfort than to outside display—a house that seemed to have traditions of hospitality and of serene family life. It was being thoroughly renovated and furnished, with as little help from the decorative artist and the splendid upholsterer as consisted with some regard to public opinion; in fact the expenditure showed in solid dignity and luxurious ease, and not in the construction of a museum in which one could only move about with the constant fear of destroying something. My wife was given almost carte blanche in the indulgence of her taste, and she confessed her delight in being able for once to deal with a house without the feeling that she was ruining me. Only in the suite designed for Margaret did Henderson seriously interfere, and insist upon a luxury that almost took my wife's breath away. She opposed it on moral grounds. She said that no true woman could stand such pampering of her senses without destruction of her moral fibre. But Henderson had his way, as he always had it. What pleased her most in the house was the conservatory, opening out from the drawing-room—a spacious place with a fountain and cool vines and flowering plants, not a tropical hothouse in a stifling atmosphere, in which nothing could live except orchids and flowers born near the equator, but a garden with a temperature adapted to human lungs, where one could sit and enjoy the sunshine, and the odor of flowers, and the clear and not too incessant notes of Mexican birds. But when it was all done, undoubtedly the most agreeable room in the house was that to which least thought had been given, the room to which any odds and ends could be sent, the room to which everybody gravitated when rest and simple enjoyment without restraint were the object Henderson's own library, with its big open fire, and the books and belongings of his bachelor days. Man is usually not credited with much taste or ability to take care of himself in the matter of comfortable living, but it is frequently noticed that when woman has made a dainty paradise of every other portion of the house, the room she most enjoys, that from which it is difficult to keep out the family, is the one that the man is permitted to call his own, in which he retains some of the comforts and can indulge some of the habits of his bachelor days. There is an important truth in this fact with regard to the sexes, but I do not know what it is.
They were married in October, and went at once to their own house. I suppose all other days were but a preparation for this golden autumn day on which we went to church and returned to the wedding-breakfast. I am sure everybody was happy. Miss Forsythe was so happy that tears were in her eyes half the time, and she bustled about with an affectation of cheerfulness that was almost contagious. Poor, dear, gentle lady! I can imagine the sensations of a peach-tree, in an orchard of trees which bud and bloom and by-and-by are weighty with yellow fruit, year after year—a peach-tree that blooms, also, but never comes to fruition, only wastes its delicate sweetness on the air, and finally blooms less and less, but feels nevertheless in each returning spring the stir of the sap and the longing for that fuller life, while all the orchard bursts into flower, and the bees swarm about the pink promises, and the fruit sets and slowly matures to lusciousness in the sun of July. I fancy the wedding, which robbed us all, was hardest for her, for it was in one sense a finality of her life. Whereas if Margaret had regrets—and deep sorrow she had in wrenching herself from the little neighborhood, though she never could have guessed the vacancy she caused by the withdrawal of her loved presence—her own life was only just beginning, and she was sustained by the longing which every human soul has for a new career, by the curiosity and imagination which the traveler feels when he departs for a land which he desires, and yet dreads to see lest his illusions should vanish. Margaret was about to take that journey in the world which Miss Forsythe had dreamed of in her youth, but had never set out on. There are some who say that those are happiest who keep at home and content themselves with reading about the lands of the imagination. But happily the world does not believe this, and indeed would be very unhappy if it could not try and prove all the possibilities of human nature, to suffer as well as to enjoy.
I do not know how we fell into the feeling that this marriage was somehow exceptional and important, since marriages take place every day, and are so common and ordinarily so commonplace, when the first flutter is over. Even Morgan said, in his wife's presence, that he thought there had been weddings enough; at least he would interdict those that upset things like this one. For one thing, it brought about the house-keeping union of Mrs. Fletcher and Miss Forsythe in the tatter's cottage—a sort of closing up of the ranks that happens on the field during a fatal engagement. As we go on, it becomes more and more difficult to fill up the gaps.
We were very unwilling to feel that Margaret had gone out of our life. "But you cannot," Morgan used to say, "be friends with the rich, and that is what makes the position of the very rich so pitiful, for the rich get so tired of each other."
"But Margaret," my wife urged, "will never be of that sort: money will not change either her habits or her affections."
"Perhaps. You can never trust to inherited poverty. I have no doubt that she will resist the world, if anybody can, but my advice is that if you want to keep along with Margaret, you'd better urge your husband to make money. Experience seems to teach that while they cannot come to us, we may sometimes go to them."
My wife and Mrs. Fletcher were both indignant at this banter, and accused Morgan of want of faith, and even lack of affection for Margaret; in short, of worldly-mindedness himself.
"Perhaps I am rather shop-worn," he confessed. "It's not distrust of Margaret's intentions, but knowledge of the strength of the current on which she has embarked. Henderson will not stop in his career short of some overwhelming disaster or of death."
"I thought you liked him? At any rate, Margaret will make a good use of his money."
"It isn't a question, my dear Mrs. Fairchild, of the use of money, but of the use money makes of you. Yes, I do like Henderson, but I can't give up my philosophy of life for the sake of one good fellow."
"Philosophy of fudge!" exclaimed my wife. And there really was no answer to this.
After six weeks had passed, my wife paid a visit to Margaret. Nothing could exceed the affectionate cordiality of her welcome. Margaret was overjoyed to see her, to show the house, to have her know her husband better, to take her into her new life. She was hardly yet over the naive surprises of her lovely surroundings. Or if it is too mach to say that her surprise had lasted six weeks—for it is marvelous how soon women adapt themselves to new conditions if they are agreeable—she was in a glow of wonder at her husband's goodness, at his love, which had procured all this happiness for her.
"You have no idea," she said, "how thoughtful he is about everything—and he makes so little of it all. I am to thank you, he tells me always, for whatever pleases my taste in the house, and indeed I think I should have known you had been here if he had not told me. There are so many little touches that remind me of home. I am glad of that, for it is the more likely to make you feel that it is your home also."
She clung to this idea in the whirl of the new life. In the first days she dwelt much on this theme; indeed it was hardly second in her talk to her worship—I can call it nothing less—of her husband. She liked to talk of Brandon and the dear life there and the dearer friends—this much talk about it showed that it was another life, already of the past, and beginning to be distant in the mind. My wife had a feeling that Margaret, thus early, was conscious of a drift, of a widening space, and was making an effort to pull the two parts of her life together, that there should be no break, as one carried away to sea by a resistless tide grasps the straining rope that still maintains his slender connection with the shore.
But it was all so different: the luxurious house, the carriage at call, the box at the opera, the social duties inevitable with her own acquaintances and the friends of her husband. She spoke of this in moments of confidence, and when she was tired, with a consciousness that it was a different life, but in no tone of regret, and I fancy that the French blood in her veins, which had so long run decorously in Puritan channels, leaped at its return into new gayety. Years ago Margaret had thought that she might some time be a missionary, at least that she should like to devote her life to useful labors among the poor and the unfortunate. If conscience ever reminded her of this, conscience was quieted by the suggestion that now she was in a position to be more liberal than she ever expected to be; that is, to give everything except the essential thing—herself. Henderson liked a gay house, brightness, dinners, entertainment, and that his wife should be seen and admired. Proof of his love she found in all this, and she entered into it with spirit, and an enjoyment increased by the thought that she was lightening the burden of his business, which she could see pressed more and more. Not that Henderson made any account of his growing occupations, or that any preoccupation was visible except to the eye of love, which is quick to see all moods. These were indeed happy days, full of the brightness of an expanding prosperity and unlimited possibilities of the enjoyment of life. It was in obedience to her natural instinct, and not yet a feeling of compensation and propitiation, that enlisted Margaret in the city charities, connection with which was a fashionable self-entertainment with some, and a means of social promotion with others. My wife came home a little weary with so much of the world, but, on the whole, impressed with Margaret's good-fortune. Henderson in his own house was the soul of consideration and hospitality, and Margaret was blooming in the beauty that shines in satisfied desire.