Although he was much embarrassed, his clear black eyes met hers without wavering, and he asked, after a moment: "Could you not accept it if it were given freely?"
"I scarcely understand you," she replied in some perplexity.
"Nor do I understand you, Miss Jocelyn. I wish I did, for then I might do more for you."
"No, Mr. Atwood," she answered gravely, "you do not understand me.Experience has made me immeasurably older than you are."
"Very possibly," he admitted, with a short, embarrassed laugh. "My former self-assurance and complacency are all gone."
"Self-reliance and self-restraint are better than self-assurance," she remarked with a smile.
"Miss Jocelyn," he began, with something like impetuosity, "I would give all the world if I could become your friend. You could do so much for me."
"Mr. Atwood," said Mildred, with a laugh that was mixed with annoyance, "you are imposed upon by your fancy, and are imagining absurd things, I fear. But you are good-hearted and I shall be a little frank with you. We are in trouble. Business reverses have overtaken my father, and we are poor, and may be much poorer. I may be a working-woman the rest of my days; so, for Heaven's sake, do not make a heroine out of me. That would be too cruel a satire on my prosaic lot."
"You do not understand me at all, and perhaps I scarcely understand myself. If you think my head is filled with sentimental nonsense, time will prove you mistaken. I have a will of my own, I can assure you, and a way of seeing what is to be seen. I have seen a great deal since I've known you. A new and larger world has been revealed to me, and I mean to do something in it worthy of a man. I can never go on with my old life, and I will not," he continued, almost passionately. "I was an animal. I was a conceited fool. I'm very crude and unformed now, and may seem to you very ridiculous; but crudity is not absurdity, undeveloped strength is not weakness. An awakening mind may be very awkward, but give me time and you will not be ashamed of my friendship."
He had ceased leaning against a tree that grew near the roadway, and at some distance from the house. In his strong feeling he forgot his embarrassment, and assumed an attitude so full of unconscious power that he inspired a dawning of respect; for, while he seemed a little beside himself, there was a method in his madness which suggested that she, as well as the young man, might eventually discover that he was not of common clay and predestined to be commonplace. But she said, in all sincerity, "Mr. Atwood, I'm sure I wish you twice the success you crave in life, and I've no reason to think you overrate your power to achieve it; but you greatly overrate me. It would be no condescension on my part to give you my friendship; and no doubt if you attain much of the success you covet you will be ready enough to forget my existence. What induces you to think that a simple girl like me can help you? It seems to me that you are vague and visionary, which perhaps is natural, since you say you are just awaking," she concluded, with a little smiling sarcasm.
"You are unjust both to yourself and to me," he replied firmly, "and I think I can prove it. If I shall ever have any power in the world it will be in seeing clearly what is before me. I have seldom been away from this country town, and yet as soon as I saw you with a mind free from prejudice I recognized your superiority. I brought the belle of Forestville and placed her by your side, and I could think of nothing but brazen instruments until I left her loudness at her father's door. I would not go near her again if there were not another woman in the world. I saw at a glance that she was earthenware beside you."
Mildred now could not forbear laughing openly. "If you lose your illusions so rapidly," she said, "my turn will come soon, and I shall be china beside some fine specimen of majolica."
"You may laugh at me, but you will one day find I am sincere, and not altogether a fool."
"Oh, I'm ready to admit that, even now. But you are altogether mistaken in thinking I can help you. Indeed I scarcely see how I can help myself. It is a very poor proof of your keen discernment to associate me with your kindling ambition."
"Then why had you the power to kindle it? Why do I think my best thoughts in your presence? Why do I speak to you now as I never dreamed I could speak? You are giving purpose and direction to my life, whether you wish it or not, whether you care or not. You may always be indifferent to the fact, still it was your hand that wakened me. I admit I'm rather dazed as yet. You may think I'm talking to you with the frankness—perhaps the rashness—of a boy, since you are 'immeasurably older,' but the time is not very distant when I shall take my course with the strength and resolution of a man."
"I should be sorry to be the very innocent cause of leading you into thorny paths. I truly think you will find more happiness here in your quiet country life."
His only answer was an impatient gesture.
"Perhaps," she resumed, "if you knew more of the world you would fear it more. I'm sure I fear it, and with good reason."
"I do not fear the world at all," he replied. "I would fear to lose your esteem and respect far more, and, distant as you are from me, I shall yet win them both."
"Mr. Atwood, I suppose I have as much vanity as most girls, but you make me blush. You are indeed dazed, for you appear to take me for a melodramatic heroine."
"Pardon me, I do not. I've been to the theatre occasionally, but you are not at all theatrical. You are not like the heroines of the novels I've read, and I suppose I've read too many of them."
"I fear you have," she remarked dryly. "Pray, then, What am I like?"
"And I may seem to you a hero of the dime style; but wait, don't decide yet. What are you like? You are gentle, like your mother. You are exceedingly fond of all that's pretty and refined, so much so that you tried to introduce a little grace into our meagre, angular farmhouse life—"
"Thanks for your aid," interrupted Mildred, laughing. "I must admit that you have good eyes."
"You shrink," he resumed, "from all that's ugly, vulgar, or coarse in life. You are an unhappy exile in our plain home."
"All which goes to prove what an ordinary and unheroic nature I have. You will soar far beyond me, Mr. Atwood, for you have portrayed a very weak character—one that is in love with the niceties of life, with mere prettiness."
"You are still laughing at me, but I'm in earnest; and if you mean what, you say, you understand yourself less than you do me. Why will you not go to the hotel occasionally? Because with all your gentleness you are too proud to run the slightest risk of patronage and pity from those who knew you in your more fortunate days. Why do you remain in your little hot room so much of the time? I don't know; but if you will permit a guess, you are working. Every day you grow less content to sit still in helpless weakness. You are far braver than I, for I do not fear the world in the least; but, no matter how much you feared it, you would do your best to the last, and never yield to anything in it that was low, base, or mean. Oh, you are very gentle, very delicate, and you will be misunderstood; but you have the strongest strength there is—a kind of strength that will carry you through everything, though it cost you dear."
"And what may that be?" she asked, looking at him now in genuine wonder.
"I can't explain exactly what I mean. It is something I've seen in mother, plain and simple as she is. It's a kind of enduring steadfastness; it's a patient faithfulness. I should know just where to find mother, and just what to expect from her, under all possible circumstances. I should never expect to see you very different from what you are, no matter what happened. You often have the same look or expression that she has; and it means to me that you would do the best you could, although discouraged and almost hopeless. Very few soldiers will fight when they know the battle is going against them. You would, as long as you could move a finger."
"Mr. Atwood, what has put all this into your head? This seems very strange language from you."
"It is not so strange as it seems. It comes from the gift on which I base my hope of success in life. I see clearly and vividly what is before me, and draw my conclusions. If I see the antlers of a stag above some bushes, it is not necessary to see the whole animal to know he is there, and what kind of a creature he is. I'm not a scholar, Miss Jocelyn, but you must not think I do not know anything because I work in the corn or the hayfield all day. We have long winters up here, and I've studied some and read a great deal more. There are but few books in the village library that I have not read more or less thoroughly, and some of them many times. Because I was a careless, conceited fellow a few weeks since, it does not follow that I'm an ignoramus."
Mildred was decidedly puzzled. She could not account for the change in him; and she did not like to think of that to which his words and feelings pointed. He asked for friendship, but she strongly doubted whether such a placid regard would long satisfy him. Her chief impulse was to escape, for the bare thought of words of love from him or any one except Vinton Arnold was intensely repugnant. As she glanced around, seeking in what direction she might take her flight, she saw a gentleman coming rapidly toward the house. After a second's hesitation she rushed toward him, crying, "Papa, papa, you are welcome!"
Roger saw Miss Jocelyn rush into the arms of a tall, florid gentleman, whose dark eyes grew moist at the almost passionate warmth of his daughter's greeting. To Mildred her father's unexpected coming was thrice welcome, for in addition to her peculiarly strong affection for him, his presence ended an interview not at all agreeable, and promised relief from further unwelcome attentions on the part of Roger. Almost in the moment of meeting, she resolved to persuade him that his family would be happier with him in the city. This had been her feeling from the first, but now she was wholly bent on leaving the farm-house; for with her larger experience and womanly intuition she read in Roger's frank and still half-boyish face the foreshadowing of an unwelcome regard which she understood better than he did.
While his manner for a few weeks past, and especially his words during their recent interview, made it clear that he was not the rough, awkward rustic she had first imagined him to be, he still seemed very crude and angular. In spite of her love for Vinton Arnold, which had not abated in the least, he had ceased to be her ideal man. Nevertheless, his refined elegance, his quiet self-restraint, his knowledge of the niceties and proprieties of the world to which she felt she belonged by right, did combine to produce an ideal in her mind of which she was but half conscious, and beside which Roger appeared in a repulsive light. She shrank with instinctive distaste from his very strength and vehemence, and feared that she would never be safe from interviews like the one just described, and from awkward, half-concealed gallantries. Even the flowers he had set out became odious, for they represented a sentiment the very thought of which inspired aversion.
A coquette can soon destroy the strong instinct of sacredness and exclusiveness with which an unperverted girl guards her heart from all save the one who seems to have the divine right and unexplained power to pass all barriers. Even while fancy free, unwelcome advances are resented almost as wrongs and intrusions by the natural woman; but after a real, or even an ideal image has taken possession of the heart and imagination, repugnance is often the sole reward of other unfortunate suitors, and this dislike usually will be felt and manifested in a proportion corresponding with the obtrusiveness of the attentions, their sincerity, and the want of tact with which they are offered.
To that degree, therefore, that Roger was in earnest, Mildred shrank from him, and she feared that he would not—indeed, from his antecedents could not—know how to hide his emotions. His words had so startled her that, in her surprise and annoyance, she imagined him in a condition of semi-ambitious and semi-amative ebullition, and she dreaded to think what strange irruptions might ensue. It would have been the impulse of many to make the immature youth a source of transient amusement, but with a sensitive delicacy she shrank from him altogether, and wished to get away as soon as possible. Pressing upon her was the sad, practical question of a thwarted and impoverished life—impoverished to her in the dreariest sense—and it was intolerable that one who seemed so remote from her sphere should come and ask that, from her bruised and empty heart, she should give all sorts of melodramatic sentiment in response to his crude, ambitious impulses, which were yet as blind as the mythical god himself.
Had she seen that Roger meant friendship only when he asked for friendship, she would not have been so prejudiced against him; but the fact that this "great boy" was half consciously extending his hand for a gift which now she could not bestow on the best and greatest, since it was gone from her beyond recall, appeared grotesque, and such a disagreeable outcome of her changed fortunes that she was almost tempted to hate him. There are some questions on which women scarcely reason—they only feel intensely.
Mildred, therefore, was heartily glad that Roger did not wait to be introduced to her father, and that he kept himself aloof from the reunited family during the evening. She also was pleased that they were not joined by the Atwoods at the supper-table. That this considerate delicacy was due to the "young barbarian's" suggestion she did not dream, but gave good-hearted but not very sensitive Mrs. Atwood all the credit. As for poor Roger, his quick insight, his power to guess something of people's thoughts and feelings from the expression of their faces, brought but little present comfort or promise for the future.
"I made a bad impression at the start," he muttered, "and it will be long before she loses it, if she ever does. She shrinks from me as from something coarse and rough. She feels that I don't belong to her world at all. In fact, her father's fine bearing, his erect, elegant carriage make me feel as if I were but a country lout in very truth." The reception given to Mr. Jocelyn satisfied Mrs. Atwood thoroughly that his prolonged absence did not result from any alienation from his family. They overwhelmed him with caresses, and either Fred or Minnie could scarcely be kept out of his arms a moment.
"Fanny," he said to his wife, "I almost made a vow that I would not come here until I had secured a position that would give you all the comforts of life, if not at once its luxuries; but such positions are occupied, and when one becomes vacant they are filled by relatives of the firm, or by those who have stronger claims than I can present. Still my friends are working for me, and I have the prospect of employment where the compensation will be small at first, but if I can draw a considerable Southern trade it will be increased rapidly."
And yet he sighed while revealing this hopeful outlook, and Mildred noticed that he sighed more than once during the evening, in spite of the torrent of affectionate welcome which almost swept him away.
After Belle and the younger children were sleeping, the husband and wife with Mildred talked late over their prospects. Mr. Jocelyn suggested that they should remain in the country, and even that they should rent a small cottage in Forestville or elsewhere, but his gentle wife soon proved that on some occasions she could be decided.
"No, Martin," she said, with the quiet emphasis which reveals a purpose not to be combated, "one thing is settled—there must be no more separation. I have suffered too much during these last few weeks ever to listen again to such an arrangement. Now that you are with us once more, I learn that the ache in my heart was caused not so much by losses and the prospect of poverty as by loneliness and the feeling that you were left to struggle by yourself. It's my place to be with you, and I am willing to live anywhere and in any way. I can see that I might have aided you in providing against this evil time, but it seems now that I thought only of what we wanted for each day as it came, and the trouble was that we all got just what we wanted. Here is the result. Oh, I've thought it over through long sleepless nights till my heart ached with a pain that I hope none of you will ever know. But to sit idly here and wait while you are trying to retrieve my folly is a greater punishment than I can endure. Give me something to do which will be of help to you, and I will do it gladly, even though it be in two attic rooms."
"Mamma's right," added Mildred earnestly. "Papa, you must find a place for us in New York—a place within our means. Let us begin life right this time, and I believe God will bless and prosper us. It won't be many days before Belle and I will find something to do."
Mr. Jocelyn sighed more deeply than ever, and, indeed, appeared so overcome for a few moments that he could not speak. At last he faltered, "I have all of a Southern man's pride, and it's more bitter than death to me that my wife and daughters must work for their bread."
"Papa," exclaimed Mildred, "would it not be infinitely more bitter to us all to eat the bread of charity? I shall pretend to no unnatural heroism, nor say I like toil and poverty. On the contrary, I think I shrink from such things more than most girls do. But I don't propose to sit down and wring my hands. I can put them to a better use. We must just put away all talk of pride and sentiment, and remember only our poverty and self-respect. As Christian and sensible people we are bound to accept of our life and make the best of it. You and mother both know how much this change has cost me," she concluded, with a few half-stifled sobs, "and if I am willing to enter on a cheerful, patient effort to make the best of life as it is, I think all the rest might, too. If we give way to despondency we are lost. Let us be together again, and pull together as one."
"The idea of Nan and the children coming back to the city in August!" said Mr. Jocelyn dejectedly. "You don't either of you realize what you are talking about. We should have to go into a tenement-house."
"Martin, I do realize it," replied his wife earnestly. "The country is doing me no good—indeed I'm failing in health. Nothing does us good when we are unhappy and anxious. Find me two rooms in a tenement-house if we cannot afford more, and let us be together as soon as possible."
"Well," said Mr. Jocelyn, after a long breath, "with such a wife and such children to work for a man ought to be able to do great things; but it's much the same as it was in the army—if one lost his place in the ranks he was hustled about in everybody's way, and if weak and disabled he was left to his fate. The world goes right on and over you if you don't stand aside. I know you've suffered, Nan, and you know that if I had my wish you would never have a care or a pain; but God knows I suffered too. After you all were gone and my duties to my former partners ceased, I began to learn from experience how difficult it is in these cursed times to get a foothold, and I became almost sleepless from anxiety. Then set in that villanous neuralgia, which always strikes a man when he's down,' and for a week or more it seemed that I should almost lose my reason.
"Oh, Martin, Martin!" his wife exclaimed reproachfully, "and you did not let us know!"
"Why should I? It would only have added to your burden, and would not have helped me. I was glad you knew nothing about it."
"This is another proof that we must be together," said his wife, her eyes filling with tears. "How did you come to get better?"
"Oh, the doctor gave me something that made me sleep, and I seldom have neuralgia now."
"Come, papa," cried Mildred, as she put her arms around his neck and leaned her face against his, "there are thousands worse off than we are, and thousands more have retrieved far worse disasters. Now take courage; we'll all stand by you, and we'll all help you. We will one day have a prettier home than ever, and it will be all our own, so that no one can drive us from it;" and with hope springing up in her heart she tried to inspire hope and courage in theirs.
"Oh, Millie," he said, taking her on his lap, "when you coax and pet one you are irresistible. We WILL begin again, and win back all and more than we have lost."
Then, partly to amuse her father and mother, but more for the purpose of hastening their departure, Mildred told them of Roger's peculiar mood, and her conscience smote her a little as she caricatured rather than characterized the youth. Mrs. Jocelyn, in her kindliness, took his part, and said, "Millie, you are satirical and unjust I'm sure he's a well-meaning young man."
"The dear little mother!" cried Mildred, laughing; "when she can't think of anything else good to say of a person, she assures us that he is 'well-meaning.' Life may bring me many misfortunes, but I shall never marry what mamma calls 'a well-meaning man.'"
"But, Millie, I'm sure he's been very good and kind to us all, and he's kind to his mother and sister, and he seems steady—"
"Well, mamma, admitting it all, what follows?" asked Mildred.
"It follows that we had better go away," said Mrs. Jocelyn, with her low, sweet laugh, that had been rarely heard of late; "but I don't like you to be unjust to the young fellow. After all, he's not so very much to blame, Millie," she added, with a little nod. "If I were he I fear I might be in the same fix."
"Oh, papa, now we must go; for if mamma's sympathies are once aroused in behalf of this 'steady, well-meaning young man'—there! I will talk no more nonsense to-night, although I often find nonsense a sort of life preserver that keeps me from sinking. I admit, mamma, that I have been unjust to Mr. Atwood. He's far more clever than I ever imagined him to be, but he's so different"—she finished the sentence with a little repellent gesture that her mother well understood.
They were all comforted, and far more hopeful from their frank interchange of thought and feeling, and both father and mother breathed a fervent "God bless you, Millie," as they separated, long past midnight.
"God will bless us," said the young girl, "if we will just simply try to do what is right and best every day. The blessing will come on doing, not waiting."
She had not been in her room very long before hearing the crunching of gravel under the wheels of Roger's buggy. With a smile she thought, "He must have found a more sympathizing ear and heart than mine to have remained out so late."
"Mrs. Atwood," said Mildred the next morning, "I want to thank you for your kindness in giving us our supper alone with papa the first evening of his arrival; but you need not put yourself to any extra trouble to-day."
"Roger is the one to thank," replied Mrs. Atwood. "He's grown so different, so considerate like, that I scarcely know him any more than I do the old place he's so fixed up. He says he's going to paint the house after the summer work slacks off. I don't see what's come over him, but I like the change very much."
Mildred flushed slightly, but said, with some constraint, "Please thank him then from papa and mamma, but do not let us make you further trouble. We shall all return to the city soon, and then you will have easier times every way."
"I'm sorry to hear that, Miss Jocelyn, for we shall miss you all very much. You've done us good in more ways than one."
Roger did not appear at breakfast. "A young horse strayed from the pasture, and Roger is out looking for him," his mother explained when Mrs. Jocelyn asked after him.
Although not a member of any church, Mr. Jocelyn had great respect for his wife and daughter's faith, and accompanied them to service that morning very readily. Roger appeared in time to take Belle, as usual, but she found him so taciturn and preoccupied that she whispered to Mildred, "You've spoiled him for me. He sits staring like an owl in the sunlight, and seeing just about as much. You ought to be ashamed of yourself to make him so glum. I intend to have a dozen beaux, and to keep them all jolly."
Mildred was obliged to admit to herself that the young fellow was very undemonstrative at dinner, and that he did not exhibit the rusticity that she half hoped to see. She gained the impression that he was observing her father very closely, and that no remark of his escaped him. "He has the eyes of a lynx," she thought, with a frown. Still, apart from a certain annoyance at his deep interest in her and all relating to her, she was rather pleased at the impression which such a man as her father must make on one so unsophisticated. Mr. Jocelyn was a finished man of the world, and his large experience left its impress on all that he said and did. Although a little courtly in manner, he was so kindly and frank in nature that his superiority was not at all oppressive, and with true Southern bonhomie he made the farmer's family quite at ease, leading them to speak freely of their rural affairs. Susan soon lost all sense of restraint and began to banter her brother.
"You must have had a very affecting time in making up with AmeliaStone to have stayed out so late," she remarked sotto voce.
"I've not seen Amelia Stone since the evening she was here," he answered dryly.
"Indeed! what other charmer then tied you to her apron-strings so tightly? You are very fickle."
"Now you've hit it," he answered, with a slight flush. "I was so undecided that I drove by every door, and was not tied at all."
Belle "made eyes" at Mildred, as much as to say, "It's you who are distracting him."
"Next time," Sue continued, "I think it would be well to make up your mind before Sunday morning."
"My mind is made up," replied Roger—Belle looked at Mildred with an expression of horror, to her intense annoyance—"I shall trouble no one," he added, quietly.
Belle now gave such a great sigh of relief that he turned upon her too swift a glance to leave time for disguise. He smiled a little bitterly, and then began talking in an off-hand way to Mr. Jocelyn about the hotel a few miles distant, saying that it had filled up very rapidly of late. As they rose from the table he remarked, hesitatingly, "My horse and wagon are at your service this afternoon or evening if you would like to take a drive."
Mr. Jocelyn was about to accept, but Mildred trod significantly on his foot. Therefore he thanked Roger cordially, and said he would spend a quiet day with his family.
"I don't wish to be under the slightest obligations to him," explained Mildred when they were alone; "and Belle," she warned, "you must stop your nonsense at once. I won't endure another trace of it."
"Oh, indeed! I didn't know you were so touchy about him," cried the girl. "Is it for his sake or your own that you are so careful? You're stupid not to let him amuse you, since you've spoiled him for me."
Her sister made no reply, but gave the giddy child a glance that quieted her at once. When Mildred was aroused her power over others was difficult to explain, for, gentle as she was, her will at times seemed irresistible.
Roger did not need to be told in so many words that his overtures of "friendship" had been practically declined. Her tones, her polite but distant manner revealed the truth clearly. He was sorely wounded, but, so far from being disheartened, his purpose to win her recognition was only intensified.
"I can at least compel her respect and prove myself her equal," he thought, and instead of lounging or sleeping away the afternoon, as had been his custom, he took a book and read steadily for several hours. At last he left his room to aid his father in the evening labors of the farm-yard, and in doing so would have to pass near Mr. Jocelyn, who, with his family, was seated under a wide-spreading tree. The gentleman evidently was in a very genial mood; he was caressing his children, flattering his wife and Mildred, and rallying Belle after her own frolicsome humor. Roger thought, as he looked at them a few moments through the kitchen window, that he had never seen a happier family, and with a sigh wished that it was his privilege to join them without being thought an intruder. Mildred's reserve, however, formed an impassable barrier, and he was hastening by with downcast eyes, when, to his surprise and the young girl's evident astonishment, Mr. Jocelyn arose and said, "Ah, Mr. Atwood, we're glad to see you. Won't you join our little party? I want to thank you again for offering me your horse and carriage, but I assure you that a quiet hour like this with one's family after long separation is happiness enough. Still, as a Southern man, I appreciate courtesy, and am always ready to respond to it in like spirit. Moreover, it gives me peculiar pleasure to see a Northern man developing traits which, if they were general, would make the two great sections of our land one in truth as well as in name."
Roger gave Mildred a quick, questioning glance, and saw that she was regarding her father with much perplexity.
"Mr. Jocelyn," he said quietly, "the little courtesy of which you speak has cost me nothing, and if it had it would not be worth the words you bestow upon it."
"I do not think of the act itself so much as the spirit, the disposition it indicates," resumed Mr. Jocelyn in a manner that was courtly and pronounced, but otherwise natural and quiet enough. "I do not judge superficially, but look past apparent trifles to the character they suggest. Moreover, my wife informs me that you have been very polite to her, and very kind to Belle and the children, whom you have often taken out to drive without any compensation whatever. Since you will not make a business matter of such things, I wish to repay you in the coin which gentleman can always receive—that of friendly acknowledgments."
"Then please consider me amply repaid," and with a smile and a bow he was about to retire.
"Do not hasten away, sir," Mr. Jocelyn began again. "On this, day of rest your duties cannot be pressing. I want to assure you further of the pleasure I have in finding a young man who, so far from being rendered callous and material by hard and rather homely work, is alive to all refining influences. The changes in this place for the better since I was here, and those pretty flowers yonder, all prove that you have an eye for the beautiful as well as the practical. My daughter Mildred also informs me that you are cherishing hopes and ambitions that will eventually enlarge your sphere of life and take you out into the great world."
Hitherto Roger's eyes had been fixed keenly and unwaveringly on Mr. Jocelyn's urbane countenance, as if he would detect the cause of such unlooked-for words, but at the mention of Mildred's name his brow and even neck was suffused. "She must have spoken of me kindly," he thought, "or her father would not be so friendly." But when a swift glance around revealed that Mrs. Jocelyn was looking at her husband in perplexity, that Mildred was not even trying to conceal her vexation and amazement, and that Belle had stuffed her handkerchief into her mouth to prevent laughter, a spark of anger glittered in his eyes. His first thought was that Mr. Jocelyn was indulging in unexpected irony at his expense, and the ready youth whose social habits had inured him to much chaffing was able to reply, although a little stiffly and awkwardly, "I suppose most young men have ambitious hopes of doing something in the world, and yet that does not prevent mine from seeming absurd. At any rate, it's clear that I had better reveal them hereafter by deeds rather than words," and with a very slight bow he strode away, but not so quickly that he failed to hear Mildred's voice in the exclamation, "Oh, papa! how could you?" and then followed a paroxysm of laughter from Belle.
Roger was deeply incensed, for he believed that Mr. Jocelyn and Belle were deliberately ridiculing him. That Mildred had repeated his conversation was evident, but her manner showed that she did not expect his words to be used against him so openly, and that she had no part in the cruel sport. The worst he could charge against her was exclusive pride; and he did Mrs. Jocelyn the justice to see that she was pained by the whole affair. His face grew rigid as he finished his work and he muttered, "They shall see that my pride is equal to theirs: I won't go out of my way a hair-breadth for them," and he walked in to supper as if he were at home and had an absolute right to be there. He had been at the table but a few moments, however, before the aspect of the Jocelyn family began to puzzle him exceedingly. Belle appeared as if she had been crying; Mrs. Jocelyn looked perplexed and worried, and in Mildred's eyes there were anxiety and trouble. Mr. Jocelyn had not lost his serenity in the least, but his aspect now was grave, and his manner more courtly than ever. He did not seem inclined to say very much, however, and had an abstracted, dreamy look as if his thoughts were far away. When he did speak, Roger thought that Mildred looked apprehensive, as if fearing that he might again say something embarrassing, but his words were quiet and measured, betraying no excitement. The expression of his face, however, seemed unnatural to Roger's close yet furtive scrutiny. An hour before his eyes had been bright and dilated, and his countenance full of animation; now all the light and cheerfulness were fading, and the man seemed to grow older and graver by moments. Was the dusky pallor stealing across his features caused by the shadows of evening? Roger thought not, but a resentful glance from Mildred warned him to curb his curiosity.
He was curious, but not in a vulgar or prying way, and his anger was all gone. He was sure that something was amiss with Mr. Jocelyn, and that his family also was disturbed and anxious. There had been none of the incoherency and excitement of a man who had drank too much, but only a slight exaggeration of the genial traits manifested at the dinner-table followed by a quietude and abstraction that were not natural. Mental aberrations, even though slight and temporary, are instinctively felt by those who are sound and normal in mind. Still Roger would have charged Mr. Jocelyn's words and manner to the peculiarities of a stranger, had not his family been perplexed and troubled also. "There's something wrong about him," he said to himself as he rose from the table; "he lacks balance, or he's not well. I half believe that the time will come when that young girl will be the stay and support of the whole family. You cannot prevent my friendliness, Miss Jocelyn, any more than you can stop the sun from shining, and some day it will melt all your reserve and coldness." He took his volume of history out on the sward near the porch, resolving to see the end of the domestic drama. His mother had told him during the day that their "boarders" would soon depart. He had made no response whatever, but his sinking spirits revealed to him that in some way his life had become involved with that of the girl now so distant and repellent.
He did not turn many leaves, but he sat with the book in his lap until long after nightfall. The domestic drama apparently had a very prosaic ending. Mr. Jocelyn and his family returned for a time to their seats under the trees, but all except the little children were apparently under some constraint. The latter soon grew sleepy, and Mrs. Jocelyn took them in to bed. Belle was not long in following them, darting an ireful glance at Roger in passing, to which he responded by a rather mocking smile. "We were having a lovely time till you came, you old marplot," she muttered under her breath.
Mr. Jocelyn grew more and more quiet until his head sank on his breast, and it was with difficulty that Mildred aroused him sufficiently to urge his retiring. At last he took his daughter's arm and entered the house as if in a dream. The young girl's face was downcast and averted. As they passed between the youth and the still glowing west they cast a faint shadow upon him. Though by no means imaginative, he noted the shadow and thought about it. It seemed that it still rested on him after they were gone, and that it might never pass away. His was not a dreamy, fanciful nature, that could create a score of improbable contingencies, but his shrewd, strong sense was quick to recognize traces of weakness and untrustworthiness in those he met, and the impression grew upon him that Mr. Jocelyn was not a well-balanced man. "If he fails her, I will not," he murmured. Then with a short laugh he continued, "How is it that I am ready to admit such a far-reaching claim from one who repels and dislikes me? I don't know, and I don't care. She has waked me up; she has the power of calling into action every faculty I have. Already, I scarcely know myself. I never lived before, and I feel that I can become a man—perhaps a great man—if I follow this impulse, and I shall follow it."
Soon all were sleeping, and mother and daughter were alone.
"Mamma," said Mildred, in a low, troubled tone, "it seemed to me that papa acted very strangely this afternoon and evening. Can he be well?"
"Oh, Millie," cried the loving, anxious wife, "I fear he is not well at all; and no wonder, when we think of the long strain he has been under. Haven't you noticed that his appetite is very poor? to-night he scarcely ate a mouthful. He has just been trying to keep up ever since he came, and this afternoon he made unusual effort; reaction of course followed, and at last he was so weary and troubled that he could not hide his feelings from us."
"I suppose you take the right view," said Mildred hesitatingly, "but papa has not seemed the same this afternoon as at other times when tired and worried. His gayety was a little extravagant, and so it might naturally be if it were forced. But I can't understand his speaking to young Mr. Atwood as he did. Papa never showed such a lack of tact or delicacy before. I would not dare tell him things if he spoke of them afterward so inopportunely. I felt as if I could sink into the ground. And when Belle—who can't help seeing everything in a ridiculous light—began to laugh he turned and spoke to her as he has never spoken to any of us before, And yet he did not seem angry, but his gravity was more oppressive than any amount of natural anger."
"Well, Millie, your father is very kind-hearted, and, like all Southern men, very sensitive to kindness and courtesy. I suppose he thought that you and Belle had not treated Roger well, and that he ought to make amends. The real explanation is that he is overstrained and unhappy, and so cannot act like himself."
"I do hope he is not going to be ill," faltered Mildred. "Such a strange lethargy came over him after you left us. Oh, the day is ending horribly, and it leaves a weight of foreboding on my mind. I wish we could get away tomorrow, for I feel that Roger Atwood is watching us, and that nothing escapes him. I know that papa's manner seemed strange to him as well as to us, and I almost hate him for his obtrusive and prying interest. Why can't he see that he's nothing to us, nor we to him, and let us alone?"
She often recalled these words in after years.
The wife went to her room and found that her husband was sleeping quietly. Returning, she said, more cheerily, "I think papa will be like himself after a good night's sleep, and there's every promise now that he'll get it; so don't look on the dark side, Millie, nor worry about that young man. He don't mean to be obtrusive, and I must say that I think he behaves very well considering. With troubles like ours, why think of such a transient annoyance? If I only knew just how I could help your father I would not think about much else."
It would have been well indeed if she could have known, for she would have taken from his pocketbook a small syringe and a bottle of Magendie's solution of morphia; she would have entreated him upon her knees, she would have bound him by the strongest oaths to die rather than to use it again. The secret of all that was peculiar and unnatural in his conduct can be explained by the fact that early in the afternoon he went apart for a moment, and with a little innocent-looking instrument injected into his arm the amount of the fatal drug which he believed he could enjoy without betraying himself.
Although Mr. Jocelyn had retired so early and slept heavily until an hour that at the farmhouse was late, the reader knows that his sleep was not the natural repose which brings freshness and elasticity. His wife and Mildred, however, did not know this, and his languor, continued drowsiness, and depression, which even much effort could not disguise, confirmed their dread of an impending illness. He saw their anxiety, and took advantage of their fears to hide his weakness.
"Yes," he sighed, in response to their gentle solicitude as he pushed away his almost untasted breakfast, "I suppose my health has been impaired by worry of mind and the heat in town. I'm better, though, than I have been. I don't see how you are going to endure the city."
They both assured him, however, that they would not even consider any other arrangement except that already agreed upon, and urged that he should return to town that very day, his wife adding that just as soon as he had secured rooms within their means she would join him and prepare them for the family.
"Oh, Nan," he again said dejectedly, "it's a cruel fate which compels me to take you to a tenement-house in August."
"It would be far more cruel to leave me here," his wife answered earnestly. "I could be happy anywhere if you were your old natural self once more. Millie and I can both see that struggling alone and brooding by yourself over your troubles is not good for you," and her gentle but determined purpose carried the day.
Mr. Jocelyn was then directed to a somewhat distant field, where he found Roger, who readily agreed to take him to the steamboat landing in the afternoon. Lifting his eyes from his work a few moments afterward, the young man saw that his visitor, instead of returning to the house, had sat down under a clump of trees and had buried his face in his hands.
"There's a screw loose about that man," he muttered. "He's too uneven. Yesterday at dinner he was the most perfect gentleman ever I saw; in the afternoon he had a fit of pompous hilarity and condescension; then came abstraction, as if his mind had stepped out for a time; and now, after twelve hours of sleep, instead of feeling like a lark, he looks as though he might attend his own funeral before night, and walks as if his feet were lead. He mopes there under the trees when he has but a few more hours with his family. If I had such a wife and such a daughter as he has, I'd cut a swath for them, no matter what stood in the way."
But Roger's censure was slight compared with that which Mr. Jocelyn visited upon himself; and in order to understand his feelings and conduct, it will be necessary to relate some experiences which occurred after the departure of his family to the country. Throughout the entire winter he had been under a severe strain of business anxiety, and then had come the culminating scenes of failure, loss of income, and enforced and unhappy separation. His natural depression had been so increased by the meagre prospect of finding employment which would yield his family an adequate support, that even his increased and more frequent indulgence in his morphia powders failed to give sufficient hopefulness and courage, while at the same time they began to produce some serious disorders in his system. There is a class of diseases which rarely fails to attack one whose system is reduced and enfeebled, and neuralgia began to bind across his forehead a daily pressure of pain that at last became intolerable. Ordinary remedies not giving speedy relief, his physician injected into his arm a few drops of the solution of morphia. Thus far he had never used the drug in solution hypodermically, and he was much surprised by the agreeable effects of a very much smaller quantity than he had been accustomed to use on any one occasion, and his morphia hunger—already firmly established—immediately suggested that the little syringe might become a far more potent agent than the powders. Therefore he induced the physician to give him an order for the instrument, and to explain more fully the methods of its use, saying that attacks of neuralgia were generally rather obstinate in his case, and that he had neither the time nor the means to seek his services very often.
The physician's few words of warning made but slight impression upon the infatuated man at the time. Mr. Jocelyn remembered only that he had an intolerable pain in his head and a heavy weight upon his heart. Many a time during the long civil war he had smilingly led charges wherein the chances of death were greater than those of life, but neither then nor since had he ever displayed any great aptitude for quiet endurance and self-control. Now every day was precious, and he felt he could not give himself up to pain and patient waiting until the disease could be conquered in a slow, legitimate way, when by a wound no more than a pin-prick he could obtain courage, happiness, and prospects illimitable.
Having obtained the syringe and a vial of the solution of morphia, he injected into his arm a much larger quantity than the physician would have dreamed of employing. Not only did the unendurable anguish pass away within a few brief moments, but the world was transfigured; life's grim outlook became full of the richest promise, and discouragement and dread vanished utterly. So far from fearing that he could not provide for his family, he was sure that he could win for them abundance and luxury. A dozen avenues to fortune opened before him, and he felt that his only task was to choose, believing that in some indefinite yet easily discerned way he would achieve more than falls to the lot of most men to accomplish. Instead of a long, sleepless night like those which had preceded, his waking dreams ended in quiet and equally pleasant visions—then oblivion, which did not pass away until the morning sun was shining. But with the new day came a new access of pain and gloom, and the aid of the magic little instrument was invoked once more. Again within a few moments the potent drug produced a tranquil elysium and a transformed world of grand possibilities. With a vigor which seemed boundless, and hopes which repeated disappointments could not dampen, he continued his quest for employment until in the declining day his spirits and energy ebbed as strangely as they had risen in the morning, and after another night of dreams and stupor he awoke in torture. The powerful stimulant enabled him to repeat the experiences of the previous day, and for two or three weeks he lived in the fatal but fascinating opium paradise, gradually increasing the amount of morphia that his system, dulled by habit, demanded. In the meantime, by the lavish use of quinine he gradually banished his neuralgia with its attendant pain.
It is well known to those familiar with the character of opium that its effects are greatly enhanced at first by any decided change in the method of its use; also that its most powerful and immediate influences can be produced solely by the hypodermic needle, since by means of it the stimulant is introduced at once into the system. When taken in powders, the glow, the serenity, and exaltation come on more slowly, and more gradually pass away, causing alternations of mood far less noticeable than those produced by immediate injection of the poison. Therefore it was not at all strange that Mr. Jocelyn's family should remain in complete ignorance of the habit which was enslaving him, or that his behavior failed to excite the faintest suspicion of the threatening influences at work. There is no vice so secret as that of the opium slave's, none that is in its earlier stages more easily and generally concealed from those who are nearest and dearest. The changes produced in Mr. Jocelyn were very gradual, and seeing him daily even his loving wife did not note them.
During the period of unnatural exaltation that has been described he had accepted agencies which promised thousands if he could sell millions of dollars' worth of goods, and after the subtle morphia had infused itself through his system nothing seemed easier; but dreams are not realities, and after grand hopes unfulfilled, and futile efforts, he would sink into a despondency from which nothing could lift him save the little syringe that he carried hidden next to his heart. As its magic never failed him, he went on for a time, blind to the consequences. At last he began to grow more alarmed than ever before at the ascendency of the drug and his dependence upon it, but when he tried to discontinue its use he found that he had been living so long under the influence of a powerful stimulant that without it he sank like a stone. Then came the usual compromise of all weak souls—he would gradually decrease the amount and then the frequency of its use; but, as is generally the case, he put off the beginning of sturdy self-denial until the morrow, and almost every day he poisoned his system with that which also poisoned and demoralized his soul. He dimly saw his danger, but did not realize it. With the fatuity of all self-indulgent natures he thought the day would come when, with better prospects and health renewed, he would throw away the spell which bound him and become a free man, but day after day passed and he did not; his appetite began to flag and his energy also; he would sit dreaming for hours when he might have been at work. At best his agencies would give him but a scanty revenue, although pushed with extraordinary skill and vigor. As it was, they yielded him little more than personal support, and he began to entertain the hope that if he could only obtain regular employment he could then resume his old regular habits. Therefore he had agreed to accept a position which was little more than a foothold, and yet if he would go to work with a determined and patient industry he might, by means of it, win more than he had lost.
Could he do this? The Sunday he had just spent with his family had awakened him as never before to a sense of his bondage. Even with the society of those he loved to enliven and sustain he had felt that he could not get through the day without the help of the stimulant upon which he had grown so dependent. While at church it was not the clergyman's voice he heard, but a low yet imperious and incessant cry for opium. As he rode home, smiling upon his wife and children, and looking at the beautiful and diversified country, between them and the landscape he ever saw a little brass instrument gauged at four or five times the amount that the physician had at first inserted in his arm. At the dinner table he had spoken courteously and well on many subjects, and yet ever uppermost in his mind was one constant thought—opium. The little diabolical thing itself seemed alive in his pocket, and made its faint yet potent solicitation against his heart. At last he had muttered, "I will just take a little of the cursed stuff, and then I must begin to break myself in dead earnest."
The reader knows what followed. Moreover, he was led to fear that the alternations of mood caused by injections of morphia would be so great that they could not fail to excite remark. Although the new day brought every motive which can influence a man, Mr. Jocelyn found the path to freedom so steep and difficult that the ascent seemed well-nigh impossible. His muscles were relaxed, his whole frame so weary and limp that he even dreaded the effort required to return to the house where his family was waiting for him. But the physical oppression was nothing to that which weighed upon his mind. The sense of misery and discouragement was paralyzing, and he was fairly appalled by his lack of energy. And yet he felt his need of power and resolution as keenly as he realized his feebleness. He knew that he had appeared unnatural to his wife and children, and that while they now ascribed his behavior to the long strain he had been under, their loving and charitable blindness could not last if he often exhibited before them such variable moods and conditions. Therefore he felt that he must overcome the habit before they were together permanently, for to permit them to discover his vile weakness in this time of their great need would be a mortal wound to his pride. All his manhood revolted at the bare thought. Their trust, their love, their dependence and unrepining courage in meeting poverty and privation with him imposed the strongest and most sacred of obligations, and his high sense of honor—which hitherto had been his religion—made failure to meet these obligations the most awful disaster that could overwhelm him. The means of escaping from his wretchedness and dejection—from the horrible lassitude of body and soul—could be grasped in a moment, and the temptation to use them and become within a few minutes a strong, sanguine, courageous man was almost irresistible; but he knew well that such an abrupt change from the heavy, dull-eyed condition in which they had seen him at the breakfast table could not fail to arouse suspicion; and should they once discern his crime—for crime he now regarded it—he feared his self-respect would be so destroyed that he would never have the pride and strength for the struggle now clearly foreseen; therefore, with the instinct of self-preservation, and from the impulse of all his native and long-fostered Southern pride, he resolved that they must never know his degradation. He must rally his shattered forces, spend the few hours before his departure with his family in a way to lull all fears and surmises; then when away by himself he would tug at his chain until he broke it. Summoning the whole strength of his will he returned to the house, and succeeded fairly well.
Could he break his chain? The coming pages of this book will reveal his struggle and its termination. Alas! it is no fancy sketch, but a record of human experience that is becoming sadly frequent. The hunger for opium had grown upon Mr. Jocelyn by its almost constant use for nearly two years. During weeks of pain he had almost lived upon the drug, saturating his system with it. It had come to him like an angel of light, lifting him on buoyant pinions out of suffering and despondency, but the light was fading from the wings and brow of this strong spirit, and it was already seen to be an angel of darkness.
At this time Mr. Jocelyn might have escaped from his thraldom, but would he? The world is full of people who are proud and self-respecting in the extreme, who are honorable and virtuous, good and kindly at heart, but whose wills are nerveless, though they may go safely through life without suspecting the truth; but if they fall under the influence of an evil habit—if they pass under this mightiest and darkest of all spells, opium hunger—they may learn their weakness in despair.
Mr. Jocelyn, however, had no thought of despair; he was only surprised, humiliated, and somewhat alarmed; he was satisfied that he must drift no longer, and in perfect sincerity resolved to make the most of his brief separation from his family, hoping that with a physician's advice he could speedily overcome his morbid craving and distressing need. He left the farmhouse with the resolution that he would never touch the drug again, believing that before a week expired the horrible depression, both mental and physical, would so far pass away as to excite no further suspicion.
For an hour he rode at Roger's side, rigid, taciturn, and pale; for except when heated by exercise his wonted ruddy color was passing away from the effects of the poison. Roger drove around to the large hotel, which was not much out of their way, and said, "Mr. Jocelyn, will you please take the lines a few moments? I have an errand here, but it won't keep me long."
Having transacted his business he stood in the office door watching a young man who sauntered toward him. The stranger was almost as tall as himself, but much slighter. While his carriage was easy and graceful, it was marked by an air of lassitude and weariness, and his step lacked firmness. A heavy mustache relieved his face from effeminacy, but his large, dark eyes were dull and apathetic. Suddenly they lighted up with recognition; he hesitated, and then hastily advanced toward Mr. Jocelyn, but his steps were speedily checked, for the moment the gentleman recognized him he bowed very coldly and turned haughtily away. The young man flushed deeply, stood still a moment in irresolution, and then with a swift glance into Roger's interested face turned and quickly disappeared. Before Roger could resume his place in the wagon the proprietor of the hotel came out and called him back; something had been forgotten.
This interruption was fatal to Mr. Jocelyn's good resolutions. Vinton Arnold, who had won his daughter's affection, but who seemingly had not the manhood to be faithful in her adversity, was the one whom he had repulsed, and the thought of his wealth and luxury, while he was on his way to seek a home in a tenement for his beautiful child, so maddened him that he drove recklessly to an adjacent shed, which shielded him from observation, snatched out his fatal syringe, and in a moment the poison was diffusing itself through all his system. He had returned again before Roger, who had been detained some moments, reappeared, but now his heavy eyes were bright and fiery, and his tongue unloosed.
"Did you see that young man to whom I refused to speak?" he asked as they drove away.
"Yes."
"Well, he's a white-livered scoundrel. He's a type of your Northern gentlemen. A Southern man would starve rather than act so pusillanimously. Of course I'm not going to talk of family secrets, or say anything not befitting a high-toned gentleman, but I taught that snob how a man of honor regards his cowardice and cold-bloodedness. He was one of our fair-weather friends, who promptly disappeared when the sky clouded. Here he is, dawdling around a high-priced hotel, while I'm on my way to seek rooms in a tenement for those to whom he is not worthy to speak; but the time shall come, and speedily, too, when even on the base plane of money—the sole claim of his proud family for consideration—we shall meet him and scorn him as his superiors. I have plans, business prospects—" and he launched forth into such a vague, wild statement of his projects that Eoger looked at him in silent amazement, half doubting his sanity.
In his haste Mr. Jocelyn had not carefully gauged his syringe, and the over-amount of morphia thrown into his system so stimulated him that his words appeared exceedingly irrational to the young man, whose judgment was based on unusual shrewdness and common-sense. He was greatly puzzled by the sudden change in his companion. It was evident that he had not been drinking, for his breath was untainted and his utterance was natural. But his face was flushed, and he seemed possessed by a strange, unbalanced mental exaltation which led him to speak as no sensible man ought in any circumstances, and certainly not to a stranger. Roger therefore interrupted him saying, "I shall respect your confidence, Mr. Jocelyn, and will never repeat what you have said. Please let me suggest, however, that it would be wise not to speak so frankly to others, since they might take advantage of you."
"Please let me assure YOU," resumed Mr. Jocelyn, with the most impressive dignity, "that I am a man of the world, and that I have seen a great deal of the world. I can read men as you would read a book. If you were not trustworthy I should know it at a glance. Did you not see how I treated that young jackanapes? His wealth and elegance did not impose upon me in the least. You are trustworthy. You have a large, aspiring mind, and yet you know your station; you would not dream of presuming. What does it signify that we are poor for the moment? True Southern blood is in our veins, and I have a dozen plans for securing large wealth. When that day comes I shall remember those who basely turned their backs on us in our brief obscurity;" and thus he rambled on, while Roger listened coldly and in silence.
"There is method is his madness," he said to himself; "he is not so daft but that he hints broadly I must keep my station and not be 'presuming.' His proud daughter hints as much still more plainly. Well, we'll see whose dreams find the larger fulfilment—his or mine."
By the time they reached the landing the sun was low in the west, and his companion had become comparatively silent, dreamy, and abstracted. Half an hour later Roger went on board of the boat with some solicitude to see how he was faring. Mr. Jocelyn started out of what appeared a deep reverie as Roger addressed him, and said, after a moment's thought, "Please say to my family that you left me well, and safely on my way," and with a quiet and rather distant bow he resumed his absorbing thoughts.
The steamer moved away, but instead of returning directly home Roger went back to the hotel. Even amid the hallucinations of opium the father had too much instinctive delicacy to mention Mildred's name or to make any reference to Arnold's intentions; but the quick-witted fellow gained the impression that the elegant young stranger had been a welcome and favored suitor in the past better days, and he had a consuming wish to see and study the kind of man that he surmised had been pleasing to Mildred. As he rode along, pity for the girl took the place of resentment. "Not our plain little farmhouse, but the fashionable hotel, is the place where she would feel the most at home," he thought. "And yet she is going to a tenement-house! There, too, she'll stay, I fear, for all that her father will ever do for her. If he's not off his balance, I never saw a man that was."
Roger sat out on the dusky piazza of the hotel, looking into the large parlor through open windows which came to the floor, bent on making the most of such glimpses as he could obtain of the world to which he felt that Mildred belonged by right. He saw clearly that she would appear well and at home amid such surroundings. A young and elegantly dressed woman crossed the wide apartment, and he muttered, "Your carriage is very fine and fashionable, no doubt, but Miss Jocelyn would have added grace and nature to your regulation gait." He watched the groups at the card-tables with a curious interest, and the bobbing heads of gossiping dowagers and matrons; he compared the remarkable "make up," as he phrased it, of some of them with the unredeemed plainness of his mother's Sunday gown. "Neither the one nor the other is in good taste," he thought. "Mrs. Jocelyn dresses as I intend my mother shall some day." He coolly criticised a score or more of young men and women who were chatting, promenading, flitting through the open windows out upon the piazza and back again into the light, as a small stringed orchestra struck into a lively galop or the latest waltz. He saw a general mustering of the younger guests, even down to the boys and girls, for the lancers, and followed one and another that caught his eye through the mazy intricacies, making little gestures of disgust at those who seemed outre and peculiar in manner and appearance, and regarding with the closest observation such as exhibited a happy mean between a certain rusticity and awkwardness with which he was well acquainted, and a conventional artificiality which was to him all the more unnatural and absurd because his perception was not dulled by familiarity with society's passing whims.
The young stranger whom Mr. Jocelyn had repulsed, and who was the real object of his quest, did not appear among the pleasure-seekers, nor could he discover him on the piazza, in the billiard-room, or in other places of resort. At last in much disappointment he returned to his seat, from which he commanded a view of the parlor; and scarcely had he done so before the one he sought mounted the steps near him as if returning from a stroll in the hotel grounds, threw away his cigar, and entered an open window with the same graceful, listless saunter witnessed in the afternoon. He crossed the wide apartment with as much ease and nonchalance as if it had been empty, and sat down on a sofa by a somewhat stout and very elegantly apparelled gentlewoman.
Roger never thought of accounting for the intensity of his interest in this stranger—the young rarely analyze their feelings—but, obedient to an impulse to learn this man's power to win the favor of one so unapproachable by himself, he scanned with keenest scrutiny everything in his appearance and manner, and sought eagerly to gauge his character.
He felt instinctively that the "cold-blooded snob," as Mr. Jocelyn had characterized him, was of the very opposite type to his own. His graceful saunter, which, nevertheless, possessed a certain quiet dignity, suggested a burdensome leisure and an utter lack of purpose to go anywhere or do anything. He dropped on the sofa rather than sat down. The lady at his side spoke rather decidedly to him, and he answered briefly without even looking at her. By and by she spoke again, more energetically; he then slowly arose, approached a young woman sitting near, who in response to something he said sprang up with alacrity, and they glided away in the waltz with an ease and grace scarcely equalled by the others upon the floor. After a few moments they circled around very near Roger's post of observation, and he was able to scan both the features and expression of the man whom he felt inclined to hate. But he was disarmed and perplexed, for the stranger showed no more pleasure or animation than would a fallen leaf that was swept here and there by varying eddies of wind. He kept time and step with perfect accuracy, but evidently from such complete familiarity with the form that he gave it not a thought. He danced as easily as a bird flies, avoiding the others without appearing to notice them. No color came from the exercise, no light kindled in his face. His expression was not blase or cynical, but weary and dejected; the melancholy in his large brown eyes was all the more striking from contrast with the music, the lighted room, and an amusement suggesting gayety. Pale, utterly unresponsive to the brilliant and mirthful scenes, he glided ghost-like here and there, and before very long seated his companion by the elderly woman whose urgency had led to his automaton-like performance. Then with a slight bow he passed through a window near and disappeared. The two lades spoke together for a few moments and seemed annoyed, and Roger now noted such a resemblance between them as to suggest that they were mother and daughter.
He had seen sufficient to satisfy him, and he went away muttering, "There isn't enough of him to hate; he's but the shadow of a man. She fancy him! I couldn't have believed it; I can't account for it, unless he's very gifted in mind or very different when with her. This must be true, and he would be a mummy indeed if she couldn't wake him up."
Roger rode home, however, ill at ease. "He hasn't forgotten her if he has given her up on account of her poverty," he thought. "He could see as well as I that there was no one there who could compare with her; but he mopes instead of trying to win her. If he can dance, why can't he work? I've no reason to complain, however, and I thank my stars that I have muscle and a will. In the meantime I shall come up here and study your tricks of manner, my elegant nonentity. I believe in force. Force moves the world and carries a man through it; but I now see that it should be well-managed and well-mannered force. Miss Jocelyn compares me with you, and I seem to her uncouth, unfinished, and crude in the extreme. Litheness and grace need not take an atom from my strength, and the time shall come when I will not fear comparisons. I'll win her yet with your own weapons."
Roger's dreams proved that his sympathies with the melancholy stranger were not very deep, and that his idea of the survival of the fittest was the survival of the strongest. His human nature at that time was of the old Saxon type, that went directly for what it wanted, without much thought or sentiment for those weak enough to lose.
Although it was rather late before he reached home, he found his mother, Mrs. Jocelyn, and Mildred waiting for him in the sitting-room.
"What kept you so?" Mrs. Atwood exclaimed.
"I stopped a while at the hotel on my return," he replied.
"Did my husband send any message?" Mrs. Jocelyn asked, with a solicitude she could not disguise.
"He told me to say that I had left him well, and safely on his way to the city."
"Did—did he seem well when you left him?" the anxious wife persisted.
"Quite as well as he did yesterday, I think," was the reply.
"Mr. Atwood," said Mildred, in a tone that startled him a little, and he saw she was looking at him as if she would read his thoughts, "did my father truly appear well when you parted from him?"
Roger's eyes fell before hers, but he replied firmly, "I left him sitting quietly on the steamboat's deck, and when I asked him if he had any message for his family, he said the words I have just repeated. He seemed naturally depressed at leaving you all. If he were not well he did not say anything about it;" and with a bow he passed up to his room.
"Mother," said Mildred, when they were alone, "was it mere diffidence, or why was it, that he could not look me in the eyes? I wonder if he is concealing anything. It was in the afternoon and evening that papa was unlike himself yesterday. I wish I really knew whether or not that young man is hiding anything, for I have an impression that he is."
"Oh, it was diffidence, Millie. He would have no motive in hiding the truth from us. I can see that he is both fascinated by you and afraid of you—poor fellow!"
"A few weeks in the cornfield and a few smiles from the girls hereabouts will banish all his nonsense concerning me. I don't give him a thought except that his absurd feelings annoy me. Oh, mamma, you understand me. What he would like to offer is such a grotesque parody on that which I hoped for, on what I imagined I possessed, that it makes me sick. Oh, oh!" she sobbed, "I must give it all up. Mr. Arnold acts as if I were dead: and practically I am to him, although he may sigh and mope a little, perhaps. There, I'm wronging him; I know I wrong him. How can I forget his white, deathlike face and look of mortal pain. Oh that he had this young fellow's muscle and courage! I do not care for his money; I would be content with him in one bare room. But as it is I fear, I fear;" and the poor child buried her face in her mother's lap, and cried away some of her weight of foreboding.
"Millie, darling," faltered her mother, "God knows I'd shield your heart with my own if I could, but I don't know how to help you. You are too much like me. Your love is your life, and you can't stop loving just because it would be wise and thrifty to do so. I think of you almost as much as I do of Martin, and I daily pray the merciful Saviour, who was 'tempted in all points like as we are,' to sustain and comfort you. I don't see how I can help you in any other way, for my own heart shows me just how you suffer."
"There, little mother," said Mildred, raising her head and wiping her eyes, "I've had my cry, and feel the better for it. I'm going to help you and papa and be brave. I'm glad I'm like you. I'm glad I'm a true Southern girl, and that I can love as you loved; and I would despise myself if I could invest my heart and reinvest it like so much stock. Such a woman is cold-blooded and unnatural, and you are the dearest little mother and wife that ever breathed."