"Well, I am glad of that!" exclaimed Millicent. "In a country where they consider such people their equals, he will not meet the pity and consideration he has so abused here. Still, I do think, father, that you ought to apologize to Mr. Roseleaf for the way in which you have addressed him."
This freed the young man"s tongue.
"By no means," he said. "Very likely I was wrong to say anything."
"You were not wrong!" retorted Millicent. "You were entirely right. You would have been justified in punishing the fellow as he deserved. It is others who are wrong. If he were not going, I would never stay to see repeated what I have witnessed in the last six months."
Mr. Fern seemed to have lost all ambition for controversy. His elder daughter"s cutting words evidently hurt, but he would not reply.
Mr. Weil came to the rescue by introducing a new topic of conversation, that of a European tenor that was soon expected to startle New York.
Daisy went to the piano, and played softly, talking in whispers to Roseleaf, who leaned feverishly over her shoulder. But she made no allusion to Hannibal, and he did his best to forget him.
"What do you make of that?" asked Mr. Weil, when he was in a railway car, on the way back to the city with his young friend. "A glorious chance for a novelist to find the reason that black Adonis is allowed such lat.i.tude."
But Roseleaf was not listening. He was thinking of a sweet voice that had said: "You are a dear boy and I love you!"
CHAPTER XIV.
"LET US HAVE A BETRAYAL."
Mr. Archie Weil had become quite intimate with Mr. Wilton Fern; so much so that he called at his office every few days, took walks with him on business errands, went with him to lunch (to the annoyance of Lawrence Gouger, who did not like to eat alone) and sometimes took the train home with him at night, on evenings when Shirley Roseleaf was not of the party. Everybody in the Fern family liked Archie. Even Hannibal, who had conceived a veritable hatred for Roseleaf, brightened at the entrance of Mr. Weil either at the house or office, the negro seeming to alternate between the two places very much as he pleased. Millicent liked him because he was so "facile," as she expressed it; a man with whom one could talk without feeling it necessary to pick each step. Daisy liked him because her father did, and because Roseleaf did, and because he treated her with marked politeness that had apparently no double meaning.
And they all got confidential with him, which was exactly what he wanted them to do; only the one he most wanted to give him confidence gave him the least. This was Mr. Fern, himself.
Try as he might, Archie could not discover what clouded the brow of the wool merchant, what made him act like a person who fears each knock at the door, each sound of a human voice in the hallway of his office. He could find no reason for Mr. Fern"s att.i.tude toward Hannibal, whose manners were as far removed as possible from those supposed to belong to a personal servant. There must be a cause of no ordinary character when this polished gentleman permitted a negro to insult him and his daughter, in a way to excite comment. What it was Mr. Weil was bent on discovering, but as yet he had made little progress.
It was on account of this plan that Mr. Weil affected to like Hannibal so well. He used to spend hours in devising ways for securing the truth from that source. Hannibal, however, gave no signs of intending to reveal his secret, and if he was going abroad to study, it seemed unlikely that the investigator would get at many facts in that quarter.
One day, Mr. Weil happened to call at the office of the merchant at an hour when the latter was out, and found Hannibal in possession. As this was an opportunity seldom available, Archie entered into a lively conversation with the fellow.
"They tell me you are soon going to leave us," he said, as a beginning.
"I hear that you are going to Europe."
"Yes," said Hannibal, with a certain wariness.
"If I can tell you anything about the country I shall be glad," said Weil, affably. "I have spent considerable time there. You don"t understand the language, I believe?"
The negro simply shook his head.
"It"s easy enough to acquire. Get right into a hotel with a lot of students, and pitch in. Though they _do_ say," added the speaker, archly, "that the best method is to engage a pretty grisette. The poet was right:
""Tis pleasing to be schooled in a strange tongue By female eyes and lips; that is, I mean, When both the teacher and the taught are young--
"You know the rest."
The answering smile that he expected, did not come into the negro"s face. If possible, it grew still more reserved and earnest.
"There"s one good thing, if you"ll excuse my mentioning it," pursued Archie, "and that is, the French have no prejudice whatever against color. Indeed, a colored student gets a little better attention in Paris than a white one."
Then the silent lips were unlocked.
"Could a black man--_marry_--a white woman, of the upper or middle cla.s.ses?" asked Hannibal, slowly.
"To be sure. There was the elder Dumas, and a dozen others. I tell you there"s absolutely no color line there. They judge a man by what he is, not by the accident of race or skin. You"ll see such a difference you"ll be sorry you didn"t go years before."
Hannibal sat as if lost in thought.
"Mr. Fern will miss you, though," continued Archie. "Yes, and the family. You seem almost indispensable."
A suspicious glance was shot at the speaker, but his face bore such an ingenuous look that the suggestion was dismissed. What could he know?
"They will get some one else," said the negro, quietly.
"Yes, but in these days it is not easy to get people one can trust. Mr.
Fern will not find any one to take your place in a moment. And just now, when he evidently has a great deal of trouble on his mind, it will be unpleasant to make a change."
Hannibal was completely deceived by the apparently honest character of these observations. He could not resist the temptation to boast a little, that peculiar trait of a menial.
"I know all about Mr. Fern"s affairs," he agreed. "Both here and at the house. He would not trust the next man as he has me."
Mr. Weil nodded wisely.
"I see, I see," he answered. "You know then what has annoyed him of late--that which has puzzled all the rest of us so much. You know, but having the knowledge in a sort of confidential capacity, you would, of course, have no right to reveal it."
Hannibal straightened himself up in an exasperating way.
"You will not find what troubles Mr. Fern," he said, loftily. "And now, may I ask _you_ something. Do you expect to marry his eldest daughter?"
An inclination to kick the fellow for his impudence came so strong upon Mr. Weil that it required all of his powers to suppress the sentiment.
But through his indignation there struggled his old admiration for this elegant physical specimen. He wished he could get a statue modeled from him, before the original left the country.
"That is a delicate question," he managed to say.
"I know it," replied Hannibal. "But I have observed some things which may have escaped you. Shall I tell you what I mean?"
Not at all easy under this strain, the curiosity of Mr. Weil was so great that he could only reply in the affirmative.
"Miss Millicent," explained Hannibal, slowly, "is in love--very much in love--with another person."
A stare that could not be concealed answered him.
"You have not seen anything to indicate it?" asked the negro. "I thought as much. She has done her best to cover it, and yet I can swear it is true. She _likes_ you, as a friend. But she _loves_ him, pa.s.sionately."
He was in for it now and might as well follow this strange matter to the end.