"I was not speaking of human nature generally," said Ida; "I was thinking of myself."
"As usual, my charming Cousin."
She flushed resentfully, but did not reply.
"And I feel that Miss Mayhew has done herself injustice in her thought," said Miss Burton, with a sympathetic glance at Ida. "And how is it with you, Mr. Van Berg? Do you dread growing old?"
"I fear my opinion will remind you of Jack Bunsby," replied the artist. "Growing old is like a prospective journey. So much depends upon the country through which you travel and your company.
My father and mother are taking a summer excursion through Norway and Sweden, and I know they are enjoying themselves abundantly.
They have had a good time growing old. Why should not others?"
Ida appeared to resent his words bitterly; and with a tone and manner that surprised every one she said:
"Mr. Van Berg, I could not have believed that you were capable of making so superficial a reply. Why not say, if the poor were rich, if the ugly were beautiful, if the sick were well, if the bad were good, and we all had our heart"s desires, we could journey on complacently and prosperously?"
The artist flushed deeply under this address, coming from such an unexpected quarter; but he replied quietly:
"That allusion with which I prefaced my remark, Miss Mayhew, proved that I regard my opinion as of little value; and yet I have no better one to offer. Nothing is more trite than the comparison of life to a journey or a pilgrimage. If one were compelled to travel with very disagreeable people, in fifth-rate conveyances, and through regions uninteresting or repulsive, the journey, or to abandon the figure, growing old, might well be dreaded. From my soul I would pity one condemned to such a fate. It would, indeed, be "dreary plodding" where one"s best hope would be that he might stumble upon his grave as soon as possible. But I do not believe in any such dreary fatalism. We are endowed with intelligence to choose carefully our paths and companions; and I cannot help thinking that the majority might choose wisely enough to make life an agreeable journey in the main."
"Look here, Van; I"m no casuist," said Stanton with a shrug; "but I can detect a flaw in your philosophy at once. Suppose one wanted good company and could not get it."
"He had better jog on alone, in that case, than take bad company."
"And heavy jogging it might be too," muttered Stanton, with a frown.
Ida"s head dropped low and her face became very pale. Her impulsive cousin in expressing his own tormenting fear, had unconsciously defined what promised to be her wretched experience. She felt that the artist"s eyes were upon her; and in the blind impulse to shield her secret, which then was so vividly plain to her consciousness, she raised her head suddenly, and with a reckless laugh remarked:
"For a wonder I also can half agree with Mr. Van Berg--congenial society for me or none at all."
A second later she could have bitten her tongue out before uttering words virtually claimed Sibley as her most congenial companion.
"Miss Mayhew is better than most of us in that she lives up to her theories," Van Berg remarked, coldly.
Her eyes shot at him a sudden flash of impotent protest and resentment, and then she lowered her head with a flush of the deepest shame.
At that moment a loud discordant laugh from Sibley caused many to look around toward him, and not a few shook their heads and exchanged significant glances, intimating that they thought the young man was in a "bad way."
"Your philosophy, Mr. Van Berg," said Miss Burton, "may answer very well for the wise and fortunate, for those whose lives are as yet unspoiled and unblighted by themselves or others. But even an artist, who by his vocation gives his attention to the beautiful, must nevertheless see that there are many in the world who are neither wise nor fortunate--who seem predestined by their circ.u.mstances, folly, and defective natures to blunder and sin till they reach a point where reason and intelligence can do little more for them than reveal how foolish and wrong they have been, or how great a good they have missed and lost irrevocably. The past, with its opportunities, has gone, and the remnant of earthly life offers such a dismal prospect, and they find themselves so shut up to a certain lot, so shackled by the very conditions in which they exist, that they are disheartened. It is hard for many of us not to feel that we have been utterly defeated and so sink into fatal apathy."
Mr. Mayhew, who had been coldly impa.s.sive and resolutely taciturn thus far, now leaned back in his chair, and his eyes glowed like two lamps from beneath the eaves of his s.h.a.ggy brows. A young and lovely woman was giving voice to his own crushed and ill-starred nature; and strange to say, she identified herself with the cla.s.s for which she spoke. in the depths of his heart he bowed down, reverenced, and thanked her for claiming this kinship to himself, even thought he knew it must be misfortune and not wrong that had marred her life.
If Van Berg had not been so preoccupied with the speaker, he would have seen that the daughter also was hanging on the lips that were expressing simply and eloquently the thoughts with which her own heavy heart was burdened. But when the artist began to speak, Ida"s face grew paler than ever as she saw the glow of admiration and sympathy that lighted up his features. Compliments she had received in endless variety all her life, but never had she seen a man look at her with that expression.
"Pardon me, Miss Burton," he said, "if I protest against your using the p.r.o.noun you did. No one will ever be able to a.s.sociate the word "defeat" with you. I do not understand your philosophy; but I know it is far better than mine. While I admit the truth of your words that I do professionally shut my eyes as far as possible to all the ugly facts of life, still I have been compelled to note that the world is full of evils for which I can see no remedy, and as a matter of common experience they apparently never are remedied.
Good steering and careful seamanship are immensely important; but of what use are they if one is caught in a tornado or maelstrom, or wedged in among rocks, so that going to pieces is only a question of time? Good seamanship ought to keep one from such a fate, it may be said. So it does in the majority of instances; but often the wisest are caught. If you will realize it, Miss Burton, all in this house, men, women, and children, are about as able to take a ship across the Atlantic, as to make the life voyage wisely and safely. As a rule we only sail and sail. Where we are going, and what we shall meet, the Lord only knows--we don"t. I have travelled abroad at times, and have seen a little of society at home, and if growing selfish, mean, and vicious, is going to the bad, than it would seem that more find the bottom than any port."
"Oh, hush, Mr. Van Berg," cried Miss Burton. "You will fill the world with a blind, stupid fate and the best one can hope for is the rare good luck or the skilful dodging which enables one to escape the random blows and storms. I believe in G.o.d and law, although I confess I can understand neither. As the good Mussulman looks towards Mecca, so I look toward them and pray and hope on. This snarl of life will yet be untangled."
"I a.s.sure you that I try to do the same, but not with your success, I fear. Your ill.u.s.tration strikes me as unfortunate. The Moslem looks toward Mecca; but what is there in Mecca worth looking toward? If he only thought so, might he not as well look in any other direction?"
"Please don"t talk so, Mr. Van Berg. Don"t you see that he can"t look in any other direction? He has been taught to look thither till it is part of his nature to do so. In destroying his faith you may destroy him. Pardon me, if I ask you to please remember that faith in G.o.d and a future life is more vitally important to some of us than our daily bread. We may not be able to explain it, but we must hope and trust or perish. To go back to your nautical ill.u.s.tration, suppose some who had been wrecked were clinging to a rocky sh.o.r.e, and trying to clamber up out of the cold spray and surf to warmth and safety; would it not be a cruel thing to go along the sh.o.r.e and unloosen the poor numb hands however gently and scientifically it might be done? Loosing that hold means sinking to unknown depths. With complacent self-approval and with learned Athenian airs, many of the savans of the day are virtually guilty of this horrible cruelty."
"I do not take sides with the Athenians who called St. Paul a babbler," said Van Berg, flushing; "yet truth compels me to admit that I could worship more sincerely at the "Alter of the unknown G.o.d," than before any conception of Deity that modern Theology has presented to my mind. That does not prove much, I am bound to say, for I have never given these subjects sufficient attention to be ent.i.tled to have opinions. Still, I like fair play, whatever be the consequences. Your arraignment of talking skeptics is a severe one and strikes me in a new light. Might they not urge, in self-defence, that there was a deeper and darker abyss on the farther side of the rock to which the wrecked were clinging? May they not argue that the grasp of faith may lead to a deeper and more bitter disappointment?"
"How can they know that? How can they know what shall be in the ages to come?" replied Miss Burton, speaking rapidly. "This is the situation:--I am clinging to some hope, something that I believe will be truth which sustains me, and the only force of the skeptic"s words is to loosen my grasp. No better support is given, no new hope inspired. Believe me," she concluded pa.s.sionately, "I would rather die a thousand deaths by torture than lose my faith that there is a G.o.d who will bring order out of this chaos of broken, thwarted lives, of which the world is full, and that those who seek a "happier sh.o.r.e" will eventually find it."
"You will find it," said Van Berg, in low emphatic tones; and then he added with a shrug, as he rose from the table, "I wish my chances were as good."
Ida, who a few weeks before would have heard this conversation with unqualified disgust, had listened with eager eyes and parted lips, and she now said coldly, but with a deep sigh:
"Your G.o.d and happy sh.o.r.e, Miss Burton, are too vague and far away.
Troubles and temptations are in our very hearts."
Van Berg looked hastily toward her, but she rose and turned her face from him.
Mr. Mayhew shook his head despondently, as if his daughter"s words found a deep, sad echo in his own nature.
"Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter; said the wise man of old, "all is vanity and vexation of spirit,"" cried Stanton, with the air of one who was trying to escape from a nightmare.
Miss Burton at once became her old, smiling self.
"You do not quote "the wise man" correctly," she said; "but you remind me that he did say "a merry heart doeth good like a medicine."
It is like mercy "twice blessed." This much, at least, I know is true; and Mr. Van Berg"s words have put us all at sea to such an extant that it is well to find one wee solid point to stand on."
As the artist pa.s.sed out he found opportunity to whisper in her ear:
"I cannot tell you how much I honor the woman who with her SAD heart makes others "merry.""
She blushed and smiled, but only said: "How blind you are, Mr. Van Berg! Can"t you perceive that nothing else does me so much good?
Now you see how selfish I am."
Ida saw him whisper, and noted the answering smile and blush. Was it strange that so slight a thing should depress her more than all the evils of the present world and the world to come?
Surely, since human hearts are what they are, a far-away G.o.d would be like the sun of the tropics to the ice-bound at the poles.
Chapter XXVII. A Family Group.
The old adage, that "as the wine comes in the man steps out," was not true of Sibley, for the man had stepped out permanently long since. But not very much wine was required to overthrow the flimsy barriers of self-restraint and courtesy that he tried to interpose in his sober moments between his true self and society. Mr. Burleigh frowned at him more than once during the dinner-hour, and was glad to see him stroll off in the grounds with his boon companions.
Stanton followed the Mayhews to their rooms, for he wished to remonstrate with Ida and Mrs. Mayhew in regard to their apparent intimacy with the fellow.