"She was coming," said the one we remember, "to New England. I didn"t know where or for what, and I don"t know yet; but when my house said, "Old boy, we"d like to promote you, just say what you want!" says I, "Let the salary stand as it is, only change my district; gimme New England!""
"That"s the college," he continued, as they came up into Elm Street.
"Those are the students, just coming out of the chapel: "sweet girl graduates," as Shakespeare calls them."
He clutched his companion"s arm. Their eyes rested on one of the dispersing throng, who came last and alone, with a slow step and manifestly under some burdensome preoccupation, through the high iron gateway of the campus. She pa.s.sed them with drooping eyelashes and walked in the same tardy pace before them. Presently she turned from the sidewalk, crossed a small gra.s.splot, and stood on the doorstep with her hand on the latch while they went by.
"Her?" said the one who thought he had quoted Shakespeare, "of course it"s her; who else could it be? Ah, hmm! "so near and yet so far!" Tom, I believe in heaven when I look at that girl--heaven and holiness! I read Taylor"s "Holy Living" when a boy!"
Presently they returned and pa.s.sed again. She was still standing at the door. A few steps away the speaker looked over his shoulder and moaned:
"Not a glimpse of me does she get! There, she"s gone in; but sure"s you live she didn"t want to!" They walked on. In front of their hotel he clutched his companion again. A young man of commanding figure stood near, deeply immersed in a telegram. The drummer whispered an oath of surprise.
"That"s him now! the young millionaire she rejected on the trip we all made together! What"s he here for?--George! he looks as worried as her!"
"How do you know she rejected him?"
"How do--Now, look here! If I didn"t know it do you s"pose I"d say so?
Well, then! Come, I"ll introduce you to him--O he"s all right! he"s just as white and modest as either of us; come on!" March proved himself both modest and white, and as he walked away,
"This"s a stra-a-ange world!" moralized the commercial man. ""Tain"t him I"m thinking of, it"s her! She"s in trouble, Tom; in trouble. And who knows but what, for some mysterious reason, _I_ may be the only one on earth who can--O Lord!--Look here; I"m not goin" to do any business to-day; I"m not goin" to be fit; you needn"t be surprised if you hear to-night that I"ve gone off on a drunk."
Meantime Barbara had lifted the latch and gone in. No hat was on the rack, but when she turned into the parlor a sickness came to her heart as she smiled and said good-morning to Henry Fair. He, too, smiled, but she fancied he was pale.
They mentioned the weather, which was quite pleasant enough. Fair said the factories that used water-power would be glad of rain, and Barbara seemed interested, but when he paused she asked, in the measured tone he liked so well:
"Who do you think took us all by surprise and spent last evening with us?"
Fair"s reply came tardily and was disguised as a playful guess.
"Mister--"
"Yes--"
He sobered. "March!" he softly exclaimed, and let his gaze rest long on the floor. "I thought--really I thought Mr. March was in New York."
"So did we all," was the response, and both laughed, without knowing just why.
"He ought to have had a delightful time," said Fair.
Barbara meditated pleasedly. "Mr. March always lets one know what kind of time he"s having, and I never saw him more per-fect-ly sat-is-fied,"
she said, and allowed her silence to continue so long and with such manifest significance that at length the suitor"s low voice asked:
"Am I to understand that that visit alters my case?"
"No," responded Barbara, but without even a look of surprise. "I"m afraid, Mr. Fair, that you"ll think me a rather daring girl, but I want you to be a.s.sured that I know of no one whose visit can alter--that."
She lifted her eyes bravely to his, but they filled. "As for Mr. March,"
she continued, and the same amus.e.m.e.nt gleamed in them which so often attended her mention of him, "there"s always been a perfect understanding between us. We"re the very best of friends, but no one knows better than he does that we can never be more, though I don"t see why we need ever be less."
"I should call that hard terms, for myself," said Fair; "I hope--" And there he stopped.
"Mr. Fair," the girl began, was still, and then--"O Mr. Fair, I know what to say, but I don"t know how to say it! I admit everything. All the good reasons are on your side. And yet if I am to answer you now--" She ceased. Her voice had not faltered, but her head drooped and he saw one tear follow quickly after another and fall upon her hands.
"Why, you need not answer now," he tenderly said. "I told you I would wait."
"O Mr. Fair, no, no! You have every right to be answered now, and I have no right to delay beyond your wish. Only, I believe also that, matters standing as they do, you have a perfect right to wait for a later answer from me if you choose. I can only beg you will not. O you who are so rational and brave and strong with yourself, you who know so well that a man"s whole fate cannot be wrapped up in one girl unless he weakly chooses it so, take your answer now! I don"t believe I can ever look upon you--your offer--differently. Mr. Fair, there"s one thing it lacks which I think even you overlook."
"What is that?"
"It--I--I don"t know any one word to describe it, unless it is turn-out-well-a-bil-i-ty."
Fair started with astonishment, and the tears leaped again to her eyes as she laughed, and with new distress said: "It isn"t--it--O Mr. Fair, don"t you know what I mean? It doesn"t make good poetry! As you would say, it"s not good art. You may think me "fresh," as the girls say, and fantastical, but I can"t help believing that in a matter like this there"s something wrong--some essential wanting--in whatever"s not good--good----"
"Romance?" asked Fair; "do you think the fact that a thing is good romance----"
"No! O no, no, no! I don"t say being good romance is enough to commend it; but I do think not being good romance is enough to condemn it! Is that so very foolish?"
The lover answered wistfully. "No. No." Then very softly: "Barbara "--he waited till she looked up--"if this thing should ever seem to you to have become good poetry, might not your answer be different?"
Barbara hesitated. "I--you--O--I only know how it seems now!"
"Never mind," said Fair, very gently. They rose and he took her hand, speaking again in the same tone. "You really believe I have the right to wait for a later answer?"
Her head drooped. "The right?" she murmured, "yes--the right----"
"So also do I. I shall wait. Good-by."
She raised her glance, her voice failed to a whisper. "Good-by."
Gaze to gaze, one stood, and the other, with reluctant step, backed away; and at the last moment, with his foot leaving the threshold, lover and maiden said again, still gaze to gaze:
"Good-by."
"Good-by."
LXXIV.
COMPLETE COLLAPSE OF A PERFECT UNDERSTANDING
The door closed and Barbara noiselessly mounted the stairs. At its top an elm-shaded window allowed a view of some fifty yards or more down the street, and as she reached it now the pleasantness of the outer day furnished impulse enough, if there had been no other, for her to glance out. She stopped sharply, with her eyes fixed where they had fallen. For there stood John March and Henry Fair in the first bright elation of their encounter busily exchanging their manly acknowledgments and explanations. Lost to herself she stayed, an arm bent high and a knuckle at her parted teeth, comparing the two men and noting the matchless bearing of her Southerner. In it she read again for the hundredth time all the energy and intrepidity which in her knowledge it stood for; his boyish openness and simplicity, his tender belief in his mother, his high-hearted devotion to the fulfilment of his father"s aspirations, and the impetuous force and native skill with which at mortal risks and in so short a time he had ranked himself among the masters of public fortune. She recalled, as she was p.r.o.ne to do, what Charlie Champion had once meditatively said to her on seeing him approach: "Here comes the only man in Dixie Jeff-Jack Ravenel"s afraid of."
After an instant the manner of the two young men became more serious, and March showed a yellow paper--"a telegram," thought their on-looker.
"He"s coming here, no doubt; possibly to tell me its news; more likely just to say good-by again; but certainly with nothing--nothing--O nothing! to ask." For a moment her hand pressed hard against her lips, and then her maiden self-regard quietly but strenuously definitely rebelled.
The telegram seemed to bring its readers grave disappointment. March made indignant gestures in obvious allusion to distant absentees. Now they began to move apart; Fair stepped farther away, March drew nearer the house, still making gestures as if he might be saying--Barbara resentfully guessed----
"You might walk slow; I shan"t stop more than a minute!"