"I don"t care what you do to me," said Tom; "and I have no objection to talk about it--to you."
Nevertheless he stopped.
"Have you changed your mind?"
"I shouldn"t change my mind, if I lived to be as old as Methuselah!"
"That"s right. Well, then,--the thing is going on?"
"It _isn"t_ going on! and I suppose it never will!"
"Had the lady any objection? I cannot believe that."
"I don"t know," said Tom, with a big sigh. "I almost think she hadn"t; but I never could find that out."
"What hindered you, old fellow?"
"My blessed relations. Julia and mother made such a row. I wouldn"t have minded the row neither; for a man must marry to please himself and not his mother; and I believe no man ever yet married to please his sister; but, Philip, they didn"t give me a minute. I could never join her anywhere, but Julia would be round the next corner; or else George would be there before me. George must put his oar in; and between them they kept it up."
"And you think she liked you?"
Tom was silent a while.
"Well," said he at last, "I won"t swear; for you never know where a woman is till you"ve got her; but if she didn"t, all I have to say is, signs aren"t good for anything."
It was Philip now who was silent, for several minutes.
"What"s going to be the upshot of it?"
"O, I suppose I shall go abroad with Julia and George in the spring, and end by taking an orthodox wife some day; somebody with blue blood, and pretension, and nothing else. My people will be happy, and the family name will be safe."
"And what will become of her?"
"O, she"s all right. She won"t break her heart about me. She isn"t that sort of girl," Tom Caruthers said gloomily. "Do you know, I admire her immensely, Philip! I believe she"s good enough for anything. Maybe she"s too good. That"s what her aunt hinted."
"Her aunt! Who"s she?"
"She"s a sort of a snapping turtle. A good sort of woman, too. I took counsel with her, do you know, when I found it was no use for me to try to see Lois. I asked her if she would stand my friend. She was as sharp as a fish-hook, and about as ugly a customer; and she as good as told me to go about my business."
"Did she give reasons for such advice?"
"O yes! She saw through Julia and mother as well as I did; and she spoke as any friend of Lois would, who had a little pride about her. I can"t blame her."
Silence fell again, and lasted while the two young men walked the length of several blocks. Then Mr. Dillwyn began again.
"Tom, there ought to be no more shilly-shallying about this matter."
"No _more!_ Yes, you"re right. I ought to have settled it long ago, before Julia and mother got hold of it. That"s where I made a mistake."
"And you think it too late?"
Tom hesitated. "It"s too late. I"ve lost my time. _She_ has given me up, and mother and Julia have set their hearts that I should give her up. I am not a match for them. Is a man ever a match for a woman, do you think, Dillwyn, if she takes something seriously in hand?"
"Will you go to Europe next spring?"
"Perhaps. I suppose so."
"If you do, perhaps I will join the party--that is, if you will all let me."
So the conversation went over into another channel.
CHAPTER XVIII.
MR. DILLWYN"S PLAN.
Two or three evenings after this, Philip Dillwyn was taking his way down the Avenue, not up it. He followed it down to nearly its lower termination, and turned up into Clinton Place, where he presently run up the steps of a respectable but rather dingy house, rang the bell, and asked for Mrs. Barclay.
The room where he awaited her was one of those dismal places, a public parlour in a boarding-house of second or third rank. Respectable, but forlorn. Nothing was ragged or untidy, but nothing either had the least look of home comfort or home privacy. As to home elegance, or luxury, the look of such a room is enough to put it out of one"s head that there can be such things in the world. The ugly ingrain carpet, the ungraceful frame of the small gla.s.s in the pier, the abominable portraits on the walls, the disagreeable paper with which they were hung, the hideous lamps on the mantelpiece;--wherever the eye looked, it came back with uneasy discomfort. Philip"s eye came back to the fire; and _that_ was not pleasant to see; for the fireplace was not properly cared for, the coals were lifeless, and evidently more economical than useful. Philip looked very out of place in these surroundings. No one could for a moment have supposed him to be living among them. His thoroughly well-dressed figure, the look of easy refinement in his face, the air of one who is his own master, so inimitable by one whose circ.u.mstances master him; all said plainly that Mr. Dillwyn was here only on account of some one else. It could be no home of his.
As little did it seem fitted to be the home of the lady who presently entered. A tall, elegant, dignified woman; in the simplest of dresses, indeed, which probably bespoke scantiness of means, but which could not at all disguise or injure the impression of high breeding and refinement of manners which her appearance immediately produced. She was a little older than her visitor, yet not much; a woman in the prime of life she would have been, had not life gone hard with her; and she had been very handsome, though the regular features were shadowed with sadness, and the eyes had wept too many tears not to have suffered loss of their original brightness. She had the slow, quiet manner of one whose life is played out; whom the joys and sorrows of the world have both swept over, like great waves, and receding, have left the world a barren strand for her; where the tide is never to rise again. She was a sad-eyed woman, who had accepted her sadness, and could be quietly cheerful on the surface of it. Always, at least, as far as good breeding demanded. She welcomed Mr. Dilhvyn with a smile and evident genuine pleasure.
"How do I find you?" he said, sitting down.
"Quite well. Where have you been all summer? I need not ask how _you_ are."
"Useless things always thrive," he said. "I have been wandering about among the mountains and lakes in the northern part of Maine."
"That is very wild, isn"t it?"
"Therein lies its charm."
"There are not roads and hotels?"
"The roads the lumberers make. And I saw one hotel, and did not want to see any more."
"How did you find your way?"
"I had a guide--an Indian, who could speak a little English."
"No other company?"
"Rifle and fishing-rod."