"I think much of you, in the first place,--and in the second place, I wish you would let me think more;--you stand in my thoughts as an object of very warm interest, of very earnest prayer. Measured--not by my standards, but by those which the word of G.o.d sets up, you are like your own admirably made and adjusted microscope, with all the higher powers left off. The only enigma, the only mystery is, that you yourself cannot see this."
Dr. Harrison looked at him with a grave, considerative face, drawing a little back; perhaps to do it the better.
"Do you mean to say, that _you_ do such a thing as pray for _me?_"
A slight, sweet smile came with the answer--"Can you doubt it?"
"Why I might very reasonably doubt it,--though not your word. Why do you,--may I ask?"
"What can I do for a man in deadly peril, whom my arm cannot reach?"
The tone was very kindly, very earnest; the eyes with their deep light looked full into the doctor"s.
Dr. Harrison was silent, meeting the look and taking the depth and meaning of it, so far as fathomable by him. The two faces and figures, fine as they both were, made a strange contrast. The doctor"s face was in one of its serious and good expressions; but the other had come from a region of light which this one had never entered. And even in att.i.tude--the dignified unconsciousness of the one, was very different from the satisfied carelessness of the other.
"May I further ask," he said in a softened tone,--"why you do this for me?"
"Because I care about you."
"It"s incredible!" said the doctor, his eye wavering, however. "One man care about another! Why, man, I may be the worst enemy you have in the world, for aught you know."
"That cannot hinder my being your friend."
"Do you know," said the other looking at him half curiously,--"I am ready to do such a foolish thing as to believe you? Well--be as much of a friend to me as you can; and I"ll deserve it as well as I can--which maybe won"t be very well. Indeed that is most likely!" He had stretched out his hand to Mr. Linden however, and clasped his warmly. He quitted it now to go forward and take that of Faith.
She came in just as usual, and met the doctor with her wonted manner; only the crimson stain on her cheek telling anything against her. She did not give him much chance to observe that; for Cindy followed her with the tea things and Faith busied herself about the table. The doctor went back to his stand and watched her.
"Mignonette has changed colour," he remarked presently. "How is that, Miss Derrick?"
"How is what, sir?"
"How come you to change the proper characteristics of mignonette? Don"t you know that never shews high brilliancy?"
"I suppose I am not mignonette to-night," said Faith, returning to the safer observation of the tea-table.
"Are you my flower, then? the Rhodora?" he said with a lowered tone, coming near her.
If Faith heard, she did not seem to hear this question. Her attention was bestowed upon the preparations for tea, till Mrs. Derrick came in to make it; and then Faith found a great deal to do in the care of the other duties of the table. It was a mystery, how she managed it; she who generally had as much leisure at meals as anybody wanted. Dr.
Harrison"s attention however was no longer exclusively given to her.
"Do you _always_ have these m.u.f.fins for tea, Mrs. Derrick?" he remarked with his second essay.
"Why no!" said Mrs. Derrick,--"we have all sorts of other things. Don"t you like m.u.f.fins, doctor?"
"Like them!" said the doctor. "I am thinking what a happy man Mr.
Linden must be."
"Marvellously true!" said Mr. Linden. "I hope you"ll go home and write a new "Search after happiness," ending it sentimentally in m.u.f.fins."
"Not so," said the doctor. "I should only begin it in m.u.f.fins--as I am doing. But my remark after all had a point;--for I was thinking of the possibility of detaching anybody from such a periodical attraction.
Mrs. Derrick, I am the bearer of an humble message to you from my sister and father--who covet the honour and pleasure of your presence to-morrow evening. Sophy makes me useful, when she can. I hope you will give me a gracious answer--for yourself and Miss Faith, and so make me useful again. It is a rare chance! I am not often good for anything."
"I don"t know whether I know how to give what you call gracious answers, doctor," said Mrs. Derrick pleasantly. "I"m very much obliged to Miss Sophy, but I never go anywhere at night."
With the other two the doctor"s mission was more successful; and then he disclosed the other object of his visit.
"Miss Derrick, do you remember I once threatened to bring the play of Portia here--and introduce her to you?"
"I remember it," said Faith.
"Would it be pleasant to you that I should fulfil my threat this evening?"
"I don"t know, sir," said Faith smiling,--"till I hear the play."
"Mr. Linden,--what do you think?" said the doctor, also with a smile.
"I am ready for anything--if you will let me be impolite enough to finish writing a letter while I hear the first part of your reading."
"To change the subject slightly--what do you suppose, Mr. Linden, would on the whole be the effect, on society, if the hand of Truth were in every case to be presented without a glove?" The doctor spoke gravely now.
"The effect would be that society would shake hands more cordially--I should think," said Mr. Linden; "though it is hard to say how such an extreme proposition would work."
"Do you know, it strikes me that it would work just the other way, and that hands would presently clasp nothing but daggers" hilts. But there is another question.--How will one fair hand of truth live among a crowd of steel gauntlets?"
"_What?_" Mr. Linden said, with a little bending of his brows upon the doctor. "I am wearing neither glove nor gauntlet,--what are you talking about?--And my half-finished letter is a fact and no pretence."
"I sha"n"t believe you," said the doctor, "if you give my fingers such a wring as that. Well, go to your letter, and I"ll take Miss Derrick to Venice--if she will let me."
Venice!--That exquisite photograph of the Bridge of Sighs, and "the palace and the prison on each hand," about which such a long, long entrancing account had been given by Mr. Linden to her--the scene and the talk rose up before Faith"s imagination; she was very ready to go to Venice. Its witching scenery, its strange history, floated up, in a fascinating, strange cloud-view; she was ready for Shylock and the Rialto. Nay, for the Rialto, not for Shylock; him, or anything like him, she had never seen nor imagined. She was only sorry that Mr.
Linden had to go to his letter; but there was a compensative side to that, for her shyness was somewhat less endangered. With only the doctor and Shylock to attend to, she could get along very well.
Shyness and fears however, were of very short endurance. To Venice she went,--Shylock she saw; and then she saw nothing else but Shylock, and those who were dealing with him; unless an occasional slight glance towards the distant table where Mr. Linden sat at his writing, might be held to signify that she _had_ powers of vision for somewhat else. It did not interrupt the doctor"s pleasure, nor her own. Dr. Harrison had begun with at least a double motive in his mind; but man of the world as he was, he forgot his unsatisfied curiosity in the singular gratification of reading such a play to such a listener. It was so plain that Faith was in Venice! She entered with such simplicity, and also with such intelligence, into the characters and interests of the persons in the drama; she relished their words so well; she weighed in such a nice balance of her own the right and the wrong, the true and the false, of whatever rested on nature and truth for its proper judgment;--she was so perfectly and deliciously ignorant of the world and the ways of it! The fresh view that such pure eyes took of such actors and scenes, was indescribably interesting; Dr. Harrison found it the best play he had ever read in his life. He made it convenient sometimes to pause to indoctrinate Faith in characters or customs of which she had no adequate knowledge; it did not hurt her pleasure; it was all part of the play.
In the second scene, the doctor stopped to explain the terms on which Portia had been left with her suitors.
"What do you think of it?"
"I think it was hard," said Faith smiling.
"What would you have done if you had been left so?"
"I would not have been left so."
"But you might not help yourself. Suppose it had been a father"s or a mother"s command? that anybody might come up and have you, for the finding--if they could pitch upon the right box of jewelry?"
"My father or mother would never have put such a command on me," said Faith looking amused.
"But you may _suppose_ anything," said the doctor leaning forward and smiling. "_Suppose_ they had?"