"Ah! Then you have spared yourself one humiliation. My daughter"s affections are not likely to be placed where her parents do not approve.
Her mother is her only confidante. I can tell you, Mr. Burnett, and when you are over this delusion you will thank me for being so plain with you, my daughter would laugh at the idea of such a proposal. But I will not have her annoyed by impecunious aspirants."
"Madam!" cried Philip, rising, with a flushed face, and then he remembered that he was talking to Evelyn"s mother, and uttered no other word.
"This is ended." And then, with a slight change of manner, she went on: "You must see how impossible it is. You are a man of honor.
"I should like to think well of you. I shall trust to your honor that you will never try, by letter or otherwise, to hold any communication with her."
"I shall obey you," said Philip, quite stiffly, "because you are her mother. But I love her, and I shall always love her."
Mrs. Mavick did not condescend to any reply to this, but she made a cold bow of dismissal and turned away from him. He left the house and walked away, scarcely knowing in which direction he went, anger for a time being uppermost in his mind, chagrin and defeat following, and with it the confused feeling of a man who has pa.s.sed through a cyclone and been landed somewhere amid the scattered remnants of his possessions.
As he strode away he was intensely humiliated. He had been treated like an inferior. He had voluntarily put himself in a position to be insulted. Contempt had been poured upon him, his feelings had been outraged, and there was no way in which he could show his resentment.
Presently, as his anger subsided, he began to look at the matter more sanely. What had happened? He had made an honorable proposal. But what right had he to expect that it would be favorably considered? He knew all along that it was most unlikely that Mrs. Mavick would entertain for a moment idea of such a match. He knew what would be the unanimous opinion of society about it. In the case of any other young man aspiring to the hand of a rich girl, he knew very well what he should have thought.
Well, he had done nothing dishonorable. And as he reviewed the bitter interview he began to console himself with the thought that he had not lost his temper, that he had said nothing to be regretted, nothing that he should not have said to the mother of the girl he loved. There was an inner comfort in this, even if his life were ruined.
Mrs. Mavick, on the contrary, had not so good reason to be satisfied with herself. It was a principle of her well-ordered life never to get into a pa.s.sion, never to let herself go, never to reveal herself by intemperate speech, never to any one, except occasionally to her husband when his cold sarcasm became intolerable. She felt, as soon as the door closed on Philip, that she had made a blunder, and yet in her irritation she committed a worse one. She went at once to Evelyn"s room, resolved to make it perfectly sure that the Philip episode was ended. She had had suspicions about her daughter ever since the Van Cortlandt dinner.
She would find out if they were justified, and she would act decidedly before any further mischief was done. Evelyn was alone, and her mother kissed her fondly several times and then threw herself into an easy-chair and declared she was tired.
"My dear, I have had such an unpleasant interview."
"I am sorry," said Evelyn, seating herself on the arm of the chair and putting her arm round her mother"s neck. "With whom, mamma?"
"Oh, with that Mr. Burnett." Mrs. Mavick felt a nervous start in the arm that caressed her.
"Here?"
"Yes, he came to see your father, I fancy, about some business. I think he is not getting on very well."
"Why, his book--"
"I know, but that amounts to nothing. There is not much chance for a lawyer"s clerk who gets bitten with the idea that he can write."
"If he was in trouble, mamma," said Evelyn, softly, "then you were good to him."
"I tried to be," Mrs. Mavick half sighed, "but you can"t do anything with such people" (by "such people" Mrs. Mavick meant those who have no money) "when they don"t get on. They are never reasonable. And he was in such an awful bad temper. You cannot show any kindness to such people without exposing yourself. I think he presumes upon his acquaintance with your father. It was most disagreeable, and he was so rude" (a little thrill in the arm again)--"well, not exactly rude, but he was not a bit nice to me, and I am afraid I showed by my looks that I was irritated. He was just as disagreeable as he could be.
"He met Lord Montague on the steps, and he had something spiteful to say about him. I had to tell him he was presuming a good deal on his acquaintance, and that I considered his manner insulting. He flung out of the house very high and mighty."
"That was not a bit like him, mamma."
"We didn"t know him. That is all. Now we do, and I am thankful we do. He will never come here again."
Evelyn was very still for a moment, and then she said: "I"m very sorry for it all. It must be some misunderstanding."
"Of course, it is dreadful to be so disappointed in people. But we have to learn. I don"t know anything about his misunderstanding, but I did not misunderstand what he said. At any rate, after such an exposition we can have no further intercourse with him. You will not care to see any one who treated your mother in this way? If you love me, you cannot be friendly with him. I know you would not like to be."
Evelyn did not reply for a moment. Her silence revealed the fact to the shrewd woman that she had not intervened a day too soon.
"You promise me, dear, that you will put the whole thing out of your mind?" and she drew her daughter closer to her and kissed her.
And then Evelyn said slowly: "I shall not have any friends whom you do not approve, but, mamma, I cannot be unjust in my mind."
And Mrs. Mavick had the good sense not to press the question further.
She still regarded Evelyn as a child. Her naivete, her simplicity, her ignorance of social conventions and of the worldly wisdom which to Mrs.
Mavick was the sum of all knowledge misled her mother as to her power of discernment and her strength of character. Indeed, Mrs. Mavick had only the slightest conception of that range of thought and feeling in which the girl habitually lived, and of the training which at the age of eighteen had given her discipline, and great maturity of judgment as well. She would be obedient, but she was incapable of duplicity, and therefore she had said as plainly as possible that whatever the trouble might be she would not be unjust to Philip.
The interview with her mother left her in a very distressed state of mind. It is a horrible disillusion when a girl begins to suspect that her mother is not sincere, and that her ideals of life are mean. This knowledge may exist with the deepest affection--indeed, in a n.o.ble mind, with an inward tenderness and an almost divine pity. How many times have we seen a daughter loyal to a frivolous, worldly-minded, insincere mother, shielding her and exhibiting to the censorious world the utmost love and trust!
Evelyn was far from suspecting the extent of her mother"s duplicity, but her heart told her that an attempt had been made to mislead her, and that there must be some explanation of Philip"s conduct that would be consistent with her knowledge of his character. And, as she endeavored to pierce this mystery, it dawned upon her that there had been a method in throwing her so much into the society of Lord Montague, and that it was unnatural that such a friend as Philip should be seen so seldom--only twice since the days in Rivervale. Naturally the very reverse of suspicious, she had been dreaming on things to come in the seclusion of her awakening womanhood, without the least notion that the freedom of her own soul was to be interfered with by any merely worldly demands. But now things that had occurred, and that her mother had said, came back to her with a new meaning, and her trustful spirit was overwhelmed. And there, in the silence of her chamber, began the fierce struggle between desire and what she called her duty--a duty imposed from without.
She began to perceive that she was not free, that she was a part of a social machine, the power of which she had not at all apprehended, and that she was powerless in its clutch. She might resist, but peace was gone. She had heretofore found peace in obedience, but when she consulted her own heart she knew that she could not find peace in obedience now. To a girl differently reared, perhaps, subterfuge, or some manoeuvring justified by the situation, might have been resorted to. But such a thing never occurred to Evelyn. Everything looked dark before her, as she more clearly understood her mother"s att.i.tude, and for the first time in years she could do nothing but give way to emotions.
"Why, Evelyn, you have been crying!" exclaimed the governess, who came to seek her. "What is the matter?"
Evelyn arose and threw herself on her friend"s neck for a moment, and then, brushing away the tears, said, with an attempt to smile, "Oh, nothing; I got thinking, thinking, thinking, and Don"t you ever get blue, McDonald?"
"Not often," said the Scotchwoman, gravely. "But, dear, you have nothing in the world to make you so."
"No, no, nothing;" and then she broke down again, and threw herself upon McDonald"s bosom in a pa.s.sion of sobbing. "I can"t help it. Mamma says Phil--Mr. Burnett--is never to come to this house again. What have I done? And he will think--he will think that I hate him."
McDonald drew the girl into her lap, and with uncommon gentleness comforted her with caresses.
"Dear child," she said, "crosses must come into our lives; we cannot help that. Your mother is no doubt doing what she thinks best for your own happiness. Nothing can really hurt us for long, you know that well, except what we do to ourselves. I never told you why I came to this country--I didn"t want to sadden you with my troubles--but now I want you to understand me better. It is a long story."
But it was not very long in the telling, for the narrator found that what seemed to her so long in the suffering could be conveyed to another in only a few words. And the story was not in any of its features new, except to the auditor. There had been a long attachment, pa.s.sionate love and perfect trust, long engagement, marriage postponed because both were poor, and the lover struggling into his profession, and then, it seemed sudden and unaccountable, his marriage with some one else. "It was not like him," said the governess in conclusion; "it was his ambition to get on that blinded him."
"And he, was he happy?" asked Evelyn.
"I heard that he was not" (and she spoke reluctantly); "I fear not. How could he be?" And the governess seemed overwhelmed in a flood of tender and painful memories. "That was over twenty years ago. And I have been happy, my darling, I have had such a happy life with you.
"I never dreamed I could have such a blessing. And you, child, will be happy too; I know it."
And the two women, locked in each other"s arms, found that consolation in sympathy which steals away half the grief of the world. Ah! who knows a woman"s heart?
For Philip there was in these days no such consolation. It was a man"s way not to seek any, to roll himself up in his trouble like a hibernating bear. And yet there were times when he had an intolerable longing for a confidant, for some one to whom he could relieve himself of part of his burden by talking. To Celia he could say nothing.
Instinct told him that he should not go to her. Of the sympathy of Alice he was sure, but why inflict his selfish grief on her tender heart?
But he was writing to her often, he was talking to her freely about his perplexities, about leaving the office and trusting himself to the pursuit of literature in some way. And, in answer to direct questions, he told her that he had seen Evelyn only a few times, and, the fact was, that Mrs. Mavick had cut him dead. He could not give to his correspondent a very humorous turn to this situation, for Alice knew--had she not seen them often together, and did she not know the depths of Philip"s pa.s.sion? And she read between the lines the real state of the case. Alice was indignant, but she did not think it wise to make too much of the incident. Of Evelyn she wrote affectionately--she knew she was a n.o.ble and high-minded girl. As to her mother, she dismissed her with a country estimate. "You know, Phil, that I never thought she was a lady."
But the lover was not to be wholly without comfort. He met by chance one day on the Avenue Miss McDonald, and her greeting was so cordial that he knew that he had at least one friend in the house of Mavick.
It was a warm spring day, a stray day sent in advance, as it were, to warn the nomads of the city that it was time to move on. The tramps in Washington Square felt the genial impulse, and, seeking the shaded benches, began to dream of the open country, the hospitable farmhouses, the nooning by wayside springs, and the charm of wandering at will among a tolerant and not too watchful people. Having the same abundant leisure, the dwellers up-town--also nomads--were casting in their minds how best to employ it, and the fortunate ones were already gathering together their flocks and herds and preparing to move on to their camps at Newport or among the feeding-hills of the New-England coast.
The foliage of Central Park, already heavy, still preserved the freshness of its new birth, and invited the stroller on the Avenue to its protecting shade. At Miss McDonald"s suggestion they turned in and found a secluded seat.
"I often come here," she said to Philip; "it is almost as peaceful as the wilderness itself."