"If it broke a thousand times I will not speak to you again," she cried pa.s.sionately. "Even if you were right it would be ign.o.ble to suggest such a thing. Truly your a.s.sociations have led you far from the promise of your youth."
"I have not said that your heart would plead for me," he replied sternly.
"But it _will_ plead against all that is unnatural, contrary to your young girlhood, contrary to the true, right instincts which G.o.d has created. You may seek to stifle its voice, but you cannot. When you are alone it will tell you, like the still small voice of G.o.d, that your obdurate will is wrong, that your narrow prejudices and morbid memories are all wrong and vain;--it will tell you that you cannot become the wife of this man, who would sacrifice you as a solace to his remaining years, without wrecking your happiness for life. Farewell, Mara Wallingford. There is one thing you can never forget--that I warned you."
He bowed low and departed immediately.
CHAPTER XXIV
"THE IDEA!"
Mara was not the kind of girl that faints or goes into hysterics. The spirit of her father was aroused to the last degree. She felt that she had been arraigned and condemned by one who had no right to do either; that all the cherished traditions of her life had been trampled upon; that her father"s loved companion-in-arms, and her dear friend, had been insulted.
Even wise, saintly Mrs. Bodine, her genial counsellor, had been ignored.
"Was there ever such monstrous a.s.sumption!" she cried, as she paced back and forth with clinched hands.
She soon heard the step of Mrs. Hunter, and became outwardly calm.
"Well?" said her aunt.
"He won"t come again, nor shall I speak to him again. Let these facts content you, aunty."
"That much at least is satisfactory," said Mrs. Hunter, "but I think it was a wretched mistake to see him at all."
"It was not a mistake, for he has revealed the depths into which a man can sink who adopts his course. I have some respect for an out-and-out Northerner, brought up as such; but it does seem that when a man turns traitor, as it were, he goes to greater lengths than those whose camp he joins. He suspects those who are too n.o.ble for him to understand."
"Whom does Mr. Clancy suspect?"
"Oh, all of us. He came to advise me as an unprotected, unfriended, unguided girl."
"Was there ever such impudence on the face of the earth!"
Mara sank exhausted into a chair in the inevitable reaction from her strong excitement.
"Aunty, it is all over, and we shall not meet again except as strangers.
Never say a word of his coming, of this interview, to any one. It is my affair, and I wish to forget it as far as possible."
"You know I"m not a gossip, Mara, about family matters, especially disagreeable matters. Well, perhaps it will turn out for the best, since you have broken with him entirely. It always made me angry that he should continue to speak to you, and even sit down and talk to you at an evening company, when you could not repulse him without arresting the attention of every one."
"Good-night, aunty. All that is over."
"Mara, you must take an opiate to-night."
"Yes; give me something to make me sleep, that will bring oblivion for at least to-night. I must be ready for my work in the morning. It won"t take me long _now_ to attain self-control."
"Mara," cried Ella the next day, "you look positively ill. I wish you could take a rest. Suppose we shut up shop for a while, and hang out a sign, "closed for repairs.""
"No, Ella. I can stand it, if you can, till August, and then we will take a month"s rest. I wasn"t very well last night, but I have found a remedy which is going to help me, and I shall be better."
Ella took the surface meaning of these words, and, being preoccupied with her own thoughts, remained, as well as Mara, rather silent that morning.
Although she a.s.sured herself more than once that George Houghton was "nothing to her," she found herself thinking a great deal about him, and what she termed "their droll experiences." p.r.o.ne to take a mirthful view of everything, she often laughed over the whole affair, and it grew rather than lost in interest with time. It was the first real adventure of her girlhood, and he was the first man who had retained more than a transient place in her thoughts. Feeling that their acquaintance had come about through no fault of hers, she was disposed to get all the fun possible out of what had occurred.
The morning was warm, and she was working in charming _dishabille_.
Dressed in light summer costume, thrown open at her throat, and with sleeves rolled to her shoulders, she appeared a veritable Hebe. Her bright, golden, fluffy hair was gathered carelessly into a Grecian knot, and her flushed face received more than one flour-mark as she impatiently brushed away the flies. Seeing her smiling to herself so often, Mara envied her, but made no comment. At last the girl broke into a ringing laugh.
"What is amusing you so greatly?" Mara asked.
"I can"t get over that party at Mrs. Willoughby"s. It was all so irresistibly comical. Cousin Sophy thinks she has a genius for choosing chaperons, and so she has, but fate is too strong for men and G.o.ds, not to mention saintly and secluded old ladies. I had scarcely more than entered the drawing-room, and taken my bearings, as cousin would say, when the worst Vandal of the lot is marched up to me, and I--green little girl--thought I must be polite to him and every one else. When I think of it all, I see that my chaperon was like a distressed hen with a duckling that would go into the water. Without any effort of mine, that great Goth, Mr. Houghton, submitted himself to my inspection, and instead of being horrified, I have been laughing at him ever since. He struck me as an exceedingly harmless creature, with large capabilities for blundering. He would not step on a fly maliciously, yet poor Mrs. Robertson acted as if I were near an ogre who might devour me at a mouthful. How she did manoeuvre to keep that big fellow away! and what a homily she gave me on our way home! It all seems so absurd. I wish papa would not take such things so seriously, for I can"t see any harm in making sport of the Philistines."
"Making sport _for_ the Philistines--that is what your father and what we all object to. This young Houghton would very gladly amuse himself at your expense."
"I"d like to see him try it," said Ella defiantly. "I"d turn the tables on him so quickly as to take away his breath."
"Oh, Ella! why do you think about such people at all?"
"Because they amuse me. What"s the harm in thinking about him in my jolly way? There"s nothing bad about him. His worst crimes are, that he is comical and the son of his father."
"How do you know there"s nothing bad about him?"
"For the same reason that I distrust Miss Ainsley. Each makes an impression which I believe is correct."
"Well, well, Ella," said Mara, a little impatiently, "laugh it out and have done with him. For all our sakes, please have nothing more to do with such people."
"I haven"t sought "such people,"" replied Ella, with a shrug; "but I tell you, Mara, I"m not going through life with my eyes shut, nor am I going to look through a pair of blue spectacles. See here, sweetheart, what did G.o.d give me eyes for? What did he give me a brain for? To see through some one else"s eyes? to think with the brain of another? No, indeed; that"s contrary to such reason and common-sense as I possess."
"You certainly will be guided by your father?"
"Yes, yes, indeed, in all that pertains to his welfare and happiness. I could die for him this minute, and would if it were required. But there are things which I cannot do for him or any one. I cannot ignore my own conscience and sense of right. I cannot think his thoughts any more than he can think mine. You dear, melancholy little goose, don"t you know that G.o.d never rolls two people into one, even after they are married? They are, or should be, one in a vital sense, yet they are different, independent beings, and were made so. I"d like to know of any one in this town more bent upon having her own way than you."
Mara was silent, for Ella had a way of putting things which disturbed her.
"Cousin Sophy," said Ella in the afternoon, "hasn"t the proper time come for me to make my party call on Mrs. Willoughby? You are my Mentor in all that relates to etiquette, and that giddy fraction of the world termed society."
"Well, yes," said the old lady, "I suppose it is time. In the case of Mrs.
Willoughby it will be little more than a formality, for she is an acquaintance you will not care to cultivate. You may be lucky enough to find her out, and then your card will answer all the purposes of a call."
"Oh, I know that much, cousin, if I am from the wilds of the interior; but if she is in, I suppose I should sit down and talk about the weather a little while."
"Go along, you saucy puss. Tell her how shocked you were to see old Houghton"s son in her parlors."
"Well, I was at first. Bah! cousin, he"s a great big boy, and doesn"t know any more than I do about some things."
"Well added. Tell her, then, we have enough Southern gentlemen remaining, and there is no necessity of inviting big Northern hobble-de-hoys."
"Oh! I didn"t mean that, cousin. Be fair now. He was gentlemanly enough, as much so as the rest of them, but he was young and giddy, like myself, just as you used to be and are now sometimes;" and she stopped the old lady"s mouth with kisses, then ran to dress for the street.