Anthony"s face lightened as if the sun had struck it, but he kept his voice quiet. "Borrowed--it"s my old friend Dennison"s. I never even saw the girl--though I ought to beg her pardon for the use I have made of her face. She"s married now, and lives abroad somewhere. Will you forgive me?"
He was standing over her, leaning down so that his cheek touched the rumpled hair. "How is it, Juliet? Could you live in the little home--with love--and me?"
It was a long time before he got any answer. But at last a flushed, wet, radiant face came into view, an arm was reached out, and as with an inarticulate, deep note of joy he drew her up into his embrace, a voice, half tears, half laughter, cried:
"Oh, Tony--you dear, bad, darling, insolent boy! I did think I could do without you--but I can"t. And--oh, Tony"--she was sobbing in his arms now, while he regarded the top of her head with laughing, exultant eyes--"I"m so glad--so glad--_so glad_--there isn"t any Eleanor Langham! Oh, _how_ I hated her!"
"Did you, sweetheart?" he answered, laughing aloud now. Then bending, with his lips close to hers--"well, to tell the truth--to tell the honest truth, little girl--_so did I_!"
VII.--AN ARGUMENT WITHOUT LOGIC
"I don"t like it," repeated Mr. Horatio Marcy, obstinately, and shook his head for the fifth time. "I"ve not a word to say against Anthony, my dear--not a word. He"s a fine fellow and comes of a good family, and I respect him and the start he has made since things went to pieces, but----"
Juliet waited, her eyes downcast, her cheeks very much flushed, her mouth in lines of mutiny.
"But--" her father continued, settling back in his chair with an air of decision, "you will certainly make the mistake of your life if you think you can be happy in the sort of existence he offers you. You"re not used to it. You"ve not been brought up to it. You can spend more money in a forenoon than he can earn in a twelve-month. You don"t know how to adapt yourself to life on a basis of rigid economy. I----"
"You don"t forbid it, sir?"
"Forbid it?--no. A man can"t forbid a twenty-four year old woman to do as she pleases. But I advise you--I warn you--I ask you seriously to consider what it all means. You are used to very many habits of living which will be entirely beyond Anthony"s means for many years to come. You are fond of travel--of dress--of social----"
"Father dear," said his daughter, interrupting him gently by a change of tactics. She came to him and sat upon the arm of his chair, and rested her cheek lightly upon the top of his thick, iron-gray locks.--"Let"s drop all this for the present. Let"s not discuss it. I want you to do me a particular favour before we say another word about it. Come with me down to see the house. It"s only three hours away. We can go after breakfast to-morrow and be back for dinner at seven. It"s all I ask. My arguments are all there. Please!--_Please!_"
So it came about that at eleven o"clock on a certain morning in August, Mr. Horatio Marcy discovered himself to be eyeing with critical, reluctant gaze a quaintly attractive, low-spreading white house among trees and vines. He became aware at the same time of a sudden close clasp on his arm.
"Here it is," said a low voice in his ear. "Does it look habitable?"
"Very pretty, very pretty, my dear," Mr. Marcy admitted. No sane man could do otherwise. The little house might have been placed very comfortably between the walls of the dining-room at the Marcy country house, but there was an indefinable, undeniable air of gracious hospitality and homelikeness about its aspect, and its surroundings gave it an appearance of being ample for the accommodation of any two people not anxious to get away from each other.
Juliet produced an antique door-key of a clumsy pattern, and opened the door into the living-room. She ran across to the windows and threw them open, then turned to see what expression might be at the moment illumining Mr. Marcy"s face. He was glancing about him with curious eyes, which rested finally upon the portrait of a courtly gentleman in ruffles and flowing hair, hanging above the fireplace. He adjusted a pair of eyegla.s.ses and gave the portrait the honour of his serious attention.
"That is an ancestor," Juliet explained. "Doesn"t he give distinction to the room? And isn"t the room--well--just a little bit distinguished-looking itself, in spite of its simplicity?--because of it, perhaps. The tables and most of the chairs are what Anthony found left in the old Kentucky homestead after the sale last year, and bought in with--the last of his money." Her eyes were very bright, but her voice was quiet.
Mr. Marcy looked at the furniture in question, stared at the walls, then at the rug on the polished floor. The rug held his attention for two long minutes, then he glanced sharply at his daughter.
"The colourings of that rug are very good, don"t you think?" she asked with composure. "It will last until Anthony can afford a better one."
Mr. Marcy turned significantly toward the door of the dining-room, and Juliet led him through. He surveyed the room in silence, laying a hand upon a chair back; then looked suddenly down at the chair and brought his eyegla.s.ses to bear upon it.
"The furniture was made by a country cabinet-maker who charged country prices for doing it. Tony rubbed in a very thin stain and rubbed the wood in oil afterward till it got this soft polish."
The visitor looked incredulous, but he accepted the explanation with a polite though exceedingly slight smile. Then he was taken to inspect the kitchen. From here he was led through the pantry back to the living-room, and so upstairs. He looked, still silently, in at the door of each room, exquisite in its dainty readiness for occupancy. As he studied the blue-and-white room his daughter observed that he retained less of the air of the connoisseur than he had elsewhere exhibited. She had shown him this place last with artful intent. No room in his own homes of luxury could appeal to him with more of beauty than was visible here.
When Mr. Marcy reached the living-room again he found himself placed gently but insistently in the easiest chair the room afforded, close by an open window through which floated all the soft odours of country air blowing lightly across apple orchards and gardens of old-fashioned flowers. His daughter, bringing from the ingle seat a plump cushion, dropped upon it at his feet. But instead of beginning any sort of argument she laid her arm upon his knee, and her head down upon her arm, and became as still as a kitten who has composed itself for sleep. Only through the contact of the warm young arm, her father could feel that she was alive and waiting for his speech.
When he spoke at last it was with grave quiet, in a gentler tone than that which he had used the day before in his own library.
"You helped Anthony furnish this house?"
"Yes, father."
"Do you mind telling me how much you had at your disposal?"
"Five hundred dollars." Juliet maintained her position without moving, and her face was out of sight.
"Did this include the repairs upon the place?"
"Yes--but you know wages are low just now and lumber is cheap. Having no roof to the porch made it inexpensive. The painting Anthony helped at himself. He worked every minute of his two weeks" vacation on whatever would cost most to hire done."
"Anthony worked at painting the house?" There was astonishment in Mr.
Marcy"s voice. He had known the Robesons of Kentucky all his life. He had never seen one of them lift his hand to do manual labour. There had been no need.
"Yes," said Juliet, and the cheek which rested against her father"s knee began to grow warm.
"You have obtained a somewhat extraordinary effect of harmony and comfort inside the house," Mr. Marcy pursued. "It is difficult to understand just how you brought it about with so small an expenditure of money."
It was quite impossible now for Juliet to keep her head down. She looked up eagerly, but she still managed to speak quietly.
"It _is_ effect, father, and it is art--not money. The paper on the wall cost twenty-five cents a roll, but it is the right paper for the place, and the wrong paper at ten times that sum wouldn"t give the room such a background of soft restfulness. Then, you see, the old white woodwork is in very good style, and the green walls bring it out. The old floor was easily dressed to give that beautiful waxed finish. They told me how to do that at the best decorator"s in Boston. The rug fits the colourings very well. Anthony"s old furniture would give any such room dignity. The portrait lends the finishing touch, I think. You see, when you a.n.a.lyse it all there"s nothing in the least wonderful. But it looks like a home--doesn"t it? And when the little things are in which grow in a home--the photographs, a bowl of sweet-williams from the garden, the lovely old copper lamp you gave me on my birthday--can"t you think how dear it will all be?"
Mr. Marcy glanced down keenly into his daughter"s face.
"There are a great many things of your own at home which would naturally come into your married home," he said.
Juliet coloured richly. "Yes," she answered with steady eyes, "but except for the lamp, and the photographs, and a few such very little things, I should not bring them. Anthony is poor, but he is very proud. I couldn"t hurt him by furnishing his home with the overflow of mine. Besides--I don"t need those things. I don"t want them. All I want out of the old home is--your love--your blessing, dear!"
The sharp eyes meeting hers softened suddenly. Juliet drew herself to her knees, and leaning forward across her father"s lap, reached both arms up and flung them about his neck. He held her close, her head upon his shoulder, and all at once he found the slender figure in his arms shaken with feeling. Juliet was not crying, but she was drawing long, deep breaths like a child who tries to control itself.
"You need have no doubt of either of those things, my little girl," said her father in her ear. "Both are ready. It is only your happiness I want.
I distrust the power of any poor man to give it to you. That is all. Since I have seen this house the question looks less doubtful to me--I admit that gladly. But I still am anxious for the future. Even in this attractive place there must be monotony, drudgery, lack of many things you have always had and felt you must have. You have never learned to do without them. I understand that Robeson will not accept them at my hand, nor at yours. I don"t know that I think the less of him for that--but--you will have to learn self-denial. I want you to be very sure that you can do it, and that it will be worth while."
There was a little silence, then Juliet gently drew herself away and rose to her feet. She stood looking down at the imposing figure of the elderly man in the chair, and there was something in her face he had never seen there before.
"There"s just one thing about it, sir," she said. "I can"t possibly spare Anthony Robeson out of my life. I tried to do it, and I know. I would rather live it out in this little home--with him--than share the most promising future with any other man. But there"s this you must remember: A man who was brought up to do nothing but ride fine horses, and shoot, and dance, must have something in him to go to work and advance, and earn enough to buy even such a home as this, in five years. He has a future of his own."
Mr. Marcy looked thoughtful. "Yes, that may be true," he said. "I rather think it is."
"And, father----" she bent to lay a roseleaf cheek against his own--"you began with mother in a poorer home than this, and were so happy! Don"t I know that?"
"Yes, yes, dear," he sighed. "That"s true, too. But we were both poor--had always been so. It was an advance for us--not a coming down."
"It"s no coming down for me." There was spirit and fire in the girl"s eyes now. "Just to wear less costly clothes--to walk instead of drive--to live on simpler food--what are those things? Look at these," she pointed to the rows of books in the bookcases which lined two walls of the room. "I"m marrying a man of refinement, of family, of the sort of blood that tells.
He"s an educated man--he loves the things those books stand for. He"s good and strong and fine--and if I"m not safe with him I"ll never be safe with anybody. But besides all that--I--I love him with all there is of me.
Oh--_are_ you satisfied now?"