"She seems," said Mrs. Kenton, "to have more sense than both the other children put together, and I was afraid--"
"She might easily have more sense than Boyne, or Lottie, either."
"Well, I don"t know," Mrs. Kenton began. But she did not go on to resent the disparagement which she had invited. "What I was afraid of was her goodness. It was her goodness that got her into the trouble, to begin with. If she hadn"t been so good, that fellow could never have fooled her as he did. She was too innocent."
The judge could not forbear the humorous view. "Perhaps she"s getting wickeder, or not so innocent. At any rate, she doesn"t seem to have been take in by Trannel."
"He didn"t pay any attention to her. He was all taken up with Lottie."
"Well, that was lucky. Sarah," said the judge, "do you think he is like Bittridge?"
"He"s made me think of him all the time."
"It"s curious," the judge mused. "I have always noticed how our faults repeat themselves, but I didn"t suppose our fates would always take the same shape, or something like it." Mrs. Kenton stared at him. "When this other one first made up to us on the boat my heart went down. I thought of Bittridge so."
"Mr. Breckon?"
"Yes, the same lightness; the same sort of trifling--Didn"t you notice it?"
"No--yes, I noticed it. But I wasn"t afraid for an instant. I saw that he was good."
"Oh!"
"What I"m afraid of now is that Ellen doesn"t care anything about him."
"He isn"t wicked enough?"
"I don"t say that. But it would be too much happiness to expect in one short life."
The judge could not deny the reasonableness of her position. He could only oppose it. "Well, I don"t think we"ve had any more than our share of happiness lately."
No one except Boyne could have made Trannel"s behavior a cause of quarrel, but the other Kentons made it a cause of coldness which was quite as effective. In Lottie this took the form of something so active, so positive, that it was something more than a mere absence of warmth.
Before she came clown to breakfast the next morning she studied a stare in her mirror, and practised it upon Trannel so successfully when he came up to speak to her that it must have made him doubt whether he had ever had her acquaintance. In his doubt he ventured to address her, and then Lottie turned her back upon him in a manner that was perfectly convincing. He attempted a smiling ease with Mrs. Kenton and the judge, but they shared neither his smile nor his ease, and his jocose questions about the end of yesterday"s adventures, which he had not been privy to, did not seem to appeal to the American sense of humor in them. Ellen was not with them, nor Boyne, but Trannel was not asked to take either of the vacant places at the table, even when Breckon took one of them, after a decent exchange of civilities with him. He could only saunter away and leave Mrs. Kenton to a little pang.
"Tchk!" she made. "I"m sorry for him!"
"So am I," said the judge. "But he will get over it--only too soon, I"m afraid. I don"t believe he"s very sorry for himself."
They had not advised with Breckon, and he did not feel authorized to make any comment. He seemed preoccupied, to Mrs. Kenton"s eye, when she turned it upon him from Trannel"s discomfited back, lessening in the perspective, and he answered vaguely to her overture about his night"s rest. Lottie never made any conversation with Breckon, and she now left him to himself, with some remnants of the disapproval which she found on her hands after crushing Trannel. It could not be said that Breckon was aware of her disapproval, and the judge had no apparent consciousness of it. He and Breckon tried to make something of each other, but failed, and it all seemed a very defeating sequel to Mrs. Kenton after the triumphal glow of the evening before. When Lottie rose, she went with her, alleging her wish to see if Boyne had eaten his breakfast. She confessed, to Breckon"s kind inquiry, that Boyne did not seem very well, and that she had made him take his breakfast in his room, and she did not think it necessary to own, even to so friendly a witness as Mr.
Breckon, that Boyne was ashamed to come down, and dreaded meeting Trannel so much that she was giving him time to recover his self-respect and courage.
XV.
As soon as she and Lottie were gone Breckon began, rather more formidably than he liked, but helplessly so: "Judge Kenton, I should be glad of a few moments with you on--on an important--on a matter that is important to me."
"Well," said the judge, cautiously. Whatever was coming, he wished to guard himself from the mistake that he had once so nearly fallen into, and that still made him catch his breath to think of. "How can I be of use to you?"
"I don"t know that you can be of any use--I don"t know that I ought to speak to you. But I thought you might perhaps save me from--save my taking a false step."
He looked at Kenton as if he would understand, and Kenton supposed that he did. He said, "My daughter once mentioned your wish to talk with me."
"Your daughter?" Breckon stared at him in stupefaction.
"Yes; Ellen. She said you wished to consult me about going back to your charge in New York, when we were on the ship together. But I don"t know that I"m very competent to give advice in such--"
"Oh!" Breckon exclaimed, in a tone of immense relief, which did not continue itself in what he went on to say. "That! I"ve quite made up my mind to go back." He stopped, and then he burst out, "I want to speak with you about her." The judge sat steady, still resolute not to give himself away, and the young man scarcely recovered from what had been a desperate plunge in adding: "I know that it"s usual to speak with her--with the lady herself first, but--I don"t know! The circ.u.mstances are peculiar. You only know about me what you"ve seen of me, and I would rather make my mistakes in the order that seems right to me, although it isn"t just the American way."
He smiled rather piteously, and the judge said, rather encouragingly, "I don"t quite know whether I follow you."
Breckon blushed, and sought help in what remained of his coffee. "The way isn"t easy for me. But it"s this: I ask your leave to ask Miss Ellen to marry me." The worst was over now, and looked as if it were a relief.
"She is the most beautiful person in the world to me, and the best; but as you know so little of me, I thought it right to get your leave--to tell you--to--to--That is all." He fell back in his chair and looked a at Kenton.
"It is unusual," the judge began.
"Yes, Yes; I know that. And for that reason I speak first to you. I"ll be ruled by you implicitly."
"I don"t mean that," Kenton said. "I would have expected that you would speak to her first. But I get your point of view, and I must say I think you"re right. I think you are behaving--honorably. I wish that every one was like you. But I can"t say anything now. I must talk with her mother.
My daughter"s life has not been happy. I can"t tell you. But as far as I am concerned, and I think Mrs. Kenton, too, I would be glad--We like you Mr. Breckon. We think you are a good man.
"Oh, thank you. I"m not so sure--"
"We"d risk it. But that isn"t all. Will you excuse me if I don"t say anything more just yet--and if I leave you?"
"Why, certainly." The judge had risen and pushed back his chair, and Breckon did the same. "And I shall--hear from you?"
"Why, certainly," said the judge in his turn.
"It isn"t possible that you put him off!" his wife reproached him, when he told what had pa.s.sed between him and Breckon. "Oh, you couldn"t have let him think that we didn"t want him for her! Surely you didn"t!"
"Will you get it into your head," he flamed back, "that he hasn"t spoken to Ellen yet, and I couldn"t accept him till she had?"
"Oh yes. I forgot that." Mrs. Kenton struggled with the fact, in the difficulty of realizing so strange an order of procedure. "I suppose it"s his being educated abroad that way. But, do go back to him, Rufus, and tell him that of course--"
"I will do nothing of the kind, Sarah! What are you thinking of?"
"Oh, I don"t know what I"m thinking of! I must see Ellen, I suppose.
I"ll go to her now. Oh, dear, if she doesn"t--if she lets such a chance slip through her fingers--But she"s quite likely to, she"s so obstinate!
I wonder what she"ll want us to do."
She fled to her daughter"s room and found Boyne there, sitting beside his sister"s bed, giving her a detailed account of his adventure of the day before, up to the moment Mr. Breckon met him, in charge of the detectives. Up to that moment, it appeared to Boyne, as nearly as he could recollect, that he had not broken down, but had behaved himself with a dignity which was now beginning to clothe his whole experience.
In the retrospect, a quiet heroism characterized his conduct, and at the moment his mother entered the room he was questioning Ellen as to her impressions of his bearing when she first saw him in the grasp of the detectives.
His mother took him by the arm, and said, "I want to speak with Ellen, Boyne," and put him out of the door.
Then she came back and sat down in his chair. "Ellen. Mr. Breckon has been speaking to your father. Do you know what about?"