"Not for me!" said Matt. He added, not very consequently, "I suppose it must have happened to me the first moment I saw her here that day Louise and I came up about the accident. I couldn"t truly say that she had ever been out of my mind a moment since. No, there"s nothing sudden about it, though I don"t suppose these things usually take a great deal of time,"
Matt ended, philosophically.
Wade left the dangerous ground he found himself on. He asked, "And your family, do they know of your--feeling?"
"Not in the least!" Matt answered, radiantly. "It will come on them like a thunder-clap! If it ever comes on them at all," he added, despondently.
Wade had his own belief that there was no cause for despondency in the aspect of the affair that Matt was looking at. But he could not offer to share his security with Matt, who continued to look serious, and said, presently, "I suppose my father might think it complicated his relation to the Northwicks" trouble, and I have thought that, too. It makes it very difficult. My father is to be considered. You know, Wade, I think there are very few men like my father?"
"There are none, Matt!" said Wade.
"I don"t mean he"s perfect; and I think his ideas are wrong, most of them. But his conduct is as right as the conduct of any quick-tempered man ever was in the world. I know him, and I don"t believe a son ever loved his father more; and so I want to consider him all I can."
"Ah, I know that, my dear fellow!"
"But the question is, how far can I consider him? There are times," said Matt, and he reddened, and laughed consciously, "when it seems as if I couldn"t consider him at all; the times when I have some faint hope that she will listen to me, or won"t think me quite a brute to speak to her of such a thing at such a moment. Then there are other times when I think he ought to be considered to the extreme of giving her up altogether; but those are the times when I know that I shall never have her to _give_ up. Then it"s an easy sacrifice."
"I understand," said Wade, responding with a smile to Matt"s self-satire.
Matt went on, and as he talked he sometimes walked to Wade"s window and looked out, sometimes he stopped and confronted him across his desk.
"It"s cowardly, in a way, not to speak at once--to leave her to suffer it out to the end alone; but I think that"s what I owe to my father. No real harm can come to her from waiting. I risk the unfair chance I might gain by speaking now when she sorely needs help; but if ever she came to think she had given herself through that need--No, it wouldn"t do! My father can do more for her if he isn"t hampered by my feeling, and Louise can be her friend--What do you think, Wade? I"ve tried to puzzle it out, and this is the conclusion I"ve come to. Is it rather cold-blooded? I know it isn"t at all like the lovemaking in the books. I suppose I ought to go and fling myself at her feet, in defiance of all the decencies and amenities and obligations of life, but somehow I can"t bring myself to do it. I"ve thought it all conscientiously over, and I think I ought to wait."
"I think so, too, Matt. I think your decision is a just man"s, and it"s a true lover"s, too. It does your heart as much honor as your head," and Wade gave him his hand now, with no mental reservation.
"Do you really think so, Caryl? That makes me very happy! I was afraid it might look calculating and self-interested--"
"You self-interested, Matt!"
"Oh, I know! But is it considering my duty too much, my love too little?
If I love her, hasn"t she the first claim upon me, before father and mother, brother and sister, before all the world?"
"If you are sure she loves you, yes."
Matt laughed. "Ah, that"s true; I hadn"t thought of that little condition! Perhaps it changes the whole situation. Well, I must go, now.
I"ve just run over from the farm to see you--"
"I inferred that from your peasant garb," said Wade, with a smile at the rough farm suit Matt had on: his face refined it and made it look mildly improbable. "Besides," said Wade, as if the notion he recurred to were immediately relevant to Matt"s dress, "unless you are perfectly sure of yourself beyond any chance of change, you owe it to her as well as yourself, to take time before speaking."
"I am perfectly sure, and I shall never change," said Matt, with a shade of displeasure at the suggestion. "If there were nothing but that I should not take a moment of time." He relented and smiled again, in adding, "But I have decided now, and I shall wait. And I"m very much obliged to you, old fellow, for talking the matter over with me, and helping me to see it in the right light."
"Oh, my dear Matt!" said Wade, in deprecation.
"Yes. And oh, by the way! I"ve got hold of a young fellow that I think you could do something for, Wade. Do you happen to remember the article on the defalcation in the _Boston Abstract_?"
"Yes, I do remember that. Didn"t it treat the matter, if I recall it, very humanely--too humanely, perhaps?"
"Perhaps, from one point of view, too humanely. Well, it"s the writer of that article--a young fellow, not twenty-five, yet as completely at odds with life as any one I ever saw. He has a great deal of talent, and no health or money; so he"s toiling feebly for a living on a daily newspaper, instead of making literature. He was a reporter up to the time he wrote that article, but the managing editor is a man who recognizes quality; he"s fond of Maxwell--that"s the fellow"s name--and since then he"s given him a chance in the office, at social topics. But he hasn"t done very well; the fact is, the boy"s too literary, and he"s out of health, and he needs rest and the comfort of appreciative friendship. I want you to meet him. I"ve got him up at my place out of the east winds. You"ll be interested in him as a type--the artistic type cynicised by the hard conditions of life--newspaper conditions, and then economic conditions."
Matt smiled with satisfaction in what he felt to be his very successful formulation of Maxwell.
Wade said he should be very glad to meet him; and if he could be of any use to him he should be even more glad. But his mind was still upon Matt"s love affair, and as they wrung each other"s hands, once more he said, "I think you"ve decided _so_ wisely, Matt; and justly and unselfishly."
"It"s involuntary unselfishness, if it"s unselfishness at all," said Matt. He did not go; Wade stood bareheaded with him at the outer door of his study. After awhile he said with embarra.s.sment, "Wade! Do you think it would seem unfeeling--or out of taste, at all--if I went to see her at such a time?"
"Why, I can"t imagine _your_ doing anything out of taste, Matt."
"Don"t be so smooth, Caryl! You know what I mean. Louise sent some messages by me to her. Will you take them, or--"
"I certainly see no reason why you shouldn"t deliver Miss Hilary"s messages yourself."
"Well, I do," said Matt. "But you needn"t be afraid."
XI.
Matt took the lower road that wound away from Wade"s church toward the Northwick place; but as he went, he kept thinking that he must not really try to see Suzette. It would be monstrous, at such a time; out of all propriety, of all decency; it would be taking advantage of her helplessness to intrude upon her the offer of help and of kindness which every instinct of her nature must revolt from. There was only one thing that could justify his coming, and that was impossible. Unless he came to tell her that he loved her, and to ask her to let him take her burden upon him, to share her shame and her sorrow for his love"s sake, he had no right to see her. At moments it seemed as if that were right and he could do it, no matter how impossible, and then he almost ran forward; but only to check himself, to stop short, and doubt whether not to turn back altogether. By such faltering progresses, he found himself in the Northwick avenue at last, and keeping doggedly on from the mansion, which the farm road had brought him to, until he reached the cottage at the avenue gate. On the threshold drooped a figure that the sight of set his heart beating with a stifling pulse in his throat, and he floundered on till he made out that this languid figure was Adeline. He could have laughed at the irony, the mockery of the anti-climax, if it had not been for the face that the old maid turned upon him at the approach of his footfalls, and the pleasure that lighted up its pathos when she recognized him.
"_Oh_, Mr. Hilary!" she said; and then she could not speak, for the twitching of her lips and the trembling of her chin.
He took her hand in silence, and it seemed natural for him to do that reverent and tender thing which is no longer a part of our custom; he bent over it and kissed the chill, bony knuckles.
She drew her hand away to find her handkerchief and wipe her tears. "I suppose you"ve come to see Suzette; but she"s gone up to the village to talk with Mr. Putney; he"s our lawyer."
"Yes," said Matt.
"I presume I don"t need to talk to you about that--letter. I think,--and I believe Suzette will think so too in the end,--that his mind is affected, and he just accuses himself of all these things because they"ve been burnt into it so. How are your father and mother? And your sister?"
She broke off with these questions, he could see, to stay herself in what she wished to say. "They are all well. Father is still in Boston; but mother and Louise are at the farm with me. They sent their love, and they are anxious to know if there is anything--"
"Thank you. Will you sit down here? It"s so close indoors." She made room for him on the threshold, but he took the step below.
"I hope Miss Suzette is well?"
"Why, thank you, not very well. There isn"t anything really the matter; but we didn"t either of us sleep very well last night; we were excited.
I don"t know as I ought to tell you," she began. "I don"t suppose it"s a thing you would know about, any way; but I"ve got to talk to somebody--"
"Miss Northwick," said Matt, "if there is anything in the world that I can do for you, or that you even hope I can do, I _beg_ you to let me hear it. I should be glad beyond all words to help you."
"Oh, I don"t know as anything can be done," she began, after the fresh gush of tears which were her thanks, "but Suzette and I have been talking it over a good deal, and we thought we would like to see your father about it. You see, Suzette can"t feel right about our keeping the place here, if father"s really done what he says he"s done. We don"t believe he has; but if he has, he has got to be found somewhere, and made to give up the money he says he has got. Suzette thinks we ought to give up the money we have got in the bank--fifteen hundred or two thousand dollars--and she wanted I should let her give up her half of the place, here; and at first I _did_ say she might. But come to find out from Mr. Putney, the whole place would have to be sold before it could be divided, and I couldn"t seem to let it. That was what we--disputed about. Yes! We had a dispute; but it"s all right now, or it will be, when we get the company to say they will stop the lawsuit against father, if he will give up the money he"s got, and we will give up the place. Mr. Putney seemed to think the company couldn"t stop it; but I don"t see why a rich corporation like that couldn"t do almost anything it wanted to with its money."
Her innocent corruption did not shock Matt, nor her scheme for defeating justice; but he smiled forlornly at the hopelessness of it. "I"m afraid Mr. Putney is right." He was silent, and then at the despair that came into her face, he hurried on to say, "but I will see my father, Miss Northwick; I will go down to see him at once; and if anything can be honorably and fairly done to save your father, I am sure he will try to do it for your sake. But don"t expect anything," he said, getting to his feet and putting out his hand to her.
"No, no; I won"t," she said, with grat.i.tude that wrung his heart.
"And--won"t you wait and see Suzette?"
Matt reddened. "No; I think not now. But, perhaps, I will come back; and--and--I will come soon again. Good-by!"