"I"ve given my word and so has she."
Mrs. Whitney had difficulty in not looking as disapproving as she felt.
A high sense of honor had been part of her wordy training of her children; but she had relied--she hoped, not in vain--upon their common sense to teach them to reconcile and adjust honor to the exigencies of practical life. "That"s right, dear," said she. "A man or a woman can"t be too honorable. Still, I should not wish you to make her and yourself unhappy. And I know both of you would be unhappy if, by marrying, you were to spoil each other"s careers. And your father would not be able to allow or to leave you enough to maintain an establishment such as I"ve set my heart on seeing you have. Mr. Ranger has been acting very strange of late--almost insane, I"d say." Her tone became constrained as if she were trying to convey more than she dared put into words. "I feel even surer than when I wrote you, that he"s leaving a large part of his fortune to Tec.u.mseh College." And she related--with judicious omissions and embroideries--her last talk with Hiram, and the events that centered about it.
Ross retained the impa.s.sive expression he had been cultivating ever since he read in English "high life" novels descriptions of the bearing of men of the "_haut monde_." "That"s of no consequence," was his comment, in a tone of indifference. "I"m not marrying Del for her money."
"Don"t throw yourself away, Ross," said she, much disquieted. "I feel sure you"ve been brought up too sensibly to do anything reckless. At least, be careful how you commit yourself until you are sure. In our station people have to think of a great many things before they think of anything so uncertain and so more or less fanciful as love. Rest a.s.sured, Adelaide is thinking of those things. Don"t be less wise than she."
He changed the subject, and would not go back to it; and after a few minutes he telephoned Adelaide, ordered a cart, and set out to take her for a drive. Mrs. Whitney watched him depart with a heavy heart and so piteous a face that Ross was moved almost to the point of confiding in her what he was pretending not to admit to himself. "Ross is sensible beyond his years," she said to herself sadly, "but youth is _so_ romantic. It never can see beyond the marriage ceremony."
Adelaide, with as much haste as was compatible with the demands of so important an occasion, was getting into a suitable costume. Suddenly she laid aside the hat she had selected from among several that were what the Fifth Avenue milliners call the "_dernier cri_." "No, I"ll not go!" she exclaimed.
Ever since her father was stricken she had stayed near him. Ellen had his comfort and the household to look after, and besides was not good at initiating conversation and carrying it on alone; Arthur"s tongue was paralyzed in his father"s presence by his being unable for an instant to forget there what had occurred between them. So Del had borne practically the whole burden of filling the dreary, dragging hours for him--who could not speak, could not even show whether he understood or not. He had never been easy to talk to; now, when she could not tell but that what she said jarred upon a sick and inflamed soul, aggravating his torture by reminding him of things he longed to know yet could not inquire about, tantalizing him with suggestions--She dared not let her thoughts go far in that direction; it would soon have been impossible to send him any message beyond despairing looks.
Sometimes she kissed him. She knew he was separated from her as by a heavy, grated prison door, and was unable to feel the electric thrill of touch; yet she thought he must get some joy out of the sight of the dumb show of caress. Again, she would give up trying to look cheerful, and would weep--and let him see her weep, having an instinct that he understood what a relief tears were to her, and that she let him see them to make him feel her loving sympathy. Again, she would be so wrought upon by the steady agony of those fixed eyes that she would leave him abruptly to hide herself and shudder, tearless, at the utter misery and hopelessness of it all. She wondered at her mother"s calm until she noticed, after a few weeks, how the face was withering with that shriveling which comes from within when a living thing is dying at the core.
She read the Bible to him, selecting consolatory pa.s.sage with the aid of a concordance, in the evenings after he had been lifted into bed for the night. She was filled with protest as she read; for it seemed to her that this good man, her best of fathers, thus savagely and causelessly stricken, was proof before her eyes that the sentences executed against men were not divine, but the devilish emanations of brute chance. "There may be a devil," she said to herself, frightened at her own blasphemy, "but there certainly is no G.o.d." Again, the Bible"s promises, so confident, so lofty, so marvelously responsive to the longings and cravings of every kind of desolation and woe, had a soothing effect upon her; and they helped to put her in the frame of mind to find for conversation--or, rather, for her monologues to him--subjects which her instinct told her would be welcome visitors in that prison.
She talked to him of how he was loved, of how n.o.ble his influence had been in their lives. She a.n.a.lyzed him to himself, saying things she would never have dared say had there been the slightest chance of so much response as the flutter of an eyelid. And as, so it seemed to her, the sympathetic relations and understanding between them grew, she became franker, talked of her aspirations--new-born aspirations in harmony with his life and belief. And, explaining herself for his benefit and bringing to light her inmost being to show to him, she saw it herself. And when she one day said to him, "Your illness has made a better woman of me, father, dear father," she felt it with all her heart.
It was from this atmosphere, and enveloped in it, that she went out to greet Ross; and, as she went, she was surprised at her own calmness before the prospect of seeing him again, after six months"
separation--the longest in their lives.
His expression was scrupulously correct--joy at seeing her shadowed by sympathy for her calamity. When they were safely alone, he took her hand and was about to kiss her. Her beauty was of the kind that is different from, and beyond, memory"s best photograph. She never looked exactly the same twice; that morning she seemed to him far more tempting than he had been thinking, with his head for so many weeks full of worldly ideas. He was thrilled anew, and his resolve hesitated before the fine pallor of her face, the slim lines of her figure, and the glimpses of her smooth white skin through the openwork in the yoke and sleeves of her blouse.
But, instead of responding she drew back, just a little. He instantly suspected her of being in the state of mind into which he had been trying to get himself. He dropped her hand. A trifling incident, but a trifle is enough to cut the communications between two human beings; it often accomplishes what the rudest shocks would not. They went to the far, secluded end of the garden, he asking and she answering questions about her father.
"What is it, Del?" he said abruptly, at length. "You act strained toward me." He did not say this until she had been oppressed almost into silence by the height and the thickness of the barrier between them.
"I guess it"s because I"ve been shut in with father," she suggested.
"I"ve seen no one to talk to, except the family and the doctor, for weeks." And she tried to fix her mind on how handsome and attractive he was. As a rebuke to her heart"s obstinate lukewarmness she forced herself to lay her hand in his.
He held it loosely. Her making this slight overture was enough to restore his sense of superiority; his resolve grew less unsteady. "It"s the first time," he went on, "that we"ve really had the chance to judge how we actually feel toward each other--that"s what"s the matter." His face--he was not looking at her--took on an expression of sad reproach.
"Del, I don"t believe you--care. You"ve found it out, and don"t want to hurt my feelings by telling me." And he believed what he was saying. It might have been--well, not quite right, for him to chill toward her and contemplate breaking the engagement, but that she should have been doing the same thing--his vanity was erect to the last feather. "It"s most kind of you to think so considerately of me," he said satirically.
She took her hand away. "And you?" she replied coldly. "Are your feelings changed?"
"I--oh, you know I love you," was his answer in a deliberately careless tone.
She laughed with an attempt at raillery. "You"ve been too long up at Windrift--you"ve been seeing too much of Theresa Howland," said she, merely for something to say; for Theresa was neither clever nor pretty, and Del hadn"t it in her to suspect him of being mercenary.
He looked coldly at her. "I have never interfered with your many attentions from other men," said he stiffly. "On the contrary, I have encouraged you to enjoy yourself, and I thought you left me free in the same way."
The tears came to her eyes; and he saw, and proceeded to value still less highly that which was obviously so securely his.
"Whatever is the matter with you, Ross, this morning?" she cried. "Or is it I? Am I--"
"It certainly is not I," he interrupted icily. "I see you again after six months, and I find you changed completely."
A glance from her stopped him. "Oh!" she exclaimed, with a dangerous smile. "You are out of humor this morning and are seeking a quarrel."
"That would be impossible," he retorted. "_I_ never quarrel. Evidently you have forgotten all about me."
Her pride would not let her refuse the challenge, convert in his words, frank in his eyes.
"Possibly," mocked she, forcing herself to look amusedly at him. "I don"t bother much about people I don"t see."
"You take a light view of our engagement," was his instant move.
"I should take a still lighter view," retorted she, "if I thought the way you"re acting was a fair specimen of your real self."
This from Adelaide, who had always theretofore shared in his almost reverent respect for himself. Adelaide _judging_ him, criticising _him_!
All Ross"s male instinct for unquestioning approval from the female was astir. "You wish to break our engagement?" he inquired, with a glance of cold anger that stiffened her pride and suppressed her impulse to try to gain time.
"You"re free," said she, and her manner so piqued him, that to nerve himself to persist he had to think hard on the magnificence of Windrift and the many Howland millions and the rumored Ranger will. She, in a series of jerks and pauses, took off the ring; with an expression and a gesture that gave no further hint of how she had valued it, both for its own beauty and for what it represented, she handed it to him. "If that"s all," she went on, "I"ll go back to father." To perfect her pretense, she should have risen, shaken hands cheerfully with him, and sent him carelessly away. She knew it; but she could not.
He was not the man to fail to note that she made no move to rise, or to fail to read the slightly strained expression in her eyes and about the corners of her mouth. That betrayal lost Adelaide a triumph; for, seeing her again, feeling her beauty and her charm in all his senses, reminded of her superiority in brains and in taste to the women from whom he might choose, he was making a losing fight for the worldly wise course.
"Anyhow, I must tame her a bit," he reflected, now that he was sure she would be his, should he find on further consideration that he wanted her rather than Theresa"s fortune. He accordingly took his hat, drew himself up, bowed coldly.
"Good morning," he said. And he was off, down the drive--to the lower end where the stableboy was guarding his trap--he was seated--he was driving away--he was gone--_gone_!
She did not move until he was no longer in sight. Then she rushed into the house, darted up to her room, locked herself in and gave way. It was the first serious quarrel she had ever had with him; it was so little like a quarrel, so ominously like a--No; absurd! It could not be a finality. She rejected that instantly, so confident had beauty and position as a prospective heiress made her as to her powers over any man she chose to try to fascinate, so secure was she in the belief that Ross loved her and would not give her up in any circ.u.mstances. She went over their interview, recalled his every sentence and look--this with surprising coolness for a young woman as deeply in love as she fancied herself. And her anger rose against him--a curious kind of anger, to spring and flourish in a loving heart. "He has been flattered by Theresa until he has entirely lost his point of view," she decided. "I"ll give him a lesson when he comes trying to make it up."
He drove the part of his homeward way that was through streets with his wonted attention to "smartness." True "man of the world," he never for many consecutive minutes had himself out of his mind--how he was conducting himself, what people thought of him, what impression he had made or was making or was about to make. He estimated everybody and everything instinctively and solely from the standpoint of advantage to himself. Such people, if they have the intelligence to hide themselves under a pleasing surface, and the wisdom to plan, and the energy to execute, always get just about what they want; for intelligence and energy are invincible weapons, whether the end be worthy or not. As soon, however, as he was in the road up to the Bluffs, deserted at that hour, his body relaxed, his arms and hands dropped from the correct angle for driving, the reins lay loose upon the horse"s back, and he gave himself to dejection. He had thought--at Windrift--that, once he was free from the engagement which was no longer to his interest, he would feel buoyant, elated. Instead, he was mentally even more downcast a figure than his relaxed att.i.tude and gloomy face made him physically. His mother"s and his "set"s" training had trimmed generous instincts close to the roots, and, also, such ideals as were not purely for material matters, especially for ostentation. But, being still a young man, those roots not only were alive, but also had an under-the-soil vigor; they even occasionally sent to the surface sprouts--that withered in the uncongenial air of his surroundings and came to nothing. Just now these sprouts were springing in the form of self-reproaches. Remembering with what thoughts he had gone to Adelaide, he felt wholly responsible for the broken engagement, felt that he had done a contemptible thing, had done it in a contemptible way; and he was almost despising himself, looking about the while for self-excuses. The longer he looked the worse off he was; for the more clearly he saw that he was what he called, and thought, in love with this fresh young beauty, so swiftly and alluringly developing. It exasperated him with the intensity of selfishness"s avarice that he could not have both Theresa Howland"s fortune and Adelaide. It seemed to him that he had a right to both. Not in the coldly selfish only is the fact of desire in itself the basis of right. By the time he reached home, he was angry through and through, and bent upon finding some one to be angry with. He threw the reins to a groom and, savagely sullen of face, went slowly up the terrace-like steps.
His mother, on the watch for his return, came to meet him. "How is Mr.
Ranger this morning?" she asked.
"Just the same," he answered curtly.
"And--Del?"
No answer.
They went into the library; he lit a cigarette and seated himself at the writing table. She watched him anxiously but had far too keen insight to speak and give him the excuse to explode. Not until she turned to leave the room did he break his surly silence to say: "I might as well tell you. I"m engaged to Theresa Howland."
"O Ross, I"m _so_ glad!" she exclaimed, lighting up with pride and pleasure. Then, warned by his expression, she restrained herself. "I have felt certain for a long time that you would not throw yourself away on Adelaide. She is a nice girl--pretty, sweet, and all that. But women differ from each other only in unimportant details. A man ought to see to it that by marrying he strengthens his influence and position in the world and provides for the standing of his children. And I think Theresa has far more steadiness; and, besides, she has been about the world--she was presented at court last spring a year ago, wasn"t she? She is _such_ a lady. It will be so satisfactory to have her as the head of your establishment--probably Mr. Howland will give her Windrift. And her cousin--that Mr. Fanning she married--is connected with all the best families in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. They are at the top of our aristocracy."
This recital was not to inform, but to inspire--to remind him what a wise and brilliant move he had made in the game of life. And it had precisely the effect she intended. Had she not herself created and fostered in him the nature that would welcome such stuff as a bat welcomes night?
"I"m going back to Windrift to-morrow," he said, still sullen, but with the note of the quarrel-seeker gone from his voice.
"When do you wish me to write to her?"
"Whenever you like," he said. The defiance in his tone was for Adelaide.
"The engagement is to be announced as soon as I get back."