"What a beautiful girl!" said Mr. Ambrose Drayton to himself; "and how
much she looks like--" He cut the comparison short, and turned his eyes
seaward, pulling at his mustache meditatively the while.
"This American atmosphere, fresh and pure as it is in the nostrils, is
heavy-laden with reminiscences," his thoughts ran on. "Reminiscences,
but always with differences, the chief difference being, no doubt, in
years since I stood here and gazed out through yonder gap between the
headlands. Nineteen years of foreign lands, foreign men and manners,
the courts, the camps, the schools; adventure, business, and pleasure--
if I may lightly use so mysterious a word. Nineteen and twenty are
thirty-nine; in my case say sixty at least. Why, a girl like that
lovely young thing walking away there with her light step and her
innocent heart would take me to be sixty to a dead certainty. A rather
well-preserved man of sixty--that's how she'd describe me to the young
fellow she's given her heart to. Well, sixty or forty, what difference?
When a man has passed the age at which he falls in love, he is the peer
of Methuselah from that time forth. But what a fiery season that of
love is while it lasts! Ay, and it burns something out of the soul that
never grows again. And well that it should do so: a susceptible heart
is a troublesome burden to lug round the world. Curious that I should
be even thinking of such things: association, I suppose. Here it was
that we met and here we parted. But what a different place it was then!
A lovely cape, half bleak moorland and half shaggy wood, a few rocky
headlands and a great many coots and gulls, and one solitary old
farmhouse standing just where that spick-and-span summer hotel, with
its balconies and cupolas, stands now. So it was nineteen years ago,
and so it may be again, perhaps, nine hundred years hence; but
meanwhile, what a pretty array of modern aesthetic cottages, and plank
walks, and bridges, and bathing-houses, and pleasure-boats! And what an
admirable concourse of well-dressed and pleasurably inclined men and
women! After all, my countrymen are the finest-looking and most
prosperous-appearing people on the globe. They have traveled a little
faster than I have, and on a somewhat different track; but I would
rather be among them than anywhere else. Yes, I won't go back to
London, nor yet to Paris, or Calcutta, or Cairo. I'll buy a cottage
here at Squittig Point, and live and die here and in New York. I wonder
whether Mary is alive and mother of a dozen children, or--not!"
"Auntie," said Miss Leithe to her relative, as they regained the
veranda of their cottage after their morning stroll on the beach, "who
was that gentleman who looked at us?"
"Hey?--who?" inquired the widow of the late Mr. Corwin, absently.
"The one in the thin gray suit and Panama hat; you must have seen him.
A very distinguished-looking man and yet very simple and pleasant;
like some of those nice middle-aged men that you see in 'Punch,'
slenderly built, with handsome chin and eyes, and thick mustache and
whiskers. Oh, auntie, why do you never notice things? I think a man
between forty and fifty is ever so much nicer than when they're
younger. They know how to be courteous, and they're not afraid of being
natural. I mean this one looks as if he would. But he must be somebody
remarkable in some way--don't you think so? There's something about
him--something graceful and gentle and refined and manly--that makes
most other men seem common beside him. Who do you suppose he can be?"
"Who?--what have you been saying, my dear?" inquired Aunt Corwin,
rousing herself from the perusal of a letter. "Here's Sarah writes that
Frank Redmond was to sail from Havre the 20th; so he won't be here for
a week or ten days yet."
"Well, he might not have come at all," said the girl, coloring
slightly. "I'm sure I didn't think he would, when he went away."
"You are both of you a year older and wiser," said the widow,
meditatively; "and you have learned, I hope, not to irritate a man
needlessly. I never irritated Corwin in all my life. They don't
understand it."
"Here comes Mr. Haymaker," observed Miss Leithe. "I shall ask him."
"Don't ask him in," said Mrs. Corwin, retiring; "he chatters like an
organ-grinder."
"Oh, good-morning, Miss Mary!" exclaimed Mr. Haymaker, as he mounted
the steps of the veranda, with his hands extended and his customary
effusion. "How charming you are looking after your bath and your walk
and all! Did you ever see such a charming morning? I never was at a
place I liked so much as Squittig Point; the new Newport, I call it--
eh? the new Newport. So fashionable already, and only been going, as
one might say, three or four years! Such charming people here! Oh, by-
the-way, whom do you think I ran across just now? You wouldn't know
him, though--been abroad since before you were born, I should think.
Most charming man I ever met, and awfully wealthy. Ran across him in
Europe--Paris, I think it was--stop! or was it Vienna? Well, never
mind. Drayton, that's his name; ever hear of him? Ambrose Drayton. Made
a great fortune in the tea-trade; or was it in the mines? I've
forgotten. Well, no matter. Great traveler, too--Africa and the Corea,
and all that sort of thing; and fought under Garibaldi, they say; and
he had the charge of some diplomatic affair at Pekin once. The
quietest, most gentlemanly fellow you ever saw. Oh, you must meet him.
He's come back to stay, and will probably spend the summer here. I'll
get him and introduce him. Oh, he'll be charmed--we all shall."
"What sort of a looking person is he?" Miss Leithe inquired.
"Oh, charming--just right! Trifle above medium height; rather lighter
weight than I am, but graceful; grayish hair, heavy mustache, blue
eyes; style of a retired English colonel, rather. You know what I mean
--trifle reticent, but charming manners. Stop! there he goes now--see
him? Just stopping to light a cigar--in a line with the light-house.
Now he's thrown away the match, and walking on again. That's Ambrose
Drayton. Introduce him on the sands this afternoon. How is your good
aunt to-day? So sorry not to have seen her! Well, I must be off;
awfully busy to-day. Good-by, my dear Miss Mary; see you this
afternoon. Good-by. Oh, make my compliments to your good aunt, won't
you? Thanks. So charmed! _Au revoir_."
"Has that fool gone?" demanded a voice from within.
"Yes, Auntie," the young lady answered.
"Then come in to your dinner," the voice rejoined, accompanied by the
sound of a chair being drawn up to a table and sat down upon. Mary
Leithe, after casting a glance after the retreating figure of Mr.
Haymaker and another toward the light-house, passed slowly through the
wire-net doors and disappeared.
Mr. Drayton had perforce engaged his accommodations at the hotel, all
the cottages being either private property or rented, and was likewise
constrained, therefore, to eat his dinner in public. But Mr. Drayton
was not a hater of his species, nor a fearer of it; and though he had
not acquired precisely our American habits and customs, he was disposed
to be as little strange to them as possible. Accordingly, when the gong
sounded, he entered the large dining-room with great intrepidity. The
arrangement of tables was not continuous, but many small tables,
capable of accommodating from two to six, were dotted about everywhere.
Mr. Drayton established himself at the smallest of them, situated in a
part of the room whence he had a view not only of the room itself, but
of the blue sea and yellow rocks on the other side. This preliminary
feat of generalship accomplished, he took a folded dollar bill from his
pocket and silently held it up in the air, the result being the speedy
capture of a waiter and the introduction of dinner.
But at this juncture Mr. Haymaker came pitching into the room, as his
nature was, and pinned himself to a standstill, as it were, with his
eyeglass, in the central aisle of tables. Drayton at once gave himself
up for lost, and therefore received Mr. Haymaker with kindness and
serenity when, a minute or two later, he came plunging up, in his usual
ecstasy of sputtering amiability, and seated himself in the chair at
the other side of the table with an air as if everything were charming
in the most charming of all possible worlds, and he himself the most
charming person in it.
"My dear Drayton, though," exclaimed Mr. Haymaker, in the interval
between the soup and the bluefish, "there is some one here you must
know--most charming girl you ever knew in your life, and has set her
heart on knowing you. We were talking about you this morning--Miss Mary
Leithe. Lovely name, too; pity ever to change it--he! he! he! Why, you
must have seen her about here; has an old aunt, widow of Jim Corwin,
who's dead and gone these five years. You recognize her, of course?"
"Not as you describe her," said Mr. Drayton, helping his friend to
fish.
"Oh, the handsomest girl about here; tallish, wavy brown hair, soft
brown eyes, the loveliest-shaped eyes in the world, my dear fellow;
complexion like a Titian, figure slender yet, but promising. A way of
giving you her hand that makes you wish she would take your heart,"
pursued Mr. Haymaker, impetuously filling his mouth with bluefish,
during the disposal of which he lost the thread of his harangue.
Drayton, however, seemed disposed to recover it for him.
"Is this young lady from New England?" he inquired.
"New-Yorker by birth," responded the ever-vivacious Haymaker; "father a
Southern man; mother a Bostonian. Father died eight or nine years after
marriage; mother survived him six years; girl left in care of old Mrs.
Corwin--good old creature, but vague--very vague. Don't fancy the
marriage was a very fortunate one; a little friction, more or less.
Leithe was rather a wild, unreliable sort of man; Mrs. Leithe a woman
not easily influenced--immensely charming, though, and all that, but a
trifle narrow and set. Well, you know, it was this way: Leithe was an
immensely wealthy man when she married him; lost his money, struggled
along, good deal of friction; Mrs. Leithe probably felt she had made a
mistake, and that sort of thing. But Miss Mary here, very different
style, looks like her mother, but softer; more in her, too. Very little
money, poor girl, but charming. Oh! you must know her."
"What did you say her mother's maiden name was?"
"Maiden name? Let me see. Why--oh, no--oh, yes--Cleveland, Mary
Cleveland."
"Mary Cleveland, of Boston; married Hamilton Leithe, about nineteen
years ago. I used to know the lady. And this is her daughter! And Mary
Cleveland is dead!--Help yourself, Haymaker. I never take more than one
course at this hour of the day."
"But you must let me introduce you, you know," mumbled Haymaker,
through his succotash.
"I hardly know," said Drayton, rubbing his mustache. "Pardon me if I
leave you," he added, looking at his watch. "It is later than I
thought."
Nothing more was seen of Drayton for the rest of that day. But the next
morning, as Mary Leithe sat on the Bowlder Rock, with a book on her
lap, and her eyes on the bathers, and her thoughts elsewhere, she heard
a light, leisurely tread behind her, and a gentlemanly, effective
figure made its appearance, carrying a malacca walking-stick, and a
small telescope in a leather case slung over the shoulder.
"Good-morning, Miss Leithe," said this personage, in a quiet and
pleasant voice. "I knew your mother before you were born, and I can not
feel like a stranger toward her daughter. My name is Ambrose Drayton.
You look something like your mother, I think."
"I think I remember mamma's having spoken of you," said Mary Leithe,
looking up a little shyly, but with a smile that was the most winning
of her many winning manifestations. Her upper lip, short, but somewhat
fuller than the lower one, was always alive with delicate movements;
the corners of her mouth were blunt, the teeth small; and the smile was
such as Psyche's might have been when Cupid waked her with a kiss.
"It was here I first met your mother," continued Drayton, taking his
place beside her. "We often sat together on this very rock. I was a
young fellow then, scarcely older than you, and very full of romance
and enthusiasm. Your mother--". He paused a moment, looking at his
companion with a grave smile in his eyes. "If I had been as dear to her
as she was to me," he went on, "you would have been our daughter."
Mary looked out upon the bathers, and upon the azure bay, and into her
own virgin heart. "Are you married, too?" she asked at length.
"I was cut out for an old bachelor, and I have been true to my
destiny," was his reply. "Besides, I've lived abroad till a month or
two ago, and good Americans don't marry foreign wives."
"I should like to go abroad," said Mary Leithe.
"It is the privilege of Americans," said Drayton. "Other people are
born abroad, and never know the delight of real travel. But, after all,
America is best. The life of the world culminates here. We are the prow
of the vessel; there may be more comfort amidships, but we are the
first to touch the unknown seas. And the foremost men of all nations
are foremost only in so far as they are at heart American; that is to
say, America is, at present, even more an idea and a principle than it
is a country. The nation has perhaps not yet risen to the height of its
opportunities. So you have never crossed the Atlantic?"
"No; my father never wanted to go; and after he died, mamma could not."
"Well, our American Emerson says, you know, that, as the good of travel
respects only the mind, we need not depend for it on railways and
steamboats."
"It seems to me, if we never moved ourselves, our minds would never
really move either."
"Where would you most care to go?"
"To Rome, and Jerusalem, and Egypt, and London."
"Why?"
"They seem like parts of my mind that I shall never know unless I visit
them."
"Is there no part of the world that answers to your heart?"
"Oh, the beautiful parts everywhere, I suppose."
"I can well believe it," said Drayton, but with so much simplicity and
straightforwardness that Mary Leithe's cheeks scarcely changed color.
"And there is beauty enough here," he added, after a pause.
"Yes; I have always liked this place," said she, "though the cottages
seem a pity."
"You knew the old farm-house, then?"
"Oh, yes; I used to play in the farm-yard when I was a little girl.
After my father died, Mamma used to come here every year. And my aunt
has a cottage here now. You haven't met my aunt, Mr. Drayton?"
"I wished to know you first. But now I want to know her, and to become
one of the family. There is no one left, I find, who belongs to me.
What would you think of me for a bachelor uncle?"
"I would like it very much," said Mary, with a smile.
"Then let us begin," returned Drayton.
Several days passed away very pleasantly. Never was there a bachelor
uncle so charming, as Haymaker would have said, as Drayton. The kind of
life in the midst of which he found himself was altogether novel and
delightful to him. In some aspects it was like enjoying for the first
time a part of his existence which he should have enjoyed in youth, but
had missed; and in many ways he doubtless enjoyed it more now than he
would have done then, for he brought it to a maturity of experience
which had taught him the inestimable value of simple things; a quiet
nobility of character and clearness of knowledge that enabled him to
perceive and follow the right course in small things as in great; a
serene yet cordial temperament that rendered him the cheerfulest and
most trustworthy of companions; a generous and masculine disposition,
as able to direct as to comply; and years which could sympathize
impartially with youth and age, and supply something which each lacked.
He, meanwhile, sometimes seemed to himself to be walking in a dream.
The region in which he was living, changed, yet so familiar, the
thought of being once more, after so many years of homeless wandering,
in his own land and among his own countrymen, and the companionship of
Mary Leithe, like, yet so unlike, the Mary Cleveland he had known and
loved, possessing in reality all the tenderness and lovely virginal
sweetness that he had imagined in the other, with a warmth of heart
that rejuvenated his own, and a depth and freshness of mind answering
to the wisdom that he had drawn from experience, and rendering her,
though in her different and feminine sphere, his equal--all these
things made Drayton feel as if he would either awake and find them the
phantasmagoria of a beautiful dream, or as if the past time were the
dream, and this the reality. Certainly, in this ardent, penetrating
light of the present, the past looked vaporous and dim, like a range of
mountains scaled long ago and vanishing on the horizon.
And was this all? Doubtless it was, at first. It was natural that
Drayton should regard with peculiar tenderness the daughter of the
woman he had loved. She was an orphan, and poor; he was alone in the
world, with no one dependent upon him, and with wealth which could find
no better use than to afford this girl the opportunities and the
enjoyments which she else must lack. His anticipations in returning to
America had been somewhat cold and vague. It was his native land; but
abstract patriotism is, after all, rather chilly diet for a human being
to feed his heart upon. The unexpected apparition of Mary Leithe had
provided just that vividness and particularity that were wanting.
Insensibly Drayton bestowed upon her all the essence of the love of
country which he had cherished untainted throughout his long exile. It
was so much easier and simpler a thing to know and appreciate her than
to do as much for the United States and their fifty million
inhabitants, national, political, and social, that it is no wonder if
Drayton, as a modest and sane gentleman, preferred to make the former
the symbol of the latter--of all, at least, that was good and lovable
therein. At the same time, so clear-headed a man could scarcely have
failed to be aware that his affection for Mary Leithe was not actually
dependent upon the fact of her being an emblem. Upon what, then, was it
dependent? Upon her being the daughter of Mary Cleveland? It was true
that he had loved Mary Cleveland; but she had deliberately jilted him
to marry a wealthier man, and was therefore connected with and
responsible for the most painful as well as the most pleasurable
episode of his early life. Mary Leithe bore some personal resemblance
to her mother; but had she been as like her in character and
disposition as she was in figure and feature, would Drayton, knowing
what he knew, have felt drawn toward her? A man does not remain for
twenty years under the influence of an unreasonable and mistaken
passion. Drayton certainly had not, although his disappointment had
kept him a bachelor all his life, and altered the whole course of his
existence. But when we have once embarked upon a certain career, we
continue in it long after the motive which started us has been
forgotten. No; Drayton's regard for Mary Leithe must stand on its own
basis, independent of all other considerations.
What, in the next place, was the nature of this regard? Was it merely
avuncular, or something different? Drayton assured himself that it was
the former. He was a man of the world, and had done with passions. The
idea of his falling in love made him smile in a deprecatory manner.
That the object of such love should be a girl eighteen years his junior
rendered the suggestion yet more irrational. She was lustrous with
lovable qualities, which he genially recognized and appreciated; nay,
he might love her, but the love would be a quasi-paternal one, not the
love that demands absolute possession and brooks no rivalry. His
attitude was contemplative and beneficent, not selfish and exclusive.
His greatest pleasure would be to see her married to some one worthy of
her. Meantime he might devote himself to her freely and without fear.
And yet, once again, was he not the dupe of himself and of a
convention? Was his the mood in which an uncle studies his niece, or
even a father his daughter? How often during the day was she absent
from his thoughts, or from his dreams at night? What else gave him so
much happiness as to please her, and what would he not do to give her
pleasure? Why was he dissatisfied and aimless when not in her presence?
Why so full-orbed and complete when she was near? He was eighteen years
the elder, but there was in her a fullness of nature, a balanced
development, which went far toward annulling the discrepancy. Moreover,
though she was young, he was not old, and surely he had the knowledge,
the resources, and the will to make her life happy. There would be, he
fancied, a certain poetical justice in such an issue. It would
illustrate the slow, seemingly severe, but really tender wisdom of
Providence. Out of the very ashes of his dead hopes would arise this
gracious flower of promise. She would afford him scope for the
employment of all those riches, moral and material, which life had
brought him; she would be his reward for having lived honorably and
purely for purity's and honor's sake. But why multiply reasons? There
was justification enough; and true love knows nothing of justification.
He loved her, then; and now, did she love him? This was the real
problem--the mystery of a maiden's heart, which all Solomon's wisdom
and Bacon's logic fail to elucidate. Drayton did what he could. Once he
came to her with the news that he must be absent from an excursion
which they had planned, and he saw genuine disappointment darken her
sweet face, and her slender figure seem to droop. This was well as far
as it went, but beyond that it proved nothing. Another time he gave her
a curious little shell which he had picked up while they were rambling
together along the beach, and some time afterward he accidently noticed
that she was wearing it by a ribbon round her neck. This seemed better.
Again, on a night when there was a social gathering at the hotel, he
entered the room and sat apart at one of the windows, and as long as he
remained there he felt that her gaze was upon him, and twice or thrice
when he raised his eyes they were met by hers, and she smiled; and
afterward, when he was speaking near her, he noticed that she
disregarded what her companion of the moment was saying to her, and
listened only to him. Was not all this encouragement? Nevertheless,
whenever, presuming upon this, he hazarded less ambiguous
demonstrations, she seemed to shrink back and appear strange and
troubled. This behavior perplexed him; he doubted the evidence that had
given him hope; feared that he was a fool; that she divined his love,
and pitied him, and would have him, if at all, only out of pity.
Thereupon he took himself sternly to task, and resolved to give her up.
It was a transparent July afternoon, with white and gray clouds
drifting across a clear blue sky, and a southwesterly breeze roughening
the dark waves and showing their white shoulders. Mary Leithe and
Drayton came slowly along the rocks, he assisting her to climb or
descend the more rugged places, and occasionally pausing with her to
watch the white canvas of a yacht shiver in the breeze as she went
about, or to question whether yonder flash amid the waves, where the
gulls were hovering and dipping, were a bluefish breaking water. At
length they reached a little nook in the seaward face, which, by often
resorting to it, they had in a manner made their own. It was a small
shelf in the rock, spacious enough for two to sit in at ease, with a
back to lean against, and at one side a bit of level ledge which served
as a stand or table. Before them was the sea, which, at high-water
mark, rose to within three yards of their feet; while from the
shoreward side they were concealed by the ascending wall of sandstone.
Drayton had brought a cushion with him, which he arranged in Mary's
seat; and when they had established themselves, he took a volume of
Emerson's poems from his pocket and laid it on the rock beside him.
"Are you comfortable?" he asked.
"Yes; I wish it would be always like this--the weather, and the sun,
and the time--so that we might stay here forever."
"Forever is the least useful word in human language," observed Drayton.
"In the perspective of time, a few hours, or days, or years, seem alike
inconsiderable."
"But it is not the same to our hearts, which live forever," she
returned.
"The life of the heart is love," said Drayton.
"And that lasts forever," said Mary Leithe.
"True love lasts, but the object changes," was his reply.
"It seems to change sometimes," said she.
"But I think it is only our perception that is misled. We think we have
found what we love; but afterward, perhaps, we find it was not in the
person we supposed, but in some other. Then we love it in him; not
because our heart has changed, but just because it has not."
"Has that been your experience?" Drayton asked, with a smile.
"Oh, I was speaking generally," she said, looking down.
"It may be the truth; but if so, it is a perilous thing to be loved."
"Perilous?"
"Why, yes. How can the lover be sure that he really is what his
mistress takes him for? After all, a man has and is nothing in himself.
His life, his love, his goodness, such as they are, flow into him from
his Creator, in such measure as he is capable or desirous of receiving
them. And he may receive more at one time than at another. How shall he
know when he may lose the talismanic virtue that won her love--even
supposing he ever possessed it?"
"I don't know how to argue," said Mary Leithe; "I can only feel when a
thing is true or not--or when I think it is--and say what I feel."
"Well, I am wise enough to trust the truth of your feeling before any
argument."
This assertion somewhat disconcerted Mary Leithe, who never liked to be
confronted with her own shadow, so to speak. However, she seemed
resolved on this occasion to give fuller utterance than usual to what
was in her mind; so, after a pause, she continued, "It is not only how
much we are capable of receiving from God, but the peculiar way in
which each one of us shows what is in him, that makes the difference in
people. It is not the talisman so much as the manner of using it that
wins a girl's love. And she may think one manner good until she comes
to know that another is better."
"And, later, that another is better still?"
"You trust my feeling less than you thought, you see," said Mary,
blushing, and with a tremor of her lips.
"Perhaps I am afraid of trusting it too much," Drayton replied, fixing
his eyes upon her. Then he went on, with a changed tone and manner:
"This metaphysical discussion of ours reminds me of one of Emerson's
poems, whose book, by-the-by, I brought with me. Have you ever read
them?"
"Very few of them," said Mary; "I don't seem to belong to them."
"Not many people can eat them raw, I imagine," rejoined Drayton,
laughing. "They must be masticated by the mind before they can nourish
the heart, and some of them--However, the one I am thinking of is very
beautiful, take it how you will. It is called, 'Give all to Love.' Do
you know it!"
Mary shook her head.
"Then listen to it," said Drayton, and he read the poem to her. "What
do you think of it?" he asked when he had ended.
"It is very short," said Mary, "and it is certainly beautiful; but I
don't understand some parts of it, and I don't think I like some other
parts."
"It is a true poem," returned Drayton; "it has a body and a soul; the
body is beautiful, but the soul is more beautiful still; and where the
body seems incomplete, the soul is most nearly perfect. Be loyal, it
says, to the highest good you know; follow it through all difficulties
and dangers; make it the core of your heart and the life of your soul;
and yet, be free of it! For the hour may always be at hand when that
good that you have lived for and lived in must be given up. And then--
what says the poet?
"'Though thou loved her as thyself,
As a self of purer clay,
Though her parting dims the day,
Stealing grace from all alive,
Heartily know,
When half-gods go,
The gods arrive.'"
There was something ominous in Drayton's tone, quiet and pleasant
though it sounded to the ear, and Mary could not speak; she knew that
he would speak again, and that his words would bring the issue finally
before her.
He shut the book and put it in his pocket. For some time he remained
silent, gazing eastward across the waves, which came from afar to break
against the rock at their feet. A small white pyramidal object stood up
against the horizon verge, and upon this Drayton's attention appeared
to be concentrated.
"If you should ever decide to come," he said at length, "and want the
services of a courier who knows the ground well, I shall be at your
disposal."
"Come where?" she said, falteringly.
"Eastward. To Europe."
"You will go with me?"
"Hardly that. But I shall be there to receive you."
"You are going back?"
"In a month, or thereabouts."
"Oh, Mr. Drayton! Why?"
"Well, for several reasons. My coming here was an experiment. It might
have succeeded, but it was made too late. I am too old for this young
country. I love it, but I can be of no service to it. On the contrary,
so far as I was anything, I should be in the way. It does not need me,
and I have been an exile so long as to have lost my right to inflict
myself upon it. Yet I am glad to have been here; the little time that I
have been here has recompensed me for all the sorrows of my life, and I
shall never forget an hour of it as long as I live."
"Are you quite sure that your country does not want you--need you?"
"I should not like my assurance to be made more sure."
"How can you know? Who has told you? Whom have you asked?"
"There are some questions which it is not wise to put; questions whose
answers may seem ungracious to give, and are sad to hear."
"But the answer might not seem so. And how can it be given until you
ask it?"
Drayton turned and looked at her. His face was losing its resolute
composure, and there was a glow in his eyes and in his cheeks that
called up an answering warmth in her own.
"Do you know where my country is?" he demanded, almost sternly.
"It is where you are loved and wanted most, is it not?" she said,
breathlessly.
"Do not deceive yourself--nor me!" exclaimed Drayton, putting out his
hand toward her, and half rising from the rock. "There is only one
thing more to say."
A sea-gull flew close by them, and swept on, and in a moment was far
away, and lost to sight. So in our lives does happiness come so near us
as almost to brush our cheeks with its wings, and then pass on, and
become as unattainable as the stars. As Mary Leithe was about to speak,
a shadow cast from above fell across her face and figure. She seemed to
feel a sort of chill from it, warm though the day was; and without
moving her eyes from Drayton's face to see whence the shadow came, her
expression underwent a subtle and sudden change, losing the fervor of a
moment before, and becoming relaxed and dismayed. But after a moment
Drayton looked up, and immediately rose to his feet, exclaiming, "Frank
Redmond!"
On the rock just above them stood a young man, dark of complexion, with
eager eyes, and a figure athletic and strong. As Drayton spoke his
name, his countenance assumed an expression half-way between pleased
surprise and jealous suspicion. Meanwhile Mary Leithe had covered her
face with her hands.
"I'm sure I'd no idea you were here, Mr. Drayton," said the young man.
"I was looking for Mary Leithe. Is that she?"
Mary uncovered her face, and rose to her feet languidly. She did not as
yet look toward Redmond, but she said in a low voice, "How do you do,
Frank? You--came so suddenly!"
"I didn't stop to think--that I might interrupt you," said he, drawing
back a little and lifting his head.
Drayton had been observing the two intently, breathing constrainedly
the while, and grasping a jutting point of rock with his hand as he
stood. He now said, in a genial and matter-of-fact voice, "Well, Master
Frank, I shall have an account to settle with you when you and my niece
have got through your first greetings."
"Mary your niece!" cried Redmond, bewildered.
"My niece by courtesy; her mother was a dear friend of mine before Mary
was born. And now it appears that she is the young lady, the dearest
and loveliest ever heard of, about whom you used to rhapsodize to me in
Dresden! Why didn't you tell me her name? By Jove, you young rogue,
I've a good mind to refuse my consent to the match! What if I had
married her off to some other young fellow, and you been left in the
lurch! However, luckily for you, I haven't been able thus far to find
any one who in my opinion--How do you do, Frank? You--came so
suddenly!"
"I didn't stop to think--that I might interrupt you," said he, drawing
back a little and lifting his head.
Drayton had been observing the two intently, breathing constrainedly
the while, and grasping a jutting point of rock with his hand as he
stood. He now said, in a genial and matter-of-fact voice, "Well, Master
Frank, I shall have an account to settle with you when you and my niece
have got through your first greetings."
"Mary your niece!" cried Redmond, bewildered.
"My niece by courtesy; her mother was a dear friend of mine before Mary
was born. And now it appears that she is the young lady, the dearest
and loveliest ever heard of, about whom you used to rhapsodize to me in
Dresden! Why didn't you tell me her name? By Jove, you young rogue,
I've a good mind to refuse my consent to the match! What if I had
married her off to some other young fellow, and you been left in the
lurch! However, luckily for you, I haven't been able thus far to find
any one who in my opinion would suit her better. Come down here and
shake hands, Frank, and then I'll leave you to make your excuses to
Miss Leithe. And the next time you come back to her after a year's
absence, don't frighten her heart into her mouth by springing out on
her like a jack-in-the-box. Send a bunch of flowers or a signet-ring to
tell her you are coming, or you may get a cooler reception than you'd
like!"
"Ah! Ambrose Drayton," he sighed to himself as he clambered down the
rocks alone, and sauntered along the shore, "there is no fool like an
old fool. Where were your eyes that you couldn't have seen what was the
matter? Her heart was fighting against itself all the time, poor child!
And you, selfish brute, bringing to bear on her all your antiquated
charms and fascinations--Heaven save the mark!--and bullying her into
the belief that you could make her happy! Thank God, Ambrose Drayton,
that your awakening did not come too late. A minute more would have
made her and you miserable for life--and Redmond too, confound him! And
yet they might have told me; one of them might have told me, surely.
Even at my age it is hard to remember one's own insignificance. And I
did love her! God knows how I loved her! I hope he loves her as much;
but how can he help it! And she--she won't remember long! An old fellow
who made believe he was her uncle, and made rather a fool of himself;
went back to Europe, and never been heard of since. Ah, me!"
"Where did you get acquainted with Mr. Drayton, Frank?"
"At Dresden. It was during the vacation at Freiberg last winter, and I
had come over to Dresden to have a good time. We stayed at the same
hotel. We played a game of billiards together, and he chatted with me
about America, and asked me about my mining studies at Freiberg; and I
thought him about the best fellow I'd ever met. But I didn't know then
--I hadn't any conception what a splendid fellow he really was. If ever
I hear anybody talking of their ideal of a gentleman, I shall ask them
if they ever met Ambrose Drayton."
"What did he do?"
"Well, the story isn't much to my credit; if it hadn't been for him,
you might never have heard of me again; and it will serve me right to
confess the whole thing to you. It's about a--woman."
"What sort of a woman?"
"She called herself a countess; but there's no telling what she really
was. I only know she got me into a fearful scrape, and if it hadn't
been for Mr. Drayton--"
"Did you do anything wrong, Frank?"
"No; upon my honor as a gentleman! If I had, Mary, I wouldn't be here
now."
Mary looked at him with a sad face. "Of course I believe you, Frank,"
she said. "But I think I would rather not hear any more about it."
"Well, I'll only tell you what Mr. Drayton did. I told him all about it
--how it began, and how it went on, and all; and how I was engaged to a
girl in America--I didn't tell him your name; and I wasn't sure, then,
whether you'd ever marry me, after all; because, you know, you had been
awfully angry with me before I went away, because I wanted to study in
Europe instead of staying at home. But, you see, I've got my diploma,
and that'll give me a better start than I ever should have had if I'd
only studied here. However--what was I saying? Oh! so he said he would
find out about the countess, and talk to her himself. And how he
managed I don't know; and he gave me a tremendous hauling over the
coals for having been such an idiot; but it seems that instead of being
a poor injured, deceived creature, with a broken heart, and all that
sort of thing, she was a regular adventuress--an old hand at it, and
had got lots of money out of other fellows for fear she would make a
row. But Mr. Drayton had an interview with her. I was there, and I
never shall forget it if I live to a hundred. You never saw anybody so
quiet, so courteous, so resolute, and so immitigably stern as he was.
And yet he seemed to be stern only against the wrong she was trying to
do, and to be feeling kindness and compassion for her all the time. She
tried everything she knew, but it wasn't a bit of use, and at last she
broke down and cried, and carried on like a child. Then Mr. Drayton
took her out of the room, and I don't know what happened, but I've
always suspected that he sent her off with money enough in her pocket
to become an honest woman with if she chose to; but he never would
admit it to me. He came back to me after a while, and told me to have
nothing more to do with any woman, good or bad except the woman I
meant to marry, and I promised him I wouldn't, and I kept my promise.
But we have him to thank for our happiness, Mary."
Tears came silently into Mary's eyes; she said nothing, but sat with
her hands clasped around one knee, gazing seaward.
"You don't seem very happy, though," pursued Redmond, after a pause;
"and you acted so oddly when I first found you and Mr. Drayton
together--I almost thought--well, I didn't know what to think. You do
love me, don't you?"
For a few moments Mary Leithe sat quite motionless, save for a slight
tremor of the nerves that pervaded her whole body; and then, all at
once, she melted into sobs. Redmond could not imagine what was the
matter with her; but he put his arms round her, and after a little
hesitation or resistance, the girl hid her face upon his shoulder, and
wept for the secret that she would never tell.
But Mary Leithe's nature was not a stubborn one, and easily adapted
itself to the influences with which she was most closely in contact.
When she and Redmond presented themselves at Aunt Corwin's cottage that
evening her tears were dried, and only a tender dimness of the eyes and
a droop of her sweet mouth betrayed that she had shed any.
"Mr. Drayton wanted to be remembered to you, Mary," observed Aunt
Corwin, shortly before going to bed. She had been floating colored sea-
weeds on paper all the time since supper, and had scarcely spoken a
dozen words.
"Has he gone?" Mary asked.
"Who? Oh, yes; he had a telegram, I believe. His trunks were to follow
him. He said he would write. I liked that man. He was not like Mr.
Haymaker; he was a gentleman. He took an interest in my collections,
and gave me several nice specimens. Your mother was a fool not to have
married him. I wish you could have married him yourself. But it was not
to be expected that he would care for a child like you, even if your
head were not turned by that Frank Redmond. How soon shall you let him
marry you?"
"Whenever he likes," answered Mary Leithe, turning away.
As a matter of fact, they were married the following winter. A week
before the ceremony a letter arrived for Mary from New York, addressed
in a legal hand. It contained an intimation that, in accordance with
the instructions of their client, Mr. Ambrose Drayton, the undersigned
had placed to her account the sum of fifty thousand dollars as a
preliminary bequest, it being the intention of Mr. Drayton to make her
his heir. There was an inclosure from Drayton himself, which Mary,
after a moment's hesitation, placed in her lover's hand, and bade him
break the seal.
It contained only a few lines, wishing happiness to the bride and
bridegroom, and hoping they all might meet in Europe, should the
wedding trip extend so far. "And as for you, my dear niece," continued
the writer, "whenever you think of me remember that little poem of
Emerson's that we read on the rocks the last time I saw you. The longer
I live the more of truth do I find in it, especially in the last verse:
"'Heartily know,
When half-gods go,
The gods arrive!'"
"What does that mean?" demanded Redmond, looking up from the letter.
"We can not know except by experience," answered Mary Leithe.