A Face Illumined Part 16

"I a.s.sure you that there is no trust in this business," said Mr.

Burleigh, emphatically. "I can't afford to indulge in sentiment, gentlemen; besides, it couldn't be any more becoming in me than in Tom Chints. I wouldn't take an unprotected, unknown female into my house if she came with a pair of wings. But Miss Burton brings letters that establish her character as a lady as truly as that of any other woman in the house. I ought to have prevented this Chints business, but then five hundred is a nice little plum, and before I pulled my slow wits together the thing was done."

"By the way, Mr. Burleigh," remarked Stanton, "I hear that the parties who are now at my friend Van Berg's table are soon to leave for the sea-sh.o.r.e. Can you give me three seats there after their departure?"

"Certainly; put you down right alongside of Miss Burton."

"Perhaps Van Berg feels that he has the first claim to so good a position?"

"No, Stanton, I shall not place a straw in your way."

"You never were a man of straw, Van. If I were seeking more than to enjoy the society of this young lady, who seems to be embodied sunshine, I would be sorry to have you place yourself in the way."

"Sunshine brought to a focus kindles even green wood," remarked Van Berg, with a significant nod at his friend.

"Well," said Mr. Burleigh, rising, "if I had not found my mate, I'd be a burr that that little woman wouldn't get rid of very easily.

Good-night, gentlemen. I'll give either one of you my blessing."

"Good-night, Van," said Stanton, also. "I'm not going to stay and listen to your absurd predictions. Neither shall I permit you to enjoy all by yourself the delicate wine of that woman's wit. When good things are pa.s.sing round, I propose to have my share. My presence can't hurt your prospects."

"And if it did, Ik, do you think me such a churl as to try to crowd you away?"

"That's magnanimous. I suppose you and my cousin can manage to keep the peace between you."

"I think the change will be far more disagreeable to Miss Mayhew than to me."

"You are very polite to say so. Good-night."

"Well," mused Van Berg, when left to himself; "I've made progress to-day after a fashion. We have been quite thoroughly introduced--in fact 'thrown together,' as fate and all her friends will have it.

I might have been weeks in gaining as much insight into her character as circ.u.mstances have given me in a few brief hours. But what a miserable revelation she has made of herself--cowardice this morning--fraud this afternoon, and cold selfishness, that can amuse itself with the mortification and misfortunes of others, this evening. This is the moral side of the picture. But when I came to 'speer' around to see whether she had any mind or real culture, the exhibition was still more pitiable. Ye G.o.ds! that a girl can live to her age and know so little that is worth knowing! She knows how to dress--that is, how to enhance her physical beauty; and that, I admit, is a great deal. As far as it goes it is well.

But of the taste of a beautiful and, at the same time, intellectual and highly cultivated woman, she has no conception; with her it is a question of flesh and blood only."

"I wonder if it will ever be otherwise? I wonder if her marvellous beauty, which is now like a budding rose, that partly conceals the worm in its heart, will soon, like the overblown flower, reveal so clearly what mars its life that scarcely anything else will be noticed. What a fate for a man--to be tied for life to a woman who will, with sure gradation, pa.s.s from at least outward beauty to utter hideousness! Beauty, in a case like this, is but a mask which time or the loathsome fingers of disease would surely strip off; and then what an object would confront the disenchanted lover!

It would be like marrying a disguised death's-head. Never before did I realize how essential is mental and moral culture to give value to mere external beauty.

"And yet she seems to have a kind of quickness and aptness. She is not wanting in womanly intuition. I still am inclined to believe she has been dwarfed by circ.u.mstances and her wretched a.s.sociations.

Her mind has been given no better means of development than the knowledge of her beauty, the general and superficial homage that it always receives, the little round of thought that centres about self, and the daily question of dress. That's narrowing the world down to a cage large enough only for a poll-parrot. If the bird within has a parrot's nature, what is the use of opening the door and showing it larks singing in the sky? I fear that's what I'm trying to do, and that I shall go back to my fall work with a meagre portfolio and a grudge against nature, for mocking me with the fairest broken promise ever made."

Chapter XIV. A Revelation.

The next day threatened to be a dreary one, for the rain fell so steadily as to make all sunny, out-of-door pleasures impossible.

Many looked abroad with faces as dismal and cloudy as the sky; for the number of those who rise above their circ.u.mstances with a cheery courage are but few. Human faces can shine, although the sun be clouded; but, as a rule, the shadow falls on the face also, and the regal spirit succ.u.mbs like a clod of earth.

The people came straggling down late to breakfast in the dark morning, and, with a childish egotism that considers only self and immediate desires, the lowering weather which meant renewed beauty and wealth to all the land, was berated as if it were a small spite against the handful of people at the Lake House. Van Berg heard Ida Mayhew exclaiming against the clouds as if this spite were aimed at herself only.

"Some of her friends might not venture from the city," she said.

"They youths are not venturesome, then," remarked Stanton, who never lost an opportunity to tease.

"Of course they don't wish to get wet," she pouted.

"And yet I'll wager any amount that they are not of the 'salt of the earth' in any scriptural sense. Well, they had better stay in town, for this would be an instance of 'much ventured, nothing gained.'"

"You remind me of a certain fox who could not say enough hard things about the grapes that were out of reach. But mark my words, Mr.

Sibley will come, if it pours."

"He wouldn't risk the spoiling of his clothes for any woman living."

"You judge him by yourself. Oh, dear, how shall I get through this long, horrible day! You men can smoke like bad chimneys through a storm, but for me there is no resource to-day, but a dull novel that I've read once before. Let me see, I'll read an hour and sleep three, and then it will be time to dress for dinner. Oh, good-morning, Mr. Van Berg," she says to the artist who had been listening to her while apparently giving close attention to Mrs.

Mayhew's interminable tirade against rainy days; "I have just been envying you gentlemen who can kill stupid hours by smoking."

"I admit that it is almost as bad as sleeping."

"I see that you have a homily prepared on improving the time, so I shall escape at once."

On the stairs she met Miss Burton, who was descending with a breezy swiftness as if she were making a charge on the general gloom and sullenness of the day.

"Good-morning, Miss Mayhew," she said; "I'm glad to see you looking so well after the severe shaking up you had yesterday. You would almost tempt one to believe that rough usage is sometimes good for us."

"I have no such belief, I a.s.sure you. Yesterday was bad enough, but to-day promises to be worse. I was going to make up a boating party, but what can one do when the water is overhead instead of under the keel?"

"Scores of things," was the cheery reply. "I'm going to have a good time."

"I'm going to sleep," said Ida, pa.s.sing on.

"Miss Burton," said Stanton, joining her at the foot of the stairs, "I perceive, even from your manner of descending to our lower world, that you are destined to vanquish the dullness of this rainy day.

Don't you wish an ally?"

"Would you be an ally, Mr. Stanton, if you saw I was destined to be vanquished?"

"Of course I would."

"Look in the parlor then. There are at least a dozen ladies already vanquished. They are oppressed by the foul-fiend, 'ennui.'

Transfer your chivalric offer to them and deliver them."

"Stanton," laughed Van Berg, "you are in honor bound to devote yourself to those oppressed ladies."

"The prospect is so dark and depressing that I shall at least cheer myself first with the light of a cigar."

"And so your chivalry will end in smoke," she said.

"Yes, Miss Burton, the smoke of battle, where you are concerned."