Gordon Keith Part 20

"But I believe he will be known some day. You don't know how clever and ambitious he is. He told me--"

But Mrs. Yorke had no mind to let Alice dwell on what he had told her.

He was too good an advocate.

"Stuff! I don't care what he told you! Alice, he is a perfectly unknown and untrained young--creature. All young men talk that way. He is perfectly gauche and boorish in his manner--"

"Why, mamma, he has beautiful manners!" exclaimed Alice "I heard a lady saying the other day he had the manners of a Chesterfield."

"Chester-nonsense!" exclaimed Mrs. Yorke.

"I think he has, too, mamma."

"I don't agree with you," declared Mrs. Yorke, energetically. "How would he appear in New York? Why, he wears great heavy shoes, and his neckties are something dreadful."

"His neckties are bad," admitted Alice, sadly.

Mrs. Yorke, having discovered a breach in her adversary's defences, like a good general directed her attack against it.

"He dresses horribly; he wears his hair like a--countryman; and his manners are as antiquated as his clothes. Think of him at the opera or at one of Mrs. Wentworth's receptions! He says 'madam' and 'sir' as if he were a servant."

"I got after him about that once," said the girl, reflectively. "I said that only servants said that."

"Well, what did he say?"

"Said that that proved that servants sometimes had better manners than their masters."

"Well, I must say, I think he was excessively rude!" a.s.serted Mrs.

Yorke, picking up her fan and beginning to fan rapidly.

"That's what I said; but he said he did not see how it could be rude to state a simple and impersonal fact in a perfectly respectful way."

Alice was warming up in defence and swept on.

"He said the new fashion was due to people who were not sure of their own position, and were afraid others might think them servile if they employed such terms."

"What does he know about fashion?"

"He says fashion is a temporary and shifting thing, sometimes caused by accident and sometimes made by tradesmen, but that good manners are the same to-day that they were hundreds of years ago, and that though the ways in which they are shown change, the basis is always the same, being kindness and gentility."

Mrs. Yorke gasped.

"Well, I must say, you seem to have learned your lesson!" she exclaimed.

Alice had been swept on by her memory not only of the words she was repeating, but of many conversations and interchanges of thought Gordon Keith and she had had during the past weeks, in which he had given her new ideas. She began now, in a rather low and unsteady voice, her hands tightly clasped, her eyes in her lap:

"Mamma, I believe I like him very much--better than I shall ever--"

"Nonsense, Alice! Now, I will not have any of this nonsense. I bring you down here for your health, and you take up with a perfectly obscure young countryman about whom you know nothing in the world, and--"

"I know all about him, mamma. I know he is a gentleman. His grandfather--"

"You know _nothing_ about him," a.s.serted Mrs. Yorke, rising. "You may be married to a man for years and know very little of him. How can you know about this boy? You will go back and forget all about him in a week."

"I shall never forget him, mamma," said Alice, in a low tone, thinking of the numerous promises she had made to the same effect within the past few days.

"Fiddlesticks! How often have you said that? A half-dozen times at least. There's Norman and Ferdy Wickersham and--"

"I have not forgotten them," said Alice, a little impressed by her mother's argument.

"Of course, you have not. I don't think it's right, Alice, for you to be so--susceptible and shallow. At least once every three months I have to go through this same thing. There's Ferdy Wickersham--handsome, elegant manners, very ri--with fine prospects every way, devoted to you for ever so long. I don't care for his mother, but his people are now received everywhere. Why--?"

"Mamma, I would not marry Ferdy Wickersham if he were the last man in--to save his life--not for ten millions of dollars. And he does not care for me."

"Why, he is perfectly devoted to you," insisted Mrs. Yorke.

"Ferdy Wickersham is not perfectly devoted to any one except himself--and never will be," a.s.serted Alice, vehemently. "If he ever cared for any one it is Louise Caldwell."

Mrs. Yorke shifted her ground.

"There's Norman Wentworth? One of the best--"

"Ah! I don't love Norman. I never could. We are the best of friends, but I just like and respect him."

"Respect is a very safe ground to marry on," said Mrs. Yorke, decisively. "Some people do not have even that when they marry."

"Then I am sorry for them," said Miss Alice. "But when I marry, I want to love. I think it would be a crime to marry a man you did not love.

G.o.d made us with a capacity to form ideals, and if we deliberately fall below them--"

Mrs. Yorke burst out laughing.

"Oh, stuff! That boy has filled your head with enough nonsense to last a lifetime. I would not be such a parrot. I want to finish my letter now."

Mrs. Yorke concluded her letter, and two mornings later the Yorkes took the old two-horse stage that plied between the Springs and the little grimy railway-station, ten miles away at the foot of the Ridge, and metaphorically shook the dust of Ridgely from their feet, though, from their appearance when they reached the railway, it, together with much more, must have settled on their shoulders.

The road pa.s.sed the little frame school-house, and as the stage rattled by, the young school-teacher's face changed. He stood up and looked out of the window with a curious gaze in his burning eyes. Suddenly his face lit up: a little head under a very pretty hat had nodded to him. He bowed low, and went back to his seat with a new expression. That bow chained him for years. He almost forgave her high-headed mother.

Alice bore away with her a long and tragic letter which she did not think it necessary to confide to her mother at this time, in view of the fact that the writer declared that in his present condition he felt bound to recognize her mother's right to deny his request to see her; but that he meant to achieve such success that she would withdraw her prohibition, and to return some day and lay at her feet the highest honors life could give.

A woman who has discarded a man is, perhaps, nearer loving him just afterwards than ever before. Certainly Miss Alice Yorke thought more tenderly of Gordon Keith when she found herself being borne away from him than she had ever done during the weeks she had known him.

It is said that a broken heart is a most valuable possession for a young man. Perhaps, it was so to Keith.

The rest of the session dragged wearily for him. But he worked like fury. He would succeed. He would rise. He would show Mrs. Yorke who he was.

Mrs. Yorke, having reached home, began at once to lead her daughter back to what she esteemed a healthier way of thinking than she had fallen into. This opportunity came in the shape of a college commencement with a consequent boat-race, and all the gayeties that this entailed.

Mrs. Yorke was, in her way, devoted to her daughter, and had a definite and what she deemed an exalted ambition for her. This meant that she should be the best-dressed girl in society, should be a belle, and finally should make the most brilliant marriage of her set--to wit, the wealthiest marriage. She had dreamed at times of a marriage that should make her friends wild with envy--of a t.i.tle, a high t.i.tle. Alice had beauty, style, wealth, and vivacity; she would grace a coronet, and mamma would be "Madam, the Countess's mother." But mamma encountered an unexpected obstacle.

When Mrs. Yorke, building her air-castles, casually let fall her idea of a t.i.tle for Alice, there was a sudden and unexpected storm from an unlooked-for quarter. Dennis Yorke, usually putty in his wife's hands, had two or three prejudices that were principles with him. As to these he was rock. His daughter was his idol.