His Sombre Rivals Part 6

"Please make my adieus to Miss St. John, and say I called to present them in person, but it seemed she had retired with the birds. The colored divinity informed me that she was 'po'ful tired,' and I hope you will express my regret that the day proved so exceedingly wearisome." Mrs. Mayburn lifted her keen gray eyes to her nephew's face, and a slow rising flush appeared under her scrutiny. Then she said gently, "That's a long speech, Alford, but I don't think it expresses your meaning. If I give your cordial good-by to Grace and tell her that you hope soon to see her again, shall I not better carry out your wishes?"

"Yes," was the grave and candid reply.

"I believe you are in earnest now."

"I am, indeed," he replied, almost solemnly, and with these vague yet significant words they came to an understanding.

Three days elapsed, and still Graham's business was not completed. In his impatience he left it unfinished and returned. How his heart bounded as he saw the familiar cottage! With hasty steps he pa.s.sed up the path from the street. It was just such another evening as that which had smiled upon his first coming to his aunt's residence, only now there was summer warmth in the air, and the richer, fuller promise of the year. The fragrance that filled the air, if less delicate, was more penetrating, and came from flowers that had absorbed the sun's strengthening rays. If there was less of spring's ecstasy in the song of the birds, there was now in their notes that which was in truer accord with Graham's mood.

At a turn of the path he stopped short, for on the rustic seat beneath the apple-tree he saw Miss St. John reading a letter; then he went forward to greet her, almost impetuously, with a glow in his face and a light in his eyes which no one had ever seen before. She rose to meet him, and there was an answering gladness in her face which made her seem divine to him.

"You are welcome," she said cordially. "We have all missed you more than we dare tell you;" and she gave his hand a warm, strong pressure.

The cool, even-pulsed man, who as a boy had learned to hide his feelings, was for a moment unable to speak. His own intense emotion, his all-absorbing hope, blinded him to the character of her greeting, and led him to give it a meaning it did not possess. She, equally preoccupied with her one thought, looked at him for a moment in surprise, and then cried, "He has told you--has written?"

"He! who?" Graham exclaimed with a blanching face.

"Why, Warren Hilland, your friend. I told you I would tell you, but I could not before I told him," she faltered.

He took an uncertain step or two to the tree, and leaned against it for support.

The young girl dropped the letter and clasped her hands in her distress. "It was on the drive--our return, you remember," she began incoherently. "You asked where my thoughts were, and I said I would tell you soon. Oh! we have both been blind. I am so--so sorry."

Graham's face and manner had indeed been an unmistakable revelation, and the frank, generous girl waited for no conventional acknowledgment before uttering what was uppermost in her heart.

By an effort which evidently taxed every atom of his manhood, Graham gained self-control, and said quietly, "Miss St. John, I think better of myself for having loved you. If I had known! But you are not to blame. It is I who have been blind, for you have never shown other than the kindly regard which was most natural, knowing that I was Hilland's friend. I have not been frank either, or I should have learned the truth long ago. I disguised the growing interest I felt in you from the first, fearing I should lose my chance if you understood me too early.

I am Hilland's friend. No one living now knows him better than I do, and from the depths of my heart I congratulate you. He is the best and truest man that ever lived."

"Will you not be my friend, also?" she faltered.

He looked at her earnestly as he replied, "Yes, for life."

"You will feel differently soon," said the young girl, trying to smile rea.s.suringly. "You will see that it has all been a mistake, a misunderstanding; and when your friend returns we will have the merriest, happiest times together."

"Could you soon feel differently?" he asked.

"Oh! why did you say that?" she moaned, burying her face in her hands.

"If you will suffer even in a small degree as I should!"

Her distress was so evident and deep that he stood erect and stepped toward her. "Why are you so moved, Miss St. John?" he asked. "I have merely paid you the highest compliment within my power."

Her hands dropped from her face, and she turned away, but not so quickly as to hide the tears that dimmed her l.u.s.trous eyes. His lip quivered for a moment at the sight of them, but she did not see this.

"You have merely paid me a compliment," she repeated in a low tone.

The lines of his mouth were firm now, his face grave and composed, and in his gray eyes only a close observer might have seen that an indomitable will was resuming sway. "Certainly," he continued, "and such compliments you have received before and would often again were you free to receive them. I cannot help remembering that there is nothing unique in this episode."

She turned and looked at him doubtingly, as she said with hesitation, "You then regard your--your--"

"My vacation experience," he supplied.

Her eyes widened in what resembled indignant surprise, and her tones grew a little cold and constrained as she again repeated his words.

"You then regard your experience as a vacation episode."

"Do not for a moment think I have been insincere," he said, with strong emphasis, "or that I should not have esteemed it the chief honor of my life had I been successful--"

"As to that," she interrupted, "there are so many other honors that a man can win."

"a.s.suredly. Pardon me, Miss St. John, but I am sure you have had to inflict similar disappointments before. Did not the men survive?"

The girl broke out into a laugh in which there was a trace of bitterness. "Survive!" she cried. "Indeed they did. One is already married, and another I happen to know is engaged. I'm sure I'm glad, however. Your logic is plain and forcible, Mr. Graham, and you relieve my mind greatly. Men must be different from women."

"Undoubtedly."

"What did you mean by asking me, 'Could you soon feel differently?'"

He hesitated a moment and flushed slightly, then queried with a smile, "What did you mean by saying that I should soon learn to feel differently, and that when Hilland returned we should have the merriest times together?"

It was her turn now to be confused now; and she saw that her words were hollow, though spoken from a kindly impulse.

He relieved her by continuing: "You probably spoke from an instinctive estimate of me. You remembered what a cool and wary suitor I had been.

Your father would say that I had adopted an-army-of-observation tactics, and I might have remembered that such armies rarely accomplish much. I waited for you to show some sign of weakness, and now you see that I am deservedly punished. It is ever best to face the facts as they are."

"You appear frank, Mr. Graham, and you certainly have not studied philosophy in vain."

"Why should I not take a philosophical view of the affair? In my policy, which I thought so safe and astute, I blundered. If from the first I had manifested the feeling"--the young girl smiled slightly at the word--"which you inspired, you would soon have taught me the wisdom of repressing its growth. Thus you see that you have not the slightest reason for self-censure; and I can go on my way, at least a wiser man."

She bowed gracefully, as she said with a laugh, "I am now beginning to understand that Mr. Graham can scarcely regret anything which adds to his stores of wisdom, and certainly not so slight an 'affair' as a 'vacation episode.' Now that we have talked over this little misunderstanding so frankly and rationally, will you not join us at whist to-night?"

"Certainly. My aunt and I will come over as usual."

Her brow contracted in perplexity as she looked searchingly at him for a moment; but his face was simply calm, grave, and kindly in its expression, and yet there was something about the man which impressed her and even awed her--something unseen, but felt by her woman's intuition. It must be admitted that it was felt but vaguely at the time; for Grace after all was a woman, and Graham's apparent philosophy was not altogether satisfactory. It had seemed to her as the interview progressed that she had been surprised into showing a distress and sympathy for which there was no occasion--that she had interpreted a cool, self-poised man by her own pa.s.sionate heart and boundless love.

In brief, she feared she had been sentimental over an occasion which Graham, as he had suggested, was able to view philosophically. She had put a higher estimate on his disappointment than he, apparently; and she had too much of her father's spirit, and too much womanly pride not to resent this, even though she was partially disarmed by this very disappointment, and still more so by his self-accusation and his tribute to Hilland. But that which impressed her most was something of which she saw no trace in the calm, self-controlled man before her. As a rule, the soul's life is hidden, except as it chooses to reveal itself; but there are times when the excess of joy or suffering cannot be wholly concealed, even though every muscle is rigid and the face marble. Therefore, although there were no outward signals of distress, Graham's agony was not without its influence on the woman before him, and it led her to say, gently and hesitatingly, "But you promised to be my friend, Mr. Graham."

His iron will almost failed him, for he saw how far removed she was from those women who see and know nothing save that which strikes their senses. He had meant to pique her pride as far as he could without offence, even though he sank low in her estimation; but such was the delicacy of her perceptions that she half divined the trouble he sedulously strove to hide. He felt as if he could sit down and cry like a child over his immeasurable loss, and for a second feared he would give way. There was in his eyes a flash of anger at his weakness, but it pa.s.sed so quickly that she could scarcely note, much less interpret it.

Then he stepped forward in a friendly, hearty way, and took her hand as he said: "Yes, Miss St. John, and I will keep my promise. I will be your friend for life. If you knew my relations to Hilland, you could not think otherwise. I shall tell him when we meet of my first and characteristic siege of a woman's heart, of the extreme and prudent caution with which I opened my distant parallels, and how, at last, when I came within telescopic sight of the prize, I found that he had already captured it. My course has been so perfectly absurd that I must laugh in spite of myself;" and he did laugh so naturally and genially that Grace was constrained to join him, although the trouble and perplexity did not wholly vanish from her eyes.

"And now," he concluded, "that I have experienced my first natural surprise, I will do more than sensibly accept the situation. I congratulate you upon it as no one else can. Had I a sister I would rather that she married Hilland than any other man in the world. We thus start on the right basis for friendship, and there need be no awkward restraint on either side. I must now pay my respects to my aunt, or I shall lose not only her good graces but my supper also;" and with a smiling bow he turned and walked rapidly up the path, and disappeared within Mrs. Mayburn's open door.

Grace looked after him, and the perplexed contraction of her brow deepened. She picked up Hilland's letter, and slowly and musingly folded it. Suddenly she pressed a fervent kiss upon it, and murmured: "Thank G.o.d, the writer of this has blood in his veins; and yet--and yet--he looked at first as if he had received a mortal wound, and--and--all the time I felt that he suffered. But very possibly I am crediting him with that which would be inevitable were my case his."

With bowed head she returned slowly and thoughtfully through the twilight to her home.

CHAPTER X