Sunrise Part 42

"You said you would have your mind made up to-day with regard to the proposal I put before you," Mr. Lind observed, with a matter-of-fact air, as he drew in his chair to the small table.

Brand simply nodded, and said "Yes." He was measuring his man. He thought his manner was a good deal too suave.

"But allow me to say, my dear Mr. Brand, that, as far I am concerned, there is no hurry. Have you given yourself time? It is a matter of moment; one should consider."

"I have considered."

His tone was firm: one would have thought he had never had any hesitation at all. But his decision had not been definitely arrived at until, some quarter of an hour before, he had met Ferdinand Lind face to face.

"I may say at once that I prefer to remain in my present grade."

He was watching Lind as he spoke. There was a slight, scarcely perceptible, movement of the eyebrows; that was all. The quiet courtesy of his manner remained undisturbed.

"That is your decision, then?" he said, just as if some trifling matter had been arranged.

"Perhaps I need not bother you with my reasons," Brand continued, speaking slowly and with precision, "but there are several."

"I have no doubt you have given the subject serious consideration,"

said Mr. Lind, without expressing any further interest or curiosity.

Now this was not at all what George Brand wanted. He wanted to have his suspicions allayed or confirmed. He wanted to let this man know how he read the situation.

"One reason I may as well name to you, Mr. Lind," said he, being forced to speak more plainly. "If I were to marry, I should like to give my wife a proper home. I should not like her to marry a pauper--one dependent on the complaisance of other people. And really it has seemed to me strange that you, with your daughter's future, your daughter's interests to think of, should have made this proposal--"

Lind interrupted him with a slight deprecatory motion of the hand.

"Pardon me," said he. "Let us confine ourselves to business, if you please."

"I presume it is a man's business to provide for the future of his wife," said Brand, somewhat hotly, his pride beginning to kick against this patronizing graciousness of manner.

"I must beg of you, my dear sir," said Mr. Lind, with the same calm courtesy, "to keep private interests and projects entirely outside of this matter, which relates to the Society alone, and your duty, and the wishes of those with whom you are a.s.sociated. You have decided?--very well. I am sorry; but you are within your right."

"How can you talk like that?" said Brand, bluntly. "Sorry that your daughter is not to marry a beggar?"

"I must decline to have Natalie introduced into this subject in any way whatever," said Mr. Lind.

"Let us drop the subject, then," said Brand, in a friendly way, for he was determined to have some further enlightenment. "Now about Natalie.

May I ask you plainly if you have any objection to a marriage between her and myself?"

The answer was prompt and emphatic.

"I have every objection. I have said before that it would be inexpedient in many ways. It is not to be thought of."

Brand was not surprised by this refusal; he had expected it; he had put the question as a matter of form.

"Now one other question, Mr. Lind, and I shall be satisfied," said he, watching the face of the man opposite him with a keen scrutiny. "Was it ever your intention, at any time, to give your consent to our marriage, in any circ.u.mstances whatever?"

Ferdinand Lind was an admirable actor.

"Is it worth while discussing imaginary things--possibilities only?" he said, carelessly.

"Because, you see," continued Brand, who was not to be driven from his point, "any plain and ordinary person, looking from the outside at the whole affair, might imagine that you had been merely temporizing with me, neither giving nor refusing your consent, until I had handed over this money; and that, as you had never intended to let your daughter marry, that was the reason why you did not care whether I retained a penny of my own property or not."

Lind did not flinch for an instant; nor was there the slightest trace of surprise, or annoyance, or resentment in his look. He rose and pushed back his chair.

"Suppose we let outsiders think what they please, Mr. Brand," said he, with absolute composure. "We have more serious matters to attend to."

Brand rose also. He guessed what was coming, and he had nerved himself to face it. The whole course of this man's action was now as clear to him as noonday.

"I have been considering further the suggestion I mentioned to you the other day, that you should go over to some of the big American cities,"

said Mr. Lind, almost with an indifferent air as he turned over some papers. "We are strong there; you will find plenty of friends; but what is wanted is cohesion, arrangement, co-operation. Now you say yourself this Mr. Molyneux would be an admirable successor to you in the North?"

"None better," said Brand. This sentence of banishment had been foreseen; he knew how to encounter it when it came.

"I think, on the whole, it would be advisable then. When could you go?"

"I could start to-night," he said. But then, despite himself, a blush of embarra.s.sment mounted to his forehead, and he added quickly, "No; not to-night. The day after to-morrow."

"There is no need for any such great hurry," said Mr. Lind, with his complaisant smile. "You will want much direction, many letters. Come, shall we join your friend in the other room?"

The two men, apparently on the best of terms, went back to Molyneux, and the talk became general. George Brand, as he sat there, kept his right hand shut tight, that so he could press the ring that Natalie had given him; and when he thought of America, it was almost with a sense of relief. She would approve; he would not betray his promise to her But if only that one moment were over in which he should have to bid her farewell!

CHAPTER XXIX.

A GOOD-NIGHT MESSAGE.

Brand had nerved himself for that interview; he had determined to betray neither surprise nor concern; he was prepared for the worst. When it was intimated to him that hence-forth his life was to be lived out beyond the seas, he had appeared to take it as a matter of course. Face to face with his enemy, he would utter no protest. Then, had he not solemnly promised to Natalie that nothing in the world should tempt him from his allegiance? Why should he shrink from going to America, or prefer London to Philadelphia? He had entered into a service that took no heed of such things.

But when he had parted from Lind and Molyneux, and got out into the sombre glare of the night-world of London, and when there was no further need for that forced composure, he began more clearly to recognize his position, and his heart grew heavy. This, then, was the end of those visions of loving companionship and constant and sustaining sympathy with which he had dared to fill the future. He had thought little of anything that might be demanded from him so long as he could antic.i.p.ate Natalie's approval, and be rewarded with a single glance of grat.i.tude from the proud, dark, beautiful eyes. What mattered it to him what became of himself, what circ.u.mstances surrounded them, so long as he and she were together? But now a more terrible sacrifice than any he had dreamed of had to be made. The lady of love whom the Pilgrims had sworn to serve was proving herself inexorable indeed:

"--Is she a queen, having great gifts to give?

--Yea, these; that whoso hath seen her shall not live Except to serve her sorrowing, with strange pain, Travail and bloodshedding and bitterer tears; And when she bids die he shall surely die.

And he shall leave all things under the sky, And go forth naked under sun and rain, And work and wait and watch out all his years."

When Lord Evelyn had asked him whether he was prepared to go to America _alone_, he had clasped the ring that Natalie had given him, and answered "Yes." But that was as a matter of theory. It was what he might do, in certain possible circ.u.mstances. Now that he had to face the reality, and bethink him of the necessity of taking Natalie's hand for the last time, his heart sank within him.

He walked on blindly through the busy streets, seeing nothing around him. His memory was going over the most trivial incidents connected with Natalie, as if every look of hers, every word she had uttered, was now become something inexpressibly precious. Were there not many things he could carry away with him to the land beyond the seas? No distance or time could rob him of the remembrance of that night at the opera--the scent of white rose--her look as she gave him the forget-me-nots. Then the beautiful shining day as they drew near to Dover, and her pride about England, and the loosened curls of hair that blew about her neck.

On the very first evening on which he had seen her--she sitting at the table and bending over the zither--her profile touched by the rose-tinted light from the shade of the candle--the low, rich voice, only half heard, singing the old, familiar, tender _Lorelei_. He felt the very touch of her fingers on his arm when she turned to him with reproving eyes: "_Is that the way you answer an appeal for help?_" That poor devil of a Kirski--what had become of him? He would find out from Reitzei; and, before leaving England, would take care that something should be done for the luckless outcast. He should have cause to remember all his life-long that Natalie Lind had interfered in his behalf.

Without knowing well how he got there, Brand found himself in Curzon Street. He walked on, perhaps with some vague notion that he might meet Natalie herself, until he arrived at the house. It was quite dark; there was no light in any of the windows; Anneli had not even lit the gas-jet in the narrow hall. He turned away from the door that he felt was now barred against him forever, and walked back to Clarges Street.

Lord Evelyn was out; the man did not know when he would be home again.

So Brand turned away from that door also, and resumed his aimless wanderings, busy with those pictures of the past. At length he got down to Buckingham Street, and almost mechanically made his way toward his own rooms.