The Complete Writings of Charles Dudley Warner Part 124

"Very much. All Americans want to go to Washington. It is the great social opportunity; everybody there is in society. You will be able to see there, Mr. Lyon, how a republican democracy manages social life.

"Do you mean to say there are no distinctions?"

"Oh, no; there are plenty of official distinctions, and a code that is very curious and complicated, I believe. But still society is open."

"It must be--pardon me--a good deal like a mob."

"Well, our mobs of that sort are said to be very well behaved. Mr. Morgan says that Washington is the only capital in the world where the principle of natural selection applies to society; that it is there shown for the first time that society is able to take care of itself in the free play of democratic opportunities."

"It must be very interesting to see that."

"I hope you will find it so. The resident diplomats, I have heard, say that they find society there more agreeable than at any other capital--at least those who have the qualities to make themselves agreeable independent of their rank."

"Is there nothing like a court? I cannot see who sets the mode."

"Officially there may be something like a court, but it can be only temporary, for the personnel of it is dissolved every four years. And society, always forming and reforming, as the voters of the republic dictate, is almost independent of the Government, and has nothing of the social caste of Berlin or London."

"You make quite an ideal picture."

"Oh, I dare say it is not at all ideal; only it is rather fluid, and interesting, to see how society, without caste and subject to such constant change, can still be what is called 'society.' And I am told that while it is all open in a certain way, it nevertheless selects itself into agreeable groups, much as society does elsewhere. Yes, you ought to see what a democracy can do in this way."

"But I am told that money makes your aristocracy here."

"Very likely rich people think they are an aristocracy. You see, Mr.

Lyon, I don't know much about the great world. Mrs. Fletcher, whose late husband was once a Representative in Washington, says that life is not nearly so simple there as it used to be, and that rich men in the Government, vying with rich men who have built fine houses and who live there permanently without any Government position, have introduced an element of expense and display that interferes very much with the natural selection of which Mr. Morgan speaks. But you will see. We are all right sorry to have you leave us," Margaret added, turning towards him with frank, unclouded eyes.

"It is very good in you to say so. I have spent here the most delightful days of my life."

"Oh, that is charming flattery. You will make us all very conceited."

"Don't mock me, Miss Debree. I hoped I had awakened something more valuable to me than conceit," Lyon said, with a smile.

"You have, I a.s.sure you: grat.i.tude. You have opened quite another world to us. Reading about foreign life does not give one at all the same impression of it that seeing one who is a part of it does."

"And don't you want to see that life for yourself? I hope some time--"

"Of course," Margaret said, interrupting; "all Americans expect to go to Europe. I have a friend who says she should be mortified if she reached heaven and there had to confess that she never had seen Europe. It is one of the things that is expected of a person. Though you know now that the embarra.s.sing question that everybody has to answer is, 'Have you been to Alaska?' Have you been to Alaska, Mr. Lyon?"

This icy suggestion seemed very inopportune to Lyon. He rose and walked a step or two, and stood by the fire facing her. He confessed, looking down, that he had not been in Alaska, and he had no desire to go there.

"In fact, Miss Debree," he said, with effort at speaking lightly, "I fear I am not in a geographical mood today. I came to say good-by, and--and--"

"Shall I call my aunt?" said Margaret, rising also.

"No, I beg; I had something to say that concerns us; that is, that concerns myself. I couldn't go away without knowing from you--that is, without telling you--"

The color rose in Margaret's cheek, and she made a movement of embarra.s.sment, and said, with haste: "Some other time; I beg you will not say--I trust that I have done nothing that--"

"Nothing, nothing," he went on quickly; "nothing except to be yourself; to be the one woman"--he would not heed her hand raised in a gesture of protest; he stood nearer her now, his face flushed and his eyes eager with determination--"the one woman I care for. Margaret, Miss Debree, I love you!"

Her hand that rested on the table trembled, and the hot blood rushed to her face, flooding her in an agony of shame, pleasure, embarra.s.sment, and anger that her face should contradict the want of tenderness in her eyes.

In an instant self-possession came back to her mind, but not strength to her body, and she sank into the chair, and looking up, with only pity in her eyes, said, "I am sorry."

Lyon stopped; his heart seemed to stand still; the blood left his face; for an instant the sunshine left the world. It was a terrible blow, the worst a man can receive--a bludgeon on the head is nothing to it. He half turned, he looked again for an instant at the form that was more to him than all the world besides, unable to face the dreadful loss, and recovering speech, falteringly said, "Is that all?"

"That is all, Mr. Lyon," Margaret answered, not looking up, and in a voice that was perfectly steady.

He turned to go mechanically, and pa.s.sed to the door in a sort of daze, forgetful of all conventionality; but habit is strong, and he turned almost immediately back from the pa.s.sage. Margaret was still sitting, with no recognition of his departure.

"I beg you will make my excuses, and say good-by to Miss Forsythe. I had mentioned it to her. I thought perhaps she had told you, perhaps--I should like to know if it is anything about difference in--in nationality, about family, or--"

"No, no," said Margaret; "this could never be anything but a personal question with me. I--"

"But you said, 'some other time:' Might I ever expect--"

"No, no; there is no other time; do not go on. It can only be painful."

And then, with a forced cheerfulness: "You will no doubt thank me some day. Your life must be so different from mine. And you must not doubt my esteem, my appreciation," (her sense of justice forced this from her), "my good wishes. Good-by." She gave him her hand. He held it for a second, and then was gone.

She heard his footstep, rapid and receding. So he had really gone! She was not sorry--no. If she could have loved him! She sank back in her chair.

No, she could not love him. The man to command her heart must be of another type. But the greatest experience in a woman's life had come to her here, just now, in this commonplace room. A man had said he loved her. A thousand times as a girl she had dreamed of that, hardly confessing it to herself, and thought of such a scene, and feared it. And a man had said that he loved her. Her eyes grew tenderer and her face burned at the thought. Was it with pleasure? Yes, and with womanly pain.

What an awful thing it was! Why couldn't he have seen? A man had said he loved her. Perhaps it was not in her to love any one. Perhaps she should live on and on like her aunt Forsythe. Well, it was over; and Margaret roused herself as her aunt entered the room.

"Has Mr. Lyon been here?"

"Yes; he has just gone. He was so sorry not to see you and say good-by.

He left ever so many messages for you."

"And" (Margaret was moving as if to go) "did he say nothing--nothing to you?"

"Oh yes, he said a great deal," answered this accomplished hypocrite, looking frankly in her aunt's eyes. "He said how delightful his visit had been, and how sorry he was to go."

"And nothing else, Margaret?"

"Oh yes; he said he was going to Washington." And the girl was gone from the room.

VI

Margaret hastened to her chamber. Was the air oppressive? She opened the window and sat down by it. A soft south wind was blowing, eating away the remaining patches of snow; the sky was full of fleecy clouds. Where do these days come from in January? Why should nature be in a melting mood?

Margaret instinctively would have preferred a wild storm, violence, anything but this elemental languor. Her emotion was incredible to herself.

It was only an incident. It had all happened in a moment, and it was over. But it was the first of the kind in a woman's life. The thrilling, mysterious word had been dropped into a woman's heart. Hereafter she would be changed. She never again would be as she was before. Would her heart be hardened or softened by the experience? She did not love him; that was clear. She had done right; that was clear. But he had said he loved her. Unwittingly she was following him in her thought. She had rejected plain John Lyon, amiable, intelligent, unselfish, kindly, deferential. She had rejected also the Earl of Chisholm, a conspicuous position, an honorable family, luxury, a great opportunity in life. It came to the girl in a flash. She moved nervously in her chair. She put down the thought as unworthy of her. But she had entertained it for a moment. In that second, ambition had entered the girl's soul. She had a glimpse of her own nature that seemed new to her. Was this, then, the meaning of her restlessness, of her charitable activities, of her unconfessed dreams of some career? Ambition had entered her soul in a definite form. She expelled it. It would come again in some form or other. She was indignant at herself as she thought of it. How odd it was!

Her privacy had been invaded. The even tenor of her life had been broken.

Henceforth would she be less or more sensitive to the suggestion of love, to the allurements of ambition? Margaret tried, in accordance with her nature, to be sincere with herself.

After all, what nonsense it was! Nothing really had happened. A stranger of a few weeks before had declared himself. She did not love him; he was no more to her than any other man. It was a common occurrence. Her judgment accorded with her feeling in what she had done. How was she to know that she had made a mistake, if mistake it was? How was she to know that this hour was a crisis in her life? Surely the little tumult would pa.s.s; surely the little whisper of worldliness could not disturb her ideals. But all the power of exclusion in her mind could not exclude the returning thought of what might have been if she had loved him. Alas! in that moment was born in her heart something that would make the idea of love less simple than it had been in her mind. She was heart-free, but her nature was too deep not to be profoundly affected by this experience.