The Romance of a Plain Man Part 60

"Oh, I'll take care of her," said George. "Good-night."

She leaned out, touching my hand. "You'll be in bed when I come back.

Good-night."

The carriage rolled off, and entering the house I went into the library, where I worked until twelve o'clock. Then as Sally had not returned and I had a hard day ahead of me, I went upstairs to bed.

She did not wake me when she came in, and in the morning I found her sleeping quietly, with her cheek pillowed on her open palm, and a pensive smile on her lips. After breakfast, when I came up to speak to her before going out, she was sitting up in bed, in a jacket of blue satin and a lace cap, drinking her coffee.

"Did you have a good time?" I asked, kissing her. "Already you look better."

"I danced ever so many dances. Do you know, Ben, I believe it was diversion I needed. I've thought too much and I'm going to stop."

"That's right, dance on if it helps you."

"I can't get that year on Church Hill out of my mind."

"Forget it, sweetheart, it's over; forget it."

"Yes, it's over," she repeated, and then as she lay back, in her blue satin jacket, on the embroidered pillows and smiled up at me, I saw in her face a reflection of the faint wonder which was the inherited look of the Blands in regarding life.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

THE GROWING DISTANCE

The memory of this look was with me as I went, a little later, down the block to the car line, but meeting the General at the corner, all other matters were crowded out of my mind by the gravity of the news he leaned out of his buggy to impart.

"Well, it's come at last, Ben, just as I said it would," he remarked cheerfully; "Theophilus is to be sold out at four o'clock this afternoon."

"I'd forgotten all about it, General, but do you really mean you will let it come to a public auction?"

"It's the only way on G.o.d's earth to stop his extravagance. Of course I'm going to buy the house in at the end. I've given the agent orders.

Theophilus ain't going to suffer, but he's got to have a lesson and I'm the only one who can teach it. A little judicious discipline right now will make him a better and a happier man for the remainder of his life.

He's too opinionated, that's the trouble with him and always has been.

He's got some absurd idea in his head now that I ought to quit the railroad and begin watching insects. Actually brought me a microscope and some ants in a little box that he had had sent all the way from California. Wanted me to build 'em a gla.s.s house in my garden, and spend my time looking at 'em. 'Look here, Theophilus,' I said, 'I haven't come to my dotage yet, and when I get there, I'm going to take up something a little bigger than an insect. From a railroad to an ant is too long a jump."

"But this auction, General, I'm very much worried about it. You know I'd always intended to take over that mortgage, but, to tell the truth, it escaped my memory."

"Oh, leave that to me, leave that to me," responded the great man serenely. "Theophilus ain't going to suffer, but a little discipline won't do him any harm."

His plan was well laid, I saw, but the best-laid plans, as the great man himself might have informed me, are not always those that are destined to reach maturity. When I had parted from him, I fell, almost unconsciously, to scheming on my own account, and the result was that before going into my office, I looked up the real estate agent who had charge of the auction, and took over the mortgage which too great an indulgence in roses had forced upon Dr. Theophilus. In my luncheon hour I rushed up to the house, where I found Mrs. Clay, with a big wooden ladle in her hand, wandering distractedly between the outside kitchen and the little garden, where the doctor was placidly spraying his roses with a solution of kerosene oil.

"I knew it would come," said the poor lady, in tears; "no amount of preserves and pickles could support the extravagance of Theophilus. More than two years ago George Bolingbroke warned me that I should end my days in the poorhouse, and it has come at last. As for Theophilus, even the thought of the poorhouse does not appear to disturb him. He does nothing but walk around and repeat some foolish Latin verse about aequam--aequam--until I am sick of the very sound--"

When I explained to her that the auction would be postponed, at least for another century, she recovered her temper and her spirit, and observed emphatically that she hoped the lesson would do Theophilus good.

"May I go out to him now?"

"Oh, yes, you'll find him somewhere in the garden. He has just been in with a watering-pot to ask for kerosene oil."

In the centre of the gravelled walk, between the shining rows of oyster sh.e.l.ls, the doctor stood energetically spraying his roses. At the sound of my step he looked round with a tranquil face, his long white hair blowing in the breeze above his spectacles, which he wore, as usual when he was not reading, pushed up on his forehead.

"Ah, Ben, you find us afflicted, but not despondent," he observed. "Now is the time, as I just remarked to Tina a minute ago, to prove the unfailing support of a knowledge of Latin and of the poet Horace. _aequam memento_--"

"I'm afraid, doctor, I haven't time for Horace," I returned, ruthlessly cutting short his enjoyment, while the sonorous sentence still rolled in his mouth; "but I've attended to this affair of the mortgage, and you shan't be bothered again. Why on earth didn't you come to me sooner about it?"

Bending over, he plucked a rosebud with a canker at the heart, and stood meditatively surveying it. "An Anna von Diesbach," he observed, "and when perfect a most beautiful rose. The truth was, my boy, that I felt a delicacy about approaching my friends in the hour of my misfortunes. Old George I did go to in my extremity, but I fear, Ben,--I seriously fear that I have estranged old George by making him a present of a little box of ants. He imagines, I fancy, that I intended a reflection upon his intelligence. Because the ant is small, he concludes, unreasonably, that it is unworthy. On the contrary, as I endeavoured to convince him, it possesses a degree of sagacity and foresight the human being might well envy--"

"I can't stop now, doctor, I'm in too great a rush, but remember, if you ever have a few hundred dollars you'd like me to turn over for you, I'm at your service. At all events, preserve your calm soul and leave me to contend with your difficulties--"

"The word 'preserve,'" commented the doctor, "though used in a different and less practical sense, reminds me of Tina. She has sacrificed her peace of mind to preserves, as I told her this morning. Even I should find it impossible to maintain an equable character, if I lived in the atmosphere of a stove and devoted my energies to a kettle. One's occupation has, without doubt, a marked influence upon one's att.i.tude towards the universe. This was in my thoughts entirely when I suggested to a man of old George's headstrong and undisciplined nature that he would do well to investigate the habits of a sober and industrious insect like the ant. He has led an improvident life, and I thought that as he neared his end, whatever would promote a philosophic cast of mind would inevitably benefit his declining years--"

"He doesn't like to be reminded that they are declining, doctor, that's the trouble," I returned, as I shook hands hurriedly, and went on down the gravelled walk between the oyster sh.e.l.ls to the gate that opened, beyond the currant bushes, out into the street.

My readjustment of the doctor's affairs had occupied no small part of my working day, and it was even later than usual when I arrived at home, too tired to consider dressing for dinner. At the door old Esdras announced that Sally had already gone to dine with Bonny Marshall, and would go to the theatre afterwards.

"Was she alone, Esdras?"

"Naw, suh, Ma.r.s.e George he done come fur her en ca'ried her off."

"Well, I'll dine just as I am, and as soon as it's ready."

The house was empty and deserted without Sally, and the perfume of a mimosa tree, which floated in on the warm breeze as I entered the drawing-room, came to me like the sweet, vague scent of her hair and her gown. A dim light burned under a pink shade in one corner, and so quiet appeared the quaint old room, with its faded cashmere rugs and its tapestried furniture, that the eyes of the painted Blands and Fairfaxes seemed alive as they looked down on me from the high white walls. From his wire cage, shrouded in a silk cover, the new canary piped a single enquiring note as he heard my step.

I dined alone, waited on in a paternal, though condescending, manner by old Esdras, and when I had finished my coffee I sat for a few minutes with a cigar on the porch, where the branches of the mimosa tree in full bloom drooped over the white railing. While I sat there, I thought drowsily of many things--of the various financial schemes in which I was now involved; of the big railroad deal which I had refused to shirk and which meant possible millions; of the fact that the General was rapidly aging, and had already spoken of resigning the presidency of the Great South Midland and Atlantic. Then there flashed before me suddenly, in the midst of my business reflections, the look with which Sally had regarded me that morning while she lay, in her blue satin jacket, on the embroidered pillows.

"How alike all the Blands are," I thought sleepily, as I threw the end of my cigar out into the garden and rose to go upstairs to bed; "I never noticed until of late how much Sally is growing to resemble her Aunt Matoaca."

At midnight, after two hours' restless sleep, I awoke to find her standing before the bureau, in a gown of silver gauze, which gave her an illusive appearance of being clothed in moonlight. When I called her, and she turned and came toward me, I saw that there was a brilliant, unnatural look in her face, as though she had been dancing wildly or were in a fever. And this brilliancy seemed only to accentuate the sharpened lines of her features, with their suggestion of delicacy, of a too transparent fineness.

"You were asleep, Ben. I am sorry I waked you," she said.

"What is the matter, you are so flushed?" I asked.

"It was very warm in the theatre. I shan't go again until autumn."

"I don't believe you are well, dear. Isn't it time for you to get out of the city?"

Her arms were raised to unfasten the pearl necklace at her throat, and while I watched her face in the mirror, I saw that the flush suddenly left it and it grew deadly white.

"It's that queer pain in my back," she said, sinking into a chair, and hiding her eyes in her hands. "It comes on like this without warning.

I've had it ever--ever since that year on Church Hill."

In an instant I was beside her, catching her in my arms as she swayed toward me.