Vashti Part 17

When she had folded the letters and sealed them with his favorite emerald signet,--bearing the words, "_Frangas non Flectes_,"--Salome looked up, and asked,--

"How old is your ward, Miss Manton?"

"About your age,--though she looks much more childish."

"Pretty, of course?"

"Why 'of course'?"

"Simply because in novels they are always painted as pretty as Persephone; and the only wards I ever knew happen to be fict.i.tious characters."

"Novels are by no means infallible mirrors of nature, and few wards are as attractive as my black-eyed pet. Muriel will be very handsome, I hope, when she is grown; but now she impresses me as merely sweet, piquant, and pretty."

"Did you know her prior to your recent visit?"

"Yes; her father's house was my home whenever I chanced to be in New York, and I have seen her, occasionally, since she was a little girl.

For your sake, as well as mine, I am glad she will reside here, because I hope she will prove in every respect a pleasant companion for you."

"Thank you; but, unfortunately, that is one luxury of which I never felt the need, and with which, permit me to tell you, I can readily dispense. I have little respect for women, and no desire to be wearied with their inane garrulity."

She leaned back in her chair, and tapped restlessly with the end of the pen-staff on the morocco-covered table.

Dr. Grey looked down steadily and gravely into her provokingly defiant face, and replied very coldly,--

"Were I in your place, I think I should jealously guard my lips from the hasty utterance of sentiments that, if unfeigned, ought to bring a blush to every true woman's cheek; for I fear that she who has no respect for her own s.e.x bids fair to disgrace it."

A scarlet wave rolled up from throat to temples, and the lurking yellow gleamed in her eyes, but the bend of her nostril and curve of her lips did not relax.

"Which is preferable, hypocrisy or irreverence?"

"Both are unpardonable, in a woman."

"Where is your vast charity, Dr. Grey?"

"Busy in sheltering that lofty ideal of genuine female perfection which you seem so pertinaciously ambitious to sully and degrade."

"You are harsh, and scarcely courteous."

"You will never find me less so when you vauntingly exhibit such mournful blemishes of character."

"At least, sir, I am honest, and show myself just what G.o.d saw fit to allow misfortune to make me."

"Hush, Salome! Do not add impiousness to the long catalogue of your sinful follies. I hoped that there was a favorable change in you before I left home, but I very much fear that, instead of exorcising the one evil spirit that possessed you, you have swept, and garnished, and settled yourself comfortably with seven new ones."

"And, like R. Chaim Vital, you come to p.r.o.nounce _Nidui!_ and banish my diabolical guests. If cauterization cures moral ulcers as effectually as those that afflict the flesh, then, verily, you intend I shall be clean and whole. You are losing patience with your graceless neophyte."

"Yes, Salome; because forced to lose faith in her inclination and capacity to sublimate her erring nature. Once for all, let me say that habitual depreciation of your own s.e.x will not elevate you in the estimation of mine; for, however fallen you may find mankind, they nevertheless realize amid their degradation that,--

''Tis somewhat to have known, albeit in vain, One woman in this sorrowful, bad earth, Whose very loss can yet bequeath to pain New faith in worth.'"

There was no taunt, no bitterness, in his voice; but grievous disappointment, too deep for utterance; and the girl winced under it, though only the flush burning on cheek and brow attested her vulnerability.

"Remember, sir, that humanity was not moulded entirely from one stratum of pipe-clay. Only a few wear paint, enamelling, and gold as delicate costly Sevres; and, while the majority are only coa.r.s.e pottery, it is scarcely kind--certainly not generous--in dainty, transparent china, belonging to king's palaces, to pity or denounce the humble Delft or Wedgewoodware doing duty in laborer's cottages."

"Very true, my poor little warped, blotched bit of perverse pottery; but of one vital truth permit me to a.s.sure you: the purity and elevation of our race depend upon preserving inviolate in the hearts of men a belief that women's natures are crystalline as that celebrated gla.s.s once made at Murano, which was so exceedingly fine and delicate that it burst into fragments if poison was poured into it."

"Then, obviously, I am no Venetian goblet; else long ago I should have shattered under the bitter, black juices poured by fate. It seems I am not worthy to touch the lips of doges and grand dukes; but let them look to it that some day, when spent and thirsty, they stretch not their regal hands for the common clay that holds what all their costly, dainty fragments can never yield. _Nous verrons!_ 'The stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner.'"

Dr. Grey had resumed his walk, but the half-suppressed, pa.s.sionate protest, whose underswell began to agitate her voice, arrested his attention, and he came to the table and stood close to the orphan.

"What is the matter with my headstrong young friend?"

She made no answer; but her elfish eyes sought his, and braved their quiet rebuke.

"This is the last opportunity I shall offer you to tell me frankly what troubles you. Can I help you in any way? If so, command me."

"Once you could have helped me, but that time has pa.s.sed."

"Perhaps not. Try me."

"It is too late. You have lost faith in me."

"No; you have lost all faith in yourself, if you ever indulged any,--which I very much doubt. It is you who are faithless concerning your own defective character."

"Not I, indeed! I know it rather too well, either to set it aloft for adoration or to trample it in the mire. When your faith in me expired, mine was born. Do you recollect that beautiful painted window in Lincoln Cathedral which the untutored fingers of an apprentice fashioned out of the despised bits of gla.s.s rejected by the fastidious master-builder? It is so vastly superior to every other in the church that the vanquished artist could not survive the chagrin and mortification, and killed himself. My faith is very strong, that, please G.o.d, I shall some day show you similar handiwork."

"You grow enigmatical, and I do not fully understand you."

"No; you do not in the least comprehend me. The girl whom you left six months ago has changed in many respects."

"For better, or for worse?"

"Perhaps neither one nor yet the other; but, at least, sir, 'my future will not copy fair my past.'"

"Since my return, I have noticed an alteration in your deportment, which, I regret to say, I cannot consider an improvement; and I should feel inclined to attribute your restless impatience to nervous disease were I not a.s.sured by your appearance that you are in perfect health.

Remember, that quietude of manner const.i.tutes a woman's greatest charm; and, unfortunately, you seem almost a mimic maelstrom. But, pardon me, I did not intend to lecture you; and, hoping all things, I will patiently wait for the future that you seem to have dedicated to some special object. I will try to have faith in my perverse little friend, though she sometimes renders it a difficult task. May I trouble you to stamp those letters?"

He could not a.n.a.lyze the change that pa.s.sed swiftly across her face, nor the emotion that made her suddenly clinch her hands till the rosy nails grew purple.

"Dr. Grey, don't you believe that if Judas Iscariot had only resisted the temptation of the thirty pieces of silver, and stood by his master instead of betraying him, that his position in heaven would have been far more exalted than that of Peter, or even of John?"

"That is a question which I have never pondered, and am not prepared to discuss. Why do you propound it?"

She did not answer immediately; and, when she spoke, her glittering eyes softened in their expression, and resembled stars rising through the golden mist of lingering sunset splendor.

"G.o.d gave you a n.o.bler heart than mine, and left it an easy, pleasant matter for you to be good; while, struggle as I may, I am constantly in danger of tumbling into some slough of iniquity, or setting up false G.o.ds for my soul to bow down to. Because it is so much more difficult for me to do right than for you, it is only just that my reward should be correspondingly greater."

"I am neither John nor Peter, nor are you Judas; and only He who knows our mutual faults and follies, our triumphs and defeats in the life-long campaign with sin, can judge us equitably. I am too painfully conscious of my own imperfections not to sympathize earnestly with the temptations that may a.s.sail you; and, moreover, we should never lose sight of the fact,--