Vassall Morton Part 14

"Why should they be more ignorant of it than women?"

"Because they are commonly given over to practicalities, mixed hopelessly with rivalries and ambitions. Even in their highest pursuits, they propose to themselves some definite point to be gained, some object to be achieved; but women are left to the world of their own minds--there they can expatiate at will."

"That is a dangerous privilege."

"They have leisure to muse on the joys and troubles of life, and explore depths which we bridge over."

"Either your mind has very much changed, or I have very much mistaken it. Pardon me, but I fancied that you were like Iago, 'nothing if not critical;' or at least that you sympathized with his slanderous opinions of womankind."

"Heaven forbid! What treasonable thought did you suppose me to harbor against the better part of humanity?"

"At all events, I never supposed you to believe that the better part of humanity pa.s.sed their leisure time in metaphysical reveries and abstruse meditations."

"You were speaking, just now, of ideals. May not I have mine?"

"So your ideal woman is a transcendental philosopher, seated in the midst of your undiscovered cloudland."

"Deliver me from such a one! My ideal is full of thought and of feeling; but no one yet ever dreamed of branding her as a philosopher.

But why did you think me so very critical? I am hardly old enough yet to make an Iago or a Rochefoucault."

"And yet you used always to have some saying of Rochefoucault at your tongue's end."

"I detest him, nevertheless, for a French Mephistopheles,--and all his tribe with him."

"When I said as much, you always told me that his sayings had a great deal of truth in them."

"And have they not a great deal of truth?"

"I cannot pretend to know mankind well enough to answer; but I sincerely hope, not much. Life would be worse than a blank if men and women were what he represents them to be."

"I think not; for if one cannot learn to be enthusiastic in regard to the actualities of human nature, he can console himself by a boundless faith in its possibilities. And now and then, thank G.o.d,--Rochefoucault to the contrary notwithstanding,--one finds the possibility realized."

His companion made no reply; and Morton stood for a moment with his eyes bent upon her face, which, to his enamoured fancy, seemed to reflect the calm beauty of the landscape on which she was gazing. He thought of f.a.n.n.y Euston; he recalled his last evening's conversation with her, and felt blindly impelled to give some form of expression to the feeling which began to master him.

"Miss Leslie, were you ever in a storm at sea?"

"Yes, in a slight one; but the ship was strong; there was very little danger."

"Then you were never flung about, as I have been, in an indifferent egg sh.e.l.l of a craft, out of sight of land, at the mercy of winds and waves."

"I did not know that you had been at sea. Ah, yes, you were at school in France, when you were a boy--were you not?"

"Yes; but this happened since I have become a man, and not long ago. I think I shall never forget it. The sun was bright at one moment, and all was black as a hurricane the next. The wind came from every point of the compa.s.s--always shifting, never resting. I had not an instant's peace. It was all watching--all anxiety--and yet there was a kind of pleasure in it. If I had had wings, I doubt if I should have found heart to use them. It was a strange gale. It blew hot and cold by fits; I thought I should lose my reckoning altogether, and be blown away, body and soul."

"Really, I cannot imagine where your tempest is going to carry you."

"Nor could I; when, of a sudden, I found myself safe on sh.o.r.e. My good star led me to a place beautiful as the May sunshine could make it; a scene where art and nature were blended so harmoniously, that they seemed to have grown together from the same birth; full of repose, and tranquil, graceful power; such a scene, in short, as made me wish that Nature would embody herself in a visible form, that I might swear homage to her forever."

Had an interpreter been needed, Morton's look and voice must have betrayed, at least, some part of his meaning. The color deepened slightly on his companion's cheek, but she replied, without any further sign of consciousness,--

"I never knew that you were quite so ardent a votary of nature. You had better put your emotions into verse, and sell them to the magazines, after the true poetic custom. In a little time, I don't doubt, Dr. Griswold would find a place for you in his constellation of poets."

"Ah," said Morton, "it is cruel of you to fling cold water on my rhapsodies. But my flight is over. And now I will try my best to gain the esteem in your eyes of a man of sense and a sound mind."

"And now those night-hawks over head are beginning to tell us that we had better go back to the railroad. I suppose you will place it among the other frailties of women; but I cannot help being a little afraid that if we stay longer, that crippled train will run away and leave us behind."

"Then good night to the Diamond Pool," said Morton, as they left the place. "I shall not forget it; I owe it double thanks. It has shown me a pretty landscape, and made me a wiser man."

"I can hardly see how that may be."

"It has taught me not to speak too earnestly with my friend, lest she should banter me; and by no means to be drawn into any absurdity, lest she should laugh at me outright."

"Do you mean that you thought that I laughed at you?"

"Did you not?"

"If I gave you cause to think that I did, I can only say, frankly and heartily, that I am very sorry for it."

"Now I am emboldened to be absurd again, and speak more parables. I have found a locked-up treasure--a sealed fountain. I long to open it, but cannot."

"Your figures are too deep for me. I can make nothing of them."

"Then I will sink to plain prose. I have a friend whose heart is full of warm feeling and earnest thought; but, out of reserve, or Heaven knows what, she will express it to n.o.body but one or two intimate companions. She tantalizes the rest with a bantering word; and sometimes, when she is most in earnest, she seems to be most in jest.

But why do you smile?"

"Ask your friend Mr. Sharpe. He is your friend--is he not?"

"I suppose so, though he is old enough to be my father. But why should I ask him?"

"Because he once described to me a person very much like the one you have just described."

"Who was the person?"

"Mr. Sharpe said that, though he was in general quite frank and undisguised, yet, if he were particularly in earnest on any subject, he was apt to speak lightly of it, or perhaps ridicule it, to hide his real feeling."

"Pray, who was this person? What was his name?"

"Mr. Va.s.sall Morton."

"Did Sharpe say that of me? It is not a month since I was walking with him,--his evening const.i.tutional,--and he said the very same thing of you. Now, as I hope to live an honest man, I was never half so much flattered in my life, as by being slandered in such company."

Here he was interrupted abruptly, for, turning a corner, they came full upon the inn, or hotel, as its sign proclaimed it to be.

Discontented male pa.s.sengers were lounging about the bar room; disconsolate female pa.s.sengers sat, in bonnets and shawls, in the parlor; and an unspeakable air of uneasiness and discomfort pervaded the whole place.

"Our walk is over," sighed Morton; "I wish it had a more propitious ending. And now let me be your courier, or do your commands in any other capacity in which I can serve you."

At eleven o'clock that night the train rolled into the station house at Boston, some four hours behind its time.

"My father will certainly be here," said Miss Leslie; but her father was nowhere to be seen. Morton conducted her to a carriage. Her trunks and his own had already been placed upon it, when, by the lantern of one of the porters, Morton descried the agitated colonel threading the crowd in anxious search of his daughter. He had been waiting nervously since seven o'clock, and, when the train came in, had looked for her in every place but the right one. Morton hastened to relieve his fears.