Читать книгу Was It Right to Forgive? A Domestic Romance - Barr Amelia E. - Страница 1

Peter Van Hoosen was a result of Dutch Calvinism, and Dutch industry and thrift; also, of a belief in the Day of Judgment. The first motives were inherited tendencies, carefully educated; the last one, a conscious principle, going down to the depths of his nature and sharply dividing whatever was just and right from whatever was false and wrong. People whose religion was merely religiosity thought he took himself too seriously; but if they had a house to build, they wanted this man – who worked in the great Task-master’s eye – to lay its foundation and raise its walls. So that, as a builder in stone, Peter Van Hoosen had a wide local celebrity.

He was a strong, loose-limbed man, with a swarthy face and straight black hair, a man of sturdy beliefs and strong prepossessions, yet not devoid of those good manners which spring naturally from a good heart. Among his fellows he was grave and silent, and his entire personality had something of the coldness and strength of the stony material with which he worked. In his home there was a difference; there his black eyes glowed with affection, and even when a 2 young man, his wife and his little children could lead him. As he grew older, and years and experience sweetened his nature, he became large-hearted and large-minded enough to feel that beyond certain limits there was a possibly lawful freedom.

These hours of expansion were usually those spent with his daughter Adriana. He had two other daughters, and three sons, each of whom had done virtuously in their own way; but in Peter’s estimation, Adriana excelled them all. She was the child after his own heart. In her presence, he felt it good to be hopeful and kind. She led him to talk of everything that was interesting humanity; she asked his opinion on all subjects. She constantly told him how wise he was! how clear-sighted! how far-seeing! She believed he ought to have been at the head of great affairs, and sometimes Peter could not help a little vague regret over the blindness of destiny. In short, Adriana always brought to the front the very best Peter Van Hoosen; she made him enjoy himself; she made him think nobly of himself; and is there any more satisfactory frame of mind? After an hour in Adriana’s company, Peter was always inclined to say:

“Well, well, Yanna! In the Great Day of sifting and sorting, I know that I shall be justified. My well-limed mortar, my walls plumb and strong, my day’s work of faithful service full rendered, will be accepted of my Master. And you too think so, Yanna.”

“I am sure of it, father. It is not the kind of work we do; it is the way in which the work is done. I will risk my word, that you took as much pains with John Finane’s little dairy as with Mr. MacArthur’s fine mansion.”

“I did, Yanna. There is not a poor stone in either,” 3 and when he said the words, Adriana looked straight at him, with eyes full of admiration.

It must be explained, however, that if Adriana Van Hoosen was a remarkable girl for her position, she had had remarkable advantages. Her birth was fortunate in its time. She did not come to her parents until their struggle with poverty was long over; and before she was ten years old, four of her brothers and sisters had married and made homes for themselves. George and Theodore had gone to Florida, to plant pineapples, and were making the venture pay them. Her sister Augusta was the wife of John Van Nostrand, a man growing rich in New York, by the way of groceries and politics. Her sister Gertrude had married a cousin who was a florist; and in watching the rose houses and bunching violets, they also were doing well and putting money away. Her youngest brother, Antony, was yet unmarried, but he had been long in California, and there was no reason to suppose he would ever return to the East.

It happened thus, that Peter and his wife found themselves alone with their youngest child, and the great tide of parental love turned actively towards her. They did not cease to love the absent, but the best love delights in service, and there was now none to serve but the charming child who stood in the place of the dear ones scattered so far apart. They began early to notice her beauty, to repeat her bright sayings, to assure themselves that they had been trusted with an extraordinary charge. The child also had the courage which accompanies a strongly affectionate nature; she did not fear to ask for all her desires; and as love gives gladly to those who trust it, she always won what she asked for. To his elder daughters, Peter had 4 not been generous in the matter of dress, but Adriana had not only plenty of gowns, she had also all the little accessories which are so dear to a girl’s heart. But whatever style or whatever color was prominent, Peter enjoyed every change. Sometimes he was tempted to tell her how pretty she was, and how proud he was of her, but he always “thought better of it”; and yet, Adriana knew right well that her father considered her the most beautiful girl in America, and that he was delighted if he met an acquaintance, rich or poor, to whom he could say, “My daughter Adriana, sir.”

However, though Peter was proud enough of his girl’s beauty, he was far more elated over her mental aptitudes. She excelled all others easily; she carried off every prize in her classes; she came home to him one day with the diploma of her accomplishments in her hand. He was too proud to find the words suitable for his satisfaction; for, in a certain sense, it was his own diploma also. He had studied with Adriana constantly. He had heard her lessons, and talked them over with her, until they were as familiar to him as to her. As he walked about his room that night, so happily sleepless, he examined himself in history, geography, science and mathematics; and he gave Peter Van Hoosen the credit he honestly deserved:

“Even I have not done badly,” he said. “I am a great deal more of a man than I was four years ago. Now, Yanna and I are going to have good times. She wants to learn music. Very well, she shall learn it. And we will read and study books that are something above the general run of school books.” He sat down to the thought, let his hand fall upon his knee, and peered into the future with the proud glance 5 of one who knows his strength, and foretells his own victory.

In the morning he had a disappointment. Adriana wanted to go to college. To learn music was not all she desired. There were other things just as important – repose and dignity of manner, a knowledge of dress and address and of the ways and laws of society; and these things could be learned only by personal contact with the initiated. So she said, “Father, I wish to go to college.” And after a short struggle with his own hopes and longings, Peter answered, “Well, then, Yanna, you must go to college.”

She had been there but little more than two years when she received the following letter from her father: “Dear Yanna. I took your mother into New York yesterday. We went to see a famous doctor, and he told her that she must die; not perhaps for weeks, or even months, but sentence of death has been passed.” Peter did not add a word to this information. He would not tell Adriana to come home; he wished her to have the honor of giving herself a command ennobled by so much self-denial. And as he expected, Adriana answered his letter in person. Thenceforward, father and daughter walked with the mother to the outermost shoal of life – yes, till her wide-open eyes, looking into their eyes at the moment of parting, suddenly became soulless; and they knew she was no longer with them.

After a few days Peter said, “Yanna, you must go back to college.” But she shook her head resolutely, and answered, “I am all you have. I will not leave you, father. We can read and study together.”

“That would make me very happy, Yanna. And you can have a good music teacher.”

“I do not want a music teacher, father. I used to think I was an unrecognized Patti; now I know that I have only an ordinary parlor voice. I measured myself at college by a great many girls; and I found out I had been thinking too highly of Adriana Van Hoosen. My friend Rose Filmer – and twenty others beside her – can sing pieces I have not even the notes for. Rose plays much better than I do. She is cleverer with her pencil. She always does everything just properly, and I scarcely ever miss making a blunder. If I were only like Rose Filmer!”

“Come, come! that is a girl out of a book.”

“No; Rose is a girl out of New York. I am a girl out of Woodsome village. There have always been a city and a country mouse, father. And they are both good in their own way. But I could not be Rose Filmer unless I had been rocked in Rose’s cradle.”

The name “Filmer” was a familiar one to Peter; for the Filmers were Van Hoosens on one side of their house; and he wondered if this clever Rose Filmer was not the descendant of the old Dominie Filmer who had preached in Woodsome when he was a boy. Certainly his father had built a stone wall and a dairy for a Dominie Filmer who was connected with the Van Hoosens on the mother’s side. He thought of this coincidence in names for a few moments, and then dismissed the subject. In the morning, however, it was revived in a double manner. Adriana had a long letter from Rose Filmer, and Peter one from Mr. Filmer, asking an estimate for building a stone house from enclosed plans. Thus the conversation of the preceding day set the door open for the Filmers to enter the Van Hoosen home.

Rose’s letter was full of their intention to build a 7 summer residence “so delightfully near to Adriana.” She professed to think it a special providence in her behalf, and to care only for the movement because it brought her back to “her dear Adriana.” “I who adore the ocean,” she continued, “who feel my soul throb to its immensity, am content to dwell on the placid river bank, if, by so doing, I may have the joy of my dear Adriana’s presence.”

It was a charming thing that Adriana believed fully in this feminine affection, and that even Rose deceived herself as completely. Girls adore one another until they find lovers to adore; and there is a certain sincerity in their affection. All the following year, as the great stone house progressed to its completion, Rose wrote just such letters to her beloved Yanna as she might easily have written to the most exacting and devoted lover; and neither of the girls imagined that they were in a great measure the overflow of a life restrained on every other side. To the world, Rose made every effort to be the very flower and perfume of serenity and self-poise, and thus to set herself free to her friend was like drawing a good full breath after some restraint had been taken away.

There had been a possibility of a break in this union of souls, just when Peter accepted the contract to build the Filmer mansion. Adriana thought it best to speak of her father’s work on the new house; and she did this with the simplicity of one who states a fact that may or may not have been understood. Rose was at first a little indignant. She went to her mother with Adriana’s letter in her hand.

“She is the daughter of a builder, of a common stone-mason,” she cried, “and she never told me until she was obliged to. Mamma, I am disillusioned. I 8 can never trust any one again. In her place, I should have felt it a point of honor not to hide my low birth. Really, mamma, you must excuse me if I weep a little. I am so disappointed – so wronged – so humiliated in Yanna’s treachery.”

“Nonsense, Rose!” answered Mrs. Filmer. “The girl behaved in the most natural manner. Society would be very disagreeable if people were required to go up and down telling who and what their fathers and grandfathers were. Did you ever ask her the question?”

“It was not my place to do so, mamma. I told her all about you, and Harry, and even papa. She was always talking about her father. She said he was such a noble old man – that he studied with her – and so on. Could I imagine a man laying stones all day, and reading Faraday and Parkman with his daughter at night? Could I, mamma?”

“I should not trouble myself about the girl’s father, if I liked the girl. You see, Rose, it is always foolish to make acquaintances upon unknown ground. The Hamilton and Lawson girls were in your classes, and you knew all about them. Friendship with their families would have been prudent, and I advised you to make it.”

“I could not, mamma. The Hamiltons declined to be at all familiar with me. As for the Lawsons, they are purse-proud and dangerous. Jemima Lawson has a tongue like a stiletto. She is slangy, too. She called her allowance her ‘working expenses’; and she had dreadful private names for the girls she disliked. Miss Lawson you simply could not be civil to; if you were, she immediately began to wonder ‘what you wanted from her?’”

“What dreadful creatures!”

“Now, Adriana Van Hoosen had a good name, she dressed well enough, and she really loved me. How could I imagine she was lowly born?”

“Does it matter, Rose?”

“Yes, for she lives quite near to our new house. In fact, her father is building it; and I have asked her so often to come and stay with me in New York, that I cannot, without a quarrel, ignore her in the country.”

“In the country, one does not need to be particular. It is rather nice to have a friend in the village who can bring the news. The long summer days would be insupportable without the follies and misfortunes of our neighbors to discuss. Then, if she is pretty and presentable, she will be useful in lawn and tennis parties. I would not mind about Miss Van Hoosen’s father. Fathers are not much, anyway; and fortunately she has no mother to annoy us. That makes a great difference. A vulgar mother would be an insurmountable objection. Is Miss Van Hoosen pretty?”

“Yanna is lovely. And she has a fine manner. Our art professor once said to me, ‘Your friend Miss Van Hoosen is a gentlewoman with a great deal of background.’ I do not know what he meant, but I am sure he intended a great compliment.”

“Oh! he meant intellect, emotions, and such things. I am not so sure of Miss Van Hoosen now. There is Harry to be considered. He might fall in love with her. That would be inexpedient – in fact, ruinous.”

“Harry fall in love! How absurd! Have not the prettiest girls in our set swung incense before him for five years? Harry glories in his ability to resist temptation. He knows that Eve never could have ‘got round’ him.”

“She ruined Adam in about twenty-four hours. It would have taken Eve about one minute to ‘get round’ Harry. The boy is really very impressionable.”

“Mamma! What a huge joke! Harry impressionable!”

“He is, I assure you, Rose. I presume I know my own son.”

“Well, at any rate, he is not worse than the rest. Young men nowadays neither love nor hate. Their love is iced on prudence, and their hatreds have not a particle of courage. I wish I had been born one hundred years ago. I have the heart for a real man.”

“You flatter yourself, Rose. You are the very triumph of respectable commonplace. And as for one hundred years ago, the follies of that date were just as innumerable as our own.”

“You think I am respectably commonplace, mamma. Then let me tell you, I must be a consummate actress. I do not think you know Rose Filmer. I do not think I know her myself. I hope I have some individuality.”

“Individuality! There is nothing more vulgar. I hear Parry with the carriage; will you drive with me?”

“No; I shall answer Adriana’s letter, and get the subject off my mind. It is so much easier to know what you dislike to do than to be sure of what you like. Where are you going?”

“To McCreery’s. I want some lace.”

“Do buy the real article then. It is the chic thing now, to wear real lace, and it does look supreme, among the miles of imitation that are used.”

Then Rose went to the library to answer Adriana’s letter. It pleased her to think it an important decision, and she sat some time with the pen in her hand, and a judicial air on her beautiful countenance. For 11 she was undeniably a very attractive girl, as she sat in the sunshine that morning, deliberating on Adriana’s “deception”; there being to a practiced observer many alluring contradictions in her face and manner. Her hair was the color of ripe wheat, her eyes almond-shaped, blue and limpid; her cheeks and chin dimpled; her mouth rosy and full; her figure supple; her feet small, finely dressed, and quite in view; her whole appearance that of a lovely innocent girl, on the threshold of life. But this exquisite seeming contained possibilities of evil, as well as good. Her dress was full of studied effects, her manners of attitudes and languors; and her charming way of dropping her blue eyes, and then suddenly flashing them open, was a conscious, and not a natural, grace. Even her sweet credulousness had in it an equal capacity for seductive wilfulness and petulance. Nor was she unconscious of this double nature within her; for she had often said to Adriana, “I feel as if there were twenty different girls in me – and the majority of them bad.”

Social life, however, so far, had had a salutary effect on her. She had become more equable, more dependent on the approval of others, and less liable to unconventional self-assertions. Nothing, indeed, could have been better for Rose Filmer than the tight social rein of a set which conscientiously tried to be both religious and fashionable. She was compelled to honor les convenances, and to obey them; compelled to suppress her spontaneity – which was seldom a pleasant one – and to consider the feelings of others, as well as the wishes of her own heart. At college she had been remarkable for her self-willed personality; one season in society had taught her a decent self-restraint. 12 Consequently, she deliberated well the answer to her friend’s letter.

“If I want to break with her, I have now an excellent excuse,” she thought. “I could tell her that, though I have a soul above noticing the accident of birth, my whole nature declares against deception. There are a dozen moralities in the position, and I could retire wounded and innocent, and leave her altogether in the wrong. But do I want to break with Yanna? Would it be to my advantage? I think not. The girls in our set do not like me. Julia Mills the other day called me ‘a little hypocrite’ to my face. She did it with a laugh, but all the other girls laughed too, and it was not pleasant. Yanna believes in me. Then next summer we shall be at Woodsome, and mamma is right about the long, tiresome summer days. Yanna was born in the village; she knows every one, gentle and simple, and what is the use of neighbors if you cannot gossip about them?

“Besides,” she continued, “I have now three lovers, and I have not one girl friend with whom I can talk them over – all the girls in our set are so jealous of me – and Yanna would like to see my love letters, I have no doubt. I wonder if she has a lover yet! I suppose not, poor girl! Then there will be fun in watching Harry. Whether he be utterly heartless, or, as mamma thinks, ‘very impressionable,’ he cannot meet Yanna day after day without some consequences. I think, upon the whole, it will be best to keep friends with Yanna.” And having come to this decision, she raised herself from the reflective attitude into which she had fallen, and going to a table wrote as follows:

“My Beloved Yanna: Did you really think that your lowly birth could change my love for you? No, no! 13 Whether my Yanna be princess or pauper, is no matter to me. I only long for our new house to be finished, that I may have you more constantly near me.” Then she hesitated. She was on the point of saying she had long known of Adriana’s low birth; but she felt sure Adriana would ask her the “how” and “when” of her information; and there was absolutely no good to accrue from the falsity. But though she wrote eight pages of gushing affection, she was not satisfied; she had not been able to choose her words with precision, and far less able to prevent an aura of patronage which Adriana was as quick to feel as a barometer to answer the atmospheric changes.

“I will not take any patronage from Rose Filmer,” she muttered; and then she flung Rose’s letter into the fire; “I want nothing from her. Oh! I must answer this letter at once; I could not eat my dinner if I were so much in debt to my self-respect.” So Adriana laid away her sewing, and wrote:

“Dear Rose: Thank you for your overflowing letter. It is very kind of you to overlook what you call the ‘accident’ of my birth. But I cannot let you entertain the idea that I think it an ‘accident.’ On the contrary, I regard my birth as the well-considered ordination of Almighty God. I was not an ‘accident’ to my good father and mother. I was placed in their care, because the All-Wise considered the Van Hoosen home the best possible place for my highest development. I think it is time people stopped talking about the ‘accident’ of birth; and I am sure, as soon as you regard birth in its proper light, you will do so. Your love for me has led you likewise into a very stupid assertion about ‘loving Yanna the same whether she was princess 14 or pauper.’ My dear, there is no question of either. I am as far removed from pauperism as we both are from royalty. Our mutual liking has stood a number of little shocks, and I have no fear it will go to pieces on my father’s trade. He is building you a handsome house in the most honorable manner. He was pleased to have the contract to do so, and Mr. Filmer was equally pleased to secure his work. That is the position, as I understand it. Suppose we say no more on the subject; it will be so much nicer to write about your balls, and fairs, and parties. From what you say, I think charity must be the gayest of all the virtues; certainly it cuts the most considerable figure of any during the New York season. I am sure you enjoyed the private theatricals; for we all like occasionally to play a part not our own. And so you are going to the seaside this summer? Will you bathe? That is one of the things vanity would forbid me to do, except in private. It is true, Venus rose beautiful from the sea; but no mere mortal woman can do so. Do you not think, that for a distinctly levelling process, sea bathing is supreme? Life is very even and quiet here; when Woodsome Hall is finished, we all hope it will make a difference. Is it to be ‘Woodsome’ or ‘Filmer’ Hall? Mr. Filmer had not decided when he was here last. Dear Rose, do not let us have any more misunderstandings, and send me a real nice letter soon.

“Yours lovingly,

“Adriana Van Hoosen.”

This letter did not please Rose any better than her own effusion had pleased Adriana; and for a little while there was a coolness between the girls. They wrote to each other with accustomed regularity, but 15 their letters were set to a wrong key, Adriana’s being specially independent in tone, as if her self-esteem was perpetually on the defensive. But life is not an exact science, something is always happening to change its circumstances, and feelings change with them. The following spring the new Filmer house was finished and ready for occupancy; and the village newspaper was busily blowing little fanfaronades of congratulation to Woodsome; and of welcome to the coming Filmers; and by that time Adriana and Rose were also eager to see each other again.

“I wonder if I ought to call on Rose,” said Adriana to her father, as she laid down the paper announcing the long heralded arrivals. “I believe it would only be good form to do so.”

“Under the circumstances, I would not call first, Yanna. Keep your place, until you are asked out of it.”

“I am quite willing to do so. My own home is a very good place, father.”

“Home is a blessed freedom, Yanna. At your own fireside, you can be a law unto yourself. You can speak the thing you like, from morning to night.”

“The papers say the Filmers are Woodsome people. Do you remember them?”

“I never saw the present Mr. Filmer until I made my contract with him. I can just recollect his father, old Dominie Filmer, in his flowered dressing-gown, and his velvet cap. We did not sit in his church; but Adam Kors talks a great deal about him. He says he preached sermons hard to understand, and full of sharp words. I dare say he was a good man, for Adam tells of him being puzzled and troubled at living longer than the orthodox Scriptural three-score-years-and-ten. But he died at last – pretty well off.”

“Most ministers die poorly off.”

“Dominie Filmer was wise in his generation. He not only looked for mansions in the sky, he had also a reasonable respect for the land around Woodsome – and for shares in the railways, and things of that kind. But no one in his day could speak ill of him; and his children and grandchildren speak very well of him. And this friend of yours, Rose Filmer, will be his granddaughter.”

“Yes. I hope she will call soon. If she delays too long, it will be no kindness. If she does not call at all, I think I shall hate her.”

“No, Yanna. Anger and hate are not for you to bother with. They are such a dreadful waste of life. Why should you let a person whom you dislike, or despise, take possession of you, and of your mind, and occupy your thoughts, and run your precious time to their idea? That is a poor business, Yanna.”

Here the conversation ceased, but the next morning Adriana was on the watch for her friend. And about noon Rose came. She was driving herself in a pretty dog-cart, for she had determined as she dressed for her visit, to take no servant. She did not know what kind of a house Adriana lived in, or in what situation she might find her. For Rose’s experience of life had not given her any precedent by which she could judge of the social environments of a stone-builder; and she said softly as she pinned on her hat: “Yes, I shall go alone. It will be kinder to Yanna. Servants will talk. They might even wonder if she is not one of our relations; these Woodsome people have made such a stir about our being ‘native.’”

She drove well, and was charmed and excited by her rapid movement down the hills, and through the 17 wooded lanes. Entering the village, she asked for Mr. Van Hoosen’s house, and it was readily pointed out. She was a little astonished. It was a roomy, colonial dwelling, surrounded by well-kept grounds. Horse-chestnuts arched the wide avenues, and the house stood in a grove of flowering fruit trees. A boy who was rolling turf took her horse’s head, and she stepped to the spotless door stone, with a decided access of affection. Adriana came running down the stairs to meet her. They kissed each other, and buried in the kiss all their small differences and offences.

“What a charming old house, Yanna!” cried Rose.

“What a perfect costume you have on, Rose!” cried Adriana.

“I knew you would like it. Put on your hat, Yanna. I want you all day, and all day to-morrow, and every other day you can spare.”

“I must tell father. I shall be delighted to go with you, Rose; but I cannot do so without his knowledge.”

“Certainly. I saw an old gentleman tacking up vines, as I drove through the garden.”

“That was father.”

“You can find him in two minutes and a half, I know.”

In very little more, Adriana came back with the old gentleman. He looked so kindly at Rose that she could not help being pleased, and she set herself to win the old Dutchman. She made him talk about his flowers, and she listened with that air of being charmed and instructed which even when it is merely a cultivated grace is an irresistible one. She praised Yanna. She said with a frank enthusiasm, “I love Yanna dearly,” and while entreating for her company she acknowledged “it was a great favor to ask.”

Peter said “it was.” He assured Rose that Yanna “was the sunshine of his life, but that to make them both happy, he would gladly give up his own pleasure.” She thanked him with many pretty speeches, and when Adriana came down ready for her visit, Peter helped the girls into their seats, and put the reins into Rose’s hands. Then he watched them out of sight, with a face beaming with satisfaction.

From this excited and exalted tone, it was impossible to fall at once. Rose gave herself up to it. She patted Yanna’s hands; and as they went through the woods kissed her many times. Then the new house was to be gone through, and exclamations and adjectives were the only possible speech, so that everything naturally enough conduced to an emotional condition. At last Rose said, “I have not shown you my apartments yet, Yanna. They are a picture in pinks;” and she led her into a suite that was lovely with peach-bloom papers and hangings, with snow-white willow chairs cushioned with pink silk, and pink silk draperies trimmed with white lace. “I have chosen for you the room just across the hall,” she added, “so we shall be very near to each other. Listen! that is the lunch-bell. Come and see mamma. In the afternoon we can talk over things.”

Mrs. Filmer was very pleasant and good-natured. She chatted with the girls, and ate a salad, and then went away with her housekeeper: “Only a part of the house is in order yet,” she explained to Adriana; “and neither workmen nor servants seem able to do without me. What will you girls talk about until seven o’clock?”

“Oh!” cried Rose, “we shall have a long, delightful afternoon.” And probably to Rose it was delightful, 19 for she told Yanna the tale of ball-rooms, in which Rose Filmer had been chief among a thousand beauties; she showed the photographs of many youths, who were her adorers; and she read specially eloquent sentences from her many love letters. Indeed, after a long session of this kind, Rose said heartily, “I declare, I have not had such a sweet time since you left me at college. But really we must rest an hour before dinner. I always do. Come, I will take you to your room.”

Adriana was glad to rest, and the soft, dim light of the carefully-shaded room tempted her to complete physical relaxation; but her mind was actively curious and alert. She had been hearing of a life entirely new to her, “a pretty lute-string kind of a life, quite within the verge of the Ten Commandments,” she thought; “yet I do not believe it would please me long. Its feverish unrest, its small anxieties and petty aims have told already on Rose. Her mind has sunk to the level of what engages it. She no longer plans for study and self-improvement; she talks of her duties to society instead, and of its claims upon her. After all” – she thought a few moments, and then added emphatically – “after all, I am satisfied with my lot! Even upon the testimony of so prejudiced a witness as Rose, fashionable life is not a lofty thing. Its two principal standards appear to be money and smartness; and I do believe the world has a far higher ideal. It is only a very small minority who worship the great goddess Fashion, and the image which the Parisian Jupiter sends over here; the true élite of the world have always been those whose greatness was in themselves. There’s father! In any kind of clothes, or in any company, he would always be one of the élite. 20 I never could be ashamed of him. But I might be, if I saw him haunting the gay places of the world, criticising ballet girls, and shuffling cards.” She indulged this train of thought, and lived over again the fantasy of life Rose had shaped in her imagination.

A knock at the door roused her from it. A maid was there with some flowers, and an offer of her services, if Miss Van Hoosen wished them. The flowers were welcome, but the service would have been an embarrassment. Adriana knew her good points, and was quite able to do them justice. In her case, it was not the modiste that made the woman.

When she was dressed she went to the drawing-room. It was full of flowers and bric-a-brac, but there was not a book to be seen. No one was in the room; no one was apparently downstairs; she was evidently early, which at least was better than being late. So she walked about, looking at this and that, and speculating as to where the curios came from, and what queer histories they might have. Opposite one entrance to the parlor, there was a large mirror, and before this mirror a small gilded table. As Adriana passed it, she noticed that it held a portfolio; and the ribbons which fastened it being untied, she threw back the cover, and saw that it was full of photographs. Some faces were young and pretty; others, middle-aged and old, graven all over with the sharp tools of worldly strife, sorrow, thought, and experience of various kinds. The aged faces pleased her most; they were not merely calendars of so many years old, they had most of them a story to tell.

Presently she came to the pictured face of a young man which was very attractive. The countenance was full of force, and though the personality was at a 21 stand-still, “pulled up” for the second in which it was taken, it was both an expressive and an impressive personality. For the bit of prepared paper had caught something of that fiery particle, that “little more” which in the real man was doubtless a power going from him and drawing others to him, in spite of their own resolves and inclinations.

She held the photograph in her hand, and looked earnestly at it. As she did so, Harry Filmer stepped between the folds of pale blue plush which shielded the doorway. He stood motionless and watched Adriana. The mirror showed him at a glance beauty of a high and unusual kind. He took rapid note of every element of it – the thick dark hair drawn backward from the broad white brow – the white drooping eyelids, heavily fringed – the richly-colored oval face – the bow-shaped lips – the rounded chin – the straight white throat – the tall figure robed in soft, white silk, with purple pansies at the bosom and belt – and most of all, the air of freshness and of grave harmonious loveliness which environed her. He could have gazed his heart away; but in a few moments Adriana felt the unseen influence and turned. The presentment was still in her hand; the living man stood before her.

She put the picture back into the portfolio, and advanced a step or two. Harry bowed, and was at her side in a moment.

“I am sure you are Miss Van Hoosen,” he said, with a pleasant smile; “mother told me about you. And Rose has told me a great deal about you. So, you see, we are old acquaintances. Is it not a most perfect day? Have you been riding, or walking? Or has Rose kept you all day ‘talking over things’?”

He was really nervous under Adriana’s smiling 22 eyes, and he felt it easier to go on talking than to take the next step. Fortunately Rose entered at the proper moment, and put every one conventionally at ease. And if people eating a good dinner together cannot get agreeably familiar, then there is something radically wrong with one-half the company, and perhaps also with the other.

Now, women are undoubtedly different beings in the presence of men. Adriana was a new Adriana to Rose. She was more mentally alert, more assured and dignified in manner, and she even contradicted Harry in many things. But then she had an agreeable way of dealing with those from whom she disagreed; and Harry was only stimulated by her opposition to his views. The dinner went delightfully to the chatter of tongues and the light clash of crystal and china, and when it was over, Harry exclaimed:

“What a charming meal we have had! I had almost forgotten how very pleasant it is to eat with one’s own family!”

“Quite as pleasant as to dine at a club, I should think, Harry,” said Rose.

“Talking of clubs, it is the ladies who run clubs nowadays, Miss Van Hoosen. Has Rose told you how many she belongs to? Most of the married men I know have had to resign their memberships; the candle cannot be burned at both ends, and, of course, the ladies’ end must not be put out.”

“Clubs are a new-fangled notion to women yet, Harry. They will soon tire of their own company. You may be sure of that,” said Mrs. Filmer.

“Not so very ‘new-fangled,’ mother,” continued Harry. “Women’s clubs have existed for centuries in Persia and Turkey. They call them ‘The Bath,’ but 23 the ‘bath’ is only an excuse for getting together to talk gossip, and eat sweetmeats, and drink coffee. And if you like, I will lend you Aristophanes, mother, and you may read what came of women imitating such masculine ideas among those clever old Greeks.”

“I have no time to read such ancient books. And they would have to be very clever Greeks indeed to write anything the New York women of to-day would care to read. My dear Harry, they are a few thousand years behind the time.”

“Harry forgets,” said Rose, softly, “that if one of a family have to retire from Club pleasures, justice decides against the man. It is not a matter of courtesy at all; men have had their day. I assure you, Woman is the Coming Man.”

“Oh! I think we may claim club privileges on much higher grounds,” said Adriana. “Every woman’s club has before it the realization of some high purpose, or the redressing of some wrong. I never heard of a woman’s club in New York on the oriental plan of tattle and gossip and eating sweetmeats.”

“Two of the clubs to which I belong,” continued Rose, “have very important subjects under discussion. One is the Domestic Symposium, and we consider topics relating to Household Economy. At present, we are trying to solve the Servant Girl Question.”

“Oh!” cried Harry, with a hearty laugh, “if you indeed solve that problem, Rose, men will give you the suffrage, and leave the currency, and the tariff, and all such small financial and political questions to you.”

“Thanks, Harry! It is likely we may voluntarily take them into consideration. This is an age of majorities. If we accomplish the suffrage, women will have a majority on all questions; and the reduction of man 24 becomes a mere matter of time. I was going to remark, that another of my clubs occupies itself with the criticism of the highest poets of the age.”

“Who are they?” asked Adriana.

“That is the point we have been arguing all last winter. We have had difficulties. Mrs. Johnstone Miller raised objections to the consideration of any but American poets; and it took two months’ sittings to settle that question. You would be astonished at the strength of some people’s prejudices!” ejaculated Rose, holding up her pretty hands to emphasize her own astonishment.

“Not at all,” answered Harry. “They call their prejudices ‘principles,’ and then, of course, they cannot be decently relinquished.”

“Mrs. Johnstone Miller is a very superior woman. It is a great thing to hear her criticise Longfellow, Whittier, Eugene Field, Will Carlton, and the rest. I am sure she believes that she could easily excel each in their own department, if she were not prevented by her high-bred exclusiveness.”

“Not unlikely, Rose; there is no impertinence like the impertinence of mediocrity.”

“Mediocrity! Why, Harry, Mrs. Johnstone Miller is worth all of three million dollars, and it is very good of her to interest herself about literature at all.” And with these words Mrs. Filmer rose, and Harry gave her his arm, and the little party strolled slowly round the piazzas, and so through the blue portières into the drawing-room. And as Adriana did so, she had a vivid memory of Harry Filmer as she first saw him, standing between the pale draperies. They had emphasized his black hair and eyes and garments very distinctly; for the young man was physically “dark,” 25 even the vivid coloring of his face being laid upon a skin more brown than white.

Mrs. Filmer made herself comfortable in the easiest of easy chairs, and began mechanically to turn and change the many rings upon her fingers; the act being evidently a habit, conducive to reflection or rest. She told Harry to “go away and smoke his cigar”; but the young man said he “was saving the pleasure until the moon rose; and in the meantime,” he added, “he should expect the ladies to amuse him. Rose was talking of the greatest poets of the age,” he said, “but I am wondering what possible use we can have for poetry. Our age is so distinctively material and epicurean.”

Then Adriana asserted that it was precisely in such conditions poetry became an absolute necessity. Poetry only could refine views that would become gross without it; and give a tinge of romance to manners ready to become heartless and artificial. The discussion was kept up with much spirit and cleverness, though diverging continually to all kinds of “asides,” and Mrs. Filmer, with half-closed eyes, watched and listened, and occupied her mind with far different speculations.

Then there was some music; Rose played in her faultlessly brilliant manner; and Harry sang The Standard Bearer, and Adriana sang a couple of ballads. And by this time the moon had risen, and Harry brought woolen wraps, and the two girls walked with him, while he smoked more than one cigar. At first, the promenade was to a quickstep of chatter and laughter; but as the glorious moonshine turned earth into heaven, their steps became slower, their laughter died away, feeling grew apace, speech did not seem 26 necessary, and a divine silence that felt even motion to be a wrong was just beginning to enthrall each young, impressible heart.

At that moment Mrs. Filmer broke the dangerous charm by an imperative assertion that “it was high time the house was locked up for the night. She had been asleep and forgotten herself,” she said, and there was a tone of hurry and worry in her voice. So emotion, and romance, and young love’s dreaming were locked out in the moonshine; and there was a commonplace saying of “good-nights.” At their bedroom doors, Rose and Adriana kissed each other, and Rose said:

“I have been thinking of poor Dick Duval. Poor Dick! He loves me so much!”

“Then love him in return, Rose.”

“Impossible! He is poor.”

With a sad smile, and a deep sigh, Rose shut her door. It was characteristic of her, that she had not thought of Adriana and Harry. But Harry could not sleep for thought – for a sweet, pervading, drifting thought, that had no definite character, and would indeed have been less sweet if it had been more definite. He could only tell himself that he had found a new kind of woman; that her beauty filled his heart; and that her voice – whether she spoke or sang – set him vibrating from head to feet.

As for Adriana she was serious, almost sorrowful, and she wondered at the mood, finding it nevertheless quite beyond her control. Had she been wiser in love lore she would have feared it; for there is a gloom in the beginnings of a great love, as there is gloom in deep water; a silence which suspends expression; an attitude shy and almost reverent, it being the nature of true love to purify the temple in which it burns.