Читать книгу Sweet Clover - Clara Louise Burnham - Страница 5

CHAPTER VII.

ON THE RAIL.

The following week the two sailed for Germany; but when home-coming time for Page arrived, his cousin did not accompany him. Mr. Van Tassel had married the month after his son left, and although his affectionate letters held out an invariable welcome, they made it easy for Jack to stay amid the novel scenes which allured him. Gorham Page, therefore, was alone when he reëntered Boston, one day in the following August. The sister-in-law with whom he made his home was, he knew, at the seashore, and after a brief visit to her deserted flat, and a hasty repacking, he took a cab for the Boston and Maine depot.

He was rather late for his train, and he boarded it to find it crowded. Passing from one car to another in vain search for a seat, he descried, standing in an aisle, a tall young girl, who attracted his attention at once, by reason of her superb figure fashionably clothed in plainest black, and the annoyance on her fresh face. She held a satchel in her hand, and was vainly endeavoring to appear indifferent, after a heated appeal to a badgered conductor who had apparently sought relief from a suffering public in deafness.

When Page, who was slightly short-sighted, approached near enough to discern the impatient golden lights in her hazel eyes, and the underlip caught beneath her teeth, he took in the situation, and gave one more searching glance around the crowded day-car; the parlor car he had already discovered to be hopeless.

"This is very uncomfortable," he said, addressing the girl and raising his hat. "I have not quite despaired of finding a seat. Won't you follow me?"

"I have been all through," she answered, but she followed him.

The next car was packed with equal solidity; but Page moved forward, and on the platform was motioned away by a brakeman.

"Back, please. Next car's a sleeper. Takin' it to Portland. No passengers."

"Is it locked?" asked Page, pushing by.

"No, 't ain't locked, but"—

Page interrupted the slow drawl decidedly, and put aside the detaining hand. "Oh, well, people can't stand, you know," and with an encouraging look around at the damsel in distress, who followed him with alacrity, he opened the door of the Pullman, and ushered her into the luxurious empty car.

"Thank you so much," said the girl gratefully, as she took possession of one section and her benefactor seated himself across the way.

One by one a dozen other passengers came in and availed themselves of this unexpected privilege, and the pessimistic conductor contented himself by collecting fifty cents from each individual.

Page had an eye for beauty, and as his position made it possible to do so undetected, he regarded his neighbor appreciatively. The world is full of pretty girls, thank heaven, but this one was unusual inasmuch as she was built on such large lines as to make approval a matter of taste. Page did approve. He mentally called her a young Juno as he regarded her flat back and fine shoulders, her clear healthy skin and the Cupid's bow of her upper lip. Her thick brown hair was uncrimped and smoothly brushed toward the coil at the back of her head. She was what is called in the parlance of the day a tailor-made girl, and her physique suggested rowing and tennis.

Page thought this, and wished he had an excuse to speak with her. The fact that he had happened to do her a slight favor made this more than usually impossible, so after a while he abandoned his regard of her piquant profile, in favor of the landscape from his own window.

About now the conversation between two men in the section behind this fin de siècle maiden became loud enough to take half the car into their confidence. They were discussing the incongruous situation of the World's Fair; for in the previous April Uncle Sam had yielded, and thrown his bouquet to that one of his daughters which, according to the cartoonist, had clamored and importuned the loudest. The crude, unformed, ill-bred creature now had this treasure in her keeping, and the righteous indignation and despair of those two New Hampshire men filled the car. What could be expected but national disgrace? What was the matter with the powers at Washington that they had not in some way averted such a disaster? A good many people thought it a joke; these gentlemen could see nothing amusing in having our country held up to ridicule.

As the discussion waxed and waned, Page listened to it perforce, at first indifferently, then with more interest as he discovered that it was affecting his fair neighbor. He could see her cheek grow hot, could see that she held herself with greater rigidity. She bit her lip from time to time, and once she moved her head slowly around as if inclined to glance at the noisy talkers; but half way her deep luminous eyes shot their golden lightning straight into Page's, and recovering herself she turned back and looked ahead again.

The sunshine had begun to pour in at her window, and she suddenly seized the blind to pull it down. It fitted tightly after the manner of its kind, and her first effort was not successful. It was probably not a case for assistance, as the young woman looked as though her muscle would be equal to considerable strain, but Page spontaneously left his seat.

"Allow me," he said, and drew the blind down.

The girl thanked him rather severely. Page's shipboard experience of comparative informality with strangers was fresh upon him. He spoke on the impulse of the moment, feeling sure that the severity was not intended for him.

"Wouldn't you prefer to change seats with me? Perhaps you would be less annoyed there by conversation as well as sunlight."

"You heard something of it, then," the girl exclaimed; "but I think they have said all the ignorant, stupid things they can think of."

"I saw that the remarks were troubling you," said Page, seating himself opposite in her section. "The Garden City has one champion, I'm sure."

"Dear, generous Chicago!" ejaculated the girl, and her youthful wrath was very entertaining to her neighbor. "It is the best thing that ever happened to the country that we are to have the Fair. Perhaps," with interest, "you are a Chicagoan?"

Page was obliged to deny this with a novel reluctance which amused him.

The girl gave the slightest toss of her head. "I suppose the Eastern people think we enjoy the prospect of being jostled, and crowded, and having our streets torn up and our city extended, and all our comfort taken away for two years while we live in a perfect Pandemonium. No. We do not enjoy it, but we do it as our duty because we know that we can and shall do it well. It is not best to trust such an enterprise to an old, slow town."

Page regarded the speaker with curiosity and interest. She spoke softly but emphatically in a contralto voice, and did not look at him, but beyond him. It occurred to her companion that with her superb vitality and unconscious audacity she might be a truer type of the triumphant young city than that shown in the cleverly insulting picture which had so tickled his imagination.

"I see you take a strong interest in the matter," he remarked.

"Yes. My sister's husband has been busy about it from the first; so I have heard much concerning the subject; but then all Chicagoans are interested. It is their way."

The evident pride with which the girl referred to this "way" caused Page to declare meekly, as a means of raising himself in her estimation, that he had relatives in Chicago.

"That will be very pleasant for you in '93," she returned, with a slight smile which made her face bewitching.

"I have been spending the last year with a Chicago cousin in Germany," continued Page. "He has taken a warm interest in every phase of the discussion."

"Naturally," returned the girl; then having relieved her surcharged heart she apparently recollected that she was prolonging an interview with a strange man, and leaning back in her seat she took a copy of "Life" from her satchel. Fine streaks of sunshine sifted across the sheet.

"Won't you accept that shady seat?" asked Page.

"Thank you, no. I am only going as far as R——-."

"That is my destination, too. You might as well be comfortable."

The girl looked up again with some interest.

"Are you going to R——-? Then I shall ask you to be kind enough to direct me to the Ocean House. I am afraid that there has been a misunderstanding, and that Mrs. Page—that the friend whom I am going to visit does not expect me this morning."

The young man regarded her with a new expectancy. "I am going to the Ocean House also, and, by another coincidence, to see a Mrs. Page. She is my sister."

His neighbor returned his gaze at first with surprise, then a demure spirit of mischief danced in her eyes. It had a brief struggle with cautious propriety, but it conquered. Caution usually did make a losing fight in the case of this young lady.

"I wonder if you can be Gorham," she said slowly, and Page flushed to his temples under the fascination of his own name.

"I am," he laughed.

"I know a lot about you," declared the girl quietly, and her companion thought the dip in her upper lip when she smiled the prettiest thing he had ever seen.

"That is unfair," he returned, "for I know absolutely nothing about you."

"Very likely. Your sister only came to Pearfield three weeks ago."

"Pearfield? Have you been at Pearfield? How strange!"

"Oh, it is very simple. My sister's husband was not well,—he was all tired out with the Fair business, and one thing and another, and the doctor frightened him into thinking he must have absolute rest; so he bethought him of this little village and Aunt Love. Of course you know Aunt Love? She is one of your stanchest admirers. I am not at all sure that when you take your hat off I shan't see a little halo clinging to your locks."

"Oh, come now. That is too bad."

"Well, we went there the middle of June, and we have been there ever since. Three weeks ago, as I said, your sister came up—or your sister-in-law, isn't she?"

"Yes, but all the sister I have, so I claim her."

"I should think you would. She is lovely. She and Blitzen have been the bright spots in my summer."

"Oh, of course, Blitzen. I had forgotten him."

"He is delightful. So sympathetic! Our temperaments are just alike."

Page listened with interest. He could imagine the small dog and this young woman in a romp. He could picture her, and he liked to, in a light cambric gown, going at evening with Blitzen up into the pasture to get the cow.

"Aunt Love has given him to me," continued the girl complacently.

Her companion smiled reminiscently.

"What does Blitzen say to the transfer?" he asked.

"I sometimes suspect he doesn't know it," she returned seriously. "I mention it to him every day, though. Mr. Van Tassel laughs at me, and says that I needn't expect to take the dog,—that Blitzen thinks I'm a humbug."

Page was not listening. "Mr. Van Tassel?" he repeated in blank surprise.

"Yes. Didn't I say? Excuse me. He is my sister's husband—and your uncle. I forgot that. The dearest man that ever lived."

Page felt staggered, and confusedly afraid that he should show the shock he felt. His eyes fell. This was one of that obscure family who had "roped Uncle Richard in." Like lightning there flashed across his mind the consideration that beauty had made his uncle weak.

"Yes—ahem"—he stammered, for he feared it might have been long that he had sat there dazed. "I'm sorry to hear that my uncle is ailing. Jack—his son knows nothing of it."

"No; it is Mr. Van Tassel's wish that his son should not be informed of his indisposition." The girl's reply sounded curiously stilted in contrast to her previous ease of manner. Page blamed himself for the new coldness.

"Just like his unselfishness, isn't it?" he returned cordially. "I can't help thinking how surprised Hilda will be to see me appear with you. She does not know when to expect me."

Mrs. Page was indeed surprised when the train stopped at R——, and she stood on the platform and beheld her brother and her guest leave the car together. She was a vivacious little woman with a trim figure, and keen blue eyes that looked out beneath her sailor hat, full of lively interest in everything and everybody. She pounced upon the pair, and kissed them both with enthusiasm.

"How perfectly delightful!" she exclaimed. "I couldn't help worrying a little about you, Miss Bryant." ("Oh yes, Bryant was the name," thought Page.) "I knew you were not familiar with Boston, and although I had given you such detailed directions, I should have been frantic if you hadn't come out of the car just when you did. Gorham, how did you happen to find her? Did you go out to Pearfield? How is Uncle Richard, Miss Bryant? There, Gorham, don't let that stage go without us. Not the white one, the yellow. Is there room for three?"

When they were in the stage that was to take them to the hotel, these queries and many more were answered before the long extent of surf came in sight, vividly blue beyond the firm white shore on which a foamy lacework melted.

Mrs. Page ensconced her guest in a pleasant room near her own, and then returned to her own quarters with an impatient hope that her brother would seek her there. She had not long to wait, and she welcomed him eagerly.

"What do you think of my new acquisition?" she asked, as she gave him a seat that commanded the ocean, and took one near by.

"I was greatly surprised."

"I thought you would be," said Hilda triumphantly; "but what do you think of her? Isn't she handsome?"

"Very," answered Page, looking dreamily out upon the water.

"Haven't you fallen in love with her, you wooden man?"

"Hardly, yet. I suppose I shall, though," he added resignedly.

Mrs. Page laughed so gleefully that he smiled. "It is all the queerest thing," she said with sudden serious zest. "I was belated in every sort of way about getting down here this year, and when I was finally ready it suddenly came over me that Uncle Richard was with Aunt Love in the character of a semi-invalid, and that it would be civil in me to call on him once, as he had come to see me on his way through the city."

"It is odd that Jack hasn't mentioned his father's being at Pearfield, or his not being well. To be sure, I haven't seen Jack since last March, still he would naturally have mentioned it in the few letters I've had from him."

Mrs. Page lifted her finger impressively. "Jack doesn't know one word about his father's illness. Be sure you don't mention it to him."

"Call it fatigue. It isn't illness, is it?"

"Why, Gorham Page, he had a stroke early this spring."

"No! Why, that is too bad. Surely it is wrong to keep it from Jack," said Page with a strong mental uprising of resentment against unknown scheming Bryants. Of course that innocent, inexperienced young creature of the train would have no word in the matter.

"Well, I don't know," returned his sister dubiously. "It was only a warning, the doctors said, and I suppose Uncle Richard thinks he is all right now with care; and there's a wheel within a wheel there, Gorham. Didn't you notice to-day," lowering her voice dramatically, "that I didn't say a word about Jack? Jack is a sore subject." She nodded her head several times by way of emphasis.

"I dare say," returned the other. "The Bryants must have known that he was very much cut up by his father's marriage."

"Oh, they did; or the girls did. The mother never was allowed to know. I became very well acquainted with this child Mildred in the few days I stayed at Pearfield, but she told me nothing. Aunt Love told me the whole story, for Mrs. Van Tassel had confided in her. Aunt Love is perfectly devoted to Uncle Richard's wife."

"Humph!"

"They have been through a great deal in a year. I suppose you heard through Jack, though I knew nothing about it, that Mrs. Van Tassel's little brother and sister took scarlet fever and died in the same week."

"Yes, I knew that. Jack felt it deeply. I am sure he must have written home very kindly about it. It occurred only about a month after the wedding."

"Very likely he did. I don't know. Then Mrs. Bryant grew weaker and weaker through the winter. They took her South, and surrounded her with every luxury, but in April she died."

"No. I didn't know that."

"Yes, she died very peacefully and happily; but she had not been gone a fortnight when Uncle Richard had that stroke."

"What a procession of calamities!"

"I should think so. Well, Aunt Love says the worst part of it is, that Mrs. Van Tassel seems to connect all this misfortune with Jack's anger at her. Something on the old idea of a curse, I suppose."

Page's lip curled slightly under his mustache.

"I saw very little of Mrs. Van Tassel myself," continued his voluble sister. "Uncle Richard's head was very easily tired. He had to keep very quiet, and she was with him constantly. You never saw such devotion."

"No doubt," said Page ambiguously. "I can easily believe that she will not allow him out of her sight. It looks to me as if it were our duty to inform Jack of his father's condition."

"No, no. I saw enough of Uncle Richard to discover his wishes about that. He does not want to have Jack hurried. He does not consider his condition in the least alarming."

Page's face indicated his disapproval. "So Mrs. Van Tassel is to succeed in keeping Jack at a distance," he remarked.

"I don't think it is her doing."

"Of course it is," said Page without heat. "Uncle Richard must know the circumstances."

"He may suspect something, of course," replied Hilda, "but Aunt Love tells me they do not avoid the subject of Jack at all. Mrs. Van Tassel speaks of him with perfect naturalness, whenever necessity demands, and she has never told Uncle Richard of the angry parting that worried her so. He never asked her about it."

"Wise Uncle Richard! He knew better." Page shook his head. "It is a bad business."

His sister demurred. "I do not know that it is such a bad business for Uncle Richard to have gained such a devoted nurse. He needs it now. As for Miss Bryant, I pitied the girl, cooped up there in that lonely, monotonous village, and begged Mrs. Van Tassel to allow her to stay with me a week or two. She consented very willingly, even gladly. I wanted to give people a chance to look at her. I'm a philanthropist. The sight of her will do a weakly person as much good as the sea air; and she was"—

A knock at the door interrupted. Mrs. Page gave her brother a knowing little nod, and when she answered the call, it was her guest who entered. The girl had exchanged her black dress for one all white.

"You told me to come as soon as I was ready," she said, looking from one to the other.

"Yes, I was in haste to have you see my view. Isn't it a fine one?"

Mildred moved to the window, followed by Page's unconscious, openly admiring gaze. He had risen at once upon her entrance and stood, his hands resting on a chair-back, forgiving Mrs. Van Tassel's arts for the moment, in entire approval of her sister's appearance.

Hilda, to whom her brother-in-law's potential love affairs were a constant entertainment, kept his ingenuous face in view, even while her tongue rattled on.

"For a conscientious, well-intentioned man," she had once said to her husband, "Gorham Page can be the most dangerous creature. Any girl receiving such a look as his would believe him deeply smitten. Then he will go on, getting acquainted with her in his way, inquiring into her thoughts and opinions, even probing her hidden feelings, getting at the real woman, as he calls it, and having exchanged theories with her for a while, his mind will go mooning off, perhaps in the test of some new thought she has suggested, while the girl, gradually neglected, is soon as entirely forgotten as last year's fashions. It amounts to unprincipled flirting, and yet he doesn't suspect it in the least. He is too modest, really. A queer paradox."

Hilda suddenly finished the description of a distant lighthouse, and turning, walked straight up to her brother, who was still lost in critical approval of the noble lines and curves of her guest's tall figure.

"But come," she said, smiling with significant sauciness into his face. "We cannot live entirely on the beautiful things we can take in through our eyes. I fancy there is some dinner downstairs somewhere."

"Yes," agreed Page, stirring. He had finished his soup before he realized that there had been any personal intention in her speech.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE TELEGRAM.

Mrs. Page promised herself to keep a sharp lookout in behalf of the young girl of whom she had assumed temporary charge. At the very first of those exclusive walks and sails which she foresaw, she meant to reason with her brother, and indirectly to warn Mildred of his idiosyncrasy. Her guest seemed wonderfully well-poised and self-possessed for a girl of her age. Doubtless she had already become accustomed to admiration; but Gorham's attentions would be of an unusual sort. Mrs. Page meant to keep an eye on him.

She was disappointed, however. The very day following, he mentioned his intention of returning to the city.

"You must have known that I only came down to call on you," he replied to Hilda's expressions of surprise and dismay. "After such a prolonged holiday as I have had, you surely didn't suppose I was going to idle away more time here."

"I think it is very shabby of you," pouted Mrs. Page, with no thought of her own inconsistency. "Miss Bryant and I need you to entertain us while Robert is away. Don't we, Miss Bryant?"

Mildred assented. "It is hard to be deprived of both Blitzen and Mr. Page," she said feelingly, and her hostess wished she had not appealed to her.

Page regarded his sister thoughtfully. "Shall I send you some books?" he asked. "Miss Bryant said last night that she had not brought any books with her."

"You needn't trouble yourself," returned Hilda quickly. "His first symptom of interest," she noted mentally. "I know you," she added aloud. "The lightest entertainment we could hope for would be Buckle's 'History of Civilization.' No. Leave us if you must; but don't send us any literature!"

So he departed, and Mrs. Page was left to sound his praises instead of his defects, to her friend. After Mildred's saucy speech, she was determined that the girl should appreciate how far above the common run of men this rara avis of a brother was; and she rang the changes upon his high principle, his conscientiousness, his unselfishness, until the faint light of ironical amusement in her guest's eyes arrested her.

"I wouldn't have you think Gorham a prig," she added hastily. "He is the furthest from it."

Mildred's week at the beach slipped quickly and pleasantly away, and then she was recalled to Pearfield by her sister, who wrote that Mr. Van Tassel felt so much stronger that he wished to return home at once.

Mrs. Page received one letter from the girl, after they reached Chicago, descriptive of the journey, and the parting from Pearfield. Blitzen, she said, they were obliged to leave behind, as on the day of departure he was nowhere to be found. Humiliating as it was to confess it, they all believed he had heard the plans for his removal, and had gone into hiding.

September passed and October was nearly gone, when one morning as he opened his mail in his office, Gorham Page found a letter from his cousin Jack.

It began by responding to some theories and warnings, which Page had recently written him, relative to the unwholesomeness of beer-drinking.

DEAR GORHAM,—Your interesting and instructive letter just received. It has been an unusual length of time on the road, and it was an ill fate that delayed your temperance lecture, and deprived me of that aid to sobriety any longer than was necessary, in view of the rapidity with which I am traveling the downward road. It arrived, however, at a critical period. A friend in the pension, whose besotted fancy could not rise from the miry slough in which intemperance has sunk her, has just made me a philopena present. Instead of bestowing upon me some airy and diverting German philosophy, or fascinating English tract, or an elevating necktie,—instead of finding something which, in the guise of a trifling gift, should have brought to a debauched young man blessed suggestions of a reformed life and renewed respectability, she presented me a beer mug with a painting of Lohengrin, Swan and Co. on the outside, and a line or two of German words around the rim, having some reference to Parsifal and the Holy Grail!

That of course drives the last nail into my coffin! That puts me beyond the pale of—water! In vain do you exclaim, "Be a man! Have some backbone about you! Be content to look at your new beer mug, without making other use of it. Keep it as bric-a-brac, dry, and always perpendicular! Let its rigid uprightness be also that of your moral character. Resist the dreadful power of this unrighteous alliance of a refined taste for æsthetic pottery with a depraved taste for strong drink!"

Alas, I cannot. How appalling and yet how interesting it is to observe how Fate inclines to kick a fellow when he's down. Everything conspires against the reform of one who has fallen.

As to my own case, even if I could overcome my craving for liquor, I should still be obliged to go right on drinking my pint of beer at dinner every day, for it seems that the German words around the rim of my mug are not "fast colors;" they come off gradually as I drink; and after long-drawn-out attempts by the other process, I conclude that this is the only way in which I can ever get any German into me, so I must go on to the bitter end. Bitte sehr!

I have decided to come home before the New Year. I dread it, as you know, but the plunge into the new family circle must be taken some time, and I want to see my father. I am sure he wants to see me, too, though he doesn't say much about it. In a recent letter, he admitted that he had not been very well during the summer. Bless him! I suppose her griefs have shaken him very much. Of course I'm sorry for her, but I can't be resigned to father's having had to shoulder the Bryants' affairs. I tell you I am glad to know he is himself again. His letter made me feel an intolerable distance away. Yes, I shall see him by the New Year, whatever happens.

Page was folding this letter into its envelope, when a telegraph boy entered the office.

"Want an answer?" he asked.

"Yes, sir."

So while his clerk signed, the lawyer tore open the message. He started as he read it, and a slow color rose over his face.

Taking a blank he scribbled an address, then added:—

Will be with you to-morrow evening.

GORHAM PAGE.

Making hasty preparations at the office and at home, he barely succeeded in catching the limited train for Chicago. When he was seated in his section, he drew forth from his pocket the telegram that had startled him, and read it again.

Mr. Van Tassel died suddenly at nine last night. Can you come to us?

MILDRED BRYANT.

"Poor Jack!" thought Page; and the wheels seemed to repeat the words like a refrain. He disliked his own task, but it did not seem strange to him that he had been summoned. Mr. Van Tassel had no near relatives in Chicago. Page had had charge of his legal affairs in Boston. Doubtless his address had been among the dead man's papers, and Mrs. Van Tassel's advisers had suggested that he be sent for.

Page shrank repugnantly from encountering this woman, whom disaster followed so relentlessly. He tried not to think of her. Perhaps it would not be necessary that they should meet at all; yet try as he might, he could not prevent his imagination from picturing the siren, who had succeeded in capturing the honest, cordial, fine-natured man, whose death it was difficult to realize. How would Jack bear it? How would his highly strung affectionate nature stand the strain? This woman who had brazenly told him that she did not love his father had been the one to stand near the latter's deathbed; while the loving heart of the son had been kept at a distance by her machinations.

For Page was now fully convinced that Jack had been deliberately deceived as to his father's condition, and he blamed himself hotly for obeying his sister and refraining from intermeddling.

He said to himself that he ought to have talked with Miss Bryant about the matter at R——. The thought of Mildred gave him no pleasure. She was sister to the woman who had robbed Jack, and broken his heart. He felt a sudden conviction of Mrs. Van Tassel's appearance. She was an Amazon; tall, commanding, bold-faced, loud-voiced, with a coarser repetition of her sister's beauty; and involuntarily he shuddered with anticipatory disgust, and wished the next few days well over.

But this was being extraordinarily imaginative for Page, and he realized it all at once, and opened the paper which he had bought, with the newsboy shuffling along beside him as he hastened through the depot in Boston. But his thoughts would not concentrate upon the printed page; rather they flew to Jack's brilliant face,—the face which always said that life was good,—and saw it suddenly stamped with white despair, alone in a strange land.

The next day, arrived in Chicago, Page left the train at Hyde Park and went to a hotel. Half an hour afterward, he emerged and walked toward the lake. It was a dreary day, such as seldom comes in Chicago's October. The lake was gray from recent rain, and an east wind was whipping dead leaves from the elms, across the green lawn around the Van Tassel house.

Page looked at the drawn curtains, walked up the steps to the crape-hung door, and an unexpected lump rose in his throat, for he thought of Jack. In that moment, there came to him a new loyal satisfaction in the fact that he had come; that some one beside aliens would stand near Uncle Richard. It was with a strange mixture of grief and resentment that he met the servant, and asked for Miss Bryant.

He looked around the well-remembered parlor, where the maid left him, and noted that it was newly and fashionably furnished; but scarcely five minutes had passed before Mildred entered the room, and walked straight up to him with outstretched hand.

He returned the greeting with cold formality, and even in the shaded room he could see that the girl's eyes were swelled from weeping.

"I am so glad you could come," she said tremulously. "Was it very inconvenient? We thought you would probably wish to attend the funeral any way. Mr. Van Tassel had so few"—she could go no further, but broke down and wept into her handkerchief.

"Crocodile tears!" thought Page. "It is more than likely that they have everything between them.—Certainly, I should have wished to come," he said aloud.

"Then—then," began Mildred, making an effort, "my sister wanted your advice—she thought you would know best—Mr. Van Tassel trusted you—Forgive me, but we have had such a shock"—she tried vainly to go on, once, twice, then with a gesture turned and left the room.

The visitor moved to a window, and looked out through a crack of the blind.

"I'm sorry they think it necessary to go through this sort of thing," he thought cynically. "Now I suppose she will send the other one; and if that was a preface!" A sound behind him caused him to set his teeth, and turn about with the coldest, blankest expression he could assume. His eyes had grown accustomed to the dim light now, and he saw a straight slight girl in black, standing and regarding him with the saddest, loveliest countenance he had ever looked upon. Her large eyes had shed all their tears, and her delicate lips had never smiled. Her rippled brown hair framed a colorless face, and her effect was less pathetic than awe-inspiring in its pure unconscious dignity.

"This is Mr. Page?" she said, advancing and offering a hand which the young man took mechanically. "It was kind of you to come promptly. I felt that I must see you and you only, about—about Mr. Van Tassel's son."

She spoke in an even, emotionless voice, but Page noted a faint trembling of her lips at the mention of Jack.

"You are the nearest relative, and you can best decide what should be done."

Page was in all the confusion incident upon intense revulsion of feeling. He felt that he had not yet full command of his ideas; but the spontaneous desire to help this exquisite young creature, to let neither himself nor any one else wound her further, constituted his ruling passion for the moment.

"You have sent no word to Jack as yet?"

"No. As soon as your telegram came I decided to wait for you."

She had been waiting for him and he had filled the moments of his coming with brutal contempt and criticism of her.

The tearless sadness of her voice went on: "It is better for the word to go from you than from me." Her eyelids fell. "It will hurt Jack less. I would"—she lifted her eyes again and gave Page a look that his heart received as a pang. "I would gladly give my life if it could procure Jack one hour with his father, alive."

"I believe it sincerely," he answered.

The respect and sympathy of Page's tone seemed to impel her to further explanation. "It was terribly sudden and unexpected," she said. "No one—the doctor himself did not believe in the possibility of such a catastrophe. He was feeling so well for him. He was in the act of speaking of it when he sank back. His last word was 'happy.'"

She stood a moment, her eyelids dropped, in statuesque silence. Page watched her steady her tottering self-control.

"I had thought," she went on finally, "of a succession of cablegrams. Could it be broken to your cousin a little more gently, so?"

"Yes, that will be best."

"And may I ask you to send them, without regard to cost?"

"Certainly. What else can I do? I beg you to let me be useful to you in all ways that I can for Uncle Richard's sake."

"Thank you. I will give you the address of a neighbor, an old and dear friend of Mr. Van Tassel, who has been most kind. Perhaps he would be glad to consult with you."

Page soon took his leave, and until the day after the funeral did not again have opportunity to speak with the young widow. Then she sent for him and he went upstairs to the gay and delicate boudoir which Richard Van Tassel had furnished for his young wife, whose black gown to-day made the one dark spot amid its luxury.

She looked precisely the same as on the occasion of their first meeting except that now, by daylight, Page could see more distinctly her patient, marble beauty.

"I could not let you go East without thanking you," she said, greeting him gravely. "You have been very kind, and a great help to us."

The young man bowed, and murmured a polite platitude. He could think of nothing to say to her.

"Do you—I suppose you do expect your cousin to return home immediately."

"Yes. I think he will come."

"One thing which I wanted to say to you this morning is that my sister and I are going immediately to California to spend the winter. You will meet your cousin, very likely, upon his arrival?"

Page bowed.

"Will you kindly tell him that the house here is ready for him, that we shall not return to it"—Mrs. Van Tassel's even, formal utterance broke, and she suddenly averted her head. "Poor Jack!" she exclaimed. "It will make him suffer afresh to come back here, and who can comfort him? It is the best I can do, though," she added suddenly, turning again toward Page. "You know there is not one person save Mildred to whom I can speak of all this, and it is wrong to dwell upon sad and humiliating subjects with a bright young girl."

She looked scarcely older than Mildred herself, Page thought, but he eagerly offered himself as a confidant.

"I am glad Jack has you," she continued. "I wish, oh, so deeply, that I might do or say anything to alleviate his sorrow; but you see," appealingly, "the only thing I can do is to keep away. Jack and I were good friends once, but that is all over."

As Page a little later came downstairs to leave the house, Mildred Bryant rose from a seat near the fireplace in the hall. Her face looked a little paler than was its wont, and faint shadows about her eyes told of grief; but she was once more the self-possessed girl he had first seen on the train.

"You are returning at once to Boston?" she asked.

"Yes. I leave to-night."

"I saw by your face as you came downstairs that you think my sister looks badly; but of course you do. Well, I believe there is nothing more, there are no more shocks that she can suffer—unless she should lose me, and I fancy I am long for this world;" a shade of the girl's pretty ironical smile flitted over her lips; "but I could lose her," the hazel eyes suddenly became bright with unshed tears; "and," with vehemence, "I will not. I am going, we are going away to search for Clover's girlhood. It must come back. She has been cheated out of it too soon."

"Mrs. Van Tassel told me that you intend going West. Southern California will surely do her good."

"I hope so. I am glad you have been here these last days. It has been a comfort to my sister."

"Do you really think so?" eagerly.

"Without doubt. I observed that she seemed less anxious about—everything, from the moment of your coming."

"The matter of telling Jack had preyed upon her," said Page sympathetically.

He saw an indefinable change come over Mildred's face. "I suppose Jack must bear his troubles like the rest of the world," she answered with a tinge of hardness. "We thank you very much for everything, Mr. Page," she added, holding out her hand, and the other clasped it warmly.

"I would not have failed to be here for any consideration, Miss Bryant. I hope," looking into the girl's eyes earnestly, "that the time may not be far distant when I shall meet you and Mrs. Van Tassel again."

"Thank you," returned Mildred courteously, and the young man left the house with a distinct sensation of disappointment because she had not echoed his wish. He could not avoid the suspicion that these young women would now expect and wish to walk in a separate way from that of all connections of his dear lost uncle. He himself would henceforth be classed with Jack, and, strange new disloyalty, the prospect was unsatisfactory.

He turned his steps toward the office where he was going to await a cablegram, and on his way undertook to analyze his own unreasonable feelings. "They are nothing to me, those girls," he thought, while memory presented in fresh hues that averted head leaning upon a white hand in Clover's spasm of impotent pity for Jack, and all of a sudden, instead of theorizing, Page found himself dwelling with eager pride, as if it were the climax of achievement in his life, on the fact that he had been of assistance, of use, of comfort, to that fair, pale creature, set in a sacred niche apart from all the other women in the world.

He recalled himself with cold surprise from this Scylla, only to fall into the Charybdis of a reverie in which Miss Bryant's face and bearing were regal, as she declared that Jack must bear his trials like the rest of the world.

Page threw back his head in self-impatience. "She is a fine, bright girl, and I should like to know her better," he thought; "but there is this comfort—in a couple of months I shall have forgotten all about her. I couldn't remember her if I tried."

Before evening he received the expected message from his cousin. Jack sailed from Bremen at once.