The Earth Trembled Part 26

"Because people are differently const.i.tuted. Besides, young man, I am not old enough to be your grandmother. I was very young at the time of the war, and have not suffered as have others."

"Grandmother, indeed! I should think that Mr. Willoughby would fall in love with you every day."

"The grand pa.s.sion has a rather prominent place in your thoughts just now.

Some day you will be like Mr. Willoughby, and cotton, stocks, or their equivalents, will take a very large share of your thoughts."

"Well, that day hasn't come yet. Even the wise man said there was a time for all things. How long must my probation last before I can come back for more advice?"

"A week, at least"

"Phew!"

"You must think it all over, as I said before, calmly and conscientiously.

I have tried to enable you to see the subject on all its sides, and I tell you again that you may find just as much opposition from your father as from Captain Bodine. He may have very different plans for you. Ella Bodine has nothing but her own good heart to give you, supposing you were able to persuade her to give that much."

"That much would enrich me forever."

"Your father wouldn't see it in that light. He may call her that designing little baker."

"I hope he won't for G.o.d's sake. I never said a hot word to my father."

"Never do so, then. If you lose your temper, all is lost. But we are antic.i.p.ating. Sober, second thoughts may lead you to save yourself and others a world of trouble."

"Oh! I've had second thoughts before. Good-by. At this hour, one week hence;" and he shook hands heartily.

A moment later, he came rus.h.i.+ng back from the hall, exclaiming: "There!

See, what a blunderbuss I am! I forgot to thank you, which I do, with all my heart."

"Ah!" sighed the mature woman, as her guest finally departed, "I'd take all his pains for the possibilities of his joys."

Ella had not been mistaken in thinking that she detected a trace of recklessness in Clancy's manner. He had been compelled to believe that Mara was in truth lost to him; that her will and pride would prove stronger than her heart. Indeed, he went so far as to believe that her heart, as far as he was concerned, was not giving her very much trouble.

"I fear she has become so morbid and warped by the malign influences that have surrounded her from infancy," he had thought, "that she cannot love as I love. My best hope now is, that when Bodine begins to show his game more clearly, she will remember my words. It's horrible to think that she may develop into a woman like Mrs. Hunter. Until this evening, I have always believed there was a sweet, womanly soul imprisoned in her bosom, but now I don't know what to think. I'll go off to the mountains on the pretence of a fis.h.i.+ng excursion, and get my balance again."

The following morning had been spent in preparations, and the afternoon, as we have seen, found him at Mrs. Willoughby's. His sore heart and bitter mood were solaced by Miss Ainsley's unmistakable welcome. He knew he did not care for her in any deep and lasting sense, and he much doubted whether her interest in him was greater than that which she had bestowed upon others in the past. But she diverted his thoughts, flattered the self-love which Mara had wounded so ruthlessly, and above all fascinated him by her peculiar beauty and intellectual brilliancy.

"Why are you going away?" she asked reproachfully, when they were seated on the balcony.

"Oh, I've been working hard. I'm going off to the mountains to fish and rest."

"I hope you'll catch cold, and come back again soon."

"What a disinterested friend!"

"You are thinking only of yourself; why shouldn't I do likewise?"

"No, I'm thinking of you."

"Of course, at this minute. You'd be apt to think of a lamp-post if you were looking at it."

"Please don't put out the suns.h.i.+ne with your brilliancy."

"Ironical, too! What is the matter to-day?"

"What penetration! Reveal your intuitions. Have I failed in business, or been crossed in love?"

"The latter, I fancy."

"Well, then, how can I better recover peace of mind and serenity than by going a-fis.h.i.+ng? You know what Izaak Walton says--"

"Oh, spare me, please, that ancient worthy! You are as cold-blooded as any fish that you'll catch. If I find it stupid in Charleston I'll go North."

"That threat shakes my very soul. I promise to come back in a week or ten days."

"Or a month or so," she added, looking hurt.

"Come, my good friend," he said, laughing. "We're too good fellows, as you wished we should be, to pretend to any forlornness over a parting of this kind. You will sleep as sweetly and dreamlessly as if you had never seen Owen Clancy, and I will write you a letter, such as a man would write to a man, telling you of my adventures. If I don't meet any I'll bring some about--get shot by the moonlighters, save a mountain maid from drowning in a trout pool, or fall into the embrace of a black bear."

"The mountain maid, you mean."

"Did I? Well, your penetration pa.s.ses bounds."

"You may go, if you will write the letter. There must be no dime-novel stories in it, no drawing on your imagination. It shall be your task to make interesting just what you see and do."

"Please add the twelve labors of Hercules."

"No trifling. I'm in earnest, and put you on your mettle in regard to that letter. Unless you do your best, your friends.h.i.+p is all a pretence. And remember what you said about its being a letter to a man. If you begin in a conventional way, as if writing to a lady, I'll burn it without reading."

"Agreed. Good-by, old fellow--beg pardon, Miss Ainsley."

She laughed and said, "I like that; good-by." And she gave him a warm, soft hand, in a rather lingering clasp.

When he was gone she murmured softly, "Yes, he has a chance."

CHAPTER XXVI

ELLA'S CRUMB OF COMFORT

Ella walked up Meeting Street in a frame of mind differing widely from the complacent mood in which she sought Mrs. Willoughby's residence. The unexpected had again happened, and to her it seemed so strange, so very remarkable, that she should have met Mr. Houghton once more without the slightest intention, or even expectation, on her part, that she was perplexed and troubled. What did it mean?

In matters purely personal, and related closely to our own interests, we are p.r.o.ne to give almost a superst.i.tious significance to events which come about naturally enough. It was not at all strange that Houghton should have been strongly and agreeably impressed by Ella from the first; and that he should happen to call at the same hour that she did, would have been regarded by her as a very ordinary coincidence, had not the case been her own. Since it was her own, she was almost awed by the portentous interview from which she had just escaped. The inexperienced girl found her cherished ideas in respect to young Houghton completely at fault. She had sighed that she could not meet him without restraint or embarra.s.sment, for, as she had a.s.sured herself, "It would be such fun." She had supposed that she could laugh at him and with him indefinitely--that he would be a source of infinite jest and amus.e.m.e.nt. He had banished all these illusions in a few brief moments. How could she make sport of a man who had coupled her name with that of his dead mother? His every glance, word, and tone expressed sincere respect and admiration, and, she had to admit to herself, something more. She was so sincere herself, so unsullied, so lacking in the callousness often resulting from much contact with the world, that it seemed to her that it would be a profanation henceforth to regard him as the b.u.t.t of even the innocent ridicule of which she was capable. Yet in all her perplexity and trouble there was a confused exhilaration and a glad sense of power.

"To think that I, little Ella Bodine, a baker by trade," she thought, "should have inspired that big fellow to talk as he did! He is apology embodied, and seems far more afraid of me than he was of that great bully on the street." And she bent her head to conceal a laugh of exultation.