Barbara Ladd Part 24

"No, Robert, I don't _love_ you--not in the way you mean. I'm not in love with you, you know. But I do care a lot for you, more than for _almost_ any one else!"

They had both forgotten--for it was weeks away--how Barbara had felt about the imaginary unknown lady.

That "almost" was, to Robert, the end of all things. He thought at once of Cary Patten. Pain and jealous madness struggled together in his breast, strangling him.

"Good-bye!" he said at last, finding his voice, and turning to the door. "I shall leave to-night!"

"Robert!" cried Barbara, sharply. "Come back at once!"

He paused near the door, half turned, as if compelled by mere civility, but showed no sign of obeying.

"Come back to me!" she commanded. And he, being a courteous gentleman, obeyed.

"What is it, lady?"

"What on earth do you mean by being so crazy?" she demanded.

No answer occurred to him as necessary. He looked at her inquiringly, his face very white, his eyes deep sunken, his lips straight and hard.

Barbara began to regret that she had not managed in some other way.

She certainly could not let him go. Yet she certainly did not love him enough to give up her freedom for him,--to sacrifice all the enchanting experience of which she had not yet begun to tire, to dismiss all the interesting men, whose homage was so sweet to her young, unsatiated vanity.

"Don't you know, Robert," she went on, beguilingly, "that I _couldn't possibly_ get along without you? I don't love you, but I do love you to love me, you know. I couldn't bear to have you go away and forget me, and love some other woman,--some kind, sweet, beautiful woman who could love you and make you happy. I need you to love me. Though I know there is no earthly reason why you should, and I think you are a crazy goose to do it, and I believe you only think you do, anyhow!"

Robert stood motionless. The storm raging up and down within him turned him to steel on the surface. From a dry throat he tried to speak clearly and with moderation.

"You said--'almost!' Who is it--you care more for?--Cary Patten?"

Barbara broke into a clear peal of laughter, and clapped her hands with a fine a.s.sumption of glee.

"Oh, you silly, silly child!" she exclaimed. "It was Uncle Bob, of course, that I was thinking of when I said that. I love Uncle Bob better than any one else in the world,--_far_ better than I love you, Robert, I can tell you that. But I care for you almost as much as for Aunt Hitty. Cary Patten! Why, he and these other nice men who are making things so pleasant for me, they are just _new_ friends. I _like_ them, that's all. You are altogether different, you know. But I'm just not in love with you,--and so you talk of going away and spoiling everything for me. I don't call that loving me, Robert,--not as _I_ would love a girl if I were a man. But it's not my fault if I'm not in love myself, is it? I'm sorry,--but I don't believe I _can_ love, really, the way you mean! Cary Patten, indeed! Why, he's just a boy,--a nice, good-looking, saucy, conceited boy!"

"Can't you try to love me, Barbara?" pleaded Robert, his wrath all gone. He flung himself down at her feet, and wildly kissed them. All this she permitted smilingly, but the request seemed to her, as it was, a very foolish one.

"No, I can't!" she answered, with decision. "Trying wouldn't make me.

And I don't think I want to, anyhow. I want to enjoy myself here while I can. And I want you to be nice, and help me enjoy myself, and not bother me. Love me just as much as you like, Robert, but don't tell me so--too often! And don't ask me to love you. And _don't_ go and be lovely to the other girls, and make believe you are not in love with me, for that would displease me very much, though I should know it was making believe because you were cross at me. So, don't be horrid!"

This seemed to Robert a somewhat one-sided arrangement. He knew he would accept it, yet his honesty compelled him to express his sense of its injustice.

"I certainly would be lovely to the other girls if I wanted to, my lady," said he, doggedly. "The trouble is, I _don't_ want to. And I sha'n't bore myself just for the sake of trying to make you think I don't care. I love you, that's all--better than anything else in heaven or earth. And I shall make you love me, my lady!"

This threat amused Barbara, but did not displease her.

"Very well, Robert," she answered, with a teasing, alluring look that made his heart jump. "I sha'n't try to prevent you. I'll even like you a little better now, at once, if you will go right away this minute and let me dress."

"Dress for Cary Patten!" muttered Robert, kissing her hand without enthusiasm, and retiring with sombre brow. That he should go in this temper did not please her ladys.h.i.+p at all.

"And, Robert!" she cried, when he had just reached the door.

"Yes, my lady!" and he came back once more.

"You said good-bye as if you were still in a nasty, black temper!" She held out her hand to him again. This time he kissed it with what she considered a more fitting warmth.

"And, Robert, don't forget that I am _very, very_ good to you, far more so than you deserve. I don't think of telling Cary Patten, or any of the others, not to flirt with the other girls. Cary Patten may be as lovely to them as he likes, and I sha'n't mind one bit, so long as it does not interfere with his being as attentive as he ought to be to me!

Now, it is a great honour I do you, Robert, in not letting you flirt."

"I appreciate it, my lady," he answered, permitting himself to smile.

"A great honour, indeed,--though a superfluous one!"

"I have no objection to that word, 'superfluous,' in that connection,"

said Barbara, thoughtfully, to herself, as Robert disappeared.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

After this Robert was careful, and so was permitted to be fairly happy when he could keep the fires of jealousy banked down in his heart.

Once in awhile they would begin to get the better of him; and then, after letting Barbara see just a glimpse of the flame, that she might not forget it was there, he would leave before she could find him troublesome and work it under by hours of furious riding. He skilfully avoided giving her any further excuse for discipline; and was even so cunning, at times, as to pique her by his show of self-control. In this way he scored continually over the too confident Cary Patten, who, after a week or two of almost daily calls at the old Dutch house on State Street, would disappear and not be seen near Barbara for days.

At such times Robert concluded that Cary had been tempting Providence and suffering the usual disaster of those who so presume. As for Jerry Waite, and young Paget, and the rest of the infatuated train, Robert thought that Barbara was quite too infernally nice to them all, and cursed them all hotly in his heart; but he could not refrain from admiring the neat manner in which she held them all in hand.

Early in the autumn, however, it became still more difficult for Barbara and Robert to keep silent on the great questions which they so dreaded to discuss. The First Continental Congress was in session at Philadelphia, and its deliberations formed a theme to blister men's tongues. Made up of Tories, Radical Patriots or potential rebels, and Moderates, in fairly even proportion, it satisfied neither Barbara nor Robert. The latter, in spite of the fact that its New York delegates were of his own party, viewed it with singularly clear eyes, and saw in it not merely an instrument for the const.i.tutional redress of just grievances,--wherein it had his sympathy,--but a forerunner of revolt,--wherein it called forth his pa.s.sionate reprobation. To Barbara, on the other hand, this Continental Congress, of which she had hoped so much, seemed a mean-spirited, paltering, blear-eyed thing, incapable of seeing what destiny had written large across the continent, or too timorous to acknowledge what it saw. The strain was further increased by matters which touched them both personally. With the news that Connecticut, stirred up by false rumours of a struggle with the royal troops in Boston, had thousands of her militia under arms, came a letter from Mistress Mehitable, saying that Doctor John was among them, in command of a regiment, and that Doctor Jim was looking after his patients. At this tidings Barbara's heart swelled with mingled pride and anxiety. She pictured the heroic figure Doctor John would make, in his uniform, about to fight for the cause which she held so splendid and so righteous. At the same time she saw him already in the fight, waving his sword amid the smoke and slaughter, and she shook with terror for him. Both Robert and Glenowen were with her when the letter came, and as she read it out her voice broke and the tears rolled down her cheeks.

"Good for John Pigeon!" cried Glenowen, his eyes aglow.

Then there was a heavy stillness on the air, such as that which sometimes portends an earthquake, and neither looked at Robert.

Robert's face was very grave, but inspiration came to him, and he said exactly the right thing.

"How lonely Doctor Jim and Mistress Mehitable must be! Second Westings must be perfectly desolate!"

The danger was averted. He had dwelt, not upon the point of difference, but the point of sympathy; and the difference sank again out of sight.

"Oh," murmured Barbara, "I almost feel as if I ought to go back to Aunt Hitty!"

"I know! But you can't, very well, sweetheart! For which I am most thankful!" said Glenowen, promptly.

"And Mistress Mehitable has Doctor Jim," said Robert. "We need you more than she does, dearest lady!"

With all the country seething as it was, nowhere else, perhaps, save in New York, would it have been possible to keep up so long the pretence of harmony between opposing factions. New York was full of "Moderates," men no less determined to resist the tyranny of Parliament than to retain the supremacy of the Crown. Extremes were thus held in check; and men met in apparent social harmony whose opinions, once put in practice, would have hurled them at one another's throats. But to the little company resorting at the old Dutch house on State Street there entered now a new element of disruption.

At a dance Barbara had met a slender, dark youth, a student at King's College, who had made himself prominent by his radical eloquence at a great ma.s.s-meeting of the Continental party. His scholarly breadth of thought, combined with almost fanatical zeal, delighted her. And he had the uncommon merit of expressing unforgettably the very views she herself had long maintained. They became too interested in conversation to dance; and from that evening Mr. Alexander Hamilton came often to Glenowen's lodgings. He was a mere boy in years, but Glenowen felt his power at once,--and even Robert, who was not unnaturally prejudiced, was too honest not to admit that Barbara's young Mr. Hamilton was a very remarkable and accomplished youth.

Understanding the sharp divergence of opinion in the little circle, Hamilton kept a curb upon his tongue save at convenient seasons. But to his eager and convicted spirit this soon became too difficult. One evening, when there were none to hear him but Barbara, Robert, and Glenowen, the torrent of his boyish ardour overflowed. He depicted the momentous changes toward which each fateful hour was hurrying them. He declared it was no more than a matter of days ere all America would be in the throes of a righteous revolution. He prophesied the birth of a great republic, that should establish Liberty in her New World home, and scourge kings, thrones, and tyrannies into the sea. Glenowen had looked at him warningly, but in vain. Barbara, troubled at first, grew suddenly hot and resentful at the thought that Robert should be blind to the splendid dream. She applauded aggressively.

Robert's brows were knit, but he had no emotion save distress.

"I pray you pardon me, dear lady, and you, Mr. Glenowen, if I take my departure at once," said he, at the first pause. "Knowing my sentiments as you both do, fully, you will understand that I could not in honour stay and listen to such doctrines as these of Mr. Hamilton's and not oppose them with all my force."

He bent over Barbara's hand, but she petulantly s.n.a.t.c.hed it away without letting him kiss it. Then, having shaken hands heartily with Glenowen, and bowed stiffly to Hamilton, he withdrew in great trouble of mind, feeling that now, in truth, had come to an end the truce between his honour and his love. He walked the streets half the night, and in the morning, white and dejected, but determined to know the worst at once, he went around to State Street at the earliest moment permissible after breakfast. Barbara received him coldly. But he made haste to face the issue.