The Fighting Chance Part 11

"So do I. I've made him take my dog."

There was an abrupt pause, and presently Mrs. Ferrall began to laugh.

"I mean it--really," said Sylvia quietly; "I like him immensely."

"Dearest, you mean it generously--with your usual exaggeration. You have heard that he has been foolish, and because he's so young, so likable, every instinct, every impulse in you is aroused to--to be nice to him--"

"And if that were--"

"There is no harm, dear--" Mrs. Ferrall hesitated, her grey eyes softening to a graver revery. Then looking up: "It's rather pathetic,"

she said in a low voice. "Kemp thinks he's foredoomed--like all the Siwards. It's an hereditary failing with him,--no, it's hereditary d.a.m.nation. Siward after Siward, generation after generation you know--"

She bit her lip, thinking a moment. "His grandfather was a friend of my grand-parents, brilliant, handsome, generous, and--doomed! His own father was found dying in a dreadful resort in London where he had wandered when stupefied--a Siward! Think of it! So you see what that outbreak of Stephen's means to those whose families have been New Yorkers since New York was. It is ominous, it is more than ominous--it means that the master-vice has seized on one more Siward. But I shall never, never admit it to his mother."

The younger girl sat wide-eyed, silent; the elder's gaze was upon her, but her thoughts, remote, centred on the hapless mother of such a son.

"Such indulgence was once fas.h.i.+onable; moderation is the present fas.h.i.+on. Perhaps he will fall into line," said Mrs. Ferrall thoughtfully. "The main thing is to keep him among people, not to drop him. The gregarious may be shamed, but if anything, any incident, happens to drive him outside by himself, if he should become solitary, there's not a chance in the world for him.

It's a pity. I know he meant to make himself the exception to the rule--and look! Already one carouse of his has landed him in the daily papers!"

Sylvia flushed and looked up: "Grace, may I ask you a plain question?"

"Yes, child," she answered absently.

"Has it occurred to you that what you have said about this boy touches me very closely?"

Mrs. Ferrall's wits returned nimbly from woolgathering, and she shot a startled, inquiring glance at the girl beside her.

"You--you mean the matter of heredity, Sylvia?"

"Yes. I think my uncle Major Belwether chose you as his august mouthpiece for that little sermon on the dangers of heredity--the danger of being ignorant concerning what women of my race had done--before I came into the world they found so amusing."

"I told you several things," returned Mrs. Ferrall composedly. "Your uncle thought it best for you to know."

"Yes. The marriage vows sat lightly upon some of my ancestors, I gather.

In fact," she added coolly, "where the women of my race loved they usually found the way--rather unconventionally. There was, if I understood you, enough of divorce, of general indiscretion and irregularity to seriously complicate any family tree and coat of arms I might care to claim--"

"Sylvia!"

The girl lifted her pretty bare shoulders. "I'm sorry, but could I help it? Very well; all I can do is to prove a decent exception. Very well; I'm doing it, am I not?--practically scared into the first solidly suitable marriage offered--seizing the unfortunate Howard with both hands for fear he'd get away and leave me alone with only a queer family record for company! Very well! Now then, I want to ask you why everybody, in my case, didn't go about with sanctimonious faces and dolorous mien repeating: 'Her grand-mother eloped! Her mother ran away.

Poor child, she's doomed! doomed!'"

"Sylvia, I--"

"Yes--why didn't they? That's the way they talk about that boy out there!" She swept a rounded arm toward the veranda.

"Yes, but he has already broken loose, while you--"

"So did I--nearly! Had it not been for you, you know well enough I might have run away with that dreadful Englishman at Newport! For I adored him--I did! I did! and you know it. And look at my endless escapes from compromising myself! Can you count them?--all those indiscretions when mere living seemed to intoxicate me that first winter--and only my uncle and you to break me in!"

"In other words," said Mrs. Ferrall slowly, "you don't think Mr. Siward is getting what is known as a square deal?"

"No, I don't. Major Belwether has already hinted--no, not even that--but has somehow managed to dampen my pleasure in Mr. Siward."

Mrs. Ferrall considered the girl beside her--now very lovely and flushed in her suppressed excitement.

"After all," she said, "you are going to marry somebody else. So why become quite so animated about a man you may never again see?"

"I shall see him if I desire to!"

"Oh!"

"I am not taking the black veil, am I?" asked the girl hotly.

"Only the wedding veil, dear. But after all your husband ought to have something to suggest concerning a common visiting list--"

"He may suggest--certainly. In the meantime I shall be loyal to my own friends--and afterward, too," she murmured to herself, as her hostess rose, calmly dropping care like a mantle from her shoulders.

"Go and be good to this poor young man then; I adore rows--and you'll have a few on your hands I'll warrant. Let me remind you that your uncle can make it unpleasant for you yet, and that your amiable fiance has a will of his own under his pompadour and silky beard."

"What a pity to have it clash with mine," said the girl serenely.

Mrs. Ferrall looked at her: "Mercy on us! Howard's pompadour would stick up straight with horror if he could hear you! Don't be silly; don't for an impulse, for a caprice, break off anything desirable on account of a man for whom you really care nothing--whose amiable exterior and prospective misfortune merely enlist a very natural and generous sympathy in you."

"Do you suppose that I shall endure interference from anybody?--from my uncle, from Howard?"

"Dear, you are making a mountain out of a mole-hill. Don't be emotional; don't let loose impulses that you and I know about, knew about in our school years, know all about now, and which you and I have decided must be eliminated--"

"You mean subdued; they'll always be there."

"Very well; who cares, as long as you have them in leash?"

Looking at one another, the excited colour cooling in the younger girl's cheeks, they laughed, one with relief, the other a little ashamed.

"Kemp will be furious; I simply must cut in!" said Mrs. Ferrall, hastily turning toward the gun-room. Miss Landis looked after her, subdued, vaguely repentant, the consciousness dawning upon her that she had probably made considerable conversation about nothing.

"It's been so all day," she thought impatiently; "I've exaggerated; I've worked up a scene about a man whose habits are not the slightest concern of mine. Besides that I've neglected Howard shamefully!" She was walking slowly, her thoughts outstripping her errant feet, but it seemed that neither her thoughts nor her steps were leading her toward the neglected gentleman within; for presently she found herself at the breezy veranda door, looking rather fixedly at the stars.

The stars, s.h.i.+ning impartially upon the just and the unjust, illuminated the person of Siward, who sat alone, rather limply, one knee crossed above the other. He looked up by chance, and, seeing her star-gazing in the doorway, straightened out and rose to his feet.

Aware of him apparently for the first time, she stepped across the threshold meeting his advance half-way.

"Would you care to go down to the rocks?" he asked. "The surf is terrific."

"No--I don't think I care--"

They stood listening a moment to the stupendous roar.

"A storm somewhere at sea," he concluded.

"Is it very fine--the surf?"