A Face Illumined Part 37

"I'm not sure of anything concerning her save that she was born to make trouble. I know she was with him all the time he was here, and since he was metaphorically kicked off the premises she has sulked in her room. I suppose, of course, that she is mortified, and hates to meet people. Indeed, from a remark she made, some one must have snubbed her vigorously to-day; but her course makes everything a hundredfold worse. I am besmirched because of my relations.h.i.+p. I can see this in the bearing of more than one, and even Miss Burton, who could not be consciously unkind to any one, keeps me at a distance by barriers, which, although seemingly viewless, are so real I cannot pa.s.s them."

Van Berg surmised that the evasive tact which Miss Burton exercised towards his friend was not caused by his relations.h.i.+p to Ida, and yet was compelled to admit that her frank and friendly bearing towards himself was scarcely less dispiriting. Her manner, as a rule, was so plainly that of a friend only, that were it not for occasional and furtive glances which he intercepted, he would deem his prospects little better than Stanton's, in spite of all that had pa.s.sed between them. Even in these stolen, questioning, longing glances, there was an element that trouble and perplexed him, and the strange thought crossed his mind that when she looked most intently she did not see Harold Van Berg, but an intervening vision.

Her mystery, however, rendered her only the more attractive, and she seemed like a good angel that had come from an unknown world concerning which she could not speak, and perhaps he could not understand.

Her society was like a delicate wine, delightfully exhilarating while enjoyed, but whose effect is transient. He was provoked at himself to find how well he endured her absence, and how content he was with the genuine friends.h.i.+p she was evidently forming for him. Sometimes he even longed for more of the absorbing pa.s.sion which he saw had wholly mastered Stanton; but tried to satisfy himself by reasoning that his love was in accordance with his nature, which was calm and constant, rather than impulsive and pa.s.sionate.

"All the higher faculties of my soul are her allies," he thought, complacently. "I admire honor, and even reverence her. She could walk through life as my companion, my equal, and in many respects, my superior;" and so with all the delicate and un.o.btrusive tact of which he was the master he proposed to press his suit.

Since Jennie Burton had plainly intimated that, like King Lear, she had lost her woman's kingdom--her heart--and so was not able to reward such suit and service, how came it she kept poor Stanton at a distance, but welcomed the society of Van Berg? Possibly her intuition recognized the fact that in the case of Stanton she had touched the heart, but had won the mind of the artist. The first seemed disposed to give all and to demand all. Stanton's all did not count for very much thus far in her estimation. She had recognized the character he had brought to the Lake House--that of a pleasure-loving man of the world--and she was far too modest to suppose that she could work any material change in this character.

Self-indulgent by nature, she believed that he had proposed to enjoy a summer flirtation with one whom he would easily forget in the autumn, and, while this impression lasted, she punished him by requiring that he should be the chivalric attendant of every forlorn female in the house. When she believed, however, that such heart as he possessed was truly interested, she became as unapproachable as the afternoon horizon, whose rich glow is seemingly near, but can never be reached. While she recognized the genuineness of his pa.s.sion, she did not, as before intimated, regard it as a very serious affair.

"Good dinners and fairer faces than mine will comfort him before Christmas," she thought.

Few know themselves--their own capabilities of joy, suffering, or achievement. As with Ida, Stanton was at a loss to understand the changes in his own character. It was quite possible, therefore, that Miss Burton should misunderstand him. Indeed he had, as yet, but little place in her sad and preoccupied thoughts.

For some reason, however, Van Berg's society had for her a peculiar fascination that she could not resist. She scarcely knew whether she derived from it more of pleasure than of pain. She often asked herself this question:

"Which were better for a traveller in the desert--to see a mirage, or the sands only in all their barren reality?"

Her judgment said, the latter; but when the elusive mirage appeared, she looked often with a longing wistfulness that might well suggest a pilgrim that was athirst and famis.h.i.+ng.

In spite of her quickness, Van Berg occasionally caught something of this expression, and while he drew encouragement from it, he was too free from vanity and too acute an observer to conclude that all would result as he hoped. The unwelcome thought would come that he was only the occasion and not the cause, of these furtive glances. Was her heart already wedded to a memory, and was she interested in him chiefly because for some reason he gave vividness and reality to that memory? If this were true, what more had he to hope for than Stanton? If this were true, was he not in a certain sense pursuing a shadow? Woud success be success? Would he wish to clasp, as his wife, a woman whose heart had been buried in a sepulchre from which the stone might never be rolled away?

His first impression, that Miss Burton had pa.s.sed through some experience, some ordeal of suffering that separated her from ordinary humanity, often rea.s.serted itself more strongly than ever.

At times her flame-like spirit would flash up with a glow and brilliancy that lighted and warmed his very soul, but the feeling began to grow upon him that this genial fire consumed the costliest of all offerings--self. Did not her own broken heart and shattered hopes supply the fuel? Instead of brooding apart over some misfortune that would have crushed most natures, was she not seeking to make her life an altar on which she laid as a gift to others the best treasures of her woman's soul?

The more closely he studied her character, and the controlling impulses of her life, the more sincere became his admiration, and the deeper his reverence. He felt with truth that she WAS of different and finer clay from himself.

So strong was this impression, that the thought occurred to him that in this and kindred reasons might be found the explanation of the peculiar regard he felt for her. He had virtually offered himself, and would again if he could find the opportunity. If he were sure the he would win her, he would exult as one might who had secured the revenue of a kingdom, the purest and largest gem in the world, or some other possession that was unique and priceless. The whole of his strong intellectual nature would be jubilant over the great success of his life. He was also conscious that some of the deepest feelings of his soul were interested. She was becoming like a religion to him, and he imagined that his regard for her was somewhat akin to that of a devout Catholic for a patron saint.

And yet he was compelled to admit to himself that he did not lover her as he supposed he would love the woman he hoped to make his wife. Why was his heart so tranquil and his pulse so steady?

Certainly not because of a.s.sured success. Why did his regard differ so radically from Stanton's consuming pa.s.sion? Should Stanton win her he felt that he could still seek her society and enjoy her friends.h.i.+p. The prospect of never winning her himself did not rob life of its zest and color. On the contrary, he believed that she would ever be an inspiration, an exquisite ideal realized in actual life. As such he could not lose her any more than those women whom poetry, fiction, and history had placed as stars in his firmament, and this belief so contented him as to awaken surprise.

As he returned from a long and solitary stroll on Monday evening he soliloquized complacently, "I am making too great a mystery of it all. She is not an ordinary woman. Why should I feel towards her the ordinary and conventional love which any woman might evoke?

There is more of spirit than of flesh and blood in her exquisite organization. Sorrow has refined away every gross and selfish element, and left a saint towards whom devotion is far more seemly and natural than pa.s.sion. She awakens in me a regard corresponding to her own nature, and I thank heaven that I am at least finely enough organized to understand her and so can seek to win her in accordance with the subtle laws of her being. She would shrink inevitably from a downright, headlong pa.s.sion like that of Stanton's, no matter how honest it might be or how good the man expressing it. No hand, however strong, will ever grasp this 'rara avis,'

this good angel, rather. Her wings must be pinioned by gossamer threads of patient kindness, delicate sympathy, nice appreciation, and all woven and wound so un.o.btrusively that the shy spirit may not be startled. What a fool I was to blurt out my feelings last evening! What rare good fortune is mine in the fact that she gives me the vantage-ground of friends.h.i.+p from which to urge a suit wherein must be combined sincerity with consummate skill. I fear I must efface some other image before I can implant my own. How fortunate I am that my cool and well-poised nature will enable me to work under the guidance of judgment rather than impulse."

Feeling that he had much to gain and was in danger of irretrievable loss, he lightly mounted the steps of the hotel, bent on finding at once the object of his thoughts.

He saw her leaving a group in the parlor, of which Stanton was one, and he hastened to intercept her in the hall-way. Just as he was about to speak to her, Mr. Burleigh came bustling up and said:

"Miss Burton, a stranger--not to fame or fortune, nor to you probably, but a stranger to me--is inquiring for you--a stranger from the South. He would not give his name, and--good heaven, Miss Burton! are you ill?"

Van Berg led her into a private parlor near. She certainly had grown very white and faint. But after a moment there came a flash of hope and eager expectation into her face that no words could have expressed.

"His name--his name?" she gasped.

Mr. Burleigh looked at her a second, and then said: "Stay quietly here, I'll bring him to you; and then, Mr. Van Berg, perhaps you and I might form an enormous crowd."

"Had I not better leave you at once?" the artist asked when they were alone.

"Wait a moment. I--I--am very weak. It cannot be--but hope dies hard."

Trembling like a leaf, and with eyes aflame with intense, eager hope, she watched the door.

A moment later Mr. Burleigh ushered in a middle-aged gentleman, who commenced saying:

"Pardon me, Miss Burton, for not sending my name, but you would not have known it"--then the young lady's appearance checked him.

The effect of his coming was indeed striking. It was as if a gust of wind had suddenly extinguished a lamp. The luminous eyes closed for a moment, and the face became so pallid and ashen in its hue as to suggest death. It was evident to Van Berg that her disappointment was more bitter than death.

"Miss Burton took a long walk this afternoon," he said, hastily, "and, I fear, went much beyond her strength. Perhaps she had better see you to-morrow."

"Oh, certainly, certainly; I will remain, if there is need," the gentleman began.

By a strong and evident effort Miss Burton regained self-control, and said, with a faint smile that played over her face a moment like a gleam of wintry suns.h.i.+ne:

"You strong men often call women weak, and we, too often, prove you right. As Mr. Van Berg suggests, I am a little overtaxed to-night.

Perhaps I had better see you in the morning."

"I am a transient guest, and ought to be on my way with the first train," said the gentleman. "My errand is as brief as it is grateful to me. Do not leave, sir," he said to Van Berg. "If you are a friend of Miss Burton it will be pleasant for you to hear what I have to say; and, I warrant you that she will never tell you nor anyone else herself."

"May I stay?" he asked.

She felt so weak and unnerved, so in need of a sustaining hand and mind that she looked at him appealingly, and said:

"Yes. This gentleman cannot disgrace me more than I have myself this evening."

"Disgrace you! Miss Burton," exclaimed the gentleman. "Your name is a household word in our home, and our honor for it is only excelled by our love. You remember my invalid daughter, Emily Musgrave--our only and unfortunate child. She attended the college in which you are an instructress. Before she came under your influence her infirmities were crus.h.i.+ng her spirit and embittering her life. So morbid was she becoming that she apparently began to hate her mother and myself as the authors of her wretched existence.

But by some divine magic you sweetened the bitter waters of her life, and now she is a fountain of joy in our home. In her behalf and her mother's, I thank you; and even more, if possible, in my own behalf, for the reproachful, averted face of my child was killing me;" and tears stood in the strong man's eyes.

There was nothing conventional in the way in which Jeannie Burton received his warm grat.i.tude. She leaned wearily back in her chair, and for a moment closed her eyes. There was far more resignation than of pleasure in her face, and she had the air of one submitting to a fate which one could not and ought not to resist.

"Your three lives are much happier then?" she said, gently, as if wis.h.i.+ng to hear the rea.s.suring truth again.

"You do not realize your service to us," said Mr. Musgrave, eagerly.

"Our lives were not happy at all. There seemed nothing before us but increasing pain. You have not added to a happiness already existing merely, but have caused us to exchange positive suffering for happiness. Emily seems to have learned the art of making every day of our lives a blessing, and she says you taught her how. I would go around the world to say to you, 'G.o.d bless you for it!'"

"Such a.s.surances ought to make one resigned, if not content,"

she murmured in a low tone, as if half speaking to herself. Then rising, by an evident effort, she cordially gave her hand to Mr.

Musgrave, and said:

"You see, sir, that I am scarcely myself to-night. I think I could give you a better impression of your daughter's friend to-morrow.

Give her my sincere love and congratulations. She is evidently bearing her burden better than I mine. You cannot know how much good your words have done me to-night. I needed them, and they will help me for years to come."

The gentleman's eyes grew moist again, and he said, huskily:

"I know you are rather alone in the world, but if it should ever happen that there is anything that I could do for you were I your father, call on John Musgrave. There, I cannot trust myself to speak to you any more, though I have so much to say. Good-night, and good-by;" and he made a very precipitate retreat, thoroughly overcome by his warm Southern heart.