CHAPTER VI

Sylvie Barry meanwhile walked along rather rapidly for a warm morning. She felt irritated. Her sweet lips were set in defiant curves, the red heats of annoyance burned and faded on her cheek with each passing thought, and there was something out of harmony: a fateful discordance that swept over her, as if the parts of music had been wrongly put together.

Did they think – did Fred imagine —

She had never faced the idea before. Now she thrust it out in the garish sunlight. Her eyes sparkled, but there was no triumph in the girl's fine, resolute face. This man might lay his father's wealth at her feet, borrowed plumes in which he was quite content to shine; his heart – and a smile of withering scorn crossed her red lips. She would be a little dearer than his horse: dogs the fastidious man could not endure. Practically his wooing would be, —

 
"I will love thee – half a year,
As a man is able."
 

Not because of a fresher, fairer face: he would give her all he had, all that he could rouse his languid pulses to experience. She would be lifted out of her present occupations and interests; for Sylvie was too clear-eyed to blind herself with the specious reasoning that as the wife of a rich man's son, she would be a greater power in the world for good. They would fit her into their sphere. She fancied herself coming to an aimless middle-life like that of Mrs. Lawrence, taking no interest in any thing, but reading novels, and complaining, to pass away the time.

Did she really care for any one else? More than one young man in Yerbury had paid her the peculiar deferential attention that asks encouragement if there is any to give, but is too truly delicate to proceed without. Then there was Jack, who understood her soul better than any one else; but had he touched her heart in a lover-like way?

She turned her clear, honest eyes to the blue overhead, as if taking Heaven for a witness. Her heart and fancy were quite free. Much as she cared for him, there was no thrill of that high sentiment in it.

In some fascinating ideal life she had seen a lover with whom she could walk down through the years, whose life would touch hers at all points, who could fathom the depths of the nature that so puzzled herself, who could measure and supply the yearning reaches of intellect; who could awake in her soul a love, strong, deep, and unquestioning, so fervent, indeed, that she would turn from all other dreams and desires to him. A young girl's ideal – perhaps it is well for the world that some women have ideals, and keep faith with them.

As for Fred, his vanity led him straight on. She tried honestly to place herself right in his estimation; but he misunderstood her, and liked her the better for the variety. She saw too, with dismay, that her aunt favored him. Her natural kindness of heart shrank from the pain of rejecting him, and to her the triumph had no pleasure. But in her anxiety and desperation she saw only this one course.

He dropped in nearly every day, he took her and Miss Barry to drive. He haunted croquet-parties, which he hated, because she accepted invitations to them. He never met Jack. Some fine sense warned the latter that an encounter in Sylvie's parlor would be uncomfortable. Yet, strange to say, sometimes when he saw the handsome fellow sauntering by, a peculiar tenderness came over him, remembering the little boy who had clung fondly to him.

An old-fashioned courtship would prove no end of a bore, Fred decided. So one day he marched over to Larch Avenue when he knew Miss Barry was alone, and laid his case before her. She received him with graceful kindliness, listened to his offer, and assented with evident pleasure. There was not a happier woman that night in all Yerbury than Miss Barry. The care and desire of her life had been justly crowned. Her good-night kiss to Sylvie was inexpressibly sweet.

Fred did not see Sylvie for the next two days, but meanwhile wrought himself into a state that he was quite sure was proper and well-bred love. Then she came to Hope Terrace, and they kept her to tea. The late, heavy dinners were dispensed with at present.

"Will you walk home, to-night, Sylvie?" asked Fred. "I feel in a walking mood."

"The slightest symptom of industry ought to be encouraged," she made answer gayly. She had been of some real service this afternoon, charmed away a fretful headache, and restored Mrs. Lawrence to a comfortable state of feeling, and was correspondingly light-hearted. Then, too, Fred had kept out of the way, and been gravely polite to her at the tea-table. She liked him in such moods.

It was a late August evening, with a small crescent moon shining softly as if its forces were well-nigh spent. The heat of the day was over, and the falling dew evolved a kind of autumnal sweetness, the flavor of ripening fruits rather than flowers. Yerbury was very quiet in the part they were to traverse. They walked under great maples where a shadowy light sifted through, and the houses looked like fragments of dreams, with here and there a lamp in a distant window. The slow wind wandered through pines and hemlocks, as if some fairy Puck had laid his finger to his lips, saying to crooning insects, "Hush, hush!" A night to dream as one went down "Lovers' Lane."

Sylvie was radiantly beautiful. Her face always changed so with her moods. Every feature had a perfect sculptured look, but intensely human, – the straight nose with the flexible, sensitive nostrils, quivering at any sudden breath, the dainty chin and white throat, the red curved lips that seem to smile at some inward, richly satisfying thought, the large lustrous eyes serious as those of a nun, and the calm, clear brow that seemed to index the strength and fineness of the nature. He did not take in any of the occult meanings: to him she was simply a pretty girl whom he could dress in silk instead of lawn.

The small hand had lain on his arm without the faintest movement. Now he took it in his, and pressed it softly. She frowned, and made a slight, repellant gesture.

"Sylvie?" with a lingering intonation that was hardly inquiry.

"Well!" roused out of her quiet into a momentary petulance.

"Sylvie, I love you. Will you be my wife?"

In his most commonplace dreams he had never made love so briefly. He startled himself.

"Don't!" in a short, decisive tone, as if he were merely teasing.

"Sylvie, I am in earnest;" and in his tone the man spoke.

"Then I think you are mistaken." She seemed to look at him in the cool light of invincible candor and honesty.

"No, Sylvie, I am not mistaken," gaining courage that it was to be argument instead of sentiment. "I have had this purpose in my mind for some time, and have solicited your aunt's consent. You have only to say" —

"I have many things to say, but assent is not one of them;" in a voice that, though low, seemed to cleave the air with a steely ring. "You think you love me. Perhaps you do – as far as you are capable of loving any thing beside yourself. You have seen a good deal of me this summer, and have made up your mind to marry. I possess some of the necessary requirements, and doubtless suit you better than any mere fashionable woman. But you have none of that intense desire that makes a matter of life and death of love, that elects one woman, or forever keeps a vacant niche in the soul."

"Sylvie!"

Her passionate words stunned him. He turned to her with a puzzled look, a certain helplessness, as if he were stranded on some far, foreign shore. And then he met her lustrous eyes, so clear that they were almost pitiless in the glow of undimmed truth.

"Can you not trust me?" with the gentle reproachfulness so winning to most women, so confident of a victory over a heart that loves.

"I could trust you to care for no other woman when your word was passed, but it seems to me," and her heart swelled with something like contempt, "that you are but playing at love. Marriage in your estimation is a fit and proper step: your mother likes me, you prefer me to any one else" —

"Good heavens, Sylvie! what more do you want?" and a flood of scarlet mounted his calm, handsome brow. "When a man chooses a woman out of the whole circle of his friends and acquaintances, what higher compliment can he pay her? I have seen women beside those in Yerbury; and, though it may savor of vanity, I believe there are those who would appreciate" —

"I wonder you did not go to them;" with a fine irony, cutting short his sentence.

"Because I liked you, chose you."

"I do not so desire to be chosen," she answered quickly. "The man I marry must win my respect, my highest faith; must have an aim, an ambition, and not dawdle through life as some silly woman might."

The decisive voice seemed to cut a path between him and her as it went. It struck home uncomfortably.

"Then I suppose you call all men not engaged in manual labor, dawdlers, – scholars, poets, men of leisure, who can devote their lives to work that requires patience and fineness of detail, rather than the heavy swing of a blacksmith's hammer. When a man has no need of work" – and Fred paused, a trifle out of temper.

"I do not believe God ever made an idler," she said, with high gravity that widened the gulf between them. "To whom much is given, much will be required."

How unreasonable she was! He hated women who flung texts or proverbs at you; and yet he did not hate her. She had a girl's flighty notions, born of crude contact with inferior minds, and perhaps over-much novel-reading.

"I do not exactly understand what a man must do to win your love," he said in one of those calm, intensely irritating tones. "I have chosen what suited me best, – culture, refinement, and the education that fits me for the sphere in which I am likely to move all my days," impressively. "It is true, much of the wisdom of the world is little to my taste. I do not know why a man should wade through a slough of evil for the sake of repenting afterward, for looking white in contrast to that foul blackness. The ninety and nine just ones seem to me the better example."

"I am afraid I shall not be able to make you understand," she went on, with a little hesitation. "Perhaps I have not the power or patience to shape a man's soul to a noble purpose or ambition. I want him strong and earnest, full of energy and that high sense of duty to all around him, not satisfied to drift down the stream in frivolous content, but to make the way better for his having gone over it. I want him true as steel to his friends, generous, yet uncompromising to his foes, to all evil; the kind of man who, if crushed down by fate to-day, could see some ray above his head to-morrow, who has sufficient moral fibre not to be rigidly bound by class feelings and narrow prejudices."

Sylvie paused, startled at herself. She had never framed her hero in words before, and that she should do it for this man!

"These are the heroes of our youth, Miss Sylvie, and you are very young," in that insufferably patronizing tone.

"I am old enough to know what I want," she retorted, all the fiery blood in her pulses leaping to the charge. "I think, too, I can discern between the true worker, and him who is content with the frivolous outside show."

"Perhaps not. You have been advising me, now allow me a like privilege. Do not imagine me actuated by jealousy, – that vice of the Moor is not in my nature. I have seen with some surprise that your fancies were for those beneath you in the social scale. A woman always loses in this dangerous experiment. She seldom raises her commonplace hero to a level with the gods, and is much more likely to be dragged down."

She turned suddenly, her face flaming scarlet. The indignation misled him. He took it as a sign of personal anger, and wondered if she could, if she dared, throw him over for that coarse, stupid, blundering fellow.

"Yes," he continued, glad to stab her in a vulnerable point; "you certainly have made a mistake, if you think this soul an aspiring one. A boy who excels in brute strength and force merely, a man who makes a deliberate choice between the nobler results of education and the common purposes of rude daily labor, will hardly rank with a knight of Arthur's time, even if some self-deceived woman chooses to lavish her affection upon him."

"If you mean Mr. Darcy" – And she stood quite still, tremulous with passion.

"I mean Mr. Darcy." She had not shown such delicate consideration for his feelings that he should hesitate. "I do not see how you, with your artistic tastes and refinement, can find companionship in such a nature. I understand it very thoroughly. Beware, for you cannot plead even daffodil blindness, my fair Persephone."

Sylvie Barry could have struck the man beside her. All the passion of her nature surged up in contempt, great waves of white heat. If a look could have annihilated, hers might. Even in the shady gloom, he saw the flashing eye and quivering lip of scorn.

"Do not distress yourself about me," she answered, with suave bitterness. "Jack Darcy may be a mill-hand; but he has the honor, the white soul, of a gentleman! And you – you dare to trample on what was once a friendship!"

"I believe he was once my admiration because he used to show fight so easily. He was for marching West then, and doing some grand thing; but you see his hero days are gone by. Ten years from this he may be a demagogue, a rank socialist, whining about equality. Still, if I must congratulate you" —

She made a haughty gesture, and her first impulse was to let it go; but her truthful nature could not brook the implied deception.

"You may congratulate me upon the friendship alone," with a clear, sharp emphasis.

His shattered self-confidence returned suddenly, shaped to arrogance. If she was not entangled with Jack Darcy, there certainly was no one else.

"Sylvie," he began loftily, "this has been child's play, and I am heartily ashamed of my share of it. Let us go back, and forget it. You have had your tilt at windmills; so suppose we return to common sense. You are still heart-free, it seems; and I beg pardon for repeating foolish gossip. Your aunt has accepted me as your suitor; my mother is waiting to receive you as a daughter; and I think," with some pride in his tone, "that few men can offer you a cleaner hand, or a better record. You will have a life of ease and leisure, and – Why, Sylvie, you can teach me, – you can help me up these glowing heights."

"I have answered you!"

She seemed to grow tall and regal as she stood there by the gate, the long, arrowy ray of lamp-light from within illumining her proud, cold face, that could flush with such bewildering warmth. He discerned in some dim way that she had access to a life far above his; an atmosphere like hoar-frost surrounded her, raying off fine points, that thrust him farther away into darkness and coldness. Had something been taken out of his life?

The man's well-nigh imperturbable complacency had received a shock.

"Good-night," in a softer tone. One cannot break a pleasant friendship without a pang.

As one in a dream he heard the gate close, the soft footfall on the brick walk, and a waft of voices from within. Then it occurred to him that he, Frederic De Woolfe Lawrence, had been rejected by this little girl upon whose head he had meant to shower the blessing of marital protection, the regard of a soul that was not quite indifferent, after all. What was this dull pang somewhere in his symmetrical, well-kept body? Was it the night that made his pulses heavy and turgid?

Then he turned. "By Jove!" he muttered, "there's not another girl in the country that could have kept her fingers out of the governor's money-bags! Poor mother! What a disappointment for her! Of course Sylvie will marry Jack Darcy, – Pluto and Persephone again."

Then he softly whistled a stave of opera-music, and sauntered about leisurely. He had no fancy for facing his mother that night.

As for Sylvie, she knew her face was very white when she entered the door; but she bustled about with womanly evasion, and began to ask if her aunt had been lonesome, if any one had called, and declared she was tired from walking home, and her head ached a little, which was true; and presently the two women barred their doors, and went to bed.

Was she glad to have it over? Was she sorry she had left no loop-hole for future hope? Strange to say, she could not tell.

"But I could never live, like a pauper, on some other person's money!" she thought decisively. "And he did not care. It was for his mother's sake chiefly."

Again there was a breach between the Montagues and the Capulets, this time crossed by no lovers' hands. Mrs. Lawrence was highly indignant, Miss Barry vexed and sore disappointed. They went the even tenor of their way, however, while the poor self-made invalid at Hope Terrace grew more querulous and exacting. Fred took a week at Saratoga to restore his wounded vanity, and then settled himself at a hotel in New York, wondering if he had not better read a little law to pass away the winter. Mrs. Minor was a queen of fashion, and she was glad to have the attendance of her handsome brother. Irene and Mrs. Eastman flitted about like gay butterflies, with trains of admirers. The faint mutterings in the financial world made little difference to them. It was their province to spend, to enjoy; and what the strata beneath them did or suffered or hoped, was of no more account than the far-off ocean-froth beating up on the hard white sand, – picturesque in a drama or a story.