Part 21 (1/2)
”Miss Vosburgh,” he continued, hesitatingly, ”when I first entered this room I did not understand your true worth and superiority, but a sense of these has been growing on me from that hour to this.
Perhaps I was not as sincere as I--I--should have been, and you were too clever not to know it. Will you listen to me patiently?”
Again she bowed, and lower this time to conceal a slight smile of triumph.
Encouraged, he proceeded: ”Now that I have learned to know you well, I wish you to know me better,--to know all about me. My father was a Northern man with strong Northern traits; my mother, a Southern woman with equally strong Southern traits. I have been educated chiefly abroad. Is it strange, then, that I cannot feel exactly as you do, or as some of your friends do?”
”As we once agreed, Mr. Merwyn, each must choose his own course for life.”
”I am glad you have reminded me of that, for I am choosing for life and not for the next ten months or ten years. As I said, then, all this present hurly-burly will soon pa.s.s away.” Her face darkened, but in his embarra.s.sment and preoccupation he did not perceive it.
”I have inherited a very large property, and my mother's affairs are such that I must act wisely, if not always as she would wish.”
”May I ask what Mrs. Merwyn would prefer?”
”I am prepared to be perfectly frank about myself,” he replied, hesitatingly, ”but--”
”Pardon me. It is immaterial.”
”I have a perfect right to judge and act for myself,” resumed Merwyn, with some emphasis.
”Thank you. I should remember that.”
The words were spoken in a low tone and almost as if in soliloquy, and her face seemed to grow colder and more impa.s.sive if possible.
With something approaching dismay Merwyn had observed that the announcement of his large fortune had had no softening influence on the girl's manner, and he thought, ”Truly, this is the most dreary and business-like wooing that I ever imagined!”
But he had gone too far to recede, and his embarra.s.sment was beginning to pa.s.s into something like indignation that he and all he could offer were so little appreciated.
Restraining this feeling, he went on, gravely and gently: ”You once intimated that I was young, Miss Vosburgh, yet the circ.u.mstances and responsibilities of my lot have led me to think more, perhaps, than others of my age, and to look beyond the present hour. I regard the property left me by my father as a trust, and I have learned to-day that I can greatly increase and probably double it. It is my intention, after taking my mother and sisters abroad, to return to New York and to enter cautiously into business under the guidance of my legal adviser, who is a man of great sagacity. Now, as you know, I have said from the first that it is natural for you to feel deeply in regard to the events of the day; but I look beyond all this turmoil, distraction, and pa.s.sion, which will be as temporary as it is violent. I am thinking for you as truly as for myself. Pardon me for saying it; I am sure I am in a better condition of mind to think for you than you are to judge for yourself.
I can give you the highest social position, and make your future a certainty. From causes I can well understand the pa.s.sion of the hour has been swaying you--”
She rose, and by an emphatic gesture stopped him, and there was a fire in the blue eyes that had been so cold before. She appeared to have grown inches as she stood before him and said, in tones of concentrated scorn: ”You are indeed young, yet you speak the calculating words of one so old as to have lost every impulse of youth. Do you know where my father is at this moment?”
”No,” he faltered.
”He is taking part, at the risk of his life, in this temporary hurly-burly, as you caricature it. It is he who is swaying me, and the memory of the brave men whom you have met here and to whom you fancied yourself superior. Did not that honored father exist, or those brave friends, I feel within my soul that I have womanhood enough to recognize and feel my country's need in this supreme hour of her peril. You thoughtful beyond your years?--you think for me?
What did you think of me the first evening you spent here? What were your thoughts as you came again and again? To what am I indebted for this honor, but the fact that you could only beguile a summer's ennui by a pa.s.sing flirtation which would leave me you little cared where, after you had joined your aristocratic friends abroad? Now your plans have changed, and, after much deliberation, you have come to lift me to the highest position! Never dream that I can descend to your position!”
He was fairly trembling with anger and mortification, and she was about to leave the apartment.
”Stay!” he said, pa.s.sing his hand across his brow as if to brush away confusion of mind; ”I have not given you reason for such contempt, and it is most unreasonable.”
”Why is it unreasonable?” she asked, her scornful self-control pa.s.sing into something like pa.s.sion. ”I will speak no more of the insult of your earlier motives towards me, now that you think you can afford to marry me. In your young egotism you may think a girl forgets and forgives such a thing easily if bribed by a fortune. I will let all that be as if it were not, and meet you on the ground of what is, at this present hour. I despise you because you have no more mind or manhood--take it as you will--than to think that this struggle for national life and liberty is a mere pa.s.sing fracas of politicians. Do you think I will tamely permit you to call my n.o.ble father little better than a fool? He has explained to me what this war means--he, of twice your age, and with a mind as large as his manhood and courage. You have a.s.sumed to be his superior, also, as well as that of Mr. Lane and Mr. Strahan, who are about to peril life in the 'hurly-burly.' What are your paltry thousands to me? Should I ever love, I will love a MAN; and had I your s.e.x and half your inches, I should this hour be in Virginia, instead of defending those I love and honor against your implied aspersions.
Had you your mother's sentiments I should at least respect you, although she has no right to be here enjoying the protection of a government that she would destroy.”