Part 71 (2/2)

'It is the only thing to do now.'

'But cannot you get him off it?'

'Not immediately. Mr. Dallas takes a fancy hard.'

'So unlike him!' the mother went on. 'So unlike all he used to be. He always took things ”hard,” as you say; but then it used to be science and study of history, and collecting of natural curiosities, and drawing. Have you seen any of Pitt's drawings? He has a genius for that. Indeed, I think he has a genius for everything,' Mrs. Dallas said with a sigh; 'and he used to be keen for distinguis.h.i.+ng himself, and he did distinguish himself everywhere, always; here at school and at college, and then at Oxford. My dear, he distinguished himself at _Oxford_. He was always a good boy, but not in the least foolish, or superst.i.tious, or the least inclined to be fanatical. And now, as far as I can make out, he is for giving up everything!'

'He does nothing by halves.'

'No; but it is very hard, now when he is just reading law and getting ready to take his place in the world--and he would take no mean place in the world, Betty--it is hard! Why, he talks as if he would throw everything up. I never would have thought it of Pitt, of all people. It is due, I am convinced, to the influence of those dissenting friends of his!'

'Who are they?' Miss Betty asked curiously.

'You have heard the name,' said Mrs. Dallas, lowering her voice, though Pitt was not within hearing. 'They used to live here. It was a Colonel Gainsborough--English, but of a dissenting persuasion. That kind of thing seems to be infectious.'

'He must have been a remarkable man, if his influence could begin so early and last so long.'

'Well, it was not just that only. There was a daughter'--

'And a love affair?' asked Miss Betty, with a slight laugh which covered a sudden down-sinking of her heart.

'Oh dear no! she was a child; there was no thought of such a thing. But Pitt was fond of her, and used to go roaming about the fields with her after flowers. My son is a botanist; I don't know if you have found it out.'

'And those were the people he went to New York to seek?'

'Yes, and could not find--most happily.'

Miss Betty mused. Certainly Pitt was 'persistent.' And now he had got this religious idea in his head, would there be any managing it, or him? It did not frighten Miss Betty, so far as the religious idea itself was concerned; she reflected sagely that a man might be worse things than philanthropic, or even than pious. She had seen wives made unhappy by neglect, and others made miserable by the dissipated habits or the ungoverned tempers of their husbands; a man need not be unendurable because he was true and thoughtful and conscientious, or even devout. She could bear that, quite easily; the only thing was, that in thoughts which possessed Pitt lately he had pa.s.sed out of her influence; beyond her reach. All she could do was to follow him into this new and very unwonted sphere, and seem to be as earnest as he was.

He met her, he reasoned with her, he read to her, but Betty did not feel sure that she got any nearer to him, nevertheless. She was shrewd enough to divine the reason.

'Mr. Pitt,' she said frankly to him one day, when the talk had been eager in the same line it had taken that first day on the verandah, and both parties had held the same respective positions with regard to each other,--'Mr. Pitt, are you fighting me, or yourself?'

He paused and looked at her, and half laughed.

'You are right,' said he. And then he went off, and for the present that was all Miss Betty gained by her motion.

n.o.body saw much of Pitt during the rest of the day. The next morning, after breakfast, he came out to the two ladies where as usual they were sitting at work. It was another September day of sultry heat, yet the verandah was also in the morning a pleasant place, sweet with the honeysuckle fragrance still lingering, and traversed by a faint intermittent breeze. Both ladies raised their heads to look at the young man as he came towards them, and then, struck by something in his face, could not take their eyes away. He came straight to his mother and stood there in front of her, looking down and meeting her look; Miss Frere could not see how, but evidently it troubled Mrs. Dallas.

'What is it now, Pitt?' she asked.

'I have come to tell you, mother. I have come to tell you that I have given up fighting.'

'Fighting!?'

'Yes. The battle is won, and I have lost, and gained. I have given up fighting, mother, and I am Christ's free man.'

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