"--to say 'Our Father' with me, papa; you know no one ever said it with me before, and it's--it's such a comfy time to feel sorry and talk over what you 've done wrong; and it's _that_ I miss so."
"I don't blame you, Birdie," said her father, quietly. "But now see how late it is!"--he pointed to the clock--"Eleven! This will never do for a _debutante_. Good-night, darling. Sweet dreams of Rose and the N.B.B.O.O. Society."
"Good-night, Papa Clyde; Doctor Heath says you are the most splendid fellow in the world--but I know you are the dearest father in the world; good-night, I 've had a lovely party."
She ran upstairs, but, in a moment, her father heard her tripping down again. Her head parted the portieres. "I just came back to tell you, that this kind of a talk we 've had is just as good as the Mount Hunger bedtime-talks. I shan't be homesick any more." And away she ran.
Now John Curtis Clyde was a pew-owner--as had been his father and grandfather before him--in one of the Fifth Avenue churches, and duly made his appearance in that pew every Sunday morning. He entered, too, into the service with hearty voice, and made his responses without, the while, giving undue thought to the world. But when he had said "Our Father" with his little daughter by his side, he had supposed his duty performed to the extent of his needs--of another's, his child's, he gave no thought.
To-night, however, as he sat in the easy-chair where Hazel had left him, it began to dawn upon him slowly that his little daughter, during her fourteen years, might have had other needs, for which he had not provided, nor, perhaps, with all his riches was capable of providing.
The clock chimed twelve,--one,--two--; John Clyde, with a sigh, rose and went up to bed--a wiser and a better man.
XXII
ROSE
What a summer that was! Mr. Clyde sent Hazel up to the Blossoms for July and again for September, when he, the Colonel and Mrs. Fenlick, the Pearsells and the Masons, Aunt Carrie and Uncle Jo took possession of the entire inn at Barton's River, and for a month coached and rode throughout the "North Country," all in the cool September weather. Jack Sherrill joined them for the last three weeks, and, this time, Maude Seaton was not of the party.
"I just headed her off every time she made a dead set at any one of us for an invitation," said Mrs. Fenlick one day in confidence to her intimate, Mrs. Pearsell, as they sat on the vine-covered veranda of the inn, "but she proved a regular octopus. She got the Colonel in her toils one morning at the Casino, and I pretended to be faint--yes, I did--just to get his attention for a sufficient time to make a fuss, and get him alone in the carriage; then, of course, I settled it. Oh, dear!
men are so guileless in spots!"--Mrs. Fenlick gave a weary sigh--"What I have n't been through with that girl! Anyway, she's been out two winters, now, and she has n't caught Jack Sherrill yet. I don't think there is much chance after the first season for a girl to make a really fine match, do you?" Then they fell to discussing the pros, and cons, of the question with evergreen interest.
Jack Sherrill, for one, had no thought of Miss Seaton. He had sent the valentine-flowers, and the sentiment from Barry Cornwall's love-song, with a strange kind of "kill or cure" feeling.
He had communed with himself, at twilight of one February day, as he lay at full length on the cushioned window-seat of his room from which he looked down upon the darkening, snow-covered campus and the anatomy of the elms showing black against it. His pipe had gone out, but he derived some satisfaction in pulling away at it mechanically, while he thought out the situation for himself.
"What's the use of a man's hanging fire when he _knows_?" he thought.
"Now, I love her--love her." (Jack's hand stole into the breast of his jacket and crushed a bit of paper there; he smiled.) "Of course she does n't know, and won't know for a while, but it shan't be through any neglect of mine that she does n't; and when she knows--there 's the rub!--will she care for me, Jack Sherrill? I 've never done anything in my life to make a girl like that care for me.
"But there's one thing I 'd stake my life on--she would n't marry a man for his money. A man 's got to be loved for himself--not for what he can give a woman, or do for her, but just for himself, if it's going to be the real thing, and _last_. And what am I that a girl like that should love me--" Jack was growing very humble. He pulled himself together: "Anyhow, I'll send the flowers and the sentiment, _I mean it_; I don't care what she thinks!" Jack's courage rose as he began to feel something like defiance of Fate.
Just then his chum came in.
"There's no use, Sherrill," he said, flinging himself down upon the cushioned seat Jack had just vacated; "we can't have the theatricals unless you take the girl's part. It won't put you out any--smooth face and no scrub. You 've been it once, and it will be a dead failure if you aren't in it now."
"I don't see how I can," replied Jack, shortly, for this intrusion on his mood irritated him. "I told you, all of you, at the Club last year, that I would n't play after I was a Junior."
"Well, what if you did?" rejoined his chum, a little crossly. "You 're not so uncompromisingly steadfast in other things that you can't afford to change your mind in such a trifle as this."
"Come, don't be touchy," said Jack, good-humoredly. "Hit right out from the shoulder, old man, and tell me what you mean."
Dawns smiled, clasped his hands under his head, and raised his merry blue eyes to Jack, who was lighting up.
"They say over at the Club that you have thrown Maude Seaton over, but Grayson took up the Seaton cudgels and made the statement that she had thrown you over, and you won't take the girl's part in the play because she is coming on for it."
Jack hesitated. He hated to play at any comedy of love when his heart was throbbing with the genuine article. But, after all, it might be the best way to silence the Club's tongues as well as some others in Boston and New York.
"I 'll help you out this once, Dawns, but I tell you plainly I won't have anything more to do with the Club theatricals while I 'm in college," he replied, ignoring both of Dawns' statements, which omissions his chum noticed, and made his own thoughts: "Just like Sherrill. You can't get any hold of him to know what he really feels and thinks."
Jack played his part accordingly, repeating the success of the year before, and scoring new triumphs. He was glad when it was over, and he could go back to his room "dead tired," as he said to himself, but with the conviction that he had settled matters to his own satisfaction if not to that of one other.
The room was in such disorder! Evidently, Dawns had been having a little spree before Jack's late return, and the smoke had left the air heavy.
Jack dropped his paraphernalia in the middle of the floor--peeling himself as he stood yawning and thanking his lucky star that he was not born a woman to be handicapped by such things!--_decollete_ white satin waist, long-trained satin gown, necklace--Jack gave the string a twitch, for it had knotted, and the Roman pearls rolled into unreachable places all over the floor. Off flew one white satin slipper--number ten, broad at the toes!--with a fine "drop kick" hitting the ceiling and landing on the book-shelves; the other followed suit. White fan with chain, white elbow gloves, corsage bouquet--all dropped in a promiscuous heap. A general stampede loosened silk under-skirt and dainty muslin petticoat, lace-trimmed. A wrench,--corset-cover and corsets were torn from their moorings. Jack groaned--or something worse--at the flummery, and, leaving everything as it had dropped, rushed off into his bedroom, only to find that he had forgotten to take off the blonde wig and wash off the rouge.
At last, however, he was asleep, and slept the sleep of the justified.
He slept both soundly and late, but when he awoke the next morning his first thought was of the flowers for Mount Hunger and the appropriate sentiment. Accordingly, having reckoned the arrival of train, departure of stage, etc., to a minute, he selected the flowers, wrote the sentiment, not without forebodings of the usual kind, and despatched both to Mount Hunger with high hopes, notwithstanding prescient feelings. Then, metaphorically, he sat down to await an answer. He waited just two months, and during that time had turned emotionally black and blue more than once at the thought of his temerity in sending such a message.
Hazel had written him at once from North Carolina to tell him of March's illness, and on the same day she sent a penitent note to Rose, confessing her shame at her attempt at deception, and explaining that it was because she loved her cousin so dearly she could not bear to see his gift slighted.
When March was out of danger, Rose had written to Hazel a frank, loving letter, blaming herself for her want of self-control, and begging Hazel's forgiveness for her harsh words:
"It's all my old pride, Hazel dear," she wrote, "that I have to fight very often. It was most kind of Mr. Sherrill to remember me when he has so many, many other friends whom he has known longer, and I shall write and tell him so. Now that my heart is lighter on account of dear March, I can write more easily.
"We miss you so! when are you coming back to us? Chi looks perfectly disconsolate, and we all feel a great deal more than we care to say.
"I wish you were here to have the fun of the French evenings, three times a week. You speak it so beautifully, Mr. Ford says, and I thank you so much for all the help you gave me in teaching me. Mr. Ford speaks it very well, too, so Miss Alton says. We all meet at our house once a week on March's account, and then one evening in the week, Miss Alton and I (she 's lovely) go over to the Fords' for music. He has sent for some lovely songs for me--old English ones, and we're going to have a little celebration for March's birthday in May. How I wish you were to be here!
"March is lying on the settle, dreaming over that exquisite photograph of Cologne Cathedral you sent him; I've just asked him if he had any messages for you, and he smiled--oh, it's so good to see his dear smile again! You can't think how tall he's grown since his illness, and he's so thin--and said, 'I sent one to her this morning myself; she can't have two a day.' But you know March's ways.
"Now I must stop; Mr. Ford is coming over on horseback and I am riding Bob now. I wear an old riding-habit of Martie's--it fits fine! I have more to tell you, but will finish after I get back from the ride--there comes Mr. Ford--"
This letter Hazel duly forwarded to her cousin. "He 'll know by what she says in it that she really was pleased, for all she acted so queer,"
she said to herself as she enclosed it in one to Jack, in which she took special pains to inform him that he had never told her whether he had given those verses Rose sang to Miss Seaton.
"I told Rose I was sure they were for Miss Seaton, and Rose said she did n't mind copying them herself for you if you wished them. Do tell me if you gave them to her. I told Rose your valentine to her last year was a rose-heart. I hope you don't mind my telling, for, you know, Jack, all our family think you are engaged to her--"
Jack dropped Hazel's letter at this point and gave a decided groan.
"What luck!" he muttered. "It's all up with the whole thing now. No girl of any spirit would stand all that--and Hazel meddling so! thinking she is doing her level best to explain matters;--What an ass I was to send that flower-valentine to Maude--and she thinks I gave her those verses! and there 's this Ford skulking round and having it all his own way; he 's just the kind a girl would care for--those musical cranks are no end sentimental. Hang it all!"
Jack thrust his hands deep into his pockets, took several decided turns up and down the room, squared his shoulders, pursed his lips, cut his two classroom lectures, ordered up Little Shaver and rode out to the polo grounds, where, finding himself alone, he put the little fellow through his best paces, ignoring the fact that snow and ice wore on the pony's nerves--and had a game out to himself.
When just two months had passed, he received a note from Rose, his first, and it was accorded the reception due to first notes in particular. After this, Jack developed certain wiles of diplomacy, he had thus far, in his various experiences, held in abeyance. He wrote sympathetic notes to Mrs. Blossom; commissioned Chi to find him another polo pony--Morgan, if possible--among the Green Hills; sent March a set of illustrated books on architecture, and complained to Doctor Heath of a pain that racked his chest; at which the Doctor's eyes twinkled. He said he would examine him later, but he was convinced it was heart trouble, the symptoms were apt to mislead and confuse. He added gravely: "Too much hard polo riding, Jack; get away into the country--mountains if you can, and you 'll recuperate fast enough. I 'll make an examination in the fall."
Jack obeyed to the letter, and what a month of September that was!
There were glorious rides with Rose along the beautiful river valley and over the mountain roads. There were delightful evenings at the Fords', and silent, beatific walks with Rose homewards beneath the harvest moon.
There were morning rambles with Rose up over the pastures and deep into the woodlands for late ferns and hooded gentians. There were adorable hours of doing nothing but adore, while Rose was busy about her work, setting the table for tea (Jack paid his board at the inn, but he lived at the Blossoms'), or laying the cloth for dinner, or on Saturday morning even making rolls for the tea to which the whole party at the inn were invited.