Chapter 4

“I cannot quite understand your social life over here,” Mr. Lyon was saying one day. “You seem to make distinctions, but I cannot see exactly for what.”

“Perhaps they make themselves. Your social orders seem able to resist Darwin's theory, but in a republic natural selection has a better chance.”

“I was told by a Bohemian on the steamer coming over that money in America takes the place of rank in England.”

“That isn't quite true.”

“And I was told in Boston by an acquaintance of very old family and little fortune that 'blood' is considered here as much as anywhere.”

“You see, Mr. Lyon, how difficult it is to get correct information about us. I think we worship wealth a good deal, and we worship family a good deal, but if any one presumes too much upon either, he is likely to come to grief. I don't understand it very well myself.”

“Then it is not money that determines social position in America?”

“Not altogether; but more now than formerly. I suppose the distinction is this: family will take a person everywhere, money will take him almost everywhere; but money is always at this disadvantage--it takes more and more of it to gain position. And then you will find that it is a good deal a matter of locality. For instance, in Virginia and Kentucky family is still very powerful, stronger than any distinction in letters or politics or success in business; and there is a certain diminishing number of people in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, who cultivate a good deal of exclusiveness on account of descent.”

“But I am told that this sort of aristocracy is succumbing to the new plutocracy.”

“Well, it is more and more difficult to maintain a position without money. Mr. Morgan says that it is a disheartening thing to be an aristocrat without luxury; he declares that he cannot tell whether the Knickerbockers of New York or the plutocrats are more uneasy just now. The one is hungry for social position, and is morose if he cannot buy it; and when the other is seduced by luxury and yields, he finds that his distinction is gone. For in his heart the newly rich only respects the rich. A story went about of one of the Bonanza princes who had built his palace in the city, and was sending out invitations to his first entertainment. Somebody suggested doubts to him about the response. 'Oh,' he said, 'the beggars will be glad enough to come!'”

“I suppose, Mr. Lyon,” said Margaret, demurely, “that this sort of thing is unknown in England?”

“Oh, I couldn't say that money is not run after there to some extent.”

“I saw a picture in Punch of an auction, intended as an awful satire on American women. It struck me that it might have two interpretations.”

“Yes, Punch is as friendly to America as it is to the English aristocracy.”

“Well, I was only thinking that it is just an exchange of commodities. People will always give what they have for what they want. The Western man changes his pork in New York for pictures. I suppose that--what do you call it?--the balance of trade is against us, and we have to send over cash and beauty.”

“I didn't know that Miss Debree was so much of a political economist.”

“We got that out of books in school. Another thing we learned is that England wants raw material; I thought I might as well say it, for it wouldn't be polite for you.”

“Oh, I'm capable of saying anything, if provoked. But we have got away from the point. As far as I can see, all sorts of people intermarry, and I don't see how you can discriminate socially--where the lines are.”

Mr. Lyon saw the moment that he had made it that this was a suggestion little likely to help him. And Margaret's reply showed that he had lost ground.

“Oh, we do not try to discriminate--except as to foreigners. There is a popular notion that Americans had better marry at home.”

“Then the best way for a foreigner to break your exclusiveness is to be naturalized.” Mr. Lyon tried to adopt her tone, and added, “Would you like to see me an American citizen?”

“I don't believe you could be, except for a little while; you are too British.”

“But the two nations are practically the same; that is, individuals of the nations are. Don't you think so?”

“Yes, if one of them gives up all the habits and prejudices of a lifetime and of a whole social condition to the other.”

“And which would have to yield?”

“Oh, the man, of course. It has always been so. My great-great-grandfather was a Frenchman, but he became, I have always heard, the most docile American republican.”

“Do you think he would have been the one to give in if they had gone to France?”

“Perhaps not. And then the marriage would have been unhappy. Did you never take notice that a woman's happiness, and consequently the happiness of marriage, depends upon a woman's having her own way in all social matters? Before our war all the men who married down South took the Southern view, and all the Southern women who married up North held their own, and sensibly controlled the sympathies of their husbands.”

“And how was it with the Northern women who married South, as you say?”

“Well, it must be confessed that a good many of them adapted themselves, in appearance at least. Women can do that, and never let anyone see they are not happy and not doing it from choice.”

“And don't you think American women adapt themselves happily to English life?”

“Doubtless some; I doubt if many do; but women do not confess mistakes of that kind. Woman's happiness depends so much upon the continuation of the surroundings and sympathies in which she is bred. There are always exceptions. Do you know, Mr. Lyon, it seems to me that some people do not belong in the country where they were born. We have men who ought to have been born in England, and who only find themselves really they go there. There are who are ambitious, and court a career different from any that a republic can give them. They are not satisfied here. Whether they are happy there I do not know; so few trees, when at all grown, will bear transplanting.”

“Then you think international marriages are a mistake?”

“Oh, I don't theorize on subjects I am ignorant of.”

“You give me very cold comfort.”

“I didn't know,” said Margaret, with a laugh that was too genuine to be consoling, “that you were traveling for comfort; I thought it was for information.”

“And I am getting a great deal,” said Mr. Lyon, rather ruefully. “I'm trying to find out where. I ought to have been born.”

“I'm not sure,” Margaret said, half seriously, “but you would have been a very good American.”

This was not much of an admission, after all, but it was the most that Margaret had ever made, and Mr. Lyon tried to get some encouragement out of it. But he felt, as any man would feel, that this beating about the bush, this talk of nationality and all that, was nonsense; that if a woman loved a man she wouldn't care where he was born; that all the world would be as nothing to him; that all conditions and obstacles society and family could raise would melt away in the glow of a real passion. And he wondered for a moment if American girls were not “calculating”--a word to which he had learned over here to attach a new and comical meaning.

V

The afternoon after this conversation Miss Forsythe was sitting reading in her favorite window-seat when Mr. Lyon was announced. Margaret was at her school. There was nothing un usual in this afternoon call; Mr. Lyon's visits had become frequent and informal; but Miss Forsythe had a nervous presentiment that something important was to happen, that showed itself in her greeting, and which was perhaps caught from a certain new diffidence in his manner.

Perhaps the maiden lady preserves more than any other this sensitiveness, inborn in women, to the approach of the critical moment in the affairs of the heart. The day may some time be past when she--is sensitive for herself--philosophers say otherwise--but she is easily put in a flutter by the affair of another. Perhaps this is because the negative (as we say in these days) which takes impressions retains all its delicacy from the fact that none of them have ever been developed, and perhaps it is a wise provision of nature that age in a heart unsatisfied should awaken lively apprehensive curiosity and sympathy about the manifestation of the tender passion in others. It certainly is a note of the kindliness and charity of the maiden mind that its sympathies are so apt to be most strongly excited in the success of the wooer. This interest may be quite separable from the common feminine desire to make a match whenever there is the least chance of it. Miss Forsythe was not a match-maker, but Margaret herself would not have been more embarrassed than she was at the beginning of this interview.

When Mr. Lyon was seated she made the book she had in her hand the excuse for beginning a talk about the confidence young novelists seem to have in their ability to upset the Christian religion by a fictitious representation of life, but her visitor was too preoccupied to join in it. He rose and stood leaning his arm upon the mantel-piece, and looking into the fire, and said, abruptly, at last:

“I called to see you, Miss Forsythe, to--to consult you about your niece.”

“About her career?” asked Miss Forsythe, with a nervous consciousness of falsehood.

“Yes, about her career; that is, in a way,” turning towards her with a little smile.

“Yes?”

“You must have seen my interest in her. You must have known why I stayed on and on. But it was, it is, all so uncertain. I wanted to ask your permission to speak my mind to her.”

“Are you quite sure you know your own mind?” asked Miss Forsythe, defensively.

“Sure--sure; I have never had the feeling for any other woman I have for her.”

“Margaret is a noble girl; she is very independent,” suggested Miss Forsythe, still avoiding the point.

“I know. I don't ask you her feeling.” Mr. Lyon was standing quietly looking down into the coals. “She is the only woman in the world to me. I love her. Are you against me?” he asked, suddenly looking up, with a flush in his face.

“Oh, no! no!” exclaimed Miss Forsythe, with another access of timidity. “I shouldn't take the responsibility of being against you, or--or otherwise. It is very manly in you to come to me, and I am sure I--we all wish nothing but your own happiness. And so far as I am concerned--”

“Then I have your permission?” he asked, eagerly.

“My permission, Mr. Lyon? why, it is so new to me, I scarcely realized that I had any permission,” she said, with a little attempt at pleasantry. “But as her aunt--and guardian, as one may say--personally I should have the greatest satisfaction to know that Margaret's destiny was in the hands of one we all esteem and know as we do you.”

“Thank you, thank you,” said Mr. Lyon, coming forward and seizing her hand.

“But you must let me say, let me suggest, that there are a great many things to be thought of. There is such a difference in education, in all the habits of your lives, in all your relations. Margaret would never be happy in a position where less was accorded to her than she had all her life. Nor would her pride let her take such a position.”

“But as my wife--”

“Yes, I know that is sufficient in your mind. Have you consulted your mother, Mr. Lyon?”

“Not yet.”

“And have you written to any one at home about my niece?”

“Not yet.”

“And does it seem a little difficult to do so?” This was a probe that went even deeper than the questioner knew. Mr. Lyon hesitated, seeing again as in a vision the astonishment of his family. He was conscious of an attempt at self-deception when he replied:

“Not difficult, not at all difficult, but I thought I would wait till I had something definite to say.”

“Margaret is, of course, perfectly free to act for herself. She has a very ardent nature, but at the same time a great deal of what we call common sense. Though her heart might be very much engaged, she would hesitate to put herself in any society which thought itself superior to her. You see I speak with great frankness.”

It was a new position for Mr. Lyon to find his prospective rank seemingly an obstacle to anything he desired. For a moment the whimsicality of it interrupted the current of his feeling. He thought of the probable comments of the men of his London club upon the drift his conversation was taking with a New England spinster about his fitness to marry a school-teacher. With a smile that was summoned to hide his annoyance, he said, “I don't see how I can defend myself, Miss Forsythe.”

“Oh,” she replied, with an answering smile that recognized his view of the humor of the situation, “I was not thinking of you, Mr. Lyon, but of the family and the society that my niece might enter, to which rank is of the first importance.”

“I am simply John Lyon, Miss Forsythe. I may never be anything else. But if it were otherwise, I did not suppose that Americans objected to rank.”

It was an unfortunate speech, felt to be so the instant it was uttered. Miss Forsythe's pride was touched, and the remark was not softened to her by the air of half banter with which the sentence concluded. She said, with a little stillness and formality: “I fear, Mr. Lyon, that your sarcasm is too well merited. But there are Americans who make a distinction between rank and blood. Perhaps it is very undemocratic, but there is nowhere else more pride of family, of honorable descent, than here. We think very much of what we call good blood. And you will pardon me for saying that we are accustomed to speak of some persons and families abroad which have the highest rank as being thoroughly bad blood. If I am not mistaken, you also recognize the historic fact of ignoble blood in the owners of noble titles. I only mean, Mr. Lyon,” she added, with a softening of manner, “that all Americans do not think that rank covers a multitude of sins.”

“Yes, I think I get your American point of view. But to return to myself, if you will allow me; if I am so fortunate as to win Miss Debree's love, I have no fear that she would not win the hearts of all my family. Do you think that my--my prospective position would be an objection to her?”

“Not your position, no; if her heart were engaged. But expatriation, involving a surrender of all the habits and traditions and associations of a lifetime and of one's kindred, is a serious affair. One would need to be very much in love”--and Miss Forsythe blushed a little as she said it--“to make such a surrender.”

“I know. I am sure I love her too much to wish to bring any change in her life that would ever cause her unhappiness.”

“I am glad to feel sure of that.”

“And so I have your permission?”

“Most sincerely,” said Miss Forsythe, rising and giving him her hand. “I could wish nothing better for Margaret than union with a man like you. But whatever I wish, you two have your destiny in your own hands.” Her tone was wholly frank and cordial, but there was a wistful look in her face, as of one who knew how roughly life handles all youthful enthusiasms.

When John Lyon walked away from her door his feelings were very much mixed. At one instant his pride rebelled against the attitude he had just assumed. But this was only a flash, which he put away as unbecoming a man towards a true woman. The next thought was one of unselfish consideration for Margaret herself. He would not subject her to any chance of social mortifications. He would wait. He would return home and test his love by renewing his lifelong associations, and by the reception his family would give to his proposal. And the next moment he saw Margaret as she had become to him, as she must always be to him. Should he risk the loss of her by timidity? What were all these paltry considerations to his love?

Was there ever a young man who could see any reasons against the possession of the woman he loved? Was there ever any love worth the name that could be controlled by calculations of expediency? I have no doubt that John Lyon went through the usual process which is called weighing a thing in the mind. It is generally an amusing process, and it is consoling to the conscience. The mind has little to do with it except to furnish the platform on which the scales are set up. A humorist says that he must have a great deal of mind, it takes him so long to make it up. There is the same apparent deliberation where love is concerned. Everything “contra” is carefully placed in one scale of the balance, and it is always satisfactory and convincing to see how quickly it kicks the beam when love is placed in the other scale. The lightest love in the world, under a law as invariable as gravitation, is heavier than any other known consideration. It is perhaps doing injustice to Mr. Lyon not to dwell upon this struggle in his mind, and to say that in all honesty he may not have known that the result of it was predetermined. But interesting and commendable as are these processes of the mind, I confess that I should have respected him less if the result had not been predetermined. And this does not in any way take from him the merit of a restless night and a tasteless breakfast.

Philosophizers on this topic say that a man ought always to be able to tell by a woman's demeanor towards him whether she is favorably inclined, and that he need run no risk. Little signs, the eyes alone, draw people together, and make formal language superfluous. This theory is abundantly sustained by examples, and we might rest on it if all women knew their own minds, and if, on the other hand, they could always tell whether a man was serious before he made a definite avowal. There is another notion, fortunately not yet extinct, that the manliest thing a man can do is to take his life in his hand, pay the woman he loves the highest tribute in his power by offering her his heart and name, and giving her the definite word that may be the touchstone to reveal to herself her own feeling. In our conventional life women must move behind a mask in a world of uncertainties. What wonder that many of them learn in their defensive position to play a game, and sometimes experiment upon the honest natures of their admirers! But even this does not absolve the chivalrous man from the duty of frankness and explicitness. Life seems ideal in that far country where the handsome youth stops his carriage at the gate of the vineyard, and says to the laughing girl carrying a basket of grapes on her head, “My pretty maid, will you marry me?” And the pretty maid, dropping a courtesy, says, “Thank you, sir; I am already bespoken,” or “Thank you; I will consider of it when I know you better.”

Not for a moment, I suppose, is a woman ever ignorant of a man's admiration of her, however uncertain she may be of his intentions, and it was with an unusual flutter of the heart that Margaret received Mr. Lyon that afternoon. If she had doubts, they were dissipated by a certain constraint in his manner, and the importance he seemed to be attaching to his departure, and she was warned to go within her defenses. Even the most complaisant women like at least the appearance of a siege.

“I'm off tomorrow,” he said, “for Washington. You know you recommended it as necessary to my American education.”

“Yes. We send Representatives and strangers there to be educated. I have never been there myself.”

“And do you not wish to go?”

“Very much. All Americans want to go to Washington. It is the great social opportunity; everybody there is in society. You will be able to see there, Mr. Lyon, how a republican democracy manages social life.

“Do you mean to say there are no distinctions?”

“Oh, no; there are plenty of official distinctions, and a code that is very curious and complicated, I believe. But still society is open.”

“It must be--pardon me--a good deal like a mob.”

“Well, our mobs of that sort are said to be very well behaved. Mr. Morgan says that Washington is the only capital in the world where the principle of natural selection applies to society; that it is there shown for the first time that society is able to take care of itself in the free play of democratic opportunities.”

“It must be very interesting to see that.”

“I hope you will find it so. The resident diplomats, I have heard, say that they find society there more agreeable than at any other capital--at least those who have the qualities to make themselves agreeable independent of their rank.”

“Is there nothing like a court? I cannot see who sets the mode.”

“Officially there may be something like a court, but it can be only temporary, for the personnel of it is dissolved every four years. And society, always forming and reforming, as the voters of the republic dictate, is almost independent of the Government, and has nothing of the social caste of Berlin or London.”

“You make quite an ideal picture.”

“Oh, I dare say it is not at all ideal; only it is rather fluid, and interesting, to see how society, without caste and subject to such constant change, can still be what is called 'society.' And I am told that while it is all open in a certain way, it nevertheless selects itself into agreeable groups, much as society does elsewhere. Yes, you ought to see what a democracy can do in this way.”

“But I am told that money makes your aristocracy here.”

“Very likely rich people think they are an aristocracy. You see, Mr. Lyon, I don't know much about the great world. Mrs. Fletcher, whose late husband was once a Representative in Washington, says that life is not nearly so simple there as it used to be, and that rich men in the Government, vying with rich men who have built fine houses and who live there permanently without any Government position, have introduced an element of expense and display that interferes very much with the natural selection of which Mr. Morgan speaks. But you will see. We are all right sorry to have you leave us,” Margaret added, turning towards him with frank, unclouded eyes.

“It is very good in you to say so. I have spent here the most delightful days of my life.”

“Oh, that is charming flattery. You will make us all very conceited.”

“Don't mock me, Miss Debree. I hoped I had awakened something more valuable to me than conceit,” Lyon said, with a smile.

“You have, I assure you: gratitude. You have opened quite another world to us. Reading about foreign life does not give one at all the same impression of it that seeing one who is a part of it does.”

“And don't you want to see that life for yourself? I hope some time--”

“Of course,” Margaret said, interrupting; “all Americans expect to go to Europe. I have a friend who says she should be mortified if she reached heaven and there had to confess that she never had seen Europe. It is one of the things that is expected of a person. Though you know now that the embarrassing question that everybody has to answer is, 'Have you been to Alaska?' Have you been to Alaska, Mr. Lyon?”

This icy suggestion seemed very inopportune to Lyon. He rose and walked a step or two, and stood by the fire facing her. He confessed, looking down, that he had not been in Alaska, and he had no desire to go there. “In fact, Miss Debree,” he said, with effort at speaking lightly, “I fear I am not in a geographical mood today. I came to say good-by, and--and--”

“Shall I call my aunt?” said Margaret, rising also.

“No, I beg; I had something to say that concerns us; that is, that concerns myself. I couldn't go away without knowing from you--that is, without telling you--”

The color rose in Margaret's cheek, and she made a movement of embarrassment, and said, with haste: “Some other time; I beg you will not say--I trust that I have done nothing that--”