CHAPTER XVII.

The captain reported himself "under the weather" the day after the nutting frolic. His guests had all gone excepting Van Ness, who remained in New York, appearing at the farm every afternoon with a fresh invoice of diffusive sweetness and light. In a week the captain gave up his daily visit to the club, and one morning Jane found him in the work-room, busy again among the dusty models, with a gray pinched line about his jaws. She ran to put on her apron, and worked with him, jesting and laughing, but as soon as she could escape sent Dave to the doctor. The old gentleman came, chatted a while, and soon followed Jane out to the hall.

"Florida to-morrow? Southern California? No, not now. Let him have home comforts and good nursing this winter. Anything he wants to eat. Humor him as much as you choose."

Jane stood holding by the back of a chair: "You do not mean that there is danger?"

"I see no change in the symptoms," cautiously. "We'll try the new prescription a few days, and we shall see--we shall see."

Jane went back to her father and the models, and talked calmly of screws and pistons. If she could only take the shaking old gray head to her breast and cry her heart out! If she could lie down in the grave with him! They had been such friends all her life! He was the only friend she ever had. She got up and ran out of doors once or twice: her breath was leaving her: his face, with the strange change in it, drove her away. Outside, the ducks were wabbling in and out of the pond, the sun was shining, the chrysanthemums and crimson prince's feather were all in flower. Dave was currying a horse in the stable-yard and whistling a dancing tune. What a foolish fright she had been in! Everything in the world was going just as usual. When she went back, too, the captain was pulling out his patent scissors from a drawer, laughing, his face flushed. He never looked better in his life.

She never left him after that. She had a couch made for herself at his door, that she might hear the moment that he stirred in the night. She could see no change in him from day to day, but she watched everybody keenly who came near him, trying to read their opinion of him in their faces. She fancied there was a difference in the manner of even Dave and Buff to him--a forced jocularity, a peculiar tenderness of voice. Bruno, she observed, had deserted her altogether and kept close to his master.

It was at this time that Mr. Van Ness began to monopolize the house: the very air of it grew bland and decorous. He came early, and stayed until night. The captain treated him with reverential deference: Jane fell into the same habit. She was weak and suasible as a reed just now. She had lost all root and marrow out of her life. Every day her father dilated on Mr. Van Ness's virtues. She could not deny one of them. They began to fence her in as with smooth polished walls, with no breath inside. Bruno, alone inexorable, never allowed him to pass without a snap and growl, although he had yielded enough to the pressure of public opinion not to fly at his throat.

"Mr. Van Ness, my dear," said the captain one day, "has been good enough to look into the affairs of the farm. He says the income from it should be trebled. Ask his advice, Jane. Especially as to turnips. We failed there. What intellectual scope that man has! It grasps a vast theory one moment and the minutest detail the next."

"Yes, father." It mattered little to Jane who meddled with the farm now.

"Mr. Van Ness"--the next day--"was glancing over your book-shelves this morning, Jane. A course of reading such as he would dictate would be of immeasurable benefit to you."

"I know it," humbly. "I am shamefully ignorant."

"Why not put yourself wholly into his care, Jenny?" taking her hand tenderly. "He is one of the best of men."

"I believe he is," candidly.

At this moment the reformer came in sight on the lawn without, the full sunshine falling on him. They both looked at him.

"His intellect is of a high calibre, Jenny: he saw into that idea of mine for the gauge to-day in an instant."

Jane nodded dully.

"And as for looks--have you any fault to find with him, Jane?"

"No, none."

"Then, in God's name, why--" He checked himself. "Mr. Van Ness asked me to speak with you this afternoon. It's a very solemn matter, Jenny. It's for life. You know what I wish. Don't shove off your life's happiness for a prejudice of no more weight than so much fog. I think I'll lie down and sleep a while. Think the matter over. There he is outside. He wishes to talk to you of it now."

Jane lingered, tucked the cover over his feet again and again. She could not go out and talk to this man in cold blood of marriage. When she told him that it could not be, that she could not love him, what reason could she give? She had no reason. There was none. This husband waiting out on the gravel-path, and smiling in on her, was in every way admirable and lovable. But Bruno and old Dave were better comrades for her--nearer kinsfolk.

The captain opened his eyes drowsily: "You are going to read? That's right, Jenny."

She brought the book gladly, and Mr. Van Ness moved disappointed away. There were certain chapters in St. John which the old man himself had taught Jane. Her mother had little to do with the Bible, which she declared was full of Presbyterian bigotry, but the captain, who was at bottom a devout soul, had anxiously tried to give the child as soon as she could speak what he supposed to be the milk of the Word. Every day now she would hear him muttering to himself these passages from the Sermon on the Mount or in John's Gospel, and he would presently call on her to repeat them, explaining them to her as though she were still a child.

"We got away from the Master as we grew older, Jenny: that was the mistake," he said now, stroking her hair as she kneeled by the bed. "I ought to have kept you close by Him. But you see the patents and the other worries--It's all been so hurried--I've hardly begun fairly. But we'll try and do what's right now. There's plenty of time before us."

"Oh, father!" She buried her head on his breast.

"If I've done wrong to any man, I'd like to have his forgiveness and to make restitution. Restitution"--the captain said, talking into the vague space which widened slowly about him every day. Jane, holding his shaking old hand, groped, as every other human soul in pain does, to find this Master.

She had but little faith then: like all other feelings, it would probably come slowly into her slow nature and abide there. But could He come close as her father said? She was so utterly alone! She would be glad to make restitution, though the money had been her own, if that would please Him. But restitution to whom?

"Go now: I want to sleep. Mr. Van Ness is waiting." She moved to the door: "Jenny, you'll say what is right to him. I trust you."

Mr. Van Ness did wait at the door of the conservatory. His white hand was held out, as if to lead her into perfume and light. Was it this which He would order her to do? Was it? The very touch of his hand seemed to her an indecency.

"Miss Swendon--" Van Ness began abruptly, in so rough and candid a tone that Jane looked at him startled and respectful--"you are prejudiced against me. I see that my manner impresses you as artificial. It is so, and I know it. I wish to account to you for that before I open my business to you." He passed his soft fingers slightly down the fold of his shirt, opened his thick red lips once or twice and shut them again, his eyes fixed on her own, probing, gauging her. "I must give you the keynote to my whole life," he resumed. "You were born among people of culture and gentle habits. I was a foundling, the child of vice, reared in it, fed by it, until I was old enough to stand by myself. Then I swore by God's help to leave it behind me for ever. I have struggled on this far. It has been hard work. That is all," with a long breath. "You know what I am now. I wanted you to know precisely what I have been."

It was unwomanly not to make a friendly sign to the man who had thus frankly humiliated himself before her. Jane forced herself to speak:

"You are very sincere--more sincere than is necessary. But I respect you for it."

"You can understand now why my manners and voice bear the evident marks of training. They both have an artificial twang which has prejudiced you against me. Am I right?"

"Possibly you are right," said downright Jane. "If it was only the manner and voice, I have been unjust to you."

He waved his hand with humble deprecation, and sighed audibly. Jane moved restlessly. No exhibition of character could be more noble or genuine: nothing could be more winning than the handsome blond head between her and the shelves of flowers. This senseless antipathy which she felt to both was that of an animal. She was ashamed of it, and stood smiling, her head bent with clumsy politeness, and the same look in her eyes which Bruno gave him.

"You will understand now, too," he continued gently, "why my interest in vicious and hungry children is so deep. I have been one of them. It is little for me to have given my life to help them."

"It must be a comfort to give your life to any certain work," cried Jane hotly. "It's very hard to reach middle age, as I have done, and find one's self fit for nothing! Nothing whatever!"

Mr. Van Ness did not at once reply. He scanned her curiously, as he might a tool about whose temper he was not certain, but which it was necessary for him to use.

"Your father has told you my reason for wishing to speak to you to-day?" he said abruptly.

Jane's head and very throat were scarlet: "Yes. But we will not talk at all of that matter, Mr. Van Ness," stammering with haste. "It is impossible, unnatural. You are more experienced than I: you must see that it is impossible more clearly than I do."

"In hoping," he resumed, after calmly dropping his light eyelashes while she spoke, politely attentive, "in anxiously striving, I may say, to gain you as my wife, I did not intend to give up the cause of the orphan and the fatherless."

"Oh you ought not to give it up! It would be really criminal! After you have gone so far! And I should be no help to you at all," she added breathlessly.

"But," with his light confusing gaze full on her, "you know, to speak plain English, that your father on his deathbed desires that you shall marry me?"

The blood came and rushed back from Jane's face, leaving it colorless.

"Why will you not grant this last wish?"

Why? There was no reason why she should not. She was dear to nobody else in the world than this old man--she was of use to nobody else. To nobody. She looked for some time directly into the shallow eyes facing her with aggressive complaisance. "I cannot do it," she said at last. She seemed to have grown stolid from head to foot.

"Why? What is this bar between us?" coming a step closer.

"How can I tell?" with a nervous shudder. "If I lived with you as your wife for years, you would be none the less a stranger to me."

"Miss Swendon," suddenly, and with the indulgent smile which he would have given to a child, "I will not accept such an answer. Take time. Consider the matter calmly. You speak rashly now. You have not a single reason to give for your decision."

"No," said Jane quietly. "But I shall not alter it."

"This woman," thought Van Ness, "is _all_ mule." But he went on blandly: "In any other case the fact that you were possessed of large means and that I am almost penniless would have deterred me from approaching you in this way--"

"The money counts for nothing with me," quickly.

"I know that. I know that if you were my wife your generous nature would rejoice in giving it to me in furtherance of my great work. In fact--" He stopped, measured her again with the same hesitating inspection, and then, while Jane listened intently, proceeded: "To be quite candid, Miss Swendon, but for a sudden and most unexpected change in Mr. Laidley's disposition on the last day of his life, my Home for Friendless Children would have been made a certainty without your aid."

"What do you mean?"

"The will," deliberately, "which he made but a week before his death left his whole property intact to me as trustee for this charity. You know that he changed his mind and destroyed this will apparently in the very act of dying, and gave it to you. I am rejoiced that he did so: be assured of that. But if it should come back, after all, to the Home, and you with it as a helper, there would be a fine poetic justice in that, I think," with a pleased gurgle in his throat.

Mr. Van Ness had always regarded Jane as a young, insignificant-looking girl. But now, for some strange reason, she impressed him as a middle-aged, powerful woman.

"So you were the heir?"

"Yes. Or the Home, to be exact--the Home."

Jane raised her arms and clasped her hands over her head. She said at last: "The money is mine. It was mine when William Laidley gave it to you. I will keep it as long as my father lives. As soon as he is dead I shall give it to you. I shall be glad to give it up--glad." Her arms fell to her side: a great relief came slowly into her face.

At last the burden was to fall off. The way before her was simple and clear.

Mr. Van Ness laughed with keen amusement, but checked himself with an apologetic cough: "Forgive me, but really, Miss Swendon, you are so incredibly innocent! A mere baby in your knowledge of the world or ordinary customs. It would be impossible for you to make such a transfer. You could not give the estate, and I could not take it, unless upon one condition."

"What is that?"

"That you give it as my wife."

"There is no other way," he resumed after a pause, finding that she made no reply. "Of course," with a bitter laugh, "I do not expect your zeal in behalf of the friendless children to tempt you to so repugnant a step as marriage with me. But that is the only way in which this property could be restored to them."

Still she was silent. A pot with a half-dead geranium was near her: she began to break off the yellow leaves and lay them in a neat little heap one by one. Did Van Ness suspect the truth? He stood erect, regarding her from calm heights of virtue. Presently he continued: "The property, as you say, is legally your own. The tenor of the will makes it so. But when I think of the starved bodies and souls of these poor children, and remember how little you value your great wealth, I feel that surely God meant it for them. It was some strange mistake that took it from them."

Jane did not meet his eye. She pushed open the little door, and went out hurriedly into the fresh air. Van Ness followed her. It is not probable that he had guessed her secret, but he certainly knew that for some reason this fact of the lost will had given him an inflexible hold upon the jaded, fluttering woman. He meant to press it with peremptory force.

The wind without was blowing keen and cold. Jane rallied in it. She turned to Van Ness with something of her ordinary courage. She was absolutely certain of her own honesty, and she hoped that God believed in it. What did it matter if by the laws of men and society she was a thief? It was some time before she caught the meaning of Van Ness's words. He was urging his cause with a surfeit of honeyed and long-conned phrases. He remembered as he talked how many women would receive any hint of courtship from him with delight, and the consciousness gave him a factitious dignity. He walked beside her down the path. Bruno, who leaped the barnyard fence to join her, marched on the other side, fixing a red suspicious eye on him.

"I have not made love to you as a younger man would do. I never have told you how different from every woman you are in my eyes. How attractive--how fair--" His eyes rested on hers for a full silent moment. She turned away with a shiver. "I never have told you how dear you are to me. But you must have seen it."

"No, I did not see it," said Jane bluntly. "But what has my beauty to do with the matter? Or your love? They do not alter you or me."

Even Van Ness was stunned by this calm delivery of fact. He recovered himself presently, and with a smile of hurt feeling gently replied, "Your antipathies are strong, Miss Swendon. Most women would cover them over courteously. But, do you know, I really like your honesty," pointing the tips of his fingers together mildly. "Yes, I do. Now I shall not urge myself personally on your notice any more. I did not seek an immediate marriage. I am willing that time should work for me. Promise me this," halting and suddenly facing her; "look at me as the representative of those poor friendless children whom I love so dearly, and whose inheritance you now enjoy." (He saw and took note of the sudden quailing of her whole bearing.) "You will give your wealth to them some day."

"God knows I shall be glad to do that."

"And yourself to me."

"Never!" she said quietly. But she smiled politely in his face. All the currents of her future life were ebbing from this half hour of time, and she knew it; yet that little taunt at her discourtesy had galled her sorely. Since she was a child she had felt herself and her rugged talk big and boorish and coarse-grained beside the polished complaisance of smaller women. When Van Ness, therefore, took her hand now, and, after kissing the thin fingers with his slow sultry glance, drew them within his arm and held them there close, she did not resist, and walked patiently beside him down the path. Van Ness's hand, as we have said, was unpleasantly cold and clammy.

Jane remembered a story in her primer of the little princess, who, having told a lie, was given over thereafter to the ownership of a frog. It sat on her plate, on her lap, on her bed, on her mouth as she tried to pray. It never left her. It was her master and owner.