Part 4

“Stop!” he cried, in a stern tone. “I am yourself. No ghost walks save that which is what a man might have been. We throng the world. Beside everyone through life moves the image of a past potentiality, the thing he could have become had he held along another course. I am what you were, the promise of what you might have been. For forty years I have walked by your side. I have touched you and you have shuddered, I have chilled you and you have shrunk from me. Your nature has so grown athwart, all impulse has been so long gone, all that softens or ennobles so thrown off that, in almost final self-assertion, what you really were or might have been stands by your side and bids you measure stature with itself. Your life has entered upon its wintry days, but sunlight is sunshine even in December and in youth.”

The old lawyer, almost shuddering, stepped back with repelling gesture. He passed his hand quickly across his eyes, and then, as if his heart had beat recall, summoning back every retreating force in quick rally, compelled but not unwilling, he turned in combative instinct to meet the stranger face to face, nature to nature, turned—and found himself alone.

Once more the clerk opened the door.

“Eleven o’clock, sir,” he said, “and you know the General Term this morning——”

“You saw the gentleman who just went out?” asked the lawyer.

“I, sir,” answered the man; “I saw no one go out.”

“No one?”

“No one.”

“You certainly brought me a card and showed a young gentleman in a few minutes ago?”

“I, sir!” repeated the clerk. “I brought in a card and showed a young gentleman in! Aren’t you well this morning, sir?”

“That will do,” said Maskelyne, sternly.

As soon as he was again alone he stepped to the table. The card and the letter were gone. And still he knew he had not been dreaming. A man swung high in the air was busy painting a sign upon a building not far away, and he was conscious that all through the strange interview he had watched him at work. He had seen him finish one letter and then another, and now if he found him adding the final consonant he would be assured that he could not have been asleep. He looked up and found that he was right. The man had just made the heavy shaded side and was busy putting the little finishing line at the bottom of the letter.

Two men—one of rotund middle age, the other younger but yet not young—came down the steps of the Union Club one day a few weeks later. They met an old man rounding the corner of the Avenue.

“See what you would come to if you had your own way,” said the elder of the two. “There’s old Maskelyne. He’s got everything you’re making yourself wretched to get. Do you want to be like him?”

“No,” said the other. “Then you haven’t heard?”

“Heard what?”

“He’s a changed man, all within a month.”

“Has his brain or his heart softened?”

“As you look at life,” said the younger. “He has sent for that clever, improvident, gracefully graceless good-fellow of a good-for-nothing, his nephew, him and his pretty-handed, big-eyed wife—he hadn’t seen either of them since they ran away and were married—sent for them and put them in his great, old house and—didn’t you hear Maceration growling about the luck some people have just before we left? He says the nephew will have all the old man’s property.”

“What’s the world coming to?” said the senior, “or what is coming to the world?”

A PURITAN INGÉNUE

BY JOHN SEYMOUR WOOD

I

The Archibald house, on West Forty-— Street, was of the character described as a “modernized front.” A handsome arch in rough stone surmounted the front-door, which was done in polished oak and plate-glass. The stoop was on a level with the sidewalk; a richly carved bow-window jutted out from the second story. “No. 41,” in old iron open work, formed a pretty grating above the door. There was, in fact, nothing which would lead an ordinary person to conceive of the house as given over to boarders, except, possibly, the sign,

+----------------------+ | TO LET, FURNISHED. | +----------------------+

which was posted conspicuously below the first-story window, and at an angle which enabled him that ran to read.

Old Mr. Archibald’s death, the autumn before, had left his widow rather poorer than she anticipated. He was a great collector of pretty things. His taste was exquisite, and he had gratified it by filling his house with a variety of _bric-à-brac_, pictures, statuary, and old furniture, which made it a centre of attraction to many of the old gentleman’s artistic friends. Mrs. Archibald, loath to dispose of her husband’s art collections, determined to let the house, as it stood, “at an exorbitant figure, to a very rich tenant without children.” Under these terms, on her departure for Europe, her agent was entrusted with the house, and her son Jerome, when he saw her off on the steamer, received a parting injunction, “Be sure and see that they have no children.” Jerome Archibald saw his mother and sisters depart—in no very enviable frame of mind; but he was a good son, and he resolved to forego Newport, if it would tend to dispose of the house as his mother wished, and add to her diminished income.

His mother and sisters sailed in May. It was now July, and very warm and disagreeable. As the “heated term” set in, he began to think it too bad, you know, of mamma and the girls to remain abroad for three whole years. It was positively absurd. What was he to do? After the house was let—where was he to go? By Jove, he felt deuced lonely, don’t you know! It was especially trying for a sensitive man to go in and out of a house with a great placard on it, “To Let, Furnished,” but it was a deal more trying to have people come and want board. Yes, actually, two ladies came one morning and wanted to know if they could see the landlord. It was positively ridiculous! His agent was a clevah fellow, but even he gave up hope of letting the house until fall. Hadn’t he better run down to Newport? He got a letter from Dick Trellis that morning, and they really didn’t see how they were going to get on without him in the polo matches. It put him in a fuming fury. He had never stayed late in the city in summer before. How infernally hot it was—and nahsty—don’t you know! His collars were in a perpetual state of wilt—they never wilted at Newport. Then everybody was not only out of town, having a good time somewhere, but they had a provoking way now of ostentatiously boarding up their front-doors—yes—and their windows, too—which made it doubly disagreeable for those who had to remain. It was bad enough to see the blinds drawn down, but boxing up their stonework and planking up their front-doors caused Mr. Jerome Archibald unutterable pangs. Then they thought it was a boarding-house!

_They_ were coming again in the afternoon, at four. There were two of them—ladies. In his rather depressing and solitary occupation of living alone in his house, with one solemn apoplectic cook and one chalk-faced maid, in order to exhibit it to that endless raft of females with “permits,” who universally condemned or “damned with faint praise” his father’s exquisite taste in rugs and furniture, Mr. Jerome Archibald had to-day admitted to himself a distinct pleasure in showing “Miss Perkins” and her niece (whose name did not happen at the time to be mentioned) over the house, and pointing out in his quiet way its excellences.

They saw the sign, they said, and so made bold to enter. Evidently Miss Perkins was a prim, thin, tall, spectacled, New England old maid. She had the delicate air and manner of a lady. A lady faded, perhaps, and unused to a larger social area than that surrounding her native village green. She had also the timid manner of hesitancy of New England spinsters—hesitancy concerning everything except questions of casuistry and religion—and seemed, in what she did, to be spurred on from behind by the niece, who was, on the whole, as Mr. Jerome Archibald told a friend at the club later, “quite extraordinary.”

In the first place, as he said, the niece was undeniably beautiful.

“She wore rawther an odd street dress,” he said, “made up in the country somewhere, by a seamstress who gathered her crude notions of the prevailing fashions from some prevaricating ladies’ journal, and her hat was something positively ridiculous—but her _face_!” The fastidious Mr. Jerome Archibald at once conceded to it a certain patrician quality of elegance. It denoted pure blood and pure breeding, somewhere up among Vermont hills or Maine forests. A long line of “intelligent ancestors,” perhaps. It was fine, and—beautiful. The forehead high, nose straight, the large eyes gray, the mouth and chin sweet, and yet quite determined. When he showed them a large room at the rear, on the second story, facing the north, the niece had observed, with a lofty air—mind, the room was literally crammed with the most costly _bric-à-brac_—“I think this will suit me very well, aunt dear, on account of the light.”

He noticed in her unfashionable dress a certain artistic sense of freedom, a _soupçon_ of colored ribbon here and there, and he concluded that she was all the more interesting, as an artist, in that she so quietly accepted the elegancies around her. She gave an unconscious sigh over a small glass-covered “Woodland Scene,” by Duprez. Mr. Jerome Archibald noticed it, and inwardly smiled, delighted.

Perhaps the niece captivated him the more by her silent appreciation of some things he himself admired exceedingly. It was odd that she seemed always to choose _his_ favorites. There was nothing said as to the rent, the size of the house, the lot, the plumbing. He spent an hour showing his etchings alone, and in the afternoon, at four, they were coming again, “to decide.”

II.

Of course Mr. Jerome Archibald must have been an extremely susceptible young man to have fallen in love at first sight with a strange young woman, who had come to look at his house with a view to renting. But he was—“rawther down and depressed.” The usual summer malaria had set in. The usual excavations in the streets were going on—they were digging with “really extraordinary energy” that summer—the pavements were up on all the Fortieth streets. Fifth Avenue presented the appearance of a huge empty canal. It was something more, this presidential year, than the perennial laying down and taking up of pipes. “He was really ripe for _une grande affaire du cœur_,” said one of his club friends, he was getting so lonesome. He _did_ fall quite entirely in love, precipitately, unquestionably, in spite of the fact that they took the house for a boarding-place! They asked to hire but one room only.

When they arrived, at 4 P.M., they sat a few moments in the reception-room, while the chalk-faced, alert maid announced them to Archibald in the room above. Miss Perkins folded her faded, gloved hands in her lap and sat up on the sofa stiffly. They had looked at ever so many houses, and they had come back to No. 41 with instinctive preference.

“I don’t think one room would be so very expensive,” said Miss Perkins. “He could put up two beds easily in that north room, and the room we saw on Thirty-fourth Street was only twelve dollars—what do you think, Elvira?”

“I think twelve dollars is altogether too high,” said the niece, looking up from a delicate little Elzevir she was holding. “I think he wants to let the rooms very much; none of them seem to be taken. Remember it is midsummer, aunt dear.”

There was a little pause.

“Of course he will prefer having _nice_ people. It will be a great help to your art, Elvira—you can study at great advantage. There are so many pictures for you to copy. I think your father would say it was a ‘lucky find.’ If you will persist in your art, why, I think we are very fortunate.”

“You are always ready to sneer at my art, Aunt Perkins.” And she gave a peculiar laugh.

“It is something that has come up since my day,” she replied, glancing about over the pictures and the rare editions on the table. “I was brought up to plain living. But I guess if we can get it all for twelve dollars we ought to be satisfied. It’s a pleasant change to see the city. It’s pleasant to see these ornaments. Yes, I don’t blame art so much as your father does, Elvira, and I don’t believe _he_ would blame it if he knew we could have so much of it for twelve dollars.”

“Father secretly admires it as much as I do,” said the niece; “only he likes to talk.”

Just then Mr. Jerome Archibald entered. He was faultlessly dressed in half-mourning for his father. Indeed, he had dressed himself with exceeding care, being desirous, he frankly admitted to himself, of making an impression. He bowed graciously, and took Elvira’s extended gloved hand, which, as she offered it, he held a moment. “Have you decided?” he asked.

They had explained, when they left in the morning, that they should want only one room, and he tacitly inferred that they would require board. He received a dreadful shock, but made up his mind that the charming niece would prove the more charming on closer acquaintance, and he deliberately decided to keep both the gentle New Englanders under his roof for a time, if he could! The more he thought of the plan, the more interesting the situation became to him. He fairly dreaded, at last, lest they should find their way into a remote boarding-house in some cheap quarter of the city, where it would be quite impossible for him to follow them. He gravely announced to the astonished maid that he had determined to let out the rooms to the ladies, who, he pretended for her benefit, were old acquaintances. When they were announced he was scarcely able to conceal his pleasure. Mr. Jerome Archibald had fallen in love.

“We have decided to take one room,” said Elvira, “if we can agree upon the price; and we wish to know the price of board—”

“We shan’t want much to eat,” put in Miss Perkins, with a nervous twitch.

Archibald admirably concealed a smile. His long mustache aided him a good deal in doing this. He was still standing, and he put his hand to his lips: “I think we shall agree very easily upon the price,” he said.

Miss Perkins again twitched a little. “We thought twelve dollars—room and board——” she said, leaving the sentence half finished, while Elvira looked up at him, expectantly.

“My dear ladies, I should not think of charging more than ten. You are strangers in the city, and I would not impose upon you for the world. It happens that this is the dull season——”

“So we thought,” said Miss Perkins, “and board and lodging ought to come a little cheaper.”

“Precisely. The maid will show you your sleeping-room—and, of course, the entire house is at your service. I hope you will find everything to your comfort. I am very anxious to please.” He laughed a little.

Elvira gave him a grateful, but at the same time a rather patronizing, glance. He felt at once that in carrying out his little _ruse_ he had placed himself deliberately upon a questionable footing with the beautiful girl. He hoped, however, to redeem himself by impressing her with his knowledge of the pursuit which, he accurately judged, had brought the ladies to the city. Archibald had at one time done a little painting himself. He had dreamed dreams, as a young man, which indolence and the stern business atmosphere of the city had choked off prematurely. As he looked down upon the girl’s sweet gray eyes a vision of this youthful period came back to him. Twenty-two and thirty-two have this in common, that the latter age is not too far away to quite despise the younger enthusiasm. Archibald at thirty-two still believed in himself, don’t you know.

III.

Several days passed, during which the ladies settled themselves very readily in their new surroundings. They were very methodical, preferring to rise at an hour which, to Archibald, was something savoring of barbarism. He studied their habits, with a view to conforming to them as far as possible, but found that he could not bring himself to give up his nine-o’clock breakfasts, and so went to his club, leaving orders that the ladies should be accommodated at the earliest hour they might choose. He found that they had discovered Central Park, and came to make it a habit to stroll with them of a morning upon the Mall, and around the stagnant lakes. Central Park was a novelty to him, except as seen from horseback, or a four-in-hand, and it really seemed very beautiful those summer mornings—he was really surprised, don’t you know! He wondered that nice people did not use the Park more—as they did Hyde Park in London. As the days went on he filled his house with flowers, turned the second floor into an immense studio for Elvira, sat about and watched her, criticised, encouraged her. He forgot Newport, forgot his polo. He had strangely ceased to be bored. He was happy in New York in midsummer! Dick Trellis told his polo friends at Newport that Archibald was probably undergoing private treatment for softening of the brain, which theory, in fact, they deemed sufficiently complimentary.

As for his mother and sisters in Europe—why, pray, should he inform them of his little joke?

Elvira worked away at her easel when the light was best—during the afternoon. In the evening, after dinner, the ladies became socially inclined. It was then that they allowed Archibald to smoke in the “studio” and talk Art with Elvira. Indeed he found it very difficult to talk anything else with the shy New England primrose.

About Art—with a big A—she was rapturous. There seemed to be in her soul a strange hunger for everything ornate and richly beautiful. Archibald devoted himself to studying her. He became strangely interested in East Village, Vt., where, he gathered, the Hon. Ephraim B. Price, her father, was a very distinguished Republican lawyer and politician. He drew Aunt Perkins out concerning her Congregational church, her minister, her fear of the Catholics, her fondness for cats, her secret disbelief in Art. Once in a while they read him a letter from the Hon. Ephraim, in which he could see reflected their own liking for _him_. He found that he was spoken of as “Landlord Archibald.” The Hon. Ephraim was a shrewd old fellow, however, and his counsels and advice were generally of the “trust-not-too-much-to-appearances” order. One evening Miss Perkins complained of a headache, and Archibald found himself alone for an hour with Elvira. She sat beneath the rich brazen lamp, with its pretty crimson shade, absorbing some of the red glow in her lovely face. They had been two weeks in the city, and out of delicate feeling had deposited two ten-dollar bills upon the mantelpiece in the library, where Archibald would see them. He had roared with laughter over them and intended having them framed, but ultimately he found a different use for their amusing board-money.

He made some little allusion to the time they had been with him.

“Two very short weeks,” said Elvira, “and you have been so very unusually kind, Mr. Archibald. You have done so much for us. We have noticed it. Is it usual for landlords to—to do so much, in the city?”

“It depends,” he said, gravely. “Landlords do more for people who are congenial—you are congenial——”

“Oh!” A slight pause.

“You are more than congenial, _really_,” said Archibald. “For you take an interest, Miss Price. I have secretly espied both you and your aunt dusting——”

Elvira bit her lip. “We _have_ dusted,” she admitted, reddening a little, “but it is merely out of force of habit.”

“Really,” said Archibald, “I rawther like you the better for it, don’t you know!”

“I’m afraid,” said Elvira, her face lighting up with conscious pleasure, “that you have made up your mind as a landlord to like us, whatever we do. I’m afraid you would not like it at all if you knew everything that aunt has done.”

“Tell me—I will keep it a profound secret, I assure you,” he laughed.

“She has actually dared to invade your kitchen!”

“Has she?” said Archibald, dubiously; “really!”

“Yes, and she declares that your cook wastes enough every day to keep four families!”

“Really!” said Archibald; “I’ll have to look into it.”

“You won’t save much out of what we pay,” said Elvira, “and we don’t want to stay if it doesn’t pay you; but——”

“Well?”

“Mr. Archibald, we are poor.” She looked down.

“I’m very sorry, I’m sure—I—” he really did feel a compassion which found its way into his voice, and made it tremble a little.

“Aunt says you _can’t_ be making any money. Now, we don’t think it is right to stay another day and be _burdens_, do you see?”

A solemn pause.

“Isn’t that what they are talking about so much now in the novels?” he asked, at length.

“What?”

“The terrible New England conscience?”

“Right is right and wrong is wrong, Mr. Archibald, disguise it how we may,” and Elvira compressed her pretty lips firmly.

Archibald puffed on his cigar, lazily.

“I wasn’t sure,” he said, as if a doubt had crept into his mind.

She glanced at him impatiently.

“Can’t you _see_ how wrong it would be for us to stay here and enjoy all we have in your beautiful house, knowing that we were swindling you?” She stamped her foot. “Mercy!” she added, half to herself, “what _can_ you be made of?”

He hastened to a display of rugged conscience, which relieved her.

“Oh, of course, I see how wicked it would be if you _did_ swindle; but I’m making money! Really—I haven’t spent the twenty dollars board-money yet. Oh, pray rest assured—I shan’t lose. I will tell you when I run behind.”

A great sense of relief seemed to come over the girl.

“But it is all we can pay. I told father I would not ask for more. Father said he knew it would take more, but I said I would give up Art first.”

“Oh, I say!” he protested.

“And to-morrow I am going to begin taking lessons, but I _will_ not call on father for another cent. He shan’t be able to throw it in my face that it turned out as he said, and that I was wrong. When he and I dispute it always does turn out as he says—this time it _shan’t_.”

Archibald laughed a little. The poor fool, don’t you know, was so captivated that every word, every action of the girl was music to him. The two weeks of observation had told on her dress. To-night she wore a white muslin, elaborated with pretty ribbons. She no longer seemed especially rustic to him. He noticed that she was doing her hair now in the prevailing style. “By Jove!” he said to himself, “I’ll see that she comes out at the Patriarchs’ next winter!”

This was his highest earthly happiness for a _débutante_.

“I am going to make money,” she went on; “I’m going to paint vases, plates, odds and ends, pot-boilers, you know, and so father shan’t know what it costs.”

“Oh, by the way, if you do,” he pretended, lazily blowing out a ring of smoke, “I happen to know a fellow—an old friend of mine—who gives very fair prices for those sort of things. Now, I am sure he will take any gimcrack you may do.”

Somehow the word gimcrack displeased her.

“My Art work has always been thought very pretty in East Village,” she said. “It would never _sell_, but it was thought pretty. I used to long to help father—and our family is so large, you know, four little brothers and two sisters younger than I am—and now, if I only _could_ get on, and help father! Oh, Mr. Archibald, you don’t know how _little_ law there is to go round in East Village!” She heaved a deep sigh.

He tried to appear sympathetic.

“I know a fellow who gets a thousand dollars for a portrait, and he has only just commenced. You can’t help but succeed, Miss Price, really!”

She gave him a grateful glance.