Part 8

"No, nothing of the kind," returned Van Tassel uncomfortably. "I am more willing to see them than they probably are to see me. I don't blame Clover, if she chooses never to meet me again. I suppose she remembers as clearly as I do some of the last things I said to her. Whew!" for in changing their positions one member of the party had stepped back into plain sight, "what a stunning girl they have with them!"

"That was Miss Bryant," said Page.

"No, no. You didn't see the one I meant. Splendid creature; carried her head as though the Fair was built expressly for her."

"Yes, that was Miss Bryant. I have met her a number of times. Perhaps I had better go over and speak to her."

"Don't think of it till I am out of the way," and Jack grasped his cousin's arm. "That, Mildred? Milly _Bryant_?" he added incredulously, looking reminiscently into that young woman's past, and seeing a combination of tanned countenance, rough hair, and old clothes revealing surplus wrist and ankle; a picture which refused to have relation to the trim and elegant young creature who had caught his eye.

This revelation increased to a panic Jack's desire not to intrude upon these friends. As though to enlighten him still further, Mildred insisted that her sister should step back also, and see some vista, which her own movement had brought into range.

Jack instinctively shrank more closely into the shadow of his pillar, while Page sympathetically followed his example, and both stole glances at Clover's pleased, unconscious face; a changed face from that which either of the men knew as hers. Jack saw in it the signs of a greater maturity and life-experience, as well as the subtle charm which exists in a lovely woman whose advantages are set off by tasteful and fashionable attire. Page saw what still seemed to him an angelic countenance, only made earthly by the tints of healthy youth, alert with interest; these smiling lips were but distantly related to the rigid, delicate mouth he remembered.

Clover vanished again, recalled by her companions' interest in a company of cavalry who galloped in golden glory across a distant bridge.

"I wish I was out of this," exclaimed Jack. "They may all take it into their heads to come over here any minute. If the girls were alone, I shouldn't mind it. They could behave as they pleased then; but with mutual friends it would be very awkward for them. Dick Ogden is in the party. I can hear his laugh this minute. I'm going, Gorham."

"Very well, I too, then. Here comes some governor and his staff."

"Yes, it is Russell. The crowd is safe to cheer now and wave handkerchiefs for live minutes. It is our chance. We sha'n't be noticed. Come."

Jack started across the loggia with Page beside him. As ill luck would have it, the only one of the party by the balcony who turned idly curious eyes to look after the pair was his friend Ogden.

"Why there's--it _is_ Van Tassel!" ejaculated the latter. "_Oh_, Van."

How Jack anathematized the cheerful, loud voice. He turned a deaf ear and hastened on.

"Van Tassel!" bawled the other. "Here, what's the matter with you? They're here, old fellow."

There is no creature so difficult to escape as the man who is convinced he is doing you a favor.

Jack could hear the legs of his persecutor's chair grate on the flooring as he sprang to his feet. He paused and turned around, knowing that if he persisted, his misguided friend would not hesitate to pursue and capture him in his zeal.

"They're right here," repeated Ogden explanatorily, his ingenuous florid face beaming. "Wasn't it curious you should have passed by, so near and yet so far?"

Van Tassel and Page advanced, the former with a rigidly impassive countenance. It seemed long to him that he was crossing the ten feet of balcony which lay between him and the young women whose reception he feared sensitively.

Ogden, and doubtless their other friends, supposed them united by ties of intimacy. Much as he disliked to obtrude himself upon them, to permit strangers to suppose that he was not pleased to meet these ladies would set many tongues wagging and was not to be considered. Better to risk a snub than to appear disloyal to those his father had honored.

But he need not have feared. Clover and Mildred were not the inexperienced girls of his acquaintance. They had taken in the situation as keenly as he had done, and when he reached them were ready to greet him and Mr. Page in a matter-of-course manner, calculated to divert suspicion had any existed. The circumstances, moreover, were favorable. The common interest of the parade at once claimed the attention of all, and after Page had been introduced to the strangers of the party, Jack drew a breath of relief that at any rate the ice was broken.

He stood near Mildred, looking down upon the gay plumes, uniforms, and prancing steeds of the procession, and wished she would address him. Was this the girl who had always been eagerly ready to act as crew of his boat, whose strong arms had not been of contemptible assistance in bailing her out? who had received his invitations to sail in a thankful spirit, being thereby richly repaid for her physical exertions? She had sometimes needed to be snubbed out of too energetic participation in his own and Clover's plans. She had been a good fellow always, Jack remembered, even if occasionally inconveniently effervescent in the matter of animal spirits; had been an honest, fair antagonist, with a brave love of sport.

It struck Van Tassel as very curious that he should be so meekly desirous now of a crumb of friendly notice from one who had looked up to him so long and loyally.

He wished he could forget some of those heated things he had said to Clover on that miserable afternoon. Of course she had repeated them to her sister, and he felt uncomfortably sure that the memory of them was even now seething beneath the jetted crown of Miss Bryant's hat.

He envied Page the unconsciousness with which he could lean toward either sister, making and receiving comments. Clover's sweet face moved him with a tide of thought that gave his eyes a sad expression, which she caught on the only occasion when she looked up into his face.

On the whole, it was an uncomfortable half-hour which Jack spent in that loggia. The talk and laughter of the others gave him a feeling of remoteness and isolation. He wanted Clover or Mildred to speak to him, and they did not. He could not address them without a bit of encouragement. It was a relief to him when it was proposed to forsake the interminable lines of militia which were filing by the Transportation Building, and adjourn in search of luncheon.

Page seemed determined to accept Dick Ogden's urgent invitation that the cousins should continue of the party, and indeed Gorham started off gayly with Mildred, as though it were a matter of course that Jack should follow. The consequence was that, feeling a good deal as though the whole experience were a dream of the Thanksgiving variety, Van Tassel found himself after a while placed next Clover at table. On her other side sat Dick's mother, a lady remarkable for an imposing figure and a fluffy pompadour of curling white hair. As this personage declared that the morning in the open air had given her an alarming appetite and proceeded to apply her full attention to its demands, conversation with her languished. Jack observed this, and renouncing the nightmare idea with an effort, endeavored to make necessity serve him.

"You have been abroad all summer, I believe," he remarked to his neighbor.

"Yes, longer than that," returned Clover. Her self-possession seemed untroubled; but in reality she suffered, too, from mingled emotions. She pitied Jack, but resented the fact that circumstances had forced them together, and his presence evoked memories overwhelmingly bitter and tender.

"Gorham Page and I did the lake regions of England and Scotland this year," he went on. "Did you happen to be in that vicinity?"

"No, we stayed in Switzerland during the summer months."

"You have seen much of the world in the last two years."

"Yes. Mildred and I feel ourselves quite experienced travelers."

"Shall you be satisfied to settle down now for a time?"

"I can hardly tell. We have formed a dangerous habit."

"Are you"--Jack looked busily into his plate--"Are you stopping at home--at the old house?"

"We have no home yet. We mean to settle down some day and make one."

"Why, have you parted with that dear old place, Mrs. Van Tassel?" asked Mrs. Ogden sonorously, helping herself again to chicken salad.

"Mrs. Van Tassel finds it rather large for her purposes, I fancy," answered Jack quickly, "and our old housekeeper mourns her defection; but we haven't parted with the place. I was there in January, Clover, and Jeanie shed a few tears in her homesickness for you. I haven't seen her yet this time. Page and I only got in yesterday, and we went to the Great Northern."

Jack did not add that this unusual step was taken because he hoped that Clover and her sister might have returned and taken advantage of the invitation he sent them long ago through Miss Berry.

"Do you know how steadily I have clung to Boston of late?" he continued.

"Aunt Love wrote me you were there with your cousin. Are you going to adopt it as your home?"

"No indeed. You will think, Mrs. Ogden," leaning forward to speak across Clover to her neighbor, "that Mrs. Van Tassel and I are very poor correspondents. Here we have both been roving about for the past year and waiting to meet in order to learn details about one another's movements."

"You can't tell me anything about young men as correspondents," replied Mrs. Ogden feelingly. "When Dick is away, the most I ever expect from him is a telegram every day or two."

"We're a bad lot," admitted Jack. "No," speaking again to Clover, "I am a Chicagoan, and just now prouder than ever of the fact. I fancy that we shall all come home like straying chickens on May 1, '93. Of course you intend to be here during the Fair?"

"Yes. Mildred and I both anticipate it highly."

"I tell you, Mrs. Van Tassel," put in Mrs. Ogden, "if you don't want to use your house next summer, you can make a fortune renting it. In that situation, within walking distance of the grounds, you can get anything you like to ask for it."

Clover for a second time was about to disclaim any right or title to the homestead, but Jack besought her with a glance.

"I think we shall find it too convenient to be dispensed with," he said hastily.

After luncheon the party separated; their invitations to the dedicatory exercises in the Liberal Arts Building admitting them to different situations.

The scene was such as one is glad to have assisted in for its uniqueness if nothing more. Even seeing scarcely made it possible to grasp the vastness of an auditorium covering forty acres; through whose outer corridors companies of cavalry passed now and then without making a noticeable sound within. Theodore Thomas's orchestra with its attendant singers, a company of six thousand in all, made but a little bright bouquet in one spot, and the leader was obliged to telephone to the platform half way down the hall in order to be informed when a speech had ceased and a musical number might take its turn.

At the end of the building opposite from Thomas, the Mexican band enlivened the meditations of the few thousands, fifteen or so, who were hear enough to enjoy their martial strains. Mammoth banners and flags made gay the grand arches that supported the roof, and each tassel on those which were so decorated weighed as much as a woman.

Only a Brobdingnagian could have felt at ease in such surroundings, yet wonderful order was maintained amid this largest audience ever gathered together under one roof.

Clover and Mildred were near enough to the singers to hear the _piece de resistance_, Chadwick's inspiring, moving ode, and as she listened Clover's eyes grew moist under the stress of the day's emotions.

"Jack is evidently very friendly," she said that night to her sister, when they were alone in their room at the Auditorium.

"He ought to be," returned Mildred shortly.

"He behaved very well and kindly," continued Clover. "The situation was odious."

"Odious. I should think so," remarked Mildred. "I never disliked that bawling Dick Ogden as I did when he kept on calling Jack like that. Don't begin to praise him to me," added the girl, turning toward her elder a glowing face. "After Jack Van Tassel has dragged around on his knees a good long time I am going to forgive him. Not before."

Clover looked troubled. "But it might all have been so awkward for us had he chosen to behave differently," she protested. "It is much easier for us to lock injuries in our breasts that the world knows nothing of, than it would be to have a gossiping set of people wondering and staring. Jack has grasped the bunch of nettles and saved us from those stings. You can feel as you please about it, but I am grateful."

"I wish he would go away. I wish he'd go to Kamschatka," exclaimed Mildred hotly. "I can't rid myself, when he is present, of the idea that he is considering how very differently we should be situated now if it weren't for dear Mr. Van Tassel."

"Well, it is true."

"Don't be tiresome, Clover. Of course it is true; but Jack has grown so grave and quietly observing, I feel that I shall not be able to endure having him about. I like fine clothes and fashionable life generally, and when I am soaring in my natural element, if Jack is going to give me those meditative, suggestive stares, it will ruin my pleasure. It is just as if one had a string about a bird's ankle and could twitch it down whenever he liked."

"I think you feel so because you haven't talked with him yet, Mildred. You know Jack was always generous."

"Was he?" the young girl faced her sister. "Was he when he accused you and insulted you?"

"Oh, I've forgiven him, Milly," returned the other gently, making a repressive gesture. "I have considered his standpoint a great deal since then; and we enjoyed his father and benefited by him when the only son was far away. We even had the priceless privilege of serving him in his last days, while Jack was unwittingly defrauded. Oh, I should not have been at all surprised if he had been unable to take me by the hand to-day. Don't be hard on Jack."

*CHAPTER XII.*

*GORHAM PAGE'S COMMISSION.*

A few days afterward a bell-boy brought Gorham Page's card to Mrs. Van Tassel's parlor. It was followed shortly by the young man himself, who felicitated himself upon his good fortune in finding her at home.

"My stay in Chicago will be so short, that had you been out I fear I should not have met you again," he said. "I am happy to see, Mrs. Van Tassel," Gorham inspected her with kindly, short-sighted eyes, "that travel has done all for you Miss Bryant hoped. Your face has quite a new color and contour."

"No, just my old one," she answered lightly, indicating a seat near her own. "I am sorry my sister is out; but she is a gay girl," with a little smiling sigh. "Wherever she is, somehow a number of engagements seem to crop up."

"Yes. One can see that she is a leader by nature. I should like to have seen Miss Bryant. However, my errand is with you especially to-day."

"Oh, it is an errand that has brought you? How unflattering!"

"Not necessarily. It argued nothing unflattering when John Alden performed his famous errand to Priscilla."

Page looked argumentatively into his hostess's amused eyes.

"Haven't you gone a long way afield for a simile?" she asked.

"No, I think not. I was quite as reluctant as poor John to accept the mission."

"Then decline it even at this late hour. I am the least curious of women."

"Impossible." Page shook his head. "Miles Standish is waiting for me over there at the Northern, and he is in a great state of mind."

"You tempt me to wish I had been out when your card came up. Perfunctory visits are very uncomfortable. I think you had better return to your friend, and tell him that Priscilla would not allow you to speak."

"I'm not making you uncomfortable, am I?" asked Gorham looking up and half laughing. "You see it is this way. I wanted to come to see you, and as soon as Jack learned my intention, he burdened me with this business. He told me to be eloquent, and not being in the least so, I am overwhelmed by my responsibilities. I had a presentiment, and told him so, that I should make a mess of the whole affair; but he insisted upon trusting his messenger as blindly as the Puritan captain of old."

Page had a way of lapsing, as he talked, into a meditative manner.

"And do you insist upon refusing to be warned by John Alden's failure?" asked Mrs. Van Tassel.

"Oh, I mustn't fail," he returned with prompt simplicity. "That is, if I do I shall take a room here in the Auditorium for the remainder of my stay. We all make rather a pet of Jack," he explained. "The thought of denying him or contradicting him presents itself somewhat in the light of a catastrophe. What do you think, Mrs. Van Tassel, of the effect on the average character of a habit of success?"

Really, Clover thought this was one of the oddest men she had ever met; but his question was so serious that she felt constrained to express an opinion.

"I am afraid I am no student of character, but I should say it would have a genial, developing effect."

"Yes, one thinks so at the first blush, and that continued failure would dwarf the faculties. One can hardly lay down a rule where exceptions are so numerous; and of course success and failure are never accidents."

"I think they seem to be so very often."

"No," Page shook his head. "Everything is the result of law."

"Then the character that dominates and commands success must grow by what it feeds upon, and expand in its own sunlight. I was right."

"Yes; but the flowers and fruits of a tropical sun are heavy in scent and often coarse of flavor: while the flower that struggles for life and develops in meagre warmth is like the New England arbutus, both strong and delicate."

"People have such varying standards by which they measure success and failure," said Clover. "That sort of scanty, hard-won success which might be typified by the arbutus would scarcely be counted success by many."

"True," said Page, nodding his head at her thoughtfully. "There ought to be some reliable touchstone which we could apply to every case."

"Surely there is," replied Clover.

Her guest brightened. "You mean we should judge according to our best education in right and wrong?"

She nodded. "It amounts to that. It seems to me that all that comes to us is important only according to its effect on character."

Page looked at her with admiring approval. Here was a woman, a girl in years, who had thought.

"Are your beliefs simply ethical," he asked, "or are you religious in the usual acceptation of the word?"

"I suppose I understand you," she replied. "I think if I could not say that I am religious I should not be here to say anything. I have stood in places where ethical culture and humanitarianism would not have saved me."

"Such testimony interests me very much," he answered, "especially from a young and beautiful woman."

Clover colored with surprise at this bluntness. She need not have shrunk. Page was as usual making an impersonal statement as nearly accurate as possible.

"I have not a particle of doubt," he continued, "that there is a world of causes, and that ours is a world of effects. Why should not the universe have a soul as well as the human body?"

"Yes; only you do not state it well," returned Clover, entering into his spirit of analysis. "It is not the body that has the soul, but the soul that has the body and will be through with it after a while."

Page bowed. "I agree to that. I believe in immortality. We have been sent upon this plane of existence; and to find out why is a problem of daily interest."

"Yes. Our wishes were not consulted when we came, and will not be consulted when we go. It seems evident enough to me that we are being sent to school."

"Some of us appear to learn very little, though," remarked Page.

"Some of us are set one lesson many times," answered Clover slowly, "until we learn it. The hand must be unclasped many times before we learn to relax our rigid hold on what we have considered our own. It is one great lesson of life, I have found, to learn to be relaxed. You know how much is said now by physical culturists on the subject of letting go abnormal tension of the muscles of the body. Isn't the correspondence interesting? We can only have spiritual self-possession when we relax the tension of our own wills and let the divine will sway us."

"We are free agents, though," objected Page, "and we must behave as if our own wills were all-powerful; else we should never accomplish anything."

"Oh yes," agreed Clover; "but if one is firmly convinced that the higher Power is omniscient, there is all the time an undercurrent of acknowledgment that one is being directed, and it becomes second nature to ask for the direction in all sorts of wordless ways."

"You believe in that sort of Providence, then?" asked Gorham curiously. "I believe every one has a God--his own God."

"Yes; my God is a Father who thought it worth while to create me, and therefore, I am sure, thinks it worth while to lead me through all the ways I am to traverse. He is close to me all the time. Whether I feel that I am close to Him, depends entirely on myself."

Page regarded the speaker a moment in silence. Her face looked near to heaven then, he thought. "Such faith comes more easily to women than to men, apparently," he said at last.

"Why should it? How strangely people behave and talk, or rather avoid talking of spiritual things as if such subjects were superstitious. I suppose perhaps it is because I have had so many dear ones slip away into the other world that it seems so real to me. It has often been said that death is the only certain event which we can count on; but people will cease to shrink from it only when they cease to think of it as death. No wonder the love of life is strongly implanted. It is all we need look forward to. The loneliness we have to suffer here," Clover paused a moment, "is a part of the schooling."

"You have made good use of your experiences," observed Page.

"Not always," returned the other. "Nevertheless, I believe that is the chief thing we have to do,--to learn something above worldly wisdom from our experiences little and great."

"So your theory regarding success and failure would simply be to decide its real nature by its spiritual effect on a man."

"Yes," Clover smiled. "You have thought of that before or you would not have grasped so quickly what I meant."

Her visitor nodded. "Yes, I have had a similar thought. The greatest apparent success may amount to a failure if it make a man more arrogant and selfish than before; and the most dismal failure is a success if only it brings with it an interior humility and willingness to be taught."

They talked another quarter of an hour before Page arose and took his leave. He left his compliments and farewell for Miss Bryant, shook hands with Clover, and reached the door of the room before he started and turned back with sudden recollection.

"Why didn't you remind me?" he said reproachfully. "I haven't done my errand."

Mrs. Van Tassel smiled. "Priscilla's part was a passive one, if I recollect rightly."

"But you also recollect the rough temper of Captain Standish. I think you are rather cruel."

"Oh, failure might have given you true humility."