Octave Thanet

“ Perhaps, had the mother lived she might have persuaded Joan out of her visions—which had been the better for Mère d' Arc's daughter, and the worse for France.
It was a strange, heavy time,—a time of dreams and portents, a time of misery in many forms. There had been famines and horrible new diseases. The crazed and starving peasants had risen in revolt, aimlessly striking at the nearest, rushing about like mad dogs, biting, and being at last hunted down, at the end of a useless, brutal, bloody struggle. There were two popes, and religion itself seemed shaken. Society was in a ferment. ”

“ She felt the goading of that furious petulance which torments a woman often into sacrificing herself out of very anger. It was on her tongue to say, "I'd rather die myself than give up Bert, and you know it; and I'll never forgive you as long as I live, but rather than see you die before my eyes I will give him up."
Neither to Emmy nor to her mother was there a doubt that any word passed would be kept. Mrs. Darter, in the lost days of peace, before her vagaries had corroded her affection, had said once, "Emmy never told me a lie in her life, nor she never broke a promise she made me!" ”

“ His fiftieth birthday it happened to be, and it occurred to him that a man ought to do something a little notable on such an anniversary. This rounding of the half-century had attributes apart; it was no mere annual birthday; it marked the last vanishing flutter of the gilded draperies of youth; the withering of the garlands; the fading tinkle of the light music of hope. It should mark a man’s solid achievements. Once, not so long ago, Winter had believed that his fiftieth birthday would see wide and beneficent and far-reaching results in the province where he ruled. ”

“ It is a pleasant path, the road from the hotel to the church; descending the hillside, past rolling fields and hills that are all shades of green, with oat-fields and turnip-leaves and dark woods of fir; until the hills climb into mountains and fade into blue with distance; thence, down through the wide streets, always bordered with a grassy strip, on either side, that the highway spares. The old houses have a gentle and self-respecting air of decay, scorning new paint, and, therefore, mellowed by summers and winters into grays soft as the hidden side of a dove's wing. ”

“ Armorer saw a tall, athletic, fair young man, very carefully, almost foppishly dressed, with bright, steady blue eyes and a firm chin, but a smile under his mustache like a child's; it was so sunny and so quick. Harry saw a neat little figure in a perfectly fitting gray check travelling suit, with a rose in the buttonhole of the coat lapel. Armorer wore no jewellery except a gold ring on the little finger of his right hand, from which he had taken the glove the better to write. Harry knew that it was his dead wife's wedding-ring; and noticed it with a little moving of the heart. ”

“ At this time Margaret was thirty years old and had never been asked in marriage. She had spent most of the thirty years in a boarding-school, as pupil or as teacher; and she had brought from her cloistered life a single vivid feeling, a passionate friendship which death had ended. The sapphire ring was her poor friend's last token.
To be thirty and never to have been sought like other girls, leaves a chill in the heart. It may be lonely never to have loved, but it is bleak never to have been loved. ”

“ Because a man works with the sun instead of a brush or a needle, can’t he create a picture? And do you suppose a photographer can’t hunt for the soul in a sitter as well as a portrait-painter? Can’t a photographer bring out light and shade in as exquisite gradations as an etcher? Artist! Any man that can discover beauty, and [113] can express it in any shape so other men can see it and love it and be happy on account of it—he’s an artist! And I don’t give a damn for a critic who tries to box up art in his own little hole! ”

“ There was something so chilling in his level tones that Winter broke out sharply: “Are you fooling with me? Have you been such an incredible madman as to kill him already?”
Mercer’s faint smile made the colonel feel boyish and impetuous. “Of course not, suh,” he answered. “I told you he was alive, myself. I reckoned you knew when a man is lying and when he is telling the solemn truth. You know I have told you the truth and treated you on the square. But, just the same, if you try to take that man away, you’ll only have his dead body. ”

“ The Max that she had grown to love, with the gradual, imperceptible advance of affection, sweet to her shy nature—that Max had never been. No doubt all the while, over in Germany, a stout and phlegmatic German landlord had been caring for his vineyards and playing the war lord in the landwehr and living very comfortably with the doughfaced German girl whose hair was lighter than her complexion, whom the countess wanted him to marry; a man as unlike the high-souled knight of her fancy as—as she, herself, was unlike the girl's image! ”

“ When Winter came to Mercer’s own exposition of his motives and his design if successful in his raid on the kings of the market, Keatcham grunted; at the end he breathed a noiseless jet of a sigh. “You don’t think Mercer is at all”—he tapped the side of the head.
“No more than you are.”
“Or you?”
[304] “Oh, well,” the colonel jested, “we all have a prejudice in favor of our own sanity. What I meant was that Mercer is a bit of a fanatic; his hard luck has—well, prejudiced him—”
Keatcham’s cold, firm lips straightened into his peculiar smile, which was rather of perception than of humor. ”

“ The man is furious because his heart is torn: if he loved the worthless youngster less he could be more forbearing. No one on earth, young sir, except the woman who bore you in torment and joy, will work for you and yearn over you and forgive you like that frowning man, who sends the chills down your spine when he opens the door on you, slinking down a dim hall at midnight, on your stocking soles!
Sir Cedric wished that he had been gentler with Rick. All those anxieties were over now. Rick was steadying himself, getting down to his work in the world. ”

“ As silently as he had gone, the prisoner followed the sheriff back to his cell. “Good-bye, Paisley,” said the sheriff, at the door.
“Good-bye, sir; I’m much obliged,” said the prisoner. Not another word was said.
That evening, however, good Mrs. Raker told the sheriff that, to her mind, if ever a man was struck with death, that new young fellow was; and he had been crying, too; his eyes were all red.
“He needs to cry,” was all the comfort that the kind soul received from the sheriff, the cold remark being accompanied by what his familiars called his Indian scowl. ”

“ Nobody guessed what a blow it was to Kurt when, a year ago, the elder Lossing had died. Even his wife did not connect his sullen melancholy and his gibes at the younger generation, with the crape on Harry Lossing's hat. He would not go to the funeral, but worked savagely, all alone by himself, in the shop, the whole afternoon—breaking down at last at the sight of a carved panel over which Lossing and he had once disputed. The desolate loneliness of the old came to him when his old master was gone. He loved the young man, but the old man was of his own generation ”

“ With one impulse Lady Jean and the young officer each snatched a golf-club and sprang to help him. "Keep off!" he cried. "I can hold him. Get a strap; we have to keep him alive to find out—Jean! For God's sake—"
His heart seemed to stand still. Lady Jean had dropped on her knees by the dog, shielding him from the young officer's club. "Don't," she said; "he's not mad! It's Mrs. Brooke's dog—Why can't you see? The poor brute's wagging his tail!"
"He is," said Willy; "hold up, boys! A mad dog doesn't wag his tail." ”

“ How weak a thing is man! Here was an eminently cool-headed, reasonable man of affairs who knew that paws which had escaped from the fire unsinged had no excuse to venture back for other people’s chestnuts; he had expressed himself clearly to this effect to young Tracy; now, behold him as unable to resist the temptation of a conflict and the chance to baffle Atkins as if he were a hot-headed boy in plain shoulder-straps!
“I’ll do better for you, Aunt Rebecca,” said he. “I’ll not only take Fireless the money, I’ll go with him to the house. ”

“ Thekla took a seat by his side and sat silent as he. Slowly the natural pallor returned to the high forehead and sharp features. They were delicate features and there was an air of refinement, of thought, about Lieders's whole person, as different as possible from the robust comeliness of his wife. With its keen sensitive-ness and its undefined melancholy it was a dreamer's face. One meets such faces, sometimes, in incongruous places and wonders what they mean. In fact, Kurt Lieders, head cabinet maker in the furniture factory of Lossing & Co., was an artist. ”

“ Mysilla had always adored and obeyed Henriette. She gloried in Henriette’s haughty beauty and grace, and she was as proud of both now that Henriette was a shabby elderly woman, who had to wear dyed gowns and darned gloves, as in the days when she was the belle of the Iowa capital, and poor Jim Perley fought a duel with Captain Sayre over a misplaced dance on her ball-card. Henriette promised to marry Jim after the duel, but Jim died of pneumonia that very week. For Jim’s sake, John Perley, his brother, was good to the girls. Pauline was a baby when her father died. ”

“ Full of mystery and uncanny beauty was the slash, its sluggish gleam of water creeping darkly under solemn cypresses and monstrous hackberry-trees, tinseled with cow-lilies in summer, spattered with blood-red berries in winter, green with delicate beauty when the cypress is in leaf, or gray and softly brown when its short-lived foliage falls. Did one care to deal in mystical analogy, one might find in the slash suggestions of the African's undeveloped soul, where brute and child still battle for mastery. ”

“ Winter struck was too rapid for comments or questions; it swept them both past the palm-shaded patio into the side hall, out on the noisy, dazzling, swaying street. Looking before her, Miss Smith could see the dusty body of a hack a block away. Mrs. Winter had stepped up to a huge crimson motor-car, in the front seat of which lounged the chauffeur, his forehead and eyes hunched under his leather visor. The machine was puffing, with the engine working, ready to leap forward at a touch of the lever. ”

“ He expected, he counted on the mayor's refusing his proffers. He hoped that Esther would feel the sympathy which women give, without question generally, to the business plans of those near and dear to them, taking it for granted that the plans are right because they will advantage those so near and dear. That was the beautiful and proper way that Jenny had always reasoned; why should Jenny's daughter do otherwise? When Harry Lossing should oppose her father and refuse to please him and to win her, mustn't any high-spirited woman feel hurt? ”

“ Do you suppose it’s no punishment to sink into obscurity when you know you’ve got the capacity to do better work than the men that are getting the money and the praise? Do you suppose it doesn’t eat into my heart every day that I can’t ever give my boy his grandfather’s honest name?—that I don’t even dare to make his father’s name one he would be proud of? Yes, I took his life, but I’ve given up all my chances in the world for it. My only hope was to change as I grew older and be lost, and the old story would die out—”
“It might; but you see he had a mother,” said Wickliff ”

“ CASA FUERTE
Winter would have said that he was too old a man to stay awake all night, when he had a normal temperature; yet he saw the stars come out and the stars fade on that fateful April night. He entered his room at the hour when midnight brushes the pale skirts of dawn and misguided cocks are vociferating their existence to an indifferent world. Before he came there had been a long council with Mercer and his aunt. ”

“ Darius was the first to speak: "My son," said he, "I have known your mother for forty years and have been her husband for thirty-three, but she can surprise me still!"
"Mother certainly is great," assented Darrie, solemnly; he added his own little feather of marital triumph: "Hetty always told me so," said he.
"Look at those women all around her," said Darius, "patting her on the shoulder and whispering; they know. Darrie, I'll bet you anything, there hasn't been another speech in this convention that has put things as clearly as mother's." ”

“ Margaret and her mother were high-minded women. It was the gallant knight of her party and her political faith that the girl admired, the valiant fight, not the triumph! No mere soldier of fortune, no matter how successful or how brilliant, could win her; if Tommy were the mercenary, not the knight, no worldly glory could compensate his wife.
Wherefore, after a bad quarter of an hour reflecting on these things, Mrs. Carriswood went to the Capitol, resolved to take her goddaughter away. ”

“ Her skin was fine and clear, and her brown hair very soft. Her gray eyes were alight with interest as she watched the finishing touches given the table, which was spread with a glossy white cloth, and had a bowl of June roses in the centre. Mrs. Armstrong, in a new dimity gown and white apron, was placing a great platter of golden sponge-cake on the board. She looked up and saw Pauline. The girl could invent no better excuse for her scrutiny (which had such an air of prying) than to drop her head as if in faintness—an excuse, indeed, suggested by her own feelings. ”

“ Darter keep right on and not back-slide, think?" said Mrs. Conner.
"I think she will," said Doris; "I hope she will. And there's one thing: after I'm gone (I shall have to run away from my reputation) you must own up about your ankle—and me to Miss Darter and poor, trusting Miss Bigelow. She's such a good soul! Mrs. Darter—well, you will know when it's safe to tell Mrs. Darter."
"Humph!" said Conner, "Emmy'll be grateful! I guess we'll go slow on the Widow Darter; and as to Ann Bigelow—"
"I do feel sneaky about her," sighed Doris. "It's touching, her faith. She's a simple-hearted creature. ”

“ Mercer alone kept his melancholy poise; he had obtained the aim of years; he was not sure but his revenge was subtler and completer than he had dared to hope. Being a zealot he was possessed by his dreams. Suppose he had converted this relentless and tremendous power to his own way of faith; what mightn’t he hope to accomplish? Meanwhile, so far as the business in hand was concerned, he believed in Keatcham and in Keatcham’s methods of help; he bowed to the innate power of the man; and he was as simply obedient and loyal as Kito would have been to his feudal lord. ”

“ Diffidence as often comes from vanity, which is timid, as from self-distrust. Abbie longed passionately not only to be loved, but to be admired. She was loved, assuredly, but she was not especially admired. Margaret [138] Etheridge, with her courage, her sparkle, and her beauty, was always the more popular of the sisters. Margaret was imperious, but she was generous too, and never oppressed her following; only the rebels were treated to those stinging speeches of hers. Those who loved Margaret admired her with enthusiasm. No one admired poor Abbie with enthusiasm. ”

“ Carriswood; “do you know, Grace, I can see Tommy's future; he will grow to be a boss, a political boss. He will become rich by keeping your streets always being cleaned—which means never clean—and giving you the worst fire department and police to be obtained for money; and, by and by, a grateful machine will make him mayor, or send him to the Legislature, very likely to Congress, where he will misrepresent the honest State of Iowa. Then he will bloom out in a social way, and marry a gentlewoman, and they will snub the old people who are so proud of him.” ”

“ The blood rushed to Emmy's face; her eyes sank. She answered, in a confused tone: "Aunt Lida Glenn was over yesterday. I don't know what she said to mother, but mother—mother told me the one thing she wanted on earth was to have me—send Albert away and have everything ended between us, for she never was so insulted in her life as she had been by Albert's mother."
"Albert's mother ain't Albert; though I don't blame her, Emmy, and Mrs. Glenn is a awful nice woman. But it ain't fair to hold Albert for her opinions, right or wrong. As I said, she ain't Albert, nor Albert ain't her." ”

“ WHOSE FEET WERE SHOD WITH SILENCE
“Get out your revolver,” ordered the colonel; “look sharp! there may be some one here.”
But there was not a sign of life revealed by the search. Meanwhile, Winter was examining the body. His first thought was that Keatcham had tried to escape and had been struck down in his flight. Kito would not scruple at such a deed; nor for that matter, Mercer. But why leave the man thus? Why not dispose of the body—unless, indeed, the assassins had been interrupted. Anyhow, what a horrid mess this murder would make of the affair! ”

“ Yet during Sheriff Wickliff’s administration, while Joe Raker kept jail and Mrs. Raker was matron, window-gardens brightened the grim walls all summer, and chrysanthemums and roses blazoned the black bars in winter.
Above the jail the street is a pretty street, with trim cottages and lawns and gardens; below, the sky-lines dwindle ignobly into shabby one and two story wooden shops devoted to the humbler handicrafts. It is not a street favored [4] by processions; only the little soldiers of the Orphans’ Home Company would choose to tramp over its unkempt macadam. ”

“ Across the street was Darrie's less costly but no less correctly charming house. Hester had done Myrtie's architectural bidding, also. Darrie was the best of sons. She was proud of him; and his father depended more and more on him. She loved his wife; and his children were her vivid delight. Darrie used to fetch her flowers and new plants for the window gardens; and tell her about the children's funny sayings. Darius, her husband, grew kinder and more generous all the time; he gave her a check-book of her own; she told her old friends that she had the best husband and children in the world ”

“ He could see out of the window the lovely April garden and Janet Smith amid the almond blossoms. Only her shining black head and her white shoulders and bodice rose above the pink clusters. She looked up and nodded, seeing him; her face was a little pale, but she was smiling.
“I don’t know,” he said, “it’s hard enough either way for a man.”
“I never lost any children”—Keatcham’s tone was dry, still, but it had not quite the former desiccated quality—“but I was married, for a little while. If it’s as bad to lose your children as it is to lose the hope of having them, it must be hard. ”

“ Lorania gave an indignant side glance at Sibyl. Why need the girl make game of an honest man who loved her? Sibyl was biting her lips and darting side glances at the captain. She called the pasture practice slow, but she seemed, nevertheless, to enjoy herself sitting on the bench, the captain on one side and Winslow on the other, rattling off her girlish jokes, while her aunt and Mrs. Ellis, with the anxious, set faces of the beginner, were pedalling frantically after Cardigan. Lorania began to pity Winslow, for it was growing plain to her that Sibyl and the captain understood each other. ”

“ The white gown, which was her constant wear in the sick-room, defined her figure clearly against a clump of Japan plum-trees. Their purplish red foliage rustled; and an unseen fountain beyond made a delicate tinkle of water splashing a marble basin. Her face was hidden; only the moonlight gently drew the oval of her cheek. She was standing still, except that one foot was groping back and forth as if trying to find something. ”

“ Darter should throw herself with energy into preparing for Emmy's marriage; they only dimly foresaw her recovery and reconciliation with the common pleasures of life; but it was enough for Emmy that her mother's black hour had passed, and for Albert that he was close to Emmy, and that there was a vague omen of happiness in the atmosphere.
Mrs. Darter took her tea. She went to sleep, as Miss Keith directed her; and she partook with relish of coffee, toast, and jam that selfsame day, so rapidly had her state improved by evening. ”

“ The shop itself was like any one of a score on the street, crowded with oriental objects, bizarre carvings of ivory and jade, daggers and strings of cash, swords, gorgeous embroidered robes of silk and gold in a huddle over a counter or swinging and gleaming in the dusky background, squat little green and brown gods with puffy eyelids, smiling inscrutably amid shoes and fans and Chinese lanterns of glass and bronze, glittering with beads—in all these, like the score about it ”