Edward Payson Roe

“ If he could turn from the beauty of the sun-tipped hills and rocks and the gloaming shadows to an appreciative and sympathetic face, such as he could at least imagine the visage of Ida Mayhew might become, would not his enjoyment of the beauty he saw be doubly enhanced? In his deepest consciousness he was compelled to admit that it would. He caught a glimpse of the truth that he would never attain in his highest manhood until he had allied himself to a womanhood which he should come to believe supremely true and beautiful. ”

“ But Ida Mayhew thought not of God or duty, but only of her thwarted, unhappy life, from which she shrank weakly and selfishly, assuring herself that she could not and would not endure it. In her father she saw only increasing humiliation; in her mother, one for whom she had but little affection and less respect, and who would of necessity irritate the wounds that time might slowly heal, could she live in an atmosphere of delicate, unspoken sympathy; in herself, one whom she now believed to be so ignorant and faulty that the man she loved had turned away in disgust on finding her out. ”

“ Proud as I have thought myself, I could kneel at his feet for one such word and glance as he just gave Miss Burton. For contempt I return him honor and admiration. I cannot help myself. By some strange perversity of my heart, I have become his very slave. How can he be so blind! He thinks me pining for a man that I despise and hate more than he ever can, though the fellow attempted his life. Sibley has come between me and that which is more than life—my chance for happiness and right living. ”

“ But to-night I feel as if life were a horribly heavy burden which I, an overladen jackass, must carry for many a weary day. How little we know what we are and what is before us! I've been a fool; I am a fool!"
"Well, Ik," replied Van Berg with a shrug, "I imagine there is a pair of us. My reason—all that's decent in me—refuses to regard Sibley as the cause of your cousin's most evident distress. For heaven's sake don't confirm your words of this afternoon, or I shall feel like taking the first train, in order to escape from the most exasperating paradox that ever contradicted a man's senses." ”

“ Van Berg, you do not know—you never realized how shadowed humanity is. Within a mile of your studio, that is full of light and beauty, there are thousands who are perishing in a slow, remorseless pain. It is this awful mystery of evil—this continuous groan and cry of anguish that has gone up to heaven through all the ages—that appalls my heart and staggers my faith. ”

“ It was so irresistible that he never thought of resisting. "Why should he resist?" he asked himself. Circumstances had interested him in this rare Undine before she received a woman's soul; circumstances had entangled his life and hers in what had almost been an awful tragedy; and now circumstances, or something far beyond, were swiftly developing before his eyes a spiritual loveliness that was the counterpart of her outward beauty, and he assured himself that it would be the greatest folly of his life to lose a trace of the exquisite process that he might be privileged to see. ”

“ The spoiled and flattered girl had always been accustomed to have her own way. Self-gratification had been the rule and habit of her life. If Van Berg had only admired and complimented her, if he had joined the honeyed chorus of flattery that had waited on her sensuous beauty, his voice would probably have been unheeded and lost among many others. But his sharp demand for something more than a face and form had awakened her, and to her dismay she learned that her real and lasting self was as dwarfed and deformed as her transient and outward self was perfect. ”

“ Van Berg impressed me as a chivalric man from the first day of our meeting. But I wish he had paid no heed to the words of such a creature as Mr. Sibley. That his life was endangered on my account pains me more than I can tell you;" and she soon grew so white and faint that Mrs. Burleigh made her take a glass of wine.
"Death seems such a terrible thing to a young, strong man," she added, shudderingly, after a moment, and she pressed her hands against her eyes as if to shut out a vision from which she shrank. ”

“ No matter how wayward the human child may have been, how hardened by years of wrong, or arrogantly entrenched in some phase of rational philosophy, when the darkness of danger or sorrow blots out the light of earthly hopes, or hides the path which was trodden so confidently, then, with the impulse of frightened children whom night has suddenly overtaken, there is a longing for the Father's hand and the Father's reassuring voice. If there is no God to love and help us, human nature is a lie.
Thus far Ida Mayhew had no more thought of turning Heavenward for help than to the philosophy of Plato. ”

“ But the artist did like the expression of Ida's face as he glanced up from his work with great frequency and with an admiring glow in his eyes that was anything but cool and business-like. Even her jealous love had not detected a tone or act in his reception of her father that was not all she could ask, and she had never seen the poor man look so pleased and hopeful as when he left the studio for his office. There had not been a particle of patronage in Van Berg's manner, but only the cordial and respectful courtesy of a younger gentleman towards an elderly one. ”

“ Suppose he is all you imagine, and that he lavished on you the best treasures of his heart; would not life at his side seem life in very truth, and life elsewhere but mere existence?"
"Yes," said Ida, with bowed head and pale cheeks. "I begin to understand you now. It seems to me that I could welcome sorrow, poverty, and even death, at his side, and call life rich and full. But as it is—oh, Mr. Eltinge, teach me your faith, lest I give way to despair again!"
"Poor child! poor child! Don't my white hairs teach you that I am on the threshold of the home in which 'God shall wipe away all tears'?" ”

“ Van Berg, please forget what I have said. The weak must show their weakness at times in spite of themselves, and your kindness and sincerity have beguiled me into inflicting myself upon you."
"You ask that which is impossible, Miss Burton," he replied earnestly. "I cannot forget what you have said, nor do I wish to. I need not assure you, however, that I regard your confidence as sacred as if it came from my own sister. Will you also let me say that I never felt so honored before in my life as I have to-night, in the fact that I seemed to your woman's intuition worthy of your trust." ”

“ I was scarcely conscious of what my ardent friendship for Miss Mayhew meant before she looked me in the face and saw the whole truth, and she almost the same as charged me with winning Jennie Burton's heart then throwing it away, while in the same breath she hinted that I need not attempt any such folly and meanness in her case. If ever a man's pride and self-respect received a mortal wound mine has to-day. ”

“ But in spite of all she could do, the light of exultation and intense joy would flash into her eyes and tremble in her tones that evening. A maiden would have been blind indeed had she not been able to read the riddle of Van Berg's ardent friendship now, and Ida had seen that expression too often not to know its meaning well. In the morning she had strongly hoped, now she believed. She no longer walked by faith but in full vision, and she trod with the grace of a queen who knows her power in the realm that woman loves best. ”

“ Miss Burton appeared a little perplexed and troubled for a moment, and then said, slowly: "I called you my friend last July, and when I speak in the mood I was in then I mean all that I say. Friends should be very frank when the occasion requires, or else they are but acquaintances. I am going to be very frank with you to-day, and if I err, charge it to friendship only. Ida Mayhew loves you, Mr. Van Berg; she has loved you almost from the first; and now that her life has become so noble and beautiful, I am greatly mistaken if you do not return her affection. ”

“ Ida's sleep was almost as deep and quiet, and when her mother stole in to look at her from time to time the following morning, her face was as colorless, as if she had taken the drug which Van Berg's heel had ground into the earth; but Mrs. Mayhew observed with satisfaction that her respiration was as regular and natural as that of a little child. Wronged nature will, to a certain extent, forgive the young and restore to them the priceless treasures of health and strength they throw away. ”

“ Stanton retorted.
"Well," said Miss Burton, with a laugh, "if we accept a practical philosophy much in vogue—that of taking the world as we find it—flirting is one of the commonest pursuits of mankind."
"I'm quite sure, Miss Burton," said Van Berg, "that your philosophy of life is the reverse of taking the world as we find it."
"Indeed, you are mistaken, sir; I am exceedingly prosaic in my views, and cherish no Utopian dreams and theories. I do indeed take the old matter-of-fact world as I find it, and try to make the best of it." ”

“ Stanton's concluding words were as incense to Van Berg, for he prided himself in no slight degree on his even pulse and sensible heart, that, thus far, had given him so little trouble; and he therefore replied, with a certain tinge of complacency and consciousness of security:
"You know me well enough, Ik, to be aware that I am becoming almost a monomaniac in my art. A woman's face is to me little more than a picture which I analyze from an artistic stand-point. A MERELY PRETTY face is like a line of verse of musical rhythm, but without sense or meaning. ”

“ He looked at her openly as he would at an OBJECT, and not at a woman whose feelings he would not wound for the world. His thought was: "A creature akin to Sibley deserves no consideration, and can put in no just claim for delicacy."
Indeed he felt a peculiar vindictiveness towards her to-night, because she had so thwarted him, and was about to carry her extraordinary dower of beauty to the moral slough that seemingly awaited her. Therefore, his glance swept carelessly over her with a cold indifference that chilled her very soul. ”

“ As they were about to part, Ida said: "Mr. Eltinge, I'm so ignorant that I have not the remotest idea how to commence this Christian life. I greatly wish to form a character worthy of respect, but I don't know how to set about it."
"Commence by living simple and true, my dear. Truthfulness is the corner-stone of the character that men most respect and God will honor. None of us can be perfect, but we can all be honest, and pretend to be no better than we are. Just simply follow your conscience, pray daily for light and guidance, and do the best you can. ”

“ Mayhew became more and more mystified and uncomfortable. She had enjoyed, in her cold-blooded way, a tranquil, gossipy week during her daughter's and husband's absence, but now she felt as if some kind of a domestic convulsion might occur any moment.
"I don't see why people have to make such a fuss over life," she complained. "If they would only do what was stylish, proper and religious they wouldn't have any trouble," and the strong and not wholly repressed feeling of Ida and her father, of which she was uncomfortably conscious, seemed to her absurd and uncalled for. ”

“ Human faces can shine, although the sun be clouded; but, as a rule, the shadow falls on the face also, and the regal spirit succumbs like a clod of earth.
The people came straggling down late to breakfast in the dark morning, and, with a childish egotism that considers only self and immediate desires, the lowering weather which meant renewed beauty and wealth to all the land, was berated as if it were a small spite against the handful of people at the Lake House. Van Berg heard Ida Mayhew exclaiming against the clouds as if this spite were aimed at herself only. ”

“ That Miss Mayhew looked so resolutely away from him was rather to Van Berg's advantage, for it gave him a chance to compare her exquisite profile with the expanse, slightly diversified, of the broad red face opposite.
The stout woman held her baby as if it were a bundle, and stared straight before her. As far as Van Berg could observe, not a trace of an idea or a change of expression flitted across the wide area of her sultry visage, and he found himself speculating as to whether the minds of these two women differed as greatly as their outward appearance. ”