John Hay

“ But, in spite of himself, he felt a rising of revolt in his heart, as he laid out his tools, against the quiet gentleman who sat with his back to him, engaged in his own work and apparently unconscious of Sleeny's presence. A week before, they had been nothing to each other, but now a woman had come between them, and there is no such powerful conductor in nature. The quiet in which Farnham sat seemed full of insolent triumph to the luckless lover, and scraps of Offitt's sounding nonsense went through his mind: "A man is more than a money-bag"; "the laborer is the true gentleman" ”

“ It was a morning face, full of the calm joy of the dawn, of the sweet dreams of youth untroubled by love, the face of Aurora before she met Tithonus. From the little curls of gold on the low brow to the smile that hovered forever, half formed, on the softly curving lips and over the rounded chin, there was a light of sweetness, and goodness, and beauty, to be read of all men, and perhaps in God's good time to be worshipped by one.
Budsey announced "Mrs. Belding and Miss Halice," and Farnham hastened to greet them. ”

“ The burden of your soul is open to the sperrut-eye. There sits in this room a pure and lovely soul in quest of light. Its query is, How does heart meet heart in mutual knowledge?"
Maud's cheek grew pale and then red, and her heart beat violently. But no one noticed her, and the seer went on. "If a true heart longs for another, there is no rest but in knowledge, there is no knowledge but in trewth, there is no trewth but in trust. Oh, my brother, if you love a female, tell your love. ”

“ Furrey is?"
Mrs. Belding assented, and Miss Alice laughed heartily, and his mind was set at rest for the moment.
They passed a long time together. At first Mrs. Belding and Arthur "made the expenses" of the conversation; but she soon dropped away, and Alice, under the influence of the night and the moonlight and Farnham's frank and gentle provocation, soon found herself talking with as much freedom and energy as if it were a girls' breakfast. With far more, indeed,—for nature takes care of such matters, and no girl can talk to another as she can to a man, under favoring stars. ”

“ The married men stood grouped in corners and talked of their every-day affairs. The young people clustered together in little knots, governed more or less by natural selection—only the veterans of several seasons pairing off into the discreet retirement of stairs and hall angles. At the further end of the long drawing-room, Farnham's eyes at last lighted upon the object of his quest. Alice sat in the midst of a group of young girls who had intrenched themselves in a corner of the room, and defied all the efforts of skirmishing youths, intent upon flirtation, to dislodge them. ”

“ The men came up from the garden in an instant, and quickly fell in at Farnham's word of command. Masked by the shadows of the trees and the shrubbery, they were not discernible from the street.
"Remember," said Farnham. "Use your clubs as much as you see fit, if you come to close quarters; but do not fire without orders, unless to save your own lives. I don't think it is likely that these fellows are armed."
The clattering of feet grew louder on the sidewalk, and in a moment the leaders of the gang—it could hardly be called a mob—stopped by the gates. "Here's the place. Come along boys!" ”

“ Her beautiful head, crowned with its masses of hair drawn back into a simple Greek knot; her tall, strong figure, draped in some light and clinging stuff which imposed no check on her natural grace and dignity, formed a charming picture as she came down the long stairs; and Farnham's eyes fastened eagerly upon her white hand as it glided along the dark walnut baluster. His heart went out to meet her. He confessed to himself, with a lover's instantaneous conviction, that there was nothing in the world so utterly desirable as that tall and fair-haired girl slowly descending the stairs. ”

“ I must protect life and property, sir—life and property."
"Very well," rejoined Farnham, "I am informed that life and property are threatened in my own neighborhood. Can you detail a few policemen to patrol Algonquin Avenue, in case of a serious disturbance?"
"I can't tell you, my dear sir; I will do the best I can by all sections. Why, man," he cried, in a voice which suddenly grew a shrill falsetto in his agitation, "I tell you I haven't a policeman for every ten miles of street in this town. I can't spare but two for my own house!" ”

“ Alice assented. "That is what they mean by moral support, I suppose."
She spoke with a smile, but her heart was ill at ease. The man she loved was, for all she knew, in deadly danger, and she could not show that she cared at all for him, for fear of showing that she cared too much.
"I am really anxious about Arthur Farnham," continued Mrs. Belding. "I hope he will not get himself into any scrape with those men."
The tumult on the street and on the lawn had as yet presented itself to her in no worse light than as a labor demonstration, involving cheers and rude language. ”

“ The goddess-like creature who had so suddenly become the mistress of his soul was a very serious personage to confront in her new majesty. He did not follow the impulse of his heart and rush forward as she entered the room. He merely rose and bowed. She made the faintest possible salutation, and, without taking a seat, conveyed her mother's excuses in a tone of such studied coldness that it amused Farnham, who took it as a school-girl's assumption of a grand and ceremonious manner suitable to a tête-á-tête with man. ”

“ The dark eyes of Alice Belding were full of that vivid happiness which strange and charming things bring to intelligent girlhood. She was looking with all her soul, and her breath was quick and high, and her soft red lips were parted and tremulous. Farnham looked from her to the flower, and back again, gazing on both with equal safety, for the one was as unconscious of his admiring glances as the other. ”

“ I liked him so much. I have only been a month out of school. What shall I do if he never speaks to me again?" Yet such is the power which, for self-defence, is given to young maidens that, while these tumultuous thoughts were passing through her mind, she talked and laughed with the girls beside her, and exchanged an occasional word with the young men in pointed shoes, as if she had never known a grief or a care.
Mr. Furrey came up to say good-evening, with his most careful bow. Lowering his voice, he said:
"There's Miss Dallas and Captain Farnham flirting in Italian." ”

“ At this instant the windows came crashing in, and a half-dozen ruffians burst into the room. Alice sprang, pale and silent, to the side of her mother, who sat, paralyzed with fright, in her rocking-chair.
A man came forward from the group of assailants. His soft hat was drawn down over his eyes, and a red handkerchief concealed the lower part of his face. His voice was that of Offitt, as he said, "Ladies, we don't want to do no violence; but, in the name of the Revolutionary Committee, we have called to collect an assessment on you." ”

“ The seer had left Maud Matchin in a state of high excitement and anger. The admiration of a man so splay and ungainly was in itself insulting, when it became so enterprising as to propose marriage. She felt as if she had suffered the physical contact of something not clean or wholesome. Besides, she had been greatly stirred by his reference to her request for ghostly counsel, which had resulted in so frightful a failure and mortification. After Bott had gone, she could not dismiss the subject from her mind. She said to herself, "How can I live, hating a man as I hate that Captain Farnham? ”

“ Miss Windom remained but a few months at the common school, and then left it for the high school. She told Maud one day of her intended flitting, and was more astonished than pleased at the passion of grief into which the announcement threw her friend. Maud clung to her with sobs that would not be stilled, and with tears that reduced Miss Azalea's dress to limp and moist wretchedness, but did not move the vain heart beneath it. "I wonder if she knows," thought Azalea, "how ugly she is when she bawls like that. Few brunettes can cry stylishly anyhow." ”

“ This was all the amiable young man needed to encourage him to indefinite prattle. He told them all about the men in the bank, their habits and their loves and their personal relations to him, and how he seemed somehow to be a general favorite among them all. Miss Alice sat very still and straight in her chair, with an occasional smile when the laughter of Mr. Furrey seemed to require it, but with her eyes turned to the moonlit night in vagrant reverie, and her mind in those distant and sacred regions where we cannot follow the minds of pure and happy girls. ”

“ The sky seemed like another sea, stretching off into infinite distance, and strewn with continents of fiery splendor. Maud looked straight forward to the clear horizon line, marking the flight of ships whose white sails were dark against the warm brightness of the illumined water. But no woman ever looked so straight before her as not to observe the man beside her, and she knew, without moving her eyes from the spectacle of the sunset, that Sam was gazing fixedly at her, with pain and trouble in his face. At last, he said, in a timid, choking voice,
"Mattie!" ”

“ In his whole life, past and future, there was not such another moment of enjoyment. Money is, of course, precious and acceptable to all men except idiots. But, if it means much to the good and virtuous, how infinitely more it means to the thoroughly depraved—the instant gratification of every savage and hungry devil of a passion which their vile natures harbor. Though the first and principal thing Offitt thought of was the possession of Maud Matchin, his excited fancy did not stop there. ”

“ But even the romance of Miss Matchin had undergone a change. While Azalea still dreamed of dark-eyed princes, lords of tropical islands, and fierce and tender warriors who should shoot for her the mountain eagle for his plumes, listen with her to the bulbul's song in valleys of roses, or hew out a throne for her in some vague and ungeographical empire, the reveries of Miss Maud grew more and more mundane and reasonable. She was too strong and well to dream much; her only visions were of a rich man who should love her for her fine eyes. ”

“ There is a kind of beauty which makes glad every human heart that gazes on it, if not utterly corrupt and vile, and it was such a face as this that Sam Sleeny now looked at with a heart that grew happier as he gazed. ”

“ Sam hardly knew if this were real or not. A wild fancy assailed him for an instant—was he killed in jumping from the window? Surely this could never happen to him on the earth; the girl who had always been so cold and proud to him was in his arms, her head on his shoulder, her warm breath on his cheek. She was asking his help against some danger.
"All right, Mattie," he whispered. "Nobody shall hurt you. Who is it?" He thought of no one but the police.
"Offitt," she said. ”

“ I consider the lab'rin' man as the normal healthy human—that is, if he don't work too hard. I consider wealth as a kind of disease; wealth and erristocracy is a kind of dropsy. Now, the true reformer is like a doctor,—he wants to know all about diseases, by sight and handlin'! I would like to study the symptoms of erristocracy in Farnham's house—right in the wards of the hospital."
"Well, that beats me," said Sam. "I've been in a lot of fine houses on Algonquin Avenue, and I never seen anything yet that favored a hospital."
This dense stupidity was almost more than Offitt could bear. ”

“ Alice rose and walked to her escritoire, her long robe trailing, her thick braids hanging almost to the floor, her fair cheek touched with a delicate spot of color at the thought of writing a formal note to the man she worshipped. She took a pen and wrote "My dear Mr. Farnham," and the conventional address made her heart flutter and her eyes grow dim. While she was writing, she heard her mother say:
"What a joke!" ”

“ I like a man that can hold his tongue."
"Then I'm your huckleberry," said Sleeny, whose vanity was soothed by the compliment.
"That's so," said Offitt, with an admiring smile. "If I wanted a secret kept, I'd know where to come." Then changing his manner and tone to an expression of profound solemnity, and glancing about to guard against surprise, he said: "My dear boy, I've wanted to talk to you a long time,—to talk serious. You're not one of the common kind of cattle that think of nothin' but their fodder and stall—are you?" ”