Blythe

“ You are a very lucky rising young legal person. I don't know what I shall do without her."
"Without her—when?" said Blythe, his surprise genuine. "You are going up to the Adirondacks with her, aren't you?"
"To be sure," replied Laura. "I mean that I don't know what I shall do without her when—" She broke off in momentary confusion. "Oh, you are impossibly opaque today, John," she finished, smiling illuminatingly.
"Oh—that!" said Blythe, enlightened, yet a bit rueful.
It was precisely "that" which, as the steamer drew near New York was causing Blythe no little disquietude. ”

“ Mrs. Treharne gazed at her daughter with mouth agape. When she finally spoke her words were almost inarticulate.
"Your guardian?" she gasped. "John Blythe is to be your guardian? At whose direction? Upon whose application?"
"My father's, mother."
"But are you sure that you are not being tricked—that——"
"John Blythe is not the man to trick anybody, dear—everybody, of course, knows that," said Louise, very prompt to a defense in that quarter. "Moreover, I saw the letters from my father. One of them is to me. So there is no mistake about it." ”

“ DeWitt and Mr. Grey approached, to tell them that everything was in readiness for them to land, Blythe turned, with the light of the sunrise in her face, and said, under her breath, so that only her mother could hear:
“O Mumsey! How beautiful the world is, with you and me right in the very middle of it!” ”

“ As Blythe glanced down and away from this stirring outlook, she could just distinguish among the dark figures of the steerage the small white face of the child upturned toward the sky; and again a sharp pang took her, a feeling that the little creature did not 18 belong among those rough men and women. No wonder that the beautiful Italian eyes always sought the sky ”

“ Presently he strolled away, easy and nonchalant; but inwardly he carried a load of dread and he saw clearly that he must learn where he stood with little Miss Blythe, or not know the feeling of easiness from one day to the next. Better, he thought, to be the recipient of a painful and undeserved ultimatum, than to breakfast, lunch, and dine with uncertainty.
The next day, there being some dozens of people almost in earshot, Mr. Blagdon had an opportunity to speak to little Miss Blythe. Under the circumstances, the last thing she expected was a declaration; they were in full view of everybody ”

“ But, through the very nobility of the view you take, a way shall be found. Never doubt that, child. I know that in some ways—many ways—the world is awry enough. But I know, too, that there is not enough injustice in all the world to keep you from the arms of the man who loves you and is beloved by you."
There were two topics in John Blythe's letter to Laura that gave her more than a day's material for reflection. One of them concerned Louise's mother.
"Mrs. Treharne summoned me a few days ago, and in the evening I went to the house on the Drive," Blythe wrote. ”

“ Grey’s reckoning.
As they looked across the great sea the horizon seemed to have receded to an incalculable distance, and the airs that came to them across that broad expanse, unsullied by the faintest trace of man or his 16 works, were purer than are often vouchsafed to mortals. Blythe felt her heart grow big with the sense of space and purity, and this wonderful swift passage through the upper air. ”

“ If faith can move mountains, it is perhaps no wonder that the implicit and energetic faith of which Blythe Halliday was possessed proved equal to the removal of a small child from one quarter to another of the big ship. The three persons concerned in bringing about the change were easily won over; for Mrs. Halliday was quite of Blythe’s mind in the matter, Mr. Grey had little difficulty in bringing the Captain to their point of view, while, as for Giuditta, she hailed the event as the first step in the transformation of her small Signorina into the little “great lady” she was born to be. ”

“ Grey down the steep gangway to the steerage deck, which they were obliged to traverse on their way to the forecastle, and they came upon the little 14 creature lying, with upturned face, against the woman’s knee, Blythe felt a sharp pang of compunction and pity. The child looked even more pathetic than when seen from above, and the young girl involuntarily stooped in passing, and touched the wan little cheek. ”

“ Grey remarked, later in the morning, as he and 45 Blythe paused a moment in their game of ring-toss. The child was standing, clinging to the hand of a tall woman in black, a grave, silent Southerner who had hitherto kept quite to herself.
“Yes,” Blythe rejoined, “but she is fastidious. She will listen to no blandishments from any one whom she doesn’t take a fancy to. That good-natured, talkative Mr. Distel has been trying all day to get her to come to him, but she always gives him the slip.” And Blythe, in her preoccupation, proceeded to throw two rings out of three wide of the mark. ”

“ Before Laura had finished Blythe was at the telephone, directing Laura's stableman to send Scamp around and Laura was guiding Louise to her dressing room to put her into the hands of her maid for the change into Laura's riding things. Half an hour later Louise, well-mounted on the breedy-looking, over-rested but tractable enough Scamp, was on the Park bridle-path alongside Blythe, who rode the mettlesome cob he had maligned with the stigma of cayuse. ”

“ Laura, so strongly moved that she deliberately forced herself to think of inconsequentialities to keep back her tears, wrapped her arms about the girl.
"My dear," she said, "I am not, I fear, as religious, as reverent a woman as I should be. But I do not believe that God will keep a woman like you and a man like John Blythe apart. ”

“ There was an old person of Blythe,
Who cut up his meat with a scythe;
When they said, "Well! I never!" he cried, "Scythes for ever!"
That lively old person of Blythe. ”

“ Blythe cried, setting her thick cup down on the deck, and tumbling off her chair in a snarl of steamer-rugs; “You’ve been down in the steerage finding out about the little Signorina!”
“Who told you?”
“You did! You looked so pleased with yourself! Oh, do tell me all about her!”
“Well, I’ve had a long talk with the woman. Shall we walk up and down?”
And off they went, with that absence of ceremony which characterises life on 29 shipboard, leaving Mr. DeWitt to bury his cities all unaided and unapplauded. ”

“ Blythe is one of the social leaders of Riverville and has a lovely home. But this city isn't large enough to justify any one's keeping a social secretary. He said so. It's just a big, commonplace, hustling manufacturing town like a hundred others in the middle West. I didn't like to ask any personal questions about Mrs. Blythe of Orphant Annie. (That's the name I couldn't help giving the young reporter in my own mind. He was introduced as Mr. Sandford Berry.) He looks the character to perfection ”

“ She reached for a dressing robe and hurriedly swept it around her. Fastening the belt loosely about her waist, she turned toward the doorway and stepped quickly back into the peristylium. He stood up to meet her. Gently she pushed him to the couch and sat beside him.
“Please don’t go yet, Longinus. You’ve been away in Germania so long, and I couldn’t have you to myself at the banquet. There’s so much to talk about, to ask you about.” She leaned back and snuggled against him. Then she looked down at her knees, round and pink under the sheerness of the pale rose robe. “Bona Dea!” ”

“ Blythewood knows him well, and has a high opinion of him. What then? What favourable view can I possibly take of his reticence and evasiveness? For all I know, Blythewood himself may be the chief of a colony of pads and cut-throats. I am a lamb amongst wolves—knowing nought of the neighbourhood; moving in the dark. I am drowned and overwhelmed in a sea of mysteries—in a cursed Lake of Wine. And there, there, there! Luvaine’s fabulous stone! ”

“ It is only when the blood runs aged that we can look on any extreme beauty of nature without wishing to obscure it, so unbearable to our diseased perceptions is the flawless.
At length he made up his mind to the right course. Christmas was over and done with—a somewhat dismal hermit-time to him—and early in the new year Blythewood and his sister were to journey to London. He would ride with them; would spend a few days in town, and while there, would endeavour to induce the lawyer Creel to some explanation of that enigma of his inheritance. ”

“ What a young man’s family are eager for him to possess [233] seldom seems attractive to him, however much he may have thought of the object in the first place. And so because every one said what an admirable wife Alison Boss would make for Blythe Van Dorn, he began to wonder if she would. Nevertheless he did not cease his attentions and always enjoyed being in her company, while she, never sentimentally inclined, had no disposition to alter their relation. ”

“ She did not understand either of the combatants: the man who so fearlessly owned his weaknesses, and put the weight of his soul upon the woman who ought to have saved him; or the woman who did not deny that responsibility, nor claim independence or a right irrespective of him to follow her own way. Helen Blythe had ideas of life, it was evident, very different from those that had ever come into Lily’s mind. ”

“ Then, reluctantly, he came out from behind the piano, swinging between his crutches, and leaving Rose to escape at the first favorable opportunity. His descent from colossus to cripple had an unpleasant effect. And the question, "How the deuce do you work the pedals?" was jerked from Blythe, usually a most tactful person.
"Why," said Blizzard simply, "I have an assistant." He caught Barbara's eye and reddened a little. "A young man who is musical and intelligent. We have a system of signals, and--but I think there is a sort of thought communication that comes of much rehearsing together. ”

“ Blythe &c.
Her looks were like a flower in May,
Her smile was like a simmer morn;
She tripped by the banks o' Earn,
As light's a bird upon a thorn.
Blythe, &c.
Her bonny face it was as meek,
As onie lamb upon a lee;
The ev'ning sun was ne'er sae sweet
As was the blink o' Phemie's e'e.
Blythe, &c.
The Highland hills I ve wander'd wide,
And o'er the Lowlands I hae been ;
But Phemie was the blythest lass,
That ever trod the dewy green.
Blythe, &c.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago. ”

“ As a servant came running up to mop the spilled wine and remove the broken glass, Antipas settled back on his couch. “Aha! The clever little vixen was too quick for me,” he said, turning to face his wife. “But I’ll....” He said no more. Herodias, Claudia saw, was unsmiling, grim. But evidently she hadn’t meant for Antipas to see her in such a mood, for quickly she affected a cloaking smile. “By the gods,” she said to her husband, “the child is clever, isn’t she?”
Salome was now in the center of the bright light. The music had died away as the leader awaited his new instructions. ”

“ Now the Tetrarch, beaming, looked to his left beyond his Tetrarchess. “It is our wish that our beloved daughter Salome honor our birthday by dancing for the Tetrarch and his guests,” he declared in honeyed tones. “Will you not dance for us, my dear child?”
Cornelius leaned forward to watch Herodias’ daughter. Salome seemed amazed at her stepfather’s request. “But, Sire,” she ventured to protest, as she turned on her couch to face the unctuously smiling Tetrarch, “doesn’t my dear father know that I am not a dancer? Surely he prefers the dancing of women trained in the art.” ”

“ So that her mother's summons and Louise's certainty that the summons would never have been made had her mother's condition not been very serious, bore heavily upon her.
"I begin to fear that I have found my mother only to lose her again," she had said to Laura in talking over the cable message; and Laura, while professing to be shocked at Louise's premonition, had turned away to hide her tears; for the same premonition, better-grounded than Louise's on account of what she had heard from Blythe as to the visible decline into which Mrs. Treharne had seemed to be falling, was depressing Laura. ”

“ But hardly had the girl done a quarter turn toward the diners when suddenly she drew the gossamer scarves protectively to herself, and, whirling the remainder of the turn to face them, paused 188 in her dancing. Then with head tossed back and laughing, she scampered across the spotlighted circle almost to the Tetrarch’s table. A pace from it she stopped, turned her head, and with a nod signaled the musicians. As they resumed the dancing rhythm, she began again her voluptuous gyrations. ”

“ Herodias shook a wet finger at the young woman’s nose. “But I love it; so don’t ever stop. But now”—she grasped the sides of the tub—“help me out. I mustn’t lie in this hot water any longer, or I’ll be as pink as a roast by the time the Tetrarch comes.” She grasped the maid’s arm to steady herself as she stepped from the tub to the tufted mat, and Neaera began to rub her 42 down with a heavy towel. When the slave maid had finished drying her, Herodias turned to face the full-length minor, her body flushed and glowing from the brisk robbing. ”

“ We are all greatly fatigued and agitated.”
The servant stepped forward and bowed to the visitors. They in turn, without any further word from their spokesman, bowed to the Tetrarch and turned with the escorting servant to withdraw from the triclinium.
Herodias, seated now and apparently calm, twisted around to watch them depart. But when at the doorway Aretas’ spokesman glanced over his shoulder toward the Tetrarch, she suddenly grabbed the goblet beside her plate. “Go!” she screamed. “Go! Go!” With all her strength she hurled the goblet toward the man; it shattered on the wall near the door. ”