Boyce

“ Boyce and Lloyd were pleased beyond their knowledge of words, to express how they felt. They knew that what had once been the home of a good, kind and strong man, was once again going to be the home of a man that would be as well-loved. ”

“ Boyce; but whether they prayed I cannot say. Some of the women appeared to be in fervent supplication, with one or two of the older men. Perhaps they were beginning to see, although but dimly, that the wild, lawless life of their sons, husbands, and brothers was ill befitting "those who had to give an account of the deeds done in the body," and to whom the knell of every passing year told of added sins, with lessened opportunities for repentance. Mr. Boyce bent his head low in earnest pleading with God on behalf of this rough, sinful assembly ”

“ An old woman with a cloth about her head answered the door. She was very deaf, and Boyce had difficulty in making himself understood.
“The family is in the country,” was all she would say. “The family will not be home till September.”
“But there is some one living here?” shouted Boyce.
“I live here,” she said with dignity, putting back a wisp of dirty gray hair behind her ear. “It is my house. I sublet to the family.”
“What family?”
But the old creature was not communicative.
“The family that lives here,” she said.
“Then who plays the piano in this house?” roared Boyce. “Do you?” ”

“ Then it happened, that after several years of stay at Alugean, Boyce grew to manhood, possessing a quick mind and agile body, trained to full perfection by the guidance of his mentor and friend, Lloyd Bartlett. ”

“ So soon as he spoke Davidson exclaimed: ‘Old Boyce! Dead too! What a lark!’ I hastened to explain that Davidson was in a kind of somnambulistic trance. Boyce was interested at once. We both did all we could to rouse the fellow out of his extraordinary state. He answered our questions, and asked us some of his own, but his attention seemed distracted by his hallucination about a beach and a ship. He kept interpolating observations concerning some boat and the davits, and sails filling with the wind. It made one feel queer, in the dusky laboratory, to hear him saying such things. ”

“ Boyce, becoming very serious.
"Look at my uncle; he doesn't like to go to sleep, and he has to suffer a purgatory in keeping himself awake."
"If your uncle is heavy, how can Mr. Swanton help it? If Mr. Dale's mind were on the subject he would not sleep."
"Come, Mrs. Boyce; there's somebody else sleeps sometimes besides my uncle. When Mr. Boyce puts up his finger and just touches his nose, I know as well as possible why he does it."
"Lily Dale, you have no business to say so. It is not true. I don't know how you can bring yourself to talk in that way of your own clergyman. ”

“ Basil's tired face, showing deep lines of nervous and physical strain, changed, too, as he looked at the picture of Teresa and the baby—her profile, with the long braid across the cheek, her ivory-white gleaming shoulders and breast, her dark lashes drooping as she gazed at the child with a quizzical smile in which emotion stirred—physical pleasure and perhaps a spiritual tenderness.
"You don't know how beautiful you are," said Basil, in a low, rapt tone. ”

“ They both turned slightly, and faced Boyce.
"On this new day you have become honourable warriors — the lieutenants of the only son of Brook and Dearborne Scullion-Blue — heir to Phoride and the protector of the Northern United Alignment. This is Boyce Loebh Scullion-Blue." Lloyd finished.
Mingo and Bix gawked at Boyce then kneeled as they whispered his name in surprise. They new his great and respected name.
"Do not kneel, my new friends! We are all equal in the eyes of God. ”

“ Boyce's concernment."
"Not beneath, ma'am. Above. Above. Do you admire the Italian medals? They are of a delicate restraint," He turned to the cabinet and began to lecture.
Miss Lambourne was not repulsed. He maintained a steady flow of instruction. She waited, watching him.
By this time Colonel Boyce was growing tired of his Duke of Marlborough and his State secrets, and seeking diversion. "Odds fish, it's a hard road that leads to fortune. You are happy, Mr. Waverton. You were born with yours."
"I conceive, sir, that every man of high spirit must needs take the road to fame." ”

“ Pale young men, with flurried-looking wives, seemed to Boyce to occupy most of the houses. Sometimes three or four couples would live in one house. Most of these appeared to be childless. The women made a pretence at fashionable dressing, and wore their hair elaborately in fashions which somehow suggested boarding-houses to Boyce, though he could not have told why. ”

“ So they left the farm and rode to Headquarters and Boyce made his report, and as all save one of his troop were dead, there were none, save that one, to gainsay him. On his story no doubt was cast; but an officer who loses his whole troop in the military operation of storming a farm-house garrisoned by one old man does not find peculiar favour in the eyes of his Colonel. Boyce took a speedy opportunity of transference, and got into the thick of some fighting. Then he served with distinction and actually got mentioned in dispatches for pluckily rescuing a wounded man under fire. ”

“ THE two handsome boys, six and four years old, one blond like the mother, the younger dark like the father, were playing on the terrace, through the light and shade of pointed firs. They were both dressed in white, with sturdy bare legs, their hair picturesquely cut square across the forehead and nape of the neck. ”

“ Boyce listened with intensity to his father because he knew that he was communing with a great mind. Boyce nodded to him with silent promise.
"Rule with kindness and love, but don't allow men of evil, men like your uncle, the ArchBishop, to tread over you and grind you into the earth." Brook breathed for a moment then briefly looked away from Boyce. "I have been too kind and have allowed too much to pass into being. Now, it's difficult to fight the evil."
"I promise you, that I will follow your words, father!" promised
Boyce, and Lloyd gave his word to Brook, as well. ”

“ She had yielded too much to her grief that last year; she had not thought enough of Basil. What he had done was only what all men did. Men were cursed with a perpetual need of action. They could not be quiet any more than vigorous children. The thing was to direct their insensate energising into the least harmful channels. She had never tried very much to direct Basil. She thought of him now as a small boy shut up in the house on a rainy day, and told to make no noise. Yes, that had been her attitude toward him all that last winter—and she had paid for it. ”

“ Drink some of that white wine."
"You were forgetting me," murmured Teresa, as she took up her glass. "Confess that you're surprised to find how nice I really am. Had you forgotten that I'm pretty? Could you tell the colour of my eyes? You've got no memory, Basil, and therefore no soul. All you have is a habit." ”

“ Boyce demanded and then took a few steps towards him.
"As far as you should be concerned, I am the ArchBishop!" Cardinal
Orren told him calmly.
Boyce slowly came closer to Orren and he prodded him with his cross bow, and with a strangely provoking little smile on his face.
"Am I to take Manguino's cowardice as the surrender of Halls and
Pomperaque, to me?"
Orren was somewhat disturbed by what Boyce said to him and he pushed
Boyce's bow away from himself.
"You are out of your mind." said Orren. "Halls will never surrender to you, or to anyone else. ”

“ Mr. Boyce looked uncomfortable, cooled down, and presently when the coffee came back asked his wife for a fresh supply in tones from which all bellicosity had for the time departed. He was a small and singularly thin man, with blue wandering eyes under the blackest possible eyebrows and hair. The cheeks were hollow, the complexion as yellow as that of the typical Anglo-Indian. The special character of the mouth was hidden by a fine black moustache, but his prevailing expression varied between irritability and a kind of plaintiveness. ”

“ Boyce, flushed, bright-eyed, and tearful. Then came Lady Fenimore with Boyce, black-spectacled, soldierly, bull-necked, his little bronze cross conspicuous among the medals on his breast, his elbow gripped by a weatherbeaten young soldier, one of his captains, as I learned afterwards, home on leave, who had claimed the privilege of guiding his blind footsteps. And behind came the Aldermen and the Councillors, and the General and his staff, and the Lord Lieutenant and Lady Laleham and the other members of the Reception Committee. The cheering drowned the strains of the "Conquering Hero." ”

“ Teresa swayed into her corner of the carriage and shut her eyes.
"Don't talk about such things, dearest," implored Basil with a certain sad humility. "There's nothing that really matters to us, you know——"
"There's nothing perfect in this world," said Teresa, in a strange, quiet voice. "Not even our—not even love." ”

“ Under the shadow of the black hat her eyes looked back at her with a strange melancholy and uneasiness. After a moment her face looked to her like that of a stranger, some woman oppressed and sad, and this impression frightened her. She turned away abruptly, and began with a little tool to model the faun's thick neck and shaggy shoulder. He seemed a trivial creature, as she handled him; Basil's cartoon, reflected in the mirror, appeared to her meaningless and absurd. The air of the studio, of the building, of the whole city, seemed stale and oppressive. ”

“ The answer came before the person addressed had arranged his words, and it came from Horace Boyce. This young gentleman had, with a self-restraint which he himself was most surprised at, taken no part in the previous conversation.
“I think this is the idea,” he said now, pulling his chair forward into the edge of the open space under the light, and speaking with easy distinctness and fluency. “It will be time enough to determine just what we will do when we have put ourselves in the position to act together upon what we may decide to do. We are all proud and fond of our village ”

“ Teresa took the Major's arm and led him out, wishing that Basil had some of his parent's suavity. The Major said something cheerful about the bright spring morning and the roses in her cheeks, and put an extra shade of gallantry into his manner of seating her. She always felt that he was sorry for her when Basil was rough; the Major never could have been rude to any woman, not even to a plain woman. Teresa perceived why it was that two women had fallen in love with and married the Major, to their own practical disadvantage. ”

“ Turner among them, have joined it, and Horace Boyce was elected president.”
The sparrows had disappeared, but Kate made no answer, and musingly kept her eyes fastened on the snow where the disagreeable birds had been.
“Now, there’s a young man,” said Miss Tabitha, after a pause. Still no comment came from the window, and so the elder maiden drifted forward:
“It’s all Horace Boyce now. You don’t hear anything else. Everybody is saying he will soon be our leading man. They tell me that he speaks beautifully—in public, I mean—and he is so good-looking and so bright ”

“ Even a less felicitous phrase-maker than Horace Boyce could have manufactured pleasant small-talk out of such experiences as his had been. The only son of a well-to-do and important man in Thessaly, he had had the further advantage of inheriting some twenty thousand dollars upon attaining his majority, and after finishing his course at college had betaken himself to Europe to pursue more recondite studies there, both in and out of his chosen profession of the law. ”

“ Wharton by the other man?" said Mrs. Boyce, not defending herself or Aldous.
"Yes, of course. But he came on the scene just too late, worse luck! Why wouldn't he have done just as well? He's as mad as she—madder. He believes all the rubbish she does—talks such rot, the people tell me, in his meetings. But then he's good company—he amuses you—you don't need to be on your p's and q's with him. Why wouldn't she have taken up with him? As far as money goes they could have rubbed along. He's not the man to starve when there are game-pies going. It's just bad luck."
Mrs. Boyce smiled a little. ”

“ Alice looked at Basil and giggled. Basil smiled wearily. He had been very silent all the evening, and when he was not talking his face looked gloomy. Teresa, too, seemed oppressed. She felt as though she were at the bottom of some vast slough, where unpleasant creatures of all sorts swarmed, living their pathetic lives. The perfect content of the prize-fighter with his particular spot in the slough was illuminating, yet it did not lighten the impression of the whole. The man interested her. ”

“ It's easier to go with the tide—to let one's self go——"
Teresa stretched out her arms with a vague, sensuous gesture and sighed.
"I can't understand it," said Alice. "Is Basil pleased?"
"I believe he is."
"Of course. There's more paternal instinct than maternal, I think, and no wonder, as they've none of the bother of it. I believe Horace would like to have fifty children, if he'd married somebody else. But he knows I won't. ... What shall you do all this winter to amuse yourself, Teresa? Shan't you be awfully bored?"
"Perhaps. People will come and see me, I suppose. ”