Burnamy

“ Well, I am surprised at you, my dear! You have always accused me of suspecting people, and attributing bad motives; and here you've refused even to give the poor man the benefit of the doubt. He merely wanted to save his savage pride with you, and that's all he wants to do with Burnamy. How could it hurt the poor boy to know that Stoller doesn't blame him? Why should you refuse to give his message to Burnamy? I don't want you to ridicule me for my conscience any more, Basil; you're twice as bad as I ever was. Don't you think that a person can ever expiate an offence? ”

“ Stoller started as if the word money reminded him of something. "I can take care of myself, young man. How much do I owe you?"
"Nothing!" said Burnamy, with an effort for grandeur which failed him.
The next morning as the Marches sat over their coffee at the Posthof, he came dragging himself toward them with such a haggard air that Mrs. March called, before he reached their table, "Why, Mr. Burnamy, what's the matter?"
He smiled miserably. "Oh, I haven't slept very well. May I have my coffee with you? I want to tell you something; I want you to make me. But I can't speak till the coffee comes. ”

“ Burnamy explained.
“How much you know already!” said Mrs. March. “I can see that Europe won't be lost on you in anything. Oh, who's that?” A lady whose costume expressed saris at every point glided up the middle aisle of the grove with a graceful tilt. Burnamy was silent. “She must be an American. Do you know who she is?”
“Yes.” He hesitated, a little to name a woman whose tragedy had once filled the newspapers.
Mrs. March gazed after her with the fascination which such tragedies inspire. “What grace! Is she beautiful?” ”

“ I think you are morbid, Mr. Burnamy. You know very well I didn't like your doing that to Mr. Stoller. I didn't say so at the time, because you seemed to feel it enough yourself. But I did like your owning up to it," and here Mrs. March thought it time to trot out her borrowed battle-horse again. "My husband always says that if a person owns up to an error, fully and faithfully, as you've always done, they make it the same in its consequences to them as if it had never been done."
"Does Mr. March say that?" asked Burnamy with a relenting smile. ”

“ Well, Burnamy has a right to look with the rest; and I am not going to renounce him because he takes refuge with one pretty girl from another. It's what men have been doing from the beginning of time. ”

“ March—she is—with you—in Weimar?" Burnamy asked stupidly.
March forbore to take advantage of him. "Oh, yes. We saw you out at Belvedere this afternoon. Mrs. March thought for a moment that you meant not to see us. A woman likes to exercise her imagination in those little flights."
"I never dreamed of your being there—I never saw—" Burnamy began.
"Of course not. Neither did Mrs. Etkins, nor Miss Etkins; she was looking very pretty. Have you been here some time?"
"Not long. A week or so. I've been at the parade at Wurzburg."
"At Wurzburg! Ah, how little the world is, or how large Wurzburg is! ”

“ Burnamy gave a little cynical laugh. “I suppose it did. But don't you think it's rather rough, expecting us to have all the kinds of courage?”
“Yes, it is,” she assented. “That is why I say she was too exacting. But a man oughn't to defend him.”
Burnamy's laugh had more pleasure in it, now. “Another woman might?”
“No. She might excuse him.”
He turned to look back at the two-spanner; it was rather far behind, and he spoke to their driver bidding him go slowly till it caught up with them. ”

“ He explained certain military figures in the boxes opposite, and certain ladies of rank who did not look their rank; Miss Triscoe, to Mrs. March's thinking, looked their united ranks, and more; her dress was very simple, but of a touch which saved it from being insipidly girlish; her beauty was dazzling.
"Do you see that old fellow in the corner chair just behind the orchestra?" asked Burnamy. "He's ninety-six years old, and he comes to the theatre every night, and falls asleep as soon as the curtain rises, and sleeps through till the end of the act." ”

“ Burnamy was not of their number, and he seemed not to know that the girl was leaving him finally to Miss Triscoe. If Miss Triscoe knew it she did nothing the whole of that long, last afternoon to profit by the fact. Burnamy spent a great part of it in the chair beside Mrs. March, and he showed an intolerable resignation to the girl's absence.
"Yes," said March, taking the place Burnamy left at last, "that terrible patience of youth!"
"Patience? Folly! Stupidity! They ought to be together every instant! Do they suppose that life is full of such chances? ”

“ March. He put his hand up toward his hat, and sauntered away out of the door.
Burnamy did not speak; and she only asked at last, to relieve the silence, "Is Mr. Stoller an American?"
"Why, I suppose so," he answered, with an uneasy laugh. "His people were
German emigrants who settled in Southern Indiana. That makes him as much
American as any of us, doesn't it?"
Burnamy spoke with his mind on his French-Canadian grandfather, who had come down through Detroit, when their name was Bonami; but Mrs. March answered from her eight generations of New England ancestry. ”

“ Burnamy may be merely amusing himself, or he may be consoling himself; but in either case I think the pivotal girl has as much right to him as Miss Triscoe. She had him first; and I'm all for her."
LXI. Burnamy came away from seeing the pivotal girl and her mother off on the train which they were taking that evening for Frankfort and Hombourg, and strolled back through the Weimar streets little at ease with himself. While he was with the girl and near her he had felt the attraction by which youth impersonally draws youth, the charm which mere maid has for mere man ”

“ He followed with his eyes the manoeuvre by which Burnamy and Miss Triscoe eliminated themselves from the discussion, and strayed off to another corner of the ruin, where they sat down on the turf in the shadow of the wall; a thin, upland breeze drew across them, but the sun was hot. The land fell away from the height, and then rose again on every side in carpetlike fields and in long curving bands, whose parallel colors passed unblended into the distance. “I don't suppose,” Burnamy said, “that life ever does much better than this, do you? ”

“ The young bride looked at him gratefully, but she said, “If we can't get ice-water in Europe, I don't know what Mr. Leffers will do,” and the talk threatened to pass among the ladies into a comparison of American and European customs.
Burnamy could not bear to let it. “I don't pretend to be very well up in French literature,” he began, “but I think such a book as 'The Maiden Knight' isn't such a bad piece of work; people are liking a pretty well-built story when they like it. ”

“ At Pupp's, if we go to one end of the out-door restaurant, it takes three men to wait on us: one to bring our coffee or tea, another to bring our bread and meat, and another to make out our bill, and I have to tip all three of them. If we go to the other end, one girl serves us, and I have to give only one fee; I make it less than the least I give any three of the men waiters."
"You ought to be ashamed of that," said his wife.
"I'm not. I'm simply proud of your sex, my dear."
"Women do nearly everything, here," said Burnamy, impartially. ”

“ March was kept from breaking in upon them only by the psychical experiment which she was making with the help and sympathy of her daughter at the window of the dining-room which looked up Sixteenth Street. At the first hint she gave of the emotional situation which Burnamy was a main part of, her son; with the brutal contempt of young men for other young men's love affairs, said he must go to the office ”

“ In the hotel service there was one of those men who are porters in this world, but will be angels in the next, unless the perfect goodness of their looks, the constant kindness of their acts, belies them. The Marches had known and loved the man in their brief stay, and he had been the fast friend of Burnamy from the moment they first saw each other at the station. ”

“ Palmer looked up from the menu he was studying and greeted Burnham with warmth.
“Have a Martini?” he inquired as their waiter hurried up and the Maître d’hôtel went back to his post in the doorway.
“Yes, and make it dry,” cautioned Burnham to the waiter. “And hurry it along. I am worn out,” he added to his host.
Palmer glanced at him in concern. “You don’t look very fit,” he admitted. “Had a bad trip down?”
“Devilish! Our train was sidetracked for hours waiting to let troop trains pass; nothing to eat——” Burnham paused to empty his glass of ice water. ”

“ Suddenly Peggy, who had looked up from the baffling task for an instant, gave a cry:
"Look! Look there! What's all that dust?"
"It's horsemen of some kind, and they're coming this way!" cried
Wandering William.
As he spoke his hand slid to his hip, and he drew out his well-oiled and worn old forty-four.
"Do you think that they are—that they are Red Bill's men?"
"Don't know yet. The dust's thick and the light's bad."
"If they are?"
"Then we are in for a mighty bad quarter of an hour. Consarn the luck, everything seems to be going wrong at once." ”

“ Mrs. Burnham sighed. “The perversity of life!” she exclaimed. “Why do you pick out the one man I could not welcome as a son-in-law?”
“But why can’t you welcome him?” asked Evelyn impetuously. “René is all that a man should be—tender, true, and brave. Look at the record he had made in that gallant army of France. You have every reason to be proud of René, mother. Why, then, are you so absurdly prejudiced against him? He has never done anything to you.”
“Not to me perhaps——” began Mrs. Burnham, but Evelyn gave her no time to finish. ”

“ Well, you're the best judges of your own actions. I never dictate to other people.”
A murmur indicated doubt.
“Idea seems to be, sir,” mentioned Burnham, “that we ought to leave well alone.” A few shy “Hear hears.” “We're very much obliged to you, Mr. Amherst, for your kind hospitality, and we've enjoyed meeting at your festive board—if I may be allowed to use such an expression at this time of the year—but you must understand we've none of us got money to throw away. We're devoted to footer, same as you are, and we've planked down as much as we could afford. ”

“ What better training could a man have to fit him for the position of chief of the British Scouts in South Africa. His selection by the British was one of the clever acts of the campaign, which stands out like an incandescent light on a dark road of blunders.
Major Burnham in appearance is of muscular, tight-knit build, a little under medium height, has a soldierly hearing and dresses like a businessman. His face, the conspicuous part of him, carries the story of his life and puts the seal of the deed done on all he tells: it is strong without being tough. ”

“ There is but one person in the mine, the boy Ralph; you both know him. We are clearing away the wreckage from the mouth of the shaft as rapidly as possible, in the hope that we may get down there in time to save his life. Our people have directed me to spare no effort in this matter. One life, even though it is that of an unknown boy, is not too poor a thing for us to try, by every possible means, to save."
"That boy," said Goodlaw, "is Mrs. Burnham's son."
"Is it possible! Has he been identified, then, since the trial?" ”

“ Burnham had a dispute at Longchamps, and the next afternoon André slapped Mr. Burnham’s face in the club.”
“And what happened then?” persisted Marian as he stopped.
“Nothing,” La Montagne shrugged his shoulders. “In France it meant a duel; but as Mr. Burnham was an American who did not believe in dueling, the affair was soon forgotten.”
“All the same Mr. Burnham had to leave Paris,” retorted Marian, “and Mr. Burnham is a man who harbors grievances. I fear, Captain, that he does not favor your engagement to Evelyn.” ”

“ He struck the floor viciously with his cane.
"Easy," said the lawyer, soothingly, "easy; I fear the boy has been his own master too long to be bullied. We shall have to work him in a different way now. I think I can manage it, though. I'll have him come down here some day, after we get Mrs. Burnham's refusal to acknowledge him, and I'll explain matters to him, and show him why it's necessary that you should take hold of the case. I'll use logic with him, and I'll wager that he'll come around all right. You must treat boys as though they were men, Craft. ”

“ Burnham had stepped on to the carriage with the men who were going down. One of them cried out to him:—
"Don't ye go, sir! don't ye go! it'll be worth the life o' ye!"
"I'll not ask men to go where I dare not go myself," he said; "slack off!"
For an instant the carriage trembled in the slight rise that preceded its descent, and in that instant a boy, a young slender boy, pushed his way through the encircling crowd, leaped in among the men of the rescuing party, and with them went speeding down into the blackness.
It was Ralph. After the first moment of surprise his employer recognized him. ”

“ Burnham should know it, Mr. Goodlaw should know it, Mr. Sharpman should not conceal it, Rhyming Joe must not be allowed to depart until he had told it on the witness-stand, in open court. He must see him, Ralph thought; he must find him, he must, in some way, compel him to remain. The sound of the man's footsteps had not yet died away as the boy ran after him along the street, but half-way down the block his breath grew short, his heart began to pound against his breast, he pressed his hand to his side as if in pain, and staggered up to a lamp-post for support. ”