Mrs. Flint

“ Flint paused a moment, as one who counted the cost of his words. Then he said slowly: "It shall be as you wish; but on your own head lie the risks. When a man has once said, 'I love you,' the woman to whom he says it sees it in his eyes and hears it in his voice forever after. I tell you," he went on, setting down the faun hard on the mantel, "love is like the spirit which the Arabian fisherman let out of the shell. It can never be shut up again—never—never—never!"
Winifred stirred a little, but did not lift her eyes. ”

“ Flint’s family heard that William had deserted Mr. Sands, they chuckled greatly over the news. Mrs. Flint made her usual manifestations of Christian feeling, by saying, “I’m glad of it. I hope he’ll never get him again. I like to see people paid back in their own coin. I reckon Linda’s children will have to pay for it. I should be glad to see them in the speculator’s hands again, for I’m tired of seeing those little niggers march about the streets.” ”

“ In two green-glazed bowls of Japanese origin, roses from Mr. Flint's garden at Yolanda scattered faint pink petals on the Smyrna rug. These flowers were the only concession to esthetics that Mr. Flint indulged. In spite of a masculine distaste for carrying flowers, hardly a day went by when he did not appear at the office with a huge harvest of blossoms from his country home.
Claire was bending over, intent on picking up the crumpled rose-petals, when Mr. Flint finally spoke. She straightened herself slowly. Her unhurried movements had a certain grace that did not escape the man opposite her. ”

“ I was perfectly willing to commit the affair into John Flint's hands. But Mary Virginia demurred.
"No. I want to stay here! I don't want to go home, Padre."
Flint shook his head. "I'm sorry," he said mildly, "but I'm going to take you home." He looked so inexorable that Mary Virginia shrugged her shoulders.
"Oh, all right, Mr. Flint, I'll go," said she. "What difference does it make? I'll even go to bed—as I'm told." And she added in a tone of indescribable bitterness: "I have read that men lie down and sleep peacefully the night before they are hanged. ”

“ He felt that he had appeared like a fool; and it must be a generous soul which can forgive one who has been both cause and witness of such humiliation. To conquer his irritation, Flint proceeded to take his injured rod to pieces, and repack it gloomily in its bag of green felt. When he looked up again, all petty annoyances faded out of his mind, for there ahead of him, behind the little patch of pines, lay the great cool, cobalt stretch of ocean, unfathomably deep, unutterably blue.
The young man felt a vague awe and exaltation tugging at his heart. ”

“ Flint’s daughter took charge of the class. She pointed her finger at one of them, and the subject began to look steadily before him, at which the rest of the class were highly amused. Presently the subject’s head leaned forward, the pupils of his eyes dilated and assumed a peculiar glassy stare. He arose with a steady, gliding gait and walked up to the lady until his nose touched her hand. Then he stopped. Miss Flint led him to the front of the stage and left him standing in profound slumber. ”

“ It was to show me that I gained nothing by seeking the protection of my mistress; that the power was still all in his own hands. I pitied Mrs. Flint. She was a second wife, many years the junior of her husband; and the hoary-headed miscreant was enough to try the patience of a wiser and better woman. She was completely foiled, and knew not how to proceed. She would gladly have had me flogged for my supposed false oath; but, as I have already stated, the doctor never allowed any one to whip me. The old sinner was politic. ”

“ It mustn't!" he reflected, as on the third evening he returned to his Fifth Avenue house. "Now that I'm really in danger of losing her, I'm just beginning to realize what an extraordinary woman she is! As a wife, the mistress of my establishment, a hostess, a social leader, what a figure she would make! And too, the alliance between Flint and myself simply must not be shattered. Kate is the only child. The old man's billion, or more, will surely come to her, practically every penny of it. Flint is more than sixty-three this very minute, he's a dope-fiend, and his heart's damned weak. ”

“ Graham turned to greet two newcomers, Flint was left alone, with no hindrance to the occupation of watching Winifred Anstice. She stood with her back toward him and her head slightly turned, so that his eye took in the delicate line of cheek and chin, broken by the shadows of a dimple, the curve of the neck, and the soft little curls that nestled at the base of the hair. A woman is always much handsomer or much plainer than usual in evening dress. ”

“ Flint's musings ended in a determination to answer this letter, and to answer it now while the genial mood was on him. The writer had taken pains to give little clue to her identity. Well, he would answer her from behind the same veil of impersonality. She need never know how widely she had missed her guess in her picture of him. She might keep her poor little illusions—yes, "elderly gentleman" and all. He would speak to her, as one soul might speak to another, unhampered by all the trammels of outward circumstance. ”

“ Flint was profoundly moved by the instant putting aside of all thoughts of self in the desire to be of service.
[Pg 334]
"How dared I ask her to marry me?" he thought. Aloud he said: "Listen, Winifred, and know that I am trying to tell you the white truth without reserve or evasion. I come to you because you are the only person who will need no explanation of the past, to unravel the evil of the present. I went with Brady this evening to a meeting of the Salvation Army at a slum post down on Berry Hill, where Nora Costello was to speak—"
"Oh, why didn't you let me go too?" ”

“ Flint is as much of a purist as ever—no; don't leave us together. He and I have been quarrelling over the tea-cups this afternoon. I will let you take up the defence, while I go over to speak to your sister, Miss Wabash, in the corner—and isn't that Captain Blathwayt with her?"
"Yes, he crossed with us on the 'Lucania'; remembered meeting you in Cheyenne or some other outlandish Western town—thinks you the most charming American he ever met."
"How clever of you!" said Winifred over her shoulder, as she moved away. "Reflected flattery is the most alluring kind." ”

“ Helen Flint, who was busy at the fire, welcomed the offered help with a bright smile like her mother’s, and set Agnes to work at once. The latter was beginning to find herself very hungry, and Mistress Flint treated her guest to considerably better fare than Mistress Winter did her drudge. There were comparatively few of the household at home to supper; for the party consisted only of Mr and Mrs Flint, two daughters, Helen and Anne, and the little boys, Will and Dickon. ”

“ Flint! Flint played out and ruined! Cast off and discarded by his relations in New York—the foundation of whose fortunes he had laid by the villainy they had accepted and condoned. For Flint, as the carpenter of the old homestead, had discovered the existence of a bricked closet in the wall of father's study, partitioned it off so that he could break into it without detection and rifle it at his leisure, and who had thus carried off that part of grandfather's hoard which father had concealed there. He knew it could never be missed by the descendants. ”

“ Flint gravely promised a Life of Wordsworth, to be sent to the "Etruria" to-morrow, and then, bidding his companions adieu, he passed out into the night.
His mood, as he strolled up the avenue, was [Pg 203] far from complacent. He felt a contempt for himself, as the sport of every passing impression. It was not enough, it seemed, that he should have cut short a summer vacation, and come hurrying back to the city at Winifred Anstice's behest. He must vibrate to every whim about him. ”

“ Flint leaned over the railing. "See!" he said, "there is a great white gull which has beaten itself to death against the light, and fallen there, close to that fringy line of mottled seaweed on the beach."
"Don't!" exclaimed Winifred, turning pale, and leaning further back against the light-house wall.
Flint saw in an instant that she was feeling dizzy, but thought it best for her to ignore the fact.
"Come," he said, "we must be going down now, unless Dr. Cricket is to lose his game entirely. You go first, Jim! I will come next." ”

“ My cheek no longer flushes on seeing Miss Flint; nothing rises in my throat when I ask her how she passed the night. Are not these gracious signs, Lucy, that I am becoming truly your sister? You shake your dear head. Well, "Rome was not built in a day," says the proverb; and after all, can I help that people should reap that which they have sowed? Would you wish me to give to Miss Flint the tribute due to suffering virtue? and to think, with Mrs. Allen, that the wicked are more to be commiserated than the good? ”

“ Never in his life had Flint so raved against his own lack of readiness as now, when he felt the passing moments slipping by, and could find no words to set himself right in the eyes of the woman he loved,—the woman whose little gloved hand rested on his arm. Judge then of his feeling when, smiling up into his eyes with perfect friendliness, Winifred said under her breath, "Why do we go there—you and I? They really aren't our kind at all." ”

“ Flint—especially the last. Why, it just seems to me as if she were trying to make herself over into the kind of woman he would be likely to like. She has dropped her old hoidenish ways and goes about as prim as a Puritan. She says she [Pg 240] is always like that in the city, and that her Nepaug ways are only a reaction; but I don't believe it. He comes here a great deal, that is certain; and I don't think it is very gentlemanly, after her begging him, as I heard her with my own ears, to go away. But he is too selfish to care what any one wants but himself. ”

“ I have—er—set certain forces at work to discover him; and, as I say, when I've done so, I will reward him liberally, and—"
"You'd better not!" ejaculated Kate, with animation. "He isn't the sort of man you can take liberties with!"
"Hm? What now?" said Flint, with vexation. "What do you know about him?"
"Oh, nothing, nothing, father," the girl answered quickly. "Only, I think you're making a mistake to try and force a reward on a man who doesn't want it. But no matter," she added, her face tinged by a warmer glow—which Flint was quick to see. "Forgive my interruption. Now, about Wally?" ”

“ Oh Flint, I am a wrecked man! If it had only been murder—if I had killed a man in the heat of passion—but a poor innocent babe in the cold snow! The child! the little babe! Ah, Flint, I never see the white snow coming down but I think of it. Those eyes are always with me. They follow me out to sea. They haunt me in the long watches. One night, when a storm had torn our rigging to tatters, and we heard the breakers on the lee-shore, I saw her standing by the binnacle light, and, so help me Heaven! she had grown to be a woman. ”

“ Well, well! heredity is a queer thing. We think we get away from it, but it is always cropping up in unexpected places. Our ancestors [Pg 86] are like atra cura, and ride behind every man's saddle."
The clock struck three as he finished his musings. He pushed away his chair, and set back the lamp on the mantel. The light, flaring a little in the draught from the open window, lent a startling look of life to the portrait above it. Flint seemed almost to hear the voice of the dying sea-captain whispering: "God bless you, Ruth—I wish I had understood you better!" ”

“ Our sex must have reciprocal duties; but I don't notice that you have offered yourself as a support for any of these clinging natures."
"Nevertheless," answered Flint, "if I ever did fall in love, it would be with a woman of the clinging kind. But don't let us get to talking [Pg 54] like a couple of sentimental schoolgirls! Here we are, anyway, at the last turn of the road, and there is Nepaug Beach. How does it strike you?"
"It reminds me," said Brady, smiling, "of the Walrus and the Carpenter:—
"'They wept like anything to see
Such quantities of sand. ”

“ They went into the quaint, old-fashioned parlor, which had already been transformed by Susan's care, so that much of its shabbiness was hidden. When all were seated, and Samuel Flint perceived that none of the others knew what to say, he took a resolution which, for a man of his mood and habit of life, required some courage.
“Three of us here are old people,” he began, “and the two young ones love each other. It was so long ago, Lucy, that it cannot be laid to my blame if I speak of it now. Your husband, I see, has an honest heart, and will not misunderstand either of us. ”

“ As they passed the bluff on the other side of the cove from Captain's Hill, Jimmy suddenly dropped his side of the basket of clams. "Hi!" he exclaimed. "Why can't we go up into the light-house, now Mr. Flint is with us?"
"Not to-day," answered his sister, repressively. "Mr. Flint may have other engagements, and then, you know, Dr. Cricket is waiting for his game of chess."
"As for me," said Flint, "I was never more at leisure; and as for your appointment with the Doctor, I advise you to adopt my motto: 'Better never than late.'"
Winifred hesitated. ”

“ Flint raged inwardly at the vulgarity of the situation thus thrust upon him. [Pg 327] To his companion, however, the glance of the passer-by conveyed nothing more than a recognition of her good looks, to which she was not averse. She stood still a moment, rubbing her ringed and ungloved hand back and forward over the sanded iron imitation brownstone fence by which she had paused. Then, as Flint, feeling the conspicuousness of their stationary attitude, made a movement to walk on, she broke out with a note of genuine feeling,—
"It's no question of money. ”