HOW STORRI MADE AN OFFER OF HIS LOVE
At the brow of red and those angry eyes like stars, Bess smiled superior, in beaming toleration and affection. Bess could afford these benevolences, being now engaged in that most delightful of all Christian tasks to a woman, viz., superintending the love-romance of another woman. She swept sweetly down on Dorothy; and even Richard, albeit full to blindness of his own great passion, could not help but see that she was as graceful as a goddess.
Bess placed a hand on each of Dorothy's shoulders, and kissed her brow where the angry red, already in doubt as to the propriety of its presence, was trying to steal away unnoticed.
"What have I done?" said Bess, as though repeating a query put by Dorothy. "Now I no more than found a wanderer, who loves you almost as dearly as you love him, and who would not see the way to go straight to you with his offer of a heart. He was for traveling miles and miles around, no one knows how many, by all kinds of hesitating roads. I stopped him and pointed cross-lots to you. That is my whole offense; and when you arrived, the wanderer, in a spirit of gratitude I entirely commend, was very properly mumbling over my hands."
Bess drew Dorothy into the room.
"There!" cried she, "I have done my utmost best for both. I shall now look after Mr. Fopling. Poor child, he has already been neglected too long!"
Bess, departing, left behind her two young people wondrously embarrassed. Richard had been plunged into a most craven condition; while Dorothy, head drooping like a flower gone to sleep, the flush creeping from her brow to her cheek, began to cry gently. Two large, round, woeful tears came slowly into the corners of her eyes, paused a moment as though to survey the world, and then ran timidly down, one on each side of her nose.
At this piteous sight, Richard became a hero. Being an extremist in all things, Richard, roused, caught Dorothy to his bosom—the first embrace since that blessed boot-heel evening in the Waldorf! He folded her in those Pict arms in most radical fashion, and kissed her—they were like unto glimpses of heaven, those kisses!—kissed her eyes, and her hair, and at last her lips, measuring one kiss from another with words of rapturous endearment, of which "heart's love" and "darling" were the most prudently cool. Richard refused to free Dorothy from out his arms, not that she struggled bitterly, and continued for full ten minutes in the utmost bliss and incoherency.
At these unexpected pictures of Paradise before the Fall, Ajax, sole spectator, felt profound dismay. He bottle-brushed and arched and exploded; and then, the wretched exhibition continuing, fled.
At last Richard listened to Dorothy, and released her to an armchair; he took another, fastened his eyes upon her like visual leeches, and drank her in.
"Who so blooming, who so lovely, who so glorious as Dorothy?" thought Richard, on whom her beauty grew with ever-increasing witchery, like a deep, clear night of stars.
And yet, the dough-like Fopling, at that moment in the library with Bess, would have fought Richard to the death on a simple issue that Bess was Dorothy's beauteous superior; which, so far from proving that love is blind, shows it to have the eyes of Argus.
Richard and Dorothy said a thousand loving things, and meant them; they made a thousand loving compacts, and kept them all.
Suddenly Richard burst forth as though a momentous and usual ceremony had been overlooked.
"Oh, ho!" cried he, "you haven't asked how I am to support a wife."
"And do you suppose I have been thinking of that?" returned Dorothy, beginning to bridle. "For that matter, I know you are poor."
"And how did you dig that up?"
"Dig!" This with the utmost resentment, as though repelling a slander. "Why, you told mamma and me yourself. It was the day she was rude and asked if Mr. Gwynn would make you his heir."
"Surely," said Richard, grinning cheerfully, as if a puzzle had been made plain, "so I did."
"Sweetheart, I loved you from that moment!" cried Dorothy; and with a half-sob to be company for the caress, she drifted about Richard's neck.
"Now I should call poverty worth while!" said Richard, manfully kissing Dorothy all over again, since she had come within his clutch. Then, replacing her in her chair, the more readily because he reflected that he might easily repossess himself of her, he continued: "And the prospect of being a poor man's wife does not alarm you, darling?"
"Oh, Richard!" Then, looking him squarely in the eyes: "No, dear, it does not alarm me."
Dorothy spoke truth. The prospect of being a poor man's wife alarms no woman—before marriage.
Richard was in a whirl when he left the Marklin door. Bess fairly drove him forth, or he might not have departed at all. The first shadows of night were falling, but the whole world seemed bright as noonday. He was stricken of vague surprise to observe a man running by him, torch in hand, lighting the street lamps. Controlling his astonishment, Richard greeted the man as though they were old friends. They were not old friends, and the effect of Richard's greeting was to lead the man of lamps to think him drunk.
"Got his load early!" quoth the one of lamps. He tippled himself, and was versed in cup proprieties, which forbade drunkenness prior to ten o'clock.
Richard continued down the street. It was as if he were translated, and had quitted earth to walk the clouds. And to think that not two hours before he had come swinging along this identical thoroughfare, never dreaming of the heaven of those loving arms into which he was walking! Blessed be Bess! He should never forget that sorceress, who to his weakness added her strength, and to his ignorance her wisdom. It was such an extraordinary thing, now that Richard had time to think of it, that Dorothy should love him! And more amazing that she should press her cheek to his and tell him of it! Oh, he could still feel that round, warm, velvet cheek against his own! It was such joy to remember, too, that it was merely the beginning of an eternity of those soft endearments! it remade the world; and all things, even those most week-a-day and commonplace, came upon him in colors so new and strange and rich and sweet—touched as they were with this transforming light of Dorothy's love! Richard plowed through the winter evening in a most ridiculous frame of mind, midway between transports and imbecility.
"You will see me to-morrow?" pleaded Dorothy, as he came away.
Whereat Richard averred doughtily that he should.
Neither of the two having the practical wit to settle hour or place, Bess, who the moment before had returned to them from Mr. Fopling with intelligence coolly unimpaired, said:
"Four o'clock, then; and, if I may make a suggestion, you might better meet here."
It was among the miracles how the high beatitude consequent upon that wonderful event of Dorothy's love put Richard in a vaguely belligerent mood. It was an amiable ferocity at that, and showed in nothing more dire than just an eye of overt challenge to all the world. Also, he dilated and swelled in sheer masculine pride of himself, and no longer walked the streets, but stalked. Naturalists will not be surprised by these revelations, having observed kindred phenomena in the males among other species of animals.
In this lofty spirit, and by a fashion of instinct, Richard headed for the club. At the club, by the best of fortune, as he would have said in his then temper, he located Storri; and thereupon he bent upon said patrician such an iron stare of confident insolence that the object of it was appreciably worried, turning white, then red, then white, and in the finish leaving the room, unable to sustain himself in the face of so much triumph and truculence.
In the midst of this splendor of the soul, and just as Richard had begun to feel a catholic pity for all mankind to think not one beyond himself was loved by Dorothy, a message was thrust between his fingers. It ran thus:
R. Storms,
Washington, D. C.
What's the matter? Where is your letter to-night?
Daily Tory.
It was like a cupful of cold water, souse! in Richard's face; it brought him back to earth. In his successful bright estate of love he had forgotten about that letter. There was no help for it; Richard got pen and blank, and wired:
Daily Tory,
New York City.
Mr. Storms is ill; no letter to-night.
L. Gwynn.
When this was thirty minutes on its way, Richard had a further lucid interval. With the power of prophecy upon him, he dispatched the following:
Daily Tory,
New York City.
Mr. Storms will be ill a week.
L. Gwynn.
It gave Richard a pang to put aside those engaging letters, even for a week. Under the circumstances, however, and with a promise to see Dorothy the next day at four, and a purpose to see her every day at four if she permitted him, he deemed it prudent to send the second message. Besides, should his reason return before the week's end, he could recover from that illness and take up the letters again.
Being something sobered now, Richard lighted a cigar and strolled off through a fall of snow that had set in, thinking on Dorothy. Arriving at his home, he sat an hour in rose-colored reveries. He dived at last into the bronze casket, and brought out the little boot-heel which was the beginning of all First Causes.
"If I could but find the cheating bungler," thought Richard, "who slighted that little shoe in making, I'd pile fortune upon him for the balance of his life. And to think I owe my Dorothy to the cobbling scoundrel!"
At three o'clock, with the soft fingers of the snow drumming drowsily against the pane, Richard went to sleep and dreamed of angels, all of whom were blue-eyed replicas of Dorothy.
Richard, still in a glorified trance, was up betimes. Mr. Pickwick, who came to fawn upon him, the same being his doggish custom of a morning, found Richard tolerant but abstracted. Hurt by a lack of notice, Mr. Pickwick retired, and Matzai brought in breakfast. Richard could not avoid a feeling of distrustful contempt for himself when he discovered that he ate like a hod-carrier. It seemed treason to Dorothy to harbor so rude an appetite.
While Richard had laid aside those Daily Tory letters for a week, he would still call on Senator Hanway at eleven. He considered what an exquisite thrill would go over him as he sat gazing on Dorothy—that new and beautiful possession of his heart!
Rather to Richard's dismay, Dorothy was not with them that morning in Senator Hanway's study. Had her love of politics gone cooling? Senator Hanway was there, however, and uppermost in his mind was something that would again require countenance of the Anaconda Airline.
It was the subtile policy of Senator Hanway, in his move towards a Presidency, to seem to be standing still. His attitude was feminine; the nomination must abduct him; he must be dragged to the altar and wedded into the White House by force. In short, Senator Hanway was for giving the country a noble exhibition of the office seeking the man.
This attitude of holding delicately aloof did not prevent him in the privacy of his study—out of which no secrets escaped—from unbuckling confidentially with ones who, like Richard, were close about his counsel board. It was not that he required that young journalist's advice; but he needed his help, and so gave him his confidence because he couldn't avoid it.
Richard wore the honors of these confidences easily. Scores of times, Senator Hanway had gone into the detail of his arrangements to trap delegates, wherefore it bred no surprise in him when, upon this morning, that statesman took up the question of an Anaconda influence, and the extent to which it might be exercised. Senator Hanway showed Richard a list of fourteen States, all subject to the Anaconda's system of roads.
"In my opinion," said Senator Hanway, "the Anaconda could select the national delegations in these States. There is no doubt that the fourteen, acting together,—for the list includes three of the largest States in the country,—would decide the nomination. The query is, Would Mr. Gwynn be so amiably disposed as to move in the affair? I may say that I should not prove insensible to so great a favor."
"Mr. Gwynn," returned Richard, "has repeatedly instructed me that you were to regard the Anaconda as yours, and the Daily Tory as yours, for everything that either or both of them can do in your interest. It will not be necessary to see him unless you prefer an interview."
Senator Hanway never preferred an interview with anybody, where that formality was not demanded by the situation. He held to the doctrine that no one, not a fool, would talk beyond what was necessary to carry his projects to success. His present word to Richard, however, did not include this belief. He put it in this fashion:
"I do not feel at liberty," said he, "to disturb Mr. Gwynn with what are no more than just my personal concerns. He has much more weighty matters of his own to consider; and he ought not to be loaded down with those of other men. Besides, in this instance, his magnificent generosity has anticipated me. He tells you that I am to have the assistance of the Anaconda?"
"In what form and to what extent you choose," returned Richard. "He even said that, should you be set to head your party's ticket, the campaign might count upon the Anaconda for a contribution of no less than a half-million."
Senator Hanway's pale face flushed, not with gratitude, but exultation.
"I cannot tell you," said he, "which affects me most; Mr. Gwynn's immense kindness or his even greater condescension."
Then getting to things practical, Senator Hanway asked Richard if the President and General Attorney of the Anaconda might not again be brought to Washington.
"They shall come," replied Richard confidently. "You have only to fix the date."
"Any time between the second and tenth of January," suggested Senator Hanway. And that was settled.
Richard, not so much because of an interest,—if truth were told his thoughts went running away to Dorothy, and must be continually yanked back by the ear to topics common and earthly,—but for the sake of something to say, asked Senator Hanway about the committee of three selected to investigate Northern Consolidated.
"You know, the business came up because of my letters in the Daily Tory," observed Richard, by way of excuse for his curiosity.
The investigation was progressing slowly. It was secret; no part of the evidence could be given out. It would not join with senatorial propriety to let anything be known for publication.
"In a semi-judicial inquiry of this sort," explained Senator Hanway, in tones of patronizing dignity, "one of your discernment will recognize the impropriety, as well as the absolute injustice, of foreshadowing in any degree the finding of the committee. For yourself, however, I don't mind saying that the evidence, so far, is all in favor of Northern Consolidated. The company will emerge with a clean bill of health—clean as a whistle! The committee's finding," concluded Senator Hanway musingly, "will be like a new coat of paint to the road. It should help it immensely—help the stock; for these charges have hung over Northern Consolidated values like a shadow."
"And when should the committee report?" queried Richard.
"Those things come along very leisurely; the report ought to be public, I should think, about the middle of February. We may give it to the road for a valentine," and Senator Hanway smiled in congratulation of himself for something light and fluffy, something to mark in him a pliancy of sentiment.
Senator Hanway—such is the weakness of the really great—had his vanity as well as Richard, and would have been pleased had folk thought him of a fancy that, on occasion, could break away from those more sodden commodities of politics and law-building. Cæsar and Napoleon were both unhappy until they had written books, and Alexander cared more for Aristotle's good opinion than for conquest.
Just when Richard, who had been expecting with every moment his Dorothy to come rustling in, was beginning to despair, Dorothy's black maid appeared, and, under pretense of asking Senator Hanway on behalf of his devoted niece whether or no said niece might count on his escort to the White House reception New Year's Day, craftily slipped Richard a note.
"Why, she knows she may!"
Senator Hanway was somewhat astonished at Dorothy's forethoughtfulness; the more since the reception was a week and more away.
"Miss Dory wants to have Miss Bess, from 'cross d' street, go 'long," vouchsafed the maid.
"Oh, that's it!" said Senator Hanway, who mistook this for an explanation.
Richard was on nettles to get at Dorothy's note. Anxiety sharpened his faculties, and he took from his pocket a clipping, being indeed a Daily Tory editorial wherein was set forth what should be a proper tariff policy, and gravely besought Senator Hanway for his views thereon. While that statesman was donning glasses and running over the excerpt, Richard made furtive shift to read his note from Dorothy. It said:
Dear:
I am with Bess. Something awful has happened. Don't wait a moment, but come. D.
Senator Hanway was not a little amazed when, just as he found himself midstream in those tariff studies to which Richard had invited him, that volatile individual arose in the utmost excitement and said that he must go.
"The truth is," said Richard, blundering about for the explanation which the questioning eye of Senator Hanway appeared to ask, "I forgot a matter of Mr. Gwynn's."
Senator Hanway waved his satisfied hand in a manner that meant "Say no more!" Senator Hanway did not doubt that the business was important. Any business of Mr. Gwynn's must be important. The sheer fact that it was Mr. Gwynn's business made it important. It bordered dangerously upon the criminal that Richard should have neglected it. The state of affairs described accounted most satisfactorily for Richard's breathless haste. Senator Hanway, when he recalled the assurance of Mr. Harley, made with bated breath but the evening before, that Mr. Gwynn's income was over twelve hundred thousand dollars a month, sympathized with Richard's zeal. Under similar circumstances, Senator Hanway's excitement would have mounted as high. It is such a privilege to serve the very rich!
Richard found Dorothy in that apartment which was but yesterday the theater of his great happiness. She was alone; for Bess must play the housewife, and was at that moment addressing a slattern maid upon the sin of dust in some far-off, lofty corridor of the premises. Richard swept Dorothy with a gray glance like a flashlight. Her face was troubled, but full of fortitude, and she was very white about the mouth. At sight of Richard, however, Dorothy's fortitude gave way, and went whirling down-stream in a tempest of tears and sobs. With her poor hands outstretched as if for protection, she felt her way blindly into the shelter of those arms; and Richard drew her close and closer, holding her to his heart as though she were a child. He asked no question, said no word, sure only as granite that, whatever the trouble, it should not take her from him. These rock-founded natures, self-reliant, world-defying, made all of love and iron, are a mighty comfort to weak ones; and so thought Dorothy as she lay crying in Richard's embrace.
And now, since you have seen Dorothy safe across the harbor-bar of her griefs, and she lies landlocked in the sure haven of the Pict arms, you might cross the way for a space, and learn what abode at the foot of all this disturbance of true lovers.
It was while Richard was closeted with Senator Hanway that the storm broke. Mrs. Hanway-Harley, after reflection, had decided to speak to her daughter upon the subject of Storri and that noble Russian's suit. To this end, Mrs. Hanway-Harley called Dorothy into a little parlor which opened off her bedchamber. It was that particular apartment where Mrs. Hanway-Harley took her naps, and afterward donned war-paint and feathers wherewith to burst upon society.
Dorothy came reluctantly, haunted with a forebode of impending griefs. The room was a fashion of torture chamber to Dorothy. Mrs. Hanway-Harley had summoned her to this room for admonition and reproach and punishment since ever she was ten years of age. Wherefore, there was little in her mother's call to engage Dorothy pleasantly; and she hung back, and answered slowly, with soles of lead.
When Dorothy at last came in, Mrs. Hanway-Harley lost no time in skirmishing, but at once opened the main battle.
"My child," said she, with a look that she meant should be ineffably affectionate, and which was not, "Count Storri has been talking of you."
"Yes?" queried Dorothy, with sinking heart, but making a gallant effort at childish innocence.
Mrs. Hanway-Harley lost patience. She observed and resented the childish innocence, rebuking it smartly.
"Rub that baby look out of your face, instantly! You are not a child!"
Dorothy stiffened like a grenadier. She remembered Richard; her mother was right; she was not a child, she was a woman, and so the world should find her. Dorothy's eyes began to gleam dangerously, and if Mrs. Hanway-Harley had owned any gift to read faces, she might have hesitated at this pinch.
"What would you have?" said Dorothy, and her tones were as brittle and as devoid of sentimental softness as Mrs. Hanway-Harley's.
"Marriage."
"Marriage with Storri?"
"Dorothy," said Mrs. Hanway-Harley with a sigh, softly returning to the lines she had originally laid out, "Count Storri, in the most delicate way, like the gentleman and nobleman he is, has asked for your hand."
Mrs. Hanway-Harley had read something like this in a magazine, and now reeled it off with tender majesty. When she spoke of Storri she had quite the empress air.
"For my hand!" said Dorothy, beginning to pant.
Mrs. Hanway-Harley looked up; there was a hardness in Dorothy's tone that was not only new, but unpleasant. Down deep in her nature, Dorothy hid those stubborn traits that distinguished her religious ancestor of the gate-post and the water-pan.
"For your hand," repeated Mrs. Hanway-Harley uneasily.
Dorothy making no return, Mrs. Hanway-Harley, after waiting a moment, gave herself to a recount of those glowing advantages promised by such a marriage. Was a nobleman, wealthy, young, handsome, on terms of comradeship with his Czar, to be refused? Half the women in Washington were wild for such an offer. It would place the Harleys on a footing by themselves.
"But I don't love him!" urged Dorothy, as though that had to do with the question.
At this foolishly unfortunate objection, Mrs. Hanway-Harley was rendered speechless. Then, as notice of Dorothy's white, cold obstinacy began to dawn upon her, she went suddenly into lamentations. To think her child, her only child, should deal her such a blow! Mrs. Hanway-Harley called herself the most ill-treated of parents. She said her best and dearest feelings had been trampled upon. In a shower of tears, and a cataract of complaint, she bemoaned her dark, ungrateful destiny. At this, Dorothy's tears began to flow, and the interview became hysterical.
Mrs. Hanway-Harley was the earlier to recover her balance. Drying her eyes, she said:
"Disobedient child!"—this was also from the magazine—"since you will not listen to the voice of love, since you will not listen to the voice of reason, you shall listen to the voice of command."
Then, striking a pose that was almost tragic, Mrs. Hanway-Harley told Dorothy she must marry Storri.
"As your mother, I command it!" said Mrs. Hanway-Harley, lifting her jeweled hand finely, as though the thing were settled and the conference at an end.
"And I tell you," said Dorothy, catching her breath and speaking with bitter slowness, "that I shall not marry him!"
"This to me!—your mother!—in my own house!"
"You shall not drive me!" cried Dorothy passionately, her eyes roving savagely, like the eyes of a badgered animal. "Am I to have no voice in disposal of myself? I tell you I shall marry whom I please! And since he makes his proffer through you, tell the creature Storri that I loathe him!"
"Have a care, child!"
This last was also from the magazine, and Mrs. Hanway-Harley got it off superbly. It missed fire, so far as Dorothy was concerned—Dorothy, strung like a bow, and now in full rebellion.
"It is you to have a care!" retorted Dorothy. "Papa and Uncle Pat shall hear of this!"
"They will say as I say!" observed Mrs. Hanway-Harley, who believed it.
"And if they should," cried Dorothy, "I have still a resource!"
"Flight?" said Mrs. Hanway-Harley, not without contempt.
"Marriage!" replied Dorothy, now as dry of eye as she was defiant. Bess Marklin was assuredly right in her estimate of formalities, and their saving and securing worth.
"Marriage!" repeated Dorothy, and her voice rang out in a composite note of love and triumph as she thought of Richard.
"Marriage!" Mrs. Hanway-Harley was staggered. Here was a pathway of escape she had not counted on. "Whom would you marry?"
"You shall not know," said Dorothy.
Mrs. Hanway-Harley saw truth in Dorothy's red cheek—she had been snow till now—saw it in her swimming eye and heaving bosom. Before she could phrase further question Dorothy had left the room, and Mrs. Hanway-Harley was beaten.
Somewhere in the unknown dark behind Dorothy's stubborn will stood a man; and that man loved Dorothy. She would draw on his love and his loyalty and his courage to make her war! Mrs. Hanway-Harley felt her defeat, and sighed to think how she had walked upon it blindfold. But she was not without military fairness; she must make her report.
Mrs. Hanway-Harley wrote Storri a note, saying that, for reasons not to be overcome, the honor of his hand must be denied her house. While Mrs. Hanway-Harley was writing Storri, Dorothy the baited was writing her note to Richard. And now you know why Dorothy sobbed her troubled, hunted, harassed way into Richard's arms.
After ten minutes of love and peace, Dorothy was so much renewed that, word for word, she gave Richard the entire story.
"What shall I do?" said Dorothy at the close. "Tell me, dear, what am I to do?"
"You are in no danger," said Richard, in a manner of grim tenderness, and folding her tight. "Before I'd see you marry Storri, I would kill him in the church—kill him at the altar rail!"
"You must not kill him!" whispered Dorothy, at once horrified and flattered.
"There's no chance," said Richard, with a quaver of comic regret. "Our civilization has so narrowed the times that murder is inexpressibly inconvenient. One thing I might do, however."
"What is that?"
"I might carry you off."
"Oh, that would never do!" said Dorothy, as, with a great sigh, she crept more and more into Richard's arms, thinking all the time it would do, and do nicely.