§ 1
Sylvia returned to New York, where she had some shopping to attend to, and where also Celeste was waiting for her, expecting to be taken to theatres, and treated to a new hat and some false curls and boxes of candy. Celeste had heard all about van Tuiver, it appeared, and was “thrilled to death”—her own phrase. There was no repressing her questions—“Is he nice, Sylvia?”—“What does he look like?”—and so on. Nor was there any concealing her surprise at Sylvia’s reticence and lack of interest in this subject.
The elder sister got a sudden realization of the extent to which she had changed during this last couple of weeks. “They will call you an Anarchist at home,” Frank had predicted; and now how worldly and hard seemed Celeste to her—how shameful and cruel her absorption in all the snobbery of Miss Abercrombie’s! Could it be that she, Sylvia, had ever been so “thrilled to death” over millionaire beaux and millionairess’ millinery? Her sister had grown so in the few months that Sylvia hardly knew her; she had grown, not merely in body but in mind. So serene she was, so self-possessed, so perfectly certain about herself and her life! Such energy she had, such determination—how her sharp, black eyes sparkled with delight in the glories of this world! Sylvia found herself stealing glances at her during the matinee, and wondering if this could be “Little Sister”?
Sylvia had dismissed her multimillionaire from her mind; but she was not to get rid of him as easily as that. (“He persists and persists,” Bates had said.) One afternoon, feeling tired, she sent her aunt forth to attend to some of the family commissions; when to her amazement there was sent up a note, written upon the hotel stationery, in the familiar square English handwriting.
“My dear Miss Castleman,” it ran. “I know that you will be angry when you see I have followed you to New York. I can only plead with you to have pity upon me. You have put upon me a burden of contempt which I can simply not bear; if I cannot somehow manage to win your respect, I cannot live. I ask only for your respect, and will promise never to ask for anything else, nor to think of anything else. However bad I may be, surely you cannot deny me the hope of becoming better!”
You see, it would have been hard for Sylvia to refuse the request. He struck the right chord when he asked for her pity, for she pitied all things that suffered—whether they deserved it or not.
She pitied him when she saw him, for his face was drawn and his look haunted. He, the man of fashion, the exemplar of good taste, stood before her like a whipped schoolboy, afraid to lift his eyes to hers.
He began, in a low voice, “It is kind of you to see me. There is something I wish to try to explain to you. I want you to know that I have thought over what you have said to me. I have hardly thought of anything else. I have tried to see things from your point of view, Miss Castleman. I know I have seemed to you monstrously egotistical—selfish, and all that. I have felt your scorn of me, like something burning me. I can’t bear it. I simply must show you that I am really not as bad as I have seemed. I want you to realize my side of it—I mean, how much I’ve had against me, how hard it was for me to be anything but what I am.”
He paused. He had his hat in his hands, and Sylvia observed to her dismay that he was twisting it, for all the world like a nervous schoolboy.
“I want to be understood,” he said, “but I don’t know if you are willing—if I bore you——”
“Pray go on, Mr. van Tuiver,” she said, in a gentler tone of voice than she had ever used to him before.
“This is the point!” he burst out. “You simply can’t know what it’s meant to be brought up as I was! I’ve come to realize why you hate me; but you must know that you’re the first who ever showed me any other viewpoint than that of money. There have been some who seemed to have other viewpoints, but they were only pretending, they always came round to the money viewpoint, they gave the money reaction. If you try things by a certain measure, and they fit it, you come to think that’s the measure they were made by. And that’s been my experience; since I was a little child, as far back as I can remember—men and women and even children, everybody I met was the same—until I met you.”
He stopped, waiting for her to give some sign. Her eyes caught his and held them. “How was I able to convince you?” she asked.
“You—” he said—and then hesitated. “You’ll be angry with me.”
“No,” she said, “go on. Let us talk frankly.”
“You refused to marry me, Miss Castleman.”
“That was the supreme test?” He shrank, but she pursued him. “You hadn’t thought that any woman would really refuse to marry you?”
He replied in a low voice: “I hadn’t.”
Sylvia sat, absorbed in thought. “What a world!” she whispered, half to herself; and then to him: “Tell me—is Mrs. Winthrop like that?”
Again he hesitated. “I—I don’t know,” he replied. “I never thought about her in that way. She already has her money.”
“If she still had to get it, then you don’t know what she’d be?”
She saw a quick look of fear. “You’re angry with me again?” he questioned. By things such as this she realized how thoroughly she had him cowed.
“No” she said, gently, “I’m really interested. I do see your side better. I have blamed you for being what you are, but you’re really only part of a world, and it’s this world that I hate.”
“Yes,” he exclaimed, with a sudden light of hope in his eyes. “Yes, that’s it exactly! And I want you to help me get out of that world—to be something better, so that you won’t have to despise me. I only ask you to be interested in me, to help me and advise me. I won’t even ask you to be my friend—you can decide that for yourself. I know I’m not worthy of you. Truly, I blush with shame when I think that I asked you to marry me!”
“You shouldn’t say that,” she smiled. “It was only so that you really came to trust me!”
But he would not jest. He had come there in one last forlorn effort, and he poured himself out in self-abasement, so that it hurt Sylvia merely to listen to him. She made haste to tell him that his boon was granted—she would think of him in a kindlier way, and would let him write to her of his struggles and his hopes. Some day, perhaps, she might even see him again and be his friend.
While they were still talking there came an interruption—a bell-boy with a telegram addressed to Sylvia. She glanced at it, tore it open and read it; and then van Tuiver saw her go white. “Oh!” she cried, as if in sudden pain. “Oh!”
She started to her feet, and the man did the same. “What is it?” he asked; but she did not seem to hear him. She stood with her hands clenched, staring before her, whispering, “Papa! Papa!”
She looked about her, distracted. “Aunt Varina’s gone!” she cried. “And I don’t know where she is! We’ll be delayed for hours!” She began to wring her hands with grief and distress.
Van Tuiver asked again, more urgently, “What is it?”
She put the telegram into his hands, and he read the message: “Come home at once. Take first train. Let nothing delay. Father.”
“He’s ill!” she cried. “I know he’s ill—maybe dead, and I’ll never see him again! Oh, Papa!” So she went on, quite oblivious to the presence of the man.
“But listen!” he protested. “I don’t understand. This telegram is signed by your father.”
“I know!” she cried. “But they’d do that—they’d sign his name, even if he were dead, so that I wouldn’t know. They’d want me home to break the news to me!”
“But,” he asked, “have you reason to think——”
“He was ill. I didn’t know just how ill, but that’s why I was going home. He must be dying, or they’d never telegraph me like that.” She gazed about her, wildly. “And don’t you see? Aunt Varina’s out. I’m helpless!”
“We’ll have to find her, Miss Castleman.”
“But I’ve no idea where she’s gone—she just said she would be shopping. So we’ll miss the four o’clock train, and then there’s none till eight, and that delays us nearly a whole day, because we have to lie over. Oh, God—I must do something. I can’t wait all that time!”
She sank on a chair by the table and buried her face in her hands, sobbing like one distracted. The man by her side was frightened, never having seen such grief.
“Miss Castleman,” he pleaded, “pray control yourself—surely it can’t be so bad. There are so many reasons why they might have telegraphed you.”
“No!” she exclaimed, “no, you don’t understand them. They’d never send me such a message unless something terrible had happened! And now I’ll miss the train.”
“Listen,” he said, quickly, “don’t think anything more about that—let me solve that problem for you. You can have a special, that will start the moment you are ready and will take you home directly.”
“A special?” she repeated.
“A private car. I’d put my own at your disposal, but it would have to be sent around by ferry, and that would take too long. I can order another in a few minutes, though.”
“But Mr. van Tuiver, I can’t let you——”
“Pray, don’t say that! Surely in an emergency like this one need not stand on ceremony. The cost will be nothing to speak of, and it will give me the greatest pleasure.”
He took her bewildered silence for consent, and stepped to the ’phone. While he was communicating with the railroad and giving the necessary orders, she sat, choking back her sobs, and trying to think. What could the message mean? Could it mean anything but death?
She came back to the man; she realized vaguely that he was a great help, cool, efficient and decisive. He phoned for a messenger, and wrote a check and an order for the train and sent it off. He had a couple of maids sent up by the hotel to do the packing. “Now,” he said, “do not give another thought to these matters—the moment your aunt comes you can step into a taxi, and the train will take you.”
“Thank you, thank you!” she said. She had a moment of wonder at his masterfulness; a special train was a luxury of which she would never have thought. She realized another of the practical aspects of Royalty—he would of course use a private car.
But then she began to pace the room again, her features working with distress. “Oh, Papa! Papa!” she kept crying.
“You really ought not to suffer like this, when it may be only a mistake,” he pleaded. “Give me the address and I will telegraph for further particulars. You can get the answer on your train, you know. And meantime I’ll try, and see if we can get your home on the long-distance ’phone.”
“Can we talk at this distance?” she asked.
“I don’t know, but at least we can relay a message.” So again she let him manage her affairs, grateful for his prompt decisiveness, which set all the machinery of civilization at work in her behalf.
“Now try to be calm,” he said, “until we can get some more definite information. People are sometimes ill without dying.”
“I’ve always known that I was going to lose my father suddenly!” she broke out. “I don’t know why—he has tragedy in his very face. If you could only see it—his dear, dear face! I love him so, I can’t tell you. I wake up in the night, sometimes, and the thought comes to me: ‘Papa has to die! Some day I’ll have to part from him.’ And then the most dreadful terror seizes me—I don’t know how I can bear it! Papa, oh, Papa!”
She began to sob again; in his sympathy he came and stood by her. “Please, please,” he murmured.
“I’ve no right to inflict this upon you,” she exclaimed.
“Don’t think of that. If I could only help you—if I could suggest anything.”
“It’s one of those cases,” she said, “where nothing can be done. Whatever it is, I’ll have to endure it, somehow. If he’ll only live until I get there, so that I can see him, speak with him again, hear his voice. I’ve never really been able to tell him how much I love him. All that he’s done for me—you see, I’ve been his favorite child, we’ve been like two playmates. I’ve tended him when he was ill, I’ve read to him—everything. So he always thinks about me. He wants me to be happy, and so he hides his troubles from me. He hides them from everybody; and you know how it is—that makes people lean on him and take advantage of him. He’s a kind of family drudge—everybody comes to him, his brothers and sisters, his nephews and nieces—anybody that needs help or advice or money. He’s so generous—too generous, and so he gets into difficulties. I’ve seen his light burning till two or three o’clock in the morning, when he was working over his accounts; and then he looks pale and haggard, and still he smiles and won’t let me know. But I always know, because he stays close to me, like a child. And now there’s been an overflow, and maybe this year’s whole crop is ruined, and that’s a terrible misfortune, and he’s been worrying about it——”
Suddenly she stopped. This was Douglas van Tuiver she was talking to—telling him her family affairs! She had a sudden thrill of fear about it—she ought not to have let him know that her father was in difficulties as to money!
It was only for a moment, however; she could not think very long of anything but her father. What floods of memories came sweeping over her! “He was always so proud of me,” she continued. “When I came out, two years ago—dear old Daddy, he wore his wedding-suit, that he’d had put away in a cedar chest in the attic. He stood beside mother, under the lilies and the bright lights, and both of them would look at me and beam.”
She had risen to her feet, and was pacing the room, talking brokenly, but eagerly, as if it were important to make her listener realize how very lovable her father was. “Just think!” she said. “He had an old purse in his hand—one that my mother had given him on their wedding journey. In it was an orange-blossom from their bridal-bouquet, and some rose leaves that she had bitten off and let fall at his feet, once when he was courting her. He had treasured them for twenty years; and now some one brushed against his hand and knocked the dead leaves to the floor, and they broke and went all to dust, and he got down on his knees and searched for them with tears in his eyes. I remember how mother scolded him for making a spectacle of himself, and he got up and went off by himself, to grieve because his bridal-flowers had turned to dust.”
Van Tuiver had listened in silence. When he spoke, his voice held a strange note. “Never mind,” he said, “you will make it up to him. You will give him flowers from your bridal wreath.”
Again Sylvia found herself uncomfortable. But they were interrupted by the telephone—the connections with her home had been established. She flew to the booth downstairs, but she could hear nothing but a buzzing noise, and so there were some torturing minutes while her questions were relayed—she talking with “Washington,” and “Washington” with “Atlanta,” and so on. What she finally got was this: No one was ill or dead, but she must come at once—nothing must delay her. They could not explain until she arrived. And of course that availed her simply nothing. She was convinced that they were hiding the truth until she was home.
When she went back to her room, she found that Aunt Varina had come. Their trunks were ready, and so they set off for the station, van Tuiver with them. He saw them settled in their car, and the girl perceived that at so much as a word from her he would have taken the long journey with her. She shook hands with him and thanked him—so gratefully that he was quite transported. As the car started and he hurried to the door and leaped off, he was a happier-looking van Tuiver than Sylvia had ever expected to see.