§ 22
He stood in the doorway, clad in his faultless afternoon attire. Somehow he had recovered the hard brilliance, the look of the man of the world, which Sylvia had noticed the first evening. He gazed at Frank, not hiding very well his annoyance at finding a third party.
“Mr. van Tuiver, Mr. Shirley,” said Sylvia. “You do not know each other, I believe.”
“I know Mr. Shirley by sight,” said van Tuiver, graciously. He seated himself on a spindle-legged Louis Quinze chair—so stiffly that Sylvia thought of a purple domino. She beamed from one to the other, and then remarked, “What a curious commentary on the Harvard system! Two men studying side by side for three years, and not knowing each other!”
She was aware that this remark was not of the most tactful order. She made it on purpose, thinking to force the two into a discussion. But van Tuiver was not minded that way. “Er—yes,” he said, and relapsed into silence.
“Miss Castleman’s notions of courtesy are derived from a pastoral civilization,” said Frank, by way of filling in the breach. “You don’t realize the size of Harvard classes, Sylvia.”
The girl was watching the other man, and she saw that he had instantly noted Frank’s form of address. He looked sharply, first at his rival, and then at her. “Mr. Shirley is also from the South?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Sylvia, “we are near neighbors.”
“Oh, I see,” said van Tuiver. “Old friends, then, I presume.”
“Quite,” said Sylvia, and again there was a pause. She was willing to let the two men worry through without help, finding it fascinating to watch them and study them. What a curious contrast they made! She found herself wondering how far van Tuiver would have got in college life if he had had the handicaps of her lover!
Frank was talking about the prospects of the baseball team. He was pleasant and friendly, and of course quite unmoved by the presence of Royalty. He seemed to be wholly unaware of the tension in the air, the restlessness and impatience of the man he was talking to. But Sylvia knew and was thrilled.
It was a moment full of possibilities of drama. She asked some question of Frank, and he answered, casually, “Of course, honey.” He went on, unconcerned and unperceiving; but Sylvia saw the other man wince as if he had been touched by something red hot. He looked at her, but found that she was looking away. She stole a glance at him again, and saw that he was watching his rival with strained attention, his countenance several shades paler in hue.
That was the end of conversation, so far as van Tuiver was concerned. He answered in monosyllables, and his eyes went from Frank to Sylvia like those of a hunted animal in a corner. The girl got a new and sharp realization of his condition. She had gone into this affair as a joke, but now, for a moment, she was frightened. The man was terrible; every minute, as he watched Frank, his brow grew darker, he was like a thundercloud in the room. And this the arbiter of Harvard’s best society!
At last, she took pity on him. It was really preposterous of Frank to go on gossiping about the prospects of a truce with the Princeton “tiger,” and the resumption of football contests. So, smiling cheerfully at him, she remarked, “You’ll be missing the lecture, won’t you?” And Frank, realizing that he was a third party, made his excuses and withdrew.
Van Tuiver barely waited until Frank had closed the door. Then, with a poor effort at nonchalance, he remarked, “You know Mr. Shirley quite intimately.”
“Oh, yes,” said Sylvia.
“You—you like him very much, Miss Castleman?”
“He’s a splendid fellow,” she replied. “He’s one of the men you ought to have been cultivating.”
But the other would not be diverted for a moment. “I—I wish—pardon me, Miss Castleman, but I want you to tell me—what is your relation to him?”
“Why, really, Mr. van Tuiver——”
“I know I’ve no right—but I’m desperate!”
“But—suppose I don’t care to discuss the matter?” She was decided in her tone, for she saw that stern measures were necessary if he was to be checked.
But nothing could stop him—he was beyond mere convention. “Miss Castleman,” he rushed on, “I must tell you—I’ve tried my best, but I can’t help it! I love you—as I’ve never dreamed that a man could love. I want to marry you!”
He stopped, breathing hard; and Sylvia, off her guard, exclaimed, “No!”
“I mean it!” he declared. “I’m in earnest—I want to marry you!”
She caught herself together. She had not meant this to happen. She answered, with a tone of hauteur, “Mr. van Tuiver, you have no right to say that to me.”
“But why not? I am making you an offer of marriage. You must understand. I mean it.”
“I am able to believe that you mean it; but that is not the point. You have no right to ask me to marry you, when I have refused you my friendship.”
There was a pause. He sat staring at her in pitiful bewilderment. “I thought,” he said, “this was more serious.” And then he stopped, reading in her face that something was wrong. “Isn’t an offer of marriage more serious than one of friendship?” he inquired.
“More serious?” repeated Sylvia. “More important, you mean?”
“Exactly.”
“More attractive, that is?” she suggested.
“Why—yes.”
“In other words, Mr. van Tuiver, you thought that a man with so much money might be accepted as a husband when he’d been rejected as a friend?”
“Why—not exactly that, Miss Castleman——”
But Sylvia hardly heard his denial. A wave of annoyance, of disgust, had swept over her. She rose to her feet. “You have justified my worst opinion of you!” she exclaimed.
“What have I done?” he cried, miserably.
“It isn’t what you’ve done, as I’ve told you before—it’s what you are, Mr. van Tuiver. You are utterly, utterly impossible, and I’m furious with myself for having heard what you have just said to me.”
“Miss Castleman! I beseech you——”
But she would not hear him further. She could not endure his presence. “There is no use saying another word,” she declared. “I will not talk to you. I will not know you!”
The madness of love was upon him; he held out his hands imploringly. But she repelled him with blazing eyes. “You must go!” she said. “Go at once! I will not see you again—I positively forbid you to come near me.”
He tried twice to speak, but each time she stopped him, crying, “Go, Mr. van Tuiver!” And so at last he went, almost crying with humiliation and distress, in his agitation forgetting his hat and gloves. So furious was Sylvia that she shut the door, and fell on the sofa weeping.
When she came to look back on it, she was amazed by her vehemence. It could not have been the manner of the proposal, for he had been insufferable many times before, and she had managed to take a humorous view of it. Had it perhaps been seeing him in opposition to Frank which had fired the powder mine of her rage? Was it that jealousy of his power, of which she had spoken? Or was it the protective instinct with which Nature had endowed her maidenhood—that she could jest with him while he was seeking her friendship, but was convulsed with anger when he spoke to her of love?