§ 31
It was in the midst of these adventures that Frank Shirley made his unexpected return from the North. On the day when he came to see her first, she naturally forgot about the existence of Beauregard Dabney—until Beauregard suddenly appeared and flew into a fit of jealousy. Then the imp of mischievousness got hold of Sylvia; she found herself wondering, “Would it be possible for Frank to be jealous of Beauregard? And if he was, how would he behave?”
“I knew it was dreadful then,” she told me, “but I couldn’t have helped it if I’d been risking my life. I had to see what Frank would do when he was jealous. I simply had to! It was a kind of insanity!”
So she tried it, and did not get much fun out of the experience. Frank was like an Indian in captivity; he could not be made to cry out under torture. He saw Beauregard’s position, and the unconcealed delight of the family; but he set his lips together and never gave a sign. Sylvia was going away for the summer, and Beauregard was talking about following her. There would be other suitors following her, no doubt—and new ones on the ground. Frank went home, and Sylvia did not hear from him for several days.
The Beauregard episode came to its appointed end, and then, in a letter to Frank, Sylvia mentioned that she had accomplished her purpose—the youth was engaged to Harriet. She thought this was explaining things. But how could Frank imagine the complications of the art of man-catching? Was Sylvia jesting with him, or trying to blind him, or apologizing to him, or what?
Sylvia kept putting off her start to the mountains—she could not bear to go while things were in such a state between them. But, while she was still hesitating, to her consternation she received a note from him saying that he was starting for Colorado. He had received a telegram that an aunt was dead; there were business matters to be attended to—some property which for his sisters’ sake could not be neglected. It was a cold, business-like note, with not a word of sorrow at parting; and Sylvia shed tears over it. Such is the irrationality of those in love, she had forgotten all about young Dabney or any other cause for doubt and unhappiness she might have given Frank. She thought that he, and he alone, had been unkind. And meantime, Frank had made up his mind that she was repenting of her engagement, and that it was his duty to make it easy for her to withdraw.
So the two spent an unhappy summer. Sylvia let herself be taken about to parties, but she grew more weary every hour of the social game. “I’ve smiled until I’ve got the lockjaw,” she would say. She was losing weight and growing pale, in spite of the mountain air.
September came, and Harriet’s wedding was set for the next month, and likewise Frank’s return to Harvard. He came back from the West, and Sylvia wrote asking him to come and visit her for a week. But to her consternation there came in reply a polite refusal from Frank. There was so much that needed his attention on the plantation, and some studying that must be done if he was to make good. For three days Sylvia struggled with herself, the last stand of that barbarian pride of hers; then she gave way completely and sent him a telegram: “Please come at once.”
She would have recalled it an hour afterwards, but it was too late; and that evening she received an answer, to the effect that he would arrive in the morning. She spent a sleepless night imagining his coming, and a score of different ways in which she would meet him. She would throw herself at his feet and beg him not to torture her; she would array herself in her newest gown and fascinate him in the good old way; she would climb once more upon the pinnacle of her pride and compel him to humble himself before her.
In the morning she drove to meet him, together with a cousin who had come on the same train. She never stood a worse social ordeal than that drive and the luncheon with the family. But at last they were alone together, and sat gazing at each other with eyes full of bewilderment and pain.
“Sylvia,” said Frank, finally, “you do not look happy.”
“Why should I be happy?” she asked.
There was a pause. “Listen,” he said. “Can we not deal honestly with each other—openly and sincerely, for once. Surely that is the best way, Sylvia—no matter how much it hurts.”
“I am ready to do it,” she replied.
“You don’t have to spare my feelings,” he went on. “I know all you have to contend with, and I sha’n’t blame you. The one thing I can’t bear is to be played with, to be lured by false hopes, to drag on and on, tormented by uncertainty.”
She was gazing at him, bewildered. “Why do you say all that, Frank?” she cried.
“Why should I not say it?” he asked; and again they stared at each other.
Suddenly she broke out, in a voice full of anguish, “Frank, this is what I want to know—answer me this! Do you love me?”
“Do I love you?” he echoed.
“Yes,”—and with greater intensity, “I want you to be honest about it!”
“Honey!” he said, his voice trembling, “it’s the question of whether I’m allowed to love you. It’s so terrible to me—I can’t stand the uncertainty.”
She cried again, “But do you want to love me?”
She heard his voice break, she saw the emotion that was shaking him, and with a sudden sob she was in his arms. “Oh, Frank, Frank!” she exclaimed. “What have we been doing to each other?”
And so at last the fog of misunderstanding was lifted. “Sweetheart,” he exclaimed, “what could you have been thinking?”
“I thought you had stopped loving me because I had been too bold, because I had been unwomanly.”
“Why, Sylvia, you must be mad! Have I not been hungry for your love?”
“Oh, tell me that I can love you!” she wailed. “Tell me that you won’t grow tired of me if I love you!”
He clasped her in his arms and covered her lips with kisses; he soothed her like a frightened child. She was free now to sob out her grief, to tell him what she had felt throughout all these months of misery. “Oh, why didn’t you come to me like this before?” she asked.
“But, Sylvia,” he answered, “how could I know? I saw you letting another man make love to you——”
“But, Frank, that was only a joke!”
“But how could I know that?”
“How could you imagine anything else? That I could prefer Beauregard Dabney to you!”
“That’s easy to say,” he replied. “But there was your family—I knew what they’d prefer, and I saw how they were struggling to keep us apart. And what was I to think—why should you be giving him your time, unless you wanted to let me know——”
“Ah, don’t say that! Don’t say that!” she cried, quickly. “It’s wicked that such a thing should have happened.”
“We must learn to talk things out frankly,” he said. “For one thing you must not let your family come between us again. You must free me from this dreadful fear that they are going to take you from me.”
And suddenly Sylvia blazed up. All the misunderstanding had come from the opposition of her family, and her unwillingness to talk to Frank about it. “I never saw it so clearly before,” she exclaimed. “Frank, I can never make them see things my way. And they’ll always have this dreadful power over me—because I love them so!”
“What can you do then?” he asked.
“I’m going to betray them to you!” she cried. And as he looked puzzled, she went on, “I’m going to tell you about them! I’m going to tell you everything they’ve said and done, and everything they may say and do in the future!”
“And that,” said Frank to me, “was the most loving thing she ever said!” Such was the power, in Sylvia’s world, of the ideal of the Family!