The Barrier: A Novel

by Allen French

And now Pease found comfort in the thought of Beth's return, since it would give him his innocent pleasure without journeys or the neglect of business. His winter clothes were chosen with unusual care, nor did he this time repel the tailor's semi-annual attempt to give him a more youthful appearance. At his home Pease became a new man, and Miss Cynthia sneered as she fastened the charge upon him.

"More colour in your neckties!" she sniffed disdainfully.

He smiled, untroubled. "Yes; they tell me it's to be quite proper, this fall."

Astonishment prevented her from speaking; never before had he deserted the middle ground of fashion. Thus the lighter shade of his new overcoat was a sign, his wearing of tan shoes a portent. And his very carriage was different, as of a man who has at last found the spring of youth and drinks of it daily. His mannerisms were softening, he took more interest in social news, and an undercurrent of thought always swayed his mind in the direction where knowledge or imagination placed Beth Blanchard.

There was stupidity in Pease, for he did not find the meaning of the existence of Jim Wayne. But very slowly he discovered the reason for his own sensations. He met Beth first in April; by the middle of the summer he knew that she attracted him extremely; a month later he acknowledged that he was going to Chebasset for the sake of seeing her; upon her return to Stirling he felt continual odd thoracic sensations which seemed to make him a living compass, pointing always to Beth. After a fortnight of this sort of thing he waked one day from a reverie of her, to realise that he loved her. The discovery affected him with vertigo; he had to seek the air and think the matter over. In about a week he became familiar with the situation and accepted it. He paused one evening before his motto from Goethe, and smiled to think that he had once considered the end of happiness to be mere culture.

Loving Beth, he did not at first include her in his hopes. There was such delight in contemplating a definite image in absence, such satisfaction in watching Beth herself when present, that for some time he went no further. He made it clear to Beth that he was always willing to attempt anything she desired, and then from time to time looked in on her and adored. Yet the humanising process eventually proceeded. Gazing at his idol until its every perfection was known to him, at last there came the question: Why not possess it? And this worked on him so that in the end he became extremely determined.

So gentle was the increase of his attentions that Beth did not at first take the alarm. At home, no abstraction betrayed him to Miss Cynthia, who thought that he had resigned himself. He was more lively, normal than ever before, and only Mather suspected in him the determination to do or die. The change of the scene of operations from Chebasset to the city, however, gave Mather no chance to keep abreast of the march of events, since the manager still spent most of his days and nights at the seaside. Thus no one enlightened Pease until it became Beth's task to do so herself.

He dressed himself with unusual care one afternoon; had it been the evening Miss Cynthia would never have suspected. But his newest suit, his freshest gloves, the box of violets in his hand, and (more than all) the single pink in his lapel—all these for a moment made her suspect the truth as she watched him leave the house. "Whatever is the man——?" But he was gone, and there was nothing to be done.

He found Beth at home, and gave her the box of violets. She thanked him with such prettiness as always charmed him, such warmth as always made him glow. The poor man tried now to say words of love, he who had never practised them even to himself. It was a long way round, through the weather, the news, the latest invitation, to the deepest emotion of the human heart. But he pointed straight to it at last, and Beth understood.