There was a sudden stricture all over his body. It seemed as if some cold hand had clutched both heart and brain.
He walked home in the bright, fresh air. It was barely ten. He passed De la Maur on the way and they greeted each other. The parlor windows were darkened, his father was alone in the study, and everyone else had gone to bed.
"I wish you had been home," said his father glancing up. "De la Maur has been reciting Racine, and I have never heard anything finer! I wish he could read Shakspere. He certainly is a delightful person, so cultured and appreciative. It makes me feel that we really are a new people."
Could no one see the danger? How happened it his father was so blind? Did Doris really care? She had not loved Captain Hawthorne, a man worthy of any woman's love. Cary had a confident feeling that in five years they would see him again. But he would be too old for Doris—thirteen years between them. Yet his father had been fifteen years older than his mother. Doris was so guileless, so simply honest, and if she loved—how curiously she had kept from friendships or intimacies with young men! Eudora had a train of admirers. So had Helen and Alice in their day.
When he had met Mrs. Sargent he knew it had only been a boyish fancy for Alice Royall, and it had merely shaped and strengthened the ardent desire of youth to go to his country's defense. He was a man now, and capable of loving with supreme tenderness and strength. Yet he had seen no woman to whom he cared to pour out the first sweet draught of a man's regard.
But Doris must not go away, she could not.
Morning, noon, and night he watched her. She prepared his father's toast, she chatted with him and often coaxed him to taste this or that, for his appetite was slender. On sunny mornings they went to drive, or if not she brought her sewing and sat in the study, listened and discussed the subjects he loved, and was enthusiastic about the Boston that was to be, that they both saw with the eye of faith. While he took his siesta she ran up to Sudbury Street, or did an errand. Later in the afternoon there would be calls. There was a sideboard at the end of the hall where a bottle or two of wine were kept, as was the custom then, and a plate of cake.
Doris brought in a fashion of offering tea or sometimes mulled cider on a cold day. But Miss Recompense made delicious tea, and some of the gentlemen took it just to see Doris drop in the lump of sugar so daintily.
If they were at home there was always company in the evening, unless the night was very stormy. De la Maur generally made one of the guests. If they were alone they had a charming evening in the study.
The young Frenchman was most punctilious. He might take a few cousinly freedoms, but he never offered any that were lover-like. So it was the more easy for Doris to persuade herself that it was merely relationship. Occasionally the eloquence of his eyes quite unnerved her. She cunningly sheltered herself beside Eudora when it was possible.