But not even love can stay the black-winged angel. He came one night when the first tinge of silver had crept into the husband’s brown locks, found the mysterious mechanism of the heart diseased, and gently stopped its beating. So, without one sigh or word of farewell to the beloved wife slumbering by his side, he passed away.
Never was grief so sacred or so quiet as that which fell upon the mistress of that residence when she found herself alone, the guardian of a young son, and a widow forevermore. She had been a proud woman in married life—proud of her husband, proud of her beauty for his sake, and, oh, how more than proud of his noble son, her only child. The fiery Indian blood that ran in her veins, and gave that splendid brunette complexion, was no bar to her reception in society with the people of St. Louis, for an intermarriage with the Indians had been no uncommon thing with the first settlers, and in her the savage blood was so graced with refinement that it was forgotten even by the new-comers, who had begun to bring their prejudices beyond the great river.
But enterprise and civilization, as it concentrated in the neighborhood, had sometimes shot its poisoned arrows at this noble woman, and a shrinking thought that there might be something in her Dacotah blood to wound the pride of her son, or impede his generous ambition, had silently taken force in her nature.
But there was nothing in this to disturb her position as a leader of society. In her husband’s lifetime his house had been the center of all that was intellectual and of worth in society for miles and miles around. A genial hospitality had won the talented and the good to his roof. The widow permitted no change in this. All that her husband had thought right became a religion with her. All that he had been, all that he had enjoyed, should reappear in her son.
Was it wonderful that she almost worshiped the young man as he grew so like his father in expression and voice, so like herself in the rare beauty of his person?
Five years of widowhood, and this idol of her life had become perfect in his manliness. The raven hair of his grandmother, but softened, finer and glossy, fell in thick waves over his forehead. The tall, lithe form, erect and graceful, the eagle eye, the proud poise of the head, were splendid in their regal beauty; while the soft, olive-tinged skin, warmed by the flashing blood of his transatlantic father, the tender light that sometimes filled his eyes, the blush that flushed his pure forehead, were perfect in their blending of refined and savage beauty. Just enough of the wild grace and insouciance of his Indian ancestry had been mingled with the pure blood of the old French nobility to render this young man strikingly beautiful in person and most alluring in mind.
La Clide’s physical education had been perfect. A more fearless horseman could not be found, even in his grandmother’s tribe; yet, in the dance he was quiet and graceful, his walk remarkable only for its stately ease. Like his person was that proud, tender and fiery nature. No frown could swerve him from the right, no allurements win him to the wrong. He neither gave offense nor brooked insult. Love, with him, was a sacred passion; women, creatures that stood half way between him and the angels, not worth winning save by aspiration. And this man was in love. That pure, strong heart had been given away blindly, as such hearts will sometimes go from their own keeping. He had been accepted, and was now betrothed.
One spring evening, when the perfume came sweetest from the balcony which opened from his mother’s sitting-room, the young man came in from the city. Springing from his horse, he tossed the bridle to an attendant, flung his whip after it, and entered the house. The moss-like carpets smothered the sound of his heavy footsteps, or the mother must have guessed at his agitation before he reached her.
As it was, Mrs. La Clide sat quietly amid the cushions of her easy-chair, reading. Even in his passion, the young man paused a moment to regard her; with those surroundings she broke upon him so like a picture of the old masters. The walls of that room were lined in every part by richly-bound volumes that gleamed out richly in the first twilight. Near the broad sashes that opened into the balcony, two statues, a bacchantic and a graceful dancing-girl, were holding back the frost-like lace of the curtains, allowing the light to fall on that calm face, surmounted by its coronal of braided hair.
Was he mistaken, or did that face look paler than usual? Was it pain or thought that drew those beautiful brows together?