“You are enough of a dictator yourself to see this point, which had escaped the rest of us. I can see that it is a little bitter to you to have Mrs. Burgess seeking another spiritual and intellectual adviser,—going after other gods, as it were.”
“Yes,” said Ward, gravely; “it makes me sick at heart to see a woman like Mrs. Burgess, with all that glorious power of self-devotion of hers, throwing herself blindly into this wild, Quixotic experiment—sure to end in disappointment and defeat. It is mournful, most mournful,” and Ward shook his head in melancholy fashion. “And when it comes to Keith,” he resumed, “alas! our brother! Poor Keith, with his lifelong habits of luxurious ease, his conventional views of duty, his yardstick imagination, and his wretched health—to think of such a man being torn from all the amenities of a refined Christian home, and carted across lots, Government bonds and all, to be set down in some malarial swamp to dig ditches with a set of ploughmen, to prove, forsooth! that all men are created free and equal,” and Ward groaned and bent his head as if overcome by the picture he had called up.
Lifting his head suddenly, he added in a tone of pensive rumination.
“He is one of those men Thoreau tells of, who would not go a-huckleberrying without a medicine chest; and he would perish, I am convinced, if deprived of improved sanitary plumbing.”
“All very clever,” said Everett, “but I will take the liberty of mentioning the fact that the Burgess’s physician hails the North Carolina project as the very best thing which could happen for Keith’s health.”
Hardly had he finished the sentence when a light knock was heard on the half-open door of the studio, and Anna Burgess, at Everett’s word, stepped into the room.
She wore a thin black gown, for the day was warm, and a broad-brimmed hat of some transparent black substance threw the fine shape of her head and the pure tints of her face into striking relief. A handful of white jonquils was fastened into the front of her gown, and the freshness of the June day seemed to enter the dusty, despoiled studio with her.
Both men stood at gaze before her with deference and admiration in every line and look. With a delicate flush rising in her cheeks, Anna gave her hand to each, and spoke a word of greeting in which her natural shyness and her acquired social grace were mingled to a manner of peculiar charm.
“I ran up to hand you these papers for Mr. Gregory,” she said to Everett, a vibration of suppressed joy in her full, low voice which he had never heard before. “You know he said he would like it if you would bring them,” and she placed a long envelope in his hand. “No, I cannot stop a moment, Keith is waiting for me in the carriage. I did not give the papers to the maid because I wanted to say to you, Mr. Everett, that Keith does not see it any differently,—about the estate, you know. He pledges the income, freely, altogether, but he feels that the estate itself should be kept intact.”
“Thank Heaven, he has a spark of reason left!” exclaimed Ward under his breath, adding quickly,—