Barbara's Heritage / Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters

by Deristhe L. Hoyt

Then came Howard's death, and he realized how deeply she was moved. A new look came often into her eyes, which he noted; a new tone into her voice, which he heard. And yet he felt that the experience had not touched the depths of her being.

While they were on the way from Florence to Rome he had rejoiced every time he heard her voice ringing with the old merry tones, which showed that she had for the moment forgotten all sad thoughts. When he was ostensibly talking to all, he was often really talking only to Barbara, and watching the expression of her eyes; and he always listened to catch her first words when any new experience came to their party. He was really fast getting into a dangerous condition, this young man nearly thirty years old, but was as unconscious of it as a child.

At Perugia came the night struggle caused by Malcom's words; the dream, and the morning meeting with Barbara. When his hand touched hers as he put into them the roses, he felt again for an instant the electric thrill that ran through him on the birthday night, when he met that wonderful look in her eyes. It brought a feeling of possession, as if it were the hand of his Margaret which he had touched,—Margaret, who was so soon to have been his wife when death claimed her.

He tried to account for it. He was jealous for the beloved dead whose words, whose ways, whose face had reigned supreme over his heart for so many years, when he caught himself dwelling on Barbara's words, recalling her tricks of tone, her individual ways.

He set himself resolutely to the task of overcoming this singular tendency of his thought; and oh! how the little blind (but all-seeing) god of love had been laughing at Robert Sumner all through the days since they reached Rome.

Instead of driving and walking about with the others, he had zealously set himself the task of calling at the studios of all his artist friends; had visited exhibitions; had gone hither and thither by himself; and yet every time had hastened home, though he would not admit it to his own consciousness, in order that he might know where Barbara was, what she was doing, and how she was feeling. He had busied himself in fitting up a sky-lighted room for a studio, where he resolved to spend many morning hours, forgetting all else save his beloved occupation; and the very first time he sat before his easel a sketch of Barbara's face grew out of the canvas. The harder he tried to put her from his thoughts, the less could he do so, and he grew restless and unhappy.

Another cause of troubled, agitated feeling was his decision to return to America and there make his home. In this he had not faltered, but it oppressed him. He loved this Italy, with her soft skies, her fair, smiling vineyards and bold mountain backgrounds, her romantic legends, and, above all, her art-treasures. He had taken her as his foster-mother. Her atmosphere stimulated him to work in those directions his heart loved best. How would it be when he should be back again in his native land? He had fought his battle; duty had told him to go there; and when she had sounded the call, there could be no retreat for him. But love and longing and memory and fear all harassed him. He had as yet said nothing of this to his sister, but it weighed on him continually. Taken all in all, Robert Sumner's life, which had been keyed to so even a pitch, and to which all discord had been a stranger for so many years, was sadly jarred and out of tune.

Of course Mrs. Douglas's keen sisterly eyes could not be blind to the fact that something was troubling her brother. And it was such an unusual thing to see signs of so prolonged disturbance in him that she became anxious to know the cause. Still she could not speak of it first. Intimate as they were, the inner feelings of each were very sacred to the other, and she must wait until he should choose to reveal all to her.

She well knew that his heart had been wholly consecrated to the only love it had heretofore known, and the query had often arisen in her mind whether the approach of another affection might not in the first place work some unhappiness. That he could ever love again as he had loved Margaret she did not for a moment believe. She well knew, however, that the happiness of any woman who might give her life into her brother's keeping was safe, and her wish for him was that he might be so drawn toward some loving woman that he might desire to make her his wife, and so be blessed with family life and love; for the thought that he might live lonely, without family ties, was inexpressibly sad to her loving heart.

We have seen how the coming of Miss Sherman into their lives roused these hopes afresh; and she now wondered if his evident unrest might be caused by the first suggestion of the thought of asking her to become his wife. It was evident that he admired her and enjoyed her society; and, so far as Miss Sherman's feelings were concerned, she felt no doubt. Indeed, she sometimes shrank a bit from the free display of her fondness for his company, and hoped that Malcom and the girls might not notice it. She easily excused it, however, to herself, although the closer intimacy of daily intercourse was revealing, little by little, flaws in the character she had thought so fair.