The alternate course alluded to he had therefore determined to adopt, when an incident occurred which materially altered his plans. One particularly detestable morning he read in public print that Mrs. Metuchen and Miss Dunellen were numbered among the visitors to South Carolina, and thereupon he proceeded to pack his valise. A few days later he was in Aiken, and on the forenoon of the third day succeeding his arrival, as he strolled down the verandah of the Mountain Glen Hotel, he felt at peace with the world and with himself.
It was a superb morning, half summer, half spring. In the distance a forest stretched indefinitely and lost itself in the haze of the horizon beyond. The sky was tenderly blue, and, beneath, a lawn green as the baize on a roulette-table was circled by a bright-red road. He had breakfasted infamously on food that might have been cooked by a butcher to whom breakfast is an odious thing. Yet its iniquity he accepted as a matter of course. He knew, as we all do, that for bad food, bad service, and for futility of complaint our country hotels are unrivalled, even in Spain. He was there not to enjoy himself, still less for the pleasures a blue ribbon can cause: he was there to fan into flame the interest which Miss Dunellen had exhibited; and as he strolled down the verandah, a crop under his arm, his trousers strapped, he had no intention of quarrelling with the fare. Quite a number of people were basking in the sunlight, and, as he passed, some of them turned and looked; for at Aiken men that have more than one lung are in demand, and, when Roland registered his historic name, to the unattached females a little flutter of anticipation came.
But Roland was not in search of flirtations: he moved by one group into another until he reached a corner of the verandah in which Mrs. Metuchen and Miss Dunellen sat. Merely by the expression on the faces of those whom he greeted it was patent to the others that the trio were on familiar terms; and when presently he accompanied Miss Dunellen off the verandah, aided her to mount a horse that waited there, mounted another himself, and cantered off with the girl, the unattached females declared that the twain must be engaged. In that they were in error. As yet Roland had not said a word to the charge he might not have said to the matron. Both of these ladies had been surprised when he reached Aiken, and both had been pleased as well. In that surprise, in that pleasure, Roland had actively collaborated; and taking on himself to answer before it was framed the question which his advent naturally prompted, he stated that in journeying from Savannah to Asheville he had stopped over at Aiken as at a halfway house, and that, too, without an idea of encountering anyone whom he knew. Thereafter for several days he managed to make himself indispensable to the matron, companionable to her charge; but now, on this particular morning, as he rattled down the red road, the courage which had deserted him returned; and a few hours later, when before a mirror in his bedroom he stood arranging his cravat, he caught a reflection of Hyperion, son-in-law of Crœsus.
V.
In a fortnight that reflection was framed with a promise. Justine had put her hand in his. The threads by which he succeeded in binding her to him are needless to describe. He understood that prime secret in the art of coercing affection which consists in making one's self desired. He was never inopportune. Moreover, he saw that Justine, accustomed to the devotion of other men, accepted such devotion as a matter of course; in consequence he took another tack, and bullied her—a treatment which was new to her, and, being new, attractive. He found fault with her openly, criticised the manner in which she sat her horse, contradicted her whenever the opportunity came, and jeered—civilly, it is true, but the jeer was there and all the sharper because it was blunted—at any enthusiasm she chanced to express. And then, when she expected it least, he would be enthusiastic himself, and enthusiastic over nothing at all—some mythical deed canned in history, the beauty of a child, or the flush of the arbutus which they gathered on their rides. To others whom he encountered in her presence he showed himself so self-abnegatory, so readily pleased, sweet-tempered, and indulgent, so studious even of their susceptibilities and appreciative of what they liked and what they did not, that in comparing his manner to her and his manner to them the girl grew vexed, and one evening she told him so.
They happened to be sitting alone in a corner of the verandah. From within came the rhythm of a waltz; some dance was in progress, affectioned by the few; Mrs. Metuchen was discussing family trees with a party of Philadelphians; the air was sweet with the scent of pines and of jasmines; just above and beyond, a star was circumflexed by the moon.
"I am sorry if I have offended," he made answer to her complaint. "Do you mind if I smoke?" Without waiting for her consent he drew out a cigarette and lighted it. "I have not intended to," he added. "To-morrow I will go."
"But why? You like it here. You told me so to-day."
With a fillip of forefinger and thumb Roland tossed the cigarette out into the road. "Because I admire you," he answered curtly.