A Day of Fate

by Edward Payson Roe

"What is my suffering compared with the happiness of this home?" I thought. "It would have been brutally selfish to have died."

I now had my letters brought to me. My paper—my first love—was daily read, and my old interest in its welfare kindled slowly.

"Work," I said, "is the best of antidotes. It shall be my remedy. Men are respected only as they stand on their feet and work, and I shall win her respect to the utmost."

Reuben and Adah read to me. The presence of the former, like that of his father and mother, was very restful; but Adah began to puzzle me. At first I ascribed her manner to an extravagant sense of gratitude, and the romantic interest which a young girl might naturally take in one who had passed with her through peril, and who seemingly had been dangerously ill in consequence; but I was compelled at last to see that her regard was not open, frank, and friendly, but shy, absorbing, and jealous. It gave her unmingled satisfaction that I did not ask for Miss Warren, and she rarely spoke of her. When she did she watched me keenly, as if seeking to read my thoughts. Reuben, on the contrary, spoke freely of her; but, from some restraint placed upon him by his mother probably, did not ask her to relieve him in his care of me again.

After I began to sit up, Miss Warren would not infrequently come to my door, when others were present, and smilingly express her gladness that I was improving daily. Indeed there would often be quite gay repartee between us, and I think that even Adah was so blinded by our manner that her suspicions were allayed. It evidently puzzled her, and Reuben also, that I had apparently lost my interest in one who had such great attractions for me at first. But Adah was not one to seek long and deeply for subtle and hidden causes of action. She had a quick eye, however, for what was apparent, and scanned surfaces narrowly. I fear I perplexed her as sorely as she did me.

In spite of every effort to remain blind to the truth, I began to fear that she was inclined to give me a regard which I had not sought, and which would embarrass me beyond measure.

That a man can exult over a passion in a woman which he cannot requite is marvellous. That he can look curiously, critically, and complacently on this most sacred mystery of a woman's soul, that he can care no more for her delicate incense than would a grim idol, is proof that his heart is akin to the stony idol in material, and his nature like that of the gross, cruel divinity represented. The vanity that can feed on such food has a more depraved appetite than the South Sea Islander, who is content with human flesh merely. It would seem that there are those who can smile to see a woman waste the richest treasures of her spiritual life which were designed to last and sustain through the long journey of life—ay, and even boast of her immeasurable loss, of which they, wittingly or unwittingly, have been the cause.

The oddest part of it all is that women can love such men instead of regarding them as spider-like monsters that, were the doctrine of transmigration true, would become spiders again as soon as compelled to drop their human disguise.

But women usually idealize the men they love into something very different from what they are. Heaven knows that I was not a saint; but I am glad that it caused me pain, and pain only, as I saw Adah shyly and almost unconsciously bending on me glances laden with a priceless gift, which, nevertheless, I could not receive.

Her nature was too simple and direct for disguises, and when she attempted them they were often so apparent as to be comically pathetic. And yet she did attempt them. There was nothing bold and unmaidenly in her manner, and as I look back upon those days I thank God that I was never so graceless and brutal as to show or feel anything like contempt for her gentle, childlike preference. Very possibly also my own unfortunate experience made me more considerate, and it was my policy to treat her with the same frank, undisguised affection that I manifested toward Zillah, with, of course, the differences required by their different ages.