A Knight of the Nineteenth Century

by Edward Payson Roe

Of course, such a girl as Laura had many admirers, and among them Mr. Beaumont was evidently winning the first place in her esteem. Whether he were the knight that her aunt had in mind or no, she was not sure, but he realized her ideal more completely than any man whom she had ever met. He did, indeed, seem the "perfect flower of his age," although she was not so sure of the oak-like qualities. She often asked herself wherein she could find fault with him or with all that related to him, and even her delicate discrimination could scarcely find a vulnerable point. He was fine-looking, his heavy side-whiskers redeeming his face from effeminacy; he was tall and elegant in his proportions; his taste in his dress was quiet and faultless; he possessed the most refined and highly cultured mind of any man whom she had known; his family was exceedingly proud and aristocratic, but as far as there can be reason for these characteristics, this old and wealthy family had such reason. Laura certainly could not find fault with these traits, for from the first Mr. Beaumont's parents had sought to pay her especial attention. It was quite evident that they thought that the orphaned girl who was so richly dowered with wealth and beauty might make as good a wife for their matchless son as could be found, and such an opinion on their part was, indeed, a high compliment to Laura's birth and breeding. No one else in Hillaton would have been thought of with any equanimity.

The son was inclined to take the same view as that entertained by his parents, but, as the party most nearly interested, he felt it incumbent upon him to scrutinize very closely and deliberately the woman who might become his wife, and surely this was a sensible thing to do.

There was nothing mercenary or coarse in his delicate analysis and close observation. Far from it. Mr. Beaumont was the last man in the world to look a lady over as he would a bale of merchandise. More than all things else, Mr. Beaumont was a connoisseur, and he sought Mrs. Arnot's parlors with increasing frequency because he believed that he would there find the woman best fitted to become the chief ornament of the stately family mansion.

Laura had soon become conscious of this close tentative scrutiny, and at first she had been inclined to resent its cool deliberateness. But, remembering that a man certainly has a right to learn well the character of the woman whom he may ask to be his wife, she felt that there was nothing in his action of which she could complain; and it soon became a matter of pride with her, as much as anything else, to satisfy those fastidious eyes that hitherto had critically looked the world over, and in vain, for a pearl with a lustre sufficiently clear. She began to study his taste, to dress for him, to sing for him, to read his favorite authors; and so perfect was his taste that she found herself aided and enriched by it. He was her superior in these matters, for he had made them his life-study. The first hour that she spent with him in a picture-gallery was long remembered, for never before had those fine and artistic marks which make a painting great been so clearly pointed out to her. She was brought to believe that this man could lead her to the highest point of culture to which she could attain, and satisfy every refined taste that she possessed. It seemed as if he could make life one long gallery of beautiful objects, through which she might stroll in elegant leisure, ever conscious that lie who stood by to minister and explain was looking away from all things else in admiration of herself.

The prospect was too alluring. Laura was not an advanced female, with a mission; she was simply a young and lovely woman, capable of the noblest action and feeling should the occasion demand them, but naturally luxurious and beauty-loving in her tastes, and inclined to shun the prosaic side of life.

She made Beaumont feel that she also was critical and exacting. She had lived too long under Mrs. Arnot's influence to be satisfied with a man who merely lived for the pleasure he could get out of each successive day. He saw that she demanded that he should have a purpose and aim in life, and he skilfully met this requirement by frequently descanting on aesthetic culture as the great lever which could move the world, and by suggesting that the great question of his future was how he could best bring this culture to the people. As a Christian, she took issue with him as to its being the great lever, but was enthusiastic over it as a most powerful means of elevating the masses, and she often found herself dreaming over how much a man gifted with Mr. Beaumont's exquisite taste and large wealth could do by placing within the reach of the multitude objects of elevating art and beauty.

By a fine instinct she felt, rather than saw, that Mrs. Arnot did not specially like the seemingly faultless man, and was led to believe that her aunt's ideal knight was to be found among some of the heartier young men who were bent on doing good in the old-fashioned ways; and, with a tendency not unnatural in one so young and romantic, she thought of her aunt as being a bit old-fashioned and prosaic herself. In her youthful and ardent imagination Beaumont came to fill more and more definitely her ideal of the modern knight—a man who summed up within himself the perfect culture of his age, and who was proposing to diffuse that culture as widely as possible.

"You do not admire Mr. Beaumont," said Laura a little abruptly to her aunt one day.

"You are mistaken, Laura; I do admire him very much."

"Well, you do not like him, then, to speak more correctly; he takes no hold upon your sympathies."