A Young Girl's Wooing

by Edward Payson Roe

"Oh, Mr. Muir, I know you mean most generously and kindly, but papa is so anxious and fearful! He tries to keep up before others, but I know how he feels, and it's terrible. He is past middle age, and business success means very much to him. How can I do anything to harm him? I know so little about business and its perils, while papa thinks there may be terrible dangers ahead for every one. You might have the good-will to help us and yet soon be scarcely able to help yourself. I have been made to feel that the best I could do through these troublous times was to try to aid papa as far as possible, and then I shouldn't have anything with which to reproach myself."

Graydon was perplexed. Apparently she was doing wrong in the most self-sacrificing spirit, and believed that doing right, which would end her abnegation, was wrong and selfish.

While he hesitated, she resumed: "You see, Graydon, papa has the same as said that Mr. Arnault was tiding him over until he could realize on securities now of little value. Of course there has been no compromising understanding in words—do not think us capable of that. It would cut me to the heart to have you misjudge me or condemn me. I will give you the highest proof I can of my—my—esteem by being frank on a delicate subject, so that you can see how I am placed. I don't think many young ladies would do as much. Of course what I say is sacred between us. Mr. Arnault offered himself long since, and I promptly declined the honor, but he laughingly told me he would take no refusal, and chatted through the rest of the evening as pleasantly as if nothing had happened. I have virtually refused him several times since, but he persists, declaring that he will remain an agreeable friend until I change my mind. Surely, I am not misleading him. I do like him as a friend, and he knows that I have for him no other regard, and never had. Before you came he had begun to help papa, and to throw business in his way, and just now he is rendering him very great service. He may do this in the hope of influencing me, but he gives his aid without conditions. Yet I know him well enough to be sure that he would withdraw this business help should I now harshly dismiss him or engage myself to another. While I do show him that I appreciate his kindness, I do nothing to indicate that my feeling is changed. He must know that I regard him in the same light as in the past. If he is content with this, I have asked myself why I should be precipitate—why alienate him now in the very crisis of papa's affairs. Of course if I had only myself to think of—I've been foolish enough to think that I might help papa and still be happy in the end. Am I so very naughty, Graydon?"

He was at a loss how to answer her, but felt that he must at once disabuse her mind of one expectation.

"I admit, Stella," he said, thoughtfully, "that you are peculiarly placed, and I thank you for making clearer what I had partially surmised. While I admire and respect the motive, I must still repeat that I regret beyond all words such action in one who is so much to me. It is right also that I should define my own position more clearly. I will imitate your generous frankness. You know how greatly I admired you before I first went abroad; and while I felt that there was little chance for me, you being sought by so many, I did not give up hope. This hope was strengthened by my visit last summer, and when I returned and found you free a few weeks since I determined to win you if I could. You know I would have spoken before had you permitted. I have for some little time felt myself irrevocably bound by what has passed between us. I also believed that you would eventually give me a full explanation in regard to Mr. Arnault, and that his attentions would cease. As to my not being able to take care of you, that is absurd. I am not wealthy yet, but few young men in the city have better prospects. My brother's business is large and profitable, and I am soon to share in it. I could not, from the nature of things, enter into business relations with your father—I should not be at the head of the firm—but neither you nor yours should ever want. As to my brother, he is in no financial danger whatever. He has a large fortune, and is conservatism itself. If you are placed in an embarrassing position, I am also. Arnault's manner is not that of a friend. Others misjudge you and me also. It looks to the people here, and to my own family, as if you were playing with us both.

"Moreover," he continued, after a moment's thought, "you are drifting into a false relation with Arnault, although you may not be conscious of it. Before these troubles began you simply tolerated his attentions good-naturedly, and without any special motive. Now you have a definite motive and purpose, and—pardon me, Stella—they are misleading him. He would not continue his attentions an hour, did he believe they were utterly hopeless. To Arnault and all others you appear undecided between him and myself. Such an experiment as you are trying cannot work well. If he has any other power beyond that of your maidenly preference, he will not hesitate to increase it, and may make your father more utterly dependent upon him while appearing helpful."

"Yes; I have thought of that," she said, musingly.

"There seems to me but one straightforward, high-toned thing for you to do, Stella, and that is to follow your heart."

He was almost frightened at himself that he spoke with so little eagerness and longing. His words seemed but the honorable and logical sequence of what had gone before. For some reason this girl in the broad light of day did not appear to be the same as when she had fascinated him in the witching moonlight the evening before. It was not that her beauty had gone with the glamour of the night, but he had been breathing a different and a purer atmosphere. Madge had been revealing what to him seemed ideal womanhood.

In regard to Stella his illusion had so far passed that he thought, consciously, "Even at her best she is presenting Wildmere traits; her very self-sacrifice takes on a Wildmere form, and there is a flavor of Wall Street in it all."