A SCENE BENEATH THE HEMLOCKS
Roger sat out on the dusky piazza of the hotel, looking into the large parlor through open windows which came to the floor, bent on making the most of such glimpses as he could obtain of the world to which he felt that Mildred belonged by right. He saw clearly that she would appear well and at home amid such surroundings. A young and elegantly dressed woman crossed the wide apartment, and he muttered, "Your carriage is very fine and fashionable, no doubt, but Miss Jocelyn would have added grace and nature to your regulation gait." He watched the groups at the card-tables with a curious interest, and the bobbing heads of gossiping dowagers and matrons; he compared the remarkable "make up," as he phrased it, of some of them with the unredeemed plainness of his mother's Sunday gown. "Neither the one nor the other is in good taste," he thought. "Mrs. Jocelyn dresses as I intend my mother shall some day." He coolly criticised a score or more of young men and women who were chatting, promenading, flitting through the open windows out upon the piazza and back again into the light, as a small stringed orchestra struck into a lively galop or the latest waltz. He saw a general mustering of the younger guests, even down to the boys and girls, for the lancers, and followed one and another that caught his eye through the mazy intricacies, making little gestures of disgust at those who seemed outre and peculiar in manner and appearance, and regarding with the closest observation such as exhibited a happy mean between a certain rusticity and awkwardness with which he was well acquainted, and a conventional artificiality which was to him all the more unnatural and absurd because his perception was not dulled by familiarity with society's passing whims.
The young stranger whom Mr. Jocelyn had repulsed, and who was the real object of his quest, did not appear among the pleasure-seekers, nor could he discover him on the piazza, in the billiard-room, or in other places of resort. At last in much disappointment he returned to his seat, from which he commanded a view of the parlor; and scarcely had he done so before the one he sought mounted the steps near him as if returning from a stroll in the hotel grounds, threw away his cigar, and entered an open window with the same graceful, listless saunter witnessed in the afternoon. He crossed the wide apartment with as much ease and nonchalance as if it had been empty, and sat down on a sofa by a somewhat stout and very elegantly apparelled gentlewoman.
Roger never thought of accounting for the intensity of his interest in this stranger—the young rarely analyze their feelings—but, obedient to an impulse to learn this man's power to win the favor of one so unapproachable by himself, he scanned with keenest scrutiny everything in his appearance and manner, and sought eagerly to gauge his character.
He felt instinctively that the "cold-blooded snob," as Mr. Jocelyn had characterized him, was of the very opposite type to his own. His graceful saunter, which, nevertheless, possessed a certain quiet dignity, suggested a burdensome leisure and an utter lack of purpose to go anywhere or do anything. He dropped on the sofa rather than sat down. The lady at his side spoke rather decidedly to him, and he answered briefly without even looking at her. By and by she spoke again, more energetically; he then slowly arose, approached a young woman sitting near, who in response to something he said sprang up with alacrity, and they glided away in the waltz with an ease and grace scarcely equalled by the others upon the floor. After a few moments they circled around very near Roger's post of observation, and he was able to scan both the features and expression of the man whom he felt inclined to hate. But he was disarmed and perplexed, for the stranger showed no more pleasure or animation than would a fallen leaf that was swept here and there by varying eddies of wind. He kept time and step with perfect accuracy, but evidently from such complete familiarity with the form that he gave it not a thought. He danced as easily as a bird flies, avoiding the others without appearing to notice them. No color came from the exercise, no light kindled in his face. His expression was not blase or cynical, but weary and dejected; the melancholy in his large brown eyes was all the more striking from contrast with the music, the lighted room, and an amusement suggesting gayety. Pale, utterly unresponsive to the brilliant and mirthful scenes, he glided ghost-like here and there, and before very long seated his companion by the elderly woman whose urgency had led to his automaton-like performance. Then with a slight bow he passed through a window near and disappeared. The two lades spoke together for a few moments and seemed annoyed, and Roger now noted such a resemblance between them as to suggest that they were mother and daughter.
He had seen sufficient to satisfy him, and he went away muttering, "There isn't enough of him to hate; he's but the shadow of a man. She fancy him! I couldn't have believed it; I can't account for it, unless he's very gifted in mind or very different when with her. This must be true, and he would be a mummy indeed if she couldn't wake him up."
Roger rode home, however, ill at ease. "He hasn't forgotten her if he has given her up on account of her poverty," he thought. "He could see as well as I that there was no one there who could compare with her; but he mopes instead of trying to win her. If he can dance, why can't he work? I've no reason to complain, however, and I thank my stars that I have muscle and a will. In the meantime I shall come up here and study your tricks of manner, my elegant nonentity. I believe in force. Force moves the world and carries a man through it; but I now see that it should be well-managed and well-mannered force. Miss Jocelyn compares me with you, and I seem to her uncouth, unfinished, and crude in the extreme. Litheness and grace need not take an atom from my strength, and the time shall come when I will not fear comparisons. I'll win her yet with your own weapons."
Roger's dreams proved that his sympathies with the melancholy stranger were not very deep, and that his idea of the survival of the fittest was the survival of the strongest. His human nature at that time was of the old Saxon type, that went directly for what it wanted, without much thought or sentiment for those weak enough to lose.
Although it was rather late before he reached home, he found his mother, Mrs. Jocelyn, and Mildred waiting for him in the sitting-room.
"What kept you so?" Mrs. Atwood exclaimed.