"It is energy that you young men lack," she admonished him in a sweet, deferential tone. "Energy! Chalk it up on the fences, and spell it out as you saunter along these dull little country lanes."
Albert thought best to treat it as a joke, but that only made her more earnest. Then he changed his tactics, and met the reproach by a degree of pathetic admission that unsettled her.
She found it a fascinating pastime to chide this handsome idler for making little use of his abilities and she longed to be able to exert a strongly stimulating influence. But when he told her that, on the whole, he enjoyed his life as it was and had no wish to change it, that there was virtue in contentment and that he appreciated his lot, much as she seemed to despise it——
"I didn't say I despised it!" she exclaimed, abashed, her airy ambitions seeming for an instant less grand. But when she looked at her young Alcibiades, lost in the luxury of peace, she pined to send him forth among men to do battle for the things men care to win. And yet the girl had such tact that her touch did not irritate. The young Southerner felt her thrilling tones move him pleasantly; she cooled his languid breath like a fresh North wind coming in the summer heat. Throughout, his face wore the same look of rich, indolent peace. One day, however, he opened his splendid, dark eyes wide, and asked her just what she would have a man do to prove himself a man.
Miss Stretton was as vague and inexperienced as women usually are who urge extraordinary feats upon men in whom they are interested. But not to seem foolish, she took the matter into consideration.
"I'll give you time," he said, laughing when she hesitated, "but—you have been so hard on me, Miss Julia, that I really must press the question home."
After this she listened to the reports about him, and heard much of his sweet temper under provocation—to which, she owned, she herself could testify—of his kindness of heart, his courage, his goodness to his feeble mother. The country people relied upon him; his moral character was spotless. Yet, even while she learned to admire him, she was not satisfied. Seeing her gem thus proved real, made her the more determined to bring out its luster.
His question was carried gravely in her mind, and she forbore to resume the subject until she could say something wise and practical.
They met often, there were so many affairs during the summer to bring them together, hops, drives, and picnics, and then the camp-meetings, which brought out all the county. She saw him sometimes in attendance on his mother there, always gentlemanly and good, where the other boys were openly rowdy. She saw him in the store, always patient with the freaks of customers and with the cross humors of his uncle.
And one day she met him (and her heart was touched) carrying along the road a little crying child, whose bare toes were crinkled up with the hurt from a sharp stone. The ragamuffin sat perched upon the broad shoulder and peered down at the lady with eyes of cerulean blue. He hugged his friend a little closer but with undiminished confidence. Albert colored slightly, but walked along beside the stylish girl without apologizing for his burden.