Vesta pitied her husband, but the disease was beyond her cure. She had anticipated some compensation for her marriage, in a larger life and society, and in the exercise of her mind, especially in art and music; yet these were purely social things with woman, and the baneful hat was ever darkening her threshold and closing the vista of every other one. She meditated escaping from it by a visit to Europe, which her father had promised her before his embarrassments, and which had been spoken of by Mr. Milburn as due her in the way of musical perfection.
"Uncle," Rhoda Holland said one day, "do put off that old hat. Aunt Vesta could love you so much better! People think it is cruel, uncle. Oh, listen to your wife's heart and not to your pride."
"Stop!" said Milburn. "One more reference to my honest hat and you shall be sent back to Sinepuxent and Mrs. Somers."
It may have been this dreadful threat, or rising ambition, or the fascinations of Judge Custis's position and attentions and remarkable gallantry, that disposed Rhoda to turn her worldly sagacity upon the father of her friend.
The visit to Annapolis occupied the whole winter; as it proceeded, Judge Custis, suppressing the temptations of the table, and feeling his later responsibilities thoughtfully, and desirous of a fixed settlement in a home again, felt a powerful passion to possess Rhoda Holland.
He contended against it in vain. Her beauty and coquetry, and ambition, too, seized his fancy, and worked strongly upon his imagination. He had seen her grow from a forest rose to be the noblest flower of the garden, superb in health, rich in colors, tall and bright and warm, and easily aware of her conquests, and with a magical touch and encouragement. She began to lead him on from mere mischief. He was wise, and observant of women, and he threw himself in the place of her instructor and courtier. She became his pupil, and an exacting one, driving his energies onward, demanding his full attention, stimulating his mind; and Vesta soon saw that her father was a blind captive in the cool yet self-fluttered meshes of her connection.
"Is there any law, husband," Vesta asked, "to prevent Rhoda marrying Judge Custis?"
"I think not. There is no consanguinity. In a society where every degree of cousins marry together, it would be as gratuitous to interfere in such a marriage as to forbid my hat by law."
"He is so enamoured of her," said Vesta, "that I fear the results of her refusing him upon his habits. Father is a better man than he ever was: a wife that can retain his interest will now keep him steady all his life."
The adjournment of the Legislature was at hand; another year, and perhaps years unforeseen in number, were to be occupied in the same slow, illusive quest.