Jack was a hobbledehoy son of the house, almost as much as Vincent. Kate, too, was, he felt certain, treated with a reserve not shown to Mrs. Sprague or Merry. Brooding on this, brooding on the unhappiness of his own disposition, which denied him the privilege of enjoying the best at the moment, indifferent to what might be behind, Wesley had come to hate the Atterburys for the burden of an obligation that he could never lift. He hated Mrs. Atterbury for her high-bred, easy ignoring of all conditions save those that she exacted. He hated Rosa for her gayety, her absorption in the young scamp Dick. He hated Vincent because he seemed to think there was no one in the North but the Spragues worthy of a moment's consideration. It is in hate as in love—what we seek we find. Every innocent word and sign that passed in the group, in which he did not seek to make himself one, Wesley construed as a gird at him or his family. Constantly on the watch for slights or disparagements, the most thoughtless acts of the two groups were taken by the tormented egotist as in some sense a disparagement to his own good repute or his family standing.
Nor were the marked affection and confidence shown Kate by everybody in the house a mitigation of this malign fabric of humiliation. Jack's fondness for Kate had not escaped the observant eyes of Dick, who had confided the secret to Rosa, who had likewise unraveled it to mamma, and, as she kept nothing from Vincent, the Atterburys had that sort of interest in Kate that intimate spectators always show in love affairs, where there are no clashing interests involved. It was a moot question, however, between the three, when, after weeks of observation, Mrs. Atterbury declared that Jack was not in love with Miss Boone. "He can't be," she declared. "He doesn't seek her alone; he doesn't make up to her in the evening. Half the time when they come together it is by Dick's arrangement. He seems to be in love with Kate."
"How absurd!" Rosa cried, with a laugh; "a boy like him! Why, he would be in school, if there were no war."
"Well, Rosa, I fancy that Dick hasn't found war very much different from school, so far. He seems to recite a good deal to the mistress, and occupies the dunce's block quite regularly," Vincent retorted, with a provoking significance that set mamma in a brown study and suspended the comments on Kate's and Jack's probable sentiments.
Mrs. Sprague and Wesley were the only people in the house who had no suspicion of a deeper feeling than mere passing goodfellowship between Jack and Kate. Both were blinded by the same confidence. The mother could never conceive a son of the house of Sprague making such a breach on the family traditions as a union with a Boone. Wesley could not conceive a sister of his giving her heart to the son of a family that had insolently refused to concede social equality to her father. Something of Wesley's miserable inner unrest could not fail to be visible to the Atterburys, but the less congenial he became the more watchfully considerate they made their treatment of him. He was their guest, with all the sacred rights and immunities that quality implies, in the exaggerated code of the Southern host. Kate was the single power that Wesley had bent his headstrong will before, ever since he was a boy. His father he obeyed, while in his presence, trusting to wheedling to make his peace in the event of disobedience. But Kate he couldn't wheedle.
She was relentless in her scorn for his meannesses and follies, and, though he did not always heed her counsels, he proved their justness by finding his own course wrong. Kate, however, hesitated about remonstrating with him on his deepening moodiness, for she was not quite sure whether it was mad jealousy of Dick's favor in Rosa's eyes, or a secret purpose to attempt to fly from the gentle bondage of Rosedale. Wesley with Rosa it was remarked by Kate, was, or seemed to be, his better self, or rather better than the self with which others identified him. It was, however, she feared, more to torment Dick, than because she found Wesley to her liking, that the little maid often carried the moody captain off into the garden, pretending to teach him the varied flora of that blooming domain. Dick remarked these excursions with growing impatience, and visited his anger upon Rosa in protests so pungent and woe-begone that she was forced to own to him that she only pretended an interest in the captain, so that he might not think he was shut out of the confidence of the circle.
"And who cares if he does think he is shut out, I should like to know?
He is a sneak, and I don't like to have you talking with him alone,"
Dick cries, quite in the tone of the Benedict who has passed the
marriage-portal and feels safe to make his will known.
"I should like to know what right you have to order what I shall or shall not do?" Rosa protests, half angry, half laughing. "Why, you talk like a grown man—like a husband. How dare you?"
Dick pauses confused, and looks guiltily about at this.
"Ah, if you put it that way I have no right except this: My whole heart is yours. You know that. You may not have given me all yours." (Protesting shrug from Rosa's shoulders.) "Well, all the same; if my heart is all your own you have a duty in the case. You ought to spare your own property from pain." (Rosa laughs softly.) "Of course you are right. You are always right. How could such a beautiful being be wrong!" The artful rogue slips his arm about her waist at this, and, after a feeble struggle, he is permitted to hold this outwork unprotested.