“No, dear one, you must not make her unhappy by an inexplicable change of manner. Do you not think she is really in love with you?”
“There is no doubt of that,” he said, with a touch of vanity, for he was but human, and to see this woman, who had caused him so many “pangs of despised love,” now wholly and helplessly enamored of him, was a triumph bearing in it a poetic justice, a healing sweetness, impossible to resist. He had not desired that any one should occupy his heart but his wife; for theirs had been a love worth preserving in its freshness. He really desired so to preserve it; and therefore he would have been consistent if, upon the first signs of Ella’s passion for him, he had shown her something of his devotion to his wife. It might not have been gallant, according to the creed of men, but it would at least have been profoundly wise. Women instinctively yield to any securely enthroned rival; perhaps men know this, and hence they so rarely show one woman that they love any object specially, or even act in a manner that will let such fact pass for granted. This is generally true of men in whose temper there is a latent melancholy. They are passionately attracted to their opposites, to those who are gay and happy, and therefore they would fly from suffering, even when they themselves are the cause of it.
Clara found in the bliss caused by Albert’s spasmodic return to his old tenderness, an adequate compensation for deferring her visit to Oakdale. She expressed earnestly the wish to please Albert in all things.
“My darling,” he said, “you can please me always if you will remain in this sweet mood. Only be happy, and there will be no more clouds.”
“But my moods, dear one, depend upon you. How can a dethroned queen be happy? No: I mean,” she added quickly, “when her throne is in danger. You know I am not jealous and selfish. I would have all women love you, and I would stay by myself without a murmur, if you wish to ride, or walk, or flirt with them, for nature has made you very gallant and fond of the incense of admiration. I only would feel certain that I hold my old place—mine by right of loving you more than any other can, as you have always admitted. There is something in the confident air of Ella when she speaks to you in my presence, that distresses me; makes me feel that you have not shown her my true place in your heart. Have you, dearest?”
Albert knew he had not. To have said yes, would certainly have been false, and he had a repugnance to direct falsehood. The position was awkward, but he managed to satisfy Clara, and in a most heavenly frame of mind she sent him to tell Ella that she had decided to put off going to Oakdale for the present.
CHAPTER XXV.
LETTERS.—A CONVERSATION.
“Oakdale, June 25, 18—.
“My Dear Girl: I have just come from Mrs. Buzzell’s. It is about the happiest family I ever knew. The baby flourishes like a weed, and is as pretty a child as you would wish to see, and actually resembles your mother so much that everybody remarks it. This is a piece of poetic justice that makes me grin with delight. She ignores still the existence of Susie, the child, and good Mrs. Buzzell; but she is the only one who hears anything from Dan. He is in San Francisco, and wears a huge diamond. That is all I know of my only son.
“Susie’s new establishment for flower culture is a perennial delight. She has written you, so you are doubtless posted as to the money she made last winter. Everything promises well for the next. She is bound to succeed, and if she had capital, could build up a fine business; but what is better than all, is the fact that she has outgrown all her heart-aches, and is really and truly happy. See, my girl, what we have done for her! When we remember how ignorant she was, how deficient in any moral or other training, and therefore how certain to be guided by her emotions, if we had ‘passed by on the other side,’ like the rest, she might have been damned beyond salvation; yet still I doubt it after all. She reads a great deal, and is the best patron of the new circulating library. ‘Give me a list of books,’ she said to me, ‘that you know are good. If I select for myself I shall waste time, and I want to make up for what I have lost.’ Some people would call this lack of individuality, but the fact is, it is real wisdom. Life is too short to read all the books of unknown and new authors. Let them sift through the ten million general readers of the country. If anything is too big to go through the sieve, there will be a noise about it, and then it is time for the discriminate to take it up. Susie devours history, biography, travels, and entertains me greatly by her fresh comments upon them. She has not yet complained of my selection being too serious for her. You see, I keep a copy of my lists, and when I think the pabulum too nutritious, I throw in a few lollypops in the shape of novels, though I don’t mean to include all novels under that head. Have you read George Eliot’s last? I ask, because I would have you not only read, but read very carefully, everything she writes. In my opinion she is the closest observer and the profoundest thinker among women to-day. Susie has an appreciation of her that is delightful to me. You know, of course, that I am teaching Susie French and natural philosophy. Upon my word, I think I missed my calling. I should have been a teacher of girls—women I should say, for girls are only interesting because they are women in posse.