Welcomed at the outset kindly by a society willing to forget the youthful faults of the handsome, clever boy, and let him in on probation to the outer edges of it, it was a singular fact that after all these years of apparent respectability he had made no further progress.
There are men who come out of crucial youthful experiences with a certain inner purity untouched; with an added reverence for goodness, and a strength of character all the greater for the sheer effort of retrieval; whose eyes are forever ashamed when they look back on the sins that were extraneous to the true nature, leaving it, save for the painful scars, clean and whole. With poor Lawson there had been, perhaps, some inherent flaw in which the poison lodged, to a deterioration, however delicate, of the whole tissue. It is strange—or, rather, it is not strange—that, in spite of respectability of life, with nothing whatever that was tangible to contravene it, this should have been thing each person is bound to make, irresponsive of what felt of Lawson Barr. An individual impression is the one he does, and the combined judgment of the members of an intelligent suburban community is very keen as to character, no matter how it differs in regard to actions. The standard of morality in such a section is high—it may indulge occasionally in the witticisms and literature of a lower scale, but in social relations the lesser order must go. “Shadiness” is damning. Lawson was not exactly “shady,” but he might be. No girl was ever supposed to fall in love with him, and a young man who was seen too intimately with him received a sort of reflected obloquy. Strangers whom he impressed favorably always asked, as Dosia did, “Why, what has he done?” And received the same reply Lois gave her: “Oh, nothing.”
“Isn’t he—nice?”
“Yes, nice enough, as far as that goes. He can’t seem to make a living; I don’t know why—he’s clever enough. There’s really nothing against him though, except that he was wild when he was a boy. I have heard that when he goes away on trips he—drinks. But Justin wouldn’t like me to say it; he hates to have people talked about in this way. Still—it’s just as well that you should know all about him.”
“Oh, yes,” said Dosia, in a tone personifying clear intelligence, yet in reality mystified. She felt at once indignant at the imputations thrown on Mr. Barr, and yet a little ashamed of having liked him, as something in bad taste.
As she saw him now in the doorway, she rather hoped that he wouldn’t come and speak to her at all; but the hope was vain, for, without apparently seeing her, he made his way through the room, at the cessation of the dance, and held out his ungloved hand for hers.
It is in one of George MacDonald’s stories that Curdie, the hero, tests everyone he meets by a hand-clasp, which unconsciously reveals the true nature to his magic sense; claws and paws and hoofs and the serpent’s writhe are plain to him. Since the walk in the darkness, Dosia involuntarily tested the feeling of palm to palm by the hand that had held hers then; the dreaming yet deep conviction was strong within her that some day she would meet and recognize her helper by that remembered touch, if in no other way. Mr. Barr’s hand was smooth, with long fingers, and a lingering, intimate clasp. Dosia drew hers away quickly, with a flush on her cheek, and then felt, as she met his coolly appraising eyes, that she had done something school-girlish and ill-bred.
“You did not come to see me, after all,” she said, when the first greeting was over, and could have bitten out her tongue for saying it.
“I regretted very much not being able to,” he replied, in a tone of conventional politeness. “I went West the next day, and have only just returned. You have been enjoying yourself, I hope?”
“Oh, immensely,” said Dosia, with exaggerated emphasis; “I couldn’t have had a better time, possibly.” Her eyes roved toward the people in front of them with studied inattention, although she was strangely conscious in every tingling fiber of the presence of the man by her side.