“You shouldn’t talk so! You must remember that I’m letting you be good to me, kinder and more helpful than any one ever was before to anybody, just because you said you couldn’t be happy any other way.”
“Yes; I’m going to lead a different life,” he said ironically. “It doesn’t pay to cherish the viper of enmity in one’s bosom. But I suppose there’s a certain fun in hating people, even though you never get a chance to even up with them.”
“You still have a little lingering paganism in you, mon oncle. But it’s disappearing. Olive tells me that you and Captain Pollock have quite hit it off. You certainly were nasty to him. He ought to have called you out and made you fight for the snubbings you gave him.”
“Bah! I’m a little absent-minded, that’s all.” But Merriam smiled when he remembered Pollock. “By the way, I’ve accepted his invitation for to-morrow afternoon to drive out to the post site with him, I believe you are asked? And Olive and Morris? Which wing of our family is Pollock trying to break into, will you kindly tell me? He has shown you rather marked attention, it seems to me.”
“You are quite likely to have a niece in the army. I fancy that it’s all arranged; of course, it’s been Olive all the time. She hasn’t told me yet,—but she doesn’t have to tell me!”
“You don’t say! I had no idea of it. I was troubled last winter for fear—”
“It was foolish of you. I flattered myself for an absurd little while,” she added mockingly, “that he might see something pleasing in me; but, alas and alack! Olive stole him away from me, and she didn’t have very hard work doing it, either. But you will help me to start Olive off happily, won’t you? You know there’s nobody to do anything for her except us. I think she ought to have a church wedding, and you could give the bride away and Aunt Julia could have a wedding breakfast or a large reception for her—all to show the community that we Merriams are really a united family. Maybe Olive will have a military wedding! The prospect is positively thrilling. In any event, you will do your very nicest for her, won’t you?”
“I don’t see any way out of it,” he said, in a tone that was wholly kind. “Olive is a pretty girl and a sensible one. If she’s going to be married, I’ll let you buy my wedding present for her. Good-by.”
It rained the next day and Pollock telephoned to the members of his party that the excursion would be postponed. Zelda hoped that Olive would come up to the house, and when the bell rang she thought it was her cousin and called to the black Angeline, who still acted as Polly’s assistant, to bring Miss Merriam directly up stairs. But it was Morris Leighton whom the girl announced.
“I’ll be down in a moment,” she said, but she waited, sitting at the table, where she had so often pondered great and little matters during the year, a troubled look upon her face, considering many things. The fact that her mother and Morris’s father had once been lovers, as blurted out by her father in his rage and confirmed by her uncle, had impressed her profoundly; she was not a morbid girl, but there seemed something uncanny in the story, and she had determined that Morris should never again speak words of love to her. It was all too pitiful; she had no right to any happiness that Morris might bring her; and here again her mother’s memory seemed to follow and lay a burden upon her. She was sorry that she had not asked the maid to excuse her, but it was too late and she went down to the parlor with foreboding in her heart.