And indeed she was; for her face, ordinarily so imperious, was now softly alight; her eyes, which other men found cold, were kindled with a rare warmth of understanding; her smile was almost wistfully sweet. To her lover she seemed to bend beneath the burden of her brown hair, yet her slim figure had the strength and poise which come of fine physical inheritance and high spirit. Every gesture, every unstudied attitude, revealed the grace of the well born woman.
It was this "air" of hers, in fact, which had originally attracted him. He recalled how excited he had been in that far-away time when he had first learned her identity—for the name of Wayland was spoken soundingly in the middle West. In the early stages of their acquaintance he had looked upon her aloofness as an affectation, but a close intimacy had compelled a recognition of it as something wholly natural; he found her as truly a patrician as Wayne Wayland, her father, could wish. The old man's domain was greater than that of many princes, and his power more absolute. His only daughter he spoiled as thoroughly as he ruled his part of the financial world, and wilful Mildred, once she had taken an interest in the young college man so evidently ready to be numbered among her lovers, did not pause half way, but made her preference patent to all, and opened to him a realm of dazzling possibilities. He well remembered the perplexities of those first delirious days when her regard was beginning to make itself apparent. She was so different, so wonderfully far removed from all he knew, that he doubted his own senses.
His friends, indeed, lost no opportunity of informing him that he was a tremendously favored young man, but this phase of the affair had caused him little thought, simply because the girl herself had come so swiftly to overshadow, in his regard, every other consideration—even her own wealth and position. At the same time he could not but be aware that his standing in his little world was subtly altered as soon as he became known as the favored suitor of Wayne Wayland's daughter. He began to receive favors from comparative strangers; unexpected social privileges were granted him; his way was made easier in a hundred particulars. From every quarter delicately gratifying distinctions came to him. Without his volition he found that he had risen to an entirely different position from that which he had formerly occupied; the mere coupling of his name with Mildred Wayland's had lifted him into a calcium glare. It affected him not at all, he only knew that he was truly enslaved to the girl, that he idolized her, that he regarded her as something priceless, sacred. She, in turn, frankly capitulated to him, in proud disregard of what her world might say, as complete in her surrender to this new lover as she had been inaccessible in her reserve toward all the rest.
And when he had graduated, how proud of her he had been! How little he had realized the gulf that separated them, and how quick had been his awakening!
It was Wayne Wayland who had shown him his folly. He had talked to the young engineer kindly, if firmly, being too shrewd an old diplomat to fan the flame of a headstrong love with vigorous opposition.
"Mildred is a rich girl," the old financier had told Boyd, "a very rich girl; one of the richest girls in this part of the world; while you, my boy—what have you to offer?"
"Nothing! But you were not always what you are now," Emerson had replied. "Every man has to make a start. When you married, you were as poor as I am."
"Granted! But I married a poor girl, from my own station in life. Fortunately she had the latent power to develop with me as I grew; so that we kept even and I never outdistanced her. But Mildred is spoiled to begin with. I spoiled her purposely, to prevent just this sort of thing. She is bred to luxury, her friends are rich, and she doesn't know any other kind of life. Her tastes and habits and inclinations are extravagant, to put it plainly—yes, worse than extravagant; they are positively scandalous. She is about the richest girl in the country, and by virtue of wealth as well as breeding she is one of the American aristocracy. Oh! people may say what they please, but we have an aristocracy all the same which is just as well marked and just as exclusive as if it rested upon birth instead of bank accounts."
"You wouldn't object to our marriage if I were rich and Mildred were poor," Emerson had said, rather cynically.
"Perhaps not. A poor girl can marry a rich man and get along all right if she has brains; but a very rich girl can't marry a very poor man and be happy unless she is peculiarly constituted. I happen to know that my girl isn't so constituted. She is utterly impossible as a poor man's wife. She can't do anything: she can't economize, she can't amuse herself, she can't be happy without the things she is accustomed to; it is in her blood and training and disposition. She would try, bless you! she would try all right—for a while—but I know her better than she knows herself. You see, I have the advantage of knowing myself and of having known her mother before her. She is a hothouse flower, and adversity would wither her. Mind you, I don't say that her husband must be a millionaire, but he will need a running start on the road to make her happy, and—well, the fellow who gets my girl will make her happy or I'll make him damned miserable!" The old fellow had squared his jaws belligerently at this statement.