“One is so conspicuous up there,” she said, glancing with distrust at’ the waiting tandem. “No; let us walk to the end of the parade. There we can sit down, and I will tell you all I know about the fire, and, if my advice is worth anything, you shall have it. After that you must let me walk to the school alone.” Barney was forced to content himself with this, and he reluctantly ordered the groom to take the horses to the stables.
The two walked along the parade to the most sheltered seat, where they sat down together. The young man’s mind was in a whirl; the coldness of his reception excited him, and made him fearful of losing what he had thought, up to that time, was his for the asking.
He proposed to the girl, and was rejected.
CHAPTER XXVII.
There is an idea prevalent that the young women of our land welcome addresses which the golden youth of the opposite sex urge upon their consideration, and that a girl’s happiness augments in proportionate ratio as the number of the proposals bestowed upon her increases. This, however, is merely a supposition, and there are unfortunately no statistics to which an historian, anxious to be accurate in statement, may turn in order to substantiate or overthrow this almost universally held opinion. It is to be regretted that the census, which gathers together in tabulated form so many interesting facts pertaining to the race, gives no attention to this particular subdivision of human data; and that, so far from being able to form any definite estimate of the feeling with which a girl welcomes the undoubted compliment of a marriage offer, we are left in the dark as to the average number of proposals a woman receives, say, between the ages of seventeen and thirty-seven. An inquisitive government which does not hesitate to ask a woman every ten years to set down her age in black and white seems, strangely enough, to shrink from inquiring into a vital question on which the future well-being of a nation largely depends; thus no one can positively state that matrimonial advances are held in high estimation by their recipients, clinching the proposition by referring the doubter to Blue Book such a number and such a page.
It being thus impossible to generalize, the careful writer is compelled to fall back on individual instances, and it must be set down that Edna Sartwell, so far from being happy or elated over the fact that two young men within one week had asked her to share their varying fortunes, walked hurriedly back to the school, filled with terror and dismay. On the very threshold of womanhood she had suddenly and unexpectedly been brought face to face with a state of things which made her wish to shrink back into the untroubled tranquillity of the life she had hitherto led. These two disquieting events, following one so closely on the other, loomed up in undue proportion to their importance, and threatened to overshadow the future. It seemed an appalling thing that the fate of two men should be placed at her disposal; that on her shoulders should be cast the great responsibility of deciding, unaided, a momentous question with far-reaching consequences. And if the first two young men with whom she became acquainted acted thus, what was to be expected from the numerous host she was still likely to meet? A pathway strewn with broken hearts offered no allurements to the feet of the young traveller; a life lived in an atmosphere of deep sighs was intolerable. The girl was frightened at the outlook, which was all the more bewildering because only partly understood. “It is often as important to classify your problem as to solve it,” her father had once said to her; but solution or classification appeared equally difficult to her.
Barney had taken his rejection badly. He made no attempt to conceal the fact that his life was blighted; that he would re-enter the world a changed man, but heroically determined to make the most out of the wreck. The austere, rugged road that now lay before him, unbrightened by love or human sympathy, he would walk with grim, if sombre, resolution; brushing aside the frivolities of existence; setting his face with sullen but dogged persistence towards the cheerless journey of life; hoping for no recompense except that perhaps he might have the consolation of knowing that he left the world a trifle better for having lived in it.
Inexperienced as she was, Edna could not help contrasting the actions of Hope and Marsten, not altogether to the disadvantage of the latter. There was no question in her mind that Marsten had in reality an up-hill road to travel; yet he had gone into no heroics about it, and he asked nothing but that she should remember him. She had been sorry she could give no encouraging word to Marsten; but Barney made her feel somehow that she was to blame in his case, and that he was an ill-used man. Then, it was difficult to realize the serious nature or hardship of Barney’s future career, when every one knew he had more money than was good for him. Some thought of this seemed to occur to Barney himself at the time, for he spoke bitterly and contemptuously of his wealth, and of how it handicapped him; however, he was going to give it all away when he came into his full fortune, and start the world afresh, winning his laurels and what little cash would suffice for his frugal needs, with his good right arm, assisted presumably by his paintbrushes; so in the face of this noble resolution it would have been unfair to censure him for the possession of riches he had had no hand in accumulating.