It was not because she was engaged to Frank Shirley. Under the code which Lady Dee had taught her that made simply no difference whatever. Under that code it was her duty to secure every man who came into her reach; she might remain uncertain in her own mind, she might continue to explore and experiment up to the very moment when the wedding ring was slipped upon her finger. Sylvia had never forgotten Aunt Lady’s vivid image: “Stand them up in a line, my child, and when you get ready, walk down the line and pick the one you want!”
She had set up a barrier before van Tuiver, and he pushed against it. The more firm she made it, the more he was moved to push. But suppose she gave way the least little bit, suppose he felt the barrier breaking—then would he not stop pushing, would he not shrink away? What fun to try him, to watch him hesitating, advancing and retreating, trembling with desire and with terror! To analyze the mixture of his longing and his caution, to add a little to the one or the other, and then see the result. Sylvia with a new man was like a chemist’s assistant, mixing strange liquids in a test-tube, possessed with a craze to know whether the precipitate would be red or green or yellow—and quite undeterred by the possibility of being blown through the skylight.
But tempting as was the game, she could not play it with Douglas van Tuiver. It was as if an angel stood between them with a flaming sword. Douglas van Tuiver was no subject for joke, he was not a man as other men—he was Royalty. With Royalty one must be stern and unfaltering. “Friendship comes first,” she had said; and though before that ride was over he had come again and again to the barrier, he never broke past it, nor felt any sign of its yielding to his touch.
§ 18
Sylvia was making her plans to leave in a couple of days. It was close to Commencement, and she would have liked to stay, but there had come a disturbing letter from home—the Major was not well, and there had been an overflow, entailing serious damage to the crops and still more serious cares. At such a time the family reached out blindly to Sylvia—no matter what was going wrong, they were sure it would go right if she were present.
And besides, her work at Harvard was done. This was duly certified to by Harley, who came to see her the next morning, in such a state of bliss as is not often vouchsafed to Freshmen. “It’s all right, old girl,” he said, “you can go whenever you get ready. You surely are a witch, Sylvia!”
“What has happened?” she asked.
“I had a call from Douglas van Tuiver last night.”
“You don’t mean it, Harley!”
“Yes. Did you ask him to do it?”