In pained surprise Mrs. Herbert, a woman of great ambition, had endured five years of this kind of life; with unspeakable bitterness of spirit she had seen the once potent name of Daniel Herbert disappear from the newspapers, and then she had died.
On her death the general became a rich and, in a way, a free man, for now he could, without the silent protest of his wife, recover the neglected lore of wood and field, and practise forgotten arts that had in his boyhood come under the elastic head of chores. Elizabeth, his daughter, had never shared her mother's ambitions. Perhaps because she had always had it she cared nothing for society. She was well content to ride about the farm with her father, whom she greatly admired, and at whose eccentricities she only smiled.
In this agreeable comradeship with his daughter, General Herbert had lived through the period of his bereavement with very tolerable comfort. He had rendered the dead the dead's due of regretful tenderness; but Elizabeth never asked him when he was going to make his reëntry into politics; and she never reproached him with having wasted the very best years of his life in trying to make four hundred acres of scientifically farmed land show a profit, a feat he had not yet accomplished.
Quitting the highway, North turned in at two stone pillars that marked the entrance to Idle Hour and walked rapidly up the maple-lined driveway to the great arched vestibule that gave to the house the appearance of a Norman-French château.
Answering the summons of the bell, a maid ushered him into the long drawing-room, and into the presence of the general and his daughter. The former received North with a perceptible shade of reserve. He knew more about the young man than he would have cared to tell his daughter, since he believed it would be better for her to make her own discoveries where North was concerned. He had not opposed his frequent visits to Idle Hour, for he felt that if Elizabeth was interested in the young fellow opposition would only strengthen it. Glancing at North as he greeted Elizabeth, the general admitted that whatever he might be, he was presentable, indeed good-looking, handsome. Why hadn't he done something other than make a mess of his life! He wondered, too, wishing to be quite fair, if North had not been the subject of a good deal of unmerited censure, if, after all, his idleness had not been the worst thing about him. He hoped this might be true. Still he regretted that Elizabeth should have allowed their boy and girl friendship—they had known each other always—to grow into a closer intimacy.
In the minds of these two men there was absolute accord on one point. Either would have said that Elizabeth Herbert's beauty was a supreme endowment, and more nearly perfect than the beauty of any other woman. She was slender, not tall, but poised and graceful with a distinction of bearing that added to her inches. Her hair was burnished copper and her coloring the tint of warm ivory with the sunlight showing through. North gazed at her as though he would store in his memory the vision of her loveliness. Then they walked out to the dining-room.
The dinner was rather a somber feast. North felt the restraint of the general's presence; he sensed his disfavor; and with added bitterness he realized that this was his last night in Mount Hope, that the morrow would find him speeding on his way West. He had given up everything for nothing, and now that a purpose, a hope, a great love had come to him, he must go from this place, the town of his birth, where he had become a bankrupt in both purse and reputation.
It was a relief when they returned to the drawing-room. There the general excused himself, and North and Elizabeth were left alone. She seated herself before the open fire of blazing hickory logs, whose light, and that of the shaded lamps, filled the long room with a soft radiance. She had never seemed so desirable to North as now when he was about to leave her. He stood silent, leaning against the corner of the chimneypiece, looking down on all her springlike radiance. Usually he was neither preoccupied nor silent, but to-night he was both. The thought that he was seeing her for the last time—Ah, this was the price of all his folly! At length he spoke.
"I came to-night to say good-by, Elizabeth!"
She glanced up, startled.