CHAPTER XIX.
E'en now, through thee, my worst seems less forlorn....
When Jack, with the agility of a railroad employe, landed on his feetall right, he stood watching the disappearing train, annoyed,disappointed, and mystified. He usually found moderate speech sufficientfor daily use, and as he walked back slowly toward his club, all he saidwas: "Well, if all women are like Nina, I don't think I altogetherunderstand them!"
He felt lonely already, and for diversion bethought himself of turningand going down to the Ideal to inspect the preparations for the race tobe sailed on the following day. There he met Charley Dusenall, and asthe yacht gently rose and fell on the slight swell coming in from thelake, these two sat watching some of the racing spars floating alongsideand rolling about in the wavelets of the evening breeze, soakingthemselves tough for the coming contest.
"What's the matter with you?" said Charley, noticing how grumpy andsilent Jack was. "The old story, I suppose. Has Her Majesty gone back onyou again?"
Jack grunted assent.
"Only _pro tem._, though?" asked Charley.
"Oh yes, only _pro tem._, of course, but still--"
"I know. Deuced unpleasant. But, after all, what does it matter about awoman or two when you have got a boat under you that can cut theeye-teeth out of an equinoctial and make your soul dance the Highlandfling. Bah, chuck the whole thing up. Finish your grog and we'll haveanother. Vive le joy, as we say in Paris."
Jack's face grew less long. "That's all very well, but--"
"Rubbish! you want to hug your melancholy to yourself. Rats! whistle itdown the wind. D'you think I don't know? Look at me! D'you think Ihaven't been through the whole gamut--from Alpha to Omaha--with all thehemidemisemiquavers thrown in? Lord, I have quavered whole nights. And Isay that le jew ne vaut pas the candle."
"You are quite Frenchy to-night," said Jack, brightening.
"I always get more or less Parisian after eight o'clock at night. Dullas a country squire in the morning, though. Woke up awfully English, andmoral to-day. By the way, you had better sleep on board to-night, so asto be ready in good time to-morrow. And don't be spoiling your nerveswith the blues. I want you to tool her through to-morrow, and get overyour megrims first. Remember this, that--
Womankind more joy discovers Making fools than keeping lovers."
"Perhaps you are right," smiled Jack, getting up as if to shake himselfclear of his gloom. "And yet--
To be wroth with one we love Doth work like madness in the brain."
"There isn't much the matter with you," said Charley, as he saw Jackswing over the water and make a gymnastic tour round a backstay. Andwhen the second gun was fired the next morning, and the Ideal waspreening her feathers as she swept through a fleet of boats, there wasnothing very sad about Jack. When the huge club topsail, sitting flat asa board, caused her to careen gently as she zipped through thepreliminary canter, and when in the race she drew out to windward,eating up into the wind every chance slant, Charley was watching howJack's finger-tips gently felt the wheel, and how his eager eye took ineverything, from the luff of the topsail to the ripples on the water orthe furthest cloud, and he whispered in his ear: "What about Her Majestyjust now, old man?"
Jack was too intent on getting up into a favoring breath of air toanswer; but he tossed his head to signify that he was all right, andfell to marveling that he had not thought of Nina for a full hour.
In spite of the yachting, however, it was difficult to keep from beinglonely at other times, especially at the chambers, because Geoffrey wasout of town, taking his summer vacation, and Jack was forced to fly fromthe desolation in the city and pass most of his nights on the Ideal.This, with the afternoon sailing and a daily bulletin sent to Nina,addressed to Montreal, served to help him to pass away the time untilthe return of Geoffrey, who was greeted, as it were, with open arms.Their bachelor quarters were very homelike and comfortable. Thesitting-room and library, which they shared together, always seemed alittle lonely when either of them was absent.
Hampstead was pleased to get back to his luxurious arm-chair andmagazines. Jack's unsuspicious and welcoming face gave the place all therestfulness of home after a period of more or less watchfulness againstdetection. They stretched out their legs from the arm-chairs in whichthey sat, and smoked and really enjoyed themselves in the old way amongtheir newspapers and books. After having settled in New York, when hefirst came to America, Geoffrey had employed an old friend, on whosesecrecy he could rely, to call at his father's house in Shropshire andprocure for him all his old relics and curiosities. These the friend hadsent out to him. Every one of them recalled some more or lessinteresting memory, and as they hung drying in the dust that Mrs. Priestseldom attempted to remove they were like a tabular index of Geoffrey'swanderings, on which he could cast his eyes at night and unconsciouslydrop back into the past. There were whips, Tartar bridles, Arab pipesand muskets, and old-fashioned firearms. No less than six cricket batsproclaimed their nationality, as an offset against the strangertrophies. There were foils and masks, boxing-gloves, fishing-rods,snow-shoes, old swords, and any quantity of what Mrs. Priest called"rotten old truck, only fit for a second-'and shop." Besides all this,there were hanging shelves, covered with cups and other prizes thatGeoffrey and Jack had won in athletic contests. Even the ceiling wasmade to do duty in exhibiting some lances and a central trophy composedof Zulu assegais and Malay arrows and such things. These, with the largebookcases of books, and, of course, Mrs. Priest, constituted theirPenates.
Here Geoffrey ensconced himself for several evenings after his return,immersed in his books until long after Jack had knocked out his lastpipe and turned in. His manner of taking his holidays had been anepisode which was forgotten now if anything arose to divert him,something for him to smile at, but powerless to distract his attentionfrom a good article in the Nineteenth Century.
But he did not visit Margaret for three or four days after his return.When he saw her again, all his better nature came to the fore. Hedelighted again in the quiet worship he felt for her now that he couldsee more clearly the beauties of temperate life. "Now," he said, as hestretched himself in his arm-chair one night, after having visitedMargaret earlier in the evening, "now, I will soon get married. WithMargaret, goodness will not only be practicable, but, I can imagine,even enjoyable." Then, after a while, his mind recurred to his holidays,which seemed to have been a long time ago. He yawned over the subject,and thought it was time to go to bed. "Heigh-ho! I have exhausted thedevil and all his works now. He has got nothing more to offer me that Icare to accept. Now I have done with risks and worries. If I can onlyget my money affairs straightened out I'll get married in September.Federal stock is bound to rise, with the new changes in the bank, andthen I'll be all right. I'll just let Lewis have my horse and trap.He'll give me more than I paid for them. The seven hundred will wipe outa few things, and then if I can turn myself round again, I'll getmarried at once."
For several days after this he saw Margaret; and the more he saw of herthe more he really longed for the life that seemed best. He was tired ofplot and counterplot. As one whose intellect was generally a discerningone, when not clouded by exciting vagaries, he had had, all his life,the idea of enjoying goodness for itself--at some time or other. Andentering Margaret's presence seemed like going to a pure spring fountainfrom which he came away refreshed. She had the quick brain that couldskim off the best of his thought and whip it up and present it in achanged and perhaps more pleasing form. Even the look of her hands, theway she held up cut flowers, and delighted in their faintest odors (tohim quite imperceptible) showed how much keener and more refined hersensibilities were than his own and made him marvel to find that in somerespects she lived in a world wherein it was a physical impossibilityfor him to enter. As the days wore on in which he daily saw her, hefound himself making little sacrifices for her sake, and even practicinga trifle of self-denial. He did things that he knew would please her,and afterward he felt all the heal
thy glow and ability for virtue whichare the essences that gracious deeds distill. "Doing these things makesme better," he said. "This moral happiness is a thing to be worked up. Ican not cultivate goodness in the abstract. I must have somethingtangible--something to understand; and if good deeds pay me back in thissort of way I may yet become, partly through my deeds, what she wouldwish me to be."
Full of all this, while ruminating late one night, he took it into hishead to put it into verse, and he rather liked the simple lines.
TO MARGARET.
I.
My Love! I would Love's true disciple be, That, 'neath the king of teachers' gracious art, Refined sense and thought might be to me The stepping-stones to lead me to thy heart; That thine own realm of peace I too might share. Where Nature's smallest things show much design To teach kind thoughts for all that breathe; and where, As music's laws compel by rule divine, Naught but obeying good gives joy and rest; Where thou can'st note the immaterial scent Of thought and thing, which we gross men at best Can hardly know, with senses often lent To heavy joys that leave us but to long For that unknown which makes thyself a song.