XXXIV.
"She's a cat, Dan," said his mother quietly, and not without liking,when he looked in for his goodnight kiss after the rest were gone; "aperfect tabby. But your Alice is sublime."
"O mother--"
"She's a little too sublime for me. But you're young, and you can standit."
Dan laughed with delight. "Yes, I think I can, mother. All I ask is thechance."
"Oh, you're very much in love, both of you; there's no doubt aboutthat. What I mean is that she's very high strung, very intense. She hasideals--any one can see that."
Dan took it all for praise. "Yes," he said eagerly, "that's what I toldyou. And that will be the best thing about it for me. I have no ideals."
"Well, you must find out what hers are, and live up to them."
"Oh, there won't be any trouble about that," said Dan buoyantly.
"You must help her to find them out too." He looked puzzled. "Youmustn't expect the child to be too definite at first, nor to be alwaysright, even when she's full of ideals. You must be very patient withher, Dan."
"Oh, I will, mother! You know that. How could I ever be impatient withAlice?"
"Very forbearing, and very kind, and indefatigably forgiving. Ask yourfather how to behave."
Dan promised to do so, with a laugh at the joke. It had never occurredto him that his father was particularly exemplary in these things,or that his mother idolised him for what seemed to Dan simply amatter-of-course endurance of her sick whims and freaks and moods. Hebroke forth into a vehement protest of his good intentions, to which hismother did not seem very attentive. After a while she asked--
"Is she always so silent, Dan?"
"Well, not with me, mother. Of course she was a little embarrassed; shedidn't know exactly what to say, I suppose--"
"Oh, I rather liked that. At least she isn't a rattle-pate. And we shallget acquainted; we shall like each other. She will understand me whenyou bring her home here to live with us, and--"
"Yes," said Dan, rising rather hastily, and stooping over to his mother."I'm not going to let you talk any more now, or we shall have to sufferfor it to-morrow night."
He got gaily away before his mother could amplify a suggestion whichspoiled a little of his pleasure in the praises--he thought they wereunqualified and enthusiastic praises--she had been heaping upon Alice.He wished to go to bed with them all sweet and unalloyed in his thought,to sleep, to dream upon his perfect triumph.
Mrs. Pasmer was a long time in undressing, and in calming down afterthe demands which the different events of the evening had made upon herresources.
"It has certainly been a very mixed evening, Alice," she said, as shetook the pins out of her back hair and let it fall; and she continued totalk as she went back and forth between their rooms. "What do you thinkof banjo-playing for young ladies? Isn't it rather rowdy? Decidedlyrowdy, I think. And Dan's Yankee story! I expected to see the oldgentleman get up and perform some trick."
"I suppose they do it to amuse Mrs. Mavering," said Alice, with colddispleasure.
"Oh, it's quite right," tittered Mrs. Pasmer. "It would be as much astheir lives are worth if they didn't. You can see that she rules themwith a rod of iron. What a will! I'm glad you're not going to comeunder her sway; I really think you couldn't be safe from her in thesame hemisphere; it's well you're going abroad at once. They're a veryself-concentrated family, don't you think--very self-satisfied? Ofcourse that's the danger of living off by themselves as they do: theyget to thinking there's nobody else in the world. You would simply beabsorbed by them: it's a hair-breadth escape.
"How splendidly Dan contrasts with the others! Oh, he's delightful;he's a man of the world. Give me the world, after all! And he's soconsiderate of their rustic conceit! What a house! It's perfectlybaronial--and ridiculous. In any other country it would meansomething--society, entertainments, troops of guests; but here itdoesn't mean anything but money. Not that money isn't a very good thing;I wish we had more of it. But now you see how very little it can do byitself. You looked very well, Alice, and behaved with great dignity;perhaps too much. You ought to enter a little more into the spiritof things, even if you don't respect them. That oldest girl isn'tparticularly pleased, I fancy, though it doesn't matter really."
Alice replied to her mother from time to time with absent Yeses andNoes; she sat by the window looking out on the hillside lawn before thehouse; the moon had risen, and poured a flood of snowy light over it, inwhich the cold statues dimly shone, and the firs, in clumps and singly,blackened with an inky solidity. Beyond wandered the hills, their barepasturage broken here and there by blotches of woodland.
After her mother had gone to bed she turned her light down and resumedher seat by the window, pressing her hot forehead against the pane, andlosing all sense of the scene without in the whirl of her thoughts.
After this, evening of gay welcome in Dan's family, and those momentsof tenderness with him, her heart was troubled. She now realised herengagement as something exterior to herself and her own family, andconfronted for the first time its responsibilities, its ties, and itsclaims. It was not enough to be everything to Dan; she could not bethat unless she were something to his family. She did not realise thisvividly, but with the remoteness which all verities except those ofsensation have for youth.
Her uneasiness was full of exultation, of triumph; she knew she had beenadmired by Dan's family, and she experienced the sweetness of havingpleased them for his sake; his happy eyes shone before her; but she wastouched in her self-love by what her mother had coarsely characterisedin them. They had regarded her liking them as a matter of course; hismother had ignored her even in pretending to decry Dan to her. But againthis was very remote, very momentary. It was no nearer, no more lastingon the surface of her happiness, than the flying whiff's of thin cloudthat chased across the moon and lost themselves in the vast blue aroundit.
April Hopes Page 34