“He said you were a goose,” she whispered, and touched her lips to his.
With this answer Tristrem was fain to be content. And presently, when he left the house, he reeled as though he had drunk beaker after flagon of the headiest wine.
VI
After a ten-mile pull on the river, a shandygaff of Bass and champagne is comforting to the oarsman. It is accounted pleasant to pay a patient creditor an outlawed debt. But a poet has held that the most pleasurable thing imaginable is to awake on a summer morning with the consciousness of being in love. Even in winter the sensation ought not to be disagreeable; yet when to the consciousness of being in love is added the belief that the love is returned, then the bleakest day of all the year must seem like a rose of June.
Tristrem passed the night in dreams that told of Her. He strayed through imperishable beauties, through dawns surrounded by candors of hope. The breath of brooks caressed him, he was enveloped in the sorceries of a sempiternal spring. The winds, articulate with song, choired to the skies ululations and messages of praise. Each vista held a promise. The horizon was a prayer fulfilled. He saw grief collapse and joy enthroned. From bird and blossom he caught the incommunicable words of love. And when from some new witchery he at last awoke, he smiled—the real was fairer than the dream.
For some time he loitered in the gardens which his fancy disclosed, spectacular-wise, for his own delight, until at last he bethought him of the new duties of his position and of the accompanying necessity of making those duties known to those to whom he was related. Then, after a breakfast of sliced oranges and coffee, he rang for the servant and told him to ask his father whether he could spare a moment that morning. In a few minutes the servant returned. “Mr. Varick will be happy to see you, sir,” he said.
“What did he say?” Tristrem asked; “what were his exact words?”
“Well, sir, I said as how you presented your compliments, and could you see him, and he didn’t say nothing; he was feeding the bird. But I could tell, sir; when Mr. Varick doesn’t like a thing, he looks at you and if he does, he doesn’t.”
“And he didn’t look at you?”
“No, sir, he didn’t turn his ’ead.”
“H’m,” said Tristrem to himself, as he descended the stairs, “I wonder, when I tell him, whether he will look at me.” And the memory of his father’s stare cast a shadow on his buoyant spirits.
On entering the room in which Mr. Varick passed his mornings, Tristrem found that gentleman seated at a table. In one hand he held a bronze-colored magazine, and in the other a silver knife. In the window was a gilt cage in which a bird was singing, and on the table was a profusion of roses—the room itself was vast and chill. One wall was lined, the entire length, with well-filled bookshelves. In a corner was a square pile of volumes, bound in pale sheep, which a lawyer would have recognized as belonging to the pleasant literature of his profession. And over the bookshelves was a row of Varicks, standing in the upright idleness which is peculiar to portraits in oil. It was many years since Tristrem had entered this room; yet now, save for the scent of flowers and the birdcage, it was practically unchanged.
“Father,” he began at once, “I would not have ventured to disturb you if—if—that is, unless I had something important to say.” He was looking at his father, but his father was not looking at him. “It is this,” he continued, irritated in spite of himself by the complete disinterestedness of one whose son he was; “I am engaged to be married.”
At this announcement Mr. Varick fluttered the paper-knife, but said nothing.
“The young lady is Miss Raritan,” he added, and then paused, amazed at the expression of his father’s face. It was as though unseen hands were torturing it at will. The mouth, cheeks, and eyelids quivered and twitched, and then abruptly Mr. Varick raised the bronze-colored magazine, held it before his tormented features, and when he lowered it again his expression was as apathetic as before.
“You are ill!” Tristrem exclaimed, advancing to him.
But Mr. Varick shook his head, and motioned him back. “It is nothing,” he answered. “Let me see, you were saying—?”
“I am engaged to Miss Raritan.”
“The daughter of—”
“Her father was Roanoke Raritan. He was minister somewhere—to England or to France, I believe.”
While Tristrem was giving this information Mr. Varick went to the window. He looked at the occupant of the gilt cage, and ran a thumb through the wires. The bird ruffled its feathers, cocked its head, and edged gingerly along the perch, reproving the intrusive finger with the scorn and glitter of two eyes of bead. But the anger of the canary was brief. In a moment Mr. Varick left the cage, and turned again to his son.
“Nothing you could do,” he said, “would please me better.”
“Thank you,” Tristrem answered, “I—”
“Are you to be married at once?”
“Not before November, sir.”
“I wish it were sooner. I do not approve of protracted engagements. But, of course, you know your own business best. If I remember rightly, the father of this young lady did not leave much of a fortune, did he?”
“Nothing to speak of, I believe.”
“You have my best wishes. The match is very suitable, very suitable. I wish you would say as much, with my compliments, to the young lady’s mother. I would do so myself, but, as you know, I am something of an invalid. You might add that, too—and—er—I don’t mean to advise you, but I would endeavor to hasten the ceremony. In such matters, it is usual for the
