“Mr. Dunellen, if you could know! It is the regret of my life.”
“That I can believe; but I believe also that our natures never vary. We may mould and shape them to our uses, but beneath the surface they remain unchanged. I say this parenthetically. In regard to this incident there are in one particular certain excuses you might allege—youth for instance, inexperience, common attraction, love even. If you did, I could enter into them. I have been young myself, and I have no wish to imply that through the temptations of youth I passed unscathed. The man who asserts he has reminds me of the horseman who declares he has never been thrown. Nor because your victim happened to be my niece am I actuated by retrospective indignation. I am too old for that; and, moreover, the incident is too stale. No: my reason for forbidding my daughter to receive you, as I have done, is this: the man that can seduce a girl, and then, to conceal the effect, permit her to be butchered by a quack, especially when he could have protected her by marriage—that man, Mr. Mistrial, I tell you very plainly, is a scoundrel, and being a scoundrel will never be anything else.” And as Honest Paul made this assertion he stood up and nodded affirmatively at his guest.
“You are very hard, Mr. Dunellen.”
“I may be, but so is justice.”
“If I could tell you all. It was so sudden, so unpremeditated even, at the first idea of a possibility of a catastrophe I lost my head.”
“It was your honor you lost.”
“Yes, and for years I have tried to recover it.”
“That I am glad to learn, and I hope you have succeeded; but—”
“And will you not aid me?”
“In my sight you can never appear an honest man.”
At this reproach, Roland, who had sat like Abjection, one hand supporting his head, his eyes lowered and his body bent, sprang to his feet.
“There are several forms of honesty,” he exclaimed, “and frankness I believe is counted among them. That you evidently possess. Let me emulate you in it. I intend that your daughter shall be my wife. If you don’t care to come to the wedding your presence can be dispensed with.” And without any show of anger, but with an inclination of the head that was insolent in its deference, he picked up his hat and left the room.
Presently he found himself in the street. “Who is ever as stupid as a wise man?” he queried, and laughed a little to himself—“unless”—and he fell to wondering whether Dunellen could have told his daughter all. On the corner a cab was loitering; he hailed and entered it. A little later he was ringing at the door of Honest Paul’s abode.
Yes, Miss Dunellen was at home. And as the servant drew the portiere to the drawing room aside, Roland was visited by that emotion the gambler knows who waits the turning of a card. Another second, and the expression of the girl’s face would tell him what the future held. The drawing room, however, happened to be untenanted, and as he paced its spacious splendors he still wondered was she or was she not informed. In a corner was a landscape signed Courbet—a green ravine shut down by bluest sky. The coloring was so true, it jarred. In another was a statue—a cloaked and hooded figure of Death supporting a naked girl. As he contemplated it, he heard the tinkle of the portiere rings. It was she, he knew; he turned, and at once his heart gave an exultant throb; in her eyes was an invitation; he put his arms about her, and for a moment held her so.
She does not know, he told himself, and to her he murmured, “I have come to say goodbye.”
“Wait, Roland.” She led him to a seat. “Wait; I spoke to father last night; he has some objection—”
“I told you I was poor—”
“It is that, I suppose; he did not say—”
“He will never consent, unless—”
“There, Roland. I know him best.” She closed her eyes, and as he gazed at her it seemed to him she had done so to shut some memory out. “It is money with him always; you do not know—” And between her parted lips she drew a breath he heard. “Last night he told me I must never see you again. Hitherto his will has ruled: it is my turn today.”
With this there came a splendor to her he had never marked before; she looked defiant, and resolute as well. There was strength in her face, and beauty too.
“He is unjust,” she added. “It was my duty to tell him, and there my duty ends. I am not a schoolgirl. I know my mind; better, perhaps, than he knows his own. I have obeyed him always. It is easy to obey, but now I will act for myself.”
“He will never give his consent,” Roland repeated.
“He may keep it, then.”
Within her something seemed to rankle; and as Roland, mindful of the slightest change in her expression, detected this, he wondered what it could portend.
“Sweetheart,” he ventured, “I have these two arms; they are all in all for you.”
At this Justine awoke at once. “If I did not know it—feel it; if I were not sure of it, do you think I would speak to you as I do? No, Roland. I have something of my own; when we are married, believe me, his consent will come at once.”
“It is not his consent I want—you know that; it is yours.”
“You have it, Roland; I gave it you among the pines.”
“Where is your hat, then? Let us go.”
He caught her to him again, then suffered her to leave the room. And as the portiere which he had drawn that she might pass fell back into its former folds, for a moment he stood perplexed.
