At the first monition of impending heat the Snaiths were accustomed to desert Fifth Avenue for a red chalet at Bronx, a roomy structure standing on grounds that leaned to the water’s edge. Sometimes a poor connection could be lured that way, and sometimes a friend of the girl’s would come unwarned and then take flight, abashed by the speech of that coarse old man, unnerved by the stealthy air and cattish smile of the mother. But as a rule guests were infrequent.
By what means Mr. Snaith was induced that year to try the waters of Sharon is not a part of history, but try them he did, and during his absence Nevius was asked to Bronx. Over that invitation he hesitated and continued to hesitate until after a minute review of recent events he was able to affirm that not once had the girl even alluded to engagement rings. Then he went, and as Mrs. Snaith kept herself aloof, very pleasant he found it.
Of a morning there would be a skurry on horseback through bye-lanes and hedges; when the sun was oppressive there were the poets—Meredith, Bailey, Rosetti, Blunt and Swinburne too; in the late afternoons there were decorous drives over dusty roads, but in the evening there was the moon, the gurgle of waters, the caresses of a midsummer night. There were strains too from that duo in which we have all taken part, and there were monologues, spaced with silence. The moon, the waters, the hush of locusts, the sorceries of the poets, these things are sworn accomplices to adventurous desires, and one morning Nevius awoke, wondering at fate, appalled by it, overcome by a remorse into which a sweetness filtered and declined to go.
When he sought the girl she was not immediately discoverable. It was not until he set out through the grounds that he discerned the white and buttercup of muslin beyond. As he approached she rose from a bed of flowers, and, as he took her hand, her lips parted and she smiled. Never had she looked more fair. Beneath the blue splendors of her eyes were the faintest of circles, but in the gay sunlight she was as fragrant as the flowers she held.
“Wish me good morning,” she admonished. And that office performed she led him to another parterre, where she gathered more flowers and joined them with the first.
“They will do for the table, don’t you think?”
“Hilda, will you marry me?”
She turned to him, a quick, glad look on her face.
“You know that I love you,” he added. “You must know that, or—or—”
Lamely he hesitated. But the girl must have divined his meaning; she made a gesture that dispensed with needless explanations; a little color came to her cheeks, yet her eyes rested bravely in his own.
“Yes, I know, and you too must know how I love you. Carol, I have always loved you; that line in Festus was made for me: ‘My love was perfect from the first, it did not grow as meaner things mature.’ ”
There was no riding that day. Later the girl made avowals sweeter still. To all intents and purposes her life had been but a waiting for him, the preparation and prelude of his coming. There were many things over which she had wondered, but now they were all made clear. She understood music and its meaning. She understood the witcheries of spring, the ripple of the rain, the breath of brooks. She understood at last why the stars had filled her with unrest. She understood when they first met why a bird in her heart had burst into song. It was love, always love; her love appealing to his.
This was very pretty, and of such avowals Nevius became thoroughly avaricious. He, too, was in the festival of youth, and apart from the three or four episodes which inevitably occur to one who moves in certain circles and whose appearance is not distressing, he might have repeated to her everything she said to him. His heart at least was as virginal as her own. If he had taught her the meaning of love, she had shown him the meaning of life. Heretofore he had been ambitious to make a name for himself. Now at once he was ambitious to make a name for her. And with a little perplexity, a little embarrassment, he told her of himself. There was the house, the meager income and his professional hopes.
In view of the fact that the Snaith household was kept on a footing of perhaps fifty thousand a year, and by no means lavishly at that, the girl might readily have dismissed so indigent a suitor. Then, too, in spite of the sweetness and simplicity which she exhaled, she was not one to contemplate with enjoyment such pleasures as are said to reside in surburban flats. But she had faith, less in her lover’s success perhaps than in the possibilities of her father’s money. At the moment, however, she seemed quite content, and a day or two later informed him that her father had arrived and had been approached.
“You are to speak to him after dinner,” she said. “If you were a broker he would love you.” At that period brokers made money. “But you are a lawyer, and he says lawyers are tricky. Come.”
Nevius looked down and away. In regard to trickiness Mr. Snaith’s reputation was indeed above reproach, but in this respect, it surpassed it. Yet, after all, it was not the father he was to marry, nor yet the mother, it was the girl he loved. The entire catalogue of distasteful things which her family represented, faded at thought of her. He looked up and followed her from the veranda to where her people were.
At the entrance of the lovers Mr. Snaith grunted and
