CHAPTER XXX.
A "COMEDY."
When the season began again, Miss De Voe seriously undertook herself-imposed work of introducing Peter. He was twice invited to dinnerand was twice taken with opera parties to sit in her box, besidesreceiving a number of less important attentions. Peter accepteddutifully all that she offered him. Even ordered a new dress-suit of atailor recommended by Lispenard. He was asked by some of the people hemet to call, probably on Miss De Voe's suggestion, and he dutifullycalled. Yet at the end of three months Miss De Voe shook her head.
"He is absolutely a gentleman, and people seem to like him. Yetsomehow--I don't understand it."
"Exactly," laughed Lispenard. "You can't make a silk purse out of asow's ear."
"Lispenard," angrily said Miss De Voe, "Mr. Stirling is as much betterthan--"
"That's it," said Lispenard. "Don't think I'm depreciating Peter. Thetrouble is that he is much too good a chap to make into a society or alady's man."
"I believe you are right. I don't think he cares for it at all."
"No," said Lispenard. "Barkis is not willin'. I think he likes you, andsimply goes to please you."
"Do you really think that's it?"
Lispenard laughed at the earnestness with which the question was asked."No," he replied. "I was joking. Peter cultivates you, because he wantsto know your swell friends."
Either this conversation or Miss De Voe's own thoughts, led to a changein her course. Invitations to formal dinners and to the opera suddenlyceased, and instead, little family dinners, afternoons in galleries, andevenings at concerts took their place. Sometimes Lispenard went withthem, sometimes one of the Ogden girls, sometimes they went alone. Itwas an unusual week when Peter's mail did not now bring at least onelittle note giving him a chance to see Miss De Voe if he chose.
In February came a request for him to call. "I want to talk with youabout something," it said. That same evening he was shown into herdrawing-rooms. She thanked him with warmth for coming so quickly, andPeter saw that only the other visitors prevented her from showing somestrong feeling. He had stumbled in on her evening--for at that timepeople still had evenings--but knowing her wishes, he stayed till theywere left alone together.
"Come into the library," she said. As they passed across the hall shetold Morden, "I shall not receive any more to-night."
The moment they were in the smaller and cosier room, without waiting tosit even, she began: "Mr. Stirling, I dined at the Manfreys yesterday."She spoke in a voice evidently endeavoring not to break. Peter lookedpuzzled.
"Mr. Lapham, the bank president, was there."
Peter still looked puzzled.
"And he told the table about a young lawyer who had very little money,yet who put five hundred dollars--his first fee--into his bank, and hadused it to help--" Miss De Voe broke down, and, leaning against themantel, buried her face in her handkerchief.
"It's curious you should have heard of it," said Peter.
"He--he didn't mention names, b-bu-but I knew, of course."
"I didn't like to speak of it because--well--I've wanted to tell you thegood it's done. Suppose you sit down." Peter brought a chair, and MissDe Voe took it.
"You must think I'm very foolish," she said, wiping her eyes.
"It's nothing to cry about." And Peter began telling her of some of thethings which he had been able to do:--of the surgical brace it hadbought; of the lessons in wood-engraving it had given; of thesewing-machine it had helped to pay for; of the arrears in rent it hadsettled. "You see," he explained, "these people are too self-respectingto go to the big charities, or to rich people. But their troubles aretalked over in the saloons and on the doorsteps, so I hear of them, andcan learn whether they really deserve help. They'll take it from me,because they feel that I'm one of them."
Miss De Voe was too much shaken by her tears to talk that evening. MissDe Voe's life and surroundings were not exactly weepy ones, and whentears came they meant much. She said little, till Peter rose to go, andthen only:
"I shall want to talk with you, to see what I can do to help you in yourwork. Please come again soon. I ought not to have brought you here thisevening, only to see me cry like a baby. But--I had done you suchinjustice in my mind about that seven dollars, and then to findthat--Oh!" Miss De Voe showed signs of a recurring break-down, butmastered herself. "Good-evening."
Peter gone, Miss De Voe had another "good" cry--which is a femininephrase, quite incomprehensible to men--and, going to her room, bathedher eyes. Then she sat before her boudoir fire, thinking. Finally sherose. In leaving the fire, she remarked aloud to it:
"Yes. He shall have Dorothy, if I can do it."
So Dorothy became a pretty regular addition to the informal meals,exhibitions and concerts. Peter was once more taken to the opera, butDorothy and Miss De Voe formed with him the party in the box on suchnights. Miss De Voe took him to call on Mrs. Odgen, and sang his praisesto both parents. She even went so far as to say frankly to them what wasin her mind.
Mr. Ogden said, "Those who know him speak very well of him. I heard'Van' Pell praise him highly at Newport last summer. Said all thepoliticians thought of him as a rising man."
"He seems a nice steady fellow," said the mamma. "I don't suppose he hasmuch practice?"
"Oh, don't think of the money," said Miss De Voe. "What is that comparedto getting a really fine man whom one can truly love?"
"Still, money is an essential," said the papa.
"Yes. But you both know what I intend to do for Dorothy and Minna. Theyneed not think of money. If he and Dorothy only will care for eachother!"
Peter and Dorothy did like each other. Dorothy was very pretty, and hadall the qualities which make a girl a strong magnet to men. Peter couldnot help liking her. As for Dorothy, she was like other women. Sheenjoyed the talking, joking, "good-time" men in society, and chatted anddanced with them with relish. But like other women, when she thought ofmarriage, she did not find these gingerbread ornamentations soattractive. The average woman loves a man, aside from his love for her,for his physical strength, and his stiff truth-telling. The first isattractive to her because she has it not. Far be it from man to say whythe second attracts. So Dorothy liked Peter. She admired many qualitiesin him which she would not have tolerated in other men. It is true thatshe laughed at him, too, for many things, but it was the laughter ofthat peculiar nature which implies admiration and approval, rather thanthe lower feelings. When the spring separation came, Miss De Voe wasreally quite hopeful.
"I think things have gone very well. Now, Mr. Stirling has promised tospend a week with me at Newport. I shall have Dorothy there at the sametime," she told Mrs. Ogden.
Lispenard, who was present, laughed as usual. "So you are tired of yournew plaything already?"
"What do you mean?"
"Arn't you marrying him so as to get rid of his calls and hisescortage?"
"Of course not. We shall go on just the same."
"Bully for you, Ma. Does Dr. Brown know it?"
Miss De Voe flushed angrily, and put an end to her call.
"What a foolish fellow Lispenard is!" she remarked unconsciously toWellington at the carriage door.
"Beg pardon, mum?" said Wellington, blank wonderment filling his face.
"Home, Wellington," said Miss De Voe crossly.
Peter took his week at Newport on his way back from his regular Augustvisit to his mother. Miss De Voe had told him casually that Dorothywould be there, and Dorothy was there. Yet he saw wonderfully little ofher. It is true that he could have seen more if he had tried, but Peterwas not used to practice finesse to win minutes and hours with a girl,and did not feel called upon, bluntly, to take such opportunities. Hisstay was not so pleasant as he had expected. He had thought a week inthe same house with Miss De Voe, Dorothy and Lispenard, without muchregard to other possible guests, could not but be a continual pleasure.But he was conscious that something was amiss with his three friends.Nor was Peter the only one who felt it. Dorothy
said to her family whenshe went home:
"I can't imagine what is the matter with Cousin Anneke. All last springshe was nicer to me than she has ever been before, but from the moment Iarrived at Newport, and before I could possibly have said or doneanything to offend her, she treated me in the snippiest way. After twodays I asked her what the matter was, but she insisted there wasnothing, and really lost her temper at my suggesting the idea. There wassomething, I know, for when I said I was coming home sooner than I hadat first intended, she didn't try to make me stay."
"Perhaps," said Mrs. Ogden, "she was disappointed in something, and sovented her feeling on you."
"But she wasn't cross--except when I asked her what the matter was. Shewas just--just snippy."
"Was Mr. Stirling there?"
"Yes. And a lot of other people. I don't think anybody had a good time,unless it was Cousin Lispenard. And he wasn't a bit nice. He had somejoke to himself, and kept making remarks that nobody could understand,and chuckling over them. I told him once that he was rude, but he saidthat 'when people went to a play they should laugh at the right points.'That's the nice thing about Mr. Stirling. You know that what he says isthe real truth."
"Lispenard's always trying to be clever."
"Yes. What do you suppose he said to me as I came away!"
"What?"
"He shook my hand, laughing, and said, 'Exit villain. It is to be acomedy, not a tragedy.' What could he mean?"
Lispenard stayed on to see the "comedy," and seemed to enjoy it, if theamused expression on his face when he occasionally gave himself up tomeditation was any criterion. Peter had been pressed to stay beyond theoriginal week, and had so far yielded as to add three days to his visit.These last three days were much pleasanter than those which had gonebefore, although Dorothy had departed and Peter liked Dorothy. But hesaw much more of Miss De Voe, and Miss De Voe was in a much pleasantermood. They took long drives and walks together, and had long hours oftalk in and about the pleasant house and grounds. Miss De Voe had cutdown her social duties for the ten days Peter was there, giving far moretime for them to kill than usually fell to Newporters even in thosecomparitively simple days.
In one of these talks, Miss De Voe spoke of Dorothy.
"She is such a nice, sweet girl," she said. "We all hope she'll marryLispenard."
"Do you think cousins ought to marry?"
Miss De Voe had looked at Peter when she made her remark. Peter hadreplied quietly, but his question, as Miss De Voe understood it, waspurely scientific, not personal. Miss De Voe replied:
"I suppose it is not right, but it is so much better than what mayhappen, that it really seems best. It is so hard for a girl in Dorothy'sposition to marry as we should altogether wish."
"Why?" asked Peter, who did not see that a girl with prospective wealth,fine social position, and personal charm, was not necessarily wellsituated to get the right kind of a husband.
"It is hard to make it clear--but--I'll tell you my own story, so thatyou can understand. Since you don't ask questions, I will take theinitiative. That is, unless your not asking them means you are notinterested?" Miss De Voe laughed in the last part of this speech.
"I should like to hear it."
People, no matter what Peter stated, never said "Really?" "You are inearnest?" or "You really mean it?" So Miss De Voe took him at his word.
"Both my father and mother were rich before they married, and the risein New York real estate made them in time, much richer. They bothbelonged to old families. I was the only child--Lispenard says oldfamilies are so proud of themselves that they don't dare to have largefamilies for fear of making the name common. Of course they lavished alltheir thought, devotion and anxiety on me. I was not spoiled; but I waswatched and tended as if I were the most precious thing the worldcontained. When I grew up, and went into society, I question if I everwas a half-hour out of the sight of one or the other of my parents. Ihad plenty of society, of course, but it was restricted entirely to ourset. None other was good enough for me! My father never had anybusiness, so brought no new element into our household. It was oldfamilies, year in and year out! From the moment I entered society I wassought for. I had many suitors. I had been brought up to fearfortune-hunting, and suspected the motives of many men. Others did notseem my equals--for I had been taught pride in my birth. Those who werefit as regarded family were, many of them, unfit in brains ormorals--qualities not conspicuous in old families. Perhaps I might havefound one to love--if it had not been for the others. I was surroundedwherever I went and if by chance I found a pleasant man to talk to,_tete-a-tete,_ we were interrupted by other men coming up. Only a feweven of the men whom I met could gain an _entree_ to our house.--Theyweren't thought good enough. If a working, serious man had ever beenable to see enough of me to love me, he probably would have had verylittle opportunity to press his suit. But the few men I might have caredfor were frightened off by my money, or discouraged by my popularity andexclusiveness. They did not even try. Of course I did not understand itthen. I gloried in my success and did not see the wrong it was doing me.I was absolutely happy at home, and really had not the slightestinducement to marry--especially among the men I saw the most. I ledthis life for six years. Then my mother's death put me in mourning. WhenI went back into society, an almost entirely new set of men hadappeared. Those whom I had known were many of them married--others weregone. Society had lost its first charm to me. So my father and Itravelled three years. We had barely returned when he died. I did nottake up my social duties again till I was thirty-two. Then it was as thespinster aunt, as you have known me. Now do you understand how hard itis for such a girl as Dorothy to marry rightly?"
"Yes. Unless the man is in love. Let a man care enough for a woman, andmoney or position will not frighten him off."
"Such men are rare. Or perhaps it is because I did not attract them. Idid not understand men as well then as I do now. Of some whom I thoughtunlovable or dull at that time, I have learned to think better. A womandoes not marry to be entertained--or should not."
"I think," said Peter, "that one marries for love and sympathy."
"Yes. And if they are given, it does not matter about the rest. Evennow, thirty-seven though I am, if I could find a true man who could loveme as I wish to be loved, I could love him with my whole heart. It wouldbe my happiness not merely to give him social position and wealth, butto make his every hope and wish mine also."
All this had been said in the same natural manner in which they bothusually spoke. Miss De Voe had talked without apparent emotion. But whenshe began the last remark, she had stopped looking at Peter, and hadgazed off through the window at the green lawn, merely showing him herprofile. As a consequence she did not see how pale he suddenly became,nor the look of great suffering that came into his face. She did not seethis look pass and his face, and especially his mouth, settle into arigid determination, even while the eyes remained sad.
Miss De Voe ended the pause by beginning, "Don't you"--but Peterinterrupted her there, by saying:
"It is a very sad story to me--because I--I once craved love andsympathy."
Miss De Voe turned and looked at him quickly. She saw the look ofsuffering on his face, but read it amiss. "You mean?" she questioned.
"There was a girl I loved," said Peter softly, "who did not love me."
"And you love her still?"
"I have no right to."
"She is married?"
"Yes."
"Will you tell me about it?"
"I--I would rather not."
Miss De Voe sat quietly for a moment, and then rose. "Dear friend," shesaid, laying her hand on Peter's shoulder, "we have both missed thegreat prize in life. Your lot is harder than the one I have told youabout. It is very,"--Miss De Voe paused a moment,--"it is very sad tolove--without being loved."
And so ended Lispenard's comedy.