The High Heart Part 53

The paper had fallen to my knee when I was startled to see Mr.

Brokens.h.i.+re come round the corner of my retreat. Dressed entirely in white, with no color in his costume save the lavender stripe in his s.h.i.+rt and collar, and the violet of his socks, handkerchief, and tie, he would have been the perfect type of the middle-aged exquisite had it not been for the pitiless distortion of his eye the minute he caught sight of me. That he had not stumbled on me accidentally I judged by the way in which he lifted a Panama of the kind that is said to be made under water and is costlier than the costliest feminine confection by Caroline Ledoux.

I was struggling out of my wicker chair when the uplifted hand forbade me.

"Be good enough to stay where you are," he commanded, but more gently than he had ever spoken to me. "I've some things to say to you."

Too frightened to make a further attempt to move, I looked at him as he drew up a chair similar to my own, which creaked under his weight when he sat down in it. The afternoon being hot, and my veranda lacking air, which was one of the reasons why it was left to me, he mopped his brow with the violet handkerchief, on which an enormous monogram was embroidered in white. I divined his reluctance to begin not only from his long hesitation, but from the renewed contortion of his face. His hand went up to the left cheek as if to hold it in place, though with no success in the effort. When, at last, he spoke there was a stillness in his utterance suggestive of an affection extending now to the lips or the tongue.

"I want you to know how much I appreciate the help you've given to Mrs.

Brokens.h.i.+re during her--her"--he had a difficulty in finding the right word--"during her indisposition," he finished, rather weakly.

"I did no more than I was glad to do," I responded, as weakly as he.

"Exactly; and yet I can't allow such timely aid to go unrewarded."

I was alarmed. Grasping the arms of the chair, I braced myself.

"If you mean money, sir--"

"No; I mean more than money." He, too, braced himself. "I--I withdraw my opposition to your marriage with my son."

The immediate change in my consciousness was in the nature of a dissolving view. The veranda faded away, and the hillside wood. Once more I saw the imaginary dining-room, and myself in a smart little dinner gown seating the guests; once more I saw the white-enameled nursery, and myself in a lace peignoir leaning over the ba.s.sinet. As in previous visions of the kind, Hugh was a mere shadow in the background, secondary to the home and the baby.

Secondary to the home and the baby was the fact that my object was accomplished and that my enemy had come to his knees. Indeed, I felt no particular elation from that element in the case; no special sense of victory. Like so many realized ambitions, it seemed a matter of course, now that it had come. Nevertheless, it seemed to me that for my own sake and for the sake of the future I must have a more definite expression of surrender than he had yet given me.

I remembered that Mrs. Brokens.h.i.+re had said she would help me, and could imagine how. I summoned up everything within me that would rank as force of character, speaking quietly.

"I should be sorry, sir, to have you come to this decision against your better judgment."

"If you'll be kind enough to accept the fact," he said, sharply, "we can leave my manner of reaching it out of the discussion."

In spite of the tone I rallied my resources.

"I don't want to be presumptuous, sir; but if I'm to enter your family I should like to feel sure that you'll receive me whole-heartedly."

"My dear young lady, isn't it a.s.surance enough that I receive you at all? When I bring myself to that--"

"Oh, please don't think I can't appreciate the sacrifice."

"Then what more is to be said?"

"But the sacrifice is the point. No girl wants to become one of a family which has to make such an effort to take her."

There was already a whisper of insecurity in his tone.

"Even so, I can't see why you shouldn't let the effort be our affair.

Since we make it on our own responsibility--"

"I don't care anything about the responsibility, sir. All I'm thinking of is that the effort must be made."

"But what did you expect?"

"I haven't said that I expected anything. If I've been of the slightest help to Mrs. Brokens.h.i.+re I'm happy to let the service be its own reward."

"But I'm not. It isn't my habit to remain under an obligation to any one."

"Nor mine," I said, demurely.

He stared.

"What does that mean? I don't follow you."

"Perhaps not, sir; but I quite follow you. You wish me to understand that, in spite of my deficiencies, you accept me as your son's wife--for the reason that you can't help yourself."

Two sharp hectic spots came out on each cheek-bone.

"Well, what if I do?"

"I'm far too generous to put you in that position. I couldn't take you at a disadvantage, not even for the sake of marrying Hugh."

I was not sure whether he was frightened or angry, but it was the one or the other.

"Do you mean to say that, now--now that I'm ready--"

"That I'm not? Yes, sir. That's what I do mean to say. I told you once that if I loved a man I shouldn't stop to consider the wishes of his relatives; but I've repented of that. I see now that marriage has a wider application than merely to individuals; and I'm not ready to enter any family that doesn't want me."

I looked off into the golden dimnesses of the hillside wood in order not to be a witness of the struggle he was making.

"And suppose"--it was almost a groan--"and suppose I said we--wanted you?"

It was like bending an iron bar; but I gave my strength to it.

"You'd have to say it differently from that, sir."

He spoke hoa.r.s.ely.

"Differently--in what sense?"

I knew I had him, as Hugh would have expressed it, where I had been trying to get him.

"In the sense that if you want me you must ask me."

He mopped his brow once more.

"I--I have asked you."

"You've said you withdrew your opposition. That's not enough."