Fool There Was — A Proposal; A Foreign Mission
A PROPOSAL.
Blake waited in the embrasure of the window, gazing down upon the Avenue below, with its confusion of moving vehicles and pedestrians.
The June sun was overhead, warming the earth with gentle, kindly glow.
The breath of summer was in the air; it came to him, brushing the curtains against him, cooling his brow.
It was grateful to his nostrils, and to his lungs;
and he took of it a great, deep breath.
His broad shoulders squared; his deep, full chest heaved.
An omnibus stopped on the corner.
He watched the horses throw themselves against their collars; he watched the bulky vehicle gather headway, and move on, with ever increasing momentum, through the maze of brougham and cab and coach and landau.
As the coach was lost to view there came steps, light and quick, upon the stairs; the door opened and there stood before him the daughter of Jimmy Blair.
She had been abroad, under chaperonage, for a year....
He did not know that she could be so beautiful--he did not know that anyone could ever hope to be as beautiful as was she who stood before him.
Violet eyes were no deeper--lips no more red--teeth no whiter--nor was the perfect oval of her sun-kissed cheek any the more perfect.
Yet, there was something--the indefinable something that marks the transition of a beautiful girl from beautiful girlhood to glorious womanhood....
He felt a strange emptiness within him; it was almost as though he were appalled by so much beauty--so much glory.
There was a gladness--a natural, unaffected, real gladness in her violet eyes that glowed in greeting.
She thrust forth a tiny white hand....
He had been wont to kiss her, on meeting and on parting.
Now it never occurred to him.
"Tom!"
she cried.
"I'm so, so glad to see you again.
It's been terribly lonely.
As fast as I'd begin to learn one language, they'd move me somewhere else and I'd have to start all over again!
And now I hardly know whether or not I know any language at all!
...
Where's Jack?
I
expected that, of course, he would come with you."
"He'll be here bye-and-bye, Kate...."
Blake replied.
She seated herself, crossing one knee above the over, interlocking about it slender, white fingers.
"You must have so much to tell me, Tom!"
she bubbled, all animation, gladness, eagerness.
"Begin!
Please, begin!
And then I'll tell you everything.
Oh, isn't it exciting to go away and come back again!"
"I have a lot to tell you," he said, slowly.
"Why, you speak so seriously, Tom.
Aren't you glad to see me?"
"I'm afraid nobody but myself knows how glad....
Kate, I hardly know how to begin what I want to say.
I--it's hard; not having seen you so long, makes it harder.
I--"
She cried, in pretty amazement: "But what in the world is it?
Tom!
You almost frighten me!
I haven't done anything wrong, have I?
Shall I be put to bed without my supper?
...
Do speak, Tom.
Tell me what all this mystery is."
Still slowly, hands folding and unfolding, dark eyes upon hers of violet, he continued: "Kate, Jack Schuyler loves you; and I lo--" He had intended to say more; and what that more was one would but have had to look into his eyes to tell; but he had been looking into hers; he had seen the gleam that had leaped there at his words; and that is why he did not finish.
"Tom!"
she exclaimed, softly....
And then, "Did Jack tell you that-- himself?"
He nodded.
"He was afraid to tell me himself?"
Again he nodded.
It was not so.
But he lied; as would you, or I, had we been as good a man as he.
He had come there knowing that a woman loves but one man.
He had come there knowing that, if Schuyler were not the man she loved, thereby he would be saved, and she would be saved, much unpleasantness.
He had hoped that it was he himself that she loved.
Yet he had feared that it was not.
And he had known that whether it were he who asked, or Schuyler, or any man, it would make no difference; for when a woman like that loves a man, it is that man alone she loves; and the rest means nothing.
No thought of an unfair advantage was in his mind.
In such a case there could be no such thing as that.
It was only whether or not she loved one of them, and if so, which one; and beyond that there was nothing--nothing except that he wished to take from Schuyler any unhappiness that might lie there for him.
For he was a friend such as few men may ever have and, having, may pray to keep.
And now he knew the answer.
It was in the depths of the violet eyes--in the eagerness of lips and lithe, supple body--it was of her--about her.
Blake's lips became thin; his jaws set; his eyes half shut.
To have lost a father, and a mother, and such a girl as was she, and all within an eighteen month, was bitter, indeed.
He heard her say, as from a great distance: "It was fine of you to come like this, Tom....
I do love Jack; I thought once, that I loved you, Tom....
That was strange, wasn't it?
It's strange to sit here now, with you, telling you of it....
Though, of course, you don't care....
He will come soon, won't he?
You don't know how I've missed him, Tom....
It would be a strange situation, wouldn't it, if we hadn't known one another so well, and cared for one another, so deeply in such a friendly, brother-and-sisterly sort of way....
I think, in some ways, I ought to be angry with Jack for not coming himself....
But it's as though you were my big brother, Tom....
You know how Jack feels toward me; and so you are anxious to act as sort of a buffer, in case everything isn't--eh--as it should be....
It was fine of you, Tom; and you know how I appreciate it!
..."
What else she said, he did not know.
It seemed a thousand, thousand years ere he rose to his feet.
He was suffering--When a woman loves, her intuition is dead....
At length he found himself on the street.
But the sunshine was gone, and the air was dead....
He found Schuyler, and told him....
He watched him leap through the door, forgetting his hat--heard him pounding down the hall--heard the street door as it slammed behind him.
And then-- It's pretty hard, you know, to lose a father, and a mother, and such a girl as the daughter of Jimmy Blair; and all within an eighteen month.
[Illustration] CHAPTER TWELVE.
A FOREIGN MISSION
In the next few years, God was indeed good to John Schuyler.
Health he kept; honors came to him, and the respect of men and of women.
There were those who loved him, many; and of those who hated him there were a few;
which is well, inasmuch as the hatred of some men may be the highest praise--the highest favor--that they have to bestow.
A child came to them, at length--to him and to the daughter of Jimmy Blair; and that child was as like to the daughter of Jimmy Blair as the daughter had been like her mother.
A part of the time they lived in the city; but most of their days were spent out at the Larchmont place, on the Sound, that John Stuyvesant Schuyler had built so long ago.
And there they were very, very happy.
The quiet, peaceful beauty of "Grey Rocks" more than ever appealed to the soul of Tom Blake as he stood upon the bridge of his yacht, "The Vagrant," and watched the ever-enlarging lawn apparently rush toward him.
He closed his eyes, a little.
The sun was very bright....
He turned toward the Long Island shore, hazy and unreal in the mists of the morning....
When he turned back again, the huge, sea-going craft, a thing of glistening white and shining brass, was making a wide, graceful sweep in the churning water, and the house had ceased to rush down upon him.
It now stood inviting, beckoning, as close at hand as it were safe to be.
A launch was lowered, and the owner's gangway dropped.
And in another moment, Blake stood, balancing himself nicely against the rolling of the little craft, as it rushed through the blue-gray water toward the landing pier at the foot of the velvet lawn.
Like one who, in haste, yet longs to loiter Blake made his way across the sward to where, jutting out from a corner of the house, a tiny bay window thrust itself forth among a confusion of tangled nasturtiums, copper- colored, yellow, crimson son.
With the privileged assurance of one long known and long loved, he thrust open the left hand window, which extended to the ground, and entered the room.
There came a little, delighted cry of surprise; a rather uncertain, "Oh, Mr. Tom!"
and in another instant he was enveloped in a tiny cloud of lace and ribbons and primly starched linen while two bare, brown little legs waved wildly about his breast, a pair of very sticky lips were set against his own, and his neck found itself in the clasp of tiny fingers that had known orange-juice and oat-meal and sugar--and possibly jam-- since they had had intimate association of water.
At length he set her down upon the floor, gently.
"Well, well, little partner," he said, grinning sociably, "that most surely was a succulent salute....
I perceive from the remainder of your repast" his eyes had fallen upon the little breakfast table and the over- turned high-chair which, with infinite dignity unbent, the butler was rescuing from prostration "that you like a little oatmeal on your sugar."
"I do," confessed the child, friendly.
"But Woberts doesn't. Do you, Woberts?"
Without waiting for the corroboration of the somewhat perturbed Roberts, she turned again to Blake.
"I like heaps and heaps of sugar....
Woberts gives it to me when there isn't anyone looking, don't you, Woberts?"
And then, very seriously, she added, "I like Woberts" Blake laughed, a low, rumbling, ringing laugh.
"I don't blame you," he said.
"I used to have sugar once....
I liked those who gave it to me."
He picked her up and set her again in the high-chair, moving it close to the table with its dainty china and center-piece of pink carnations.
The child looked up at him, half wondering.
She was pretty--very pretty-- with serious, round violet eyes, sun-kissed cheeks, and hair of the soft brown that is of kin to gold.
"Don't you get any sugar now?"
she asked, very seriously.
He shook his head.
"Not any?"
she persisted.
"Never?"
"Not any," he replied, gravely.
"Never."
Swiftly she picked up the little silver sugar jar; she cast an investigative eye up at the solemn visage of the butler.
"Mr. Tom can have some of ours, can't he, Woberts?"
she inquired, gravely tendering the bowl to Blake, who accepted it just as gravely.
"I thank you," he said, very seriously.
"It is kind of you....
But, do you know, I was speaking rather of figurative sugar."
The child shook her head, perplexedly.
"I don't think we have that kind," she ventured.
"We have powdered sugar, and loaf sugar, and gran--granulated," she syllablized it, calling it "gran-u-lat-ed"--"and we have pulverized sugar, too.
But I don't believe we have fig--the kind you said....
I'm sorry."
He smiled a little--a smile of the lips.
"It doesn't matter," he said, slowly.
"Really it doesn't. You know I haven't had any for so long that I've quite forgotten the taste of it....
Where's daddy this morning?"
"Daddy and mother dear are saying goodbye to Auntie," the child replied, making in the oatmeal before her a miniature Panama Canal and watching the thick cream trickle slowly from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
Blake turned to the butler.
"How is Mrs. VanVorst this morning, Roberts?"
he asked.
"Still very ill, sir," returned the butler.
"Very ill indeed."
"Not dangerously?"
"We 'opes not, sir.
But she's still very low, sir."
Blake turned one fist in the palm of the other hand.
"Why, I though from the wireless that Mr. Schuyler sent me that she was getting along splendidly.
I--"
He stopped, abruptly.
There had entered the breakfast room the wife of John Schuyler.
She saw Blake and came forward, hand outstretched, welcome in her eyes.
She had come to be very like her child--her child and Schuyler's--had the daughter of Jimmy Blair--she was like her child grown up, glorified into womanhood.
Her hair was the same gold-brown, a little unruly, clinging against her temples, nestling at neck-nape.
Her eyes were the same deep violet--perhaps a little darker--a little softer--a little less wondering; for years bring knowledge, and when one begins to know, then one must cease, somewhat, to wonder.
She had the soft, brown, sun-kissed cheeks of her child, too, rounded and smooth, with the red blood tinting them to a delicate pink.
She had the finely-modelled, cleanly-cut nose, and the expressive, sensitive mouth with its red lips, and white teeth.
And her chin was both beautiful and firm.
She moved lithely across the room to where Blake stood.
He took her hand.
"Tom," she began, cordially.
Her voice was low and deep, and very soft.
"We're so glad to see you....
You got Jack's message, then?
We were afraid you wouldn't." Blake nodded.
"Caught it off Point Judith," he replied.
"You should have seen us 'bout ship and come spattering down the Sound.
Those blockade-running persons could have gained points from us We burned the bulwarks, the cargo and most of my cigars.
It looks as though we did so wisely, too; for we haven't much time to spare, have we?"
"We leave in half an hour," she returned.
"Sit down, Tom....
Jack will be here soon."
"But what's it all about?"
he asked.
He sank into a chair, elbows on knees, fingers clasped.
"Jack's trip abroad?"
He nodded.
"It's something at the Court of St. James.
I don't know exactly; but it's very imposing, and important, and epoch-making.
Jack spent all day yesterday with the President and Secretary of State."
"Well, well, well!
That certainly is immense!"
She was standing beside the table.
Slowly her fingers plucked a carnation from the cluster before her.
Violet eyes were upon it.
"Is it?"
she asked, slowly.
"Isn't it?"
he queried, surprised.
She paused a moment; and then, swiftly: "Oh, I don't know.
I--"
Blake waited.
But she did not go on.
At length he spoke: "How long will he be gone?"
"Maybe two months," she returned....
"It will be the first time that we've been apart for more than a day or two since we were married....
I--
I suppose that's silly, isn't it?
"If that's silly, it's too bad anyone ever gets sensible," was his assuring reply.
She had risen.
Slowly she went around behind the little high chair.
Leaning lithely over, she laid her cheek against that of her child, soft, rounded arms pressing her close.
And then she looked at Blake, eyes to eyes.
"I don't like it, Tom," she said, very slowly.
"But," he protested, "it's a big honor--a great honor--an appointment like this, from the President."
"Yes," she answered, thoughtfully.
"It is a big honor.
And I suppose that I should be very, very happy--Of course, in a way, I am."
Then, suddenly: "But I'm not.
I don't like it, Tom.
I try to like it.
I tell myself that I ought to like it.
And yet I can't. Happiness is more than honors; and we are happy here--as happy as it is possible for two people" her eyes, laden of the mother love, fell upon the child that was hers, "for three people," she corrected, "to be.
We have everything we need--everything we ought to want.
I'd rather have just peace, and quiet and contentment, than all the honors there are."
"And yet--" "I mustn't stand in the way of his advancement, you mean.
I know that;
and I haven't....
You know he left it all to me; and I said, 'Go.'
It hurt, too, Tom....
I didn't want that he should go.
I don't know why....
I--" she stopped.
The child had finished her oatmeal.
Lithely, the mother, stooping, lifted her from the chair, held her close for a tiny minute and then, kissing her, set her down upon the floor.
"Run along, dearie," she directed.
"Tell Mawkins to get you dressed."
She watched the graceful, pretty child until she vanished through the door.
Slowly she walked to the window.
Hands clasped behind her she stood, gazing across the sunlit lawn--across the dancing, flashing waters of the Sound.
A big, black schooner, a mountain of bellying whiteness superimposed upon a tiny streak of hull, was standing off for the Long Island shore.
Her eyes followed it.
Blake, lids half closed, as a man who seeks within the denseness of masculine brain for something that lieth not therein, considered for a long moment, eyes upon the perfect figure of perfect womanhood before him.
At length he spoke.
"It doesn't seem to me," he began, "that it means either very much or very little."
He went on, more lightly: "Two months isn't such a long time, you know, after all.
He'll soon be back, laden with honors.
And then, because he was raised on the seacoast and doesn't know the difference between a Lima bean and a bole weevil, they'll probably make him Secretary of Agriculture."
She was still gazing at the vanishing sail; she had not heard his words.
He leaned back in his chair, a little, watching her.
At length he sighed, and murmured to himself: "To him that hath, shall be given all they can take away from him that hathn't." [Illustration] CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
