1. CHAPTER I.
I had a sort of candle-light acquaintance with Mr.
Philip McRueit when we were in college. I mean to
say that I had a daylight repugnance to him, and never
walked with him, or talked with him, or rode with
him, or sat with him; and, indeed, seldom saw him —
expect as one of a club oyster-party of six. He was
a short, sharp, satirical man (nicknamed “my cruet” by his cronies — rather descriptively!) but as plausible
and as vindictive as Mephistopheles before and after
the ruin of a soul. In some other state of existence
I had probably known and suffered by Phil. McRueit
— for I knew him like the sleeve of an old coat, the
first day I laid eyes on him; though other people
seemed to have no such instinct. Oh, we were not
new acquaintances — from whatever star he had been
transported, for his sins, to this planet of dirt. I think
he was of the same opinion, himself. He chose between
open warfare and conciliation in the first five
minutes — after seeing me as a stranger — chose the
latter.
Six or seven years after leaving college, I was following my candle up to bed rather musingly, one night
at the Astor, and on turning a corner, I was obliged to
walk round a short gentleman who stood at the head
of the stairs in an attitude of fixed contemplation. As
I weathered the top of his hat rather closely, I caught
the direction of his eye, and saw that he was regarding,
very fixedly, a pair of rather dusty kid slippers,
which had been set outside the door, probably for
cleaning, by the occupant of the chamber opposite.
As the gentleman did not move, I turned on the half
landing of the next flight of stairs, and looked back,
breaking in, by my sudden pause, upon his fit of abstraction.
It was McRueit, and on recognising me,
he immediately beckoned me to his side.
“Does it strike you,” said he, “that there is anything
peculiar in that pair of shoes?”
“No — except that they certify to two very small
feet on the other side of the door.”
“Not merely `small,' my dear fellow! Do you
see where the pressure has been in those sleader shoes,
how straight the inside line, how arched the instep,
how confidingly flat the pressure downward of the
little great toe! It's a woman of sweet and relying
character who wore that shoe to-day, and I must know
her. More, sir, I must marry her! Ah, you laugh
— but I will! There's magnetism in that pair of
shoes addressed to me only. Beg your pardon — good
night — I'll go down stairs and find out her number —
`74!' I'll be well acquainted with `74' by this time
to-morrow!”
For the unconscious young lady asleep in that room,
I lay awake half the night, troubled with foreboding
pity. I knew the man so well, I was so certain that
he would leave nothing possible undone to carry out
this whimsical purpose! I knew that from that moment
was levelled, point-blank, at the lady, whoever
she might be (if single) a battery of devilish and pertinacious
ingenuity, which would carry most any
small fort of a heart, most any way barricaded and
defended. He was well off; he was well-looking
enough; he was deep and crafty. But if he did win
her, she was gone! gone, I knew, from happiness,
like a stone from a sling. He was a tyrant — subtle
in his cruelties to all people dependant on him — and
her life would be one of refined torture, neglect, betrayal,
and tears.
A fit of intermittent disgust for strangers, to which
all persons living in hotels are more or less liable,
confined my travels, for some days after this rencontre,
to the silence-and-slop thorough-fare of the back
stairs, “Coming to my feed” of society one rainy
morning, I went into the drawing-room after breakfast,
and was not surprised to see McRueit in a posture of
absorbed attention beside a lady. His stick stood on
the floor, and with his left cheek rested on the gold
head, he was gazing into her face, and evidently keeping
her perfectly at her ease as to the wants and gaps
of conversation, as he knew how to do — for he was the
readiest man with his brick and mortar whom I ever
had encountered.
“Who is that lady?” I asked of an omni-acquainted
old bachelor friend of mine.
“Miss Jonthee Twitt — and what can be the secret
of that rather exclusive gentleman's attention to her.
I can not fancy.”
I pulled a newspaper from my pocket, and seating
myself in one of the deep windows, commenced rather
a compassionate study of Miss Twitt — intending fully,
if I should find her interesting, to save her from the
clutches of my detestable classmate.
She was a slight, hollow-chested, consumptive-looking
girl, with a cast of features that any casual
observer would be certain to describe as “interesting.”
With the first two minutes' gaze upon her, my sympathies
were active enough for a crusade against a
whole army of connubial tyrants. I suddenly paused,
however. Something McRueit said made a change
in the lady's countenance. She sat just as still; she
did not move her head from its negligent posture; her
eyebrows did not contract; her lips did not stir; but
the dull, sickly-colored lids descended calmly and
fixedly till they hid from sight the upper edges of the
pupils! and by this slight but infallible sign I knew
— but the story will tell what I knew. Napoleon was
nearly, but not quite right, when he said that there
was no reliance to be placed on peculiarities of feature
or expression.
