University of Virginia Library

9. IX.
DANGEROUS WAYS.

IT was true enough what Harry had said.
Philip Malbone's was that perilous Rousseau-like
temperament, neither sincere enough
for safety, nor false enough to alarm; the winning
tenderness that thrills and softens at the
mere neighborhood of a woman, and fascinates
by its reality those whom no hypocrisy can
deceive. It was a nature half amiable, half
voluptuous, that disarmed others, seeming itself
unarmed. He was never wholly ennobled
by passion, for it never touched him deeply
enough; and, on the other hand, he was not
hardened by the habitual attitude of passion,
for he was never really insincere. Sometimes
it seemed as if nothing stood between him and
utter profligacy but a little indolence, a little
kindness, and a good deal of caution.

“There seems no such thing as serious repentance
in me,” he had once said to Kate,
two years before, when she had upbraided him
with some desperate flirtation which had

looked as if he would carry it as far as gentlemen
did under King Charles II. “How does
remorse begin?”

“Where you are beginning,” said Kate.

“I do not perceive that,” he answered.
“My conscience seems, after all, to be only a
form of good-nature. I like to be stirred by
emotion, I suppose, and I like to study character.
But I can always stop when it is evident
that I shall cause pain to somebody. Is
there any other motive?”

“In other words,” said she, “you apply the
match, and then turn your back on the burning
house.”

Philip colored. “How unjust you are! Of
course, we all like to play with fire, but I
always put it out before it can spread. Do
you think I have no feeling?”

Kate stopped there, I suppose. Even she
always stopped soon, if she undertook to interfere
with Malbone. This charming Alcibiades
always convinced them, after the wrestling
was over, that he had not been thrown.

The only exception to this was in the case
of Aunt Jane. If she had anything in common
with Philip, — and there was a certain
element of ingenuous unconsciousness in which

they were not so far unlike, — it only placed
them in the more complete antagonism. Perhaps
if two beings were in absolutely no respect
alike, they never could meet even for purposes
of hostility; there must be some common
ground from which the aversion may proceed.
Moreover, in this case Aunt Jane utterly disbelieved
in Malbone because she had reason to
disbelieve in his father, and the better she knew
the son the more she disliked the father retrospectively.

Philip was apt to be very heedless of such
aversions, — indeed, he had few to heed, — but
it was apparent that Aunt Jane was the only
person with whom he was not quite at ease.
Still, the solicitude did not trouble him very
much, for he instinctively knew that it was not
his particular actions which vexed her, so much
as his very temperament and atmosphere, —
things not to be changed. So he usually went
his way; and if he sometimes felt one of her
sharp retorts, could laugh it off that day and
sleep it off before the next morning.

For you may be sure that Philip was very
little troubled by inconvenient memories. He
never had to affect forgetfulness of anything.
The past slid from him so easily, he forgot

even to try to forget. He liked to quote from
Emerson, “What have I to do with repentance?”
“What have my yesterday's errors,”
he would say, “to do with the life of to-day?”

“Everything,” interrupted Aunt Jane, “for
you will repeat them to-day, if you can.”

“Not at all,” persisted he, accepting as conversation
what she meant as a stab. “I may,
indeed, commit greater errors,” — here she
grimly nodded, as if she had no doubt of it, —
“but never just the same. To-day must take
thought for itself.”

“I wish it would,” she said, gently, and then
went on with her own thoughts while he was
silent. Presently she broke out again in her
impulsive way.

“Depend upon it,” she said, “there is very
little direct retribution in this world.”

Phil looked up, quite pleased at her indorsing
one of his favorite views. She looked, as
she always did, indignant at having said anything
to please him.

“Yes,” said she, “it is the indirect retribution
that crushes. I've seen enough of that,
God knows. Kate, give me my thimble.”

Malbone had that smooth elasticity of surface
which made even Aunt Jane's strong fingers

slip from him as they might from a fish, or
from the soft, gelatinous stem of the water-target.
Even in this case he only laughed good-naturedly,
and went out, whistling like a
mocking-bird, to call the children round him.

Toward the more wayward and impulsive
Emilia the good lady was far more merciful.
With all Aunt Jane's formidable keenness, she
was a little apt to be disarmed by youth and
beauty, and had no very stern retributions
except for those past middle age. Emilia especially
charmed her while she repelled. There
was no getting beyond a certain point with
this strange girl, any more than with Philip;
but her depths tantalized, while his apparent
shallows were only vexatious. Emilia was usually
sweet, winning, cordial, and seemed ready
to glide into one's heart as softly as she glided
into the room; she liked to please, and found
it very easy. Yet she left the impression that
this smooth and delicate loveliness went but
an inch beyond the surface, like the soft, thin
foam that enamels yonder tract of ocean, belongs
to it, is a part of it, yet is, after all, but a
bequest of tempests, and covers only a dark
abyss of crossing currents and desolate tangles
of rootless kelp. Everybody was drawn to

her, yet not a soul took any comfort in her.
Her very voice had in it a despairing sweetness,
that seemed far in advance of her actual
history; it was an anticipated Miserere, a perpetual
dirge, where nothing had yet gone
down. So Aunt Jane, who was wont to be
perfectly decisive in her treatment of every
human being, was fluctuating and inconsistent
with Emilia. She could not help being fascinated
by the motherless child, and yet scorned
herself for even the doubting love she gave.

“Only think, auntie,” said Kate, “how you
kissed Emilia, yesterday!”

“Of course I did,” she remorsefully owned.
“I have kissed her a great many times too
often. I never will kiss her again. There is
nothing but sorrow to be found in loving her,
and her heart is no larger than her feet. To-day
she was not even pretty! If it were not
for her voice, I think I should never wish to
see her again.”

But when that soft, pleading voice came
once more, and Emilia asked perhaps for luncheon,
in tones fit for Ophelia, Aunt Jane instantly
yielded. One might as well have tried
to enforce indignation against the Babes in the
Wood.

This perpetual mute appeal was further
strengthened by a peculiar physical habit in
Emilia, which first alarmed the household, but
soon ceased to inspire terror. She fainted
very easily, and had attacks at long intervals
akin to faintness, and lasting for several hours.
The physicians pronounced them cataleptic in
their nature, saying that they brought no danger,
and that she would certainly outgrow
them. They were sometimes produced by fatigue,
sometimes by excitement, but they
brought no agitation with them, nor any development
of abnormal powers. They simply
wrapped her in a profound repose, from which
no effort could rouse her, till the trance passed
by. Her eyes gradually closed, her voice died
away, and all movement ceased, save that her
eyelids sometimes trembled without opening,
and sweet evanescent expressions chased each
other across her face, — the shadows of thoughts
unseen. For a time she seemed to distinguish
the touch of different persons by preference or
pain; but soon even this sign of recognition
vanished, and the household could only wait
and watch, while she sank into deeper and yet
deeper repose.

There was something inexpressibly sweet,

appealing, and touching in this impenetrable
slumber, when it was at its deepest. She
looked so young, so delicate, so lovely; it was
as if she had entered into a shrine, and some
sacred curtain had been dropped to shield her
from all the cares and perplexities of life. She
lived, she breathed, and yet all the storms of
life could but beat against her powerless, as
the waves beat on the shore. Safe in this
beautiful semblance of death, — her pulse a
little accelerated, her rich color only softened,
her eyelids drooping, her exquisite mouth
curved into the sweetness it had lacked in
waking, — she lay unconscious and supreme,
the temporary monarch of the household, entranced
upon her throne. A few hours having
passed, she suddenly waked, and was a self-willed,
passionate girl once more. When she
spoke, it was with a voice wholly natural; she
had no recollection of what had happened, and
no curiosity to learn.