University of Virginia Library

18. CHAPTER XVIII.

No episodes marked the long days of the following
summer at Temple House. The inner self of its
inmates was wrapped in the necessary and wholesome
security which comes from the reciprocal surrender
and interchange of the habits of our outward
life. Carelessly speaking, no change was apparent,
but it was certain that Tempe was less a
teazing, restless presence than formerly; there was
little of the old, hasty flitting in and out of doors,
and the sharp encounters between herself and Argus
had ceased. Roxalana, also, seemed differently disposed;
her treasured odds and ends had lost their
interest to her economical mind. About the time of
Sebastian's recovery, Argus began to disappear regularly
between eight and twelve A. M. For some
reason he did not mention, he sought and obtained
employment in a Marine Insurance Company. His
income was added to, and in due time the household
comforts were added to besides. It was several
weeks before Roxalana's mind was brought to bear
on the fact of his daily absence. An unexpected
irregularity occured in regard to breakfast one morning,
at which Argus expressed some impatience; in
short, he swore.

“Why, Argus,” said Roxalana, “one would think
it necessary for you to have your breakfast at a set
time.”

“Yes, unless the person, like yourself, should
happen to be blind and deaf.”

She dropped into her chair and laughed; but
when he had gone, she said, with the air of imparting
a secret, “Tempe, do you know that your
uncle Argus goes out every morning, and has done
so for two months?”

“What if he does? I am willing for the furniture
to go out, too, if it chooses, and the house, or anything
else here; and I don't object to their staying
out, either.”

The gentle ministration of the season coincided with
Sebastian's mood; its temperate sunshine and breezes;
the uniform grass on hill and field, decked everywhere
with straight-stemmed flowers, yellow, blue, and
white; the even beds of harmless shrubs which here
and there covered the flat coast; and the blue creeks
lapping into brown marshes, or smooth pale sand,
were new. The ordinary inequalities of time seemed
to him to have no lodging place; there was no point
for a purpose; night met day in a bow of indefinite
shades. At present, his vitality flowed in the current
of the friendship between himself and Argus,—
a friendship of feeling, not of ideas,—and not yet to
be analysed. Sebastian, under its moral influence,
approached a repose which was better than an occupation;
and Argus, strongly moved by it, felt an
activity by which his mask of coldness, and his

selfish habits were lost. Still, Sebastian was sometimes
restless. Some old wound bled afresh; his
face grew passionate again, his handsome eyes, singular
and intense because they were too near together,
wore a tormenting expression. One could
not meet his glance then, without being possessed
with the desire to rend from him the secret of his
power. He muttered Spanish between his teeth, and
hummed wild, monotonous airs. Tempe heard
these, for he was, or appeared to be, unmindful of her
presence. She told him one day, that she had named
two cats that were in training at Mat Sutcliffe's,
“Colado” and “Tizona.” He stared at her, and
asked her if she knew Spanish literature.

“I only know your unhappy fits,” she replied.
“As for literature,—this looks like a place for that,
does it not?”

“They are old songs.”

“Your fits?”

“Did somebody say you were a child?”

“Yes,—when I was born.”

“I have not seen such a fire-fly, for many days.
Shall I remember you henceforth, or forget you?
I'll forget you. Here's another old ballad”—

“Oh, I know it!” and she began between her
teeth, “En el nombre del Criador”—

“I don't like to hear you.”

“Why?”

“It reminds me of the time before I was found
dead,—when women's lips opened with your accent;

they sang different things, though. Promise me,
little Tempe, not to imitate me again.”

He looked at her attentively, and saw that in her
face which gave him a shudder of repulsion and regret.
“The innocents,” he said to himself.

“I promise you,” she said quickly, her blood dyeing
the roots of her hair like a flash of flame. But
from that time he was as silent, when moody, as before
Argus and Roxalana.

Argus, too, occasionally returned to his dreamy
ways, passing hours under the elms, with a cigar in
his mouth, which nothing could induce him to remove.
But whatever his mood, Kent was barred
from his doors; its diurnal babble, sad or gay, rolled
into Eternity,—which was no more blind or deaf to
it than the family at Temple House. Many people,
however, knew, and were interested in Sebastian;
whenever he appeared in public, he was pointed at
as “The Passenger.”