University of Virginia Library

33. CHAPTER XXXIII.
ALL ARE HAPPY.

Three weeks after the date of Joseph's last letter Philip
met him at the railroad station in the city. Brown, bearded,
fresh, and full of joyous life after his seven days' journey
across the continent, he sprang down from the platform to be
caught in his friend's arms.

The next morning they went together to Mr. Blessing's
residence. That gentleman still wore a crimson velvet
dressing-gown, and the odor of the cigar, which he puffed in
a rear room, called the library (the books were mostly Patent
Office and Agricultural Reports, with Faublas and the
Decamerone), breathed plainly of the Vuelte Abajo.

“My dear boy!” he cried, jumping up and extending his
arms, “Asten of Asten Hall! After all your moving accidents
by flood and field, back again! This is—is—what
shall I say? compensation for many a blow of fate! And
my brave Knight with the Iron Hand, sit down, though it
be in Carthage, and let me refresh my eyes with your
faces!”

“Not Carthage yet, I hope,” said Joseph.

“Not quite, if I adhere strictly to facts,” Mr. Blessing
replied; “although it threatens to be my Third Punic War.

There is even a slight upward tendency in the Amaranth
shares, and if the company were in my hands, we should soon
float upon the topmost wave. But what can I do? The Honorable
Whaley and the Reverend Dr. Lellifant were retained

on account of their names; Whaley made president, and I
—being absent at the time developing the enterprise, not
only pars magna but totus teres atque rotundus, ha! ha!—I
was put off with a director's place. Now I must stand by,
and see the work of my hands overthrown. But 'tis ever
thus!”

He heaved a deep sigh. Philip, most heroically repressing
a tendency to shriek with laughter, drew him on to state
the particulars, and soon discovered, as he had already suspected,
that Mr. Blessing's sanguine temperament was the
real difficulty; it was still possible for him to withdraw, and
secure a moderate success.

When this had been made clear, Joseph interposed.

“Mr. Blessing,” said he, “I cannot forget how recklessly,
in my disappointment, I charged you with dishonesty. I
know also that you have not forgotten it. Will you give
me an opportunity of atoning for my injustice?—not that you
require it, but that I may, henceforth, have less cause for
self-reproach.”

“Your words are enough!” Mr. Blessing exclaimed. “I
excused you long ago. You, in your pastoral seclusion—”

“But I have not been secluded for eighteen months past,”
said Joseph, smiling. “It is the better knowledge of men
which has opened my eyes. Besides, you have no right to
refuse me; it is Mrs. Blessing whom I shall have to consult.”

He laid the papers on the table, explaining that half the
amount realized from his shares of the Amaranth had been
invested, on trust, for the benefit of Mrs. Eliza Blessing.

“You have conquered—vincisti!” cried Mr. Blessing,

shedding tears. “What can I do? Generosity is so rare
a virtue in the world, that it would be a crime to suppress
it!”

Philip took advantage of the milder mood, and plied his
arguments so skilfully that at last the exuberant pride of
the De Belsain blood gave way.

“What shall I do, without an object,—a hope, a faith in
possibilities?” Mr. Blessing cried. “The amount you have
estimated, with Joseph's princely provision, is a competence
for my old days; but how shall I fill out those days? The
sword that is never drawn from the scabbard rusts.”

“But,” said Philip, gravely, “you forget the field for
which you were destined by nature. These operations in
stocks require only a low order of intellect; you were meant
to lead and control multitudes of men. With your fluency
of speech, your happy faculty of illustration, your power of
presenting facts and probabilities, you should confine yourself
exclusively to the higher arena of politics. Begin as an
Alderman; then, a Member of the Assembly; then, the
State Senate; then—”

“Member of Congress!” cried Mr. Blessing, rising, with
flushed face and flashing eyes. “You are right! I have
allowed the necessity of the moment to pull me down from
my proper destiny! You are doubly right! My creature
comforts once secured, I can give my time, my abilities, my
power of swaying the minds of men,—come, let us withdraw,
realize, consolidate, invest, at once!”

They took him at his word, and before night a future, free
from want, was secured to him. While Philip and Joseph
were on their way to the country by a late train, Mr. Blessing
was making a speech of an hour and a half at one of the
primary political meetings.

There was welcome through the valley when Joseph's arrival
was known. For two or three days the neighbors
flocked to the farm to see the man whose adventures, in a
very marvellous form, had been circulating among them for
a year past. Even Mr. Chaffinch called, and was so conciliated
by his friendly reception, that he, thenceforth, placed
Joseph in the ranks of those “impracticable” men, who
might be nearer the truth than they seemed: it was not for
us to judge.

Every evening, however, Joseph took his saddle-horse and
rode up the valley to Philip's Forge. It was not only the
inexpressible charm of the verdure to which he had so long
been a stranger,—not only the richness of the sunset on the
hills, the exquisite fragrance of the meadow-grasses in the
cool air,—nay, not entirely the dear companionship of Philip
which drew him thither. A sentiment so deep and powerful
that it was yet unrecognized,—a hope so faint that it had
not yet taken form,—was already in his heart. Philip saw,
and was silent.

But, one night, when the moon hung over the landscape,
edging with sparkling silver the summits of the trees below
them, when the air was still and sweet and warm, and filled
with the diffused murmurs of the stream, and Joseph and
Madeline stood side by side, on the curving shoulder of the
knoll, Philip, watching them from the open window, said to
himself: “They are swiftly coming to the knowledge of
each other; will it take Joseph further from my heart, or
bring him nearer? It ought to fill me with perfect joy, yet
there is a little sting of pain somewhere. My life had settled
down so peacefully into what seemed a permanent form;
with Madeline to make a home and brighten it for me, and
Joseph to give me the precious intimacy of a man's love, so

different from woman's, yet so pure and perfect! They have
destroyed my life, although they do not guess it. Well, I
must be vicariously happy, warmed in my lonely sphere by
the far radiation of their nuptial bliss, seeing a faint reflection
of some parts of myself in their children, nay,
claiming and making them mine as well, if it is meant that
my own blood should not beat in other hearts. But will
this be sufficient? No! either sex is incomplete alone,
and a man's full life shall be mine! Ah, you unconscious
lovers, you simple-souled children, that know not what you
are doing, I shall be even with you in the end! The world
is a failure, God's wonderful system is imperfect, if there
is not now living a noble woman to bless me with her
love, strengthen me with her self-sacrifice, purify me with
her sweeter and clearer faith! I will wait: but I shall find
her!”