University of Virginia Library

41. CHAPTER XLI.

HENRY Brierly was at the Dilworthy's constantly and on
such terms of intimacy that he came and went without
question. The Senator was not an inhospitable man, he
liked to have guests in his house, and Harry's gay humor and
rattling way entertained him; for even the most devout men
and busy statesmen must have hours of relaxation.

Harry himself believed that he was of great service in the
University business, and that the success of the scheme
depended upon him to a great degree. He spent many hours
in talking it over with the Senator after dinner. He went
so far as to consider whether it would be worth his while to
take the professorship of civil engineering in the new institution.

But it was not the Senator's society nor his dinners—at
which this scapegrace remarked that there was too much grace
and too little wine—which attracted him to the house. The
fact was the poor fellow hung around there day after day for

the chance of seeing Laura for five minutes at a time. For
her presence at dinner he would endure the long bore of the
Senator's talk afterwards, while Laura was off at some
assembly, or excused herself on the plea of fatigue. Now
and then he accompanied her to some reception, and rarely,
on off nights, he was blessed with her company in the parlor,
when he sang, and was chatty and vivacious and performed
a hundred little tricks of imitation and ventriloquism, and
made himself as entertaining as a man could be.

It puzzled him not a little that all his fascinations seemed
to go for so little with Laura; it was beyond his experience
with women. Sometimes Laura was exceedingly kind and
petted him a little, and took the trouble to exert her powers
of pleasing, and to entangle him deeper and deeper. But
this, it angered him afterwards to think, was in private; in
public she was beyond his reach, and never gave occasion to
the suspicion that she had any affair with him. He was
never permitted to achieve the dignity of a serious flirtation
with her in public.

“Why do you treat me so?” he once said, reproachfully.

“Treat you how?” asked Laura in a sweet voice, lifting her
eyebrows.

“You know well enough. You let other fellows monopolize
you in society, and you are as indifferent to me as if we
were strangers.”

“Can I help it if they are attentive, can I be rude? But
we are such old friends, Mr. Brierly, that I didn't suppose
you would be jealous.”

“I think I must be a very old friend, then, by your conduct
towards me. By the same rule I should judge that Col.
Selby must be very new.”

Laura looked up quickly, as if about to return an indignant
answer to such impertinence, but she only said, “Well, what
of Col. Selby, sauce-box?”

“Nothing, probably, you'll care for. Your being with him
so much is the town talk, that's all?”

“What do people say?” asked Laura calmly.

“Oh, they say a good many things. You are offended,
though, to have me speak of it?”

“Not in the least. You are my true friend. I feel that I
can trust you. You wouldn't deceive me, Harry?” throwing
into her eyes a look of trust and tenderness that melted
away all his petulance and distrust. “What do they say?”

“Some say that you've lost your head about him; others
that you don't care any more for him than you do for a dozen
others, but that he is completely fascinated with you and
about to desert his wife; and others say it is nonsense to suppose
you would entangle yourself with a married man, and
that your intimacy only arises from the matter of the cotton
claims, for which he wants your influence with Dilworthy.
But you know everybody is talked about more or less in Washington.
I shouldn't care; but I wish you wouldn't have so
much to do with Selby, Laura,” continued Harry, fancying
that he was now upon such terms that his advice would be
heeded.

“And you believed these slanders?”

“I don't believe anything against you, Laura, but Col.
Selby does not mean you any good. I know you wouldn't
be seen with him if you knew his reputation.”

“Do you know him?” Laura asked, as indifferently as she
could.

“Only a little. I was at his lodgings in Georgetown a
day or two ago, with Col. Sellers. Sellers wanted to talk
with him about some patent remedy he has, Eye Water, or
something of that sort, which he wants to introduce into
Europe. Selby is going abroad very soon.”

Laura started, in spite of her self-control.

“And his wife? Does he take his family? Did you see
his wife?”

“Yes. A dark little woman, rather worn—must have been
pretty once though. Has three or four children, one of them
a baby. They'll all go, of course. She said she should be

[ILLUSTRATION]

A LADY KILLER TAMED.

[Description: 499EAF. Page 365. In-line image of a seated man kissing the hand of a woman who is standing.] glad enough to get away from Washington. You know
Selby has got his claim allowed, and they say he has had a
run of luck lately at Morrissey's.”

Laura heard all this in a kind of stupor, looking straight
at Harry, without seeing him. Is it possible, she was thinking,
that this base wretch, after all his promises, will
take his wife and children and leave me? Is it possible
the town is saying all these things about me? And—a
look of bitterness coming into her face—does the fool
think he can escape so?

“You are angry with me, Laura,” said Harry, not comprehending
in the least what was going on in her mind.

“Angry?” she said, forcing herself to come back to his
presence. “With you? Oh, no. I'm angry with the cruel
world, which pursues an independent woman as it never does
a man. I'm grateful to you, Harry; I'm grateful to you for
telling me of that odious man.”

And she rose from her chair and gave him her pretty
hand, which the silly fellow took, and kissed and clung to.
And he said many silly things, before she disengaged

herself gently, and left him, saying it was time to dress, or
dinner.

And Harry went away, excited, and a little hopeful, but
only a little. The happiness was only a gleam, which departed
and left him thoroughly miserable. She never would love
him; and she was going to the devil, besides. He couldn't
shut his eyes to what he saw, nor his ears to what he heard of
her.

What had come over this trifling young lady-killer? It was
a pity to see such a gay butterfly broken on a wheel. Was
there something good in him, after all, that had been
touched? He was in fact madly in love with this woman.
It is not for us to analyze the passion and say whether it
was a worthy one. It absorbed his whole nature and
made him wretched enough. If he deserved punishment,
what more would you have? Perhaps this love was kindling
a new heroism in him.

He saw the road on which Laura was going clearly enough,
though he did not believe the worst he heard of her. He
loved her too passionately to credit that for a moment. And
it seemed to him that if he could compel her to recognize
her position, and his own devotion, she might love him, and
that he could save her. His love was so far ennobled, and
become a very different thing from its beginning in Hawkeye.
Whether he ever thought that if he could save her from
ruin, he could give her up himself, is doubtful. Such a
pitch of virtue does not occur often in real life, especially
in such natures as Harry's, whose generosity and
unselfishness were matters of temperament rather than habits
or principles.

He wrote a long letter to Laura, an incoherent, passionate
letter, pouring out his love as he could not do in her presence,
and warning her as plainly as he dared of the dangers that
surrounded her, and the risks she ran of compromising herself
in many ways.

Laura read the letter, with a little sigh may be, as she

thought of other days, but with contempt also, and she put
it into the fire with the thought, “They are all alike.”

Harry was in the habit of writing to Philip freely, and
boasting also about his doings, as he could not help doing
and remain himself. Mixed up with his own exploits, and
his daily triumphs as a lobbyist, especially in the matter of
the new University, in which Harry was to have something
handsome, were amusing sketches of Washington society,
hints about Dilworthy, stories about Col. Sellers, who had
become a well-known character, and wise remarks upon the
machinery of private legislation for the public good, which
greatly entertained Philip in his convalescence.

Laura's name occurred very often in these letters, at first in
casual mention as the belle of the season, carrying everything
before her with her wit and beauty, and then more seriously,
as if Harry did not exactly like so much general admiration
of her, and was a little nettled by her treatment of him.

This was so different from Harry's usual tone about women,
that Philip wondered a good deal over it. Could it be possible
that he was seriously affected? Then came stories about
Laura, town talk, gossip which Harry denied the truth of
indignantly; but he was evidently uneasy, and at length
wrote in such miserable spirits that Philip asked him squarely
what the trouble was; was he in love?

Upon this, Harry made a clean breast of it, and told Philip
all he knew about the Selby affair, and Laura's treatment of
him, sometimes encouraging him and then throwing him off,
and finally his belief that she would go to the bad if something
was not done to arouse her from her infatuation. He wished
Philip was in Washington. He knew Laura, and she had a
great respect for his character, his opinions, his judgment.
Perhaps he, as an uninterested person in whom she would have
some confidence, and as one of the public, could say something
to her that would show her where she stood.

Philip saw the situation clearly enough. Of Laura he
knew not much, except that she was a woman of uncommon
fascination, and he thought from what he had seen of her in
Hawkeye, her conduct towards him and towards Harry, of
not too much principle. Of course he knew nothing of her
history; he knew nothing seriously against her, and if Harry
was desperately enamored of her, why should he not win her
if he could. If, however, she had already become what Harry
uneasily felt she might become, was it not his duty to go to
the rescue of his friend and try to save him from any rash
act on account of a woman that might prove to be entirely
unworthy of him; for trifler and visionary as he was, Harry
deserved a better fate than this.

Philip determined to go to Washington and see for himself.
He had other reasons also. He began to know enough
of Mr. Bolton's affairs to be uneasy. Pennybacker had been
there several times during the winter, and he suspected that
he was involving Mr. Bolton in some doubtful scheme.
Pennybacker was in Washington, and Philip thought he

might perhaps find out something about him, and his plans,
that would be of service to Mr. Bolton.

Philip had enjoyed his winter very well, for a man with
his arm broken and his head smashed. With two such nurses
as Ruth and Alice, illness seemed to him rather a nice holiday,
and every moment of his convalescence had been precious
and all too fleeting. With a young fellow of the habits of
Philip, such injuries cannot be counted on to tarry long, even
for the purpose of love-making, and Philip found himself
getting strong with even disagreeable rapidity.

During his first weeks of pain and weakness, Ruth was
unceasing in her ministrations; she quietly took charge of
him, and with a gentle firmness resisted all attempts of Alice
or any one else to share to any great extent the burden with
her. She was clear, decisive and peremptory in whatever she
did; but often when Philip opened his eyes in those first days
of suffering and found her standing by his bedside, he saw a
look of tenderness in her anxious face that quickened his
already feverish pulse, a look that remained in his heart long
after he closed his eyes. Sometimes he felt her hand on his
forehead, and did not open his eyes for fear she would take
it away. He watched for her coming to his chamber; he
could distinguish her light footstep from all others. If this
is what is meant by women practicing medicine, thought
Philip to himself, I like it.

“Ruth,” said he one day when he was getting to be quite
himself, “I believe in it?”

“Believe in what?”

“Why, in women physicians.”

“Then, I'd better call in Mrs. Dr. Longstreet.”

“Oh, no. One will do, one at a time. I think I should
be well to-morrow, if I thought I should never have any
other.”

“Thy physician thinks thee mustn't talk, Philip,” said Ruth
putting her finger on his lips.

“But, Ruth, I want to tell you that I should wish I never
had got well if—”

[ILLUSTRATION]

A CONVERT TO WOMEN'S RIGHTS

[Description: 499EAF. Page 370. In-line image of a man in bed with a woman next to him taking care of him .]

“There, there, thee must not talk. Thee is wandering
again,” and Ruth closed his lips, with a smile on her own that
broadened into a merry laugh as she ran away.

Philip was not weary, however, of making these attempts,
he rather enjoyed it. But whenever he inclined to be sentimental,
Ruth would cut him off, with some such gravely conceived
speech as, “Does thee think that thy physician will
take advantage of the condition of a man who is as weak
as thee is? I will call Alice, if thee has any dying confessions
to make.”

As Philip convalesced, Alice more and more took Ruth's
place as his entertainer, and read to him by the hour, when
he did not want to talk—to talk about Ruth, as he did a good
deal of the time. Nor was this altogether unsatisfactory to
Philip. He was always happy and contented with Alice.
She was the most restful person he knew. Better informed
than Ruth and with a much more varied culture, and bright
and sympathetic, he was never weary of her company, if he
was not greatly excited by it. She had upon his mind that
peaceful influence that Mrs. Bolton had when, occasionally,
she sat by his bedside with her work. Some people have
this influence, which is like an emanation. They bring peace
to a house, they diffuse serene content in a room full of mixed

company, though they may say very little, and are apparently
unconscious of their own power.

Not that Philip did not long for Ruth's presence all the
same. Since he was well enough to be about the house, she
was busy again with her studies. Now and then her teasing
humor came again. She always had a playful shield against
his sentiment. Philip used sometimes to declare that she had
no sentiment; and then he doubted if he should be pleased
with her after all if she were at all sentimental; and he
rejoiced that she had, in such matters, what he called the airy
grace of sanity. She was the most gay serious person he ever
saw.

Perhaps he was not so much at rest or so contented with
her as with Alice. But then he loved her. And what have
rest and contentment to do with love?