37. CHAPTER XXXVII.
ABEL NEWT, vice SLIGO MOULTRIE REMOVED.
The Plumers were at Bunker's. The gay, good-hearted
Grace, full of fun and flirtation, vowed that New York was
life, and all the rest of the world death.
“You do not compliment the South very much,” said Sligo
Moultrie, smiling.
“Oh no! The South is home, and we don't compliment
relations, you know,” returned Miss Grace.
“Yes, thank Heaven! the South is home, Miss Grace. New
York is like a foreign city. The tumult is fearful; yet it is
only a sea-port after all. It has no metropolitan repose. It
never can have. It is a trading town.”
“Then I like trading towns, if that is it,” returned Miss
Grace, looking out into the bustling street.
Mr. Moultrie smiled—a quiet, refined, intelligent, and accomplished
smile.
He smiled confidently. Not offensively, but with that half
shy sense of superiority which gave the high grace of self-possession
to his manner—a languid repose which pervaded his
whole character. The symmetry of his person, the careless
ease of his carriage, a sweet voice, a handsome face, were valuable
allies of his intellectual accomplishments; and when all
the forces were deployed they made Sligo Moultrie very fascinating.
He was not audacious nor brilliant. It was a passive,
not an active nature. He was not rich, although Mrs.
Boniface Newt had a vague idea that every Southern youth
was ex-officio a Crœsus. Scion of a fine old family, like the
Newts, and Whitloes, and Octoynes of New York, Mr. Sligo
Moultrie, born to be a gentleman, but born poor, was resolved
to maintain his state.
Miss Grace Plumer, as we saw at Mrs. Boniface Newt's, had
bright black eyes, profusely curling black hair, olive skin, ponting
mouth, and pearly teeth. Very rich, very pretty, and very
merry was Miss Grace Plumer, who believed with enthusiastic
faith that life was a ball, but who was very shrewd and very
kindly also.
Sligo Moultrie understood distinctly why he was sitting at
the window with Grace Plumer.
“The roses are in bloom at your home, I suppose, Miss
Grace?” said he.
“Yes, I suppose they are, and a dreadfully lonely time
they're having of it. Southern life, of course, is a hundred
times better than life here; but it is a little lonely, isn't it, Mr.
Moultrie?”
Grace said this turning her neck slightly, and looking an
arch interrogatory at her companion.
“Yes, it is lonely in some ways. But then there is so much
going up to town and travelling that, after all, it is only a few
months that we are at home; and a man ought to be at home
a good deal—he ought not to be a vagabond.”
“Thank you,” said Grace, bowing mockingly.
“I said `a man,' you observe, Miss Grace.”
“Man includes woman, I believe, Mr. Moultrie.”
“In two cases—yes.”
“What are they?”
“When he holds her in his arms or in his heart.”
Here was a sudden volley masked in music. Grace Plumer
was charmed. She looked at her companion. He had been
“a vagabond” all winter in New York; but there were few
more presentable men. Moreover, she felt at home with him
as a compatriot Yes, this would do very well.
Miss Grace Plumer had scarcely mentally installed Mr. Sligo
Moultrie as first flirter in her corps, when a face she remembered
looked up at the window from the street, more dangerous
even than when she had seen it in the spring. It was the
face of Abel Newt, who raised his hat and bowed to her with
an admiration which he concealed that he took care to show.
The next moment he was in the room, perfectly comme il
faut, sparkling, resistless.
“My dear Miss Plumer, I knew spring was coming. I felt
it as I approached Bunker's. I said to Herbert Octoyne (he's
off with the Shrimp; Papa Shrimp was too much, he was so
old that he was rank)—I said, either I smell the grass sprouting
in the Battery or I have a sensation of spring. I raise my
eyes—I see that it is not grass, but flowers. I recognize the
dear, delicious spring. I bow to Miss Plumer.”
He tossed it airily off. It was audacious. It would have
been outrageous, except that the manner made it seem persiflage,
and therefore allowable. Grace Plumer blushed, bowed,
smiled, and met his offered hand half-way. Abel Newt knew
perfectly what he was doing, and raised it respectfully, bowed
over it, kissed it.
“Moultrie, glad to see you. Miss Plumer, 'tis astonishing
how this man always knows the pleasant places. If I want to
know where the best fruits and the earliest flowers are, I ask
Sligo Moultrie.”
Mr. Moultrie bowed.
“The first rose of the year blooms in Mr. Moultrie's button-hole,”
continued Abel, who galloped on, laughing, and seating
himself upon an ottoman, so that his eyes were lower than the
level of Grace Plumer's.
She smiled, and joined the hunt.
“He talks nothing but `ladies' delights,”' said she.
“Yes—two other things, please, Miss Grace,” said Moultrie.
“What, Mr. Moultrie, two other cases? You always have
two more.”
“Better two more than too much,” struck in Abel, who saw
that Miss Plumer had put out her darling little foot from beneath
her dress, and therefore had fixed his eyes upon it, with
an admiration which was not lost upon the lady.
“Heavens!” cried Moultrie, laughing and looking at them.
“You are both two more and too much for me.”
“Good, good, good for Moultrie!” applauded Abel; “and
now, Miss Plumer, I submit that he has the floor.”
“Very well, Mr. Moultrie. What are the two other things
that you talk?”
“Pansies and rosemary,” said the young man, rising and
bowing himself out.
“Miss Plumer, you have been the inspiration of my friend
Sligo, who was never so brilliant in his life before. How generous
in you to rise and shine on this wretched town! It is
Sahara. Miss Plumer descends upon it like dew. Where
have you been?”
“At home, in Louisiana.”
“Ah! yes. Know ye the land where the eypress and myrtle—
I have never been there; but it comes to me here when
you come, Miss Plumer.”
Still the slight persiflage to cover the audacity.
“And so, Mr. Newt, I have the honor of seeing the gentleman
of whom I have heard most this winter.”
“What will not our enemies say of us, Miss Plumer?”
“You have no enemies,” replied she, “except, perhaps—no,
I'll not mention them.”
“Who? who? I insist,” said Abel, looking at Grace Plumer
earnestly for a moment, then dropping his eyes upon her
very pretty and very be-ringed white hands, where the eyes
lingered a little and worshipped in the most evident manner.
“Except, then, your own sex,” said the little Louisianian,
half blushing.
“I do them no harm,” replied Abel.
“No; but you make them jealous.”
“Jealous of what?” returned the young man, in a lower
tone, and more seriously.
“Oh! it's only of—of—of—of what I hear from the girls,”
said Grace, fluttering a little, as she remembered the conservatory
at Mrs. Boniface Newt's, which also Abel had not forgotten.
“And what do you hear, Miss Grace?” he asked, in pure
music.
Grace blushed, and laughed.
“Oh! only of your success with poor, feable women,” said
she.
“I have no success with women,” returned Abel Newt, in
a half-serious way, and in his most melodious voice. “Women
are naturally generous. They appreciate and acknowledge
an honest admiration, even when it is only honest.”
“Only honest! What more could it be, Mr. Newt?”
“It might be eloquent. It might be fascinating and irresistible.
Even when a man does not really admire, his eloquence
makes him dangerous. If, when he truly admires, he
were also eloquent, he would be irresistible. There is no victory
like that. I should envy Alexander nothing and Napoleon
nothing if I thought I could really conquer one woman's
heart. My very consciousness of the worth of the prize paralyzes
my efforts. It is musty, but it is true, that fools rush in
where angels fear to tread.”
He sat silent, gazing abstractedly at the two lovely feet of
Miss Grace Plumer, with an air that implied how far his mind
had wandered in their conversation from any merely personal
considerations. Miss Grace Plumer had not made as much
progress as Mr. Newt since their last meeting. Abel Newt
seemed to her the handsomest fellow she had ever seen.
What he had said both piqued and pleased her. It pleased
her because it piqued her.
“Women are naturally noble,” he continued, in a low, rippling
voice. “If they see that a man sincerely admires them
they forgive him, although he can not say so. Yes, and a woman
who really loves a man forgives him every thing.”
He was looking at her hands, which lay white, and warm,
and glittering in her lap. She was silent.
“What a superb ruby, Miss Grace! It might be a dewdrop
from a pomegranate in Paradise.”
She smiled at the extravagant conceit, while he took her
hand as he spoke, and admired the ring. The white, warm
hand remained passive in his.
“Let me come nearer to Paradise,” he said, half-abstractedly,
as if he were following his own thoughts, and he pressed
his lips to the fingers upon which the ruby gleamed.
Miss Grace Plumer was almost frightened. This was a very
different performance from Mr. Sligo Moultrie's—very different
from any she had known. She felt as if she suggested,
in some indescribable way, strange and beautiful thoughts to
Abel Newt. He looked and spoke as if he addressed himself
to the thoughts she had evoked rather than to herself. Yet
she felt herself to be both the cause and the substance. It
was very sweet. She did not know what she felt; she did
not know how much she dared. But when he went away she
knew that Abel Newt was appointed first flirter, vice Sligo
Moultrie removed.
