Essential Novelists - Harold Frederic. Frederic Harold
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that it was very sweet to sit thus beside her. The air about us seemed suddenly filled with some delicately be-numbing influence. The chattering, smiling, moving throng was here, close upon us, enveloping us in its folds. Yet we were deliciously isolated. Did she feel it as I did?
I looked up into her face. She had been silent for I know not how long, following her thoughts as I had followed mine. It was almost a shock to me to find that the talk had died away, and I fancied that I read a kindred embarrassment in her eyes. I seized upon the first subject which entered my head.
"Tulp would be glad to see you," I said, foolishly enough.
She colored slightly, and opened and shut her fan in a nervous way. "Poor Tulp!" she said, "I don't think he ever liked me as he did you. Is he well?"
"He has never been quite the same since—since he came to Albany. He is a faithful body-servant now—nothing more."
"Yes," she said, softly, with a sigh; then, after a pause, "Philip spoke of offering to make good to you your money loss in Tulp, but I told him he would better not."
"It was better not," I answered.
Silence menaced us again. I did not find myself indignant at this insolent idea of the Englishman's. Instead, my mind seemed to distinctly close its doors against the admission of his personality. I was near Daisy, and that was enough; let there be no thoughts of him whatsoever.
"You do Tulp a wrong," I said. "Poor little fellow! Do you remember—" and so we drifted into the happy, sunlit past, with its childish memories for both of games and forest rambles, and innocent pleasures making every day a little blissful lifetime by itself, and all the years behind our parting one sweet prolonged delight.
Words came freely now; we looked into each other's faces without constraint, and laughed at the pastimes we recalled. It was so pleasant to be together again, and there was so much of charm for us both in the time which we remembered together.
Sir John Johnson and his party had left the punch—or what remained of it—and came suddenly up to us. Behind the baronet I saw young Watts, young De Lancey, one or two others whom I did not know, and, yes!—it was he—Philip Cross.
He had altered in appearance greatly. The two years had added much flesh to his figure, which was now burly, and seemed to have diminished his stature in consequence. His face, which even I had once regarded as handsome, was hardened now in expression, and bore an unhealthy, reddish hue. For that matter, all these young men were flushed with drink, and had entered rather boisterously, attracting attention as they progressed. This attention was not altogether friendly. Some of the ladies had drawn in their skirts impatiently, as they passed, and beyond them I saw a group of Dutch friends of mine, among them Teunis, who were scowling dark looks at the new-comers.
Sir John recognized me as he approached, and deigned to say, "Ha! Mauverensen—you here?" after a cool fashion, and not offering his hand.
I had risen, not knowing what his greeting would be like. It was only decent now to say: "I was much grieved to hear of your honored father's death last summer."
"Well you might be!" said polite Sir John. "He served you many a good purpose. I saw you talking out yonder with Schuyler, that coward who dared not go to Philadelphia and risk his neck for his treason. I dare say he, too, was convulsed with grief over my father's death!"
"Perhaps you would like to tell Philip Schuyler to his face that he is a coward," I retorted, in rising heat at the unprovoked insolence in his tone. "There is no braver man in the Colony."
"But he didn't go to Philadelphia, all the same. He had a very pretty scruple about subscribing his name to the hangman's list."
"He did not go for a reason which is perfectly well known—his illness forbade the journey."
"Yes," sneered the baronet, his pale eyes shifting away from my glance; "too ill for Philadelphia, but not too ill for New York, where, I am told, he has been most of the time since your—what d'ye call it?—Congress assembled."
I grew angry. "He went there to bury General Bradstreet. That, also, is well known. Information seems to reach the Valley but indifferently, Sir John. Everywhere else people understand and appreciate the imperative nature of the summons which called Colonel Schuyler to New York. The friendship of the two men has been a familiar matter of knowledge this fifteen years. I know not your notions of friendship's duties; but for a gentleman like Schuyler, scarcely a mortal illness itself could serve to keep him from paying the last respect to a friend whose death was such an affliction to him."
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