Ailsa Paige. Robert W. Chambers
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seated himself and readjusted his eye-glasses.
"No, dear—only of this nightmare we are living in"—he stopped abruptly. Politics had been avoided between them. There was a short silence; he felt his wife's hand touch his in the darkness—sign of a tender respect for his perplexity, but not for his political views.
"Forgive me, dear, for using the word 'rebel,'" he said, smiling and straightening his shoulders. "Where have you and Ailsa been to-day? Did you go to New York?"
"Yes. We saw the Academy, and, oh, Curt! there are some very striking landscapes—two by Gifford; and the cutest portrait of a girl by Wiyam Hunt. And your friend Bierstadt has a Western scene—all fireworks! and, dear, Eastman Johnson was there—and Kensett sent such a cunning little landscape. We lunched at Taylor's." She lowered her voice to a whisper. "Ailsa did look too cute fo' words. I declare she is the most engaging little minx. Eve'y man sta'ed at her. I wish she would marry again and be happy. She doesn't know what a happy love affair can be—poor baby."
"Do you?" asked her husband.
"Are you beginning to co't me again, Curt?"
"Have I ever ceased?—you little Rebel!"
"No," she said under her breath.
"By the way, Celia," he said smiling, "that young man—cousin of yours—Berkley, turned up promptly to-day. I gave him a room in the office."
"That was certainly ve'y frien'ly of you, Curt!" she responded warmly. "You will be patient with him, won't you?"
"I've had to be already. I gave him a commission to collect some rents and he came back fifty dollars short, calmly explaining that one of our lodgers looked poor and he hated to ask for the rent."
"O Curt—the boy is ve'y sweet and wa'm-hearted. Were you cross with him?"
"Not very. I imparted a few plain truths—very pleasantly, Celia. He knew better; there's a sort of an impish streak in him—also an inclination for the pleasant by-ways of life. … He had better let drink alone, too, if he expects to remain in my office. I told him that."
"Does he—the foolish baby!"
"Oh, probably not very much. I don't know; he's likable, but—he hasn't inspired me with any overwhelming respect and confidence. His record is not exactly savoury. But he's your protege, and I'll stand him as long as you can."
"Thank you, Curt. We must be gentle to him. I shall ask him to dinner and we can give a May dance perhaps—something informal and pretty—What is the matter, Curt?"
"Nothing, dear. … Only I wouldn't plan anything just yet—I mean for the present—not for a few days, anyway——"
He shrugged, removed his glasses, polished them on his handkerchief, and sat holding them, his short-sighted eyes lost in reverie.
His wife endured it to the limit of patience:
"Curt," she began in a lower voice, "you and I gen'ally avoid certain matters, dear—but—ev'ything is sure to come right in the end—isn't it? The No'th is going to be sensible."
"In the—end," he admitted quietly. And between them the ocean sprang into view again.
"I wonder—" She stopped, and an inexplicable uneasiness stirred in her breast. She looked around at her son, her left hand fell protectingly upon his shoulder, her right, groping, touched her husband's sleeve.
"I am—well cared for—in the world," she sighed happily to herself. "It shall not come nigh me."
Stephen was saying to Ailsa:
"There's a piece of up-town property that came into the office to-day which seems to me significant of the future. It would be a good investment for you, Cousin Ailsa. Some day Fifth Avenue will be built up solidly with brown-stone mansions as far as the Central Park. It is all going to be wonderfully attractive when they finish it."
Ailsa mused for a moment. Then:
"I walked down this street to Fort Greene this afternoon," she began, "and the little rocky park was so sweet and fragrant with dogwood and Forsythia and new buds everywhere. And I looked out over the rivers and the bay and over the two cities and, Steve, somehow—I don't know why—I found my eyes filling with tears. I don't know why, Steve——"
"Feminine sentiment," observed her cousin, smoking.
Mrs. Craig's fingers became restless on her husband's sleeve; she spoke at moments in soft, wistful tones, watching her younger daughters and their friends grouped under the trees in the dusk. And all the time, whatever it was that had brought a new unease into her breast was still there, latent. She had no name to give it, no reason, no excuse; it was too shadowy to bear analysis, too impalpable to be defined, yet it remained there; she was perfectly conscious of it, as she held her husband's sleeve the tighter.
"Curt, is business so plaguey poor because of all these politics?"
"My business is not very flourishing. Many men feel the uncertainty; not everybody, dear."
"When this—matter—is settled, everything will be easier for you, won't it? You look so white and tired, dear."
Stephen overheard her.
"The matter, as you call it, won't be settled without a row, mother—if you mean the rebellion."
"Such a wise boy with his new cigar," she smiled through a sudden resurgence of uneasiness.
The boy said calmly: "Mother, you don't understand; and all the rest of the South is like you."
"Does anybody understand, Steve?" asked his father, slightly ironical.
"Some people understand there's going to be a big fight," said the boy.
"Oh. Do you?"
"Yes," he said, with the conviction of youth. "And I'm wondering who's going to be in it."
"The militia, of course," observed Ailsa scornfully. "Camilla is forever sewing buttons on Jimmy's dress uniform. He wears them off dancing."
Mr. Craig said, unsmiling: "We are not a military nation, Steve; we are not only non-military but we are unmilitary—if you know what that means."
"We once managed to catch Cornwallis," suggested his son, still proudly smoking.
"I wonder how we did it?" mused his father.
"They were another race—those catchers of Cornwallis—those fellows in, blue-and-buff and powdered hair."
"You and Celia are their grandchildren," observed Ailsa, "and you are a West Point graduate."
Her brother-in-law looked at her with a strange sort of humour in his handsome, near-sighted eyes:
"Yes, too blind to serve the country that educated me. And now
it's too late; the desire is gone; I have no inclination to fight,
Ailsa. Drums always annoyed me. I don't particularly like a gun.
I don't care for a fuss. I don't wish to be a soldier."
Ailsa said: "I rather like the noise of drums. I think I'd like—war."
"Molly Pitcher! Molly Pitcher! Of what are you babbling," whispered Celia, laughing down the flashes of pain that ran through her heart. "Wars are ended in our Western World. Didn't you know it, grandchild of Vikings? There are to be no more Lake Champlains, only debates—n'est ce pas, Curt?—very grand debates between gentlemen of the South and gentlemen of the North in Congress assembled——"
"Two congresses assembled," said Ailsa calmly, "and the debates will be at long range——"
"By magnetic telegraph if you wish, Honey-bell," conceded Celia hastily. "Oh, we must not begin disputin' about matters that nobody can possibly he'p. It will all come right; you know it will,