William Dean Howells: 27 Novels in One Volume (Illustrated). William Dean Howells
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couldn't," said Olive, regretfully. "I've neither the feet nor the head for climbing over high rocky places."
Marcia was about to sink down on the grass again, from which she had risen, in the hopes that her proposition would succeed, when Bartley called out: "Why don't you show Ben the Devil's Backbone? The view is worth seeing, Halleck."
"Would you like to go?" asked Marcia, listlessly.
"Yes, I should, very much," said Halleck, scrambling to his feet, "if it won't tire you too much?"
"Oh, no," said Marcia, gently, and led the way. She kept ahead of him in the climb, as she easily could, and she answered briefly to all he said. When they arrived at the top, "There is the view," she said coldly. She waved her hand toward the valley; she made a sound in her throat as if she would speak again, but her voice died in one broken sob.
Halleck stood with downcast eyes, and trembled. He durst not look at her, not for what he should see in her face, but for what she should see in his: the anguish of intelligence, the helpless pity. He beat the rock at his feet with the ferule of his stick, and could not lift his head again. When he did, she stood turned from him and drying her eyes on her handkerchief. Their looks met, and she trusted her self-betrayal to him without any attempt at excuse or explanation.
"I will send Hubbard up to help you down," said Halleck.
"Well," she answered, sadly.
He clambered down the side of the bluff, and Bartley started to his feet in guilty alarm when he saw him approach. "What's the matter?"
"Nothing. But I think you had better help Mrs. Hubbard down the bluff."
"Oh!" cried Mrs. Macallister. "A panic! how interesting!"
Halleck did not respond. He threw himself on the grass, and left her to change or pursue the subject as she liked. Bartley showed more savoir-faire when he came back with Marcia, after an absence long enough to let her remove the traces of her tears.
"Pretty rough on your game foot, Halleck. But Marcia had got it into her head that it wasn't safe to trust you to help her down, even after you had helped her up."
"Ben," said Olive, when they were seated in the train the next day, "why did you send Marcia's husband up there to her?" She had the effect of not having rested till she could ask him.
"She was crying," he answered.
"What do you suppose could have been the matter?"
"What you do: she was miserable about his coquetting with that woman."
"Yes. I could see that she hated terribly to have her come; and that she felt put down by her all the time. What kind of person is Mrs. Macallister?"
"Oh, a fool," replied Halleck. "All flirts are fools."
"I think she's more wicked than foolish."
"Oh, no, flirts are better than they seem,—perhaps because men are better than flirts think. But they make misery just the same."
"Yes," sighed Olive. "Poor Marcia, poor Marcia! But I suppose that, if it were not Mrs. Macallister, it would be some one else."
"Given Bartley Hubbard,—yes."
"And given Marcia. Well,—I don't like being mixed up with other people's unhappiness, Ben. It's dangerous."
"I don't like it either. But you can't very well keep out of people's unhappiness in this world."
"No," assented Olive, ruefully.
The talk fell, and Halleck attempted to read a newspaper, while Olive looked out of the window. She presently turned to him. "Did you ever fancy any resemblance between Mrs. Hubbard and the photograph of that girl we used to joke about,—your lost love?"
"Yes," said Halleck.
"What's become of it,—the photograph? I can't find it any more; I wanted to show it to her one day."
"I destroyed it. I burnt it the first evening after I had met Mrs. Hubbard. It seemed to me that it wasn't right to keep it."
"Why, you don't think it was her photograph!"
"I think it was," said Halleck. He took up his paper again, and read on till they left the cars.
That evening, when Halleck came to his sister's room to bid her good night, she threw her arms round his neck, and kissed his plain, common face, in which she saw a heavenly beauty.
"Ben, dear," she said, "if you don't turn out the happiest man in the world, I shall say there's no use in being good!"
"Perhaps you'd better say that after all I wasn't good," he suggested, with a melancholy smile.
"I shall know better," she retorted.
"Why, what's the matter, now?"
"Nothing. I was only thinking. Good night!"
"Good night," said Halleck. "You seem to think my room is better than my company, good as I am."
"Yes," she said, laughing in that breathless way which means weeping next, with women. Her eyes glistened.
"Well," said Halleck, limping out of the room, "you're quite good-looking with your hair down, Olive."
"All girls are," she answered. She leaned out of her doorway to watch him as he limped down the corridor to his own room. There was something pathetic, something disappointed and weary in the movement of his figure, and when she shut her door, and ran back to her mirror, she could not see the good-looking girl there for her tears.
XXVIII
"Hello!" said Bartley, one day after the autumn had brought back all the summer wanderers to the city, "I haven't seen you for a month of Sundays." He had Ricker by the hand, and he pulled him into a doorway to be a little out of the rush on the crowded pavement, while they chatted.
"That's because I can't afford to go to the White Mountains, and swell round at the aristocratic summer resorts like some people," returned Ricker. "I'm a horny-handed son of toil, myself."
"Pshaw!" said Bartley. "Who isn't? I've been here hard at it, except for three days at one time and live at another."
"Well, all I can say is that I saw in the Record personals, that Mr. Hubbard, of the Events, was spending the summer months with his father-in-law, Judge Gaylord, among the spurs of the White Mountains. I supposed you wrote it yourself. You're full of ideas about journalism."
"Oh, come! I wouldn't work that joke any more. Look here, Ricker, I'll tell you what I want. I want you to dine with me."
"Dines people!" said Ricker, in an awestricken aside.
"No,—I mean business! You Ve never seen my kid yet: and you've never seen my house. I want you to come. We've all got back, and we're in nice running order. What day are you disengaged?"
"Let me see," said Ricker, thoughtfully. "So many engagements! Wait! I could squeeze your dinner in some time next month, Hubbard."
"All right. But suppose we say next Sunday. Six is the hour."
"Six? Oh, I can't dine in the middle of the forenoon that way! Make it later!"
"Well, we'll say one P.M., then. I know your dinner hour. We shall expect you."
"Better not, till I come." Bartley knew that this was Ricker's way of accepting, and he said nothing, but he answered his next question with easy joviality. "How are you making it with old Witherby?"
"Oh, hand over hand! Witherby and I were formed for each other. By, by!"
"No, hold on! Why don't you come to the club any more?"
"We-e-ll!