William Dean Howells: 27 Novels in One Volume (Illustrated). William Dean Howells
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a mystery of me! I've been blunt and awkward, and I've bungled the business with father and mother; but I want to get away because I'm a miserable fraud here, and I think I might rub on a good while there before I found myself out again."
"Ben," demanded Olive, regardless of his words, "what have you been doing?"
"The old story,—nothing."
"Is that true, Ben?"
"You used to be satisfied with asking once, Olive."
"You haven't been so wicked, so careless, as to get some poor creature in love with, you, and then want to run away from the misery you've made?"
"I suppose if I look it there's no use denying it," said Halleck, letting his sad eyes meet hers, and smiling drearily. "You insist upon having a lady in the case?"
"Yes. But I see you won't tell me anything; and I won't afflict you. Only I'm afraid it's just some silly thing, that you've got to brooding over, and that you'll let drive you away."
"Well, you have the comfort of reflecting that I can't get away, whatever the pressure is."
"You know better than that, Ben; and so do I. You know that, if you haven't got father and mother's consent already, it's only because you haven't had the heart to ask for it. As far as that's concerned, you're gone already. But I hope you won't go without thinking it over, as father says,—and talking it over. I hate to have you seem unsteady and fickle-minded, when I know you're not; and I'm going to set myself against this project till I know what's driving you from us,—or till I'm sure that it's something worth while. You needn't expect that I shall help to make it easy for you; I shall help to make it hard."
Her loving looks belied her threats; if the others could not resist Ben when any sort of desire showed itself through his habitual listlessness, how could she, who understood him best and sympathized with him most? "There was something I was going to talk to you about, to-night, if you hadn't scared us all with this ridiculous scheme, and ask you whether you couldn't do something." She seemed to suggest the change of interest with the hope of winning his thoughts away from the direction they had taken; but he listened apathetically, and left her to go further or not as she chose. "I think," she added abruptly, "that some trouble is hanging over those wretched Hubbards."
"Some new one?" asked Halleck, with sad sarcasm, turning his eyes towards her, as if with the resolution of facing her.
"You know he's left his place on that newspaper."
"Yes, I heard that when I was at home before."
"There are some very disagreeable stories about it. They say he was turned away by Mr. Witherby for behaving badly,—for printing something he oughtn't to have done."
"That was to have been expected," said Halleck.
"He hasn't found any other place, and Marcia says he gets very little work to do. He must be running into debt, terribly. I feel very anxious about them. I don't know what they're living on."
"Probably on some money I lent him," said Halleck, quietly. "I lent him fifteen hundred in the spring. It ought to make him quite comfortable for the present."
"Oh, Ben! Why did you lend him money? You might have known he wouldn't do any good with it."
Halleck explained how and why the loan had been made, and added: "If he's supporting his family with it, he's doing some good. I lent it to him for her sake."
Halleck looked hardily into his sister's face, but he dropped his eyes when she answered, simply: "Yes, of course. But I don't believe she knows anything about it; and I'm glad of it: it would only add to her trouble. She worships you, Ben!"
"Does she?"
"She seems to think you are perfect, and she never comes here but she asks when you're to be home. I suppose she thinks you have a good influence on that miserable husband of hers. He's going from bad to worse, I guess. Father heard that he is betting on the election. That's what he's doing with your money."
"It would be somebody else's money if it wasn't mine," said Halleck. "Bartley Hubbard must live, and he must have the little excitements that make life agreeable."
"Poor thing!" sighed Olive, "I don't know what she would do if she heard that you were going away. To hear her talk, you would think she had been counting the days and hours till you got back. It's ridiculous, the way she goes on with mother; asking everything about you, as if she expected to make Bartley Hubbard over again on your pattern. I should hate to have anybody think me such a saint as she does you. But there isn't much danger, thank goodness! I could laugh, sometimes, at the way she questions us all about you, and is so delighted when she finds that you and that wretch have anything in common. But it's all too miserably sad. She certainly is the most single-hearted creature alive," continued Olive, reflectively. "Sometimes she scares me with her innocence. I don't believe that even her jealousy ever suggested a wicked idea to her: she's furious because she feels the injustice of giving so much more than he does. She hasn't really a thought for anybody else: I do believe that if she were free to choose from now till doomsday she would always choose Bartley Hubbard, bad as she knows him to be. And if she were a widow, and anybody else proposed to her, she would be utterly shocked and astonished."
"Very likely," said Halleck, absently.
"I feel very unhappy about her," Olive resumed. "I know that she's anxious and troubled all the time. Can't you do something, Ben? Have a talk with that disgusting thing, and see if you can't put him straight again, somehow?"
"No!" exclaimed Halleck, bursting violently from his abstraction. "I shall have nothing to do with them! Let him go his own way and the sooner he goes to the—I won't interfere,—I can't, I mustn't! I wonder at you, Olive!" He pushed away from the table, and went limping about the room, searching here and there for his hat and stick, which were on the desk where he had put them, in plain view. As he laid hand on them at last, he met his sister's astonished eyes. "If I interfered, I should not interfere because I cared for him at all!" he cried.
"Of course not," said Olive. "But I don't see anything to make you wonder at me about that."
"It would be because I cared for her—"
"Certainly! You didn't suppose I expected you to interfere from any other motive?"
He stood looking at her in stupefaction, with his hand on his hat and stick, like a man who doubts whether he has heard aright. Presently a shiver passed over him, another light came into his eyes, and he said quietly, "I'm going out to see Atherton."
"To-night?" said his sister, accepting provisionally, as women do, the apparent change of subject. "Don't go to-night, Ben! You're too tired."
"I'm not tired. I intended to see him to-night, at any rate. I want to talk over this South American scheme with him." He put on his hat, and moved quickly toward the door.
"Ask him about the Hubbards," said Olive. "Perhaps he can tell you something."
"I don't want to know anything. I shall ask him nothing."
She slipped between him and the door. "Ben, you haven't heard anything against poor Marcia, have you?"
"No!"
"You don't think she's to blame in any way for his going wrong, do you?
"How could I?"
"Then I don't understand why you won't do anything to help her."
He looked at her again, and opened his lips to speak once, but closed them before he said, "I've got my own affairs to worry me. Isn't that reason enough for not interfering in theirs?"
"Not for you, Ben."
"Then I don't choose to mix myself up in other people's misery. I don't like it, as you once said."
"But you can't help it sometimes, as you said."
"I can this time, Olive. Don't you see,—" he began.
"I