At the door Hamlen managed to have a word alone with Huntington.

"You knew her mother when she was a girl, you said?"

"Yes;--slightly," was the guarded reply.

"She was wonderful!" he exclaimed with much feeling. Then he added, "The daughter is very like her, don't you think?"

XIII

Hamlen's remark remained in Huntington's mind long after it was spoken.

He himself had been impressed by Merry's resemblance to her mother as they set out on their afternoon's pilgrimage; yet his reply to Hamlen's question was a prompt denial. Huntington's mind centered itself upon this paradox as they walked down the long driveway, and he wondered why he had impulsively yet deliberately given an impression so at variance with what he knew to be the facts. Seeking for self-justification, he turned his head slightly so that he might inspect his companion more closely without attracting her attention. After all, he satisfied himself, the resemblance was occasioned more by certain intangible characteristics than by any similarity of features. Marian Seymour possessed a beauty of more startling type than her daughter; indeed, until that afternoon Huntington had thought of Merry as an attractive rather than a beautiful girl. Now that the subject forced itself upon him he realized she was both, and that the type proved so satisfying that he had been content to enjoy it without the temptation of a.n.a.lysis.

Huntington's further acquaintance with the daughter emphasized his disapproval of her mother's idea regarding her possible marriage to Hamlen, and this led him to make a comparison between Marian Seymour as she was to-day and the idealization with which he had been so long familiar. Her beauty still remained, her fascination was perhaps greater since experience had given substance to her girlish vivacity and charm, and her energy was such that she unconsciously dominated every situation of which she was a factor. She was evidently devoted to her husband and to her children, but her force of personality dominated them as it did all others with whom she came in contact. Huntington had rather admired this trait in a woman, but now it clashed with his own judgment. He gave her credit for believing that she would be acting in her daughter's interest, but her suggestion did shock him, for it seemed to show a lack of sympathetic understanding. The idea of Merry married to Philip Hamlen! The man was all right, in his way, of course. Eventually he might become less of the recluse and more nearly human; but obviously he was too old and too settled in his eccentricities to be inflicted on any woman, and least of all on a girl like this.

"But still, confound him!" Huntington said to himself, "he came out of his chrysalis far enough to take notice!"

Then his thoughts jumped from Hamlen to Cosden. Connie was more alive than Hamlen could ever be expected to become, but the same arguments applied to him in greater or less degree. It was easy enough to understand what had attracted him, for Connie always instinctively sensed in anything the really vital a.s.sets. Now that Huntington was becoming better acquainted with Merry he resented more and more the idea of this coldly-calculated courtship, and he wondered why this characteristic of Cosden's had not more often offended him in the past.

From this point it was an easy shift to Billy,--dear, lovable, spoiled, heedless Billy! Of course he loved Merry, just as he had always loved every beautiful object he had ever seen; and, naturally enough, he wanted this beautiful object just as he had wanted hundreds of others during his brief but meteoric career. And still of course, he looked to his Uncle Monty to gratify his whim in this as in all other cases! It was going to the other extreme: Billy was as much too young and irresponsible as the others were too old and unsuitable. This much Huntington was able to settle definitely in his mind, and his arrival at a conclusion brought with it a sense of relief.

Huntington suddenly became aware that his introspection had occupied more time than courtesy permitted, but Merry, absorbed in her own thoughts, had not noticed his abstraction. He tried to relieve the tension.

"'Silence is golden, speech is silvern,'" he quoted. "What do you say to our adopting a silver standard?"

Merry's laugh showed that the interruption was welcome. "You always say the least expected thing, Mr. Huntington!" she exclaimed. "My mind was a thousand miles from here."

"A thousand miles," Huntington repeated reflectively. "I'm fairly good in geography, but I'm afraid I'll have to ask you the direction before I locate the spot."

"Straight up," she responded, half entering into his mood, half returning to her serious vein,--"straight in that kingdom where desire to do the right and wise thing is not hampered by a lack of knowledge."

"You would like to help Hamlen?"

"Indeed I would!"

What a serious face it was! Huntington studied it with satisfaction yet with twinges of conscience.

"I should not burden you with my problem," he said penitently. "Why should youth be made to carry loads which belong to older shoulders?"

"Please--" the girl protested eagerly. "I want you to do it. I appreciate your confidence so much that I am eager to be of some real service."

"You like--responsibilities?" he queried.

"It isn't living to be without them, is it? They seem to come of their own accord to men: a woman usually has to work hard to find any that are worth while."

"Some women do," Huntington admitted; "others have more than their share without deserving them. Burdens usually seek and find the willing shoulders."

"Of course; but I mean the women who have been brought up as I have been. I've always had everything I wanted, and my parents have protected me against everything. They even protest when I rebel against my own uselessness by going into settlement work, and in other small ways try to express my individuality."

"Such as the course in bookbinding with Cobden-Sanderson?"

Merry smiled consciously. "That was such a poor attempt, because I had no ability. My squares were uneven, my backs were wrinkled, and it was really such sloppy work."

"Granting that what you say is true, yet the experience gained in doing it enabled you to understand Hamlen to-day far better than if you had never attempted it. That is the main point, isn't it?"

"I suppose nothing we do is ever wholly lost," she admitted. "I did understand Mr. Hamlen, but that understanding has brought me no nearer to the point where I can help him."

"You helped him to-day more than any one has ever done except myself.--You see how frankly I accept first glory."

"I helped him?" Merry protested. "Why, I only listened and allowed myself to be entertained."

"Yes; but there is a difference in the way one does even that. He hesitated to show you his work and yet he wanted to show it to you. That was the struggle between the habit of years to restrain his real feeling and the desire which your sympathetic personality created in him. And the desire won out. Each time the habit is broken its power over him becomes weaker. Now do you see the value of the service you rendered him?"

"It is wonderful how clearly you a.n.a.lyze things!" the girl exclaimed admiringly. "All I could see was depressing, but you found encouragement in everything."

"Surely those beautiful books encouraged you?"

"Yes; but they emphasized the awful pity of the deliberate repression of his full ability."

"Still; the fact that the demand for expression was as stronger than the will to repress it shows the character beneath."

"Then not to express one's individuality shows a lack of character?"

Merry inquired soberly.

"I think I sense some personal application," Huntington answered guardedly. "I must know more before I utter further words of wisdom."

The girl looked up into his face inquiringly, and then laughed consciously. "I am really becoming frightened by your power to understand," she said, only half jokingly. "I do mean to make a personal application. I want to express myself individually, but, being a woman, I cannot find the opportunity. If I really had character I'm sure that I should force the opportunity."

Huntington realized that in hesitating to answer her question he had been wiser than he knew. The seriousness which appeared from time to time on the girl's face, then, was not a pa.s.sing mood, but rather the index of warring emotions. An unguarded word at this moment might do much injury to a nature which was striving to find itself.

"Do you know yet what form you wish your individuality to take?" he asked cautiously.

"Not exactly," was the frank response. "What I object to, is that a girl isn't allowed to become interested in anything that is worth while. She is given her education and 'brought out,' after which, whether she likes it or not, she seems to be placed in a position of waiting for some man to come along to marry her. Why can't she be allowed to do something, just as a boy is, until she finds out whether she wants to marry or not?"

"That would be a fatal error!" Huntington explained with mock gravity, hoping to lighten the serious turn the conversation had taken. "If any such idea gained ground marriage would become the exception rather than the rule. How many girls do you think would ever marry if they were permitted to find any other real interest in life?"

"But I'm serious, Mr. Huntington," Merry protested, showing that she felt hurt by his flippancy. "I couldn't bear to be a nonent.i.ty all my days. Think of realizing one's own ambitions only by marrying a man who could fulfil them! I could not be happy unless I contributed my share to the real life which we jointly lived."

"You could do it," Huntington said with conviction, "but not every woman could.--See that old man bowing to us. Suppose we go and speak with him.

Do you mind?"

"Every one is so courteous here," she exclaimed as they crossed the narrow road. "I never pa.s.s one of the natives without receiving a greeting of some kind, and the children are forever shyly forcing flowers or fruit upon me. It makes one love the place."