"I'm not tremendously sincere--not tremendous in any grand sense of the word, but I've learned that I can be tremendously awkward in a false position. It is absurd of you to fancy that I can think of you in any other light than that of a beautiful woman, gifted with more than your share of intellect. I prefer that our friendship should rest on this obvious fact. We are too old 'to make believe,' as children say. I came to this conclusion within an hour after I wrote the letter."

"Oh, you dashed it off hastily, without giving it thought?"

"I've given you two thoughts to your one," he replied, laughing lightly.

"And none of them very complimentary, judging from the letter." And she impatiently tore it up.

"That's right. Put it out of existence."

"I almost wish I had kept it as doc.u.mentary evidence against you," she remarked.

"Oh, come! Friends do not wish evidence against, but for each other. I could remain away scarcely a week."

"From business, yes."

"Or from my most delightful recreation; yes."

"You find me very amusing then."

"I do indeed, and interesting also. I am quite certain that your society gives me far more pleasure than mine affords you."

"Since I am relegated to woman's sphere I certainly shall not protest against that belief. I am now under no bonds to be distressingly frank."

"You never would have been any franker than you wished to be. For the manifestation of that trait I shall have to depend on something very different."

"And what may that be?"

"Why, simply the quality of your friendship."

"I am satisfied that mine compares very favorably with yours."

"In both instances neither of us can escape one sure test."

"Indeed! What test?"

"That of time," he replied, smiling significantly. "Good-by. I'm quite sure that your regard will survive till to-morrow afternoon when we are to take a sail in the harbor, so Mrs. Willoughby has informed me."

Miss Ainsley gave a little complacent nod in his direction as he disappeared, and thought, "Since you are so content and agreeable as a friend merely, I'm half-inclined to keep you as such, and marry some one else."

CHAPTER x.x.xIV

"BITTERNESS MUST BE CHERISHED"

To all appearance the long hot days of August were pa.s.sing very uneventfully to the characters of our story. The cold look which Clancy received from Mara on the Battery, together with the fact that Bodine appeared more lover-like than ever, speedily satisfied him that his best resource was the ambitious career which in his absence he had accepted in the place of happiness. He therefore gave himself up quite unreservedly to Miss Ainsley's fascinations, and, with all the skill and energy he possessed, seconded her father's business enterprises. Mr. Ainsley was sometimes in town, and again absent, as his business interests required; for he was one of those indefatigable men who, with soldier-like energy and fearlessness, carry out their plans, regardless of discomfort or danger. He recognized the fact that Clancy was both capable and useful, and was already inclined to make him one of his chief lieutenants in the South. He understood the young man's relations to his daughter perfectly, and was not at all averse to a union between them. At the same time, he knew how problematical Caroline's action would be, and that it would be useless for him to appear for or against the match. He was aware of his daughter's att.i.tude in regard to marriage, and also convinced that she would take her own course.

It would seem that she was taking no course whatever at present, but indolently and complacently letting matters drift. She sometimes smilingly thought, "I scarcely know whether Mr. Clancy is friend or lover. I suppose I could lead him to be more p.r.o.nounced in either character if I chose, but since he is so agreeable as he is, I would be a fool not to keep everything _in statu quo_ till I wish a change. Life is too long to give up a pleasure before you are through with it."

Clancy quietly studied her mood, and was in no greater hurry than herself.

Indeed, both felt that they had arrived at a comparatively clear mutual understanding, and so were quite at their ease, she enjoying his society abundantly, and he hers, as far as his bitter memories would permit.

Quick of apprehension, Bodine soon perceived a change in Mara's att.i.tude toward him, but was considerate in availing himself of such slight encouragement as she gave. He had been taught by her manner that her first feeling on the discovery of a warmer regard than she had expected was that of repulsion. He now believed that she had thought the matter over, and was learning that it might not be impossible to regard him in a new and different light. Long since the ardor of youth had pa.s.sed, and he was disposed to allow her time to become accustomed to the thought of wifehood. In the meantime he put forth every effort to prove himself companionable, in spite of their disparity in age. It was not his delicate and thoughtful attentions, however, which reconciled her to the future that she had accepted, but rather the motives already revealed. Under the influence of these, a certain species of mental excitement had been evoked. She had not ceased to suffer, but she had ceased merely to exist.

There was something now to look forward to, sacred duties to antic.i.p.ate, and a future which was not a blank. She believed that in giving help and happiness to another she would more surely trample on self, and make it the vantage-ground for a greater devotion than that of most women whose love is often partly self-love. In regarding her first pure love and all its promptings as the phase of self to be destroyed, she was committing her fatal error; and of this error, not only Clancy's words, but also her own heart, often warned her. But she was not one to turn back, having once resolved upon a course.

She had far too much delicacy and maidenly pride to suggest consciously to Bodine the nature of her thoughts, but she was willing that he should see that she no longer shrank outwardly from his occasional manifestations of a tenderer regard than he bestowed upon Ella. That something in her woman's nature beyond her control did shrink and plead for escape, she knew well; but to conquer this instinctive aversion was a part of the task which she had set for herself.

Not only quick-witted Ella, but also Mrs. Bodine and Mrs. Hunter, saw the drift of affairs, and gave their unhesitating approval. Mrs. Hunter was glad, because it would destroy Clancy's prospects forever, and prove a sort of triumph over him. Then it was, as she a.s.sured Mara one day, "eminently fitting. Your father and mother would both approve."

"That thought comes to me, too," calmly rejoined the girl. "I hope they will--I think they will. But let us not talk further till all is settled."

Mrs. Bodine believed the marriage would result well on other grounds.

"Cousin Hugh," she said one day when they were alone, "you may shut me up if I am meddling, but you are not thinking of Mara in the same way that you did in the spring."

"I admit it, Cousin Sophy, and you need not shut up."

"Well, I reckon it will come about. On general principles I don't approve of such marriages, but I suppose there are exceptions to most rules. As I have said to you before, Mara is as old in her feelings as you are, and I think you will be happier together than you would be apart. I never understood Mara altogether; but of one thing I am certain, she must have some strong motive, something or some person for whom she can sacrifice herself; and, being a woman, she would have a good deal better time sacrificing herself to a man than to anything else;" and the old lady chirped her little complacent laugh.

"Rest a.s.sured," said the veteran, "I don't want any self-sacrifice in Mara's case."

"Of course not; nor do I. I wouldn't approve of any actual self-sacrifice, but Mara will try to come as near it as she can. I reckon she'd be more drawn toward a cripple like you than the handsomest young fellow in town, on general principles; and then she has been interested in you from the first, because you, in a peculiar sense, represent to her the past, which has been almost her only inheritance."

"I confess that I have indulged in the same thoughts which you express.

G.o.d grant that we both are right! She has become strangely dear to me.

Once I could never have imagined it at my time of life."

"Oh, the heart needn't grow old," was the laughing reply.

The captain's outlook was rendered more favorable by the reception of a note which contained the offer of a better position than that held in the employ of the detested Mr. Houghton. When he investigated the matter he learned that the offer came largely through the influence of Clancy, and this last confirmed the veteran's impression that the young man was using his influence and prosperity for the benefit of the South.

To Mara it was a bitter ordeal to listen to Bodine's complacent explanation of the affair, and she was glad that she was told in the dusky twilight, which concealed an expression of pain even beyond her control.

Words of pa.s.sionate protest rose to her very lips, but she remembered in time that they would involve revelations which would thwart her purpose to make him happy at every cost to herself. If he ever learned what Clancy had been to her, what he was at this agonized moment, her vocation, if not gone, would be impaired beyond remedy. Afterward, in the solitude of her own room, she accepted this bitter experience, as she had resolved to accept all others, as a part of her lot.

In her morbidness she became Jesuitical. Her father's old friend should be made as happy as it was in her power to render him. Whatever interfered with this purpose should be concealed or trampled upon. Of Clancy she said bitterly, "If he thinks he has been magnanimous, how little he understands me."

Clancy's motives had been somewhat mixed. He was willing that her pride should be rebuked and wounded, and he also wished her to know that he was above the petty resentment of jealousy.

Poor Ella felt that she was becoming isolated; an impression, however, which she would not have had were it not for her recent experiences. Had her heart remained as light and untouched as it was when we first met her, her pleasure over her father's prospects would have been unalloyed. Even now her satisfaction was deep and sincere, but it was not in human nature to forget how summarily she had been denied the happiness so sweet to those of her age. She felt, however, that all were against her; that even kind old Mrs. Bodine would not listen patiently to her thoughts. So she kept them to herself, and sought by forced mirthfulness to disguise them.

She talked and laughed with the young men who called upon her, and they came in increasing numbers as inevitably as a flower attracts the bees.

She was the life of the "family excursions," as she characterized in her thoughts those in which Mara and Mrs. Hunter had a part; and she joined others of which her father approved, but there was often trouble and sadness in her eyes, and her cheeks and form were losing their roundness of outline. Mrs. Bodine was not deceived. She noted everything silently, and thought, "She is making a brave fight; she must make a brave fight.

There is no other course for her. I reckon she'll win it, as many a girl has before."

The old lady was thoughtful, kind, and very attentive. At the same time, with the nicest tact, she infused a firmness and spirit into her demeanor which made the girl feel that her cousin had sympathy only with the effort to conquer or forget. And she honestly made such effort, but was often aghast at its futility. In her brusque way she said to herself, "What's the use of trying? It seems like a disease which must run its course till old Father Time brings some sort of a cure."

One day she went to see Aun' Sheba, and found the old woman feeling poorly.