Cowan arranged it through his bank. It was at a higher rate than we had agreed on, but we'd lost all the time we could spare. We'll push ahead now and have things finished by spring."

That night, over at the Blairs', as Alexina climbed into her place at the table Austen was speaking to Harriet. "You remember I told you I was looking for an investment of the proceeds of those bonds of Alexina's which matured the other day? This morning I took a mortgage on a boat Cowan is building at his yard."

Alexina heard her name, but did not understand.

CHAPTER SEVEN

There came a day the following spring when Alexina, seeking her aunt, wept.

Harriet gazed at her dismayed, at a loss. Heretofore Alexina had taken her tears to Nelly or had kept them to herself.

"They are going away," she said, "King William and them; going in the boat."

This, as a matter to cry about, was a mystery to Harriet. "Going where?" she asked.

"To get the golden fleece," her weeping niece a.s.sured her.

"Well," said Harriet amused, "let us hope they may find it, but why the tears?"

Alexina got up and carried her tears to her own room. It spoke her infantile capacity to discriminate that she bore away no resentment; there are things that the Aunt Harriets with the best wills in the world need not be expected to understand.

King William's mother, telling her, had held her tight and rocked her; King William's father, when he saw her lip trembling afterward, had lifted her on his knee.

Going into the big, high room which was her own, Alexina shut the door. Then she cast herself on the floor. A little hand, beating about wildly, came upon Sally Ann, lying unregarded there. Gathering her in fiercely, presently the sobs grew quieter. Later she wiped her eyes upon her child and, kissing her tenderly, put her down and went over to King William's; the time was short and she could have Sally Ann afterward.

The next day the cottage was closed and the shutters made fast.

Alexina felt lonesome even to look over there, and Sally Anns are but silent comforters.

But in a year the Leroys came back from St. Louis, between which city and New Orleans the splendid new "King William" had been plying. The judgment of Captain Leroy had been at fault, which is a sad thing when a man is sixty. The day of the steamboat had pa.s.sed, because that of the railroad had come. The "King William" as a venture was a failure.

So, one morning, the cottage windows were open to the Virginia creeper outside them. Nelly whispered the news to Alexina at breakfast, and the child could not eat for hurry to be through and go over.

It was as if King William had been watching for her, for he came running to the gate and took her hand to conduct her in. He was taller and thinner, and looked different, and neither could find anything to say on the way.

Charlotte was sitting in the parlour, her wraps half-removed. They had only just arrived, and the stillness and closeness of a newly opened house was about. "How does one pack furniture for moving, w.i.l.l.y?"

Charlotte began as he appeared.

But he was bringing Alexina. "Tell her about it, mother," he said, "so she'll know."

Charlotte, brightening, held out her arms. Then, having lifted the child to her lap and kissed her, her face grew wan again. "There was no fleece for Jason, little Mab; there is no Land of Colchis, never believe it. And those seeking, like w.i.l.l.y and me, are like to wander until youth and hope and opportunity are gone."

She was crying against a little cropped head. King William stood irresolute, then put an arm around her. "Not that way, mummy; don't tell it that way."

But control had given way. "And there is nothing for little Jason. He must go and fight with his bare hands like any poor churl's child--oh, w.i.l.l.y, w.i.l.l.y, my little son--"

Alexina, in her lap, sat very still; King William was staring hard into s.p.a.ce.

Charlotte went on. "We are going away, little Mab, w.i.l.l.y and his father and I; going away for good. Everything that ever was ours, this cottage and all, is gone. We are going to a place in the South called Aden, where there are a few acres that still are ours only because they would not sell."

A moment they all were still. Then the little breast of Alexina began to heave. The Leroys had never seen her this way. Sally Ann had, many times, and Nelly once or twice. She threw herself upon Charlotte. "I want to go, too; I want to go; I hate it--there," with a motion of self toward the big, white house visible through the window. "I hate it, and I want to go too."

They were all crying now. Suddenly King William stood forth in front of the child. "When we get rich, I'll come for you," he said.

The practical Alexina looked through the arrested tears as she sat up.

"But if you don't get rich?" she questioned.

Charlotte laughed. She was half child herself. The laugh died. The other half was woman. "Then he won't come; if he is the son of his father, he won't come."

PART TWO

"Nor knowest thou what argument Thy life to thy neighbour's creed has lent.

All are needed by each one; Nothing is fair or good alone."

EMERSON.

CHAPTER ONE

Alexina Blair, at twenty, returned from school to her uncle's home with but small emotion, as, at fourteen, she had left with little regret, yet the shady streets, the open front doors, the welcomes called from up-stairs windows as she pa.s.sed--evidences that she was back among her own people in the South--all at once made her glad to be here.

How could she have felt emotion over a mere return to Uncle Austen's house? She might have felt enthusiasm over Nelly, but Nelly was married to the gardener at her old asylum and a Katy had taken her place. The house was the same. If only its stone facade might be allowed to mellow, to grey a little! But, newly cleaned, it stood coldly immaculate in its yard of shaven lawn set about with clipped shrubberies. As for her uncle, Alexina found herself applying the same adjectives to him, shaven, immaculate, cold.

She wondered what he thought of her, but Uncle Austen never made personal remarks.

Aunt Harriet, on joining her niece in the East early in the summer, had looked at her consideringly. She seemed pleased.

"Why," she said, "Alexina, you are a Tennyson young person, tall and most divinely--you are a little more intense in your colouring than is usual with a Blair. I'm glad."

The somewhat doubtful smile on the girl's face deepened as if a sudden radiance leaped into it. She seized her aunt's hand. "Oh," she said, "you're very nice, Aunt Harriet."

Harriet laughed, rather pleased than not, but she still was studying the girl. "She is impulsive and she doesn't look set," the aunt was telling herself--was it gratefully? "perhaps she is less Blair than I thought."

Austen Blair too, in fact, now viewed his niece with complacency--she fulfilled the Blair requirements--but he talked of other things.

"It is the intention of your aunt and myself," he told her promptly, "to introduce you at once to what will be your social world, for it is well for everyone to have local attachment."

As the matter progressed it appeared that social introduction, as Uncle Austen understood it, was largely a matter of expenditure. In all investment it is the expected thing to place where there is likeliest return. Therefore he scanned the invitation list earnestly.

"She can afford to do the thing as it should be done," he remarked to Harriet.