Was It Right to Forgive? A Domestic Romance. Amelia E. Barr

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СКАЧАТЬ mouth, as well as his suspicious words, roused the Old Adam in Peter, and he felt him firing his tongue and twitching his fingers. Bogart was a younger man than himself; but Peter knew that he could throttle him like a cur; or fling him, with one movement of his arm, into the dust of the highway. Fortunately, however, Bogart’s prolixity of evil words gave Peter pause enough for reflection; and when he spoke again, he had himself well in hand, though his eyes were flashing and his voice was stern.

      “Bogart,” he said, “you are a member of the Dutch Reformed Church; and you have doubtless a Bible somewhere in your house. Go home and read, ‘With the froward, Thou wilt show Thyself forward.’ That is a dreadful Scripture for an ill-tongued man, Bogart. As for me, I will not answer you. He shall speak for me, and mine.” And with this sense of an omnipotent advocate on his side, Peter walked majestically away.

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      At first he thought he would go to Filmer Hall in the morning, and bring home his child. But a little reflection showed him how unnecessary and unwise such a movement would be. “I will leave God to order events, which are his work, not mine,” he thought, “and if Yanna pleases God, and pleases herself, she will not displease me.”

      Adriana, knowing nothing of this petty tumult of envy, was very happy. Harry did not go to New York the following day. He only talked of the city, and wondered why he wanted to stay away from it. “It is my native air,” he said, as he struck a match swiftly and lit his cigar, “and usually I am homesick, the moment I leave it. I wonder what there is in Filmer Hall to make me forget Broadway; I do not understand!”—but he understood before he began to speak.

      “The place itself is enchanting,” said Adriana.

      “We are living in Paradise,” added Rose.

      “Paradise!” cried Mrs. Filmer. “And we have to keep ten servants! Paradise! Impossible! This morning the laundress was also homesick for New York; and she has gone back there. I could have better spared any two other servants; for she was clever enough to deserve the laundress’s vision of St. Joseph—‘with a lovely shining hat, and a shirt buzzom that was never starched in this world.’ Harry, why do people like to go to New York, even in the summer time?”

      “Well, mother, if people have to work for their living, New York gives them a money-making impression. I always catch an itching palm as soon as I touch its pavements.”

      “I did not think you were so mercenary, Harry.”

      “We are nothing, if we are not mercenary. What a 31 gulf of yawns there is between us and the age that listened to the ‘large utterance of the early gods’!”

      “I do not complain of the ‘gulf,’ Harry; au contraire;—here comes the mail! and the commonplaces of our acquaintances may be quite as agreeable as the ‘what?’ of the early gods!” Mrs. Filmer was unlocking the bag as she spoke, and distributing the letters. Rose had several, and she went to her room to read and answer them, leaving Adriana and Harry to amuse themselves. They went first to the piano, and, when tired of singing, strolled into the woods to talk; and as the day grew warm, they came back with hands full of mountain laurel and wild-flowers. Then Harry began to teach Adriana to play chess; and she learned something more than the ways of kings and queens, knights and bishops. Unconsciously, also, she taught as well as learned; for a young lovable woman, be she coquette or ingénue, can teach a man all the romances; this is indeed her nature, her genius, the song flowing from her and returning never again.

      After lunch Rose took Adriana away, with an air of mystery. “I have had a most important letter,” she said, with a sigh, “from poor Dick—Dick Duval! He is simply broken-hearted. And Dick has quite a temper, he does not like suffering so much. I feel that I really ought to see him.”

      “When is he coming, Rose?”

      “He can never come here. All my family are against Dick. Harry quarrelled openly with him at the club; and papa—who hardly ever interferes in anything—met him in the hall one night, and opened the front door for him.”

      “What does Mrs. Filmer say?”

      “Mamma says Dick is a physical gentleman and a 32 moral scamp; and she forbids me to speak or write to him. That is the whole situation, Yanna.”

      “It is a very plain one, Rose. There is nothing to discuss in it. You ought not to answer his letter at all.”

      “Dick says he will blow his brains out, if I do not see him.”

      “How absurd!”

      “You do not know what love is, Yanna.”

      “Do you, Rose?”

      “Not unless I am in love with Dick.”

      “I am sure you are not in love with Dick. You are far too conscientious, far too morally beautiful yourself, to be in love with a moral scamp. I know that you would not do anything deliberately wrong, Rose.”

      “Do not swear by me, Yanna. I cannot swear by myself. I have actually told Dick that I will meet him next Monday—at your house.”

      “Indeed, Rose, you must destroy that letter.”

      “It is a beautiful letter. I spent two hours over it.”

      “Tear it into fifty pieces.”

      “But Dick can call at your house, and I will just ‘happen in.’ There is no harm in that. You can be present all the time, if you wish.”

      “I will ask father. Of course, I must tell him the circumstances.”

      “And of course, he will go into a passion about his honor, and his honor to Mr. Filmer, and all the other moralities. You are real mean, Yanna.”

      “I am real kind, Rose. Please give me the letter. You know that you are going to do a wicked and foolish thing. Rose, I have always thought you a very angel of purity and propriety. I cannot imagine a man like this touching the hem of your garment. 33 Give me the letter, Rose. Positively, it must not go to him.”

      “I want to do right, Yanna.”

      “I know you do.”

      “But Dick is suffering; and I am sorry for him.”

      “We have no right to be sorry for the wicked. The wicked ought to suffer; sympathy for them, or with them, is not blessed. I am so glad to see you crying, Rose. If you sent that letter, it would trouble your soul, as a mote in your eye would torture your sight. In both cases, the trouble would be to wash out with tears. Give me the letter, and I will destroy it.”

      Then Rose laid it upon the table, and buried her face in her pillow, sobbing bitterly, “I do like Dick! Right or wrong, I want to see him.”

      “I may tear up the letter, Rose? It must be done. Shall I do it?”

      “Could you not let Dick call at your house once? Only once?”

      “It is not my house. I should have to ask father.”

      “Only once, Yanna!”

      “Things that are permissible ‘only once’ ought never to be done СКАЧАТЬ