The Sword of Damocles. Анна Грин

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СКАЧАТЬ have but one more incident to relate. Last Sunday in walking down Fifth Avenue I met her. I did not do this inadvertently. I knew her custom of attending Bible class and for once put myself in her way. I did not give her time to remonstrate.

      "Do not express your displeasure," said I, "this shall never be repeated. I merely wish to say that I have concluded to leave a profession so little appreciated by those whose esteem I most desire to possess; that I am about entering a banker's office where it shall be my ambition to rise if possible, to wealth and consequence. If I succeed—you shall then know what my incentive has been. But till I succeed or at least give such tokens of success as shall insure respect, silence must be my portion and patience my sole support. Only of one thing rest assured, that until I inform you with my own lips that the hope which now illumines me is gone, it will continue to burn on in my breast, shedding light upon a way that can never seem dark while that glow rests upon it." And bowing with the ceremonious politeness our positions demanded, I held out my hand. "One clasp to encourage me," I entreated.

      It seemed as if she did not comprehend. "You are going to give up music, and for—for—"

      "You?" said I. "Yes, don't forbid me," I implored; "it is too late."

      Like a lovely image of blushing girlhood turned by a lightning flash into marble, she paused, pallid and breathless where she was, gazing upon me with eyes that burned deeper and deeper as the full comprehension of all that this implied gradually forced itself upon her mind.

      "You make a chaos of my little world," she murmured at length.

      "No," said I, "your world is untouched. If it should never be my good fortune to enter it, you are not to grieve. You are free, Miss Preston, free as this sunshiny air we breathe; I alone am bound, and that because I must be whether I will or no."

      Then I saw the woman I had worshipped in this young fair girl shine fully and fairly upon me. Drawing herself up, she looked me in the face and calmly laid her hand in mine. "I am young," said she, "and do not know what may be right to say to one so generous and so kind. But this much I can promise, that whether or not I am ever able to duly reward you for what you undertake, I will at least make it the study of my life never to prove unworthy of so much trust and devotion."

      And with the last lingering look natural to a parting for years, we separated then and there, and the crowd came between us, and the Sunday bells rang on, and what was so vividly real to us at the moment, became in remembrance more like the mist and shadow of a dream.

VII.

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MRS. SYLVESTER.

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      Love is more pleasant than marriage, for the same reason that romances are more amusing than history.—Chamfort.

      "He draweth out the thread of his verbosity, finer than the staple of his argument."—Loves Labor Lost.

      Young Mandeville having finished his story, looked at his uncle. He found him sitting in an attitude of extreme absorption, his right arm stretched before him on the table, his face bent thoughtfully downwards and clouded with that deep melancholy that seemed its most natural expression, "He has not heard me," was the young man's first mortifying reflection. But catching his uncle's eye which at that moment raised itself, he perceived he was mistaken and that he had rather been listened to only too well.

      "You must forgive me if I have seemed to rhapsodize," the young man stammered. "You were so quiet I half forgot I had a listener and went on much as I would if I had been thinking aloud."

      His uncle smiled and throwing off the weight of his reflections whatever they might be, arose and began pacing the floor. "I see you are past surgery," quoth he, "any wisdom of mine would be only thrown away."

      Young Mandeville was hurt. He had expected some token of approval on his uncle's part, or at least some betrayal of sympathy. His looks expressed his disappointment.

      "You expected to convert me by this story," continued the elder, pausing with a certain regret before his nephew; "nothing could convert me but—"

      "What?" inquired Mandeville after waiting in vain for the other to finish.

      "Something which we will never find in the whirl of New York fashionable life. A woman with faith to reward and soul to understand such unqualified trust as yours."

      "But I believe Miss Preston is such a girl and will be such a woman. Her looks, her last words prove it."

      "Nothing proves it but time and as for your belief, I have believed too." Then as if fearing he had said too much, assumed his most business-like tone and observed, "But we will drop all that; you have resolved to quit music and enter Wall Street, your object money and the social consideration which money secures. Now, why Wall Street?"

      "Because I can think of no other means for attaining what I desire, in the space of time I would consent to keep a young lady of Miss Preston's position waiting."

      "Humph! and you have money, I suppose, which you propose to risk on the hazard?"

      "Some! enough to start with; a small amount to you, but sufficient if I am fortunate."

      "And if you are not?"

      The young man opened his arms with an expressive gesture, "I am done for, that is all."

      "Bertram," his uncle exclaimed with a change of tone, "has it ever struck you that Mr. Preston might have as strong a prejudice against speculation as against the musical profession?"

      "No, that is, pardon me but I have sometimes thought that even in the event of success I should have to struggle against his inherited instincts of caste and his natural dislike of all things new, even wealth, but I never thought of the possibility of my arousing his distrust by speculating in stocks and engaging in enterprises so nearly in accord with his own business operations."

      "Yet if I guess aright you would run greater risk of losing the support of his countenance by following the hazardous course you propose, than if you continued in the line of art that now engages you."

      "Do you know—"

      "I know nothing, but I fear the chances, Bertram."

      "Then I am already defeated and must give up my hopes of happiness."

      A smile thin and indefinable crossed the other's face. "No," said he, "not necessarily." And sitting down by his nephew's side, he asked if he had any objections to enter a bank. "In a good capacity," he exclaimed.

      "No indeed; it would be an opportunity surpassing my hopes. Do you know of an opening?"

      "Well," said he, "under the circumstances I will let you into the secret of my own affairs. I have always had one ambition, and that was to be at the head of a bank. I have not said much about it, but for the last five years I have been working to this end, and to-day you see me the possessor of at least three-fourths of the stock of the Madison Bank. It has been deteriorating for some time, consequently I was enabled to buy it low, but now that I have got it СКАЧАТЬ