The Romance of a Plain Man

"I tried to follow," said Sally, "but Prince Charlie refused."

"You mean I wouldn't let go your bridle," returned George, in a half-playful, half-serious tone.

The bruise throbbed again. Here, also, I was shut out – I who had carried potatoes to George's door while he was off learning to follow the hounds. His immaculate, yet careless, dress; the perfection of his manner, which seemed to make him a part of the surroundings in which he stood; the very smoothness and slenderness of the hand that rested on Sally's chair – all these produced in me a curious and unreasonable sensation of anger.

"I forbid you to jump, Sally," I said, almost sharply; "you know I hate it."

She leaned forward, glancing first at me and then at George, with an expression of surprise.

"Why, what's the matter, Ben?" she asked. "He's a perfect bear, isn't he, George?"

"The best way to keep her from jumping," observed George, pleasantly enough, though his face flushed, "is to be on the spot to catch her bridle or her horse's mane or anything else that's handy. It's the only means I've found successful, for there was never a Bland yet who didn't go straight ahead and do the thing he was forbidden to. Miss Mitty told me with pride that she had been eating lobster, which she always hated, and I discovered her only reason was that the doctor had ordered her not to touch it."

"Then I shan't forbid, I'll entreat," I replied, recovering myself with an effort. "Please don't jump, Sally, I implore it."

"I won't jump if you'll come with me, Ben," she answered.

I laughed shortly, for how was it possible to explain to two Virginians of their blood and habits that a man of six feet two inches could not sit a horse for the first time without appearing ridiculous in the eyes even of the woman who loved him? They had grown up together in the fields or at the stables, and a knowledge of horse-flesh was as much a part of their birthright as the observance of manners. The one I could never acquire; the other I had attained unaided and in the face of the tremendous barriers that shut me out. The repeated insistence upon the fact that Sally was a Bland aroused in me, whenever I met it, an irritation which I tried in vain to dispel. To be a Bland meant, after all, simply to be removed as far as possible from any temperamental relation to the race of Starrs.

"I wish I could, dear," I answered, as I rose to go out, "but remember, I've never been on a horse in my life and it's too late to begin."

"Oh, I forgot. Of course you can't," she rejoined. "So if George isn't strong enough to hold me back, I'll have to go straight after Bonny."

"I promise you I'll swing on with all my might, Ben," said George, with a laugh in which I felt there was an amiable condescension, as from the best horseman in his state to a man who had never ridden to hounds.

A little later, as I walked down the street, past the old grey house, under the young budding leaves of the sycamores, the recollection of this amiable condescension returned to me like the stab of a knife. The image of Sally, mounted on Prince Charlie, at George's side, troubled my thoughts, and I wondered, with a pang, if the people who saw them together would ask themselves curiously why she had chosen me. To one and all of them, – to Miss Mitty, to Bonny Page, to Dr. Theophilus, – the mystery, I felt, was as obscure to-day as it had been in the beginning of our love. Why was it? I questioned angrily, and wherein lay the subtle distinction which divided my nature from George Bolingbroke's and even from Sally's? The forces of democracy had made way for me, and yet was there something stronger than democracy – and this something, fine and invincible as a blade, I had felt long ago in the presence of Miss Mitty and Miss Matoaca. Over my head, under the spreading boughs of the sycamore, a window was lifted, and between the parted lace curtains, the song of Miss Mitty's canary floated out into the street. As the music entered my thoughts, I remembered suddenly the box of sweet alyssum blooming on the window-sill under the swinging cage, and there flashed into my consciousness the meaning of the flowers George had laid beside Sally's plate. For her sake he had gone to Miss Mitty in the sad old house, and that little blossom was the mute expression of a service he had rendered joyfully in the name of love. The gratitude in Sally's eyes was made clear to me, and a helpless rage at my own blindness, my own denseness, flooded my heart. George, because of some inborn fineness of perception, had discerned the existence of a sorrow in my wife to which I, the man whom she loved and who loved her, had been insensible. He had understood and had comforted – while I, engrossed in larger matters, had gone on my way unheeding and indifferent. Then the anger against myself turned blindly upon George, and I demanded passionately if he would stand forever in my life as the embodiment of instincts and perceptions that the generations had bred? Would I fail forever in little things because I had been cursed at birth by an inability to see any except big ones? And where I failed would George be always ready to fill the unspoken need and to bestow the unasked-for sympathy?

CHAPTER XXIII

IN WHICH I WALK ON THIN ICE

On a November evening, when we had been married several years, I came home after seven o'clock, and found Sally standing before the bureau while she fastened a bunch of violets to the bosom of her gown.

"I'm sorry I couldn't get up earlier, but there's a good deal of excitement over a failure in Wall Street," I said. "Are you going out?"

Her hands fell from her bosom, and as she turned toward me, I saw that she was dressed as though for a ball.

"Not to-night, Ben. I had an engagement, but I broke it because I wanted to spend the evening with you. I thought we might have a nice cosy time all by ourselves."

"What a shame, darling. I've promised Bradley I'd do a little work with him in my study. He's coming at half-past eight and will probably keep me till midnight. I'll have to hurry. Did you put on that gorgeous gown just for me?"

"Just for you." There was an expression on her face, half humorous, half resentful, that I had never seen there before. "What day is this, Ben?" she asked, as I was about to enter my dressing-room.

"The nineteenth of November," I replied carelessly, looking back at her with my hand on the door.

"The nineteenth of November," she echoed slowly, as if saying the words to herself.

I was already on the threshold when light broke on me in a flash, and I turned, blind with remorse, and seized her in my arms.

"Sally, Sally, I am a brute!"

She laughed a little, drawing away, not coming closer.

"Ben, are you happy?"

"As happy as a king. I'll telephone Bradley not to come."

"Is it important?"

"Yes, very important. That failure I told you of is a pretty serious matter."

"Then let him come. All days are the same, after all, when one comes to think of it."

Her hand went to the violets at her breast, and as my eyes followed it, a sudden intuitive dread entered my mind like an impulse of rage.

"I intended to send you flowers, Sally, but in the rush, I forgot. Whose are those you are wearing?"

She moved slightly, and the perfume of the violets floated from the cloud of lace on her bosom.

"George sent them," she answered quietly.

Before she spoke I had known it – the curse of my life was to be that George would always remember – and the intuitive dread I had felt changed, while I stood there, to the dull ache of remorse.

"Take them off, and I'll get you others if there's a shop open in the city," I said. Then, as she hesitated, wavering between doubt and surprise, I left the room, descended the steps with a rush, and picking up my hat, hurried in search of a belated florist who had not closed. At the corner a man, going out to dine, paused to fasten his overcoat under the electric light, which blazed fitfully in the wind; and as I approached and he looked up, I saw that it was George Bolingbroke.

"It's time all sober married men were at home dressing for dinner," he observed in a whimsical tone.

The wind had brought a glow of colour into his face, and he looked very handsome as he stood there, in his fur-lined coat, under the blaze of light.

"I was kept late down town," I replied. "The General and I get all the hard knocks while you take it easy."

"Well, I like an easy world, and I believe your world is pretty much about what you make it. Where are you rushing? Do you go my way?"

"No, I'm turning off here. There's something I forgot this morning and I came out to attend to it."

"Don't fall into the habit of forgetting. It's a bad one and it's sure to grow on you – and whatever you forget," he added with a laugh as we parted, "don't forget for a minute of your life that you've married Sally."

He passed on, still laughing pleasantly, and quickening my steps, I went to the corner of Broad Street, where I found a florist's shop still lighted and filled with customers. There were no violets left, and while I waited for a sheaf of pink roses, with my eyes on the elaborate funeral designs covering the counter, I heard a voice speaking in a low tone beyond a mass of flowering azalea beside which I stood.

"Yes, her mother married beneath her, also," it said; "that seems to be the unfortunate habit of the Blands."

I turned quickly, my face hot with anger, and as I did so my eyes met those of a dark, pale lady, through the thick rosy clusters of the azalea. When she recognised me, she flushed slightly, and then moving slowly around the big green tub that divided us, she held out her hand with a startled and birdlike flutter of manner.

"I missed you at the reception last night, Mr. Starr," she said; "Sally was there, and I had never seen her looking so handsome."

Then as the sheaf of roses was handed to me, she vanished behind the azaleas again, while I turned quickly away and carried my fragrant armful out into the night.

When I reached home, I was met on the staircase by Jessy, who ran, laughing, before me to Sally, with the remark that I had come back bringing an entire rose garden in my hands.