CHAPTER XVII.

IN summer-time, always, Marcia and nature together did much to soften the traces of that terrible event in the history of the old house. Flowering vines curtained such of its windows as were still left glassless. In the black fissures in the stone wall of the terraces, and the curb of the pavements, where bombs had exploded, lilies grew tall and stately. The parterre was splendid with variegated color, and above it hovered always the fluctuating brilliancy of humming-birds and butterflies, that seemed themselves some impalpable undulatory blossoming of the fragrant air.

It was close upon noon when Estwicke checked his horse on the drive next day, and no one was visible except Edgar, who stood upon the front steps in an airy costume of bare feet and plump calves, brown linen knickerbockers and blouse. He intently examined something which he held in his warm, fat hands.

“Is your father at home?” asked Estwicke, in passing up the steps.

“Hy’re, Cap’n--d’ye see my Juny-bug?” demanded Edgar affably, ignoring the question. “I’ve been on the terrus to ketch me a Juny-bug. An’ I got him.”

Upon opening his hand there flew into the sunshine a June-bug, its roving tendencies very effectually checked by a thread tied to one of its legs.

“Marcia says,” continued Edgar, holding the end of the thread, and watching with complacent eyes his victim’s evolutions, “Marcia says that no boy who is mean enough ter tie a string ter a Juny-bug’s leg needn’t never expec’ ter go ter Heaven. He’ll make a mighty mistake if he does expec’ ter go _there_! That’s what Marsh says!”

Estwicke was too pre-occupied to comment on this singular doctrine of election. He rang the bell without further questions, while Edgar, with that insensibility to appropriateness, eminently characteristic of the infant mind, sat down with a long breath of enjoyment upon the hottest step of the whole flight, in the broad glare of the sun, and watched his Juny-bug’s airy gyrations and listened to the musical whir of its wings, totally indifferent to the prospective exclusion from eternal bliss.

From the library could be seen vistas of uninhabited rooms, with bare floors and curtainless windows, for all the doors stood open this June day. The wind swept through with a rush, bringing the warm fragrance of clover from the battle-field and the scent of the roses that climbed the pillars of the portico. There seemed in this fierce weather much method in the madly ostentatious proportions of the house. Within was a large breeze-filled, perfumed twilight, while without, the earth was scorching under a furious sun, and the drowsy drone of the cicada pervaded the heated air.

In the strongest draught General Vayne sat, alone, at leisure, reading his favorite Addison’s Cato. The anxiety occasioned by observing his genuine liking for Percy had heavily re-enforced a wild fear, which had already beset Estwicke, that General Vayne might, from political prejudice, withhold his consent. These reflections had given the young man a sleepless night. But, with the revivifying matutinal influences, he grew more hopeful. He determined to put it to the test at once--to make the attack all along the line. He argued within himself that this friendship for his rival was not of necessity inimical to his interest, and, as to his principles and his position in the army, even when the war was at its fiercest, enamoured Yankee officers did not, as a rule, find the cruel papas of the South so very obdurate.

Perhaps it was well that he could not divine, as he made his demonstration, the amazement it excited in General Vayne, whose latest impressions of his guest were from the witness-stand in the Jartree case. His long absence from home had precluded all suspicion of the little romance recently dramatized here. He had never thought to ask if that forced invitation to the fishing-party had been accepted--for this had seemed out of the question--and he had supposed that until last evening Estwicke had not again been to the house. He was possessed by a towering incredulity when a modest allusion was made to his daughter’s gracious acceptance of the devotion offered her, and with difficulty restrained himself from telling the young man, from the plenitude of paternal wisdom, that he must be mistaken. But when General Vayne once realized the situation, he quickly came to his conclusion. Marcia was too young, far too young, to know her own mind. He determined to put his foot down on this engagement at once. He believed Estwicke a coarse-natured, hard, cold, callous man, to whom no woman’s happiness could be safely committed. He was always convinced of the justness of his decisions; but he recognized a certain awkwardness here, for he could not put this into words. In decency he could not tell a man who had just paid Marcia the highest compliment in his power that he was so contemptuously considered. The puzzled father cast about vainly for some plausible alternative. Even he appreciated the inconsistency that so unprejudiced and temperate a thinker as he deemed himself should base a grave objection on political differences. Estwicke’s position in the army offered, however, a vague elusive prospect of extrication from this dilemma. General Vayne honestly did not think Marcia’s happiness would be promoted by going some time to the frontier with a husband liable to be scalped any fine day. And he felt, with a sudden strong rush of emotion, that he would not intrust her to any man--_any_ man--so far away. His humane intention was to keep his son-in-law as much as possible under his own eye--the average son-in-law would probably rather risk the Indians. But Captain Estwicke _might_ offer to resign; for aught General Vayne knew he was a man of fortune, and his pay the merest superfluity. Thus the strategist determined he would not advance an objection that could be so summarily swept away.

To one whose tact and policy are, in his own opinion, boundless, no embarrassment need last long. General Vayne resolved, autocratically, that he would assign no reason for withholding his consent; he would merely intimate to Estwicke that his addresses were not acceptable, and no doubt the young man would at once withdraw.

In projecting plans of action, General Vayne took slight note of the volition of others. Experience taught him nothing, and he had occasion for great surprise when Estwicke urgently pressed for the reasons of the refusal, justifying his persistence by the altogether unexpected argument that his dearest interests were at stake. And now was presented the striking and unique spectacle of one man eagerly insisting that another should insult him, which the other politely but firmly declined to do.

They were restrained in manner, voice, and word by the rigid decrees of the conventionalities, but, nevertheless, in their opposing determination they fretted each other like a pair of fiery horses.

In the subsequent interview with Marcia it was still more difficult for Estwicke to cloak his indignation.

“Your father will not give his consent,” he said briefly.

A startled expression sprang into her eyes. “Why?”

“He vouchsafed no reason!” cried Estwicke with angry sarcasm. “When I had the audacity to ask for his reason, he said that it was not necessary to discuss the matter further, and that he hoped I would consider it definitively settled.”

Marcia walked in silence to a chair and sat down, revolving in her mind the unexpected complication, and hardly sure of what she felt and thought in the shock of the surprise.

The library was dim and shadowy, for the blinds excluded the sunbeams, except one glittering marauder that forced an entrance through a crevice and raided fantastically about the room when the wind stirred the vines outside. Now the bright gleam touched the girl’s hair, now it shimmered over the fluted petal-like ruffles of her dress, and now it flitted across her face as she looked up at Estwicke, who stood opposite her, leaning with one elbow on the mantel-piece and his hat in his hand.

“Perhaps,” said Marcia, with a sinking heart and a keen despair, “it’s because your politics are all wrong.”

His feelings were so deeply involved that he did not resent even this sweeping imputation of wholesale error.

“I’ll vote for Genghis Khan if he wishes!” he declared impetuously. “I’ll swear allegiance to the king of Dahomey! I’ll renounce every political and religious conviction. But I can’t believe that’s the reason,” he added more calmly. “We might as well imagine it’s because I don’t belong to the church.”

“What do you think is the reason, then?”

In all Estwicke’s efforts and schemes the cohesive element of policy was lacking. And thus his life was full of rugged incongruities; there were great rifts in his friendships; and now, all unconsciously, he was driving that wedge of tactless speech in among his own heart-strings.

“It is very plain,” he said bluntly, “he wants you to marry Percy.”

“I should be glad, Captain Estwicke,” cried Marcia angrily, “if I could never hear you call that man’s name again.”

“Well, forgive me this time. I’m not jealous about your feeling for Percy, _now_,” stipulated Estwicke. “I have given that up.”

Which was indeed true, as his every faculty was absorbed in apprehensive jealousy on account of her father’s feeling for Percy.

He turned his hat in his hand, and eyed it for a moment with exceeding bitterness. When he again looked down at her, he detected something in the expression of her face which gave him a sudden comprehension of the manner in which she regarded her father’s opposition. For once in his life he was not precipitate. The knowledge of all he had at stake steadied him. He sat down near her. “Tell me, Marcia,” he said, with a calmness that sub-acutely astonished him, “Tell me that all this shall not make any difference between us. Shall it, dearest?”

“No,” she replied softly.

He felt a thrill of infinite relief. He leaned forward and caught both her hands in his. “And if you marry me now, at once,” he began, more confidently.

There was a flash of astonishment in her eyes. She drew back suddenly.

“I only meant--that--that I can never care for anyone else; but I couldn’t be married without papa’s consent; how can you think it?”

Estwicke did not intend to be tragic or theatrical, but his manner as he dropped her hand and walked away to the window would have done him credit on any stage. Presently, however, he came and stood opposite to her, leaning against the mantel-piece once more.

“If your father would advance any objection in which sensible people could acquiesce,” he argued, “I might understand the position you take. But he has no objection. It is because he prefers Percy. Don’t break my heart, Marcia.”

“Papa would never forgive me--never. But don’t say I break your heart. You must wait, and be cheerful while you wait. And if he does not change at last, you must forget it all. I don’t mind being miserable, much.” Her lips quivered. “But you--_you_ must be happy!”

In discussing the subject with her father that afternoon, Marcia was not so dutiful as she had been in his absence.

“I think you were needlessly rude to Captain Estwicke,” she said.

General Vayne had tried to shirk the interview, fearing an unpleasant scene. Even now he had his papers before him on the table, and had dipped his pen in the ink. He made no reply, and did not raise his eyes.

“I don’t intend to marry Horace Percy,” continued Marcia. “It is useless, papa, for you to insist.”

Now indeed her father looked up. “And pray,” he said, with cold constraint, “who told you that I wanted you to many Horace Percy?”

“Captain Estwicke,” promptly replied the guileless Marcia.

She was not prepared for the effect of her words. In the instantaneous change on her father’s face she saw in astonishment that he was deeply offended. She had so little knowledge of the sordid ways of the world that it did not occur to her that there could be any preference between Percy and Estwicke, save that which her heart might dictate. In a normal state of affairs General Vayne would have been equally free from imagining that any one would attribute to him mercenary motives. Lately, however, he had been greatly harried and pressed to the wall by his debts; he knew that even a stranger in the town could not remain unaware of his financial straits; his anxieties had made his sensibilities tender, and in a flash he ascribed to Estwicke that unworthy suspicion. He resented it as he would have resented a blow. He could have forgiven it as readily.

“I have nothing whatever to say to you about Horace Percy,” he replied. “And only this about Captain Estwicke--that if you do not break this engagement you will disobey the first positive command I have ever seen fit to give you.”

“I hope you are not angry with me, papa,” she said. Her fair young face was full of trouble; there was a suggestion of unshed tears in her heavy eyelids. He was a trifle softened as he glanced toward her. “And I don’t see why you are so prejudiced against Captain Estwicke,” she continued.

He hardened instantly. “I don’t care to discuss the matter further,” he said. “And I am busy now.”

But when she had left the room he pushed the papers from him, and leaned back idly in his chair--not even his tangled financial tribulations could operate as a counter-irritant. He had never been so deeply stung, this _ci-devant_ magnate and millionaire, as by the fancied imputation that he would scheme to prop his fallen fortunes by marrying off his daughter to a rich man. It was intolerable that this gross slur should be cast upon him. And he had never known so strong an emotion as the repugnance it induced for Captain Estwicke.