“Ah!” Mr. Gage softly breathed. “Does he write for your–paper?”
I noted that as to the literary technicalities he seemed not to be much more ignorant than Kendricks’s own family, and I said, tolerantly, “Yes; he writes for our magazine.”
“Magazine–yes; I beg your pardon,” he interrupted.
“And for any others where he can place his material.”
This apparently did not convey any very luminous idea to Mr. Gage’s mind, and he asked after a moment, “What kind of things does he write?”
“Oh, stories, sketches, poems, reviews, essays–almost anything, in fact.”
The light left his face, and I perceived that I had carried my revenge too far, at least for Kendricks’s advantage, and I determined to take a new departure at the first chance. The chance did not come immediately.
“And can a man support a wife by that kind of writing?” asked Mr. Gage.
I laughed uneasily. “Some people do. It depends upon how much of it he can sell. It depends upon how handsomely a wife wishes to be supported. The result isn’t usually beyond the dreams of avarice,” I said, with a desperate levity.
“Excuse me,” returned the little man. “Do you live in that way? By your writings?”
“No,” I said with some state, which I tried to subdue; “I am the editor of Every Other Week, and part owner. Mr. Kendricks is merely a contributor.”
“Ah,” he breathed again. “And if he were successful in selling his writings, how much would he probably make in a year?”
“In a year?” I repeated, to gain time. “Mr. Kendricks is comparatively a beginner. Say fifteen hundred–two thousand– twenty-five hundred.”
“And that would not go very far in New York.”
“No; that would not go far in New York.” I was beginning to find a certain pleasure in dealing so frankly with this hard little man. I liked to see him suffer, and I could see that he did suffer; he suffered as a father must who learns that from a pecuniary point of view his daughter is imprudently in love. Why should we always regard such a sufferer as a comic figure? He is, if we think of it rightly, a most serious, even tragical figure, and at all events a most respectable figure. He loves her, and his heart is torn between the wish to indulge her and the wish to do what will be finally best for her. Why should our sympathies, in such a case, be all for the foolish young lovers? They ought in great measure to be for the father, too. Something like a sense of this smote me, and I was ashamed in my pleasure.
“Then I should say, Mr. March, that this seems a most undesirable engagement for my daughter. What should you say? I ask you to make the case your own.”
“Excuse me,” I answered; “I would much rather not make the case my own, Mr. Gage, and I must decline to have you consult me. I think that in this matter I have done all that I was called upon to do. I have told you what I know of Mr. Kendricks’s circumstances and connections. As to his character, I can truly say that he is one of the best men I ever knew. I believe in his absolute purity of heart, and he is the most unselfish, the most generous–“
Mr. Gage waved the facts aside with his hand. “I don’t undervalue those things. If I could be master, no one should have my girl without them. But they do not constitute a livelihood. From what you tell me of Mr. Kendricks’s prospects, I am not prepared to say that I think the outlook is brilliant. If he has counted upon my supplying a deficiency–“
“Oh, excuse me, Mr. Gage! Your insinuation–“
“Excuse ME!” he retorted. “I am making no insinuation. I merely wish to say that, while my means are such as to enable me to live in comfort at De Witt Point, I am well aware that much more would be needed in New York to enable my daughter to live in the same comfort. I’m not willing she should live in less. I think it is my duty to say that I am not at all a rich man, and if there has been any supposition that I am so, it is a mistake that cannot be corrected too soon.”
This time I could not resent his insinuation, for since he had begun to speak I had become guiltily aware of having felt a sort of ease in regard to Kendricks’s modesty of competence from a belief, given me, I suspect, by the talk of Deering, that Mr. Gage had plenty of money, and could come to the rescue in any amount needed. I could only say, “Mr. Gage, all this is so far beyond my control that I ought not to allow you to say it to me. It is something that you must say to Mr. Kendricks.”
As I spoke I saw the young fellow come round the corner of the street, and mount the hotel steps. He did not see me, for he did not look toward the little corner of lawn where Mr. Gage and I had put our chairs for the sake of the morning shade, and for the seclusion that the spot afforded us. It was at the angle of the house farthest from our peculiar corner of the piazza, whither I had the belief that the girl had withdrawn when she left me to her father. I was sure that Kendricks would seek her there, far enough beyond eyeshot or earshot of us, and I had no doubt that she was expecting him.
“You are Mr. Kendricks’s friend–“
“I have tried much more to be Miss Gage’s friend; and Mrs. March–” It came into my mind that she was most selfishly and shamelessly keeping out of the way, and I could not go on and celebrate her magnanimous impartiality, her eager and sleepless vigilance.
“I have no doubt of that,” said the little man, “and I am very much obliged to you for all the trouble you have taken on my daughter’s account. But you are his friend, and I can speak to you much more fully and frankly than I could to him.”
I did not know just what to say to this, and he went on: “In point of fact, I don’t think that I shall speak to him at all.”
“That is quite your affair, my dear sir,” I said dryly. “It isn’t to be supposed that you would seek an interview with him.”
“And if he seeks an interview with me, I shall decline it.” He looked at me defiantly and yet interrogatively. I could see that he was very angry, and yet uncertain.
“I must say, then, Mr. Gage, that I don’t think you would be right.”
“How, not right?”
“I should say that in equity he had a full and perfect right to meet you, and to talk this matter over with you. He has done you no wrong whatever in admiring your daughter, and wishing to marry her. It’s for you and her to decide whether you will let him. But as far as his wish goes, and his expression of it to her, he is quite within his rights. You must see that yourself.”
“I consider,” he answered, “that he has done me a wrong in that very thing. A man without means, or any stated occupation, he had no business to speak to my daughter without speaking to me. He took advantage of the circumstances. What does he think? Does he suppose I am MADE of money? Does he suppose I want to support a son-in-law? I can tell you that if I were possessed of unlimited means, I should not do it.” I began to suspect that Deering was nearer right, after all, in his representations of the man’s financial ability; I fancied something of the anxiety, the tremor of avarice, in his resentment of poor Kendricks’s possible, or rather impossible, designs upon his pocket. “If he had any profession, or any kind of business, I should feel differently, and I should be willing to assist him to a reasonable degree; or if he had a business training, I might take him in with me; but as it is, I should have a helpless burden on my hands, and I can tell you I am not going in for that sort of thing. I shall make short work of it. I shall decline to meet Mr. Hendricks, or Kendricks, and I shall ask you to say as much to him from me.”
“And I shall decline to be the bearer of any such message from you, Mr. Gage,” I answered, and I saw, not without pleasure, the bewilderment that began to mix with his arrogance.
“Very well, then, sir,” he answered, after a moment; “I shall simply take my daughter away with me, and that will end it.”
The prim little, grim little man looked at me with his hard eyes, and set his lips so close that the beard on the lower one stuck out at me with a sort of additional menace I felt that he was too capable of doing what he said, and I lost myself in a sense of his sordidness, a sense which was almost without a trace of compassion.
It seemed as if I were a long time under the spell of this, and the sight of his repugnant face; but it could really have been merely a moment, when I heard a stir of drapery on the grass near us, and the soft, rich voice of Miss Gage saying, “Papa!”
We both started to our feet. I do not know whether she had heard what he said or not. We had spoken low, and in the utmost vehemence of his speech he did not lift his voice. In any case, she did not heed what he said.
“Papa,” she repeated, “I want you to come up and see Mrs. March on the piazza. And–Mr. Kendricks is there.”
I had a wild desire to laugh at what followed, and yet it was not without its pathos. “I–I–hm! hm! I–cannot see Mr. Kendricks just at present. I–the fact is, I do not want to see him. It is better–not. I think you had better get ready to go home with me at once, daughter. I–hm!–cannot approve of any engagement to Mr. Kendricks, and I–prefer not to meet him.” He stopped.
Miss Gage said nothing, and I cannot say that she looked anything. She simply CLOUDED UP, if I may so express the effect that came and remained upon her countenance, which was now the countenance she had shown me the first evening I saw her, when I saw the Deerings cowering in its shadow. I had no need to look at the adamantine little man before her to know that he was softening into wax, and, in fact, I felt a sort of indecency in beholding his inteneration, for I knew that it came from his heart, and had its consecration through his love for her.
That is why I turned away, and do not know to this moment just how the change she desired in him was brought about. I will not say that I did not look back from a discreet distance, and continue looking until I saw them start away together and move in the direction of that corner of the piazza where Kendricks was waiting with Mrs. March.
It appeared, from her account, that Mr. Gage, with no uncommon show of ill-will, but with merely a natural dryness, suffered Kendricks to be presented to him, and entered upon some preliminary banalities with him, such as he had used in opening a conversation with me. Before these came to a close Mrs. March had thought it well to leave the three together.
Afterward, when we knew the only result that the affair could have, she said, “The girl has a powerful will. I wonder what the mother was like.”
“Yes; evidently she didn’t get that will from her father. I have still a sense of exhaustion from it in our own case. What do you think it portends for poor Kendricks!”
“Poor Kendricks!” she repeated thoughtfully. “Yes; in that sense I suppose you might call him poor. It isn’t an equal thing as far as nature, as character, goes. But isn’t it always dreadful to see two people who have made up their minds to get married?”
“It’s very common,” I suggested.
“That doesn’t change the fact, or lessen the risk. She is very beautiful, and now he is in love with her beautiful girlhood. But after a while the girlhood will go.”
“And the girl will remain,” I said.