"I have not thought much of you for a twelvemonth," he said, quietly, "but I have not forgotten you. Come!"
He led the way a few steps in advance, they following silently. In this brief interview they felt he had resumed the old dominance and independence, against which they had rebelled; more than that, in this half failure of their first concerted action they had changed their querulous bickerings to a sullen distrust of each other, and walked moodily apart as they followed James North into his house.
A fire blazed brightly on the hearth; a few extra seats were quickly extemporized from boxes and chests, and the elder lady, with the skirt of her dress folded over her knees,--looking not unlike an exceedingly overdressed jointed doll,--dried her flounces and her tears together. Miss Maria took in the scant appointments of the house in one single glance, and then fixed her eyes upon James North, who, the least concerned of the party, stood before them, grave and patiently expectant.
"Well," began the elder lady in a high key, "after all this worry and trouble you have given us, James, haven't you anything to say?
Do you know--have you the least idea what you are doing? what egregious folly you are committing? what everybody is saying? Eh?
Heavens and earth!--do you know who I am?"
"You are my father's brother's widow, Aunt Mary," returned James, quietly. "If I am committing any folly it only concerns myself; if I cared for what people said I should not be here; if I loved society enough to appreciate its good report I should stay with it."
"But they say you have run away from society to pine alone for a worthless creature--a woman who has used you, as she has used and thrown away others--a--"
"A woman," chimed in ****, who had thrown himself on James's bed while his patent leathers were drying, "a woman that all the fellers know never intended"--here, however, he met James North's eye, and muttering something about "whole thing being too idiotic to talk about," relapsed into silence.
"You know," continued Mrs. North, "that while we and all our set shut our eyes to your very obvious relations with that woman, and while I myself often spoke of it to others as a ****** flirtation, and averted a scandal for your sake, and when the climax was reached, and she herself gave you an opportunity to sever your relations, and nobody need have been wiser--and she'd have had all the blame--and it's only what she's accustomed to--you--you! you, James North!--you must nonsensically go, and, by this extravagant piece of idiocy and sentimental tomfoolery, let everybody see how serious the whole affair was, and how deep it hurt you! and here in this awful place, alone--where you're half drowned to get to it and are willing to be wholly drowned to get away! Oh, don't talk to me! I won't hear it--it's just too idiotic for anything!"
The subject of this outburst neither spoke nor moved a single muscle.
"Your aunt, Mr. North, speaks excitedly," said the elder gentleman;
"yet I think she does not overestimate the unfortunate position in which your odd fancy places you. I know nothing of the reasons that have impelled you to this step; I only know that the popular opinion is that the cause is utterly inadequate. You are still young, with a future before you. I need not say how your present conduct may imperil that. If you expected to achieve any good--even to your own satisfaction--but this conduct--"
"Yes--if there was anything to be gained by it!" broke in Mrs.
North.
"If you ever thought she'd come back!--but that kind of woman don't. They must have change. Why"--began **** suddenly, and as suddenly lying down again.
"Is this all you have come to say?" asked James North, after a moment's patient silence, looking from one to the other.
"All?" screamed Mrs. North; "is it not enough?"
"Not to change my mind nor my residence at present," replied North, coolly.
"Do you mean to continue this folly all your life?"
"And have a coroner's inquest, and advertisements and all the facts in the papers?"
"And have HER read the melancholy details, and know that you were faithful and she was not?"
This last shot was from the gentle Maria, who bit her lips as it glanced from the immovable man.
"I believe there is nothing more to say," continued North, quietly.
"I am willing to believe your intentions are as worthy as your zeal. Let us say no more," he added, with grave weariness; "the tide is rising, and your coachman is signaling you from the bank."
There was no mistaking the unshaken positiveness of the man, which was all the more noticeable from its gentle but utter indifference to the wishes of the party. He turned his back upon them as they gathered hurriedly around the elder gentleman, while the words, "He cannot be in his right mind," "It's your duty to do it," "It's sheer insanity," "Look at his eye!" all fell unconsciously upon his ear.
"One word more, Mr. North," said the elder gentleman, a little portentously, to conceal an evident embarrassment. "It may be that your conduct might suggest to minds more practical than your own the existence of some aberration of the intellect--some temporary mania--that might force your best friends into a quasi-legal attitude of--"
"Declaring me insane," interrupted James North, with the slight impatience of a man more anxious to end a prolix interview than to combat an argument. "I think differently. As my aunt's lawyer, you know that within the last year I have deeded most of my property to her and her family. I cannot believe that so shrewd an adviser as Mr. Edmund Carter would ever permit proceedings that would invalidate that conveyance."
Maria burst into a laugh of such wicked gratification that James North, for the first time, raised his eyes with something of interest to her face. She colored under them, but returned his glance with another like a bayonet flash. The party slowly moved toward the door, James North following.
"Then this is your final answer?" asked Mrs. North, stopping imperiously on the threshold.
