After supper that evening, when they were leaving the dining-room, Natalia slipped her arm through Judge Houston's, and drew him towards the big salon across the hall.
"Let's you and I run away from the others for a while," she whispered as they entered the room. "I haven't had any talk at all with you, and if we slip in here and sit over on that old davenport in the corner, they'll never find us, and we can talk, and talk, and talk—like we used to. There is so much that I want you to tell me; so much that I want to tell you."
She led him across the highly polished floor, the old gentleman playfully assuming that he might slip.
"Suppose I should fall, Natalia," he complained; "I never did like these slippery floors. I won't let Maria have them at home."
"Lean on me, Uncle Felix," she answered, smiling. "I know it will be difficult for you to do, though—you never leaned on any one in your life, did you? Put your arm through mine and take a step—so. Any one would think we were dancing a minuet or a Virginia reel! But you will dance the quadrille with me at my own wedding, won't you, Uncle Felix? Now!" she ended, landing him safely on the deep sofa.
"The time is coming, Natalia, when I must lean on some one all the time," the old gentleman sighed. "It isn't very far off, either. Do you know, I find myself deferring to Maria for the smallest things, and when not Maria—it is Sargent."
"Sargent Everett," Natalia repeated after him, piling some cushions on the horse-hair upholstery so that the old gentleman would lean back comfortably. Then she pushed a small stool before the sofa, and sat down upon it, resting her chin in her hand while the other one lay across his knee. "Sargent Everett," she said again thoughtfully. "That is one of the things I want you to tell me, Uncle Felix—all about him."
The late twilight of the warm June day still glowed through the windows. The whispering of the birds as they sought shelter for the night in the magnolia grove floated in to them, lending a potent charm to the quiet surroundings. Judge Houston did not answer at once, and in the long silence that widened between them, he felt for a while that almost any words would jar the contentment of the moment. Occasionally his hand moved across Natalia's hair—a touch so gentle and loving that she wondered if her father would have meant more to her than this dear old man.
"There is so much to tell," he began at last, "and I would gain so much pleasure in the telling that you would fall asleep long before I was half through. Indeed, Natalia, Sargent is making these last days of my life very happy, for in his success I seem to get a pleasure so deep that at times I imagine his triumphs are my own."
Natalia moved restlessly, as if to rise, then sank back on the stool again.
"Why is it that every one I meet seems to worship him?" she murmured, half complaining. "You have always loved him more than me—yes, you have, dear Uncle Felix, and now, when I come back home, I find Dicey is his slave—and willingly, too. He has stolen the love of you both from me. I am growing very, very jealous of him. Do you know, Uncle Felix, Dicey says she will not leave him, but I believe she will, don't you?"
"I did not know you had seen her. Was she here to-day?"
"No. I went to her."
"At Sargent's house—to-day?"
"Yes, that is where I was all the afternoon. He was not there. Dicey said he was out of town on some political tour. Tell me about him, Uncle Felix—it has been years and years since I heard from him or about him. Occasionally I have seen articles in the papers about his speeches. Are they so wonderful? Have you some of them that I could read?"
Judge Houston's eyes glowed with the enthusiasm that was always in them when he spoke of Sargent, nor did Natalia miss the sudden quickening of interest and kindling of energies that so obviously manifested his devotion.
"His speeches are remarkable works of beauty and construction, but they are nothing in comparison with his delivery. It always saddens me when I think of his future reputation—when he goes down in history—as he surely will—for people will not realize half his power in reading his speeches; his magnetism, his charm, his force that holds one spellbound in listening—all that will be lost to the next generation, and it is that, more than anything else, that has made him remarkable. I took out my watch one day to see how long he would take for a certain speech, and I found myself at the end of the speech still holding the watch in my hand, entirely forgotten."
"Then the years have brought him success," Natalia reflected. "I remember his great ambition, and a phrase of his—'I want to show the world that because a man is a cripple he can still be a great man.'"
The Judge bowed his head, enthusiastically "My one great hope is that I shall live to hear his voice sounding in the walls of the Capitol at Washington. It will, too, one of these days."
"Tell me about his success," Natalia said leaning back comfortably against his knees.
"It is a long, long story, Natalia, and would weary you in the telling. It began when you were here. Don't you remember the trial of Phelps? That started him on the upward path, and it also had a much deeper significance than the world ever supposed. When he had convicted Phelps it troubled him so that he went to the jail with the object of releasing the fellow. Fortunately for Sargent Phelps never knew his intention, and killed himself and ever since then Sargent has defended any and every criminal that comes to him. He calls it his life-work—saving men so as to give them another chance. After that case, he was sent to the Legislature and now we are going to send him to Congress—the election takes place this week. After that he says he is coming back here and settle down in his home and be content to practise criminal law, which he has made his special work. Some day, when you meet him, get him to tell you about his theory in regard to it; it is beautiful."
"When I meet him," Natalia reflected softly. "It seems that I shall not see him again, Uncle Felix; and yet, do you know, this place is not the same to me as it used to be, and I believe that it is because he is not here. In some way he seems to be very closely woven into all the impressions of my childhood—he and Dicey." Suddenly she turned and looked up into the old man's face. "Uncle Felix, Dicey told me that he always talked of the time when I should come back to him. Is it really so? Did he think that?"
Judge Houston leaned back, so that the protecting shadows would betray no expression on his face. It was too late now for her to know. He would tell her nothing that would in any way tinge her happiness with a shade of sadness or regret. When he answered her, his voice was steady, almost gay, in an attempt at carelessness.
"That was a dream of mine, Natalia. You and he were dearer to me than any others in the world. It was only natural that I should have hoped that you two might have loved each other. But you see," he sighed in mock despair, "I am carrying out the words of the prophet—'your old men shall dream dreams'—and I am a very old man, Natalia. I shall be seventy-six my next birthday."
"Seventy-six years," Natalia repeated, absently, wondering over the reason for his not replying to her question. Could it be that what Dicey said was true? She hurriedly drove the doubt from her thoughts, for a strange fear had suddenly crept into her consciousness—the fear that her great happiness might come to her through the suffering of another. With the intuitive perception she rose from her stool with a start. The room had become totally dark; only the light from the hall threw a faint shaft into the room.
She groped her way to the tall black marble mantel, over which hung the portrait of her mother, and lit the two seven-branched candlesticks. Going back to the stool, she sat down as before, resting her face in her hands and gazing at the portrait.
In the soft glow of candlelight the room looked enormous. The vista made by the two mirrors at each end and directly opposite to each other created a perspective that was without limit in its repeated reflection. The portrait gained a semblance of life from the deep shadows and high lights, and looked down from its gorgeous gilt frame on the crimson damask upholstery and rosewood carvings, with the affection that years of association had created. The gleaming mahogany floor gathered into its embrace the reflection, and in the subdued light and the strange fragrance of passed years breathing life into the speechless objects, Natalia felt that she was growing nearer to what it all represented to her than she had ever been before.
"Seventy-six years," she said again thoughtfully. "How beautiful to grow old as you have done, Uncle Felix. Nay, is it growing old? It seems to me that with you and Aunt Maria it has been a gradual growing nearer to a beautiful future life—a gentle approach towards God. I wonder if I shall grow old that way, or die in the heyday of my youth and happiness—as my mother did. To think that I never knew her," she sighed, when she had looked a long time at the portrait. "And now when I seem to think of her most, when I feel that I need her—she is gone. Can there be a greater loss to a girl than not to know a mother? And I shall never know what it is! Sometimes it makes me very sad when I realize there is no one from whom I can claim anything—no one to whom I can go and demand things because of the ties of blood. Even you and Aunt Maria are really no kin—are not tied except by love."
The old man leaned forward and turned her face towards him.
"Could any ties be stronger than those of love?" he smiled into her eyes.
"I know, dear Uncle Felix," she pressed his hands as she answered, "but the tie of blood is a very wonderful thing. It makes me feel so dreadfully lonely at times, to know that you, that Morgan, that every one is doing for me not because they ought to, but because they love me—perhaps pity me. Probably I express myself badly, and yet—you must know what I mean. It is lack of that right to lean on some one for help and protection, and feel that you are only demanding of him what it is his duty to give. That is what I expect my marriage to bring me."
Judge Houston leaned nearer to her, intently watching the changing expressions that played across her face, and which seemed to gather brilliancy from the portrait towards which she looked. His eye wandered from the painted face to the living reproduction, then back again—and between them there rose before him his old bridge of dreams—dreams which the last month had shattered. Again he felt an almost overwhelming desire to tell her of that dream which was but the reflection of the dream of another; if it were only possible to let her know of the plans and talks and hopes that he and the other one had made their guiding star for years! But he could not—his duty to her kept him silent, and in her love he realized the hopelessness of his own desires.
Then in the more than three-score years of calm restraint and self-denial, his deep affection for the man who had become his son rushed over him and made him speak.
"Natalia," he hurried over the words, "there is something I want to know—from your own lips."
"You can ask me anything, Uncle Felix." She turned her face towards him with the frankness of a child. "I have no secrets that I would not tell you."
His hand rested on her shoulder while he searched her eyes.
"How great is your love for Morgan Talbot?"
Natalia met his eyes seriously for a few moments; and then she laughed softly.
"What a question, Uncle Felix, and particularly when it comes from you! How great is my love for the man I am going to marry? Do you know me so little that you deem such a question necessary?"
"No. But I know you so well that I know that you will tell me the truth—that is, if you answer me seriously."
Gradually the smile faded into a pensive expression, and Natalia turned slowly back to where the gleaming portrait held her attention again.
"How great is my love," she murmured as if in self-questioning. "How great is my love? Why, Uncle Felix, how do I know how great it is? What is there for me to compare it to?"
The old man leaned towards her, and though her face was turned from him when he spoke, she felt that there was something left unsaid behind his words.
"Is this the first time you have loved? Is there nothing that went before, by which you can judge?"
"No, nothing." Natalia turned and searched his eyes for the hidden meaning. "I have never been in love before, unless—" her face flushed slightly as she found his meaning, "unless it were my old admiration for Sargent Everett. But then I was too young to know."
Judge Houston leaned back once more into the protecting shadows of the wall, it had come at last he sighed to himself, and she had been the first to mention it.
"And is this love that you now feel, like the first?"
"No." She shook her head, her face saddening sweetly. "No. I adored Sargent Everett. It was worship. A girl only has that experience once in life; fortunately it came to me early and I outgrew it. But I remember it painfully well. It is the sort of feeling that one must have who bows down and worships a god, and sees that god returning his affection—can there be any sensation more wonderful! And all the incidents of our association naturally added a picturesqueness that impressed my childish imagination, coloured it, and made his image sink very deep upon mv mind. This morning when I went out to the old bench under the magnolias where he and I used to sit, I actually felt a return of my old love for him. I actually forgot Morgan for the moment!" She ended with a happy laugh.
"Tell me then," Judge Houston asked after a pause. "How does this other love differ from the first?"
She clasped her hands in her lap and leaned back against the sofa, her eyes half closed in meditation. Finally, with a graceful movement, she put out her hand and drew the old man's into hers.
"My love for Morgan," she began slowly. "How can I ever describe it! It did not come to me suddenly—it was more the outgrowth of association—a drifting into it without realization. Is it not always that way?" She lifted her face towards the old man intently, and found him looking down at her with a sad expression that she did not understand.
"You say you found it that way?"
"Yes, Uncle Felix," Natalia answered gayly. "Now please don't upbraid me for not falling in love at first sight. You know such things don't happen nowadays. I first met Morgan at the boarding school where Mamma Brandon sent me. Millicent was there with me at the time, and through our friendship I began to hear stories of her beautiful brother whom she described as the acme of all that was handsome and brave and wonderful. You must remember we were only twelve then. It is rather a strange thing, now, as things have eventuated, that I used to answer all her descriptions of Morgan with effusions about Sargent Everett. Then I met him. You can see the impression he would be likely to make upon a lonely little school-girl away from the few people who had ever loved her. Naturally the absent scene faded as the years passed, and I found myself living only in the world about me—a world filled with all the interests of the school and my broadening education, and made a place of enchantment to me by the kindness and affection of Morgan's family. They made me one of them. And when the day of real freedom came, when I left school to enter the world, with the enormous accretions from my plantations which you and Mamma Brandon had so skilfully managed for me—everything was perfect. Ah, it was beautiful! That first year of my real life. I can remember exactly my sensations the night I made my debut. We went to the opera first to hear Jenny Lind sing, and afterwards there was a big ball. I carried a beautiful bouquet of lilies of the valley—oh, Uncle Felix, it was gorgeous! That was two years ago. Since then, you know how I have travelled, how I spent a year in Europe, losing myself in the shadows of all that historic past, all that overpowering procession of events that has left its monuments for us to wonder over.... Those were carefree days, happy and thoughtless, with no suspicion of a to-morrow, and in them, with me—for long periods of travel—was Morgan—always faithful, always attentive, always an ideal lover. I never thought of marrying him then—at least never seriously, until I came back from Europe, and found that the same things that filled my life before amused me no longer. I was tired of playing, Uncle Felix, I had played too much. Something within called me to the great problems of life—I felt that I wanted to be in touch with people whose lives were amounting to something, who were doing good in the world and helping others. I seemed to realize then, for the first time, that I was drifting along in a happiness that would bring me nothing in the future, and I saw myself in my old age, when my youth and freshness and beauty were all gone, as a little child, without any one dependent upon me for their happiness. I think it was that, Uncle Felix," and she drew his hand gently to her cheek, "that opened my eyes to Morgan's love. He was there, waiting to give me a protection and haven from that awful lonely future. And I thought of you and Aunt Maria growing old together so beautifully, and I know now, Uncle Felix, that Morgan and I shall do the same.... When I have a child, Uncle Felix, think how everything that has gone before will be as nothing! When I have one that is mine, a part of me—that is what will make my life divine!" Suddenly she put her hands up to his face and kissed him. "Forgive me! Forgive me! I did not mean to wound you. I did not mean to thrust my happiness at you—so."
There were tears in the old man's eyes as she talked on, lost in her own narration, and when she looked up at him again, they were streaming down his cheeks, she rose from the stool and slipped on to the sofa beside him, pulling his arm around her waist, so that her face lay close against his, with the silence deepening between them.
"Uncle Felix," she began again, after having risen and carefully snuffed the candles on the mantel. "I have never told any one what I have told you to-night; indeed, there was no one to tell—not even Morgan. It was my thought of you and this dear old place that made me wish to solemnize my marriage here. It may be the last time I shall ever be here, at least for many, many years; yet now that I have come back, and all the past has rushed over me with all its old charm and fascination—I feel that I should like to remain here always. There is something so protected and safe here—an aloofness from the world that would save one from almost every suffering. But of course it is impossible." She stirred restlessly. "Already Morgan is growing impatient, and wants to get back to the rush and stir of a city." She rose and with both hands pulled the old gentleman up after her. "Let's go back to the others now. But first—I may never have the chance to speak to you of it again—tell Sargent Everett of my deep affection for him still—tell him that I shall always be grateful for his having made me a very happy little girl, and that the only thing that marred my happiness on my wedding day was his absence. Now, let's go back to Morgan."