第40章

I was myself always charmed with the young fellow. He was not only good and generous and handsome, and clever--I never thought him a first-class talent--but he was beautifully well bred, and he was very well born, as those things go with us. That is, he came of people who had not done much of anything for a generation, and had acquired merit with themselves for it. They were not very rich, but they had a right to think that he might have done nothing, or done something better than literature; and I wish I could set forth exactly the terms, tacit and explicit, in which his mother and sisters condoned his dereliction to me at a reception where he presented me to them. In virtue of his wish to do something, he had become a human being, and they could not quite follow him; but they were very polite in tolerating me, and trying to make me feel that Iwas not at all odd, though he was so queer in being proud of writing for my paper, as they called it. He was so unlike them all that Iliked him more than ever after meeting them. Still, I could imagine a fond father, as I imagined Miss Gage's father to be, objecting to him, on some grounds at least, till he knew him, and Mrs. March apparently could not imagine even this.

I do not know why I should have prefigured Miss Gage's father as tall and lank. She was not herself so very tall, though she was rather tall than short, and though she was rather of the Diana or girlish type of goddess, she was by no means lank. Yet it was in this shape that I had always thought of him, perhaps through an obscure association with his fellow-villager, Deering. I had fancied him saturnine of spirit, slovenly of dress, and lounging of habit, upon no authority that I could allege, and I was wholly unprepared for the neat, small figure of a man, very precise of manner and scrupulous of aspect, who said, "How do you do, sir? Ihope I see you well, sir," when his daughter presented us to each other, the morning after the eventful day described, and he shook my hand with his very small, dry hand.

I could not make out from their manner with each other whether they had been speaking of the great matter in hand or not. I am rather at a loss about people of that Philistine make as to what their procedure will be in circumstances where I know just what people of my own sort of sophistication would do. These would come straight at the trouble, but I fancy that with the other sort the convention is a preliminary reserve. I found Mr. Gage disposed to prolong, with me at least, a discussion of the weather, and the aspects of Saratoga, the events of his journey from De Witt Point, and the hardship of having to ride all the way to Mooer's Junction in a stage-coach. I felt more and more, while we bandied these futilities, as if Mr. Gage had an overdue note of mine, and was waiting for me, since I could not pay it, to make some proposition toward its renewal; and he did really tire me out at last, so that Isaid, "Well, Mr. Gage, I suppose Miss Gage has told you something of the tremendous situation that has developed itself here?"I thought I had better give the affair such smiling character as a jocose treatment might impart, and the dry little man twinkled up responsively so far as manner was concerned. "Well, yes, yes.

There has been some talk of it between us," and again he left the word to me.

"Mrs. March urged your daughter to send for you at once because that was the right and fit thing to do, and because we felt that the affair had now quite transcended our powers, such as they were, and nobody could really cope with it but yourself. I hope you were not unduly alarmed by the summons?""Not at all. She said in the despatch that she was not sick. I had been anticipating a short visit to Saratoga for some days, and my business was in a shape so that I could leave.""Oh!" I said vaguely, "I am very glad. Mrs. March felt, as I did, that circumstances had given us a certain obligation in regard to Miss Gage, and we were anxious to discharge it faithfully and to the utmost. We should have written to you, summoned you, before, if we could have supposed--or been sure; but you know these things go on so obscurely, and we acted at the very first possible moment. Iwish you to understand that. We talked it over a great deal, and Ihope you will believe that we studied throughout--that we were most solicitous from beginning to end for Miss Gage's happiness, and that if we could have foreseen or imagined--if we could have taken any steps--I trust you will believe--" I was furious at myself for being so confoundedly apologetic, for I was thinking all the time of the bother and affliction we had had with the girl; and there sat that little wooden image accepting my self-inculpations, and apparently demanding more of me; but I could not help going on in the same strain: "We felt especially bound in the matter, from the fact that Mr. Kendricks was a personal friend of ours, whom we are very fond of, and we both are very anxious that you should not suppose that we promoted, or that we were not most vigilant--that we were for a moment forgetful of your rights in such an affair--"I stopped, and Mr. Gage passed his hand across his little meagre, smiling mouth.

"Then he is not a connection of yours, Mr. March?""Bless me, no!" I said in great relief; "we are not so swell as that." And I tried to give him some notion of Kendricks's local quality, repeating a list of agglutinated New York surnames to which his was more or less affiliated. They always amuse me, those names, which more than any in the world give the notion of social straining; but I doubt if they affected the imagination of Mr. Gage, either in this way or in the way I meanly meant them to affect him.

"And what did you say his business was?" he asked, with that implication of a previous statement on your part which some people think it so clever to make when they question you.

I always hate it, and I avenged myself by answering simply, "Bless my soul, he has no business!" and letting him take up the word now or not, as he liked.

"Then he is a man of independent means?"