Tessa Wadsworth's Discipline Part 28

"So Gus said; I had to tell him. I'm afraid that Nan will die."

"No, she will not. It will make her bitter, or it will make her true."

"Nan is so cut because people talk."

"When is she coming to Dunellen?"

"She wouldn't come with me! How I did coax her! She will come in September. She says that she will stay with me until she is married."

"Then she doesn't intend to take the veil because of this?"

"She did say so-seriously-that she would enter a convent-"

"A monastery!" suggested Tessa.

"Where the monks are," laughed Mary, "I think that would suit her better."

"And believe me-Dr. Towne is not capable of doing a cruel or a mean thing-don't talk to your cousin about him."

"Oh, me! there he is now coming towards us! On our path, too. I'll break the rules and run across the gra.s.s if you will."

It was certainly Ralph Towne. He was walking slowly with his eyes bent upon the ground.

"He looks like a monk himself," whispered Mary, "he wouldn't look at us for any thing."

"Halt!" commanded the small military voice near the monument. He turned to look at the children; Tessa was close enough to feel the suns.h.i.+ne in his eyes although his face was not towards her; he stood watching the soldiers as they tramped on at the word of command; her dress brushed against him, she could have laid her hand on his arm; lifting her eyes with all her grief and disappointment at his indifference she met his fully; they were grave and very dark, not one gleam of recognition; how greatly he had changed! His eyes appeared larger, not so deep set as she remembered them, and there were many, many white threads running through his hair. Had Naughty Nan effected all this? With a slight inclination of his head he pa.s.sed on.

"He does look as if he had a 'mind to do or not do' something," said Mary! "I hope that he can't sleep nights. He almost slew me with his eyes; I can't see why such naughty hearts should look through such eyes!"

"They don't," said Tessa, "a good heart was looking through those eyes."

"H'm! I believe it!"

Tessa had walked three blocks in a reverie, scolding herself for her sympathy with the changed face, trying to feel indignant that he had pa.s.sed her by so coolly, and trying to despise him for so soon forgetting what she could never forget, when, lo! there he stood again, face to face with her, speaking eagerly, his hand already touching hers.

"Miss Tessa, what has happened to your eyes?"

"Excuse me," she stammered, "I did not see you."

"How do you do?" he asked more coolly as she withdrew her hand.

"Did you not just pa.s.s me in the Park?"

"I have not crossed the Park to-day."

"Then I met your ghost."

"Can you not be a little glad to meet me in the flesh?"

"Mary Sherwood was with me and _she_ recognized you; she saw you before I did."

He laughed the low amused laugh that she had heard so often. "My cousin Philip will believe now that he might be my brother-my twin brother-but that he appears older than he is. He has come to Dunellen to take a professors.h.i.+p. He is to be Greek teacher at the Seminary instead of Professor Grey. Philip is a rare linguist; he is a rare scholar. It is the Comedy of Errors over again. I suppose that he did not talk to you and say that he was glad to see you again."

"He bowed, he could not but do it. I expect that he thought I recognized him, as I certainly did. You will look like him some day, but he will never look like you."

"Your distinction is not flattering. May I ask a kindness of you?"

"Do you need to ask that?" she answered hurriedly.

"My mother is homesick in Dunellen. Will you call upon her?"

She colored, hesitating. After a second, during which she felt his eyes upon her, she said, "Yes."

"Philip's father and mine were twins; it is not the first time that we have been taken for each other. He has a twin sister."

"And he is like his sister."

"Yes, he _is_ like his sister. Imagine me teaching Greek or preaching in the Park-Phil is a preacher, of course, and an elocutionist. You will hear of him; he does not live in a cloister; he is always doing something for somebody."

"He is a _disciplined_ man; I never saw a person to whom that word could be so fitly applied."

"And you never thought of applying it to me."

"I confess that I never did," she said laughing.

"You can see a great deal at a glance."

"That is why I glance."

"Probably you know that I have come to Dunellen to work."

"I congratulate Dunellen," she answered prettily.

"I hope that you may have reason to do so. May I tell my mother that you will call?"

"Yes-if you wish," she said, doubtfully, b.u.t.toning a loose b.u.t.ton on her glove. "Good afternoon, Dr. Towne."

She pa.s.sed on at a quickened pace, her cheeks glowing, her eyes alight.

A stranger, meeting her, turned for a second look. "She has heard good news," he said to himself.

_Had_ she heard good news? She had seen the man that she had so foolishly and fondly believed Ralph Towne to be; she had learned that she could not create out of the longings of her own heart a man too n.o.ble and true for G.o.d to make out of His heart. Her ideal had not been too good to be true; just then it was enough for her to know that her ideal existed. Her heart could not break because she was disappointed in Ralph Towne, but it would have broken had she found that G.o.d did not care to make men good and true. And Ralph Towne would become good and true some day. And then she would be glad and not ashamed that she had trusted in him; she could not be glad and not ashamed yet. She did not love the man that could trifle with Sue or flirt with Nan Gerard. She had loved the ideal in her heart, and not the soul in his flesh. He could not understand that; he would call it a fancy, and say that she could make rhyme to it, but that she could not live the poem. Perhaps not; if she had loved him she might have lived a different poem; her living and loving, her doing and giving, would be a poem, anyway; she did not love Ralph Towne to-day, she was only afraid that she did. He could not understand the woman who would prefer Philip Towne's saintliness; he was a.s.sured that his money would outweigh it with any maiden in Dunellen-with any maiden but Tessa Wadsworth; he was beginning to understand her. "She did not ask me to call," he soliloquized. The stranger pa.s.sing him also, gave him also a second glance, but he did not say to himself, "He has heard good news." _Was_ it good news that the woman that he had thoughtlessly deceived held herself aloof from him and above him?

"She loved me once," he soliloquized, "and love with her must die a hard death."

How hard a death even Tessa herself could not comprehend; she understood years afterward when she said: "I thought once that I never could be as glad as I had been sorrowful; but I learned that the power to be glad was infinitely greater than the power of being sorrowful."

That evening her father called her to say: "The new professor is to preach Sunday evening before church service in the Park; you and I will go to hear him."