A Captain in the Ranks Part 13

In the meanwhile the entire talk of the little city was of Duncan's activity in haling the hoodlum sons of highly "respectable" parents before a magistrate, as a consequence of their battle with a "n.i.g.g.e.r."

On that subject tongues wagged busily, pro and con. The friends of the aggrieved parents who had been forced to give bonds for the good behavior of their ill-regulated offspring, indignantly made a "race issue" of a matter which had nothing whatever to do with race prejudice.

They could not understand how a southerner and an ex-Confederate soldier could thus have taken the part of a "n.i.g.g.e.r" against "respectable white boys." Others who were clamorous for the "rights of the negro," rejoiced in Duncan as a convert to their doctrine.

Both were wrong, of course. Neither in the remotest way recognized the real impulses of his act, namely, the impulse to protect a woman and the impulse of a law-loving citizen to insist upon the equal enforcement of the law, for the sake of good order in the community. But Duncan concerned himself with none of these things. He had done his simple duty as a man and as a citizen, and he had no care whatever for consequences.

And yet the consequences were such as vitally affected his entire career in more ways than one. His performance brought him, for one thing, into close acquaintance with a certain young woman whom he had scarcely known before, and whose destiny it was to influence the entire future course of his life.

It was Duncan's habit to sit long and smoke over his final cup of coffee at the evening meal. The other table boarders were accustomed to hurry away as soon as they had swallowed their supper, leaving him in sole possession of the dining room.

On the evening of the day on which the events already related occurred, he sat as usual, smoking, sipping his coffee, and reading Ober's evening newspaper. Presently Barbara Verne entered, and with a manner in which extreme shyness was mingled with a resolute determination to do the duty that lay before her, approached young Duncan and held out her hand. As he rose deferentially to greet her, taking her proffered hand in his, the girl said:

"I've come to thank you, Mr. Duncan. It was very kind of you--to protect Robert, you know--and me. I'm Barbara Verne. Thank you, ever so much."

As she made her little speech the brave but timid girl looked him in the eyes with the embarra.s.sed front of a child set to do a duty, mingled with the calm composure of a woman who knows and cherishes the dignity of her womanhood.

Duncan protested that no thanks were due him for doing his simple duty, and, after a word or two more, the girl quitted the room, while Duncan, gallantly bowing, held the door open for her.

The little interview lasted for less than two minutes, and not an unnecessary word was spoken on either side. Yet it seemed to Duncan an event of consequence, as indeed, it proved to be.

Something in the girl's voice, or manner, or something in her eyes, or something in her grace of movement, her bearing, her mingled simplicity and dignity--or something in all these combined--had mightily impressed him. He had seen little of women in any intimate way, and while he honored womanhood and deferred to it, as every sound-souled man must, he had thought himself quite indifferent to women in their individual personality. But somehow he could not feel so with Barbara Verne, and later in the evening he scourged himself for his folly in continuing to think of her to the interruption of the reading he had set himself to do.

"What's the matter with me?" he asked himself almost with irritation, as at last he laid down the volume of Herbert Spencer's Social Statics, over which he had been laboring in vain. "I can't read a single paragraph with understanding. I can't keep my attention upon the lines as I read them. I must be tired out--though I don't know what has tired me. Fortunately I've no visitors to-night. They have all gone to hear the Swiss Bell Ringers at the Athenaeum. I wonder if anybody took Barbara Verne?"

Thus his thought came back again to the girl and he was annoyed with himself for having permitted that.

"I do not know the girl at all," he reflected. "Except to bow a distant 'good-morning' or 'good-evening' at infrequent intervals, I never spoke to her until this evening, and then the interview was one of purely formal courtesy. And yet here I am thinking about her so persistently that even Herbert Spencer cannot win my attention."

Then he sat for a time trying to think of something else, or trying, with renewed resolution, to concentrate his attention upon his book.

The effort was a dismal failure. Barbara Verne's eyes gazed softly at him out of the page, her gentle voice echoed in his ears, and the simple, straight-forward words of thanks that she had spoken thrust out of his mind the words of the great philosopher, as the youth endeavored to read them.

He was sitting, in his dressing gown, with his slippered feet resting upon a stool. In the large grate a ma.s.s of Pittsburg coal blazed and flickered restfully. At his elbow softly burned a shaded student lamp, on a table covered with a scarlet and black cloth, and littered with books. The curtains--inexpensive, but heavy--were closely drawn to shut out every suggestion of the wintry night outside.

"Confound it," muttered the young man aloud, as he again threw down the book, this time without marking his place; "if I weren't so supremely comfortable here, I'd get myself into my clothes again and go out to fight the night for a while. That would be the right thing to do, but I'm too self-indulgent to do it. Wonder if Barbara Verne ever s.h.i.+rked a duty for the sake of comfort?"

Thus he began again to think of the girl.

"She's a new type to me," he thought, as he gazed into the fire. "She seems almost a child, and yet altogether a woman. Wonder what her life has been. I fancy she felt, when she came in to thank me, like a child who has been naughty and is required to make a proper apology. There was certainly a suggestion of that sort of thing in her manner, just at first. Then the strong woman in her mastered the child, and she carried out her determination resolutely. It is very charming, that combination of shy child-likeness, with the self-control of a strong woman."

At this point Guilford Duncan impatiently kicked over his footrest, rose to his feet and began dressing for the out of doors. "What an idiot I am!" he thought. "Here I am presuming to a.n.a.lyze the moods and motives of a young woman of whose life and character I know nothing whatever, and with whom I have exchanged not more than a dozen or twenty sentences in all my life. You need a drenching in the storm, Guilford Duncan, and you shall have it, in the interest of your sanity."

Donning his boots and overcoat, and pulling his slouch hat well down over his eyes and ears, the young man strode out into the storm.

When he came back at midnight, drenched and chilled, his fire had burned itself out. After he had rubbed his damp skin into a healthful glow, he extinguished the lamp and crawled into bed.

In spite of all, however, Guilford Duncan was still thinking of Barbara Verne, when, at last, he sank to sleep. His final thought of her took the form of a resolution:

"I will call upon her, and become really acquainted with her. That will cure me of this strange and utterly absurd fascination. Of course the girl must be commonplace in the main, and when I come to realize that, the glamour will fade away."

XIV

A SOCIAL ADVANCE

Guilford Duncan carried out his purpose, as he thought, with a good deal of tact. He began by calling, not upon Barbara, but upon three or four other young women--a thing he had never done before. He thought in this way to make his call upon Barbara, when it should come, an inconspicuous event. To his surprise, his entrance thus into society created something of a flutter among the women-folk, especially the married women who had marriageable daughters, or who were matchmakingly interested in other young women, not their daughters.

For Guilford Duncan, the moment he was thought of as a social factor, and a matrimonial possibility, was seen to be the "best catch" in the little city, the most desirable young man in the town. He was young and distinctly handsome. He was a man of education, culture, and superior intelligence. His manners were easy, polished, and very winning.

Especially he treated women with a certain chivalric deference, that pleased them even more than they knew. Captain Will Hallam's wife, who was the social leader of the city, said to him one day:

"You must be careful what you do in the way of paying attention to young women. A very little attention on your part is apt to mean a great deal to a girl--and still more to her mamma."

"But why should it?" asked Duncan, in unfeigned astonishment. "Why should ordinary social courtesy on my part mean more than the same thing means in the case of any other young man?"

"I don't know that I can tell you," she answered. "At least, I don't know that I can make you understand."

"I sincerely wish you would try. I certainly do not want to----" He hesitated, and did not complete the sentence.

"Oh, I know all that. I know what you mean, because it is what I mean. I tell you that if you pay more than just a little, and a very casual, attention to any girl, the girl, and, worse still, all her elderly female relatives, are likely to misconstrue your motives. You are in serious danger of breaking some tender hearts, and winning for yourself the reputation of being that most detestable thing--a male flirt."

"But really, Mrs. Hallam," interrupted the perplexed young man, "I don't understand----"

"Of course you don't, and of course I'm glad you don't. You'd be a detestably conceited popinjay if you did. But I do, and in a strictly limited way I'm going to explain it to you for your own good, and as a warning. I can't explain it fully without treason to my own s.e.x. But I'll tell you this much: you have a singularly pleasing, soothing, caressing, and most winning manner with women--all women. You are respectful--no, that isn't the word. You are courteously gentle and deferential, and solicitous to give pleasure. Anyhow, you please women.

Then, again, you have made yourself the most conspicuous young man in Cairo, and everybody counts upon your success as certain. There, I'm not going to explain further; I only warn you."

"But, Mrs. Hallam, I have not called more than twice upon any one girl, and----"

"Well, don't. That's all I've got to say."

Duncan went away puzzled. He had intended to be very shrewd and circ.u.mspect in this matter. He had intended, by calling once or twice upon each of several young women, to deprive the calls he intended to make upon Barbara of any look of significance, and now, before he had even begun to cultivate acquaintance with Barbara, he found his small preparatory callings the subject of curiosity and gossip.

He was resolved not to be balked of his purpose, however. He saw no reason to permit that. He would go that very evening to see Barbara, and he would repeat the visit from time to time, until a fuller acquaintance with the girl should cure him of his fascination.

Acquaintance must do that, he was persuaded.

He carried out his part of the program resolutely. If the results were not precisely what he expected, and intended, the fault was not his own.

Barbara Verne was not accustomed to receive visits from young men. She was almost too young, for one thing, or, at least, she had been almost too young until about this time. Moreover, her life was unusually secluded. She devoted all her time to her exacting household duties.

Except that she attended church once each Sunday, she was never seen in any public place, or anywhere else, outside of her aunt's house, or the house of her single friend--Mrs. Richards--a retiring matron, who neither received company nor went out anywhere. These two--the young girl and the middle-aged matron--were somewhat more than intimate in their affection, but apart from this one friend, Barbara visited n.o.body.

The young women of the town did not think of her, therefore, as one of themselves at all. They regarded her rather as a child than as a young woman, though if they had troubled to think about the matter, they would have remembered that she was as old as some of themselves.

When Guilford Duncan made his first call upon Barbara, therefore, that young person was very greatly astonished, but she was in no way embarra.s.sed. It was her nature to meet all circ.u.mstances and all events frankly, and to do with conscientious faithfulness whatsoever she conceived to be her duty. So when Guilford Duncan called upon her, she promptly put away her surprise, and entered the little parlor to greet him.

She did not keep him waiting, and he specially liked that. He was apt to be impatient of waiting. She did not think it necessary to change her gown. It was her habit to dress with exceeding simplicity and extreme neatness. She could not afford anything pretentious in dress, and she would make no false pretense. Besides, she owned no better gown than the one of French calico, which she was already wearing.

So, without a minute's wait, Barbara walked into the parlor and greeted her visitor, not without some lingering trace of surprise at the honor done her, but with no touch of foolish embarra.s.sment in her manner.