A Captain in the Ranks Part 24

"Yes. That's it. Thank you very much. That's the first thing I am to tell you."

"Who bade you tell me that?"

"Oh, n.o.body--or rather--I mean n.o.body told me I mustn't say 'yes,' but after I had made up my mind that I mustn't, then auntie said I was bound to tell you about it all. I wanted to write it, but she said that wouldn't be fair, and that I must tell you myself."

"But why did you make up your mind that you mustn't say 'yes'? Can you not love me, Barbara?"

"Oh, yes--I mean no--or rather--I mustn't."

"But if you can, why is it that you mustn't?"

That question at last gave Barbara courage to speak. It seemed to nerve her for the ordeal, and, at the same time, to point a way for the telling.

"Why, I mustn't love you, Mr. Duncan, because I cannot marry you. You see, that would be very wrong. When you--well, when you asked me those questions, it startled me, and I didn't know what to say, but after you had gone away that night I saw clearly that I mustn't think of such a thing. It would be so unfair to you."

"But how would it be unfair? It would be doing the one thing in the world that I want you to do. It would be giving me the one woman in the world whom I want for my wife, the only woman I shall ever think of marrying."

"But you mustn't think of that any more. You see, Mr. Duncan, I am not fit to be your wife. I should be a terrible drag upon you. You are already a man of prominence and everybody says you are soon to become a man of great distinction. You must have a wife worthy of such a man, a wife who can help him and do him credit in society. Now you know I could never become that sort of woman. I am only an obscure girl. I don't know how. I can not talk brilliantly. I couldn't impress people as your wife must. I am not even educated in any regular way. I've just grown up in my own fas.h.i.+on--in the shade as it were--and the strong sunlight would only emphasize my insignificance."

Duncan tried to interrupt, but she quickly cut him short.

"Let me go on, please. You are very generous, and you want to persuade me that I undervalue myself. You would convince me, if you could, that I am a great deal worthier than I think myself. I know better. You are very modest, and you would like to make me believe that you will never be a much more distinguished man than you are already, but again I know better. Probably you wouldn't become much more than you are, if you were to marry me, but that is because I should be a clog upon your life."

"Will you let me say one word at this point, Barbara?" broke in Duncan, in spite of her effort to prevent.

"You are wronging yourself and you are wronging me. As G.o.d lives I tell you there is no woman in the world so fit to be my wife as you are. My only wish is that I were worthy to have such a wife! I intend, of course, to achieve all that I can--to make the best use I can of such faculties as I possess, but nothing imaginable could so greatly help me to do that as the inspiration of your love, and the stimulus of knowing that you were to be always by my side, to share in all the good that might come to me, to cheer me in disappointment to help me endure, and above all, to strengthen me for my work in the world by your wise and loving counsel. For you are a very wise woman, Barbara, though you do not know it. You look things squarely in the face. You think soundly because you think with absolute and fearless sincerity. You are shy and timid, and self-distrustful. Thank G.o.d, you will never grow completely out of that, as so many women do. Your modesty will always remain a crown of glory to your character. But as you grow older, retaining your instinctive impulse to do well every duty that may lie before you, you will acquire enough of self-confidence to equip you for all emergencies.

You are very young yet--even younger in feeling than in years. You will grow with every year into a more perfect womanhood."

An occasional tear was by this time trickling down the girl's cheeks.

How could it be otherwise when the man she loved and honored above all others was so tenderly saying such things of her, and to her, with a sincerity too greatly pa.s.sionate to be open to any doubt? How could it be otherwise when she knew that she must put aside the love of this man, her hero--the only love, as she knew in her inmost soul, that she could ever think of with rejoicing so long as she should live?

She would have interrupted the pa.s.sionate pleading if her voice had been under control. As it was she sat silent, while he went on.

"I have spoken of my ambitions first, and of your capacity to help them, not because such things are first in my estimation, but because you have treated them as worthy of being put first. There are much higher things to be thought of. What a man _achieves_ is of far less consequence than what a man _is_. That which I ask of you is to help me _be_ the best that I am capable of being, and for you to _be_ it with me. I want to make the most, the best, the happiest life for you that is possible. If I am permitted to do that, with you to help me do it, it will be an achievement of far greater benefit to the world than any possible external success can be. The home is immeasurably more important, as a factor in human life, and in national life, than the mart, or the senate, or the pulpit, or any other influence can be. It is in happy homes that the saving virtues of humanity are born and nourished. From such homes, more than from all the pulpits, and all the inst.i.tutions of learning, there flows an influence for good that sweetens all life, preserves morality, and keeps us human beings fit to live. Oh, Barbara, you will never know how longingly I dream of such a home with you at its head! You cannot know how absolutely the worthiness of my life depends upon such a linking of it with yours."

The girl had completely given way to her emotions now, but with that resolute self-mastery which was a dominant note in her nature, she presently controlled herself. The picture that his words had created in her imagination was alluring in the extreme. But she was strong enough to put the dream of happiness aside.

"You do not know all," she said. "You have not heard all I have to tell you. You haven't heard the most important part of it. I have only told you what I thought on that evening when--when you asked--questions. I still think that ought to settle the matter, but you seem to think--perhaps you might have convinced me, or at least--oh, you don't know! There are other reasons--stronger reasons, reasons that nothing can remove."

"Tell me of them. I can imagine no reason whatever that could satisfy me."

"It is very hard to tell. You know I never knew my parents. Both my mother and my father died on the day I was born. I seem to know my mother, because auntie loved her so much, and has talked to me so much about her all my life. But she never talked to me much about my father.

His family was a good one--his father having been a banker, with some reputation as an artist also, and my father was his partner in business.

But that is all I know of my father--no, that isn't what I meant to say.

I meant to say that that is all my aunt ever told me about him, and all I knew until the night when you asked me--questions. After you went away that evening, I went to my room and thought the matter out. I have already told you what conclusions I reached. When I had decided, I went to auntie's room and sat on the side of her bed and told her everything. She cried very bitterly--I didn't understand why at first.

After a while she said she didn't at all agree with me in my conclusions, and added:

"'If the things you mention were all, Bab, I should tell you to stop thinking of them, and let Mr. Duncan judge for himself. But there is something else, Bab--something very dreadful. I never intended to tell you of it, but now I must. You would find it out very soon, for Tandy's wife knows it, and if she heard that there was anything between you and Mr. Duncan, she would make haste to talk of it--particularly after what has happened between Tandy and Mr. Duncan. Then you would never forgive me for not telling you.'

"She went on then, and told me what I must tell you. She told me, Mr.

Duncan, that I am the daughter of a Thief!"

The girl paused, unable to go on. Duncan saw that she was suffering acutely, and he determined to spare her.

"You must stop now, Barbara," he said in a caressing tone. "You are overwrought. I will hear the rest another time--when you feel stronger and send for me. I am going to say good-night now, so that you may rest.

But before I go I want to say that nothing you have told me can make the least difference in my feelings, or my desires, or my purposes. You _are_ what you _are_. Nothing else matters. When you feel strong enough, I will come again and persuade you to be my wife. Good-night!"

As she stood facing him, with unutterable distress in every line of her face, he leaned forward impulsively, but with extreme gentleness, and reverently kissed her.

XXV

TEMPLE AND TANDY

On the morning after his consultation with Captain Will Hallam, Richard Temple had his first interview with Tandy. Jewett, the hotel proprietor, walked with him to the X National Bank, took him into the bank parlor, and introduced him to the president, intimating that he would probably wish to do some business with the bank, and a.s.suring Tandy that the young man was "as square as they make 'em."

Tandy welcomed the visitor cordially, and when Jewett had bowed himself out, Temple opened negotiations, very cautiously and with every seeming of indecision, as to what he might ultimately decide to do.

"I have a little money, Mr. Tandy, that I may want to invest. I'm rather a stranger in Cairo. I wonder if you, as a banker, would mind advising me. Of course, if I make any investments, I shall do so through your bank."

"It is my business to advise investors, Mr. Temple, and in your case it is also a pleasure, if I may be permitted to say so. What are your ideas--in a general way, I mean?"

"It would be somewhat difficult for me to----"

"Oh, I quite understand. You haven't yet made up your mind. You want to look about you, eh? Well, that's right. There's more harm done by haste in making investments than by anything else. There are lots of 'cats and dogs' on the market. Of course they're a good buy sometimes, if a man wants to take long chances for the sake of big profits, and if he is in a position to watch the market. But it's awfully risky. Still----"

Tandy hesitated and did not complete his sentence for a time. He was wondering just "how much of a sucker" this young man might be. Tandy himself held some small blocks of securities which might very properly be reckoned in the feline and canine cla.s.s. He wondered if it might not be possible to "work off" some of these, in company with some better stocks, on this young man. He was closely scrutinizing Temple's visage, trying to "size him up." After seeming to meditate for a brief s.p.a.ce, he resumed:

"It is risky, of course. Still, if a man is in position to watch the market closely, and sell out at the proper time, it sometimes turns out well to buy a few inferior stocks, when buying a lot of better ones.

I've known it to happen that a lucky turn in the market enabled a man to sell out his inferior stocks at a profit big enough to pay for the good ones. You see the inferior stocks can be bought for so little on a dull market, such as we have at present, that there can't be a very great risk in buying them in moderate quant.i.ties, while buying better securities in the main. And there's always a chance of a lucky turn in the market, and with it a chance of great profits."

Temple did not interrupt the flow of Tandy's financial exposition. He had three reasons--all of them good--for wis.h.i.+ng Tandy to talk on. In the first place he was waiting for noonday, before mentioning his credit in the Fourth National Bank of New York. In the second place it was his "cue" to sit reverently at the feet of this great financier, and to make as little display as possible of his own sagacity. Finally, he was studying Tandy--"sizing him up"--finding out, for future use, all that he needed to know about the man with whom he had to deal. This was the result of the "sizing up," as it formulated itself in what might be called a "first draft," in Temple's mind:

"He's a smooth, plausible, conscienceless scoundrel;

"He's so far filled with self-conceit that it sometimes blinds him;

"He would gladly swindle me out of my eyes, if he could do so without being caught; but if he can't swindle me, he will be glad to do business with me 'on the square,' as he would put it."

But Temple wanted to complete and revise and, if necessary, correct this first draft of his "sizing up," and so he wanted Tandy to go on talking.

"I am not much disposed to speculate in doubtful securities," he said.

"I can't afford it, for one thing, and, of course, I am not in position to watch the market, as you say. What I would like is to put a few thousands into some good, safe, dividend-paying security. Of course----"

"You're right, of course. Still, if you choose to take some small risk, I could watch the market for you. I often do that for customers of the bank. I'm naturally in a position to know what's going on. By the way, how much money have you to invest?"