GIRLS OF A FEATHER.

Auckland Star, Volume XXV, Issue 33, 7 February 1894, Page 6

GIRLS OF A FEATHER.

A NEW YORK STORY.

SF AMELIA E; BARB.

Author of 'The Beads of Taamer,* 'The Mate of bhe Easter Bell,' 'Jan Vedder's - WAfe,' 'Friend Olivia, Etc., Etc'

CHAPTER I.

"CAN YOU DOUBT IT?'

•But men await the tale of love And weary of the taie of Troy.

None of the events of life seem to have such a pronounced fatality as those which refer to love and to death. Who among us has the oracle of his grave? Who can tell under whab skies ib will be dug ; or ab what time? And the uncertainty of dying is nob greater than that of loving. A man may walk daily among the fairesb women on earbh and never know the meaning of the word. He may come to an age wflich fairly gives him warrant bo assure himself bhab he is proof againsb bhe wibcheries of woman. He may even deplore his insensibiliby bo them ; and yeb find thab the bibterly-Bweeb -experience haa only been a libble delayed— bhat in an hour undreamed of—wibhoub premonibion or preparation, he falls serenly and carelessly into the deepeßb depths of that half-divine condition. Perhaps no man in New York felt more certain of hia position in this respecb bhan Dr. Roberb Carter, a physician of renown, a man of greab wealbh, very handsome, and abill unmarried bhough nearly forby years old. He waa accustomed to apeculate on the circumstance; and specially so when the chains of his profession took him to Adrian Van Buren's. He had been there one afternoon, and as his carriage joined bhe ebream of vehicles coming down bhe avenue, he soon became bhoughbful, and bhe enforced slowness of his progreas conduced bo reflection: * Whab a noble woman she is ! How Btrong, how gentle, and how wonderfully handaome ! Only, Ido not feel her beauty. My hearb beabs no fasber in her presence. I can forgeb her for weeks together. Yeb I wiah I could love her. I like her fabher ; she has no embarrassing female relatives ; and I ought to marry. Will is always telling me ao ; and Will ia righb. Bub I know bhere is such a bhing ub love. Professionally, I have meb cases of" love unto death." Surely in the preaence of Alida Van Buren —a woman who is even phyaically divine— I ought bo feel love—but Ido nob.' Engrosaed wibb such bhoughts he had nearly reached his home, when he remembered thab be had promised to call upon a sick gentleman living in a neighbouring Bbreeb. He knew him bo be a reckless speculator and-he had a very shrewd idea as to his physical trouble. ' I will wager my fee that he is dying of gold on the brain,' he muttered as he went to bhe chamber of hia pabienb. And he told him so plainly. ' What have you to do with the moneymarket, Mr Shepherd?* he asked. 'You •whose nervous system ia all on the outside, and whose feelings are refined by prolonged culture. To men of your calibre, the money-markeb is only a common form of suicide.' ' Whab ia the world but a money-market, docbor?' •lb i* a greab deal more. Men who make colossal forbunes do nob do so so much from choice as because ib is their raison d' etre. When Nature produces a creature for bhe special purpose of making money she does nob burden him wibh nerves and wibh wants and desires bhab would scatter bis forces.

•Money-makers are necessary to progress, doctor.' •Certainly they are. This ia the industrial age, and there musb be men who are greab reservoirs of capital. How else could we build railroads and lay ocean cableß ? Bub consider the men who make greab sums of money, and you will pee that in all business matters they acb wibh the steadiness and the certainly of instincts. Culture impairs natural instincts, makes them hesitating and considerate. You are too cultured, Mr Shepherd ; you will never succeed in .making millions ; and I bell you if you continue the effort you will kill yourself. Go to the seaside—to bhe woods—to the mountains—go anywhere bub to the money-market.' The sick man sighed and turned his head wearily to the wall. And Doctor Carter having done his duty, went slowly downstairs. He was buttoning his gloves and thinking of his dinner. As he passed through bhe hall, he was arresbed by the opening of a door. A small, slight figure ; a woman's face, young and lovely; a soft), eager voice—made potential reason for his delay. ' Doctor Carter, how is my father ? Is he very ill ?' Tbe white, anxious face lilted to his face was very beautiful, but thab was nob the Charm. Ib was the face for which he had been waiting; ib was the voice, which seemed to have half-forgotten echoes in his memory. No obher woman had ever touched him in jusb the same way. He felb a righb in her, and a determination to compass that right the moment she spoke to him. An unusual tenderness came inbo his heart, and the sick man acquired a sudden interest through the sick man's daughter. He sat down by her side and entered into explanations and directions nob before thoughb necessary. He could Have remained with her all day. Her eyes drew him like magnets; aud when she gave him her hand ab parting ho hardly knew how to eecape from its clasp. When all had been said, be still held it, and for a momenb they looked silently ab each oth^r. In that moment her face was imprinted upon his hearb. He knew thab he must evermore carry the sweet impression. Roberb Carber was noaring forty years old, and accustomed to diagnosticate both mental and physical symptoms. He knew what had happened to him. • I have fallen in love ab last*,' be mused. • I was taken so absolubely unawares. However,' in real life,' he said decidedly to himself, 'love is the mosb manageable passion in the world.' Then be wondered if he should tell his brother. He would, and then he would not; and yeb he knew bis indecision was all a pretence of indifference. In his hearb he was longing to describe the loveliness and sorrow which had subjugated him. There was indeed between Roberb and Will Carter a brotherly affection which could not endure reservations, although no two men could have been more dissimilar in many respects. Roberb lacked all sentiment and poetic tastes and was withoub spiritual discernments. No obstinate questions of 'Why?' or • Where?' ever troubled him, and no mere matter of feeling was ever likely to interfere with his 'getting on' in the world. Will Carter j cared very little for the world, bub much for the unfathomable inner side of life. He was a lover of nature, a fine musician, a man who inhabited only his head and hia hearb and who pub all fleshly desires under his feeb.

Yeb, in spite of these radical oppositions in taste and in character, the brothers had a strong attachment for each other. Accustomed to give all affairs of their lives a mutual confidence and discussion, they derived from the habib something of thab moral discipline which a priest derives from 'manifesting his conscience.' And though

Robert's many dubies separated them from morning to nighb, as soon as they were together again Will usually opened the conversation byaßking:

«Whab has happened to you to-day, Roberb ?'

The answers to this question had a certain monotony and yeb a constant varieby. Will saw bhe world bhrough bhem. He had almosb a child's curiosity in their recurrence, for was there not always the posaibiliby of something wonderful to tell ? He seldom admitted thab thia wonderful element musb be love, yeb the thoughb and dream were always present. He had libble unspoken disappointments in his brother's indifference to women; for though hia modest self-depreciation forbade any personal hope of marriage, he continually imagined for Robert some exquisite girlwife, who, would be good, pure and lovely as bhe angela in heaven.

Ib grieved him when Roberb smiled away auch hopes, lb grieved him still more to hear women slightingly spoken of. He never besibabed to rebuke such wordß and bo remind his brobher of bhe dead mother and sister whose memory still sweetened their pleasant home. Bub as year after year wenb by, he began to leb the idea of Robert's marriage slip away a little. Ib grew fainber and fainter until the girl-wife, whom he had almosb seen going bhrough bhe house, filling ib wibh love and sunshine, became a pale shadow of hia firsb hope. He had even ceased to speak much to Roberb on the subject.

« We shall both wither away in tho rooms our father built, and there will be nono to come after us,' be thought.

For ib seema a parb of fruition thab hope muab firsb have been abandoned. Destiny loves surprises. Will was nob thab nighb even wabching for hiß brobher. He was holding •• large diacourse ' at bhe organ, in thoße abrupt Bhocks of starbling melody which prelude the * Messiah ' and arresb and inspire the mind with majestic contemplation. Will waa quite under their spell. He did not hear hia brother enter the room, and he did not see him standing ab bhe window, looking firsb ab his own iridescenb finger-nails and bhen ab bhe moving picture tramping down the avenue. Nor did Robert interrupt his brother. He had some sweeb bhoughts for enberbainmenb, and it was near six o'clock. In a few minubes, he knew, bhe butler would have no hesibabion in saying, no mabber what immortal melody was ringing through the room : •Mr Will, the dinner is served, sir.' And even aa he remembered this certain interruption ib was accomplished ; and Will, with the look of a man suddenly awakened from Bleep, came down from the clouds to the dining-room.

He wenb to his brother's side with something of the affectionate confidence of a child, and as sooft aa they were alone he asked his usual question : ' Whab has happened to you to-day, Robert

'I have made calls and delivered my lecture. And you ? Whab have you been doing, Will ?' * 'I have read and written and walked. Bub ib is hard to walk in the city now. I wanb bo go to the woods. T wanb solitude. I want ib a hundred mileß thick on every side. I saw a sbarling shoob bhrough the square, swifb, straighb and resolute. I knew he was going to the country. I made a rendezvous with him there.'

• To-day I alao made a rendezvoua in tho counbry. But ib was wibh a young lady.' ' Roberb ! You made a rendezvous with a young lady ! Who ia she ? Whab is ber name? Where is here habitation ?'

"She is Mr Ambrose Shepherd's daughter. I do nob know her personal name yeb. She lives in the.nexb street. Ambrose Shepherd is very ill.' I have advised his removal inbo the country, and hia daughter aaked me if I would visib her father there. I said I would.'

* Bub then ? That is nob all 1'

•Nob quibe.' 'For you never go out of town to see patients." Roberb, I am amazed 1 1 have no proper words bo express my amazemenb. I can only use the inarticulate formula in " Little Dorrit:" •' It dv I It really dv ,'! It dv, indeed.'!!" la Miss Shepherd pretby ?' • She haa a captivating face and manner. I am afraid, Will, she has almosb persuaded me to fall in love wibh her.'

• Robert 1 Do fall in love with her ! I hope you cannob help falling in love ! " I dv 1 I really dv ! I dv, indeed !" ' * Sensible people can always help folly, Will. Do you Euppose I shall allow myself to fall in love on unknown ground ? And if I do fall in love 1 need nob bherefore marry.' • You are talking uncommon nonsense, Roberb. If Miss Shepherd should take ib into her head to marry you ? Then where would you be ?' * Jusb where I am, I suppose.'

.' Oh, no, indeed 1 In such a case you would be as certain to marry Miss Shepherd as you would be to arrive ao Washington if you gob into a train going to Washington. And -jusb think, Roberb, how charming ib would bo to have a lovely woman going about these rooms. How charming to hear her calling your name. To see her, exquisitely dressed, sitting at your side at this very table. Whab excellent dinners we should have. And how perfectly the house would then be ordered. For one of tho miracles aboub women—even young girls—is that they make the mosb outrageous servants behave themselves and do their duty. You know thab both of us are afraid of the servants. Yes, we are, Roberb. Do fall in love, thon. Ib would be such happiness for both of us.' ' Tell me, Will, why should a man sacrifice every other consideration to one single condition of happiness? And ib is by no means sure thab domestic life is the highest form of human bliss and aspiration.'

• Ac far as women are concerned, perhapß not. The woman of to-day is such a miracle. If John Milton wrote now, he would bo compelled to make man, and nob women, " the defect of nature." Women are so much in advance of us now. What degrees they take. What books they write. How eloquent they are for the besb side of everything.' •If Miss Shepherd ia one of these miracles I shall not go to the country to see her. I greatly disapprove of women who lecture and write books. I could not love a woman who always meb me at intellectual sword-poinb. I like a girl bo havo the bloom of womanhood upon her.'

• Does the girl who writes a book lose any more " bloom " than the girl who reads what is written ? The highest educabion for women—'

•Is the education thab best fibs them for married life. Marriage is a woman's highest desbiny.' ' Very good, Roberb. Then men oughb to hold a similar doctrine of predestination aboub their own destiny ; man's highest education is that which besb fits him for married life. The one theory supposes the other.'

• Will, why do you nob fall in love ? You seem to have progressive ideas on the subject.' • I have been very near it often. I would dare the experience gladly if I could find a suitable companion to dare'ib with me. I am not handsome. lam very different to you, Robert.' • You are rich.'

'Love is not boughb in the marketplace.' *Oh! Oh! Oh! That is jusb where you are wrong, Will.' 'A wedding-ring may be boughb ; bub love ? No 1 Love has no earthly equivalenb. May God send bhose together who would fain be loved !'

With these words ho rose from the table and began to light his cigar; but he accompanied his movement to a murmur of song which had such a swing of march and melody thab Robert felb ib impossible to

resist the curious interest with which ib inspired him. ' Whab are you singing, Will?' he asked. 'Ib sounds like some incantation. Whatever are you doing with your syllables ?' "I am singing four lines from the "Eve of Venus." I wonder if ib is near her advent? Listen, Robert to the Commands of the greab goddess :

• Lovers become; and begin to-morrow. You that have not ever loved before. Aye. and to-morrow again be loyers, You that have loved and love no more.'

' The music was sharp and poignant to the very lasb nobo, and when ib had rung itßelf oub, Roberb also roee. He went bo the window and flung ib open. The words and melody affected him strangely. They were fastened in his memory like a nail in a sure place. He wished to change the subject entirely, and he asked his brother: • When do you go into the country, Will?' •In a day or two. It is" very warm and the city is already empty.' ' Perhaps; bub bhe counbry is still emptier.' • You do nob like the country, Robert?' •No ! I do nob like bhe counbry, and life ia boo shorb bo spend any parb of ib in a place thab is disagreeable bo you. I like the city. 1 like the greetings in bhe marketplace and the jargon of bhe clubs and bhe gossip in the wide officeß ot the Fifth Avenue Hotel. I like the questing and the guessing and the eager, angry, imperious struggles of life.-' • And so you wear your hearb and nerves and brains away.' 'Precisely—bub I live. Did you hear bhab Calverb had fled wibh a lob of money ?' • Whab folly bo steal when it is so much more lucrative to cheat.'

' Bub when a man lends himself half a million at once ?'

«Heiß a poor fellow. Suppose you advise Ambrose Shepherd to go to Stromberg. I am going there, and I could look after him a little. I should like to know his daughter.' 'Stromberg ia as good a placa as any obher. He simply wants to geb beyond the jingle of gold and the financial slang of the street. Bub bhat is bhe difficulty.'

' There ought to be a Lobus-land for our worn-oub financiers, Roberb. A land in which ib should be always afbernoon, wibhoub any afbernoon newspaper.' ' Whab nonsense ! How could you make mild-eyed, melancholy lotus-eaters out of New York stock-jobbers ? If you took them to a veritable land of Tennyson, they would scramble up those " three silent pinnacles of snow ;" they would measure the height of each peak, and build a hub ab bhe limits of the snow-line. Very anon they would organise a joint-stock hotel company, pub up a monster building, and incibe bhe lazy inhabitants to become guidea and keepera of livery-stables. And there would be a morning paper, of course, full of financial schemes and real-estate booms. In shorb, Lotus-land would soon become a miniature New York.'

' Lovers of nature- 1-'

• I tell you, Will, lovers of nature are born bo. They are a ready-made article, 1 am alwrfys bored to death in the country.' ' How can a man be bored anywhere, with all the resources of our high civilization ?'

' I assure you, Will, thab a capacity for being bored is a proof of our high civilization. The degree in which you feel ennui is the actual measure of your active power running to waste. A counbry boor full of beer and bacon is nob bored. He is happy enough if he may sib still and convert beer and bacon into flesh and blood.'

They pursued this conversation, until Will arrived at the millennium. Robert threw no impediments in his way there, He found apparent listening a good opportunity for giving his thoughts their free will; and ho regarded tho fact with some interest, that they had instantly flown to the girl he had seen for the first time that afternoon, Ho did not analyse her beauty; he preferred to realise it in its entirety. To consider her features, her form, her air, her voice, separately, was like pulling a rose to pieces, to count its petals or to find oub to what botanical family ib belonged. All in all, the maiden was sweet and lovely, and Roberb Carter, as he sat in tho gloaming, half-listening to his brother's theories and quite absorbed in love's delicious dreaming, was inclined to leb his hearb lead him.

Bub even philosophical philanbhropists geb bired eventually of their eloquence; and when Will Carter had traced the growth of brotherly love until ib brought forth bhe millennium, ho said :

• I may as well stop, Robert. I do not think you are as interested in bhe millennium as you oughb bo be.' «Ib waa a kind of Northwest passage there, Will. And, after all, tbe millennium is so far away, while the probabilities of our ever reaching ib seem to grow less and less every year. However, nothing prevenbs our going to sleep and dreaming ib is here.'

Bub such waa nob bhe dream Roberb Carter bespoke; for as he wenb loitering and thoughtfully aboub the room, preparing himself for resb, he was softly humming the invocation of a far older lover:

Come, Sleep! But, mind you, if you cowe

without The little girl that I would dream about, By Jove! I would not give you half-a-crown For all your poppy-heads and all your down 1'

And when tho great mystery of sleep wrappeth a man like a garment, how shall he order what i 3to befall him in thab condition ? For though Robert entered ib full of pleasanb hopes and plans, he awoke woary-and sad, with a heart aching with a nameless apprehension. He spoke to his brother jestingly of t'e matter. •It was the pale, Will. There could have boen no other reason. I wa3 thinking of Miss Shepherd all the evening. Whab fools we mortals be, sleeping or waking.'

• We may be fools waking, Roberb ; bub in sleep we geb very close to the truth about ourselves. One-fourth of our time is spenb in sleeping and dreaming ; is ib likely, then, that the whole matter is of no consequence ? Besides, our dreams are as individual as our thoughts.'

'You could net prove such an assertion as that, Will.' ' Oh, bub I can. You told me lasb week one of your horrible dreams after vivisection ;" and at tbe very same hour I was dreaming oi wandering in a greab wood and listening to the green finches who were laughing and talking back to each other. We are such stuff as our dreams are made of, Robert.'

• All righb. I see Horace Key is going bo Congress. At leasb the " Herald " says

• And truth i? absolute in the pages of the "Herald." Why should Horace go to Congress? Such a gay-hearted fellow.' 'Congress ia generally considered a good thine.'

• Bub it is nob a cheerful thing. Mulbi budes of people go to sleep there.' ' All business is, I suppose, rather dull.'

' I think so. If I call on Fred Lenox, I feel the weight of his office on my heart for days afterward—the files of big books, the desks of awful height, the bills and papers, the silenb men writing, writing, writingare a kind of nightmare.' ' And yet, whab thought, decision and action are recorded in those dull books. Every line is the work of a considering brain and a patienb hand. If one could read bebween bhe figures, whnb romances there are in those dull books. Whab records of adventure and hard labour.'

•You speak as if work was a man's highest condition.' ' Isibnob?'

•No. If you had listened.bo my theory of the millennium you would understand that the greab poinb of bhe labour question will be solved in ib ; that is, men and women will have time to work for their souls as well as their bodies, Work, for

bhe sake of gold, is bhe superstition of an. age infabuabed with money. It kills every way. Look ab Ambrose Shepherd. Are you going there thia morning ?' 'No.' The negative was sharp ajid final in sound, and Roberb Carber thought ib expressed his fixed determination. _ He waß in thab depressed condition which often precedes some great change, and whose dominanb sympbom ia a dread of change. To hold fasb to life jußb as ib was, in every petty debail, appeared bo him ab thab hour the chief part of wisdom. Bub aa the day went on and he began to take his parb in its duty and struggle, the other worldness was driven away, as the misb ia driven away before bbc advancing sun. Then some pleasant bhing happened, and he had bhe mental tonic necessary. Aboub noon he called himself 'coward' for running away from an obvious duby, because there was a woman in the way. So thab he finally rang the Shepherd's doorbell in a state of virtuous control, which he believed to be invincible.

He saw no one in the hall but the servant who admitted him. An air of silence and loneliness pervaded the house. Ib had a certain effecb on him, and he wenb sofbly upstairs. He knew his patent's room and he pushed aside the door. There was a decided and intentional gloom there, and ab first he could see nothing. Bub in a few momenbs the interior was clear enough. Shepherd was in a deep sleep on his bed, aud his daughter sat motionless ab hia side. A closed book was in her hand, and ber head was bhrown back againsb bhe whibelinen cover of tho large chair in which she aab.

Roberb looked sbeadily ab the sleeping man, and then put oub his hand bo bbc girl. She took ib, and he led her oub of bhe ropm. They wenb silently down the stairs togebhor. His feeb moved wibh her feeb, and every step senb him deeper and deeper into thab abyss of delicious foolishness which is ofben the heart's highesb wisdom. He had frequenbly held women's hands before, but never yeb had any hand so wondrously thrilled his being, so soft, bo warm, bo nabural in his own ib seemed. Holding ib, he found a link which hibherbo he had nob mißsed but which now he could never endure to' lose again—a link thab was a magical conductor of sweet, vague tremors and rosy hopes and delightful fears and darings. They wenb into a parlour and Bat down. He felb the silence awkward, bub he had no mind to break ib; and so far bhe sleeping pabienb had been excuse enough for ibs enbhralling eloquence. Miss Shepherd took bhe initiative. She said shyly : * I read father to sleep.' ' I see the book in your hand.' She rose and laid ib on the table. * Father wanted the newspapera. I said they were not good for him. A novel always puts him to sleep.' ' Sleep is the best physician.' ' Mrß Shepherd haß gone to Stromberg to-day.' We intend to rent a furnished house there.' 'Ab Sbromberg ? lam glad of bhab.' 'Fabher was born near Sbromberg. When you said he muab go bo bhe country, he would hear of no other place.' 'Ib ia bho beab of all places. Native air has a singular potency. I know a man who goes three thousand miles every year to breathe hia native air. He believes ib renews hia life.' 'You said you would come to the country to see my father. Is Stromberg too far away ?' ' Nob if you wish me to come.' 'I do wish you to come.' * Then no distance is boo far,' 'Thank you. You are very kind.' 'My brother Will is going to Stromberg also. He is the beab of good fellows, and I am sure you will find him a pleasanbfriend.' 'I am sure of ib. But you will come also ?' •Can you doubb ib:' Her eyes wore casb down ; her cheeks aflame ; her whibe bands lyiog upon her lap. A rose at her throat dropped ita white petals upon bhem. He lifbed bhe fragranb leaves and laid bhem in her palm, and as he did so bis eye said whab words i would have been a clumsy vehicle for—said | in a momenb more bhan he could have spoken in an hour.

(To be Continued.)