Chapter XVII: Progress

Three weeks had passed of glorious summer weather, which the guests at the Prospect House had enjoyed to the full. There had been sails on the river, walks under the Liberty elms, and drives among the hills and through the woods, off into the lanes where solitary farmhouses stood, and where the inmates looked curiously at the stylish turnout and high buggy with its red wheels, and at the young people whom they designated the “swells from town.” Paul and Virginia were no longer called into service, but in the pasture north of the hotel fed and drank at their leisure from the running brook and the fresh green grass, and when the sun was hottest stood under the shade of a huge butternut tree, their heads together, but held down as if they knew they had been set aside by a city rival and were rather sorry for it. In the only box stall the hotel boasted Dido, when not on duty, munched her hay and oats, slept on her bed of clean straw and whinnied a welcome whenever her master appeared, although his appearance was the herald of a long and fatiguing drive. She had been sent at once in response to Craig’s postal, and the young man had harnessed and driven her with a great deal of pride up the hill and through the village to the door of the hotel, where the entire house had come out to welcome her.

Helen, who had a suspicion that she had been sent for on her account, was very effusive, calling the horse a darling and winding her arms around its neck, when assured there was no danger. Dido liked to be petted, and she had it in full measure, from Helen to Uncle Zach, who, while praising Dido, insisted that if “Virginny had the same trainin’ and the same care she’d of been about as good.” Naturally Mrs. Mason was the first whom Craig took to drive, then Mrs. Tracy,—and then Mrs. Taylor, who, Uncle Zach said, looked with her two hundred pounds “as if she was squashing Craig to death on that narrer seat.” She never went but once; neither did Mrs. Tracy, and the drives were mostly given up to Helen and Alice. Craig had intended to take one as often as the other, but it so happened that Alice went occasionally, and Helen very often. She needed the exercise, her mother said, and was apt to have a headache when she missed it, and she looked so beautiful and happy when she came down the walk to the buggy that Craig always felt glad it was Helen instead of Alice, and always wondered when he returned why he was more tired than when he had driven with Alice. Helen fatigued and intoxicated him, she was so full of spirits and extravagant exclamations of delight and small talk, to which he could not respond, although he tried to do so, and felt that she was laughing at him for his awkwardness. And still he was very happy and proud to have her with him, and, like the foolish fly, was drawn closer and closer into her net.

With Alice it was different. She was never gushing, nor effusive. She never laughed up into his face, nor took off her gloves because her hands were warm and asked him to button them for her when she put them on, as Helen did. She was quiet and enjoyed everything in a quiet way and talked of what interested him most,—books, and art, and his college life. With the one girl he was himself and in his right mind, with the other he was giddy and dazed; bewitched, his mother thought, as she watched the progress of affairs, but wisely kept silent, knowing that interference on her part would be of no avail.

Mark Hilton, too, was a silent and watchful spectator of what seemed a serious flirtation between the two,—the flirtation on Helen’s side, the seriousness on Craig’s. But Mark was not unhappy, and bided his time. He did not drive with Helen, nor sail with her on the river, nor walk under the Liberty elms, but there were many chance meetings when her eyes shone on him just as brightly as they did on Craig, and her smile was just as sweet. Once, when Mrs. Tracy was asleep and Alice was driving with Craig, he went with her to the cemetery on the pretext of visiting her grandfather’s monument, which she had never seen except at a distance. From the monument to the angle in the wall where ’Tina was buried was not very far, and Mark purposely took her that way, and said to her, half mockingly, half sadly, “We have visited the graves of your ancestors, now I want you to visit mine. These are the Dalton graves; this is my great-grandfather’s; that his wife’s,—’Tina, people call her. You have probably heard the story since the night we passed the house. Mr. Taylor is rather fond of telling it, and pointing me out as a descendant.”

“Mrs. Taylor told me something, but I’d like to hear it from you, who would tell it differently,” Helen said.

“I will tell you, certainly,” Mark replied, “Sit here;” and he led her to the low wall, the top of which was very wide and covered with large smooth stones.

The thick branches of a willow tree shaded it from the sun and hid it from the highway. Birds were singing among the willows, and the low murmur of a brook falling over a miniature dam the school children had made, could be distinctly heard. Altogether, it was a most romantic place to sit and hear the story, which Mark told, keeping back nothing, nor trying to soften the guilt of the woman who had been dust for many a year. As he talked Helen was very attentive, and once, when he spoke of the child calling for its mother, she put her hand on his arm, “Please don’t tell me any more,” she said, “I can’t bear it, and I am so sorry for you; that is, if you care. I should not, if I were you. It was so long ago.”

She was all sympathy. Her face and eyes shone with it, and the latter were full of tears. She could cry almost as easily as she could smile, and she had never looked fairer to Mark than she did now, with the tears on her long lashes and her hand on his arm. She had forgotten to remove it until he put his on it in token that he appreciated her sympathy. Then she withdrew it and said, “Don’t you think it time we were going; Mr. Mason and Alice must be coming home soon?”

“Is that any reason why _we_ should go?” Mark asked, with a look she could not mistake and from which she turned her eyes away.

Much as she enjoyed the situation she felt that it was getting rather too personal, and was glad when, as if in answer to her mention of Craig and Alice, the sound of wheels was heard and Dido came dashing through the avenue of willows close to where she was sitting. Mark’s impulse was to keep quiet and he made a sign to Helen to do so. But the sight of Craig and Alice together marred the bit of romance and almost love-making in which she was an actor, and springing to her feet she waved her handkerchief and called out loud enough to attract their attention and make Craig rein Dido up suddenly, while he asked what she was doing in the cemetery.

“Seeing the old graves. I’ve never been here before. Mr. Hilton is with me. We are coming at once.”

She was over the wall by this time and Mark felt obliged to follow her, cursing the luck which had sent Craig in his way and transformed Helen from the tearful, sympathetic woman into the gay, coquettish girl, who insisted that Craig should let Dido walk, while she walked beside them, asking where they had been, what they had seen and wholly ignoring Mark, who, at last, when he met some one to whom he wished to speak, asked to be excused, and left her.

“Polite, I must say,” was Helen’s laughing comment, as she chattered on, evidently oblivious of the man who had held her hand in his and for whom her tears had fallen rather copiously.

Mark did not forget it, and when that evening he saw her on the piazza settee with Craig beside her, his arm across the top of the seat, but not touching her unless she leaned far back, as she occasionally did, he smiled and thought, “It is an even race, and I know her better than he does.”

Where Craig trusted he had no suspicion. He had come to believe in Helen, and was pretty far on the road to being in love with her, but his matter-of-fact, quiet liking bore no comparison to the passion which possessed Mark Hilton, who, as he had said, knew the girl better than Craig knew her, and knew how much her tears and sympathy and pretty words were worth, and was still determined to win her. Craig could drive with her and walk with her and sit with her on the piazza where others passed and repassed and feel himself supremely happy. To Mark, Heaven came down into the shadowy corners of the old hotel and into the office when no one was present to hear the low-spoken words, not of love exactly, but merging rapidly toward it with the lingering touch of the hands when accident brought them together,—the conscious look in the eyes,—and the sudden starting apart when a third party appeared. Could Mrs. Tracy have known all this she would have told her daughter she was acting the part of a bar maid with a bartender. But she did not know or suspect how often Helen was with Mark Hilton, not openly, as with Craig, but secretly and alone. Alice watched quietly the march of events, satisfied with the few crumbs which came to her in the form of pleasant words and smiles from Craig, when he was not too much absorbed with Helen.

Jeff was her devoted slave, and had been since he heard her words of commendation when she defended him against her aunt. She had been with him two or three times on the river after lilies, with which he kept her supplied and which he once told her she was like. She had been with him to see the mud turtle’s bed and the hornet’s nest, and said to him many things which would sometime come back to him in a paroxysm of remorse and regret for those days, the happiest he would ever know. He no longer tried to pick pockets for fun, and he did not object to Sunday school and the verses in the Bible which Mrs. Taylor required him to learn. He was, however, quite awake to the state of affairs between Mark and Craig and Helen, and knew pretty accurately how much time the young lady spent with each of her lovers and where, and drew his own conclusions.

“A girl can flirt with two fellers at a time, but she can’t marry them both, and I’ll bet my new jack-knife Mark will come out ahead,” he said to himself, but did not communicate his opinion to Alice, lest she should reprove him for eaves-dropping, and he wished to stand well in her estimation in every respect.