Read Ebook: The Bachelors: A Novel by Orcutt William Dana

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Ebook has 1907 lines and 77099 words, and 39 pages

"It's over two miles," he suggested doubtfully. The idea of walking anywhere when a conveyance was within reach never occurred to Huntington naturally.

"I don't mind the distance at all unless you do," she replied; "I always walk when I can, and the afternoon is delightful."

As Huntington regarded his vivacious companion he was conscious of another shock similar to those he had experienced when he first saw her and her mother the evening of his arrival. She had discarded the unconventional costume of the morning, exchanging it for an afternoon gown of softest texture, so girlish, yet to the practised eye revealing in every detail the artist's creation,--arraying herself with such special care that her escort could not fail to understand her appreciation of his attention. It was Marian Seymour once more whose hand he held in his as he assisted the girl down the long steps, and his mind leaped back again over the five and twenty years. But what a difference at his end of the picture! She was the same, but he--well, the years had dealt kindly with him he must admit, but forty-five at best must pay homage to twenty! Her youthful figure was disguised but not hidden by the quaint gown of white Georgette cr?pe and lace, relieved from its monotone by a soft, moon-blue satin girdle, embroidered with roses and leaves in pastel shades. The wide-brimmed hat of the same cr?pe, its crown of blue satin banded with flowers, the dainty parasol, and the white kid colonials completed a becoming costume. Huntington concluded that his slipper, so carefully preserved at home, was as antique a souvenir as himself! "Shall we walk?" she asked; he would have liked nothing better than to parade up and down forever before every one he knew with this splendid young creature beside him, exhaling all that glowing health and youth could add to the natural charms which were her birthright! Particularly was he unable to resist giving Cosden a look of triumph as they passed by him at the steps.

"Room for one more in your party?" Cosden asked, rising impulsively.

"Full house, Connie," was the uncompromising response. "We're off on a missionary trip, and you wouldn't be interested."

To Merry herself this was an adventure as pleasing as it was unusual. Huntington had made a deep impression upon her on that one occasion to which she so often referred. In her quiet, tense way the girl was a hero-worshiper, and in that single moment Huntington had qualified for the hero's crown. That he should have selected her as his companion for this afternoon was enough to set her cheeks aglow and to make her eyes sparkle with girlish anticipation.

"I'm afraid my nephew Billy has been imposing on your good-nature, these days," he began.

"Billy?" she laughed. "Not a bit of it! Billy is the best fun ever. I never saw such an irrepressible boy; he's just like a big St. Bernard pup!"

Huntington decided to remember this for later use in time of need.

"I suppose we old-stagers forget how youthful we were at his age, but sometimes it seems to me as if Billy would never grow up."

"Oh, he's all right, Mr. Huntington," Merry reassured him. "My brother Phil is older, but every now and then he breaks out just the same. I think they're lots of fun. It's only when they become serious that I feel worried about them."

"Billy isn't often guilty of that," was Huntington's comment. "When he and I are alone I don't mind having him bubble over. It keeps me young, so I rather like it; but down here it seemed as if he was getting in every one's way,--just like a puppy, as you say. Mr. Cosden--"

"I'm afraid Mr. Cosden doesn't remember his own boyhood as well as you remember yours," Merry interrupted. "How much more he would enjoy himself if he had a bump of humor, wouldn't he?"

"Connie? Why, I never noticed that he lacked humor. Of course Connie is very intense; he goes at his business as if it were the only thing in life, and when it comes to play it's the same way. Now that you speak about it, I don't know that I have noticed much sense of humor in him. Perhaps that's why we pull together so well."

"I'm glad you asked me to go with you this afternoon," Merry continued. "Mother has told me something about Mr. Hamlen, and I feel terribly sorry for him. He was so miserably unhappy the other evening. She says he has one of the most wonderful places she ever saw."

"He has; but I believe you will be even more interested in studying the man than his frame. The morning I spent with him stands out as an event in my life. You heard us discussing college the other evening; well, Hamlen is the product of the one great fault in the life at Harvard when we were there."

"For Phil's sake, I hope all the faults are overcome by now."

Huntington smiled. His face was one which smiled easily, adding to the charm of his low, well-modulated voice.

"Most of the faults have been eradicated," he replied, "but weaknesses will always exist. Perhaps I should have called this a weakness. To-day it is partially remedied, and I believe that the new freshman dormitories are going to be a large insurance clause against it."

"I don't believe I understand--"

"Nor can you until I cease speaking in enigmas," laughed Huntington. "I once went to a lecture William James gave on Pragmatism, and all I took away as a reward for my hour of careful listening was that 'nothing is the only resultant of the one thing which isn't.' I upbraided him for it when next we met, and he explained that the prerogative of a philosopher is that he can retreat behind meaningless expressions and still be considered wise. I am no philosopher, so it is cowardly of me to try to take similar advantage of you. Hamlen is a college-made recluse, and there is no denying the fact that at Harvard there has been less effort made by the students to find out the personal characteristics of their classmates than at any of the other colleges. Each fellow has had to show them forth himself, and it had to be done his freshman year. If he held back, as Hamlen did, they have let him stay in his shell; then he concluded they didn't like him."

"But a boy can't advertise his characteristics--"

"No; but he can manifest them in legitimate ways. Why, my freshman year there was a little fellow in the Class who didn't weigh a hundred pounds, and had no more strength than a cat; but he went in for crew, football, baseball, track athletics, debating,--and everything else you could imagine. He was no good in any of them, and didn't come within a mile of making any team. We all made fun of him and we all loved him for his grit. He didn't have to advertise; we knew him through and through. That is the kind of boy that makes good at Harvard."

"Some boys wouldn't realize the importance of this until too late, with no one to tell them, would they?"

"That is the whole point, Miss Merry, and it hasn't taken you as long to see it as it has taken the college authorities. When Hamlen and I were there no one made any effort to shake us up together. I had my own small circle of friends, and we cared precious little for any one outside of it. If I had known Hamlen then as I have come to know him here in less than a week, I should have insisted on his being one of that little circle; but I didn't know him at all. I am watching this segregation of the freshmen with great interest. It seems as if they must get to know each other better now; but if this experiment doesn't solve the problem then the authorities must keep on trying until they find one that does."

They walked on in silence for several moments. Huntington was deeply in earnest, and Merry eager to hear every word. Her father, not being a college man, had always been more or less intolerant of the claims made by college graduates, so her ideas had naturally been colored by his views. Her brother was sent to Harvard because his mother wished it, not because Thatcher had changed his opinions, and Merry's new views, as gained by her brother's life there, had not given her any deeper understanding. What Huntington said to Hamlen supplied her with another viewpoint, and she was keenly interested in this continuation of the same subject.

"Hamlen is a man cowed and embittered by his experiences," Huntington said, speaking again. "Every time he has gone out into the world it has been head foremost, without looking. He has butted against stone wall after stone wall when he could have seen the opening had he used his eyes. Each time he has been bruised he has fancied that the world struck him, when in reality the wound was self-inflicted."

"Has he no friends--no hobby which can take him out of himself?"

"He believes himself to be friendless, but he has a hobby; I discovered it when I was at his villa yesterday. Do you happen by any chance to know anything of the artistic side of bookmaking?"

"I took some lessons from Cobden-Sanderson while we were in London two winters ago, but I haven't done much with what I learned."

"Did you really?" Huntington stopped short and looked at her in genuine surprise. "That is a curious coincidence! I hadn't the remotest idea, when I asked the question, that you knew there was anything in a book except the story. Well, that does simplify matters! Hamlen has a hand-press and a miniature bindery, and has made some really exquisite volumes. It is his one remaining human trait. I've known the books for years, but no one could find out who made them. Well, well! I promise that you shall see Hamlen this afternoon in a mood quite different from the one you saw him in the other night; you shall know the man as I know him, and better than he knows himself!"

Huntington noticed a new light in Hamlen's eyes as he greeted them at the villa. The man was more reserved in the presence of a third person, but Huntington was relieved to find that the fact of Merry's coming did not throw his host back into that restrained attitude which he manifested when first they met.

"I have brought you another congenial soul," Huntington explained.

"Can there be such--for me?" Hamlen demanded, but his guest continued as if he had not heard.

"Quite accidentally I find that Miss Merry has been a pupil of Cobden-Sanderson's, and I want her to see what you have done in this miniature island press of yours."

"I should be so interested," Merry exclaimed eagerly.

"How can it interest any one but me?" Hamlen asked incredulously. "I am parading my inmost self in public, and it seems indecent."

"I should not wish to intrude--" the girl began but Hamlen held up a deprecating hand, and the expression on his face refuted the apparent lack of courtesy.

"I am sure you won't misunderstand, Miss Thatcher, being, as Mr. Huntington says, a congenial soul. It is I who am apologizing. To have any one show interest in what I do is a new experience, and I hesitate for fear I may be indelicate. And yet I want to show you what I've done!"

"Of course I understand," Merry replied cordially; "I'm proud to be among the first to see your work."

"Before we go indoors, may I not take you around the grounds?" he turned to Huntington. "Perhaps you are in the mood for it to-day?"

Huntington rejoiced to see Hamlen's attitude. For an hour they wandered from one point to another, Merry in a state of ecstasy from the superb beauty of it all, Hamlen supremely happy in this sympathetic companionship of which he knew so little, and Huntington contentedly watching the life-drama enacting before his eyes. On the stage such a sudden change from tragedy to comedy would have been considered crude, for who could write lines of such delicacy as to portray the yearning of a human soul, or what actors are there so great that they could mimic the birth of hope? "God is the master-dramatist, after all," Huntington murmured to himself as he studied the changes which made the tortured derelict of a few days before into the contained and self-respecting host.

They returned to the house, and Hamlen took them to his press and bindery. Huntington purposely kept in the background, asking a question now and then, adding a word only where it was necessary, and giving his host the opportunity of explaining the finer points of the work to the responsive and comprehending mind of the girl. Little by little he could see the real Hamlen emerge from his manufactured self under the influences around him.

But his interest was not wholly centered in Hamlen. Until to-day Huntington had observed Merry only in her relation to others; now he felt a personal pride in the way she carried herself, in her quick understanding, her sympathetic responsiveness. He felt unconsciously for these brief moments a pleasurable sense of possession which added to his enjoyment.

"Now take us to your library," he said to Hamlen at length. "You told me that you had there some examples of the old master-printers at which you had scarcely looked. I want to see them; perhaps they may show us the influences which unconsciously affected your work."

"Most of them belonged to my father," Hamlen explained, as he opened the door for his guests to pass through into the larger room.

"He was a collector, then?"

"In a small way. As I look back, he must have known a good deal about old books; but I had no interest then, so they made little impression."

Huntington glanced around at the shelves critically.

"Classics, classics, classics!" he cried. "Good heavens, man, do you mean to tell me that you haven't any modern books at all?"

Hamlen flushed. "There are many of these which I don't know well yet," was his reply. "Until then why should I accept counterfeits?"

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