Loe raamatut: «Was It Right to Forgive? A Domestic Romance», lehekülg 5
Harry was silent, and Peter looked at him with a changing face. At length the young man said: “I do not think that would do, sir. Father cares nothing at all for society, and he would most likely be delighted to take the romantic part you assign him. But mother would feel the situation cruelly. It would get into the papers, and we should never hear the last of it. I could not bear it for Yanna’s sake. I do not like people discussing her antecedents and prospects. I do not like them to speak of her at all. Mother is indeed very anxious that we should keep our engagement secret for a short time. She thinks it will help Rose to a settlement, and so hasten her own marriage.”
“Mr. Filmer, do you know what you are doing? You are asking my daughter to marry you, and then 73 you are asking her to tell no one you have done so. Your proposal is an insult; take back your offer. No honorable man would make it. No honorable girl could accept it.”
“Yanna has given me her word. She has promised to be my wife.”
Peter did not answer him; but throwing open the door, he called, “Yanna! Yanna! Come here to me!”
Something in his voice frightened Yanna. She came hastily downstairs, the tears she had been shedding still upon her cheeks. “Yanna,” said her father, as he drew her close to his side, “Mr. Filmer wants to marry you – sometime. In the meantime, he does not want you to tell any one that he wants to marry you. Do you think that an honorable offer?”
“No! – but, father, Harry has reasons we cannot properly appreciate. Society is cruel to those who have to live in it.”
“Right is right, and wrong is wrong, wherever and however men and women live! It is wrong to ask a woman to marry, and then say, ’Do not tell any one I have asked you.’”
“Sir!” cried Harry, approaching Yanna, “Sir! you state the situation most cruelly. It is not fair to me. I am in a great strait. Yanna, dearest Yanna! cannot you say a word for me?”
“There is nothing to be said,” answered Peter. “Under no circumstances will I recognize a secret engagement. To do so is to engage my daughter to sorrow, and hope deferred, and miserable backbiting! Any engagement between Yanna and yourself, Mr. Filmer, must be openly acknowledged on both sides. I make no point of it being acknowledged at the ball to-morrow; that was perhaps an old man’s romancing – but 74 if you will have no publicity, I will have no secrecy.”
“May I speak alone with Yanna, sir?”
“You may. I put no bond on Yanna’s words or actions, in any way. Honor will constrain her to treat herself, and her father also, with honor!” Then he went out of the room, and left Harry standing by Yanna’s side. He took her in his arms, and she did not immediately, or with anger, withdraw herself. She was more able than Peter to understand the ‘great strait’ in which the young man found himself. She suffered Harry to kiss the tears off her eyelids and to whisper anew his adoring affection for her.
“Cannot you trust me, Yanna?” he asked. “Cannot you trust me a little while, dearest one?”
“I will trust you, Harry; and you must trust me; for there can be no engagement between us until father is satisfied. Perhaps Antony will explain things in some better way to him.”
“No, he will not! Antony is perfectly ferocious on a question relating to any woman’s honor. I know that he loves my sister Rose to distraction, and I know equally well that if he ever dares to ask her to be his wife he will do so in the most straightforward, conventional manner. Once when I complained of the strictness of society’s rules about women, he said, ‘Considering the usual man, society could not make rules too strict.’ Antony will not help us by a syllable.”
“Then speak to your mother again. Our marriage may be delayed; but our engagement ought to be a recognized one.”
“But privately. Cannot we understand each other privately? Look in my eyes, darling, and see my promise there! Give me yours in a kiss.”
“Harry, why do you ask me to deceive my father?”
“You love your father better than you love me, Yanna.”
She did not answer this accusation in words, though he saw the answer fly into her face; and he was so ashamed of his unreasonableness that he went into the hall and put on his overcoat, and she stood silent, watching him the while. In a few minutes he turned to her with his hat in his hand. “Well, then, Yanna, I am to go away without a promise from you? When may I come again?”
“When you love me with all your heart – when you can put me before every other human being. Please, Harry, say nothing of this event to Rose. Why should we trouble her? And as I have promised to be at Filmer to-morrow morning, it will be best, dear, if you can avoid meeting me. I shall not remain more than an hour or two.”
“Very well. I will keep myself out of your way.”
“You know what I mean, Harry. Why do you make my meaning worse than it is?”
“Good-bye, Yanna! I am too miserable to split hairs over a meaning.”
He was really petted and humiliated, and even a lover in this mood finds it hard to be just and kind. Without another word, he went to the stable for his horse and buggy; and Yanna, watching at the window, saw him drive furiously down the avenue, without giving her any further recognition. For the young man – little accustomed to disappointment of any kind, and still less to a want of personal appreciation – had become angry at his failure. Though he had not permitted himself consciously to make any account of his superior social position, it had influenced his 76 estimate of his probable success; and yet he was forced to acknowledge that his wealth or social position had never been taken into account at all. His acceptance or refusal had hung entirely upon a moral question – the expediency or inexpediency of a secret engagement. Altogether, he felt the situation to have been most unpleasant.
“Nothing has come of it,” he thought, “but an assurance of Yanna’s love; and what is the use of love that will not sacrifice anything for me?” And as he looked at this question only in its relation to Yanna’s sacrificing for him, he did not arrive at any just conception of his own duty in the circumstances.
Mrs. Filmer had been covertly watching for his return; and she was annoyed to find that he went directly to his own apartments, and did not reappear that night. Rose grumbled at his carelessness, and once she went to his door and asked him to come down and look at some of the arrangements; but he refused in the most positive manner. It was altogether a cross, unpleasant evening; the servants were quarreling in every part of the house; Rose was worrying over Harry’s indifference; and Mrs. Filmer had a slight sick headache, and said more unkind things than she permitted herself when in good health. Mr. Filmer did not improve the general tone, for he sat quiet, in a provoking mood, watching the burning hickory logs, and listening to the fretful remarks flying between the mistress and her servants, and the mother and her daughter. Their plain speech and honest opinions amused him; and he complacently remarked: “My dear Emma, this little household discussion is very interesting to me. I always have said, ‘Let us be 77 sincere and truthful with each other, no matter how unpleasant we may make ourselves.’”
In the morning the storm was over, and there was a clearer atmosphere in the house. But Harry did not appear at the breakfast table. “It is a shame!” said Rose, with great sincerity. “If Harry was against the ball, he ought to have said so at the beginning. I wonder what is the matter with him!”
Mrs. Filmer knew what was the matter, and she privately gave Yanna the blame of all her worries. But for Yanna, Harry would have been enthusiastically busy about all the necessary details which were so annoying to her. She did not love Yanna for her interference; but she was a modern lady, and she was able to keep her dislike to herself. About ten o’clock Yanna arrived at Filmer Hall, and Rose, who had seen her approach, went to the door to meet her.
“Come upstairs, Yanna,” she cried. “Come to my room, and I will show you something.” She was all impatience and excitement, and Yanna’s white face and serious manner did not impress her. With a little flourish, she flung wide the door of her sitting-room, and pointing to a garment lying upon the couch, cried:
“Is not that a dress worth living for, Yanna? It quite expresses me! Look at the opal tints in the silk, and the soft lace, and the pearl trimming! And in the greenhouse, there is the one flower possible to wear with it – a large, soft, feathery, white chrysanthemum! I love chrysanthemums! they give you an impression of poetic melancholy; they have the sadness of an autumn sunset! What do you think of the dress, Yanna?”
“It is beautiful.”
“I hope Antony will like me in it.”
“He admires you in everything you wear.”
“He was not near Filmer yesterday.”
“He was in New York.”
“Do you know that Harry has become quite ugly about the ball? – every one is talking about the depression in trade; I am sure there is more need to complain about the depression in pleasure – he was eager enough at first about it, but now he thinks the whole subject a bore. Last night he would not even speak to us about it; and this morning he had breakfast in his room, and poor mamma has everything to look after.”
“Perhaps he is saving himself for to-night.”
“But that is so mean. Men ought to have a few domestic amenities. Miss Polly Barnard says the reformation of men will be the mission of the coming woman. I wish some woman would begin her mission with Harry!”
“Did Miss Polly stay long with you?”
“Only three days. She talked to the servants about saving their money, and improving their minds, and they said she was ‘a perfect lady!’ A perfect lady is the highest praise servants have for any one they approve. We did not find her perfect. She scolded me about my worldliness, and called me a thoughtless little sinneress.” Then suddenly Rose’s face fell, and she covered it with her hands, and began to cry.
“Why, Rose, what is the matter?”
“I had such a sad dream last night. I cannot tell it; and I cannot forget it. I wish I could be good, and I cannot be good. We used to have such noble plans for our lives. We meant to be so useful and busy, and I have frittered this summer away in pure idleness. But after this ball is over, I am determined I will do 79 something better with my life than dress and dance, and eat and sleep, and listen to lovers.”
“I also have come far short of what I intended, Rose. The summer has gone like a dream, but I feel this morning as if I had awakened from it.”
“Well, I have made some good resolutions; and when the time comes, I intend to keep them. To-day, however, is predestined to folly, and I may as well have my share in it. When my conscience pricks me a little I always enjoy my pleasures the most. You know what is said about stolen fruit; it is that kind of a feeling. Why did Antony go to New York? Did he tell you that I had snubbed him the other day?”
“He never talks of you, Rose. Did you go to Mrs. Van Praagh’s tea?”
“Unfortunately, I did.”
“Was it not pleasant?”
“Do you know the kind of tea, where everybody calls every one else ‘dear’?”
Yanna laughed.
“That explains the function. We were all women, and we were all ‘dear.’ No men were present but Grandfather Praagh and the young Adolphus.”
She spoke scornfully, and Yanna said: “I thought you rather admired Adolphus Van Praagh.”
“I did, until I met him at various tennis parties. Then I saw that he always wore dingy flannels. Is there anything more levelling in a man’s dress than dingy flannels? Now, Harry’s tennis suits are fresh, if he puts two suits on every day, to achieve the result. I think Harry is handsome in white flannels. Don’t you?”
“Very handsome. Were the Bleeker Van Praaghs there?”
“Of course they were. Van Praaghs always flock together, and have done so, generation after generation.”
“I think that is a fine family trait.”
“I think so, too – for the family. Personally, I could have wished more of the Milton and Kent and Bannerman element, and less of the Van Praaghs. But I did not remain long. Nelly Milton wore a fetching costume. She said it was a Redfern marvel. I noticed nothing else, but that every one had feather boas round their necks, and that in consequence the doorsteps were strewn with feathers. I hope Antony will come to the ball. Do you think he will dance with me?”
“No.”
“But with me? And in that dress!”
“I am sure he will not dance. He would rather lead a ‘forlorn hope’ or ride a hundred miles after hostile Indians, than go through a dance. It seems, even to me, so absurd to think of men mincing and capering about a room. I could sooner fancy Antony playing ‘How Far to Babylon?’ with the little children in the street.”
“Nevertheless, I shall make him dance.”
“I am sure you will not, Rose. Do not try. You will only wound and pain him, and disappoint yourself.”
“We shall see.”
After some more conversation, they went downstairs to look at the decorations; and greatly to Yanna’s surprise, the lunch bell rang; and Mrs. Filmer came through the corridor towards the two girls. She kissed Yanna in her usual manner, and said: “We are going to have a very early lunch, Yanna; stay, and eat it with us.”
“I promised father to be home at noon – I did not know it was so late – I must go home at once – I do hope you will have a lovely time to-night – I am sure you ought to have.” She was talking with nervous haste, and only desirous to reach the door before any unpleasant remark could be made. Mrs. Filmer looked at her white face and embarrassed manner curiously; and turning to Rose, she said:
“Rose, go to Harry’s room, and insist upon his seeing you. Tell him Yanna is here; and he must come down to lunch. He has just refused to do so,” she added, “and I cannot imagine what is the matter.” When Rose had disappeared, she turned to Yanna and said: “Perhaps you can tell me, Yanna?”
“Indeed, I cannot!” Yanna replied, making a motion as if to proceed to the door; which motion Mrs. Filmer prevented by placing her hand lightly upon the girl’s shoulder.
“Yanna, my dear, there is no need for deception. I know that Harry and you are engaged. Why, then, pretend that you do not wish to see each other? All I ask is, that you wait for a suitable time, and keep the engagement secret. Under the circumstances, that is as little as you can do.”
“Mrs. Filmer, there is no engagement between myself and Mr. Harry Filmer; and, under the circumstances, there never will be. As for ‘deception,’ I cannot conceive of any condition in which I should resort to it.”
“No engagement!”
“None.”
“Do you mean that you have refused to marry my son?”
“Under the circumstances, I felt obliged to do so.”
“Well! I think it was very inconsiderate, I may say very impertinent in you, to refuse Mr. Filmer. You have caused me much annoyance, Miss Van Hoosen. I hope we shall be able to avoid each other in the future.”
“It will not be my fault if we do not. I am sorry to have grieved you, for you have been kind to me, and I shall only remember your kindness.”
Mrs. Filmer bowed haughtily, and said, “Good morning, Miss Van Hoosen,” and Yanna felt almost as if she had been civilly told to leave the house.
When Rose returned to the dining-room, Yanna had disappeared, and Mrs. Filmer was calmly sipping her bouillon. “Harry will not come down. He says he has a headache. Where is Yanna?” asked Rose.
“She was compelled to go home without delay,” answered Mrs. Filmer. “She seemed afraid of her father – perhaps she has his dinner to cook.”
“Oh, no! Betta does all that kind of work. I think Yanna was disappointed about the ball. It is too absurd of Mr. Van Hoosen!”
“I imagine the ball will proceed without Miss Van Hoosen. Indeed, I am rather glad we are going to the city soon, for life without the Van Hoosen flavor will be a pleasant change.”
“I am sure, mamma, the Van Hoosen flavor has been a great help to us all summer.”
“Well! The summer is now over.”
“And Yanna is – ”
“Oh, Yanna is everything charming! So is Antony! And even Mr. Peter Van Hoosen is picturesquely primitive. But the subject tires me to-day. Take your bouillon, Rose, and then try and secure a sleep.” Mrs. Filmer was turning the salad, with a face of great 83 annoyance, and Rose felt that the conversation was closed.
In the meantime, Yanna drove slowly homeward. Her life seemed to be crumbling inwardly. She lingered in the empty wood thinking of Harry, and of the trial which had tested and found him wanting; suffering over again his pettish anger in their parting, and feeling Mrs. Filmer’s polite scorn to be the last bitter drop in a cup full of bitterness. She was grateful for the quiet of nature, and not afraid to weep before her. She thought her sorrow to be as great as she could bear; for she was not old enough to know that there are griefs too great to find tears for.
Soon, however, she began to feel after that sure and perfect Love that never deceives and never disappoints, to utter those little prayers of two or three words which spring from the soul direct to God, and always come back with comfort and healing on their wings. She wept and prayed until her heart was like a holy well, running over with the waters of hope and consolation. Her love melted into her intelligence, and her intelligence became love; and this tempering influence and balancing power, gave her strength to keep the expression of her feelings shut up in a granite calm.
And when her father stepped out to meet her, when her eyes caught the pitying love in his eyes, and she went hand in hand with him into the pretty room, where the fire was blazing a welcome, and Betta, with smiles and excuses, was bringing in the dinner; she felt that her own home had plenty of those compensating joys of the present, which fill the heart with comforting thoughts, and the life with the sweet satisfactions and peace of possession.
“Home is a full cup, father!” she said. And Peter, standing at the head of his table, smiled at Yanna; and then lifted up his hands and asked God’s blessing on it!
CHAPTER IV
Fortunately for Adriana, the Filmers were not named at the dinner table. Antony had a new subject to discuss; for on the previous day, while in New York, an acquaintance had taken him to a Socialist meeting. The topic had been treated on its most poetic and hopeful side, and Antony was all enthusiasm for its happy possibilities. Peter listened without any emotion. He did not believe that crime, nor even poverty, would be abolished by merely new social arrangements.
“It is the inner change in individuals that will do it, Antony,” he said. “I have heard, and I have read, all sides of the Socialism of the day; and I tell you, it is half brutal, and altogether insufficient to cure existing wrongs.”
“But, father, if the framework of society, which is all wrong, is put all right, would not individuals in the mass take the right form? As far as I can judge, they are ready to run into any mold prepared for them.”
“No. You may set all without right; and all within may remain wrong. It is the new heart and the new spirit that is required. Will Socialism touch the inner man and woman? If not, then Socialism is a failure.”
“I do not think it hopes to do this at once; but wider education, more time, more money, more individual liberty – ”
“Will only produce more license, more pride of intellect, 86 more self-will; and men and women will become as indomitable as the beasts of the desert; and a law unto themselves.”
“Then, father, what would you propose?”
“I see the answer in Yanna’s face. She knows, Antony, what I would say, if I could say the words as well as she can – ‘So much the rather’ – go on, Yanna.” And Yanna’s face lighted and lifted as she repeated with calm intensity:
“So much the rather Thou Celestial Light
Shine inward! and the mind through all her powers.
Irradiate!”
“The Inward Light! That is what is needed. These reformers talk too much, and think, and do, too little. Were there many Americans present?”
“The majority were foreigners. They were not ill-natured; they were even cheerful and good-tempered. They had their wives and children with them. They had beer to drink, and tobacco to smoke, and a good band of music. I heard ‘La Marseillaise’ played with a wonderful spirit. It set me on fire. I began to feel for my musket and to think of fighting.”
“We don’t want ‘La Marseillaise’ here, Antony. We have our own national hymns. The ‘Star Spangled Banner’ can set my heart thrilling and burning, without making me think of blood and murder. If social reformers will talk to the ‘Star Spangled Banner,’ and ‘The Red, White and Blue,’ they will do no harm, and perhaps they may even do some good.”
“However, father, most of the men I heard speak appeared to have a great deal of information and much practical wisdom.”
“They will need as much again to govern what they have.”
“You are prejudiced against anything new, father.”
“Perhaps I am, Antony. I am suspicious of new things, even of new planets. I have read of several lately, but I cannot say I believe in them. I find myself sticking to the old list I learned at school; it began with Mercury, and ended with Georgium Sidus. I believe they have given Georgium Sidus a new name; but I don’t know him by it.”
Antony – who rarely laughed – laughed heartily at his father’s solid conservatism; and then the conversation drifted to and fro about the ordinary events of their daily life – the potting of plants, the village taxes, the shoeing of horses, and so forth. And Yanna’s calm, serious face told Antony nothing of the suffering in her heart; nor did she desire he should know it. Culture teaches the average woman to suppress feeling; and Yanna had a great dislike to discuss matters so closely personal to her. She was not ignorant either of Antony’s love for Rose, and his friendship with Harry had been hitherto without a cloud; why, then, should her private affairs make trouble between lovers and friends?
“At any rate,” she thought, “circumstances alter cases; and Antony in his relationship with Rose and Harry must be permitted to act without any sense of obligation to my rights or wrongs.”
Peter scarcely looked at the matter in the same temperate way; his sense of the family tie was very strong, and he thought if one member suffered injury all the other members ought to suffer with it. Yet he comprehended Yanna’s sensitiveness, her dislike for any discussion of her feelings, her liberal admission that 88 Harry, brought up in a different sphere of life, and under social tenets of special obsequiousness, could not be fairly measured by the single directness of their line and plummet.
She understood from Harry’s awkward attitude in his own home that he was suffering, and that he was likely to make others suffer with him. She had no special resentment against Mrs. Filmer. “Her behavior was natural enough; I might have been just as rude under the same provocation,” she thought. So she said nothing whatever to her father of the little scene between Mrs. Filmer and herself; she was able to understand Mrs. Filmer’s position, and she was satisfied with the way in which she had defended her own. “There is nothing owing between us,” she reflected, “and, therefore, there will be no perpetual sense of injury. We shall forgive – and perhaps forget.”
She busied herself all afternoon about her simple household duties; affecting to Betta a sudden anxiety about the usual preparations for winter; and she compelled herself to sing as she went up and down, putting away, and taking out, or looking carefully for the ravages of the summer moth. Peter heard her voice in one bravura after another; and for a short time he sat still listening and wondering. For effects are chained to causes, and he asked himself what reason Yanna had for music of that particular kind. By-and-by, he smiled and nodded; he had fathomed the secret of Yanna’s mental medicine – though with her it had been a simple instinct accepted and obeyed – and he said softly:
“To be sure! The lifeboat is launched with a shout, and the forlorn hope goes cheering into the breach; so when the heart has a big fight to make, 89 anything that can help it into action is good. Artificial singing will bring the real song; anyway, it helps her to work, and work is the best gospel ever preached for a heartache.”
The evening was brightened by Antony’s metamorphosis into a man of fashion. His late frequent visits to New York were explained when he rather consciously came into the sitting-room. He was in full dress, and looked remarkably handsome; and Peter felt very proud of his son. It is a humbling thing to confess that he had never had such a quick, positive pride in him before. The potent and mysterious power of dress, and of a fine personal presence, jumped to his eyes, and appealed to his heart, with a promptitude Antony’s bravest and most unselfish deeds had never effected. He stood up and looked at his son with a kindling pleasure in his face; and when Yanna sent him off with prodigal compliments, he privately endorsed every one of them.
True, he afterwards took himself to task for his vanity; and with expansive bluntness, told Yanna that her brother was just as fine a fellow in homespun as in broadcloth; but the broadcloth image remained with him, and he could not help some very pertinent private reflections on the value of culture and good society, as exemplified in his own family.
Yanna did not sleep much. All night long she heard the voices and the carriages of the people going to or coming from the ball; and the solemn stillness of the early morning was offended by their vacant laughter, or noisy chattering. She was glad to be called from restless and unhappy slumber, to the positive comfort of daylight and day’s work. But she did not see Antony again until the dinner hour. He was 90 then in high spirits, and quite inclined to talk of the entertainment. “It was very like the Van Praaghs’ and the Gilberts’ affair,” he said. “The same people were there, and I think they wore the same dresses – white and fussy, and flary, flowery things, you know, Yanna. But Rose Filmer was unlike every other woman.”
“Was she handsome? Well dressed? In good spirits? Kind? and in all her other best moods?”
“Yanna, she was in every way perfection. Her dress was wonderful. And, oh! the lift of her head, and the curl of her lip, and her step like a queen’s! She was charming! She was sweet, oh, so sweet!”
Yanna smiled at his enthusiastic admiration of her friend, but Peter said nothing until they were alone. Then he turned to his son, and asked: “Antony, are you thinking of falling in love with Miss Filmer?”
“I have been in love with her ever since I first saw her.”
“You could not ask a girl like that to be your wife. She has been brought up to luxury; she could not bear poverty.”
“I shall not ask her to bear poverty, father. If I had been a poor man I should have gone back west, long ago.”
Peter looked inquisitively at his son, and Antony answered his query. “I have said nothing so far about money; because in your house it seemed mean to talk of my riches. I know that you have worked so hard for the competence you possess; and my good fortune has been simple luck. I had a few thousand dollars, and because the care of them troubled me, I made some investments without much consideration. Every one was flushed with success. Then I made 91 others, and again others, and I suppose my very ignorance induced fortune to bring in my ship for me. At any rate, she did steer it into a good harbor.”
“I am glad! I am very glad, Antony! But why do you say ‘fortune’?”
“Somehow – I did not like to say God – as if He looked after a man’s real estate speculations.”
“He looks after everything. The silver and the gold are His; the world and the fulness thereof. I have never read, nor yet ever heard tell, that He has grown weary of watching; or that His arm is shortened or weakened, or that He has delegated to fortune, or chance, or fate, or destiny, or any other power, His own work of shaping a man’s life. If I did not know this, I should feel as all disbelievers must feel – alone and abandoned in the vast universe.”
“In great things, father.”
“In everything. Can you tell what things are great, and what things are little? From the most apparently trifling affairs have come wars and revolutions, which have turned the earth upside down, and ‘glutted the throat of Hell with ghosts.’ God gave you every dollar you have; and to Him you will have to render an account of its usage. Now, as to Miss Filmer. If you have money, I see no reason to fear you will not be acceptable. You are both branches from the same root – though she may be a bit the highest up; and I do think you are as good a man, and as handsome a man, as I know anywhere.”
Praise so distinct and unqualified was a rare gift from Peter; and Antony looked into his father’s face with grateful pleasure. The old man nodded slightly, as if to reaffirm his opinions, and then continued, “Talk to Mr. Filmer at once. It is the best plan.”
“It is too early yet. I must have permission from Rose to go on that message. There is nothing definite between us.”
“It is a pity. She goes to the city – into the world – other young men will seek her.”
“Good! She must choose freely. I may only have been a country makeshift, and I do not care to be Hobson’s choice with any girl. I would rather be left altogether.”
“Right. Suppose you ride to Grey’s Gate with me? There is a horse for sale there that I would like to buy.”
So the two men went away together, and Yanna, sitting sewing at the window, lifted her head as they passed, and gave them a smile like sunshine. “She is a good, brave girl,” thought Peter, and for a moment he was tempted to tell Antony about Harry Filmer’s proposal. But he thought better of silence than of confidence, and he kept silence. In the end, Harry was sure to do all that was right to the woman he loved; and if the way to that end was shadowed and hard, it would not be mended by their discussing it. Besides, he felt that Yanna would be averse to such a discussion; and again Antony’s own confidence with regard to Rose bespoke a caution and reticence concerning affairs in which there were complications it might be unwise to trouble.
