David Harum. Edward Noyes Westcott
own master, and the rather desultory and altogether congenial life he had led, he found it at first even more irksome than he had fancied. The novice penetrates but slowly the mysteries of the law, and, unless he be of unusual aptitude and imagination, the interesting and remunerative part seems for a long time very far off. But John stuck manfully to the reading, and was diligent in all that was put upon him to do; and after a while the days spent in the office and in the work appointed to him began to pass more quickly.
He restrained his impulse to call at Sixty-ninth Street until what seemed to him a fitting interval had elapsed; one which was longer than it would otherwise have been, from an instinct of shyness not habitual to him, and a distrustful apprehension that perhaps his advent was not of so much moment to the people there as to him. But their greeting was so cordial on every hand that Mrs. Carling's remark that they had been almost afraid he had forgotten them embarrassed while it pleased him, and his explanations were somewhat lame. Miss Blake, as usual, came to the rescue, though John's disconcert was not lessened by the suspicion that she saw through his inventions. He had conceived a great opinion of that young person's penetration.
His talk for a while was mostly with Mr. Carling, who was in a pleasant mood, being, like most nervous people, at his best in the evening. Mary made an occasional contributory remark, and Mrs. Carling, as was her wont, was silent except when appealed to. Finally, Mr. Carling rose and, putting out his hand, said: "I think I will excuse myself, if you will permit me. I have had to be down town to-day, and am rather tired." Mrs. Carling followed him, saying to John as she bade him good night: "Do come, Mr. Lenox, whenever you feel like it. We are very quiet people, and are almost always at home."
"Thank you, Mrs. Carling," responded John, with much sincerity. "I shall be most glad to. I am so quiet myself as to be practically noiseless."
The hall of the Carlings' house was their favorite sitting place in the evening. It ran nearly the whole depth of the house, and had a wide fireplace at the end. The further right hand portion was recessed by the stairway, which rose from about the middle of its length.
Miss Blake sat in a low chair, and John took its fellow at the other angle of the fireplace, which contained the smoldering remnant of a wood fire. She had a bit of embroidery stretched over a circular frame like a drum-head. Needlework was not a passion with her, but it was understood in the Carling household that in course of time a set of table doilies of elaborate devices in colored silks would be forthcoming. It has been deplored by some philosopher that custom does not sanction such little occupations for masculine hands. It would be interesting to speculate how many embarrassing or disastrous consequences might have been averted if at a critical point in a negotiation or controversy a needle had had to be threaded or a dropped stitch taken up before a reply was made, to say nothing of an excuse for averting features at times without confession of confusion.
The great and wise Charles Reade tells how his hero, who had an island, a treasure ship, and a few other trifles of the sort to dispose of, insisted upon Captain Fullalove's throwing away the stick he was whittling, as giving the captain an unfair advantage. The value of the embroidered doily as an article of table napery may be open to question, but its value, in an unfinished state, as an adjunct to discreet conversation, is beyond all dispute.
"Ought I to say good night?" asked John with a smile, as he seated himself on the disappearance of Mr. and Mrs. Carling.
"I don't see any reason," she replied. "It isn't late. Julius is in one of his periods of retiring early just now. By and by he will be sure to take up the idea again that his best sleep is after midnight. At present he is on the theory that it is before twelve o'clock."
"How has he been since your return?" John asked.
"Better in some ways, I think," she replied. "He seems to enjoy the home life in contrast with the traveling about and living in hotels; and then, in a moderate way, he is obliged to give some attention to business matters, and to come in contact with men and affairs generally."
"And you?" said John. "You find it pleasant to be back?"
"Yes," she said, "I do. As my sister said, we are quiet people. She goes out so little that it is almost not at all, and when I go it has nearly always to be with some one else. And then, you know that while Alice and I are originally New Yorkers, we have only been back here for two or three years. Most of the people, really, to whose houses we go are those who knew my father. But," she added, "it is a comfort not to be carrying about a traveling bag in one hand and a weight of responsibility in the other."
"I should think," said John, laughing, "that your maid might have taken the bag, even if she couldn't carry your responsibilities."
"No," she said, joining in his laugh, "that particular bag was too precious, and Eliza was one of my most serious responsibilities. She had to be looked after like the luggage, and I used to wish at times that she could be labeled and go in the van. How has it been with you since your return? and," as she separated a needleful of silk from what seemed an inextricable tangle, "if I may ask, what have you been doing? I was recalling," she added, putting the silk into the needle, "some things you said to me on the Altruria. Do you remember?"
"Perfectly," said John. "I think I remember every word said on both sides, and I have thought very often of some things you said to me. In fact, they had more influence upon my mind than you imagined."
She turned her work so that the light would fall a little more directly upon it.
"Really?" she asked. "In what way?"
"You put in a drop or two that crystallized the whole solution," he answered. She looked up at him inquiringly.
"Yes," he said, "I always knew that I should have to stop drifting some time, but there never seemed to be any particular time. Some things you said to me set the time. I am under 'full steam a-head' at present. Behold in me," he exclaimed, touching his breast, "the future chief of the Supreme Court of the United States, of whom you shall say some time in the next brief interval of forty years or so, 'I knew him as a young man, and one for whom no one would have predicted such eminence!' and perhaps you will add, 'It was largely owing to me.'"
She looked at him with an expression in which amusement and curiosity were blended.
"I congratulate you," she said, laughing, "upon the career in which it appears I had the honor to start you. Am I being told that you have taken up the law?"
"Not quite the whole of it as yet," he said; "but when I am not doing errands for the office I am to some extent taken up with it," and then he told her of his talk with his father and what had followed. She overcame a refractory kink in her silk before speaking.
"It takes a long time, doesn't it, and do you like it?" she asked.
"Well," said John, laughing a little, "a weaker word than 'fascinating' would describe the pursuit, but I hope with diligence to reach some of the interesting features in the course of ten or twelve years."
"It is delightful," she remarked, scrutinizing the pattern of her work, "to encounter such enthusiasm."
"Isn't it?" said John, not in the least wounded by her sarcasm.
"Very much so," she replied, "but I have always understood that it is a mistake to be too sanguine."
"Perhaps I'd better make it fifteen years, then," he said, laughing. "I should have a choice of professions by that time at any rate. You know the proverb that 'At forty every man is either a fool or a physician.'" She looked at him with a smile. "Yes," he said, "I realize the alternative." She laughed a little, but did not reply.
"Seriously," he continued, "I know that in everything worth accomplishing there is a lot of drudgery to be gone through with at the first, and perhaps it seems the more irksome to me because I have been so long idly my own master. However," he added, "I shall get down to it, or up to it, after a while, I dare say. That is my intention, at any rate."
"I don't think I have ever wished that I were a man," she said after a moment, "but I often find myself envying a man's opportunities."
"Do not women have opportunities, too?" he said.