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<h1>Chapter XIV.</h1> In all the endless folk-lore of proverbs, there is perhaps no adage more true than that which warns young people to beware of a new love until they have done with the old, and as Ronald Surbiton reflected on his position, the old rhyme ran through his head. Ho was strongly attracted by Sybil Brandon, but, at the same time, he still felt that he ought to make an effort to win Joe back. It seemed so unmanly to relinquish her without a struggle, just because she said she did not love him. It could not be true, for they had loved each other so long. When Ronald looked out of the window of his room in the hotel, on the morning after Mrs. Wyndham’s dinner, the snow was falling as it can only fall in Boston. The great houses opposite were almost hidden from view by the soft, fluttering flakes, and below, in the broad street, the horse-cars moved slowly along like immense white turtles ploughing their way through deep white sand. The sound of the bells was muffled as it came up, and the scraping of the Irishmen’s heavy spades on the pavement before the hotel followed by the regular fall of the great shovels full on the heap, as they stacked the snow, sounded like the digging of a gigantic grave. Ronald felt that his spirits were depressed. He watched the drifting storm for a few minutes, and then turned away and looked for a novel in his bag, and filled a pipe with some English tobacco he had jealously guarded from the lynx-eyed custom-house men in New York, and then sat down with a sigh before his small coal fire, and prepared to pass the morning, in solitude. But Ronald was not fond of reading, and at the end of half an hour he threw his book and his pipe aside, and stretched his long limbs. Then he rose and went to the window again with an expression of utter weariness such as only an Englishman can put on when he is thoroughly bored. The snow was falling as thickly as ever, and the turtle-backed horse-cars crawled by through the drifts, more and more slowly. Ronald turned away with an impatient ejaculation, and made up his mind that he would go and see Joe at once. He wrapped himself carefully in a huge ulster overcoat and went out. Joe was sitting alone in the drawing-room, curled up in an old-fashioned arm-chair by the fire, with a book in her lap which she was not reading. She had asked her aunt for something about politics, and Miss Schenectady had given her the “Life of Rufus Choate,” in two large black volumes. The book was interesting, but in Joe’s mind it was but a step from the speeches and doings of the great and brilliant lawyer-senator to the speeches and doings of John Harrington. And so after a while the book dropped upon her knee and she leaned far back in the chair, her great brown eyes staring dreamily at the glowing coals. “I was so awfully lonely,” said Ronald, sitting down beside her, “that I came here. You do not mind, Joe, do you?” “Mind? No! I am very glad. It must be dreadfully lonely for you at the hotel. What have you been doing with yourself?” “Oh–trying to read. And then, I was thinking about you.” “That is not much of an occupation. See how industrious I am. I have been reading the ‘Life and Writings of Rufus Choate.’ I am getting to be a complete Bostonian.” “Have you read it all? I never heard of him. Who was he?” “He was an extremely clever man. He must have been very nice, and his speeches are splendid. You ought to read them.” “Joe, you are going to be a regular blue-stocking! The idea of spending your time in reading such stuff. Why, it would be almost better to read the parliamentary reports in the ‘Times!’ Just fancy!” Ronald laughed at the idea of any human being descending to such drudgery. “Don’t be silly, Ronald. You do not know anything about it,” said Joe. “Oh, it is of no use discussing the question,” answered Ronald. “You young women are growing altogether too clever, with your politics, and your philosophy, and your culture. I hate America!” “If you really knew anything about it, you would like it very much. Besides, you have no right to say you hate it. The people here have been very good to you already. You ought not to abuse them.” “No–not the people. But just look at that snow-storm, Joe, and tell me whether America is a place for human beings to live in.” “It is much prettier than a Scotch mist, and ever so much clearer than a fog in London,” retorted Joe. “But there is nothing for a fellow to do on a day like this,” said Ronald sulkily. “Nothing, but to come and see his cousin, and abuse everything to her, and try to make her as discontented as himself,” said Joe, mimicking his tone. “If I thought you liked me to come and see you”–began Ronald. “Well?” “It would be different, you know.” “I like you when you are nice and good-tempered,” said Joe. “But when you are bored you are simply–well, you are dreadful.” Joe raised her eyebrows and tapped with her fingers on the arm of the chair. “Do you think I can ever be bored when I come to see you, Joe?” asked Ronald, changing his tone. “You act as if you were, precisely. You know people who are bored are generally bores themselves.” “Thanks,” said Ronald. “How kind you are!” “Do say something nice, Ronald. You have done nothing but find fault since you came. Have you heard from home?” “No. There has not been time yet. Why do you ask?” “Because I thought you might say something less disagreeable about home than you seem able to say about things here,” said Joe tartly. “You do not want me this morning. I will go away again,” said Ronald with a gloomy frown. He rose to his feet, as though about to take his leave. “Oh, don’t go, Ronald.” He paused. “Besides,” added Joe, “Sybil will be here in a little while.” “You need not offer me Miss Brandon as an inducement to stay with you, Joe, if you really want me. Twenty Miss Brandons would not make any difference!” “Really?” said Joe smiling. “You are a dear good boy, Ronald, when you are nice,” she added presently. “Sit down again.” Ronald went back to his seat beside her, and they were both silent for a while. Joe repented a little, for she thought she had been teasing him, and she reflected that she ought to be doing her best to make him happy. “Joe–do not you think it would be very pleasant to be always like this?” said Ronald after a time. “How–like this?” “Together,” said Ronald softly, and a gentle look came into his handsome face, as he looked up at his cousin. “Together–only in our own home.” Joe did not answer, but the color came to her cheeks, and she looked annoyed. She had hoped that the matter was settled forever, for it seemed so easy for her. Ronald misinterpreted the blush. For the moment the old conviction came back to him that she was to be his wife, and if it was not exactly love that he felt, it was a satisfaction almost great enough to take its place. “Would it not?” said he presently. “Please do not talk about it, Ronald. What is the use? I have said all there is to say, I am sure.” “But I have not,” he answered, insisting. “Please, Joe dearest, think about it seriously. Think what a cruel thing it is you are doing.” His voice was very tender, but he was perfectly calm; there was not the slightest vibration of passion in the tones. Joe did not wholly understand; she only knew that he was not satisfied with the first explanation she had given him, and that she felt sorry for him, but was incapable of changing her decision. “Must I go over it all again?” she asked piteously. “Did I not make it clear to you, Ronald? Oh–don’t talk about it!” “You have no heart, Joe,” said Ronald hotly. “You don’t know what you make me suffer. You don’t know that this sort of thing is enough to wreck a man’s existence altogether. You don’t know what you are doing, because you have no heart–not the least bit of one.” “Do not say that–please do not,” Joe entreated, looking at him with imploring eyes, for his words hurt her. Then suddenly the tears came in a quick hot gush, and she hid her face in her hands. “Oh, Ronald, Ronald–it is you who do not know,” she sobbed. Ronald did not quite know what to do; he never did when Joe cried, but fortunately that disaster had not occurred often since he was very small. He was angry with himself for having disturbed and hurt her, but he did not know what to do, most probably because he did not really love her. “Joe,” he said, looking at her in some embarrassment, “don’t!” Then he rose and rather timidly laid a hand on her shoulder. But she shrank from him with a petulant motion, and the tears trickled through her small white hands and fell upon her dark dress and on the “Life of Rufus Choate.” “Joe, dear”–Ronald began again. And then, in great uncertainty of mind, he went and looked out of the window. Presently he came back and stood before her once more. “I am awfully sorry I said it, Joe. Please forgive me. You don’t often cry, you know, and so”–He hesitated. Joe looked up at him with a smile through her tears, beautiful as a rose just wet with a summer shower. “And so–you did not think I could,” she said. She dried her eyes quickly and rose to her feet. “It is very silly of me, I know, but I cannot help it in the least,” said she, turning from him in pretense of arranging the knickknacks on the mantel. “Of course you cannot help it, Joe, dear; as if you had not a perfect right to cry, if you like! I am such a brute–I know.” “Come and look at the snow,” said Joe, taking his hand and leading him to the window. Enormous Irishmen in pilot coats, comforters, and india-rubber boots, armed with broad wooden spades, were struggling to keep the drifts from the pavement. Joe and Ronald stood and watched them idly, absorbed in their own thoughts. Presently a booby sleigh drawn by a pair of strong black horses floundered up the hill and stopped at the door. “Oh, Ronald, there is Sybil, and she will see I have been crying. You must amuse her, and I will come back in a few minutes.” She turned and fled, leaving Ronald at the window. A footman sprang to the ground, and nearly lost his footing in the snow as he opened a large umbrella and rang the bell. In a moment Sybil was out of the sleigh and at the door of the house; she could not sit still till it was opened, although the flakes were falling as thickly as ever. “Oh”–she exclaimed, as she entered the room and was met by Ronald, “I thought Joe was here.” There was color in her face, and she took Ronald’s hand cordially. He blushed to the eyes, and stammered. “Miss Thorn is–she–indeed, she will be back in a moment. How do you do? Dreadful weather, is not it?” “Oh, it is only a snowstorm,” said Sybil, brushing a few flakes from her furs as she came near the fire. “We do not mind it at all here. But of course you never have snow in England.” “Not like this, certainly,” said Ronald. “Let me help you,” he added, as Sybil began to remove her cloak. It was a very sudden change of company for Ronald; five minutes ago he was trying, very clumsily and hopelessly, to console Joe Thorn in her tears, feeling angry enough with himself all the while for having caused them. Now he was face to face with Sybil Brandon, the most beautiful woman he remembered to have seen, and she smiled at him as he took her heavy cloak from her shoulders, and the touch of the fur sent a thrill to his heart, and the blood to his cheeks. “I must say,” he remarked, depositing the things on a sofa, “you are very courageous to come out, even though you are used to it.” “You have come yourself,” said Sybil, laughing a little. “You told me last night that you did not come here every day.” “Oh–I told my cousin I had come because I was so lonely at the hotel. It is amazingly dull to sit all day in a close room, reading stupid novels.” “I should think it would be. Have you nothing else to do?” “Nothing in the wide world,” said Ronald with a smile. “What should I do here, in a strange place, where I know so few people?” “I suppose there is not much for a man to do, unless he is in business. Every one here is in some kind of business, you know, so they are never bored.” Ronald wished he could say the right thing to reestablish the half-intimacy he had felt when talking to Sybil the night before. But it was not easy to get back to the same point. There was an interval of hours between yesterday and to-day–and there was Joe. “I read novels to pass the time,” he said, “and because they are sometimes so like one’s own life. But when they are not, they bore me.” Sybil was fond of reading, and she was especially fond of fiction, not because she cared for sensational interests, but because she was naturally contemplative, and it interested her to read about the human nature of the present, rather than to learn what any individual historian thought of the human nature of the past. “What kind of novels do you like best?” she asked, sitting down to pass the time with Ronald until Josephine should make her appearance. “I like love stories best,” said Ronald. “Oh, of course,” said Sybil gravely, “so do I. But what kind do you like best? The sad ones, or those that end well?” “I like them to end well,” said Ronald, “because the best ones never do, you know.” “Never?” There was something in Sybil’s tone that made Ronald look quickly at her. She said the word as though she, too, had something to regret. “Not in my experience,” answered Surbiton, with the decision of a man past loving or being loved. “How dreadfully gloomy! One would think you had done with life, Mr. Surbiton,” said Sybil, laughing. “Sometimes I think so, Miss Brandon,” answered Ronald in solemn tones. “I suppose we all think it would be nice to die, sometimes. But then the next morning things look so much brighter.” “I think they often look much brighter in the evening,” said Ronald, thinking of the night before. “I am sure something disagreeable has happened to you to-day, Mr. Surbiton,” said Sybil, looking at him. Ronald looked into her eyes as though to see if there were any sympathy there. “Yes, something disagreeable has happened to me,” he answered slowly. “Something very disagreeable and painful.” “I am sorry,” said Sybil simply. But her voice sounded very kind and comforting. “That is why I say that love stories always end badly in real life,” said Ronald. “But I suppose I ought not to complain.” It was not until he had thought over this speech, some minutes later, that he realized that in a few words he had told Sybil the main part of his troubles. He never guessed that she was so far in Joe’s confidence as to have heard the whole story before. But Sybil was silent and thoughtful. “Love is such an uncertain thing,” she began, after a pause; and it chanced that at that very moment Joe opened the door and entered the room. She caught the sentence. “So you are instructing my cousin,” she said to Sybil, laughing. “I approve of the way you spend your time, my children!” No one would have believed that, twenty minutes earlier, Joe had been in tears. She was as fresh and as gay as ever, and Ronald said to himself that she most certainly had no heart, but that Sybil had a great deal,–he was sure of it from the tone of her voice. “What is the news about the election, Sybil?” she asked. “Of course you know all about it at the Wyndhams’.” “My dear, the family politics are in a state of confusion that is simply too delightful,” said Sybil. “You know it is said that Ira C. Calvin has refused to be a candidate, and the Republicans mean to put in Mr. Jobbins in his place, who is such a popular man, and so good and benevolent-quite a philanthropist.” “Does it make very much difference?” asked Joe anxiously. “I wish I understood all about it, but the local names are so hard to learn.” “I thought you bad been learning them all the morning in Choate,” put in Ronald, who perceived that the conversation was to be about Harrington. “It does make a difference,” said Sybil, not noticing Ronald’s remark, “because Jobbins is much more popular than Calvin, and they say he is a friend of Patrick Ballymolloy, who will win the election for either side he favors.” “Who is this Irishman?” inquired Ronald. “He is the chief Irishman,” said Sybil laughing, “and I cannot describe him any better. He has twenty votes with him, and as things stand he always carries whichever point he favors. But Mr. Wyndham says he is glad he is not in the Legislature, because it would drive him out of his mind to decide on which side to vote–though he is a good Republican, you know.” “Of course he could vote for Mr. Harrington in spite of that,” said Joe, confidently. “Anybody would, who knows him, I am sure. But when is the election to come off?” “They say it is to begin to-day,” said Sybil. “We shall never hear anything unless we go to Mrs. Wyndham’s,” said Joe. “Aunt Zoë is awfully clever, and that, but she never knows in the least what is going on. She says she does not understand politics.” “If you were a Bostonian, Mr. Surbiton,” said Sybil, “you would get into the State House and hear the earliest news.” “I will do anything in the world to oblige you,” said Ronald gravely, “if you will only explain a little”– “Oh no! It is quite impossible. Come with me, both of you, and we will get some lunch at the Wyndhams’ and hear all about it by telephone.” “Very well,” said Joe. “One moment, while I get my things.” She left the room. Ronald and Sybil were again alone together. “You were saying when my cousin came in, that love was a very uncertain thing,” suggested Ronald, rather timidly. “Was I?” said Sybil, standing before the mirror above the mantelpiece, and touching her hat first on one side and then on the other. “Yes,” answered Ronald, watching her. “Do you know, I have often thought so too.” “Yes?” “I think it would be something different if it were quite certain. Perhaps it would be something much less interesting, but much better.” “I think you are a little confused, Mr. Surbiton,” said Sybil, and as she smiled, Ronald could see her face reflected in the mirror. “I–yes–that is–I dare say I am,” said he, hesitatingly. “But I know exactly what I mean.” “But do you know exactly what you want?” she asked with a laugh. “Yes indeed,” said he confidently. “But I do not believe I shall ever get it.” “Then that is the ‘disagreeable and painful thing’ you referred to, as having happened this morning, I suppose,” remarked Sybil, calmly, as she turned to take up her cloak which lay on the sofa. Ronald blushed scarlet. “Well–yes,” he said, forgetting in his embarrassment to help her. “It is so heavy,” said Sybil. “Thanks. Do you know that you have been making confidences to me, Mr. Surbiton?” she asked, turning and facing him, with a half-amused, half-serious look in her blue eyes. “I am afraid I have,” he answered, after a short pause. “You must think I am very foolish.” “Never mind,” she said gravely. “They are safe with me.” “Thanks,” said Ronald in a low voice. Josephine entered the room, clad in many furs, and a few minutes later all three were on their way to Mrs. Wyndham’s, the big booby sleigh rocking and leaping and ploughing in the heavy dry snow. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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