Morris Julian's Wife. A novel, etc

Chapter I

A SCHOOLGI R L. ORRIS JULIAN was a man of the world. At thirty-five his clear blue eyes — eyes that could be steely cold and also melt to tenderest softness — had looked upon most places worth that trouble ; his cool, strong hands had clasped those of the fairest women on both sides of the Atlantic ; his critical taste had been cultivated, satisfied, sated. In business matters he was keen and shrewd. Those who feared him said : " Hard and close." He compassed all his ends in a quiet, self-confident way, exasperating to the very souls of those less far seeing. He had formed no close ties. With a few men he was on terms of good-comradeship. To none did he reveai the real thoughts and purposes of his heart. With women he had many friendships. It was his delight to study the characteristics, the caprices, the weaknesses, the noblenesses of the fem inine nature.

He adored the sex ; he enjoyed it ; but he never trusted it. Indelibly branded into his innermost self was the suffering he endured when, a hot-headed boy, he was played with by a beautiful woman many years his senior. It had pleased^ her to be flattered, for the hour, by his worship. Stunned, bewildered, crushed by her smiling duplicity, he had left confi dence in womankind behind when, at a bound, he entered manhood's estate. He became an expert in the art of carrying his delicately chivalrous attentions to women to the extreme verge of loverlikeness, adroitly leaving open a decorous path of return to cordial amity. He anticipated with pleasurable excitement the dear delight these conquests gave him. For he never failed to gain the citadel of love, when once he under took its capture. With wealth, leisure, culture, the generous impulses of a kindly, if selfish, heart and an intimate knowledge of the nature with which he had to do, is it any wonder that he succeeded ?

The pathway was a familiar one to him — from formal politeness to the thoughtful consideration of a friend ; from confidential intimacy to the tender devotion of a lover. Each step merged so grad ually into the other as to be almost unperceived until his swift retreat, silent and courteous, leaving behind no binding word, no tangible token of all that the eyes, the tones, the actions had spoken with such eloquence, revealed to the startled captive its silken bonds. With self-centred complacency, he ignored all consequences of his cruel kindness. " I make them happy while it lasts," he said. "And after? Oh, well, they may miss me for a day." The shrug of the shoulder and uplifting of the eyebrow told even more plainly how sceptical he was as to any serious result of his trifling. Such a man was Morris Julian at the age of thirty-five.

But at that time he had never seen Satia Maynard. Satia Locke Maynard Was the name which he found himself saying over softly to himself as he watched her. It was at the commencement exer cises of a girl's school — the place of all others where Morris Julian s Wife. 10 he would least have expected to meet his fate. He sat idly fingering his programme, feeling immensely bored, and wishing that he had not, in an evil, amiable moment, suffered his sister to persuade him that family obligations required his attendance at the graduation of his only niece. Suddenly the tones of a bell-clear voice thrilled him through and through. He glanced up toward the rostrum and beheld a dark-eyed maiden, whose winsome grace was good to look upon. He glanced downward to the paper he held in his hand ; and then he sat there repeating her name beneath his breath and feeling a vivid impatience for the "thing" to be done with, that he might speak to her.

Slowly the moments passed. He smiled somewhat grimly to feel again in his veins the fever which had so often run its course before. He cared nothing for the words she read. Those he considered artificial — the work of her teachers, doubtless. He was eager to get at the girl herself ; to catch the modu lations of her voice ; to watch the play of expression on her features; to study the motives which lay behind her speech and action. In the course of time all things must end. Pres ently he found himself making his way through the crowd toward the reception room, where Clover Fielding, his niece should present him to the new and beautiful star which had arisen on his horizon. But his progress was much too slow. He looked about and discovered a passage-way which he at once explored. He came soon into a dimly lighted study-room.

Scarcely had he crossed the thresh old, when he heard quick steps, and a white-robed figure brushed by him, turned up the gas, and began rummaging in a table drawer, without perceiving that she was not alone. It was Satia, and Morris, delighted, stood motionless. " Not one to be seen, of course," she exclaimed with girlish impatience. "Dear! I'd give anybody a kiss for a pencil." Instantly she saw one, a dainty, gold-tipped affair, held out to her. Looking up amazed, she met the amused, admiring regard of a pair of expressive dark-blue eyes. The blood rushed over her cheeks and brow in a rich flood. Who was this elegant gentleman appearing so mysteriously, and, horrors, what had she said ? She raised her eyes again to find his still bent upon her and the pencil still extended. Should she take it ?

But at what price ? Each thought was clearly mirrored in her speaking countenance, to be plainly read by the man beside her. He could not tell which charmed him most — the frank pride of the lovely mouth, which would be as good as its word, the spirit of daring and mischief which the tell-tale dimples revealed, the womanly shy ness which veiled the eyes. At last, after what seemed to him an eternity of waiting, the dimples deepened. With an impulsive little gesture, she half turned away, but before she could put out her hand, as he could have sworn she was about to do, atumultof laughter and voices was heard approaching. Her fingers closed instinctively around. the pencil, which she felt gently pushed beneath therm She heard murmured in her ear these words : " The future holds our sweetest joys.

Morris had hoped to escape unseen. But he had waited an instant too long. " Satia Maynard, where have you been ?' " Did you get one ?" " Why, Uncle Morris, how did you come here ?" burst from the group of merry girls who filled the little room. " I was trying to find you, Clover," he replied, greeting his pretty niece affectionately. " It was so good of you to come !" cried Clover. " Now let me introduce you to my friends. Girls, this is my uncle Morris ; Sara Brand, Julie Everett, Faith Gilmor, and my very dearest crony of all, Satia Maynard." Morris bowed low to each in turn, reserving a smile for the last-named, who blushed divinely. He then chattered with the one nearest him, in his easy, graceful way, as they returned to the reception hall. But his glance dwelt on the slender figure and fair face of the girl who held his pencil and, for the time, his fancy in her keeping.

" Confound these chattering magpies !" he was saying to himself. " Why couldn't they have stayed away ?" He saw ever before him the sweet, flushed face, demurely arch. He asked himself continually the tantalizing question : " What was she going to say ?" He vowed that she should tell him ere many days went by. Very soon he was seized upon by his sister and carried off to be introduced to a lot of people, and it was an hour or more before he was free to seek his charmer. While surveying the crowded rooms, in the hope of seeing her, he heard again the voice close beside him. She was offering him the pencil. " Thank you very much," she was saying, with a mischievous smile. He smiled in return, but did not take the pencil. It is yours," he said, significantly. How it pleased him to see her blush and struggle with embarrassment, and conquer it, and sa}7, with a spirited flash now in the bright, dark eyes: " You are unfair to take advantage.

I am sure that you cannot be Clover's uncle at all." How he laughed then — a low, hearty laugh of pure amusement. " You jump to conclusions with the swiftness of your sex, Miss Maynard. But your logic is excel lent, too. Come, now. Shall we not make a bar gain ? I am not to exact payment for the pencil. You can remember me as the most generous of men. And you are to keep it with you always, so that never, never under any possible circumstances, will you be tempted to make such an offer to anyone else." Satia laughed merrily. "Oh, that will be easy enough," she said. "I shall not be very likely to think aloud again." "Except with me, please. And now, am I Clover's uncle?" She gave him a long look, as frank as a child's, which he bore with grave composure. " Yes," she said, at length ; " I believe in you now."

"I want you to believe in me always," he replied, hurriedly. Then, in his usual courteous way, he added : " It is very warm in these rooms this even ing. Shall we not go outside ?" He offered her his arm as though she were a duchess. She was even more than that in his estimation. She was the woman to whom he was giving his devotion. They found the long porch on one side of the house almost deserted. As they walked slowly down its dusky length, he said : " I must no longer delay my congratulations on your escape from durance vile, Miss Maynard." " You mean from school ? Oh, I am not through. I only read the essay of one of the graduates, who is sick. Did you think I could write as well as that? And didn't you notice on the programme : ' Read by Satia Maynard ?' " He was thrilled again by her flute-like tones.

He thought her name, as uttered by .herself, the sweetest one he had ever heard. " To tell you the truth," he said, softly, " I could not tell one word you read. I was conscious only of the music of your voice. It is needless to ask if you sing ?" Satia's cheeks grew suddenly hot. She could not have told why. " Oh, yes, I love dearly to sing ; but I hate to practice all the scales and exercises," she confessed, with charming candour. " I should think you would," replied Morris, sympathetically. " I should imagine that it is not real fun, either, to be shut up here all these lovely days." The girl looked at him with her heart in her eyes. " Oh, how kind of you to say that ! I didn't know that anybody so old — I mean — " She stopped in embarrassment pretty to see. " I did not mean — well, anybody like you or papa," she went on, with an air of having got out of her dilemma in a satisfactory way, " thought that it was horrid to be sent off to boarding-school.

I'm so glad you know just how it is." Morris was hiding a smile and smothering an execration. Was he, then, such a patriarch to this girl, whose face and figure were those of a young goddess, but whose heart and life were as innocent as a child's? In those clear eyes he read absolute ignorance of the wiles and deceits which the world so soon teaches its children — ignorance as enchant ing as it is rare. He read, too, a beautiful confi dence, boundless devotion, unswerving loyalty. " What do you find here by way of amusement ?" he inquired, as they made a turn at the lower end of the porch. " Not much of anything," was the rueful response. " Of course we can walk all over the place, and it takes in those woods beyond the gate ; we can play croquet, and — oh, I hardly know — the girls have spreads sometimes.

Those are jolly ; but I wish so much that I could have my boat here and go row ing on a dear little lake over behind the woods. But madame said ' No,' and so it is locked up in the boat-house at Elm Ridge — that is my home." " Then you are fond of rowing?" " I love it better than anything except being on my pony's back," she replied, enthusiastically. " He is not here either, I presume?" " Oh, no, indeed ; and it nearly breaks my heart. Poor Don ! I know he misses me." " I have not a doubt of it," Morris said, with an emphasis which brought the flush again to Satia's cheek. " Do you think you would enjoy a gallop in the morning with Clover and me, even if you cannot have Don's company, too?" " Oh, how delightful that will be !" was her glad exclamation. " Thank you very much, Mr. Julian, for asking me.

But I'm afraid that madame will not let me go. You are not my uncle, you know." " Thank heaven !" he ejaculated, fervently, to himself. Aloud, he said: "Madame is quite right to be so particular ; but I think there will be no trouble in arranging it. Have you and Clover your habits here?" " No," and her tones expressed disappointment as frankly as they had pleasure a moment before. " I hadn't thought of that. It is too bad, and there is not time to send for them. Papa is coming for me to-morrow afternoon, and we leave for home the next morning." "I see. It is quite possible that I may be in the vicinity of Elm Ridge next week on business," remarked this truthful gentleman, without a blush. " If you would be kind enough to allow me to call, and if your papa had no objections, perhaps we might have the ride with Don."

" We shall be glad to see you, Mr. Julian," she said, simply ; " and I wish you could bring Clover. I do want her to see all the lovely places about Elm Ridge. Papa will take her everywhere. I think I must go in now," she added, after a little silence. " Madame will be telling me that I have stayed too long with one guest." Just then they came out into the light, and Morris caught again the expression of demure archness which had so charmed him in the study-room. " That could scarcely be with this guest, at any rate," he said, gravely. " I trust that at Elm Ridge one is not so soon banished to outer darkness." " You must come and see," she replied, with shy grace. " Good night, Mr. Julian." " Thank you." He said it as he might have done for a precious gift. " I shall dream of — Don ;" and a laughing flash from his brilliant eyes went far down into her own. " Good night."

Chapter II. Wooed And Won

Clover Fielding was both surprised and delighted to receive a letter from her uncle Morris early in the following week, telling her that important business called him to the vicinity of Elm Ridge, and that if she would like to go with him and spend a few days with her " dearest crony of all," it would give him a great deal of pleasure to escort her. " Isn't Uncle Morris just the most thoughtful and generous man in the world, mamma ? It is so lovely of him to think that I might like to go. I ahvays feel as though I were a princess royal at the ver)7 least, when I travel with him. Don't you remember the summer that he took us through Switzerland ?" " Yes, dear. Uncle Morris is very kind. I wish he had some girls and boys of his own to be good to, though." Clover laughed. " You want everybody else to have as beautiful B and perfect a white crow as you have, don't you, mamma dear ?

But they don't grow on every family tree, I assure you. And not many 'crows have such a dear little mother as this one has. Aren't we lucky ?" Mrs. Fielding disengaged herself from the raptur ous but rather demoralizing embrace in which she found herself smothered. " You had better be getting your gowns together, my dear," she said, patting the round cheek lovingly. " Doesn't Morris say that he will be up on the morning express?" " Yes. And I must get Robert to send him a telegram at once." It was just at sunset on an exquisite June evening that Satia and her father drove to the station to meet their guests. She had received a short note from Morris saying that he had gladly complied with her request to bring Clover with him on his business trip. They should arrive on the seven o'clock express, Thursday.

On Friday morning he begged the pleasure of paying his respects to her and of being presented to her father. The train was in promptly, and after the introduc tions and greetings were over, Mr. Maynard said to Morris, with hearty cordiality: "My daughter tells me, Mr. Julian, that you are Mary Fielding's brother. That can mean nothing else than that my home must be }7ours so long as you are in this part of the country. My wife and she were dear friends — but all that was while you were off in Europe, like a very bad American," he went on in his bluff fashion. " I remember hearing them lament over your infatuation for every country but your own, so long ago as when this child was in her cradle ;" and he laid his hand affectionately on Satia's shoulder. Morris looked as though he found all this extremely entertaining.

He even felt that he could have endured to be compared with Methuselah, to that worthy's disadvantage in the matter of age, by the father of the girl, who looked lovelier than ever in her simple dress of dark blue, and whom he was to have the delight of seeing in the informality of her own home, for he had no mind to refuse the good gifts the gods were thrusting upon him. With gentle courtesy he accepted Mr. Maynard's invitation, and was soon rolling swiftly along toward Elysium. His stay of four days at Elm Ridge was a revela tion to Satia. Never before had she known what it was to have her wishes anticipated and fulfilled almost sooner than she was aware of them, nor dreamed of her power to make or to mar the happi ness of another, nor learned of her own loveliness. How all this knowledge had come to her, it would have been difficult for her to have told.

The pol ished, affable gentleman whom Mr. Maynard found so delightful a companion ; the devoted and con genial friend of whom Satia was frankly fond ; the worldly-wise, subtle man, who saw the end from the beginning and laid his plans with the artfulness of a courtier, might have explained it all to her. On the morning of his departure he had an inter view with Mr. Maynard. To say that its nature was surprising to this most unsuspecting of fathers, is to state the case mildly. " Why, my dear sir, Satia is only a little schoolgirl yet. Can I have misunderstood you ? ls it really your wish to make her your wife at once?" Morris smiled. " You express my feelings exactly, Mr. Maynard. But I know that the heart of a young girl must be wooed delicately. Perhaps it will be better to say ' six months ' instead of ' at once.' " Mr. Maynard regarded Morris somewhat keenly.

" You seem to be very confident in this matter. What assurance have you that my daughter will be ready to leave her father's house to go to the Wooed and J Von. 23 world's end with a stranger, at the end of six months?" A quick flush rose to the brow of the younger man. He did not reply for a few moments, during which time the eyes of the elder never left his face. " Love like mine knows no obstacles," he said at length. " With your permission, I do not despair of winning the great blessing of Miss Maynard's love, which, I freely confess, is far beyond my deserts." There was no mistaking the sincerity of these words. At last the ruthless invader of so many hearts was thoroughly in earnest ! "And if 1 do not give my permission? If I say that the union between an experienced man of the world like yourself — unexceptionable as you may be personally — and a child like my Satia would be most unsuitable, and could result only in the misery of you both?

If I request you to discontinue the acquaintance ?" " I beg that you will not force me to reply to these questions, my dear sir," said Morris, with winning sweetness. " Let me demonstrate my ability to make your daughter happy as a lover. If I succeed, will you not accept it as proof of my ability to do as much as a husband ?" " There is but one thing to be considered, Mr. Julian," said Mr. Maynard, after a long silence. " My girl is my all. Her happiness is the one wish of my life. Win her love, and you have my con sent to the marriage. She is very young, but, after all, not more so than her mother was when she came to be the light and joy of my home. But there is to be no trifling, you understand ?" He had risen, and stood near Morris, looking him through and through with eyes that had not lost their youthful fire.

" I trust to your honour as a gentleman," he said. Morris raised his right hand. He returned the piercing glance he met with one just as clear and steady. "May the Lord do so to me, and more, also," he said, using unconsciously the words of the Hebrew oath — words that sounded strangely enough from his lips — " if I deal not with her as with that which is dearer to me than my own life." They clasped hands. Morris felt that a long step had been taken toward his longed-for haven. It was with exceeding satisfaction that he learned of Satia's promise to spend the month of July with Clover, at the lovely Fielding home on the Hudson. A dozen reasons were at once discovered why it was proper, imperative even, that he also should pay a visit to his sister at this very time. Mrs. Field ing, possessed of no small share of the Julian keen ness of perception, very soon became aware of her brother's infatuation.

She did not hesitate to ex press her opinion of it with the utmost candour. She chose for the occasion one evening when a dozen or more of Clover's friends had grouped them selves picturesquely on one of the wide porches, and were chattering as merrily as only happy young men and maidens can. At a little distance sat Mrs. Fielding and Morris. She was looking with a moth er's fondness at her daughter's bright face, and admiring the sparkling eyes and rosy cheeks of all the other girls. He saw but one. Presently she glanced at him and was half amused, half vexed, to notice his absorption. " It is perfectly ridiculous of you, Morris, to make such a fuss over Satia Maynard." He turned his eyes to hers. They were no longer glowing. They were keen and cool. " Oh, you needn't look at me in that lordly way," she said, laughing.

"You know very well what I mean. You don't gush as those boys do, but you are every bit as ' spoony.' " He laughed, too, but he did not speak. " Satia is a mere child," she went on, " and prob ably considers you quite an old gentleman. You are, you know, comparatively." And she nodded her comely head toward the slim young fellows who were being so delightfully entertained. Morris colored. " It will go hard if I cannot distance them," he said, rather contemptuously. Mary Fielding looked in silence at the brother she loved so well. It was true. All the advantage lay with him. She realized, more than ever before, the indescribable fascination of his manner toward women. How thorough was his knowledge of every step to be taken ! how unlimited the resources at his command! She knew it all, alas ! too well.

She knew, too, how impossible it had always been to dissuade him when once his mind was set to gain an end. She looked again at Satia, whose mother had been a dear friend of her own, and who, dying, had said to her: " Be good to my darling, Mary; shield her from sorrow so long as it is possible." She saw in her a bright, affectionate, impulsive girl, wilful, capri cious, immature, but whose strength and piquancy of character gave promise of brilliant womanhood. She felt that capacity for great joy and intense suffering lay undeveloped beneath the sunny light heartedness of seventeen. k- It was some time before she spoke again. Her eyes were full of tears and her voice trembled. " Morris," she said, laying her hand lovingly on her brother's arm, " I beg you to go away. It is not too late. Leave me this girl who is scarcely less dear to me than my own sweet Clover.

Do not dis turb the maiden serenity of her young heart. The whole world full of women is before you. Go and choose whom you will, but leave Satia free." Morris did not reply. His face was white, his lips compressed. " Forgive me, dear, if I wound you," his sister said, gently. "yWe need not disguise the truth. This is not the first time I have asked you to spare a girlish heart, and asked in vain. But, Morris, I must have this one — I will!" she sat erect with sudden energy; her soft features took on a sternness equal to his own. " I will take her away and put the world between you and us. I will not have her robbed of her peace of mind even for you." Again there was a long silence. It was broken by Mr. Julian. " Marj7," he said, and his face had regained its composure, " has it never occurred to you that I could marry, as other men do ?

Why am I, of all others, to be denied the joys of wife and home ?" " It is what I have often wished for and long Morris Julians V/ife. 28 despaired of," she replied. Then, turning quickly toward him as a thought flashed upon her— a strange, impossible thought: "Do you, can you mean Satia?" " I do," was the quiet answer, which filled her with the utmost astonishment. Married — and to Satia ! A man who had only to choose among the beauties of two continents and a girl who was, as yet, nothing more than a lovely child ! It was utter folly ; but what could she do-? What could she say? " You take away my breath, Morris," she ex claimed. " Do you think — are you sure — does she — ?" Morris laughed a laugh which it was not wholly pleasant to hear. " You do not know your sex, oh, sister mine, incom parable ! 'Do I think?

Ami sure? Does she?' Well, no, not yet. But I shall think. I shall be sure. She will — she shall, by heaven !" He jumped up and walked the length of the veranda two or three times, while she endeavored to adjust herself as best she might to this most unlooked-for turn in affairs. Presently he came back and stretched himself comfortably in the low, bamboo chair. " Can you imagine, Mary," he began, " no, you cannot — for there were never two beings more entirely unlike than your sweet, womanly self and a man of the world like me — a fellow not bad at heart, but one who has been taught by the circumstances of his life to distrust all seeming virtue, and who is tired of everything under the sun ? So, my dearest of sisters, I must tell you that there is a charm be yond expression to such a man in the very thought of teaching a young, loving, lovely child the unsus pected possibilities of her own nature.

If Satia were less artless, frank, innocent, I could, for your sake, deny myself and accept your cordial invitation to go away." " Oh, no, Morris !" she interrupted, in dismay at hearing her words interpreted so inhospitably. " I did not." " Oh, yes, Mary, but you did,' he answered, giving her a comical glance, " nothing more nor less could be made of your ' I begyou to go away.' Now, seriously, that is just what I cannot do. This dear girl — child, if you will — has crept into my very heart of hearts, where never woman has entered before. She shall be my wife, and I shall see to it that she learns nothing of the vanities and deceits of the world. Shielded by my love, she shall be the beloved and revered mistress of my home, the solace of my life; please God, the mother of my children." Again Mary Fielding looked silently at the brother she had thought she knew.