Trixy

Front matter

-LOVELINESS A Story ;

_ Elizabeth Stuart Phelps’

|) This is a fascinating, _ bewitching story, which holds you from the first page to the last. ‘ Love- Imess’ was a charming | little pet, living in the “unspeakable affection ‘and admiration of a de- “lightful Tottie, who was. / the queen of her father’s ‘and. mother's hearts.

Chapter I

THe sun struggled to enter the windows of the lecture-room. The tall adjoming building prevented this. The shaft of light stopped on the window sill, and wavered with an uncertain and troubled air.

It was November, and one bare bough from a neighboring tree pointed straight at the glass. Beyond, the sky was blue and beneficent. The wind was quietly rising, and the bough moved like a finger extended in silent admonition.

Some such thought as this occurred to the second student in the tenth row. The lecture-room was in the form of an amphitheatre, the seats rising in tiers. Young Steele could see the professor’s desk and table quite distinctly, as, in fact, could every man in the room. Our student was twenty-one. He was rather a handsome fellow in his way, with a good head, and forehead well developed over the eyes. These were gray and kindly, but set a little near together. His face was more finished than the faces of the students about him. His mouth was not coarse, and his features were agreeable. He had the bearing of good birth and breeding. At this time he was not destitute of imagination, and his heart surged with the fervors of youth and of science. He was at the beginning of his professional career. He had graduated at a neighboring college with honors, not five months ago. He had been but a few weeks a member of the medical school. His studies up to this time had been of a rather pleasant, preliminary nature. He had made as yet no friends in the upper classes, and few in his own, so that he knew little of what was going on in other parts of the building.

Olin Steele had not chosen his profession lightly. He was capable of ideals, and at this period of his life he cherished them. Nor had he abandoned what is known as religious aspiration. By healing men’s bodies, he meant to heal their souls. How could human utility rise to finer heights? By nature gentle and tender, he felt that he loved science for her nobler possibilities, and would rejoice in all those investigations in which he elected to be led. To this lad, life was not only sacred, it was adorable. The vital spark was the bond between God and man. To preserve this bond he believed to be a holy privilege. Steele considered himself fortunately fitted for the profession which he had chosen. He was like a worshiper between whom and his idol a faint cloud floats. His attitude towards his calling was at once xsthetic and devout. His professor was his high priest.

The lecture-room was filling rapidly. The boys came in laughing and talking. Some had their cigarettes in their mouths, for the professor had not yet arrived. There was a certain tension in the air that would have been noticeable to a fine observer. Some of the students had a constrained look, and others exhibited a species of nervousness.

Olin Steele sat very quietly. Now and then he glanced at the door by which the lecturer would enter. Some of the fellows chaffed him for his silence, but he scarcely replied. He was absorbed in the subject of the morning’s lecture.

He was aroused from his reverie by a small, sharp pain in his neck. A broadside of laughter from the students brought him to his full senses. He then became aware that he was at once scratched and caressed. A little claw clung to his collar, and something fuzzy and soft nestled under his ear. Putting up his hand with the instinct to protect the small, he clutched a puff of warm life, and was greeted in return by a little purr.

“What the—” began Steele. “ Who’s putting kittens down my back?”

He turned completely around, and his eyes met those of a classmate who regarded him mockingly. The newcomer was short, illfavored, and muscular. His hair was red and coarse, and stood up like a broom from his forehead. His eyebrows and lashes were too pale to be visible. His complexion was muddy, his ears prominent, and his mouth low.

“Oh, it’s you, is it, Bernard? I might have known it,” said Steele without cordiality. At the same moment he drew the kitten from his neck to his lap, and began to stroke it. He was rather fond of cats, and the kitten knew it. It began to purr loudly. It was a beautiful maltese kitten, clean and well-brushed ; a broad pink ribbon was tied around its gray neck.

“ What’s this? ” demanded Steele, “a class mascot? Where shall we keep it? Where did you get it, Bernard ?”

“ Oh,” said Bernard, “ I — it —I picked it up; that is, it followed me.”

“Could n’t keep away from you?” suggested one of the fellows.

“Where did it matriculate?” asked another.

“Never you mind,” retorted Bernard, with an unpleasant wink. “ It will matriculater.”

The kitten was now quite at home with Steele, who began to analyze his classmate’s pun with vague apprehension. Olin’s hand closed over the little creature protectingly. With a sinuous motion it turned on its back, and daintily began to claw. It exhibited all the graceful and exasperating coquetry of its race. It withdrew, it challenged, it kissed, it purred, it scratched, with that bewildering inconsistency which makes a kitten the most fascinating and inconsequent creature in the animal kingdom.

6 TREY

“What are you gomg to do with it?” asked Steele abruptly.

The students had now formed a circle about him, and the kitten looked confidingly from face to face.

“ Oh, I don’t know,” replied Bernard. “I have n’t made up my mind.”

“T understand we’re short of material,” observed a man carelessly. “The frogs have struck.”

“ What!” cried Steele.

Several hands had stretched out to caress the kitten, who, pleased with the hospitality of the lecture-room, was now playing from shoulder to shoulder, like a squirrel from bough to bough.

“Let me have it.”” Steele got to his feet.

“No, you don’t!” replied Bernard. “ Whose cat is it, anyhow?”

“Not yours!” said Steele quickly. “Tell me where you got it. I’ll take it back. It must live right around here. It is a lady’s pet. Look at the ribbon ! — Let me have it!” urged Steele, appealing from Bernard to the students.

These glanced from the happy kitten to

TRIXY T their red-headed classmate doubtfully. Over their faces warring expressions chased. Most of them looked troubled and sorry.

“Oh, come off, Bernard,” said one of the fellows. ‘ Let him have the cat!”

The speaker held the kitten towards Steele’s outstretched hands; but Bernard’s cold fingers, interrupting, closed upon the little shrinking creature.

“T’ll take care of it,” he said sullenly.

The kitten hesitated a moment, and then looked into the young man’s mutinous face, and purred insinuatingly.

“There!” cried Steele, dropping to his seat. “It trusts you. Now take it back.”

His clouded face cleared as Bernard turned away. When the kitten was taken from the room, some of the students applauded slightly ; others exchanged significant looks, and were silent.

The room was now full. The lecturer was already overdue. He appeared suddenly in a fresh, white blouse. He began to talk at once, without any preliminaries, upon the subject of the day.

It was the first time that the class had met the professor of physiology m the amphitheatre, and they were singularly attentive. The subject of the lecture was elementary, and one which text-books have always amply illustrated.

Steele listened conscientiously. He had been a high-honor man, and his industrious pencil flew over his note-book. He did not find the topic abstruse, and he was rather disappointed at its simplicity. He glanced at some of the nearest students to see if the subject seemed as clear to them. Meanwhile Bernard had returned to the room, and had resumed his seat, which was directly behind Steele. The kitten was gone, and Steele drew a breath of relief. His eyes sought the window, and he noticed that the November sun had clouded. The wind had now risen, and the bare bough knocked on the glass. A pair of white pigeons flew across, and one of them, pausing, dropped to the sill of the window, and seemed to peer for a moment into the room.

“‘ Look at the dove!” whispered one of the boys.

“ 'That’s no dove. That’s a pigeon,” sneered Bernard, from behind.

The professor, annoyed by the whispering, paused and shot a reproving glance at the class. The white bird flew away.

“ And now, gentlemen,” continued the professor, “‘we have reached a point in our studies where experimental illustration becomes a clear necessity. I have endeavored up to this time to impress upon your minds the fundamental nature of the great discovery with which we deal. I have tried to show you how ” — he proceeded to explain learnedly what he had tried to do. “ But,” he pursued, “in our profession, gentlemen, unsupported theory —I might add, unsupported fact — may confuse the mind of the student more than it enlightens. I have now been lecturing to you for half an hour upon this basic principle, yet probably many of you, possibly most of you, have received but an obscure impression of the beautiful workings of this great law. Gentlemen, am I right? Is this not so?”

“ Yes, sir!” came from various parts of the room.

Steele looked about him with a touch of intellectual scorn on his parted lips.

“‘ Why, no, sir,” he said respectfully. “If you will excuse me for sayimg so, I have found your explanation of the subject remarkably clear. I think I understand it.”

“‘T should like to see it demonstrated,” interpolated Bernard, in a strident voice.

The professor smiled blandly. He paused, laid aside his notes, and beckoned to his assistant. This person left the room, and passed into the adjoiing laboratory. The professor examined his instruments and apparatus. He touched them with deft and craving fingers.

“ Ah, gentlemen,’ he announced with an expression of something like pleasure, “ here is our subject.”

The laboratory door opened silently. The returning assistant, who held something before him in his outstretched hands, reached the professor’s table before young Steele had seen what the man carried. Half a hundred students caught their breaths. It was their first experience of this sort, and most of them were still soft, kind-hearted lads, fresh from their homes, where dogs sprang down the doorsteps to meet them, and kittens played with skeins of yarn held on mother’s or on sisters’ hands.

ate et

GRIEXY ae

But Steele, unconscious that he did so, got to his feet. His face had blanched. His lips, drawn over his teeth, quivered. A vein in his temple throbbed.

Before him, on the operating board, strapped down, lay a little downy form. Seeing it in its unnatural position, one’s sense of its beauty gave way to a sense of its color and size. The kitten was gray and small. It seemed to Steele’s horrified eyes the smallest kitten he had ever seen. By some mistake on the part of the assistant, a ribbon, caught under the body of the animal, hung over the edge of the board. This ribbon was pink.

“No! No!” gasped Steele. “Not that prone !:"?

“ Oh, shut up, and sit down !”’ growled Bernard from behind.

But Steele did not sit down. He swayed slightly on his feet. A sick faintness surged upon him. Every fibre of his body and soul protested. For the medical student had a soul, and it was young and sensitive.

The professor, who had been regarding his subject critically, now took up his instruments. “Steele stood staring. The kitten swam before his gaze. It seemed to him to turn its eyes (for it could not turn its head) towards him. He felt that it sought protection of him. He wheeled, and scorched Bernard with a look. The room grew dark about him, and he made for the door.

“ Damn you!” he said.

Swaying and groping, he tried the handle. The door was locked. The professor laid down his instruments. In taking up this department with his junior classes he was not without experience in the reflex action of unsullied natures. He was always considerate of this juvenile weakness which he knew that time and himself would train away.

“Go for the janitor,” he whispered to his assistant. “The boys is ill. Let him out.”

When Steele found himself in the outer air, he sat down on the granite steps of the college. He was still faint and giddy. He was so ashamed of himself for his weakness that he could have cried. He put his face in his hands, and ground his teeth. He fancied himself the jest of every student in the amphitheatre. This intolerable thought drove the ea ae blood to his head; and his physical weakness, which otherwise might have lasted longer, fled before his keen emotion. He started to his feet, and stood hesitating. Should he return to the lecture-room ?

Swiftly there seemed to sweep before him that pretty fluff of maltese down — the broad, | pink ribbon — the little gymnast, leaping like a squirrel from shoulder to shoulder — its cuddling touch beneath his ear —its happy and confiding purr; he thought of its pulsating’ vitality, its spark of divinity. As swiftly, there smote upon his consciousness a vision of that warm, live, small creature — as it was, now.

“T can’t go back!” he cried; then in a different tone, “I won’t go back

He ran down the long gray steps and into the street. This he crossed quickly, but with an aimless movement. His mind was in a whirlpool of indecision. He seemed to be swirling nearer and nearer—to what? A gulf? or a rescue? The familiar blue cars of his suburban street passed him without appealing to his attention. He walked because he must walk, and he walked a long time.. It occurred to him at last that he was headed towards home, and, with a clutch at the heart, he felt that it was the only place where he could go. By this time the pallid sun had been gulped by massing clouds, and a dark storm was imminent. Olin bent his head, and pushed his way into it. The surcharged air, like his surcharged emotion, lashed him on. He felt that no tempest could be fierce enough to flush the imagination that tormented him. It seemed to him that he would have offered up his soul if he could have been born without sensitiveness — like that bigeared fellow for instance. He was lacerated, and he must be healed. He pushed on mechanically. The blue cars passed him. Before he was aware of it, he had reached the group of stately elms at the corner of his father’s street. He had tramped six miles. As he turned in at the long avenue, his dog —a fine St. Bernard — leaped upon him with boisterous caresses. He was so absorbed that he did not return them, and the dog, drooping, followed him wistfully.

Olin fitted his latch-key with trembling hand, and went into his father’s house. The dog remained on the porch. Afterwards he remembered that he must have shut the door in Barry’s face.

“Why, my son!” his mother called from somewhere, “I did n’t expect you until night.”

Olin murmured something’ unintelligibly, tossed off his dripping hat, and went upstairs to his own room. Then he locked the door, and there he remained until night. His mother came up and knocked gently.

“YT am sorry, mother,” he pleaded, “TI can’t see you now. Please let me alone.”

His sister, who was a very modern girl, came and whistled like a boy through the keyhole.

“Go away, Jess,’ he said, “don’t bother me.”

These were women, and easy to manage. The boy reflected that his father and brother were yet to come home, and that with them he must absolutely reckon.

At dinner time nothing had been heard from him. His troubled mother, with the pathetic patience of her sex, had watched for the light in his windows, but these were still dark. She could contain her anxiety no longer, and he heard the rustle of her skirts at his door. She knocked timidly.

“‘ Dear Olin,” she said, “let me come in.”

He rose at once and admitted her. The room was dark, except for the glow of the open fire. She saw his wet coat sprawled on a chair before him. He had returned to the lounge on which he had evidently been lying all the afternoon. His bright-colored bathblanket was drawn over him.

His mother sat down on the edge.of the couch, and took one of his hands in both of hers.

“You’re feverish,’ she said. “ You have taken cold. What is the matter, Olin? Tell me all about it.”

“Mother!” cried the young man, sitting up sharply against the pillows of the couch, “T can’t go back to that medical school. I never can. I am going into business. I hate them both!”

His mother was silent for so long that he repeated his phrase mechanically: “I never can!”

“T am sure, my son, that you must have a good reason for this unexpected decision,” reae plied Mrs. Steele, with an agitation of which she gave no evidence whatever. She had an unobtrusive, well-bred voice, but it was as monotonous as a metronome.

Reason!” Olin exploded, “I should think I had!”

He was about to tell the whole story, when there was a tramping in the hall outside his door. His father and brother came into the room, led by the sister to whom he had denied entrance. With a twist of his fingers, Mr. Steele turned up a light.

“What ’s the matter here?” he cried. “ Are you sick, Olin? I thought this was your night for being in?”

“T am not going back, sir,” replied Olin manfully. He got to his feet and faced the most formidable obstacle that a young man can meet or conquer — the opposition of his entire family. In a few blazing words he told his story.

His sister interrupted it now and then with girlish outcries (these were ejaculations rather

-of incredulity than of sympathy) and his mother visibly winced. But the two men exchanged glances, and it was Olin’s elder brother who spoke first :

18 TRIXY “T assure you, Olly,” he said, “ youll get over that, very soon. You must have been a little out of order. I felt so, once.”

“You felt so once, and you don’t feel so any longer,” persisted Olin, “and that’s my very point. I don’t mean to get where you are. Since you’ve been teaching biology you re not the same fellow you used to be, Dick. You can do anything and not turn a hair.”

“T am sure,” said the girl, with a hard lifting of the eyelids that was quite natural to her, “ that it can’t be as bad as you think.”

“Oh, do be still, Jess,” said Olin testily.

“You can be squeamish in any business you undertake, you know, Olin,” observed his father. Mr. Steele spoke gravely and not unkindly. “I understand,” he proceeded, “ that the medical profession is the noblest in the world. I should be disappointed if you abandoned it. How is it, Dick?” He turned to his oldest son. ‘‘ Are these things really as bad as Olin thinks? I don’t remember that you ever mentioned it?”

“‘ Science to-day is based upon such experiments,” replied the young professor of biology firmly. “ Modern medical science is founded upon the rock of comparative physiology, and it’s no use Olin’s beating his head against it.”

“ Are you sure, my dear,” asked Mrs. Steele feebly, “that Olin is entirely wrong ?”’

The young professor flushed. “I should think I ought to know,” he said.

Richard Steele, senior, stood thoughtfully silent. His commercial importance was enviable, and his social position was that which his wife, whose family was as influential as his fortune, had brought him. But it must be admitted that he felt himself at a loss in a biological or pathological direction. If it had been Assam Pekoe, or Young Hyson — but bacteria and antisepsis were out of his line. The tea merchant looked from one of his highly educated sons to the other in a perplexity which he would on no account have acknowledged. When he spoke, he did so slowly and seriously.

“T have told you what I think, now, Olin. But you are old enough to judge for yourself. Take what time you need to decide this matter to your satisfaction. Isn’t dinner ready, my dear?” He turned to his wife with a courtly smile.

Olin stood at bay before the four people whom he loved best in the world. The two ° gentlemen and the ladies were in dinner dress. Standing there in his shirt-sleeves, with that ridiculous bathrobe over his shoulders, he felt himself at the distinct disadvantage which external trifles may create. His purpose had not wavered, but the power to express 1t had weakened.

“T’ve told you how I feel,” he said desperately. Instinctively his eyes sought his mother’s. Hers answered him with an ineffectual sympathy.

“Don’t you want me to send Tibbs up with your dinner ?”’ she asked affectionately.

“Thank you, Mummy, dear, I am not dry yet. You see it will take so long to dress.”

The girl had already gone downstairs. The two gentlemen followed. The lad’s mother lingered for a moment. She put her arm around his neck, and laid her cheek to his.

“Was it a very pretty kitty, dear?”’ she whispered.

The boy put his head upon her shoulder and began to sob.

“Oh, mother —it was so small. Oh, mother, mother! It was damnable

Now they had all gone away — except Tibbs, who brought up the dinner and set the tray down on the little table by the lounge, as if he were serving a sick person.

Olin tried to eat, but could not. At every effort some disturbing memory of the morning’s experience or the afternoon’s emotion prevented his healthy young appetite. He flung himself back upon the lounge, and lay there, face down, in the pillows. He was torn by the first great moral conflict of his life. It seemed to him almost like a living thing, some savage thing that had been endowed with intelligence, but not with mercy. It was to this excited and exhausted lad as if he could feel its claws upon his heart. In the actual sense of the word he writhed beneath it.

“YT won’t!” he cried. “I will not go back to that —I never can. I never will!”

While he lay there wrestling with his angels, something tried the closed door. A slight push, a bumping scratch, and a long whine pleaded for admission. Olin opened the door at once, and the St. Bernard came panting’ in.

“ Why, Barry,” he said, “I’m glad to see you. I’m afraid I was rather uncivil to you, too, when I came home —out there... . How it did storm, Barry!— And how it storms now ! ”

The dog lifted serious ears towards the window, which shook beneath the malignant rain.

Downstairs Olin’s sister was singing at the piano — some foolish thing. The smoke of his father’s cigar and his brother’s came up through the closed door.

“We've got to have it out alone, Barry,” said Olin aloud. “They can’t understand, Barry, can they ?”

Olin put his arms about the big dog, and looked rather piteously into his eyes. Barry kissed his master, but with dignity. In the drawing-room the girl had left the piano, but while Olin sat with his arms about Barry’s neck another hand brushed the keys, and the low strains of a fine rendering of Tennyson’s great prelude breathed through the house.

‘That ’s mother, Barry,” said Olin. “ Jess never plays anything sacred.”

His mother did not sing; she was not young enough ; but she played delicately and well. The young man’s memory fitted the words to the chords by which, he thought, she seemed to be trying to speak to him.

‘¢ Strong Son of God, immortal Love !”

Olin respected the religion of his mother, and he listened, not without reverence. |

“There ’s something in it, Barry,” he said. “Some time I’ll make up my mind how much. Come, Barry! Say, Barry, what shall we do?”

Barry observed him solemnly.

Chapter II

Ir there were one thing more than any other to which Miss Lauriat cultivated a robust objection, it was colored teas; and this one was yellow.

“Orange corset covers on the electric bulbs, and lemon petticoats on the lamps,” she thought. “Ochre bonnets on the candles, and corn-satin sashes on the tables! This is no place for me —I am going.”

She had already sacrificed to this occasion an hour of her impatient young life; she felt that she had better uses for it. So far, she had seen only the too familiar faces of her social system. The astronomy was old, and it had become wearisome. She sought her hostess to take her leave. A gentleman, evidently bent on the same errand, retreated a step or two, to give her precedence.

“Wait a minute, Miriam,” said the lady, “before you go I must present’’— She turned to the hesitating man, and introduced him with that indifference to the personal cognomen which is characteristic of social elocution.

The two accepted their fate resignedly.

“Do you like these colored things, Dr. Reel?” began Miss Lauriat promptly.

_ “Candidly,” replied the young man, “I don’t think pink teas are the final expression of existence.”

“ But this one is yellow.”

“Ts it?” He looked at the decorations with the unseeing gaze of a man whose color-blindness is not that of the optic nerve. “I thought they were always pink.”

Miss Lauriat laughed merrily.

“Ts the palette of your life couleur de rose? Fortunate man !”

A scarcely perceptible change of expression replied to her.

“Do you know,” she said promptly, “1 was just going.”

“So was I,” he returned, looking straight at her, “ but even a man may change his mind.”

Miss Lauriat was a tall girl, so that her eyes were quite on a level with those of the young man. She answered his look with the amused indifference with which she was accustomed to receive admiration. Her air of distinction was enhanced by her clinging black dress (according to the code, she should have ceased to “mourn” for her father some time ago), through whose sleeves and high yoke of lace her throat and arms gleamed faintly. Her hair was black, but her eyes, though dark, were blue. Her expression was at once earnest and playful. She was a woman of twenty-seven; but she had kept a certain girlish look of which she herself was unconscious.

The two talked for a little, as people do at such functions, drifting as they did so leisurely towards the door. Beneath the inevitable persiflage each discerned a certain seriousness in the other.

“Now, Dr. Peel,” she said at last, “I really must go. I have an important engagement.”

“A blue tea, 1 suppose, this time?” His eyes mocked while his mouth smiled.

“They make it in an earthen teapot where Tam going, and steep it all day, and drink it out of a bowl — with condensed milk.”

‘That seems somehow familiar,” said the doctor. “Perhaps we are going to the same place.”

“Who are you?” asked the young lady outright, “and what do you do?”

“For one thing,” replied the physician lightly, “I am a member of the Board of Health. This is my last day in that illustrious position — which I have resigned. I go out of office to-morrow. By the way,” he added, with the air of a man who wanted to escape the topic, “I think my father used to know yours.”

“Oh, we ’re all in the same set, I suppose,” replied the young lady indifferently. She did not ask any questions. He flushed slightly at this obvious omission, bowed, and left her.

Her carriage was waiting, and she made her way to it as quickly as she could. As she gathered up her short train and stepped in, she hesitated.

“Til tell you in a minute, Matthew; I have n’t quite made up my mind. How late is it?” She glanced at the carriage clock. “I think there’s time. I must see Dan. How is it about taking the horses down that alley ? Do you think they ’re equal to it?”

“They was snowballed into highsterics last time,” replied the coachman cautiously.

“But I don’t suppose you’re dressed for walkin’, Miss ?”’

Miss Lauriat glanced at her thin, long dress, over which she had closely folded her carriage cloak.

“T’m afraid I’m not,” she said. “If you think you can manage— No! Drive home first. I can get ready while you ’re turning around. It is not dark yet, you see. We can’t have Dan evicted for a few dollars’ rent

—can we, Matthew ?”’

“You’re the only friend the gossoon’s got,” said Matthew, with his forefinger at his hat. He drove rapidly ; Miss Lauriat’s house was but two blocks removed, in fact, from the yellow tea; and within five minutes she was running up her own steps with the girlish energy of her perfect health and absorption in subjects outside of herself. In the vestibule the parlor-maid offered information: Mr. Surbridge was in the brary — him and Mrs. Jeffries.