And blackens each fair image in our breasts.—Lyttleton.
Descending to the breakfast room, he found Leslie, as usual, quiet, cordial, and gentlemanly, beguiling the moments of expectancy with a newspaper, while his daughter presided at the coffee urn. Leslie happened to be in a garrulous mood, and talked incessantly about his former military frontier life, of which, though he had detested it in the experience, he was very fond in the retrospect. Morton, who had some acquaintance with such matters, was a tempting auditor, though he would gladly have exchanged the profuse anecdotes of white-wolf running and deer shooting for a few moments' conversation with Miss Edith Leslie. This her father's busy tongue put out of the question; but Morton consoled himself with the thought that to bask in her presence was, in itself, no mean privilege.
His cup of nectar, such as it was, was in a few minutes dashed with gall; for the street door opened without a summons from the bell, a man's step sounded in the hall, and Horace Vinal came in, with a bundle of papers in his hand.
Vinal had become of late all-important to his former guardian. He was his chief business agent, and Leslie was never tired of expatiating on his talents, energy, application, and elevated character. In short, he was fast becoming dependent on him, and felt towards him the affection which a weak and kindly man may feel towards one of far greater force and capacity, whom he believes sincerely attached to him and devoted to his interests.
Vinal, as he entered, had the air of a man versed in affairs, and acquainted both with that vast and various theatre which men call the world, and with those conventional circles which ladies call the world. He had been absent for a few days on a mission of business, from which he had returned the evening before. Leslie received him with a most warm greeting, and his daughter with a smile of easy friendship, which was wormwood to the troubled spirit of Morton. The two rivals—for such, by a common instinct, each felt the other to be—regarded each other with faces of courtesy and hearts of wrath.
"How came this fellow here?" thought Vinal, as he smilingly grasped his classmate's hand.
"The devil take him!" thought Morton, as he returned the greeting, but with a much worse grace.
They seated themselves on opposite sides of the table, while the Helen who had kindled this covert warfare in their breasts dispensed a cup of coffee to each in turn.
There was a singular contrast between the adversaries. On the one side, the self-dependent Vinal, with little health and no other wealth than his busy and able brain; with thin features, wan cheek, and pale, firm lip; with piercing observation and rapid judgment; self-contained, self-controlled, self-confiding. But for his measuring five feet ten, he might have stood for Dryden's Achitophel:—
"A fiery soul, which, working out its way,
Fretted the pygmy body to decay,
And o'er informed the tenement of clay."
On the other side sat the pet of fortune, fondled, if he could have endured such blandishment, in the very lap of affluence; with a cheek brown with wind and weather, and an eye which, as he often boasted, could look the sun in the face. His nature was so happily tempered, that to the degree of nervous stimulus which engenders, or is engendered by, an energetic character, he joined an indefinite capacity both of endurance and enjoyment; and yet the possessor of all these gifts was just now in a mood of extreme dissatisfaction and discomfort.
Leslie began to speak with Vinal upon business. Morton snatched the opportunity to converse with the person most interesting to him. Vinal glanced at him askance. Each began to hate the other, after his own fashion. Morton would gladly have come to open rupture, and flung defiance at his rival; but Vinal was far remote from any wish of the kind.
Morton remained at the house as long as he in decency could, and then bade them good morning, execrating Vinal as he went down the steps.
That very afternoon, as he was walking near his cottage in the country, ruminating on Edith Leslie and Horace Vinal, he raised his head and saw a lady and gentleman, on horseback, emerging into view from a wooded bend of the road. A thrill ran through him from head to foot. They were the two persons of whom he was thinking. He bowed to Miss Leslie. She replied with a frank bow and smile; and Vinal, as he passed, made an easy nonchalant gesture of recognition. The jealous pedestrian turned and looked after them. They had ridden a few rods when Vinal also turned his head, but, catching Morton's eye, instantly averted it again. Morton fairly ground his teeth with anger and vexation. To be jealous was bad enough; but that Vinal should be conscious of his jealousy, and perhaps triumph in it, goaded him beyond endurance. He went home, saddled and bridled a horse with his own hands, mounted, and ranged the country for an hour or two, to get rid of the vulture that was preying on him. At length he grew more rational, and was able to reflect that Vinal's riding with Miss Leslie did not necessarily imply that he stood, in any special sense, within her favor, since he was the near relative of her mother-in-law, and had formerly been for years an inmate of her father's house.
On the next day, at a time when he thought that Vinal must be safe in his office, Morton took heart of grace, and called on Miss Leslie. An old woman, an ancient dependant of the family, raised, as she would have phrased it, in the backwoods of Matherton, opened the door.
"Is Miss Leslie at home?"
"No; she was took sick yesterday, very sudden."
"Miss Leslie!" ejaculated the visitor.
"Yes; the doctor says she's goin' to die, sartin; right away, may be."
"What?" gasped Morton.
"It wasn't only this morning we heered on it," said the old Yankee housekeeper, "and Miss Edith's gone up to Matherton, to tend on her."
"O, you mean Mrs. Leslie."
"Yes; Miss Leslie, Miss Edith's mother-in-law; she never was a well woman, ever since I've knowed her."
And the old woman closed the door; while Morton walked away, without knowing in what direction he was moving.