The expression of Ida Mayhew's face was cold and defiant on the following day.She did not attend church with her mother,but remained all the morning in her room.She not only avoided opportunities of speaking to Van Berg when coming down to dinner and during the afternoon,but she would not even look towards him;and her manner towards her cousin also was decidedly icy.
"I don't know what is the matter with Ida,"her mother remarked to Stanton;"she has acted so strangely of late.""It's the old complaint,I imagine,"he replied with a shrug.
"What's that?"
"Caprice."
"Oh,well!she's no worse than other pretty,fashionable girls,"said Miss Mayhew,carelessly.
Stanton,in his anger on the previous evening,had not spoken of his cousin to Van Berg in a very complimentary way;but the artist remembered that the young man himself was not in a condition to form either a correct or charitable judgment;while the fact that Ida,as a result of his remonstrance,had gone directly to her room,was in her favor.He still resolved to suspend his final opinion and not to give over his project until satisfied that her nature contained too much alloy to permit of its success.He paid no heed therefore to her coldness of manner;and when at last meeting her face to face on the piazza Sunday evening,he lifted his hat as politely as possible.
Sibley did not appear until the arrival of the dinner hour.He was under the impression that he had gone a little too far the night before,and tried to make amends by an immaculate toilet and an urbane yet dignified courtesy towards all whom he knew.Society very readily winks at the indiscretions of wealthy young men.
Moreover,he had been inveigled back to his room before his condition had been observed to any extent.There fore he found himself so well received in the main,that he soon fully recovered his wonted self-assurance.
Mrs.Mayhew was particularly gracious;and Ida,who at first had been somewhat distant towards him as well as all others,concluded that she had not sufficient cause to be ashamed of him,and so it came about that they spent much of the afternoon and evening together.She did not fail to note,however,that when he approached Van Berg he received a cold and curt reception.Was jealousy the cause of this?In her elation and excitement on the previous evening,she had been inclined to think so,but now she feared that it was because the artist despised the man;and in her secret soul she was compelled to admit that he had reason to despise him--yes,to despise them both.She felt,with bitter humiliation,that his superiority was not assumed but real.
More than once before the day closed,she found herself contrasting the two men.The one had not had a shred of true worth about him.
Stanton,to teaze her and to justify his interference,had told her that Mr.Burleigh had been compelled to take charge of her companion in order to prevent him from disgracing himself and the house.
Although too proud to acknowledge it,she still saw plainly that it was her cousin's interference,and indirectly the intervention of the artist that had kept her from being involved in that disgrace.
Even her perverted mind recognized that one was a gentleman,and the other--well,"a fashionable young man,"as she would phrase it.The one,as a friend,would shield her from every detracting breath;the other,if given a chance,would inevitably tumble into some slough of infamy himself,and drag her after him with reckless selfishness.
Still,with something like self-loathing,she saw that Sibley was her natural ally and companion,and that she had far more in common with him than with the artist.She could easily maintain with him the inane chatter of their frivolous life,but she could not talk with the artist,nor he with her,without an effort that was as humiliating as it was apparent.
What was more,she saw that all others classed her with Sibley,and that the people in the house who were akin to the artist in character and high breeding,stood courteously but coolly aloof from both herself and her mother.She also felt that she could not lay all the blame of this upon her poor father.Indeed,since the previous miserable Sunday on which Van Berg had tried to win Mr.Mayhew from his evil habit for one day at least,and she had thwarted his kindly intention,she had begun to feel that she and her mother were the chief causes of his increasing degradation.
Others,she feared,and especially Van Berg,took the same view.
With such thoughts surging up in her mind and clouding her brow,Sibley did not find her altogether the same girl that she had been the evening before.Still,as has been said,he was her natural ally,and she tried to second his efforts to re-establish a good character and to keep up the appearance of fashionable respect.
Stanton was in something of a dilemma.He did not like Sibley,and was ashamed of his recent excess;but having drank with him,and so,in a sense,having accepted his hospitality,felt himself obliged to be rather affable.He managed the matter by keeping out of the way as far as possible,and was glad to remember that the young man would depart in the morning.While scarcely acknowledging the fact to himself,he was on the alert most of the day to find an opportunity of enjoying a conversation with Miss Burton;but she kept herself very much secluded.After attending church at a neighboring village in the morning,she spent most of the afternoon with Mrs.Burleigh,assisting her in the care of the cross baby.
Van Berg,much to Stanton's envy,found her as genial and cheery as ever when they met at the table.He learned,from her manner more than from anything she said,that the day and its associations were sacred to her.She affected no solemnity and seemed under no constraint,only her thought and bearing had a somewhat soberer coloring,like the shading of a picture.To his mind it was but another example of her entire reticence in regard to herself,while her smiling face seemed as open as the light.