Herman Bang - "Ved vejen"

George Sand - "Isidora"

Harold Bell Wright - "The Uncrowned King"

S. D. Gordon - "Quiet Talks about Jesus"

Donald Finkel, 79, Poet of Free-Ranging Styles, Is Dead
Moreover Technologies - Premier purveyor of real-time news and RSS feeds from across the Web

Book Review: The Dream by Gurbaksh Chahal
Ad -

Book Review: The Dream by Gurbaksh Chahal
Donald Finkel, a noted American poet whose work teemed with curious juxtapositions, which in their unorthodoxy helped illuminate the function of poetry itself, died on Nov. 15 at his home in St. Louis. He was 79. The cause was complications of Alzheimers

A / B / C / D / E / F / G / H / I / J / K / L / M / N / O / P / R / S / T / U / V / W / Y / Z

Gordon Keith written by Thomas Nelson Page

T >> Thomas Nelson Page >> Gordon Keith




"I want you to show me about these grounds," he said, speaking so that
both ladies could hear him. He rose, and both walked out of the parlor.
When Mrs. Nailor came out, Keith and his guide were nowhere to be found,
so she had to wait; but a half-hour afterwards he and Miss Huntington
came back from the stables.

As they drove out of the grounds they passed a good-looking young fellow
just going in. Keith recognized Dr. Locaman.

"That is the young man who is so attentive to your young friend," said
Mrs. Nailor; "Dr. Locaman. He saved her life and now is going to
marry her."

It gave Keith a pang.

"I know him. He did not save her life. If anybody did that, it was an
old country doctor, Dr. Balsam."

"That old man! I thought he was dead years ago."

"Well, he is not. He is very much alive."

A few evenings later Keith found Mrs. Lancaster in the hotel. He had
just arrived from The Lawns when Mrs. Lancaster came down to dinner. Her
greeting was perfect. Even Mrs. Nailor was mystified. She had never
looked handsomer. Her black gown fitted perfectly her trim figure, and a
single red rose, half-blown, caught in her bodice was her only ornament.
She possessed the gift of simplicity. She was a beautiful walker, and as
she moved slowly down the long dining-room as smoothly as a piece of
perfect machinery, every eye was upon her. She knew that she was being
generally observed, and the color deepened in her cheeks and added the
charm of freshness to her beauty.

"By Jove! what a stunning woman!" exclaimed a man at a table near by to
his wife.

"It is not difficult to be 'a stunning woman' in a Worth gown, my dear,"
she said sweetly. "May I trouble you for the Worcestershire?"

Keith's attitude toward Mrs. Lancaster puzzled even so old a veteran as
Mrs. Nailor.

Mrs. Nailor was an adept in the art of inquisition. To know about her
friends' affairs was one of the objects of her life, and it was not only
the general facts that she insisted on knowing: she proposed to be
acquainted with their deepest secrets and the smallest particulars. She
knew Alice Lancaster's views, or believed she did; but she had never
ventured to speak on the subject to Gordon Keith. In fact, she stood in
awe of Keith, and now he had mystified her by his action. Finally, she
could stand it no longer, and so next evening she opened fire on Keith.
Having screwed her courage to the sticking-point, she attacked boldly.
She caught him on the verandah, smoking alone, and watching him closely
to catch the effect of her attack, said suddenly:

"I want to ask you a question: are you in love with Alice Lancaster?"

Keith turned slowly and looked at her, looked at her so long that she
began to blush.

"Don't you think, if I am, I had better inform her first?" he said
quietly.

Mrs. Nailor was staggered; but she was in for it, and she had to fight
her way through. "I was scared to death, my dear," she said when she
repeated this part of the conversation, "for I never know just how he is
going to take anything; but he was so quiet, I went on."

"Well, yes, I think you had," she said; "Alice can take care of herself;
but I tell you that you have no right to be carrying on with that sweet,
innocent young girl here. You know what people say of you?"

"No; I do not," said Keith. "I was not aware that I was of sufficient
importance here for people to say anything, except perhaps a few persons
who know me."

"They say you have come here to see Miss Huntington?"

"Do they?" asked Keith, so carelessly that Mrs. Nailor was just thinking
that she must be mistaken, when he added: "Well, will you ask people if
they ever heard what Andrew Jackson said to Mr. Buchanan once when he
told him it was time to go and dress to receive Lady Wellesley?"

"What did he say?" asked Mrs. Nailor.

"He said he knew a man in Tennessee who had made a fortune by attending
to his own business."

Having failed with Keith, Mrs. Nailor, the next afternoon, called on
Miss Huntington. Lois was in, and her aunt was not well; so Mrs. Nailor
had a fair field for her research. She decided to test the young girl,
and she selected the only mode which could have been successful with
herself. She proposed a surprise. She spoke of Keith and noticed the
increased interest with which the girl listened. This was promising.

"By the way," she said, "you know the report is that Mr. Keith has at
last really surrendered?"

"Has he? I am so glad. If ever a man deserved happiness it is he. Who is
it?"

The entire absence of self-consciousness in Lois's expression and voice
surprised Mrs. Nailor.

"Mrs. Lancaster," she said, watching for the effect of her answer. "Of
course, you know he has always been in love with her?"

The girl's expression of unfeigned admiration of Mrs. Lancaster gave
Mrs. Nailor another surprise. She decided that she had been mistaken in
suspecting her of caring for Keith.

"He has evidently not proposed yet. If she were a little older I should
be certain of it," she said to herself as she drove away; "but these
girls are so secretive one can never tell about them. Even I could not
look as innocent as that to save my life if I were interested."

That evening Keith called at The Lawns. He did not take with him a
placid spirit. Mrs. Nailor's shaft had gone home, and it rankled. He
tried to assure himself that what people were thinking had nothing to do
with him. But suppose Miss Abigail took this view of the matter? He
determined to ascertain. One solution of the difficulty lay plain before
him: he could go away. Another presented itself, but it was
preposterous. Of all the women he knew Lois Huntington was the least
affected by him in the way that flatters a man. She liked him, he knew;
but if he could read women at all, and he thought he could, she liked
him only as a friend, and had not a particle of sentiment about him. He
was easy, then, as to the point Mrs. Nailor had raised; but had he the
right to subject Lois to gossip? This was the main thing that troubled
him. He was half angry with himself that it kept rising in his mind. He
determined to find out what her aunt thought of it, and decided that he
could let that direct his course. This salved his conscience. Once or
twice the question dimly presented itself whether it were possible that
Lois could care for him. He banished it resolutely.

When he reached The Lawns, he found that Miss Abigail was sick, so the
virtuous plan he had formed fell through. He was trying to fancy himself
sorry; but when Lois came out on the verandah in dainty blue gown which
fell softly about her girlish figure, and seated herself with
unconscious grace in the easy-chair he pushed up for her, he knew that
he was glad to have her all to himself. They fell to talking about
her aunt.

"I am dreadfully uneasy about her," the girl said. "Once or twice of
late she has had something like fainting spells, and the last one was
very alarming. You don't know what she has been to me." She looked up at
him with a silent appeal for sympathy which made his heart beat. "She is
the only mother I ever knew, and she is all I have in the world." Her
voice faltered, and she turned away her head. A tear stole down her
cheek and dropped in her lap. "I am so glad you like each other. I hear
you are engaged," she said suddenly.

He was startled; it chimed in so with the thought in his mind at the
moment.

"No, I am not; but I would like to be."

He came near saying a great deal more; but the girl's eyes were fixed on
him so innocently that he for a moment hesitated. He felt it would be
folly, if not sacrilege, to go further.

Just then there was a step on the walk, and the young man Keith had
seen, Dr. Locaman, came up the steps. He was a handsome man, stout, well
dressed, and well satisfied.

Keith could have consigned him and all his class to a distant and torrid
clime.

He came up the steps cheerily and began talking at once. He was so glad
to see Keith, and had he heard lately from Dr. Balsam?--"such a fine
type of the old country doctor," etc.

No, Keith said; he had not heard lately. His manner had stiffened at
the young man's condescension, and he rose to go.

He said casually to Lois, as he shook hands, "How did you hear the piece
of news you mentioned?"

"Mrs. Nailor told me. You must tell me all about it."

"I will sometime."

"I hope you will be very happy," she said earnestly; "you deserve to
be." Her eyes were very soft.

"No, I do not," said Keith, almost angrily. "I am not at all what you
suppose me to be."

"I will not allow you to say such things of yourself," she said,
smiling. "I will not stand my friends being abused even by themselves."

Keith felt his courage waning. Her beauty, her sincerity, her
tenderness, her innocence, her sweetness thrilled him. He turned back to
her abruptly.

"I hope you will always think that of me," he said earnestly. "I promise
to try to deserve it. Good-by."

"Good-by. Don't forget me." She held out her hand.

Keith took it and held it for a second.

"Never," he said, looking her straight in the eyes. "Good-by"; and with
a muttered good-by to Dr. Locaman, who stood with wide-open eyes gazing
at him, he turned and went down the steps.

"I don't like that man," said the young Doctor. This speech sealed his
fate.

"Don't you? I do," said Lois, half dreamily. Her thoughts were far from
the young physician at that moment; and when they returned to him, she
knew that she would never marry him. A half-hour later, he knew it.

The next morning Lois received a note from Keith, saying he had left for
his home.

When he bade Mrs. Lancaster good-by that evening, she looked as if she
were really sorry that he was going. She walked with him down the
verandah toward where his carriage awaited him, and Keith thought she
had never looked sweeter.

He had never had a confidante,--at least, since he was a college
boy,--and a little of the old feeling came to him. He lingered a little;
but just then Mrs. Nailor came out of the door near him. For a moment
Keith could almost have fancied he was back on the verandah at Gates's.
Her mousing around had turned back the dial a dozen years.

Just what brought it about, perhaps, no one of the participants in the
little drama could have told; but from this time the relations between
the two ladies whom Keith left at the hotel that Summer night somehow
changed. Not outwardly, for they still sat and talked together; but they
were both conscious of a difference. They rather fenced with each other
after that. Mrs. Nailor set it down to a simple cause. Mrs. Lancaster
was in love with Gordon Keith, and he had not addressed her. Of this she
was satisfied. Yet she was a little mystified. Mrs. Lancaster hardly
defined the reason to herself. She simply shut up on the side toward
Mrs. Nailor, and barred her out. A strange thing was that she and Miss
Huntington became great friends. They took to riding together, walking
together, and seeing a great deal of each other, the elder lady spending
much of her time up at Miss Huntington's home, among the shrubbery and
flowers of the old place. It was a mystification to Mrs. Nailor, who
frankly confessed that she could only account for it on the ground that
Mrs. Lancaster wanted to find out how far matters had gone between Keith
and Miss Huntington. "That girl is a sly minx," she said. "These
governesses learn to be deceptive. I would not have her in my house."

If there was a more dissatisfied mortal in the world than Gordon Keith
that Autumn Keith did not know him. He worked hard, but it did not ease
his mind. He tried retiring to his old home, as he had done in the
Summer; but it was even worse than it had been then. Rumor came to him
that Lois Huntington was engaged. It came through Mrs. Nailor, and he
could not verify it; but, at least, she was lost to him. He cursed
himself for a fool.

The picture of Mrs. Lancaster began to come to him oftener and oftener
as she had appeared to him that night on the verandah--handsome,
dignified, serene, sympathetic. Why should he not seek release by this
way? He had always admired, liked her. He felt her sympathy; he
recognized her charm; he appreciated her--yes, her advantage. Curse it!
that was the trouble. If he were only in love with her! If she were not
so manifestly advantageous, then he might think his feeling was more
than friendship; for she was everything that he admired.

He was just in this frame of mind when a letter came from Rhodes, who
had come home soon after Keith's visit to him. He had not been very
well, and they had decided to take a yacht-cruise in Southern waters,
and would he not come along? He could join them at either Hampton Roads
or Savannah, and they were going to run over to the Bermudas.

Keith telegraphed that he would join them, and two days later turned his
face to the South. Twenty-four hours afterwards he was stepping up the
gangway and being welcomed by as gay a group as ever fluttered
handkerchiefs to cheer a friend. Among them the first object that had
caught his eye as he rowed out was the straight, lithe figure of Mrs.
Lancaster. A man is always ready to think Providence interferes
specially in his, case, provided the interpretation accords with his own
views, and this looked to Keith very much as if it were Providence. For
one thing, it saved him the trouble of thinking further of a matter
which, the more he thought of it, the more he was perplexed. She came
forward with the others, and welcomed him with her old frank, cordial
grasp of the hand and gracious air. When he was comfortably settled, he
felt a distinct self-content that he had decided to come.

A yacht-cruise is dependent on three things: the yacht itself, the
company on board, and the weather. Keith had no cause to complain of
any of these.

The "Virginia Dare" was a beautiful boat, and the weather was
perfect--just the weather for a cruise in Southern waters. The company
were all friends of Keith; and Keith found himself sailing in Summer
seas, with Summer airs breathing about him. Keith was at his best. He
was richly tanned by exposure, and as hard as a nail from work in the
open air. Command of men had given him that calm assurance which is the
mark of the captain. Ambition--ambition to be, not merely to
possess--was once more calling to him with her inspiring voice, and as
he hearkened his face grew more and more distinguished. Providence,
indeed, or Grinnell Rhodes was working his way, and it seemed to him--he
admitted it with a pang of contempt for himself at the admission--that
Mrs. Lancaster was at least acquiescent in their hands. Morning after
morning they sat together in the shadow of the sail, and evening after
evening together watched the moon with an ever-rounder golden circle
steal up the cloudless sky. Keith was pleased to find how much
interested he was becoming. Each day he admired her more and more; and
each day he found her sweeter than she had been before. Once or twice
she spoke to him of Lois Huntington, but each time she mentioned her,
Keith turned the subject. She said that they had expected to have her
join them; but she could not leave her aunt.

"I hear she is engaged," said Keith.

"Yes, I heard that. I do not believe it. Whom did you hear it from?"

"Mrs. Nailor."

"So did I."



CHAPTER XXXVI

THE OLD IDEAL

One evening they sat on deck. Alice Lancaster had never appeared so
sweet. It happened that Mrs. Rhodes had a headache and was down below,
and Rhodes declared that he had some writing to do. So Mrs. Lancaster
and Keith had the deck to themselves.

They had been sailing for weeks among emerald isles and through waters
as blue as heaven. Even the "still-vex'd Bermoothes" had lent them their
gentlest airs.

They had left the Indies and were now approaching the American shore.
Their cruise was almost at an end, and possibly a little sadness had
crept over them both. As she had learned more and more of his life and
more and more of his character, she had found herself ready to give up
everything for him if he only gave her what she craved. But one thing
had made itself plain to Alice: Keith was not in love with her as she
knew he could be in love. If he were in love, it was with an ideal. And
her woman's intuition told her that she was not that ideal.

This evening she was unusually pensive. She had never looked lovelier or
been more gracious and charming, and as Keith thought of the past and of
the future,--the long past in which they had been friends, the long
future in which he would live alone,--his thought took the form of
resolve. Why should they not always be together? She knew that he liked
her, so he had not much to do to go further. The moon was just above the
horizon, making a broad golden pathway to them. The soft lapping of the
waves against the boat seemed to be a lullaby suited to the peacefulness
of the scene; and the lovely form before him, clad in soft raiment that
set it off; the fair face and gentle voice, appeared to fill everything
with graciousness. Keith had more than once, in the past few weeks,
considered how he would bring the subject up, and what he would say if
he ever addressed her. He did not, however, go about it in the way he
had planned. It seemed to him to come up spontaneously. Under the spell
of the Summer night they had drifted into talking of old times, and they
both softened as their memory went back to their youth and their
friendship that had begun among the Southern woods and had lasted so
many years.

She had spoken of the influence his opinions had had with her.

"Do you know," he said presently, "I think you have exerted more
influence on my life than any one else I ever knew after I grew up?"

She smiled, and her face was softer than usual.

"I should be very glad to think that, for I think there are few men who
set out in life with such ideals as you had and afterwards
realize them."

Keith thought of his father and of how steadily that old man had held to
his ideals through everything. "I have not realized them," he said
firmly. "I fear I have lost most of them. I set out in life with high
ideals, which I got from my father; but, somehow, I seem to have
changed them."

She shook her head, with a pleasant light in her eyes.

"I do not think you have. Do you remember what you said to me once about
your ideal?"

He turned and faced her. There was an expression of such softness and
such sweetness in her face that a kind of anticipatory happiness fell
on him.

"Yes; and I have always been in love with that ideal," he said gravely.

She said gently: "Yes, I knew it."

"Did you?" asked Keith, in some surprise. "I scarcely knew it myself,
though I believe I have been for some time."

"Yes?" she said. "I knew that too."

Keith bent over her and took both her hands in his. "I love and want
love in return--more than I can ever tell you."

A change came over her face, and she drew in her breath suddenly,
glanced at him for a second, and then looked away, her eyes resting at
last on the distance where a ship lay, her sails hanging idly in the dim
haze. It might have been a dream-ship. At Keith's words a picture came
to her out of the past. A young man was seated on the ground, with a
fresh-budding bush behind him. Spring was all about them. He was young
and slender and sun-browned, with deep-burning eyes and close-drawn
mouth, with the future before him; whatever befell, with the hope and
the courage to conquer. He had conquered, as he then said he would to
the young girl seated beside him.

"When I love," he was saying, "she must fill full the measure of my
dreams. She must uplift me. She must have beauty and sweetness; she must
choose the truth as that bird chooses the flowers. And to such an one I
will give worship without end."

Years after, she had come across the phrase again in a poem. And at the
words the same picture had come to her, and a sudden hunger for love,
for such love,--the love she had missed in life,--had seized her. But it
was then too late. She had taken in its place respect and companionship,
a great establishment and social prominence.

For a moment her mother, sitting calm and calculating in the little room
at Ridgely, foretelling her future and teaching, with commercial
exactness, the advantages of such a union, flashed before her; and then
once more for a moment came the heart-hunger for what she had missed.

Why should she not take the gift thus held out to her? She liked him and
he liked her. She trusted him. It was the best chance of happiness she
would ever have. Besides, she could help him. He had powers, and she
could give him the opportunity to develop them. Love would come. Who
could tell? Perhaps, the other happiness might yet be hers. Why should
she throw it away? Would not life bring the old dream yet? Could it
bring it? Here was this man whom she had known all her life, who filled
almost the measure of her old dream, at her feet again. But was this
love? Was this the "worship with out end"? As her heart asked the
question, and she lifted her eyes to his face, the answer came with it:
No. He was too cool, too calm. This was but friendship and respect, that
same "safe foundation" she had tried. This might do for some, but not
for him. She had seen him, and she knew what he could feel. She had
caught a glimpse of him that evening when Ferdy Wickersham was so
attentive to the little Huntington girl. She had seen him that night in
the theatre when the fire occurred. He was in love; but it was with Lois
Huntington, and happiness might yet be his.

The next moment Alice's better nature reasserted itself. The picture of
the young girl sitting with her serious face and her trustful eyes came
back to her. Lois, moved by her sympathy and friendship, had given her a
glimpse of her true heart, which she knew she would have died before she
would have shown another. She had confided in her absolutely. She heard
the tones of her voice:

"Why, Mrs. Lancaster, I dream of him. He seems to me so real, so true.
For such a man I could--I could worship him!" Then came the sudden
lifting of the veil; the straight, confiding, appealing glance, the
opening of the soul, and the rush to her knees as she appealed for him.

It all passed through Mrs. Lancaster's mind as she looked far away over
the slumbering sea, while Keith waited for her answer.

When she glanced up at Keith he was leaning over the rail, looking far
away, his face calm and serious. What was he thinking of? Certainly
not of her.

"No, you are not--not in love with me," she said firmly.

Keith started, and looked down on her with a changed expression.

She raised her hand with a gesture of protest, rose and stood beside
him, facing him frankly.

"You are in love, but not with me."

Keith took her hand. She did not take it from him; indeed, she caught
his hand with a firm clasp.

"Oh, no; you are not," she smiled. "I have had men in love with me--"

"You have had one, I know--" he began.

"Yes, once, a long time ago--and I know the difference. I told you once
that I was not what you thought me."

"And I told you--" began Keith; but she did not pause.

"I am still less so now. I am not in the least what you think me--or you
are not what I think you."

"You are just what I think you," began Keith. "You are the most charming
woman in the world--you are my--" He hesitated as she looked straight
into his eyes and shook her head.

"What? No, I am not. I am a worldly, world-worn woman. Oh, yes, I am,"
as dissent spoke in his face. "I know the world and am a part of it and
depend upon it. Yes, I am. I am not so far gone that I cannot recognize
and admire what is better, higher, and nobler than the world of which I
speak; but I am bound to the wheel--Is not that the illustration you
wrote me once? I thought then it was absurd. I know now how true it is."

"I do not think you are," declared Keith. "If you were, I would claim
the right to release you--to save you for--yourself and--"

She shook her head.

"No, no. I have become accustomed to my Sybarite's couch of which you
used to tell me. Would you be willing to give up all you have striven
for and won--your life--the honors you have won and hope to win?"

"They are nothing--those I have won! Those I hope to win, I would win
for us both. You should help me. They would be for you, Alice." His eyes
were deep in hers.

She fetched a long sigh.

"No, no; once, perhaps, I might have--but now it is too late. I chose my
path and must follow it. You would not like to give up all you--hope
for--and become like--some we know?"

"God forbid!"

"And I say, 'Amen.' And if you would, I would not be willing to have you
do it. You are too much to me--I honor you too much," she corrected
quickly, as she caught the expression in his face. "I could not let you
sink into a--society man--like--some of those I sit next to and dance
with and drive with and--enjoy and despise. Do I not know that if you
loved me you would have convinced me of it in a moment? You have not
convinced me. You are in love,--as you said just now,--but not with me.
You are in love with Lois Huntington."