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companionship forever. He didnā€™t suspect that his careless words were being weighed, and so he often delivered sentence of death when it would have been just as handy and all the same to him to pronounce acquittal. Daily he broke the girlā€™s heart, nightly he sent her to the rack for sleep. He couldnā€™t understand it.

Some people would have put this and that together and perceived that the weather never changed until one particular subject was introduced, and that then it always changed. And they would have looked further, and perceived that that subject was always introduced by the one party, never the other. They would have argued, then, that this was done for a purpose. If they could not find out what that purpose was in any simpler or easier way, they would ask.

But Tracy was not deep enough or suspicious enough to think of these things. He noticed only one particular; that the weather was always sunny when a visit began. No matter how much it might cloud up later, it always began with a clear sky. He couldnā€™t explain this curious fact to himself, he merely knew it to be a fact. The truth of the matter was, that by the time Tracy had been out of Sallyā€™s sight six hours she was so famishing for a sight of him that her doubts and suspicions were all consumed away in the fire of that longing, and so always she came into his presence as surprisingly radiant and joyous as she wasnā€™t when she went out of it.

In circumstances like these a growing portrait runs a good many risks. The portrait of Sellers, by Tracy, was fighting along, day by day, through this mixed weather, and daily adding to itself ineradicable signs of the checkered life it was leading. It was the happiest portrait, in spots, that was ever seen; but in other spots a damned soul looked out from it; a soul that was suffering all the different kinds of distress there are, from stomach ache to rabies. But Sellers liked it. He said it was just himself all overā€”a portrait that sweated moods from every pore, and no two moods alike. He said he had as many different kinds of emotions in him as a jug.

It was a kind of a deadly work of art, maybe, but it was a starchy picture for show; for it was life size, full length, and represented the American earl in a peerā€™s scarlet robe, with the three ermine bars indicative of an earlā€™s rank, and on the gray head an earlā€™s coronet, tilted just a wee bit to one side in a most gallus and winsome way. When Sallyā€™s weather was sunny the portrait made Tracy chuckle, but when her weather was overcast it disordered his mind and stopped the circulation of his blood.

Late one night when the sweethearts had been having a flawless visit together, Sallyā€™s interior devil began to work his specialty, and soon the conversation was drifting toward the customary rock. Presently, in the midst of Tracyā€™s serene flow of talk, he felt a shudder which he knew was not his shudder, but exterior to his breast although immediately against it. After the shudder came sobs; Sally was crying.

ā€œOh, my darling, what have I doneā€”what have I said? It has happened again! What have I done to wound you?ā€

She disengaged herself from his arms and gave him a look of deep reproach.

ā€œWhat have you done? I will tell you what you have done. You have unwittingly revealedā€”oh, for the twentieth time, though I could not believe it, would not believe it!ā€”that it is not me you love, but that foolish sham my fatherā€™s imitation earldom; and you have broken my heart!ā€

ā€œOh, my child, what are you saying! I never dreamed of such a thing.ā€

ā€œOh, Howard, Howard, the things you have uttered when you were forgetting to guard your tongue, have betrayed you.ā€

ā€œThings I have uttered when I was forgetting to guard my tongue? These are hard words. When have I remembered to guard it? Never in one instance. It has no office but to speak the truth. It needs no guarding for that.ā€

ā€œHoward, I have noted your words and weighed them, when you were not thinking of their significanceā€”and they have told me more than you meant they should.ā€

ā€œDo you mean to say you have answered the trust I had in you by using it as an ambuscade from which you could set snares for my unsuspecting tongue and be safe from detection while you did it? You have not done thisā€”surely you have not done this thing. Oh, oneā€™s enemy could not do it.ā€

This was an aspect of the girlā€™s conduct which she had not clearly perceived before. Was it treachery? Had she abused a trust? The thought crimsoned her cheeks with shame and remorse.

ā€œOh, forgive me,ā€ she said, ā€œI did not know what I was doing. I have been so torturedā€”you will forgive me, you must; I have suffered so much, and I am so sorry and so humble; you do forgive me, donā€™t you?ā€”donā€™t turn away, donā€™t refuse me; it is only my love that is at fault, and you know I love you, love you with all my heart; I couldnā€™t bear toā€”oh, dear, dear, I am so miserable, and I sever meant any harm, and I didnā€™t see where this insanity was carrying me, and how it was wronging and abusing the dearest heart in all the world to meā€”andā€”andā€”oh, take me in your arms again, I have no other refuge, no other home and hope!ā€

There was reconciliation againā€”immediate, perfect, all-embracingā€”and with it utter happiness. This would have been a good time to adjourn. But no, now that the cloud-breeder was revealed at last; now that it was manifest that all the sour weather had come from this girlā€™s dread that Tracy was lured by her rank and not herself, he resolved to lay that ghost immediately and permanently by furnishing the best possible proof that he couldnā€™t have had back of him at any time the suspected motive. So he said:

ā€œLet me whisper a little secret in your earā€”a secret which I have kept shut up in my breast all this time. Your rank couldnā€™t ever have been an enticement. I am son and heir to an English earl!ā€

The girl stared at himā€”one, two, three moments, maybe a dozenā€”then her lips parted:

ā€œYou?ā€ she said, and moved away from him, still gazing at him in a kind of blank amazement.

ā€œWhyā€”why, certainly I am. Why do you act like this? What have I done now?ā€

ā€œWhat have you done? You have certainly made a most strange statement. You must see that yourself.ā€

ā€œWell,ā€ with a timid little laugh, ā€œit may be a strange enough statement; but of what consequence is that, if it is true?ā€

ā€œIf it is true. You are already retiring from it.ā€

ā€œOh, not for a moment! You should not say that. I have not deserved it. I have spoken the truth; why do you doubt it?ā€

Her reply was prompt.

ā€œSimply because you didnā€™t speak it earlier!ā€

ā€œOh!ā€ It wasnā€™t a groan, exactly, but it was an intelligible enough expression of the fact that he saw the point and recognized that there was reason in it.

ā€œYou have seemed to conceal nothing from me that I ought to know concerning yourself, and you were not privileged to keep back such a thing as this from me a moment afterā€”afterā€”well, after you had determined to pay your court to me.ā€

ā€œIts true, itā€™s true, I know it! But there were circumstancesā€”inā€” in the wayā€”circumstances whichā€”ā€

She waved the circumstances aside.

ā€œWell, you see,ā€ he said, pleadingly, ā€œyou seemed so bent on our traveling the proud path of honest labor and honorable poverty, that I was terrifiedā€”that is, I was afraidā€”ofā€”ofā€”well, you know how you talked.ā€

ā€œYes, I know how I talked. And I also know that before the talk was finished you inquired how I stood as regards aristocracies, and my answer was calculated to relieve your fears.ā€

He was silent a while. Then he said, in a discouraged way:

ā€œI donā€™t see any way out of it. It was a mistake. That is in truth all it was, just a mistake. No harm was meant, no harm in the world. I didnā€™t see how it might some time look. It is my way. I donā€™t seem to see far.ā€

The girl was almost disarmed, for a moment. Then she flared up again.

ā€œAn Earlā€™s son! Do earlsā€™ sons go about working in lowly callings for their bread and butter?ā€

ā€œGod knows they donā€™t! I have wished they did.ā€

ā€œDo earlsā€™ sons sink their degree in a country like this, and come sober and decent to sue for the hand of a born child of poverty when they can go drunk, profane, and steeped in dishonorable debt and buy the pick and choice of the millionairesā€™ daughters of America? You an earlā€™s son! Show me the signs.ā€

ā€œI thank God I am not ableā€”if those are the signs. But yet I am an earlā€™s son and heir. It is all I can say. I wish you would believe me, but you will not. I know no way to persuade you.ā€

She was about to soften again, but his closing remark made her bring her foot down with smart vexation, and she cried out:

ā€œOh, you drive all patience out of me! Would you have one believe that you havenā€™t your proofs at hand, and yet are what you say you are? You do not put your hand in your pocket nowā€”for you have nothing there. You make a claim like this, and then venture to travel without credentials. These are simply incredibilities. Donā€™t you see that, yourself?ā€

He cast about in his mind for a defence of some kind or otherā€”hesitated a little, and then said, with difficulty and diffidence:

ā€œI will tell you just the truth, foolish as it will seem to youā€” to anybody, I supposeā€”but it is the truth. I had an idealā€”call it a dream, a folly, if you willā€”but I wanted to renounce the privileges and unfair advantages enjoyed by the nobility and wrung from the nation by force and fraud, and purge myself of my share of those crimes against right and reason, by thenceforth comrading with the poor and humble on equal terms, earning with my own hands the bread I ate, and rising by my own merit if I rose at all.ā€

The young girl scanned his face narrowly while he spoke; and there was something about his simplicity of manner and statement which touched her ā€”touched her almost to the danger point; but she set her grip on the yielding spirit and choked it to quiescence; it could not be wise to surrender to compassion or any kind of sentiment, yet; she must ask one or two more questions. Tracy was reading her face; and what he read there lifted his drooping hopes a little.

ā€œAn earlā€™s son to do that! Why, he were a man! A man to love!ā€”oh, more, a man to worship!ā€

ā€œWhy?ā€

ā€œBut he never lived! He is not born, he will not be born. The self-abnegation that could do thatā€”even in utter folly, and hopeless of conveying benefit to any, beyond the mere exampleā€”could be mistaken for greatness; why, it would be greatness in this cold age of sordid ideals! A momentā€”waitā€”let me finish; I have one question more. Your father is earl of what?ā€

ā€œRossmoreā€”and I am Viscount Berkeley!ā€

The fat was in the fire again. The girl felt so outraged that it was difficult for her to speak.

ā€œHow can you venture such a brazen thing! You know that he is dead, and you know that I know it. Oh, to rob the

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