第63章

Tracy wrote his father before he sought his bed.He wrote a letter which he believed would get better treatment than his cablegram received, for it contained what ought to be welcome news; namely, that he had tried equality and working for a living; had made a fight which he could find no reason to be ashamed of, and in the matter of earning a living had proved that he was able to do it; but that on the whole he had arrived at the conclusion that he could not reform the world single-handed, and was willing to retire from the conflict with the fair degree of honor which he had gained, and was also willing to return home and resume his position and be content with it and thankful for it for the future, leaving further experiment of a missionary sort to other young people needing the chastening and quelling persuasions of experience, the only logic sure to convince a diseased imagination and restore it to rugged health.Then he approached the subject of marriage with the daughter of the American Claimant with a good deal of caution and much painstaking art.He said praiseful and appreciative things about the girl, but didn't dwell upon that detail or make it prominent.The thing which he made prominent was the opportunity now so happily afforded, to reconcile York and Lancaster, graft the warring roses upon one stem, and end forever a crying injustice which had already lasted far too long.One could infer that he had thought this thing all out and chosen this way of making all things fair and right because it was sufficiently fair and considerably wiser than the renunciation-scheme which he had brought with him from England.One could infer that, but he didn't say it.In fact the more he read his letter over, the more he got to inferring it himself.

When the old earl received that letter, the first part of it filled him with a grim and snarly satisfaction; but the rest of it brought a snort or two out of him that could be translated differently.He wasted no ink in this emergency, either in cablegrams or letters; he promptly took ship for America to look into the matter himself.He had staunchly held his grip all this long time, and given no sign of the hunger at his heart to see his son; hoping for the cure of his insane dream, and resolute that the process should go through all the necessary stages without assuaging telegrams q other nonsense from home, and here was victory at last.

Victory, but stupidly marred by this idiotic marriage project.Yes, he would step over and take a hand in this matter himself.

During the first ten days following the mailing of the letter Tracy's spirits had no idle time; they were always climbing up into the clouds or sliding down into the earth as deep as the law of gravitation reached.

He was intensely happy or intensely miserable by turns, according to Miss Sally's moods.He never could tell when the mood was going to change, and when it changed he couldn't tell what it was that had changed it.

Sometimes she was so in love with him that her love was tropical, torrid, and she could find no language fervent enough for its expression; then suddenly, and without warning or any apparent reason, the weather would change, and the victim would find himself adrift among the icebergs and feeling as lonesome and friendless as the north pole.It sometimes seemed to him that a man might better be dead than exposed to these devastating varieties of climate.

The case was simple.Sally wanted to believe that Tracy's preference was disinterested; so she was always applying little tests of one sort or another, hoping and expecting that they would bring out evidence which would confirm or fortify her belief.Poor Tracy did not know that these experiments were being made upon him, consequently he walked promptly into all the traps the girl set for him.These traps consisted in apparently casual references to social distinction, aristocratic title and privilege, and such things.Often Tracy responded to these references heedlessly and not much caring what he said provided it kept the talk going and prolonged the seance.He didn't suspect that the girl was watching his face and listening for his words as one who watches the judge's face and listens for the words which will restore him to home and friends and freedom or shut him away from the sun and human companionship forever.He didn'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 girl's heart, nightly he sent her to the rack for sleep.He couldn'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 couldn'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 Sally'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 wasn't when she went out of it.

In circumstances like these a growing portrait runs a good many risks.