Dorian

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

It is no doubt a wise pro­vi­sion of na­ture that the cold of win­ter clos­es the ac­tiv­ity in field and gar­den, thus al­low­ing time for study by the home fire. Do­ri­an Trent's li­brary, hav­ing been great­ly en­larged, now be­came to him a source of much plea­sure and prof­it. Books which he nev­er dreamed of pos­sess­ing were now on his shelves. In some peo­ple's opin­ion, he was too well sat­is­fied to re­main in his cosy room and bury him­self in his books; but his moth­er found no fault. She was al­ways wel­come to come and go; and in fact, much of the time he sat with her by the kitchen fire, read­ing aloud and dis­cussing with her the con­tents of his book.

Do­ri­an found, as Un­cle Zed had, won­der­ful ar­gu­ments for the truth of the gospel in Or­son and Par­ley P. Pratt's works. In look­ing through the “Jour­nal of Dis­cours­es,” he found mark­ings by many of the ser­mons, es­pe­cial­ly by those of Brigham Young. Do­ri­an al­ways read the pas­sages thus in­di­cat­ed, for he liked to re­al­ize that he was fol­low­ing the for­mer own­er of the book even in his think­ing. The ear­ly vol­umes of the “Mil­len­ni­al Star” con­tained some in­ter­est­ing read­ing. Very like­ly, the doc­tri­nal ar­ti­cles of these first el­ders were no bet­ter than those of more re­cent writ­ers, but their plain blunt­ness and their very age seemed to give them charm.

By his read­ing that win­ter Do­ri­an ob­tained an en­larged view of his re­li­gion. It gave him vi­sion to see and to com­pre­hend bet­ter the whole and thus to more ful­ly un­der­stand the de­tails. Be­sides, he was lay­ing a broad and firm foun­da­tion for his faith in God and the re­stored gospel of Je­sus Christ, a faith which would stand him well in need when he came to delve in­to a faith­less and a God­less sci­ence.

Not that Do­ri­an be­came a her­mit. He took an ac­tive part in the Green­street ward or­ga­ni­za­tions. He was sec­re­tary of the Mu­tu­al, al­ways at­tend­ed Sun­day School, and usu­al­ly went to the ward dances. As he be­came old­er he over­came some of his shy­ness with girls; and as pros­per­ity came to him, he could dress bet­ter and have his mass of rusty-​red hair more fre­quent­ly trimmed by the city bar­ber. More than one of the dis­cern­ing Green­street girls laid their caps for the big, hand­some young fel­low.

And Do­ri­an's thoughts, we must know, were not all the time oc­cu­pied with the phi­los­ophy of Or­son Pratt. He was a very nat­ural young man, and there were some very charm­ing girls in Green­street. When, ar­rayed in their Sun­day best, they sat in the ward choir, he, not be­ing a mem­ber of the choir, could look at them to his heart's con­tent, first at one and then at an­oth­er along the dou­ble row. Car­lia Duke usu­al­ly sat on the front row where he could see her clear­ly and com­pare her with the oth­ers--and she did not suf­fer by the com­par­ison.

Do­ri­an now be­gin to re­al­ize that it was self­ish, if not fool­ish, to think al­ways of the dead Mil­dred to the ex­clu­sion of the very much alive Car­lia. Mil­dred was safe in the world of spir­its, where he would some day meet her again; but un­til that time, he had this life to live and those about him to think of. Car­lia was a dear girl, beau­ti­ful, too, now in her ma­tur­ing wom­an­hood. None of the oth­er girls touched his heart as Car­lia. He had tak­en a num­ber of them to dances, but he had al­ways come back, in his thought, at least, to Car­lia. But her ac­tions late­ly had been much of a puz­zle. Some­times she seemed to wel­come him ea­ger­ly when he called, at oth­er times she tried to evade him. No doubt this Mr. Jack La­mont was the dis­turb­ing el­ement. That win­ter he could be seen com­ing quite open­ly to the Duke home, and when the weath­er would per­mit, Car­lia would be rid­ing with him in his au­to­mo­bile. The neigh­bors talked, but the fa­ther could on­ly shake his head and ex­plain that Car­lia was a will­ful girl.

Now when it seemed that Car­lia was to be won by this very gal­lant stranger, Do­ri­an be­gan to re­al­ize what a loss she would be to him. He was sure he loved the girl, but what did that avail if she did not love him in re­turn. He held to the opin­ion that such at­trac­tions should be mu­tu­al. He could see no sense in the old-​time cus­tom of the knight win­ning his la­dy love by force of arms or by the fleet­ness of horse's legs.

How­ev­er, Do­ri­an was not easy in his mind, and it came to the point when he suf­fered se­vere heartaches when he knew of Car­lia's be­ing with the stranger. The Christ­mas hol­idays that sea­son were near­ly spoiled for him. He had asked Car­lia a num­ber of times to go to the par­ties with him, but she had of­fered some ex­cuse each time.

“Let her alone,” some­one had told him.

“No; do not let her alone,” his moth­er had coun­seled; and he took his moth­er's ad­vice.

Car­lia had been ab­sent from the Sun­day meet­ings for a num­ber of weeks, so when she ap­peared in her place in the choir on a Sun­day late in Jan­uary, Do­ri­an no­ticed the un­usu­al pal­lor of her face. He won­dered if she had been ill. He re­solved to make an­oth­er ef­fort, for in fact, his heart went out to her. At the close of the meet­ing he found his way to her side as she was walk­ing home with her fa­ther and moth­er. Do­ri­an nev­er went through the for­mal­ity of ask­ing Car­lia if he might ac­com­pa­ny her home. He had al­ways tak­en it for grant­ed that he was wel­come; and, at any rate, a man could al­ways tell by the girl's ac­tions whether or not he was want­ed.

“I haven't seen you for a long time,” be­gan Do­ri­an by way of greet­ing.

The girl did not re­ply.

“Been sick?” he asked.

“Yes--no, I'm all right.”

The par­ents walked on ahead, leav­ing the two young peo­ple to fol­low. Ev­ident­ly, Car­lia was very much out of sorts, but the young man tried again.

“What's the mat­ter, Car­lia?”

“Noth­ing.”

“Well, I hope I'm not an­noy­ing you by my com­pa­ny.”

No an­swer. They walked on in si­lence, Car­lia look­ing straight ahead, not so much at her par­ents, as at the dis­tant snow-​clad moun­tains. Do­ri­an felt like turn­ing about and go­ing home, but he could not do that very well, so he went on to the gate, where he would have said good­night had not Mrs. Duke urged him to come in. The fa­ther and moth­er went to bed ear­ly, leav­ing the two young peo­ple by the din­ing-​room fire.

They man­aged to talk for some time on “wind and weath­er”. De­spite the pale­ness of cheek, Car­lia was look­ing her best. Do­ri­an was jeal­ous.

“Car­lia,” he said, “why do you keep com­pa­ny with this Mr. La­mont?”

She was stand­ing near the book-​shelf with its mea­gre col­lec­tion. She turned abrupt­ly at his ques­tion.

“Why shouldn't I go with him?” she asked.

“You know why you shouldn't.”

“I don't. Oh, I know the rea­sons usu­al­ly giv­en, but--what am I to do. He's so nice, and a per­fect gen­tle­man. What harm is there?”

“Why do you say that to me, Car­lia?”

“Why not to you?” She came and sat op­po­site him by the ta­ble. He was silent, and she re­peat­ed her ques­tion, slow­ly, care­ful­ly, and with em­pha­sis. “Why not to you? Why should you care?”

“But I do care.”

“I don't be­lieve it. You have nev­er shown that you do.”

“I am show­ing it now.”

“To­mor­row you will for­get it--for­get me for a month.”

“Car­lia!”

“You've done it be­fore--many times--you'll do it again.”

The girl's eyes flashed. She seemed keyed up to car­ry through some­thing she had planned to do, some­thing hard. She arose and stood by the ta­ble, fac­ing him.

“I some­times have thought that you cared for me--but I'm through with that now. No­body re­al­ly cares for me. I'm on­ly a rough farm hand. I know how to milk and scrub and churn and clean the sta­ble--an' that's what I do day in and day out. There's no change, no rest for me, save when he takes me away from it for a lit­tle while. He un­der­stands, he's the on­ly one who does.”

“But, Car­lia!”

“You,” she con­tin­ued in the same hard voice, “you're al­to­geth­er too good and too wise for such as I. You're so high up that I can't touch you. You live in the clouds, I among the clods. What have we two in com­mon?”

“Much, Car­lia--I--”

He arose and came to her, but she evad­ed him.

“Keep away, Do­ri­an; don't touch me. You had bet­ter go home now.”

“You're not your­self, Car­lia. What is the mat­ter? You have nev­er act­ed like this be­fore.”

“It's not be­cause I haven't felt like it, but it's be­cause I haven't had the courage; but now it's come out, and I can't stop it. It's been pent up in me like a flood--now it's out. I hate this old farm--I hate ev­ery­thing and ev­ery­body--I--hate you!”

Do­ri­an arose quick­ly as if he had been lift­ed to his feet. What was she say­ing? She was wild, crazy wild.

“What have I done that you should hate me?” he asked as qui­et­ly as his trem­bling voice would al­low.

“Done? noth­ing. It's what you haven't done. What have you done to re­pay--my--Oh, God, I can't stand it--I can't stand it!”

She walked to the wall and turned her face to it. She did not cry. The room was silent­ly tense for a few mo­ments.

“I guess I'd bet­ter go,” said Do­ri­an.

She did not re­ply. He picked up his hat, lin­gered, then went to the door. She hat­ed him. Then let him get out from her pres­ence. She hat­ed him. He had not thought that pos­si­ble. Well, he would go. He would nev­er an­noy any girl who hat­ed him, not if he knew it. How his heart ached, how his very soul seemed crushed! yet he could not ap­peal to her. She stood with her face to the wall, still as a stat­ue, and as cold.

“Good night,” he said at the door.

She said noth­ing, nor moved. He could see her body quiver, but he could not see her face. He per­ceived noth­ing clear­ly. The fa­mil­iar room, poor­ly fur­nished, seemed strange to him. The big, ug­ly en­larged pho­tographs on the wall blurred to his vi­sion. Car­lia, with head bowed now, ap­peared to stand in the midst of ut­ter con­fu­sion. Do­ri­an groped his way to the door, and stepped out in­to the win­try night. When he had reached the gate, Car­lia rushed to the door.

“Do­ri­an!” she cried in a heart-​break­ing voice, “O, Do­ri­an, come back--come back!”

But Do­ri­an opened the gate, closed it, then walked on down the road in­to the dark­ness, nor did he once look back.