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Cynical Miss Catherwaight

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She determined finally to ask her father about it. He would be sure to know, she thought, as he and Mr. Lockwood were contemporaries. Then she decided finally not to say anything about it at all, for Mr. Catherwaight did not approve of the collection of dishonored honors as it was, and she had no desire to prejudice him still further by a recital of her afternoon's adventure, of which she had no doubt but he would also disapprove. So she was more than usually silent during the dinner, which was a tete-a-tete family dinner that night, and she allowed her father to doze after it in the library in his great chair without disturbing him with either questions or confessions. {Illustration with caption: “What can Mr. Lockwood be calling upon me about?”} They had been sitting there some time, he with his hands folded on the evening paper and with his eyes closed, when the servant brought in a card and offered it to Mr. Catherwaight. Mr. Catherwaight fumbled over his glasses, and read the name on the card aloud: “'Mr. Lewis L. Lockwood.' Dear me!” he said; “what can Mr. Lockwood be calling upon me about?” Miss Catherwaight sat upright, and reached out for the card with a nervous, gasping little laugh. “Oh, I think it must be for me,” she said; “I'm quite sure it is intended for me. I was at his office to-day, you see, to return him some keepsake of his that I found in an old curiosity shop. Something with his name on it that had been stolen from him and pawned. It was just a trifle. You needn't go down, dear; I'll see him. It was I he asked for, I'm sure; was it not, Morris?” Morris was not quite sure; being such an old gentleman, he thought it must be for Mr. Catherwaight he'd come. Mr. Catherwaight was not greatly interested. He did not like to disturb his after-dinner nap, and he settled back in his chair again and refolded his hands. “I hardly thought he could have come to see me,” he murmured, drowsily; “though I used to see enough and more than enough of Lewis Lockwood once, my dear,” he added with a smile, as he opened his eyes and nodded before he shut them again. “That was before your mother and I were engaged, and people did say that young Lockwood's chances at that time were as good as mine. But they weren't, it seems. He was very attentive, though; very attentive.” Miss Catherwaight stood startled and motionless at the door from which she had turned. “Attentive—to whom?” she asked quickly, and in a very low voice. “To my mother?” Mr. Catherwaight did not deign to open his eyes this time, but moved his head uneasily as if he wished to be let alone. “To your mother, of course, my child,” he answered; “of whom else was I speaking?” Miss Catherwaight went down the stairs to the drawing-room slowly, and paused half-way to allow this new suggestion to settle in her mind. There was something distasteful to her, something that seemed not altogether unblamable, in a woman's having two men quarrel about her, neither of whom was the woman's husband. And yet this girl of whom Latimer had spoken must be her mother, and she, of course, could do no wrong. It was very disquieting, and she went on down the rest of the way with one hand resting heavily on the railing and with the other pressed against her cheeks. She was greatly troubled. It now seemed to her very sad indeed that these two one-time friends should live in the same city and meet, as they must meet, and not recognize each other. She argued that her mother must have been very young when it happened, or she would have brought two such men together again. Her mother could not have known, she told herself; she was not to blame. For she felt sure that had she herself known of such an accident she would have done something, said something, to make it right. And she was not half the woman her mother had been, she was sure of that. There was something very likable in the old gentleman who came forward to greet her as she entered the drawing-room; something courtly and of the old school, of which she was so tired of hearing, but of which she wished she could have seen more in the men she met. Young Mr. Latimer had accompanied his guardian, exactly why she did not see, but she recognized his presence slightly. He seemed quite content to remain in the background. Mr. Lockwood, as she had expected, explained that he had called to thank her for the return of the medal. He had it in his hand as he spoke, and touched it gently with the tips of his fingers as though caressing it. “I knew your father very well,” said the lawyer, “and I at one time had the honor of being one of your mother's younger friends. That was before she was married, many years ago.” He stopped and regarded the girl gravely and with a touch of tenderness. “You will pardon an old man, old enough to be your father, if he says,” he went on, “that you are greatly like your mother, my dear young lady—greatly like. Your mother was very kind to me, and I fear I abused her kindness; abused it by misunderstanding it. There was a great deal of misunderstanding; and I was proud, and my friend was proud, and so the misunderstanding continued, until now it has become irretrievable.” He had forgotten her presence apparently, and was speaking more to himself than to her as he stood looking down at the medal in his hand. “You were very thoughtful to give me this,” he continued; “it was very good of you. I don't know why I should keep it though, now, although I was distressed enough when I lost it. But now it is only a reminder of a time that is past and put away, but which was very, very dear to me. Perhaps I should tell you that I had a misunderstanding with the friend who gave it to me, and since then we have never met; have ceased to know each other. But I have always followed his life as a judge and as a lawyer, and respected him for his own sake as a man. I cannot tell—I do not know how he feels toward me.” The old lawyer turned the medal over in his hand and stood looking down at it wistfully. The cynical Miss Catherwaight could not stand it any longer. “Mr. Lockwood,” she said, impulsively, “Mr. Latimer has told me why you and your friend separated, and I cannot bear to think that it was she—my mother—should have been the cause. She could not have understood; she must have been innocent of any knowledge of the trouble she had brought to men who were such good friends of hers and to each other. It seems to me as though my finding that coin is more than a coincidence. I somehow think that the daughter is to help undo the harm that her mother has caused—unwittingly caused. Keep the medal and don't give it back to me, for I am sure your friend has kept his, and I am sure he is still your friend at heart. Don't think I am speaking hastily or that I am thoughtless in what I am saying, but it seems to me as if friends—good, true friends—were so few that one cannot let them go without a word to bring them back. But though I am only a girl, and a very light and unfeeling girl, some people think, I feel this very much, and I do wish I could bring your old friend back to you again as I brought back his pledge.” “It has been many years since Henry Burgoyne and I have met,” said the old man, slowly, “and it would be quite absurd to think that he still holds any trace of that foolish, boyish feeling of loyalty that we once had for each other. Yet I will keep this, if you will let me, and I thank you, my dear young lady, for what you have said. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. You are as good and as kind as your mother was, and—I can say nothing, believe me, in higher praise.” He rose slowly and made a movement as if to leave the room, and then, as if the excitement of this sudden return into the past could not be shaken off so readily, he started forward with a move of sudden determination. “I think,” he said, “I will go to Henry Burgoyne's house at once, to-night. I will act on what you have suggested. I will see if this has or has not been one long, unprofitable mistake. If my visit should be fruitless, I will send you this coin to add to your collection of dishonored honors, but if it should result as I hope it may, it will be your doing, Miss Catherwaight, and two old men will have much to thank you for. Good-night,” he said as he bowed above her hand, “and—God bless you!” Miss Catherwaight flushed slightly at what he had said, and sat looking down at the floor for a moment after the door had closed behind him. Young Mr. Latimer moved uneasily in his chair. The routine of the office had been strangely disturbed that day, and he now failed to recognize in the girl before him with reddened cheeks and trembling eyelashes the cold, self-possessed young woman of society whom he had formerly known. “You have done very well, if you will let me say so,” he began, gently. “I hope you are right in what you said, and that Mr. Lockwood will not meet with a rebuff or an ungracious answer. Why,” he went on quickly, “I have seen him take out his gun now every spring and every fall for the last ten years and clean and polish it and tell what great shots he and Henry, as he calls him, used to be. And then he would say he would take a holiday and get off for a little shooting. But he never went. He would put the gun back into its case again and mope in his library for days afterward. You see, he never married, and though he adopted me, in a manner, and is fond of me in a certain way, no one ever took the place in his heart his old friend had held.” “You will let me know, will you not, at once,—to-night, even,—whether he succeeds or not?” said the cynical Miss Catherwaight. “You can understand why I am so deeply interested. I see now why you said I would not tell the story of that medal. But, after all, it may be the prettiest story, the only pretty story I have to tell.” Mr. Lockwood had not returned, the man said, when young Latimer reached the home the lawyer had made for them both. He did not know what to argue from this, but determined to sit up and wait, and so sat smoking before the fire and listening with his sense of hearing on a strain for the first movement at the door. He had not long to wait. The front door shut with a clash, and he heard Mr. Lockwood crossing the hall quickly to the library, in which he waited. Then the inner door was swung back, and Mr. Lockwood came in with his head high and his eyes smiling brightly. There was something in his step that had not been there before, something light and vigorous, and he looked ten years younger. He crossed the room to his writing-table without speaking and began tossing the papers about on his desk. Then he closed the rolling-top lid with a snap and looked up smiling. “I shall have to ask you to look after things at the office for a little while,” he said. “Judge Burgoyne and I are going to Maryland for a few weeks' shooting.” <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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