She can easily
compel her mother to go to the city, and her father would have no
power to prevent the alliance, were she bent upon it. I believe her
family misunderstand and are wronging her, and I may have occasion
to go down on my knees myself, metaphorically, and ask her pardon
for my superior airs."
These and kindred other thoughts passed through his mind as he
slowly paced up and down a side piazza which he often sought when
he wished to be alone. Stanton, having lost Miss Burton for the
evening, soon joined him, and threw himself dejectedly into a chair.
"Van," he said, "I used to be rather self-complacent. I thought
I had learned to take life so philosophically that I should have a
good time as long as my health lasted. But to-night I feel as if
life were a horribly heavy burden which I, an overladen jackass,
must carry for many a weary day. How little we know what we are
and what is before us! I've been a fool; I am a fool!"
"Well, Ik," replied Van Berg with a shrug, "I imagine there is a
pair of us. My reason--all that's decent in me--refuses to regard
Sibley as the cause of your cousin's most evident distress. For
heaven's sake don't confirm your words of this afternoon, or I shall
feel like taking the first train, in order to escape from the most
exasperating paradox that ever contradicted a man's senses.
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