During the journey to college he found in his well-filled pocket-book a folded sheet containing additional memoranda in his father's cramped, old-fashioned writing.
"Be honest first, then generous – never wasteful. Pose on no pedestals and you will escape falls. Avoid priggishness, which is detestable mental dry-rot; and flee from cant, the convenient domino of hypocrisy. Cultivate genuine sympathy for all suffering humanity, and remember that a man's safest companion is his own conscientious, incorruptible self-respect."
Doubtless in the years that followed Noel realized that indeed but that he succeeded fairly well might have been inferred from a certain scar on his throat, received while chastising two of his classmates who had caricatured him in doggerel under the title of "Sir Dandy Galahad." Misled by the quiet reserve of his manner, and an inborn courtesy that made him as good a listener as talker, strangers never suspected the existence of a temper fierce and, when fully aroused, well-nigh implacable. In his third collegiate year the death of his father left him untrammelled in the selection of a profession, and soon after he entered into possession of a fortune so large that its golden key would have opened the door of almost any career he might have chosen. His mental trend was toward scientific studies, and his dominant scheme of investigation embraced the elusive problems of anthropology. His individual and favorite hypothesis involved the genesis of aboriginal American man, and to secure all prehistoric and especially pre-glacial data he had attended post-collegiate lectures at several European universities, supplemented by sojourns in Central America, Pacific Islands, and British North America.
"Souls were dangerous things to carry straight
Through all the spilt saltpetre of the world;"
Since the death of his stepmother, Mr. Herriott had established temporary headquarters in New York in "apartments" not far from the old Herriott house, which by provision of his wife's will was now the property of Judge Kent. While the family of the senator usually remained in Washington, Eglah and Mrs. Mitchell frequently spent a week in New York, and on such occasions, if Noel chanced to be in the city, they relied upon him to serve as escort when needed. That he had successfully run the gauntlet of Eliza's years of cautious, suspicious observation, and finally commanded her admiring confidence, contributed in some degree to the easy camaraderie maintained between Eglah and himself: on her part a genuinely trusting friendship, pure and simple; on his that cool, watchful quietude that holds in leash the one deep passionate love of a strong nature and a lonely life. From the day he first saw the little quivering white-clad girl standing in the sunset glow that flooded the fragrant, flower-filled dining-room at Nutwood, he had opened the empty temple of his heart, and where no image dwelt – save the memory of his father – he lifted this child to a pure altar, and offered silent homage.
CHAPTER VI
"Of course, Mr. Herriott, you are vastly amused by my ambitious pretension."
"Why Mr. Herriott? And why assume amusement which I certainly have not expressed?"
"Not verbally; but I quite understand that look in your eyes, when by sheer force of will you hold your lips from smiling. Only courtesy keeps in check your contempt for our 'higher education.'"
"Eglah, be a little more just in your generalizations. If the education be really 'higher' and thorough, no reasonable man could afford to disparage it. You have spent the morning over volumes of tedious statistics, extracting figures on ad valorem and 'specific' schedules that only a custom-house clerk or a tariff expert could utilize by eliminating nonessentials and compiling valuable tables. Why waste this perfect day over metric puzzles – dekameter, hectoliter, myriagram?"
"Father wished the exact figures, and to work for him is my greatest pleasure."
"Do not confound motive and accomplishment. Your father's secretary would have collected the statistics in half the time and in a more satisfactory form, simply because he has been trained for such search, as dogs are taught to hunt truffles."
"Mr. Metcalf was needed in Washington, and as father has tried me sufficiently to trust the accuracy of my work, he asked me to make this investigation while I was in New York. Mr. Noel, to help him even in trifles is my very life; he is my world, my all."
Mr. Herriott lifted his hat and bowed.
"Your devotion is beautiful and sacred, and Judge Kent should feel proud of the list of rivals he so successfully defies. Perhaps it has not yet occurred to him that in chaining yourself to his library desk you are restricted to sawdust diet."
"Varied now and then, you must admit, by banquets of opera, germans, receptions, teas, theatre parties, and the embassies. When I was working so hard at college I looked forward eagerly to 'coming out,' as to a magical door that would swing suddenly open into a wonderful world, where, because of new conditions, I should become a different person, and shed my girlish ideas as serpents slip their skins; but since the 'open sesame,' and I have 'arrived,' I seem to have lost nothing of the past, and my old, tiresome self is tyrannous as ever."
"Is social life in Washington disappointing?"
"That is scarcely the right term. Life is certainly very brilliant, and gay and panoramic, and I enjoy music and dancing, and some dinner parties; above all, I find keen pleasure in following a spirited debate in the House, or listening to speeches in the Senate, but sometimes I catch myself wondering if this is indeed all – the veritable kernel of society, politics, diplomacy, or merely the shell partly cracked. Life here and in Washington does not seem so absolutely real as it was at home, at Nutwood."
They were driving in Central Park, and Eglah shared the front seat of the trap where Mr. Herriott held the reins of his spirited horses, and brought them down to a steady, rapid trot. It was a cold but sunny day in February, and as he laced his way in and out of the stream of vehicles, he and his companion were the theme of much comment from the passing throng. Fastidious in the matter of clothes, he was always remarkably well dressed – a fact accentuated by his unusual height and erect carriage – and at the two fashionable clubs to which he belonged he was generally regarded "as all around, the best looking member." The dark steel-blue grey eyes – with no hint of yellow – which his Scotch father gave him, lost something of their penetrating brilliance under the long jet lashes that, with black brows and thick clustering hair, his mother had contributed, and his naturally clear olive skin had been weather-tanned in various climates to a browner tint. In profile his face resembled a bronze medallion, and when he smiled his well-cut lips, that in repose seemed ominously thin, showed curves of rare beauty around a faultless set of teeth. The sun of prosperity had ripened and mellowed his manhood, and, as yet, no acid of cynicism had invaded his nature.
Gowned in a fur-trimmed cloth of hunter's green, Eglah wore a velvet toque of same hue, that failed to conceal the mass of golden-brown hair burnished by sunshine into the similitude of a white-oak leaf dyed in autumn. Under delicate, level brows, her large dark eyes —chataigne in some lights, almost black at times – were set rather far apart in an oval face whose exquisitely clear, pure pallor was stained only by the healthy rich red of slender lips, that had a treacherous trick of quivering when any strong emotion stirred the deeps of her heart. By the accepted canons of art and cultured taste her form and features had been adjudged "beautiful," and some great-grandmother of the far South had dowered her with a peculiar grace of movement – not languid, nor sinuous, nor Delsartian – a natural idiosyncrasy that made the manner of her steps, the lifting of head and motion of hands, unlike other women's. Only one gift – most potent of all – had been withheld from her birthright: she was absolutely devoid of personal magnetism, and