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No shams, child. Don't tolerate them in housekeeping. If not white sugar, then no cake. If not silver, then not albata. So you're coming with me to New York, my dear?" Grey's face flushed. "Paul says we will go." "Sister there? Teaching, did you say?" Doctor Blecker's moustache worked nervously.
Your heart's all right, my dear," patting the hard nervous hand that lay on the table, "but you never studied theology, that's clear." "I don't know." Mrs. Blecker's face grew hot; but that might have been the steam of the coffee-urn. "We'll be just to Lizzy," said her husband, gravely. "She had a hurt lately. I don't think she values her life for much now.
As they passed Blecker's outlook through the trees, his half-shut eye ran over her, the despondent step, the lithe, nervous limbs, the manner in which she clung for protection to his horny hand. "Poor child!" the Doctor thought.
But the guerrillas interfered with his researches." "I think it probable. So he stuffs birds, does he?" Blecker's lips closing tighter. "And keeps the snakes in alcohol. There are shelves in Miss Lizzy's room quite full of them. That lower room it was, but Joseph has taken it for a study. She has the upper one for her flowers and her father's birds."
Something in Blecker's nature came into close rapport with the higher animal life. If he had been born with money, and lived here in these stagnating hills, or down yonder on some lazy cotton-plantation, he would have settled down before this into a genial, child-loving, arbitrary husband and master, fond of pictures and horses, his house in decent taste, his land pleasure-giving, his wines good.
Grey took her place with a blush and a little conscious smile, to which Mrs. Sheppard called Doctor Blecker's attention by a pursing of her lips, and then, tucking her napkin under her chin, prepared to do justice to venison and biscuits. She sipped her coffee with an approving nod, dear to a young housekeeper's soul. "Good! Grey begins sound, at the foundations, in cooking, Doctor.
There's more outcome in her than you give her credit for," turning sharply on him. He smiled quietly, taking her satchel to carry. "When we came to Pittsburg, I said to Pratt, 'I'll follow you to New York in a day or two, but I'm going now to see Paul Blecker's little wife. She's sound, into the marrow. And I'll tell you, too, what I said to Pratt.
But very near it, this man, John Gurney, so near that it needed no deed of Blecker's to make him pass the bound. Only a few moments' neglect. A bandage, a skilful touch or two, care in the hospitals, might save him. But what claim had he on Paul that he should do this?
Paul Blecker's voice was never so strong or pure: whatever of coarseness had clung to him fell off then, as he came nearer to the weak woman whom God had given to him to care for; whatever of latent manhood, of chivalry, slept beneath, some day to make him an earnest husband and father, and helpful servant of the True Man, came out in his eager face and eye, now.