In some ten minutes I slackened speed and looked back. For a long
distance behind me not a bicycle was in sight. I now pursued my
homeward way with a warm body and a lacerated heart. I hated this
region which I had called Cathay. Its inhabitants were not barbarians,
but I was suffering from their barbarities. I had come among them
clean, whole, with an upright bearing. I was going away torn, bloody,
and downcast.

If the last words of the lady of the Holly Sprig meant the sweet thing
I thought they meant, then did they make the words which preceded them
all the more bitter. The more friendly and honest the counsels of
Edith Larramie had grown, the deeper they had cut into my heart. Even
the more than regard with which my soul prompted me to look back to
Amy Willoughby was a pain to me. My judgment would enrage me if it
should try to compel me to feel as I did not want to feel.

But none of these wounds would have so pained and disturbed me had it
not been for the merciless gaze which that dark-eyed girl had fixed
upon me as she passed me standing in the road. And if she had gone too
far and had done more than her own nature could endure, and if it were
she who had been pursuing me, then the wound was more cruel and the
smart deeper. If she believed me a man who would stop at the ringing
of her bell, then was I ashamed of myself for having given her that
impression.




CHAPTER XIX

BEAUTY, PURITY, AND PEACE


I now proposed to wheel my way in one long stretch to Walford. I took
no interest in rest or in refreshment. Simply to feel that I had done
with this cycle of Cathay would be to me rest, refreshment, and,
perhaps, the beginning of peace.

The sun was high in the heavens, and its rays were hot, but still I
kept steadily on until I saw a female figure by the road-side waving a
handkerchief. I had not yet reached her, but she had stopped, was
looking at me, and was waving energetically. I could not be mistaken.
I turned and wheeled up in front of her. It was Mrs. Burton, the
mother of the young lady who had injured her ankle on the day when I
set out for my journey through Cathay.

"I am so glad to see you," she said, as she shook hands with me. "I
knew you as soon as my eyes first fell upon you. You know I have
often seen you on the road before we became acquainted with you. We
have frequently talked about you since you were here, and we did not
expect you would be coming back so soon. Mr. Burton has been hoping
that he would have a chance to know you better. He is very fond of
school-masters. He was an intimate friend of Godfrey Chester, who had
the school at Walford some years before you came--when the boys and
girls used to go to school together--and of the man who came
afterwards. He was a little too elderly, perhaps, but Mr. Burton liked
him too, and now he hopes that he is going to know you. But excuse me
for keeping you standing so long in the road. You must come in. We
shall have dinner in ten minutes. I was just coming home from a
neighbor's when I caught sight of you."

I declined with earnestness. Mr. Burton might be a very agreeable man,
but I wanted to make no new acquaintances then. I must keep on to
Walford.

But the good lady would listen to no refusals of her hospitality. I
was just in time. I must need a mid-day rest and something to eat. She
was very sorry that Mr. Burton was not at home. He nearly always was
at home, but to-day he had gone to Waterton. But if I would be
contented to take dinner with her daughter and herself, they would be
delighted to have me do so. She made a motion to open the gate for me,
but I opened it for her, and we both went in. The daughter met us at
the top of the garden walk. She came towards me as a cool summer
breeze comes upon a hot and dusty world. There was, no flush upon her
face, but her eyes and lips told me that she was glad to see me before
she spoke a word or placed her soft, white hand in mine. At the first
touch of that hand I felt glad that Mrs. Burton had stopped me in the
road. Here was peace.

That dinner was the most soothing meal of which I had ever partaken. I
did the carving, my companions did the questioning, and nearly all the
conversation was about myself. Ordinarily I would not have liked this,
but every word which was said by these two fair ladies--for the
sweetness of the mother was merely more seasoned than that of the
daughter--was so filled with friendly interest that it gratified me to
make my answers.

They seemed to have heard a great deal about me during my wanderings
through Cathay. They knew, of course, that I had stopped with the
Putneys, for I had told them that, but they had also heard that I had
spent a night at the Holly Sprig, and had afterwards stayed with the
Larramies. But of anything which had happened which in the slightest
degree had jarred upon my feelings they did not appear to have heard
the slightest mention.

I might have supposed that only good and happy news thought it worth
while to stop at that abode of peace. As I looked upon the serene and
tender countenance of Mrs. Burton I wondered how a cloud rising from
want of sympathy with early peas ever could have settled over this
little family circle; but it was the man who had caused the cloud. I
knew it. It is so often the man.

When we had finished dinner and had gone out to sit in the cool
shadows of the piazza, I let my gaze rest as often as I might upon the
fair face of that young girl. Several times her eyes met mine, but
their lids never drooped, their tender light did not brighten. I felt
that she was so truly glad to see me that her pleasure in the meeting
was not affected one way or the other by the slight incident of my
looking at her.

If ever a countenance told of innocence, purity, and truth, her
countenance told of them. I believe that if she had thought it
pleased me to look at her, it would have pleased her to know that it
gave me pleasure.

As I talked with her and looked at her, and as I looked at her mother
and talked with her, it was impressed upon me that if there is one
thing in this world which is better than all else, it is peace, that
peace which comprises so many forms of happiness and deep content.
That the thoughts which came to me could come to a heart so lacerated,
so torn, so full of pain as mine had been that morning, seemed
wonderful, and yet they came.

Once or twice I tried to banish these thoughts. It seemed
disrespectful to myself to entertain them so soon after other thoughts
which I now wished to banish utterly. I am not a hero of romance. I am
only a plain human being, and such is the constitution of my nature
that the more troubled and disturbed is my soul, the more welcome is
purity, truth, and peace.

But, after all, my feelings were not quite natural, and the change in
them was too sudden. It was the consequence of too violent a reaction,
but, such as it was, it was complete. I would not be hasty. I would
not be deficient in self-respect. But if at that moment I had known
that this was the time to declare what I wished to have, I would
unhesitatingly have asked for beauty, purity, and peace.

A maid came out upon the piazza who wanted something. Mrs. Burton half
rose, but her daughter forestalled her. "I will go," said she. "Excuse
me one minute."

If my face expressed the sentiment, "Oh, that the mother had gone!" I
did not intend that it should do so. Mrs. Burton then began to talk
about her daughter.

"She is like her father," she said, "in so many ways. For one thing,
she is very fond of school-masters. I do not know exactly why this
should be, but her teachers always seem to be her friends. In fact,
she is to marry a school-master--that is, an assistant professor at
Yale. He is in Europe now, but we expect him back early in the fall."

A short time after this, when the daughter had returned and I rose to
go, the young girl put her soft, white hand into mine exactly as she
had done when I arrived, and the light in her eyes showed me, just as
it had showed me before, the pleasure she had taken in my visit. But
the mother's farewell was different from her greeting. I could see in
her kind air a certain considerate sympathy which was not there
before. She had been very prompt to tell me of her daughter's
engagement.

That young angel of peace and truth would not have deemed it necessary
to say a word about the matter, even to a young man who was a
school-master, and between whom and her family a mutual interest was
rapidly growing. But with the mother it was otherwise. She had seen
the shadows pass away from my countenance as I sat and talked upon
that cool piazza, my eyes bent upon her daughter. Mothers know.




CHAPTER XX

BACK FROM CATHAY


The next morning, being again settled in my rooms in Walford, I went
to call upon the Doctor and his daughter. The Doctor was not at home,
but his daughter was glad to see me.

"And how do you like your cycle of Cathay?" she asked.

"I do not like it at all," I answered. "It has taken me upon a dreary
round. I am going to change it for another as soon as I have an
opportunity."

"Then it has not been a wheel of fortune to you?" she remarked. "And
as for that country which you figuratively called Cathay, did you find
that pleasant?"

"In some ways, yes, but in others not. You see, I came back before my
vacation was over, and I do not care to go there any more."

She now wanted me to tell her where I had really been and what had
happened to me, and I gave her a sketch of my adventures. Of course I
could not enter deeply into particulars, for that would make too long
a story, but I told her where I had stopped, and my accounts of the
bear and the horse were deeply interesting.

"It seems to me," she said, when I had finished, "that if things had
been a little different, you might have had an extremely pleasant
tour. For instance, if Mr. Godfrey Chester had been living, I think
you would have liked him very much, and it is probable that you would
have been glad to stay at his inn for several days. It is a beautiful
country thereabout."

"Did you know him?" I asked.

"Oh yes," she said; "he was my teacher during part of my school-days
here. And then there is Mr. Burton; father is very fond of him. He is
a man of great intelligence. It was unfortunate that you did not see
more of him."

"Perhaps you know Mr. Putney?" I said.

"No," she answered. "I have heard a great deal about him. He seems to
be a stiff sort of a man. But as to Mr. Larramie, everybody likes him.
He is a great favorite throughout the county, and his son Walter is a
rising young man. I am glad you made the acquaintance of the
Larramies."

"So am I," I said, "very glad indeed. And, by-the-way, do you know a
young man named Willoughby? I never heard his first name, but he lives
at Waterton."

"Oh, the Willoughbys of Waterton," she said. "I have heard a great
deal about them. Father used to know the old gentleman. He was a great
collector of rare books, but he is dead now. If you had met him you
would have found him a man of your own tastes."

When I was going away she stopped me for a moment. "I forgot to ask
you," she said; "did you take any of those capsules I gave you when
you were starting off on your cycle?"

"Yes," said I, "I took some of them." But I could not well explain the
capricious way in which I had endeavored to guard against the germs of
malaria, and to call my own attention to the threatening germs of
erratic fancy.

"Then you do not think they did you any good?" she said.

"I am not sure," I replied. "I cannot say anything about that. But of
one thing I am certain, and that is, that if any germs of any kind
entered my system, it is perfectly free from them now."

"I am glad to hear that," she said.

It was about a week after this that I received a letter from Percy
Larramie. "I thought you would like to know about the bear," he wrote.
"Somebody must have forgotten to feed him, and he broke his chain and
got away. He went straight over to the Holly Sprig Inn, and I expect
he did that because the inn was the last place he had seen his master.
I did not know bears cared so much for masters. He didn't stay long at
the inn, but he stayed long enough to bite a boy. Then he went into
the woods.

"As soon as we heard of it we all set off on a bear-hunt. It was jolly
fun, although I did not so much as catch a sight of him. Father shot
him at a three-hundred-foot range. It was a Winchester rifle with a
thirty-two cartridge. It was a beautiful shot, Walter said, and I wish
I had made it.

"We took his skin off and tore it only in two or three places, which
can be mended. Would you like to have the skin, and do you care
particularly about the head? If you don't, I would like to have it,
because without it the skeleton will not be perfect."

I wrote to Percy that I did not desire so much as a single hair of the
beast. I did not tell him so, but I despised the bears of Cathay.

It was just before the Christmas holidays when I finally made up my
mind that of all the women in the world the Doctor's daughter was the
one for me, and when I told her so she did not try to conceal that
this was also her own opinion. I had seen the most charming qualities
in other women, and my somewhat rapid and enthusiastic study of them
had so familiarized me with them that I was enabled readily to
perceive their existence in others. I found them all in the Doctor's
daughter.

Her father was very well pleased when he heard of our compact. It was
plain that he had been waiting to hear of it. When he furthermore
heard that I had decided to abandon all thought of the law, and to
study medicine instead, his satisfaction was complete. He arranged
everything with affectionate prudence. I should read with him,
beginning immediately, even before I gave up my school. I should
attend the necessary medical courses, and we need be in no hurry to
marry. We were both young, and when I was ready to become his
assistant it would be time enough for him to give me his daughter.

We were sitting together in the Doctor's library and had been looking
over some of the papers of the Walford Literary Society, of which we
were both officers, when I said, looking at her signature:
"By-the-way, I wish you would tell me one thing. What does the initial
'E.' stand for in your name? I never knew any one to use it."

"No," she said; "I do not like it. It was given to me by my mother's
sister, who was a romantic young lady. It is Europa. And I only hope,"
she added, quickly, "that you may have fifty years of it."

       *       *       *       *       *

Three years of the fifty have now passed, and each one of the young
women I met in Cathay has married. The first one to go off was Edith
Larramie. She married the college friend of her brother who was at the
house when I visited them. When I met her in Walford shortly after I
heard of her engagement, she took me aside in her old way and told me
she wanted me always to look upon her as my friend, no matter how
circumstances might change with her or me.

"You do not know how much of a friend I was to you," she said, "and it
is not at all necessary you should know. But I will say that when I
saw you getting into such a dreadful snarl in our part of the
country, I determined, if there were no other way to save you, I would
marry you myself! But I did not do it, and you ought to be very glad
of it, for you would have found that a little of me, now and then,
would be a great deal more to your taste than to have me always."

[Illustration: EUROPA]

Mrs. Chester married the man who had courted her before she fell in
love with her school-master. It appeared that the fact of her having
been the landlady of the Holly Sprig made no difference in his case.
He was too rich to have any prospects which might be interfered with.

Amy Willoughby married Walter Larramie. That was a thing which might
well have been expected. I was very glad to hear it, for I shall never
fail to be interested in the Larramies.

About a year ago there was a grand wedding at the Putney city mansion.
The daughter of the family was married to an Italian gentleman with a
title. I read of the affair in the newspapers, and having heard, in
addition, a great many details of the match from the gossips of
Walford, I supposed myself to be fully informed in regard to this
grand alliance, and was therefore very much surprised to receive,
personally, an announcement of the marriage upon a very large and
stiff card, on which were given, in full, the various titles and
dignities of the noble bridegroom. I did not believe Mr. Putney had
sent me this card, nor that his wife had done so; certainly the Count
did not send it. But no matter how it came to me, I was very sure I
owed it to the determination, on the part of some one, that by no
mischance should I fail to know exactly what had happened. I heard
recently that the noble lady and her husband expect to spend the
summer at her father's country-house, and some people believe that
they intend to make it their permanent home.

The Doctor strongly advises that Europa and I should go before long
and settle in the Cathay region. He thinks that it will be a most
excellent field for me to begin my labors in, and he knows many
families there who would doubtless give me their practice.