Said R. H. Oliver suddenly as he yanked his car out of swift collision with a truck:
"Gloria, I wish you wouldn't talk any more if you've got to converse like a fool! For heaven's sake stop it!"
Just what heaven had to do with her guileless chatter Gloria didn't understand, but she knew when her father spoke in that tone it was time to cease, so Gloria sat back and dreamed of a day when a knight similar to Nelson Whitney would come riding her way, and hold her own fluttering hand, and look into her thrilled eyes, and carry her off into a world of loveliness.
Nelson Whitney led his beloved out of that office just as soon as the law of politeness allowed.
Just an instant, he had paused beside Mrs. Sheldon as he passed her.
"Is there any special time when you would like to have us meet you at the hotel?" he asked in an undertone.
But it was Mrs. Dunlap who heard and who handed him a card upon which she had been scribbling.
"Any time you like," she said in a tone for his ears alone. "Mrs. Sheldon needs to rest, and I'll see that she does. Just ring up the room when you get back and let us know the program. I'll stay till you get back at least."
He glanced at the card. On it was written the name of the hotel and the number of their room. A fleeting smile went over his face. Here those two good ladies had come straight to the same hotel where he was. He had had no need to worry at all with such a Guide. Why hadn't he remembered that God was able to work out things without his interference, able to make the crooked places straight, and the dark things plain in His own good time!
WHEN Mrs. Sheldon had turned from speaking with Mrs. Oliver and her two charming daughters, she looked around the office in dismay.
"Why, where is Marguerite?" she asked with instant worry in her eyes. "She hasn't gone away?" and there was in her voice that quality of desperation which had made Mrs. Dunlap fear for her health more than once in the hours they had spent together.
She hastened to assure her.
"It's all right, Mrs. Sheldon. She's with Nelson Whitney. They've gone off together to do some sight seeing I think."
"But they don't know where we are that is they won't know how to find us. Nelson didn't—that is Marguerite won't—" She stopped in confusion, realizing that this would seem very strange talk to the onlooking Olivers about people who were supposed to be of the same party.
But Mrs. Dunlap was equal to the occasion.
"It's all right, my dear. I told them where we were going, wrote it down for them so they wouldn't make a mistake."
With relief, the weary mother relaxed the drawn look of her face and turned to the Olivers graciously.
"I'm so glad to have met you," she said, and smiled sincerely.
When they were gone Gloria turned to her mother.
"I didn't like the way she spoke to you, Mums dear!" she said. "It was almost as if she felt sorry for you somehow."
"What a queer idea!" laughed her mother. "I think she is a very charming woman. In fact anybody Mrs. Dunlap sponsors usually is."
"Yourself included, Mums!" laughed Gloria. "Come on Muth, lets rout out Dad and get started. We're two hours behind schedule now. Kath, you ought to have run things better than this!" And laughing they went off to find the beloved husband and father.
They found him standing by the window with the sash thrown up, wiping beads of perspiration from his forehead, though the day was keen and clear.
"What's the matter, dear? Is there any trouble about your business?" asked Mrs. Oliver solicitously.
"I wasn't feeling very well there for a minute!" said the valiant husband, mopping his cold brow once more. "I felt a little dizzy! I guess I've been going it a little too hard lately. I suppose I'm getting old."
He paused for his loving family to refute this statement, but they only laughed as if it were a good joke.
"I think I'll have to cut out some of this traveling," he said slowly, taking deep breaths between his words. He still wore a sort of whipped look except to his family's eyes.
But at that they all shouted a joyous assent, "Yes, Dad, that would be great! Then you'd be all ours and not belong to the world at large any more," added Gloria as the hurrah subsided.
"Come on, let's go!" said Oliver turning away from them quickly to hide a look of something like shame that stole over his scared white face.
"But we haven't given Muth her presents yet," reminded Gloria who never by any chance forgot anything.
It was with relief that Oliver took the little white box containing the watch from his pocket. The attention all focused upon it, instead of himself, he was able even to make a pleasant little flowery speech in presentation.
Nevertheless the occasion had ceased to be the joyous celebration that he had anticipated. Half of his mind was necessarily occupied with wondering what on earth that Dunlap woman meant to do next? Did she intend to keep that miserable affair of Daisy hanging over his head like a Damoclean sword the rest of his natural life? If so, there would be no peace anywhere.
He would never know when they might walk in and bring him to shame among his friends. Well, he had been a fool of course. It was hard to admit it. Perhaps he had merely bungled things. But—yes, he felt a good deal of a fool. After all, what was that girl but a pretty pink and white thing—just a passing fancy. Home was best. He would stay at home—unless that obnoxious Mrs. Dunlap was going to haunt his steps.
Perhaps it would be as well to go abroad for a year. The business was in pretty good shape now, and the girls would love it. Yes, they would go abroad. He would broach the subject that very day and hurry up arrangements to get away as soon as possible. He couldn't stand any more shocks like this one!
Thus reasoning, he grew calm, and the family went down to the new car and their interrupted holiday.
Down on the street Mrs. Sheldon looked about her in a dazed way and put her hand to her head. Her companion caught the gesture and slipped an arm around her.
"My dear, you are going straight back to the hotel and take a good long sleep," she said, and raised her other hand to summon a passing taxi.
"Oh, I'm all right," murmured the little white-faced mother, "Everything is all right now at least I hope it is, for a while. Only—what shall I do with Daisy? Her life is broken! My poor little flower of a girl!"
"Don't you believe it!" said the strong woman who knew life. "God doesn't let even a flower get broken as easily as that. Here, let's get in this taxi, and then we can talk."
She gave the order to the driver, and then laid her hand on the stricken woman's arm.
"My dear! You should be singing, shouting hallelujah, not mourning. Can't you trust the Father who has brought about this revelation to show your girl that life isn't all gone just because she made a mistake about one wolf in sheep's clothing? This all came to your girl perhaps to teach her, and prepare her for a fuller, wider life than she could have otherwise been prepared for."
"Oh!" moaned the little mother, "I wish I could feel that way, but it seems to me we have lost our self-respect. It seems as if Daisy has lost all the fine dignity and judgment she had, and that she can never lift up her head again."
"She has only lost her cock-suredness, my dear. She hasn't lost a bit of self-respect. She has made a mistake, yes, and a bad one, but she will learn to be more careful now, not to trust herself implicitly. She will learn to pray her way through the difficulties, perhaps, instead of insisting she knows best and demanding her own way. She will pay more heed to her mother's advice to her mother's intuition, and not consider that her own discernment of character is final. You know we all have to have sharp lessons to teach us to find our guidance in the Lord and our own utter helplessness without Him."
"But I'm so afraid Daisy won't look at it that way. She is such an intense child, so proud and excitable, and enthusiastic, and so prone to go to the depths when the heights have failed her. I am afraid—Mrs. Dunlap, forgive me, but I'm afraid she may lose her mind! You were not with her that last night before she went away. You don't realize."
"I realize that underneath are the Everlasting Arms, my dear," said Mary Dunlap solemnly, "and that the God who has just now performed the seemingly impossible for you in convincing your daughter of the unworthiness of the man whom she was determined to marry, in time and before it was forever too late to save her from the public shame of her own actions, can perform like wonders in other ways. Now, dear sister, suppose you just trust in Him. He has said, 'Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in Him and He shall bring it to pass.' Couldn't you just rest on that this morning and let Him give you a good rest? I'm sure everything will be made plain for you. Now, here we are at the hotel."
Mary Dunlap helped her friend up to her room for she looked as frail as a lily by this time; and had a nice little lunch sent up of which she literally forced her companion to partake.
When she found the troubled mother did not wish to talk of other matters she just went over the morning's experience with her, bringing out at every turn, the wonders that the Lord had worked. She spoke of the young man, Whitney.
"Tell me about him!" she said as she poured a second cup of coffee. "I'm wonderfully taken with that young man. He looks like true blue to me."
"Oh, he is!" said Marguerite's mother.
And she began to tell of the days the years when her girl and this fine boy were growing up together, till gradually the care lifted from the mother's face.
But the tale came to a sudden bitter end with the plaint that was almost a sob:
"She had all that devotion in a fine young man her own age, and yet she could think she cared for that old slippery beast!"
Mary Dunlap gave an almost girlish giggle.
"He is that, isn't he? I keep thinking of his poor dear wife and daughters who think he is the salt of the earth. Oh, poor dears! I do hope they don't ever have to find it out this side—or at least not till the Lord has made him over. But my dear, don't you think that perhaps your child hadn't just waked up to realities yet? Wasn't she more in love with being in love, than with the man himself? She was under a strong delusion as the Bible says, but I'm sure it has been swept away, and in full time.
"My dear, I'll tell you something. Her hand was on the boy's arm confidingly as if she trusted him, and his strong hand was over it, tenderly, comfortingly, as if she were dearer to him than life. I couldn't help seeing the look on his face as he bent to speak to her from his fine height—she is such a little girl, so sweet and small—and my dear, I suppose I ought not to have seen it, and maybe ought to keep it to myself now I have, but it seems to me you have a right to know she smiled up into his face, such a sweet trustful smile, that I couldn't help feeling that her heart will fly back to him as a refuge now in her trouble. I saw that. Yes, I saw it while you were talking to Mrs. Oliver. I'm sure you have a right to know. And the Lord has let that young man be an instrument of rescue for your girl. I'm sure."
"Oh!" said the mother with a wistful sigh, "If that could only be, I would ask nothing better of life."
"Don't set your limits, my dear! The Lord may have that and even greater blessings yet in store. Now, you are going to sleep, and I'm going to sit here at the desk and get some of my correspondence out of the way or I'll be swamped."
DOWN in the street Marguerite almost gave way.
A glance at her face showed Nelson that she was almost at the limit of her strength. He summoned a taxi and put her in.
"Would you like to go to the hotel and lie down a while?" he asked tenderly.
"Oh, no," she said shrinking toward him, "I don't want to be alone now. I can't bear it. I must have someone who belongs. Let's go to some quiet place where we can sit down a little while, or walk where there won't be so many people."
She sank back in the seat and closed her eyes, and Whitney gave the order, "Drive to the Park, and drive around till I tell you to stop."
He got into the taxi, pulled down the shades, and drew her head gently over till it rested on his shoulder.
"Now," said he, "just rest there a few minutes and get calm."
There were hot tears running down her white cheeks.
"That's all right, dear," he said as if he were talking to a little child. "Cry as hard as you can. It'll do you good!"
There was a lilt in his voice. He was thinking how she had said she wanted to be with somebody who "belonged." Then in her soul she felt that he belonged after all.
Marguerite let the tears have their way for a minute or two, and then she sobbed out softly:
"But you don't know what it's all about. I—ought—to—explain."
"Explain, nothing!" said Nelson comfortingly. "I know all about it."
"Oh! How did you know?" she asked with a perplexed frown, "Did mother tell you?"
"Never a word," said the young man taking out a big white handkerchief that smelled of clover in summer, and unfolding it. "Can't you give me credit for having eyes? When you love somebody, you understand."
He lifted the girl's hot tear-wet face and gently wiped it with the cool handkerchief.
She felt as if she were a little girl being comforted.
"Oh, Nelson, you've always been wonderful! And—I—But you won't feel that way about me any more when you know everything. I've been—so—silly—! And wicked, Nelson! I've been terribly wicked. Oh—" she shuddered,—"to think that I—should have got into an awful mess like that! Oh, I can't ever stand myself again! How can I live? To think—"
"See here, Marguerite, you're not to think anything about it now. You are just to rest, and get over the shock. And by and bye when you are rested, we'll talk it all out."
"But I want to get it over with first," said Marguerite sitting up and trying to stop the tears with the big handkerchief. "Indeed I can't rest till you know what a fool I've been."
"All right," said Nelson, "you've been a fool, have you? Well, I love you anyway. Have you had any breakfast? No, I thought not. Well, neither have I. What if we stop somewhere and get some?"
"But I can't go anywhere with my eyes all red," objected the girl, dabbing away at them and looking as pretty as a picture even with a red nose, and her lashes all wet.
"That's all right," said the young man easily, "we're going to get out pretty soon and walk around the park a little. I think we'll find a fountain or a spring or a lake or something wet, and we'll mop up and get cooled off and then we'll go and get fed."
Marguerite giggled hysterically.
"You are always so good," she murmured, and then refinished it, "so—dear!"
He stooped over and kissed her gravely on the forehead.
"Thank you for that, little one. Now, are you ready to get out and find that fountain?"
"Wait," said the girl sitting up, her face clouded with trouble again. "Wait, Nelson, we can't go on like this. We can't even be friends again till I tell you everything. It—chokes me!"
"Out with it, then!" said the young man calmly, "but make it snappy. Make a clean breast of it in three sentences."
"Oh, Nelson, I fell in love with that man—a married man!" She lifted her shamed face and looked at him through her tears.
"That's number one," said Nelson, unperturbed.
"I started to run away with him and get married, without telling Mother," she burst forth with a fresh rush of tears.
"Number two," counted Nelson.
"And—and—I've been awful to Mother, and to that Mrs. Dunlap—" she choked out, "and—and—to God! I almost lost my senses!"
"I inferred as much. Now, is that all, little sweetheart? And shall we get out and doll up for breakfast?"
She buried her face in the folds of the wet handkerchief once more, and from its depths murmured: "Oh, Nelson, you always did take the ache out of things!"
"That's what I'm for," grinned Nelson delightedly, "and I always intend to keep on doing it. You know you're mine, little girl, have been ever since we were children, and I don't intend anything to hurt you any more than I can possibly help. Of course, if you get sick—" he smiled, "mentally sick, or physically sick, or spiritually sick, I'll just have to stand by and help till you get well again, but you're mine, little girl. I want that distinctly understood. Now, shall we get out and walk a little?"
"But Nelson—you mustn't. I'm not worthy of a devotion like that—I couldn't let you—"
"We're getting out, driver," Nelson tapped on the glass.
He helped her out and paid the fare, and while Marguerite stood still in the bright sunshine at the entrance to a Park pathway, the cool breeze blowing on her hot cheeks and forehead, her face a little turned away lest the cabman should see that she had been crying, suddenly a great burden seemed to roll from her.
She had expected to find herself desperate, agonized, unable to live longer, when she got away from that terrible office where she had undergone such awful revelations; but suddenly it seemed to her a great relief. The fearful responsibilities of life that a day ago had lain upon her heart with deathlike heaviness, were gone. Life had been settled for her, and her path diverted from a dark and perilous way, into brightness and sunshine again.
The only thing that hung about and troubled her was her own shame. Her part in the terrible drama that had just been played to the finish. Her foolishness and gullibility, her readiness to fall for the handsome eyes of a man of the world, whose flattery had been merely used for his own passing amusement. She, Marguerite Sheldon, with a long line of respectable and noble ancestors, with a heritage of Christian training and tradition, with a mother such as hers had been, and a father whose memory was enshrined forever in her heart! To think that she had been so easy to deceive!
She started suddenly at the thought of how her heart was arraigning the man who had been her lover—almost her husband, but a few brief days ago! Three hours ago she would have sworn to anyone who asked that she loved him with her whole soul; that life would be worthless without him; that she would cling to him with her last breath though she were separated from him for years; that she would love him and believe him, yes and even forgive him no matter what others said, no matter what he had done.
And now in a few short minutes, the cloak of illusion had been torn from him, and left his shame naked to her view; left him without a charm or virtue; shown his love to be a mere worthless pretense, for how could he possibly love her when he had so deceived her? How could he dare bring her a love so dishonored by his own broken, worse than broken vows? For she was not one of those girls who feel it a fine feather to have won for herself a man who belongs to another.
She shivered as she remembered the way he had said: "My wife," and, "my daughters," in that accustomed married way. If she had heard nothing else but that it would have convinced her. And sharply to her memory came her own words to Mrs. Dunlap, "Unless I can hear him say with his own lips—"
Well, she had heard him! How terrible it had been! Hot irons had seared her heart, and she would never, never forget!
As she turned toward Nelson, she glanced down, and there in the path behind him she caught the gleam of a bit of metal, gold or silver shining in the sun. It proved to be only a bit of foil wrapping from candy or gum that someone had flung down carelessly in passing. But with the unexplained whimsicality of such little inanimate things, it took for the moment the form of a tiny trinket in likeness to a gold and platinum charm that the one-time Rufus Keller had worn on his watch chain. During those intimate days she had more than once toyed with it lovingly, pleased to think such was her privilege. She had even worn it about her neck on a little gold chain for a few days, till alarmed lest her mother should see it, she had given it back for the time.
Suddenly it came to her that he had worn it that very morning. She had noticed its gleam as he turned away with that guilty look, that look that she never would forget. The look that had torn from her heart the last shred of respect, and what she had once thought was love for this man. And the little gleaming trinket had twinkled wickedly at her as he went, and stabbed her with the things that she once had held so dear. Stabbed her as when a thorn that has bruised the bleeding flesh is torn away and can hurt no more.
She caught her breath in a sob as Nelson came up with her and slipped his hand within her arm steadying her.
"Oh, how can I ever live? How can I ever, ever stand it?" she gasped.
"Poor child!" said Nelson sadly, "Do you love him as much as that?"
"Oh, no! No! Not now!" she cried. "That is all gone! But my self-respect is gone too! How can one live without self-respect?"
"That will come back again!" said Nelson Whitney with a ring in his voice. Oh, it was good to hear her say she no longer cared!
She was quiet for several minutes, and he watched her as they walked along deeper into the park. Then she lifted her face like a rain-drenched flower.
"Nelson, you are wonderful!" she said. "I don't—know—what I should do—without you!"
"Well, you don't have to do without me, thank God!" said Nelson. "I suppose this is why He sent me down here."
She looked up with quick inquiry.
"How did you come, Nelson? Was it just chance?"
"Nothing in this world is chance, is it, Daisy? But this certainly wasn't, anyway. Why, you see I went to the house to get that list you promised—"
"Oh!" said the girl. "I never thought of it again."
"Well, it's of no consequence now," he grinned, "I made up one instead and ordered the things. You'll have to use what there is, or get more. However, when Mary and I started to look for the list there was your note to your mother right on the floor by the stairs in the lower hall. How it got there I don't know, but as Mary was upstairs and I hadn't much time, and the note was in your handwriting, I picked it up and read it. Of course I hadn't gone far before I discovered it wasn't the list, but I couldn't let it go then for I had caught a word or two that showed me you were in danger, and that your mother must be somewhere in sorrow hunting for you, so I put it in my pocket as Mary came down stairs and took it away with me. If you ask me I think the Lord left that note there for me to read. I thought you belonged enough to me to give me the right to read it."
Marguerite with reddening cheeks and shamed eyes was trying to recall what she had said in that mad hasty note she had left for her mother when she hurried to the midnight train.
"The rest was a cinch of course," went on Nelson. "I had the address to which you were going in your own handwriting. I had only to meet you at the train in New York as it came in, if I could get there ahead of you. Or, failing in that, as I did, I had the second chance of catching you at the office before you went off to marry that villain."
Marguerite's shamed face did not lift, but a little quiver went through her slight frame.
"But—how did you get here in time?" she asked. "Why, that must have been rather late in the morning when you found that note. Of course I knew there was an early morning train and that Mother would probably take that, but I had hoped to have everything straightened out before she came. But the only other train after you found out is a local, and you couldn't possibly have got here even yet unless you flew. Are you a mystery man?"
"That's exactly what I did. I flew here," said Nelson.
"What do you mean?" she asked lifting wondering eyes that seemed to have forgotten their trouble for the moment. "Don't tease me, please. I'm so tired!" And she drooped upon his arm.
"Poor little girl! I'm forgetting all you've gone through. We'll find that water, and then go for something to eat. If I remember, it was down this path. I came here once three years ago, and thought how some day I would perhaps bring you."
A quick turn brought them to a spring gurgling in a granite basin, and Marguerite dashed the water in her face and dried it on another big clean handkerchief that Nelson brought forth from a capacious pocket.
"Do you have an unlimited supply of these?" she asked as she emerged from its fragrant folds gratefully, refreshed in spite of herself.
"Very nearly!" he smiled. "Now come, and we will go and find something to eat."
"But you haven't told me what you mean by saying you flew here." He noticed that her voice was almost cheerful again.
"Just that," he said laughing, "I flew. It's the first time in my life, but I would have enjoyed it if I hadn't been so worried about you."
Then as her eyes looked still mystified, he explained.
"I have a friend who has been coaxing me to fly with him for months and I never seemed to have time. He had oodles of money, and no end of time, and so I just made good a promise I had given him once, and called him up. He was game all right, said of course he was going to New York in a couple of hours, and so we came. We got here sometime before your train came in. By the way, why didn't you come on it?"
"I did," she said sadly, "but I got off at the wrong station, something they called Manhattan Transfer. I had to wait ages before another came along."
"Manhattan Transfer! And you were knocking around that desolate place alone at that time of night? Well, I'll say your angels must have had their hands full taking care of you yesterday. They must be all worn out. I guess that's why I have the job for a little while now. Come, here's a taxi!"
She flashed him a faint little flicker of a smile and he helped her into the cab with a lighter heart. At least the days of reticence and distance were over between them. No more reservations, no more holding aloof. She was confiding in him as she used to do. One couldn't expect more than that, so soon.
They went to a quiet tea room. Nelson seemed to know just how to manage everything, seemed to know without asking his way anywhere. He put her in a seat where she was sheltered, and he ordered the things he knew from long years of association that she liked. Deftly, unobtrusively, he drew her attention away from herself, and the tragic happenings of the last few days, tempted her to eat, provoked her to laugh. He described his first sensations of flying, telling little anecdotes of his friend the aviator when they were both together in France, telling a joke he had heard the day before, calling her attention to a beautiful white kitten that came purring in to be stroked and fed tidbits.
It was nearly three o'clock when they had finished the meal. The color was stealing faintly back to the girl's lips and cheeks, and the terror fading out of her eyes.
"Now," said Nelson consulting his watch, "it's three minutes to three. What do you want to do? Shall we make good our word and go to the Tomb and the Museum, or shall we save that for another day and go back to the hotel and let you get a good rest?"
"Oh," said Marguerite, shrinking suddenly, the color receding from her lips, the terror coming back to her eyes. "Oh, I can't go back—yet! But don't let me detain you—I'll—I'll just wander around a little—I'll go—shopping!" she ended with an attempt at briskness in her voice. "You've been awfully good."
"Now, look here, Marguerite, haven't I known you too long and loved you too well, for you to get off any bunk like that on me?" he asked laughing. "I'm here to take care of you, and what you want to do is what I want to do. What I meant is, are you too tired to take on sight seeing or are you really interested? It occurred to me that we weren't either of us in a state to get much intellectual good out of either a tomb or a museum, but perhaps I'm mistaken. If you want to, we'll go. But if you are not particular which day we go tombing, suppose we take a lighter expedition. I'll tell you what would just suit me. I'd like to take you down to Tiffany's and buy you the prettiest diamond ring we can find."
Marguerite started back in her chair.
"Oh, Nelson! What do you mean?"
Her face was a curious study of tenderness and fear.
"I mean just that, Daisy. I think it's high time you had some kind of a safeguard to wear. I've loved you too long and known you too well, to let you drift around the world unprotected any longer."
"But—Nelson—"
"Yes, I know—you want to tell me that you don't love me—that you couldn't possibly love one man when you've just got over caring for another, and all that—but I'm going to do this anyway. The chances are that you may some day find out you do care a little and then everything will be all right. But if you don't, why, there are such things as broken engagements.
"You don't have to marry me if you find out I'm a villain, or that you love somebody else better. But you do have to wear my ring for a while anyway. You're not going back home without it, I'll tell the world. Nobody is going to have a chance, not that dirty crook of a Keller anyway, to say that he threw you over. You're going home engaged to me, Marguerite Sheldon, whatever you do with me afterward, you may as well understand that I have the upper hand now, and you're going to have a ring, right now!
"You can take it for all the love I have in the world, if you're willing, or you can take it for just a means of protection for the time being if that suits you any better, but somehow I'm going to put my tag on my property. Until you've told me that you out and out can't love me ever, I'm out to see that you're known as belonging to me."
There was such quiet strength and tenderness in the way he said these words, so low that they could not possibly reach other ears than her own, so full of real feeling and earnestness, that she could not turn away from, nor laugh it off. It choked her to think how great and tender he was to her.
"Nelson, you're sorry for me and you're dear, but you don't need to go to such lengths," she began helplessly.
"Marguerite," he rebuked her, "that's beneath you. You know I never lie! You know I would not say it if it were not the dearest wish of my heart. You know I've loved you ever since I can remember."
She was still a long time, the sweet color coming into her cheeks; lifting she eyes at last she said:
"Nelson, forgive me I shouldn't have said that. I know what you've always been. But I didn't know till to-day quite how wonderful you were. I believe you, and I think it's the greatest thing in the world you have done for me. Your love is the greatest thing the world can ever give me, and I'm sure I don't know what I would ever be without you. I would tell you that I love you too, only I've been so many kinds of a fool the last year and a half that I don't even trust myself to say it. It seems cowardly of me to creep into the refuge you offer me, when I have so little to give. A threadbare love that was thrown away on an old married man with grown daughters!"
His face grew strangely tender.
"That's all right, little girl, I understand what you've been through. It's no wonder you distrust yourself, but I trust you, when you get rid of the mists and get back to yourself. We'll strike square with each other and you can trust me. I won't ask you to marry me till you're ready, and not then if you don't love me enough to be happy with me, better than any other man on earth—but I do ask you to wear my ring home and let it be a shelter to you, in any complex circumstances that this situation may happen to bring about."
She was still a long time, drawing little patterns with the tip of her spoon on the table cloth. At last she lifted hesitating eyes half shamed.
"Nelson—have you thought what Mother will think if I do this? Off with the old love and on with the new? Won't Mother be more horrified than ever at me? Won't she think I'm utterly false at heart?"
"Your mother will simply jump for joy," said Nelson Whitney solemnly. "Take it from me. It would be the happiest moment of her life if she could see my ring on your hand and know you wanted it there."
"So soon—after—"
"The sooner the quicker!" said Nelson, wrinkling his face into his nicest smile. "Come! Let's go!"
She followed him in a tumult of joy and doubt. Could it be right for her to be happy like this, when only a few hours ago she had been—
But Nelson was summoning another taxi, and in a few whirls they were entering the great Fifth Avenue store.
When she came out again a little while later, after going the beautiful rounds among priceless jewels and fragile glass that looked like the breath of a frozen flower, she was wearing his ring on her hand, and a soft depth of joy in her eyes that was good to see.
"And now," said Nelson, as he summoned another taxi, "I think we had better go and find Mother, and tell her all about it, don't you? It seems to me she has suffered about long enough."
IT WAS late that evening before mother and daughter were alone at last.
Mrs. Dunlap had responded to a telegram and left on the seven o'clock train for Boston to meet in conference with an important committee on some international work for young women.
Nelson Whitney had attended to all her wants as the son of the family might have waited on a powerful ally who had pulled them all out of distress.
He took Mrs. Sheldon and her daughter to a wonderful symphony orchestra concert with a soloist of world reputation, and then brought them back to the hotel refusing to remain for even a few minutes because they needed to rest. He attended them up to the door of their room, kissed Marguerite reverently, and then half shyly kissed her mother and said: "Good night, Mother!" with an accent in his tone that spoke volumes.
He left both mother and daughter tingling with joy and pride in him, and then at last the door was closed on the outer world, shutting them in alone together.
The girl hurried into the closet to hang up her coat and hat, feeling a sudden shyness before her mother, realizing all at once that there were some things that must be made clear between them before she could feel that all was right.
The mother removed her street things slowly, a light of almost other-worldly joy in her face. She was thinking of what her new friend had said to her that afternoon, and of the Bible verse she had quoted to her. And how wonderfully, and swiftly the promise had been made good to her. Why, she had scarcely waked from that refreshing sleep into which she had fallen pillowed on that promise, when the fulfillment had knocked at her door in the person of Nelson and Marguerite come to show her the ring.
Marguerite had been shy and lovely, but almost silent and they had not pressed her to talk much. She had been most humble and loving toward her mother and Mrs. Dunlap, thanking that great-hearted woman in no uncertain words, although they were few, and clasping her in a close penitent embrace when she left.
But to her mother Marguerite had as yet said not one word about the happenings of the last few days. She had let her lover do all the talking, and had sat with downcast lashes, and a childlike contentment in her face that yet spoke volumes of reassurance to the two who had waited through the long hours to know how it fared with her.
But now the time had come, and Marguerite knew it, to have it out with her mother.
She stayed in the closet several minutes arranging her things, being most careful about how her hat was placed on the shelf, and searching in her coat pocket for a handkerchief she was not sure was there. But at last she came out.
Mrs. Sheldon was taking down her hair for the night, and it fell in lovely silver waves to her waist, with soft little tendrils, and a curl or two at the ends. It seemed to glorify her delicate face and set her off as if it had been a halo.
The girl watched her lovely mother for a moment, wistfully, wishing she would begin, and then suddenly she burst forth with tears:
"I don't see how I could have done it to you!" she said in a cry of sorrow. "You are so dear and lovely, and here I've led you through all this horrible mess! I don't see how you can ever love me again!"
With one swift movement, as if she had been young again, the mother turned and folded her child in her arms.
"My darling!" she said. "Oh, my darling!" And held her so close she could hardly breathe.
It was a long time they stood so, Marguerite's face hidden in her mother's neck, the mother's lips against her child's hot forehead, touching her hair with caresses that could not be measured nor counted nor described because it would be a desecration.
No words passed between them, nor was there any need. It was as if their thoughts were as open to one another as if they had been one, so close their hearts seemed to come.
At last the girl lifted her hot, shamed, forgiven face to her mother. There was one more thing that had to be spoken:
"Mother, you must think I'm an awful fool. You must think awful things of me that I let Nelson—that he—that I—so soon after—" She hid her shamed face once more on her mother's shoulder, and the mother arms clasped her close again.
"No, dear, I don't think awful things. I think my girl has been through a bewildering experience and didn't know her own mind, was not capable of judging, but I think you have come back to your senses again, and I thank God that you have such a wonderful friend as Nelson who has been willing after all the suffering you have given him through these months, to put the protection of his love about you. He could not be a greater comfort to me, and to you if he were my own son."
The girl was still a long time, and then she said timidly:
"Yes, Mother, he is wonderful! More wonderful even than I have told you yet or you have seen. But Mother, you think I let him get that ring just to protect me from gossips, just to let others see that I had not been a fool! But I didn't, Mother. I truly didn't! I couldn't have done that not even to protect you from all the shame and disgrace of having people find out just what really did happen. I couldn't have unless I had loved him. You think perhaps it couldn't be true love so soon after I thought I was dying for that other man, but it is, it is. It seems as if I had never really known love before.
"Why, Mother, when Nelson began to tell me how he felt toward me, and what I was to him, it opened a whole new world to me. I hadn't known what love was before. I hadn't dreamed what it could be. It seemed as if the other had just been a cheap imitation of it. It showed up the other experience. I began to see in contrast how selfish Rufus—I mean Mr. Oliver—had been, how all he talked about was a good time, something to amuse—how he did not seem to care about whether I was pleased or not, only to bend me to his will. It hadn't seemed that way at all before. But Mother, I've been thinking about it all the evening, trying to see how I could make you understand, and I believe I was just proud to think a man as wise and experienced as I thought he was, had stooped to notice me, and I was frantic when I thought I had lost him.
"But Mother, I didn't know the deep sweet joy I feel now in Nelson. I didn't know there was such joy. Truly, Mother and you know it isn't as if I had just met Nelson—he's been dear always—always—since I was just a little girl, only he never opened this door to his soul before and let me see how he had put me in his heart on a throne. And it has just carried me into heaven, Mother, but I know you think I haven't any right—not a bit of right to it—since—since—"
"Yes, you have, my dear. I do think you have. I have watched your face. You are a different girl. You have met the real thing at last and recognized it. I couldn't have hoped it would come to you so soon. I was fearful what might happen to you in the interval, till our new friend showed me that I might trust you with my heavenly Father. And somehow, my precious child, I believe He let this come to you so soon just to show us both how He can heal, and how He will lead and save and bless those who trust Him entirely with their lives."
Said the girl, laying her hot cheek against her mother's soft one:
"Oh, Mother! You are the most wonderful woman in the world! And Mrs. Dunlap is next. What should we have done without her? Suppose I had gone on and had my own way! Suppose—suppose—I had lost Nelson! Just think! Even if the other man hadn't been what he was—suppose I had missed knowing Nelson's love! Oh, Mother! You don't know how wonderful Nelson is! I can never make you understand. He is—different! He is—wonderful!"
"I believe it!" said the mother fervently. "And now let us kneel down and thank God for the wonderful way in which he has led us."
A little later, while her mother was preparing for the night, Marguerite took out her little Bible that always traveled with her when she went anywhere because it was a part of the fittings of the bag which her mother had given her the Christmas before. Opening it, she paused with startled eyes. At last she said:
"Mother, listen to this. I opened right to it, Isaiah 42.16, 'I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do to them, and not forsake them.' Mother, that was what He did for me. I was blind!"
THE END
The Inimitable "Pansy"