CHAPTER SIX
Therepentant mood induced by the spectacle of the football game and John Moore’s visit still lay upon Grace the next morning when she went down to the Durland eight o’clock Sunday breakfast.
“I’m sorry you hurried down,” said her mother cheerily. “I don’t want you girls to come into the kitchen Sunday mornings; you’re both tired from your week’s work and I want you to make the Sabbath a real day of rest.”
“Oh, I’m for getting up when I wake up,” Grace answered. “I’m feeling fine. Let me do the toast, Ethel. I just love toasting.”
She led the talk at the table, recurring to the football game, exploring the newspaper for the sporting page to clarify her impressions of certain points in the contest.
“John was simply a scream! He talked of everything under the sun. You might have thought he didn’t want me to know what was going on at all!”
John was the safest of topics; they had all liked him; and Grace related many stories illustrative of the young man’s determination to refuse no task by which he could earn the dollars he needed to lodge, clothe and feed himself while gaining his education. Now that they had seen him at their own table they could the better enjoy Grace’s enumeration of John’s sturdy qualities.
This was the happiest breakfast the Durlands hadknown since Grace came home. It was in her heart to do her full share in promoting the cheer of the household. The unfortunate revelation of her duplicity of Friday night would no doubt be forgotten if she behaved herself; and she had no intention of repeating the offense. Nevertheless she was glad that she had asserted herself. It had done no harm to declare her right to independent action and the exercise of her own judgment in the choice of friends; she would have had no peace, she assured herself, if she hadn’t taken a stand against an espionage that would have been intolerable. She persuaded herself that her mother and sister were treating her with much more respect now that she had shown that she couldn’t be frightened or cowed by their criticisms.
Before breakfast was over Ethel asked quite casually whether Grace wouldn’t go to church with her, and Mrs. Durland promptly approved the invitation.
“You can go as well as not, Grace. Ethel has her Sunday school class first, but she can meet you right afterwards. I don’t want you girls bothering with the Sunday dinner.”
Grace didn’t question that this matter had been canvassed privately by Ethel and her mother; very likely it had been Ethel’s suggestion; but she decided instantly that it would be good policy to go. Her church-going had always been desultory and her mother had ceased to insist on it. But the situation called for a concession on her part.
“Why, yes; thank you ever so much, Ethel,” she said. “I haven’t been in ages. I’d meant to do some sewing but that can wait.”
“I think,” said Mrs. Durland, “we all need the help and inspiration of the church. Stephen, wouldn’t you like to go with the girls? I don’t believe you’veever heard Dr. Ridgley; he’s very liberal and a stimulating speaker.”
Durland mumbled an incoherent rejection of the idea; then looked up from his reading to explain that he had some things to attend to at the shop. There was nothing surprising in the explanation. He always went to his shop on Sunday mornings. Even in the old days of his identification with Cummings-Durland he had betaken himself every Sunday to the factory to ponder his problems.
As the congregation assembled Grace yielded herself to the spell of the organ, whose inspiring strains gave wings to her imagination. Always impressionable, she felt that she had brought her soul humbled and chastened into the sanctuary. Here were the evidences of those more excellent things that had been pointed out to her from her earliest youth. The service opened spiritedly with the singing of a familiar hymn which touched chords in her heart that had long been silent. She joined in the singing and in the responsive reading of a selection of the Psalms. She had read somewhere that the church, that Christianity indeed, was losing its hold upon the mind and the conscience of mankind. But this church was filled; many men and women must still be finding a tangible help in the precepts and example of Jesus.
Ethel, sitting beside her, certainly found here something that brought her back Sunday after Sunday, and made her a zealous helper in the church activities. Bigoted and intolerant, unkind and ungenerous as Ethel was, there was something in her devotion to the church that set her a little apart, spoke for somethingfine in her, that for the moment caused Grace a twinge of envy. In her early youth she had “joined” the West End church that her mother attended; but before she left high school the connection had ceased to interest her. Dr. Ridgley’s congregation was composed largely of the prosperous and well-to-do. Did these people about her really order their lives in keeping with the teachings of Jesus? Was the Christian life a possible thing? Were these women in their smart raiment really capable of living in love and charity with their neighbors, eager to help, to serve, to save? Absorbed in her own thoughts she missed the text; found herself studying the minister, a young man of quiet manner and pleasing voice. Then detached sentences arrested her truant thoughts, and soon she was giving his utterances her complete attention.
... “Leaving God out of the question,” he was saying, “what excuse have we to offer ourselves if we fail to do what we know to be right? We must either confess to a weakness in our own fibre, or lay the burden on some one else. We must be either captain or slave.... We hear much about the changed spirit of the time. It is said that the old barricades no longer shield us from evil; that the checks upon our moral natures are broken down; that many of the old principles of uprightness and decent living have been superseded by something new, which makes it possible for us to do very much as we please without harm to our souls. Let us not be deceived by such reasoning. There’s altogether too much talk about the changes that are going on. There are no new temptations; they merely wear a new guise. The soul and its needs do not change; the God who ever lives and loves does not change.... There’s alimit upon our capacity for self-deception. We may think we are free, but at a certain point we find that after all we are the prisoners of conscience.
“The business of life is a series of transactions between the individual soul and God. We can change that relationship only by our own folly. We can deceive ourselves with excuses; but the test of an excuse is whether it will pass muster with God. God is not mocked; we can’t ‘just get by’ with God. We may be sure that we are pretty close to a realization of the Christian life when we feel that we have an excuse for any sin or failure that we dare breathe into a prayer. There’s hope for all of us as long as our sins are such that we’re not ashamed to carry them to God.... Let us live on good terms with ourselves first of all and with God be the rest. Let us keep in harmony with that power above us and beyond us which in all ages has made for righteousness.”...
The minister was uttering clearly and forcibly the thoughts that had been creeping through her own mind like tired heralds feebly crying warning to a threatened fortress. Captain or slave, that was the question. She had told Trenton that she was afraid of the answers to vexed problems of life and conduct. She saw now the cowardice of this. Her intelligence she knew to be above the average, and her conscience had within twenty-four hours proved itself to be uncomfortably sensitive and vigilant. There might be breaks in the old moral barriers but if this were really true it would be necessary for her to stumble over the debris to gain the inviting freedom of the territory beyond. No; there would be no excuse for her if she failed to fashion something fine and noble of her life.
In the vestibule Ethel introduced her to the minister, who greeted her warmly and praised Ethel; she was one of his standbys he said. While he and Ethel were conferring about some matter connected with the young people’s society Grace was accosted by a lady whom she identified at once as her first customer at Shipley’s.
“Do I know you or not?” demanded Miss Reynolds pleasantly. “Hats make such a difference, but I thought I recognized you. I’ve been away so many years that I look twice at every one I meet. I was caught in England by the war and just stayed on. It gives you a queer feeling to find yourself a stranger in your native town. It was silly of me to stay away so long. Well, how are things going with you?”
“Just fine,” Grace answered, noting that Miss Reynolds wore one of the suits she had sold her, and looked very well in it.
The old lady (the phrase was ridiculous in the case of one so alert and spirited) caught the glance; indeed nothing escaped the bright eyes behind Beulah Reynolds’ spectacles. She bent toward Grace and whispered: “This suit’s very satisfactory!” And then: “Well, we’ve caught each other in a good place. My grandfather was one of the founders of this church, so I dropped in to have a look. Haven’t seen more than a dozen people I used to know. There was a good deal of sense in that sermon; the best I’ve heard in years. They don’t scatter fire and brimstone the way they used to.”
One would have thought from her manner that she was enormously relieved to find that fire and brimstone had been abandoned as a stimulus to the Christian life.
“I’m not a member,” said Grace, “but my sisteris. I never heard Dr. Ridgley before. I liked his sermon; I think I needed it.”
Grace was smiling but something a little wistful in her tone caused Miss Reynolds to regard her with keen scrutiny.
“Do you know, you’ve come into my mind frequently since our meeting at the store? I’ve thought of you—uncommercially, I mean, if that’s the way to put it! I’d like to know you better.”
“Oh, thank you, Miss Reynolds; I’ve thought of you, too, and have hoped you’d come into Shipley’s again.”
“Oh, clothes don’t interest me a particle; I may not visit Shipley’s again for years! But that doesn’t mean I shan’t see you. I wonder if you’d come to my house some evening for dinner—just ourselves. Would that bore you?”
“It certainly wouldn’t!” Grace responded smilingly.
“The sooner the better then! Tomorrow evening shall we say? Don’t think of dressing. Come direct from your work. Here’s my address on this card. I’ll send my motor for you.”
“Please don’t trouble to do that! I can easily come out on the street-car.”
“Suit yourself. It’s almost like kidnapping and—it just occurs to me that I don’t really know your name!” Her ignorance of Grace’s name greatly amused Miss Reynolds. “For all you know this might be a scheme to snare you to my house and murder you!”
“I’ll cheerfully take the chance!” laughed Grace, and gave her name. The minister had now finished with Ethel, and Grace introduced her sister to Miss Reynolds, who did not, however, include Ethel in her invitation to dinner.
“She charmingly eccentric,” Ethel remarked asMiss Reynolds turned away. “And awfully rich; one of the richest woman taxpayers in the state.”
“Yes; I understand she is,” said Grace without enthusiasm. “But we needn’t hold that against her.” And then, recalling Ethel’s complacent tone in mentioning any social recognition by her church friends, Grace remarked carelessly, “She’s invited me to dine with her tomorrow night. I’m to be the only guest. She seems to have a crush on me!”
At the midday dinner Ethel disclosed Miss Reynolds’ partiality for Grace with all impressiveness.
“Why, Grace!” exclaimed Mrs. Durland, “do you fullyappreciatewhat that means?”
“It means that a very nice lady has invited me to share her dinner,” Grace answered.
“I hope you realize,” said Ethel, “what a great compliment that is. Why, she can do worlds for you!”
“Here’s hoping she keeps a good cook!” Grace retorted, irritated that they were attributing so much importance to what she preferred to look upon as no more than an act of spontaneous kindness in a generous hearted woman.
“Miss Reynolds represents the old conservative element here,” Mrs. Durland remarked in a tone that implied her deep reverence for that element of the population—“the people who always stood for the best things of life. Her father was a colonel in the Civil War. They always had money. A woman like that can make herselffelt. Now that she’s back, I hope she’ll see that she has a work to do. She has no ties and with her position and wealth she can make herself a power for good in checking the evil tendencies so apparent in our city.”
“She’s so quaint; so deliciously old-fashioned,” added Ethel, “and you can see from her clothes thatshe’s an independent character. I’m going to ask Dr. Ridgely to invite her to take the chairmanship of our girl’s club committee.”
“That would be splendid, Ethel,” exclaimed Mrs. Durland, “perhapsyoucould say a word to her about it, Grace. You know better than Ethel the dangers and temptations of the girl wage-earner.”
“I don’t know why I should,” Grace replied. “Please don’t talk to me as though I had a monopoly of all the wickedness in the world.”
“Grace, dear, I didn’tmean——”
“All right, mother. But I have my feelings, you know.”
“The old Reynolds house on Meridian Street has been turned into a garage,” said Ethel; “it’s too bad those old homes had to go. Miss Reynolds has bought a house not far from where Bob Cummings built.”
Any mention of the Cummingses, no matter how inadvertent, inevitably precipitated a discussion of that family from some angle. Mrs. Durland said for the hundredth time that they didn’t deserve their prosperity; she doubted very much whether they were happy.
“Bob’s the best one of the family,” she continued. “Tom and Merwin haven’t amounted to anything and they never will. It must have been a blow to the family when Merwin married a girl who was nobody, or worse. She worked in some automobile office.”
Ethel challenged the statement that the girl Merwin Cummings married worked in an automobile office. It was a railroad office, and though it didn’t matter particularly with which method of transportation the young woman was identified before her marriage, Mrs. Durland and Ethel debated the question for several minutes. Mrs. Durland had only heardsomewhere that Mrs. Merwin Cummings had been a stenographer for an automobile agent while Ethel was positive that a railroad office had been the scene of the girl’s labors, her authority being another girl who worked in the same place.
“Jessie didn’t speak any too highly of her,” Ethel added; “not that there was anythingreallywrong with the girl. She ran around a good deal, and usually had two or three men on the string.”
“A good many very nice girls keep two or three men on the string,” said Grace. “I don’t see that there’s anything so terrible in that.”
The next day at noon Grace went to a trust company where she kept an account that represented the aggregate of small gifts of cash she had received through a number of years at Christmas and on her birthdays. As she waited at the window for her passbook, Bob Cummings crossed the lobby on his way to the desk of one of the officers. She wondered how he would greet her if they met, and what her attitude toward him ought to be in view of the break between her father and Isaac Cummings. She found a certain mild excitement as she pondered this, her eyes occasionally turning toward Cummings as he leaned against the railing that enclosed the administrative offices of the company. Grace had always liked and admired him; and it had hurt her more than she ever confessed that after the removal of the Cummingses from the old neighborhood Bob had gradually ceased his attentions. Perhaps his family had interfered asher mother had hinted; but it made no difference now that he had married and passed completely out of her ken.
Cummings had finished his errand and was walking quickly toward the door when he caught sight of her.
“Hello, Grace! I’m mighty glad to see you,” he said cordially. “Why—” He checked himself and the smile left his face abruptly as he remembered that their friendly status had changed since their last meeting.
Grace relieved his embarrassment promptly by smilingly putting out her hand.
“I’m very glad to see you, Bob,” she said. “It’s really been a long time, almost three years!”
“Just about,” he answered slowly.
“Old Father Time has a way of romping right on!” she remarked lightly.
They were in the path of customers intent upon reaching the cages and she took a step toward the door when he said, glancing toward a long bench at the side of the room, “If you’re not in a rush let’s sit down a minute. There’s something I’d like to say to you.”
“Oh, very well,” she assented, surprised but not displeased.
He was the son of a man who had dismissed her father from the concern in which their names had long been identified; but in so public a place there could be no harm in talking to him. Her old liking for him at once outweighed any feeling she had against his father. He was a big boy when she was still a small girl and he was her first hero. He was always quiet, thoughtful and studious, with a chivalrous regard for the rights and feelings of others. They had been chums, confiding their troubles to each other.It was to her that he had revealed his succession of boyish ambitions, and she had encouraged his fondness for music when other youngsters twitted him for taking piano lessons like a girl. He had never thought he would like business; he wanted to be a musician, with the leadership of an orchestra as his ultimate goal. It was because his brother Merwin had from an early age shown a refractory spirit that the parental authority had thwarted Bob’s aspirations; one of the sons at least had to go into the business and Bob was now a vice-president of the reorganized Cummings Manufacturing Company.
“I’ve been hoping for a chance to see you, Grace. It’s not easy to speak of it but I want you to know I’m sorry things turned out as they did. About your father and the business, I mean. You must all of you feel pretty hard about it. I hope it doesn’t mean any change in your plans for finishing at the university. I know how you’d counted on that.”
“I’ve given it up; I’m home to stay,” she answered. “But you needn’t feel badly about it. Of course it must have been necessary—about father and the business, I mean.”
He was embarrassed by her cheerful acceptance of the situation, and stammered, leaving one or two sentences unfinished before he got hold of himself.
“I want you to know I did all I could to prevent the break. It seemed a pity after your father and mine had been together so long. But for some time the plant had needed an active superintendent; just trusting the foremen of the shops wouldn’t serve any longer, and you won’t mind my saying it but your father never liked executive work. I suggested another way of handling it that would have made Mr. Durland a vice-president and free to go on with hisexperiments, but I couldn’t put it through. I did my best; honestly I did, Grace!”
There was the old boyish eagerness in this appeal. He regarded her fixedly, anxious for some assurance that she understood. She understood only too well that her father had become an encumbrance, and that in plain terms the company couldn’t afford to keep him at his old salary any longer. It was unnecessary for Bob to apologize; but it was like him to seize the first possible moment to express his sympathy. She had always felt the gentleness in him, which was denoted in his blue eyes, which just now shone with the reflection of his eagerness to set himself right with her. He turned his hat continually in his hands—they were finely shaped, with long supple fingers. At the base of his left thumb there was a scar, almost imperceptible, the result of a slash with a jack knife one day in the Durland yard where he had taken her dare to bring down a particular fine spray of blossoms from an old cherry tree. In his anxiety to deliver it unbroken on the bough he had cut himself. She remembered her consternation at seeing the injury, his swaggering attempt to belittle it; his submission to her ministrations as she tied it up with a handkerchief. She was twelve then; he sixteen. He saw the direction of her eyes, lifted the hand and with a smile glanced at the scar. She colored as she realized that he had read her thoughts.
“That was centuries ago,” he said. “We did use to have good times in your back yard! Do you remember the day you tumbled out of the swing and broke your arm? You didn’t cry; you were a good little sport.” And then, his eyes meeting hers, “You’re still a mighty good sport!”
“If I never have anything worse than a broken arm to cry over I’ll be lucky,” she answered evasively.
There was no excuse for lingering; he had expressed his regret at her father’s elimination from Cummings-Durland, and it served no purpose to compare memories of the former friendly relation between the young people of the two families, which were now bound to recede to the vanishing point. But he seemed in no haste to leave her. She on her side was finding pleasurable sensations in the encounter. He had been her first sweetheart, so recognized by the other youngsters of the neighborhood, and they had gone to the same dancing class. And he had kissed her once, shyly, on a night when the Cummingses were giving a children’s party. This had occurred on a dark corner of the veranda. It had never been repeated or referred to between them, but the memory of it was not without its sweetness. She was ashamed of herself for remembering it now. She wondered whether he too remembered it. And there had been those later attentions after the Cummingses had moved away that had encouraged hopes in her own breast not less than in her mother’s that Bob’s early preference might survive the shock of the Cummingses’ translation to the fashionable district, with its inevitable change of social orientation.
Ethel and her mother had questioned the happiness of his marriage, and her mind played upon this as she sat beside him, feeling the charm he had always had for her and wondering a little about the girl he had married whom she had never seen and knew of only from the talk at home. But two years was not long enough; it was ridiculous to assume that he wasn’t happy with his wife.
“We certainly had a lot of fun over there,” he was saying. “I suppose the park fountain plays just the same and the kids still sail their boats in the pond.”
“Yes, and go wading and fall in and have to be fishedout by the policeman! But we can’t be kids always, Bob!”
“No; that’s the worst of it!” he said with a tinge of dejection.
“I’m all grown up now and have a job. I’m a working girl!”
“No!” he exclaimed incredulously. “And Roy——”
“Oh, Roy’s to finish his law course; he’ll be through in June.”
“That’s too bad, Grace!” he exclaimed. “It’s you who ought to have stayed on! You’re the very type of girl who ought to go to college. It would have made all the difference in the world to you! And Ethel—is she at work too?”
“Yes; she’s in an insurance office and I’m in Shipley’s!” she went on smiling to relieve his evident discomfiture. “I’m in the ready-to-wear and I’ll appreciate any customers you send my way. Call for Number Eighteen!”
“Why, Grace! You don’t mean it! You have no business doing a thing like that. You could do a lot better.”
“Well, I didn’t just see it. I’m an unskilled laborer and haven’t time to fit myself for teaching, stenography or anything like that. You get results quicker in a place like Shipley’s. That is, I hope to get them if I’m as intelligent as I think I am!”
“I’m terribly sorry, Grace. I feel— I feel— as though we were responsible, father and I; and we are, of course. There ought to have been some other way for you; something more——”
“Please don’t! That’s the way mother and Ethel talk.”
She rose quickly, feeling that nothing was to be gained by continuing the discussion of matters thatwere irrevocably settled. And, moreover, his distress was so manifest in his face that she feared the scrutiny of passers-by.
“Good-bye, Bob,” she said. “I’m awfully glad I met you. Please don’t trouble at all about what can’t be helped. I haven’t any hard feeling—not the slightest.”
“I don’t like it at all,” he said impatiently.
He kept beside her to the entrance, where she gave him a nod and smile and hurried away. She was troubled at once for fear she hadn’t expressed cordially enough her appreciation of his sympathy. Very likely they would never meet again; there was no reason why they should. He had merely done what was perfectly natural in view of their old friendship, made it clear that he was sorry her father had been thrust out of the company of which he had been one of the founders. She was unable to see anything in the interview beyond a wish on his part to be kind, to set himself right. And it was like Bob to do that.
The strong romantic strain in her was quickened by the meeting. All afternoon her thoughts played about Bob Cummings. She reviewed their associations in childhood on through those last attentions after the Cummingses left the Military Park neighborhood. Her mother had probably been right in saying that if fortune hadn’t borne the Cummingses steadily upward, leaving the Durlands behind, Bob might have married her. It had been a mistake for him to marry a society girl who was, she surmised, incapable of appreciating his temperament. A matter of propinquity very likely; she had heard that the girl was not rich butbelonged to one of the old families; and very likely on her side it had been an advantageous arrangement.
Why did men marry the wrong women? she asked herself with proneness of youth to propound and answer unanswerable questions. There was Trenton, who had so frankly admitted the failure of his own marriage and with equal frankness took the burden of his failure upon himself. No two men could be more utterly unlike than Ward Trenton and Bob Cummings, and she busied herself contrasting them. Trenton was practical-minded; Bob a dreamer, and save for his college experiences the range of his life had been narrow. If both were free which would she choose? So great was her preoccupation with these speculations that her work suffered; through sheer inattention she let a promising customer escape without making a purchase.
In the afternoon distribution of mail she received a letter from Trenton. It began, “Dear Grace” and read:
“I expected to see you again this week—that is, of course, if you’d be willing; but I’m called to Kansas City unexpectedly and may not touch your port for ten days or so. I’m not conceited enough to assume that you will be grief-stricken over my delay, and strictly speaking there’s no excuse for writing except that you’ve rather haunted me,—a welcome ghost, I assure you! I talked far too much about myself the other night. One matter I shouldn’t have spoken of at all. No question of confidence in you or anything of that sort. But it’s something I never discuss even with old and intimate friends. You have guessed what I mean. Bad taste, you probably thought it. It was quite that! I want you to think as well of me as you can. I’m counting very much on seeing you again.I hope you are well and happy and that nothing has happened to your eyes since I saw them last!”
This was all except that he named a Kansas City club where he could be reached for the next week if she felt moved to write. She hadn’t expected to hear from him and the note was a distinct surprise. At every opportunity she reread it, and, catching her in the act, Irene teased her about it.
“Oh, you’ve started something! I’ll wager he signed his name in full; that’s just like him. Tommy never writes to me and when he wires he signs an assumed name. But Ward Trenton’s different. I think if he decided to commit murder he’d send his own account of it to the papers. He didn’t talk to you about his wife, I suppose, when Tommy and I left you alone so long at The Shack? Tommy’s known him for years but he says he wouldn’t think of mentioning his wife to him. I’d like to see Ward in love! These quiet ones go strong when they get started.”
“Oh, his letter’s just a little friendly jolly. He’s had to go to Kansas City instead of coming back here right away.”
“Of course he just had to explain that!” Irene laughed. “I can see this is going to be a real case. See what you can do with that woman just coming in. She looks as though she might really have some of the mazuma.”
It was not so easy as Grace had imagined in her spiritual ardor of Sunday to begin retreating from Irene. She realized that Irene would hardly listen in an amiable spirit to the warning she had thought in her hours of contrition it was her duty to give her friend. Irene’s serenity as she paced the aisles of the department, her friendliness and unfailing good humor were all disarming. Irene wasn’t so bad perhaps; Gracewas much more tolerant of Irene than she had thought on Sunday would ever be possible again.
The letter from Ward Trenton had the effect of reopening a door which Grace had believed closed and the key thrown away. She found herself wondering whether he might not always write to girls he met and liked; and yet as his image appeared before her—and he lived vividly in her thoughts—she accepted as sincere his statement that he had broken an established reserve in talking of his wife. This of course was what he referred to; and she saw a fine nobility in his apprehension lest the recipient of his confidences might think the less of him for mentioning his wife at all.
Grace was again tormented by curiosity as to whether Trenton still loved his wife and the hope that he did not. She hated herself for this; hated herself for having lost her grip upon the good resolutions of Sunday to forget the whole episode of Kemp’s party. She knew enough of the mind’s processes to indulge in what she fancied was a rigid self-analysis. She wondered whether she was really a normal being, whether other girls’ thoughts ran riot about men as hers did; whether there might not be something vulgar and base in her nature that caused her within a few hours to tolerate the thought of two men, both married, as potential lovers....
It occurred to her that she might too effectually have burned her bridges when she left the university. There were young men she had known during her two years in Bloomington whose interest she might have kept alive; among them there were a number of sons of well-to-do families in country towns. But she was unable to visualize herself married and settled in asmall town with her prospect of seeing and knowing the world limited by a husband’s means or ambition. There were one or two young professors who had paid her attentions. One of them, a widower and a man of substantial attainments, had asked her to marry him, but she was unable to see herself a professor’s wife, beset by all the uncertainties of the teaching profession.
She had always been used to admiration, but until now she had heavily discounted all the compliments that were paid her good looks. She found herself covertly looking into the mirrors as she passed. Trenton had been all over the world and no doubt had seen many beautiful women; and yet he wrote that she haunted him, which could only mean that he was unable to escape from the thought of her. Again, deeply humble, she scouted the idea that he could have fallen in love with her; he was only a little sorry for her, thinking of her probably as a rather nice girl who was to be pitied because she had to work for her living.
He had spoken of being lonely. Maybe it was only for lack of anything better to do that he fell to thinking of her as he sat in the club in St. Louis and wrote to her out of his craving for sympathy. At twenty-one Grace did not know that the only being in the world who is more dangerous than a lonely woman is a lonely man.
Grace was correct in her assumption that Ward Trenton had written her in a fit of loneliness but shedid not know that in the same hour he had written also to his wife. After a few sentences explaining his presence in St. Louis, the letter to Mrs. Trenton ran:
“It’s almost ridiculous,—the distinctly separate lives we lead. I was just studying the calendar and find that we haven’t met for exactly six months. When I’m at home—if I may so refer to the house in Pittsburgh that fixes my voting place and—pardon me!—doesn’t fix much of anything else—I occasionally find traces of your visits. I must say the servants do pretty well considering that they go their own gait. You’re a wonderful housekeeper at long range! But I’m not kicking. The gods must have their will with us.“I read of you in the newspapers frequently and judge that you’re living the life that suits you best. I found a copy of your ‘Clues to a New Social Order’ on the new book table here in the club library and reread parts of it. It never ceases to tickle me that a woman of your upbringing, with your line of blue-nosed New England ancestors, should want to pull down the pillars of society. I marvel at you!...“You’ve asked me now and then not to be afraid to tell you if ever I ran into a woman who interested me particularly. I haven’t had anything to report till now. But the other night I met a girl,—she’s probably just crossing the line into the twenties,—an interesting, provocative young person. She represents in a mild degree the new order of things you’re so mad about; going to live her own life; marriage not in the sketch. She’s a salesgirl in a big shop, but her people have known better days and she went half-way through college. She’s standing with reluctant feet where the brook and river meet, but I’m afraidwon’t be satisfied to play in the brook; she’s keen for the deeper waters. She’s as handsome as a goddess. She kissed me very prettily—her own idea I assure you! The remembrance of this incident is not wholly displeasing to me; it was quite spontaneous; filial perhaps....“Those bonds you have in the Ashawana Water Power Company are all right. I had a look at the plant recently and the dividends are sure....”
“It’s almost ridiculous,—the distinctly separate lives we lead. I was just studying the calendar and find that we haven’t met for exactly six months. When I’m at home—if I may so refer to the house in Pittsburgh that fixes my voting place and—pardon me!—doesn’t fix much of anything else—I occasionally find traces of your visits. I must say the servants do pretty well considering that they go their own gait. You’re a wonderful housekeeper at long range! But I’m not kicking. The gods must have their will with us.
“I read of you in the newspapers frequently and judge that you’re living the life that suits you best. I found a copy of your ‘Clues to a New Social Order’ on the new book table here in the club library and reread parts of it. It never ceases to tickle me that a woman of your upbringing, with your line of blue-nosed New England ancestors, should want to pull down the pillars of society. I marvel at you!...
“You’ve asked me now and then not to be afraid to tell you if ever I ran into a woman who interested me particularly. I haven’t had anything to report till now. But the other night I met a girl,—she’s probably just crossing the line into the twenties,—an interesting, provocative young person. She represents in a mild degree the new order of things you’re so mad about; going to live her own life; marriage not in the sketch. She’s a salesgirl in a big shop, but her people have known better days and she went half-way through college. She’s standing with reluctant feet where the brook and river meet, but I’m afraidwon’t be satisfied to play in the brook; she’s keen for the deeper waters. She’s as handsome as a goddess. She kissed me very prettily—her own idea I assure you! The remembrance of this incident is not wholly displeasing to me; it was quite spontaneous; filial perhaps....
“Those bonds you have in the Ashawana Water Power Company are all right. I had a look at the plant recently and the dividends are sure....”
Having sealed and addressed the envelopes Trenton laid them side by side on the blotter before him, lighted a cigarette, and then drew out and opened the locket that Grace had noted at The Shack, studying the woman’s face within a little wistfully. Then with a sigh he thrust it into his pocket and went out into the night and tramped the streets, coming at last to the post office where he mailed both letters.
Grace set off with the liveliest expectations to keep her appointment with Miss Reynolds. The house struck her at once as a true expression of the taste and characteristics of its owner. It was severely simple in design and furnishing, but with adequate provision for comfort. Grace had seen pictures of such rooms in magazines and knew that they represented the newest ideas in house decoration. The neutral tint of the walls was an ease to eye and spirit. Ethel had spoken of Miss Reynolds as quaint, an absurd term to apply either to the little woman or any of her belongings. She was very much up to date, even a little ahead of the procession, it seemed to Grace.
“Oh, thank you! I’m glad if it seems nice,” Miss Reynolds replied when Grace praised the house. “All my life I’ve lived in houses where everything was old and the furniture so heavy you had to get a derrick to move it on cleaning day. But I can’t accept praise for anything here. The house was built for a family that moved away from town without occupying it. The young architect who designed it had ideas about how it ought to be fixed up and I turned him loose. There was a music room, so I had to get a grand piano to fit into the alcove made for it. That young man is most advanced and I thought at first he wouldn’t let me have any place to sit down but you see he did allow me a few chairs! Are you freezing? I hate an over-heated house.”
“I’m perfectly comfortable,” said Grace, noting that Miss Reynolds wore the skirt of the blue suit she had sold her, with a plain white waist and a loose collar. Her snow white hair was brushed back loosely from her forehead. Her head was finely modeled and her face, aglow from an afternoon tramp in the November air, still preserved the roundness of youth. The wrinkles perceptible about her eyes and mouth seemed out of place,—only tentative tracings, not the indelible markings of age. She had an odd little way of turning her head to one side when listening, and mistaking this for a sign of deafness Grace had lifted her voice slightly.
“Now, my dear child!” cried Miss Reynolds, “just because I cock my head like a robin don’t think I’m shy of hearing. It always amuses me to have people take it for granted that I can’t hear. I hear everything; I sometimes wish I didn’t hear so much! I’ve always had that trick. It’s because one of my eyes is a bit stronger than the other. You’ll find that Idon’t do it when I wear my glasses, but I usually take them off in the house.”
At the table Miss Reynolds rambled on as though Grace were an old friend.
“Our old house down on Meridian Street was sold while I was abroad. It had grown to be a dingy hole. Garret full of trunks of letters and rubbish like that. I cabled at once to sell or destroy everything in the place. So that’s why I’m able to have a new deal. Are you crazy about old furniture? Please tell me you are not?”
“Oh, I like new things ever so much better!” Grace assured her.
“I thought you would. I despise old furniture. Old stuff of every kind. Old people too!” With a smile on her lips she watched Grace to note the effect of this speech. “I shouldn’t have dreamed of asking you to give up an evening for me if I meant to talk to you like an old woman. My neighbors are mostly young married people, but they don’t seem to mind my settling among them. I’m sixty-two; hurry and say I don’t look a day over fifty!”
“Forty!” Grace corrected.
“I knew I was going to like you! I think I’ll spend my remaining years here if I can keep away from people who want to talk about old times, meaning of course when I was a girl. It doesn’t thrill me at all to know that right here where this house stands my grandfather owned a farm. Every time I go down town I dodge old citizens I’ve known all my life for fear they’ll tell me about the great changes and expect me to get tearful about it. I can’t mourn over the passing of old landmarks and I’d certainly not weep at the removal of some of the old fossils around this town who count all their money every day tomake sure nobody’s got a nickel away from them. They keep their lawyers busy tightening up their wills. They’ve invented ways of tying up property in trusts so you can almost take it with you!”
“That’s their way of enjoying life, I suppose,” remarked Grace, who was taking advantage of Miss Reynolds’ talkativeness to do full justice to a substantial dinner. The filet of beef and the fresh mushrooms testified to the presence of an artist in the kitchen, and the hot rolls were of superlative lightness. Miss Reynolds paused occasionally to urge Grace to a second helping of everything offered.
“I detest anemic people,” Miss Reynolds declared. “If you don’t eat my food I’ll feel terribly guilty at asking you here.”
“It’s the best food I ever ate! We were going to have corned beef and cabbage at home, so all these wonderful dishes seem heavenly!”
“You’ve probably wondered why I grabbed you as I did and asked you to sit at meat with me?”
“Why, I hope you asked me because you liked me!” Grace answered.
“That’s the correct answer, Grace—may I call you Grace? I hate having a lot of people around; I like to concentrate on one person, and when I met you in the church entry it just popped into my head that you wouldn’t mind a bit giving me an evening. It’s awfully tiresome going to dinners where the people are all my own age. I’ve always hated formal entertaining. You struck me as a very fair representative of the new generation that appeals to me so much. Don’t look so startled; I mean that, my dear, as a compliment! And of course I really don’t know a thing about you except that you have very pretty manners and didn’t get vexed that day in the storewhen I must have frightened you out of your wits.”
“But you didn’t,” Grace protested. “I liked your way of saying exactly what you wanted.”
“I always try to do that; it saves a lot of bother. And please don’t be offended if I say that it’s a joy to see you sitting right there looking so charming. You have charming ways; of course you know that. And the effect is much enhanced when you blush that way!”
Grace was very charming indeed as she smiled at her singular hostess, who had a distinct charm of her own. She felt that she could say anything to Miss Reynolds and with girlish enthusiasm she promptly told her that she was adorable.
“I’ve been called a crank by experts,” Miss Reynolds said challengingly, as though she were daring her guest to refute the statement. “I get along better with foreigners than with my own people. Over there they attribute my idiosyncrasies to American crudeness, to be tolerated only because they think me much better off in worldly goods than I really am.”
They remained at the table for coffee, and the waitress who had served the dinner offered cigarettes. Grace shook her head and experienced a mild shock when Miss Reynolds took a cigarette and lighted it with the greatest unconcern.
“Abominable habit! Got in the way of it while I was abroad. Please don’t let me corrupt you!”
“I suppose I’ll learn in time,” Grace replied, amused as she remembered the stress her mother and Ethel had laid on Miss Reynolds’ conservatism.
It occurred to her that Miss Reynolds was entitled to know something of her history and she recited the facts of her life simply and straightforwardly. She had only said that her father had been unfortunatewithout explaining his connection with Cummings-Durland. Miss Reynolds smoked and sipped her coffee in silence; then asked in her quick fashion:
“Cummings-Durland? Those names tinkle together away back in my memory.”
“Father and Mr. Cummings came here from Rangerton and began business together. The Cummingses used to live neighbors to us over by Military Park.”
“Bob Cummings is one of my neighbors,” said Miss Reynolds. “Rather tragic—putting that young man into business. He hates it. There ought to be some way of protecting artistic young men from fathers who try to fit square pegs into round holes. I suppose the business troubles broke up the friendship of your families.”
“Yes; my mother and sister are very bitter about it; they think father was unfairly treated. But I met Bob only this morning and he was very friendly. He seemed terribly cut up because I’d left college.”
“He’s a sensitive fellow; he would feel it,” said Miss Reynolds. “So you children grew up together—the Durlands and the Cummings. I’m asking about your present relations because Bob comes in occasionally to play my piano—when there’s something on at his own house that he doesn’t like. His wife’s the sort that just can’t be quiet; must have people around. She’s crazy about bridge and he isn’t! He called me on the telephone just before you came to ask if he might come over after dinner, as his wife’s having people in for bridge. I told him to come along. I enjoy his playing; he really plays very well indeed. You don’t mind?”
“Not at all,” said Grace, wondering at the fate that was throwing her in Bob Cummings’ way twice in oneday and a day in which she had been torn with so many conflicting emotions.
“If you have the slightest feeling about meeting him do say so; you may always be perfectly frank with me.”
“Yes; thank you, Miss Reynolds. But I’d love to hear Bob play.”
When they were again in the living room Grace stood for a moment scanning a table covered with periodicals and new books.
“Since I came home I’ve been trying to find out what’s going on in America, so I read everything,” Miss Reynolds explained. “The general opinion seems to be that things are going to pot. Right under your hand there’s a book called ‘Clues to a New Social Order,’ written by a woman named Trenton. I understand she’s a respectable person and not a short-haired lunatic; but she throws everything overboard!”
“I’ve read it,” said Grace. “It’s certainly revolutionary.”
“All of that!” Miss Reynolds retorted. “But it does make you think! Everybody’s restless and crazy for excitement. My young married neighbors all belong to families I know or know about; live in very charming houses and have money to spend—too much most of them—and they don’t seem able to stand an evening at home by themselves. But maybe the new way’s better. Maybe their chances of happiness are greater where they mix around more. I’m curious about the whole business. These young folks don’t go to church. Why don’t they, when their fathers and grandfathers always did? Their parents stayed at home in the evening. My father used to grumble horribly when my mother tried to get him into a dresssuit. But there was wickedness then too, only people just whispered about it and tried to keep it from the young folks. There were men right here in this town who sat up very proper in the churches on Sunday who didn’t hesitate to break all the commandments during the week. But now you might think people were sending up fireworks to call attention to their sins! I remember the first time I went to a dinner—that was thirty years ago—where cocktails were passed around. It seemed awful—the very end of the world. When I told my mother about it she was horrified; said what she thought of the hostess who had exposed her daughter to temptation! But now prohibition’s driven everybody to drink. I asked my chauffeur yesterday how long it would take him to get me a quart of whiskey and he said about half an hour if I’d let him use the car. I told him to go ahead and sure enough he was back with it in twenty minutes. It was pretty fair whiskey, too,” Miss Reynolds concluded. “I was curious to see just how it felt to break the law and I confess to you, my dear, that I experienced a feeling of exultation!”
She reached for a fresh cigarette and lighted it tranquilly.
“Everybody’s down on the young people,” said Grace, confident that she had a sympathetic listener. “They tell us all the time that we’re of no account.”
“There are pages of that on that table,” Miss Reynolds replied. “Well, I’m for the young people; particularly you girls who have to rustle for yourselves. If I stood up in a store all day or hammered a typewriter I’m sure I’d feel that I was entitled to some pleasure when I got through. Just what do girls do—I don’t mean girls of your upbringing exactly and yourschooling,—but less lucky girls who manage their own affairs and are not responsible to any one.”
“I haven’t been at work long enough to know much about that,” said Grace; “but—nearly every girl who’s at all attractive has a beau!”
“Certainly!” Miss Reynolds affirmed promptly. “It’s always been so. There’s nothing new in that.”
“And they go to dances. Every girl likes to dance. And sometimes they’re taken out to dinner or to a show if the young man can afford it. Girls don’t have parties at home very much; I mean even where they live at home. There’s not room to dance usually; the houses are too small and it isn’t much fun. And if the beau has a car he takes the girl driving.”
“And these girls marry and have homes of their own? That still happens, doesn’t it?”
“Well, a good many girls don’t want to marry,—not the young men they’re likely to meet. Or if they do, some of them keep on working. There are girls in Shipley’s who are married and keep their jobs. They like the additional money; they can wear better clothes, and they like to keep their independence.”
“There you are!” Miss Reynolds exclaimed. “The old stuff about woman’s place being in the home isn’t the final answer any more. If you won’t think it impertinent just how do you feel on that point, Grace?”
“Oh, I shouldn’t want to marry for a long, long time!—even if I had the chance,” Grace answered with the candor Miss Reynolds invited. “I’ve got that idea about freedom and independence myself! I hope I’m not shocking you!”
“Quite the contrary. I had chances to marry myself,” Miss Reynolds confessed. “I almost did marry when I was twenty-two but decided I didn’t love the young man enough. I had these ideas of freedomtoo, you see. I haven’t really been very sorry; I suppose I ought to be ashamed of myself. But the man I almost married died miserably, an awful failure. I have nothing to regret. How about college girls—you must know a good many?”
“Oh, a good many co-eds marry as soon as they graduate, and settle down. But those I’ve known are mostly country town girls. I think it’s different with city girls who have to go to work. They’re not so anxious to get married.”
“The fact seems to be that marriage isn’t just the chief goal of a woman’s life any more. Things have reached such a pass that it’s really respectable to be a spinster like me! But we all like to be loved—we women, don’t we? And it’s woman’s blessing and her curse that she has love to give!”
She was silent a moment, then bent forward and touched Grace’s hand. There was a mist of dreams in the girl’s lovely eyes.
“I wish every happiness for you, dear. I hope with all my heart that love will come to you in a great way, which is the only way that counts!”
A moment later Bob Cummings appeared and greeted Grace with unfeigned surprise and pleasure.
“I’ll say we don’t need to be introduced! Grace and I are old friends,” he said, still unable to conceal his mystification at finding Grace established on terms of intimacy in his neighbor’s house.
“I inveigled Grace here without telling her it was to be a musical evening,” said Miss Reynolds.
“Oh, I’d have come just the same!” laughed Grace.
“We’ll cut the music now,” said Cummings. “Itwill be a lot more fun to talk. I tell you, Grace, it’s a joy to have a place of refuge like this! Miss Reynolds is the kindest woman in the world. I’ve adopted her as my aunt.”
He bowed to Miss Reynolds, and glanced from one to the other with boyish eagerness for their approval.
“That’s the first I’ve heard of it,” Miss Reynolds retorted with a grieved air. “Why don’t you tell him, Grace, that being an aunt sounds too old. You might both adopt me as a cousin!”
Grace and Bob discussed the matter with mock gravity and decided that there was no good reason why they shouldn’t be her cousin.
“Then you must call me Cousin Beulah!” said Miss Reynolds. Her nephews and nieces were widely scattered she said, and she didn’t care for her lawful cousins.
Grace talked much more freely under the stimulus of Bob’s presence. It appeared that Miss Reynolds had not known Bob until she moved into the neighborhood and their acquaintance had begun quite romantically. Miss Reynolds had stopped him as he was passing her house shortly after she moved in and asked him whether he knew anything about trees. Some of the trees on her premises were preyed upon by malevolent insects and quite characteristically she had halted him to ask whether he could recommend a good tree doctor.
“You looked intelligent; so I took a chance,” Miss Reynolds explained. “And the man you recommended didn’t hurt the trees much—only two died. I’ve bought a tree book and hereafter I’ll do my own spraying.”
When Miss Reynolds spoke of Mrs. Cummings she referred to her as Evelyn, explaining to Grace thatshe was the daughter of an old friend. Evelyn, it appeared, was arranging a Thanksgiving party for one of the country clubs. Bob said she was giving a lot of time to it; it was going to be a brilliant affair. Then finding that Grace did not know Evelyn and remembering that in all likelihood her guest wouldn’t be invited to the entertainment, Miss Reynolds turned the talk into other channels. It was evident that Bob was a welcome visitor to Miss Reynolds’s house and that she understood and humored him and indulged and encouraged his chaffing attitude toward her. That he should make a practice of escaping from a company at home that did not interest him was just like Bob! He was lucky to have a neighbor so understanding and amiable as Miss Reynolds. Perhaps again and often she would meet Bob at Miss Reynolds’s when he found Evelyn irksome. Grace rose and changed her seat, as though by so doing she were escaping from an idea she felt to be base, an affront to Miss Reynolds, an insult to Bob.
“The piano’s waiting, Bob”; and Miss Reynolds led the way to the music room across the hall.
Bob began, as had always been his way, Grace remembered, by improvising, weaving together snatches of classical compositions, with whimsical variations. Then, after a pause, he sat erect, struck into Schumann’s Nachtstuck, and followed it with Handel’s Largo and Rubenstein’s Melody in F, all associated in her memory with the days of their boy-and-girl companionship. He shook his head impatiently, waited a moment and then a new mood laying hold of him he had recourse to Chopin, and played a succession of pieces that filled the room with color and light. Grace watched the sure touch of his hands, marveling that he had been so faithful to the music that was his passionas a boy. It had always been his solace in the unhappy hours to which he had been a prey as far back as she could remember. There was no questioning his joy in the great harmonies. He was endowed with a talent that had been cultivated with devotion, and he might have had a brilliant career if fate had not swept him into a business for which his temperament wholly unfitted him.
While he was still playing Miss Reynolds was called away by callers and left the room quietly.
“You and Bob stay here,” she whispered to Grace. “These are people I have to see.”
When Bob ended with a Chopin valse, graceful and capricious, that seemed to Grace to bring the joy of spring into the room, he swung round, noted Miss Reynolds’s absence and then the closed door.
“My audience reduced one-half!” he exclaimed ruefully. “At this rate I’ll soon be alone.”
“Don’t stop! Those last things were marvelous!”
“Just one more! Do you remember how I cornered you one day in our old house—you were still wearing pigtails—and told you I’d learned a new piece and you sat like a dear angel while I played this—my first show piece?”
It was Mendelssohn’s Spring Song, and she thrilled to think that he hadn’t forgotten. The familiar chords brought back vividly the old times; he had been so proud and happy that day in displaying his prowess.
Her praise was sweet to him then, and she saw that it was grateful to him now.
“You play wonderfully, Bob; it’s a pity you couldn’t have kept on!”
“We can’t do as we please in this world,” he said, throwing himself into a chair and reaching for the cigarettes. “But I get a lot of fun out of my music.I’m not sorry I stuck to it as I did from the time I could stretch an octave. Are you spending the night with Miss Reynolds?”
“No; we’re not quite that chummy. Miss Reynolds said she’d send me home.”
“Not on your life she won’t! I’m going to run you out in my roadster. That’s settled. I don’t have to show up at home till midnight, so there’s plenty of time. You and Cousin Beulah seem to get on famously.”
Grace gave a vivacious account of the beginning of her acquaintance with Miss Reynolds, not omitting the ten dollar tip.
He laughed; then frowned darkly.
“I’ve been troubled about this thing ever since I met you today,” he said doggedly; “your having to quit college, I mean. I feel guilty, terribly guilty.”
“Please, Bob! don’t spoil my nice evening by mentioning those things again. I know it wasn’t your fault. So let’s go on being friends just as though nothing had happened.”
“Of course. But it’s rotten just the same. You can hardly see me without——”
She raised her hand warningly.
“Bob, I’d be ashamed if anything could spoil our friendship. I’m perfectly satisfied that you had nothing to do with father’s troubles. So please forget it.”
She won him back to good nature—she had always been able to do that—and they talked of old times, of the companions of their youth in the park neighborhood. This was safe ground. The fact that they were harking back to their childhood and youth emphasized the changed circumstances of both the Durlands and the Cummingses. It didn’t seem possible that he was married; it struck her suddenly that he didn’t appearat all married; and with this came the reflection that he was the kind of man who should never marry. He should have kept himself free; he had too much temperament for a harmonious married life.
“You don’t know Evelyn,” he remarked a little absently. And then as though Grace’s not knowing Evelyn called for an explanation he added: “She was away at school for a long time.”
“What’s she like, Bob?” Grace asked. “A man ought to be able to draw a wonderful picture of his wife.”
“He should indeed! Let me see. She’s fair; blue eyes; tall, slender; likes to have something doing; wins golf cups; a splendid dancer.... Oh, pshaw! You wouldn’t get any idea from that!” he said with an uneasy laugh. “She’s very popular; people like her tremendously.”
“I’m sure she’s lovely, Bob. Is she musical?”
“Oh, she doesn’t care much for music; my practicing bores her. She used to sing a little but she’s given it up.”
He hadn’t said that he hoped she might meet Evelyn; and for a moment Grace resented this. She was a saleswoman in a department store and Evelyn had no time for an old friend of her husband who sold ready-to-wear clothing. A snob, no doubt, self-centered and selfish; Bob’s failure to suggest a meeting with his wife made it clear that he realized the futility of trying to bring them together.
“You haven’t missed me a bit!” cried Miss Reynolds appearing suddenly. “Is the music all over?”
“Oh, we’ve been reminiscing,” said Grace. “And you missed the best of Bob’s playing.”
“I’m sorry those people chose tonight for their call. It was Judge Sanders, my lawyer, and his wife, oldfriends—but I didn’t dare smoke beforethem! You’ve got to stay now while I have a cigarette.”
When Grace said presently that she must go and Miss Reynolds reached for the bell to ring for her car, Bob stayed her hand.
“That’s all fixed! I’ll run around and bring my car andI’lltake Grace home. Please say you don’t mind!”
“Of course, I don’t mind; but you needn’t think you’re establishing a precedent. The next time Grace comes I’ll lock the door against you and all the rest of the world!”
While Bob went for his car Miss Reynolds warned Grace that she was likely to ask her to the house again.
“You’ll be doing me a favor by coming, dear. And remember, if there’s ever anything I can do for you you’re to tell me. That’s a promise. I should be sorry if you didn’t feel that you could come to me withanything.”
“It’s only a little after ten,” said Bob as he started the car, “and I’m going to touch the edge of the country before I take you home. Is that all right? How long’s it been since we went driving together?”
“Centuries! It was just after you moved.”
“I was afraid you’d forgotten. I remember the evening perfectly. We stopped at the Country Club to dance and just played around by ourselves. But we did have a good time!”
His spirits were soaring; through his talk ran an undercurrent of mischievous delight in his freedom. “It’s just bully to see you again!” he repeated several times. “While I was playing I kept thinking of theroyal fun we used to have. Do you remember that day our families had a picnic—we were just kids then—and you and I wandered away and got lost looking for wild flowers or whatever the excuse was; and a big storm came up and our mothers gave us a good raking when we came back all soaked and everybody was scared for fear we’d tumbled into the river!”
To Grace the remembrance of this adventure was not nearly so thrilling as the fact that Bob, now married, still chortled over the recollection and was obviously delighted to be spending an evening with her while his wife enjoyed herself in her own fashion at home. He would probably not tell Evelyn that he had taken the daughter of his father’s old business associate driving, a girl who clerked in a department store and was clearly out of his social orbit. Here was another episode which Grace knew she dared not mention at home; Ethel and her mother would be horrified. But Grace was happy in the thought that Bob Cummings still found pleasure in her company even if she was Number Eighteen at Shipley’s and took and accepted tips from kindly-disposed customers. He halted the car at a point which afforded a broad sweep of moonlit field and woodland.
“You know, Grace, sometimes I’ve been hungry and positively homesick for a talk with you such as we’ve had tonight.”
“Please drive on! You mustn’t say things like that.”
“Well, that’s the way I feel anyhow. It’s queer how I haven’t been able to do anything I wanted to with my life. I’m like a man who’s been pushed on a train he didn’t want to take and can’t get off.”
Here again was his old eager appeal for sympathy. He was weak, she knew, with the weakness that is adefect of such natures. It would be perfectly easy to begin a flirtation with him, possibly to see him frequently in some such way as she saw him now. It was wrong to encourage him, but her curiosity as to how far he would go overcame her scruples; it would do no harm to lead him on a little.
“You ought to be very happy, Bob. You have everything to make you happy!”
“I’ve made mistakes all down the line,” he answered with a flare of defiance. “I ought to have stood out against father when he put me into the business. I’m no good at it. But Merwin made a mess of things; father’s got him on a ranch out in Montana now, and Tom’s got the bug to be a doctor and nothing can shake him. So I have to sit at a desk every day doing things I hate and doing them badly of course. And for the rest of it——!”
He stopped short of the rest of it, which Grace surmised was his marriage to Evelyn. It was his own fault that he had failed to control and manage his life. He might have resisted his father when it came to going into business and certainly it spoke for a feeble will if he had married to gratify his mother’s social ambitions. She was about to bid him drive on when he turned toward her saying:
“I feel nearer to you, Grace, than to anybody else in the world! It was always that way. It’s got hold of me again tonight—that feeling I used to have that no matter what happened you’d know, you’d understand!”
“Those days are gone, Bob,” she said, allowing a vague wistfulness to creep into her tone. “I mustn’t see you any more. We’ve both got our lives to live. You know that as well as I do. You’re just a little down tonight; you always had moods like this whenyou thought the world was against you. It’s just a mood and everything will look differently tomorrow.”
“But I’ve got to see you, Grace; not often maybe, but now and then. There’ll be some way of managing.”
“No!” she exclaimed, her curiosity fully satisfied as to how far he would go. “I’ll be angry with you in a minute! This is positively the last time!”
“Please don’t say that!” he pleaded. “I wouldn’t offend you for anything in the world, Grace.”
“I know you wouldn’t, Bob,” she said kindly. “But there are some things that won’t do, you know.”
“Yes, I know,” he conceded with the petulance of a child reluctantly admitting a fault.
“I’m glad you still like me, but you know perfectly well this kind of thing’s all wrong. I mustn’t see you again.”
“But Grace, what if I just have to see you!”
“Oh, don’t be so silly! You’ll never just have to. You’ve got a wife to tell your troubles to.”
She wasn’t sure that she wanted to make it impossible for him to see her again or that she really preferred that he tell his troubles to his wife. His troubles were always largely imaginary, due to his sensitive and impressionable nature.
“You needn’t remind me of that!” he said.
“Oh, start the car! Let’s all be cheerful! We might as well laugh as cry in this world. Did you see the game Saturday? I had a suitor turn up from the university and we had a jolly time.”
“Who was he?” Bob demanded savagely.
“Oh, Bob, you’re a perfect scream! Well, you needn’t be jealous ofhim.”
“I’m jealous of every man you know!” he said.
“Now, you’re talking like a crazy man! SupposeI were to tell you I’m jealous of Evelyn! Please remember that you forgot all about me and married another girl quite cheerfully with a church wedding and flowers and everything. You needn’t come to me now for consolation!”
She refused to hear his defense from this charge, and mocked him by singing snatches of college songs till they were in town. When they reached the Durland house she told him not to get out.
“I won’t tell the family you brought me home; they wouldn’t understand. Thanks ever so much, Bob.”
Mrs. Durland and Ethel were waiting to hear of her evening with Miss Reynolds and she told everything except that she had met Cummings there. She satisfied as quickly as possible their curiosity as to Miss Reynolds and her establishment, and hurried to her room eager to be alone. She assured herself that she could never love Bob Cummings, would never have loved him even if their families had remained neighbors and it had been possible to marry him. He wasn’t her type—the phrase pleased her—and in trying to determine just what type of man most appealed to her Trenton loomed large in her speculations. Within a few weeks she had encountered two concrete instances of the instability of marriage. Love, it seemed, was a fleeting thing and loyalty had become a by-word. Bob was only a spoiled boy, shallow, easily influenced, yet withal endowed with graces and charms. But graces and charms were not enough. She brought herself to the point of feeling sorry for Evelyn, who probably refused to humor and pet Bob and was doubtless grateful that he had music as an outlet for his emotions. It was something, though, to have found that he hadn’t forgotten; that there were times whenhe felt the need of her. She wondered whether he would take her word as final and make no further attempt to see her.