The next morning Elizabeth Dean met Leila Dick at the station. That she was really meeting Leila Ballard was a thing, of course, of which she had no knowledge. But Leila was acutely conscious of her new estate. It seemed to her that the motor horn brayed it, that the birds sang it, that the cows mooed it, that the dogs barked it, "Leila Ballard, Leila Ballard, Leila Ballard, wife of Barry—you're not Leila Dick, you're not, you're not, you're not."
"I never knew you to be so quiet," Elizabeth said at last, curiously. "What's the matter?"
Leila brought herself back with an effort. "I like to listen," she said, "but I am usually such a chatterbox that people won't believe it."
Somehow she managed to get through that day. Somehow she managed to greet and meet the people who had been invited to the luncheon which was given in her honor. But while in body she was with them, in spirit she was with Barry. Barry was her husband—her husband who loved her and needed her in his life.
His confession of the night before had brought with it no deadening sense of hopelessness. To her, any future with Barry was rose-colored.
But it had changed her attitude toward him in this, that she no longer adored him as a strong young god who could stand alone, and whom she must worship because of his condescension in casting his eyes upon her.
He needed her! He needed little Leila Dick! And the thought gave to her marriage a deeper meaning than that of mere youthful raptures.
He had put her on the train that morning reluctantly, and had promised to call her up the moment she reached town.
So her journey toward Washington on the evening train was an hour of anticipation. To those who rode with her, she seemed a very pretty and self-contained young person making a perfectly proper and commonplace trip on the five o'clock express—in her own mind, she was set apart from all the rest by the fact of her transcendant romance.
Her father met her at the station and put her into a taxi. All the way home she sat with her hand in his.
"Did you have a good time?" he asked.
"Heavenly, Dad."
They ate dinner together, and she talked of her day, wishing that there was nothing to keep from him, wishing that she might whisper it to him now. She had no fear of his disapproval. Dad loved her.
No call had come from Barry. She finished dinner and wandered restlessly from room to room.
When nine o'clock struck, she crept into the General's library, and found him in his big chair reading and smoking.
She sat on a little stool beside him, and laid her head against his knee. Presently his hand slipped from his book and touched her curls. And then both sat looking into the fire.
"If your mother had lived, my darling," the old man said, "she would have made things easier for you."
"About Barry's going away?"
"Yes."
"It seems silly for him to go, Dad. Surely there's something here for him to do."
"Gordon thinks that the trip will bring out his manhood, make him less of a boy."
"I don't think Gordon understands Barry."
"And you do, baby? I'm afraid you spoil him."
"Nobody could spoil Barry."
"Don't love him too much."
"As if I could."
"I'm not sure," the old man said, shrewdly, "that you don't. And no man's worth it. Most of us are selfish pigs—we take all we can get—and what we give is usually less than we ask in return."
But now she was smiling into the fire. "You gave mother all that you had to give, Dad, and you made her happy."
"Yes, thank God," and now there were tears on the old cheeks; "for the short time that I had her—I made her happy."
When Barry came, he found her curled up in her father's arms. Over her head the General smiled at this boy who was some day to take her from him.
But Barry did not smile. He greeted the General, and when Leila came to him, tremulously self-conscious, he did not meet her eyes, but he took her hand in his tightly, while he spoke to her father.
"You won't mind, General, if I carry Leila off to the other room. I've a lot of things to say to her."
"Of course not. I was in love once myself, Barry."
They went into the other room. It was a long and formal parlor with crystal chandeliers and rose-colored stuffed furniture and gilt-framed mirrors. It had been furnished by the General's mother, and his little wife had loved it and had kept it unchanged.
It was dimly lighted now, and Leila in her white dinner gown and Barry tall and slender in his evening black were reflected by the long mirrors mistily.
Barry took her in his arms, and kissed her. "My wife, my wife," he said, again and again, "my wife."
At first she yielded gladly, meeting his rapture with her own. But presently she became aware of a wildness in his manner, a broken note in his whispers.
So she released herself, and stood back a little from him, and asked, breathing quickly, "Barry, what has happened?"
"Everything. Since I left you this morning I've lost my place. I found the envelope on my desk this morning—telling of my discharge. They said that I'd been too often away without sufficient excuse, and so they have dropped me from the rolls. And you see that what Gordon said was true. I can't earn a living for a wife. Now that I have you, I can't take care of you—it is not much of a fellow that you've married, Leila."
Oh, the little white face with the shining eyes!
Then out of the stillness came her cry, like a bird's note, triumphant. "But I'm your wife now, and nothing can part us, Barry."
He caught up her hands in his. "Dearest, dearest—don't you see that I can't ever tell them of our marriage until I can show them——"
"Show them what, Barry?"
"That I can take care of you."
"Do you mean that I mustn't even tell Dad, Barry?"
"You mustn't tell any one, not until I come back."
Every drop of blood was drained from her face.
"Until you come back. Are you going—away?"
"I promised Gordon to-day that I would."
She swayed a little, and he caught her. "I had to promise, Leila. Don't you see? I haven't a penny, and I can't confess to them that I've married you. I wanted to tell him that you were mine—that all your sweetness and dearness belonged to me. I wanted to shout it to the world. But I haven't a penny, and I'm proud, and I won't let Gordon think I've been a—fool."
"But Dad would help us."
"Do you think I'd beg him to give me what he hasn't offered, Leila? I've got to show them that I'm not a boy."
She struggled to bring herself out of the strange numbness which gripped her. "If I could only tell Dad."
"Surely it can be our own sweet secret, dearest."
She laid her cheek against his arm, in a dumb gesture of surrender, and her little bare left hand crept up and rested like a white rose petal against the blackness of his coat.
He laid his own upon it. "Poor little hand without a wedding ring," he said.
And now the numbness seemed to engulf her, to break——
"Hush, Leila, dear one."
But she could not hush. That very morning they had slipped the wedding ring over a length of narrow blue ribbon, and Barry had tied it about her neck. To-morrow, he had promised, she should wear it for all the world to see.
But she was not to wear it. It must be hidden, as she had hidden it all day above her heart.
"Leila, you are making it hard for me."
It was the man's cry of selfishness, but hearing it, she put her own trouble aside. He needed her, and her king could do no wrong.
So she set herself to comfort him. In the month that was left to them they would make the most of their happiness. Then perhaps she could get Dad to bring her over in the summer, and he should show her London, and all the lovely places, and there would be the letters; she would write everything—and he must write.
"You little saint," he said when he left her, "you're too good for me, but all that's best in me belongs to you—my precious."
She went to the door with him and said "good-night" bravely.
Then she shut the door and shivered. When at last she made her way through the hall to the library, she seemed to be pushing against some barrier, so that her way was slow.
On the threshold of that room she stopped.
"Dad," she said, sharply.
"My darling."
He sprang to his feet just in time and caught her.
She lay against his heart white and still. The strain of the last two days had been too great for her, and Little-Lovely Leila had fainted dead away.
In Which a Long Name is Bestowed Upon a Beautiful Baby; and in Which a Letter in a Long Envelope Brings Freedom to Mary.
The christening of Constance's baby brought together a group of feminine personalities, which, to one possessed with imagination, might have stood for the evil and beneficent fairies of the old story books.
The little Mary-Constance Ballard Richardson, in spite of the dignity of her hyphenated name, was a wee morsel. Swathed in fine linen, she showed to the unprejudiced eye no signs of great beauty. With a wrinkly-red skin, a funny round nose, a toothless mouth—she was like every other normal baby of her age, but to her family and friends she was a rare and unmatched object.
Even Aunt Frances succumbed to her charms. "I must say," she remarked to Delilah Jeliffe, as they bent over the bassinet, "that she is remarkable for her age."
Delilah shrugged. "I'm not fond of them. They're so red and squirmy."
Leila protested hotly. "Delilah, she's lovely—such little perfect hands."
"Bird's claws!"
Mary took up the chant. "Her skin's like a rose leaf."
And Grace: "Her hair is going to be gold, like her mother's."
"Hair?" Delilah's tone was incredulous. "She hasn't any."
Aunt Frances expertly turned the small morsel on its back. "What do you call that?" she demanded, indignantly.
Above the fat crease of the baby's neck stuck out a little feathery duck's-tail curl—bright as a sunbeam.
"What do you call that?" came the chorus of worshipers.
Delilah gave way to quiet, mocking laughter. "That isn't hair," she said; "it is just a sample of yellow silk."
Porter, coming up, was treated to a repetition of this remark.
"Let us thank the Gods that it isn't red," was his fervent response.
Grace's hands went up to her own lovely hair.
"Oh," she reproached him.
Porter apologized. "I was thinking of my carroty head. Yours is glorious."
"Artists paint it," Grace agreed pensively, "and it goes well with the right kind of clothes."
Delilah looked from one to the other.
"You two would make a beautiful pair of saints on a stained glass window," she said reflectively, "with a spike of lilies and halos back of your heads."
"Most women are ready for halos," Porter said, "and wings, but I can't see myself balancing a spike of lilies."
"Nor I," Grace rippled; "you'd better make it hollyhocks, Delilah—do you know the old rhyme
"'A beau never goesWhere the hollyhock blows'?"
"You've never lacked men in your life," Delilah told her, shrewdly, "but with that hair you won't be one of the comfortable married kind—it will be either agrande passionor a career for you. If you don't find your Romeo, you'll be Mother Superior in a convent, the head of a deaconess home, or a nurse on a battle-field."
Grace's eyes sparkled. "Oh, wise Delilah, you haven't drifted so very far away from my dreams. Where did you get your wisdom?"
"I'm learning things from Colin Quale. We study types together. It's great fun for me, but he's perfectly serious."
Colin Quale was Delilah's artist. "Why didn't you bring him?" Constance asked.
"Because he doesn't belong in this family group; and anyhow I had something for him to do. He's making a sketch of the gown I am to wear at the White House garden party. It will keep him busy for the afternoon."
"Delilah," Leila looked up from her worship of Mary-Constance, "I don't believe you ever see in people anything but the way they look."
"I don't, duckie. To me—you are a sort of family art gallery. I hang you up in my mind, and you make a rather nice little collection."
Barry, coming in, caught up her words, with something of his old vivacity.
"The baby belongs to the Dutch school—with that nose."
There was a chorus of protest.
"She looks like you," Delilah told him. "Except for her nose, she's a Ballard. There's nothing of her father in her, except her beautiful disposition."
She flashed a challenging glance at Gordon. He stiffened. Such women as Delilah Jeliffe might have their place in the eternal scheme of femininity, but he doubted it.
"She is a Ballard even in that," he said, formally; "it is Constance whose disposition is beyond criticism, not mine."
"And now that you've carried off Constance, you're going to take Barry," Delilah reproached him.
Leila dropped the baby's hand.
"Yes," Gordon discussed the subject with evident reluctance, "he's going over with me, to learn the business—he may never have a better opportunity."
The light went out of Barry's eyes. He left the little group, wandered to the window, and stood looking out.
"Mary will go next," Delilah prophesied. "With Constance and Barry on the other side, she won't be able to keep away."
Mary shook her head. "What would Aunt Isabelle and Susan Jenks and Pittiwitz do without me?"
"What would I do without you?" Porter demanded, boldly. "Don't put such ideas in her head, Delilah; she's remote enough as it is."
But Mary was not listening. Barry had slipped from the room, and presently she followed him. Leila had seen him go, and had looked after him longingly, but of late she had seemed timid in her public demonstrations; it was as if she felt when she was under the eye of others that by some sign or look she might betray her secret.
Mary found Barry down-stairs in the little office, his head in his hands.
"Dear boy," she said, and touched his bright hair with hesitating fingers.
He reached up and caught her hand.
"Mary," he said, brokenly, "what's the use? I began wrong—and I guess I'll go on wrong to the end."
And now she spoke with earnestness, both hands on his shoulders.
"Oh, Barry, boy—if you fight, fight with all your weapons. And don't let the wrong thoughts go on molding you into the wrong thing. If you think you are going to fail, you'll fail. But if you think of yourself as conquering, triumphant—if you think of yourself as coming back to Leila, victorious, why you'll come that way; you'll come strong and radiant, a man among men, Barry."
It was this convincing optimism of Mary Ballard's which brought to weaker natures a sense of actual achievement. To hear Mary say, "You can do it," was to believe in one's own powers. For the first time in his life Barry felt it. Hitherto, Mary had seemed rather worrying when it came to rules of conduct—rather unreasonable in her demands upon him. But now he was caught up on the wings of her belief in him.
"Do you think I can?" a light had leaped into his tired eyes.
"I know you can, dear boy," she bent and kissed him.
"You'll take care of Leila," he begged, and then, very low, "I'm afraid I've made an awful mess of things, Mary."
"You mustn't think of that—just think, Barry—of the day when you come back! How all the wedding bells will ring!"
But he thought of a wedding where there had been no bells. He thought of Little-Lovely Leila, in her yellow gown on the night of the mad March moon.
"You'll take care of her," he said again, and Mary promised.
And now the Bishop arrived, and certain old friends of the family. As Barry and Mary made their way up-stairs, they met Susan with the mail. There was one long letter for Mary, which she tore open with eagerness, glanced at it, and tucked it into her girdle, then went on with winged feet.
Porter, glancing at her as she came in, was struck by the radiance of her aspect. How lovely she was with that flush on her cheek, and with her sweet shining eyes!
With due formality and with the proper number of godfathers and godmothers, little Mary-Constance Ballard Richardson was officially named.
During the ceremony, Leila sat by her father's side, her hand in his. In these days the child clung to the strong old soldier. When she had come back to consciousness on the night that she had fainted on the threshold of the library, he had asked, "My darling, what is it?"
And she had cried, "Oh, Dad, Dad," and had wept in his arms. But she had not told him that she was Barry's wife. It was because of Barry's going, she had admitted; it seemed as if her heart would break.
The General talked the situation over with Mary. "How will she stand it, when he is really gone?"
"It will be better when the parting is over, and she settles down to other things."
Yet that day, after the christening, Mary wondered if what she had said was true. What would life hold for Leila when Barry was gone?
Her own life without Roger Poole was blank. Reluctantly, she was forced to admit it. Constance, the baby, Porter, these were the shadows, Roger was the substance.
The letters which had passed between them had shown her depths in him which had hitherto been unrevealed. Comparing him with Porter Bigelow, she realized that Porter could never say the things which Roger said; he could not think them.
And while in the eyes of the world Roger was a defeated man, and Porter a successful one, yet there was this to think of, that Porter's qualities were negative rather than positive. With all of his opportunities, he was narrowing his life to the pursuit of pleasure and his love for her. Roger had shirked responsibility toward his fellow man by withdrawal; Porter was shirking by indifference.
So she found herself, as many another woman has found herself, fighting the battle of the less fortunate. Roger wanted her, yet pressed no claim. Porter wanted her and meant to have her.
He had shown of late his impatience at the restraint which she had put upon him. He had encroached more and more upon her time—demanded more and more. He had been kept from saying the things which she did not want him to say only by the fact that she would not listen.
She knew that he was expecting things which could never be—and that by her silence she was giving sanction to his expectations. Yet she found herself dreading to say the final word which would send him from her.
The friendship between a man and a woman has this poignant quality—it has no assurance of permanence. For, if either marries, the other must suffer loss; if either loves, the other must put away that which may have become a prized association. As her friend, Mary valued Porter highly. She had known him all her life. Yet she was aware that she was taking all and returning nothing; and surely Porter had the right to ask of life something more than that.
She sighed, and going to her desk, took out of it the letter which she had received in the morning mail.
She knew that the moment that she announced the contents of that letter would be a dramatic one. Even if she did it quietly, it would have the effect of a bomb thrown into the midst of a peaceful circle. She had a fancy that it would be best to tell Porter first. He was to come back to dinner, so she dressed and went down early.
He found her in the garden. There were double rows of hyacinths in the paths now, with tulips coming up between, and beyond the fountain was an amethyst sky where the young moon showed.
She rose to greet him, her hands full of fragrant blossoms.
He held her hand tightly. "How happy you look, Mary."
"I am happy."
"Because I'm here? If you could only say that once truthfully."
"It is always good to have you,"
"But you won't tell a lie, and say you're happier, because of my coming? Oh, Contrary Mary!"
She shook her head. "If I said nice things to you, you'd misunderstand."
"Perhaps. But why this radiance?"
"Good news."
"From whom?"
"A man."
"What man?" with rising jealousy.
"One who has given me the thing I want."
He was plainly puzzled.
"I don't know what you mean."
"A letter came this morning—a lovely letter in a long envelope."
She took a paper out of a magazine which lay on the stone bench by her side. "Read that," she said.
He read and his face went perfectly white, so that it showed chalkily beneath his red hair.
"Mary," he said, "what have you done this for? You know I'm not going to let you."
"You haven't anything to do with it."
"But I have. It is ridiculous. You don't know what you are doing. You've never been tied to an office desk—you've never fought and struggled with the world."
"You don't know what you are doing."[Illustration: "You don't know what you are doing."]
"You don't know what you are doing."[Illustration: "You don't know what you are doing."]
"Neither have you, Porter."
"Well, if I haven't, is it my fault?" he demanded, "I was born into the world with this millstone of money around my neck, and a red head. Dad sent me to school and to college, and he set me up in business. There wasn't anything left for me to do but to keep straight, and I've done that for you."
"I know," she was very sweet as she leaned toward him, "but, Porter, sometimes, lately, I've wondered if that's all that is expected of us."
"All? What do you mean?"
"Aren't we expected to do something for others?"
"What others?"
She wanted to tell him about Roger Poole and the boy in the pines. Her eyes glowed. But her lips were silent.
"What others, Mary?"
"The people who aren't as fortunate as we are."
"What people?"
Mary was somewhat vague. "The people who need us—to help."
"Marry me, and you can be Lady Bountiful—dispensing charity."
"It isn't exactly charity." She had again the vision of Roger Poole and the boy. "People don't just want our money—they want us to—understand."
He was not following her. "To think that you should want to go out in the world—to work. Tell me why you are doing it."
"Because I need an outlet for my energies—the girl of limited income in these days is as ineffective as a jellyfish, if she hasn't some occupation."
"You could never be a jellyfish. Mary, listen, listen. I need you, dear. I've kept still for a year—Mary!"
"Porter, I can't."
And now he asked a question which had smouldered long in his breast.
"Is there any one else?"
Was there? Her thoughts leaped at once to Roger. What did he mean to her? What could he ever mean? He had said himself that he could expect nothing. Perhaps he had meant that she must expect nothing.
"Mary, is it—Roger Poole?"
Her eyes came up to meet his; they were like stars. "Porter, I don't—know."
He took the blow in silence. The shadows were on them now. In all the beauty of the May twilight, the little bronze boy grinned at love and at life.
"Has he asked you, Mary?"
"No. I'm not sure that he wants to marry me—I'm not sure that I want to marry him—I only know that he is different." It was like Mary to put it thus, frankly.
"No man could know you without wanting to marry you. But what has he to offer you—oh, it is preposterous."
She faced him, flaming. "It isn't preposterous, Porter. What has any man to offer any woman except his love? Oh, I know you men—you think because you have money—but if—if—both of you loved me—you'd stand before me on your merits as men—there would be nothing else in it for me but that."
"I know. And I'm willing to stand on my merits." The temper which belonged to Porter's red head was asserting itself. "I'm willing to stand on my merits. I offer you a past which is clean—a future of devotion. It's worth something, Mary—in the years to come when you know more of men, you'll understand that it is worth something."
"I know," she said, her hand on his, "it is worth a great deal. But I don't want to marry anybody." It was the old cry reiterated. "I want to live the life I have planned for a little while—then if Love claims me, it must belove—not just a comfortable getting a home for myself along the lines of least resistance. I want to work and earn, and know that I can do it. If I were to marry you, it would be just because I couldn't see any other way out of my difficulties, and you wouldn't want me that way, Porter."
He did want her. But he recognized the futility of wanting her. For a little while, at least, he must let her have her way. Indeed, she would have it, whether he let her or not. But Roger Poole should not have her. He should not. All that was primitive in Porter rose to combat the claims which she made for his rival.
"I knew there'd be trouble when you let the Tower Rooms," he said heavily at last; "a man like that always appeals to a girl's sense of romance."
The Tower Rooms! Mary saw Roger as he had stood in them for the first time amid all the confusion of Constance's flight from the home nest. That night he had seemed to her merely a person who would pay the rent—yet the money which she had received from him had been the smallest part.
She drifted away on the tide of her dreams, and Porter felt sharply the sense of her utter detachment from him.
"Mary," he said, tensely, "Mary, oh, my little Contrary Mary—you aren't going to slip out of my life. Say that you won't."
"I'm not slipping away from you," she said, "any more than I am slipping away from my old self. I don't understand it, Porter. I only know that what you call contrariness is a force within me which I can't control. I wish that I could do the things which you want me to do, I wish I could be what Gordon and Constance and Barry and even Aunt Frances want—but there's something which carries me on and on, and seems to say, 'There's more than this in the world for you'—and with that call in my ears, I have to follow."
He rose, and his head was up. "All my life, I have wanted just one thing which has been denied me—and that one thing is you. And no other man shall take you from me. I suppose I've got to set myself another season of patience. But I can wait, because in the end I shall get what I want—remember that, Mary."
"Don't be too sure, Porter."
"I am so sure," lifting the hand which was weighted with the heavy ring, "I am so sure, that I will make a wager with fortune, that the day will come when this ring shall be our betrothal ring, I'll give you others, Mary, but this shall be the one which shall bind you to me."
She snatched her hand away. "You speak as if you were—sure," she said.
"I am. I'm going to let you work and do as you please for a little while, if you must. But in the end I'm going to marry you, Mary."
At dinner Mary announced the contents of her letter in the long envelope. "I have received my appointment as stenographer in the Treasury, and I'm to report for duty on the twentieth."
It was Aunt Frances who recovered first from the shock. "Well, if you were my child——"
Grace, with little points of light in her eyes, spoke smoothly, "If Mary were your child, she would be as dutiful as I am, mother. But you see she isn't your child."
Aunt Frances snorted—"Dutiful."
Gordon was glowering. "It is rank foolishness."
Mary flared. "That's your point of view, Gordon. You judge me by Constance. But Constance has always been feminine and sweet—and I've never been particularly feminine, nor particularly sweet."
Barry followed up her defense. "I guess Mary knows how to take care of herself, Gordon."
"No woman knows how to take care of herself," Gordon was obstinate, "when it comes to the fight with economic conditions. I should hate to think of Constance trying to earn a living."
"Gordon, dear," Constance's voice appealed, "I couldn't—but Mary can—only I hate to see her do it."
"I don't," said Grace, stoutly. "I envy her."
Aunt Frances fixed her daughter with a stern eye. "Don't encourage her in her foolishness, Grace," she said; "each of you should marry and settle down with some nice man."
"But what man, mother?" Grace, leaning forward, put the question, with an irritating air of doubt.
"There are a half dozen of them waiting."
"Nice boys! But a man. Find me one, mother, and I'll marry him."
"The trouble with you and Mary," Porter informed her, "is that you don't want a man. You want a hero."
Grace nodded. "With a helmet and plume, and riding on a steed—that's my dream—but mother refuses to let me wander in Arcady where such knights are found."
"I think," Constance remarked happily, "that now and then they are found in every-day life, only you and Mary won't recognize them."
From the other side her husband smiled at her. "She thinks I'm one," he said, and his fine young face was suffused by faint color. "She thinks I'm one. I hope none of you will ever undeceive her."
Under the table Leila's little hand was slipped into Barry's big one. She could not proclaim to the world that she had found her knight, and loved him.
Aunt Frances, very stiff and straight in her jetted dinner gown, resumed, "I wish it were possible to give girls a dose of common sense, as you give them cough syrup."
"Mother!"
But Aunt Frances, mounted on her grievance, rode it through the salad course. She had wanted Grace to marry—her beauty and her family had entitled her to an excellent match. But Grace was single still, holding her own against all her mother's arguments, maintaining in this one thing her right to independent action.
Isabelle, straining her ears to hear what it was all about, asked Mary, late that night, "What upset Frances at dinner?"
Mary told her.
"Do you think I'm wrong, Aunt Isabelle?" she asked.
The gentle lady sighed, "If you feel that it is right, it must be right for you. But you're trying to be all head, dear child. And there's your heart to reckon with."
Mary flushed "I know. But I don't want my heart to speak—yet."
Aunt Isabelle patted her hand. "I think it has—spoken," she said softly.
Mary clung to her. "How did you know?"
"We who have dull ears have often clear eyes—it is one of our compensations, Mary."
In Which an Artist Finds What All His Life He Has Been Looking For; and in Which He Speaks of a Little Saint in Red.
It might have been by chance that Delilah Jeliffe driving in her electric through a broad avenue on the afternoon following the christening of Constance's baby, met Porter Bigelow, and invited him to go home with her for a cup of tea.
There were certain things which Delilah wanted of Porter. Perhaps she wanted more than she would ever get. But to-day she had it in her mind to find out if he would go with her to the White House garden party.
Colin Quale was little and blond. Because of his genius, his presence had added distinction to her entrances and exits. But at the coming function, she knew that she needed more than the prestige of genius—among the group of distinguished guests who would attend, the initial impression would mean much. Porter's almost stiff stateliness would match the gown she was to wear. His position, socially, was impregnable; he had wealth, and youth, and charm. He would, in other words, make a perfectly correct background for the picture which she designed to make of herself.
The old house at Georgetown, to which they came finally, was set back among certain blossoming shrubs and bushes. A row of tulips flamed on each side of the walk. Small and formal cedars pointed their spired heads toward the spring sky.
In the door, as they ascended the steps, appeared Colin Quale.
"Come in," he said, "come in at once. I want you to see what I have done for you."
He spoke directly to Delilah. It was doubtful if he saw Porter. He was blind to everything except the fact that his genius had designed for Delilah Jeliffe a costume which would make her fame and his.
They followed him through the wide hall to the back porch in which he had set up his easel. There, where a flowering almond bush flung its branches against a background of green, he had worked out his idea.
A water-color sketch on the easel showed a girl in white—a girl who might have been a queen or an empress. Her gown partook of the prevailing mode, but not slavishly. There was distinction in it, and color here and there, which Colin explained.
"It must be of sheer white, with many flowing flounces, and with faint pink underneath like the almond bloom. And there must be a bit of heavenly blue in the hat, and a knot of green at the girdle—and a veil flung back—you see?—there'll be sky and field and flowers and a white cloud—all the delicate color and bloom——"
Still explaining, he was at last induced to leave the picture, and have tea. While Delilah poured, Porter watched the two, interested and diverted by enthusiasms which seemed to him somewhat puerile for a man who could do real things in the world of art.
Yet he saw that Delilah took the little man very seriously, that she hung on his words of advice, and that she was obedient to his demands upon her.
"She'll marry him some day," he said to himself, and Delilah seemed to divine his thought, for when at last Colin had rushed back to his sketch, she settled herself in her low chair, and told Porter of their first meeting.
"I'll begin at the beginning," she said; "it is almost too funny to be true, and it could not possibly have happened to any one but me and Colin.
"It was last summer when I was on the North Shore. Father and I stayed at a big hotel, but I was crazy to get acquainted with the cottage colony.
"But somehow I didn't seem to make good—you see that was in my crude days when I wanted to be a cubist picture instead of a daguerreotype. I liked to be startling, and thought that to attract attention was to attract friends—but I found that I did not attract them.
"One night in August there was a big dance on at one of the hotels, and I wanted a gown which should outshine all the others—the ball was to be given for the benefit of a local chanty, and all the cottage colony would attend. I sent an order for a gown to my dressmaker, and she shipped out a strange and wonderful creation. It was an imported affair—you know the kind—with a bodice of a string of jet and a wisp of lace—with a tulle tunic, and a skirt of gold brocade that was so tight about my feet that it had the effect of Turkish trousers. For my head she sent a strip of gold gauze which was to be swathed around and around my hair in a sort of nun's coif, so that only a little knot could show at the back and practically none in front. It was the last cry in fashions. It made me look like a dream from the Arabian Nights, and I liked it."
She laughed, and, in spite of himself, Porter laughed with her.
"I wore it to the dance, and it was there that I met Colin Quale. I wish I could make you see the scene—the great ballroom, and all the other women staring at me as I came in—and the men, smiling.
"I was in my element. I thought, in those days, that the test of charm was to hold the eyes of the multitude. To-day I know that it is to hold the eyes of the elect, and it is Colin who has taught me.
"I had danced with a dozen other men when he came up to claim me. I scarcely remembered that I had promised him a dance. When he was presented to me I had only been aware of a pale little man with eye-glasses and nervous hands who had stared at me rather too steadily.
"We danced in silence for several minutes and he danced divinely.
"He stopped suddenly. 'Let's get out of here,' he said. 'I want to talk to you.'
"I looked at him in amazement. 'But I want to dance.'
"'You can always dance,' he said, quietly, 'but you cannot always talk to me.'
"There was nothing in his manner to indicate the preliminaries of a flirtation. He was perfectly serious and he evidently thought that he was offering me a privilege. Curiosity made me follow him, and he led the way down the hall to a secluded reception room where there was a long mirror, a little table, and a big bunch of old-fashioned roses in a bowl.
"On our way we passed a row of chairs, where some one had left a wrap and a scarf. Colin snatched up the scarf—it was a long wide one of white chiffon. The next morning I returned it to him, and he found the owner. I am not sure what explanation he made for his theft, but it was undoubtedly attributed to the eccentricities of genius!
"Well, when, as I said, we reached the little room, he pulled a chair forward for me, so that I sat directly in front of the mirror.
"I remember that I surveyed myself complacently. To my deluded eyes, my appearance could not be improved. My head, swathed in its golden coif, seemed to give the final perfect touch."
She laughed again at the memory, and Porter found himself immensely amused. She had such a cool way of turning her mental processes inside out and holding them up for others to see.
"As I sat there, stealing glances at myself, I became conscious that my little blond man was studying me. Other men had looked at me, but never with such a cold, calculating gaze—and when he spoke to me, I nearly jumped out of my shoes—his voice was crisp, incisive.
"'Take it off,' he said, and touched the gauze that tied up my head.
"I gasped. Then I drew myself up in an attempt at haughtiness. But he wasn't impressed a bit.
"'I suppose you know that I am an artist, Miss Jeliffe,' he said, 'and from the moment you came into the room, I haven't had a bit of peace. You're spoiling your type—and it affects me as a chromo would, or a crude crayon portrait, or any other dreadful thing.'
"Do you know how it feels to be called a 'dreadful thing' by a man like that? Well, it simply made me shrivel up and have shivers down my spine.
"'But why?' I stammered.
"'Women like you,' he said, 'belong to the stately, the aristocratic type. You can be agrande dameor a duchess—and you are making of yourself—what? A soubrette, with your tango skirt and your strapped slippers, and your hideous head-dress—take it off.'
"'But I can't take it off,' I said, almost tearfully; 'my hair underneath is—awful.'
"'It doesn't make any difference about your hair underneath—it can't be worse than it is,' he roared. 'I want to see your coloring—take it off.'
"And I took it off. My hair was perfectly flat, and as I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, I wanted to laugh, to shriek. But Colin Quale was as solemn as an owl. 'Ah,' he said, 'I knew you had a lot of it!'
"He caught up the scarf which he had borrowed and flung it over my shoulders. He gave a flick of his fingers against my forehead and pulled down a few hairs and parted them. He whisked a little table in front of me, and thrust the bunch of roses into my arms.
"'Now look at yourself,' he commanded.
"I looked and looked again. I had never dreamed that I could be like that. The scarf and the table hid every bit of that Paris gown, and showed just a bit of white throat. My plain parted hair and the roses—I looked," and now Delilah was blushing faintly, "I looked as I had always wanted to look—like the lovely ladies in the old English portraits.
"'Do you like it?' Colin asked.
"He knew that I liked it from my eyes, and for the first time since I had met him, he laughed.
"'All my life,' he said, 'I have been looking for just such a woman as you. A woman to make over—to develop. We must be friends, Miss Jeliffe. You must let me know where I can see you again.'
"Well, I didn't dance any more that night. I wrapped the scarf about my head, and went back to my hotel. Colin Quale went with me. All the way he talked about the sacredness of beauty. He opened my eyes. I began to see that loveliness should be suggested rather than emphasized. And I have told you this because I want you to understand about Colin. He isn't in love with me. I rather fancy that back home in Amesbury or Newburyport, or whatever town it is that he hails from, there's somebody whom he'll find to marry. To him I am a statue to be molded. I am clay, marble, a tube of paint, a canvas ready for his brush. It was the same way with this old house. He wanted a setting for me, and he couldn't rest until he had found it. He has not only changed my atmosphere, he has changed my manner—I was going to say my morals—he brings to me portraits of Romney ladies and Gainsborough ladies—until I seem positively to swim in a sea of stateliness. And what I said just now about manners and morals is true. A woman lives up to the clothes she wears. If you think this change is on the surface, it isn't. I couldn't talk slang in a Gainsborough hat, and be in keeping, so I don't talk slang; and a perfect lady in a moleskin mantle must have morals to match; so in my little mantle I cannot tell a lie."
To see her with lowered lashes, telling it, was the funniest thing in the world, and Porter shouted. Then her lashes were, for a moment, raised, and the old Delilah peeped out, shrewd, impish.
"He wants me to change my name. No, don't misunderstand me—not my last one. But the first. He says that Delilah smacks of the adventuress. I don't think he is quite sure of the Bible story, but he gets his impressions from grand opera—and he knows that the Delilah of the Samson story wasn't nice—not in a lady-like sense. My middle name is Anne. He likes that better."
"Lady Anne? You'll look the part in that garden party frock he is designing for you."
And now she had reached the question toward which she had been working. "Shall you go?"
He shook his head. "I doubt it. It isn't a function from which one will be missed. And the Ballards won't be there. Mary is going over to New York with Constance for a few days before the sailing. I'm to join them on the final day."
"And you won't go to the garden party without Mary?"
He found himself moved, suddenly, to speak out to her.
"She wouldn't go if she were here—not with me."
"Contrary Mary?" she drawled the words, giving them piquant suggestion.
"It isn't contrariness. Her independence is characteristic. She won't let me do things because she wants to do them by herself. But some day she'll let me do them."
He said it grimly, and Delilah flashed a glance at him, then said carefully, "It would be a pity if she should fancy—Roger Poole."
"She won't."
"You can't tell—pity leads to the softer feeling, you know."
"Why should she pity him?"
"There's his past."
"His past? Roger Poole's? What do you know of it, Delilah?"
As he leaned forward to ask the eager question, he knew that by all the rules of the game he should not be discussing Mary with any one. But he told himself hotly that it was for Mary's good. If things had been hidden, they should be revealed—the sooner the better.
Delilah gave him the details dramatically.
"Then his wife is dead?"
"Yes. But before that the scandal lost him his church. Nobody seems to know much of it all, I fancy. Mary only gave me the outline."
"And she knows?"
"Yes. Roger told her."
"The chances are that there's—another side."
He knew that it was a small thing to say. He would not have said it to any one but Delilah. She would not think him small. To her all things would be fair for a lover.
Before he went, that afternoon, he had promised to go with Delilah to the White House garden party.