"DEAR ROGER POOLE:
"I want to be friends again. Such friends as we were in the Tower Rooms. I know I don't deserve it—but—please.
"MARY BALLARD."
It seemed to him, as he finished it that all the world was singing, not merely the mocking-birds in the magnolias, but the whole incomparable chorus of the universe. It seemed an astounding thing that she should have written thus to him. He had so adjusted himself to the fact of repeated disappointment, repeated failure, that he found it hard to believe that such happiness could be his. Yet she had written it; that she wanted to be—his friend.
At first his thoughts did not fly beyond friendship. But as he sat down on the porch steps to think it over he began, for the first time since he had known her, to dream of a life in which she should be more to him than friend.
And why not? Why shouldn't he dream? Mary was not like other women. She looked above and beyond the little things. Might not a man offer her that which was finer than gold, greater than material success? Might not a man offer her a life which had to do with life and love—might he not share with her this opportunity to make this garden in the sand-hills bloom?
And now, while the mocking-birds sang madly, Roger Poole saw Mary—here beside him on the porch on a morning like this, with the lilacs waving perfumed plumes of mauve and white, with the birds flashing in blue and scarlet and gold from pine to magnolia, and from magnolia back to pine—with the sky unclouded, the air fresh and sweet.
He saw her as she might travel with him comfortably toward the sand-hills, in a schooner-wagon made for her use, fitted with certain luxuries of cushions and rugs. He saw her with him in deep still groves, coming at last to that circle of young pines where he preached, meeting his people, supplementing his labor with her loveliness. He saw—oh, dream of dreams—he saw a little white church among the sand-hills, a little church with a bell, such a bell as the boy had not heard before Whittington rang them all for him. Later, perhaps, there might be a rectory near the church, a rectory with a garden—and Mary in the garden.
So, tired after his journey, he sat with unseeing eyes, needing rest, needing food, yet feeling no fatigue as his soul leaped over time and space toward the goal of happiness.
He was aroused by the appearance of Aunt Chloe, the cook.
"I'se jus' been lookin' fo' you, Mr. Roger," she said. "A telegraf done come, yestiddy, and I ain't knowed what to do wid it."
She handed it to him, and watched him anxiously as he opened it.
It was from Cousin Patty.
"Mary has had sad news of Barry. We need you. Can you come?"
In Which Little-Lovely Leila Looks Forward to the Month of May; and in Which Barry Rides Into a Town With Narrow Streets.
It was when Little-Lovely Leila was choosing certain gowns for her trip abroad that she had almost given away her secret to Delilah.
"I want a yellow one," she had remarked, "with a primrose hat, like I wore when Barry and I——" She stopped, blushing furiously.
"When you and Barry what?" demanded Delilah.
Leila having started to say, "When Barry and I ran away to be married," stumbled over a substitute, "Well, I wore a yellow gown—when—when——"
"Not when he proposed, duckie. That was the day at Fort Myer. I knew it the minute I came out and saw your face; and then that telephone message about the picture. Were you really jealous when you found it on my table?"
"Dreadfully." Leila breathed freely once more. The subject of the primrose gown was shelved safely.
"You needn't have been. All the world knew that Barry was yours."
"And he's mine now," Leila laughed; "and I am to see him in—May."
In the days which followed she was a very busy little Leila. On every pretty garment that she made or bought, she embroidered in fine silk a wreath of primroses. It was her own delicious secret, this adopting of her bridal color. Other brides might be married in white, but she had been different—her gown had been the color of the great gold moon that had lighted their way. What a wedding journey it had been—and how she and Barry would laugh over it in the years to come!
For the tragedy which had weighed so heavily began now to seem like a happy comedy. In a few weeks she would see Barry, in a few weeks all the world would know that she was his wife!
So she packed her fragrant boxes—so she embroidered, and sang, and dreamed.
Barry had written that he was "making good"; and that when she came he would tell Gordon. And the General should go on to Germany, and he and Leila would have their honeymoon trip.
"You must decide where we shall go," he had said, and Leila had planned joyously.
"Dad and I motored once into Scotland, and we stopped at a little town for tea. Such a queer little story-book town, Barry, with funny houses and with the streets so narrow that the people leaned out of their windows and gossiped over our heads, and I am sure they could have shaken hands across. There wasn't even room for our car to turn around, and we had to go on and on until we came to the edge of the town, and there was the dearest inn. We stopped and stayed that night—and the linen all smelled of lavender, and there was a sweet dumpling of a landlady, and old-fashioned flowers in a trim little garden—and all the hills beyond and a lake. Let's go there, Barry; it will be beautiful."
They planned, too, to go into lodgings afterward in London.
The thought of lodgings gave Leila a thrill. She hunted out her fat little volume of Martin Chuzzlewit and gloated over Ruth Pinch and her beef-steak pie. She added two or three captivating aprons to the contents of the fragrant boxes. She even bought a cook-book, and it was with a sigh that she laid the cook-book away when Barry wrote that in such lodgings as he would choose the landlady would serve their meals in the sitting-room. And this plan would give Leila more time to see the sights of London!
But what cared Little-Lovely Leila for seeing sights? Anybody could see sights—any dreary and dried-up fossil, any crabbed and cranky old maid—the Tower and Westminster Abbey were for those who had nothing better to do. As for herself, her horizon just now was bounded by primrose wreaths and fragrant boxes, and the promise of seeing Barry in May!
But fate, which has strange things in store for all of us, had this in store for little Leila, that she was not to see Barry in May, and the reason that she was not to see him was Jerry Tuckerman.
Meeting Mary in the street one day early in February, Jerry had said, "I am going to run over to London this week. Shall I take your best to Barry?"
Mary's eyes had met his squarely. "Be sure you takeyourbest, Jerry," she had said.
He had laughed his defiance. "Barry's all right—but you've got to give him a little rope, Mary."
When he had left her, Mary had walked on slowly, her heart filled with foreboding. Barry was not like Jerry. Jerry, coarse of fiber, lacking temperament, would probably come to middle age safely—he would never be called upon to pay the piper as Barry would for dancing to the tune of the follies of youth.
She wrote to Gordon, warning him. "Keep Barry busy," she said. "Jerry told me that he intended to have 'the time of his young life'—and he will want Barry to share it."
Gordon smiled over the letter. "Poor Mary," he told Constance; "she has carried Barry for so long on her shoulders, and she can't realize that he is at last learning to stand alone."
But Constance did not smile. "We never could bear Jerry Tuckerman; he always made Barry do things."
"Nobody can make me do things when I don't want to do them," said Gordon comfortably and priggishly, "and Barry must learn that he can't put the blame on anybody's shoulders but his own."
Constance sighed. She did not quite share Gordon's sense of security. Barry was different. He was a dear, and trying so hard; but Jerry had always had some power to sway him from his best, a sinister inexplicable influence.
Jerry, arriving, hung around Barry for several days, tempting him, like the villain in the play.
But Barry refused to be tempted. He was busy—and he had just had a letter from Leila.
"I simply can't run around town with you, Tuckerman," he explained. "Holding down a job in an office like this isn't like holding down a government job."
"So they've put your nose to the grindstone?" Jerry grinned as he said it, and Barry flushed. "I like it, Tuckerman; there's something ahead, and Gordon has me slated for a promotion."
But what did a promotion mean to Jerry's millions? And Barry was good company, and anyhow—oh, he couldn't see Ballard doing a steady stunt like this.
"Motor into Scotland with me next week," he insisted; "get a week off, and I'll pick up a gay party. It's a bit early, but we'll stop in the big towns."
Barry shook his head.
"Leila and the General are coming over in May—she wants to take that trip—and, anyhow, I can't get away."
"Oh, well, wait and take your nice little ride with Leila," Jerry said, good-naturedly enough, "but don't tie yourself too soon to a woman's apron string, Ballard—wait till you've had your fling."
But Barry didn't want a fling. He, too, was dreaming. On half-holidays and Sundays he haunted neighborhoods where there were rooms to let. And when one day he chanced on a sunshiny suite where a pot of primroses bloomed in the window, he lingered and looked.
"If they're empty a month from now I'll take them," he said.
"A guinea down and I'll keep them for you," was the smiling response of the pleasant landlady.
So Barry blushingly paid the guinea, and began to buy little things to make the rooms beautiful—a bamboo basket for flowers—a Sheffield tray—a quaint tea-caddy—an antique footstool for Leila's little feet.
Yet there were moments in the midst of his elation when some chill breath of fear touched him, and it was in one of these moods that he wrote out of his heart to his little bride.
"Sometimes, when I think of you, sweetheart, I realize how little there is in me which is deserving of that which you are giving me. When your letters come, I read them and think and think about them. And the thing I think is this: Am I going to be able all my life to live up to your expectations? Don't expect too much, dear heart. I wonder if I am more cowardly about facing life than other men. Now and then things seem to loom up in front of me—great shadows which block my way—and I grow afraid that I can't push them out of your path and mine. And if I should not push them, what then? Would they engulf you, and should I be to blame?"
Mary found Leila puzzling over this letter. "It doesn't sound like Barry," she said, in a little frightened voice. "May I read it to you, Mary?"
Mary had stopped in for tea on her way home from the office. But the tea waited.
"Barry is usually so—hopeful," Leila said, when she had finished; "somehow I can't help—worrying."
Mary was worried. She knew these moods. Barry had them when he was fighting "blue devils." She was afraid—haunted by the thought of Jerry. She tried to speak cheerfully.
"You'll be going over soon," she said, "and then all the world will be bright to him."
Leila hesitated. "I wish," she faltered, "that I could be with him now to help him—fight."
Mary gave her a startled glance. Their eyes met.
"Leila," Mary said, with a little gasp, "who told you?"
"Barry"—the tea was forgotten—"before—before he went away." The vision was upon her of that moment when he had knelt at her feet on their bridal night.
Haltingly, she spoke of her lover's weakness. "I've wanted to ask you, Mary, and when this letter came, I just had to ask. If you think it would be better—if we were married, if I could make a home for him."
"It wouldn't be better for you."
"I don't want to think about myself," Leila said, passionately; "everybody thinks about me. It is Barry I want to think of, Mary."
Mary patted the flushed cheek. "Barry is a fortunate boy," she said. Then, with hesitation, "Leila, when you knew, did it make a difference?"
"Difference?"
"In your feeling for Barry?"
And now the child eyes were woman eyes. "Yes," she said, "it made a difference. But the difference was this—that I loved him more. I don't know whether I can explain it so that you will understand, Mary. But then you aren't like me. You've always been so wonderful, like Barry. But you see I've never been wonderful. I've always been just a little silly thing, pretty enough for people to like, and childish enough for everybody to pet, and because I was pretty and little and childish, nobody seemed to think that I could be anything else. And for a long time I didn't dream that Barry was in love with me. I just knew that I—cared. But it was the kind of caring that didn't expect much in return. And when Barry said that I was the only woman in the world for him—I had the feeling that it was a pleasant dream, and that—that some day I'd wake up and find that he had made a mistake and that he should have chosen a princess instead of just a little goosie-girl. But when I knew that Barry had to fight, everything changed. I knew that I could really help. More than the princess, perhaps, because you see she might not have cared to bother—and she might not have loved him enough to—overlook."
"You blessed child," Mary said with a catch in her voice, "you mustn't be so humble—it's enough to spoil any man."
"Not Barry," Leila said; "he loves me because I am so loving."
Oh, wisdom of the little heart. There might be men who could love for the sake of conquest; there might be men who could meet coldness with ardor, and affection with indifference. Barry was not one of these. The sacred fire which burned in the heart of his sweet mistress had lighted the flame in his own. It was Leila's love as well as Leila that he wanted. And she knew and treasured the knowledge.
It was when Mary left that she said, with forced lightness, "You'll be going soon, and what a summer you will have together."
It was on Leila's lips to cry, "But I want our life together to begin now. What's one summer in a whole life of love?"
But she did not voice her cry. She kissed Mary and smiled wistfully, and went back into the dusky room to dream of Barry—Barry her young husband, with whom she had walked in her little yellow gown over the hills and far away.
And while she dreamed, Barry, in Jerry Tuckerman's big blue car, was flying over other hills, and farther away from Leila than he had ever been in his life.
It was as Mary had feared. Barry's strength in his first resistance of Jerry's importunities had made him over-confident, so that when, at the end of the month, Jerry had returned and had pressed his claim, Barry had consented to lunch with him.
At luncheon they met Jerry's crowd and Barry drank just one glass of golden sparkling stuff.
But the one glass was enough to fire his blood—enough to change the aspect of the world—enough to make him reckless, boisterous—enough to make him consent to join at once Jerry's party in a motor trip to Scotland.
In that moment the world of work receded, the world of which Leila was the center receded—the life which had to do with lodgings and primroses and Sheffield trays was faint and blurred to his mental vision. But this life, which had to do with laughter and care-free joyousness and forgetfulness, this was the life for a man who was a man.
Jerry was saying, "There will be the three of us and the chauffeur—and we will take things in hampers and things in boxes, and things in bottles."
Barry laughed. It was not a loud laugh, just a light boyish chuckle, and as he rose and stood with his hand resting on the table, many eyes were turned upon him. He was a handsome young American, his beautiful blond head held high. "You mustn't expect," he said, still with that light laughter, "that I am going to bring any bottles. Only thing I've got is a tea-caddy. Honest—a tea-caddy, and a Sheffield tray."
Then some memory assailing him, he faltered, "And a little foolish footstool."
"Sit down," Jerry said. There was something strangely appealing in that gay young figure with the shining eyes. In spite of himself, Jerry felt uncomfortable. "Sit down," he said.
So Barry sat down, and laughed at nothing, and talked about nothing, and found it all very enchanting.
He packed his bag and left a note for Gordon and when he piled finally with the others into Jerry's car, he was ready to shout with them that it was a long lane which had no turning, and that work was a bore and would always be.
And so the ride which Leila had planned for herself and her young husband became a wild ride, in which these young knights of the road pursued fantastic adventures, with memories blank, and with consciences soothed.
For days they rode, stopping at various inns along the way, startling the staid folk of the villages by their laughter late into the night; making boon companions in an hour, and leaving them with tears, to forget them at the first turn of the corner.
Written as old romance, such things seem of the golden age; looked upon in the light of Barry's future and of Leila's, they were tragedy unspeakable.
And now the car went up and up, to come down again to some stretch of sand, with the mountains looming black against one horizon, the sea a band of sapphire against another.
And so, fate drawing them nearer and nearer, they came at last to the little town which Leila had described in her letter.
Going in, some one spoke the name, and Barry had a stab of memory. Who had talked of narrow streets, across which people gossiped—and shook hands?—who had spoken of having tea in that little shop?
He asked the question of his companions, "Who called this a story-book town?"
They laughed at him. "You dreamed it."
Steadily his mind began to work. He fumbled in his pocket, and found Leila's letter.
Searching through it, he discovered the name of the little place. "I didn't dream it," he announced triumphantly; "my wife told me."
"Wake up," Jerry said, "and thank the gods that you are single."
But Barry stood swaying. "My little wife told me—Leila!"
With a sudden cry, he lurched forward. His arm struck the arm of the driver beside him. The car gave a sudden turn. The streets were narrow—so narrow that one might almost shake hands across them!
And there was a crash!
Jerry was not hurt, nor the other adventurers. The chauffeur was stunned. But Barry was crumpled up against the stone steps of one of the funny little houses, and lay there with Leila's letter all red under him.
It was Porter and Mary who told Leila. The General had begged them to do it. "I can't," he had said, pitifully. "I've faced guns, but I can't face the hurt in my darling's eyes."
So Mary's arms were around her when she whispered to the child-wife that Barry was—dead.
Porter had faltered first something about an accident—that the doctors were—afraid.
Leila, shaking, had looked from one to the other. "I must go to him," she had cried. "You see, I am his wife. I have a right to go."
"His wife?" Of all things they had not expected this.
"Yes, we have been married a year—we ran away."
"When, dear?"
"Last March—to Rockville—and—and we were going to tell everybody the next day—and then Barry lost his place—and we couldn't."
Oh, poor little widow, poor little child! Mary drew her close. "Leila, Leila," she whispered, "dear little sister, dear little girl, we must love and comfort each other."
And then Leila knew.
But they did not tell her how it had happened. The details of that last ride the woman who loved him need never know. Barry was to be her hero always.
In Which Roger Comes Once More to the Tower Rooms; and in Which a Duel is Fought in Modern Fashion.
It was Cousin Patty who had suggested sending for Roger. "He can look after me, Mary. If you won't let me go home, I don't want you to have the thought of me to burden you."
"You couldn't be a burden. And I don't know what Aunt Isabelle and I should have done without you."
She began to cry weakly, and Cousin Patty, comforting her, said in her heart, "There is no one but Roger who can say the right things to her."
As yet no one had said the right things. It seemed to Mary that she carried a wound too deep for healing. Gordon had softened the truth as much as possible, but he could not hide it from her. She knew that Barry, her boy Barry, had gone out of the world defeated.
It was Roger who helped her.
He came first upon her as she sat alone in the garden by the fountain. It was a sultry spring day, and heavy clouds hung low on the horizon. Thin and frail in her black frock, she rose to meet him, the ghost of the girl who had once bloomed like a flower in her scarlet wrap.
Roger took her hands in his.
"You poor little child," he said; "you poor little child."
She did not cry. She simply looked up at him, frozen-white. "Oh, it wasn't fair for him to go—that way. He tried so hard. He tried so hard."
"I know. And it was a great fight he put up, you must remember that."
"But to fail—at the last."
"You mustn't think of that. Somehow I can see Barry still fighting, and winning. One of a glorious company."
"A glorious company—Barry?"
"Yes. Why not? We are judged by the fight we make, not by our victory."
She drew a long breath. "Everybody else has been sorry. Nobody else could seem to understand."
"Perhaps I understand," he said, "because I know what it is to fight—and fail."
"But you are winning now." The color swept into her pale cheeks. "Cousin Patty told me."
"Yes. You showed me the way—I have tried to follow it."
"Oh, how ignorant I was," she cried, tempestuously, "when I talked to you of life. I thought I knew everything."
"You knew enough to help me. If I can help you a little now it will be only a fair exchange."
It helped her merely to have him there. "You spoke of Barry's still fighting and winning. Do you think that one goes on fighting?"
"Why not? It would seem only just that he should conquer. There are men who are not tempted, whose goodness is negative. Character is made by resistance against evil, not by lack of knowledge of it. And the judgments of men are not those which count in the final verdict."
He said more than this, breaking the bonds of her despair. Others had pitied Barry. Roger defended him. She began to think of her brother, not as her imagination had pictured him, flung into utter darkness, but with his head up—his beautiful fair head, a shining sword in his hand, fighting against the powers of evil—stumbling, falling, rising again.
He saw her relax as she listened, and his love for her taught him what to say.
And as he talked, her eyes noted the change in him.
This was not the Roger Poole of the Tower Rooms. This was a Roger Poole who had found himself. She could see it in his manner—she could hear it in his voice, it shone from his eyes. Here was a man who feared nothing, not even the whispers that had once had power to hurt.
The clouds were sweeping toward them, hiding the blue; the wind whirled the dead leaves from the paths, and stirred the budding branches of the hundred-leaved bush—touched with its first hint of tender green. The mist from the fountain was like a veil which hid the mocking face of the bronze boy.
But Mary and Roger had no eyes for these warnings; each was famished for the other, and this meeting gave to Mary, at least, a sense of renewed life.
She spoke of her future. "Constance and Gordon want me to come to them. But I hate to give up my work. I don't want to be discontented. Yet I dread the loneliness here. Did you ever think I should be such a coward?"
"You are not a coward—you are a woman—wanting the things that belong to you."
She sat very still. "I wonder—what are the things which belong to a woman?"
"Love—a home—happiness."
"And you think I want these things?"
"I know it."
"How do you know?"
"Because you have tried work—and it has failed. You have tried independence—and it has failed. You have tried freedom, and have found it bondage."
He was once more in the grip of the dream which he had dreamed as he had sat with Mary's letter in his hand on Cousin Patty's porch. If she would come to him there would be no more loneliness. His love should fill her life, and there would be, too, the love of his people. She should win hearts while he won souls. If only she would care enough to come.
It was the fear that she might not care which suddenly gripped him. Surely this was not the moment to press his demands upon her—when sorrow lay so heavily on her heart.
So blind, and cruel in his blindness, he held back the words which rose to his lips.
"Some day life will bring the things which belong to you," he said at last. "I pray God that it may bring them to you some day."
A line of Browning's came into her mind, and rang like a knell—"Some day, meaning no day."
She shivered and rose. "We must go in; there's rain in those clouds, and wind."
He rose also and stood looking down at her. Her eyes came up to his, her clear eyes, shadowed now by pain. What he might have said to her in another moment would have saved both of them much weariness and heartache. But he was not to say it, for the storm was upon them driving them before it, slamming doors, banging shutters in the big house as they came to it—a miniature cyclone, in its swift descent.
And as if he had ridden in on the wings of the storm came Porter Bigelow, his red mane blown like a flame back from his face, his long coat flapping.
He stopped short at the sight of Roger.
"Hello, Poole," he said; "when did you arrive?"
"This morning."
They shook hands, but there was no sign of a welcome in Porter's face.
"Pretty stiff storm," he remarked, as the three of them stood by the drawing-room window, looking out.
The rain came in shining sheets—the lightning blazed—the thunder boomed.
"It is the first thunder-storm of the season," Mary said. "It will wake up the world."
"In the South," Roger said, "the world is awake. You should see our gardens."
"I wish I could; Cousin Patty asked me to come."
"Will you?" eagerly.
"There's my work."
"Take a holiday, and let me show you the pines."
Porter broke in impatiently, almost insolently.
"Mary needs companionship, not pines. I think she should go to Constance. Leila and the General will go over as they planned in May, and the Jeliffes——"
"There's more than a month before May—which she could spend with us."
Porter stared. This was a new Roger, an insistent, demanding Roger. He spoke coldly. "Constance wants Mary at once. I don't think we should say anything to dissuade her. Aunt Isabelle and I can take her over."
And now Mary's head went up.
"I haven't decided, Porter." She was fighting for freedom.
"But Constance needs you, Mary—and you need her."
"Oh, no," Mary said, brokenly, "Constance doesn't need me. She has Gordon and the baby. Nobody needs me—now."
Roger saw the quick blood flame in Porter's face. He felt it flame in his own. And just for one fleeting moment, over the bowed head of the girl, the challenging eyes of the two men met.
Aunt Frances, who came over with Grace in the afternoon, went home in a high state of indignation.
"Why Patty Carew and Roger Poole should take possession of Mary in that fashion," she said to her daughter at dinner, "is beyond me. They don't belong there, and it would have been in better taste to leave at such a time."
"Mary begged Cousin Patty to stay," Grace said, "and as for Roger Poole, he has simply made Mary over. She has been like a stone image until to-day."
"I don't see any difference," Aunt Frances said. "What do you mean, Grace?"
"Oh, her eyes and the color in her cheeks, and the way she does her hair."
"The way she does her hair?" Aunt Frances laid down her fork and stared.
"Yes. Since the awful news came, Mary has seemed to lose interest in everything. She adored Barry, and she's never going to get over it—not entirely. I miss the old Mary." Grace stopped to steady her voice. "But when I went up with her to her room to talk to her while she dressed for dinner, she put up her hair in that pretty boyish way that she used to wear it, and it was all for Roger Poole."
"Why not for Porter?"
"Because she hasn't cared how she looked, and Porter has been there every day. He has been there too often."
"Do you think Roger will try to get her to marry him?"
"Who knows? He's dead in love with her. But he looks upon her as too rare for the life he leads. That's the trouble with men. They are afraid they can't make the right woman happy, so they ask the wrong one. Now if we women could do the proposing——"
"Grace!"
"Don't look at me in that shocked way, mother. I am just voicing what every woman knows—that the men who ask her aren't the ones she would have picked out if she had had the choice. And Mary will wait and weary, and Roger will worship and hang back, and in the meantime Porter will demand and demand and demand—and in the end he'll probably get what he wants."
Aunt Frances beamed. "I hope so."
"But Mary will be miserable."
"Then she'll be very silly."
Grace sighed. "No woman is silly who asks for the best. Mother, I'd love to marry a man with a mission—I'd like to go to the South Sea Islands and teach the natives, or to Darkest Africa—or to China, or India, anywhere away from a life in which there's nothing but bridge, and shopping, and deadly dullness."
She was in earnest now, and her mother saw it.
"I don't see how you can say such things," she quavered. "I don't see how you can talk of going to such impossible places—away from me."
Grace cut short the plaintive wail.
"Of course I have no idea of going," she said, "but such a life would furnish its own adventures; I wouldn't have to manufacture them."
It was with the wish to make life something more than it was that Grace asked Roger the next day, "Is there any work here in town like yours for the boy—you see Mary has told me about him."
He smiled. "Everywhere there are boys and girls, unawakened—if only people would look for them; and with your knowledge of languages you could do great things with the little foreigners—turn a bunch of them into good citizens, for example."
"How?"
"Reach them first through pictures and music—then through their patriotism. Don't let them learn politics and plunder on the streets; let them find their place in this land from you, and let them hear from you of the God of our fathers."
Grace felt his magnetism. "I wish you could go through the streets of New York saying such things."
He shook his head. "I shall not come to the city. My place is found, and I shall stay there; but I have faith to believe that there will yet be a Voice to speak, to which the world shall listen."
"Soon?"
"Everything points to an awakening. People are beginning to say, 'Tell us,' where a few years ago they said, 'There is nothing to tell.'"
"I see—it will be wonderful when it comes—I'm going to try to do my little bit, and be ready, and when Mary comes back, she shall help me."
His eyes went to where Mary sat between Porter and Aunt Frances.
"She may never come back."
"She must be made to come."
"Who could make her?"
"The man she loves."
She flashed a sparkling glance at him, and rose.
"Come, mother," she said, "it is time to go." Then, as she gave Roger her hand, she smiled. "Faint heart," she murmured, "don't you know that a man like you, if he tries, can conquer the—world?"
She left Roger with his pulses beating madly. What did she mean? Did she think that—Mary——? He went up to the Tower Rooms to dress for dinner, with his mind in a whirl. The windows were open and the warm air blew in. Looking out, he could see in the distance the shining river—like a silver ribbon, and the white shaft of the Monument, which seemed to touch the sky. But he saw more than that; he saw his future and Mary's; again he dreamed his dreams.
If he had hoped for a moment alone that night with the lady of his heart, he was doomed to disappointment, for Leila and her father came to dinner. Leila was very still and sweet in her widow's black, the General brooding over her. And again Roger had the sense that in this house of sorrow there was no place for love-making. For the joy that might be his—he must wait; even though he wearied in the waiting.
And it was while he waited that he lunched one day with Porter Bigelow. The invitation had surprised him, and he had felt vaguely troubled and oppressed by the thought that back of it might be some motive as yet unrevealed. But there had been nothing to do but accept, and at one o'clock he was at the University Club.
For a time they spoke of indifferent things, then Porter said, bluntly, "I am not going to beat about the bush, Poole. I've asked you here to talk about Mary Ballard."
"Yes?"
"You're in love with her?"
"Yes—but I question your right to play inquisitor."
"I haven't any right, except my interest in Mary. But I claim that my interest justifies the inquisition."
"Perhaps."
"You want to marry her?"
Roger shifted his position, and leaned forward, meeting Porter's stormy eyes squarely. "Again I question your right, Bigelow."
"Again I question your right."[Illustration: "Again I question your right."]
"Again I question your right."[Illustration: "Again I question your right."]
"It isn't a question of right now, Poole, and you know it. You're in love with her, I'm in love with her. We both want her. In days past men settled such things with swords or pistols. You and I are civilized and modern; but it's got to be settled just the same."
"Miss Ballard will have to settle it—not you or I."
"She can't settle it. Mary is a dreamer. You capture her with your imagination—with your talk of your work—and your people and the little gardens, and all that. And she sees it as you want her to see it, not as it really is. But I know the deadly dullness, the awfulness. Why, man, I spent a winter down there, at one of the resorts and now and then we rode through the country. It was a desert, I tell you, Poole, a desert; it is no place for a woman."
"You saw nothing but the charred pines and the sand. I could show you other things."
"What, for example?"
"I could show you an awakened people. I could show you a community throwing off the shackles of idleness and ignorance. I could show you men once tied to old traditions, meeting with eagerness the new ideals. There is nothing in the world more wonderful than such an awakening, Bigelow. But one must have the Vision to grasp it. And faith to believe it. It is the dreamers, thank God, who see beyond to-day into to-morrow. I haven't wealth or position to offer Mary, but I can offer her a world which needs her. And if I know her, as I think I do, she will care more for my world than for yours."
He did not raise his voice, but Porter felt the force of his restrained eloquence, as he knew Mary would feel it if it were applied to her.
And now he shot his poisoned dart.
"At first, perhaps. But when it came to building a home, there'd be always the stigma of your past, and she's a proud little thing, Poole."
Roger winced. "My past is buried. It is my future of which we must speak."
"You can't bury a past. You haven't even a pulpit to preach from."
Roger pushed back his chair. "I am tempted to wish," his voice was grim, "that we were not quite so civilized, not quite so modern. Pistols or swords would seem an easier way than this."
"I'm fighting for Mary. You've got to let go. None of her friends want it—Gordon would never consent."
It seemed to Roger that all the whispers which had assailed him in the days of long ago were rushing back upon him in a roaring wave of sound.
He rose, white and shaken. "Do you call it victory when one man stabs another through the heart? Well, if this is your victory, Bigelow—you are welcome to it."
In Which Mary Bids Farewell to the Old Life; and in Which She Finds Happiness on the High Seas.
Contrary Mary was Contrary Mary no longer. Since Roger had gone, taking Cousin Patty with him—gone without the word to her for which she had waited, she had submitted to Gordon's plans for her, and to Aunt Frances' and Porter's execution of them.
Only to Grace did she show any signs of her old rebellion.
"Did you ever think that I should be beaten, Grace?" she said, pitifully. "Is that the way with all women? Do we reach out for so much, and then take what we can get?"
Grace pondered. "Things tie us down, but we don't have to stay tied—and I am beginning to see a way out for myself, Mary."
She told of her talk with Roger and of her own strenuous desire to help; but she did not tell what she had said to him at the last. There was something here which she could not understand. Mary persistently refused to talk about him. Even now she shifted the topic.
"I don't want to strive," she said, "not even for the sake of others. I want to rest for a thousand years—and sleep for the next thousand."
And this from Mary, buoyant, vivid Mary, with her almost boyish strength and energy.
The big house was to be closed. Aunt Isabelle would go with Mary. Susan Jenks and Pittiwitz would be domiciled in the kitchen wing, with a friend of Susan's to keep them company.
Mary, wandering on the last day through the Tower Rooms, thought of the night when Roger Poole had first come to them. And now he would never come again.
She had not been able to understand his abrupt departure. Yet there had been nothing to resent—he had been infinitely kind, sympathetic, strong, helpful. If she missed something from his manner which had been there on the day of his arrival, she told herself that perhaps it had not been there, that her own joy in seeing him had made her imagine a like joy in his attitude toward her.
Cousin Patty had cried over her, kissed her, and protested that she could not bear to go.
"But Roger thinks it is best, my dear. He is needed at home."
It seemed plausible that he might be needed, yet in the back of Mary's mind was a doubt. What had sent him away? She was haunted by the feeling that some sinister influence had separated them.
A pitiful little figure in black, she made the tour of the empty rooms with Pittiwitz mewing plaintively at her heels. The little cat, with the instinct of her kind, felt the atmosphere of change. Old rugs on which she had sprawled were rolled up and reeking with moth balls. The little white bed, on which she had napped unlawfully, was stripped to the mattress. The cushions on which she had curled were packed away—the fire was out—the hearth desolate.
Susan Jenks, coming up, found Mary with the little cat in her lap.
"Oh, honey child, don't cry like that."
"Oh, Susan, Susan, it will never be the same again, never the same."
And now once more in the garden, the roses bloomed on the hundred-leaved bush, once more the fountain sang, and the little bronze boy laughed through a veil of mist—but there were no gay voices in the garden, no lovers on the stone seat. Susan Jenks kept the paths trim and watered the flowers, and Pittiwitz chased butterflies or stretched herself in the sun, lazily content, forgetting, gradually, those who had for a time made up her world.
But Mary, on the high seas, could not forget what she had left behind. It was not Susan Jenks, it was not Pittiwitz, it was not the garden which called her back, although these had their part in her regrets—it was the old life, the life which had belonged to her childhood and her girlhood the life which had been lived with her mother and father and Constance—and Barry.
As she lay listless in her deck chair, she could see nothing in her future which would match the happiness of the past. The days lived in the old house had never been days of great prosperity; her father had, indeed, often been weighed down with care—there had been times of heavy anxieties—but, there had been between them all the bond of deep affection, of mutual dependence.
In Gordon's home there would be splendors far beyond any she had known, there would be ease and luxury, and these would be shared with her freely and ungrudgingly, yet to a nature like Mary Ballard's such things meant little. The real things in life to her were love and achievement; all else seemed stale and unprofitable.
Of course there would be Constance and the baby. On the hope of seeing them she lived. Yet in a sense Gordon and the baby stood between herself and Constance—they absorbed her sister, satisfied her, so that Mary's love was only one drop added to a full cup.
It was while she pondered over her future that Mary was moved to write to Roger Poole. The mere putting of her thoughts on paper would ease her loneliness. She would say what she felt, frankly, freely, and when the little letters were finished, if her mood changed she need not send them.
So she began to scribble, setting down each day the thoughts which clamored for expression.
Porter complained that now she was always writing.
"I'd rather write than talk," Mary said, wearily; and at last he let the matter drop.