"I will take them if you wish, Adolfo," Margaret answered. "But they are—they are very—"
The roses looked indeed as if intended for a joyous occasion; they were sumptuous, superb.
"You mean that they are bright. I know it; I intended them to be so." He still held them towards her.
"Wait a while," she said.
His face changed. "I know you are my friend," he murmured, as if he were saying it to convince himself. His eyes had dropped to his rejected blossoms.
She could see that he was passionately angry, and making one of his firm efforts to hold himself in control. "I will take them if you wish it," she said, gently, and she extended her hand. "I leave it to you. They are wonderfully beautiful, I see that."
"They came from Cuba; I have been watching them growing for nineteen months—for this."
"It is a house of mourning, you know, that I am going to," she said. "It was, as you say, nineteen months ago—a long time; but the remembrance will be very fresh at the rectory this afternoon."
His anger suddenly left him, he raised his eyes from his roses to her face, and smiled. "It's always fresh to me!" he answered. The glow in his dark countenance, as he brought this out, appalled her, it was like a triumph—triumph over death. He walked to the door and tossed the roses into the sunshine outside. "You are right," he said. "I can afford to wait—now!" And, with a quick salutation, he pulled his hat down over his brows and walked away.
Telano drove Margaret up the water-road to Gracias. It was late in the afternoon when she reached the rectory; Dr. Kirby was watching for her, he came down to the gate to meet her.
"She has gone to her room," he said; "we have persuaded her to go and lie down for a while, as she has done nothing but cry since first seeing the Moores.—I am afraid it will be even worse when she sees you," he added, as they went up the path.
Crossing the veranda, he stopped with his hand on the door, looking at his companion for a moment before entering.
There was no one in the world whom the Doctor now admired so much as he admired Margaret Harold; for the past two years he had secretly given her his unswerving help and support. He thought hers, among women, the most courageous and noble nature he had ever known. And the sweetest, also—ah, yes, in its hidden depths, overwhelmingly, enchantingly sweet! The delicacy of her physical constitution, too (and she did not grow stronger), her nearness to breaking down at times—these things had endeared herto the Doctor greatly; for it touched him to see, month after month, her fair youthfulness growing a little less youthful, her sweet face more faint in color, while at the same time, hour by hour, he saw her perform her full task so completely, in all its details as well as its broader outlines. He knew that she constantly suffered, and that it must be so. With his own eyes he saw how she endured. As a physician, if nothing else, he was aware how infrequent is quiet effort, maintained evenly, day after day, in a sex which can upon occasion perform single actions that rise to the height of the superhuman, and are far beyond the endeavors of any man. But here was a woman capable of the steady effort; it was not merely that she had remained with her husband, had allowed him to take possession again of her life and her home; she had made this home as pleasant to him and to Aunt Katrina as so quiet a place could be made to two such persons. She never secluded herself, she was always ready to talk, she brought others to amuse them; she read aloud, she played backgammon and checkers, she tied the ends of the fish nets and kept an account of them. She accepted and acted upon all Lanse's suggestions regarding her dress; she smiled frankly over his succinct stories, which, as has already been mentioned, were invariably good—Aunt Katrina generally managing to comprehend them by about the next day; in addition she directed the complicated household so that no jars made themselves felt; and during all this time, these long two years, no one had heard a syllable from her lips that was sharp in sound; nay, more, that was not sweet.
There are women who are capable of sacrificing themselves, with the noblest unselfishness in great causes, who yet, as regards the small matters of every-day life, are rather uncomfortable to live with; so much so, indeed, that those who are under the same roof with them are driven to reflect now and then upon the merits of the ancient hermitages and caves to which in former ages such characters were accustomed to retire. These being out of fashion, however, the relatives can only wish (with a certain desperation of fancy) that their dear self-sacrificing companions might imbibe from somewhere, anywhere, such a dose of selfishness as should rendertheir own lives more comfortable; and, as a sequence, that of the household, as well.
The Doctor had had these saints as his patients more than once, he knew them perfectly. But here was a woman who had sacrificed her whole life to duty, who felt constantly the dreary ache of deprivation; but who yet did not think in the least, apparently, that these things freed her from the kindly efforts, the patience, the small sweet friendly attempts which made home comfortable.
The Doctor had been witness to all this, as he had been witness also that day in the orange grove, when Evert Winthrop lifted this same woman in his arms, where she lay speechless, tortured by the pain of parting with him.
Her pain was the same now—he knew that; but she had learned to bear it. Unspeakably he honored her.
And now this woman had come to see Garda in her trouble, Garda who was so infinitely dear to him, though in another way. He felt, as he stood there with his hand upon the door-knob, that he must for once—for once—acknowledge the difference between these two natures; he could not be content with himself without it. "I know you will be very good to her," he said—"our poor Garda, our dear little girl; she is suffering greatly, and we must tide her over it as well as we can. Yes, tide her over it; for you and I know, Mrs. Harold, that deep as her sorrow is—undoubtedly is, poor child!—itwillpass."
He opened the door, and Margaret entered. Then he closed it from the outside, and made his escape. He felt like a traitor; yet he had had to say it—he had had to say it!
But the next moment he was taking himself to task as he walked violently homeward across the plaza. "Don't you want it to pass, you great idiot, that sorrow of hers? How much good can a woman do sitting all her life upon a tomb? she can't even be ornamental there, in my humble opinion. No; it's a thorough waste, a thorough waste!" He entered his old house, still revolving these reflections; he came bursting in upon Ma.
"Ma," he announced, as the little old lady in her neat widow's cap looked up in surprise—he spoke with emphasis,as he was still suffering sharply from having had, as it were, to denounce Garda—"I am convinced, Ma, that it would have been infinitely better for you, infinitely, if you had married again."
"Mercy on us, Reginald!" said astonished little Ma.
Margaret entered Garda's room with a noiseless step, the Moores had thought it better that she should go alone. The blinds had been closed, but a gleam of the sunset entered between the slats, and made a line of gold across the floor; the motionless figure on the lounge had been covered (by Penelope) with that most desolate of all draperies, a plain black shawl. Though Margaret had entered so quietly, Garda seemed to know who it was; she was lying with her face turned away, but she spoke instantly—"Margaret?" And Margaret came and took her in her arms.
"Margaret, I cannot bear it," Garda said, calmly; "I have tried, but it is impossible. And ifyoucannot tell me how to—you the only one I really believe, I shall not try any more. It is decided."
"Time will tell you how, Garda," Margaret answered, putting her hand upon the girl's head as it lay against her breast. "Time, I think, is the only thing that can help us—women, I mean—when we suffer so."
"But it's nineteen months already," Garda went on, in the same desperately calm tone. "And to-day I've suffered just as much as I did in the beginning—exactly as much."
"Yes—the coming home. It will be different now."
"But now'snow," said Garda, sitting up, and looking at her friend, her face hardened, her lovely lips set in her pain.
"I mean soon, dear."
"I won't believe it unless you swear it to me," Garda went on. She got up and stood looking at Margaret. "If you will swear it to me I will try to believe it, becauseyouknow me, andyouspeak the truth."
"Very well, then; listen: I am absolutely sure of it," Margaret answered.
"Sure that I shall stop caring so much? stop feeling so dreadfully?"
"Yes, sure."
"But when will it begin?" the girl demanded, shakenwith fresh sobs; she leaned down as she spoke, pressing her hands on Margaret's shoulders and looking at her insistently, as if she would draw from her by force a comforting reply.
"To-morrow, perhaps," said Margaret, answering her almost as one answers a suffering child.
"Well—you mustn't leave me."
"I won't leave you to-night at least."
This gave Garda some slight solace, she sat down and rested her head on Margaret's shoulder. "He was buried in Venice—on that island, you know. Margaret, I want to go down to East Angels to-morrow, mamma is there; do you remember dear little mamma?"
But this quiet did not last long. Suddenly she sprang up again, and began walking about the room, clinching her hands.
Margaret went to her.
"I told you I could not bear it," Garda cried, flinging her off. "You said it would stop, and it hasn't stopped at all. It suffocates me, it's a sort of dreadful agony in my throat that you don't know anything about, you—you!" And she faced her friend like a creature at bay. "When shall I begin to forget him?—tell me that. When?"
"But you do not wish to forget him, Garda."
"Yes, I do, I wish I might never think of him on earth again," said Garda, fiercely, giving a stamp with her foot as one does in extremity of physical pain. "Why should I suffer so? it's not right. If you don't help me more than you've done (and I relied upon you so), I shall certainly go to him—go to Lucian.He'llbe glad to see me, he thinks more of me than you do—you who haven't helped me at all! But it will be easy to end it, you will see; I've got something I shall take. I relied upon you so—I relied upon you so!"
Margaret took her hands. "Give me another day, Garda," she said.
"Only one," answered Garda.
One afternoon, six months later, Margaret, under her white umbrella, opened the gate of the rose garden at East Angels. She came through the crape-myrtle avenue, at the end of its long vista, on the bench under the great rose-tree, she saw Garda; the crane, outlined in profile against the camellia bushes, kept watch over his mistress stiffly; another companion, in bearing scarcely less rigid, stood beside her—Adolfo Torres.
His Cuban slips had served their destiny after all, Garda's lap was full of roses. Crimson and pink, they lay on her black dress a mass of color, contrasting with the creamy hue of the paler roses above her head.
There was always the same interest in Margaret; as soon as Garda saw her friend, she left the bench and came to meet her. The roses tumbled to the ground; Adolfo did not glance at his fallen blossoms, but Carlos, stalking forward, pecked at the finest ones.
"Oh, have you got through at last—that everlasting reading aloud and fish-nets?" Garda inquired. "To think that I should have to give way to fish-nets?"
"I was to tell you—Lanse hopes that you will come in before long," Margaret answered.
"Hopes are good. But I shall not come in." And Garda linked her arm in her friend's. "Or rather, if I do, I shall go and sit in your room with you—may I? Good-by, Adolfo; you are not vexed with me for going?" she added. And, leaving Margaret, she went back to him, extending her hand.
He bowed over it. "Whatever pleases you—"
"Youplease me," answered Garda, promptly. "After they have carried off Mr. Harold to bed, those terrible men of his—about ten o'clock generally—then I never have very much to do for an hour. From ten to eleven, that is the time when I am in want of society."
"But you don't expect poor Mr. Torres to go stumbling home through the woods at midnight, just for the sake of giving you that?" Margaret suggested.
"Yes, I do. Mr. Torres never stumbled in his life. And I don't think he is at all poor," Garda answered, smiling.
He had kept her hand, he bowed over it; he did not appear to think he was, himself.
"Yes—from ten to eleven, that is much the best time. Couldn't you come then, and only then?" Garda went on. "Margaret doesn't mind, she's always late."
"Yes, I've a wretched habit of sitting up," that lady acknowledged.
"It is impossible that any habit of Mrs. Harold's should be wretched," announced the Cuban, with gravity. "She may not always explain her reasons. They are sure to be excellent."
"Come, Margaret, we can go after that," said Garda. "If you should tell him that you had a little habit of scalping—small negroes, for instance—he would be sure that your reasons were perfect. And gather up the scalps." Smiling a good-by to Torres, she drew her friend away with her, going down the myrtle avenue. "What are you going to do?" she asked. "May I come and sit with you till dinner?"
"I have accounts to look over; I shouldn't be much of a companion."
"Always something."
"Yes, always something."
"Well, I shall come, all the same."
An hour later she entered Margaret's room, selected a low chair which she liked, and seated herself. This apartment of Margaret's, which was called her dressing-room, though in reality she never dressed there, contained her own small library, her writing-table, the rows of account-books (with which she was at present engaged), and sewing materials—all articles which Garda declared she detested. "It looks like an industrial school," she said; "you only need shoe-brushes."
"Why shoe-brushes?" Mrs. Harold had inquired.
"They always make them—in industrial schools," Garda had responded, imaginatively.
The mistress of the house had not lifted her head when Garda entered, she went on with her accounts. Garda had apparently lost nothing of her old capacity for motionless serenity; leaning back in her chair, she swayed a feather fan slowly to and fro, looking at the top of a palmetto, which she could see through the open window, shooting up against the blue; her beauty was greater than ever, her eyes were sweeter in expression, her girlish figure was now more womanly. After musing in this contented silence for half an hour, she fell asleep.
Some minutes later, Margaret, missing the soft motion of the fan, looked up; she smiled when she saw the sleeping figure. It was a warm day, Garda had changed her thin black dress for a white one; through the lace, of which it was principally composed, her round arms gleamed. She had dropped her fan; her head, with the thick braids of hair wound closely about it, drooped to one side like a flower.
Margaret had smiled to see how easily, as a child does, she had glided into unconsciousness. But the next moment the smile was followed by a heavy sigh. It was a sigh of envy, the page of figures grew dim, then faded from before her eyes, she dropped her head upon her clasped hands in the abandonment of the fresh, the ever-fresh realization of her own dreariness. This realization was never long absent; she might hope that she had forgotten it, or that it had forgotten her; but it always came back.
It happened that at this instant Garda woke; and saw the movement. She came swiftly across to her friend. "Oh, I knew you were unhappy, though you never, never say so! But now I have caught you, I have seen it. And oh, Margaret, you are so changed!—you are the loveliest woman in the world still,—but you have grown so thin; look at your hands." And she held up one of Margaret's hands against the light to show its transparency.
But Margaret drew her hand away. "If I'm thin, I am only following out my privilege as an American woman," she answered, lightly. "Don't you know that we pride ourselves upon remaining slender?"
"Slender—yes; that is what youwere. Your arms werealways slender, and yet round. But now—" She pushed up Margaret's sleeve. "See your poor wrists. Oh, Margaret, I do believe that before long even hollows in your pretty neck will begin to show!"
"How can they, if I always wear high dresses?" said Margaret, smiling.
She rose as she spoke. But if her motive was to escape from further scrutiny, she was not successful; Garda took hold of her and made her sit down on a couch near one of the windows, and standing in front of her to keep her there, she continued her inspection. "Yes, you are thinner. There are little fine lines going down your face. And your face itself has grown narrow. That makes your eyes too large, I don't like your eyes now; they are too big and blue."
"They were always blue, weren't they?"
"Nowthey are the kind of blue that you see in the eyes of golden-haired children that have got to die," pursued Garda, making one of her curiously accurate comparisons.
Suddenly she held Margaret's hands down with her own left hand, and with her right pushed back swiftly the dark hair; it was the hair that lay low over the forehead; for Lanse's taste was still consulted, his wife's dusky locks rippled softly above her blue eyes, having now certainly nothing of the plain appearance to which he had objected.
The forehead thus suddenly exposed betrayed at the temples a wasted look, with the blue veins conspicuous on the white. "I knew it!" said Garda. She sat down beside her friend, and kissed her with angry tenderness. "What is the matter with you?" she demanded, putting her arms round her and giving her a little shake. "Youshalltell me. What is the matter?"
"A very natural thing; I am growing old, that is all." And Margaret tried to rearrange the disordered hair.
"Leave it as it is, I am determined to see the worst of you this time. You—with all that pretty hair and your pretty dresses—you have managed to conceal it." And again with searching eyes she examined her friend. "You don't care at all!" she announced.
"Oh yes, I do," said Margaret.
"You don't care in the least. But I care; and somethingshall be done. They have worn you out between them—twoinvalids; I shall speak to Mr. Harold."
Margaret's face altered. "No, Garda, you must not do that."
"But he likes me," said Garda, insistently; "he will say yes to anything I ask—you will see if he doesn't."
And Margaret felt, like a wave, the conviction that he would; more than this, that he would always have said yes if Garda had been the wife instead of herself. Garda would never have been submissive, Garda would never have yielded. But to Garda he would always have said yes.
"I shall certainly speak to him," Garda persisted. "Why shouldn't I not mind what you say, if it is for your good?'
"It would not be for my good."
"But he is kind to you, I know it, because I see it with my own eyes. He thinks you are lovely, he has told me so; he says you are a very rare type. And he himself—he is so agreeable; he says unusual things; he never tires anybody; his very fish-nets are amusing. I like him ever so much; and though he is crippled, he is very handsome—there is such a golden light in his brown eyes."
"He is all that you say," Margaret answered, smiling at this enumeration.
She could talk about her husband readily enough now. As Garda had noticed, he was always kind, his manner had been steadily kind (though not without many a glimpse of inward entertainment gleaming through it) ever since he entered East Angels' doors; he appeared to have taken his wife under his protection, he told Aunt Katrina once for all, and authoritatively (to that lady's amazement), that she must hereafter, in his presence at least, be "less catty" to Margaret. During the one visit which Evert Winthrop had paid to Florida in the same period, Lanse announced to him (in the tone of the old Roman inscription)—"I'm as steady as a church, old lad. I make nets for the poor. I talk to Aunt K. I'm good to the little people about here. I'm a seraph to Margaret."
Garda's present visit at East Angels had begun but two days before. She had been spending some time in New York with Lish-er and Trude. These ladies having written oncea week since their first parting with her, to say that they were sure that she must by this time be needing "a drier air," Garda had at length accepted the suggestion; and tried the air. It proved to be that of Ninth Street; and was indeed remarkably dry. This visit to Margaret was her second one; six months before she had made a long stay at East Angels—so long that Aunt Katrina began to fear that she would never go away. The violence of the grief that had accompanied her first return to Gracias had subsided with singular suddenness; she said to Margaret, in an apathetic tone, "I had to kill it, you know, or else kill myself. I came very near killing myself."
"I was much alarmed about you," Margaret answered, hesitating as to whether or not to say more.
Garda divined her thoughts. "Did you think I was out of my mind? I wasn't at all; it was only that I couldn't bear the pain. Let us never speak of that time again—never! never!" She got up, and for a moment stood trembling and quivering. Then, with the same rapidity and completeness, she resumed her calm.
Margaret never did speak of it again. "But how was it that she killed it—how?" was her dreary thought.
During that first visit, Lanse and Mrs. Spenser had become fast friends; every evening she played checkers with him, and she was the only person with whom he did not bluster over the game; she contradicted him; she made sport of his fish-nets; she used his Fielding for her footstool; she put forward the proposition that her own face was prettier than his Mino outlines.
Lanse denied this. "My Mino outlines are not in the least pretty. But then you are not in the least pretty yourself."
"Not pretty!" said Garda, with a protesting cry. "Why, even a little pussy cat can be pretty."
"I have not been able to discover a trace of prettiness in you." He paused. "You are simply superb," he said, looking at her with his deep bold eyes. "What makes you stay on here?" he added in another tone, surveying her curiously.
Garda turned; but Margaret had by chance left the room. "I was going to point to Margaret," she answered; "I stay because I love her—love to be with her."
"Well, you'll have a career," Lanse announced, briefly.
The next day he said to Aunt Katrina, "I should like to have seen that girl before she was married; there's such an extraordinary richness in her beauty that I don't believe she ever had an awkward age; she was probably graceful at sixteen."
"She was designing at sixteen."
"No! For whom could she have been designing down here?"
"Evert."
"And the idiot let her slip through his fingers?"
"Deliver us!" said the lady. "If I've got to hearyouadmire her too!"
Late in the evening of the day when she had threatened to speak to Lanse about his wife's health, Garda came and knocked at Margaret's door. "I wanted to see you," she said, entering.
Adolfo had gone an hour before, and she had been in her own room meanwhile; but she had not taken off her white lace attire, or loosened the braids of her hair. Margaret too was fully dressed.
"What have you been doing?" Garda demanded, suspiciously, as she looked at her. "Not crying?"
"I think I have forgotten how to cry."
"Well, your eyes are dry," Garda admitted. She closed the door, then went to one of the windows and looked out. There had been a heavy rain during the evening, and the air was much cooler; it was very dark. She closed the shutters of all the three windows and fastened them. "It's so gloomy out there! Pine cones? What luck! we'll have a fire."
"Garda—we shall melt!"
"No, the room is too large." She piled the cones on the hearth and set fire to them; in an instant the blaze flared out and lighted up all the dusky corners. "That's better. Only one poor miserable little candle?" And she proceeded to light four others that stood about here and there.
"Are you preparing for a ball?"
"I am preparing for a talk. I'm lonely to-night, Margaret, and I can't bear to feel lonely; how long may I stay?Are you sure you haven't got to go and do something?—say good-night to Mr. Harold, for instance?"
"He has been asleep these two hours. He always has one of his men in the room with him."
"Yes, I know. But why haven't you undressed, then, all this time?" Garda went on, with returning suspicion.
"Why haven't you? But have you no conscience, thinking of poor Adolfo banging into all the trees and falling into all the ditches on his way home?"
"No, Adolfo and I are not troubled about conscience,—Adolfo and I understand each other perfectly. It's in the blood, I suppose; we belong to the same race," said the daughter of the Dueros.
She had been standing watching her fire; now she drew up a chair before it and sat down. "I did not say anything to Mr. Harold about you, after all," she said.
"I thought you wouldn't when I told you I did not wish it."
"I shall do it to-morrow; you are to come north with me the next time I go."
"I shall not leave East Angels."
"I saw Evert in New York," Garda began again, after a short silence. "I wrote a note asking him to come. He came—he came three times. But three times isn't much?" And she glanced towards Margaret.
Margaret had kept her place on the sofa where she was sitting when Garda entered; but she had drawn forward on its casters a tall screen to shield herself from the fire, and this threw her face into shadow. "No, not much," she answered from her dark nook.
"I love to tell you things," Garda resumed, gazing at the blaze. "Well—he wouldn't like me—what would you say to that? I had thought that perhaps he might; but no, he wouldn't."
This time there was no answer from the shadow.
"I used to think—long ago—that it was because he couldn't," Garda went on; "I mean, couldn't care for any one very much; care as I care. But I was mistaken. Completely. Hecancare. But not for me."
She got up and went to the long mirror, in the brightlight her face and figure were clearly reflected; here she stood looking at herself for some time in silence, as if touched by a new curiosity. She moved nearer the glass, so that she could see her face; then back to get a view of the image as a whole; she turned half round, with her head over her shoulder, in order to see herself in profile. She adjusted the ribbon round her supple waist, and gave a touch, musingly, to her hair; she lifted her white hands and looked at them; dropping them, she clasped them behind her, and indulged in another general survey. "Such as I am, he cares nothing for me," she said at last, speaking not in surprise, but simply, as one who states a fact.
She looked at herself again. "I don't say he's not a fool!" And she gave a good-humored laugh.
She left the glass and came towards Margaret. "I've got to tell you something," she said. "Do you know, Itried. Yes, Itried; for I like him so much! You remember I thought everything of him once, when we were first engaged, long ago? I appreciate him better now. And I like him so much!" While she was saying these last words she came and knelt down beside the sofa in her old caressing fashion, her clasped hands on Margaret's knees. But her movement had pushed the screen, and it rolled back, letting the fire-light shine suddenly across Margaret's face.
"Merciful Heaven!" cried Garda, springing to her feet as she saw the expression there; "doyoucare for him?—is that it? The cause of all—the change in you, and in him too? Oh, how blind I have been!—how blind! But I never once suspected it. Don't think of a word I have said, he didn't look at me; I tried, but he wouldn't; he despises me, I know. I like him better than any one in the world, now that Lucian is gone," she went on, with her bare frankness. "But he will never care for me; and a very good reason, too, when it isyouhe cares for!"
Margaret had bowed her head upon her arm, which rested upon the sofa's back. Garda sat down beside her. "How many times have you comforted me!" she said. "If I could only be of the smallest comfort to you, Margaret!"
Margaret did not answer.
"And it has been so all these long years," Garda murmured,after sitting still and thinking of it. "You are better than I am!"
"Better!"
"There isn't an angel in heaven at this moment better than you are," Garda responded, vehemently. "But you mustn't keep on in this way, you know," she added, after a moment.
"I can't talk, Garda."
"That is it, Evert has talked! He has tired you out. I can imagine that when once he is in earnest—Margaret, let me tell you this one thing: you can't live under all this, you'll die."
"It's not so easy to die," answered Lansing Harold's wife.
"You think I don't know about Mr. Harold. But I do. Lucian heard the whole in Rome; I even saw her myself—in a carriage on the Pincio. I know that he left you twice to go to her—twice; what claim has he, then, upon you? But what is the use of my talking, ifEverthas been able to do nothing!"
Margaret sat up. "Go now, Garda. I would rather be alone."
But Garda would not go. "I could never be like you," she went on. "And this is a case where you had better be more like me. Margaret! Margaret!" and she clung to her, suddenly. "Such a love as his would be!" she whispered—"howcanyou refuse it? I think it's wicked, too, because it's his whole life,heisn't Lansing Harold! And you love him so; you needn't deny it; I can feel your heart beating now."
"Go," said Margaret, drawing herself free, and rising. "You only hurt me, Garda. And you cannot change me."
But Garda followed her. "You adore him. And he—And you give allthatup? Why—it's the dearest thing there is, the dearest thing we have; what are you made of?" She kept up with her, walking by her side.
Margaret was pacing the room aimlessly; she put out her arm as if to keep Garda off.
The girl accepted this, moving to that distance; but still she walked by her side. "And don't you ever think of the lifehe'sleading?—the life you're making him lead?" she went on. "He's unhappy—of course he didn't tellmewhy.He's growing hard and bitter, he's ever so much changed; remember that I have just seen him, only a few days ago. It's dreadful to have to say that he has changed for the worse, because I like him so much; but I am afraid he has,—yes, he has. You see he needs some one—I like him so much."
"Marry him yourself, then, and be the some one," answered Margaret, sharply. And by a sudden turn in her quick walk she seemed to be again trying to get rid of her.
"I would, if he would marry me," Garda answered; "yes, even if he should keep on caring for you just the same, for that doesn't hurt him in my eyes. I should be content to come afteryou; and if I could have just a little edge of his love—But he wouldn't look at me, I tell you—though I tried. He is like you, with him it is once. But you are the one I am thinking of most, Margaret. For you are fading away, and it's this stifled love that's killing you;nowI understand it. Women do die of such feelings, you are one of them. Do you think you'll have any praise when you get to the next world "—here she came closer—"after killing yourself, and breaking down all the courage of a man like Evert, likeEvert—two whole lives wasted—and all for the sake of an idea?"
Margaret's face had been averted. But now she looked at her. "An idea whichyoucannot comprehend," she said. And she turned away again.
"Yes, I know you think me your inferior," Garda answered; "and I acknowledge that I am your inferior; I am nothing compared with you, I never was. But I don't care what you say to me, I only want you to be happier." She waited an instant, then came up behind Margaret, whose back was towards her, and with a touch that was full of humility, took hold of a little fold of her skirt. "Listen a moment," she said, holding it closely, as if that would make Margaret listen more; "I don't believe Mr. Harold would oppose a suit at all. He couldn't succeed, of course, no matter what he should do, for it's all against him, but I don't believe he would even try; he isn't that sort of a man at least, malicious and petty. If he could be made comfortable here, as he is now? It's very far away—Gracias-á-Dios; that is, people think so, Ifind; they thought so in New York; so he could stay on here as quietly as he pleased, and it would make no difference to anybody. He could have everything he liked; why,Iwould undertake to stay for a while at first, stay and amuse him, play checkers and all that. It's a pity Mrs. Rutherford dislikes me so," Garda concluded, in a tone of regret.
"Perhaps you would undertake to marryhim, by way of a change?" said Margaret, leaving her again, with another sharp movement that pulled the dress from the touch of the humble little hand.
"There are some things, Margaret, that evenyoumust not say to me," Garda answered, smiling bravely and brightly, though the tears were just behind.
And then Margaret's cruel coldness broke; she came to her, took her hands, and held them across her hot eyes. "Forgive me, Garda, I don't know what I am saying. You don't mean it, but you keep turning the knife in the wound. I shall never do any of the things you talk of, I shall go on staying here. I must bear my life—the life I made for myself, with my eyes open; no one made it for me, I made it for myself, and I must bear it as well as I can. I have said cruel things, but it was because—" She dropped the girl's hands. "I have always thought you so—so beautiful; and if you care for him, as you now tell me you do, what more natural than that he—" But she could not finish, her face contracted with a quiver, and took on suddenly and strangely the tints of age.
"I am not worthy to tie your shoe!" cried Garda, in her soft voice, which even in high excitement could not rise above its sweet tones.
But Margaret had controlled herself again, the spectre face had vanished. "When you tell me that he has changed so much, that he is growing harsh, hard,—that is the worst for me," she said. "I can bear everything about myself, everything here; but I cannot bear that." She paused. "Men are all alike"—she began again. Then she put that aside too—her last bitterness. "Garda," she resumed, "I shall go on living here, as I have said; and it is for always; I am, I intend to be, as far removed from his life as though I were dead. And now—if you will marry him? You are so beautifulhe cannot help but love you, you needn't be afraid! You must never come here—I tell you that in the beginning. And he must never come. But"—she moved swiftly forward and took the girl in her arms with a passionate tenderness—"but your little children, Garda, if you should have any, if they could come, it would be good for me; my life would not be so bitter and hard; I should be a better woman than I am now, yes, I am sure I should be better." She put her face down upon Garda's for a moment. Garda could feel how very cold it was.
Then she released her; she began moving about the room, setting the chairs in their places, she extinguished some of the candles; she was quite calm.
Garda stood where she had been left; her face was hidden.
Margaret crossed to one of the windows and threw open the shutters; the cool night air rushed in, laden with the perfume of flowers. Then she came back to Garda. "I will go with you to your room," she said; "it is very, very late." She put her arm round her to lead her away. Garda submitted, though still with her face hidden; they went together down the hall.
There was a light in Garda's room. Margaret kissed her before leaving her. "Good-night," she said.
"I am ashamed," Garda murmured.
"Ashamed?"
"Ashamed of beingglad."
Margaret went swiftly away, she almost seemed to flee. Garda, standing on her lighted threshold, heard her door close. Then she heard the sound of the bolt within, as it was shot sharply forward.
"Did you ever hear of anything so absurd?" said Aunt Katrina. "How she will look at sea!—Those prunello gaiters of hers on deck when the wind blows!"
"Jolly old soul," commented Lanse. He was playing solitaire, and had paused reflectively with a card in his handwhile he gazed at the spread-out piles before him. "Jolly old soul!—I am glad she is going to see something at last, before she dies."
"What expressions you do use, Lanse! one would think she was ninety. As for seeing, she'll see nothing but Garda Thorne, and have her hands full at that."
"Her eyes, you mean," said Lanse, slipping his card deftly upon a pile which contained already its legal three, and fitting the edges accurately as he did so to those of the card beneath, in order to cheat himself with the greater skill.
Aunt Katrina's comments were based upon some recent tidings. Betty had journeyed down to East Angels that afternoon in the black boat of Uncle Cato to convey to her dearest Kate a wonderful piece of news: Garda had suddenly decided to go abroad for the winter—to Italy, and she had written from New York, where she was staying with Lish-er and Trude, to beg Betty to come north immediately and go with her, "like the dear, kind old aunt" that she was. Betty's mind, driven into confusion by this sudden proposal, was a wild mixture of the sincerest regrets at leaving dear Kate, of the sincerest gratification at this proof of Garda's attachment, and the sincerest (and most dreadful) apprehensions concerning the ocean passage.
Garda's second visit at East Angels—a very short one—had terminated only six weeks before; at that time she had no intention of going to Italy. This, then, was some sudden new idea, and Lanse had amused himself imagining causes for it. He imagined them on such a scale of splendor, however, that Aunt Katrina declared at last that she could listen to no more of them; they were too ridiculously silly.
She brought herself to listen, however, when, four months later, Betty, having survived a recrossing of the ocean, came down to East Angels, with the lion carpet-bag, to tell "everything" to her friend.
Poor Betty had been so homesick in foreign lands that Garda had not had the heart to detain her longer. "And she said that she had hoped I would stay with her a long time, perhaps always," narrated Betty. "And of course I enjoyed being in New York ever so much, of course; and Rome too—Rome was so instructive. But then you know,as I told the dear child, Rome isnotmy home, nor can I make it so at my age, of course."
"It's not age; it's experience," said Kate.
"Very likely you're right, Kate; but then, you know, I've had so little experience; since I came from Georgia with Mr. Carew, ever so many years ago, I've never put my foot outside of Florida until now, and I suppose I've grown like those Swiss exiles we read about, who can't hear that call for cows, you know, that Ranz something, without gettingsohomesick, though to everybody else it's a dreadfully yelling sound,—though I ought to say, too, that as we've next to no cows in Florida, the comparison isn't averygood one; but then there were next to no cows in Rome either, for that matter, though it was there that a cow brought up little Castor and Pollux, who built the city—no, no, I'm mistaken, that was Romulus and Remus; Castor and Pollux tamed the horses on the Quirinal; but in either case it shows that the milk must have been good, because they were so strong, you know."
"Arewe talking of milk, Elizabeth?" asked Kate, in despair.
"Of course not," answered Elizabeth, good-naturedly; "how could you think so? I know you never cared for milk in the least, Kate, and I shouldn't be likely, therefore, to bring it up.—And right there in the Forum I'd see my own flower-garden. And in the Colosseum I'd see our little church here, and even hear the bell."
"Absurd!" said Kate.
"I reckon it was absurd," Betty agreed, though wiping her eyes at the same time. "And at the Vatican, there among the statues, Kate—do you know I was always seeing likenesses to you."
"Oh, well—that," responded Kate, as if there might be grounds for associations of that nature. "And Garda Thorne, by this time, I suppose, is living therequitealone?" she went on, comfortably.
"Oh no; she has a companion, Madame Clementer."
"Clementi," said Lanse; "I know her—an American, Miss Morris. He ran through all her money."
"Yes, that is the one; the Bogarduses arranged it by letter; they know her very well."
"She's a cousin of theirs, and a very nice woman; about fifty-five. Nothing could be more respectable," Lanse went on, glancing with an amused eye at Aunt Katrina's unwilling face. "You were there some time, Mrs. Carew; I suppose you saw some men?"
"The population seemed to me to consist principally of men," Betty answered, naïvely; "the streets were always crowded with them."
"That's because the Italian women don't knock about. But some of these men came to see you, I suppose?"
"Oh, you mean gentlemen? Yes, a good many came; but for my part,Iwas always gladdest to see Adolfo Torres.Hewasn't so foreign."
"Ishethere?" said Lanse, with a delighted laugh; "has he followed her all that distance? Bravo for Adolfo!"
"I don't see where he got the money to go," remarked Aunt Katrina, with one of her well-bred sniffs.
Betty flushed at this. "Mr. Torres has property, Kate," she said, with dignity. Then her usual humble sincerity came back to her. "I don't reckon it's much," she went on. "I've no idea where he stayed, nor anything about it; but I'm sure, whenever he came to seeus, he always looked like a dignified gentleman."
"Naturally," said Lanse. "Because that is what he is. Well, I give him my vote."
As this conversation was beginning, word was brought to Margaret that Mr. Winthrop was in the drawing-room, and wished to see her. Celestine was the messenger.
"Has he come to stay? You and Looth must put the east room in order, then," said the mistress of the house. "Have you told the others?"
"Yes'm," said Celestine, disappearing.
When Margaret entered the drawing-room, twenty minutes later, Winthrop was there alone. Celestine had told nobody. Minerva Poindexter, meanwhile, sweeping a remote corridor, had had a tussle with her conscience; and gagged it.
"No one here?" said Margaret in surprise. "Where are the others?"
"I didn't come to see the others," Winthrop answered.
Though many months had elapsed since their last meeting, no greeting passed between them beyond this; they did not even shake hands. She had seen upon entering that angry feelings had possession of him, that this time he would not go through any of the forms. This made her only the more anxious to keep to them strictly herself.
"I hope you have come to stay with us a while," she said.
He paid no attention to this. "Shall we go out—to the garden, or somewhere? I wish to see you alone."
"We couldn't well be more alone than this, could we?" she answered, looking about the room.
"But they may interrupt us. If they do, I shall ask you very soon to come out, and you must come." He crossed the room and closed the door. "You got my letter?"
"I was answering it when you came."
"I didn't want a written answer. It came over me, after I had sent mine, that I knew just what you would write in reply—the very words. Not that you have written so often; in two years and a half I think three notes of six lines each would about sum it up. But I know every written phrase of yours just the same; so I have come to get an answer in person—a more sensible and reasonable one."
She did not say, "There will be nothing more reasonable." It was what was in her thoughts; but it seemed wiser not to express her thoughts now.
"How changed you are!" he said; "even in eighteen months so much changed."
"No one here sees such a change." She faced his gaze proudly.
"The same old look! Of course they don't; so long as you keep everything going smoothly and everybody comfortable, they don't want to see any; they never will see one till you're in your coffin."
He was still gazing at her. "Arrange your life as you like," he went on, abruptly, "but at least come away from here. You can do that. And I shall insist upon it."
The fear of him that she had felt from the time of entering was increasing. He had never looked quite as he did at this moment; his voice had never had quite these tones before. The long months that had stretched into years hadmade no difference, then; everything was to be as hard, perhaps harder than ever!
Her fear caused her to answer with something like appeal. "But I do not wish to go away. I like it much better here than I should like being in New York. It is quiet; I am of some use; I am—I am really contented here."
"Since when have you learned to speak so falsely? You are probably afraid of me! You see, and correctly, that I am not to be put off this time, as I was when I came before—put off with a little preaching, a few compliments and exhortations. You are afraid I shall smash the pretty glass walls you have built up round your sham life here, your charming domestic life, your happy home circle."
"I don't think you have any right to take that tone."
"Yes, I have; the right of our love."
"We must forget that. We are not growing any younger; at least I am not. Men are different, perhaps."
Winthrop laughed. "Very well done, Margaret. But not well enough. You are trying to pretend that you have outlived it; and that I have. But our two faces contradict that; yours is wasted and drawn, and look at me—have I the appearance of a man who is even moderately happy?"
She had not trusted herself to look at him much; she remembered too vividly Garda's description—"changed," "bitter," "hard." But involuntarily now she did look at him. And she saw all that Garda had described; and more.
"What is it you wish me to do?" she asked, hurriedly.
"Come away from here."
"But where?"
"Anywhere you like.—Where I could see you sometimes."
"No—no."
"Very well, then; anywhere you like. And I won't see you."
"It wouldn't do me any good!" These words burst from her almost unconsciously. She dropped into the nearest chair.
He came and seated himself near her in silence.
"You saw Garda before she went abroad?" she said, beginning again.
"Yes."
"She wished to see you, I know."
"How you say that—how timidly! Garda, at least, is not troubled by timidity."
"Perhaps you will go abroad again yourself?"
"Not to see Mrs. Lucian Spenser! Would you like to have me go?" he added.
"Yes."
"I am very much obliged to you. It's a plan, is it?—you wouldn't have spoken of her otherwise. I see; I am growing older, I'm lonely, I'm sad; perhaps I'm wicked. A 'home,' therefore, is the thing I need—you women think so much of a home—and so you've planned this. It's very ingenious. But unfortunately I don't fall in with it. Don't waste any more time talking of Garda," he said, sharply.
Margaret's head was bent.
"It isn't possible that you have thought Icouldcare for her, Margaret—such a woman as that. Why, you're trembling" (he rose and pulled down her shielding hand), "you're relieved! You have really dreamed, then, that it might happen!"
"It makes me hate myself," he went on, a mist showing itself in his eyes—"to see your unselfishness; you have thought of this because you believe that it would be better for me, that I should be happier. And if you had succeeded, if it could really have come about, how you would have lived up to it! To the very last hour of your life you wouldn't have swerved."
He looked at her; he seemed to be studying her. Then he grew sarcastic again, perhaps on account of her continued silence. "Garda, on her side, is perfectly capable of having a real affection for me for a while—real while it lasts; she hasn't any especial mission on her hands just now, so that would have done very well. You planned it together, I suppose. You are certainly a wonderful pair! May I ask how far did the plan extend? You would have pampered me up between you (she temporarily); you would have arranged what was 'best' for my life, like two Sunday-school teachers over a case of reform! Once and for all, Margaret, let us put Edgarda Thorne aside; she has nothing whatever to do with the matters that lie between you and me; she is no more to me than an old glove."
He walked about the room impatiently. "Of course I might lie to you," he went on; "I might say that if you persist in your present course—keeping me entirely off, separating your life utterly from mine—I should go to the bad. But it wouldn't be true; I shall not go to the bad, unless becoming hard and disagreeable is that. Later, if you still go on in this way, I shall become callous and selfish probably—self-indulgent. I shall never be vicious or low-lived, I hope; but I am not a woman, I can't live on air—as you will do. Don't see me at fifty-five—I'll give youthatadvice! Foryouwill always remain the same; with the exception of growing paler and thinner, you'll be the same till you die; and I really think it would be a greater blow to you than even what we're bearing now to find me like that—selfish, fond of my ease, slow to disturb myself for anybody, mightily taken up with my dinner!—But you don't believe in the least what I am saying to you; I can't bring it before you. I love you—love you at this moment with every fibre of my being." He sat down and folded his arms doggedly. "But I shall not stay sentimental; no man does after a certain age, though women always expect it, as you expect it now."
"What do you intend to do?" he continued, as she did not answer any of this.
"Just what I have been doing."
"You have no mercy, then?" He looked at her with angry gloom.
"If I can bear it, surely you can."
"No, that doesn't follow. Women are better than men; in some things they are stronger. But that's because they are sustained—the ones of your nature at least—by their terrible love of self-sacrifice; I absolutely believe there are women wholiketo be tortured!"
"Yes—sometimes we like it," answered the woman he spoke to, a beautiful, mysterious, exalted expression showing itself for a moment in her eyes.
He sprang from his chair. But the look of his face as he came towards her, frightened her, brought her back to the actual present; moving hurriedly, she put her hand upon the cord of the bell.
"No, not that, that's cruel, that humiliates me—don't,don't. See, it isn't necessary, I shall be perfectly quiet and reasonable now. Here are two chairs; come and sit down. Now listen. I will do all that is proper here—see the people, and make a little visit; then I will go back to New York. After that, in due time, you must tell them that you are tired of Florida, that you need a change; you certainly do need a change, as a plain matter-of-fact; and I see no reason, in any case, for your spending your entire life here. Of course it will be an uphill undertaking to get Aunt Katrina started; she will believe that it would kill her instantly. But it won't kill her; she is stronger than she thinks. As for Lanse, he can make the journey up as well as he made it down; he's certainly no worse. Both of them, if you are firm, will end by doing as you wish, because you are indispensable to their comfort. The thing is that youmusthold firm. Once established in New York, or near there, I could see you now and then—I mean see you all; Lanse would ask nothing better than to have me about again. I speak in all honor, Margaret—I'm not a vile hypocrite, whatever else I may be. I am growing older; see, I will take your view of that, you are growing older too; why shouldn't we, then, see each other in this way at intervals? where would be the harm? It would brighten our lives a little; and as for the 'home' you wished me to have, its good influences and all that, I could find them there."
"I shall never see you again," Margaret answered, strangely. She had not seated herself in the chair he had placed for her; she stood with her hand resting upon its back.
"What do you mean?"
"All you have said I believe; I believe you would keep to it, carry it out. But with me it would be different—it would be too much pain; I would far rather not see you at all. I love you too much," she added. A burning blush covered her face and throat as she met his eyes. Then it faded suddenly to so deathly a white that his old fear rushed back upon him. He had almost forgotten this fear in the lapse of time; but these terrible waves of color and of pallor, these overwhelming emotions that made her unable to stand—they brought back to him the old conviction, "She has no strength, she will not be able to endure it; she will die!" He tookher in his arms and laid her down upon the cushions of a couch, made sick at heart as he did so by the lightness of her weight. Anything but that—that she should go from earth forever; anything but that!
As he bent over her, his heart full of his dread, she looked up; she saw his fear.
"Why—I am not dying," she said, reassuringly, smiling for an instant with almost a mother's sweetness; "it is nothing,—only the faintness that very often seizes me; it has been so all my life, it amounts to nothing. And now will you go? And promise me not to come back?"
"Margaret—that is too much."
"It is the only way; surely I have shown you—told you—in all its shame, my weakness." And again came the burning blush.
He had knelt down beside her. "Weakness!" He bowed his head upon her hand.
"Go," she repeated softly.
"I cannot go!"
She tried to rise, but he prevented her. "Margaret!" he said.
"And must I always be the one?" She did rise, she moved from his grasping hands. "You talk about my dying—thatwould make me die, to have you pursue me, ungenerously, brutally, when I have already such hard pain to bear." With a step that swayed with her exhaustion she went towards the door. "I can only appeal to you, Evert," she said when she had reached it, looking back at him over her shoulder—"I can only appeal to you not to try to see me again. It will be the same with me always, and so I appeal to you for always. I shall never change; and I should never yield; so you can see that it will only make me suffer more."
She turned the latch. "Perhaps, sometime—the years that we give up to duty here—" She went hastily out.
They never met again.
It was eight years later at East Angels. Penelope and Middleton had come down for an afternoon visit; Betty was already there, Betty was generally there.
Dr. Kirby had just gone; he had brought to them the surprising tidings that Garda had turned her back upon her many admirers, and was about to bestow her hand upon Adolfo Torres.
The Doctor having gone, "I'll believe it when I see it!" Kate declared.
"But, Kate dear, you can't see all the way to Paris," said Betty.
That same evening, Margaret was sitting beside the lamp in the drawing-room, embroidering something which took her close attention.
Lanse had had his sofa drawn up to the open door of the little high balcony; he was smoking and looking out upon the moonlight.
He, too, spoke of the rumor about Garda. "I wonder why Evert didn't try for her?" he said.
His wife made no reply.
"Never married all this time—yet he was the very fellow for it! Steady, you know; good; a little stupid. It's outrageous the way he treats us—never coming here!"
Lanse was still crippled; but his face remained handsome. Save for his crippled condition, he appeared well and strong.
After a while he turned from the moonlight and sat idly watching his wife's hand move over her work. "Do you know that you've grown old, Madge, before your time?"
"Yes, I know it."
"Well—you're a good woman," said Lanse.
THE END.