CHAPTER XXIV
James Marraville called Thorpe a coward and a poltroon. This was a week after the operation. They were alone in the room. For days his wondering, questioning eyes had sought those of the man on whom he had depended for everlasting peace, and always there had been a look of reproach in them. Not in words, but still plainly, he was asking why he still lived, why this man had not done the thing that was expected of him. Every one about him was talking of the marvellous, incredible result of the operation; every one was looking cheerful and saying that he would "soon be as good as new." And all the while he was lying there, weak and beaten, wondering why they lied to him, and why Man as well as God had been so cruel to him. He was not deceived. He knew that he had it all to live over again. He knew what they meant when they said that it had been very successful! And so, one day, in all the bitterness of his soul, he cursed the man who had given him a few more months to live.
But there were other men and women who did not want to die. They wanted very dearly to live, and they had been afraid to risk an operation. Now that the world was tumbling over itself to proclaim the greatness of the surgeon who had saved James Marraville's life, the faint-hearted of all degrees flowed in a stream up to his doors and implored him to name his own price.... So goes the world....
The other doctors knew, and Braden knew, and most thoroughly of all James Marraville knew, that while theoperation was a wonderful feat in surgery, it might just as well have remained undone. The young doctor simply had done all that was in the power of man to do for a fellow creature. He had cheated Death out of an easy victory, but Death would come again and sit down beside James Marraville to wait for another day.
Down near Washington Square, Wade blinked his eyes and shook his head, and always re-read the reports from the sick-room. He was puzzled and sometimes there was a faraway look in his eyes.
Lutie's baby came. He came long after midnight, and if he had been given the power at birth to take intelligent notice of things, he would have been vastly astonished to hear that his grandmother had been sitting up in an adjoining room with her son and daughter, anxiously, even fearfully, awaiting his advent into the world. And he would have been further astonished and perhaps distressed if any one had told him that his granny cried a little over him, and refused to go to her own home until she was quite sure that his little mother was all right. Moreover, he would have been gravely impressed by the presence of the celebrated Dr. Thorpe, and the extraordinary agony of that great big tall man who cowered and shivered and who wouldn't even look at him because he had eyes and thought for no one but the little mother. Older and wiser persons would have revealed considerable interest in the certificate of deposit that his grandmother laid on the bed beside him. He was quite a rich little boy without knowing it. Thirty thousand dollars is not to be sneezed at, and it would be highly unjust to say that it was a sneeze that sent his grandmother, his aunt and his father into hysterics of alarm.
They called him Carnahan Tresslyn. He represented a distinct phase in the regeneration of a proud and haughty family.
A few weeks later Anne took a house up among the hills of Westchester County, and moved Lutie and the baby out into the country. It did not occur to her to think that she was making a personal sacrifice in going up there to spend the hot months.
Percy Wintermill informed her one day that he was going to ask her to marry him when the proper time arrived. It would be the third time, he reminded her. He was being forehanded, that was all,—declaring himself in advance of all others and thereby securing, as he put it, the privilege of priority. She was not very much moved by the preparation of Percy. In fact, she treated the matter with considerable impatience.
"Really, you know, Percy," she said, "I'm getting rather fed up with refusing you. I'm sure I've done it more than three times. Why don't you ask some girl who will have you?"
"That's just the point," said he frankly. "If I asked some girl who would have me, she'd take me, and then where would you come in? I don't want any one but you, Anne, and—"
"Sorry, Perce, but it's no use," said she briefly.
"Well, I haven't asked you yet," he reminded her. After some minutes, spent by him in rumination and by her in wondering why she didn't send him away, he inquired, quite casually: "Anybody else in mind, old girl?" She merely stared at him. "Hope it isn't Brady Thorpe," he went on. "He's one of my best friends. I'd hate to think that I'd have to—"
"Go home, Percy," she said. "I'm going out,—and I'm late already. Thanks for the orchids. Don'tbother to send any more. It's just a waste of money, old fellow. I sha'n't marry you. I sha'n't marry any one except the man with whom I fall desperately, horribly in love,—and I'm not going to fall in love with you, so run away."
"You weren't in love with old man Thorpe, were you?" he demanded, flushing angrily.
"I haven't the right to be offended by that beastly remark, Percy," she said quietly; "and yet I don't think you ought to have said it to me."
"It was meant only to remind you that it won't be necessary for you to fall desperately, horribly in love with me," he explained, and was suddenly conscious of being very uncomfortable for the first time in his life. He did not like the expression in her eyes.
Her shoulders drooped a little. "It isn't very comforting to feel that any one of my would-be husbands could be satisfied to get along without being loved by me. No doubt I shall be asked by others besides you, Percy. I hope you do not voice the sentiments of all the rest of them."
"I'm sorry I said it," he said, and seemed a little bewildered immediately afterwards. He really couldn't make himself out. He went away a few minutes later, vaguely convinced that perhaps it wouldn't be worth while to ask her, after all. This was a new, strange Anne, and it would hurt to be refused by her. He had never thought of it in just that way—before.
"So that is the price they put upon me, is it?" Anne said to herself. She was regarding herself rather humbly in the mirror as she pinned on her hat. "I am still expected to marry without loving the man who takes me. It isn't to be exacted of me. Don't they credit me with a capacity for loving? What do they think Iam? What do they think my blood is made of, and the flesh on my bones? Do they think that because I am beautiful I can love no one but myself? Don't they think I'm human? How can any one look at me without feeling that I'd rather love than be loved? The poor fools! Any woman can be loved. What we all want more than anything else is tolove. And I love—Idolove! And Iambeloved. And all the rest of my life I shall love; I shall gloat over the fact that I love; I shall love, love,lovewith all that there is in me, all that there is in my body and my soul. The poor fools."
And all that was in her body and her soul was prepared to give itself to the man who loved her. She wanted him to have her for his own. She pitied him even more than she pitied herself.
Anne had no illusions concerning herself. Mawkish sentimentality had no place in her character. She was straightforward and above board with herself, and she would not cheapen herself in her own eyes. Another woman might have gone down on her knees, whimpering a cry for forgiveness, but not Anne Tresslyn. She would ask him to forgive her but she would not lie to herself by prostrating her body at his feet. There was firm, noble stuff in Anne Tresslyn. It was born in her to know that the woman who goes down on her knees before her man never quite rises to her full height again. She will always be in the position of wondering whether she stayed on her knees long enough to please him. The thought had never entered Anne's head to look anywhere but straight into Braden's eyes. She was not afraid to have him see that she was honest! He could see that she had no lies to tell him. And she was as sorry for him as she was for herself....
She saw him often during the days of Lutie's convalescence,but never alone. There was considerable comfort for her in the thought that he made a distinct point of not being alone with her. One day she said to him:
"I have my car outside, Braden. Shall I run you over to St. Luke's?"
It was a test. She knew that he was going to the hospital, and intended to take the elevated down to 110th Street. His smile puzzled her.
"No, thank you." Then, after a moment, he added: "If people saw me driving about in a prosperous looking touring-car they'd be justified in thinking that my fees are exorbitant, and I should lose more than I'd gain."
She flushed slightly. "By the same argument they might think you were picking up germs in the elevated or the subway."
"I shun the subway," he said.
Anne looked straight into his eyes and said—to herself: "I love you." He must have sensed the unspoken words, for his eyes hardened.
"Moreover, Anne, I shouldn't think it would be necessary for me to remind you that—" he hesitated, for he suddenly realised that he was about to hurt her, and it was not what he wanted to do—"that there are other and better reasons why—"
He stopped there, and never completed the sentence. She was still looking into his eyes and was still saying to herself: "I love you." It was as if a gentle current of electricity played upon every nerve in his body. He quivered under the touch of something sweet and mysterious. Exaltation was his response to the magnetic wave that carried her unspoken words into his heart. She had not uttered a sound and yet he heardthe words. How many times had she cried those delicious words into his ear while he held her close in his arms? How many times had she looked at him like this while actually speaking the words aloud in answer to his appeal?
They were standing but a few feet apart. He could take a step forward and she would be in his arms,—that glorious, adorable, ineffably feminine creation,—in his arms,—in his arms,—
It was she who broke the spell. Her voice sounded far off—and exhausted, as if it came from her lips without breath behind it.
"It will always be just the same, Braden," she said, and he knew that it was an acknowledgment of his unfinished reminder. She was promising him something.
He took a firm grip on himself. "I'm glad that you see things as they are, Anne. Now, I must be off. Thanks just the same for—"
"Oh, don't mention it," she said carelessly. "I'm glad that you see things too as they are, Braden." She held out her hand. There was no restraint in her manner. "I'm sorry, Braden. Things might have been so different. I'm sorry."
"Good God!" he burst out. "If you had only been—" He broke off, resolutely compressing his lips. His jaw was set again in the strong old way that she knew so well.
She nodded her head slowly. "If I had only been some one else instead of myself," she said, "it would not have happened."
He turned toward the door, stopped short and then turned to face her. There was a strange expression in his grey eyes, not unlike diffidence.
"Percy told me last night that you have refused tomarry him. I'm glad that you did that, Anne. I want you to know that I am glad, that I felt—oh, I cannot tell you how I felt when he told me."
She eyed him closely for a moment. "You thought that I—I might have accepted him. Is that it?"
"I—I hadn't thought of it at all," he said, confusedly.
"Well," she said, and a slight pallor began to reveal itself in her face, "I tried marrying for money once, Braden. The next time I shall try marrying for love."
He stared. "You don't mince words, do you?" he said, frowning.
"No," she said. "Percy will tell you that, I fancy," she added, and smiled. "He can't understand my not marrying him. He will be worth fifteen or twenty millions, you know." The irony in her voice was directed inwardly, not outwardly. "Perhaps it would be safer for him to wait before taking too much for granted. You see, I haven't actually refused him. I merely refused to give him an option. He—"
"Oh, Anne, don't jest about—" he began, and then as her eyes fell suddenly under his gaze and her lip trembled ever so slightly,—"By Jove, I—I sha'n't misjudge you in that way again. Good-bye." This time he held out his hand to her.
She shook her head. "I've changed my mind. I'm never going to say good-bye to you again."
"Never say good-bye? Why, that's—"
"Why should I say good-bye to you when you are always with me?" she broke in. Noting the expression in his eyes she went on ruthlessly, breathlessly. "Do you think I ought to be ashamed to say such a thing to you? Well, I'm not. It doesn't hurt my pride to say it. Not in the least." She paused for an instant andthen went on boldly. "I fancy I am more honest with myself than you are with yourself, Braden."
He looked steadily into her eyes. "You are wrong there," he said quietly. Then bluntly: "By God, Anne, if it were not for the one terrible thing that lies between us, I could—I could—"
"Go on," she said, her heart standing still. "You can at leastsayit to me. I don't ask for anything more."
"But why say it?" he cried out bitterly. "Will it help matters in the least for me to confess that I am weak and—"
She laughed aloud, unable to resist the nervous excitement that thrilled her. "Weak? You weak? Look back and see if you can find a single thing to prove that you are weak. You needn't be afraid. You are strong enough to keep me in my place. You cannot put yourself in jeopardy by completing what you started out to say. 'If it were not for the one terrible thing that lies between us, I could—I could—' Well, what could you do? Overlook my treachery? Forget that I did an even more terrible thing than you did? Forgive me and take me back and trust me all over again? Is that what you would have said to me?"
"That is what I might have said," he admitted, almost savagely, "if I had not come to my senses in time."
Her eyes softened. The love-light glowed in their depths. "I am not as I was two years ago, Braden," she said. "I'd like you to know that, at least."
"I dare say that is quite true," he said harshly. "You got what you went after and now that you've got it you can very comfortably repent."
She winced. "I am not repenting."
"Would you be willing to give up all that you gained out of that transaction and go back to where my grandfather found you?" he demanded?
"Do you expect me to lie to you?" she asked with startling candour.
"No. I know you will not lie."
"Would it please you to have me say that I would willingly give up all that I gained?"
"I see what you mean. It would be a lie."
"Would it please you to have me give it all up?" she insisted.
He was thoughtful. "No," he said candidly. "You earned it, you are entitled to it. It is filthy, dirty money, but you earned it. You do not deny that it was your price. That's the long and the short of it."
"Will you let me confess something to you? Something that will make it all seem more despicable than before?"
"Good Lord, I don't see how that can be possible!"
"I did not expect to lose you, Braden, when I married Mr. Thorpe. I counted on you in the end. I was so sure of myself,—and of you. Wait! Let me finish. If I had dreamed that I was to lose you, I should not have married Mr. Thorpe. That makes it worse, doesn't it?" There was a note of appeal in her voice.
"Yes, yes,—it makes it worse," he groaned.
"I was young and—over-confident," she murmured. "I looked ahead to the day when I should be free again and you would be added to the—well, the gains. Now you know the whole truth about me. I was counting on you, looking forward to you, even as I stood beside him and took the vows. You were always uppermost in my calculations. I never left you out of them. Even to this day, to this very moment, I continue to count onyou. I shall never be able to put the hope out of my mind. I have tried it and failed. You may despise me if you will, but nothing can kill this mean little thing that lurks in here. I don't know what you will call it, Braden, but I call it loyalty to you."
"Loyalty! My God!" he cried out hoarsely.
"Yes, loyalty," she cried. "Mean as I am, mean as I have been, I have never wavered an instant in my love for you. Oh, I'm not pleading for anything. I'm not begging. I don't ask for anything,—not even your good opinion. I am only telling you the truth. Mr. Thorpe knew it all. He knew that I loved you, and he knew that I counted on having you after he was out of the way. And here is something else that you never knew, or suspected. He believed that my love for you, my eagerness, my longing to be free to call you back again, would be the means of releasing him from the thing that was killing him. He counted on me to—I will put it as gently as I can—to free myself. I believe in my soul that he married me with that awful idea in his mind."
For a long time they were silent. Braden was staring at her, horror in his eyes. She remained standing before him, motionless. Lutie's nurse passed through the little hall outside, but they did not see or hear her. A door closed softly; the faint crying of the baby went unheard.
"You are wrong there," he said at last, thickly. "I happen to know what his motives were, Anne."
"Oh, I know," she said wearily. "To prove to you how utterly worthless I am,—or was. Well, it may have been that. I hope it was. I would like to think it of him instead of the other thing. I would like to think of him as sacrificing himself for your sake, instead ofplanning to sacrifice me for his sake. It is a terrible thought, Braden. He begged me to give him those tablets, time and again. I—I couldn't have done that, not even with you as the prize." She shuddered.
A queer, indescribable chill ran through his veins. "Do you—have you ever thought that he may have held you out as a prize—for me?"
"You mean?" She went very white. "God above us, no! If I thoughtthat, Braden, then there would be something lying between us, something that even such as I could not overcome."
"Just the same," he went on grimly, "he went to his death with a word of praise on his lips for you, Anne. He told me you were deserving of something better than the fate he had provided for you. He was sorry. It—it may have been that he was pleading your cause, that—"
"I would like to think that of him," she cried eagerly, "even though his praise fell upon deaf ears."
She turned away from him and sank wearily into a chair. For a minute or two he stood there regarding her in silence. He was sorry for her. It had taken a good deal of courage to humble herself in his eyes, as she had done by her frank avowal.
"Is it any satisfaction to your pride, Anne," he said slowly, after deliberate thought, "to know that I love you and always will love you, in spite of everything?"
Her answer was a long time in coming, and it surprised him when it did come.
"If I had any pride left I should hate you for humbling it in that manner, Braden," she said, little red spots appearing on her cheeks. "I am not asking for your pity."
"I did not mean to—" he cried impulsively. For aninstant he threw all restraint aside. The craving mastered him. He sprang forward.
She closed her eyes quickly, and held her breath.
He was almost at her side when he stopped short. Then she heard the rush of his feet and, the next instant, the banging of the hall door. He was gone! She opened her eyes slowly, and stared dully, hazily before her. For a long time she sat as one unconscious. The shock of realisation left her without the strength or the desire to move. Comprehension was slow in coming to her in the shock of disappointment. She could not realise that she was not in his arms. He had leaped forward to clasp her, she had felt his outstretched arms encircling her,—it was hard to believe that she sat there alone and that the ecstasy was not real.
Tears filled her eyes. She did not attempt to wipe them away. She could only stare, unblinking, at the closed door. Sobs were in her throat; she was first cold, then hot as with a fever.
Slowly her breath began to come again, and with it the sobs. Her body relaxed, she closed her eyes again and let her head fall back against the chair, and for many minutes she remained motionless, still with the weakness of one who has passed through a great crisis.... Long afterward,—she did not know how long it was,—she laid her arms upon the window-sill at her side and buried her face on them. The sobs died away and the tears ceased flowing. Then she raised her eyes and stared down into the hot, crowded street far below. She looked upon sordid, cheap, ugly things down there, and she had been looking at paradise such a little while ago.
Suddenly she sprang to her feet. Her tall, gloriousfigure was extended to its full height, and her face was transformed with the light of exaltation.
A key grated noisily in the hall door. The next instant it swung violently open and her brother George strode in upon her,—big, clear-eyed, happy-faced and eager.
"Hello!" he cried, stopping short. "I popped in early to-day. Matter of great importance to talk over with my heir. Wait a second, Anne. I'll be back—I say, what's the matter? You look posi-tive-ly as if you were on the point of bursting into grand opera. Going to sing?"
"I'm singing all over, Georgie,—all over, inside and out," she cried joyously.
"Gee whiz!" he gasped. "Has the baby begun to talk?"
CHAPTER XXV
She did not meet him again at Lutie's. Purposely, and with a cunning somewhat foreign to her sex, she took good care that he should not be there when she made her daily visits. She made it an object to telephone every day, ostensibly to inquire about Lutie's condition, and she never failed to ask what the doctor had said. In that way she knew that he had made his visit and had left the apartment. She would then drive up into Harlem and sit happily with her sister-in-law and the baby, whom she adored with a fervour that surprised not only herself but the mother, whose ideas concerning Anne were undergoing a rapid and enduring reformation.
She was shocked and not a little disillusioned one day, however, when Lutie, now able to sit up and chatter to her heart's content, remarked, with a puzzled frown on her pretty brow:
"Dr. Braden must be terribly rushed with work nowadays, Anne. For the last week he has been coming here at the most unearthly hour in the morning, and dashing away like a shot just as soon as he can. Good gracious, we're hardly awake when he gets here. Never later than eight o'clock."
Anne's temple came down in a heap. He wasn't playing the game at all as she had expected. He was avoidingher. She was dismayed for an instant, and then laughed outright quite frankly at her own disenchantment.
Lutie looked at her with deep affection in her eyes. "You ought to have a little baby of your own, Anne," she said.
"It's much nicer having yours," said Anne. "He's such a fat one."
Two weeks later they were all up in the country, and George was saying twice a day at least that Anne was the surprise and comfort of his old age. She was as gay as a lark. She sang,—but not grand opera selections. Her days were devoted to the cheerful occupation of teaching young Carnahan how to smile and how to count his toes.
But in the dark hours of the night she was not so serene. Then was her time for reflection, for wonder, for speculation. Was life to be always like this? Were her days to be merry and confident, and her nights as full of loneliness and doubt? Was her craving never to be satisfied? Sometimes when George and Lutie went off to bed and left her sitting alone on the dark, screened-in veranda, looking down from the hills across the sombre Hudson, she almost cried aloud in her desolation. Of what profit was love to her? Was she always to go on being alone with the love that consumed her?
The hot, dry summer wore away. She steadfastly refused to go to the cool seashore, she declined the countless invitations that came to her, and she went but seldom into the city. Her mother was at Newport. They had had one brief, significant encounter just before the elder woman went off to the seashore. No doubt her mother considered herself entitled to a fair share of "the spoils," but she would make no further advances. She had failed earlier in the game; she would not humble herself again. And so, one hot day in August, just beforegoing to the country, Anne went up to her old home, determined to have it out with her mother.
"Why are you staying in town through all of this heat, mother dear?" she asked. Her mother was looking tired and listless. She was showing her age, and that was the one thing that Anne could not look upon with complacency.
"I can't afford to go junketing about this year," said her mother, simply. "This awful war has upset—"
"The war hasn't had time to upset anything over here, mother. It's only been going on a couple of weeks. You ought to go away, dearest, for a good long snooze in the country. You'll be as young as a débutante by the time the season sets in."
Mrs. Tresslyn smiled aridly. "Am I beginning to show my age so much as all this, Anne?" she lamented. "I'm just a little over fifty. That isn't old in these days, my dear."
"You look worried, not old," said her daughter, sympathetically. "Is it money?"
"It's always money," admitted Mrs. Tresslyn. "I may as well make up my mind to retrench, to live a little more simply. You would think that I should be really quite well-to-do nowadays, having successfully gotten rid of my principal items of expense. But I will be quite frank with you, Anne. I am still trying to pay off obligations incurred before I lost my excellent son and daughter. You were luxuries, both of you, my dear."
Anne was shocked. "Do you mean to say that you are still paying off—still paying up forus? Good heavens, mamma! Why, we couldn't have got you into debt to that—"
"Don't jump to conclusions, my dear," her motherinterrupted. "The debts were not all due to you and George. I had a few of my own. What I mean to say is that, combining all of them, they form quite a handsome amount."
"Tell me," said Anne determinedly, "tell me just how much of it should be charged up to George and me."
"I haven't the remotest idea. You see, I was above keeping books. What are you trying to get at? A way to square up with me? Well, my dear, you can't do that, you know. You don't owe me anything. Whatever I spent on you, I spent cheerfully, gladly, and without an idea of ever receiving a penny in the shape of recompense. That's the way with a mother, Anne. No matter what she may do for her children, no matter how much she may sacrifice for them, she does it without a single thought for herself. That is the best part of being a mother. A wife may demand returns from her husband, but a mother never thinks of asking anything of her children. I am sure that even worse mothers than I will tell you the same. We never ask for anything in return but a little selfish pleasure in knowing that we have borne children that are invariably better than the children that any other mother may have brought into the world. No, you owe me nothing, Anne. Put it out of your mind."
Anne listened in amazement. "But if you are hard-up, mother dear, and on account of the money you were obliged to spend on us—because we were both spoiled and selfish—why, it is only right and just that your children, if they can afford to do so, should be allowed to turn the tables on you. It shouldn't be so one-sided, this little selfish pleasure that you mention. I am rich. I have a great deal more than I need. I have nearly a hundred thousand a year. You—"
"Has any one warned you not to talk too freely about it in these days of income tax collectors?" broke in her mother, with a faint smile.
"Pooh! Simmy attends to that for me. I don't understand a thing about it. Now, see here, mother, I insist that it is my right,—not my duty, but my right—to help you out of the hole. You would do it for me. You've done it for George, time and again. How much do you need?"
Mrs. Tresslyn regarded her daughter thoughtfully. "Back of all this, I suppose, is the thought that it was I who made a rich girl of you. You feel that it is only right that you should share the spoils with your partner, not with your mother."
"Once and for all, mother, let me remind you that I do not blame you for making a rich woman of me. I did not have to do it, you know. I am not the sort that can be driven or coerced. I made my own calculations and I took my own chances. You were my support but not mycommander. The super-virtuous girls you read about in books are always blaming their mothers for such marriages as mine, and so do the comic papers. It's all bosh. Youth abhors old age. It loves itself too well. But we needn't discuss responsibilities. The point is this: I have more money than I know what to do with, so I want to help you out. It isn't because I think it is my duty, or that I owe it to you, but because I love you, mother. If you had forced me into marrying Mr. Thorpe, I should hate you now. But I don't,—I love you dearly. I want you to let me love you. You are so hard to get close to,—so hard to—"
"My dear, my dear," cried her mother, coming up to her and laying her hands on the tall girl's shoulders,"you have paid me in full now. What you have just said pays off all the debts. I was afraid that my children hated me."
"You poor old dear!" cried Anne, her eyes shining. "If you will only let me show you how much I can love you. We are pretty much alike, mother, you and I. We—"
"No!" cried out the other fiercely. "I do not want you to say that. I do not want you to be like me. Never say that to me again. I want you to be happy, and you will never be happy if you are like me."
"Piffle!" said Anne, and kissed her mother soundly. And she knew then, as she had always known, that her mother was not and never could be a happy woman. Even in her affection for her own children she was the spirit of selfishness. She loved them for what they meant to her and not for themselves. She was consistent. She knew herself better than any one else knew her.
"Now, tell me how much you need," went on Anne, eagerly. "I've hated to broach the subject to you. It didn't seem right that I should. But I don't care now. I want to do all that I can."
"I will not offend you, or insult you, Anne, by saying that you are a good girl,—a better one than I thought you would ever be. You can't help me, however. Don't worry about me. I shall get on, thank you."
"Just the same, I insist on paying your bills, and setting you straight once more for another fling. And you are going to Newport this week. Come, now, mother dear, let's get it over with. Tell me abouteverything. You may hop into debt again just as soon as you like, but I'll feel a good deal better if I know that it isn't onmy account. It isn't right that you should still have George and me hanging about your neck like millstones. Come! I insist. Let's figure it all up."
An hour afterward, she said to her mother: "I'll make out one check to you covering everything, mother. It will look better if you pay them yourself. Thirty-seven thousand four hundred and twelve dollars. That's everything, is it,—you're sure?"
"Everything," said Mrs. Tresslyn, settling back in her chair. "I will not attempt to thank you, Anne. You see, I didn't thank Lutie when she threw her money in my face, for somehow I knew that I'd give it all back to her again. Well, you may have to wait longer than she did, my dear, but this will all come back to you. I sha'n't live forever, you know."
Anne kissed her. "You are a wonder, mother dear. You wouldn't come off of your high-horse for anything, would you? By Jove, that's what I like most in you. You never knuckle."
"My dear, you are picking up a lot of expressions from Lutie."
The early evenings at Anne's place in the country were spent solely in discussions of the great war. There was no other topic. The whole of the civilised world was talking of the stupendous conflict that had burst upon it like a crash out of a clear sky. George came home loaded down with the latest extras and all of the regular editions of the afternoon papers.
"By gemini," he was in the habit of saying, "it's a lucky thing for those Germans that Lutie got me to reenlist with her a year ago. I'd be on my way over there by this time, looking for real work. Gee, Anne, that's one thing I could do as well as anybody. I'm big enough to stop a lot of bullets. We'll never see anotherscrap like this. It's just my luck to be happily married when it bursts out, too."
"I am sure you would have gone," said Lutie serenely. "I'm glad I captured you in time. It saves the Germans an awful lot of work."
The smashing of Belgium, the dash of the great German army toward Paris, the threatened disaster to the gay capital, the sickening conviction that nothing could check the tide of guns and men,—all these things bore down upon them with a weight that seemed unbearable. And then came the battle of the Marne! Von Kluck's name was on the lips of every man, woman and child in the United States of America. Would they crush him? Was Paris safe? What was the matter with England? And then, the personal element came into the situation for Anne and her kind: the names of the officers who had fallen, snuffed out in Belgium and France. Nearly every day brought out the name of some one she had known, a few of them quite well. There were the gallant young Belgians who had come over for the horse-shows, and the polo-players she had known in England, and the gay young noblemen,—their names brought the war nearer home and sickened her.
As time went on the horrors of the great conflict were deprived, through incessant repetition, of the force to shock a world now accustomed to the daily slaughter of thousands. Humanity had got used to war. War was no longer a novelty. People read of great battles in which unprecedented numbers of men were slain, and wondered how much of truth was in the reports. War no longer horrified the distant on-looker. The sufferings of the Belgians were of greater interest to the people of America than the sufferings of the poor devils in the trenches or on the battle lines. A vast wave ofsympathy was sweeping the land and purses were touched as never before. War was on parade. The world turned out en masse to see the spectacle. The heart of every good American was touched by what he saw, and the hand of every man was held out to stricken Belgium, nor was any hand empty. Belgium presented the grewsome spectacle, and the world paid well for the view it was having.
It was late in November when Anne and the others came down to the city, and by that time the full strength of the movement to help the sufferers had been reached. People were fighting for the Belgians, but with their hearts instead of their hands. The stupendous wave of sympathy was at its height. It rolled across the land and then across the sea. People were swept along by its mighty rush. Anne Thorpe was caught up in the maelstrom of human energy.
Something fine in her nature, however, caused Anne to shrink from public benefactions. She realised that a world that was charitable to the Belgians was not so apt to be charitable toward her. While she did not contribute anonymously to the fund, she let it be distinctly understood that her name was not to be published in any of the lists of donors, except in a single instance when she gave a thousand-dollars. That much, at least, would be expected of her and she took some comfort in the belief that the world would not charge her with self-exploitation on the money she had received from Templeton Thorpe. Other gifts and contributions were never mentioned in the press by the committees in charge. She gave liberally, not only to the sufferers on the other side of the Atlantic but to the poor of New York, and she steadfastly declined to serve on any of the relief committees.
Never until now had she appreciated how thin-skinned she was. It is not to be inferred that she shut herself up and affected a life of seclusion. As a matter of fact, she went out a great deal, but invariably among friends and to small, intimate affairs.
Not once in the months that followed the scene in Lutie's sitting-room did she encounter Braden Thorpe. She heard of him frequently. He was very busy. He went nowhere except where duty called. There was not a moment in her days, however, when her thoughts were not for him. Her eyes were always searching the throngs on Fifth Avenue in quest of his figure; in restaurants she looked eagerly over the crowded tables in the hope that she might see actually the face that was always before her, night and day. Be it said to her credit, she resolutely abstained from carrying her quest into quarters where she might be certain of seeing him, of meeting him, of receiving recognition from him. She avoided the neighbourhood in which his offices were located, she shunned the streets which he would most certainly traverse. While she longed for him, craved him with all the hunger of a starved soul, she was content to wait. He loved her. She thrived on the joy of knowing this to be true. He might never come to her, but she knew that it would never be possible for her to go to him unless he called her to him.
Then, one day in early January, she crumpled up under the shock of seeing his name in the headlines of her morning newspaper.
He was going to the front!
For a moment she was blind. The page resolved itself into a thick mass of black. She was in bed when the paper was brought to her with her coffee. She had been lying there sweetly thinking of him. Up to theinstant her eyes fell upon the desolating headline she had been warm and snug and tingling with life just aroused. And then she was as cold as ice, stupefied. It was a long time before she was able to convince herself that the type was really telling her something that she would have to believe. He was going to the war!
Thorpe was one of a half-dozen American surgeons who were going over on the steamer sailing that day to give their services to the French. The newspaper spoke of him in glowing terms. His name stood out above all the others, for he was the one most notably in the public eye at the moment. The others, just as brave and self-sacrificing as he, were briefly mentioned and that was all. He alone was in the headlines, he alone was discussed. No one was to be allowed to forget that he was the clever young surgeon who had saved the great Marraville. The account dwelt upon the grave personal sacrifice he was making in leaving New York just as the world was beginning to recognise his great genius and ability. Prosperity was knocking at his door, fame was holding out its hand to him, and yet he was casting aside all thought of self-aggrandisement, all personal ambition in order to go forth and serve humanity in fields where his name would never be mentioned except in a cry for help from strong men who had known no fear.
Sailing that day! Anne finally grasped the meaning of the words. She would not see him again. He would go away without a word to her, without giving her the chance to say good-bye, despite her silly statement that she would never utter the words again where he was concerned.
Slowly the warm glow returned to her blood. Her brain cleared, and she was able to think, to grasp at theprobable significance of his action in deserting New York and his coveted opportunities. Something whispered to her that he was going away because of his own sufferings and not those of the poor wretches at the front. Her heart swelled with pity. There was no triumph in the thought that he was running away because of his love for her. She needed no such proof as this to convince her that his heart was more loyal to her than his mind would have it be. She cried a little ... and then got up and called for a messenger boy.
This brief message went down to the ship:
"God be with you. I still do not say good-bye, just God be with you always, as I shall be.Anne."
She did not leave the hotel until long after the ship had sailed. He did not telephone. There were a dozen calls on the wire that morning, but she had her maid take the messages. There was always the fear that he might try to reach her while some one of her idle friends was engaged in making a protracted visit with her over the wire. About one o'clock Simmy Dodge called up to ask if he could run in and have luncheon with her.
"I've got a message for you," he said.
Her heart began to beat so violently that she was afraid he would hear it through the receiver at his ear. She could not trust herself to speak for a moment. Evidently he thought she was preparing to put him off with some polite excuse. Simmy was, as ever, considerate. He made haste to spare her the necessity for fibbing. "I can drop in late this afternoon—"
"No," she cried out, "come now, Simmy. I shall expect you. Where are you?"
He coughed in some embarrassment. "I'm—well, you see, I was going past so I thought I'd stop in and—What? Yes, I'm downstairs."
She joined him in the palm room a few minutes later, and they went in to luncheon. Her colour was high. Simmy thought he had never seen her when she looked more beautiful. But he thought that with each succeeding glimpse of her.
"'Pon my word, Anne," he said, staring at her across the table, "you fairly dazzle me. Forgive me for saying so. I couldn't help it. Perfect ass sometimes, you see."
"I forgive you. I like it. What message did Braden send to me?"
He had not expected her to be so frank, so direct. "I don't know. I wish I did. The beggar wrote it and sealed it up in this beastly little envelope." He handed her the square white envelope with the ship's emblem in the corner.
Before looking at the written address, she put her next question to him. A good deal depended on his answer. "Do you know when he wrote this note, Simmy?"
"Just before they pushed me down the gang-plank," he said. A light broke in upon him. "Did you send him a message?"
"Yes."
"Well, I don't know whether it is the right thing to say, but I can tell you this: he wrote this note before reading your letter or telegram or whatever it was. He had a score of things like that and he didn't open one of 'em until she'd cast off."
She smiled. "Thank you, Simmy. You have said the right thing,—as you always do." One glance at the superscription was enough. It was in his handwriting. For the first time she saw it in his hand:"Anne Tresslyn Thorpe." A queer little shiver ran through her, never to be explained.
Simmy watched her curiously as she slipped the missive, unopened, into her gold mesh bag. "Don't mind me," he said. "Read it."
"Not now, Simmy," she said simply. And all through luncheon she thrilled with the consciousness that she had something of Braden there with her, near her, waiting for her. His own hand had touched this bit of paper; it was a part of him. It was so long since she had seen that well-known, beloved handwriting,—strong like the man, and sure; she found herself counting the ages that had passed since his last love missive had come to her.
Simmy was rattling on, rather dolefully, about Braden's plans. He was likely to be over there for a long time,—just as long as he was needed or able to endure the strain of hard, incessant work in the field hospitals.
"I wanted to go," the little man was saying, and that brought her back to earth. "The worst way, Anne. But what could I do? Drive an automobile, yes, but what's that? Brady wouldn't hear to it. He said it was nonsense, me talking of going over there and getting in people's way. Of course, I'd probably faint the first time I saw a mutilated dead body, and thatwouldirritate the army. They'd have to stop everything while they gave me smelling salts. I suppose I'd get used to seeing 'em dead all over the place, just as everybody does,—even the worst of cowards. I'm not a coward, Anne. I drive my racing-car at ninety miles, I play polo, I go up in Scotty's aeroplane whenever I get a chance, I can refuse to take a drink when I thinkI've had enough, and if that doesn't prove that I've got courage I'd like to know what it does prove. But I'm not a fighting man. Nobody would ever be afraid of me. There isn't a German on earth who would run if he saw me charging toward him. He'd just wait to see what the dickens I was up to. Something would tell him that I wouldn't have the heart to shoot him, no matter how necessary it might be for me to do so. Still I wanted to go. That's what amazes me. I can't understand it."
"I can understand it, you poor old simpleton," cried Anne. "You wanted to go because you arenotafraid."
"I wish I could think so," said he, really perplexed. "Brady is different. He'd be a soldier as is a soldier. He's going over to save men's lives, however, and that's something I wouldn't be capable of doing. If I went they'd expect me to kill 'em, and that's what I'd hate. Good Lord, Anne, I couldn't shoot down a poor German boy that hadn't done a thing to me—or to my country, for that matter. If they'd only let me go as a spy, or even a messenger boy, I'd jump at the chance. But they'd want me to kill people,—and I couldn't do it, that's all."
"Is Braden well? Does he look fit, Simmy? You know there will be great hardships, vile weather, exposure—"
"He's thin and—well, I'll be honest with you, he doesn't look as fit as might be."
She paled. "Has he been ill?"
"Not in body, but—he's off his feed, Anne. Maybe you know the reason why." He looked at her narrowly.
"I have not seen him in months," she said evasively.
"I guess that's the answer," he said, pulling at his little moustache. "I'm sorry, Anne. It's too bad—forboth of you. Lordy, I never dreamed I could be so unselfish. I'm mad in love with you myself and—oh, well! That's an old tale, so we'll cut it short. I don't know what I'm going to do without Brady. I've got the blues so bad that—why, I cried like a nasty little baby down there at the—everybody lookin' at me pityingly and saying to themselves 'what a terrible thing grief is when it hits a man like that,' and thinkin' of course that I'd lost a whole family in Belgium or somewhere—oh, Lordy, what a blithering—"
"Hush!" whispered Anne, her own eyes glistening. "You are an angel, Simmy. You—"
"Let's talk sense," he broke in abruptly. "Braden left his business in my hands, and his pleasures in the hands of Dr. Cole. He says it's a pleasure to heal people, so that's why I put it in that way. I've got his will down in our safety vault, and his instructions about that silly foundation—"
"You—you think he may not come back?" she said, gripping her hands under the edge of the table.
"You never can tell. Taking precautions, that's all, as any wise man would do. Oh, I'm sorry, Anne! I should have known better. Lordy, you're as white as—Sure, he'll come back! He isn't going to be in the least danger. Not the least. Nobody bothers the doctors, you know. They can go anywhere. They wear plug hats and all that sort of thing, and all armies respect a plug hat. A plug hat is asilkhat, you know,—the safest hat in the world when you're on the firing line. Everybody tries to hit the hat and not the occupant. It's a standing army joke. I was reading in the paper the other day about a fellow going clear from one end of the line to the other and having six hundred and some odd plug hats shot off his head without so much asgetting a hair singed. Wait! I can tell what you're going to ask, and I can't, on such short notice, answer the question. I can only say that I don't know where he got the hats. Ah, good! You're laughing again, and, by Jove, it becomes you to blush once in a while, too. Tell me, old lady,"—he leaned forward and spoke very seriously,—"does it mean a great deal to you?"
She nodded her head slowly. "Yes, Simmy, it means everything."
He drew a long breath. "That's just what I thought. One ordinary dose of commonsense split up between the two of you wouldn't be a bad thing for the case."
"You dear old thing!" cried Anne impulsively.
"How are Lutie and my god-son?" he inquired, with a fine air of solicitude.
Half an hour later, Anne read the brief note that Braden had sent to her. She read it over and over again, and without the exultation she had anticipated. Her heart was too full for exultation.
"Dear Anne," it began, "I am going to the war. I am going because I am a coward. The world will call me brave and self-sacrificing, but it will not be true. I am a coward. The peril I am running away from is far greater than that which awaits me over there. I thought you would like to know. The suffering of others may cause me to forget my own at times." He signed it "Braden"; and below the signature there was a postscript that puzzled her for a long time. "If you are not also a coward you will return to my grandfather's house, where you belong."
And when she had solved the meaning of that singular postscript she sent for Wade.