“It sounds suspiciously like it,” smiled Mrs. Manton.
“But you’re not taking me seriously,” Freda objected.
“What do you want me to do—weep? Oh, girl, I could deliver one of the finest speeches on this subject that ever was heard.” Mrs. Manton spoke with decided emphasis, and pointed toward Freda admonishingly. “Remember, my dear, that no man lives that can understand a woman’s nature. They can’t vibrate with us. Good or bad, they don’t need us. Mind you, they think they do. But when the curtain is lifted on the mystery, their fine frenzy dies. What do we do then? We wash dishes three times a day, and listen to a voice in the kitchen fire to find out when they will return to the glorious delirium of their first affections. Then we grow restless. We are off up toward the sky. Then we whizz plumb down like an aeroplane in a nose-dive. We don’t know why we do the things we do. We are in ignorance as to why our love makes us hurt them. In short we are women. They are only men. And a satisfied woman is the rarest work of God!”
During the evening Gertrude gathered her little flock together in the dining room and provided music, dancing and refreshments, as a function in honor of Maxwell Lee’s departure. Not a word was said about his condition. It was all as if nothing had happened. Freda was informed quietly by Mrs. Manton that Mauney was going to Rookland with Max on the morrow and was providing money for his better care while in thesanatorium. He had at first refused his kindly offer, but had finally been persuaded, after three hours’ argument, to accept it. The party broke up early and Freda, after assisting her landlady to wash the dishes, joined Mauney in the drawing room.
It was a rarely happy hour. Freda, accustomed to orthodox methods of love-making, was genuinely refreshed by Mauney’s restraint. Her presence brought a happiness that he could not disguise. It shone in his face. Most men would have told her, of course, that she was looking very beautiful to-night. His omission of the compliment she readily explained by reason of his essentially undemonstrative disposition. Freda, always dramatic by nature, expressed her own feelings by gathering herself neatly upon a cushion at his feet. Mauney sat leaning forward, his arms on his knees, looking down into her face. He scarcely appreciated the real surrender typified by that lowly cushion. But he knew and she knew that a delicious, quivering kind of peace was in the room with them. They talked of many matters for a time.
“If I hadyou,” he said, seriously, at length, “everything would be perfect. I wouldn’t care what happened—”
Her head turned thoughtfully away for a moment, but he soon lifted her face with a finger under her chin.
“Try togetme, won’t you?” he implored. “Try to put yourself in my position. Lee has been the whitest chap to me that ever was. Behind my back as well as to my face. If he had only ever done me one little, mean trick—but he hasn’t. Can you see what a damned predicament I’m in?”
“Yes,” she replied quickly, with an understandingsmile that revealed a white gleam between her lips. “I can see it, plain as the paper on that ceiling.”
Mauney whistled softly a snatch of an indefinite tune and made some pretence of keeping time with his heel, while he stared unhappily at the carpet.
“It’s not very nice to be me,” he said.
“It’s your predicament, boy,” she said, “I’m sure you’re able to settle it somehow or other.”
Later, when Freda had gone to her room, she was glad thatherlover had a hard problem to solve. She was glad thatherlover was capable of such an unusual fidelity; for her innate casuistry had been busy on the situation and had shown her that such a man would make a faithful husband.
Freda returned to her home in Lockwood, advising Mauney to try for a position on the Lockwood Collegiate staff. She told him that the town had its faults, but her father, who was mayor, would be able to help him get the situation. He wrote and applied, and was informed by return mail that he would be considered in due course. Meanwhile he waited in Merlton for Convocation, to receive his academic degree.
Convocation was an impressive function—the great assembly hall filled with begowned and mortar-boarded seniors, and with their admiring relatives and friends; the broad platform crowded with the professors wearing their multi-colored gowns, while rich organ music shook like a solemn presence through the huge auditorium. After the presentation of the diplomas, Richard Garnett, the President, made a short address.
“You are going forth,” he said, “to sow in other soils the seeds you have gathered here.”
The majesty of a university president lends his words an authoritative dignity suitable to such a solemn occasion. The graduate, pausing on the threshold of the world, finds a grandeur in this farewell address. He becomes inspired to catch the ideal. It is he who must carry forth the light. He, and his fellowsbeside him in the hall, are to be the torch bearers. It is an exquisite moment before the Chancellor’s “Convocatio dimissa est” and the final thunder of the pipe organ as they step forth, citizens of the world.
Mauney took heart again. Denied a position on the university staff, he thought now of those “other soils” where he was needed even more. It would have been pleasant to remain in Merlton, adding his moiety of effort to the distinguished total of a renowned university. In time it might have brought fame. But the ideals of Christianity had been rife during the past four years. No man could go through Merlton without learning that nobility of character lay in service to humanity. The courageous, educational formula of Garnett was responsible for this leaven. It deserved as much praise and received as much as unspectacular courage ever does. A thousand men scoffed at Garnett as a visionary. A thousand fawned upon him for personal reasons. A hundred knew him. There were many thoughtless individuals ready to teach him his function. But there were many also who left Merlton each year inflamed by his idealism and determined to serve humanity’s needs. Garnett might have considered this a tribute much deeper than praise.
“It is impossible, in our condition of society, not to be sometimes a snob.”—Thackeray’s Book of Snobs.
“It is impossible, in our condition of society, not to be sometimes a snob.”—Thackeray’s Book of Snobs.
Lockwood had been called “The Garden of Upper Canada.” This designation, which scarcely over-rated the beauty of the town, originated in the private correspondence of some of its earliest inhabitants. They were discerning people, mostly United Empire Loyalists, who, more than a century since, had selected it for its placid outlook. At Lockwood’s very feet moved the majestic St. Lawrence, that river of rivers. Behind it stood the thick forests of an unexplored hinterland inhabited by deer, bear and cariboo. Through the town, later on, trailed the long York Road with its stage-coaches.
A political friend of John Beverley Robinson had written in a letter: “I have built a home in Lockwood and here with Bessie (his wife), I hope to remain. My house stands on a cliff beside the river. We are almost surrounded by a small forest of pines—cozy and contented and away from the hot-heads.”
That Lockwood should have been chosen by aristocratic members of the Family Compact was not strange, for it furnished these worthy gentlemen with everythingthey might desire—boating, hunting, and above all, release from the trials of politics. “The Garden of Upper Canada” became an almost exclusive colony for the faithful adherents of Governors-General. They built themselves substantial residences, and founded a picturesque local society. They were the determined rulers of the state, the ultra-Loyalists, the enemies of Mackenzie, brothers in a just and elevated cause. Lockwood in all its beauty was theirs. Lockwood, in spite of its citizens of a different political faith, was solely theirs. They were the suffering, but anointed minority, and the democrats could like it or leave it.
The wealth and high influence of these early settlers gave Lockwood an aristocratic flavor which never quite left it. Their motto, “Keep down the underbrush,” still persisted; although the underbrush, a century later, constituted the prevailing vegetation. The original, exclusive set had long since either sailed for England in disgust at democracy’s progress, or died out. But scions of that early patrician strain remained. Their homes on Queen Street East were, in many cases, the very houses in which the Loyalists had gathered about friendly fireplaces to discuss death to the hot-heads, and “jobbery and snobbery,” for themselves. And even at the present time such fireside discussions were not unknown.
Freda MacDowell’s mother had been a Smith, a name adorned by aristocratic associations. Her great-grandfather had been a full colonel in the British army, active in the Rebellion of ’37, and one of the Family Compact group, who had settled in Lockwood. Mrs. MacDowell could never forget that she had been a Smith, for there were several things to remind her.The house on Queen Street East, where she lived with her husband, George MacDowell, was a very tangible token of her distinguished descent, and her excellent social rating in Lockwood—in spite of present poverty—was an equally pleasant reminder.
The large, square house finished in genuine stucco had aged to as rich a brown as an old meerschaum pipe. From the street only glimpses could be had through a thick screen of pines that filled the grounds and above a high stone wall that rose like the warding hand of the very Smiths, saying to the modern hot-heads and modern rabble: “Thus far, but no further may you come.” At one corner a large gate opened through the wall and a gravel road wound gracefully across the lawn to the house. On closer inspection the building was seen to be quite large, with its verandahed front facing westward, and a deeper verandah on its south side towards the river. As disdainfully as its original owners, it turned its back on the town to look away upon the river, where flowed that majestic peace and solace; while it retained its servant quarters (a long, low wing used now as a garage), next to the street. The southern verandah commanded a remarkable vista of the St. Lawrence, a cool, blue expanse, rimmed by the grey shore of the United States in the distance, and accentuated by a foreground of unhusbanded table-land, which stopped abruptly fifty feet above the water. Wooden steps had been engineered down the precipitous face of the cliff to the boathouse, a white frame building that rested on concrete walls.
The old Smith residence had nothing of the ostentatious magnificence characterizing the homes on either side of it. The latter belonged respectively to the Courtneysand the Beechers. By their ponderous architecture, their elaborate lawns, their marble statues, they stood forth, self-conscious, but awe-inspiring, to emphasize the plainness of their neighbor. But the older home was well-secluded behind the stone wall and pine grove, caring very little for opulent display. The Smith virtue had been blood. The Beechers and Courtneys were new people, who had arrived by wealth. The old aristocracy was rapidly disappearing, and being replaced by a cheap plutocracy—people unknown fifty years ago, who now sought to appropriate and maintain the customs, the very traditions and feelings of the older families.
At present the name “Courtney” and “Beecher” headed Lockwood’s social list. Both families were tremendously wealthy, and hated each other for that very reason. Edward Courtney, senior, who now slept with his fathers after a career doubtlessly tiring, had made his millions in Western Canada at a time when property was a golden investment. He had been a genial, big fellow of simple tastes, but with a sworn fidelity to the game of money-making. It was the game that interested him. At the stage in his career at which most men would have begun taking out life-insurance to cover loss from succession-dues he had started investing earnestly in steel, grain, and what not! Before he died, almost every important industry in Canada was, in some degree, dependent upon him.
Beecher, likewise, dead, had amassed his fortune by a unique combination of common sense and economy. On surveying fields of enterprise at the time of his young manhood, he could see that perfumes constituted not a luxury, but a basic necessity. North America might eventually stop burning coal, but would neverdemand less, but always more, of the toilet article in question. He became personally an expert perfumer; by the use of French names and phrases he cast over his wares the glamor of a foreign atmosphere and gained a wide market by attractive advertising. This we may term common sense. But Beecher’s economy was parsimony; it was insane fear of poverty. On his death-bed the favorite emotion of his life surged uppermost, and, (it was said), he ordered the light turned off to save power!
Probably, if these two millionaires could have seen the petty feud between their surviving families, Courtney would have laughed at its foolishness and Beecher have snarled at the expense. It cost money thus to vie with each other. A new yacht or motor car for one meant a new yacht or car for the other. If the social columns issued bulletins regarding one family’s journeyings in Europe the rival family were not going to be quietly at home in Lockwood to discuss those glowing items. It was funny. But Lockwood was too obsequious to see the fun of it, too busy seeking favor to dare laugh. Colonel Smith, could he have beheld it, would have scorned it with real Family Compact scorn, and perhaps Mrs. George MacDowell, scion of her departed class, may have had promptings to contempt. Unfortunately she could not afford to heed such promptings. The new plutocracy had usurped the reins of social power. Here she was, wedged in between the Beechers and the Courtneys, accepted on good terms as long as she maintained the old Smith house. But she knew that, hard as it was to keep the place up, her only safe course was to do so. The old aristocracy now found it necessary to battle for position, and theirchief weapon was a home on Queen Street East. Those who, by the reason of very limited means, had found it needful to move from this exclusive residential section had very gradually been forgotten.
Mrs. MacDowell resembled her daughter in appearance, save in her coloring. She had the same incisive features, arched nose and expressive lips, and the same half-defiant tilt of the head. But she was a pronounced blond, and her grey-blue eyes were coldly critical. Her mouth had the suggestion of vast, but well-tempered bitterness, so often seen in spirited women who know the importance of continuing attractive under the cruellest of circumstances. To her credit be it admitted that she possessed the shrewd qualities necessary for victory in her particular struggle. She dressed simply, but well. She maintained her home in simple, but attractive good taste. Unable to afford servants she managed capably by herself, and yet her hands remained the envy of her friends. There was not a wrinkle upon her face, for she had commanded that aristocratic staidness of expression that obscures age in those who possess it.
She had, to be sure, much to be thankful for. Her husband was a special comfort. George MacDowell was, in her opinion, an example of a type of man that God no longer saw fit to make. Tall and strong, and as youthful in spirit as the day she had met him, he had never entertained an ambitious thought. He was still the hypnotically attractive chap he had always been, with his black eyes that could freeze or kindle with pleasure at his will. He had swung through life indifferent to everything but Gloria Smith, and his love for her had been just simple, absolute idolatry. He was pre-eminently clever and a born diplomat. His wifeaccurately described this quality when she said, “George could tell a person to go to hell, and he would do it so smoothly that the person would feel flattered!”
If ever there was a case of a woman robbing the State of a powerful asset this home illustrated it. MacDowell could have made himself Premier of Canada. Whatever he turned his hand to succeeded. But the only thing he had ever seriously accomplished was to love his wife; and even this, to all outward seeming, had never been a very serious matter either. He was always playfully chiding and teasing her. But she was in command. He followed her wishes blindly, yet with a dignity that proclaimed his motive. It was not the thraldom of a weakling, but the conscious surrender of a giant. This clever and able and imposing man could have been anything he chose, but he chose to be only a lover.
“Tea, thou soft, thou sober, sage and venerable liquid!”—Colley Cibber’s, “The Ladies’ Last Stake.”
“Tea, thou soft, thou sober, sage and venerable liquid!”—Colley Cibber’s, “The Ladies’ Last Stake.”
Freda, as may be surmised, had no sympathy with her mother’s frantic social struggle. Her father, who until five years ago, had been one of Lockwood’s chief business men, was now idle, and, although he managed his idleness with remarkable grace, his wealth was meagre and insufficient to justify his wife’s social ambitions.
He had been general manager of the Lockwood Carpet Corporation until a disastrous fire not only robbed him of the position, but robbed the town of its cardinal industry as well. That big winter fire had blazed so furiously that it melted the icicles on houses for blocks around. It seemed, indeed, to have been the very work of Lockwood’s pursuing Nemesis. MacDowell had stood gaping from a water-drenched alley near by. Not until the large buildings had tottered and collapsed into hopeless ruin did he return to his home. His wife had made him a tasty cup of coffee.
“Lockwood is ruined,” he prophesied, and then added with a sparkling smile, “but this is good coffee.”
His prophesy was true. Hundreds of families left town as soon as it was learned that the Carpet Workswould not be rebuilt. The weaving looms had been operated by steam and now the directors planned to rebuild in a place where electrical power was cheap. They offered him his position again, but he refused to leave Lockwood. They could not understand his stubbornness, nor the loyalty that made him “stay with the old town.” He at once blossomed out into the most ardent of local “boosters.” He assured Lockwood of a speedy return of local prosperity. “Gentlemen,” he had said to the Board of Trade, “I could not leave the old town which has had so pleasant a past, and which will have, I am confident, so brilliant a future.” To the undiscerning eye he gained, in his role of perpetual belief in Lockwood, a heroic character. Each New Year’s Day he published in the paper a long letter of cheer, courage and optimism, begging the citizens to be hopeful. It would not be long until some big industry would see the advantages of locating in Lockwood. “We have experienced the mercurial fluctuations of fortune, but the dead past must bury its dead. Here beside us is the great St. Lawrence with its unharnessed energy and its facilities for transportation. Some big industry is going to see the advantages. Here in our midst we have the best schools that money can operate, the finest churches that religion can claim, the highest degree of municipal efficiency in the country, and, as for beauty, have we not been called ‘The Garden of Upper Canada?’ Let us patiently wait, for prosperity will return. It must return.”
Little wonder that George MacDowell was acclaimed the first citizen. He was made mayor the very year of the fire and had remained in that office ever since by repeated acclamations. His tall, serious, reposefulfigure struck confidence into the public activities. Such a strong, capable man would never have remained so long in Lockwood unless he believed in Lockwood’s future.
And yet the fact was that George MacDowell was posing all the time. His bluff was such a complete triumph that even Freda failed to see through it. It was merely his way of being graceful. Gloria insisted on remaining in the old Smith house. He would gladly remain with her and, at the same time, make the public think that he was inspired by municipal sentiment.
When Freda returned from Merlton he met her at the train. There was a time when he drove a motor-car, but of late years it was never taken out of the garage except when Freda drove it. He carried her valise across the platform, to be confronted by a mad platoon of taxi-drivers eager for patronage. They chose an old hack that had been on duty forty years. Few other towns would have tolerated the old-fashioned vehicle with its low, commodious seat, the extravagantly graceful curves of its body, its weather-beaten varnish and its quaint side-lamps of brass, designed like the wall-torches of a baronial castle. In most neighboring towns, more imbued with a spirit of progress, this picturesque conveyance would have been relegated long since to some backyard, or broken up for fuel. But Lockwood possessed a conservative cult who admired the symbols of leisure. This antiquated hack frequently moved down Station Street filled with the town’s elite, making no attempt to keep pace with the motors that rushed madly ahead, angry at having to return empty.
“I don’t see a single vacant house, Dad,” remarked Freda, as they started along Station Street.
“Nor do I by gad,” replied her father. “Lockwood is filling up, but with a rummy bunch of people. These houses should be tenanted by industrious workmen. Instead they are occupied by retired shopkeepers, farmers and clergymen from the country districts.”
“Why do you call ’em rummy?” Freda inquired.
“Cause theyarerummy, Freda. They’re no good to the town. They retired before the war on enough to keep ’em at six per cent. To-day, even at seven and a half, they’re swamped by increasing taxation and the H.C.L. They’re the growlers. Did you hear about the school fracas?”
“Oh, dear; no!”
“Interested?”
“Terribly.”
“Good! The school was overcrowded; they were holding classes in the basement. Henry Dover came to me and asked if I thought the collegiate could be enlarged. Said he had eleven teachers now and needed room. Did I think it could be done? I said it was as plain as the nose on his face. Ithadto be done or we’d lose the pupils. But when the Board of Education put it to a vote—wow! What a wail from the retired element! Motion defeated, of course!”
“But you can’t blame them, Dad.”
“No. Admitted! I don’t blame them.”
Presently, as they turned upon Queen Street, MacDowell made a gesture toward the spectacle of broad, tarvia pavement, bulwarked on both sides with cluster lamps and high brick shops.
“Where will you find a better looking main street?”he asked, almost automatically. “And, do you know, our population, by the latest census, shows an increase of three?”
“Oh, surely, not just three!” exclaimed Freda.
“Why, that’s good,” said MacDowell, with a lurking smile of cynicism that his daughter did not notice. “We’re not growing very rapidly.But just you wait.One of these days some big concern is going to see the advantages of locating in Lockwood. As electric power is developed we’re going to get the advantage. Think of that river! Some day we’ll be a city.Just you wait!”
Lockwood had already been waiting for half a century. Freda had heard her father’s words so often that she knew them by heart: “One of these days some big concern—” And her heart that knew the words so well caught her with needless pity for the man she considered so incurably optimistic.
When the hack arrived at their home, Freda was not in the least surprised to discover an afternoon tea in full progress on the rear verandah. She knew just how essential afternoon teas were in Queen Street East, but she could not suppress a certain impatience.
“Heavens, mother is right at the post of duty!” she exclaimed as they drove up near the verandah. “Apparently the home-coming of the prodigal daughter has caused a feast to be set!”
“Never mind,” chuckled MacDowell, good-naturedly. “Your mother never liked your staying at that place on Franklin Street and probably will never forgive you. But she’s glad to see you just the same.”
“Mother is a woman of one idea,” sighed Freda.
“Course she is,” he laughed. “She had planned this tea before she knew when you were coming.”
Mrs. MacDowell gracefully left the verandah to greet Freda with a kiss, and then led her straight back to her guests. Most of them had a word of welcome, with the exception of Mrs. Courtney, who contributed merely a stiff, little nod of her silver-grey head. It was just like Freda to accept this as a challenge. She paused and directed her most obsequious attentions upon the wealthy widow who had long been a thorn in her flesh.
“Oh, Mrs. Courtney,” she said, extending her hand with feigned good-will and adopting at once a Lockwood type of afternoon-tea formality, “How awfully well you look! Are you playing much golf this summer?”
“Child, youknowI never play golf,” responded Mrs. Courtney, with evident ill-relish.
“Oh, of course, not. How stupid of me! You must forgive me! I was thinking of Mrs. Beecher.”
Mrs. Courtney flushed and glanced sharply at Freda who, wreathed in smiles, bowed to the others and went into the house. The arrow had found its mark. In the first place, the huge figure of Mrs. Courtney playing golf would have made a screamingly funny and grotesque cartoon. But to be confused in any way whatsoever with her social enemy, Mrs. Beecher, was an unforgivable mistake.
“I do wish,” remarked Mrs. MacDowell, caustically, while she and Freda were later engaged with washing the dinner dishes, “that you would try to use a slight degree of sense. Yourfaux pasthis afternoon offended Mrs. Courtney, visibly.”
“Dear heavens,” laughed Freda, so heartily that she had to drop into a chair; “I’m glad if it did, Mother. She’s one of the most exalted persons I ever heard of.”
“And you, my girl, are one of the most reckless,” quickly rejoined her mother.
“Do you remember,” asked Freda, “how miserable she made things for me about six years ago when she was afraid that I was going to get her darling young Teddie?”
“I do, indeed, Freda.”
“How she cut me, more than once?”
“I remember it, quite,” nodded Mrs. MacDowell. “But such revenge as yours is merely senseless.”
“You think I ought to be more thorough-going, do you?” asked Freda. “Perhaps you think a better revenge would be to marry Ted Courtney, even yet—”
Mrs. MacDowell cast a long, steady look at Freda, a look full of her grey-eyed criticism, full of her tranquil-faced reserve, full of her Family-Compact self-sufficiency; but she said not a word more.
“He is a father to the town.”—Latin Proverb.
“He is a father to the town.”—Latin Proverb.
After dinner, Freda was left suddenly alone. Her mother was up the river at a bridge party on Courtney’s elegant yacht, theCinderella. Her father was at home, but she felt that after her year’s absence it would be necessary to become acquainted with him again. When he finished his paper, he strolled with her about the wide lawn, asking many questions about her work in Merlton. He was very impersonal and almost polite and, although Freda was sure he was not much interested in her work, she admired his consummate smoothness. During all the years of her grown-up life he had been just as impervious and just as winningly polished as to-night. She felt the same attraction as if she were talking with any cultivated and gentlemanly stranger.
“It must be nice, Dad, to be the whole cheese in this town,” she said, teasingly.
“If you’re referring to me,” he replied, “I’ll enquire—before thanking you for the compliment—whether or not you’re seeking municipal favor?”
“Not for myself, but for somebody else,” she answered quickly.
“Who on earth?”
“Will you promise to do something for me?” she asked, taking his arm prettily.
“Yes, I guess so,” he smiled.
“No matter what I ask?”
“Yes, I promise.”
“Listen, Dad, to me,” she said, stopping and looking up into his big, curious, black eyes. “If a young gentleman named Mauney Bard tries to get on the collegiate staff will you tell Henry Dover that he’s one of the brightest boys in Canada, and will you put in a good word with the Board of Education?”
“What’s his name?”
“Mauney Bard.”
“All right. I’ll do it,” agreed MacDowell. “Hum! Brightest boy in Canada, is he? That’s going some. Who is this Mauney Bard?”
“Oh, just a nice chap who boarded at Franklin Street with me.”
“You’re always given to exaggeration, if I may so express myself,” he smiled. “I suppose when you get it all boiled down, Mauney Bard is just a man after a job.”
“No, no, you’re all wrong, Dad. He’s more than that—I’m in love with him.”
“Who? Mauney Bard?”
“Yes.”
“All right,” said MacDowell, complacently. “You’ve been in love before now.”
“You’re wrong again, Dad,” she replied. She wanted to tell her father—or somebody—how she felt about Mauney, but her father’s interest seemed only casual. Freda consequently remained silent and became very unhappy. That silence and unhappiness of Lockwood would always arrive sooner or later. To-night was typical of her home—her mother off to a game of cardsand her father chatting just as any interesting, but total, stranger might do.
Lockwood always caused a little flutter in her heart and then a depression. Her mother’s social ambition had constituted a problem which she had solved only by leaving home. Fawning upon the plutocracy was, without exception, the most disgusting practice of which Freda could conceive.
“Are we always going to go on living in this hide-bound community, Dad?” she asked, as they strolled together. “I hate it just like snakes. I could murder that Mrs. Courtney and the whole raft of them.”
“Oh, they’ re all right as far as they go,” he replied lightly, “The Courtneys, Turnbulls, Beechers, Squires and that ilk don’t help Lockwood much. They don’t spend their money here. This is only a pivot for them. They’re off to California, Honolulu or Europe half the time. And they don’t want industries here—they’re afraid of the coal smoke. But, never mind! They won’t always run the town. Some day some big concern is going to see the—”
“Some day,” Freda said, seriously, “you and I, Dad, are both going to be dead. Why can’t we leave Lockwood and live in Merlton?”
“Simply because,” he replied firmly, “we’re not going to forsake the old town. That would be unfaithful.” His black eyes flashed with concealed amusement. “Lockwood will be a city some day. It’s bound to be. Just you wait!”
Freda was deliciously impatient and vexed and sad when she retired that night. From her bed, she gazed at the grey St. Lawrence out under the cliff, and realized at length that she was already lonesome for Mauney.
When Mauney arrived in Lockwood, on his way home, he completed certain reflections which had occupied him most of the day by deciding not to call upon Freda. But he found that his brother William, who had driven in for him from Lantern Marsh, had still some shopping to do before returning, and he made up his mind to stroll down Queen Street East, past her home. This little walk had the effect of making him quite unhappy. First of all he passed the Armouries, which recalled his unsuccessful attempt to enlist, eight years ago. In the associations of that memory there was bitterness which still troubled him. In the second place, although he had Freda’s street number, he could not find her house until he made the enquiry of an officious nurse-maid who pushed her baby-carriage no less haughtily than she pointed out the MacDowell residence. He stood still and gazed confusedly at the high stone wall and the forbidding gateway. Was there not some mistake? He had not thought of Freda as belonging to so grand a home. His perplexity, combined with a self-conscious sense of his own ill-groomed appearance after the train journey, strengthened his determination not to call.
It was hard to forego seeing her. Her house andhis clothes, however, had little to do with it. The real obstacle was Lee. Why must he consider his old friend so much? Why should Lee’s attachment to Freda, unreciprocated and hopeless, have any influence? Mauney had labored these questions all day, and he had discovered the only possible answer. It was because he himself was constituted as he was.
On his way back to meet his brother in the centre of the town, he kept rehearsing his argument. He wished that he possessed enough indifference to Lee to disregard him. The present situation was characteristic of life as he had learned to know it. Never yet had he longed greatly for anything, but he must face obstacles apparently insuperable. Just now it was his respect for Maxwell Lee that held him back. Lee had not mentioned Freda during the trip to Rockland, but then, Max never mentioned anything that he felt keenly. He even omitted to thank Mauney for his kindness in providing help at a crucial moment.
The only course that Mauney could consider was to wait for events. If Lee recovered, there would no longer be any obstacle in the path that led him to Freda. If he died, the way was even clearer. But it might be months before either fate, and, in the meantime, Mauney determined to be towards Freda friendly at most.
He had not been home many days when a letter of acceptance came from the Lockwood Board of Education, and another letter from the collegiate principal, Henry Dover, requesting an early interview. He drove to town in William’s motor-car and spent an hour with Dover at the school, gaining some idea of his work, which was to begin in September.
Then he paid a call at MacDowell’s, which he was not soon to forget. Freda’s mother answered the door and, as she heard his name, favored him with a long, rude, critical stare that gradually shaded into a supercilious smile as she turned away without a word, leaving him standing in the doorway. Freda chanced to be in the library, close enough apparently to grasp the situation, for she came out at once, speaking calmly, to be sure, but with cheeks a flaming crimson. Mauney, to whom such an encounter was a new experience, was, for a time, too stunned to talk much.
“I’ve been expecting you for days,” Freda said, leading him to the farther verandah and arranging chairs. “Sit down and rest your weary bones, won’t you? Tell me all about what you’ve been doing. Aren’t you going to talk?”
“Yes,” he replied slowly, “I expect to say a few words; but may I enquire if it was your mother who came to the door?”
“Oh, please don’t mind her, Mauney,” said Freda, awkwardly. “You see, mother is quite unreasonable about some things. I’ll explain that all, some day. Tell me—any word about the school?”
While he was talking she sat wondering what difference she noticed in him. He had altered somehow. The smile of his eyes was gone. There was something stubbornly immovable about his big body as he sat with legs crossed and arms folded on his chest, and his eyes only glanced at her before they turned away sadly, as she thought.
“Freda,” he said after a pause. “I can’t place you in this house. There’s some mistake.”
“How do you mean?” she asked with an expression of great interest.
“You won’t mind me being frank?”
“Not one particle, Mauney.”
He unfolded his arms and leaned slowly forward, rubbing his cheek with his hand.
“I never knew I could get so darned worked up over a little thing,” he said, testily. “Your mother froze me in there. I’m beginning to think, Freda, that I can feel just about as snobbish as she does.”
“You said it, Mauney,” she whispered. “I’ve no sympathy at all for her. Please try to grasp that point right now. I told her about you, and she’s just been waiting to make you feel unwelcome.”
“She’s succeeded, too.”
“She succeeds in everything, but managing me,” Freda went on warmly. “Oh, I can’t, simply can’t tell you what I’ve had to put up with, Mauney. I don’t feel one-half as much at home here as I did at Gertrude’s. Listen. My mother—and I’m sorry I have to say it—is an inexcusable snob from the word go. Her ideas aren’t any more like mine than day is like night. So you can understand why I don’t spend much time in Lockwood.”
“Are you going back to Merlton this fall?”
“I don’t know.”
Mauney regarded her in silence for a moment, as their eyes met and did not waver.
“My God, Freda, you’re a comfort,” he said suddenly. With a little laugh he rose and picked up his hat from the table. “I’ve got to be going.”
“And don’t forget,” she said, as she walked besidehim to the car, “that there will be somebody here waiting to see you again, soon.”
“I’m not likely to forget it,” he said, giving her arm a gentle pinch. “The fact is, nothing else much suits me, but being around where you are.”
That evening, after Freda had washed the dinner dishes, she remained thoughtfully busy in the kitchen. Presently her mother, as she had been expecting, came out to prepare some grape-fruit for the breakfast, and incidentally, to pass a few remarks about Mauney. She had sunk the blade of her knife into the green fruit before she glanced up to behold Freda, who, in accordance with old custom, was sitting perched on the back of a kitchen chair with her feet resting on its seat. With a thin sigh that expressed her disapproval of the posture, Mrs. MacDowell took up a pair of scissors and proceeded with her work.
“Has it ever occurred to you,” she commenced, in a delicately scornful tone, “that this Bard person is a rather stiffish youth?”
“He’s stiffish all right enough, Mother,” said Freda with an amused chuckle. “I used to always fall for the foppish variety, didn’t I? But I’m getting old, and my taste in men is changing.”
“I’m not so sure, but that he’s related to the Bards of Beulah, who bring turnips to the market,” submitted her mother, calmly, as she snipped away with her scissors.
“I imagine you’re quite right,” Freda said. “Mauney has hoed ’em himself lots of times, and is proud of it.”
“He seems to have practically no social address, no ease of manner.”
“I fancy he’ll carry away an equal contempt foryours. Was that your highest code of manners you were practising on him? As for social address—you’re right. He wasn’t around when they were handing that stuff out. He has never had his spine manicured!”
“Spine!” Mrs. MacDowell scoffed very gently. “What a delightful Franklin Street vocabulary you have acquired! As long as I care to remember, you have never been willing to listen to a word from me.”
“Well, Mother, you never said a word that appealed to me. That’s why.”
Freda rapped with her toes in an aggravating tattoo on the chair seat, and then began teetering back and forth in such a way that the front legs kept dropping noisily against the floor. Mrs. MacDowell worked on quietly for a few moments.
“Freda,” she said at length, without looking up, “I sincerely wish that you, some time or other, will gratify a long-cherished desire of mine by falling flat off that confounded chair.”
“And cracking my skull, I suppose,” added Freda, the meanwhile balancing skilfully on the two back legs. “Well, this is my favorite sport, and it’s worth a skull any time. Do you know, Mother, I’ve a good notion not to go back to Merlton this fall.”
Mrs. MacDowell did not at once reply.
“That is almost the brightest idea that has emerged from your skull since you came home,” she said presently, in a tone of sarcasm. “How would you propose to amuse yourself in Lockwood?”
“I could get a job as private secretary to Ted Courtney. Ted needs somebody to help him look after his money. I was talking to him on the street last night, and asked him if he could give me a job. He jumpedright at the idea like a bulldog. Says he’s needed some one for a long time, and, I may say, he offers me a splendid proposition. I said I’d have to take a few days to consider it.”
Mrs. MacDowell gazed on Freda with the expression of one who has learned by experience to credit even the most preposterous of her daughter’s statements. “I trust,” she interrupted seriously, “that there is no truth in what you are saying.”
“Get me a Bible, then,” replied Freda. “I suppose the idea of me working for a Courtney is about the same to you, Mother, as a long drink of twenty percent. Paris Green.”
“Why, it’s so absurd!” mused Mrs. MacDowell, “so utterly absurd!”
“You mean humiliating, don’t you?” asked Freda, tapping thoughtfully now with her toes. “There used to be a time when social position depended on brains, ability, blood, and such personal things. That’s so long ago that Herodotus would have to scratch his dome to remember it. Right now, it depends on how one’s daughter spends her time. If I could float around in a new Packard roadster with a Pekinese pup sitting on a blue cushion beside me, why your dear, old prestige would be as safe as the Bank of England. But I’ve got imbued, Mother, with the thoroughly low-brow idea that a woman of my age—of any age for that matter—is better when she’s at work.”
“And I’m quite sure,” said Mrs. MacDowell, with considerable emphasis, “that your reason for wishing to stay in Lockwood is merely to be near our young turnip-digger.”
Freda’s face flushed, but she disregarded the reference.“I shouldn’t be at all surprised, Mother,” she replied with a growing warmth, “if that had something to do with it. But there is also another reason. I’ve just simply ached, these last six years, to enjoy a little home life, undisturbed, and you’ve given me no chance. I come home and all the time either you are away off somewhere, or else so surrounded by a bunch of darned fools that I never see you.”
“That’squiteenough!” commanded Mrs. MacDowell. “Surely you’re growing irresponsible.”
Freda’s face was crimson and her eyes flashing with a dangerous light. She tried to swallow something that stuck in her throat. Her mother knew these symptoms well enough. They meant rage. They meant that Freda must be left alone for the balance of the evening.
Several minutes after Mrs. MacDowell had gone her husband sauntered into the kitchen, to find his daughter sitting in the same position, but with her face in her hands.
“You women folk astonish me,” he laughed. “There’s nothing in it, Freda; nothing in it. Your mother is a Smith, remember. Enough said. She’s different. There’s nothing in it at all, by gad!”
Until the present summer Mauney had never gone back to the farm at Lantern Marsh, so that now, with his new mental outlook, he was for the first time enjoying it. William was living on his father’s place and renting the old McBratney property to an Englishman. Time had brought about changes. William was no longer the insupportable person he had once been. His wife Evelyn had adapted herself, cheerfully, to her circumstances. She found no time now to indulge her former love of gramophones and motoring. The two were living happily together, while the wonted sombreness of the old home was gratefully relieved by the shrill voices of two healthy children. William, once the scoffer, was now proud of his brother, while Mauney had learned a tolerance that made William’s bad English even lovably picturesque.
“Well, Maun,” William would say, “you’ve got the book learning fer the hull crowd. But while you’ve been a-studyin’ I’ve been raisin’ a family, an’ there ain’t no good o’ us two tryin’ to argue which is the best. But I’ll take the family every time!”
Then Mauney would laugh and reply, “There’s nothing like being happy, Bill, whatever you have to do to get there.”
He felt that he himself was very gradually arriving. Ahead lay the treasures of history to be expounded to a new generation. With his own hands he was to lift before their eyes the ideals which he had won. It took no more than this glorious prospect to make him very content.
There was sadness, though, in every memory of Lantern Marsh. Time after time during the summer months, thoughts rushed unbidden upon him to shake his being—those family sentiments of past scenes, pathetic differences of opinion, once so important, but now so irrevocable and small. The eye of retrospect sees with a tender sight. Mauney kept fancying that his father’s big form must soon appear at the lane entrance carrying a whiffletree, or his harsh voice be heard swearing at his horses. The man had lived up to his light. Experience forgave him his faults. But now Seth Bard, with all his gruffness and strength, was silent and vanished. Once he had seemed the most immovable body on earth, the one great, availing magnitude. But even the winds that blew from unseen quarters across the desolate marsh were more enduring than he.
And Mauney’s sadness found a strange kind of comfort as he gazed upon that never-ending swamp. It had been there always. Since he had known anything he had known that swamp—bleak and horrid and fascinating, as changing as the phases of his own life; never the same for two days in succession, and yet always the same. On sunny afternoons, great, white clouds hung over it and the blue of the sky lay mirrored in the long, narrow strips of water far out. Then would come the disturbing breezes, growing into windsthat moved the trees and reed banks, then into the hurricane that transformed it all, till it vibrated like a living and suffering being, its green acres of sedge whipped to a surface like shot silk, its channels churned to a muddy red, the moving sky glaring with storm, and the stunted hemlocks, huddling frantically together along its edges. This old swamp, hated and loved, defeated, but eternal, was relic of all that Mauney regretted in those sad hours that came upon him during the summer months.
But these remembrances were being pushed back farther and farther out of sense, while the vital events of life occupied him more and more. Coming into the house, tired, but satisfied, after the day’s work in the hayfield, he would sit quietly on the kitchen verandah, watching the sun sink beyond the corner of the big, dark barn. The sound of crickets filled the air with a metallic vibration. His contentment was as deep as the gulf of crimson sky above him, and his happiness as much a-quiver as the air. As he sat here, lulled into grateful meditation, perhaps Evelyn would interrupt him.
“I’ll bet a dollar, Maun, you’re in love!” she would venture.
And he would wonder if it was possible that any love was ever quite as wonderful as his for Freda. Never since human life began had any woman been as dear as she was to him. She was so real. There was not an atom of dissimulation about her. Freda—who had flashed upon him like a blinding light, who had believed in him—had become constant in his thoughts. Freda was the great reality. Nothing could daunt him,nothing could make him one little bit unhappy, so long as he knew that ultimately he would possess her.
But he purposely refrained from seeing her much. The few calls that he made at her home were in response to her invitations, and he fancied that she understood well enough the reasons for his restraint.
The hot harvest season passed very tardily. The August sun grew more intense as the long, sultry days drew out. There was never even a cloudy day to remove the accumulating tension of the heat. The grey, baked earth cracked into deep fissures. The wells dried up, and even the waters of the marsh sank, day by day, until at the end of the month they were entirely gone. There was no greenness anywhere; the rushes and sedges were burnt into amber shades, with yellow fuzz that blended dully with the parched meadows. And the creatures of the swamp were either silent or departed. Mauney missed them.
The farmers began to talk ruin. William Henry McBratney, passing the lane on a visit from Beulah, pulled up his horse to discuss the weather with Mauney. His evil face, the more evil because of its senile wasting, was painfully worried, and his mad, dim eyes sparkled in accord with his feelings.
“Well, sir, Maun,” he said, striking his knee with his sprawling, bony palm, “I’ve seed a good many dry spells, but nothing like this. It’s nigh onto fifty years since me and my first missus settled here. But, sir, I tell you what! This here harvest has been the driest ever.”
“But I think we’ll get rain, don’t you?” asked Mauney.
“No, sir, I don’t,” affirmed the old man, with an expressionof settled gloom. “Every mornin’ I’ve been a-looking for a cloud or two, but that sky, sir, I tell yuh, couldn’t hold a cloud. It’s too damned hot fer to hold a single cloud! An’, if we don’t get rain the cattle’s goin’ to die.”
“But, my dear sir,” persisted Mauney, “rain is bound to come. Did you ever see it fail?”
“All I’m sayin’ is, that since I come here—me an’ the missus—that there marsh hain’t never onct dried up that way. Yer father, Seth, never seed it like that, I tell yuh. No, sir. An’ if it’s me ye’r askin’ I’d deny that there’ll be any rain. Leastways, I’d hev to see it to believe it!”
Such logic was more depressing than convincing.
On the first of September, when Mauney came to Lockwood to find a boarding-place and to buy a few articles of clothing before the school term began, he found everybody in ill humor. Along Queen Street West, in the shop district, men were sweltering, with handkerchiefs tucked about their collars, carrying their coats and fanning themselves with their hats. In a shoe store the air was humid and suffocating, and the patience of the young clerk seemed dangerously exhausted.
“I don’t know why you don’t like those oxfords,” he said, gruffly, as he unlaced the third shoe he had tried to sell his customer.
“And we’re not going into the reasons for our dislike,” Mauney replied. “I don’t like them, and that’s all there is to it.”
“Well,” sighed the clerk, “we’ve got better shoes in the store; but you’d have to pay twelve-fifty.”
“Have you any objection to me paying twelve-fifty?”
The shoes were fitted.
“You won’t make any mistake if you get those, sir,” affirmed the salesman, more affably. “I just sold a pair of those very shoes to Ted Courtney, not more than an hour ago.”
“And who the devil is Ted Courtney?” asked Mauney.
The clerk surveyed his customer blankly for a moment. “If you don’t know who the Courtneys are,” he mumbled, at length, “you don’t know much about Lockwood.”
“I’ll have to confess that I don’t,” admitted Mauney, with a chuckle to himself, “but these shoes suit me all right.”
He next entered a haberdashery shop and asked for shirts. The clerk was a smartly-dressed man of middle age.
“You don’t care for those,” he commented, as Mauney finished surveying some that were on display. “Well, we haven’t much choice left in the cheaper lines, but I can show you some in a very excellent material. This particular shirt,” he continued, as he selected an example, “is being worn by the best dressers this season. We have had difficulty keeping stocked in it. I may say that I sold a half-dozen of this line to Mr. Ted Courtney, only yesterday.”
Mauney’s hand fell limply on the counter as he began to laugh for no reason apparent to the serious-faced salesman.
“I wish you’d tell me who Ted Courtney is. I haven’t been able to decide as yet whether he is the Beau Nash of Lockwood or a cousin of the Prince of Wales.”
“You’re a stranger in town? Indeed. The Courtneys, of course, are among our wealthiest residents—awfully nice people, with whom it is always a pleasure to deal.”
“In that case,” said Mauney, with an amused expression, “I suppose I had better fall in line.”
Next he proceeded to a tobacconist’s to buy a newspaperand cigarettes. While he was talking to the clerk he realized that he was being gently, but effectively, elbowed sidewise by a stranger, who, in his impatience to capture a newspaper from a pile nearby, reached directly in front of Mauney’s face. In drawing out his copy of the journal he not only upset the pile, but knocked the silver out of Mauney’s hand. Turning in expectation of adjusting what was evidently an unavoidable situation, Mauney was surprised to behold the young man walking quickly away through the door and entering a sumptuous motor-car at the curb. He watched him drive away, then turned to the clerk.
“Did you notice who that fellow was?” he asked.
“You bet I did,” the other snarled, as he brought order once more to the untidy counter, “and I’ve got his number, too. That bird is getting just a wee bit too fresh. Just because his old man happened to make a few dishonest millions out West, he’s got the idea that the rest of us bums just live to wait on him. But I’ll tell you one thing,” he added with a curse, “the next time he tries any rough-house he’s going to get a heavy lid.”
“I wouldn’t blame you much,” said Mauney, picking up his change. “Who is he?”
“Don’t you know him? Why that’s Mister Edward Courtney. Lives in that house down Queen East that looks like a bloody prison. Got about twenty motor-cars, but don’t know when he’s well off. Just let him try that trick again and, so help me Kate, I don’t care if it takes me to the police court, he’s goin’ to get a rocker right on that damned dimple!”
That evening, when talking to Freda, Mauney relatedthe incident and was surprised when she defended Courtney.
“I haven’t any use for the family taken collectively,” she admitted, “but you’d have to know Ted to understand that incident. He’s really not such a bad lot—a most terrible enthusiast over trifles and frightfully absent-minded at times. Probably when he bunted into you he was in a hurry to get to the ball game and didn’t realize what he was doing. I’ve known Ted just about all my life, and I’d put it down to pure thoughtlessness and animal pep. Of course, he’s spoiled and needs a lesson, I know that!”
“You’ll get accustomed to Lockwood ways, perhaps,” she said a little later, as she took Mauney for a spin up the river road, out of town. “And perhaps you won’t. I hate to discourage you, but I’m a little afraid you never will tune up to Lockwood. I never have, and we’re something alike, are we not?”
As they sped along the winding tarvia road, under arching elms, past clusters of willows in the hollows, and groves of pine, with numerous summer residences facing the river, Freda kept nodding to acquaintances in other cars.
“Isn’t that Courtney’s roadster?” asked Mauney, turning to see it disappear behind them.
“Yes, and Ted saw me,” laughed Freda, “and, what’s more exciting, he saw you. I’ll bet anything he’ll turn around and overtake us before we’ve gone much farther. I’ll tell you what, Mauney! We’ll stop at the Country Club. I’m not a member any more, but a lot of the real Lockwood swells hang out there. Of course, I just want to show you off. Mrs. Beecher will see you and then to-morrow at some tea or other she’lllet out the big item of the season. I can just hear her as she makes her announcement: ‘What do you suppose! Freda MacDowell breezed into the club last night with a Mr. Bard, who, I understand, is the new member of the collegiate staff. Hum, hum, now what do you think of that?’”
“And what will they think of it, Freda?” asked Mauney seriously.
“They can’t think. They haven’t got the equipment. It’s just the news they’re after, nothing more. They can’t think anything, anyway. But I want them to know that you were riding in my car. Of course,” chuckled Freda, “if you were a married man, then they’d be happier. They’d have a scandal, then.”
“Is there much scandal in Lockwood?” Mauney asked, carelessly.
“Scandal!” she exclaimed. “Why, these people live on it. I just wish I could smuggle you into a realbona fideafternoon tea. It’s a very tame tea that doesn’t succeed in executing at least one hitherto unblemished reputation. It’s love affairs they prefer, of course. But—am I boring you?”
“On the contrary I’m quite interested, Freda. Most towns are the same.”
“But Lockwood has developed it to something like a fine art,” she replied, with the certainty of tone of an expert who has studied the matter in hand. Then she proceeded to give a characteristically accurate summary of the entire subject.
“There were afternoon teas in Lockwood before there were churches, and even to-day they are better attended. Church, with these people, is an occasional business, but teas are a constant necessity. Some of these fatsociety dames have reached the sublime stage of existence where their enfeebled brains can deal with only the simplest data. They can’t read books that require any thought. They don’t have to read, so for that very reason they don’t read. But they do have to go to afternoon teas, because it’s there they find the exact food they’re in need of. I don’t mean cookies and cakes, either, because most of them have been requested by their M.D.’s to cut down on carbo-hydrates. What they need, Mauney, is scandal. If the scandal deals with a love affair, why then it’s an A1 scandal. Anything racy and illicit holds them like nothing else. Now, just why these bloated excuses for womanhood—and many of them have had turbulent enough youths themselves—should get to the stage where only vicarious experiences can stir their vanishing passions, is a question that revolts me. I leave that for the morbid psychologists to settle.”
“I’ll tell you something, Mauney,” she went on, as she looked before her along the road. “These afternoon teas are no joke with me. I hate them as I hate anything that’s noisy and empty. They had a lot to do with my leaving home.”
“But did you ever think, Freda,” asked Mauney, “that gossip unconsciously cleanses society? People, fearing scandal, are more likely to be careful how they act.”
“Ah, yes,” she replied. “There’s something in that argument, too. If these old gossipers in Lockwood were conscientiously trying to reform society by means of publicity campaigns I’d give them credit. In the first place, however, they don’t give a continental aboutmorals, public or private, and in the second place, they’re very corruptible.”
“Corruptible?”
“Yes; they grant exemptions. There are people in Lockwood who can get away with murder just because they’ve got money. There are people who are never discussed because the scandal-mongers fear to lose their favor. No; I put no stock in that cleansing business at all. I’ve told you exactly what I think of the whole bunch.”
“But why take them so seriously, Freda?” asked Mauney. “It’s almost an adage that women will gossip just as men will smoke.”
“I suppose it’s because of the way I’m constituted,” she replied. “We had a wash-woman who used to say to me, ‘Freda, everything all depends on just how it is with you.’ And I’ll tell you just how it is with me, Mauney. I’ve got a serious streak somewhere in my system.”
“I think you’re the most serious girl I know,” interrupted Mauney.
“Thanks. I admire your insight, young man. I really do want to thank you for just that, Mauney. But I was going to tell you that I went through hell, almost literally, six years ago, just before I went to college. The real hard-boiled fact of the case was that I lost my respect for my own mother, and the main reason I lost it was because, apparently, she could live and thrive and be entirely satisfied on the mental diet of afternoon-tea scandals. So, although, as you say, gossiping may be considered as part of the day’s work, it sometimes has unforeseen results. And once or twice I’ve seenpeople rendered extremely unhappy, by scandals they didn’t deserve. The ladies aren’t a bit accurate.”
“I think,” said Mauney, “you ought to write a book on scandal-mongery as well as one on a university.”
“Oh, but I was going to tell you the hidden irony of this scandal-mongery in Lockwood. It will show you just how insincere they are. The persons scandalized become popular, provided their misdeeds are not merely stupid. They become actually heroes. They are admired secretly all the time. They gain an importance never before enjoyed. But they don’t know this, and they suffer needlessly under the lash of women’s tongues. I tell you, Mauney, these women will excuse a person for anything. All they ask is the vicarious fun of it for themselves. I knew a merchant in town who never had much of a business until after it was reported that he had for years been running another home up in Merlton. Apparently they admired, not only his personal cleverness, but his business ability to be able to afford it. He became popular at once and has had a good trade ever since.”
Freda was now turning down a side road to the river, where on the level bank stood the Country Club House, a long, low bungalow finished in shingles of British Columbia cedar. On the wide verandahs which surrounded it many young and middle-aged people were sitting at tables, drinking or standing in groups engaged in conversation.
They left the car at the end of a long line on the side of the road and walked towards the verandah. They could hear the tones of the piano within the pavilion, and as they came nearer could see the moving figures of people dancing. As Freda guided Mauney aboutthe verandah, nodding to several of the guests, he noticed that the constant buzz of conversation was concerned chiefly with golf. Mauney was introduced to some of the members, and as he talked with them found himself slightly ill at ease, because he had never learned to play golf. After a few minutes he began to be conscious of many curious eyes turned in his direction, some of them friendly enough, others merely curious, and a few intensely critical. The conversation was growing less. He felt awkward until he suddenly realized that all these people had been waiting for something, when at last a roadster, which had now become familiar to Mauney, glided quickly up to the verandah, uncomfortably filled with men. As they alighted, carrying musical instruments, it became clear that Courtney had motored to town after an orchestra. An impromptu dance immediately followed.
It had no sooner begun than Courtney, finding Freda at a table with Mauney, came up to speak to her. Gracefully tall, wearing flannels, bare-headed and completely at ease, he appeared to be not older than twenty-five. His black hair was scrupulously barbered and glossy. His flashing, black eyes seemed to know the world, and there was an air of mild superiority, not only in his confident carriage, but in the exclusive smile of black moustachios, red lips, and very white, perfect teeth, with which he greeted Freda.
“Hello, Fly-away,” he said in a deep, musical voice. “I swear you were doing fifty when I passed you.”
“Mr. Courtney,” said Freda, turning towards Mauney, who had risen, “meet Mr. Bard, my friend.”
“How do you do?” said Courtney, with a stiff nod; then devoted himself quickly to Freda once more.
“Awful night for a dance,” he admitted. “But everybody wanted it, so I blew down for Pinkerton’s Harmony Hounds. Lockwood must be agreeing with you, Freda. I never saw you look more captivating.”
“Thanks for those few kind words, Ted,” she replied dryly, although she blushed and wished in a queer flash that Mauney could occasionally say such flattering things.