Again she was wistful. "I wonder how many of them really—care? Pip, it is the one-proposal girl who is lucky. She has no problems. She simply takes the man she can get!"
They were swinging along Fifth Avenue. He stopped at a flower shop and bought her a tight little knot of yellow roses which matched her hair. She was in brown velvet with brown boots and brownfurs. Her skin showed pink and white in the clear cold. She and the big man by her side were a pair good to look upon, and people turned to look.
Coming to a famous jewel shop she turned in. "I am going to have all of Aunt Maude's opals set in platinum to make a long chain. She gave them to me; and there'll be diamonds at intervals. I want to wear smoke-colored tulle at Winifred Ames' dinner dance—and the opals will light it."
Philip Meade's mind was not poetic, yet as his eyes followed Evelyn, he was aware that this was an atmosphere which belonged to her. Her beauty was opulent, needing richness to set it off, needing the shine of jewels, the shimmer of silk——
If he married her he could give her—a tiara of diamonds—a necklace of pearls—a pendant—a ring. His eyes swept the store adorning her.
When they came out he said, "I think I am showing a greatness of mind which should win your admiration."
"Why?"
"In taking you to Crossroads."
"Why?"
"You know why. Shall you write to Brooks that we are coming?"
"No. I want it to be a surprise. That's half the fun."
But there was nothing funny about it, as it proved, for it was on that very Friday morning thatRichard had found Peggy much better, and Anne very pale with circles under her eyes.
He went away, and later his mother called Anne up. She asked her to spend the day at Crossroads. Richard would come for her and would bring her home after dinner.
Anne, with a fluttering sense of excitement, packed her ruffled white frock in a little bag, and was ready when Richard arrived.
At the gate they met Geoffrey Fox. The young doctor stopped his horse. "Come and have lunch with us, Fox?"
"I'm sorry. But I must get to work. How long are you going to keep Miss Warfield?"
"As late as we can."
"To-night?"
"Yes."
"I have a chapter ready to read to her, and you ask her to eat with you as if she were any every-day sort of person. Did you know that she is to play Beatrice to my Dante?"
"Don't be silly," Anne said; "you mustn't listen to him, Dr. Brooks."
Richard's eyes went from one to the other. "What do you know of Fox?" he asked, as they drove on.
"Nothing, except that he is writing a book."
"I'll ask Eve about him; she's a lion-hunter and she's in with a lot of literary lights."
Even as he spoke Evelyn was speeding toward him in Philip's car. He had forgotten her and his invitation for the week-end. But she had not forgotten, and she sparkled and glowed as she thought of Richard's royal welcome. For how could she know, as she drew near and nearer, that he was welcoming another guest, taking off the little teacher's old brown coat, noting the flush on her young cheeks, the pretty appeal of her manner to his mother.
"You are sure I won't be in the way, Mrs. Brooks?"
"My dear, my dear, of course not. Richard has been telling me that your grandmother was Cynthia Warfield. Did you know that my father was in love with Cynthia before he married my mother?"
"The letters said so."
"I shall want to see them. And to hear about your Great-uncle Rodman. We thought at one time that he was going to be famous, and then came that dreadful accident."
They had her in a big chair now, with a high back which peaked over her head and Nancy had another high-backed chair, and Richard standing on the hearth-rug surveyed the two of them contentedly.
"Mother, I am going to give myself fifteen minutes right here and a half hour for lunch, and then I'll go out and make calls, and you and Miss Warfield can take a nap and be ready to talk to me to-night."
Anne smiled up at him. "Do you always make everybody mind?"
"I try to boss mother a bit—but I am not sure that I succeed."
Before luncheon was served Cynthia Warfield's picture, which hung in the library, was pointed out to Anne. She was made to stand under it, so that they might see that her hair was the same color—and her eyes. Cynthia was painted in pink silk with a petticoat of fine lace, and with pearls in her hair.
"Some day," Anne said, "when my ship comes in, I am going to wear stiff pink silk and pearls and buckled slippers and yards and yards of old lace."
"No, you're not," Richard told her; "you are going to wear white with more than a million ruffles, and little flat black shoes. Mother, you should have seen her at Beulah Bower's party."
"White is always nice for a young girl," said pleasant Nancy Brooks.
The dining-room looked out upon the river, with an old-fashioned bay window curving out. The table was placed near the window. Anne's eyes brightened as she looked at the table. It was just as she had pictured it, all twinkling glass and silver, and with Richard at the head of it. But what she had not pictured was the moment in which he stood to say the simple and beautiful grace which his grandfatherhad said years before in that room of many memories.
The act seemed to set him apart from other men. It added dignity and strength to his youth and radiance. He was master of a house, and he felt that his house should have a soul!
Anne, writing of it the next night to her Uncle Rod, spoke of that simple grace:
"Uncle Rod, it seemed to me that while most of the world was forgetting God, he was remembering Him. Nobody says grace at Bower's—and sometimes I don't even say it in my heart. He looked like a saint as he stood there with the window behind him. Wasn't there a soldier saint—St. Michael?
"Could you imagine Jimmie Ford saying grace? Could you imagine him even at the head of his own table? When I used to think of marrying him, I had a vision of eternal motor riding in his long blue car—with the world rushing by in a green streak.
"But I am not wanting much to talk of Jimmie Ford. Though perhaps before I finish this I shall whisper what I thought of the things you had to say of him in your letter.
"Well, after lunch I had a nap, and then there was dinner with David Tyson in an old-fashioned dress-suit, and Mrs. Nancy in thin black with pearls, and St. Michael groomed and shining.
"It was all quite like a slice of Heaven after my hard days nursing Peggy. We had coffee in thelibrary, and then Dr. Richard and I went into the music-room and I played for him. I sang the song that you like about the 'Lady of the West Country':
" 'I think she was the most beautiful ladyThat ever was in the West Country.But beauty vanishes, beauty passes,However rare, rare it be;And when I crumble who shall rememberThat Lady of the West Country?'
" 'I think she was the most beautiful ladyThat ever was in the West Country.But beauty vanishes, beauty passes,However rare, rare it be;And when I crumble who shall rememberThat Lady of the West Country?'
"He liked it and made me sing it twice, and then a dreadful thing happened. A motor stopped at the door and some one ran up the steps. We heard voices and turned around, and there were the Lovely Ladies back again with the two men, and a chauffeur in the background with the bags!
"It seems that they had motored down at Dr. Richard's invitation for a week-end, and that he had forgotten it!
"Of course you are asking, 'Why was it a dreadful thing, my dear?' Uncle Rod, I stood there smiling a welcome at them all, and Dr. Richard said: 'You know Miss Warfield, Eve,' and then she said, 'Oh, yes,' in a frigid fashion, and I knew by her manner that back in her mind she was remembering that I was the girl who had waited on the table!
"Oh, you needn't tell me that I mustn't feel that way, Uncle Rod. I feel it, and feel it, andfeelit. How can I help feeling it when I know that if Ihad Evelyn Chesley's friends and Evelyn's fortune, people would look on Me-Myself in quite a different way. You see, they would judge me by the Outside-Person part of me, which would be soft and silky and secure, and not dowdy and diffident.
"Oh, Uncle Rod, is Geoffrey Fox right? And have you and I been dreaming all these years? The rest of the world doesn't dream; it makes money and spends it, and makes money and spends it, and makes money and spends it. Only you and I are still old-fashioned enough to want sunsets; the rest of them want motor cars and yachts and trips to Europe. That was what Jimmie Ford wanted, and that was why he didn't want me.
"There, I have said it, Uncle Rod. Your letter made me know it. Perhaps I have hoped and hoped a little that he might come back to me.Ihave made up scenes in my mind of how I would scorn him and send him away, and indeed I would send him away, for there isn't any love left—only a lot of hurt pride.
"To think that he saw you and spoke to you and didn't say one word about me. And just a year ago at Christmas time, do you remember, Uncle Rod? The flowers he sent, and the pearl ring—and now the flowers are dead, and the ring went back to him.
"Oh, I can't talk about it even to you!
"Well, all the evening Eve Chesley held the center of the stage. And the funny part of it wasthat I found myself much interested in the things she had to tell. Her life is a sort of Arabian Nights' existence. She lives with her Aunt Maude in a big house east of Central Park, and she told about the green parrot for her new black and white breakfast room, and the flame-colored fishes in an aquarium—and she is having her opals set in platinum to go with a silver gown that she is to wear at the Dutton-Ames dance.
"I like the Dutton-Ames. He is dark and massive—a splendid foil for his wife's slenderness and fairness. They are much in love with each other. He always sits beside her if he can, and she looks up at him and smiles, and last night I saw him take her hand where it hung among the folds of her gown, and he held it after that—and it made me think of father and mother—and of the way they cared. Jimmie Ford could never care like that—but Dr. Richard could. He cares that way for his mother—he could care for the woman he loved.
"He took me home in Mr. Meade's limousine. It was moonlight, and he told the chauffeur to drive the long way by the river road.
"I like him very much. He believes in things, and—and I rather think, thathisship is packed with dreams—but I am not sure, Uncle Rod."
It was when Anne had come in from her moonlight ride with Richard, shutting the door carefullybehind her, that she found Geoffrey Fox waiting for her in the big front room.
"Oh," she stammered.
"And you really have the grace to blush? Do you know what time it is?"
"No."
"Twelve! Midnight! And you have been riding with only the chauffeur for chaperone."
"Well?"
"And you have kept me waiting. That's the worst of it. You may break all of the conventional commandments if you wish. But you mustn't keep me waiting."
His laugh rang high, his cheeks were flushed. Anne had never seen him in a mood like this. In his loose coat with a flowing black tie and with his ruffled hair curling close about his ears, he looked boyish and handsome like the pictures she had seen of Byron in an old book.
"Sit down, sit down," he was insisting; "now that you are here, you must listen."
"It is too late," she demurred, "and we'll wake everybody up."
"No, we shan't. The doors are shut. I saw to that. We are as much alone as if we were in a desert. And I can't sleep until I have read that chapter to you—please——"
Reluctantly, with her wraps on, she sat down.
"Take off your hat."
He stood over her while she removed it, and helped her out of her coat "Look at me," he said, peremptorily. "I hate to read to wandering eyes."
He threw himself into a chair and began:
"So they marched away—young Franz from Nuremberg and young George from London, and Michel straight from the vineyards on the coast of France."
That was the beginning of Geoffrey Fox's famous story: "The Three Souls," the story which was to bring him something of fortune as well as of fame, the story which had been suggested to Anne Warfield by the staring eyes of Peggy's pussy cat.
As she listened, Anne saw three youths starting out from home, marching gaily through the cities and steadily along the roads—marching, marching—Franz from Nuremburg, young George from London, and Michel from his sunlighted vineyards, drawing close and closer, unconscious of the fate that was bringing them together, thinking of the glory of battle, and of the honor of Kaiser and King and of the Republic.
The shadow of the great conflict falls gradually upon them. They meet the wounded, the refugees, they hear the roar of the guns, they listen to the tales of those who have been in the thick of it.
Then come privations, suffering, winter in the trenches—Franz on one side, young George on the other, and Michel; then fighting—fear——
Geoffrey stopped there. "Shall I have them afraid?"
"I think they would be afraid. But they would keep on fighting, and that would be heroic."
She added, "How well you do it!"
"This part is easy. It will be the last of it that I shall find hard—when I deal with their souls."
"Oh, you must show at the last that it is because of their souls that they are brothers. Each man has had a home, he has had love, each of them has had his hopes and dreams for the future, for his middle-age and his old age, and now there is to be no middle-age, no old age—and in their knowledge of their common lot their hatred dies."
"I am afraid I can't do it," he said, moodily. "I should have to swing myself out into an atmosphere which I have never breathed."
"What do you mean?"
"Oh, I am of the earth—earthy. I have sold my birthright, I have yearned for the flesh-pots, I have fed among—swine. I have done all of the other things which haven't Biblical sanction. And now you expect me to write of souls."
"I expect you to give to the world your best. You speak of your talent as if it were a little thing. And it is not a little thing."
"Do you mean that——?"
"I mean that it is—God given."
Out of a long silence he said: "I thank you forsaying that. Nobody has ever said such a thing to me before."
He let her go then. And as she stood before her door a little later and whispered, "Good-night," he caught her hand and held it. "Mistress Anne—will you remember me—now and then—in your little white prayers?"
Evelyn, coming down late on the morning after her unexpected arrival, asked: "How did you happen to have her here, Dicky?"
"Who?"
"The little waitress?"
"Eve——" warningly.
"Well, then, the little school-teacher."
"Since when did you become a snob, Eve?"
"Don't be so sharp about it, Dicky. I'm not a snob. But you must admit that it was rather surprising to find her here, when the last time I saw her she was passing things at the Bower's table."
"She is a granddaughter of Cynthia Warfield."
"Who's Cynthia? I never heard of her."
"You have seen her portrait in our library."
"Which portrait?"
He led the way and showed it to her. Eve, looking at it thoughtfully, remarked, "Why should a girl like that lower herself by serving——?"
"She probably doesn't feel that she can lower herself by anything. She is what she is."
She shrugged. "You know as well as I thatpeople can't do such things—and get away with it. She may be very nice and all that——"
"She is nice."
"Well, don't lose your temper over it, and don't fall in love with her, Dicky."
"Why not?"
"Haven't you done enough foolish things without doing—that?"
"Doing what?" ominously.
"Oh, you know what I mean," impatiently. "Aren't you ever going to come to your senses, Dicky?"
"Suppose we don't talk of it, Eve."
She found herself wanting to talk of it. She wanted to rage and rant. She was astonished at the primitiveness of her emotions. She had laughed her way through life and had prided herself on the dispassionateness of her point of view. And now it was only by the exercise of the utmost self-control that she was able to swing the conversation toward other topics.
The coming of the rest of the party eased things up a little. They had all slept late, and Richard had made a half dozen calls before he had joined Eve in the Garden Room. He had stopped at David's, and had heard that on Monday there was to be a drag-hunt and breakfast at the club. David hoped they would all stay over for it.
"Cousin David has a bunch of weedy-lookinghounds," Richard explained; "he lets them run as they please, and they've been getting up a fox nearly every night. He thought you might like to ride up to the ridge in the moonlight and have a view of them. I can get you some pretty fair mounts at Bower's."
There was a note of wistful appeal in Eve's voice. "Do you really want us, Dicky?"
He smiled at her. "Of course. Don't be silly, Eve."
She saw that she was forgiven, and smiled back. She had not slept much the night before. She had heard Richard come in after his ride with Anne, and she had been waked later by the sound of the telephone. In the room next to hers Richard's subdued voice had answered. And presently there had been the sound of his careful footsteps on the stairs.
She had crept out of bed and between the curtains had looked out. The world was full of the shadowy paleness which comes with the waning of the moon. The road beyond the garden showed like a dull gray ribbon against the blackness of the hills. On this road appeared presently Richard on his big white horse, the dog Toby, a shadow among the shadows as he ran on ahead of them.
On and on they sped up the dull gray road, a spectral rider on a spectral horse. She had wondered where he might be going. It must have been some sudden and urgent call to take him out thusin the middle of the night. For the first time she realized what his life meant. He could never really be at his ease. Always there was before him the possibility of some dread adventure—death might be on its way at this very moment.
Wide-awake and wrapped in her great rug, she had waited, and after a time Richard had returned. The dawn was rising on the hills, and the world was pink. His head was up and he was urging his horse to a swift gallop.
When at last he reached his room, she had gone to bed. But when she slept it was to dream that the man on the white horse was riding away from her, and that when she called he would not come.
But now with his smile upon her, she decided that she was making too much of it all. The affair with the little school-teacher might not be in the least serious. Men had their fancies, and Dicky was not a fool.
She knew her power over him, and her charm. His little boyhood had been heavy with sorrow and soberness; she had lightened it by her gaiety and good nature. Eve had taken her orphaned state philosophically. Her parents had died before she knew them. Her Aunt Maude was rich and gave her everything; she was queen of her small domain. Richard, on the other hand, had been early oppressed by anxieties—his care for his strong little mother, his real affection for his weak father, culminating in the tragedy which had come during his college days. In all the years Eve had been his good comrade and companion. She had cheered him, commanded him, loved him.
And he had loved her. He had never analyzed the quality of his love. She was his good friend, his sister. If he had ever thought of her as his sweetheart or as his wife, it had always been with the feeling that Eve had too much money. No man had a right to live on his wife's bounty.
He had a genuinely happy day with her. He showed her the charming old house which she had never seen. He showed her the schoolhouse, still closed on account of the epidemic. He showed her the ancient ballroom built out in a separate wing.
"A little money would make it lovely, Richard."
"It is lovely without the money."
Winifred Ames spoke earnestly from the window where, with her husband's arm about her, she was observing the sunset. "Some day Tony and I are going to have a house like this—and then we'll be happy."
"Aren't you happy now?" her husband demanded.
"Yes. But not on my own plan, as it were." Then softly so that no one else could hear, "I want just you, Tony—and all the rest of the world away."
"Dear Heart——" He dared not say more, for Pip's envious eyes were upon them.
"When I marry you, Eve, may I hold your hand in public?"
"You may—when I marry you."
"Good. Whenever I lose faith in the bliss of matrimony, I have only to look at Win and Tony to be cheered and sustained by their example."
Nancy, playing the little lovely hostess, agreed. "If they weren't so new-fashioned in every way I should call them an old-fashioned couple."
"Love is never out of fashion, Mrs. Nancy," said Eve; "is it, Dicky Boy?"
"Ask Pip."
"Love," said Philip solemnly, "is the newest thing in the world and the oldest. Each lover is a Columbus discovering an unknown continent."
In the hall the old clock chimed. "Nobody is to dress for dinner," Richard said, "if we are to ride afterward. I'll telephone for the horses."
He telephoned and rode down later on his big Ben to bring the horses up. As he came into the yard at Bower's he saw a light in the old stable. Dismounting, he went to the open door. Anne was with Diogenes. The lantern was set on the step above her, and she was feeding the old drake. Her body was in the shadow, her face luminous. Yet it was a sober little face, set with tired lines. Looking at her, Richard reached a sudden determination.
He would ask her to ride with them to the ridge.
At the sound of his voice she turned and her face changed. "Did I startle you?" he asked.
"No," she smiled at him. "Only I was thinking about you, and there you were." There was no coquetry in her tone; she stated the fact frankly and simply. "Do you remember how you put Toby in here, and how Diogenes hated it?"
"I remember how you looked under the lantern."
"Oh,"—she had not expected that,—"do you?"
"Yes. But I had seen you before. You were standing on a rock with holly in your arms. I saw you from the train throw something into the river. I have often wondered what it was."
"I didn't want to burn my holly wreaths after Christmas. I hate to burn things that have been alive."
"So do I. Eve would say that we were sentimentalists. But I have never quite been able to see why a sentimentalist isn't quite as worthy of respect as a materialist—however, I am not here to argue that. I want you to ride with me to the ridge. To see the foxes by moonlight," he further elucidated. "Run in and get ready. I am to take some horses up for the others."
She rose and reached for her lantern. "The others?" she looked an inquiry over her shoulder.
"Eve and her crowd. They are still at Crossroads."
She stood irresolute. Then, "I think I'd rather not go."
"Why not?" sharply.
She told him the truth bravely. "I am a little afraid of women like that."
"Of Eve and Winifred? Why?"
"We are people of two worlds, Dr. Brooks—and they feel it."
His conversation with Eve recurring to him, he was not prepared to argue. But he was prepared to have his own way.
"Isn't your world mine?" he demanded. "And you mustn't mind Eve. She's all right when you know her. Just stiffen your backbone, and remember that you are the granddaughter of Cynthia Warfield."
After that she gave in and came down presently in a shabby little habit with her hair tied with a black bow. "It's a good thing it is dark," she said. "I haven't any up-to-date clothes."
As they went along he asked her to go to the hunt breakfast on Monday.
"I can't. School opens and my work begins."
"By Jove, I had forgotten. I shall be glad to hear the bell. When I am riding over the hills it seems to call—as it called to my grandfather and to be saying the same things; it is a great inspiration to have a background like that to one's life. Do you know what I mean?"
She did know, and they talked about it—these two young and eager souls to whom life spoke of things to be done, and done well.
Eve, standing on the steps at Crossroads, saw them coming. "Oh, I'm not going," she said to Winifred passionately.
"Why not?"
"He has that girl with him."
"What girl?"
"Anne Warfield."
Winifred's eyes opened wide. "She's a darling, Eve. I liked her so much last night."
"I don't see why he has to bring her into everything."
"All the men are in love with her; even Tony has eyes for her, and Pip——"
"What makes you defend her, Win? She isn't one of us, and you know it."
"I don't know it. She belongs to older stock than either you or I, Eve. And if she didn't, don't you know a lady when you see one?"
Eve threw up her hands. "I sometimes think the world is going mad—there aren't any more lines drawn."
"If there were," said Winifred softly, and perhaps a bit maliciously, "I fancy that Anne Warfield might be the one to draw them—and leave us on the wrong side, Eve."
It was Winifred who welcomed Anne, and whorode beside her later, and it was of Winifred that Anne spoke repentantly as she and Richard rode together in the hills. "I want to take back the things I said about Mrs. Ames. She is just—heavenly sweet."
He smiled. "I knew you would like her," he said. But neither of them mentioned Eve.
For Evelyn's manner had been insufferable. Anne might have been a shadow on the grass, a cloud across the sky, a stone in the road for all the notice she had taken of her. It was a childish thing to do, but then Eve was childish. And she was having the novel experience of being overlooked for the first time by Richard. She was aware, too, that she had offended him deeply and that the cause of her offending was another woman.
When they came to the ridge Richard drew Anne's horse, with his own, among the trees. He left Eve to Pip. Winifred and her husband were with David.
Far off in the distance a steady old hound gave tongue—then came the music of the pack—the swift silent figure of the fox, straight across the open moonlighted space in front of them.
Anne gave a little gasp. "It is old Pete," Richard murmured; "they'll never catch him. I'll tell you about him on the way down."
So as he rode beside her after that perfect hour in which the old fox played with the tumultuous pack, at his ease, monarch of his domain, unmindful ofsilent watchers in the shadows, Richard told her of old Pete; he told her, too, of the traditions of a ghostly fox who now and then troubled the hounds, leading them into danger and sometimes to death.
He went on with her to Bower's, and when he left her he handed her a feathery bit of pine. "I picked it on the ridge," he said. "I don't know whether you feel as I do about the scrub pines of Maryland and of Virginia; somehow they seem to belong, as you and I do, to this country."
When Anne went to her room she stuck the bit of pine in her mirror. Then in an uplifted mood she wrote to Uncle Rod. But she said little to him of Richard or of Eve. Her own feelings were too mixed in the matter to permit of analysis. But she told of the fox in the moonlight. "And the loveliest part of it all was that nothing happened to him. I don't think that I could have stood it to have had him killed. He was so free—and unafraid——"
The next night Anne in the long front room at Bower's told Peggy and François all about it. François' mother was sewing for Mrs. Bower, and as the distance was great, and she could not go home at night, her small son was sharing with her the hospitality which seemed to him rich and royal in comparison with the economies practised in his own small home.
It was a select company which was gathered infront of the fire. François and Peggy and Anne and old Mamie, with the white house cat, Josephine, and three kittens in a basket, and Brinsley Tyson smoking his pipe in the background.
"And the old fox went tit-upping and tit-upping along the road in the moonlight, and Dr. Richard and I stood very still, and we saw him——"
"Last night?"
Anne nodded.
"And what did you do, Miss Anne?"
"We listened and heard the dogs——"
Little François clasped his hands. "Oh, were the dogs after him?"
"Yes."
"Did they get him?"
"No. He is a wise old fox. He lives up beyond the Crossroads garden. Dr. Brooks thought when they came there to live that he would go away but he hasn't. You see, it is his home. The hunters here all know him, and they are always glad when he gets away."
Brinsley agreed. "There are so few native foxes left in the county that most of us call off the dogs before a killing—we'd soon be without sport if we didn't. An imported fox is a creature in a trap; you want the sly old natives to give you a run for your money."
Little François, dark-eyed and dreamy, delivered an energetic opinion. "I think it is horrid."
Peggy, less sensitive, and of the country, reproved him. "It's gentleman's sport, isn't it, Mr. Brinsley?"
"Yes. To me the dogs and horses are the best part of it. The older I grow the more I hate to kill—that's why I fish. They are cold-blooded creatures."
Peggy, leaning on his knee, demanded a fish story. "The one you told us the last time."
Brinsley's fish story was a poem written by one of the Old Gentlemen, hunting now, it was to be hoped, in happier fields. It was an idyl of the Chesapeake:
"In the Chesapeake and its tribute streams,Where broadening out to the bay they come,And the great fresh waters meet the brine,There lives a fish that is called the drum."
"In the Chesapeake and its tribute streams,Where broadening out to the bay they come,And the great fresh waters meet the brine,There lives a fish that is called the drum."
The drum fish and an old negro, Ned, were the actors in the drama. Ned, fishing one day in his dug-out canoe,
"Tied his line to his ankle tight,To be ready to haul if the fish should bite,And seized his fiddle——"
"Tied his line to his ankle tight,To be ready to haul if the fish should bite,And seized his fiddle——"
He played:
"But slower and slower he drew the bow,And soft grew the music sweet and low,The lids fell wearily over the eyes,The bow arm stopped and the melodies.The last strain melted along the deep,And Ned, the old fisherman, sank to sleep.Just then a huge drum, sent hither by fate,Caught a passing glimpse of the tempting bait. . . .. . . . One terrible jerk of wrath and dreadFrom the wounded fish as away he spedWith a strength by rage made double—And into the water went old Ned.No time for any 'last words' to be said,For the waves settled placidly over his head,And his last remark was a bubble."
"But slower and slower he drew the bow,And soft grew the music sweet and low,The lids fell wearily over the eyes,The bow arm stopped and the melodies.The last strain melted along the deep,And Ned, the old fisherman, sank to sleep.Just then a huge drum, sent hither by fate,Caught a passing glimpse of the tempting bait. . . .. . . . One terrible jerk of wrath and dreadFrom the wounded fish as away he spedWith a strength by rage made double—And into the water went old Ned.No time for any 'last words' to be said,For the waves settled placidly over his head,And his last remark was a bubble."
The children's eyes were wide. Peggy was entranced, but François was not so sure that he liked it. Brinsley's hand dropped on the little lad's shoulder as he told how the two were found
"So looped and tangled togetherThat their fate was involved in a dark mysteryAs to which was the catcher and which the catchee . . .And the fishermen thought it could never be knownAfter all their thinking and figuring,Whether the nigger a-fishing had gone,Or the fish had gone out a-niggering."
"So looped and tangled togetherThat their fate was involved in a dark mysteryAs to which was the catcher and which the catchee . . .And the fishermen thought it could never be knownAfter all their thinking and figuring,Whether the nigger a-fishing had gone,Or the fish had gone out a-niggering."
There were defects in meter and rhythm, but Brinsley's sprightly delivery made these of minor importance, and the company had no criticism. François, shivering a little, admitted that he wanted to hear it again, and climbed to Brinsley's knee. The old man with his arm about him decided that to say it over would be to spoil the charm, and that anyhow the time had come to pop the corn.
To François this was a new art, but when he had followed the fascinating process through all its stages until the white grains boiled up in the popper andthreatened to burst the cover, his rapture knew no bounds.
"Could I do it myself, Miss Anne?" he asked, and she let him empty the snowy kernels into a big bowl, and fill the popper for a second supply.
She bent above him, showing him how to shake it steadily.
Geoffrey Fox coming in smiled at the scene. How far away it seemed from anything modern—this wide hearth-stone with the dog and the pussy cat—and the little children, the lovely girl and the old man—the wind blowing outside—the corn popping away like little pistols.
"May I have some?" he asked, and Anne smiled up at him, while Peggy brought little plates and set the big bowl on a stool within reach of them all.
"What brings you up, sir?" Geoffrey asked Brinsley.
"The drag-hunt and breakfast at the club. I am too stiff to follow, but David and I like to meet old friends—you see I was born in this country."
That was the beginning of a string of reminiscences to which they all listened breathlessly. The fox hunting instinct was an inheritance in this part of the country. It had its traditions and legends and Brinsley knew them all.
If any one had told Geoffrey Fox a few weeks before that he would be content to spend his time as he was spending it now, writing all day and readingthe chapters at night to a serious-eyed little school-teacher who scolded him and encouraged him by turns, he would have scoffed at such an impossible prospect. Yet he was not only doing it, but was glad to be swept away from the atmosphere of somewhat sordid Bohemianism with which he had in these later years been surrounded.
And as Brinsley talked, Geoffrey watched Anne. She had Peggy in her arms. Such women were made, he felt, to be not only the mothers of children, but the mothers of the men they loved—made for brooding tenderness—to inspire—to sympathize.
Yet with all her gentleness he knew that Anne was a strong little thing. She would never be a clinging vine; she was rather like a rose high on a trellis—a man must reach up to draw her to him.
As she glanced up, he smiled at her, and she smiled back. Then the smile froze.
Framed in the front doorway stood Eve Chesley! She came straight to Anne and held out her hand. "I made Richard bring me down," she said. "I want to talk to you about the Crossroads ball."
Eve repentant was Eve in her most charming mood. On Sunday morning she had apologized to Richard. "I was horrid, Dicky."
"Last night? You were. I wouldn't have believed it of you, Eve."
"Oh, well, don't be a prig. Do you remember how we used to make up after a quarrel?"
He laughed. "We had to go down on our knees."
She went down on hers, sinking slowly and gracefully to the floor. "Please, I'm sorry."
"Eve, will you ever grow up?"
"I don't want to grow up," wistfully. "Dicky, do you remember that after I had said I was sorry you always bought chocolate drops, and made me eat them all. You were such a good little boy, Richard."
"I was not," hotly.
"Why is it that men don't like to be told that they were good little boys? You are a good little boy now."
"I'm not."
"You are—and you are tied to your mother's apron strings."
"Dicky," she wailed, as he rose in wrath, "I didn't mean that. Honestly. And I'll be good."
Still, with her feet tucked under her, she sat on the floor. "I've been thinking——"
"Yes, Eve."
"You and I have a birthday in March. Why can't we have a big house-warming, and ask all the county families and a lot of people from town?"
"I'm not a millionaire, Eve."
"Neither am I. But there's always Aunt Maude."
She spread out her hands, palms upward. "All I shall have to do is to wheedle her a bit, and she'llgive it to me for a birthday present. Please, Dicky. If you say 'yes' I'll go down to Bower's my very own self and ask Anne Warfield to come to our ball."
He stared at her incredulously. "You'll dowhat?"
"Ask your little—school-teacher. Win scolded me last night, and said that I was a selfish pig. That I couldn't expect to keep you always to myself. But you see I have kept you, Dicky. I have always thought that you and I could go on being—friends, with no one to break in on it."
Her eyes as she raised them to his were shadowed. He spoke heartily. "My dear girl, as if anything could ever come between us." He rose and drew her up from her lowly seat. "I'm glad we talked it out. I confess I was feeling pretty sore over the way you acted, Eve. It wasn't like you."
Eve stuck to her resolution to go to Bower's to seek out and conciliate Anne, and thus it happened that they found her making a Madonna of herself with Peggy in her arms, and Geoffrey Fox's eyes adoring her.
Little François told his mother later that at first he had thought the lovely lady was a fairy princess; for Eve was quite sumptuous in her dinner gown of white and shining satin, with a fur-trimmed wrap of white and silver. She wore, also, a princess air of graciousness, quite different from the half appealing impertinence of her morning mood when she had knelt at Richard's feet.
Anne, appeased and fascinated by the warmth of Eve's manner, found herself drawn in spite of herself to the charming creature who discussed so frankly her plans for their pleasure.
"Dicky and I were born on the same day," she explained, "and we always have a party together, with two cakes with candles, and this year it is to be at Crossroads."
She invited Brinsley and Geoffrey on the spot, and promised the children a peep into fairy-land. Then having settled the matter to the satisfaction of all concerned, she demanded a fresh popper of corn, insisted on a repetition of Brinsley's fish story, asked about Geoffrey's book, and went away leaving behind her a trail of laughter and light-heartedness.
Later Anne was aware that she had left also a feeling of bewilderment. It seemed incredible that the distance between the mood of last night and of to-night should have been bridged so successfully.
Brushing her hair in front of the mirror, she asked herself, "How much of it was real friendliness?" Uncle Rod had a proverb, "'A false friend has honey in his mouth, gall in his heart.'"
She chided herself for her mistrust. One must not inquire too much into motives.
The sight of Richard's bit of pine in the mirror frame shed a gleam of naturalness across the strangeness of the hour just spent. It seemed to say, "You and I of the country——"
Eve was of the town!
The weeks which followed were rare ones. Anne went forth joyous in the morning, and came home joyous at night. She saw Richard daily; now on the road, again in the schoolhouse, less often, but most satisfyingly, by the fire at Bower's.
Geoffrey, noting jealously these evenings that the young doctor spent in the long front room, at last spoke his mind.
"What makes you look like that?" he demanded, as having watched Richard safely out of the way from an upper window, he came down to find Anne gazing dreamily into the coals.
"Like what?"
"Oh, a sort of seventh-heaven look."
"I don't know what you mean."
"You won't admit that you know what I mean."
She rose.
"Sit down. I want to read to you."
"I am afraid I haven't time."
"You had time for Brooks. If you don't let me read to you I shall have to sit all alone—in the dark—my eyes are hurting me."
"Why don't you ask Dr. Brooks about your eyes?"
"Is Dr. Brooks the oracle?"
"He could tell you about your eyes."
"Does he tell you about yours?"
With a scornful glance she left him, but he followed her. "Why shouldn't he tell you about your eyes? They are lovely eyes, Mistress Anne."
"I hate to have you talk like that. It seems to separate me in some way from your friendship, and I thought we were friends."
Her gentleness conquered his mad mood. "Oh, you little saint, you little saint, and I am such a sinner."
So they patched it up, and he read to her the last chapter of his book.
"And now in the darkness they lay dying, young Franz from Nuremberg, and young George from London, and Michel straight from the vineyards on the coast of France."
In the darkness they spoke of their souls. Soon they would go out into the Great Beyond. What then, after death? Franz thought they might go marching on. Young George had a vision of green fields and of hawthorn hedges. But it was young Michel who spoke of the face of God.
Was this the Geoffrey who had teased her on the stairs? This man who wrote words which made one shake and shiver and sob?
"Oh, how do you do it, how do you do it?" The tears were running down her cheeks.
She saw him then as people rarely saw Geoffrey Fox. "God knows," he said, seriously, "but I think that your prayers have helped."
And after she had gone up-stairs he sat long by the fire, alone, with his hand shading his eyes.
The next morning he went to see Richard. The young doctor was in the Garden Room which he used as an office. It was on the ground floor of the big house, with a deer's horns over the fireplace, an ancient desk in one corner, a sideboard against the north wall. In days gone by this room had served many purposes. Here men in hunting pink had gathered for the gay breakfasts which were to fortify them for their sport. On the sideboard mighty roasts had been carved, and hot dishes had steamed. On the round table had been set forth bottles and glasses on Sheffield trays. Men ate much and rode hard. They had left to their descendants a divided heritage of indigestion and of strong sinews, to make of it what they could.
Geoffrey entering asked at once, "Why the Garden Room? There is no garden."
"There was a garden," Richard told him, "but there is a tradition that a pair of lovers eloped over the wall, and the irate father destroyed every flower, every shrub, as if the garden had betrayed him."
"There's a story in that. Did the girl ever come back to find the garden dead?"
"Who knows?" Richard said lightly; "and now, what's the matter with your eyes?"
There was much the matter, and when Richard had made a thorough examination he spoke of a specialist. "Have you ever had trouble with them before?"
"Once, when I was a youngster. I thought I was losing my sight. I used to open my eyes in the dark and think that the curse had come upon me. My grandfather was blind."
"It is rarely inherited, and not in this form. But there might be a predisposition. Anyhow, you'll have to stop work for a time."
"I can't stop work. My book is in the last chapters. And it is a great book. I've never written a great book before. I can talk freely to you, doctor. You know that we artists can't help our egotism. It's a disease that is easily diagnosed."
Richard laughed. "What's the name of your book?"
"'Three Souls.' Anne Warfield gave me the theme."
As he spoke her name it was like a living flame between them. Richard tried to answer naturally. "She ought to be able to write books herself."
Geoffrey shrugged. "She will live her life stories, not write them."
"Why not?"
"Because we men don't let such women live theirown lives. We demand their service and the inspiration of their sympathy. And so we won't let them achieve. We make them light our torches. We are selfish beasts, you know, in the last analysis."
He laughed and rose. "I'll see a specialist. But nobody shall make me stop writing. Not till I have scribbled 'Finis' to my manuscript."
"It isn't well to defy nature."
"Defiance is better than submission. Nature's a cruel jade. You know that. In the end she gets us all. That's why I hate the country. It's there that we see Nature unmasked. I stayed three weeks at a farm last summer, and from morning to night murder went on. A cat killed a cardinal, and a blue jay killed a grosbeak. One of the servants shot a squirrel. And when I walked out one morning to see the sheep, a lamb was gone and we had a roast with mint sauce for dinner. For lunch we had the squirrel in a stew. A hawk swept down upon the chickens, and all that escaped we ate later fried, with cream gravy."
"In most of your instances man was the offender."
"Well, if man didn't kill, something else would. For every lamb there's a wolf."
"You are looking on only one side of it."
"When you can show me the other I'll believe in it. But not to-day when you tell me that my sun may be blotted out."
Something in his voice made the young doctor lay his hand on his shoulder and say quietly: "My dear fellow, don't begin to dread that which may never come. There should be years of light before you. Only you'll have to be careful."
They stood now in the door of the Garden Room. The sun was shining, the snow was melting. There was the acrid smell of box from the hedge beyond.
"I hate caution," said young Geoffrey; "I want to do as I please."
"So does every man," said Richard, "but life teaches him that he can't."
"Oh, Life," scoffed Geoffrey Fox; "life isn't a school. It is a joy ride, with rocks ahead."
Annehad the Crossroads ball much on her mind. She spoke to Beulah about it.
"I don't know what to wear."
"You'd better go to town with me on Saturday and look for something."
"Perhaps I will. If I had plenty of money it would be easy. Beulah, did you ever see such clothes as Eve Chesley's?"
"If I could spend as much as she does, I'd make more of a show."
"Think of all the tailors and dressmakers and dancing masters and hair-dressers it has taken to make Eve what she is. And yet all the art is hidden."
"I don't think it is hidden. I saw her powder her nose right in front of the men that day she first came. She had a little gold case with a mirror in it, and while Dr. Brooks and Mr. Fox were sitting on the stairs with her, she took it out and looked at herself and rubbed some rouge on her cheeks."
Anne had a vision of the three of them sittingon the stairs. "Well," she said, in a fierce little fashion, "I don't know what the world is coming to."
Beulah cared little about Eve's world. For the moment Eric filled her horizon, and the dress she was to get to make herself pretty for him.
"Shall we go Saturday?" she asked.
Anne, rummaging in the drawer of her desk, produced a small and shabby pocketbook. She shook the money out and counted it. "With the check that Uncle Rod sent me," she said, "there's enough for a really lovely frock. But I don't know whether I ought to spend it."
"Why not?"
"Everybody ought to save something—I am teaching my children to have penny banks—and yet I go on spending and spending with nothing to show for it."
Beulah was quite placid. "I don't see why you should save. Some day you will get married, and then you won't have to."
"If a woman marries a poor man she ought to be careful of finances. She has to think of her children and of their future."
Beulah shrugged. "What's the use of looking so far ahead? And 'most any husband will see that his wife doesn't get too much to spend."
Before Anne went to bed that night she put a part of her small store of money into a separate compartment of her purse. She would buy a cheaper frock and save herself the afterpangs of extravagance. And the penny banks of the children would no longer accuse her of inconsistency!
The shopping expedition proved a strenuous one. Anne had fixed her mind on certain things which proved to be too expensive. "You go for your fitting," she said to Beulah desperately, as the afternoon waned, "and I will take a last look up Charles Street. We can meet at the train."
The way which she had to travel was a familiar one, but its charm held her—the street lights glimmered pale gold in the early dusk, the crowd swung along in its brisk city manner toward home. Beyond the shops was the Cardinal's house. The Monument topped the hill; to its left the bronze lions guarded the great square; to the right there was the thin spire of the Methodist Church.
She had an hour before train time and she lingered a little, stopping at this window and that, and all the time the money which she had elected to save burned a hole in her pocket.
For there were such things to buy! Passing a flower shop there were violets and roses. Passing a candy shop were chocolates. Passing a hat shop there was a veil flung like a cloud over a celestialchapeau! Passing an Everything-that-is-Lovely shop she saw an enchanting length of silk—as pink as a sea-shell—silk like that which Cynthia Warfield hadworn when she sat for the portrait which hung in the library at Crossroads!
Anne did not pass the Lovely Shop; she turned and went in, and bought ten yards of silk with the money that she had meant to spend—and the money she had meant to save!
And she missed the train!
Beulah was waiting for her as she came in breathless. "There isn't another train for two hours," she complained.
Anne sank down on a bench. "I am sorry, Beulah. I didn't know it was so late."
"We'll have to get supper in the station," Beulah said, "and I have spent all my money."
"Oh, and I've spent mine." Anne reflected that if she had not bought the silk she could have paid for Beulah's supper. But she was glad that she had bought it, and that she had it under her arm in a neat package.
She dug into her slim purse and produced a dime. "Never mind, Beulah, we can buy some chocolates."
But they were not destined for such meager fare. Rushing into the station came Geoffrey Fox. As he saw the clock he stopped with the air of a man baffled by fate.
Anne moving toward him across the intervening space saw his face change.
"By all that's wonderful," he said, "how did this happen?"
"We missed our train."
"And I missed mine. Who is 'we'?"
"Beulah is with me."
"Can't you both have dinner with me somewhere? There are two hours of waiting ahead of us."
Anne demurred. "I'm not very hungry."
But Beulah, who had joined them, was hungry, and she said so, frankly. "I am starved. If I could have just a sandwich——"
"You shall have more than that. We'll have a feast and a frolic. Let me check your parcels, Mistress Anne."
Back they went to the golden-lighted streets and turning down toward the city they reached at last the big hotel which has usurped the place of the stately and substantial edifices which were once the abodes of ancient and honorable families.
Within were soft lights and the sound of music. The rugs were thick, and there was much marble. As they entered the dining-room, they seemed to move through a golden haze. It was early, and most of the tables were empty.
Beulah was rapturous. "I have always wanted to come here. It is perfectly lovely."
The attentive waiter at Geoffrey's elbow was being told to bring—— Anne's quick ear caught the word.
"No, please," she said at once, "not for Beulah and me."
His keen glance commanded her. "Of course not," he said, easily. Presently he had the whole matter of the menu settled, and could talk to Anne. She was enjoying it all immensely and said so.
"I should like to do this sort of thing every day."
"Heaven forbid. You would lose your dreams, and grow self-satisfied—and fat—like that woman over there."
Anne shuddered. "It isn't that she is fat—it's her eyes, and the way she makes up."
"That is the way they get when they live in places like this. If you want to be slender and lovely and keep your dreams you must teach school."
"Oh, but there's drudgery in that."
"It is the people who drudge who dream. They don't know it, but they do. People who have all they want learn that there is nothing more for life to give. And they drink and take drugs to bring back the illusions they have lost."
They fell into silence after that, and then it was Beulah who became voluble. Her fair round face beamed. It was a common little face, but it was good and honest. Beulah was having the time of her life. She did not know that she owed her good fortune to Anne, that if Anne had not been there, Geoffrey would not have asked her to dine. But if she had known it, she would not have cared.
"What train did you come in on?" she asked.
"At noon. Brooks thought I ought to see a specialist. He doesn't give me much encouragement about my eyes. He wants me to stop writing, but I shan't until I get through with my book."
He spoke recklessly, but Anne saw the shadow on his face. "You aren't telling us how really serious it is," she said, as Beulah's attention was diverted.
"It is so serious that for the first time in my life I know myself to be—a coward. Last night I lay in bed with my eyes shut to see how it would seem to be blind. It was a pretty morbid thing to do—and this morning finished me."
She tried to speak her sympathy, but could not. Her eyes were full of tears.
"Don't," he said, softly, "my good little friend—my good little friend."
She dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief. The unconscious Beulah, busy with her oysters, asked: "Is the Tobasco too hot? I'm all burning up with it."
Geoffrey was able later to speak lightly of his affliction. "I shall go to the Brooks ball as a Blind Beggar."
"Oh, how can you make fun of it?"
"It is better to laugh than to cry. But your tears were—a benediction."
Silence fell between them, and after a while he asked, "What shall you wear?"
"To the ball? Pink silk. A heavenly pink. Ihave just bought it, and I paid more than I should for it."
"Such extravagance!"
"I'm to be Cynthia Warfield—like the portrait in the Crossroads library of my grandmother. It came to me when I saw the silk in the shop window. I shall have to do without the pearls, but I have the lace flounces. They were left to my mother."
"And so Cinderella will go to the ball, and dance with the Prince. Is Brooks the Prince?"
She flushed, and evaded. "I can't dance. Not the new dances."
"I can teach you if you'll let me."
"Really?"
"Yes. But you must pay. You must give the Blind Beggar the first dance and as many more as he demands."
"But I can't dance all of them with you."
"You can dance some of them. And that's my price."
To promise him dances seemed to her quite delicious and delightful since she could not dance at all. But he made a little contract and had her sign it, and put it in his pocket.
Going home Anne had little to say. It was Geoffrey who talked, while Beulah slept in a seat by herself.
Anne made her own lovely gown, running over now and then to take surreptitious peeps at Cynthia'sportrait. She had let Mrs. Brooks into her secret, and the little lady was enthusiastic.
"You shall wear my pearls, my dear. They will be very effective in your dark hair."
She brought the jewels down in an old blue velvet box—milk-white against a yellowed satin lining.
"My father gave them to me on my wedding day. Some day I shall give them to Richard's wife."
She could not know how her words stirred the heart of the girl who stood looking so quietly down at the pearls.
"I am almost afraid to wear them," Anne said breathlessly. She gave Nancy a shy little kiss. "You weredearto think of it."
And now busy days were upon her. There was the school with Richard running in after closing time, and staying, too, and keeping her from the work that was waiting at home. Then at twilight a dancing lesson with Geoffrey in the long front room, with Beulah playing audience and sometimes Eric, and with Peggy capering madly to the music.
Then the evening, with its enchanting task of stitching on yards of rosy silk. Usually Geoffrey read to her while she worked. His story was nearing the end. He was wearing heavy goggles which gave him an owl-like appearance, of which he complained.
"It spoils my beauty, Mistress Anne. I am just an ugly gnome who sits at the feet of the Princess."
"You are not ugly, and you know it. And men shouldn't be vain."
"We are worse than women. Do you know what you look like with all that silk around you?"
"No."
"Like Aurora. Do you remember that Stevenson speaks of a 'pink dawn'? Well, you are a pink dawn."
"Please stop talking about me, and read your last chapter. I am so glad that you have reached the end."
"Because you are tired of hearing it?"
"Because of your poor eyes."
He took off his goggles. "Do my eyes look different? Are they changed or—dim?"
"They are as bright as stars," and he sighed with relief.
"And now it was young Michel who whispered, 'God is good! In a moment we shall see his face, and we shall say to him, "We fought, but there is no hatred in our hearts. We cannot hate—our brothers——"'"