"I am not coming, Eve."
She turned to him, her face frozen into whiteness.
"Not coming? Why not?"
"While mother lives I must make her happy."
"Oh, don't be goody-goody."
He blazed. "I'm not."
"You are. Aren't you ever going to live your own life?"
"I am living it. But I can't break mother's heart."
"You might as well break hers as—mine."
He stared down at her. Mingled forever after with his thoughts of that moment was a blurred vision of her whiteness and stillness. Her slim hands were crossed tensely on her knees.
He laid one of his own awkwardly over them. "Dear girl," he said, "you don't in the least mean it."
"I do. Dicky, why shouldn't I say it? Why shouldn't I? Hasn't a woman the right? Hasn't she?"
She was shaking with silent sobs, the tears running down her cheeks. He had not seen her cry like this since little girlhood, when her mother had died, and he, a clumsy lad, had tried to comfort her.
He was faced by a situation so stupendous that for a moment he sat there stunned. Proud little Eve for love of him had made the supreme sacrifice of her pride. Could any man in his maddest moment have imagined a thing like this——!
He bent down to her, and took her hands in his.
"Hush, Eve, hush. I can't bear to see you cry. I'm not the fellow to make you happy, dear."
Her head dropped against his shoulder. The perfumed gold of her hair was against his cheeks. "No one else can make me happy, Dicky."
Then he felt the world whirl about him, and it seemed to him as he answered that his voice came from a long distance.
"If you'll marry me, Eve, I'll stay."
It was the knightly thing to do, and the necessary thing. Yet as they swept on through the night, his mother's face, all the joy struck from it, seemed to stare at him out of the darkness.
Mine own uncle:
I don't know whether to begin at the beginning or at the end of what I have to tell you. And even now as I think back over the events of the last twenty-four hours I feel that I must have dreamed them, and that I will wake and find that nothing has really happened.
But something has happened, and "of a strangeness" which makes it seem to belong to some of those queer old dime "thrillers" which you never wanted me to read.
Last night Geoffrey Fox asked me to go out with him on the river. I don't often go at night, yet as there was a moon, it seemed as if I might.
We went in Brinsley Tyson's motor boat. It is big and roomy and is equipped with everything to make one comfortable for extended trips. I wondered a little that Geoffrey should take it, for he has a little boat of his own, but he said that Mr. Tyson had offered it, and they had been out in it all day.
Well, it was lovely on the water; I was feeling tired and as blue as blue—some day I may tell youaboutthat, Uncle Rod, and I was glad of the quiet and beauty of it all; and of late Geoffrey and I have been such good friends.
Can't you ever really know people, Uncle Rod, or am I so dull and stupid that I misunderstand? Men are such a puzzle—all except you, you darling dear—and if you were young and not my uncle, even you might be as much of a puzzle as the rest.
Well, I would never have believed it of Geoffrey Fox, and even now I can't really feel that he was responsible. But it isn't what I think but what you will think that is important—for I have, somehow, ceased to believe in myself.
It was when we reached the second bridge that I told Geoffrey that we must turn back. We had, even then, gone farther than I had intended. But as we started up-stream, I felt that we would get to Bower's before Peter went back on the bridge, which is always the signal for the house to close, although it is never really closed; but the lights are turned down and the family go to bed, and I have always known that I ought not to stay out after that.
Well, just as we left the second bridge, something happened to the motor.
Uncle Rod,that was last night, and I didn't get back to Bower's until a few hours ago, and here is the whole truth before I write any more——
Geoffrey Fox tried to run away with me!
It would seem like a huge joke if it were not soserious. I don't know how he got such an idea in his head. Perhaps he thought that life was like one of his books—that all he had to do was to plan a plot, and then make it work out in his own way. He said, in that first awful moment, when I knew what he had done, "I thought I could play Cave Man and get away with it." You see, he hadn't taken into consideration that I wasn't a Cave Woman!
When the engine first went wrong I wasn't in the least worried. He fixed it, and we went on. Then it stopped and we drifted: the moon went down and it was cold, and finally Geoffrey made me curl up among the cushions. I felt that it must be very late, but Geoffrey showed me his watch, and it was only a little after ten. I knew Peter wouldn't be going to the bridge until eleven, and I hoped by that time we would be home.
But we weren't. We were far, far down the river. At last I gave up hope of arriving before the house closed, but I knew that I could explain to Mrs. Bower.
After that I napped and nodded, for I was very tired, and all the time Geoffrey tinkered with the broken motor. Each time that I waked I asked questions but he always quieted me—and at last—as the dawn began to light the world, a pale gray spectral sort of light, Uncle Rod, I saw that the shore on one side of us was not far away, but on the other it was a mere dark line in the distance—doublethe width that the river is at Bower's. Geoffrey was standing up and steering toward a little pier that stuck its nose into shallow water. Back of the pier was what seemed to be an old warehouse, and in a clump of trees back of that there was a thin church spire.
I said, "Where are we?" and he said, "I am not sure, but I am going in to see if I can get the motor mended."
I couldn't think of anything but how worried the Bowers would be. "You must find a telephone," I told him, "and call Beulah, and let her know what has happened."
He ran up to the landing and fastened the boat, and then he helped me out. "We will sit here and have a bit of breakfast first," he said; "there's some coffee left in Brinsley's hot and cold bottle, and some supplies under the stern seat."
It was really quite cheerful sitting there, eating sardines and crackers and olives and orange marmalade. A fresh breeze was blowing, and the river was wrinkled all over its silver surface, and we could see nothing but water ahead of us, straight to the horizon, where there was just the faint streak of a steamer's smoke.
"We must be almost in the Bay," I said. "Couldn't you have steered up-stream instead of down?"
He sat very still for a moment looking at me, andthen he said quickly and sharply, "I didn't want to go up-stream. I wanted to go down. And I came in here because I saw a church spire, and where there is a church there is always a preacher. Will you marry me, Mistress Anne?"
At first I thought that he had lost his mind. Uncle Rod, I don't think that I shall ever see a sardine or a cracker without a vision of Geoffrey with his breakfast in his hand and his face as white as chalk above it.
"That's a very silly joke," I said. "Why should I marry you?"
He looked at me, and—I didn't need any answer, for it came to me then that I had been out all night on the river with him, and that he was thinking of a way to quiet people's tongues!
I tried to speak, but my voice shook, and finally I managed to stammer that when we got back I was sure it would be all right.
"It won't be all right," he said; "the world will have things to say about you, and I'd rather die than have them say it. And I could make you happy, Anne."
Then I told him that I did not love him, that he was my dear friend, my brother—and suddenly his face grew red, and he came over and caught hold of my hands. "I am not your brother," he said. "I want you whether you want me or not. I could make you love me—I've got to have you in my life.I am not going on alone to meet darkness—and despair."
Oh, Uncle Rod, then I knew and I looked straight at him and asked: "Geoffrey Fox, did you break the motor?"
"It isn't broken," he said; "there has never been a thing the matter with it."
I think for the first time that I was a little afraid. Not of him, but of what he had done.
"Oh, how could you," I said, "how could you?"
And it was then that he said, "I thought that I could play Cave Man and get away with it."
After that he told me how much he cared. He said that I had helped him and inspired him. That I had shown him a side of himself that no one else had ever shown. That I had made him believe in himself—and in—God. That if he didn't have me in his life his future would be—dead. He begged and begged me to let him take me into the little town and find some one to marry us. He said that if we went back I would be lost to him—that—that Brooks would get me—that was the way he put it, Uncle Rod. He said that he was going blind; that I hadn't any heart; that he would love me as no one else could; that he would write his books for me; that he would spend his whole life making it up to me.
I don't know how I held out against him. But I did. Something in me seemed to say that I musthold out. Some sense of dignity and of self-respect, and at last I conquered.
"I will not marry you," I said; "don't speak of it again. I am going back to Bower's. I am not a heroine of a melodrama, and there's no use to act as if I had done an unpardonable thing. I haven't, and the Bowers won't think it, and nobody else will know. But you have hurt me more than I can tell by what you have done to-night. When you first came to Bower's there were things about you that I didn't like, but—as I came to know you, I thought I had found another man in you. The night at the Crossroads ball you seemed like a big kind brother—and I told you what I had suffered, and now you have made me suffer."
And then—oh, I don't quite know how to tell you. He dropped on his knees at my feet and hid his face in my dress and cried—hard dry sobs—with his hands clutching.
I just couldn't stand it, Uncle Rod, and presently I was saying, "Oh, you poor boy, you poor boy——" and I think I smoothed his hair, and he whispered, "Can't you?" and I said, "Oh, Geoffrey, I can't."
At last he got control of himself. He sat at a little distance from me and told me what he was going to do.
"I think I was mad," he said. "I can't even ask your forgiveness, for I don't deserve it. I am goingup to town to telephone to Beulah, and when I come back I will take you up the river where you can get the train. I shall break the engine and leave it here, so that when Brinsley gets it back there will be nothing to spoil our story."
He was gone half an hour. When he came he brought me a hat. He had bought it at the one little store where he had telephoned, and he had bought one for himself. I think we both laughed a little when we put them on, although it wasn't a laughing matter, but we did look funny.
He unfastened the boat, and we turned up the river and in about an hour we came into quite a thriving port with the Sunday quiet over everything, and Geoffrey did things to the engine that put it out of commission, and then he left it with a man on the pier, and we took the train.
It seems that all night at Bower's they were looking for us. They even took other boats, and followed. And they called. I know that if Geoffrey heard them call he didn't answer.
Every one seemed to accept our explanation. Perhaps they thought it queer. But I can't help that.
Geoffrey is going away to-morrow. When we were alone in the hall for a moment he told me that he was going. "If you can ever forgive me," he said, "will you write and tell me? What I have done may seem unforgivable. But when a mandreams a great deal he sometimes thinks that he can make his dreams come true."
Uncle Rod, I think the worst thing in the whole wide world is to be disappointed in people. As soon as school closes I am coming back to you. Perhaps you can make me see the sunsets. And what do you say about life now? Is it what we make it? Did I have anything to do with this mad adventure? Yet the memory of it will always—smirch.
And if life isn't what we make it, where is our hope and where are our sunsets? Tell me that, you old dear.
Anne.
P.S. When I opened my door just now, I found that Geoffrey had left on the threshold his little Napoleon, and a letter. I am sending the letter to you. I cried over it, and I am afraid it is blurred—but I haven't time to make a copy before the mail goes.
What Geoffrey said:
My little Child:
I am calling you that because there is something so young and untouched about you. If I were an artist I should paint you as young Psyche—and there should be a hint of angels' wings in the air and it should be spring—with a silver dawn. But if I could paint should I ever be able to put on canvas the light in your eyes when you have talked to me by the fire, my kind little friend whom I have lost?
I cannot even now understand the mood that possessed me. Yet I will be frank. I saw you go into the wood with Richard Brooks. I felt that if he should say to you what I was sure he wanted to say that there would be no chance for me—so I hurried after you. The thing which was going to happen must not happen; and I arrived in time. After that I told Brooks as we walked back that I was going to marry you, and I took you out in my boat intending to make my words come true.
These last few days have been strange days. Perhaps when I have described them you may find it in your heart to feel sorry for me. The book is finished. That of itself has left me with a sense of loss, as if I had put away from me something that had been a part of me. Then—I am going blind. Do you know what that means, the desperate meaning? To lose the light out of your life—never to see the river as I saw it this morning? Never to see the moonlight or the starlight—never to see your face?
The specialist has given me a few months—and then darkness.
Was it selfishness to want to tie you to a blind man? If you knew that you were losing the light wouldn't you want to steal a star to illumine the night?—and you were my—Star.
I am going now to my little sister, Mimi. She leaves the convent in a few days. There are just the two of us. I have been a wayward chap, loving myown way; it will be a sorry thing for her to find, I fancy, that henceforth I shall be in leading strings.
It is because of this thing that is coming that I am begging you still to be my friend—to send me now and then a little letter; that I may feel in the night that you are holding out your hand to me. There can be no greater punishment than your complete silence, no greater purgatory than the thought that I have forfeited your respect. Looking into the future I can see no way to regain it, but if the day ever comes when a Blind Beggar can serve you, you will show that you have forgiven him by asking that service of him.
I am leaving my little Napoleon for you. You once called him a little great man. Perhaps those of us who have some elements of greatness find our balance in something that is small and mean and mad.
Will you tell Brooks that you are not bound to me in any way? It is best that you should do it. I shall hope for a line from you. If it does not come—if I have indeed lost my little friend through my own fault—then indeed the shadows will shut me in.
Geoffrey.
Uncle Rodman writes:
My beloved Niece:
Once upon a time you and I read together "The Arabian Nights," and when we had finishedthe first book you laid your little hand on my knee and looked up at me. "Is it true, Uncle Rod?" you asked. "Oh, Uncle Rod, is it true?" And I said, "What it tells about the Roc's egg and the Old Man of the Sea and the Serpent is not true, but what it says about the actions and motives of people is true, because people have acted in that way and have thought like that through all the ages, and the tales have lived because of it, and have been written in all languages." I was sure, when I said it, that you did not quite understand; but you were to grow to it, which was all that was required.
Blessed child, what your Geoffrey Fox has done, though I hate him for it and blame him, is what other hotheads have done. The protective is not the primitive masculine instinct. Men have thought of themselves first and of women afterward since the beginning of time. Only with Christianity was chivalry born in them. And since many of our youths have elected to be pagan, what can you expect?
So your Geoffrey Fox being pagan, primitive—primordial, whatever it is now the fashion to call it, reverted to type, and you were the victim.
I have read his letter and might find it in my heart to forgive him were it not that he has made you suffer; but that I cannot forgive; although, indeed, his coming blindness is something that pleads for him, and his fear of it—and his fear of losing you.
I am glad that you are coming home to me. Margaret and her family are going away, and we can have their big house to ourselves during the summer. We shall like that, I am sure, and we shall have many talks, and try to straighten out this matter of dreams—and of sunsets, which is really very important, and not in the least to be ignored.
But let me leave this with you to ponder on. You remember how you have told me that when you were a tiny child you walked once between me and my good old friend, General Ross, and you heard it said by one of us that life was what we made it. Before that you had always cried when it rained; now you were anxious that the rain might come so that you could see if you could really keep from crying. And when the rain arrived you were so immensely entertained that you didn't shed a tear, and you went to bed that night feeling like a conqueror, and never again cried out against the elements.
It would have been dreadful if all your life you had gone on crying about rain, wouldn't it? And isn't this adventure your rainy day? You rose above it, dearest child. I am proud of the way you handled your mad lover.
Lifeiswhat we make it. Never doubt that. "He knows the water best who has waded through it," and I have lived long and have learned my lesson. When I knew that I could paint no more real pictures I knew that I must have dream pictures to hang on the walls of memory. Shall I make you a little catalogue of them, dear heart—thus:
No. 1.—Your precious mother sewing by the west window in our shadowed sitting-room, her head haloed by the sunset.
No. 2.—Anne in a blue pinafore, with the wind blowing her hair back on a gray March morning.
No. 3.—Anne in a white frock amid a blur of candle-light on Christmas——
Oh, my list would be long! People have said that I have lacked pride because I have chosen to take my troubles philosophically. There have been times when my soul has wept. I have cried often on my rainy days. But—there have always been the sunsets—and after that—the stars.
I fear that I have been but little help to you. But you know my love—blessed one. And the eagerness with which I await your coming. Ever your own
Uncle.
Eve'sgreen-eyed cat sat on a chair and watched the flame-colored fishes. It was her morning amusement. When her mistress came down she would have her cream and her nap. In the meantime, the flashing, golden things in the clear water aroused an ancient instinct. She reached out a quick paw and patted the water, flinging showers of sparkling drops on her sleek fur.
Aunt Maude, eating waffles and reading her morning paper, approved her. "I hope you'll catch them," she said, "especially the turtles and the tadpoles—the idea of having such things where you eat."
The green-eyed cat licked her wet paw, then she jumped down from the chair and trotted to the door to meet Eve, who picked her up and hugged her. "Pats," she demanded, "what have you been doing? Your little pads are wet."
"She's been fishing," said Aunt Maude, "in your aquarium. She has more sense than I thought."
Eve, pouring cream into a crystal dish, laughed. "Pats is as wise as the ages—you can see it in her eyes. She doesn't say anything, she just looks. Women ought to follow her example. It's the mysterious, the silent, that draws men. Now Polly prattles and prattles, and nobody listens, and we all get a little tired of her; don't we, Polly?"
She set the cream carefully by the green cushion, and Pats, classically posed on her haunches, lapped it luxuriously. The Polly-parrot coaxed and wheedled and was rewarded with her morning biscuit. The flame-colored fishes rose to the snowy particles which Eve strewed on the surface of the water, and then with all of her family fed, Eve turned to the table, sat down, and pulled away Aunt Maude's paper.
"My dear," the old lady protested.
"I want to talk to you," Eve announced. "Aunt Maude, I'm going to marry Dicky."
Aunt Maude pushed back her plate of waffles. The red began to rise in her cheeks. "Oh, of all the fools——"
"'He who calleth his brother a fool——'" Eve murmured pensively. "Aunt Maude, I'm in love with him."
"You're in love with yourself," tartly, "and with having your own way. The husband for you is Philip Meade. But he wants you, and so—you don't want him."
"Dicky wants me, too," Eve said, a little wistfully; "you mustn't forget that, Aunt Maude."
"I'm not forgetting it." Then sharply, "Shall you go to live at Crossroads?"
"No. Austin has made him an offer. He's coming back to town."
"What do you expect to live on?"
Silence. Then, uncertainly, "I thought perhaps until he gets on his feet you'd make us an allowance."
The old lady exploded in a short laugh. She gathered up her paper and her spectacles case and her bag of fancy work. Then she rose. "Not if you marry Richard Brooks. You may as well know that now as later, Eve. All your life you have shaken the plum tree and have gathered the fruit. You may come to your senses when you find there isn't any tree to shake."
The deep red in the cheeks of the old woman was matched by the red that stained Eve's fairness. "Keep your money," she said, passionately; "I can get along without it. You've always made me feel like a pauper, Aunt Maude."
The old woman's hand went up. There was about her a dignity not to be ignored. "I think you are saying more than you mean, Eve. I have tried to be generous."
They were much alike as they faced each other, the same clear cold eyes, the same set of the head,the only difference Eve's youth and slenderness and radiant beauty. Perhaps in some far distant past Aunt Maude had been like Eve. Perhaps in some far distant future Eve's soft lines would stiffen into a second edition of Aunt Maude.
"I have tried to be generous," Aunt Maude repeated.
"You have been. I shouldn't have said that. But, Aunt Maude, it hasn't been easy to eat the bread of dependence."
"You are feeling that now," said the old lady shrewdly, "because you are ready for the great adventure of being poor with your young Richard. Well, try it. You'll wish more than once that you were back with your old—plum tree."
Flash of eye met flash of eye. "I shall never ask for another penny," Eve declared.
"I shall buy your trousseau, of course, and set you up in housekeeping, but when a woman is married her husband must take care of her." And Aunt Maude sailed away with her bag and her spectacles and her morning paper, and Eve was left alone in the black and white breakfast room, where Pats slept on her green cushion, the Polly-parrot swung in her ring, and the flame-colored fishes hung motionless in the clear water.
Eve ate no breakfast. She sat with her chin in her hand and tried to think it out. Aunt Maude had not proved tractable, and Richard's income wouldbe small. Never having known poverty, she was not appalled by the prospect of it. Her imagination cast a glamour over the future. She saw herself making a home for Richard. She saw herself inviting Pip and Winifred Ames and Tony to small suppers and perfectly served little dinners. She did not see herself washing dishes or cooking the meals. Knowing nothing of the day's work, how could she conceive its sordidness?
She roused herself presently to go and write notes to her friends. Triumphant notes which told of her happiness.
Her note to Pip brought him that night. He came in white-faced. As she went toward him, he rose to meet her and caught her hands in a hard grip, looking down at her. "You're mine, Eve. Do you think I am going to let any one else have you?"
"Don't be silly, Pip."
"Is it silly to say that there will never be for me any other woman? I shall love you until I die. If that is foolishness, I never want to be wise."
He was kissing her hands now.
"Don't, Pip,don't."
She wrenched herself away from him, and stood as it were at bay. "You'll get over it."
"Shall I? How little you know me, Eve. I haven't even given you up. If I were a story-book sort of hero I'd bestow my blessing on you andBrooks and go and drive an ambulance in France, and break my heart at long distance. But I shan't. I shall stay right here on the job, and see that Brooks doesn't get you."
"Pip, I didn't think you were so—small."
The telephone rang. Eve answered it. "It was Winifred to wish me happiness," she said, as she came in from the hall.
She was blushing faintly. He gave her a keen glance. "What else did she say?"
"Nothing."
"You're fibbing. Tell me the truth, Eve."
She yielded to his masterfulness.
"Well, she said—'I wanted it to be Pip.'"
"Good old Win, I'll send her a bunch of roses." He wandered restlessly about the room, then came back to her. "Why, Eve, I planned the house—our house. It was to have the sea in front of it and a forest behind it, and your room was to have a wide window and a balcony, and under the balcony there was to be a rose garden."
"How sure you were of me, Pip."
"I have never been sure. But what I want, I—get. Remember that, dear girl. When I shut my eyes I can see you at the head of my table, in a high gold chair—like a throne."
She stared at him in amazement. "Pip, it doesn't sound a bit like you."
"No. What a man thinks is apt to be—different.On the surface I'm a rather practical sort of fellow. But when I plan my future with you I am playing king to your queen, and I'm not half bad at it."
And now it was she who was restless. "If I married you, what would I get out of it but—money?"
"Thank you."
"You know I don't mean it that way. But I like to think that I can help Richard—in his career."
"You're not made of that kind of stuff. You want your own good time. Women who help men to achieve must be content to lose their looks and their figures and to do without pretty clothes, and you wouldn't be content. You want to live your own life, and be admired and petted and envied, Eve."
She faced him, blazing. "You and Aunt Maude and Win are all alike. You think I can't be happy unless I live in the lap of luxury. Well, I can tell you this, I'd rather have a crust of bread with Richard than live in a palace with you, Pip."
He stood up. "You don't mean it. But you needn't have put it quite that way, and some day you'll be sorry, and you'll tell me that you're sorry. Tell me now, Eve."
He put his hands on her shoulders, holding her with a masterful grip. Her eyes met his and fell. "Oh, I hate your—sureness."
"Some day you are going to love it. Look at me, Eve."
She forced herself to do so. But she was not atease. Then almost wistfully she yielded. "I—am sorry, Pip."
His hands dropped from her shoulders. "Good little girl."
He kissed both of her hands before he went away. "I am glad we are friends"—that was his way of putting it—"and you mustn't forget that some day we are going to be more than that," and when he had gone she found herself still shaken by the sureness of his attitude.
Pip on his way down-town stopped in to order Winifred's roses, and the next day he went to her apartment and unburdened his heart.
"If it was in the day of duels I'd call him out. Just at this moment I am in the mood for pistols or poison, I'm not sure which."
"Why not try—patience?"
He glanced at her quickly. "You think she'll tire?"
"I think—it can never happen. For Richard's sake I—hope not."
"Why for his sake?"
Winifred smiled. "I'd like to see him marry little Anne."
"The school-teacher?"
"Yes. Oh, I am broken-hearted to think he's spoiling Nancy's dreams for him. There was something so idyllic in them. And now he'll marry Eve."
"You say that as if it were a tragedy."
"It is, for him and for her. Eve was never made to be poor."
"Don't tell her that. She took my head off. Said she'd rather have a crust of bread with Richard——"
"Oh, oh!"
"Than a palace with me."
"Poor Pip. It wasn't nice of her."
"I shall make her eat her words."
Winifred shook her head. "Don't be hard on her, Pip. We women are so helpless in our loves. Richard might make her happy if he cared enough, but he doesn't. Perhaps Eve will be broadened and deepened by it all. I don't know. No one knows."
"I know this. That you and Tony seem to get a lot out of things, Win."
"Of marriage? We do. Yet we've had all of the little antagonisms and differences. But underneath it we know—that we're made for each other. And that helps. It has helped us to push the wrong things out of our lives and to hold on to the right ones."
Philip's young face was set. "I wanted to have my chance with Eve. We are young and pretty light-weight on the surface, but life together might make us a bit more like you and Tony. And now Richard is spoiling things."
Back at Crossroads, Nancy was trying to convince her son that he was not spoiling things for her. "Ihave always been such a dreamer, dear boy. It was silly for me to think that I could stand between you and your big future. I have written to Sulie Tyson, and she'll stay with me, and you can run down for week-ends—and I'll always have David."
"Mother, let me go to Eve and tell her——"
"Tell her what?"
"That I shall stay—with you."
She was white with the whiteness which had never left her since he had told her that he was going to marry Eve.
"Hickory-Dickory, if I kept you here in the end you would hate me."
"Mother!"
"Not consciously. But I should be a barrier—and you'd find yourself wishing for—freedom. If I let you go—you'll come back now and then—and be—glad."
He gathered her up in his arms and declared fiercely that he would not leave her, but she stayed firm. And so the thing was settled, and as soon as he could settle his affairs at Crossroads he was to go to Austin.
Anne, writing to Uncle Rod about it, said:
"St. Michael is to marry the Lily-of-the-Field. You see, after all, he likes that kind of thing, though I had fancied that he did not. She is not as fine and simple as he is, and somehow I can't help feeling sorry.
"But that isn't the worst of it, Uncle Bobs. He is going back to New York. And now what becomes ofhissunsets? I don't believe he ever had any. And oh, his poor little mother. She is fooling him and making him think that it is just as it should be and that she was foolish to expect anything else. But to me it is unspeakable that he should leave her. But he'll have Eve Chesley. Think of changing Nancy Brooks for Eve!"
It was at Beulah's wedding that Anne and Richard saw each other for the last time before his departure.
Beulah was married in the big front room at Bower's. She was married at six o'clock because it was easy for the farmer folk to come at that time, and because the evening could be given up afterward to the reception and a big supper and Beulah and Eric could take the ten o'clock train for New York.
She had no bridesmaids except Peggy, who was quite puffed up with the importance of her office. Anne had instructed her, and at the last moment held a rehearsal on the side porch.
"Now, play I am the bride, Peggy."
"You look like a bride," Peggy said. "Aren't you ever going to be a bride, Miss Anne?"
"I am not sure, Peggy. Perhaps no one will ever ask me."
"I'd ask you if I were a man," Peggy reassured her. "Now, go on and show me, Anne."
"You must take Beulah's bouquet when she hands it to you, and after she is married you must give it back to her, and——"
"And then I must kiss her."
"You must let Eric kiss her first."
"Why?"
"Because he will be her husband."
"But I've been her sister for ever and ever."
"Oh, but a husband, Peggy. Husbands areveryimportant."
"Why are they?"
"Well, they give you a new name and a new house, and you have new clothes to marry them in, and you go away with them on a honeymoon."
"What's a honeymoon?"
"The honey is for the sweetness, and the moon is for the madness, Peggy, dear."
"Do people always go away on trains for their honeymoons?"
"Not always. I shouldn't like a train. I should like to get into a boat with silver sails, and sail straight down a singing river into the heart of the sunset."
"Well, of course, you couldn't," said the plump and practical Peggy, "but it sounds nice to say it. Does our river sing, Miss Anne?"
"Yes."
"What does it say?"
Anne stretched out her arms with a little yearninggesture. "It says—'Come and see the world, see the world, see the world!'"
"It never says that to me."
"Perhaps you haven't ears to hear, Peggy."
It was a very charming wedding. Richard was there and Nancy, and David and Brinsley. The country folk came from far and wide, and there was a brave showing of Old Gentlemen from Bower's who brought generous gifts for Peter's pretty daughter.
Richard, standing back of his mother during the ceremony, could see over her head to where Anne waited not far from Peggy to prompt her in her bridesmaid's duties. She was in white. Her dark hair was swept up in the fashion which she had borrowed from Eve. She seemed very small and slight against the background of Bower's buxom kinsfolk.
As he caught her eye he smiled at her, but she did not smile back. She felt that she could not. How could he smile with that little mother drooping before his very eyes? Howcouldhe?
She found herself later, when the refreshments were served, brooding over Nancy. The little lady tasted nothing, but was not permitted to refuse the cup of tea which Anne brought to her.
"I had it made especially for you," she said; "you looked so tired."
"I am tired. You see we are having rather strenuous days."
"I know."
"It isn't easy to let—him—go."
"It isn't easy for anybody to let him go."
The eyes of the two women went to where Richard in the midst of a protesting group was trying to explain his reasons for deserting Crossroads.
He couldn't explain. They had a feeling that he was turning his back on them. "It's hard lines to have a good doctor and then lose him," was the general sentiment. He was made to feel that it would have been better not to have come than to end by deserting.
He was aware that he had forfeited something precious, and he voiced his thought when he joined his mother and Anne.
"I'll never have a practice quite like this. Neighborhood ties are something they know little about in cities."
His mother smiled up at him bravely. "There'll be other things."
"Perhaps;" he patted her hand. Then he fired a question at Anne. "Do you think I ought to go?"
"How can I tell?" Her eyes met his candidly. "I felt when you came that I couldn't understand how a man could bury himself here. And now I am wondering how you can leave. It seems as if you belong."
"I know what you mean."
She went on: "And I can't quite think of this dear lady alone."
Nancy stopped her. "Don't speak of that, my dear. I don't want you to speak of it. It is right that Richard should go."
Anne was telling herself passionately that it was not right, when Beulah sent for her, and presently the little bride came down in her going-away gown, to be joined by Eric in the stiff clothes which seemed to rob him of the picturesqueness which belonged to him in less formal moments.
But Richard had no eyes for the bride and groom; he saw only Anne at the head of the stairway where he had first talked to her. How long ago it seemed, and how sweet she had been, and how shy.
The train was on the bridge, and a laughing crowd hurried out into the night to meet it. Peggy in the lead threw roses with a prodigal hand. "Kiss me, Beulah," she begged at the last.
Beulah bent down to her, then was lifted in Eric's strong arms to the platform. Then the train drew out and she was gone!
Alone on the stairway, Anne and Richard had a moment before the crowd swept back upon them.
"Dr. Brooks, take your mother with you."
"She won't go."
"Then stay with her."
He caught at the edge of her flowing sleeve, and held it as if he would anchor her to him. "Do you want me to stay?"
Her eyes came up to him. She saw in them something which lifted her above and beyond her doubts of him. She had an ineffable sense of having found something which she could never lose.
Then as he drew back he was stammering, "Forgive me. I have been wanting to wish you happiness. Geoffrey told me——"
And now Peggy bore down upon them and all the heedless happy crowd, and Richard said, "Good-night," and was gone.
Yet when she was left alone, Anne felt desperately that she should have shouted after him, "I am not going to marry Geoffrey Fox. I am not going to be married at all."
"'A moneylessman,'" said Uncle Rod, "'goes quickly through the market.'"
He had a basket on his arm. Anne, who was at her easel, looked up. "What did you buy?"
He laughed. His laugh had in it a quality of youth which seemed to contradict the signs of age which were upon him. Yet even these signs were modified by the carefulness of his attire and the distinction of his carriage. Great-uncle Rodman had been a dandy in his day, and even now his Norfolk coat and knickerbockers, his long divided beard and flowing tie gave him an air half foreign, wholly his own.
In his basket was a melon, crusty rolls, peaches and a bottle of cream.
"Such extravagance!" Anne said, as he showed her the bottle.
"It was the price of two chops. And not a lamb the less for it. Two chops would have been an extravagance, and now we shall feast innocently and economically."
"Where shall we eat?" Anne asked.
"Under the oak?"
She shook her head. "Too sunny."
"In the garden?"
"Not till to-night—people can see us from the road."
"You choose then." It was a game that they had played ever since she had come to him. It gave to each meal the atmosphere of an adventure.
"I choose," she clapped her hands, "I choose—by the fish-pond, Uncle Rod."
The fish-pond was at the end of the garden walk. Just beyond it a wooden gate connected a high brick wall and opened upon an acre or two of pasture where certain cows browsed luxuriously. The brick wall and the cows and the quiet of the corner made the fish-pond seem miles away from the town street which was faced by the front of Cousin Margaret's house.
The fish-pond was a favorite choice in the game played by Anne and Uncle Rod. But they did not always choose it because that would have made it commonplace and would have robbed it of its charm.
Anne, rising to arrange the tray, was stopped by Uncle Rodman. "Sit still, my dear; I'll get things ready."
To see him at his housekeeping was a pleasant sight. He liked it, and gave to it his whole mind. The peeling of the peaches with a silver knife, theselection of a bowl of old English ware to put them in, and making of the coffee in a copper machine, the fresh linen, the roses as a last perfect touch.
Anne carried the tray, for his weak arm could not be depended upon; and by the fish-pond they ate their simple meal.
The old fishes had crumbs and came to the top of the water to get them, and a cow looking over the gate was rewarded by the remaining half of the crusty roll. She walked away presently to give place to a slender youth who had crossed the fields and now stood with his hat off looking in.
"If it isn't Anne," he said, "and Uncle Rod."
Uncle Rod stood up. He did not smile and he did not ask the slender youth to enter. But Anne was more hospitable.
"Come in, Jimmie," she said. "I can't offer you any lunch because we have eaten it all up. But there's some coffee."
Jimmie entered with alacrity. He had come back from New York in a mood of great discontent, to meet the pleasant news that Anne Warfield was in town. He had flown at once to find her. If he had expected the Fatted Calf, he found none. Uncle Rodman left them at once. He had a certain amount of philosophy, but it had never taught him patience with Jimmie Ford.
Jimmie drank a cup of coffee, and talked of his summer.
"Saw your Dr. Richard in New York, out at Austin's."
"Yes."
"He's going to marry Eve."
"Is he?"
"Yes. I don't understand what she sees in him—he isn't good style."
"He doesn't have to be."
"Why not?"
"Men like Richard Brooks mean more to the world than just—clothes, Jimmie."
"I don't see it."
"You wouldn't."
"Why shouldn't I?"
"Well, you look so nice in your clothes—and you need them to look nice in."
He stared at her. He felt dimly that she was making fun of him.
"From the way you put it," he said, with irritation, "from the way you put it any one might think that it was just my clothes——"
"That make you attractive? Oh,no, Jimmie. You have nice eyes and—and a way with you."
She was sewing on a scrap of fancy work, and her own eyes were on it. She was as demure as possible, but she seemed unusually and disconcertingly self-possessed.
And now Jimmie became plaintive. Plaintiveness had always been his strong suit with Anne. Hewas eager for sympathy. His affair with Eve had hurt his vanity.
"I have never seen a girl like her. She doesn't care what the world thinks. She doesn't care what any one thinks. She goes right along taking everything that comes her way—and giving nothing."
"Did you want her to give you—anything, Jimmie?"
"Me? Not me. She's a beauty and all that. But I wouldn't marry her if she were as rich as Rockefeller—and she isn't. Her money is her Aunt Maude's."
"Oh, Jimmie—sour grapes."
"Sour nothing. She isn't my kind. She said one day that if she wanted a man she'd ask him to marry her. That it was a woman's right to choose. I can't stand that sort of thing."
"But if she should ask you, Jimmie?"
Again he stared at her. "I jolly well shouldn't give her a chance. Not after the way she treated me."
"What way?"
"Oh, making me think I was the whole thing—and then—throwing me down."
"Oh, so you don't like being thrown down?"
"No. I don't like that kind of a woman. You know the kind of woman I like, Anne."
The caressing note in his voice came to her likean echo of other days. But now it had no power to move her.
"I am not sure that I do know the kind of woman you like—tell me."
"Oh, I like a woman that is a woman, and makes a man feel that he's the whole thing."
"But mustn't he be the whole thing to make her feel that he is?"
He flung himself out of his chair and stood before her. "Anne," he demanded, "can't you do anything but ask questions? You aren't a bit like you used to be."
She laid down her work and now he could see her eyes. Such steady eyes! "No, I'm not like myself. You see, Jimmie, I have been away for a year, and one learns such a lot in a year."
He felt a sudden sense of loss. There had always been the old Anne to come back to. The Anne who had believed and had sympathized. Again his voice took on a plaintive note. "Be good to me, girl," he said. Then very low, "Anne, I was half afraid to come to-day."
"Afraid—why?"
"Oh, I suppose you think I acted like a—cad."
"What doyouthink?"
"Oh, stop asking questions. It was the only thing to do. You were poor and I was poor, and there wasn't anything ahead of me—or of you—surely you can't blame me."
"How can I blame you for what was, after all, my great good fortune?"
"Your what?"
She said it again, quietly, "My great good fortune, Jimmie. I couldn't see it then. Indeed, I was very unhappy and sentimental and cynical over it. But now I know what life can hold for me—and what it would not have held if I had married you."
"Anne, who has been making love to you?"
"Jimmie!"
"Oh, no woman ever talks like that until she has found somebody else. And I thought you were constant."
"Constant to what?"
"To the thought—to—to the thought of what we might be to each other some day."
"And in the meantime you were asking Eve to marry you. Was it her money that you wanted?"
"Her money! Do you think I am a fortune-hunter?"
"I am asking you, Jimmie?"
"For Heaven's sake, stop asking questions. You know how a pretty woman goes to my head. And she's the kind that flits away to make you follow. I can't fancy your doing that sort of a thing, Anne."
"No," quietly, "women like myself, Jimmie, go on expecting that things will come to them—andwhen they don't come, we keep on—expecting. But somehow we never seem to be able to reach out our hands to take—what we might have."
He began to feel better. This was the wistful Anne of the old days.
"There has never been any one like you, Anne. It seems good to be here. Women like Eve madden a man, but your kind are so—comfortable."
Always the old Jimmie! Wanting his ease! After he had left her she sat looking out over the gate beyond the fields to the gold of the west.
When at last she went up to the house Uncle Rod had had his nap and was in his big chair on the front porch.
"Jimmie and I are friends again," she told him.
He looked at her inquiringly. "Real friends?"
"Surface friends. He is coming again to tell me his troubles and get my sympathy. Uncle Rod, what makes me so clear-eyed all of a sudden?"
He smoothed his beard. "My dear, 'the eyes of the hare are one thing, the eyes of the owl another.' You are looking at life from a different point of view. I knew that if you ever met a real man you'd know the difference between him and Jimmie Ford."
She came over, and standing behind him, put her hands on his shoulders. "I've found him, Uncle Rod."
"St. Michael?"
"Yes."
"Poor little girl."
"I am not poor, Uncle Rod. I am rich. It is enough to have known him."
The sunset was showing above the wooden gate. The cows had gone home. The old fish swam lazily in the shadowed water.
Anne drew her low chair to the old man's side. "Uncle Rod, isn't it queer, the difference between the things we ask for and the things we get? To have a dream come true doesn't mean always that you must get what you want, does it? For sometimes you get something that is more wonderful than any dream. And now if you'll listen, and not look at me, I'll tell you all about it, you darling dear."
It was in late August that Anne received the first proof sheets of Geoffrey's book. "I want you to read it before any one else. It will be dedicated to you and it is better than I dared believe—I could never have written it without your help, your inspiration."
It was a great book. Anne, remembering the moment the plot had been conceived on that quiet night by Peggy's bedside when she had seen the pussy cat and had heard the tinkling bell, laid it down with a feeling almost of awe.
She wrote Geoffrey about it. It was her first real letter to him. She had written one little note of forgiveness and of friendliness, but she had felt that fora time at least she should do no more than that, and Uncle Rod had commended her resolution.
"Hot fires had best burn out," he said.
"If you never do anything else," Anne wrote to Geoffrey, "you can be content. There isn't a line of pot-boiling in it. It is as if you had dipped your pen in magic ink. Rereading it to Uncle Rodman has brought back the nights when we talked it over, and I can't help feeling a little peacock-y to know that I had a part in it.
"And now I am going to tell you what Uncle Rod's comment was when I finished the very last word. He sat as still as a solemn old statue, and then he said, 'Geoffrey Fox is a great man. No one could have written like that who was sordid of mind or small of soul.'
"If you knew my Uncle Rodman you would understand all that his opinion stands for. He is never flattering, but he has had much time to think—he is like one of the old prophets—so that, indeed, I sometimes feel that he ought to sing his sentences like David, instead of saying wise things in an ordinary way. And his proverbs! he has such a collection, he is making a book of them, and he digs into old volumes in all sorts of languages—oh, some day you must know him!
"I am going back to Crossroads. It seems that my work lies there. And I have great news for you. I am to live with Mrs. Brooks. She has her cousin,Sulie Tyson, with her, but she wants me. And it will be so much better than Bower's.
"All through Mrs. Nancy's letters I can read her loneliness. She tries to keep it out. But she can't. She is proud of her son's success—but she feels the separation intensely. He has his work, she only her thoughts of him—and that's the tragedy.
"In the meantime, here we are at Cousin Margaret's doing funny little stunts in the way of cooking and catering. We can't afford the kind of housekeeping which requires servants, so it is a case of plain living and high thinking. Uncle Rod hates to eat anything that has been killed, and makes all sorts of excuses not to. He won't call himself a vegetarian, for he thinks that people who label themselves are apt to be cranks. So he does our bit of marketing and comes home triumphant with his basket innocent of birds or beasts, and we live on ambrosia and nectar or the modern equivalent. We are quite classic with our feasts by the old fish-pond at the end of the garden.
"Cousin Margaret's garden is flaming in the August days with phlox, and is fragrant with day lilies. There's a grass walk and a sun-dial, and best of all, as I have said, the fish-pond.
"And while I am on the subject of gardens, Uncle Rod rises up in wrath when people insist upon giving the botanical names to all of our lovely blooms. He says that the pedants are taking all of the poetryout of language, and it does seem so, doesn't it? Why should we call larkspurDelphinium? or a forget-me-notMyostis Palustria, and would a primrose by the river's brim ever be to you or to meprimula vulgaris? Uncle Rod says that a rose by any other name wouldnotsmell as sweet; and it is fortunate that the worst the botanists may do cannot spoil the generic—rosa.
"And now with my talk of Uncle Rod and of Me, I am stringing this letter far beyond all limits, and yet I have not told you half the news.
"I had a little note from Beulah, and she and Eric are at home in the Playhouse. She loves your silver candlesticks. So many of her presents were practical and she prefers the 'pretties.'
"You have heard, of course, that Dr. Brooks is to marry Eve Chesley. The wedding will not take place for some time. I wonder if they will live with Aunt Maude. I can't quite imagine Dr. Richard's wings clipped to such a cage."
She signed herself, "Always your friend, Anne Warfield."
Far up in the Northern woods Geoffrey read her letter. He could use his eyes a little, but most of the time he lay with them shut and Mimi read to him, or wrote for him at his dictation. He had grown to be very dependent on Mimi; there were even times when he had waked in the night, groping and calling out, and she had gathered him in herarms and had held him against her breast until he stopped shaking and shivering and saying that he could not see.
He spoke her name now, and she came to him. He put Anne's letter in her hand. "Read it!" and when she had read, he said, "You see she says that I am great—and she used to say it. Am I, Mimi?"
"Oh, Geoffrey, yes."
"I want you to make it true, Mimi. Shall I begin my new book to-morrow?"
It was what she had wanted, what she had begged that he would do, but he had refused to listen. And now he was listening to another voice!
She brought her note-book, and sat beside him. Being ignorant of shorthand she had invented a little system of her own, and she was glad when she could make him laugh over her funny pot-hooks and her straggling sketches.
Thus in the darkness Geoffrey struggled and strove. "Speaking of candlesticks," he wrote to Anne, "it was as if a thousand candles lighted my world when I read your letter!"