“That'll be one of oor ballots,” the cap'en hoarsely confided.
The minister was vigorously rubbing his glasses for a second perusal of the ballot, but when the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth were added to the first, his face became a study in astonishment. And presently his surprise was reflected by the congregation. For whereas three candidates were in nomination, the ballots were forming but two piles.
Whispers ran through the kirk; the cap'en nudged McNab.
“McCakeron must ha' swung all the Duncanites?”
“Ah,” Neil muttered. “An' that wad account for the stiff look o' the reptile. See the glare o't.”
They would have stiffened in astonishment could they have translated the “glare.” “Got the Duncanites, did ye?” the elder was thinking. “Bide a wee, bide a wee! He laughs best that laughs last.”
Saunders McClellan and his Devil alone sensed the inwardness of those two piles, and they held modest communion over it in the back of the kirk. “You may be ugly, but ye've served me well,” Saunders began.
The Devil answered with extreme politeness: “You are welcome to all ye get through me. If no honored, ye are at least aboot to become famous in your ain country.”
“Infamous, I doobt, ye mean,” Saunders corrected. Then, glancing uneasily toward the door, he added, “I think as we'd better be leaving.”
“Pish!” the Devil snorted. “They are undone by their ain malignancy. See it oot.”
“That's so,” Saunders agreed. “That is surely so-a. Hist! The meenister's risen. Man, but he's tickled to death over the result. His face is fair shining.”
The minister did indeed look pleased. Stepping down to the floor that he might be closer to these his people, he beamed benevolently upon them while he made a little speech. “People of Scottish birth,” he said, closing, “are often accused of being hard and uncharitable to the stranger in their gates, but this can never be said of you who have extended the highest honor in your gift to a stranger; who have elected Brother Joshua Timmins elder in your kirk by a two-thirds majority.”
The benediction dissolved the paralysis which held all but Saunders McClellan; but stupefaction remained. Astounding crises are generally attended with little fuss, from the inability of the human intellect to grasp their enormous significance. As John “Death” McKay afterward put it, “Man, 'twas so extraordin'ry as to seem ordin'ry.” Of course neither Dunlopers nor “Twenty-One's” were in a position to challenge the election, and if the Duncanites growled as they pawed over the ballots, their grumbling was presently silenced by a greater astonishment.
For out of such evenings history is made. While the minister had held forth on the rights and duties of eldership, Saunders McClellan's gaze had wandered over to Margaret McDonald—a healthy, red-cheeked girl—and he had done a little moralizing on his own account. In the presence of such an enterprising spinsterhood, bachelorhood had become an exceedingly hazardous existence, and if a man must marry, he might as weel ha' something young an' fresh! Margaret, too, was reputed industrious as pretty! Of Janet's decision, Saunders had no doubts. Between himself and Jeannie, and Timmins—meek, mild, and unencumbered—there could be no choice. Still there was nothing like certainty; 'twas always best to be off wi' the old, an' so forth!
Rising, he headed for Janet, who, with her father, Jeannie, Timmins, and the minister, stood talking at the vestry door. As he made his way forward, he reaped a portion of the Devil's promised fame. As they filed sheepishly down the aisle, the Dunlopers gave him the cold shoulder, and when he joined the group, Elder McCakeron returned a stony stare to his greeting.
“But ye needna mind that,” the Devil encouraged. “He daurna tell, for his own share i' the business.”
So Saunders brazened it out. “Ye ha' my congratulations, Mr. McCakeron. I hear you're to get a son-in-law oot o' this?”
If Elder McCakeron had given Saunders the tempter the glare which he now bestowed on Saunders the successfully wicked, he had not been in such lamentable case.
“Why, what is this?” the minister exclaimed. “Cause for further congratulation, Brother Timmins?”
Saunders now shone as Cupid's assistant. “He was to ha' Janet on condeetion that he made the eldership,” he fulsomely explained.
The minister's glance questioned the elder.
“Well,” he growled, “I'm no going back on my word.”
Saunders glowed all over, and in exuberance of spirit actually winked at Margaret McDonald across the kirk. Man, but she was pretty!
“It's to your credit, Mr. McCakeron, that you should hold til a promise,” Jeannie was saying. “But ye'll no be held. A man may change his mind, and since you refused Joshua, he's decided to marry on me.”
Saunders blenched. He half turned to flee, but Janet's strong fingers closed on his sleeve; and as her lips moved to claim him before minister and meeting, he thought that he heard the Devil chuckling, a great way off.
Mrs. Manstey's big country-house was temporarily empty of the guests she had gathered for a week-end in June when the two Eversley girls reached it, Saturday at noon. Their hostess met them at the door when the carriage wheels crunched on the gravelled curve of the drive before the house—a charming gray-haired woman of sixty, with a youthful face and a delicate girlish color.
“I've sent everybody away to explore—to ravage the country,” she gayly explained the emptiness of the large hall, where the grouped chairs seemed recently vacated and pleasantly suggestive of suspended tête-à-tête. “I've had Rose before,” Mrs. Manstey pursued, taking them up the stairs to their rooms, “but notyou!” She gave Edith's shoulder an affectionate little pat. She thought the younger girl extremely beautiful—which she was, with a vivid, piquant face and charming eyes.
“I've had my day,” Rose Eversley acknowledged, with her usual air of jesting gravity, that, almost ironic, made one always a little unsure of her. “Dear Mrs. Manstey, you perfectly see—don't you?—that Edith is papa's image, and—”
“And he was my old sweetheart!” Mrs. Manstey completed, with humorous appreciation of her own repetition of an old story.
“Was he, really?” Edith wondered. “Mamma says you wereherfriend.”
Mrs. Manstey laughed. “Couldn't I have been—both?” she gayly put it. “Friends are better than sweethearts—they last longer. Though of course you won't agree, at your age, to such heresy.”
“Sweethearts?” the girl pondered as she lifted her hands to take off her hat. “I—don't know. It's such a pretty word, but it doesn't mean much these days—there aren't any!” She shrugged her shoulders with a petulant pessimism her youth made amusing. “Papa was the last of the kind—he's alove!—and you let mamma have him!”
“I didn't 'let.'” Mrs. Manstey enjoyed it. “When he met your mother he forgot all about me. Think of it! I haven't seen either him or your mother in years, years, years!”
“Myyears!” Edith said. “I was a baby, mamma says, when she saw you last.”
“So you were.”
A servant knocked, with a note for Mrs. Manstey. As she took it and turned to leave the room, her smile, caressingly including Rose, went past her and lingered a thought longer—as people's smiles had a way of doing—with Edith.
“I know you're tired,” she added to her smile. “Five hours of train—Get into something cool and rest. Luncheon isn't until two.”
She disappeared, and Rose looked at her sister, who, with her hat in her hand, was going into her room.
“Well—?” Rose lifted her voice in its faint drawl of interrogation.
Edith looked at her absently. “I don't know,” she said, drawing her straight brows into a puzzled frown. “I'm as far away as ever—I'm so perplexed.”
“Well—you'llhaveto decide, you know.”
Edith shook her head impatiently and went into her room, closing the door. She hurried out of her dusty travelling things into cool freshness, and, settled in the most comfortable chair, gave herself up to an apparently endless fit of musing. She was so physically content that her mind refused to respond with any vigorous effort; to think at all was a crumpled rose-leaf.
From the lower hall the clock chimed one with musical vibrations. Edith leaned forward with her chin on her hand, driving her thoughts into a definite path. The curtains stirred in a breeze from the out-of-doors whose domain swept with country greenness and adventitious care away from the window under the high brilliance of the sun.
Close to the window a writing-table, with blotter, pens, and ink, made a focal-point for her gaze. At first a mere detail in her line of vision, it attained by degrees, it seemed, a definite relevancy to her train of thought. She looked in her portmanteau for her desk, and getting out some note-paper, went to the table and began to write a letter.
What she had to say seemed difficult to decide. She wrote a line, stared out of the window with fixity, and then wrote again—a flurry of quick, decisive strokes as if at determinate pressure. But a sigh struck across her mood, and almost against her will the puzzled crinkle returned to her brow. The curtain blew against her face, disarranging her hair, and as she lifted her hand to put back a straggling lock, the wind tossed the sheet of the letter she was writing out of the window. Her eyes, as she sprang up, followed its flight, but it whirled around the corner of the house and was lost to her desperate gaze.
Négligé, even of the most-becoming description, was not to be thought of in pursuing the loss, for the silence of the house had stirred to the sound of gay voices, the movement of feet.
Rose, also in négligé, opened the door between them and found her madly tearing off her pale-blue kimono. “What's the matter?” She paused, staring.
“Heavens! My shoes—please!—there by the table.” She kicked off her ridiculous blue slippers and pulled on the small colonials her sister in open wonder handed her. “If you had only been dressed,” she almost wailed, “you might have been able to get it.”
“Get what?”
“My letter!” Tragic, in spite of a mouthful of pins—which is a woman's undoubted preference, no matter how many befrilled pincushions entreat a division of spoils,—she turned her face with its import of sudden things to her sister in explanation. “I was writing a letter and it blew out of the window!”
“Well, if it did—”
“But, don't you see?—I was writing toChristopher!I had been thinking and thinking, and at last I screwed up my courage to answer his letter. I had all but signed my name!”
Rose Eversley began to laugh helplessly; heartlessly, her sister thought.
“If you hadn't signed it—” she at last comforted her sister's indignant face that was reflected from the mirror, where she stood as she fastened the white stock at her throat and snapped the clasp of her belt.
“Signed it!” She was almost in tears. “What difference will that make when I claim the letter? Imustfind it! But of course some one who knows me will be sure to find it. Andthatletter, of all letters!”
“If I were you, Edith,” Rose advised, calmly, “I shouldn't—”
“Well?”—with her hand on the door-knob.
“—try to find it. It will be impossible to trace it to you, in that case.”
“Butdon'tyou see—”
“Wait!” Rose caught and pulled her back. “Howcouldthey know? You'll get in much deeper. What had you written?”
“I said, 'Dear Christopher'—”
Rose laughed. “I'm glad you didn't say 'Dear Mr. Brander.' In that case you'd have givenhimaway. But 'Christopher' is such an unusual name, they might—Sherlock Holmes could trace him by it alone.”
“Youarea Job's comforter—a perfect Eliphaz the Temanite! Oh, oh!” Her soft crescendo was again tragic.
“In effect you said: 'Dear Christopher, as you have so often entreated, I have at last decided to be thine. The tinkle of thy shekels, now that I am so nearly shekelless myself, has done its fatal worst. I am thine—'”
“Oh, let me go!” Edith cried, in a fury close to tears. “You haven't any feeling. You are not going to sacrificeyourself!”
“To a good-looking young man who loves me exceedingly, and to something over a million? No, I am not!” Rose said, dryly.
“Oh, it's dreadful! Perfectly!” Edith cried, and on her indecision Rose hung another bit of wisdom:
“Why don't you go down in a leisurely way and investigate? You know the direction it blew away; follow it. If you meet any one, be admiring the scenery!”
Again Edith's look deserved the foot-lights, but Rose shrugged her shoulders and withdrew her detaining hand. Edith caught up her parasol and ran down the stairs. The big hall was empty. From a room on the right came a click of billiard-balls.
“Perhaps they are all in the house!” she thought, and drew a small breath of relief.
On the door-step she paused, with her parasol open, and considered. The house faced the west; her room was to the south, and the letter had disappeared to the east. She chose her line of advance carefully careless.
The lawn on the eastern side of the house sloped to an artificial pond, and near it a vine-covered summer-house made a dim retreat from the June sun. Look as she would, though, no faintest glimpse of white paper rewarded her gaze.
She strolled on—daunted, but still persistent, with the wind blowing her hair out of order—to the door of the summer-house. Within it a young man was standing, reading her letter. He looked up and took off his hat hastily, crumpling the letter in his hand. She saw he was quite ugly, with determined-looking eyes, and the redemption of a pleasant mouth.
She hesitated, the words “That is my letter!” absolutely frozen on her lips. He had been reading it! It seemed impossible for her to claim it, and so for a moment's silence she stood, with the green vines of the doorway—
Half light, half shade—
framing herself and her white umbrella.
“You are looking for a cool spot?”—he deprecatingly took the initiative. “This is a good choice. There's a wind—”
“Horrid!” she interrupted, so vehemently that she caught his involuntary surprise. “I don't like the wind,” she added.
“'It's an ill wind,' you know, 'that doesn't blow some one good.'”
“I assure youthisis an ill wind! It has blown me all of the ill it could.”
“Do come out of it,” he begged. “The vines keep it off. It's a half-hour until luncheon,” he added, “unless they've changed since I was here last.” He put up his watch. “We're fellow guests. You came this morning, didn't you?—while we were out. I came last night.”
She seated herself provisionally on the little bench by the door, and dug the point of her umbrella into the ground. Her mind was busy. He still held the letter. She had had a forlorn hope that he would throw down the sheet; but he did not. Was there any strategy, she wondered. But none suggested itself; and indeed, as if divining her thought, he put the crumpled sheet in his pocket. Her eyes followed despairingly the “Dear Christopher,” in her clear and, she felt, unfortunately individual writing, as it disappeared in his capacious blue serge pocket.
Different ideas wildly presented themselves, but none would do. Could she ask him to climb a tree? Of course in that case he would have to take off his coat and put it down, and give her the opportunity to recover the horrible letter from his pocket. But one cannot ask a stranger to climb a tree simply to exhibit his acrobatic powers. And trees!—there were none save saplings in a radius of fifty yards! Could she tumble in the pond? It would be even less desirable, and he would simply wade in and pull her out, with no need to remove his coat.
“Mrs. Manstey,” he was saying, a little tentatively, upholding the burden of conversation, “sent some of us out riding this morning, and Ralph Manstey raced us home by a short cut cross country. That is, he took the short cut.Wegave it the cut direct and looked for gaps.”
“If I had been out, I'd have taken every fence,” she said, boastfully, and then laughed. He laughed too.
“If I—if you were my sister, I shouldn't let you follow Ralph Manstey on horseback. He's utterly reckless.”
“So am I,” she came in, with spirit. “At home I ride anything and jump everything.”
“Well, you shouldn't if you were my sister,” he repeated, decisively.
“I'm sorry for your sister,” she declared.
“Well, you see, I haven't one,” he said, gayly, and smiled down at her lifted face. Remembering the letter, she corrected her expression to colder lines.
“There's no one to introduce us,”—he broke the pause. “Mayn't I—” He colored and put his hand into his pocket, and taking out her letter, folded the blank sheet out and produced a pencil. “It's hard to call one's own name,” he continued. “Suppose we write our names?”
As he was clumsy in finesse, she understood his idea, and her eyes flashed. But she said nothing as he scribbled and handed the paper to her. She read, “C.K. Farringdon,” and played with the pencil.
“Mr. Farringdon,”—she said it over meditatively. “How plainly you write! My name's Edith Eversley,” she added, tranquilly, and, because she must, per force, returned the sheet to him. She had a wicked delight in the defeat of his strategy which she could cleverly conceal.
“I wish,” he deprecated, gently, but with persistence, “that you would write your name here—won't you, as a souvenir?”
But she shook her head and rose—angry, which she hid, but also amused at his pertinacity.
“I can't write decently with a pencil,” she said, carelessly, and her eyes followed his hand putting the letter back into his pocket. That she should have actually had the letter in her hand, and had to give it back! But no quick-witted pretext had occurred to help her. Rose would think her stupid—utterly lacking in expedients.
She left the summer-house, unfurling her umbrella, and Farringdon followed instantly, his failure apparently forgotten.
They passed the tennis-court on their way to the house, and—
“Do you play?” he asked.
“A little.” Her intonation mocked the formula.
“Might we, then, this afternoon—”
She gave him a side glance. “If you don't mind losing,” she suggested.
“But I play to win,” he modestly met it, and again they laughed.
Rose Eversley looked with curiosity at her sister when she entered the dining-room for luncheon, followed by Farringdon, but Edith's face was non-committal. She was bright and vivacious, and made herself very pleasant to Farringdon, who sat by her. After luncheon they went to the tennis-court together.
“A delightful young man,” Mrs. St. Cleve commented, putting up her lorgnette as she stood at the window with Rose, watching their disappearing figures, “but so far as money is concerned, a hopeless detrimental. Don't let your pretty sister get interested in him. He hasn't a cent except what he makes—he's an architect.”
“Edith is to be depended upon,” Rose said, enigmatically. She was five years older than her sister, and had drawn the inference of her own plainness, comparatively, ever since Edith had put on long dresses.
“Have you written to Christopher?” she asked, that night, invading Edith's room with her hair-brushes.
“No, I haven't,” Edith said, thoughtfully. “I tried just now. It seems—I don't know how, exactly, but I justcan'twrite it over again! If I had the letter I wrote this morning, I suppose I would send it; but to write it all over again—it's too horrible!”
“'Horrible'!” Rose repeated. “Very few people would think it that! He's rich, thoroughly good, and devoted to you.”
“You put the least last,” Edith said, slowly, “and you're right. I'm not sure Christopher is so devoted to me, after all. He may only fancy that I like him, and from his high estate—”
“Nonsense!” Rose said, warmly. “He isn't, as you know, that sort of a man. I've known him for years—” She paused.
Edith said nothing; she brushed her hair with careful slowness.
“He is so sincere—so straight-forward,” Rose went on, in an impersonal tone; “and as papa has had so much ill luck and our circumstances have changed—theyarechanged, you know, though we are still able to keep up a certain appearance—he has been unchanged. You ought to consider—”
“You consider Christopher's interests altogether,” Edith said. “I've some, too.”
“Oh no! You needn't think of them with Christopher,” Rose said, seriously. “That's just it! He would so completely look afteryours!It'shis, in this regard, that need consideration.”
“Well—I'll consider Christopher's interests,” Edith said, quietly.
She remembered perfectly the letter she had written—which was in an ugly young man's pocket! It had been:
“DEAR CHRISTOPHER,—Do you think you really want me? If you are very sure, I am willing. I don't care for anybody else, so perhaps I can learn to care for you.
“The only thing is, you will spoil me, and they've done that at home already! and Rose says I need a strong hand! So in your interests—” and then it had blown away!
When Rose, after some desultory talk, went back to her room, Edith wrote another letter:
“DEAR CHRISTOPHER,—I know you have made a mistake. I don't care for you—to marry you—a bit, but I like you, oh, a quantity! We have always been such friends, and we always will be, won't we? but notthatway.
“Some day you will be very happy with some one else who will suit you better. Then you will know how right I am.
“With kindest wishes,
She took this letter down the next morning to put in the bag, but the postman had come and gone. As she stood in the hall holding the letter, Farringdon came up.
“Good morning,” he said. “You've missed the postman? I will be very happy to post it for you on my way to church.”
“Thank you. But if it's on the way to church, I'm going myself, so I needn't trouble you.”
Farringdon merely bowed, without saying anything banal about the absence of trouble. She was demurely conscious beneath his courtesy of the effort he was making to see her handwriting, and she wondered if he thought her refusal rude and a confirmation of his suspicion, or simply casual.
Whatever he thought, it did not prevent the steps as she came out a few hours later in the freshness of white muslin, with her umbrella, prayer-book, and an unobtrusive white envelope in her hands.
They were going together down then drive—under his umbrella—before she quite grasped the situation.
“We seem to be the only ones,” she hazarded.
“We are,” he nodded.
“Mrs. Manstey has a headache,” Edith said, “but the others—”
“The sun is too hot!”—he smiled.
“But you—I shouldn't have thought—” She paused, a little embarrassed.
“Yes?” he helped her. “That I was one of those who go to church, you mean?”
“Oh no!” she protested; but it was what she had meant.
“You are right,” he said, without heeding the protest, and his ugly but compellingly attractive face was turned to hers. “I'm not in the least a scoffer, though; pray believe that. It's just that I—” he hesitated. “Do you remember a little verse:
'Although I enter not,Yet round about the spotSometimes I hover,And at the sacred gateWith longing eyes I wait,Expectant of her.'”
Her face flushed. “But,” she reverted, with naïveté, “you said you were going to church—”
“But because I knew you were one of the women who would be sure to go!” he said, positively.
She rebelled. “I don't look devotional at all!”
“But your eyes do,” he declared. “They're suggestive of cathedrals and beautiful dimness, and a voice going up and up, like the 'Lark' song of Schubert's, don't you know!”
“No, Idon't!” she said, wilfully; but she was conscious of his eyes on her face, and angry that her cheeks flushed.
They both were silent for a little, and when they left Mrs. Manstey's grounds for the uneven country road, that became shortly, by courtesy, the village street, they had a view of the little church with its tiny tower.
“The post-office,” Farringdon explained, “is at the other end of the street. Service is beginning, I dare say. Shall we wait until it is over, or post the letter now?”
“No; after service,” she agreed, and inopportunely the letter slipped from her hand and fell, with the address down, on the grass. She stooped hurriedly, but he was before her, and picking it up, returned it scrupulously, with the right side down, as it had fallen. She slipped it quickly, almost guiltily, into her prayer-book.
The church was small, the congregation smaller, and the clergyman a little weary of the empty benches. But the two faces in the Manstey pew were so bright, so vivid with the vigor of youth, that his jaded mind freshened to meet the interest of new hearers.
But neither Edith nor Farringdon listened attentively to the sermon, for their minds were busy with other things. He was thinking of the girl beside him, whose hymnal he was sharing, and whose voice, very sweet and clear, if of no great compass, blended with his own fine tenor. Her thoughts could not stray far from the letter and—from other things!
The benediction sent them from the cool dimness into the sunlight, and she looked down the street toward the post-office.
“It's quite at the other end of the street,” Farringdon said, opening his umbrella and tentatively discouraging the effort. “By the way, your letter won't leave, I remember, until the seven-o'clock train. The Brathwaites are leaving by that train; you can send your letter down then.”
She found herself accepting this proposition, for the blaze of the sun on the length of the dusty street was deterring. They walked back almost in silence the way they had come; but with his hand on Mrs. Manstey's gate and the house less than two hundred yards away, Farringdon paused.
“You have been writing to 'Christopher,'” he said, quietly. “I don't want you to send the letter.” He was quite pale, but she did not notice it or the tensity of his face; his audacity made her for the moment dumb.
“You don't want me to—!” She positively gasped. “I never heard of such—”
“Impertinence,” he supplied, gravely. “It looks that way, I know, but it isn't. I can't stand on conventions—I've too much at stake. I don't mean to loseyou—as you lost your letter!”
She thought she was furious. “You knew it was my letter!” she accused.
They had paused just within the gate, in the shade of a great mulberry-tree that stood sentinel.
“Forgive me,” he said. “Not at first—but I guessed it. My name,” he added, “is Christopher, too.”
He took a crumpled sheet, that had been smoothed and folded carefully, from his pocket. “Do you remember what you wrote?” he asked, in a low voice.
Her face was crimson.
“It blew to me. Such things don't happen every day.” He had taken off his hat, and, bareheaded, he bent and looked questioningly into her eyes. “My name is Christopher,” he repeated. “I can't—it isn't possible—that I can let another Christopher have that letter.”
Her eyes fell before his.
“I”—he paused—“I play tennis very well, you said. I play to win! What I give to the interest of a game—”
“Is nothing to what you give to the interests of Christopher!”
As she mockingly spoke, Farringdon caught a glimpse of one or two people strolling down from the house. “That letter,” he hastily said,—“you can't take it from me! Do you remember that wind? It blewyoutome!Dearest,darling, don't be angry. Youcan'ttake yourself away.”
A little smile touched her lips—mutinous, but tremulous, too, and something in her look made his heart beat fast.
“I didn't—The last letter wasn't like the first,” she said, incoherently, but it seemed he understood.
“I knew you wereyouas soon as I saw you,” he said, idiotically.
“And,” she murmured, as they walked perforce to meet the people coming toward them down the drive, “after all, youwereChristopher!”
The stairs were long and dark; they seemed to stretch an interminable length, and she was too tired to notice the soft carpet and wonder why Mrs. Wilson had departed from her iron-clad rules and for once considered the comfort of her lodgers. The rail of the banisters lay cold but supporting under the pressure of her weary hand, and, at her own door at last, she fitted the key in the lock. Something was wrong; it would not turn; she drew it out and tried the handle. The door opened, and entering, she stood rooted to the spot.
Had her poor little room doubled its size and trebled its furniture? Her imagination, always active, for one wild moment suggested that old Grandaunt Crosbie from over the seas had remembered her poor relatives and worked the miracle; she always had Grandaunt Crosbie as a possible trump in the hand of fate. And then the dull reality shattered her foolish castle—she was in the wrong room. All this comfort had a legitimate possessor, whose Aunt Crosbie did her proper part in life.
She walked mechanically to a window and looked down; yes, there was the bleak yard she usually found below her, four houses off; she had come into the wrong door, and now to retrace her useless steps.
She paused a moment, and slowly revolving, made bitter inventory of the charming interior. Soft, bright stuffs at the windows, on the chairs; pictures; books; flowers even; a big bunch of holly on the mantelpiece. A sitting-room—no obnoxious bed behind an inadequate screen, no horrid white china pitcher in full view! What woman owned all this? She stared about for characteristic traces. No sewing! Pipes! It belonged to a man.
She must go. She moved toward the door, and dropped her eyes on the little hard-coal fire in the grate; it tempted her, and, with a sort of defiance, she moved over to it and warmed her chilled fingers. A piano, too, and not to teach children on! To play upon, to enjoy! When was her time to come? Every dog has his day! Where was hers? Here some man was surrounded with comforts and pleasures, and she slaved all day at her teaching, and came home at night tired, cold, to a miserable little half-furnished room—alone.
Resting her arms on the mantelpiece, she dropped her face a moment on them and rebelled, kicking hard against the pricks; and sunk in that profitless occupation, heard vaguely the sound of rapid steps and suddenly realized what they might mean.
She straightened her young form and stared, fascinated, at the door. Good heavens! What should she do? What should she say? If she appeared confused, she would be thought a thief; she must have some excuse: she had come—to—find a lady—was waiting! She sank into a little chair and tried not to tremble visibly to the most unobservant eye, and the door opened, shut, and the owner of the room stood before her.
“How do you do?” said Amory, and coming forward, he shook hands warmly. “Please forgive me for being late, but I could not get away a moment before. Where” he looked about the room—“where is Mrs. White?”
The girl had risen nervously, and stood with her fingers clasped, looking at him; she answered, stammering, “She—I—she—couldn't come.”
“Couldn't come?” repeated the young man. “I'm awfully sorry. Do sit down.”
She still stood, holding to the back of her chair. “She said she would come if she could, and I was to—but I had better go.”
Amory laughed. “Not a bit of it. Now I've got you, I sha'n't let you go. It was very brave of you to come alone. You know brothers-in-law are presumptuous sometimes.” He smiled down into the soft, shy, dark eyes raised to his, and looked at his watch. “You must have waited a half-hour; I said four o'clock. I'm so sorry.”
Her eyes dropped. “I was late, too,” she answered, and felt a horrible weight lifted from her. (They surely could not be coming; she could go in a moment; he would never know until she was beyond his reach. But she reckoned without her host.)
“Draw up to the fire,” he began, and wheeled up a big armchair, and gently made her sit in it. “Put your feet on the fender and let's have a long talk. You know I sha'n't see you before the wedding, and I'd like to know something of my brother's wife. Tom said I must see you once before you and he got off to Paris, and I may not be able to get West for the wedding; so this is the one chance I shall have.” He drew his chair near, and looked down at her with friendly, pleasant eyes.
She must say something. She rested her head on the high back of her chair, and felt a sensation of bewildered happiness. It was dangerous; she must get away in a moment; but for a moment she might surely enjoy this extraordinary situation that fortune had thrust upon her—the charm of the room, the warmth, and something more wonderful still—companionship. She looked at him; she must say something.
“You think you can't come to the wedding?” she said, and blushed.
Amory shook his head. “I'm afraid not, though of course I shall try. Now”—he stared gravely at her—“now tell me how you came to know Tom and why you like him. I wonder if it is for my reasons or ones of your own.”
He was surprised by the deep blush which answered his words. What a wonderful wild-rose color on her rather pale cheek!
“Don't you think it very warm in here?” said the girl.
Amory got up, and going to the window, opened it a little; then, stopping at his desk, picked up a note and brought it to the fire.
“Why, here is a note from Mrs. White,” he said. “Why didn't you tell me?”
She had risen, and laid her hand an instant on his arm. “Don't open it—yet,” she said. Her desperation lent her invention; just in this one way he must not find her out. She gave him a look, half arch, half pleading. “I'll explain later,” she said.
Amory felt a stir of most unnecessary emotion; he understood Tom.
“Of course,” he said, dropping it on the mantelpiece,—“just as you like. Now let's go back to Tom. You see,”—he sat down, and tipping his chair a little, gave her a rather curious smile,—“Tom and I have been enigmas to each other always, deeply attached and hopelessly incomprehensible, and I had my own ideas of what Tom would marry—and—you are not it;—not in the least!” He leant forward and brought his puzzled gaze to bear upon her.
She settled deeply into her chair, half to get farther away from those searching gray eyes, half because she was taking terrible risks, and she might as well enjoy it; the chair was so comfortable, and the fire so cheerful, and Amory—it occurred to her with a sort of exhilaration what it would be to please him. She had pleased other people, why not him? Her lids drooped; she looked down at her shabby gloves.
“What did you expect?” she said.
He leant back and laughed. “What did I expect? Well, frankly, a silly little blond thing, all curls and furbelows!”
She raised those heavy lids of hers and gazed straight at him. “Was that Tom's description?” she asked, and raised her eyebrows. They were delicately pencilled, and Amory watched her and noted them.
“No,” he answered; “he didn't describe you, but I thought that was his taste. Now, you are neither silly nor little; no blonde; you have no curls and no furbelows. In fact”—he smiled with something delightfully intimate in his eyes—“in fact, you are much more the kind of girlIshould like to marry.”
It gave her an absurd little thrill. She sat up, rebellious. “IfIwould have liked you,” she returned.
Amory laughed and put his hands in his pockets. “Of course,” he said; “but you would, you know!”
“Why?” she demanded, opening her eyes very wide; and again he inwardly complimented her on her eyebrows, and above them her hair grew in a charming line on her forehead. The little points are all pretty, he thought, and it is the details that count in the long run. How much one could grow to dislike blurry eyebrows and ugly ears, even if a woman had rosy cheeks and golden hair!
“Why? Because I should bully you into it. I'm an obstinate kind of creature, and get things by hanging on. Women give in if you worry them long enough. But tell me more about Tom,” he went on. “Did he dance and shoot his way into your heart? I wish I'd been there to see! You take a very bad tintype, by the way. Tom sent me that.” He got up, and taking a picture from the mantelpiece, tossed it into her lap, and leaning over the back of her chair, looked down on it. “Have you a sentiment about it?” he added, smiling. “It does look like Tom.”
She held it and gravely studied it. She colored, and, still looking at the picture, felt her way suddenly open. “Yes, it does look like him,” she said, and putting it down, leant forward and looked into the fire. “Do you want to know why I accepted Tom?” she added, slowly. She was fully launched on a career of deception now, and felt a desperate exultation.
Amory stared at her and nodded.
She kept her eyes on the fire. “I wanted—a home.”
Amory sat motionless, then spoke. “Why—why, weren't you happy with your aunt and uncle?”
She shook her head. “No; and Tom was good and kind and very—”
Amory got up and shook himself. “Oh, but that's an awful mistake,” he said.
“I know,” said the girl, and turning, looked at him a moment. “Well, I've come to tell you that I have—” She hesitated.
Amory slid down into the chair beside her. “Changed your mind?”
“Yes.”
“That note of your aunt's?”
“Yes”
He sat back and folded his arms. “I see,” he said, and there followed a long silence.
The girl began buttoning and unbuttoning her glove. She must go; she was frightened, elated, amused. She did not want to go, but go she must. Would he ever forgive her?
“Don't—don't hate me!” she said.
Amory awoke from his stunned meditation. “My dear young lady, of course not,” he began; “only, Tom will be terribly broken up. It's the only thing to do now, I suppose, but why did you do the other?”
She looked at him. As well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, she thought. “I was unhappy and foolish.” She hesitated. “But you needn't be troubled about Tom. He—” Again she hesitated.
“Not troubled about old Tom!” expostulated Amory.
“Wait.” She put up her hand. “He made a mistake, too; he doesn't care so very much, and he has already flirted—”
Amory laid his hand on her chair. “Tom!”
“Yes,” she repeated; “he really is rather a flirt, and—”
“Tom!”
She nodded. “Yes; really, it did hurt me a little, only—”
“Tom!”
She faced him. “Yes, Tom. What do you think Tom is—blind and deaf and dumb? Any man worth his salt can flirt.”
Amory stared at her. “Oh, he can, can he?”
She nodded. “He was very good and kind, but I saw that he was changing; and then he met a little fair-haired, blue-eyed—”
Amory interposed. “I told you.”
She gave him a curious smile. “Yes, a silly little blond thing, just that.”
But his satisfaction in his perspicacity was short-lived; he walked up and down the room in his perplexity. “I can't get over it,” he murmured. “I thought it a mad love-match, all done in a few weeks; and to have it turn out like this! You—”
“Mercenary,” she interjected, with a sad little smile.
He looked at her. “Yes; and Tom—”
“Fickle,” she ended again.
“Yes, and Tom fickle. Why, it shakes the foundations!”
The girl felt a sudden wave of shame and weariness. She must go. She hadn't been fair, but it had been so sudden, so difficult. She looked at him, and getting up, wondered if she would ever see him again.
“I must go,” she said. “I came—” She hesitated, and a sudden desire to have him know her as herself swept over her. It needed only another lie or two in the beginning, and then some truth would come through to sustain her. She went on: “I came because I wanted to know what you were like; Tom had talked so much of you, and I wanted some one to understand and perhaps explain; and now I must go and leave your warm, delightful room for the comfortless place I live in. Don't think too hardly of me.”
Amory shook his head. “You don't leave me until you have had your tea.” He rang the bell. “But what do you mean by a comfortless home? Does Mrs. White neglect you?”
She looked at the fire. “I don't live with her—now; I live alone; I work for my living.”
Amory got up as the maid brought in the tea-tray, and setting it beside them, he poured out her tea; as he handed her the cup, he brought his brows together sternly, as though making out her very mysterious words.
“You work for your living?” he repeated. “I thought you lived with Mrs. White, and that they were well off.”
“I did, but now I've come back to my real life, which I would have left had I married Tom.”
He nodded. “I see. I had heard awfully little about it all; I was away, and then it was so quickly done.”
“I know,” she went on, hurriedly; “but let me tell you, and you will understand me better later—that is, if you want to understand me.”
“Most certainly I do.” Amory sustained the strange sad gaze of her charming, heavy-lidded eyes in a sort of maze. Her mat skin looked white, now that her blushes were gone, and her delicate, irregular features a little pinched. He drank his tea and watched her while she talked.
“I teach music,” she began; “to do it I left my relations in the country and came to this horrible great city. I have one dreary, cold room, as unlike this as two rooms can be. I have tried to make it seem like a home, but when I saw this I knew how I had failed.”
“Poor little girl!” said Amory.
“I have the ordinary feelings of a girl,” she went on, “and yet I see before me the long stretch of a dreary life. I love music; I hear none but the strumming of children. I like pictures, books, people; I see none. I like to laugh, to talk; there is no one to laugh with, to talk to. I am very—unhappy.” The last words were spoken very low, but the misery in them touched Amory deeply.
“Poor little girl!” he said again, and gently laid his hand on the arm of her chair. “But how can Tom know this and let you go? You are mistaken in Tom, I am sure, and—”
The girl straightened her slender figure and rose. “Oh no! it is all right. He doesn't love me, your Tom; and so the world goes—I must go, too. I—”
“Don't go,” said Amory. “Let me—” She shook her head. “You have no more to do; you have comforted and warmed and fed a hungry wanderer, and she must make haste home. Thank you for everything; thank you.”
Amory felt a pang as she stood up. Not to see her again—why, that was absurd! Why should he not see her? She had quarrelled with Tom, yes, and perhaps the family might be hard on her; but he—he understood, and why should he shake off her acquaintance? She was not for Tom. Well, it was just as well. How could any one think this girl would suit Tom—big-bearded, clumsy, excellent fellow that he was?
He put out his hand. “Mary,” he said. The girl stared at him with eyes suddenly wide open; he smiled into them.
“I have a right to call you that,” he proceeded, “haven't I? I might have been your brother.” He took her hand, and then laughed a little. “I am almost glad I am not. You wouldn't have suited Tom, and as a sister, somehow, you wouldn't have suited me!” He laughed again. “But”—he hesitated; she still stared straight up at him with her soft, dark eyes, and he thought them very beautiful—“but why shouldn't I see you—not as a brother, but an acquaintance—friend? You say you need them. Tell me where you have this room of yours?”
The vivid beauty of her blush startled him, and she drew her hand quickly from his.
“Oh no!” she said, hurriedly. “Let things drop between us; here—forever.”
Amory stood before her with an expression which reminded her of his description of himself—obstinate; yes, he looked it.
“Why?” he urged. “Just because you are not to marry Tom, is there any reason why we should not like each other—is there? That is—if we do! I do,” he laughed. “Do you?”
Her lids had dropped; she looked very slim, and young, and shy. “Yes,” she said.
It gave Amory a good deal of pleasure for a monosyllable.
“Well, then, your number?” he said.
She shook her head.
“I'll ask Tom,” he retorted. “He will tell me.”
He was baffled and curiously charmed by the smile that touched her sharply curved young mouth.
“Tom may,” she said.
“I was ready to accept you as a sister,” he persisted, “and you won't even admit me as a casual visitor!”
She took a step toward the door. “Wait till you hear Tom's story,” she said.
Amory stared curiously at her. “Do you think he will be vindictive, after all?” he said. “Why should he be, if what you say is just?”
She paused. “Wait till you see Tom and Mrs. White; then if you want to know me, why—” She was blushing again.
“Well,” Amory demanded, “what shall I do?”
She looked up with a sort of childish charm, curling her lip, lighting her eyes with something of laughter and mischief. “Why, look for me and you'll find me.”
“Find you?” repeated Amory, bewildered.
She nodded. “Yes, if you look. To-morrow will be Sunday; every one will be going to church, and I with them. Stand on the steps of this house at 10.30 precisely, and look as far as you can, and you will see—me. Goodnight.”
“Good night.” Amory took her hand. “Let me see you home; it's dark.”
She laughed. “You don't lack persistency, do you?” she said, with a sweetness which gave the words a pleasant twist. “But don't come, please. I'm used to taking care of myself; but—before I go let me write my note also.” She went to the desk and scratched a line, and folding it, handed it to him. “There,” she said; “read Mrs. White's note and then that, but wait till you hear the house door bang. Promise not before.”
“Please—” began Amory.
“Promise,” she repeated.
“I promise,” he said, and again they shook hands for good-by.
“That's three times,” thought the girl as she went to the door, and turning an instant, she smiled at him. “Good-by.” The door closed softly behind her, and Amory waited a moment, then went to it, and opening it, listened; the house door shut lightly, and seizing his notes, he stood by the window in the twilight and read them. The first was as follows:
“DEAR MR. AMORY,—Mary and I had to return unexpectedly to Cleveland. Forgive our missing this chance of meeting you, but Mr. White's note is urgent, as his sister is very ill. Mary regrets greatly not seeing you before the wedding.
“Yours sincerely,
Amory threw the paper down. “Do I see visions?” he cried, and hastily unfolded the second; it ran as follows:
“Forgive me; I got into the wrong house, the wrong room. I was very tired, and my latch-key fitted, and I didn't know until I saw your fire, and then you came. Don't think me a very bold and horrid girl, and forgive me. Your fire was so warm and bright, and—you were kind.
Amory stared at the paper a moment; then, catching his hat and flying down the stairs, opened the outer door.
The night was bitter cold, with a white frost everywhere; but in the twilight no solitary figure was in view; the long street was empty. He ran the length of it, then back to his room, and throwing down his hat, he lit his pipe. It needed thought.