CHAPTER XXIf Alice or her husband apprehended a stormy sequel to the unpleasant scene in her dressing room both were relieved that none followed. Not a word came up between them as a result of the breach. There was the usual silence that follows a tempestuous outbreak and the usual indirect, almost accidental, resumption of speaking relations after the acute suspicion of renewed hostilities had worn itself out.MacBirney had the best of reasons for ignoring what had passed. He had, in fact, experienced the most surprising moments of his life and caution advised against the stirring up of any further altercation. Heretofore he had always known just what his wife, when bullied, would do; but he no longer knew and the uncertainty gave him pause.He found matter for surprise, indeed for a series of surprises, in the manner in which Alice stood newly revealed to him. Dependence and timidity seemed suddenly to have left her. She walked a new path; not one of complete indifference to her husband, but of decision complete in itself. Forced to cast aside his judgment and fall back on her own, Alice accepted the alternative openly. Her new attitude made itself felt in unnumbered ways--sometimes in no more than arranging for a day down-town with Fritzie, sometimes in discussing when Cedar Lodge should be opened and how. MacBirney found himself no longer consulted; Alice told him what she intended to do. If he gave arbitrary or unreasonable orders they were ignored. If he followed the subject further his inquiries were ignored.Alice realized it was not right to live in a home in this way, but MacBirney himself had taught her so many ways of wrong living that compunction had grown dull. His pupil, long unwilling to accept his debasing standards of married life, long suffering the cruelty of finding them enforced upon her, had at last become all that he had made her and something unpleasantly more--she made herself now complete mistress of her own affairs.Nor was Alice less surprised at the abject surrender of her husband. She knew him in the end better than he knew himself, and cowardly though he was, she felt the new situation would not endure forever--that worse must surely follow. But those who learn to sleep on dumb reproach and still for years the cry of waking apprehension, learn also not to look with foreboding ahead.There were, it is true, times in which Alice asked herself if in her new attitude she were not walking in a dream; slumbers in which the old shrinking fear returned; moments in which she could hardly realize her own determination. But the fear that had so long subdued her now served to support her courage. Go back she would not; the present she had made her own, the future must account for itself.Moreover, as the acuteness of the crisis passed everything looked better. The present tends always to justify itself. And prosperous skies opening on MacBirney's speculative ventures consoled him for such loss of prestige as he suffered in his own home.He was again, curiously enough, Alice thought, in cordial touch with Robert Kimberly. She never asked a question and did not know for a long time what could account for this change, since he had been abusing Kimberly vigorously during the life of the market pool. Kimberly had never called at the town apartment and Alice heard of him only through Fritzie, who visited The Towers on monetary errands and always spoke interestingly of Robert's affairs.And now spring airs came even to town, and Alice, breathing them, with the sudden sunshine and the morning song of birds, longed for her country home. She kept the telephone wire busy summoning her gardener to conferences and laid out elaborate plans with him for making Cedar Lodge more beautiful for the summer. A number of things conspired to keep her from getting out to Second Lake early. But the servants had been installed and the lodge put in readiness for her coming.One night in May--a summer night, warm, lighted by the moon and still--an impulse seized Alice to break away from everything for the country. Morning found her with Fritzie, and accompanied only by their maids, in a big motor-car speeding over the ribbon roads toward Second Lake. A curious play of emotions possessed Alice as they whirled through the dust of the village and swung into the hills toward The Towers. She had given no instructions to her chauffeur as to which road he should take and he had chosen the southern road because the grades were better.It was months since Alice had seen Kimberly. But not until now did she realize with some apprehension how much he had been in her mind all winter. The near prospect of meeting him disturbed her and she felt an uneasiness at the thought. It was too late to change the route. She felt she had been wrong not to give orders for the north road in time. Then the notion came that she must meet him sometime, anyway, and whenever they met he must be kept within bounds she had set many times since their last hour together. She could see in the distance The Towers gates and the lodge, sentinel-like, away up the road. The mere sight of the familiar entrance brought Kimberly up sharply. The chauffeur checked the car to ask whether he should drive through the grounds. Fritzie said, "Yes."Alice corrected her, "No, no.""Why, my dear," exclaimed Fritzie, "not stop to speak to Robert!""It will delay us, and I am crazy to get home.""But it will cut off two miles!""And keep us an hour.""It won't keep us five minutes and the grounds are beautiful.""We will see them to-morrow. Drive straight ahead, Peters."Fritzie protested as they flew past the lodge. "I feel like a heathen going by The Towers in this way. I hope Robert won't hear of it.""I will take all the blame," returned Alice, with a bravado she did not feel. Then she laid her hand on Fritzie's arm. "You may come back right after luncheon."When they reached the hill beyond Black Rock they saw Cedar Point lying below in the sunshine of the lake. Alice cried out at the beauty of it. Her spirits rose with an emotion that surprised her. For an instant she could not speak. Her eyes moistened and the load that had oppressed her a moment earlier took wings. Before she had quite recovered, the car was down the hill and speeding through the green gates, up the winding avenue of maples, and swinging in an alarming ellipse around to the front of the house.She ran in through the open doors as if she had left it all but yesterday. Flowers were everywhere. She passed from room to room with the bubbling spirits of a child and dropped at last into her own little chair at her toilet table. Annie, infected with the happiness of her mistress, was wreathed in smiles as she took her hat, while Fritzie, sitting in dusty veil and gloves, telephone in hand, was calling The Towers and in the same breath begging her maid to prepare her bath. No response to Fritzie's telephone message came until late in the afternoon. About four o'clock Robert Kimberly called her up."I hear you have arrived," he said."This is a pretty time for you to be answering, Robert. Where have you been all day?""Driving with Francis. He hasn't been very well lately. I took him over to the Sound. How is Mrs. MacBirney, Fritzie?""Come over and see.""Call her to the telephone."Alice took the receiver. "How do you do, Mr. Kimberly?""Glad to hear your voice. Fritzie has been telling me stories about you all winter."Alice controlled the pleasant excitement that came with the familiar sound of his own voice. "You mustn't believe the stories you hear," she laughed. "How are you all?""One story to-day sounded pretty straight.""Sometimes those are the least reliable. How is your uncle?""Still I shall have to have it out with you--passing us by this morning.""But you weren't at home.""Worse and worse--you didn't know that."She laughed again happily. "You may scold as much as you like, I'm so happy to get home I'm walking on air.""How do you manage that? I never can get up any excitement over getting home. I wish I might come and see how it affects you.""Do come.""Unfortunately I am leaving to-night for the Southwest.""For the Southwest?" she echoed in surprise. "But we heard of you just back from the West.""Yes, and with some stories for you. This time it is New Orleans and a terminal project.""So busy a man! I hope we shall see you when you return.""I certainly hope so. If I didn't, I shouldn't go. By-the-way," he added humorously, "I seem to have dropped something.""What can it be?""The string you held out a minute ago."Alice's eyes danced but only the telephone receiver saw them. "What string?""About letting me come over. A car was set in this afternoon at Sunbury but the train doesn't pick me up till eleven o'clock to-night. I might run over to see you on my way down----""Oh, by all means, do, Mr. Kimberly.""--just to see how you look when you are happy.""Do come; but I am always happy."He hesitated a moment. "If I were sure of that I might not come.""Youmaybe 'sure,' I assure you. And why, pray, shouldn't you come?"He retreated easily. "Because in that case I could see your happiness, without intruding on you when you are tired--as you must be now. However, I will run in for a few moments after dinner."Kimberly appeared shortly before nine o'clock. Fritzie greeted him. "Oh, aren't you youthful to-night?" she exclaimed. He was in a travelling suit and his face was tanned from his Western trip. "You should never wear anything but gray, Robert.""Has she been as agreeable as this all winter?" asked Kimberly turning to greet Alice."All winter," declared Fritzie, answering for herself, "except once when Lottie Nelson's dog chewed up a lace hat for me, and Robert, I have spent this whole winter saying good things about you--haven't I Alice? Even when we saw they were trying to put you in jail.""Many worthy people seemed to sympathize with that effort," responded Kimberly dryly. "I trust you didn't?" he added turning to Alice."I? Not in the least. If they had succeeded, I should have brought you flowers."The three sat down. Kimberly looked at Alice. "What have you been doing all winter?""Nothing.""Listen to that!" exclaimed Fritzie. "Why, we've been as busy as ants all winter.""Fritzie would never allow you to do nothing," said Kimberly. "You met a lot of people she tells me.""I said 'nothing,' because the time went so fast I found no time to do anything I had intended to."Fritzie objected again: "You kept at your singing all winter, didn't you?"Kimberly showed interest at once. "Good! Let us hear now how your voice sounds in the country air.""I haven't any songs.""You threw some into the wicker trunk," interposed Fritzie."Find them, Fritzie, do," said Kimberly. "And what else did you do?" he asked of Alice as Fritzie ran upstairs."Everything that country people do," responded Alice. "And you've been West? Tell me all about it."Kimberly looked very comfortable in a Roman chair as he bent his eyes upon her. "Hardly a spot in Colorado escaped me this time. And I went to Piedmont----""To Piedmont?" cried Alice. "Oh, to see the little factory.""To see the house you lived in when you were there.""What possible interest could that poor cottage have for any one? You must have realized that we began housekeeping very modestly."He brushed her suggestion away with a gesture."I wanted to see it merely because you had lived in it." He waited a moment. "Can't you understand that?""Frankly, I cannot.""St. Louis was very interesting," he went on."Oh, I love St. Louis!" Alice exclaimed."So do I," assented Kimberly. "And in St. Louis I went to see the house you were born in. It was worth looking at; your father's house was a house of character and dignity----""Why, thank you!""--Like many of the older houses I ran across in searching it out----"Alice seemed unable to rise quite above her embarrassment. "I can hardly believe you are not making fun of me. What ridiculous quests in St. Louis and in Piedmont! Surely there must have been incidents of more importance than these in a three-weeks' trip."He ignored her comment. "I stood a long time staring at your father's house, and wishing I might have been born in that little old cottage just across the street from where that rich little girl of sixteen lived. I would rather have known you then than lived all I have lived since you were born there."Alice returned his look with control of every feature. "I did not live there till I was sixteen, if you mean the old home. And if you had been born just across the street you would have had no absurd idea about that little girl in your head. Little girls are not usually interested in little boys across the street. Little boys born thousands of miles away have better chances, I think, of knowing them. And it is better so--forthey, at least, don't know what absurd, selfish little things girls across the street are.""That is all wrong----""It is not," declared Alice pointedly.But the force of everything she said was swept away by his manner. "Only give me the same street and the meanest house in it!" His intensity would not be answered. "Iwould have taken the chances of winning.""What confidence!""And I'd have done it or torn the house down."Fritzie came back. "I can't find the music anywhere."Kimberly rose to go to the music room. "No matter," he persisted, "sing anything you can remember, Mrs. MacBirney--just sing."It seemed easier, as it always seemed when Kimberly persisted, to consent than to decline. Alice sang an English ballad. Then a scrap--all she could remember--of a Moskowski song; then an Italian ballad. Kimberly leaned on the piano."Do you like any of those?" asked Alice with her hands running over the keys."All of them. But what was the last?""An Italian air.""Yes, I remember it--in Italy. Sing it again, will you?""Tell me about that song," he said when she had repeated it. "It is lovely.""I don't know much. It is a very old song.""Have I ever told you about a villa on Lago Maggiore?""Fritzie has told me. She says it is a dream.""I should like to hear you sing that song there sometime."The moon was rising when Kimberly left for the train. Fritzie objected to his going. "Give up your trip. Stay over to-night. What's the difference?""I can't, Fritzie. I'm going like a minstrel show, billed for one-night stands. I have engagements ahead of me all the way and if I miss a day I upset the whole schedule.""What's it all about?""A railroad terminal and reorganization. And I've just time to get around and back for Charles's return.""And the country dance!" said Fritzie."Dolly's country dance," explained Alice."Good. I don't want to miss that."Fritzie caught his sleeve. "You disappointed us last year.""You may count on me," promised Kimberly.Fritzie pouted. "I know what that means, 'don't count on me!'""This time," returned Kimberly as the door of his motor-car was opened for him, "it isn't going to mean that, Fritzie."CHAPTER XXIMacBirney followed his household to the country after two weeks. The De Castros were then back and Dolly enlisted Alice and Fritzie to make ready for the dance at Black Rock barn which regularly signalized at Second Lake what Nelson termed the "opening of navigation."Alice, with Fritzie to help, was charged with the decorations for the event, and two days before it, the available men about the place, under their direction, were emptying the green-houses and laying the woods under tribute.The lighting scheme Alice pronounced ineffective. For years no one had given the subject any attention. At the last moment electricians were brought out from town to work early and late and lights were installed from which operators in elevated cages could throw sheets of color on the dancers.When Imogene and Charles got home--and they were late, arriving only the evening before the party--Dolly, who met them at the train, drove them directly to Black Rock, where Alice with her husband, Fritzie, and Arthur De Castro was conducting a rehearsal of the electrical effects. The kisses and embraces of the committee and the arrivals took place under the rays of the new spot lights."Now if Robert were here," cried Fritzie impatiently, "everything would be complete. No one knows where he is. Suppose he doesn't come?""He is in town and will be out to-morrow." Imogene as she made the announcement put her arm around Alice. "Sweetheart, you must be dead."Alice was sustained by the excitement. "Nothing of the sort. I haven't done anything but suggest," she said gayly. "Fritzie has done all the work. In the morning we will bring in the apple blossoms and we are through."But when she had received all the enthusiasm and compliments she went home tired. MacBirney came to her room to talk, but he had no word for the successful decorations and Alice pleading fatigue went directly to bed.She woke with the sun streaming through the east windows. It was late and though still tired she rose at once. The morning was superb, and, while dressing, Alice surprised Annie by singing to herself.Fritzie drove over with her to Black Rock. Alice running in to speak to Dolly found her in bed. Dolly kissed her. "You look so fresh, dear." Alice drew herself up with a laugh. "It's the morning, Dolly.""By-the-way, Robert is here. He came late and he and Arthur talked so long he stayed all night. He is just across the hall in the blue room.""Then every one is accounted for. I must be off, Dolly.""Where are you going?""To the woods with Fritzie to get the blossoms."An old coaching brake had been sent up from the stables and Arthur De Castro was waiting for the two women. "I am going to drive you down the field before I take my ride," he explained."You do need exercise. You look sleepy, Arthur," remarked Fritzie, critically."Robert kept me up all night." Arthur turned to Alice. "You knew he was back?""Dolly told me.""The lazy fellow isn't up yet," said Fritzie.Arthur corrected her. "He is up and gone home. But he will be over again this morning."The horses were fresh and took Arthur's attention across the field and the big wagon lurched as the team danced along. In the woods they found Grace De Castro with the men who were to work. Arthur's saddle-horse was in waiting. The men began loading the brake with elder blossoms, brier roses, and branches from the forest trees. Arthur had meant to take his groom with him, but found there would be nobody to drive the brake back to the barn."No matter, Mr. De Castro," said Alice. "Take him. I will drive back." Arthur demurred, but Alice insisted. "I would rather drive the team than not. I drive our horses all the time."Arthur and the groom rode away. Fritzie and Grace looked at Alice in astonishment when the wagon had been loaded and Alice took the driver's high seat, pulled her glove gauntlets back taut and a gardener handed her the reins."Aren't you afraid?" cried Grace."Not in the least," Alice answered, slipping her hands into the driving loops and putting her foot on the wheel-brake."Really," declared Grace, "you have quite an air."Fritzie was apprehensive. "For Heaven's sake, don't let them run away, Allie."The men at the bridles stood aside, Alice spoke and the team leaped swiftly ahead. She gave them leeway for a few moments, but kept them under control and her manner was so confident that Fritzie's fears were allayed before the brake had crossed the first hill. As Alice made the turn in the road and looked laughingly back the two girls waved approval at her. They saw the brim of her broad hat rising and falling like a bird's wings as she nodded to them; then she threw on the wheel-brake and started down the hill.For a moment the difficulty of holding the pair in check increased and by the time the barn was in sight the struggle had stirred her blood. It colored two little circles in her cheeks and had lighted fires of animation in her gray eyes. She saw the rising entrance to the barn and only took heed that the doors were wide open. Then she gave all her strength to guiding the rushing horses up the long incline. Just as their heads shot under the doorway the off horse shied. The front wheels of the brake bounced over the threshold and Alice saw, standing within, Robert Kimberly.She gave an exclamation of surprise as she threw on the wheel-brake, pulled with all her strength on the reins and brought her horses to a halt. Kimberly with one hand on the casement stood perfectly still until she looked around. Then he came forward laughing. "You certainly are a capital whip.""You frightened me nearly to death!" exclaimed Alice with a long breath. "Where, pray, did you come from?" she demanded, looking down from her eminence."From almost everywhere. And you?""From the woods."He laid a hand on the foot-board. "Really, I wonder whether there is anything you can't do.""I am afraid there is one thing now. I don't see how I am going to get down. Aren't there any men around to take the horses?""The horses will stand. Just hook your lines and jump from the wheel."Alice looked at the distance in dismay. "That is easy to say.""Not hard to do," returned Kimberly. "I'll break your flight.""I'm a wretched jumper.""Nonsense. You can't tell me you're a wretched anything after that drive.""Step away then and I'll jump. Only, I don't see just how I am going to stop after I start.""What do you want to stop for? Come ahead."She put her foot cautiously on the wheel; it was a very pretty foot. Then she steadied herself and with her hand swept little ringlets of hair from her eyes.She knew he was waiting to receive her and, meaning to elude him, turned at the last instant and jumped away from where he stood. Kimberly, in spite of her precaution, caught her as her feet struck the floor, and leaned an instant over her. "Beautifully done!" he exclaimed, and drawing her suddenly into his arms he kissed her.She pushed him back with all her strength. He met her consternation with good humor. "I couldn't help it."Alice, burning with angry blushes, retreated. He hoped it would end there and ignored the outraged spirit in her eyes as she took her handkerchief from her waist.He tried to laugh again. "Don't be angry." But Alice put both hands to her face and walked quickly away.CHAPTER XXIIKimberly followed her through the open door. "Where are you going?" he asked. Her answer came in her quickened step. He repeated his words without eliciting any response. Then he stepped directly in front of her in the path. "Stop for one moment. Alice, you can't go any farther while you are as angry at me as you are now.""I am Alice to no one but my husband," she exclaimed controlling herself as well as she could. "You shall not stop me, you have no right to.""Where are you going?""I am going home.""Listen; you are Alice to me--now, and forever; remember that."Her knees trembled as she strove to escape him. She tried to pass through the shrubbery and could not. She felt faint and dizzy. The very world had changed with a kiss. Everything in life seemed upset, every safeguard gone.He took her arm. "Come back to the path, Alice. We must walk it together."She paused an instant for breath and made an effort to speak as she put his hand angrily away. "I insist," she cried, "that you do not continue to insult me.""If you wait for me to insult you, Alice, you will wait a long time. I should be as likely to insult my own mother.""I have done nothing to deserve this," she sobbed, frantic with confusion."You deserve more a thousand times than my devotion ever can bring you. But all it can ever bring, from the moment I kissed you, is yours."Her eyes blazed through her tears. In her helpless wrath she stamped her foot. "You are shameless. I detest your conduct. If you are going to the house I will stay here. If you are not, let me go."He met her denunciation with steadiness. "Nothing you can say will anger me.""You mean you have no respect for me." She spoke so fast she could scarcely frame the words. "Why don't you say so? Are you too cowardly?"The imputation stung him. He seemed to explode inwardly. "I have nothingbutrespect for you, Alice," he insisted with terrifying energy, "but this thing must be fought out----"She attempted to speak. His words drowned her. "I want to say nothing that will wound or offend you. You make it very hard for me to speak at all----""You have no right to speak----""But, Alice," he exclaimed, throwing all his force into the words, "you don't love that man. That is why I speak. If youdidlove him, if even he loved you, I could be silent.""I love my husband as a wife should," she cried, struggling vainly to escape his accusation."You do not. You cannot!"They spoke at white heat, she fighting vainly to control her trembling limbs and Kimberly pausing at times to deal better his sledge-hammer blows at her pitiful strength."You do not love that man. If I believed you did," he spoke with a bitterness she had never heard before, "I should never want to see another sun rise. I respect you above all women that breathe; but in that I am right, I can't be wrong. I have suppressed and stifled and smothered as long as I can and it will come out!""I will not hear you!""Sometime, somewhere, you will hear me. Don't speak!" he exclaimed vehemently. The veins knotted upon his forehead. "I forgot myself for a moment. If you knew what it costs me to remember! But, Alice, for me it is you--or nothing in this world. Remember! You or nothing!"She searched his face for pity. "I am sinking with shame. What further, what more humiliation do you want? We are in plain view of the house. I am utterly helpless. Will you not have the decency to leave me?""I wish I could have said this better; I do nothing well. If I have hurt you, I am very, very sorry." He strode away toward the garden.Trying to compose herself, Alice walked to the house. Providentially, Dolly had already started for the field. Summoning a servant, Alice ordered her car and with her head whirling started for home. As she was hurried over the country road her mind gradually righted itself, and strange thoughts ran like lightning flashes through her brain. Reaching home, she hastened upstairs and locked her door.What startled her most painfully in her reflections was the unwelcome conviction that there was nothing new, nothing surprising in her situation. Nothing, at least, except this violent outburst which she now realized she ought long ago to have foreseen. She was suddenly conscious that she had long known Kimberly loved her, and that one day he would call her to account--for the crime of being loved in spite of herself, she reflected bitterly.She threw herself on her couch and held her hands upon her burning temples. He had caught her in his arms and forced a kiss upon her. The blood suffused her face at the recollection. Again and again, though she turned from the picture, imagination brought it back. She saw his eyes as he bent over her; the thought of the moment was too much to support. Her very forehead crimsoned as the scene presented itself. And worse, was the realizing that something of fascination lingered in the horror of that instant of amazement and fear and mad repulsion of his embrace. She hid her face in her pillow.After a time she grew calmer, and with her racing pulse quieted, her emotion wore itself somewhat out. Saner thoughts asserted themselves. She felt that she could fight it out. She searched her heart and found no wantonness within it. Strongly assailed, and not, she felt, through her own fault, she would fight and resist. He had challenged her when he had said it should be fought out. She, too, resolved it should be.She bathed her forehead, and when she felt sure of herself, rang for Annie. Lunch was served in her room, but she could eat nothing. At moments she felt the comforting conviction of having settled her mind. Unhappily, her mind would not stay settled. Nothing would stay settled. No mood that brought relief would remain. The blood came unbidden to her cheeks even while Annie was serving her and her breath would catch at the opening of a door.When she heard the hum of a motor-car on the open highway her heart jumped. She opened the porch doors and went out to where she could look on the lake. Her eyes fell upon the distant Towers and her anger against Kimberly rose. She resolved he should realize how he had outraged her self-respect. She picked from the troubled current of her thought cutting things that she ought to have said. She despised herself for not having more angrily resented his conduct, and determined, if he dared further persist, to expose him relentlessly to the circle of their friends, even if they were his own relations. There should be no guilty secret between them; this, at least, she could insure.When the telephone bell rang, Annie answered it. Dolly was calling for Alice and went into a state when told that Alice had come home affected by the heat, and had given up and gone to bed; she hoped yet, Annie said, to be all right for the evening. Fritzie took the wire at Black Rock to ask what she could do, and Annie assured her there was nothing her mistress needed but quiet and rest.When the receiver had been hung up the first bridge was crossed, for Alice was resolved above all things not to be seen that night at the dance. When Fritzie came back to Cedar Lodge to dress, Alice was still in bed. Her room was darkened and Annie thought she might be sleeping. At dinner-time, MacBirney, who had been in town all day, came in to see how she was. She told her husband that he would have to go to Dolly's with Fritzie.MacBirney bent over his wife and kissed her, greatly to her mental discomfort. An unwelcome kiss from him seemed to bring back more confusingly the recollection of Kimberly's kiss, and to increase her perplexities. She detested her husband's caresses; they meant no real affection and she did not intend he should think she believed they did. But she never could decide where to draw the line with him, and was divided between a desire to keep him always at a distance and a wish not to seem always unamiable.Fritzie, after she was dressed, tiptoed in. The room was lighted to show Alice the new gown. It was one of their spring achievements, and Alice raised herself on her pillow to give a complete approval of the effect. "It is a stunning thing; simply stunning. If you would only stop running yourself to death, Fritzie, and put on ten pounds, you would be absolute perfection.""If I stopped running myself to death what would there be to live for?" demanded Fritzie, refastening the last pin in her Dresden girdle. "We all have to live for something."Alice put her hand to her head. "I wonder what I have to live for?"Fritzie turned sharply. "You? Why nothing but to spend your money and have a good time. Too bad about you, isn't it? You'll soon have a million a year for pin-money."Alice shook her head. "A dozen millions a year would not interest me, Fritzie."Fritzie laughed. "Don't be too sure, my dear; not too sure. Well," Fritzie's hands ran carefully over her hair for the last time, "there are a lot of men coming over from the Sound to-night. I may meet my fate!""I wish you may with all my heart, Fritzie. Why is it fates always come to people that don't want them?""Don't you believe it," cried Fritzie, "they do want them.""They don't--not always.""Don't you ever believe it--they only say they don't or think they don't!" she exclaimed, with accustomed vehemence.Alice moved upon her pillow in impatient disapproval. "I hope you'll have a good time to-night."MacBirney was ready and Fritzie joined him. The house grew quiet after they left. Annie brought up a tray and Alice took a cup of broth. She did not long resist the drowsiness that followed. She thought vaguely for a moment of a prayer for safety. But her married life had long excluded prayer. What good could come of praying to be kept unharmed while living in a state that had in itself driven her from prayer? That, at least, would be too absurd, and with a dull fear gnawing and dying alternately at her heart she fell asleep.CHAPTER XXIIIAt noon next day MacBirney, seeking his wife, found her in her dressing-room. She had come from the garden and stood before a table filled with flowers, which she was arranging in vases."I've been looking for you." MacBirney threw himself into a convenient chair as he spoke. "Robert Kimberly is downstairs.""Mr. Kimberly? To see you, I suppose.""No, to see you.""To seeme?" Alice with flowers in her hand, paused. Then she carried a vase to the mantel-piece. "At this time of day?""Well--to see us, he says."She returned to the table. "What in the world does he want to see us about?"MacBirney laughed. "He says he has something to say to both of us. I told him I would bring you down."A breath would have toppled Alice over. "I can't dress to go down now," she managed to say. "It may be something from Dolly. Ask him to give you any message he has."Walking hurriedly to the mantel with another jar of roses, she found her fear extreme. Could it be possible Kimberly would dream of saying to her husband what he had said to her yesterday? She smothered at the thought, yet she knew his appalling candor and felt unpleasantly convinced that he was capable of repeating every word of it. The idea threw her into a panic. She resolved not to face him under such circumstances; she was in no position to do so. "Tell him," she said abruptly, "that as much as I should like to hear what he has to say, he will have to excuse me this morning.""He offered to come this evening if you preferred.""We have other guests to-night," returned Alice coldly. "And I can't be bothered now.""Bothered?" echoed MacBirney with sarcasm. "Perhaps I had better tell him that.""By all means, if you want to," she retorted in desperation. "Tell him anything you like."Her husband rose. "You are amiable this morning.""No, I am not, I'm sorry to say. I am not quite well--that is the real truth and must be my excuse. Make it for me or not as you like."MacBirney walked downstairs. After an interminable time, Alice, breathing more freely, heard Kimberly's car moving from the door. When she went down herself she watched narrowly the expression of her husband's face. But he was plainly interested in nothing more serious than Fritzie's account of the country dance. When Alice ventured to ask directly what Kimberly's messages were, he answered that Kimberly had given none. With Fritzie, Alice took a drive after luncheon somewhat easier in mind. Yet she reflected that scarcely twenty-four hours had passed and she already found herself in an atmosphere of suspense and apprehension from which there seemed no escape.While she was dressing that night, flowers from The Towers' gardens were brought to Cedar Lodge in boxfuls, just as they had regularly been sent the year before--roses for the tables, violets for Alice's rooms, orchids for herself. If she only dared send them back! Not, she knew, that it would make any difference with the sender, but it would at least express her indignation. She still speculated as to whether Kimberly would dare to tell her husband and upon what would happen if he should tell him.And her little dream of publicity as an antidote! What had become of it already? So far as Kimberly was concerned, she now firmly believed he was ready to publish his attitude toward her to the world. And she shrank with every instinct from the prospective shame and humiliation.The water about her seemed very deep as she reflected, and she felt singularly helpless. She had never heard of a situation just such as this, never imagined one exactly like it. This man seemed different from every other she had ever conceived of; more frankly brutal than other brutes and more to be dreaded than other men.A week passed before Kimberly and Alice met. It was at Charles Kimberly's. Doctor Bryson, the Nelsons, and Fritzie were there.As Alice and her husband came down, Charles Kimberly and Robert walked out of the library. Robert bowed to MacBirney and to Alice--who scarcely allowed her eyes to answer his greeting."Are you always glad to get back to your own country, Mrs. Kimberly?" asked MacBirney greeting his hostess.Imogene smiled. "Dutifully glad.""Is that all?""At least, I come back with the same feeling of relief that I am getting back to democracy.""That is," suggested Lottie Nelson, "getting back to where you are the aristocracy."Dolly, who with her husband joined them in time to hear the remark, tossed her head. "I always thank Heaven, Lottie, that we have no aristocracy here.""But you are wrong, Dolly, we have," objected Robert Kimberly as the party went into the drawing-room. "Democracy is nothing but an aristocracy of ability. What else can happen when you give everybody a chance? We began in this country by ridding ourselves of an aristocracy of heredity and privilege; and we have only succeeded in substituting for it the coldest, cruelest aristocracy known to man--the aristocracy of brains. This is the aristocracy that controls our manufacturing, our transportation, our public service and our finance; it makes our laws and apportions our taxation. And from this fell cause done our present griefs arise.""But you must rid yourself of the grossly material conception of an aristocracy, Mr. Kimberly," said Nelson. "Our real aristocracy, I take it, is not our material one, as Robert Kimberly insists. The true aristocrat, I hold, is the real but mere gentleman.""Exactly right," assented De Castro. "The gentleman and nothing else is the thing.""There is nothing more interesting than the gentleman," returned Robert Kimberly, "except the gentleman plus the brute. But the exception is enormous, for it supplies our material aristocrat.""You must remember, though, that ideas of superiority and inferiority are very tricky," commented Imogene. "And they persist for centuries. To the Naples beggar, even to-day, the Germans are 'barbarians.' And whenever I encounter the two I never can decide whichisthe aristocrat, the traveller or the beggar.""I read your speech at the New England dinner last night," said Imogene, turning to Nelson, "and I saw all the nice things that were said about it this morning.""If credit were due anywhere it would be to the occasion," returned Nelson. "There is always something now in such gatherings to suggest the discomforting reflection that our best native stock is dying out."Dolly looked distressed. "Oh, dear, are those unfortunate people still dying out? I've been worrying over their situation for years. Can't any one do anything?""Don't let it disturb you, Mrs. De Castro," said Bryson."But I am afraid it is getting on my nerves.""Nothing dies out that doesn't deserve to die out," continued Bryson. "As to the people Nelson speaks of, I incline to think they ought to die out. Their whole philosophy of life has been bad. Nature ought to be ashamed, of course, to pass them by and turn to inferior races for her recruits. But since all races are inferior to them, what can she do but take refuge with the despised foreigner? The men and women that take life on the light-housekeeping plan may do so if they will--for one generation. What may safely be counted on is that nature will find its workers in the human hive even if it has to turn to the savage tribes.""But the poor savages, doctor--they also are on the verge of extinction, are they not?" demanded Dolly."Then nature will provide its workers from one unfailing source--from those we have always with us, the poor and the despised. And it can be depended on with equal certainty to cast the satisfied, cultivated, and intellectual drones into outer darkness.""My dear, but the doctor is savage, isn't he?" Lottie Nelson made the appeal indolently to Imogene. "We shall soon be asking, doctor," she concluded languidly, "which tribe you belong to.""He would answer, the medical tribe," suggested Fritzie."Speaking of savages," interposed Arthur De Castro, "Charles and I were making a portage once on the York River. On the trail I met two superb little Canadian lads--straight, swarthy, handsome fellows. They couldn't speak English. 'You must be French,' I suggested, addressing the elder by way of compliment in that tongue. Imagine my surprise when he answered with perfect composure, 'Non, monsieur. Nous sommes des sauvages!'""For my part," said Imogene, "I am always glad to hear Doctor Bryson defend families and motherhood. I don't care how savage he gets.""I defend motherhood because to me it is the highest state of womanhood. Merely as an instinct, its mysteries are a never-ending marvel."Lottie Nelson looked patiently bored. "Oh, tell us about them, do, doctor.""I will tell you of one," returned Bryson undismayed. "Take the young mother that brings her first child into the world; from the day of its birth until the day of that mother's death, her child is never wholly out of her thought. The child may die, may be forgotten by every one else on earth, may be to all other conscious existence in this world as a thing that never was. But in its mother's heart it never dies. I call that a mystery."The doctor's glance as he finished fell on Alice's face. He was sorry at once that he had spoken at all. Her eyes were fixed on him with a look of acute pain.Alice hardly knew Doctor Bryson, but what he saw in the sadness of her face he quite understood. And though they had never met, other than in a formal way, he never afterward felt that they were wholly strangers.
CHAPTER XX
If Alice or her husband apprehended a stormy sequel to the unpleasant scene in her dressing room both were relieved that none followed. Not a word came up between them as a result of the breach. There was the usual silence that follows a tempestuous outbreak and the usual indirect, almost accidental, resumption of speaking relations after the acute suspicion of renewed hostilities had worn itself out.
MacBirney had the best of reasons for ignoring what had passed. He had, in fact, experienced the most surprising moments of his life and caution advised against the stirring up of any further altercation. Heretofore he had always known just what his wife, when bullied, would do; but he no longer knew and the uncertainty gave him pause.
He found matter for surprise, indeed for a series of surprises, in the manner in which Alice stood newly revealed to him. Dependence and timidity seemed suddenly to have left her. She walked a new path; not one of complete indifference to her husband, but of decision complete in itself. Forced to cast aside his judgment and fall back on her own, Alice accepted the alternative openly. Her new attitude made itself felt in unnumbered ways--sometimes in no more than arranging for a day down-town with Fritzie, sometimes in discussing when Cedar Lodge should be opened and how. MacBirney found himself no longer consulted; Alice told him what she intended to do. If he gave arbitrary or unreasonable orders they were ignored. If he followed the subject further his inquiries were ignored.
Alice realized it was not right to live in a home in this way, but MacBirney himself had taught her so many ways of wrong living that compunction had grown dull. His pupil, long unwilling to accept his debasing standards of married life, long suffering the cruelty of finding them enforced upon her, had at last become all that he had made her and something unpleasantly more--she made herself now complete mistress of her own affairs.
Nor was Alice less surprised at the abject surrender of her husband. She knew him in the end better than he knew himself, and cowardly though he was, she felt the new situation would not endure forever--that worse must surely follow. But those who learn to sleep on dumb reproach and still for years the cry of waking apprehension, learn also not to look with foreboding ahead.
There were, it is true, times in which Alice asked herself if in her new attitude she were not walking in a dream; slumbers in which the old shrinking fear returned; moments in which she could hardly realize her own determination. But the fear that had so long subdued her now served to support her courage. Go back she would not; the present she had made her own, the future must account for itself.
Moreover, as the acuteness of the crisis passed everything looked better. The present tends always to justify itself. And prosperous skies opening on MacBirney's speculative ventures consoled him for such loss of prestige as he suffered in his own home.
He was again, curiously enough, Alice thought, in cordial touch with Robert Kimberly. She never asked a question and did not know for a long time what could account for this change, since he had been abusing Kimberly vigorously during the life of the market pool. Kimberly had never called at the town apartment and Alice heard of him only through Fritzie, who visited The Towers on monetary errands and always spoke interestingly of Robert's affairs.
And now spring airs came even to town, and Alice, breathing them, with the sudden sunshine and the morning song of birds, longed for her country home. She kept the telephone wire busy summoning her gardener to conferences and laid out elaborate plans with him for making Cedar Lodge more beautiful for the summer. A number of things conspired to keep her from getting out to Second Lake early. But the servants had been installed and the lodge put in readiness for her coming.
One night in May--a summer night, warm, lighted by the moon and still--an impulse seized Alice to break away from everything for the country. Morning found her with Fritzie, and accompanied only by their maids, in a big motor-car speeding over the ribbon roads toward Second Lake. A curious play of emotions possessed Alice as they whirled through the dust of the village and swung into the hills toward The Towers. She had given no instructions to her chauffeur as to which road he should take and he had chosen the southern road because the grades were better.
It was months since Alice had seen Kimberly. But not until now did she realize with some apprehension how much he had been in her mind all winter. The near prospect of meeting him disturbed her and she felt an uneasiness at the thought. It was too late to change the route. She felt she had been wrong not to give orders for the north road in time. Then the notion came that she must meet him sometime, anyway, and whenever they met he must be kept within bounds she had set many times since their last hour together. She could see in the distance The Towers gates and the lodge, sentinel-like, away up the road. The mere sight of the familiar entrance brought Kimberly up sharply. The chauffeur checked the car to ask whether he should drive through the grounds. Fritzie said, "Yes."
Alice corrected her, "No, no."
"Why, my dear," exclaimed Fritzie, "not stop to speak to Robert!"
"It will delay us, and I am crazy to get home."
"But it will cut off two miles!"
"And keep us an hour."
"It won't keep us five minutes and the grounds are beautiful."
"We will see them to-morrow. Drive straight ahead, Peters."
Fritzie protested as they flew past the lodge. "I feel like a heathen going by The Towers in this way. I hope Robert won't hear of it."
"I will take all the blame," returned Alice, with a bravado she did not feel. Then she laid her hand on Fritzie's arm. "You may come back right after luncheon."
When they reached the hill beyond Black Rock they saw Cedar Point lying below in the sunshine of the lake. Alice cried out at the beauty of it. Her spirits rose with an emotion that surprised her. For an instant she could not speak. Her eyes moistened and the load that had oppressed her a moment earlier took wings. Before she had quite recovered, the car was down the hill and speeding through the green gates, up the winding avenue of maples, and swinging in an alarming ellipse around to the front of the house.
She ran in through the open doors as if she had left it all but yesterday. Flowers were everywhere. She passed from room to room with the bubbling spirits of a child and dropped at last into her own little chair at her toilet table. Annie, infected with the happiness of her mistress, was wreathed in smiles as she took her hat, while Fritzie, sitting in dusty veil and gloves, telephone in hand, was calling The Towers and in the same breath begging her maid to prepare her bath. No response to Fritzie's telephone message came until late in the afternoon. About four o'clock Robert Kimberly called her up.
"I hear you have arrived," he said.
"This is a pretty time for you to be answering, Robert. Where have you been all day?"
"Driving with Francis. He hasn't been very well lately. I took him over to the Sound. How is Mrs. MacBirney, Fritzie?"
"Come over and see."
"Call her to the telephone."
Alice took the receiver. "How do you do, Mr. Kimberly?"
"Glad to hear your voice. Fritzie has been telling me stories about you all winter."
Alice controlled the pleasant excitement that came with the familiar sound of his own voice. "You mustn't believe the stories you hear," she laughed. "How are you all?"
"One story to-day sounded pretty straight."
"Sometimes those are the least reliable. How is your uncle?"
"Still I shall have to have it out with you--passing us by this morning."
"But you weren't at home."
"Worse and worse--you didn't know that."
She laughed again happily. "You may scold as much as you like, I'm so happy to get home I'm walking on air."
"How do you manage that? I never can get up any excitement over getting home. I wish I might come and see how it affects you."
"Do come."
"Unfortunately I am leaving to-night for the Southwest."
"For the Southwest?" she echoed in surprise. "But we heard of you just back from the West."
"Yes, and with some stories for you. This time it is New Orleans and a terminal project."
"So busy a man! I hope we shall see you when you return."
"I certainly hope so. If I didn't, I shouldn't go. By-the-way," he added humorously, "I seem to have dropped something."
"What can it be?"
"The string you held out a minute ago."
Alice's eyes danced but only the telephone receiver saw them. "What string?"
"About letting me come over. A car was set in this afternoon at Sunbury but the train doesn't pick me up till eleven o'clock to-night. I might run over to see you on my way down----"
"Oh, by all means, do, Mr. Kimberly."
"--just to see how you look when you are happy."
"Do come; but I am always happy."
He hesitated a moment. "If I were sure of that I might not come."
"Youmaybe 'sure,' I assure you. And why, pray, shouldn't you come?"
He retreated easily. "Because in that case I could see your happiness, without intruding on you when you are tired--as you must be now. However, I will run in for a few moments after dinner."
Kimberly appeared shortly before nine o'clock. Fritzie greeted him. "Oh, aren't you youthful to-night?" she exclaimed. He was in a travelling suit and his face was tanned from his Western trip. "You should never wear anything but gray, Robert."
"Has she been as agreeable as this all winter?" asked Kimberly turning to greet Alice.
"All winter," declared Fritzie, answering for herself, "except once when Lottie Nelson's dog chewed up a lace hat for me, and Robert, I have spent this whole winter saying good things about you--haven't I Alice? Even when we saw they were trying to put you in jail."
"Many worthy people seemed to sympathize with that effort," responded Kimberly dryly. "I trust you didn't?" he added turning to Alice.
"I? Not in the least. If they had succeeded, I should have brought you flowers."
The three sat down. Kimberly looked at Alice. "What have you been doing all winter?"
"Nothing."
"Listen to that!" exclaimed Fritzie. "Why, we've been as busy as ants all winter."
"Fritzie would never allow you to do nothing," said Kimberly. "You met a lot of people she tells me."
"I said 'nothing,' because the time went so fast I found no time to do anything I had intended to."
Fritzie objected again: "You kept at your singing all winter, didn't you?"
Kimberly showed interest at once. "Good! Let us hear now how your voice sounds in the country air."
"I haven't any songs."
"You threw some into the wicker trunk," interposed Fritzie.
"Find them, Fritzie, do," said Kimberly. "And what else did you do?" he asked of Alice as Fritzie ran upstairs.
"Everything that country people do," responded Alice. "And you've been West? Tell me all about it."
Kimberly looked very comfortable in a Roman chair as he bent his eyes upon her. "Hardly a spot in Colorado escaped me this time. And I went to Piedmont----"
"To Piedmont?" cried Alice. "Oh, to see the little factory."
"To see the house you lived in when you were there."
"What possible interest could that poor cottage have for any one? You must have realized that we began housekeeping very modestly."
He brushed her suggestion away with a gesture.
"I wanted to see it merely because you had lived in it." He waited a moment. "Can't you understand that?"
"Frankly, I cannot."
"St. Louis was very interesting," he went on.
"Oh, I love St. Louis!" Alice exclaimed.
"So do I," assented Kimberly. "And in St. Louis I went to see the house you were born in. It was worth looking at; your father's house was a house of character and dignity----"
"Why, thank you!"
"--Like many of the older houses I ran across in searching it out----"
Alice seemed unable to rise quite above her embarrassment. "I can hardly believe you are not making fun of me. What ridiculous quests in St. Louis and in Piedmont! Surely there must have been incidents of more importance than these in a three-weeks' trip."
He ignored her comment. "I stood a long time staring at your father's house, and wishing I might have been born in that little old cottage just across the street from where that rich little girl of sixteen lived. I would rather have known you then than lived all I have lived since you were born there."
Alice returned his look with control of every feature. "I did not live there till I was sixteen, if you mean the old home. And if you had been born just across the street you would have had no absurd idea about that little girl in your head. Little girls are not usually interested in little boys across the street. Little boys born thousands of miles away have better chances, I think, of knowing them. And it is better so--forthey, at least, don't know what absurd, selfish little things girls across the street are."
"That is all wrong----"
"It is not," declared Alice pointedly.
But the force of everything she said was swept away by his manner. "Only give me the same street and the meanest house in it!" His intensity would not be answered. "Iwould have taken the chances of winning."
"What confidence!"
"And I'd have done it or torn the house down."
Fritzie came back. "I can't find the music anywhere."
Kimberly rose to go to the music room. "No matter," he persisted, "sing anything you can remember, Mrs. MacBirney--just sing."
It seemed easier, as it always seemed when Kimberly persisted, to consent than to decline. Alice sang an English ballad. Then a scrap--all she could remember--of a Moskowski song; then an Italian ballad. Kimberly leaned on the piano.
"Do you like any of those?" asked Alice with her hands running over the keys.
"All of them. But what was the last?"
"An Italian air."
"Yes, I remember it--in Italy. Sing it again, will you?"
"Tell me about that song," he said when she had repeated it. "It is lovely."
"I don't know much. It is a very old song."
"Have I ever told you about a villa on Lago Maggiore?"
"Fritzie has told me. She says it is a dream."
"I should like to hear you sing that song there sometime."
The moon was rising when Kimberly left for the train. Fritzie objected to his going. "Give up your trip. Stay over to-night. What's the difference?"
"I can't, Fritzie. I'm going like a minstrel show, billed for one-night stands. I have engagements ahead of me all the way and if I miss a day I upset the whole schedule."
"What's it all about?"
"A railroad terminal and reorganization. And I've just time to get around and back for Charles's return."
"And the country dance!" said Fritzie.
"Dolly's country dance," explained Alice.
"Good. I don't want to miss that."
Fritzie caught his sleeve. "You disappointed us last year."
"You may count on me," promised Kimberly.
Fritzie pouted. "I know what that means, 'don't count on me!'"
"This time," returned Kimberly as the door of his motor-car was opened for him, "it isn't going to mean that, Fritzie."
CHAPTER XXI
MacBirney followed his household to the country after two weeks. The De Castros were then back and Dolly enlisted Alice and Fritzie to make ready for the dance at Black Rock barn which regularly signalized at Second Lake what Nelson termed the "opening of navigation."
Alice, with Fritzie to help, was charged with the decorations for the event, and two days before it, the available men about the place, under their direction, were emptying the green-houses and laying the woods under tribute.
The lighting scheme Alice pronounced ineffective. For years no one had given the subject any attention. At the last moment electricians were brought out from town to work early and late and lights were installed from which operators in elevated cages could throw sheets of color on the dancers.
When Imogene and Charles got home--and they were late, arriving only the evening before the party--Dolly, who met them at the train, drove them directly to Black Rock, where Alice with her husband, Fritzie, and Arthur De Castro was conducting a rehearsal of the electrical effects. The kisses and embraces of the committee and the arrivals took place under the rays of the new spot lights.
"Now if Robert were here," cried Fritzie impatiently, "everything would be complete. No one knows where he is. Suppose he doesn't come?"
"He is in town and will be out to-morrow." Imogene as she made the announcement put her arm around Alice. "Sweetheart, you must be dead."
Alice was sustained by the excitement. "Nothing of the sort. I haven't done anything but suggest," she said gayly. "Fritzie has done all the work. In the morning we will bring in the apple blossoms and we are through."
But when she had received all the enthusiasm and compliments she went home tired. MacBirney came to her room to talk, but he had no word for the successful decorations and Alice pleading fatigue went directly to bed.
She woke with the sun streaming through the east windows. It was late and though still tired she rose at once. The morning was superb, and, while dressing, Alice surprised Annie by singing to herself.
Fritzie drove over with her to Black Rock. Alice running in to speak to Dolly found her in bed. Dolly kissed her. "You look so fresh, dear." Alice drew herself up with a laugh. "It's the morning, Dolly."
"By-the-way, Robert is here. He came late and he and Arthur talked so long he stayed all night. He is just across the hall in the blue room."
"Then every one is accounted for. I must be off, Dolly."
"Where are you going?"
"To the woods with Fritzie to get the blossoms."
An old coaching brake had been sent up from the stables and Arthur De Castro was waiting for the two women. "I am going to drive you down the field before I take my ride," he explained.
"You do need exercise. You look sleepy, Arthur," remarked Fritzie, critically.
"Robert kept me up all night." Arthur turned to Alice. "You knew he was back?"
"Dolly told me."
"The lazy fellow isn't up yet," said Fritzie.
Arthur corrected her. "He is up and gone home. But he will be over again this morning."
The horses were fresh and took Arthur's attention across the field and the big wagon lurched as the team danced along. In the woods they found Grace De Castro with the men who were to work. Arthur's saddle-horse was in waiting. The men began loading the brake with elder blossoms, brier roses, and branches from the forest trees. Arthur had meant to take his groom with him, but found there would be nobody to drive the brake back to the barn.
"No matter, Mr. De Castro," said Alice. "Take him. I will drive back." Arthur demurred, but Alice insisted. "I would rather drive the team than not. I drive our horses all the time."
Arthur and the groom rode away. Fritzie and Grace looked at Alice in astonishment when the wagon had been loaded and Alice took the driver's high seat, pulled her glove gauntlets back taut and a gardener handed her the reins.
"Aren't you afraid?" cried Grace.
"Not in the least," Alice answered, slipping her hands into the driving loops and putting her foot on the wheel-brake.
"Really," declared Grace, "you have quite an air."
Fritzie was apprehensive. "For Heaven's sake, don't let them run away, Allie."
The men at the bridles stood aside, Alice spoke and the team leaped swiftly ahead. She gave them leeway for a few moments, but kept them under control and her manner was so confident that Fritzie's fears were allayed before the brake had crossed the first hill. As Alice made the turn in the road and looked laughingly back the two girls waved approval at her. They saw the brim of her broad hat rising and falling like a bird's wings as she nodded to them; then she threw on the wheel-brake and started down the hill.
For a moment the difficulty of holding the pair in check increased and by the time the barn was in sight the struggle had stirred her blood. It colored two little circles in her cheeks and had lighted fires of animation in her gray eyes. She saw the rising entrance to the barn and only took heed that the doors were wide open. Then she gave all her strength to guiding the rushing horses up the long incline. Just as their heads shot under the doorway the off horse shied. The front wheels of the brake bounced over the threshold and Alice saw, standing within, Robert Kimberly.
She gave an exclamation of surprise as she threw on the wheel-brake, pulled with all her strength on the reins and brought her horses to a halt. Kimberly with one hand on the casement stood perfectly still until she looked around. Then he came forward laughing. "You certainly are a capital whip."
"You frightened me nearly to death!" exclaimed Alice with a long breath. "Where, pray, did you come from?" she demanded, looking down from her eminence.
"From almost everywhere. And you?"
"From the woods."
He laid a hand on the foot-board. "Really, I wonder whether there is anything you can't do."
"I am afraid there is one thing now. I don't see how I am going to get down. Aren't there any men around to take the horses?"
"The horses will stand. Just hook your lines and jump from the wheel."
Alice looked at the distance in dismay. "That is easy to say."
"Not hard to do," returned Kimberly. "I'll break your flight."
"I'm a wretched jumper."
"Nonsense. You can't tell me you're a wretched anything after that drive."
"Step away then and I'll jump. Only, I don't see just how I am going to stop after I start."
"What do you want to stop for? Come ahead."
She put her foot cautiously on the wheel; it was a very pretty foot. Then she steadied herself and with her hand swept little ringlets of hair from her eyes.
She knew he was waiting to receive her and, meaning to elude him, turned at the last instant and jumped away from where he stood. Kimberly, in spite of her precaution, caught her as her feet struck the floor, and leaned an instant over her. "Beautifully done!" he exclaimed, and drawing her suddenly into his arms he kissed her.
She pushed him back with all her strength. He met her consternation with good humor. "I couldn't help it."
Alice, burning with angry blushes, retreated. He hoped it would end there and ignored the outraged spirit in her eyes as she took her handkerchief from her waist.
He tried to laugh again. "Don't be angry." But Alice put both hands to her face and walked quickly away.
CHAPTER XXII
Kimberly followed her through the open door. "Where are you going?" he asked. Her answer came in her quickened step. He repeated his words without eliciting any response. Then he stepped directly in front of her in the path. "Stop for one moment. Alice, you can't go any farther while you are as angry at me as you are now."
"I am Alice to no one but my husband," she exclaimed controlling herself as well as she could. "You shall not stop me, you have no right to."
"Where are you going?"
"I am going home."
"Listen; you are Alice to me--now, and forever; remember that."
Her knees trembled as she strove to escape him. She tried to pass through the shrubbery and could not. She felt faint and dizzy. The very world had changed with a kiss. Everything in life seemed upset, every safeguard gone.
He took her arm. "Come back to the path, Alice. We must walk it together."
She paused an instant for breath and made an effort to speak as she put his hand angrily away. "I insist," she cried, "that you do not continue to insult me."
"If you wait for me to insult you, Alice, you will wait a long time. I should be as likely to insult my own mother."
"I have done nothing to deserve this," she sobbed, frantic with confusion.
"You deserve more a thousand times than my devotion ever can bring you. But all it can ever bring, from the moment I kissed you, is yours."
Her eyes blazed through her tears. In her helpless wrath she stamped her foot. "You are shameless. I detest your conduct. If you are going to the house I will stay here. If you are not, let me go."
He met her denunciation with steadiness. "Nothing you can say will anger me."
"You mean you have no respect for me." She spoke so fast she could scarcely frame the words. "Why don't you say so? Are you too cowardly?"
The imputation stung him. He seemed to explode inwardly. "I have nothingbutrespect for you, Alice," he insisted with terrifying energy, "but this thing must be fought out----"
She attempted to speak. His words drowned her. "I want to say nothing that will wound or offend you. You make it very hard for me to speak at all----"
"You have no right to speak----"
"But, Alice," he exclaimed, throwing all his force into the words, "you don't love that man. That is why I speak. If youdidlove him, if even he loved you, I could be silent."
"I love my husband as a wife should," she cried, struggling vainly to escape his accusation.
"You do not. You cannot!"
They spoke at white heat, she fighting vainly to control her trembling limbs and Kimberly pausing at times to deal better his sledge-hammer blows at her pitiful strength.
"You do not love that man. If I believed you did," he spoke with a bitterness she had never heard before, "I should never want to see another sun rise. I respect you above all women that breathe; but in that I am right, I can't be wrong. I have suppressed and stifled and smothered as long as I can and it will come out!"
"I will not hear you!"
"Sometime, somewhere, you will hear me. Don't speak!" he exclaimed vehemently. The veins knotted upon his forehead. "I forgot myself for a moment. If you knew what it costs me to remember! But, Alice, for me it is you--or nothing in this world. Remember! You or nothing!"
She searched his face for pity. "I am sinking with shame. What further, what more humiliation do you want? We are in plain view of the house. I am utterly helpless. Will you not have the decency to leave me?"
"I wish I could have said this better; I do nothing well. If I have hurt you, I am very, very sorry." He strode away toward the garden.
Trying to compose herself, Alice walked to the house. Providentially, Dolly had already started for the field. Summoning a servant, Alice ordered her car and with her head whirling started for home. As she was hurried over the country road her mind gradually righted itself, and strange thoughts ran like lightning flashes through her brain. Reaching home, she hastened upstairs and locked her door.
What startled her most painfully in her reflections was the unwelcome conviction that there was nothing new, nothing surprising in her situation. Nothing, at least, except this violent outburst which she now realized she ought long ago to have foreseen. She was suddenly conscious that she had long known Kimberly loved her, and that one day he would call her to account--for the crime of being loved in spite of herself, she reflected bitterly.
She threw herself on her couch and held her hands upon her burning temples. He had caught her in his arms and forced a kiss upon her. The blood suffused her face at the recollection. Again and again, though she turned from the picture, imagination brought it back. She saw his eyes as he bent over her; the thought of the moment was too much to support. Her very forehead crimsoned as the scene presented itself. And worse, was the realizing that something of fascination lingered in the horror of that instant of amazement and fear and mad repulsion of his embrace. She hid her face in her pillow.
After a time she grew calmer, and with her racing pulse quieted, her emotion wore itself somewhat out. Saner thoughts asserted themselves. She felt that she could fight it out. She searched her heart and found no wantonness within it. Strongly assailed, and not, she felt, through her own fault, she would fight and resist. He had challenged her when he had said it should be fought out. She, too, resolved it should be.
She bathed her forehead, and when she felt sure of herself, rang for Annie. Lunch was served in her room, but she could eat nothing. At moments she felt the comforting conviction of having settled her mind. Unhappily, her mind would not stay settled. Nothing would stay settled. No mood that brought relief would remain. The blood came unbidden to her cheeks even while Annie was serving her and her breath would catch at the opening of a door.
When she heard the hum of a motor-car on the open highway her heart jumped. She opened the porch doors and went out to where she could look on the lake. Her eyes fell upon the distant Towers and her anger against Kimberly rose. She resolved he should realize how he had outraged her self-respect. She picked from the troubled current of her thought cutting things that she ought to have said. She despised herself for not having more angrily resented his conduct, and determined, if he dared further persist, to expose him relentlessly to the circle of their friends, even if they were his own relations. There should be no guilty secret between them; this, at least, she could insure.
When the telephone bell rang, Annie answered it. Dolly was calling for Alice and went into a state when told that Alice had come home affected by the heat, and had given up and gone to bed; she hoped yet, Annie said, to be all right for the evening. Fritzie took the wire at Black Rock to ask what she could do, and Annie assured her there was nothing her mistress needed but quiet and rest.
When the receiver had been hung up the first bridge was crossed, for Alice was resolved above all things not to be seen that night at the dance. When Fritzie came back to Cedar Lodge to dress, Alice was still in bed. Her room was darkened and Annie thought she might be sleeping. At dinner-time, MacBirney, who had been in town all day, came in to see how she was. She told her husband that he would have to go to Dolly's with Fritzie.
MacBirney bent over his wife and kissed her, greatly to her mental discomfort. An unwelcome kiss from him seemed to bring back more confusingly the recollection of Kimberly's kiss, and to increase her perplexities. She detested her husband's caresses; they meant no real affection and she did not intend he should think she believed they did. But she never could decide where to draw the line with him, and was divided between a desire to keep him always at a distance and a wish not to seem always unamiable.
Fritzie, after she was dressed, tiptoed in. The room was lighted to show Alice the new gown. It was one of their spring achievements, and Alice raised herself on her pillow to give a complete approval of the effect. "It is a stunning thing; simply stunning. If you would only stop running yourself to death, Fritzie, and put on ten pounds, you would be absolute perfection."
"If I stopped running myself to death what would there be to live for?" demanded Fritzie, refastening the last pin in her Dresden girdle. "We all have to live for something."
Alice put her hand to her head. "I wonder what I have to live for?"
Fritzie turned sharply. "You? Why nothing but to spend your money and have a good time. Too bad about you, isn't it? You'll soon have a million a year for pin-money."
Alice shook her head. "A dozen millions a year would not interest me, Fritzie."
Fritzie laughed. "Don't be too sure, my dear; not too sure. Well," Fritzie's hands ran carefully over her hair for the last time, "there are a lot of men coming over from the Sound to-night. I may meet my fate!"
"I wish you may with all my heart, Fritzie. Why is it fates always come to people that don't want them?"
"Don't you believe it," cried Fritzie, "they do want them."
"They don't--not always."
"Don't you ever believe it--they only say they don't or think they don't!" she exclaimed, with accustomed vehemence.
Alice moved upon her pillow in impatient disapproval. "I hope you'll have a good time to-night."
MacBirney was ready and Fritzie joined him. The house grew quiet after they left. Annie brought up a tray and Alice took a cup of broth. She did not long resist the drowsiness that followed. She thought vaguely for a moment of a prayer for safety. But her married life had long excluded prayer. What good could come of praying to be kept unharmed while living in a state that had in itself driven her from prayer? That, at least, would be too absurd, and with a dull fear gnawing and dying alternately at her heart she fell asleep.
CHAPTER XXIII
At noon next day MacBirney, seeking his wife, found her in her dressing-room. She had come from the garden and stood before a table filled with flowers, which she was arranging in vases.
"I've been looking for you." MacBirney threw himself into a convenient chair as he spoke. "Robert Kimberly is downstairs."
"Mr. Kimberly? To see you, I suppose."
"No, to see you."
"To seeme?" Alice with flowers in her hand, paused. Then she carried a vase to the mantel-piece. "At this time of day?"
"Well--to see us, he says."
She returned to the table. "What in the world does he want to see us about?"
MacBirney laughed. "He says he has something to say to both of us. I told him I would bring you down."
A breath would have toppled Alice over. "I can't dress to go down now," she managed to say. "It may be something from Dolly. Ask him to give you any message he has."
Walking hurriedly to the mantel with another jar of roses, she found her fear extreme. Could it be possible Kimberly would dream of saying to her husband what he had said to her yesterday? She smothered at the thought, yet she knew his appalling candor and felt unpleasantly convinced that he was capable of repeating every word of it. The idea threw her into a panic. She resolved not to face him under such circumstances; she was in no position to do so. "Tell him," she said abruptly, "that as much as I should like to hear what he has to say, he will have to excuse me this morning."
"He offered to come this evening if you preferred."
"We have other guests to-night," returned Alice coldly. "And I can't be bothered now."
"Bothered?" echoed MacBirney with sarcasm. "Perhaps I had better tell him that."
"By all means, if you want to," she retorted in desperation. "Tell him anything you like."
Her husband rose. "You are amiable this morning."
"No, I am not, I'm sorry to say. I am not quite well--that is the real truth and must be my excuse. Make it for me or not as you like."
MacBirney walked downstairs. After an interminable time, Alice, breathing more freely, heard Kimberly's car moving from the door. When she went down herself she watched narrowly the expression of her husband's face. But he was plainly interested in nothing more serious than Fritzie's account of the country dance. When Alice ventured to ask directly what Kimberly's messages were, he answered that Kimberly had given none. With Fritzie, Alice took a drive after luncheon somewhat easier in mind. Yet she reflected that scarcely twenty-four hours had passed and she already found herself in an atmosphere of suspense and apprehension from which there seemed no escape.
While she was dressing that night, flowers from The Towers' gardens were brought to Cedar Lodge in boxfuls, just as they had regularly been sent the year before--roses for the tables, violets for Alice's rooms, orchids for herself. If she only dared send them back! Not, she knew, that it would make any difference with the sender, but it would at least express her indignation. She still speculated as to whether Kimberly would dare to tell her husband and upon what would happen if he should tell him.
And her little dream of publicity as an antidote! What had become of it already? So far as Kimberly was concerned, she now firmly believed he was ready to publish his attitude toward her to the world. And she shrank with every instinct from the prospective shame and humiliation.
The water about her seemed very deep as she reflected, and she felt singularly helpless. She had never heard of a situation just such as this, never imagined one exactly like it. This man seemed different from every other she had ever conceived of; more frankly brutal than other brutes and more to be dreaded than other men.
A week passed before Kimberly and Alice met. It was at Charles Kimberly's. Doctor Bryson, the Nelsons, and Fritzie were there.
As Alice and her husband came down, Charles Kimberly and Robert walked out of the library. Robert bowed to MacBirney and to Alice--who scarcely allowed her eyes to answer his greeting.
"Are you always glad to get back to your own country, Mrs. Kimberly?" asked MacBirney greeting his hostess.
Imogene smiled. "Dutifully glad."
"Is that all?"
"At least, I come back with the same feeling of relief that I am getting back to democracy."
"That is," suggested Lottie Nelson, "getting back to where you are the aristocracy."
Dolly, who with her husband joined them in time to hear the remark, tossed her head. "I always thank Heaven, Lottie, that we have no aristocracy here."
"But you are wrong, Dolly, we have," objected Robert Kimberly as the party went into the drawing-room. "Democracy is nothing but an aristocracy of ability. What else can happen when you give everybody a chance? We began in this country by ridding ourselves of an aristocracy of heredity and privilege; and we have only succeeded in substituting for it the coldest, cruelest aristocracy known to man--the aristocracy of brains. This is the aristocracy that controls our manufacturing, our transportation, our public service and our finance; it makes our laws and apportions our taxation. And from this fell cause done our present griefs arise."
"But you must rid yourself of the grossly material conception of an aristocracy, Mr. Kimberly," said Nelson. "Our real aristocracy, I take it, is not our material one, as Robert Kimberly insists. The true aristocrat, I hold, is the real but mere gentleman."
"Exactly right," assented De Castro. "The gentleman and nothing else is the thing."
"There is nothing more interesting than the gentleman," returned Robert Kimberly, "except the gentleman plus the brute. But the exception is enormous, for it supplies our material aristocrat."
"You must remember, though, that ideas of superiority and inferiority are very tricky," commented Imogene. "And they persist for centuries. To the Naples beggar, even to-day, the Germans are 'barbarians.' And whenever I encounter the two I never can decide whichisthe aristocrat, the traveller or the beggar."
"I read your speech at the New England dinner last night," said Imogene, turning to Nelson, "and I saw all the nice things that were said about it this morning."
"If credit were due anywhere it would be to the occasion," returned Nelson. "There is always something now in such gatherings to suggest the discomforting reflection that our best native stock is dying out."
Dolly looked distressed. "Oh, dear, are those unfortunate people still dying out? I've been worrying over their situation for years. Can't any one do anything?"
"Don't let it disturb you, Mrs. De Castro," said Bryson.
"But I am afraid it is getting on my nerves."
"Nothing dies out that doesn't deserve to die out," continued Bryson. "As to the people Nelson speaks of, I incline to think they ought to die out. Their whole philosophy of life has been bad. Nature ought to be ashamed, of course, to pass them by and turn to inferior races for her recruits. But since all races are inferior to them, what can she do but take refuge with the despised foreigner? The men and women that take life on the light-housekeeping plan may do so if they will--for one generation. What may safely be counted on is that nature will find its workers in the human hive even if it has to turn to the savage tribes."
"But the poor savages, doctor--they also are on the verge of extinction, are they not?" demanded Dolly.
"Then nature will provide its workers from one unfailing source--from those we have always with us, the poor and the despised. And it can be depended on with equal certainty to cast the satisfied, cultivated, and intellectual drones into outer darkness."
"My dear, but the doctor is savage, isn't he?" Lottie Nelson made the appeal indolently to Imogene. "We shall soon be asking, doctor," she concluded languidly, "which tribe you belong to."
"He would answer, the medical tribe," suggested Fritzie.
"Speaking of savages," interposed Arthur De Castro, "Charles and I were making a portage once on the York River. On the trail I met two superb little Canadian lads--straight, swarthy, handsome fellows. They couldn't speak English. 'You must be French,' I suggested, addressing the elder by way of compliment in that tongue. Imagine my surprise when he answered with perfect composure, 'Non, monsieur. Nous sommes des sauvages!'"
"For my part," said Imogene, "I am always glad to hear Doctor Bryson defend families and motherhood. I don't care how savage he gets."
"I defend motherhood because to me it is the highest state of womanhood. Merely as an instinct, its mysteries are a never-ending marvel."
Lottie Nelson looked patiently bored. "Oh, tell us about them, do, doctor."
"I will tell you of one," returned Bryson undismayed. "Take the young mother that brings her first child into the world; from the day of its birth until the day of that mother's death, her child is never wholly out of her thought. The child may die, may be forgotten by every one else on earth, may be to all other conscious existence in this world as a thing that never was. But in its mother's heart it never dies. I call that a mystery."
The doctor's glance as he finished fell on Alice's face. He was sorry at once that he had spoken at all. Her eyes were fixed on him with a look of acute pain.
Alice hardly knew Doctor Bryson, but what he saw in the sadness of her face he quite understood. And though they had never met, other than in a formal way, he never afterward felt that they were wholly strangers.