"Cheer after cheer rang through the hallway"
Evidently his guests had rifled the chests and trunks in the attic and had attired themselves to their heart's content. At sight of Desboro approaching accompanied by a slim figure in complete armour, they set up a shout of apprehension and then cheer after cheer rang through the hallway.
"Do you know," cried Betty Barkley, "you are the most darling thing in armour that ever happened! I want to get into some steel trousers like yours immediately! Are there any in the armoury that will fit me, Jim?"
"Didyoudiscover her?" demanded Reggie Ledyard, aghast.
"Not within the time limit, old chap," said Desboro, pretending deep chagrin.
"Then you don't have to marry him, do you, Miss Nevers?" exclaimed Cairns, gleefully.
"I don't have to marry anybody, Mr. Cairns. Andisn'tit humiliating?" she returned, laughingly, edging her way toward the stairs amid the noisy and admiring group surrounding her.
"No! No!" cried Katharine Frere. "You can't escape! You are too lovely that way, and you certainly must come to lunch in your armour!"
"I'd perish!" protested Jacqueline. "No Christian martyr was ever more absolutely cooked than am I in this suit of mail."
Helsa Steyr started for her, but Jacqueline sprang to the stairs and ran up, pursued by Helsa and Betty.
"Isn'tshe the cunningest, sweetest thing!" sighed Athalie Vannis, looking after her. "I'm simply and sentimentally mad over her. Whydidn'tyou have brains enough to discover her, Jim, and make her marry you?"
"I'd have knocked 'em out if he had had enough brains for that," muttered Ledyard. "But the horrible thing is that I haven't any brains, either, and Miss Nevers has nothing but!"
"A girl like that marries diplomats and dukes, and discoverers and artists and things," commented Betty. "You're just a good-looking simp, Reggie. So is Jim."
Ledyard retorted wrathfully; Desboro, who had been summoned to the telephone, glanced at Aunt Hannah as he walked away, and was rather disturbed at the malice in the old lady's menacing smile.
But what Daisy Hammerton said to him over the telephone disturbed him still more.
"Jim! Elena and Cary Clydesdale are stopping with us. May I bring them to dinner this evening?"
For a moment he was at a loss, then he said, with forced cordiality:
"Why, of course, Daisy. But have you spoken to them about it? I've an idea that they might find my party a bore."
"Oh, no! Elena wished me to ask you to invite them. And Cary was listening."
"Didhecare to come?"
"I suppose so."
"What did he say?"
"He grinned. He always does what Elena asks him to do."
"Oh! Then bring them by all means."
"Thank you, Jim."
And that was all; and Desboro, astonished and troubled for a few moments, began to see in the incident not only the dawn of an understanding between Clydesdale and his wife, but something resembling a vindication for himself in this offer to renew a friendship so abruptly terminated. More than that, he saw in it a return of Elena to her senses, and it pleased him so much that when he passed Aunt Hannah in the hall he was almost smiling.
"What pleases you so thoroughly, James—yourself?" she asked grimly.
But he only smiled at her and sauntered on, exchanging friendly body-blows with Reggie Ledyard as he passed.
"Reggie," said Mrs. Hammerton, with misleading mildness, "come and exercise me for a few moments—there's a dear." And she linked arms with him and began to march up and down the hall vigorously.
"She's very charming, isn't she?" observed Aunt Hannah blandly.
"Who?"
"Miss Nevers."
"She's a dream," said Reggie, with emphasis.
"Such a thoroughbred air," commented the old lady.
"Rather!"
"And yet—she's only a shop-keeper."
"Eh?"
"Didn't you know that Miss Nevers keeps an antique shop?"
"What of it?" he said, turning red. "I peddle stocks. My grandfather made snuff. What do I care what Miss Nevers does?"
"Of course. Only—wouldyoumarry her?"
"Huh! Like a shot! But I see her letting me! Once I was even ass enough to think I could kiss her, but it seems she won't even stand for that! And Herrendene makes me sick—the old owl—sneaking off with her whenever he can get the chance! They all make me sick!" he added, lighting a cigarette. "I wish to goodness I had a teaspoonful of intellect, and I'd give 'em a run for her. Because I have the looks, if I do say it," he added, modestly.
"Looks never counted seriously with a woman yet," said Mrs. Hammerton maliciously. "Also, I've seen better looking coachmen than you."
"Thanks. What are you going to do with her anyway?"
"I don't have to do anything. She'll do whatever is necessary."
"That's right, too. Lord, but she'll cut a swathe! Even that dissipated creature Cairns sits up and takes notice. I should think Desboro would, too—more than he does."
"I understand there's a girl in blue, somewhere," observed Mrs. Hammerton.
"That's a different kind of girl," said the young man, with contempt, and quite oblivious to his own naïve self-revelation. Mrs. Hammerton shrugged her trim shoulders.
"Also," he said, "there is Elena Clydesdale—speaking of scandal and James Desboro in the same breath."
"Do you believe that story?"
"Yes. But that sort of affair never counts seriously with a man who wants to marry."
"Really? How charming! But perhaps it might count against him with the girl he wants to marry. Young girls are sometimes fastidious, you know."
"They never hear about such things until somebody tells 'em, after they're married. Then it's rather too late to throw any pre-nuptial fits," he added, with a grin.
"Reginald," said Mrs. Hammerton, "day by day I am humbly learning how to appreciate the innate delicacy, chivalry, and honourable sentiments of your sex. You yourself are a wonderful example. For instance, when rumour couples Elena Clydesdale's name with James Desboro's, does it occur to you to question the scandal? No; you take it for granted, and very kindly explain to me how easily Mrs. Clydesdale can be thrown over if her alleged lover decides he'd like to marry somebody."
"That's what's done," he said sulkily. "When a man——"
"You don't have to tellme!" she fairly hissed, turning on him so suddenly that he almost fell backward. "Don't you think I know what is the code among your sort—among the species of men you find sympathetic? You and Jack Cairns and James Desboro—and Cary Clydesdale, too? Let him reproach himself if his wife misbehaves! And I don't blame her if she does, and I don't believe she does! Do you hear me, you yellow-haired, blue-eyed little beast?"
Ledyard stood open-mouthed, red to the roots of his blond hair, and the tiny, baleful black eyes of Mrs. Hammerton seemed to hypnotise him.
"You're all alike," she said with withering contempt. "Real men are out in the world, doing things, not crawling around over the carpet under foot, or sitting in clubs, or dancing with a pack of women, or idling from polo field to tennis court, from stable to steam-yacht. You've no real blood in you; it's only Scotch and soda gone flat. You've the passions of overfed lap dogs with atrophied appetites. There's not a real man here—except Captain Herrendene—and he's going back to his post in a week. You others have no posts. And do you think that men of your sort are fitted to talk about marrying such a girl as Miss Nevers? Let me catch one of you trying it! She's in my charge. But that doesn't count. She'll recognise a real man when she sees one, and glittering counterfeits won't attract her."
"Great heavens!" faltered Reggie. "What a horrible lambasting! I—I've heard you could do it; but this is going some—really, you know, it's going some! And I'm not all those things that you say, either!" he added, in naïve resentment. "I may be no good, butI'm not as rotten as all that."
He stood with lips pursed up into a half-angry, half-injured pout, like a big, blond, blue-eyed yokel facing school-room punishment.
Mrs. Hammerton's harsh face relaxed; and finally a smile wrinkled her eyes.
"I suppose men can't help being what they are—a mixture of precocious child and trained beast. The best of 'em have both of these in 'em. And you are far from the best. Reggie, come here to me!"
He came, after a moment's hesitation, doubtfully.
"Lord!" she said. "How we cherish the worst of you! I sometimes think we don't know enough to appreciate the best. Otherwise, perhaps they'd give us more of their society. But, generally, all we draw is your sort; and we cast our nets in vain into the real world—where Captain Herrendene is going on Monday. Reggie, dear?"
"What?" he said suspiciously.
"Was I severe with you and your friends?"
"Great heavens! There isn't another woman I'd take such a drubbing from!"
"But youdotake it," she said, with one of her rare and generous smiles which few people ever saw, and of which few could believe her facially capable.
And she slipped her arm through his and led him slowly toward the library where already Farris was announcing luncheon.
"By heck!" he repeated later, in the billiard room, to a group of interested listeners. "Aunt Hannah is all that they say she is. She suddenly let out into me, and I give y'm'word she had me over the ropes in one punch—tellin' me what beasts men are—and how we're not fit to associate with nice girls—no b'jinks—nor fit to marry 'em, either."
Cairns laughed unfeelingly.
"Oh, you can laugh!" muttered Ledyard. "But to be lit into that way hurts a man's self-respect. You'd better be careful or you'll be in for a dose of Aunt Hannah, too. She evidently has no use for any of us—barrin' the Captain, perhaps."
That gentleman smiled and picked up his hockey stick.
"There's enough ice left—if you don't mind a wetting," he said. "Shall we start?"
Desboro rose, saying carelessly: "The Hammertons and Clydesdales are coming over. I'll have to wait for them."
Bertie Barkley turned his hard little smooth-shaven face toward him.
"Where are the Clydesdales?"
"I believe they're stopping with the Hammertons for a week or two—I really don't know. You can ask them, as they'll be here to dinner."
Cairns laid aside a cue with which he had been punching pool-balls; Van Alstyne unhooked his skate-bag, and the others followed his example in silence. Nobody said anything further about the Clydesdales to Desboro.
Out in the hall a gay group of young girls in their skating skirts were gathering, among them Jacqueline, now under the spell of happiness in their companionship.
Truly, even in these few days, the "warm sunlight of approval" had done wonders for her. She had blossomed out deliriously and exquisitely in her half-shy friendships with these young girls, responding diffidently at first to their overtures, then frankly and with a charming self-possession based on the confidence that she was really quite all right if everybody only thought so.
Everybody seemed to think so; Athalie Vannis's friendship for her verged on the sentimental, for the young girl was enraptured at the idea that Jacqueline actually earned her own living. Marie Ledyard lazily admired and envied her slight but exceedingly fashionable figure; Helsa Steyr passionately adored her; Katharine Frere was profoundly impressed by her intellectual attainments; Betty Barkley saw in her a social success, with Aunt Hannah to pilot her—that is, every opportunity for wealth or position, or even both, through the marriage to which, Betty cheerfully conceded, her beauty entitled her.
So everybody of her own sex was exceedingly nice to her; and the men already were only too anxious to be. And what more could a young girl want?
As the jolly party started out across the snow, in random and chattering groups made up by hazard, Jacqueline turned from Captain Herrendene, with whom she found herself walking, and looked back at Desboro, who had remained standing bareheaded on the steps.
"Aren't you coming?" she called out to him, in her clear young voice.
He shook his head, smiling.
"Please excuse me a moment," she murmured to Herrendene, and ran back along the middle drive. Desboro started forward to meet her at the same moment, and they met under the dripping spruces.
"Why aren't you coming with us?" she asked.
"I can't very well. I have to wait here for some people who might arrive early."
"You are going to remain here all alone?"
"Yes, until they come. You see they are dining here, and I can't let them arrive and find the house empty."
"Do you want me to stay with you? Mrs. Hammerton is in her room, and it would be perfectly proper."
He said, reddening with surprise and pleasure: "It's very sweet of you. I—had no idea you'd offer to do such a thing——"
"Why shouldn't I? Besides, I'd rather be where you are than anywhere else."
"Withme, Jacqueline?"
"Are you really surprised to hear me admit it?"
"A little."
"Why, if you please?"
"Because you never before have been demonstrative, even in speech."
She blushed: "Not as demonstrative as you are. But you know that I might learn to be."
He looked at her curiously, but with more or less self-control.
"Do you really care for me that way, Jacqueline?"
"I know of no way in which I don't care for you," she said quickly.
"Does your caring for me amount to—love?" he asked deliberately.
"I—think so—yes."
The emotion in his face was now palely reflected in hers; their voices were no longer quite steady under the sudden strain of self-repression.
"Say it, Jacqueline, if it is true," he whispered. His face was tense and white, but not as pale as hers. "Say it!" he whispered again.
"I can't—in words. But it is true—what you asked me."
"That you love me?"
"Yes. I thought you knew it long ago."
They stood very still, facing each other, breathing more rapidly. Her fate was upon her, and she knew it.
Captain Herrendene, who had waited, watched them for a moment more, then, lighting a cigarette, sauntered on carelessly, swinging his hockey-stick in circles.
Desboro said in a low, distinct voice, and without a tremor: "I am more in love with you than ever, Jacqueline. But that is as much as I shall ever say to you—nothing more than that."
"I know it."
"Yes, I know you do. Shall I leave you in peace? It can still be done. Or—shall I tell you again that I love you?"
"Yes—if you wish, tell me—that."
"Is loveenoughfor you, Jacqueline?"
"Ask yourself, Jim. With what you give I must be content—or starve."
"Do you realise—what it means for us?" He could scarcely speak now.
"Yes—I know." She turned and looked back. Herrendene was now a long way off, walking slowly and alone. Then she turned once more to Desboro, absently, as though absorbed in her own reflections. Herrendene had asked her to marry him that morning. She was thinking of it now.
Then, in her remote gaze the brief dream faded, her eyes cleared, and she looked up at the silent man beside her.
"Shall I remain here with you?" she asked.
He made an effort to speak, but his voice was no longer under command. She waited, watching him; then they both turned and slowly entered the house together. Her hand had fallen into his, and when they reached the library he lifted it to his lips and noticed that her fingers were trembling. He laid his other hand over them, as though to quiet the tremor; and looked into her face and saw how colourless it had become.
"My darling!" But the time had not yet come when he could tolerate his own words; contempt for them choked him for a moment, and he only took her into his arms in silence.
She strove to think, to speak, to master her emotion; but for a moment his mounting passion subdued her and she remained silent, quivering in his embrace.
Then, with an effort, she found her voice and loosened his arms.
"Listen," she whispered. "You must listen. I know what you are—how you love me. But you are wrong! If I could only make you see it! If you would not think me selfish, self-seeking—believe unworthy motives of me——"
"What do you mean?" he asked, suddenly chilled.
"I mean that I am worth more to you than—than to be—what you wish me to be to you. You won't misunderstand, will you? I am not bargaining, not begging, not trading. I love you! I couldn't bargain; I could only take your terms—or leave them. And I have not decided. But—may I say something—for your sake more than for my own?"
"Yes," he said, coolly.
"Then—for your sake—far more than for mine—if you do really love me—make more of me than you have thought of doing! I know I shall be worth it to you. Could you consider it?"
After a terrible silence, he said: "I can—get out of your life—dog that I am! I can leave you in peace. And that is all."
"If that is all you can do—don't leave me—in peace. I—I will take the chances of remaining—honest——"
The hint of fear in her eyes and in her voice startled him.
"There is a martyrdom," she said, "which I might not be able to endure forever. I don't know. I shall never love another man. And all my life I have wanted love. It is here; and I may not be brave enough to deny it and live my life out in ignorance of it. But, Jim, if you only could understand—if you only knew what I can be to you—to the world for your sake—what I can become merely because I love you—what I am capable of for the sake of your pride in—in me—and——" She turned very white. "Because it is better for your sake, Jim. I am not thinking of myself, and how wonderful it would be for me—truly I am not. Don't you believe me? Only—there is so much to me—I am really so much of a woman—that it would begin to trouble you if ever I became anything—anything less than your—wife. And you would feel sorry for me—and I couldn't truthfully console you because all the while I'd know in my heart what you had thrown away that might have belonged to us both."
"Your life?" he said, with dry lips.
"Oh, Jim! I mean more than your life and mine! For our lives—yours and mine—would not be all you would throw away and deny. Before we die we would want children. Ought I not to say it?" She turned away, blind with tears, and dropped onto the sofa. "I'm wondering if I'm in my right mind," she sobbed, "for yesterday I did not even dare think of these things I am saying to you now! But—somehow—even while Captain Herrendene was speaking—it all flashed into my mind. I don't know how I knew it, but I suddenly understood that you belonged to me—just as you are, Jim—all the good, all the evil in you—everything—even your intentions toward me—how you may deal with me—all, all belonged to me! And so I went back to you, to help you. And now I have said this thing—for your sake alone, not for my own—only so that in years to come you may not have me on your conscience. For if you do not marry me—and I let myself really love you—you will wish that the beginning was to be begun again, and that we had loved each other—otherwise."
He came over and stood looking down at her for a moment. His lips were twitching.
"Would you marry me now," he managed to say, "now, after you know what a contemptible cad I am?"
"You are only a man. I love you, Jim. I will marry you—if you'll let me——"
Suddenly she covered her eyes with her hands. He seated himself beside her, sick with self-contempt, dumb, not daring to touch her where she crouched, trembling in every limb.
For a long while they remained so,in utter silence; then the doorbell startled them. Jacqueline fled to her room; Desboro composed himself with a desperate effort and went out into the hall.
He welcomed his guests on the steps when Farris opened the door, outwardly master of himself once more.
"We came over early, Jim," explained Daisy, "because Uncle John is giving a dinner and father and mother need the car. Do you mind?"
He laughed and shook hands with her and Elena, who looked intently and unsmilingly into his face, and then let her expressionless glance linger for a moment on her husband, who was holding out a huge hand to Desboro.
"I'm glad to see you, Clydesdale," said Desboro pleasantly, and took that bulky gentleman's outstretched hand, who mumbled something incoherent; but the fixed grin remained. And that was the discomforting—yes, the dismaying—characteristic of the man—his grin never seemed to be affected by his emotions.
Mrs. Quant bobbed away upstairs, piloting Daisy and Elena. Clydesdale followed Desboro to the library—the same room where he had discovered his wife that evening, and had learned in what esteem she held the law that bound her to him. Both men thought of it now—could not avoid remembering it. Also, by accident, they were seated very nearly as they had been seated that night, Clydesdale filling the armchair with his massive figure, Desboro sitting on the edge of the table, one foot resting on the floor.
Farris brought whiskey; both men shook their heads.
"Will you have a cigar, Clydesdale?" asked the younger man.
"Thanks."
They smoked in silence for a few moments, then:
"I'm glad you came," said Desboro simply.
"Yes. Men don't usually raise that sort of hell with each other unless a woman starts it."
"Don't talk that way about your wife," said Desboro sharply.
"See here, young man, I have no illusions concerning my wife. What happened here was her doing, not yours. I knew it at the time—if I didn't admit it. You behaved well—and you've behaved well ever since—only it hurt me too much to tell you so before to-day."
"That's all right, Clydesdale——"
"Yes, it is going to be all right now, I guess." A curious expression flitted across his red features, softening the grin for a moment. "I always liked you, Desboro; and Elena and I were staying with the Hammertons, so she told that Daisy girl to ask you to invite us. That's all there is to it."
"Good business!" said Desboro, smiling. "I'm glad it's all clear between us."
"Yes, it's clear sailing now, I guess." Again the curiously softening expression made his heavy red features almost attractive, and he remained silent for a while, occupied with thoughts that seemed to be pleasant ones.
Then, abruptly emerging from his revery, he grinned at Desboro:
"So Mrs. Hammerton has our pretty friend Miss Nevers in tow," he said. "Fine girl, Desboro. She's been at my collection, you know, fixing it up for the hammer."
"So you are really going to sell?" inquired Desboro.
"I don't know. Iwasgoing to. But I'm taking a new interest in my hobby since——" he reddened, then added very simply, "since Elena and I have been getting on better together."
"Sure," nodded Desboro, gravely understanding him.
"Yes—it's about like that, Desboro. Things were rotten bad up to that night. And afterward, too, for a while. They're clearing up a little better, I think. We're going to get on together, I believe. I don't know much about women; never liked 'em much—except Elena. It's funny about Miss Nevers, isn't it?"
"What do you mean?"
"Mrs. Hammerton's being so crazy about her. She's a good girl, and a pretty one. Elena is wild to meet her."
"Didn't your wife ever meet her at your house?" asked Desboro dryly.
"When she was there appraising my jim-cracks? No. Elena has no use for my gallery or anybody who goes into it. Besides, until this morning she didn't even know that Miss Nevers was the same expert you employed. Now she wants to meet her."
Desboro slowly raised his eyes and looked at Clydesdale. The unvaried grin baffled him, and presently he glanced elsewhere.
Clydesdale, smoking, slowly crossed one ponderous leg over the other. Desboro continued to gaze out of the window. Neither spoke again until Daisy Hammerton came in with Elena. If the young wife remembered the somewhat lurid circumstances of her last appearance in that room, her animated and smiling face betrayed no indication of embarrassment.
"When is that gay company of yours going to return, Jim?" she demanded. "I am devoured by curiosity to meet this beautiful Miss Nevers. Fancy her coming to my house half a dozen times this winter and I never suspecting that my husband's porcelain gallery concealed such a combination of genius and beauty! I could have bitten somebody's head off in vexation," she rattled on, "when I found out who she was. So I made Daisy ask you to invite us to meet her.Isshe so unusually wonderful, Jim?"
"I believe so," he said drily.
"They say every man who meets her falls in love with her immediately—and that most of the women do, too," appealing to Daisy, who nodded smiling corroboration.
"She is very lovely and very clever, Elena. I think I never saw anything more charming than that rainbow dance she did for us last night in Chinese costume," turning to Desboro, "'The Rainbow Skirt,' I think it is called?"
"A dance some centuries old," said Desboro, and let his careless glance rest on Elena for a moment.
"She looked," said Daisy, "like some exquisite Chinese figure made of rose-quartz, crystal and green jade."
"Jade?" said Clydesdale, immediately interested. "That girl knows jades, I can tell you. By gad! The first thing she did when she walked into my gallery was to saw into a few glass ones with a file; and good-night to about a thousand dollars in Japanese phony!"
"That was pleasant," said Desboro, laughing.
"Wasn't it! And my rose-quartz Fêng-huang! The Chia-Ching period of the Ming dynasty! Do you get me, Desboro? It was Jap!"
"Really?"
Clydesdale brought down his huge fist with a thump on the table:
"I wouldn't believe it! I told Miss Nevers she didn't know her business! I asked her to consider the fact that the crystallisation was rhombohedral, the prisms six-sided, hardness 7, specific gravity 2.6, no trace of cleavage, immune to the three acids or the blow-pipe alone, and reacted with soda in the flame. I thought I knew it all, you see. First she called my attention to the colour. 'Sure,' I said, 'it's a little faded; but rose-quartz fades when exposed to light!' 'Yes,' said she, 'but moisture restores it.' So we tried it. Nix doing! Only a faint rusty stain becoming visible and infecting that delicious rose colour. 'Help!' said I. 'What the devil is it?' 'Jap funny business,' said she. 'Your rose-quartz phoenix of the Ming dynasty is common yellow crystal carved in Japan and dyed that beautiful rose tint with something, the composition of which my chemist is investigating!' Wasn't it horrible, Desboro?"
Daisy's brown eyes were very wide open, and she exclaimed softly:
"What a beautiful knowledge she has of a beautiful profession!" And to Desboro: "Can you imagine anything in the world more fascinating than to use such knowledge? And how in the world did she acquire it? She is so very young to know so much!"
"Her father began her training as a child," said Desboro. There was a slight burning sensation in his face, and a hotter pride within him. After a second or two he felt Elena's gaze; but did not choose to encounter it at the moment, and was turning to speak to Daisy Hammerton when Jacqueline entered the library.
Clydesdale lumbered to his feet and tramped over to shake hands with her; Daisy greeted her cordially; she and Elena were presented, and stood smiling at each other for a second's silence. Then Mrs. Clydesdale moved a single step forward, and Jacqueline crossed to her and offered her hand, looking straight into her eyes so frankly and intently that Elena's colour rose and for once in her life her tongue remained silent.
"Your husband and I are already business acquaintances," said Jacqueline. "I know your very beautiful gallery, too, and have had the privilege of identifying and classifying many of the jades and porcelains."
Elena's eyes were level and cool as she said: "If I had known who you were I would have received you myself. You must not think me rude. Mr. Desboro's unnecessary reticence concerning you is to blame; not I."
Jacqueline's smile became mechanical: "Mr. Desboro's reticence concerning a business acquaintance was very natural. A busy woman neither expects nor even thinks about social amenities under business circumstances."
"'Business is kinder to men than women sometimes believe'"
Elena's flush deepened: "Business is kinder to men than women sometimes believe—if it permits acquaintance with such delightful people as yourself."
Jacqueline said calmly: "All business has its compensations,"—she smiled and made a friendly little salute with her head to Clydesdale and Desboro,—"as you will witness for me. And I am employed by other clients who also are considerate and kind. So you see the woman who works has scarcely any time to suffer from social isolation."
Daisy said lightly: "Nobody who is happily employed worries over social matters. Intelligence and sweet temper bring more friends than a busy girl knows what to do with. Isn't that so, Miss Nevers?"
Jacqueline turned to Elena with a little laugh: "It's an axiom that nobody can have too many friends. I want all I can have, Mrs. Clydesdale, and am most grateful when people like me."
"And when they don't," asked Elena, smiling, "what do you do then, Miss Nevers?"
"What is there to do, Mrs. Clydesdale?" she said gaily. "What would you do about it?"
But Elena seemed not to have heard her, for she was already turning to Desboro, flushed, almost feverish in her animation:
"So many things have happened since I saw you, Jim——" she hesitated, then added daringly, "at the opera. Do you rememberAriane?"
"I think you were in the Barkley's box," he said coolly.
"Your memory is marvellous! In point of fact, I was there. And since then so many, many things have happened that I'd like to compare notes with you—sometime."
"I'm quite ready now," he said.
"Do you think your daily record fit for public scrutiny, Jim?" she laughed.
"I don't mind sharing it with anybody here," he retorted gaily, "if you have no objection."
His voice and hers, and their laughter seemed so perfectly frank that thrust and parry passed as without significance. She and Desboro were still lightly rallying each other; Clydesdale was explaining to Daisy that lapis lazuli was the sapphire of the ancients, while Jacqueline was showing her a bit under a magnifying glass, when the noise of sleighs and motors outside signalled the return of the skating party.
As Desboro passed her, Elena said under her breath: "I want a moment alone with you this evening."
"It's impossible," he motioned with his lips; and passed on with a smile of welcome for his returning guests.
Later, in the billiard room, where they all had gathered before the impromptu dance which usually terminated the evening, Elena found another chance for a word aside: "Jim, I must speak to you alone, please."
"It can't be done. You see that for yourself, don't you?"
"It can be done. Go to your room and I'll come——"
"Are you mad?"
"Almost. I tell you you'd better find some way——"
"What has happened?"
"I mean to haveyoutellme, Jim."
A dull flush came into his face: "Oh! Well, I'll tell you now, if you like."
Her heart seemed to stop for a second, then almost suffocated her, and she instinctively put her hand to her throat.
He was leaning over the pool table, idly spinning the ivory balls; she, seated on the edge, one pretty, bare arm propping her body, appeared to be watching him as idly. All around them rang the laughter and animated chatter of his guests, sipping their after-dinner coffee and cordial around the huge fireplace.
"Don't say—that you are going to—Jim——" she breathed. "It isn't true—it mustn't be——"
He interrupted deliberately: "What are you trying to do to me? Make a servant out of me? Chain me up while you pass your life deciding at leisure whether to live with your husband or involve yourself and me in scandal?"
"Are you in love with that girl—after what you have promised me?"
"Are you sane or crazy?"
"You once told me you would never marry. I have rested secure in the knowledge that when the inevitable crash came you would be free to stand by me!"
"You have a perfectly good husband. You and he are on better terms—you are getting on all right together. Do you expect to keep me tied to the table-leg in case of eventualities?" he said, in a savage whisper. "How many men do you wish to control?"
"One! I thought a Desboro never lied."
"Have I lied to you?"
"If you marry Miss Nevers you will have lied to me, Jim."
"Very well. Then you'll release me from that fool of a promise. I remember I did say that I would never marry. I've changed my mind, that's all. I've changed otherwise, too—please God! The cad you knew as James Desboro is not exactly what you're looking at now. It's in me to be something remotely resembling a man. I learned how to try from her, if you want to know. What I was can't be helped. What I'm to make of the débris of what I am concerns myself. If you ever had a shred of real liking for me you'll show it now."
"Jim! Is this how you betray me—after persuading me to continue a shameful and ghastly farce with Cary Clydesdale! Youhavebetrayed me—for your own ends! You have made my life a living lie again—so that you could evade responsibility——"
"Was I ever responsible for you?"
"You asked me to marry you——"
"Before you married Cary. Good God! Does that entail hard labour for life?"
"You promised not to marry——"
"What is it to you what I do—if you treat your husband decently?"
"I have tried——" She crimsoned. "I—I endured degradation to which I will never again submit—whatever the law may be—whatever marriage is supposed to include! Do you think you can force me to—to that—for your own selfish ends—with your silly and unsolicited advice on domesticity and—and children—when my heart is elsewhere—when you have it, and you know you possess it—and all that I am—every bit of me. Jim! Don't be cruel to me who have been trying to live as you wished, merely to satisfy a moral notion of your own! Don't betray me now—at such a time—when it's a matter of days, hours, before I tell Cary that the farce is ended. Are you going to leave me to face things alone? You can't! I won't let you! I am——"
"'Be careful,' he said.... 'People are watching us'"
"Be careful," he said, spinning the 13 ball into a pocket. "People are watching us. Toss that cue-ball back to me, please. Laugh a little when you do it."
For a second she balanced the white ivory ball in a hand which matched it; then the mad impulse to dash it into his smiling face passed with a shudder, and she laughed and sent it caroming swiftly from cushion to cushion, until it darted into his hand.
"Jim," she said, "you are not really serious. I know it, too; and because I do know it, I have been able to endure the things you have done—your idle fancies for a pretty face and figure—your indiscretions, ephemeral courtships, passing inclinations. But this is different——"
"Yes, it is different," he said. "And so am I, Elena. Let us be about the honest business of life, in God's name, and clear our hearts and souls of the morbid and unwholesome mess that lately entangled us."
"Isthathow you speak of what we have been to each other?" she asked, very pale.
He was silent.
"Jim, dear," she said timidly, "won't you give me ten minutes alone with you?"
He scarcely heard her. He spun the last parti-coloured ball into a corner pocket, straightened his shoulders, and looked at Jacqueline where she sat in the corner of the fireplace. Herrendene, cross-legged on the rug at her feet, was doing Malay card tricks to amuse her; but from moment to moment her blue eyes stole across the room toward Desboro and Mrs. Clydesdale where they leaned together over the distant pool table. Suddenly she caught his eye and smiled a pale response to the message in his gaze.
After a moment he said quietly to Elena: "I am deeply and reverently in love—for the first and only time in my life. It is proper that you should know it. And now you do know it. There is absolutely nothing further to be said between us."
"There is—morethan you think," she whispered, white to the lips.
Nobody, apparently, was yet astir; not a breakfast tray had yet tinkled along the dusky corridors when Desboro, descending the stairs in the dim morning light, encountered Jacqueline coming from the general direction of the east wing, her arms loaded with freshly cut white carnations.
"Good morning," he whispered, in smiling surprise, taking her and her carnations into his arms very reverently, almost timidly.
She endured the contact shyly and seriously, as usual, bending her head aside to avoid his lips.
"Do you suppose," he said laughingly, "that you could ever bring yourself to kiss me, Jacqueline?"
She did not answer, and presently he released her, saying: "You never have yet; and now that we're engaged——"
"Engaged!"
"Youknowwe are!"
"Is that what you think, Jim?"
"Certainly! I asked you to marry me——"
"No, dear,Iaskedyou. But I wasn't certain you had quite accepted me——"
"Are you laughing at me?"
"I don't know—I don't know what I am doing any more; laughter and tears seem so close to each other—sometimes—and I can never be certain which it is going to be any more."
Her eyes remained grave, but her lips were sweet and humourous as she stood there on the stairs, her chin resting on the sheaf of carnations clasped to her breast.
"What is troubling you, Jacqueline?" he asked, after a moment's silence.
"Nothing. If you will hold these flowers a moment I'll decorate you."
He took the fragrant sheaf from her; she selected a magnificent white blossom, drew the stem through the lapel of his coat, patted the flower into a position which suited her, regarded the effect critically, then glanced up out of her winning blue eyes and found him watching her dreamily.
"I try to realise it, and I can't," he said vaguely. "Can you, dear?"
"Realise what?" she asked, in a low voice.
"That we are engaged."
"Are you so sure of me, Jim?"
"Do you suppose I could live life through without younow?"
"I don't know. Try it for two minutes anyway; these flowers must stand in water. Will you wait here for me?"
He stepped forward to aid her, but she passed him lightly, avoiding his touch, and sped across the corridor. In a few minutes she returned and they descended the stairs together, and entered the empty library. She leaned back against the table, both slender hands resting on the edge behind her, and gazed out at the sparrows in the snow. And she did not even appear to notice his arm, which ventured around her waist, or his lips resting against the lock of bright hair curling on her cheek, so absorbed she seemed to be in her silent reflections.
After a few moments she said, still looking out of the window: "I must tell you something now."
"Are you going to tell me that you love me?"
"Yes—perhaps I had better begin that way."
"Then begin, dearest."
"I—I love you."
His arm tightened around her, but she gently released herself.
"There is a—a little more to say, Jim. I love you enough to give you back your promise."
"My promise!"
"To marry me," she said steadily. "I scarcely knew what I was saying yesterday—I was so excited, so much in love with you—so fearful that you might sometime be unhappy if things continued with us as they threatened to continue. I'm afraid I overvalued myself—made you suspect that I am more than I really am—or can ever be. Besides, I frightened you—and myself—unnecessarily. I never could be in any danger of—of loving you—unwisely. It was not perfectly fair to you to hint such a thing—because, after all, there is a third choice for you. A worthy one. For youcouldlet me go my way out of your life, which is already so full, and which would fill again very easily, even if my absence left a little void for a while. And if it was any kind of pity you felt for me—for what I said to you—that stirred you to—ask of me what I begged you to ask—then I give you back your promise. I have not slept for thinking over it. I must give it back."
He remained silent for a while, then his arms slipped down around her body and he dropped on one knee beside her and laid his face close against her. She had to bend over to hear what he was saying, he spoke so low and with such difficulty.
"How can you care for me?" he said. "Howcanyou? Don't you understand what a beast I was—what lesser impulse possessed me——"
"Hush, Jim! Am I different?"
"Good God! Yes!"
"No, dear."
"You don't know what you're saying!"
"Youdon't know. Do you suppose I am immune to—to the—lesser love—at moments——"
He lifted his head and looked up at her, dismayed.
"You!"
"I. How else could I understandyou?"
"Because you are so far above everything unworthy."
"No, dear. If I were, you would only have angered and frightened me—not made me sorry for us both. Because women and men are something alike at moments; only, somehow, women seem to realise that—somehow—they are guardians of—of something—of civilisation, perhaps. And it is their instinct to curb and silence and ignore whatever unworthy threatens it or them. It is that way with us, Jim."
She looked out of the window at the sky and the trees, and stood thinking for a while. Then: "Did you suppose it is always easy for a girl in love—whose instinct is to love—and to give? Especially such a girl as I am, especially when she is so dreadfully afraid that her lover may think her cold-blooded—self-seeking—perhaps a—a schemer——"
She covered her face with her hand—the quick, adorable gesture he knew so well.
"I—didask you to marry me," she said, in a stifled voice, "but I am not a schemer; my motive was not self-interest. It was for you I asked it, Jim, far more than for myself—or I never could have found the courage—perhaps not even the wish. Because, somehow, I amtoo proud to wish for anything that is not offered."
As he said nothing, she broke out suddenly with a little sob of protest in her voice: "I amnota self-seeking, calculating woman! I am not naturally cold and unresponsive! I am—inclined to be—otherwise. And you had better know it. But you won't believe it, I am afraid, because I—I have never responded to—to you."
Tears fell between her fingers over the flushed cheeks. She spoke with increasing effort: "You don't understand; and I can't explain—except to say that to be demonstrative seemed unworthy in me."
He put his arms around her shoulders very gently; she rested her forehead against his shoulder.
"Don't think me calculating and cold-blooded—or a fool," she whispered. "Probably everybody kisses or is kissed. I know it as well as you do. But I haven't the—effrontery—to permit myself—such emotions. I couldn't, Jim. I'd hate myself. And I thought of that, too, when I asked you to marry me. Because if you had refused—and—matters had gone on—you would have been sorry for me sooner or later—or perhaps hated me. Because I would have been—been too much ashamed of myself to have—loved you—unwisely."
He stood with head bent, listening; and, as he listened, the comparison between this young girl and himself forced itself into his unwilling mind—how that all she believed and desired ennobled her, and how what had always governed him had made of him nothing more admirable than what he was born, a human animal. For what he began as he still was—only cleverer.
What else was he—except a trained animal, sufficiently educated to keep out of jail? What had he done with his inheritance? His body was sane and healthy; he had been at pains to cultivate that. How was it with his mind? How was it with his spiritual beliefs? Had he cultivated and added to either? He had been endowed with a brain. Had he made of it anything except an instrument for idle caprice and indolent passions to play upon?
"Do you understand me now?" she whispered, touching wet lashes with her handkerchief.
He replied impetuously, hotly; her hands dropped from her face and she looked up at him with sweet, confused eyes, blushing vividly under his praise of her.
He spoke of himself, too, with all the quick, impassioned impulse of youthful emotion, not sparing himself, promising better things, vowing them before the shrine of her innocence. Yet, a stronger character might have registered such vows in silence. And his fervour and incoherence left her mute; and after he had ceased to protest too much she stood quiet for a while, striving to search herself so that nothing unworthy should remain—so that heart and soul should be clean under the magic veil of happiness descending before her enraptured eyes.
Gently his arms encircled her; her clasped hands rested on his shoulder, and she gazed out at the blue sky and sun-warmed snow as at a corner of paradise revealed.
Later, when the household was astir, she went out with him into the greenhouse, wherethe enchanted stillness of growing things thrilled her, and the fragrance and sunlight made the mystery of love and its miracle even more exquisitely unreal to her.
At first they did not speak; her hand lay loosely in his, her blue eyes remained remote; and together they slowly paced the long, glass-sheeted galleries between misty, scented mounds of bloom, to and fro, under the flood of pallid winter sunshine, pale as the yellow jasmine flowers overhead.
After a while a fat gardener came into one of the further wings. Presently the sound of shovelled coal from the furnace-pit aroused them from their dream; and they looked at each other gravely.
After a moment, he said: "Does it make a difference to you, Jacqueline, what I was before I knew you?"
"No."
"I was only wondering what you really think of me."
"You know already, Jim."
He shook his head slowly.
"Jim! Of course you know!" she insisted hotly. "What you may have been before I knew you I refuse to consider. Anyway, it wasyou—part of you—and belongs to me now! Because I choose to make it mine—all that you were and are—good and evil! For I won't give up one atom of you—even to the devil himself!"
He tried to laugh: "What a fierce little partisan you are," he said.
"Very—where it concerns you," she said, unsmiling.
"Dear—I had better tell you now; you may hear things about me——"
"I won't listen to them!"
"No; but one sometimes hears without listening. People may say things. Theywillsay things. I wish I could spare you. If I had known—if I had only known—that you were in the world——"
"Don't, Jim! It—it isn't best for me to hear. It doesn't concern me," she insisted excitedly. "And if anybody dares say one word to me——"
"Wait, dear. All I want to be sure of is that youdolove me enough to—to go on loving me. I want to be certain, and I want you to be certain before you are a bride——"
She was growing very much excited, and suddenly near to tears, for the one thing that endangered her self-control seemed to be his doubt of her.
"There is nothing that I haven't forgiven you," she said. "Nothing! There is nothing I won't forgive—except—one thing——"
"What?"
"I can't say it. I can't even think it. All I know is thatnowI couldn't forgive it." Suddenly she became perfectly quiet.
"I know what you mean," he said.
"Yes. It is what no wife can forgive." She looked at him, clear eyed, intelligent, calm; for the moment without any illusion; and he seemed to feel that, in the light of what she knew of him, she was coolly weighing the danger of the experiment. Never had he seen so cold and lustrous a brow, such limpid clarity of eye, searching, fearless, direct. Then, in an instant, it all seemed to melt into flushed and winsome loveliness; and she was murmuring that she loved him, and asking pardon for even one second's hesitation.
"It never could be; it is unthinkable," she whispered. "And it is too late anyway for me—I would love you now, whatever you killed in me. Because I must go on loving you, Jim; for that is the way it is with me, and I know it now. As long as there is life in me I'll strive for you in my own fashion—even against yourself—to keep you for mine, to please you, to be to you and to the world what you wish me to be—for your honour and your happiness—which also must be my own—the only happiness, now, that I can ever understand."
He held her in his arms, smoothing the bright hair, touching the white brow with his lips at moments, happy because he was so deeply in love, fearful because of it—and, deep in his soul, miserable, afraid lest aught out of his past life return again to mock her—lest some echo of folly offend her ears—some shadow fall—some phantom of dead days rise from their future hearth to stand between them.
It is that way with a man who has lived idly and irresponsibly, and who has gone lightly about the pleasure of life and not its business. For sometimes there arrives an hour of unbidden clairvoyance—not necessarily a spiritual awakening—but a moment of balanced intelligence and sanity and clear vision. And when it arrives, the road to yesterday suddenly becomes visible for its entire length; and when a man looks back he sees it stretching away behind him, peopled with every shape that has ever traversed it, and every spectre that ever has haunted it.
Sorrow for what need not have been, regret and shame for what had been—and the bitterness of the folly—the knowledge, too late, of what he could have been to the girl he held now in his arms—how he could have met her on more equal terms had he saved his youth and strength and innocence and pride for her alone—how he could have given it unsullied into her keeping. All this Desboro was beginning to realise now. Andmany men have realised it when the tardy understanding came too late. For what has been is still and will be always; and shall appear here or hereafter, or after that—somewhere, sometime, inevitably, inexorably. There is no such thing as expunging what has been, or of erasing what is to be. All records stand; hope lies only in lengthening the endless chapters—chapters which will not be finished when the sun dies, and the moon fails, and the stars go out forever.
Walking slowly back together, they passed Herrendene in the wing hall, and his fine and somewhat melancholy face lighted up at the encounter.
"I'msosorry you are going to-day," said Jacqueline, with all her impulsive and sweet sincerity. "Everybody will miss you and wish you here again."
"To be regretted is one of the few real pleasures in life," he said, smiling. His quick eye had rested on Desboro and then reverted to her, and his intuition was warning him with all the brutality and finality of reason that his last hope of her must end.
Desboro said: "I hate to have you go, Herrendene, but I suppose you must."
"Must you?" echoed Jacqueline, wistful for the moment. But the irresistible radiance of happiness had subtly transfigured her, and Herrendene looked into her eyes and saw the new-born beauty in them, shyly apparent.
"Yes," he said, "I must be about the business of life—the business of life, Miss Nevers. Everybody is engaged in it; it has many names, but it's all the same business. You, for example, pass judgment on beautiful things; Desboro, here, is a farmer, and I play soldier with sword and drum. But it's all the same business—the business of life; and one can work at it or idle through it, but never escape it, because, at the last, every soul in the world must die in harness. And the idlest are the heaviest laden." He laughed. "That's quite a sermon, isn't it, Miss Nevers? And shall I make my adieux now? Were you going anywhere? You see I am leaving Silverwood directly after breakfast——"
"As though Mr. Desboro and I would go off anywhere and not say good-bye toyou!" she exclaimed indignantly, quite unconscious of being too obvious.
So they all three returned to the breakfast room together, where Clydesdale, who had come over from the Hammertons' for breakfast, was already tramping hungrily around the covered dishes on the sideboard, hot plate in hand, evidently meditating a wholesale assault. He grinned affably as Jacqueline and Desboro came in, and they all helped themselves from the warmers, returning laden to the table with whatever suited their fancy. Other guests, to whom no trays had been sent, arrived one after another to prowl around the browse and join in the conversation if they chose, or sulk, as is the fashion with some perfectly worthy souls at breakfast-tide.
"This thaw settles the skating for good and all," remarked Reggie Ledyard. "Will you go fishing with me, Miss Nevers? It's our last day, you know."
Cairns growled over his grape-fruit: "You can't make dates with Miss Nevers at the breakfast table. It isn't done. I was going to ask her to do something with me, anyway."
"I hate breakfast," said Van Alstyne. "When I see it I always wish I were dead or that everybody else was. Zooks! This cocktail helps some! Try one, Miss Nevers."
"There's reason in your grouch," remarked Bertie Barkley, with his hard-eyed smile, "considering what Aunt Hannah and I did to you and Helsa at auction last night."
"Aunt Hannah will live in luxury for a year on it," added Cairns maliciously. "Doesn't it make you happy, Stuyve?"
"Oh—blub!" muttered Van Alstyne, hating everybody and himself—and most of all hating to think of his losses and of the lady who caused them. Only the really rich know how card losses rankle.
Cairns glanced banteringly across at Jacqueline. It was his form of wit to quiz her because she neither indulged in cocktails nor cigarettes, nor played cards for stakes. He lifted his eyebrows and tapped the frosted shaker beside him significantly.
"I've a new kind of mountain dew, warranted to wake the dead, Miss Nevers. I call it the 'Aunt Hannah,' in her honour—honour to whom honour is dew," he added impudently. "Won't you let me make you a cocktail?"
"Wait until Aunt Hannah hears how you have honoured her and tempted me," laughed Jacqueline.
"I never tempted maid or wifeOr suffragette in all my life——"
sang Ledyard, beating time on Van Alstyne, who silently scowled his displeasure.
Presently Ledyard selected a grape-fruit, with a sour smile at one of Desboro's cats which had confidently leaped into his lap.
"Is this a zoo den in the Bronx, or a breakfast room, Desboro? I only ask because I'm all over cats."
Bertie Barkley snapped his napkin at an intrusive yellow pup who was sniffing and wagging at his elbow.
Jacqueline comforted the retreating animal, bending over and crooning in his floppy ear:
"They gotta stop kickin' my dawg aroun'."
"What doyoucare what they do to Jim's live stock, Miss Nevers?" demanded Ledyard suspiciously.
She laughed, but to her annoyance a warmer colour brightened her cheeks.
"Heaven help us!" exclaimed Reggie. "Miss Nevers is blushing at the breakfast table. Gentlemen,arewe done for without even suspecting it? And by that—that"—pointing a furious finger at Desboro—"that!"
"Certainly," said Desboro, smiling. "Did you imagine I'd ever let Miss Nevers escape from Silverwood?"
Ledyard heaved a sigh of relief: "Gad," he muttered, "I suspected you both for a moment. Anyway, it doesn't matter. Every man here would have murdered you in turn. Come on, Miss Nevers; you've made a big splash with me, and I'll play you a game of rabbit—or anything on earth, if you'll let me run along beside you."
"No, I'm driving with Captain Herrendene to the station," she said; and that melancholy soldier looked up in grateful surprise.
And she did go with him; and everybody came out on the front steps to wish himbon voyage.
"Are you coming back, Miss Nevers?" asked Ledyard, in pretended alarm.
"I don't know. Is Manila worth seeing, Captain Herrendene?" she asked, laughingly.
"If you sail for Manila with that tin soldier I'll go after you in a hydroplane!" called Reggie after them, as the car rolled away. He added frankly, for everybody's benefit: "I hate any man who even looks at her, and I don't care who knows it. But what's the use? Going to night-school might help me, but I doubt it. No; she's for a better line of goods than the samples at Silverwood. She shines too far above us. Mark that, James Desboro! And take what comfort you can in your reflected glory. For had she not been the spotlight, you'd look exactly like the rest of us. And that isn't flattering anybody, I'm thinking."
It was to be the last day of the party. Everybody was leaving directly after luncheon, and now everybody seemed inclined to do nothing in particular. Mrs. Clydesdale came over from the Hammerton's. The air was soft and springlike; the snow in the fields was melting and full of golden pools. People seemed to be inclined to stroll about outdoors without their hats; a lively snowball battle began between Cary Clydesdale on one side and Cairns and Reggie Ledyard on the other—and gradually was participated in by everybody except Aunt Hannah, who grimly watched it from the library window. But her weather eye never left Mrs. Clydesdale.
She was still standing at the window when somebody entered the library behind her, and somebody else followed. She knew who they were; the curtains screened her. For one second the temptation to listen beset her, but she put it away with a sniff, and had already turned to disclose herself when she heard Mrs. Clydesdale say something that stiffened her into a rigid silence.
What followed stiffened her still more—and there were only a few words, too—only:
"For God's sake, what are you thinking of?" from Desboro; and from Elena Clydesdale:
"This has got to end—I can't stand it, Jim——"
"Stand what?"
"Him! And what you are doing!"
"Be careful! Do you want people to overhear us?" he said, in a low voice of concentrated anger.
"Then where——"
"I don't know. Wait until these people leave——"
"To-night?"
"How can we see each other to-night!"
"Cary is going to New York——"
Voices approaching through the hall warned him:
"All right, to-night," he said, desperately. "Go out into the hall."
"To-night, Jim?"
"Yes."
She turned and walked out into the hall. He heard her voice calmly joining in the chatter now approaching, and, without any reason, he walked to the window. And found Mrs. Hammerton there.
Astonishment and anger left him dumb and scarlet to the roots of his hair.
"It isn't my fault," she hissed. "You and that other fool had already committed yourselves before I could stir to warn you. What do I care for your vile little intrigues, anyway! I don't have to listen behind curtains to learn what anybody could have seen at the Metropolitan Opera——"