Sitting in the great armchair and shrinking down toward the fire for warmth, shivering too, in unison with every gust of wind or rain that spent its force against the window, one could but marvel that she had known so much of life.
Russell brushed her hair gently, taking care the strain should not rest upon the dainty little head.
Margaret gazed thoughtfully into the fire. A certain sad aloofness was expressed in her manner as though all her sorrows had been borne without friend or confidante.
“I wonder if it's like this every day—without sunshine or clear skies,” she murmured.
Russell did not respond to the direct question, but finished dressing her hair and stepped to the door, saying:
“There is some one knocking. Perhaps ma-dame's cousin.”
As she spoke, she opened it and Mrs. Perkins asked from the threshold: “May I come in?”
For answer Margaret, turning in her chair, extended her hand, a smile upon her lips: “If you don't mind my dressing. I fear you will think me lazy. It must be late.”
Mrs. Perkins bustled to her side. A very becoming morning toilet contributed its due proportion to that lady's ease and comfort. “Really, my dear, I never felt so strongly drawn to any one as I am to you.” As she spoke she bent and kissed Margaret with great stateliness and ceremony. “You are not at all like the Ballards who were military people and much given to combativeness. Your poor dear mother and I used to hold most violent controversies. We had such a capacity for differences; it always came to the surface when we were thrown much together. But then it was a family trait and I suppose I should revere it accordingly. To be sure, your mother was a Ballard only by marriage, but she was an active partaker in the traditional characteristics. Dear! dear! how antagonistic we were, and yet, a real affection existed between us. Now, can't you tell me something about yourself?”
Mrs. Perkins drew up a chair and Margaret took one of her hands caressingly in her own: “But what shall I tell you?”
“About yourself, my dear. About yourself, by all means.”
“Ah!”—and she made a little depreciative gesture—“I am such an ordinary person. There is nothing more to tell.”
Mrs. Perkins shifted her position: “You can't fancy how amazed I was when I saw you. I had understood always that Monsieur Dennie, your late husband, was a man of very—what shall I say?”—she paused looking into Margaret's eyes, seeking earnestly for the right word, but the allusion to Monsieur Dennie did not stimulate any great burst of animation on the part of his widow, and she was forced to finish her incomplete sentence with, “a man of very advanced age.”
“He was seventy years old when we were married,” Margaret said quietly.
Mrs. Perkins elevated her eyebrows. “Why, you are young enough to be his granddaughter!”
“I was nineteen.” Her face had hardened perceptibly when Mrs. Perkins spoke her husband's name, and at the mention of her marriage this changed to a look of the keenest distress. Mrs. Perkins surmised that it had not been an occurrence of the utmost happiness to the girl-wife.
Intent upon getting away from what she conceived to be a disagreeable subject, though still with subdued inquisitiveness, she said:
“You have not been a widow then so very long?”
“Three years.” With unmistakable relief—“I have lived in the south of France during that time, but my home is in Paris. Since Monsieur Dennie's death I have not cared to return to it.” A pause followed.
Mrs. Perkins tapped the floor with her foot. She knew that any more questions would be in very bad form, as Margaret had shown that she was adverse to constituting herself the sole center of interest. Truth to tell, Mrs. Perkins was rather abashed. As a rule she had no compunctions when it came to catechising newcomers in the town as to their past and possible future. Her position, which was unassailable, made it quite safe to seek to put at rest all uncertainty under which she might be laboring. But Madame Dennie was distinctly of another world. Suddenly she bethought herself of her son. He was, as she knew, in the library engaged in stroking his immature side-whiskers and wondering if,—“she would like him, anyhow.”
Sunday evening had been spent in the society of his friend Becker and when he had presented himself at his own door shortly after ten, he found his mother waiting for him, with a glowing account of the splendor, beauty and culture of their young relative who had just withdrawn for the night.
“I think I have not told you of Ballard, my son, you know,” said Mrs. Perkins. “May I?”
Madame Dennie inclined her head by way of response, and Mrs. Perkins continued: “He is wild to meet you. For of course when he came in last evening, I had so much to tell him about you. He so regrets that he should have been absent. If we had only known when to look for you he would have been waiting for you at the train.” Margaret entreated her to make no excuses. The kindness she had met with all but overwhelmed her as it was, she said, but Mrs. Perkins was not to be turned aside now that she had got a fresh start with plain sailing ahead of her.
“My dear, he so regrets he did not know of your coming in season to meet you. Not to have done so seems to us so very inhospitable.”
Margaret pressed her hand gently. “You are most kind. I am sure I shall love you dearly and perhaps,” wistfully, “perhaps, you will grow to like me.”
“My dear, I do that already. I am drawn to you as I never was before to a—”
“A stranger you would say?”
“Yes, and no—for, after all, you are my cousin's child and that means much to me.”
Madame Dennie appeared a trifle helpless and as though she was incapable of meeting these advances. A repellent feeling—a wish to keep from close friendships had grown up in her heart—springing from the sure consciousness that she stood in need of sympathy and love and would be weakly dependent upon it once it was hers; but fearing always that she might tell those things her mind most fed upon, she shrank from intimacies.
Mrs. Perkins vacated her chair, and said with a trace of self-denial in her voice: “I shall let you dress now.”
With this she quitted the room and joined young Perkins in the library. She found him standing on a corner of the hearth-rug, lost in meditation.
“I hope she is all right, mother,” he said.
“Oh, yes—she will be down presently.”
“Is she much of a stunner by daylight?” he inquired.
“I wish you would be more select in your expressions, Ballard. She is a woman of the greatest elegance.”
“You like her, don't you, a lot?”
“I confess I do. There is something indescribably winning in her manner. I think her marriage was not at all a happy one.”
Perkins shook his head wisely: “He must have been too old for her, you know.”
“He was fifty years her senior, she has told me.”
Perkins was expressing his amazement at such a marriage, when the door opened and Margaret appeared on the scene. An embarrassed silence fell upon him at once. He barely managed to answer the greeting she gave him.
Long before that Monday was ended Ballard's interest in his cousin' had become tremendous. When night came he was her abject slave,—her worshipful admirer who demanded but one privilege, that he might still be allowed to worship—yet no one could have asked for less than she. She was almost timidly sensitive about being a care or burden to him or to his mother. Despite her habitual shrinking from nearer contact or sympathy, Perkins sat for the most of the day on a small corner of his chair, his knees tight together and his toes turned most resolutely in, like a plump little saffron-headed Trojan, heroically resolved on her amusement. The tension under which he put himself, was so stupendous that he absent-mindedly twisted every available button from his coat. He talked on innumerable topics: told her all about himself, “Not because I think myself at all unusual,” he had been careful to explain, “but because I am so perfectly acquainted with the subject.”
He racked his brain for fluent descriptions concerning his loftier emotions—told her his most cherished ambitions—“things I should never dream of telling any one else,” he said very truthfully. “But don't you know, I guess you call for the best that is in me.”
He launched forth in quest of miscellaneous data and was soon telling her of Franz Becker and Philip Southard. When he told her Becker was a musician and Margaret told him that music was the one thing she loved above all else, he felt as happy as though he had discovered a gold mine in the coal scuttle. So fascinated was he that during the ensuing half-hour he talked a good deal more music than he knew, and at last, in answer to a question she asked, he found himself manfully seeking to formulate a concise history of the United States.
In short, Perkins did much that day that a Solomon would have feared to undertake. Late in the afternoon the wind died down and the rain ceased. The clouds drifted from before the slowly sinking sun, and his crimson flames burned in the red west.
Together they went into the yard. It had become quite warm with the approach of the evening, but Margaret was folded in a great fur wrap. “I am always cold,” she had said.
For a time they had strolled about the grounds, which were very extensive, and Ballard had taken her into the conservatory where the gardener—who with the rest fell immediately under her gentle sway—picked for her a bunch of lilies-of-the-val-ley. Then they had gone into the house again where she shared her bouquet with Ballard—giving him a spray of white for his buttonhole. Much to his sorrow Perkins found it necessary to leave her and go down-town. With his departure Margaret was left quite to herself. The repairing of the preceding days' havoc demanding Mrs. Perkins' supervision, and tempted by the outer brightness, she summoned Russell and wandered into the grounds about the house and from the grounds into the street. Both found much to wonder at in the little western city. It was so different from anything they had either of them ever known. As they passed down the street they came to a church—the door stood open and there came from within a burst of melody. Perhaps some service was in progress. Margaret turned, and followed by Russell, entered the building. They found it empty save for one man who was just visible as he sat with bowed head before the organ, his hands upon the keys.
Madame Dennie was no mean judge of music. She had heard the greatest masters of the world and she knew that this player, whoever he might be, was not one of the least. He was improvising and from his own fancies drifted into Bach's first prelude. While his fingers were wandering through the opening bars, a sound stole out of the vacancy behind him.
The player turned and saw her standing in the aisle—the little gloved hands folded in unconscious devotion—the head thrown back with its delicate halo of golden hair, while through a stained glass window, high up beneath the arched roof, a single beam of light came to touch and transform the upturned face that stood forth boldly outlined against the surrounding shadows and the darkness that was gathering swiftly.
The final note was dying away, lingering out its sweetness lovingly upon the silence and the expression of rapt intenseness was fading from her face, when for the first time her eyes met his to be withdrawn instantly. A moment later and Margaret with her companion stole noiselessly from the church. Within the organ was sounding again, throbbing like a great heart that had awakened from its sleep to life and love.
Madame Dennie had expressed the hope of avoiding all social obligations. And Perkins had barely ventured to ask her meekly if he might not invite his two most intimate friends to the house—he was “morally certain” she would like them immensely, they were such charming fellows. So in due season he had presented Franz and Philip, and to them Margaret was most gracious.
After their first meeting with Madame Dennie, the young men had walked home in a subdued frame of mind. They stopped at the Beckers' to smoke a farewell pipe and while under the stimulating influence of the weed Philip proceeded to analyze his emotions and indulge in critical comment.
“Didn't it strike you that Perkins was just a bit sappy to-night? How his tongue did rattle along and always about himself.” Philip meditated for a moment. “Perhaps I am uncharitable. I think my main grudge against him rests on this—I wanted to talk about myself.”
Franz was smoking his pipe. There was a faraway look in his eyes and he was paying little attention to what his companion said.
Philip continued: “How did you like Madame Dennie? She is very beautiful, don't you think? A woman of culture and great spirituality.” Franz was still silent. “There is something about her that impressed me as being touchingly sad and pathetic—I can't describe it, but it's there. I should say though she had an infinite capacity for happiness.”
Becker removed the pipe from his mouth. “I have seen her before,” he said simply.
“Oh!” Philip regarded him curiously.
“It was at church. In the evening while I was at my practise.” He paused abruptly.
“I am afraid Perkins is in a fair way to make a precious ass of himself,” Philip observed. “He is at the beginning of a bad business and ought to saw off. Perkins is all right, you know, but even his own mother would have to admit that he is freckled and fat. If he goes to falling in love with his cousin—”
By a sharp decisive blow Franz knocked the ashes from his pipe: “I shall have to say good night, Philip. I don't propose to send you home but—”
“Oh, that's all right. What's wrong? Have I said anything I shouldn't?”
“Shall I go down or will you be able to find your way out by yourself?” Franz asked.
He held open the door and Philip passed from the room. At the foot of the stairs he turned and called back his good night. Becker answered him cordially enough. When he found himself in the street Philip came to a stand.
“I declare he fairly put me out. As I live,” he finally cried, “as I live he is in love with her himself.”
During the succeeding weeks they both saw much of Madame Dennie.
Usually Philip prided himself on his ability to shock people, but with her he carefully eschewed all levity. Nothing could have induced him to advance the sacrilegious theories with which he delighted to offend. Such was his unblushing apostasy that Mrs. Perkins, who had long viewed him as one of the lost sheep, (chiefly by reason of the fact that for some years her son had at intervals favored her with scattered gems from his friend's remarks as well as with his scandalously unorthodox criticisms of vital questions) presented him with a volume of sermons.
Philip accepted this token of unexpectedly kindled solicitude with a stately gravity far surpassing the donor's, while Ballard went off into a series of convulsions that brought with them unworthy prominence and attendant disgrace. Furthermore, he was detected by his mother in the shameless act of winking at Becker.
Philip derived great good from those sermons. They gave him a convenient supply of paper for the lighting of fires in his room.
Those were delightful evenings they spent together when Philip would drop in on his way home from Barbara,—for the Perkinses were nothing if not fashionable and kept later hours than any other family in the town.
The young men would form a half-circle about Madame Dennie, where she nestled in an easy chair beside the fire for the warmth she loved and needed, and they would stand, looking down at the slight black-robed figure and sweet pure face, talking the while very boyishly of their hopes and their aims. Philip and Perkins especially had much to say of themselves. Indeed, there existed at first a very pronounced rivalry as to who should say the more.
They told her their desires, their ambitions—everything, and to their confessions she listened with a certain quaint little display of friendliness and affection that completely captivated them.
There was this peculiar feature noticeable in the devotion she inspired,—it was unselfish always for it was possible to love her in a manner that exacted nothing in return; possible to lay all at her feet, and ask but the joy of giving.
The fall and early winter were unusually inclement and a troublesome cough kept Margaret confined within doors. Perhaps resulting from this and the anxious care Russell took of her, they divined that she was not strong. It was solely by indirection they came to know that the frail little body had worn itself out to the verge of exhaustion. But the undisturbed quietness in which her days were spent pleased her fancy vastly better than any gaiety could have done. The latter she had known to the point of surfeiting while her husband lived and she recalled it as something to be avoided.
Thus it came that the weeks covering her stay in the small western city were the happiest she had ever known.
She enjoyed her companionship with Perkins and Philip,—she could like them unreservedly and in return be treated to a sincere admiration not without its gratification to the starved little heart.
She stood more in awe of Franz, and he kept his thoughts of her a secret. She could not guess that they lay too close against his very soul for utterance; but there was a remarkable gentleness in his bearing when in her presence—a reverent quality far removed from his customary brusk-ness.
Cling as she would to the past, Margaret was slowly growing away from it. She was almost happy. In course of time she might have been entirely so, but for the existence of her brother Geoff, who skulked on the outskirts of decency—and who only indicated that he thought of her when he showered her with begging letters.
In all the mad indulgence of his worthless career he had done no generous deed. He had burdened some one always, taking to himself the lion's share of the fruits and shirking all the toil.
It was to pay his debts, to give him a fresh start, that Margaret had been coerced by her mother into marrying Monsieur Dennie. That sin occurred at a day when Geoffrey had squandered the last of his patrimony and had embarrassed his mother's and sister's fortune besides.
Then it was that Margaret, but little more than a child, was taken from the school near Brussels and brought to Paris that Geoff might play her as his last card in the losing game of chance that was swallowing up their possessions.
He had cast about that he might effect a suitable alliance (to him a suitable alliance meant one that should not be scant of profit to himself) and had fastened upon Monsieur Dennie, who yielded up the price of purchase with the utmost readiness. More than this, while he lived, Geoff' was well provided for and if he had not been a chronic spendthrift could have thrived exceedingly. Unfortunately, he had no intention to be on easy terms with his good luck, but was forever making unreasonable demands upon his elderly brother-in-law for money, and for yet more money. The result was that when the old banker came to die he put his property in such shape that by no scheming could Geoff get his hands upon it.
Monsieur Dennie's methodical bestowing of his worldly belongings did not stop there. He arranged that an annuity should be paid Geoffrey and his mother. It was further stipulated that in the event of the latter's death Geoff should also have her portion.
Mrs. Ballard had not long survived her son-inlaw, and though Geoff had availed himself of the addition to his means her death gave him, the doubled amount was as insufficient as had been his previous lesser allowance.
After her husband's death Margaret was left to live her lonely life without interference from her brother. He went his course and she hers, though it was his habit to appear from time to time a seedy, shabby beggar and take from her every cent she could get together. Then he would vanish, no one knew where, until he again needed money. Nor was this all. He had married—much as he did everything else—to gratify some vacillating whim, and when the novelty of the relation wore off he had forsaken his family with never a regret, leaving the broken home for his sister to maintain.
For years Margaret had cared for his wife and children—“Kate and the three boys” were always in difficulties, more or less pressing, difficulties of the sort only money—blessed balm that it is—could alleviate. In short, there were more drains, more attacks made upon the wealth of Monsieur Dennie, deceased, than one could enumerate in a long talk. These just referred to were of the unceasing, never-ending variety, that came clamorously with each month, came again until they were satisfied.
But of all, Geoffrey Ballard was much the worst. He was seldom stationary or confined to any place by tie or occupation. He came and went at will; there was never any getting away from him.
Had it not been for Russell, Margaret would have been utterly defenseless, but the maid was a strong and reliable character, who strenuously resisted the wholesale absorption of her mistress' property. When madame's bankers remitted her income, Russell would take into her keeping the sum she deemed adequate for their proper support, and no one could take this from her.
With the bulk of what remained Geoff generally made off.
One evening while Margaret was alone in the library at early dusk, the room unlighted by other flame than the glowing of coals upon the hearth, there came a tapping at a long French window opening upon the porch. She looked up quickly, startled by the sound, and saw a man standing in the half shadow.
One glance sufficed,—it was Geoff.
Frightened and trembling, she arose and went to the window, pushing it aside that he might enter. Without a word, he stepped into the room.
“How damnably cold it is,” he grumbled. “Throw another lump of coal on the fire, will you? What a beastly climate—rough on a man who does not boast an overcoat. Thanks.” For Margaret mutely complied with his bidding.
The flames leaped up, disclosing a man of nearly forty, shabbily dressed in garments once of the greatest elegance, but which from hard usage were now nearly ragged.
He was of fine physique with a handsome countenance that, like his clothes, showed unmistakable symptoms of wear, for a record of the degrading course he had pursued so assiduously was stamped upon it.
He glanced around the room, taking in its appointments. They met with his approval, for he said:
“This is not at all bad. You do get your share of the good gifts of this world while I spend most of my time standing in the rain waiting to gather up the crumbs you scatter. Here I traveled from New Orleans to New York, thinking of course I should find you there. Imagine my predicament. All I had went to the pawn-shops, and I just managed to scrape through.”
This was said with an aggrieved air as though the fault was hers. “Now, what can you do for me?” he continued; “I want money. I think my dress bears out the statement—” And he took a disgusted survey of himself in a small mirror hanging above the chimneypiece.
On her deathbed, at the close of a very foolish life, Mrs. Ballard had wrung from her daughter the promise that she would never abandon her brother, and Margaret, who was the victim of sentimentality where her mother's last wish was concerned, had carried it out blindly without stopping to consider its injustice. The profligate brother now spread out his hands behind his back to catch the heat from the fire, and ensconced himself contentedly on the hearth-rug.
As his sister had vouchsafed him no response he returned to the charge. “I don't wish to force my needs upon you,” he said. “You must know it's hard for a man of my age to get down on his knees for the money to keep himself going.” Margaret raised her eyes to his, and stared at him, silent and miserable for a moment.
“Well?” Geoff asked impatiently, “what are you going to do for me—what may I count on?”
“When I saw you in New York, I told you distinctly what you were to expect, Geoff.”
Her tone while not unkind was positive. Gentle as she was and tender in all her dealings and judgments, a show of firmness had to be maintained in her relationship with this spendthrift, and too, she felt as bitter a sense of injury as her forgiving nature could harbor for the wreck he had made of her girlhood. She added almost hesitatingly:
“I—I am so sorry you have followed me here.” To him this seemed to denote such outrageous treachery that he was really hurt—and showed it. She went to his side, and placing an arm caressingly about his neck, said, “Forgive me, Geoff. I did not mean quite that, but I have been so happy here. If you could only be as I am then you would like it too, but you know you are so restless. That is what I meant.”
He shook off her arm rudely. “I understand, this sort of thing is useless—I'm not deceived.” She looked at him pityingly. How mistaken he was in every impulse and ideal.
“I have not tried to deceive you, Geoff. Why should I attempt to? But it is so sad that we should waste our lives, when there are such possibilities within us if we would only consent to make the most of them. We have both lived so untrue to what is best.”
This elicited only a contemptuous shrug from Geoff.
Margaret clasped her hands, while a spot of red burned in each cheek. “Why can't we go back?—back into the past so far we shall forget the wretched years we have wasted so wickedly?”
Geoff was excessively bored.
“I presume you are referring to your marriage.” He retorted angrily: “The utter thanklessness in which you hold that piece of luck amazes me. I should like to know what the devil would become of us if it wasn't for Dennie's money. Of course the old fool tied it up with such nasty restrictions one can just get at the income, but I am pleased to be able to assert that I am not ungrateful. I regard your marriage as the very best thing that could have fallen to your lot, and I consider that I did what was honorable. Therefore—your evident dissatisfaction rather astonishes me. Under the circumstances, I scarcely anticipated it.”
He settled himself in a chair, stretching out his feet toward the fender. His handsome head, fine as to shape and size, was thrown back and the firelight fell upon the beautiful evil face. About the eyes were heavy circles. These were the visible traces dissipation had left. A few gray hairs showed among the profusion of dark curls.
“I don't intend to reproach you,” Margaret said.
“I should think not, when you reflect what I have done for you,” he answered coldly.
“But at what a cost—at what a dreadful cost!” she cried quickly, and her voice vibrated with the intensity of her grief.
Geoff was deeply resentful, but offered no further interruption. She would be more pliable with such treatment. He centered his rather sleepy vision earnestly upon the carpet and endeavored to gain relief in partial abstraction.
Margaret crouched on the floor beside his chair, watching the warm glow turn to ashes as in her own heart the gold had turned to gray. There was nothing left.
“I don't mean to reproach you, Geoff,” she said at last. “I have never even told you how hard and unbearable it has been for me—the horror or the haunting sense of sin and shame. Perhaps you did mean it for the best. I hope you did for your own sake, not for mine; I hope you did!—but I have suffered so.
“There has been such a stain upon my soul since the days of my loveless marriage, it would not wear away, it has only grown less since I came here. I wish to forget—I wish to begin again and there is no one who should be so near as you, no one to whom I can so justly look for protection. Shall we not begin again, Geoff? I am so sure we may be happy if we only will, and the life you lead, dear, is such an awful mistake—it can bring you nothing but pain, and to have you come to me worn and jaded, drags me down more than I can tell. I am constantly fearing that serious trouble may overtake you, I live in continual apprehension about you. Is it right that I, who have so much to make amends for, should support this load, too? Can I not grow back into some measure of innocence, without having sin and evil brought forever to me—Geoff—Geoff!”
She looked up appealingly.
His eyes were closed and his breathing proclaimed him to be half asleep.
With a sudden uncontrollable feeling of repulsion she shrank away from his side; then she stood erect.
Her movement aroused him. With a yawn he opened his eyes and glanced about stupidly as though he could not quite remember where he was.
“Really, I beg your pardon,” he said with lazy politeness. “But the heat made me drowsy. Positively I could not keep my eyes open.”
He thought it about time to bring matters to a crisis. He drew himself together and made ready to terminate the interview.
“How much can you let me have? I am aware that your bankers won't remit for a while yet, but can't you do something for me temporarily? As you see, I am abominably shabby and it's no way for a gentleman to appear.”
“How much do you need?” Margaret asked.
Geoff promptly dropped the whine in which he had previously spoken, becoming suddenly and wonderfully buoyant.
“Oh! a few hundreds. I'll spend them well, and I'll agree not to bother you again until your money gets here. I'll hang about quietly until it comes, then you can fix me up and I will bolt the place. Now I call that fair—and you would better”—he grew strangely sinister—“you would better do as I ask or you may get let in for more than the mere loss of cash.”
“I will go to Russell and learn what can be spared.”
“The old cat!”
Margaret left the room. In the hall she encountered Perkins.
“I was coming to find you,” he said. “It's nearly dinner-time and dark as the deuce. I say,” in surprise, “is anything the matter?”
For Madame Dennie's face was more than unusually pale—more than unusually sad.
“Where are you going, Ballard?”
“Into the library. That is I was going there, but if you don't mind, I'll just go along with you.”
“Instead will you do me a service?”
Perkins instantly made a gesture of assent. “Whatever you ask,” he said eagerly.
“It's very little. Please don't be curious, and don't allow your mother or the servants to enter the library while I am up-stairs.” Perkins seemed mystified and she added: “Some one is there, some one I would rather not have you see.”
At this his face cleared. He made haste to say, “I shall do exactly as you ask. Nobody shall enter the library until you are willing that they should.”
“Thank you so very much.” And she vanished up the stairs.
Perkins glared fixedly at the library door, his freckled features assuming a belligerent expression.
Margaret returned immediately and came down the stairs quite breathless.
“Shall I stay here and keep the rest away until he goes, you know?” he asked.
She gave him a thankful glance, and he added:
“There, don't you worry. No one shall disturb you.”
He held open the door as he spoke and shut it carefully after her, so that no portion of a conversation clearly not for him should find its way to his ears.
Ten minutes later when Geoff had taken his leave Margaret found Perkins still at his post, pacing the hall with dignified step. Something akin to intuition informed him it would be well not to allude to recent happenings, so he remarked:
“I think dinner is waiting for us. Suppose we go see.”
It was after dinner when Margaret was alone with Perkins and his mother that she crept close to the latter saying: “I think I shall have to go away.”
Mrs. Perkins let fall her sewing and gazed at Margaret in blank astonishment.
“My dear, you surely don't mean it!” she cried at last.
Whatever traits Mrs. Perkins had inherited from her military ancestors, to Margaret she had been womanly and loving, and the friendless little wanderer had received from her more motherly care than she had ever before known.
“I think,” she began again timidly, and her voice was perilously near to the point of breaking, “I think it is much better for me to go at once.”
“But do you wish to go—that is—must you?” Mrs. Perkins insisted: “Dear! dear! I had never even thought of your leaving us, and yet it is scarcely probable you will be content to remain here always.”
“I fear it is better for me to leave you, but I do not wish to go—it's not that—believe me it's not!”
“Then, my dear, Ballard and I will never hear to it.”
It was then Margaret broke down entirely, and not knowing what else to do sought refuge in Mrs. Perkins' arms and from that safe vantage told of her brother.
“And he is coming back. I—I had hoped he would not, unkind and ungenerous as it may seem!”
“Very well. He shall come here,” Mrs. Perkins said.
“Oh, no! oh, no! you must know—I must tell you that his actions may be hard to explain. They are often reckless in the extreme. I can not make my burden yours. You would grow to hate me if I did.”
“Indeed we shan't,” Perkins burst out. “I'll look after him when he comes. I can handle him. You have no idea how clever I am. You just turn him over to me—I'll manage him.” And he shook his head knowingly, while under his breath he whispered: “If he cuts up and annoys her I'll punch his damned nose!”—which was very violent language for him.
“I so regret—” Margaret began again, but Mrs. Perkins would hear no more.
“There, my dear, we understand perfectly, so don't distress yourself at all about it. You are going to remain here, whatever happens.”
“Of course you are!” Perkins chimed in. “We want you to feel that this is your home and that you are to stay here as long as ever you wish to. The idea!—the very idea—”
“You are so good,” Madame Dennie murmured gratefully. “So kind! It is beautiful to be so loved.”
“It is more beautiful to have you with us, you know,” Perkins remarked, “and to be permitted to love you.”
“If I remain you must grant me one favor in advance.” And she looked at Perkins, seeing in him a victim for the wily Geoff.
“A million if you like,” he answered rashly.
“You are not to lend my brother money. You must promise me this.”
“I shall be guided wholly by you,” Perkins assured her.
This ended all mention of Geoff, but late in the night when they had all retired, Mrs. Perkins was aroused by Russell rapping on her door and entreating her to come at once to Madame Dennie; who was very ill.
Mrs. Perkins found the poor persecuted one crouching down in her bed frightened and shivering, though her head burned as with a fever.
She had had a dreadful dream, and she could not free herself from the nameless fear.
While his mother was soothing Margaret, young Perkins in a disordered state as to costume, but even more so as to mind, skirmished about the hall demanding half-minute bulletins through the keyhole. He was eventually induced to withdraw when it was announced that his cousin was resting easily, and reluctantly sought his room, while his mother and Russell, sitting by Margaret's bedside, discussed the situation in muffled tones.
“It is nervousness,” the maid said. “When you know her brother you will not wonder in the least why seeing him should so work upon madame.” And needing sympathy herself she proceeded to give Geoff a character that made Mrs. Perkins shudder.
Russell was as sure as her mistress had been that he would come back, arguing that the remittance from Paris would prevent his removing himself to any distance until he had his grasp, “his greedy and rapacious grasp,” as she termed it melodramatically, on the money. She also, warming up to her theme, repeated every disreputable anecdote, every questionable transaction with which his name had ever been associated. These, if properly compiled and edited, would have filled a large book and the contents would have been extremely spicy.
So startling was the narrative that Mrs. Perkins reproached herself because of the fatal promptitude with which she had undertaken his lodgment.
At such times, however, she had but to look at the slight figure tossing restlessly upon the bed to feel that for Margaret's sake she would gladly assume any risk.
Philip had the street to himself as he walked up-town from the Perkins', where he had been spending the evening, but as he came to his own gate, he saw a man lounging beside it.
It was Lester Royal.
Since the night when they had met for the first time in months, Philip had not seen him, and he had ceased to command any portion of his thoughts in the pressure of work and newer interests, but the sight of the boy leaning dejectedly against the fence revived the memory of their former interview.
“Why, Lester, it's you, is it?” he said with a marked display of cordiality for he was not averse to a little human intercourse at that particular moment. “Beastly cold, isn't it?” he added.
“I am frozen,” Lester said, and he shivered. “I have been waiting to see you for an hour or more. Take me indoors, will you, where it's warm?”
Philip took his hand. It was like ice. “I should say you are frozen. Come along with me!”
They turned into the yard and Philip with his night-key unlocked the house door and led the way up to his room where a bright fire burned in the grate—his one luxury. He pushed Lester down into a chair before it and said:
“Now what's up?”
He saw that his visitor was pale and worn, with dark haggard lines about his eyes, and the hands he held out toward the blaze were thin and tremulous.
“Have you been ill?” he questioned.
The younger boy shook his head.
“What's wrong then?”
For answer Lester cried hoarsely in a voice choked with emotion and grief, “I am done for, Philip—done for! I am dying by inches—I!—and a year ago I thought I should live forever.”
He buried his face in his hands, sobbing like a child.
The spectacle of a man in tears was not at all soothing to Philip. Perhaps there might have been times when he would have done the same thing, but that was no excuse for Lester.
He had done and probably would continue to do a great many things that he could not pardon in another.
“Come! come! this won't do. Be a man,” he said coldly.
He was really very sorry for the boy, but Lester had no earthly right to make such a violent assault upon his feelings; besides he had a lurking suspicion that he was harrowing up his sensibilities with the sole object of asking for a loan. Whatever his object, Lester paid no heed to him, and Philip, after taking a turn about the room, halted at his side.
“I say what's the matter, anyhow?”
“You think I am a baby as well as a fool!” came in stifled accents from the sufferer.
“Oh, no!” Philip remarked politely, “only it's rather unconventional, you know. Just a bit surprising—not to say startling. I am hardly prepared for it. If you could manage to slow up a little I should be very grateful.”
Lester raised his head and looked up into his friend's face.
The suffering that Philip saw in the face before him caused him to push a chair close to the boy's and seat himself. Then with one hand half clasping Lester's, half resting on the arm of the chair, he said kindly: “Tell me, old fellow, what it is?”
“I can't! I can't! You will know some day. You will find out for yourself when—” He broke off abruptly, leaving the sentence unfinished.
“Very well, don't say more than you wish,” Philip answered. It was too serious for any display of curiosity on his part he felt. He gazed pityingly at Lester who looked pale and wan. Thus for a time they sat, neither speaking. At last Lester said:
“I've got to talk with some one—my brain swims with it—for the one idea whirls and whirls till I am dizzy and blind. I am wretched, Philip, wretched; and there is no help for it. I've brought it all on myself. Do you think it very hard to die?”
“Easy, but not agreeable. Why do you ask such infernally gruesome questions?”
“I've got to die.”
“I can't see where you are an exception to the rule. It's expected of everybody—the nasty act of termination. What a vulgar thing death is!”
Lester stood erect—the firelight flashing over his worn countenance. “It's different with me. I've got to die now—now!” With a groan of anguish he flung himself back into the chair while Philip looked at him in astonishment.
“See here. What morbid fancy has hold of you?” he asked. “I must admit I don't like this sort of talk.”
But Lester's face was buried in his hands, only his dry hard gaspings were audible. He gained a degree of control over himself and again faced his companion, saying: “Don't you know what I mean?”
“No, I don't, and that's a fact.”
Lester was silent. Some sentiment of reserve stood between him and the confession he was seeking to make.
“Have you been drinking lately?” Philip questioned gravely.
“Yes—but not to-day.”
“You shouldn't do it. It's anything but good for you.”
“Do you think I am fool enough not to know that?” Lester replied with almost savage earnestness.
“Then why in the name of sense don't you keep straight?”
“I resolve to, and then go and get drunk against my will. You don't know what it's like.”
Philip regarded him sadly. There was a heavy melancholy in the boy's whole attitude that distressed him—a spirit as of dumb submission to the inevitable. It was only lifted when he indulged in his wild bursts of grief.
“What's the good!” Lester continued. “I can keep up for a day or two, but I go back to it every time.”
Philip shrugged his shoulders, saying with a poor attempt at lightness: “I suppose one should not resist the flesh. Our most virtuous moments are those which come when we have tired the devil out within us and are basking in the splendor of the good resolutions that tread upon the heels of satiety.” He would have given anything to recall the words once they were spoken, for Lester shrank from him.
“I didn't think you would talk to me so—not now,” he said.
There was the dull glint of anger in his lack-luster eyes, but it faded away almost immediately. Once more he became stupidly quiet.
“Forgive me,” Philip ventured penitently. “I didn't mean to wound you.”
“It's all right,” Lester said indifferently. “It's all right. I presume you are thoroughly sick of me.
“No, I am not. I'd like to help you if I knew how, but you don't tell me what your trouble is. It's blind guessing with me. I don't know how to give you a lift.”
“It's too late, I tell you. I'm done for.”
“Do you mind explaining just what you mean?”
“I've squandered what should have lasted me a lifetime. I am a bankrupt in brain, body and purse. My God!”—with a gesture eloquent of despair and misery—“I've ruined myself! There is nothing left for me but death.”
And Philip, understanding something of the other's need, said: “It's not so bad as that. You can pull yourself around, but if it's as you declare it to be, you can't be too quick about it.”
“The doctors say not. It's all up with me according to them.”
“Damn the doctors! What do they know?”
“They say it's too late.”
“Siuff. They lie! It's never too late.”
“There, Philip, don't—don't let's discuss it. I am not afraid, but it's terrible. I have thought I had years and years before me, and they were all wasted in a day.”
To his horror Philip saw that his friend was in a measure reconciled to death. This to a pagan like Philip, was incomprehensible.
Now that he had talked more freely, Lester was calmer and his dejection was not so pronounced as at first. Silence had fallen on them and they sat looking into the fire, each busy with his own thoughts.
“Let's talk about when we were boys,” Lester finally said. “You do the talking just as you did when I saw you last. Do you know if I can't sleep nights—and I can't most of the time—I like to think about it: the past that stops where my folly began. In all the years since I came of age, there is nothing I want to remember—it's all agony to me. Talk about when we were boys, Philip—about what we did in vacation. You were always such a good old chap!”
He put his hand on Philip's arm and let it rest there affectionately while Philip in a low voice began to speak of the past,—and at the telling much that was hard in his own nature grew soft. A strange gentleness came into the hearts of both, as Philip talked of their boyhood. When the winding country roads knew the marks of their bare feet in the dust; when, stripped of clothing and shame, they lay lazily upon the hot sand by the river's brim, and afterward took the long walk for home through the scented dusk. Back to the days when they were dirty and happy—when respectability knew them not at all—Philip carried them. And Lester saw in the fire, the red of the sunshine; in the smoke, the darkness of night,—the warm summer nights that were filled with peace and sleep.
Surely, it was better then—and as he listened his head fell over on his shoulder, his eyes closed, while still as in a dream he heard the murmur of Philip's voice, saw the pictures he drew, and then he slept.
Philip moved noiselessly to the table where the lamp burned. This he blew out so that only the firelight filled the room, the firelight and the colder brightness the moon sent stealing in through the windows.
As the hours wore on, he kept his watch at the sleeper's side, thinking and wondering what it all meant and what the end would be.
It was almost day when Lester woke.
“Better, Lester?” he asked.
“Yes. I wish I were back to it. I wish I were a boy again. I am sick of the present, and the future has nothing for me. You know I can't keep from the very things that are killing me. I try and try and then I fail.”
“You must keep from them if you are ever to be all you were, all you promised to be.”
Lester shook his head.
“It will never be, Philip. It is too late—I am done for.”
“That's absurd, Lester. There! I can tolerate any one except the man who differs from me in his opinions. For him I have the heartiest contempt.”
“It's not all cowardice with me,” Lester said miserably. “Now that the time has gone forever, I want what I have never had. I am desperately sick of myself.”
He looked at Philip wistfully, and the remembrance was torture to Philip long afterward. “Did you ever want to be good? Can you imagine what this desire is in a fellow like me?”
“Why do you stir me up on these lines of sloppy sentiment?” Philip retorted. “No, I never want to be good. My digestion is perfect. Piety does very well for children and invalids.”
Lester made no response to this and his friend added in an injured but more temperate tone: “You talk like a man on his death-bed. I can only give you temporal consolation. I can only tell you what seems to me the wisest course to pursue.”
“Perhaps I am nearer that than you think for—nearer my death-bed,” the boy answered, helplessly, drearily.
“Stuff!” Philip cried hotly.
Lester seemed to take small comfort from his words, but Philip made a last attempt to cheer him up. “As to the doctors,” he said, “you can't depend on them; and that about your dying is rank nonsense. If folly and sin were so fatal, our race would have become extinct long ago. You may be in a very bad way—I don't say you are not, but anything is possible in this world. You are more apt to get well than to die. You made a mistake, though, when you consulted a doctor. As long as a man can remain in ignorance of those operations that are going on inside of him, he is in the enjoyment of a very considerable blessing.”
Lester turned away.
“Well, I shall go home now if you will let me out,” he said drearily.
“Are you going to keep clear of those indulgences that are, as you think, killing you?”
“If I can I shall.”
“If you can—you must!” Lester's glance checked him:—“I'll walk home with you,” he said gently, and as he saw Lester was going to protest, he made haste to add:
“It's no odds to me that it's late.”
And together they left the house.
A week later it occurred to Philip that Lester had not lived up to the assurance he had given him at parting, that he would come around soon and report upon his troubles.
“Now I suppose I should go look him up,” he thought, “and find out why he has dodged the agreement in this fashion. It's just my misfortune to be of an abominably conscientious temperament which causes me to feel morally responsible for his well-being. I really am conscientious,—even stupidity can not be urged in extenuation. In the present instance I know perfectly well what I should do: I should dismiss Lester from my mind. But I am too much of a conscientious ass.”
In support of the truth of this Philip started at once in search of Lester.
First he visited his home, and found that he had not been there in several days, but it occasioned no alarm, as the boy's habits were decidedly those of a vagabond.
This was in the morning. At noon Philip was in such a state of preoccupation that he got through his dinner without an exchange of hostilities with either of his sisters.
In his search that morning he had encountered no one who seemed to remember having seen Lester recently.
He could not free himself from the belief that his disappearance was a serious matter. The recollection of their last meeting oppressed him with an unpleasant distinctness all at once. He roused himself from his abstraction to say to his mother: “Do you know, I am worried about poor Lester Royal.”
Katherine sniffed aloud at this: “Lester Royal, indeed!”
“I've been looking for him all the morning and I can't get track of him,” he continued.
“Perhaps he is too drunk to be seen. It would be no new thing if he were,” said Katherine.
Philip was using such a character as his sister in some work he was doing, and he was interested in examining her capacity for abusive speech when spurred by anger. Here was an opportunity: “Well, if he wants to get drunk it's his privilege.”
“He should be locked up instead of being allowed to disgrace himself and everybody else.”
“Oh, no, Kate—you would be too severe. What you foolishly take to be a religious conviction is simply a woman's prejudice at seeing a man enjoy himself.”
“Of course you call intoxication enjoyment. Your views are so broad.”
“Are they?”
“You think they are, but if I were in your place I should exercise some selection in the choosing of my associates.”
“Would you really? How nice!”
“My friends should be my equals. Neither low Germans nor drunkards.”
“But men are only equal when they are drunk.” From her seat at the head of the table, Mrs. Southard sent him a look of mute entreaty, and it struck him for the thousandth time that the wrangling in which he and Katherine indulged was hard for his mother to bear. He promptly abandoned the attack, finished his dinner in grim silence, and started out again, bent on finding Lester, but grumbling as he went that he should be so weak as to care about the boy.
He devoted an hour or so to investigating the various resorts Lester was known to frequent, and eventually learned that he had been seen very much the worse for drink on the day following the night they had spent together. Since then no one knew what had become of him. The opinion of the loafer who furnished the information was that he had gone off somewhere to sober up.
“The ass!” thought Philip bitterly. “The brainless ass! Here I get into a pretty state over his woes and this is the extent of his reformation. He goes and gets drunk, which is a good reason for his not going home or caring to see me.”
It was a bright fall afternoon—brisk and bracing—with touches of winter in the air. Philip turned his back on the town. It was just the season for a tramp into the country, and since the greater part of the day had been wasted as far as writing was concerned he proposed to amuse himself.
As he strode along thoughts of Lester would come to him, and in the end pity had replaced his momentary bitterness toward him.
“Poor fellow!” he muttered. “Maybe he can't help it, after all. Unless one has ambition or hope there isn't much to keep one up. I wish I knew where he has hidden himself. If I just knew that, I wouldn't bother.”
He crossed from the road he had followed since leaving the town and kept his way by the river's bank. In the gaunt leafless weeds and bushes choking the narrow path he seemed to see flitting on before him Lester's tragic face.
Soon the town was far in the distance behind him, only the smoke rolling up from the factory chimneys could be seen, and still he tramped on and on, going to the many favorite haunts where he fished or swam as a boy. Each turn in the road marked some event especially prominent in his memory.
In spite of the chilliness in the air he strolled slowly forward for a mile or two, when the yelping of a dog attracted his attention, suggesting possibilities of companionship. He went in the direction from which the sound came. The passing of a bend in the river brought the dog into view, a small yellow creature crouching on its haunches on the bank and howling dismally. When it saw Philip this was changed to short jerky barks and it bounded down the bank and began to tug at a dark object that lay in a thin scum of ice formed about it in the still water near the shore.
From where Philip stood, a little farther down the stream, a curve in the line of its flow placed him almost opposite the object.
“It's a bit of old clothing,” he told himself. And he called aloud: “Bring it out, sir! Fetch it here!”
The dog, stimulated by his voice and presence, barked more furiously than ever, while Philip fell to throwing stones at the thing in the water with the double idea of encouraging the dog and cutting the ice that held it.
All at once the dog, as though frightened, put its tail between its legs and ran up the bank, where it squatted on its haunches and resumed its yelping.
“I wonder,” thought Philip, “if it's my duty to go tear the thing loose, for my esteemed acquaintance, the yellow dog.”
He armed himself with a stick. Thus prepared he made a circuit of the shore. The dog testified to its appreciation of his evident intention in a most unmistakable manner.
“Glad of a little help, are you?” said Philip aloud to the yellow dog as he went toward the object in the water.
“It has a funny look,” he thought, “a very funny look.”
With his stick he poked at it.
The object with a light silly motion bobbed up and down in the water. Philip poked more vigorously. “Come loose!” he insisted. “Come loose!”
Then all in an instant the stick slid from his grasp into the water and glided away 'beyond his reach.
The thing had turned—'turned with a ghastly sickening semblance of life, disclosing a blue discolored hand so poised that it was outstretched straight and stiff. As it swept past it touched Philip.
“It's a man!” he cried, shrinking away. “As I live it's a man!”
The object, turning farther, floated free upon its back and lay so, and he saw the bloated, hideously swollen face of Lester Royal. There was no mistaking it.
Philip uncovered his head and leaned back upon the shelving bank. The dog crept to his side, and he caressed it silently.
There was no sound save that of the river where it fretted against its gravelly bed and the call of crows from the deserted corn-fields.
“It's all up with him now,” unconsciously Philip spoke aloud.
He paused and gazed down upon the body of his friend. The dog crept closer and would have licked his face. This roused Philip from his reverie.
There yet remained for him to summon aid,—men and a wagon, and accompanied by the idle throng that gathers at such times, to go back into the town.