The Champneys chauffeur, greatly to Mrs. MacGregor's terror and disapproval, seemed to live for speed alone; in consequence, one afternoon Mrs. MacGregor and Nancy very narrowly escaped dying for it. Whereupon Mr. Champneys summarily dismissed the chauffeur and engaged in his place young Glenn Mitchell, accidentally brought to his notice. Mr. Champneys congratulated himself upon the discovery of Glenn Mitchell. To begin with, he was a South Carolinian, one of those well-born, penniless, ambitious young Southerners who come to New York to make their fortune. One of his forebears had married a Champneys. That was in ante bellum days, but South Carolina has a long memory, and this far-off tie immediately established the young fellow upon a footing of family relationship and of cousinly friendliness. He was a personable youth of twenty, who had worked his way through high school and meant presently to go through the College of Physicians and Surgeons,—his grandfather had been a distinguished physician, Mr. Champneys remembered. The boy proposed to use his skill in handling a motor-car as a means toward that end.
Mr. Chadwick Champneys would gladly have paid Glenn's college expenses out of his own pocket, but the young man, delicately sounded, politely but sturdily declined. The next best thing the kindly old Carolinian could do, then, was to make the boy a member of his own household. Hoichi had orders to prepare a room for Mr. Mitchell, and Mrs. MacGregor was advised that he would take his meals with the family. She was at first inclined to be scandalized: to bring your chauffeur to your own table was Americanism with a vengeance! But when she met the young man, she was mollified. This chauffeur was a gentleman, and in Mrs. MacGregor's estimation a gentleman may do many things without losing caste. She remembered that the perfectly decent younger son of a certain poverty-stricken nobleman had driven a car. This young Mitchell was exceptionally good-looking in a nice, boyish, fresh-faced way, and she saw in his manner a youthful reflection of the courtliness which distinguished Mr. Chadwick Champneys. He had a great deal of that indefinable something we call charm, and before she knew it Mrs. MacGregor was won over to him, and looked upon his presence as a distinct addition to the Champneys menage.
When he had been introduced to Nancy, she was mentioned as "My niece, Mrs. Champneys." Mrs. MacGregor called her "Anne." Mr. Champneys spoke to her as "Nancy," and Glenn thought he must have been mistaken as to that "Mrs." There was no sign of a husband anywhere; neither was there any indication of widowhood. Nobody mentioned Peter—Mr. Champneys because he was more interested in talking about Glenn's business than his own, on the occasions when he had time to talk about anything; Mrs. MacGregor, because she had never seen Peter, knew nothing at all about him, except that there was a nephew somewhere in the background of things, and wasn't in the least interested in anything but her own immediate affairs; besides, it never would have occurred to her to talk about her employer's affairs, even if she had known anything about them. An employer who was a gentleman, and very wealthy, belonged to the Established Order, and Mrs. MacGregor had the thorough-going British respect for Established Order. Nancy, for her part, wished to forget that Peter existed. She never by any chance mentioned him, or even thought of him if she could help it. So when young Glenn Mitchell, after the pleasant South Carolina fashion, addressed her as "Miss Nancy" it seemed perfectly all right to everybody.
Nancy was a little over eighteen then. She had grown taller, but she retained the pleasant angularity of extreme youth. Because she didn't know how to arrange her hair, Mrs. MacGregor sternly forbidding frizzing and curling, and insisting upon a "modest simplicity becoming to a young girl" she wore her red mane in a huge plait. She had been so teased and badgered about her red hair, had hated it so heartily, been so ashamed of it, that she didn't realize how magnificent it was now, after two years of care and cleanliness. It wasn't auburn; it wasn't Titian; it was a bright, rich, glittering, unbuyable, undeniable red, and Nancy wore her plait as a boy wears a chip on his shoulder. Young Glenn Mitchell was seized with a wild desire to catch hold of that braid that was like a cable of gleaming copper, and wind it around his wrists. For the first time, he thought, he was seeing the true splendor and beauty of red hair; and the girl had the wonderfully white skin that accompanies it. He suspected that she must have been pretty badly freckled when she was a child, for the freckles were still fairly visible, though one saw that they would presently vanish altogether. The curve of her throat and chin, the "salt-cellars" at the base of the neck, left nothing to be desired. Altogether there was that about this girl that caught and held his boyish attention. It wasn't that she was pretty,—he had at first thought her plain. It was rather that here lay a tantalizing promise of unfoldment by and by, a sheathed hint of something rare and perilous.
He didn't quite know what to make of Mr. Champneys's niece. She was abnormally silent, unbelievably unobtrusive, singularly still. Watching her, he found himself wishing she would smile, at least occasionally: he longed to see what her mouth would look like if it should curve into laughter. She had exquisite teeth, and her eyes, when one was allowed to get a glimpse of them, were of a curious, agaty, gray green, with one or two little spots or flecks in the iris. Hers was an impassive, emotionless face; yet she gave a distinct impression of feeling, emotion, passion held in check; it was as if her feelings had been frozen. But suppose a spring thaw should set in—what then? Would there be just a calm brook flowing underneath placid willows, or a tempestuous torrent sweeping all before it? He wondered!
She sat opposite him at table three times a day, and never addressed a word to him, or to Mrs. MacGregor, who carried on whatever conversation there might be. Mrs. MacGregor liked to give details of entertainments "at home," at which she herself had been present, or of events in which A Member of My Family had participated. "I said to the dear Bishop,"—"His Lordship remarked to My Cousin." Sometimes during these recitals the thin, fine edge of a smile touched Nancy's lips. It was gone so quickly one wasn't quite sure it had been there at all; yet its brief passage gave her a strange expression of mockery and of weariness. She offered no opinions of her own about anything; she made no slightest attempt to keep the conversation alive; you could talk, or you could remain silent—it was all one to her. Yet dumb and indifferent though she appeared to be, you felt her presence as something very vital, listening, and immensely honest and natural.
He wished she would speak to him, say something more than a mere "Yes" or "No." Girls had always been more than willing to talk to Glenn Mitchell—very much prettier and more fascinating girls than this silent, stubborn, red-headed Anne Champneys. He began to feel piqued, as well as puzzled.
And then, one day, he happened to glance up suddenly and in that instant encountered a full, straight, intense look from her—a look that weighed, and wondered, and searched, and was piercingly, almost unbearably eager and wistful. He felt himself engulfed, as it were, in the bottomless depths of that long, clear gaze, that went over him like the surge of great waters, and drenched his consciousness to the core. Brand-new Eve might have looked thus at brand-new Adam, sinlessly, virginally, yet with an avid and fearful questioning and curiosity. For the second his heart shook and reeled in his breast. Then the dark lashes fell and veiled the shining glance. Her face was once more indifferent and mask-like.
As a matter of fact, Nancy was avidly interested in Glenn, in whom for the first time she encountered youth. He came like a fresh breeze into an existence in which she stifled. From his first appearance in the house she had watched him stealthily, looking at him openly only when she thought herself unobserved. Conscious of her own defects, she was timid where this good-looking young man was concerned. It never occurred to her that she might interest him, but she did not wish him to think ill of her. She kept herself in the background as much as possible.
She had none of the joyousness natural to a girl of her age. She had no young companions. Was there some reason? Wasn't she happy? He felt vaguely troubled for her. She aroused his sympathy, as well as his curiosity. He couldn't forget that look he had surprised. It stayed in his memory, perilously. At night in his room, when he should have been studying, that astonishing glance came before him on his book, and cast a luminous spell upon him.
He surprised no more such glances. She still relegated to Mrs. MacGregor the full task of talking to him; a task that lady performed nobly. Just as she walked every morning with Mrs. MacGregor, she took her place in the car every afternoon, apparently obeying orders. Sometimes, twisting his head around, he could glimpse her profile turned toward the moving panorama of the crowded streets through which he was skilfully manoeuvering his way. But if she were interested in what she gazed at so fixedly, she made no comment. One never knew what she thought about anything.
One memorable evening she appeared at dinner in a yellow frock, instead of the usual serge or plain blue silk. It wasn't an elaborate dress, but its prettily low neck allowed one to admire her full throat, with a string of amber beads around it. Her hair hung in two thick braids across her shoulders, and the straight lines of the yellow satin accentuated the youthfulness of her figure. Glenn's heart behaved unmannerly.
She appeared not to see his quick, pleased glance, but turned instead to Mrs. MacGregor, who was regarding her critically. Mrs. MacGregor hadn't been consulted about the yellow frock, and she viewed it with distinct disapproval. Glenn found himself solidly aligned against Mrs. MacGregor, and siding with the girl. He liked that yellow frock; somehow it suited her coloring, enabled one to see how unusual she really was. He wondered that he had thought her so plain, at first. She agitated him. He wished intensely that she would look at him; and just then she did, and for the first time saw admiration in a young man's eyes, not for another girl, but for herself! She held his glance, doubtfully, timidly; but she couldn't doubt the evidence of her senses. Glenn was pleased with her, he admired her! His ingenuous face beamed the fact, from frank eyes and smiling lips. There was somewhat more than admiration in his look, but Nancy was more than content with what appeared on the surface. Her eyes widened, a flush rose to her cheek, a naïve and pleased smile transformed her dissatisfied young mouth. When he ventured to speak to her presently, she ventured to reply, shyly, but with new friendliness. Once, when Mrs. MacGregor said something sententious, and Glenn laughed, Nancy laughed with him.
That frank and boyish admiration restored to her, as it were, some rightful and precious heritage long withheld, an indispensable birthright the lack of which had beggared and stripped her. She had a sense of profound gratitude to this likable and handsome young man, a moved and touching interest in him. He made her feel glad to be alive; through him the world seemed of a sudden a kindlier place, full of charming surprises. And when she accompanied Mrs. MacGregor to church on the following Sunday, she looked with a secret sisterliness at the girls she had envied and disliked. It was as if she had been elected to their ranks, been made one of them; she wasn't on the outside of things any more; somebody—a very desirable and handsome somebody—admired her, too. She didn't analyze her feelings. Youth never thinks or analyzes, it feels and realizes; that is why it is divine, why it is lord of the earth. Her growing liking for him was so shy, so naïve, so touchingly sincere, that Glenn was profoundly moved when he became aware of it. He had the old South Carolina chivalry; to him women were still invested with a halo, and one approached them with a manly reverence. He had liked girls, many girls; he would have told you, himself, that he never met a pretty girl without loving her some! But this was the first time Glenn had ever really fallen in love, and he fell headlong, with an impetuous ardor that all but swept him off his feet, and that was like strong wine to Nancy, whose drink heretofore had been lukewarm water.
He didn't know whether or not she was Mr. Champney's sole heir, and he didn't care: what difference could that make? He was as well born as any Champneys, wasn't he? And if he wasn't blessed with much of this world's goods just now, he took it for granted he was going to be, after a while. As for that, hadn't Chadwick Champneys himself once been as poor as Job's turkeys? And hadn't Mr. Champneys acknowledged the relationship existing between them, slight and distant though it was? Who'd have the effrontery to look down on one of the Mitchells of Mitchellsville, South Carolina? He'd like to know! Glenn began to dream the rosy dreams of twenty.
It took Nancy somewhat longer to discover the amazing truth. She was more suspicious and at the same time very much more humble-minded than Glenn. But suspicion faded and failed before his honest passion. His agitation, his eagerness, his face that altered so swiftly, so glowingly, whenever she appeared, would have told the truth to one duller than Nancy. If Mrs. MacGregor could have suspected that anybody could fall in love with Anne Champneys, she must have seen the truth, too. But she didn't. She was serenely blind to what was happening under her eyes.
Nancy never forgot the day she discovered that Glenn loved her. Mrs. MacGregor had one of her rare headaches. She was a woman who hated to upset the fixed routine of life, and as their afternoon outing was one of the established laws, she insisted that Nancy should go, though she herself must remain at home. Half fearful, half delighted, Nancy went. Glenn had looked at her, mutely entreating; in response to that entreaty she took the seat beside him. For some time neither spoke—Glenn because he was too wildly happy, Nancy because she hadn't anything to say. She was curious; she waited for him to speak.
"I wonder," gulped Glenn, presently, "if you know just how happy I am."
Nancy said demurely that she didn't know; but if he was happy she was glad: it must be very nice to be happy!
"Aren'tyouhappy?" he ventured.
Nancy turned pink by way of answer. As a matter of fact, she was nearer being happy then than she had ever been. They fell into an intimate conversation—that is, Glenn talked, and the girl listened. He explained his hopes, ambitions, prospects. He talked eagerly and impetuously. He wished her to understand him, to know all about him,—what he was, what he hoped to be. A boy in love is like that.
In return for this confidence Nancy explained that she hated oatmeal, and Hannah More; some of these days she meant to buy every copy of Hannah More she could lay her hands on, and burn them. Of herself, her past, she said nothing.
"And so you're going to be a doctor!" she turned the conversation back to him, as being much more interesting.
"Yes. Or rather, I'm going to be a great surgeon." And then he asked, smilingly:
"And you—what doyouwant to be?"
"I want to be happy," said Nancy, half fiercely.
"There isn't any reason why you shouldn't be—a girl like you."
Nancy looked a bit doubtful. But no, he wasn't poking fun. And after a pause, he asked, as one putting himself to the test:
"Miss Anne—Nancy—do you think you could be happy—withme?"
"You?" breathed Nancy, all a-tremble. She thought she could be happier with Glenn than with anybody else. Why! therewasn'tanybody else! That is, nobody that cared. She was afraid to say so. But her moved and changed face said it for her.
"Because, if you could be happy with me, why shouldn't you be?" asked Glenn, brilliantly. But Nancy understood, and her heart crowded into her throat with delight, and terror, and a sort of agony. She felt that she loved and adored this boy to distraction. She would have adored anybody who loved and desired her, who found her fair. But she didn't understand that; neither did Glenn.
"You care?" said the boy, leaning toward her. They were running slowly, along a road high above the river. "Nancy, you care?"
Care? Of course she cared! She considered him the most beautiful and desirable of mortals; she was so enraptured, so thrilled with the astounding fact that he cared for her, that she couldn't speak, but looked at him with swimming eyes. He brought the car to a stop, slipped an arm around her shoulder, and drew her close. She knew that something momentous was going to happen to her, and looked at him, full of a sweet terror. "I love you!" said Glenn, and kissed her on the mouth.
His beard was the ghost of down on his cheek; her hair hung in a braid to her waist; their kiss was the kiss of youth,—tender, passionately pure. Everything but that morning face, pale with young emotion, looking at her with enamored eyes, vanished from her mind; everything else counted for nothing, went like chaff upon the wind. The one fact alone remained:Glenn loved her! Her senses were in a delicious tumult from the power and the glory of it:Glenn loved her! It was as if a skylark sang in her breast, as if she walked in a rosy and new-born world. Had Nancy been called upon to die for him then, she would have gone to her death shining-eyed, fleet-footed, joyous.
"I love you, I love you!" Glenn repeated it like a litany. "Nancy! Does it make you as happy because I love you as it makes me because you love me?"
"Oh, ten thousand times ten thousand times more!" she said fervently.
"I think it was your hair I fell in love with, first off," he told her presently. "I have never seen a girl with such hair, and such a lot of it. I'm crazy about your hair, Nancy."
"I think you must be," she agreed whole-heartedly. She wasn't vain, his girl!
They had no more plans than birds or flowers have. Plenty of time for sober planning by and by, when one grew accustomed to the sweet miracle of being beloved as much as one loved! Glenn simply took it for granted he was going to marry her. He had known her all of three months—a lifetime, really!—and she had allowed him to kiss her, had admitted she cared. He supposed they would have to wait until he had been through his training and won that coveted degree. Until then, they would keep their beautiful secret to themselves; they didn't wish to share it with anybody, yet.
It was only when she was alone in her room that night that Nancy realized the true situation that confronted her. On the one side was Glenn, dear, wonderful Glenn, who loved her. On the other was Peter Champneys, who had married her as she had married him, for the Champneys money. Peter Champneys! who despised her, and whom she must consider a barrier between herself and whatever happiness life might offer her! She could understand how Glenn had made his mistake. Nobody had explained Peter to him. To tell him the truth now meant to lose him. She was like a person dying of thirst, yet forbidden to drink the cup of cold water extended to her.
Wasn't it wiser to take what life offered, drain the cup, and let come what might? Why not snatch her chance of happiness, even though it should be brief? Suppose one waited? Deep in her heart was the hope that something would happen that would save her; youth always hopes something is going to happen that will save it. Wasn't it possible Peter might fall in love with somebody, and divorce her? One saw how very possible indeed such a thing was! For the present, let Glenn love her. It was the most important and necessary thing in the world that Glenn should love her. What harm was she doing in letting Glenn love her? Particularly when Peter Champneys didn't, never would, any more than she ever could or would love Peter Champneys.
Even Mrs. MacGregor noticed the change taking place in Anne Champneys. The girl had more color and animation, and at times she even ventured to express her own opinions, which were strikingly shrewd and fresh and original. Her eyes had grown sweeter and clearer, now that she no longer slitted them, and her mouth was learning to curve smilingly. Decidedly, Anne was vastly improved! And her manner had subtly changed, too; she was beginning to show an individuality that wasn't without a nascent fascination.
Mrs. MacGregor plumed herself upon the improvement in her pupil, which she ascribed to her own civilizing and potent influence, for she was a God-fearing woman. She didn't understand that the greatest Power in heaven and earth was at work with Nancy.
But although Glenn became daily more enamored of the girl, he wasn't so satisfied with things as they were. He couldn't say that Nancy really avoided him, of course. He drove her and Mrs. MacGregor, whom at times he wished in Jericho, out in the car every afternoon. He sat opposite her at table thrice daily. Sometimes in the evening he spent an hour or two with her and Mrs. MacGregor, before going to his own room to study. But it so happened that he never was able to see her alone any more; and Nancy certainly made no effort to bring about that desirable situation. This made him restive and at the same time increased his passion for her.
For her part, she was perfectly content just to look at him, to know that he was near. But Glenn was more impatient. He wanted the fragrance of her hair against his shoulder; he wanted the straight, strong young body in his arms; he wished to kiss her. And she held aloof. Although she no longer veiled her eyes from him, although he was quite sure she loved him, she was always tantalizingly out of his reach. She didn't seem to understand the lover's desire to be alone with the beloved, he thought. He grew moody. The weeks seemed years to his ardent and impetuous spirit. One night, happening to need a book he had noticed in the library, he went after it. And there, oh blessed vision, sat Nancy! She had been sleepless and restless, and had stolen out of her room for something to read that hadn't been selected by Mrs. MacGregor. It was rather late, but finding the quiet library pleasanter to her mood than her own room, she curled up in a comfortable chair and began to read. The book was Hardy's "Tess," and its strong and somber passion and tragedy filled her with pity and terror. Something in her was roused by the story; she felt that she understood and suffered with that simple and passionate soul.
She looked up, startled, as Glenn entered the room. He came to her swiftly, his arms outstretched, his face alight.
"You!" he cried, radiant and elate. "You!"
Nancy rose, torn between the desire to retreat, and to fling herself into those waiting arms. Glenn left her no choice. He seized her, roughly and masterfully, and held her close, pressing her against his body. His lips fastened upon hers. Nancy closed her eyes and shivered. She felt small and helpless, a leaf before the wind, and she was afraid.
"Nancy!" he whispered. "Nancy! You've got to marry me. We'll just have to risk it, degree or no degree! What's the use of waiting all our lives, maybe, when we love each other? When will you marry me, Nancy?"
She knew then that she had to tell him the truth, and she trembled.
"Glenn, I—I—" she stammered. Her tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of her mouth.
"Soon? Say yes, Nancy! I'm crazy about you, don't you know that? Why don't you say when, Nancy?"
She felt desperate, as if some force were closing in upon her, relentlessly. She had to speak, and yet she couldn't. She tried to escape from the arms that held her, but they clasped her all the closer. His eager lips closed on hers.
"Nancy! Ah, darling, why not let everything go and marry me at once?"
Ah, why not, indeed? As if Peter Champneys had reached across the sea to divide her and Glenn, a stern voice answered Glenn's question.
"Because she has a husband already," it said harshly. Chalky white, with blazing eyes, Chadwick Champneys confronted Peter's wife in another man's arms. "She is married to my nephew, Peter Champneys. Is it possible you do not know?"
Glenn's arms dropped. Intuitively he moved away from her. His visage blanched, and he stared at her strangely.
"Nancy, is this thing true?"
Nancy nodded. She said in a lifeless voice: "Oh yes, it's true. I was trying to tell you, but—" And then she broke into a cry: "Glenn, you don't understand! Glenn, listen, please listen! I did love you, I do love you, Glenn! You—you don't know—you don't understand—"
The boy staggered. He was an honorable, clean-souled boy, heir to old heritages of pride, and faith, and chivalry. A dull, shamed red crept from cheek to brow, replacing his pallor. His gesture, as he turned away from her, made her feel as if she had been struck across the face. She winced. She saw herself judged and condemned.
"Mr. Champneys," stammered Glenn, painfully, "surely you know I didn't understand—don't you? I—we—fell in love, sir. We'd meant to wait—that's why I didn't come to you at once—but I—that is, I was very much in love with her, and I was going to make a clean breast of it and ask you what we'd better do. And you're not to think I'm—dishonorable—" he choked over the word.
Knowing the boy's breed, Champneys laid a not unkindly hand on his shoulder.
"I see how it was," he said. "And—I guess you're punished enough, without any reproaches from me."
Glenn turned to Nancy. "Why did you do it?" he cried. "I loved you, I trusted you. Nancy, why did you do such a thing—tome?"
She twisted her fingers. Well, this was the end. She was to be thrust out of the new brightness, back into the drab dreariness, the emptiness that was her fate. She lifted tragic eyes.
"I never expected you to love me. But when you did—I justhadto let you! Nobody else cared—ever. And I loved you for loving me—I couldn't help it, Glenn; I couldn't help it!" Her voice broke. She stood there, twisting her fingers.
An old, wise, kind woman, or an old priest who had seen and forgiven much, or men who knew and pitied youth, would have understood. Neither of the men to whom she spoke realized the significance of that childishly pitiful confession. Champneys felt that she had shamed his name, belittled the sacred Family which was his fetish; Glenn thought she had made a fool of him for her own amusement. Never again would he trust a woman, he told himself. And in his pain and shame, his smarting sense of having been duped, his hideous revulsion of feeling, he spoke out brutally. Nancy was left in no doubt as to the estimation in which he now held her. And she understood that it was his pride, even more than his love, that suffered.
She made no further attempt to explain or to exculpate herself; what was the use? She knew that had they changed places, had Glenn been in her shoes and she in his, her judgment had not been thus swift and merciless. Her larger love would have understood, and pitied, and forgiven. Pride! They talked of Pride, and they talked of Name. But she could only feel that the one love she had ever known, or perhaps ever was to know, was going from her, must go from her, unforgiving, as if she had done it some irreparable wrong. She looked from one wrathful, accusing face to the other, like a child that has been beaten. How could Glenn, who had seemed to love her so greatly, turn against her so instantly? Not even—Peter Champneys—had looked at her as Glenn was looking at her now! And of a sudden she felt cold, and old, and sad, and inexpressibly tired. So this was what men were like, then! They always blamed. And they never, never understood. She would not forget.
She checked the impulse to cry aloud to Glenn, to try once more to make him understand. Her eyes darkened, and two bright spots burnt in her cheeks. Without a further word or glance she walked out of the room and left the two standing close together. So stepped Anne Champneys into her womanhood.
She locked her door upon herself. Then she went over, after her fashion, and stared at herself in her mirror. The herself staring back at her startled her—the flushed cheeks, the mouth like coral, the eyes glowing like jewels under straight black brows. The ropes of red hair seemed alive, too; the whole figure radiated a personality that could be dynamic, once its powers should be fully aroused.
She viewed the woman in the glass impersonally, as if it had been a stranger's face looking at her. That vivid creature couldn't be Nancy Simms, not quite three years ago the Baxter slavey, the same Nancy that Peter Champneys had shrunk from with aversion, and that Glenn had repudiated to-night!
"Yes,—it's me," she murmured. "But I ain't—I mean I am not really ugly any more. I'm—I don't know justwhatI am—or whether I ought to like or hate me—" But even while she shook her head, the face in the glass changed; the mouth drooped, the color faded, the light in the eyes went out. "But whatever I am, I'm not enough to make anybody keep on loving me." Then, because she was just a girl, and a very bewildered, sad, and undisciplined girl, she put her red head down on her dressing-table and wept despairingly.
The next morning Mr. Champneys explained to the concerned and regretful Mrs. MacGregor that Mr. Mitchell had been called away suddenly, last night, and didn't think he would be able to return. The ladies were to accept Mr. Mitchell's regrets that he hadn't been able to bid them good-by in person. Mr. Champneys bowed for Mr. Mitchell, in a very stately manner. He went on with his breakfast, while Nancy made a pretense of eating hers, hating life and wishing with youthful intensity that she was dead, and Glenn with her. His empty place mocked and tortured her. He had gone, and he didn't, wouldn't, couldn't understand. She could never, never hope to make Glenn understand! She rather expected Mr. Champneys to sit in judgment upon her that morning, but a whole week passed before Hoichi brought the message that Mr. Champneys wished to see her in the library. Her uncle was standing by the window when she entered, and he turned and bowed to her politely. He was thinner, gaunter, more Don Quixotish than usual. If only he had been kind! But his face was set, and hers instinctively hardened to match it.
"Nancy," he began directly, "I have not sent for you to load you with reproaches for your inexplicable conduct. But I must say this: deliberately to deceive and befool an honest gentleman, to trifle with his affections out of mere greedy vanity, is so base that I have no words strong enough to condemn it."
"I didn't mean to fool him. He fooled himself, and I let him do it," said she, dully. He thought her listlessness indifference, and any bluntness in moral tone in a woman, scandalized him. He could understand a Mrs. MacGregor, who was without subtleties; or soft, loving, courageous women like Milly and his sister-in-law, Peter's mother. But this girl he couldn't fathom. He beat his hands together, helplessly.
"I—you—" he groaned. And then: "Oh, Peter, what have I done to you!"
"I can't see you've done anything to him, except pay him to go away and learn how to make something out of himself," returned Nancy, practically. It brought him up short. "Uncle Chadwick, please keep quiet for a few minutes: I want you to listen to me." She met his eyes fully. "I didn't do Glenn Mitchell any real harm: he'll fall in love with somebody else pretty soon. I suppose it's easy for Glenn to love people because it's easier for people to love Glenn. And he's done me this much good: I won't be so ready to believe it's easy for folks to loveme, Uncle Chadwick. I guess I'm the sort they mostly—don't. I'll not forget." She spoke without bitterness, even with dignity. "One thing more, please. If ever Peter Champneys finds out he loves somebody, and he'll let me know, I'll give him his freedom. Fortune or no fortune, I won't hold him. I know now—a little—what loving somebody means," she finished.
Her voice was so steady, her eyes so clear and direct, her manner so contained, that he was uncomfortably impressed. He felt put upon the defensive. As a matter of fact, in his first anger and surprise at what he still considered her shameless behavior, he had seriously considered the advisability of having Peter's marriage annulled. As soon as he had become calmer, his pride and obstinacy rejected such a course. After all, no harm had been done. She was very young. And he hoped Glenn's outspoken condemnation had taught her a needed and salutary lesson. Looking at her this morning, he realized that she had been punished. But that she should so calmly speak of divorcing Peter, of making way for some other woman, horrified him.
"You are talking immoral nonsense!" he said, angrily. "Let him go, indeed! Divorce your husband! What are we coming to? In my day marriage was binding. No respectable husband or wife ever dreamed of divorce!"
"But they were real husbands and wives, weren't they?" asked Nancy.
"All husbands and wives are real husbands and wives!" he thundered.
She considered this—and him—carefully. "Then you don't want Mr. Peter Champneys and me ever to be divorced? I thought maybe you might."
"I forbid you even tothinksuch wickedness," cried he, alarmed. "A girl of your age talking in such a manner! It's scandalous, that's what it is,—scandalous! Shows the dry-rot of our national moral sense, when the very children"—he glared at Nancy—"gabble about divorce!"
"Then I—I mean, things are just to go along, the same as they have been?" She looked at him pleadingly.
For a few minutes he drummed on the library table with his thin brown fingers. His bushy brows contracted. He asked unexpectedly:
"Would you like to go away for a while? To travel?"
"Where?"
"Where? Why, anywhere! There's a whole world to travel in, isn't there? Well, take Mrs. MacGregor and travel around in it, then."
She shook her head.
"What's the use? Anywhere I went I'd have to go withme, wouldn't I? And I can't seem to like the idea of traveling around with Mrs. MacGregor, either."
"Whatdoyou want, then?"
"I don't know," said she, in a low voice. And she added: "So I think I might just as well stay right on here at home, if it's all the same to you."
"Well, if it pleases you, of course—" he began doubtfully.
"If I do stay, you needn't be afraid I'll fall in love with anybody else you hire," said she, with a faint flush. "I'm only a fool the same way once." Her bomb-shell directness all but stunned him. He stammered, confusedly:
"Why—very well then, very well then! Quite so! I see exactly what you mean! I—ah—am very glad we understand each other." But as the door closed behind her, he mumbled to himself:
"Now, that was a devil of an interview, wasn't it! What's come over the girl? And what's the matter withme?" After a while he telephoned Mr. Jason Vandervelde.
Everything went on as usual in the orderly, luxurious house, for some ten quiet months or so. And then one memorable morning at the breakfast-table Mr. Champneys suddenly gasped and slid down in his chair. Nancy and Hoichi carried him into the library and placed him on a lounge. He opened his eyes once, and stared into hers with something of his old imperiousness. She took his hand, pitifully, and bent down to him.
"Yes, Uncle Chadwick?"
But he didn't speak—to her. His eyes wandered past her. His lips trembled, into a whisper of "Milly!" With that he went out to the wife of his youth.
While Mr. Chadwick Champneys was alive, Nancy had been able to feel that there was some one to whom she, in a way, belonged. Now that he was gone, she felt as if she had been detached from all human ties, for she couldn't consider Peter as belonging. Peter wasn't coming home, of course. He was content to leave his business interests in the safe hands of Mr. Jason Vandervelde, and the trust company that had the Champneys estate in charge. A last addition to Mr. Champneys's will had made the lawyer the guardian of Mrs. Peter Champneys until she was twenty-five.
While he was putting certain of his late client's personal affairs in order, Mr. Vandervelde necessarily came in contact with young Mrs. Peter. The oftener he met her, the more interested the shrewd and kindly man became in Anne Champneys. When he first saw her in the black she had donned for her uncle, the unusual quality of her personal appearance struck him with some astonishment.
"Why, she's grown handsome!" he thought with surprise. "Or maybe she's going to be handsome. Or maybe she's not, either. Whatever she is, she certainly can catch the human eye!"
He remembered her as she had appeared on her wedding-day, and his respect for Chadwick Champneys's far-sighted perspicacity grew: the old man certainly had had an unerring sense of values. The girl had a mind of her own, too. At times her judgment surprised him with its elemental clarity, its penetrating soundness. The power of thinking for herself hadn't been educated out of her; she had not been stodged with other people's—mostly dead people's—thoughts, therefore she had room for her own. He reflected that a little wholesome neglect might be added to the modern curriculum with great advantage to the youthful mind.
Her isolation, the deadly monotony of her daily life, horrified him. He realized that she should have other companionship than Mrs. MacGregor's, shrewdly suspecting that as a teacher that lady had passed the limit of usefulness some time since. Somehow, the impermeable perfection of Mrs. MacGregor exasperated Mr. Vandervelde almost to the point of throwing things at her. She made him understand why there is more joy in heaven over one sinner saved, than over ninety and nine just persons. He could understand just how welcome to a bored heaven that sinner must be! And think of that poor girl living with this human work of supererogation!
"Why, she might just as well be in heaven at once!" he thought, and shuddered. "I've got to do something about it."
"Marcia," he said to his wife, "I want you to help me out with Mrs. Peter Champneys. Call on her. Talk to her. Then tell me what to do for her. She's changed—heaps—in three years. She's—well, I think she's an unusual person, Marcia."
A few days later Mrs. Jason Vandervelde called on Mrs. Peter Champneys, and at sight of Nancy in her black frock experienced something of the emotion that had moved her husband. She felt inclined to rub her eyes. And then she wished to smile, remembering how unnecessarily sorry she and Jason had been for young Peter Champneys.
Marcia Vandervelde was an immensely clever and capable woman; perhaps that partly explained her husband's great success. She looked at the girl before her, and realized her possibilities. Mrs. Peter was for the time being virtually a young widow, she had no relatives, and she was co-heir to the Champneys millions. Properly trained, she should have a brilliant social career ahead of her. And here she was shut up—in a really beautiful house, of course—with nobody but an insufferable frump of an unimportant Mrs. MacGregor! The situation stirred Mrs. Vandervelde's imagination and appealed to her executive ability.
Mrs. Vandervelde liked the way she wore her hair, in thick red plaits wound around the head and pinned flat. It had a medieval effect, which suited her coloring. Her black dress was soft and lusterless. She wore no jewelry, not even a ring. There were shadows under her grave, gray-green eyes. Altogether, she looked individual, astonishingly young, and pathetically alone. Mrs. Vandervelde's interest was aroused. Skilfully she tried to draw the girl out, and was relieved to discover that she wasn't talkative; nor was she awkward. She sat with her hands on the arms of her chair, restfully; and while you spoke, you could see that she weighed what you were saying, and you.
"I am going to like this girl, I think," Marcia Vandervelde told herself. And she looked at Nancy with the affectionate eyes of the creative artist who sees his material to his hand.
"Jason," she said to her husband, some time later, "what would you think if I should tell you I wished to take Anne Champneys abroad with me?"
"I'd say it was the finest idea ever—if you meant it."
"I do mean it. My dear man, with proper handling one might make something that approaches a classic out of that girl. There's something elemental in her: she's like a birch tree in spring, and like the earth it grows in, too, if you see what I mean. I want to try my hand on her. I hate to see her spoiled."
"It's mighty decent of you, Marcia!" said he, gratefully.
"Oh, you know how bored I get at times, Jason. I need something real to engage my energies. I fancy Anne Champneys will supply the needed stimulus. I shall love to watch her reactions: she's not a fool, and I shall be amused. If she managed to do so well with nobody but poor old Mr. Champneys and that dreary MacGregor woman, think what she'll be whenIget through with her!"
Vandervelde said respectfully: "You're a brick, Marcia! If she patterns herself on you—"
"If she patterns herself on anybody but herself, I'll wash my hands of her! It's because I think she won't that I'm willing to help her," said his wife, crisply.
Some six weeks later the Champneys house had been closed indefinitely, the premises put in charge of the efficient Hoichi, and Mrs. MacGregor bonused and another excellent position secured for her, and Mrs. Peter Champneys was making her home with her guardian and his wife.
She might have moved into another world, so different was everything,—as different, say, as was the acrid countenance of Mrs. MacGregor from the fresh-skinned, clear-eyed, clever, handsome face of Marcia Vandervelde. Everything interested Nancy. Her senses were acutely alert. Just to watch Mrs. Vandervelde, so calm, so poised and efficient, gave her a sense of physical well-being. She had never really liked, or deeply admired, or trusted any other woman, and the real depths of her feeling for this one surprised her. Mrs. Vandervelde possessed the supreme gift of putting others at their ease; she had tact, and was at the same time sincere and kind. Nancy found herself at home in this fine house in which life moved largely and colorfully.
A maid had been secured for her, whom Mrs. Vandervelde pronounced a treasure. Then came skilful and polite persons who did things to her skin and hair, with astounding results. After that came the selection of her wardrobe, under Mrs. Vandervelde's critical supervision. Although the frocks were black, with only a white evening gown or two for relief, Nancy felt as if she were clothed in a rosy and delightful dream. She had never even imagined such things as these black frocks were. When she saw herself in them she was silent, though the super-saleswomen exclaimed, and Mrs. Vandervelde smiled a gratified smile.
"I am going to keep her strictly in the background for the time being, Jason," she explained to her husband. "As she's already married, she can afford to wait a year—or even two. I mean her to be perfect. I mean her to be absolutelysure. She's going to be a sensation. Jason, have you ever seen anything to equal her team-work? When I tell her what I want her to do, she looks at me for a moment—and then does it. One thing I must say for old Mr. Champneys and that MacGregor woman: they certainly knew how to lay a firm foundation!"
Nancy was perfectly willing to remain in the background. She was interested in people only as an on-looker. She responded instantly to Mrs. Vandervelde's suggestions and instructions, and carried them out with an intelligent thoroughness that at times made her mentor gasp. It gave her a definite object to work for, and kept her from thinking too much about Glenn Mitchell. And she didn't want to think about Glenn Mitchell. It hurt. She watched with a quiet wonder—quite as if it had been a stranger to whom all this was happening—the change being wrought in herself; the immense difference intelligent care, perfectly selected clothes, and the background of a beautiful house can make not only in one's appearance but in one's thoughts. Sometimes she would stare at the perfectly appointed dinner-table, with its softly shaded lights; she would look, reflectively, from Marcia Vandervelde's smartly coiffured head to her husband's fine, aristocratic face; the reflective glance would trail around the beautiful room, rest appreciatively upon the impressive butler, come back to the food set before her, and a fugitive smile would touch her lips and linger in her eyes. There were times when she felt that she herself was the only real thing among shadows; as if all these pleasant things must vanish, and only her lonesome self remain. She watched with a certain wistfulness the few people she knew. Marcia, now—so admired, so sure, with so many interests, so many friends, and with Jason Vandervelde's quiet love always hers—didsheever have that haunting sense of the impermanence of all possessions; of having, in the end, nothing but herself?
"What are you thinking, when you look at me like that?" Marcia asked her one evening, smilingly. She was as curious about Nancy as Nancy was about her.
"I was just—wondering."
"About what?"
"I was wondering if you were ever lonely?" said Nancy, truthfully. "I mean, as if all this,"—they were in the drawing-room then, and she made a gesture that included everything in it,—"justthings, you know, all the things you have—and—and the people you know—weren'treal. They go. And nothing stays but justyou.You, all by yourself." She leaned forward, her eyes big and earnest.
Marcia Vandervelde stared at her. After a moment she said, tentatively: "There are always things; things one has, things one does. There are always other people."
"Yes, or there wouldn't be you, either. But what I mean is, they go. And you stay, don't you?" She paused, a pucker between her brows, "All by yourself," she finished, in a low voice.
"Does that make you afraid?" asked Mrs. Vandervelde.
"Oh, no! Why should it? It just makes me—wonder."
Mrs. Vandervelde said quietly: "I understand." Nancy felt grateful to her.
A few days later Mrs. Vandervelde said to her casually: "An old friend of ours dines with us to-night, Anne,—Mr. Berkeley Hayden, one of the most charming men in the world. I think you will like him."
Mrs. Vandervelde always said that Berkeley Hayden was the most critical man of her acquaintance, and that his taste was infallible. He had an unerring sense of proportion, and that miracle of judgment which is good taste. He was one of those fortunate people who, as the saying goes, are born with a gold spoon in the mouth. Unlike most inheritors of great wealth, he not only spent freely but added even more freely to the ancestral holdings. He was moneyed enough to do as he pleased without being considered eccentric; he could even afford to be esthetic, and to prefer Epicurus to St. Paul. He had a highly important collection of modern paintings, and an even more valuable one of Tanagra figurines, old Greek coins, and medieval church plate. He had, too, the reputation of being the most gun-shy and bullet-proof of social lions. At thirty he was a handsome, well-groomed, rather bored personage, with sleekly-brushed blond hair and a short mustache. He looked important, and one suspected that he must have been at some pains to keep his waist line so inconspicuous. For the rest, he was as really cultivated and pleasing a pagan as one may find, and so wittily ironical he might have been mistaken for a Frenchman.
Mrs. Vandervelde had planned that he should be the only guest. She knew this would please him, as well as suit her own purpose, which was that he should see young Mrs. Peter Champneys. She was curious to learn what impression Anne would create, and if Berkeley Hayden's judgment would coincide with her own. She had informed him that Jason's ward was stopping with them; would, in fact, go abroad with her shortly. Mr. Hayden was not interested. He thought a ward rather a bore for the Vanderveldes.
He was standing with his back to the mantel, facing the door, when Nancy entered the room. In the filmy black Mrs. Vandervelde had selected for her, tall and slim, she paused for the fraction of a second and lifted her cool, shining, inscrutable green eyes to his lazy blue ones. Mrs. Vandervelde had prevailed upon her to retain her own fashion of wearing her hair in plaits wound around her head, and the new maid had managed to soften the severity of the style and so heightened its effectiveness. A small string of black pearls was around her throat, and pendants of the same beautiful jewels hung from her ears. Berkeley Hayden started, and his eyes widened. Mrs. Vandervelde, who had been watching him intently, sighed imperceptibly.
"I wasn't mistaken, then," she thought, and smiled to herself.
She could have hugged Anne Champneys for her beautifully unconscious manner. Of course the girl didn't understand she was being signally honored and favored by Hayden's openly interested notice, but Marcia reflected amusedly that it wouldn't have made much difference if Anne had known. He didn't interest her, except casually and impersonally. She thought him a very good-looking man, in his way, but rather old: say all of thirty:—and Glenn Mitchell had been handsome, and romantic, and twenty. Young Mrs. Champneys, then, didn't respond to Mr. Berkeley Hayden's notice gratefully, pleasedly, flutteringly, as other young women—and many older ones—did. This one paid a more flattering attention to Mr. Jason Vandervelde than to him. But he had seen other women play that game; he wondered for a moment if this one were designing. But he was himself too clever not to understand that this was real indifference. Then he wondered if she might be—horrible thought!—stupid. He was forced to dismiss that suspicion, too. She wasn't stupid. The truth didn't occur to him—that he himself was spoiled. It provoked him, too, that he couldn't make her talk.
Mrs. Vandervelde smiled to herself again. Berkeley was deliberately trying to make himself agreeable, something he did not often have to trouble himself to do. He was at his best only when he was really interested or amused, and he was at his best to-night. He aroused her admiration, drew the fire of her own wit and raillery, stung even quiet Jason into unwonted animation. Anne Champneys looked from one to the other, concealing the fact that at times their conversation was over her head. She didn't always understand them. The sense of their unreality in relation to herself came upon her. She turned to watch this strange man who was saying things that puzzled her, and he met her eyes, as Glenn Mitchell had once met them. She wasn't looking at him as she had looked at Glenn, but Berkeley Hayden's sophisticated, well-trained, wary heart gave an unprecedented, unmannerly jump when those green eyes sought to fathom him.
Marcia spoke of their proposed stay abroad. She had gone to school in Florence, and she retained a passionate affection for the old city, and showed her delight at the prospect of revisiting it.
"This will be your first visit to Italy, Mrs. Champneys?" asked Hayden.
"Yes."
"I envy you. But you mustn't allow yourself to be weaned away from your own country. You must come back to New York." He smiled into her eyes—Berkeley Hayden's famous smile.
"Yes, I suppose I must," said Nancy, without enthusiasm.
He felt puzzled. Was she unthinkably simple and natural, or was she immeasurably deep? Was her apparent utter unconsciousness of the effect she produced a superfine art? He couldn't decide.
He usually knew exactly why any certain woman pleased him. He had usually demanded beauty; he had worshiped beauty all his life. But beauty must go hand in hand with intellectual qualities; he hated a fool. To-night he found himself puzzled. He couldn't tell exactly why Anne Champneys pleased him. Studying her critically, he decided that she was not beautiful. He could not even call her pretty. Perhaps it was her unusualness. But wherein was she so unusual? He had met women with red hair and white skin and gray-green eyes before—women far, far more seductive than Jason's ward. Yet not one of them all had so potently gripped his imagination.
Mrs. Vandervelde was a brilliant pianist, and after dinner Hayden begged her to play. Under cover of the music, he watched Mrs. Champneys. She was sitting almost opposite him, and he could observe her changing countenance. Nancy was beginning to love and understand good music. Men create music; women receive and carry it as they receive and carry life. It is quite as much a part of themselves.
Nancy's eyes shadowed. She leaned back in her chair, and the man watched the curve of her white cheek and throat, and the thick braids of her red hair. She had forgotten his presence. He was saying to himself, with something of wonder, "No, she's not beautiful: but, my God! howrealshe is!" when, subtly drawn by the intensity of his gaze, she turned, looked at him with her clouded eyes, and smiled vaguely. Still smiling, she turned her head again and gave herself up to listening, unconscious that destiny had clapped her upon the shoulder.
The man sat quite still. It had come to him with, the suddenness of a lightning stroke, and his first feeling was one of stunned amazement, and an almost incredulous resentment. He had gone to and fro in the earth and walked up and down in it, comfortably immune, an amused and ironic looker-on. And now, at thirty, without rhyme or reason he had fallen in love with a red-haired young woman of whom he knew absolutely nothing, beyond the bare fact that she was Jason Vandervelde's ward. A woman who didn't conform to any standard he had ever set for himself, whose mind was a closed book to him, of whose very existence he had been ignorant until to-night. Old Dame Destiny must have sniggered when she thrust Mrs. Peter Champneys, née Nancy Simms, into the exquisitely ordered life of Mr. Berkeley Hayden!
He presently discovered from Jason all that the trustee of the Champneys estate knew of Mrs. Peter, which really wasn't very much, as the lawyer and his wife had never seen Nancy until the morning of her marriage. And he didn't have much to say about her as she was then. Hayden gathered that it was a marriage of convenience, for family reasons—to keep the money in the family. He asked a few questions about Peter, whom Vandervelde thought a likely young fellow enough, but whom Hayden fancied must be a poor sort—probably a freak with a pseudo-artistic temperament. There couldn't have been very much love lost between a husband and wife who had consented to so singular a separation. Hayden had averypoor opinion of Mr. Peter Champneys! But he was fiercely glad it hadn't been a love-match, glad that that other man's claim upon Anne was at the best nominal, that theirs was a marriage in name only.
He saw her several times before her departure, and came no nearer to understanding her. The night before they sailed, he gave a dinner in his apartment, an old aunt of his, more enchanting at sixty than at sixteen, being the only other guest. That apartment with its brocaded walls and its marvelous furniture was a revelation to Nancy. It was like an opened door to her.
She looked at her host with a new interest. He appeared to greater advantage seen, as it were, against his proper and natural background. And that background had the glamour of things strange, exciting, and alluring, smacking somewhat of, say, an Arabian Night's entertainment. Over the dining-room mantel hung a curious and colorful landscape, in which two brown girls, naked to the waist and from thence to the knees wrapped in straight, bright-colored stuff, raised their angular arms to pluck queer fruit from exotic trees.
He knew all that, she thought; he had seen that strange landscape and those brown women, and tasted the fruit they reached to pluck. Just as he knew those tiny terra-cotta figurines over there, and that pottery which must have been made out of ruby-dust. Just as he knew everything. All this had been in his world, always. A world full of things beautiful and strange. He had had everything that she had missed. It seemed to her that he incarnated in his proper and handsome person all the difference and the change that had come into her life.
And quite suddenly she saw Nancy Simms dusting the Baxter parlor, pausing to stand admiringly before a picture on a white-and-gold easel, that cherished picture of a house with mother-of-pearl puddles in front of it. A derisive and impish amusement flickered like summer lightning across her face, and with an inscrutable smile she mocked the mother-of-pearl puddles and her old admiration of them. She lifted her eyes to the painting over Berkeley Hayden's mantel, and the smile deepened.
"Perhaps it is her smile," thought he, watching her. "Yes, I am sure it must be her smile. I am rather glad Marcia is taking her abroad. I do not wish to make a fool of myself, and there'd be that danger if she remained." Yet the idea of her absence gave him an unaccustomed pang.
He filled her quarters aboard ship with exquisite flowers. She was not yet used to graceful attentions, they had been for other women, not for her. She had no idea at all that she was of the slightest importance, if only because of the Champneys money; her comparative freedom was still too recent for her to have changed her estimate of herself. She thought it touchingly kind and thoughtful of this handsome, important man to have remembered justher, particularly when there wasn't anybody else to do so, and she looked at him with a pleased and appreciative friendliness for which he felt absurdly grateful. While Marcia was busied with the other friends who had come to see her off, he stood beside Mrs. Champneys, who seemed to know no one but himself, and this established a measure of intimacy between them.
"It occurs to me," said he, tentatively, "that it has been some time since I saw Florence. All of two or three years."
They stood together by the railing, and she leaned forward the better to watch a leggy little girl with a brickdust-red pigtail in a group on the pier.
"Yes?" said she, absently. The leggy girl had just thrust out her tongue at an expostulating nurse. She seemed to be a highly unpleasant child; one of those children of whom aunts speak as "poor Mary" or whatever their name may be. Anne Champneys, watching her, put her hand up and touched her own hair, that gleamed under her close-fitting black hat. Her eyes darkened; she smiled, secretly, mysteriously, rememberingly.
In that instant Berkeley Hayden made his decision. There was no longer any doubt in his mind. When she turned away from the railing, he said pleasantly:
"You and Marcia have put me in the humor to see Florence again. If I come strolling in upon you some fine day, I hope you'll be glad to see me, Mrs. Champneys?"
"Oh, yes!" said she, politely. And then Marcia and Vandervelde came up, and a few minutes later the two men went ashore. Hayden's face was the last thing Nancy saw as the steamer moved slowly outward. There were hails, laughter, waving of hand-kerchiefs. He alone looked ather. And so he remained in her memory, standing a little apart from all others.