No, I won't leave you.
"No, I won't leave you."
"No, I won't leave you."
Once or twice she had wondered if she had been wise in introducing into this intimacy Clarice Stuart, whose frivolous side only was known to her. But, as soon as she had come, Doré knew she had made no mistake. Clarice Stuart, once in uniform, was another being, serious, matter-of-fact, concentrated, with a strength that surprised her.
"Cut out apologies, Dodo!" she had said, with brusk sincerity. "The presents are all in—the props can wait. What's a turkey between friends? This is the real part of life. You need me! That's enough, isn't it?"
She had asked no questions, and for that Doré was grateful.
When she reached her room, she calmed her nerves with a hot bath and went to sleep at once, without a thought of the heaped-up presents waiting to be opened, or the mail that had accumulated. She had only one idea: to snatch some rest, and to be back—on the field of battle. Snyder had been waiting, restless and apprehensive, looking innumerable questions at such an inexplicable return.
"Don't worry, Snyder!" she had said, with a tired laugh. "Nothing terrible's happened. Tell you later—must get sleep. Wake me at ten!"
But it was almost eleven when, impelled by some uneasy instinct, she awoke precipitately, furious at Snyder, who, on her part, retreated, dumb and obstinate. In the rapid ten minutes in which she dressed, Doré, remembering with fresh irritation the surveillance which had been instituted over her actions, burst out:
"Snyder, what's got into you? I'm beginning to get annoyed—yes, exceedingly so! I don't like your manner toward me. I sometimes think you don't approve of me! What is it? Do you think I am notcapable of taking care of myself? Or do you wish to select my friends for me? Which is it? Let me understand!"
"Well, yes! I don't want to see you getting in trouble!" answered Snyder abruptly.
"Ah, that's it!" said Dodo indignantly. "I couldn't believe it. Now I know! So that's why you come sneaking in every time I have a man calling here?"
"Not every man!" said Snyder, reddening. "One man!"
"Judge Massingale? Say it!"
"Yes!"
"Why?"
"You know very well!"
"I don't!"
"He means no good!" said Snyder obstinately. "Besides, he hasn't the right. And you care!"
"The idea!" said Doré, flushing hotly under an accusation which she knew had point. "I suppose you think I've been out with him? That that's the sort of girl I am? Thank you for your confidence! And may I ask why you take it on yourself to regulate my conduct? Have I ever asked you any questions? Do I know anything about you?" She stopped abruptly at the pain that flashed into Snyder's face, and, being sensitive to such things, added quickly: "You've hurt me very much, Snyder, by your attitude—very much! I didn't expect it of you!"
"I'll tell you—when you want. Yes; guess I have been sailing under false colors!" said Snyder, in ablundering voice. "No, you ain't asked questions. But it isn't 'cause I want to judge you, honey!... Lord, why should I judge? I'd stick to you, no matter what you were. That's not it—only—"
"Only—what?"
"Only, pet, you don't know what's facts!" said Snyder, looking at her directly, "factsandconsequences!"
"I've got a very wise head!" said Dodo, laughing to dismiss a subject she did not wish to discuss. "Don't you worry about me, Snyder! I've fooled many a man who thought he was clever. I won't make mistakes! Give me the mail! I'm off! Back at four for Betty and the tree. Be prompt!" She started out, then came back and caught Snyder playfully by the chin: "Why, you old dragon, don't you know I'm just amusing myself?"
But Snyder, always obstinate and direct, answered:
"Dodo, I tell you, you're serious!"
"Stuff and nonsense!" said Doré, departing with an exaggerated laugh.
Lindaberry was still sunk in long-needed slumber when she returned. Clarice, tiptoeing out, informed her that the worst had been avoided: he had a constitution and a will that was incredible; that alone had saved him from an attack of cerebral fever. What he suffered from most was insomnia and lack of rest; then, of course, there was the craving that had grown into the body, the hot thirst for alcohol. He would have to be watched every moment for days. There was the danger. She lay down on the sofa in thesalon, asleep almost instantly, while Dodo, stealing back to the bedroom, encamped in a distant armchair by a fugitive gray slit of light, began to sort her Christmas mail.
There were a score of letters in all, gay with green and red stamps: some from already forgotten beaus, others from girl friends; a long annual letter from her aunt and uncle, distilling the heavy quiet and enforced lethargy of the small town; a note from Peavey; sentimental scrawls from the various props; a line in Sassoon's brief peremptory style, saying that he would call that afternoon—an announcement suggestive of presents to appear; a missive from Massingale, which she reserved for the last; several envelopes in unfamiliar hands which puzzled her—in fact, odds and ends of all the curious threads that had woven into her life. She arranged them in order, the old memories first to be read and forgot the quicker, the outer cohorts of admirers, the initiated, and for the last Massingale and a letter or two that she had not peeped into, in deference to her love of the mysterious.
She began with the news from home, her body stiffening as her mind set itself to resistance. It was ten pages long, closely and painfully written out in the familiar faded and trembling hand: news of the weather and of the year's building, a record of illnesses and deaths, who had married and who had moved—the tabulated inconsequentialities of village life; and through all the complaining note of solitude and longing which always left her uneasy before the querulous pleading note of duty. She finished rapidly,and drew a long breath. The next was from her old admirer, the grocer's clerk, now full partner, faithfully announcing his marriage. She stopped a moment at the name of the woman.
"Bedelia—Bedelia Stone? Funny I can't remember. Oh, of course! Delia—the girl with red hair and freckles who hated me so. Curious, I'd almost forgot!"
She went on to the next, shaking off the heaviness of spirit which these returning memories always laid across her ascending imagination. Then came Christmas remembrances from other outstripped chance devotees—one from a young dramatic critic in Buffalo whom she had enlisted in that short stop. She smiled at this fidelity, rather flattered. Peavey's letter, announcing a delay in his return, and the forwarding of a present, was signed, "Your devoted and faithful friend." This departure from formality left her in a reverie; she foresaw complications ahead, a new difficulty in the intimacy of the coming explanation which would require all her tact to prevent an open declaration.
Before beginning Massingale's letter she scanned anxiously the two unopened envelopes. What she had feared from the first nervous glance was a letter from Josh Nebbins. He had written her on her last birthday, and on the Christmas before—sentimental confident notes, the faith of a man who believes in the future. Each time she had determined definitely to announce the breaking of the engagement,—to her long since a thing of ridicule,—but she had delayed,mainly from cowardice, for fear that that persistent, terrible young hustler would come straight to New York. Lately she feared him at every turn, obsessed more and more in her dreams by his pursuing shadow. To her relief, no word had come from him. Perhaps he too had forgot, after all! She raised herself and glanced at the bed, where Lindaberry was still moving restlessly, but asleep. Then she opened Massingale's letter:
"My Lady-of-Dreams:"Merry Christmas, and everything you can desire, even to impossible islands in southern seas! The bracelet I send you carries a talisman of good luck to keep you from an ugly world! I'll come for you at twelve, to tell your especial ear all the things that are too fragile to put on crude paper, and if the snow holds, as seems probable, we'll get a sleigh and go jingling off into the new world, and I'll promise solemnly to believe everything you wish me to believe, never once to sayacting, to be entirely docile and joyfully credulous, for a whole twenty-four hours."His Honor."
"My Lady-of-Dreams:
"Merry Christmas, and everything you can desire, even to impossible islands in southern seas! The bracelet I send you carries a talisman of good luck to keep you from an ugly world! I'll come for you at twelve, to tell your especial ear all the things that are too fragile to put on crude paper, and if the snow holds, as seems probable, we'll get a sleigh and go jingling off into the new world, and I'll promise solemnly to believe everything you wish me to believe, never once to sayacting, to be entirely docile and joyfully credulous, for a whole twenty-four hours.
"His Honor."
She glanced guiltily at the clock, amazed how completely Massingale had gone out of her thoughts. It was almost noon. She arose hastily to telephone. But at this moment the man in the bed moved and opened his eyes, which remained profoundly set on her halted figure, so luminous and young in the glowing golden Russian blouse in which she had first appeared to him. She paused, poised lightly on her toes, as he stared out at her incredulously, striving to collect his thoughts.
"Dodo?" he said in a whisper, frowning before him.
She came to his bedside, all else forgot, smiling, radiant.
"Here I am!"
Suddenly some confused streak of memory seemed to cross his brain, and immediately he said, weakness in his voice:
"You—you ought not to be here!"
"I am not alone," she said, sitting down; "there is a trained nurse in the other room."
"I remember—last night—your coming suddenly. But—"
"Hush, don't try to remember!" she said quietly. "Rest; sleep all you can!"
He continued looking at her with great uncomprehending eyes.
"What day is it?" he asked slowly.
"Christmas."
"Good God!" He turned his face away, horror-stricken and ashamed; but she, struck by the movement and the shudder that passed through his body, called to him gently:
"Garry, I don't blame you. Look at me! No, don't turn away, please."
She stretched out her hand, and slipping it under his head, brought it back to her; when he lifted his eyes, hers were smiling through her tears, compassionate and tender.
"I went to pieces," he said slowly.
"Never mind! Now I know how much you need me—what I can mean!"
"I remember nothing. Good God! where have Ibeen?" he said bitterly, and in his eyes was the black fog of impenetrable days and nights.
"It was my fault, too; I made the mistake, Garry!" she said hastily. "All that is over, though. Now we'll make the fight together!"
He watched her mutely, his eyes seeming to widen and deepen with the intensity of his gaze.
"Don't go away—just now—to-day...."
"I won't!"
"And wear—" He raised his hand and ran it caressingly over the golden velvet. "It's your color!"
She nodded, smiling down on him, her soothing fingers running lightly over his hot forehead.
"Lord! Such a defeat!" he said presently, shaking his head.
"Hush!"
"What can you think of me?"
She looked down at his great frame, at the bared muscles of the arm that lay at her side, the corded brown neck, rough cut of chin, the powerful features, now so weak and so appealing. The despondency she saw in that great strength and stricken energy brought her all the closer to him, with an impulse to join all her strength to his, to take away the sting and the mortification, to raise him with confidence and hope.
The clock on the mantel began to send out its twelve tiny warning notes. She did not remember. She was looking in his eyes, smiling, bending over him, claiming him by every gentle right; and the breath that came deeply from her moving breast descended to him, bearing all her strength, all her will, all herself.
At four o'clock, Garry once more asleep to the sound of her calming voice, she ran out for a brief visit to Miss Pim's. In front of the door was an automobile that she recognized—in the heavy mediocrity of the parlor, Albert Edward Sassoon. He came languidly to meet her (since her first reproof he had given up his pasha pose), unruffled and docile, assuming the rôle of good fellowship, despite the fretting of the spirit he had endured.
"Oh, is that you?" she remarked nonchalantly, and gave him a limp hand, arranging her toque in the mirror while listening to his Christmas greetings.
"The humblest and the most patient of your admirers, pretty tyrant!" he said, his tired eyes scanning her with mock humility.
"You are lucky to find me; waiting long?"
As she continued standing, without a move to be seated, he drew from his pocket two jewel-cases, and said, as he moved toward the sofa:
"I am going to let you choose, Miss Dodo, so that you may be sure"—he paused, and added with slow silky emphasis—"to get just what you want!"
"Oh, that's very nice!" she said, with a nod, a little intrigued at the suggestion in his voice, very curious to see what he would offer her. Between them shewas always conscious of move and countermove. Would he take this moment to make another overt advance, after these long weeks of acquiescence to her whims? Just how much did this infatuation and pursuit mean to him, translated into dollars? She sat down, keenly interested, holding out her hand.
"First, please!"
He laid a red plush box on her eager palm, slowly, delaying a momenten connaisseur, to appreciate the delicate wrist and the shell-pink fragile shades of the finger-tips.
"It's a ring, a valuable ring, to tempt me!" she thought, smiling wisely to herself. She opened the box—immensely surprised. Inside was a tiny watch bracelet in gold and enamel, rare in design, but quite modest as an offering from him.
She slipped it on her wrist, nodding appreciatively, choosing her words carefully.
"How cunning! What a dear little watch! How clever of you!"
"Wait!" He leaned forward, offering the other box. "There is a choice, you know!"
She pressed the spring, and remained staring, caught by surprise. Against a background of royal blue, a necklace of pearls met her eyes, luminous and humanly, nakedly beautiful—a necklace such as once she had stood before on Fifth Avenue, breathless with desire, coveting each pearl that lay like a rare and perfectly beautiful nymph asleep against the lawn. The choice! She understood the cruel cleverness of it now. She shut the cover quickly, afraid to let her fingersknow the delight of such a caress. Then she raised her eyes steadily to his keen scrutiny.
"You ran no risk!" she said scornfully.
"Take it! I ask nothing!" he said quietly.
"Then why offer it?"
"That you may understand my nature," he said in a lower voice—"how I am when I care!"
"You know I could not honestly take such a present!"
"Why not? You have warned me!" he still persisted.
"I think such a woman is worse than one who pays," she said disdainfully, and with an angry motion she pushed the box from her, rising.
"Miss Baxter," he said, with studied courtesy, putting the necklace back into his pocket, "it was bought for you; it will be waiting for you."
"Ah, that's what you've been leading up to!" she said sharply, a note of anger in her voice; for the love of the jewels had left an ache.
"Yes," he said frankly; "but they are yours—whenever you ask."
"Why don't you say what you want to say, Mr. Sassoon? Are you so afraid of me?" she said, looking him directly in the eyes.
"Perhaps!" he answered, pulling at his mustache. "And yet, we may as well be open, hadn't we?"
She studied him a moment, and then resumed her seat, making him a peremptory sign to continue.
"It is difficult to express, perhaps," he said—without, however, any trouble showing in his even tones.He paused and looked at his hand, stroking it with the feline motion of his fingers. Then all at once he began:
"Miss Baxter, I have been careful to follow the laws of the game you laid down, haven't I? I have taken care not to offend you by word or action, haven't I?"
"Well?"
"Will you let me say this to you, little girl?" he said, finding all at once his note. "You are going to make up your mind very soon what you want in life. You are too clever to wait long. Now, to be quite fair, as you pride yourself in being, you know who I am, and you know what I want. Yet you are willing to see me, knowing that!"
She took off the bracelet immediately.
"I have not the slightest interest whether I see you or not!" she said coldly. "To be honest, I only care to annoy you, to pay you back for your impertinence at your luncheon, to teach you a lesson that every woman is not for sale—in a word, to humiliate you as much as I can!"
He did not receive this in anger—far from it: his eyes took on a sudden eagerness, an avidity that he had hitherto controlled.
"Are you sure that is quite the truth—all the truth?" he asked, smiling his heavy ironical smile. "Are you sure you haven't been a little curious to know what this might mean, before you reject it? No, don't fib!" he said quietly, as she turned. "Is there anything unnatural—extraordinary in that?Don't you think such ideas come into the minds of most women? If you are going in for a career, you know what you must face! This world is a ridiculous world; laws are made to crush petty offenders! If you allied your name to a little manager, every one would scorn you!"
"And if I were your mistress, Mr. Sassoon? Say the word!"
"If you were, with your cleverness," he said quietly, "you would be received wherever I wanted you to be received: more, you would be sought, courted, flattered by those who want something out of me. Or, if you wanted a career, every obstacle would disappear at one word! Ask any one, if you want to know the truth of what I say. That's the world, young lady." He checked himself. "I don't want to talk over that—now! You asked me a direct question. This is my answer. Accept me for what I am—considering me as a possibility. It's worth it; be sure that it is a bigger field than a marriage of drudgery that ends your liberty. Consider me carefully, simply as an abstract proposition! Meanwhile, give me credit for being quite submissive and obedient!"
She remained thoughtful, surprised at the keenness of his insight, feeling she had underestimated him, feeling, too, the dramatic opposition of herself, little wandering atom of mediocrity and the great powers of wealth that could impress her so convincingly out of the time-worn eyes of this bored man.
"What are you thinking of, pretty child?" he said, struck at her glance.
"It is only because you can't have me!" she said abruptly.
"Because you don't care for what other women do!" he said quickly. "Because I am tired—eternally tired—of women who fling themselves at me! Because you make me follow you. Listen! You won't believe me—it's true. You can do anything you want with me!"
"Harrigan Blood offers me himself!" she said maliciously, for she began to have the same instinct with him as she had with Massingale, to whip him out of his calm into a fury.
"Blood!" he said angrily. "Child, you would hold a man like that three months. He would devour you, crush you. That type only feeds on women! You think I don't care! Do you know that just because you turned up in my life I've broken with Blood—that we are fighting each other tooth and nail, that I've caught him in the market, and will wring him for forty or fifty thousand for daring to get in my path!"
"And he?" she cried, delighted.
He noticed the joy in her, the childish delight of mischief, which reckoned great disasters as a broken vase.
"Little devil! That's what I like in you!" he said, with a flash of his eyes. "Blood is hammering me tooth and nail. He'll put me back three years, perhaps, tie me up and cost me a million or two more. But that's all the good it'll do him! Well, are you pleased?"
"Yes, I like that!"
"And which is it to be?"
"The bracelet, please!"
He laughed, fastening it on her arm, taking no advantage.
"You see how domesticated I am!"
"You behave very well!"
"Grant me one favor, then!"
"What?"
"To see your room," he said eagerly.
She was about to refuse, when the thought of Snyder and Betty above made her bite her lip with malice, and ask:
"Well, for once! But why?"
"To see what you prefer to all you could have!" he said; but he said it impersonally, bowing his thanks, resolved to school himself to impassibility and patience.
No sooner had they reached her room than he comprehended her trap. But it was too late to retreat. He was forced to make the best of it, submitting to introductions, pretending interest in the child and the tree. Then, inventing a lie, aware always of the laughter behind Dodo's eyes, he drew a ten-dollar bill from his pocket, and addressing Betty, said:
"Miss Baxter was kind enough to let me come up just for the Christmas tree. This is my present; buy anything you want!"
And with a stiff bow, he fled from childish things, cursing his deception, rage and avidity in his heart. Dodo, with shrieks of laughter, threw herself rolling on the bed.
But all at once she rose anxiously.
"Snyder, did he come at twelve? You know whom I mean!"
"Yes, he came!"
"You saw him? What did you say?"
"Told him you'd been in—gone out—didn't know where!" said Snyder in her jerky way.
"Snyder!" she cried furiously. "Did he leave a message?"
"No!"
"Snyder, don't deceive me!" she said imperatively. "Where is the letter?"
The woman shrugged her shoulders, hesitated, then went to a drawer and flung a letter on the table. Dodo tore it open. It was brevity itself.
"Twelve to twelve forty-five.—Why?"
"Twelve to twelve forty-five.—Why?"
Though she herself was at fault, the curtness of his message aroused her irritation. She crumpled it in her hands, then tore it to pieces.
"Very well! Now for presents!" she said.
When, after the last mysterious box had been opened with rapturous cries, dolls dressed and undressed, enormous mouthfuls of sweets consumed and crackers pulled with shrieks of fear, Snyder went off with Betty in a gale of excitement. Dodo, left alone, hurried to her presents. The harvest had been abundant; the table shone with silver. Mr. Peavey had sent a magnificent toilet set, Harrigan Blood a vanity box in gold which she embraced in her delight, Blainey a brooch which had solid convertible qualities; scarf-pins and silverware abounded. There wasa set of sable furs from Stacey (heavens! how often she had feared he had not understood!), but only a silver-mounted umbrella from Gilday (like a card with "P.P.C." across, she thought!). Massingale's bracelet was of exquisite workmanship, oriental, inclosing a talisman set in rubies, her favorite stone. She slipped it over her wrist, fascinated and content with its elegance and charm, which she associated always with him. Overcome by remorse, she hastened to the telephone. She tried his club, but he was not in. She left her number, and hurriedly sent off a note by Josephus, promising to explain all, a note full of healing affection and contrition, giving him a rendezvous for nine precisely. Then she ran down the stairs, and hurried back to her patient.
He was awake, waiting her coming, and the nervous longing in his eyes changed to peaceful contemplation as she came daintily in.
"I hoped you wouldn't wake up until I got back," she said, throwing off her new furs and raising her little toque from her tomboy golden curls, which seemed to dance in joyful liberation. The red snap of the chill snow was on her cheeks, in her eyes unmistakable eagerness to be back.
He saw it, and smiled too, beckoning her with a little motion of his outstretched hand. Then his glance went anxiously to Clarice; but she, as if interested only in the furs, bore them out of the room. Dodo took her chair by his side, looking down happily.
"Many presents?" he asked slowly.
She nodded gaily.
"Heaps!"
He put his hand under the pillow and drew something out. He held it a moment in his hand, his fist closed over it.
"My present."
"Really?" she said, clasping her hands.
He watched her hungrily, devouring every fugitive flash of youth and beauty. Then he held up a ring, a diamond flanked by two rubies, in an old setting.
"It's been in the family—long time. My mother's," he said.
But Dodo, drawing back, confused, touched, resisted.
"Oh, no! I couldn't! It's much too valuable. Please, please don't ask it!"
"Too valuable?" he said, with a touch of anger. "For you? Give me your hand—left, please!"
As she started to protest further, he closed his eyes wearily. She stopped instantly, afraid of over-excitement. If he wanted anything that she could give him, it was his.
"Here, Garry!" she said. "I—it's because—I am overwhelmed!"
He took her hand, discarding with a smile the finger she offered, choosing the one that was reserved for the pledge of lovers, and before she knew it, slipped it on. She caught her breath, and a sharp pain seemed to go through her. She could not refuse; yet to accept seemed a treason.
"It doesn't bind you—means everything to me!"
"Does it?" she said, suddenly pliant.
The light in his eyes, struggling out of the shadows of defeat, alone was her answer. She made a quick reservation. If this could mean anything to him, could help him in any way, had she a right to withhold it? When he had conquered, when he was strong again, when he saw her with clear eyes as she was, so far removed from him—then she would tell him, and he would at least revere her memory. She felt a lump in her throat, a smile on her lips, and a wetness in her eyes.
"Wish it on, then!" she said, laughing merrily. "Do you believe?"
"I will believe!" he said gravely.
Then he chuckled at this bit of boy-and-girl sentiment, and she laughed back. It was so good to be there—so soul-satisfying!
A little before nine, with a promise to drop in later for a few minutes, she went back to keep her appointment with Massingale. But she was conscious of a little regret, an unwillingness to leave the quiet moods into which she had come. Then, there would have to be explanations, something invented,—for she could not tell him the truth,—and the thought of complaints and replies, discussion and fencing, all the nervous play and struggle of the last weeks repeated, fretted her and left her impatient. But when she had waited in her room until nine, and another half-hour had dragged on without his coming, she was a bit alarmed. She went slowly to the telephone, hesitating and deliberating. Then she stopped, shook her head and returned.
All at once the door of Winona's room opened, and the tall dark figure of the girl remained in the opening, silently, her hand on the knob, hesitating.
Dodo gave a little exclamation and drew back against the table, her head thrown back, proud, wounded and unrelenting.
This silent confrontation lasted a long moment before Winona said slowly:
"Won't you let me come in?"
Dodo was human, and the offense against her had been the blackest in the Salamander code. She felt no softness in her heart. After what she had done, the old confidential relations could never be renewed: what was the use of pretending? So she answered coldly:
"Why? There was no excuse for what you did—absolutely none!"
Winona, very calm, reflected a moment; then she answered abruptly:
"I know! I'm not asking forgiveness!" And, with a decision that astonished Dodo, she entered, saying, "No one will come—for half an hour at least? I've got something I must talk out, you're the only human being, Dodo—I must talk to some one, or I shall go mad!"
The obstinate reckless force in her words and gestures completed Dodo's astonishment. Instead of a suppliant, Winona had assumed control of the situation. She hesitated, on the point of an angry refusal. But Winona had not come to ask for forgiveness—for what then? She turned on her heel, sat down andfolded her arms aggressively, looking her sternest. Winona immediately placed herself before her, never avoiding her gaze, speaking abruptly, as if in a hurry, with hard cruel notes in her voice:
"Dodo, you were the only true friend I had in the world; you did everything for me; and I tried to take from you a man who means nothing to you. You have a dozen,—twenty, if you wish,—and I had none! I was desperate! I'm saying no more—what's the use? You wouldn't forgive me—I wouldn't if I were you; and, if you did, would that change matters? No! Some day—you will see matters differently." She stopped at an angry gesture of negation from the seated girl, and repeated, with a smile full of bitterness: "Some day—yes, remember what I say!" For a moment, through the hardness of her mood, a little bit of the old Winona appeared, gentle and tender, as she looked down with the first trace of remorse; but she crushed it immediately, and continued almost mechanically, as if reciting a piece committed to memory:
"What I tell you now, I tell you because you are the only one I can trust, and because, no matter what's happened, you are the one I want to understand. I have been married for five years!"
At this incredible announcement Dodo let her arms fall, half rising from her seat, open-mouthed.
"Married!"
"Five years!" Winona repeated, shrugging her shoulders. "Legally, that's all. Don't interrupt me; I want to get it over. I lived in a God-forsaken fishing village on the Maine coast—God-forsaken eight months of the year, waking up in the summer for a few city folks, second-class, who'd come down for three months, four months, to keep us going the rest of the year. Father was a decent sort, sea captain, fussing about a couple of cat-boats in the summer, lazy, but kind. My mother was a devil if ever there was one; but she worked hard, washing, cooking. She couldn't read or write. Why he married her—don't know! Because she got him with her good looks, probably, the looks she passed down to my sister and me! There were eight in the family, and we were the eldest—village belles. Morals weren't any too strict there; lord, why should they be? With everything gone to rot, no hope, no life, just existing, dragging through one month after another—sleet, ice and wind, and nothing ahead but to get old! All right, when you didn't know that something else existed over on the mainland! That was the trouble! They educated us—sent us over for a year's high school at New Bedford, to stay with an aunt.
"New Bedford! Lord, I thought it was a wonderland then; Boston and New York couldn't be any finer. Then she brought us back, to help in the living, to wait on the table when the boarders came, to end up by marrying—work for some man who'd sit around, to be fed and clothed, to have his house cleaned—children and all the rest."
She stopped a moment, frowning, and Dodo, overwhelmed at this picture of isolation and drudgery, that started before her eyes in the gesture and the voice ofthe girl, who seemed to have returned to it all, exclaimed:
"But why tell me?"
Without noticing the interruption, Winona continued, speaking as if to herself, seemingly unconscious of Dodo's presence:
"New Bedford and summer boarders! That was the whole trouble! I was eighteen, sister twenty, and the village belles! We used to get out of the windows, nights, and steal off for a dance, every chance we got. Lord! it was innocent enough, considering what the other girls were doing; but she—the mother—whenever she'd catch us, she used to go stark out of her mind, swear we were disgracing her, bringing shame on the family, insinuating—well, everything! That wasn't all! She tied us up and beat us with a strap—yes, just that!—until she couldn't beat or shriek at us any more. But that didn't stop us! It only made us hate everything—her, the home, the life! Once she beat my sister so that they had to call in a doctor. The next week she ran off—disappeared." Winona drew a long breath, and her arm swept toward the trackless city, lowering at their window-sides: "Never a word. God knows! The worst, I guess—here, perhaps—somewhere!
"She wanted me to go with her; I hadn't the nerve. Besides, there was a city fellow, clerk in a shoe store, who was taken with me, and I thought—I was sure—would marry me and get me out of it. But nothing ever came of that. After my sister went, she, the mother, never beat me again. Father had had somewords with her, I guess. Only it was worse! She had bars put in my window, and she never let me out of her sight in summer. When she went to bed she locked me in herself. She swore she'd keep me, at least, an honest girl. Two years of that. God knows how many times I thought of ending it all!
"Then there was an old fellow from the city, who had come down ten years before, and stayed. Been a gentleman, or something near it. Drink was the trouble—but a quiet sort of an old bachelor. Took over the little ramshackle store, living by himself with a regiment of cats. There'd been something back in his life—scandal about something or other: none of us ever got the truth, but it took the ambition out of him. He didn't care. He rather liked the old hole, I think. The store, you know, was the social center. Anyhow, he got sort of hold of himself, and prospered.
"Now, what I did, I did myself. I made him fall in love with me—oh, it wasn't difficult! I'd known for a long time what was back of his eyes; only—well, I was the belle, and every one was after me, and he'd sense enough to know that a prize like that wasn't for him, at fifty-five. Well, the rest isn't important; besides, it was easy. He got infatuated, as I meant, and when it was time I made a bargain. I had talked him into believing I would have a career; only it wasn't that—I wanted to get away! And one afternoon in December, with the snow piling up against the door, when we were alone in his store, I made my bargain—over the counter just like any other sale.
"He was to supply me with money for three years, and at the end of that time, if I was a success, he was to join me; if I failed, I was to go back, forget and take up the old life again. It sounds queer perhaps; as a matter of fact, I played many scenes before I got him to that. I was clever then; I was only twenty-one! Then—well, I'd put the longing for me into him, and it was a bargain like any other. I wanted five years, but he stuck for three. I wanted an engagement only, but, though he was crazy for me, he was too canny. So we compromised: I met him in Boston, and we were married secretly, and I left him the same day. He took me to the train and put me on board, shaking like a fever, looking at me with eyes big as saucers.
"That was four years ago. I did not go back, and he stopped sending me money. I wrote him a hundred lies—told him I must have another year by myself, that I had a big opportunity, that I was sure to succeed, that he had not given me enough time, every excuse. But he stopped my money short, told me when I was ready I'd got to come to him—"
She stopped, drew in her breath, and then burst out fiercely:
"God! I may be a wicked woman, but how I have waited, how I have prayed, to be delivered from him! Yes, prayed on my knees for him to die—to make me free, to give me a chance! But what's the use? I thought I was so clever! Clever?... I'm a stupid little fool! Career? I haven't the ghost of a show! I know it now! There's no more hoping! I've hadchance after chance; what good did they do me? That last one—that opened my eyes! Blainey's right; he didn't mince words. It was what I needed; it convinced me! But, God! if he would only die!"
Dodo had sat breathlessly, even shrinking back in her chair, before these passions in the raw, flung out without pretense of concealment, horror-stricken.
"But what will you do then?" she cried, terrified at the expression in Winona's eyes.
The girl's eyes came to hers, cold, resolved, disdainful; but she did not reply. A horrible thought suddenly possessed Dodo, as of an ominous echo out of her own past.
"You won't go back!" she cried, shuddering.
"Go back to that? To that loneliness, that starvation, that slavery, after knowing this?" she cried furiously, clenching her fist and starting back. Then she caught herself, looked away, and presently turned, calm, with a light of bitter mockery on her set face. "No! That is one thing I won't do!"
She dropped her fist, which had been pressed to her throat, with a short rough gesture of finality, and went directly to her door.
"Whether you come to forgive me or not," she said, "if I ever can help you, Dodo, save you from anything, come to me!"
And without waiting for an answer, she closed and locked the door.
For minute on minute Dodo remained as she had sprung up, her chin in her hand, her knuckles pressed tensely against the sharp contact of her teeth, thinking,hesitating, torn by conflicting impulses. Had Winona dramatized her story, as she herself had done a hundred times? Was it all true, or only half true? If it were true, then what had she sought with Peavey, if not to be his wife—what, then? Only Peavey could tell her, make her certain of the truth or falsity of this story. And yet, there were accents, cries of the soul, despair of the eyes, that were too poignantly felt to be counterfeited! Dodo tiptoed to the door, listening. From the other side came the regular tread of a pacing step, regular and nervous; but of weeping no sound! She remained still a moment, her hand pressed to her breast, irresistibly drawn to belief. Had Winona opened the door at the moment, she would have caught her in her arms.
Then she remembered Lindaberry, staring into the horror of the night—into the long wakeful darkness; and she said to herself, as she departed hurriedly:
"To-morrow I will go to her. It can not be a lie!"
She found Lindaberry flushed with a sudden fever, that burned brightly on his worn cheeks and in the luminous brilliant eyes, which scarcely recognized her. Doctor Lampson was there. It was an attack of influenza, brought on by exposure and the drain on his vitality, which might be serious in his present condition.
She remained obstinately all night, sharing the watches with Clarice. The fever, which flared up fiercely at first, subsided somewhat with the coming of the day, leaving him quiet, but in a dangerously weak condition. When again she had the opportunity to return to her room, she remembered Winona. Thefear of what might happen to the wasted man at whose bedside she had watched, the cleansing of the spirit which the single thought of death had brought, had washed away all bitterness. She opened the door with longing, her arms ready. The room was empty, the bed untouched! In the center a trunk stood locked and corded. When she returned again in the afternoon, even the trunk had disappeared. Miss Pim, who arrived with professional, calculating eye, answered her outpouring of questions by a magnificent gesture of disdain.
"Said she was going to a house-party—for a week. That's what shesaid! H'm, I've got the trunk, if I haven't got two weeks' board! We shall see what we shall see!Ihave my suspicions!"
During the days in which Lindaberry lay weak and shattered, slowly struggling back to strength and a new grip on things, some perverse spirit seemed to actuate Dodo in her attitude toward Massingale. She had remained without seeing him for forty-eight hours after Christmas, refusing to make the advance when he had stayed away. Feeling a need of retaliation, she went to luncheon twice with Harrigan Blood in the short hours in which she absented herself from the sick-room. When finally, the third day, Massingale capitulated and came to see her, she treated him with the greatest indifference, inventing new stories, incredible, but galling to his pride.
"Why didn't you come?" he said, without preliminaries.
"I have other friends and other engagements!" she said, shrugging her shoulders. "Besides, I have resolved to make it easier for you."
"For me?"
"To be just a father confessor!" she said maliciously.
He had no answer that he could phrase, so he waited, staring at his boot in perplexity, aware of the lights that were dancing in her roguish eyes.
"And dinner—Christmas dinner?"
"Engaged, too; my other friends don't leave things to chance!"
"Why do you treat me this way?" he asked, frowning.
"What way? I'm sure I'm very nice to you! I'm not even angry because you've been sulking all this time!"
She stood before him, laughing, her head on one side, her hands on her hips. He made a movement as if to seize her, and she sprang away.
"Don't let's quarrel; I've been quite miserable!"
"Serves you right!" she said, unrelenting, determined to teach him by a bitter lesson what punishment she reserved for rebels.
At this moment his eye perceived the ring that Lindaberry had placed on her finger. At the same instant she caught his glance, and flourished her hand tantalizingly before his eyes.
"Isn't it beautiful?"
"What's that mean?"
"It means I'm engaged!" she said demurely.
"Who lent you that thing?"
"I'm a very mysterious person," she said gravely. "Look out! Some day you'll find me married before you know it!"
He looked at her with his intimidating, magisterial stare.
"Oh, you don't frighten me at all, Your Honor!" she said, making a face.
"I don't believe a word you say! You've borrowed the ring, and you've made ready a fine story;but I'm not going to give you the pleasure. Will you dine with me?"
"Previous engagement!"
"With your fiancé, of course?"
"Quite right!"
"That's serious?" he said, rising, and containing his wrath with difficulty.
"Very serious!"
"Good-by, then!"
"Au revoir or good-by?"
"Good-by!" he said dryly and with emphasis.
She accompanied him to the door with a well simulated mask of tragedy, shook hands gravely, and suddenly, with a burst of laughter, called after him:
"To-morrow—here—same hour! If you're not on time you won't find me!"
The next day she told him, very seriously, the story of the ring, and with the true spirit of fiction, assimilating all that came to her ear and turning it into personal experience, she profited by what Winona had told her.
"You are sure you want to know?" she began, with a little alarmed air.
He nodded with a jerky, irritated motion.
"You will be annoyed," she said, hesitating; "you won't like it!"
"Begin!"
"Very well! I've told you often my time is not my own. The truth is that at any moment I may have to go when I am called," she began. Her starts were always rather jerky until the mood had envelopedher. Suddenly she remembered Winona and dashed ahead. "The person who gave me this ring is an old man, sixty-five years of age—very rich. You have often wanted to know how I manage to live. He gives me the money. I have signed a contract to marry him when three years are up. There! Now you know all! That is my fate—if he lives! To-day he is desperately ill."
She went to the window, draping herself in the proper tragic pose, gazing out into the clear frozen twilight, drawing a deep sigh.
"It was all before I knew you—when I first came, when I was desperate, without a friend, without a cent! It was either that or—" She left the window abruptly, overcome by the mood, and returning, sat down, her elbows on her knees, her head in her hands. "He is a gambler, a partner of my father's. He fell in love with me there at Gold Fields—you remember? When my father was killed, he sent me to school; he has always been kind, very kind. Wanted to marry me afterward, but I wouldn't hear of it. I ran away. I wanted to be young, to enjoy life, to live! He is very ugly, very old; his skin is all spotted and loose, and his eyes are watery and faded, and when he touches me I shiver."
She raised her head, staring before her, drawing down the corners of her mouth.
"I didn't see him again until—until I came here, and that was by accident. Everything had gone wrong! The company I had come with had failed; I could get nothing to do! It was very black. Therewere men, horrible men, offering me—you understand! I sold newspapers, in all kinds of weather, until ten or eleven at night sometimes, to get enough to eat! That's where he found me, under an umbrella on a street corner, in a pouring rain, a bundle of newspapers soaking under my arm. I was crying; I couldn't struggle any more! He took me to his home, a beautiful place just off Washington Square. He wanted me to marry him then. I can remember every word he said:
"'I'm over sixty. I've lived hard. Two strokes—and the next will box me up. At the worst, girl, it'll only be four or five years and then seven hundred thousand coming to you!'
"I don't know what I might have answered, but he put out his hand—wrinkled chalky hand! I can see it now—and touched mine. Ugh! But I made the bargain then and there, signed it in black and white. Three years to do as I please, and then—"
"And the time is up precisely on the tenth of March?" he said, with a grim smile.
"No! I have eight months more," she said, furious that he should not have been convinced by a story which had moved even her. "Who knows? He is very, very ill; it may all be over in a week!"
All at once the true effect flashed into her imagination, she turned, seizing him by the coat violently, clinging to him, crying:
"Oh, Your Honor, forgive me whatever I do these days! I haven't told you the truth. I'm not engaged—I'm married to him! And it's horrible—it is killing me! I don't know what I shall do. I think such wicked thoughts. I hope he'll never recover! Can you ever love me now?"
His answer was effective. He swore a splendid, soul-easing oath, adding:
"Dodo, if ever I'm fool enough to believe you, I deserve all I get!"
She laughed through the tears which had come naturally.
"So that's all you'll tell me!" he said roughly.
"Oh, there's always some truth in what I tell you!" she answered; and she had so entered into the part, so completely dramatized herself, that all that day he could not succeed in drawing her back to plain matter-of-fact.
But, despite all the good humor he put to her caprices, the determination to plague him always returned to her in some animal revulsion on leaving Lindaberry. No sooner had she left this quieter self that she found herself seized by the need of violent reaction, to which Massingale did not always suffice. Consequently she gave more time and more opportunity to Sassoon than she ordinarily would have done in prudence. But Sassoon, as though the lion had clipped his claws, never made the slightest attempt to presume, acting mildness and docility. She even began to consider him as rather a safe person, who could always, in the last test, be found manageable—which was exactly what Albert Edward Sassoon had planned. Next mutually to provoke Judge Massingale and Harrigan Blood, she persuaded them to lunchen trois. The alacrity with which Massingale (who, since the unexplained ring, was suspicious of Blood) agreed where she expected resistance, drove her to too overt a display of interest before Harrigan Blood, with his keen vindictive eyes.
This luncheon, the result of one of those unreflecting impulses which seem so casual at the time, was destined to have the gravest consequences. Harrigan Blood, suddenly enlightened as to the true state of Dodo's interests, perceived that the ruinous quarrel with Sassoon had been to no end, and disillusioned and duped, became a bitter enemy of Massingale's: for Blood, with all his idealism in the domain of ideas, was capable of petty and terrible vindictiveness when his desires were once aroused. This luncheon, in fact, cost Massingale a career.
But Dodo, having thus roused Harrigan Blood to an extent to which she little guessed, turned the tables on Massingale, who, claimed by the afternoon session, was forced to hand her over to the escort of Harrigan Blood and see them depart in the intimacy of a closed automobile.
"Thanks! now I know who is my rival!" said Harrigan Blood immediately.
"You think so?"
"I know!" he said pointblank. Then, with a sudden rage, he turned on her. "Do you know what you have cost me by making one mistake?"
"Yes," she said softly; "Mr. Sassoon told me!"
He swore at this, and went on:
"Look here! I want to understand things; I want the truth! I want some straight answers!"
He was one of those men of force who believe that they can resolve all feminine intrigues by bruskly bringing things to a point. She smiled to herself at this bull rushing toward a fancied light.
"Are you in love with Massingale? If so, I want to know!"
"I haven't made up my mind," she said, looking at him out of the corner of her eye.
"Are you playing a game with me or not?"
"That would be rather natural, wouldn't it?"
"What's that?" he said, amazed.
"We are rather different, aren't we?" she said quietly. "It's very easy for you to make upyourmind to put out your hand and take me, as you once expressed it; that's not a very great decision for you. But it's a little different, you see—it takes a little longer—to persuademethat I want to be taken. You are a very poor hand at courting, Mr. Harrigan Blood; you go out to win a woman as you would bowl down a lot of ten-pins. Don't you see?"
"Lord!" he cried, angry at the fretting and time-wasting she had made him endure and would further inflict on him. "Will there ever be a woman who'll have the courage to say, 'I love you as you love me, and let's dispense with all this backing and filling, this fencing, this coquetting and vexing of the spirit!' And why? Afraid that if you give naturally you won't be prized. That's the littleness about youwomen; you can't conceive anything on a big scale!"
"But I don't know at all that I love you!" she said quietly. His last words had brought to her mind an idea of Estelle Monk's, which she adopted instantly, as she had adopted Winona's story. Even as she began she was laughing inwardly at the effect she knew it would bring. "Win me—make me love you! You have big ideas; so have I!"
He came closer, putting his arm back of her shoulder, taking her hand with impulsive suddenness, excited by this first opportunity she had permitted him.
"Give me a chance, Dodo! Let me see you, like this, but be honest with me!"
"I'll be perfectly honest, Harrigan," she said demurely, smiling to herself at the thrill that went through him at this first use of his name. "You are very much mistaken if you think I am like other girls. I want to be honest, and I am not afraid. We have the same ideas about marriage. I want to be a pioneer, to have the courage to lead the way! I'm not an adventuress. I shall never be ashamed of what I do! I shall never marry, but when I know that I love, I shall go to the man of my choice—openly!"
He placed her hand to his lips enthusiastically.
"And I shall let the world know it!"
"What?"
"And I shall announce it to every one!"
A sudden chill came over his ardor; the hand that had gripped hers so passionately felt all at once limp and discouraged.
"Are you serious?"
"Absolutely! I have made up my mind to this for a long time!"
"It isn't so easy," he said slowly.
"All the better!" she replied enthusiastically. "It'll show we have the courage of our convictions! That's what you believe in, too, isn't it?"
"H'm—yes."
The conversation suddenly dropped. He began to stare out of the window, pulling at his short mustache, while Dodo, shrunk in the corner, was choking with laughter. When they arrived at Miss Pim's, she could no longer contain herself. He looked up suddenly, detecting her laughter, furious.
"What!"
"Oh, Harrigan Blood!" she cried, between spells of laughter. "What a chance you have missed—and you such a clever man!"
"You were making fun of me; you didn't mean it!" he cried angrily.
But Dodo, waving a feeble handkerchief, ran hilariously up the stoop.
She returned from these excursions into her dramatic self to her nest, so to speak, languid and eager for calm. How did it happen that she did not attempt to dramatize herself with Lindaberry? Perhaps she did; but, if so, it was always as something bodiless and mystic, a sort of dipping into a religious exaltation, conceiving of herself as a ministering sister of the poor, sexless and utterly unselfish. But she never, in the long hours when she sat by his bedside,prattling gaily or reading him to sleep, set sail on the gentler seas of romance and passion. For him she had great depth of tenderness and affection, being often deliciously moved, as she was when Betty's childish body lay locked upon her heart.
When he welcomed her coming with a quick hailing motion of his hand, his face radiant with smiles, or when he listened, nodding or grave, fastening his profound eyes on her as if afraid the slightest turn of her head would escape him, he gave her a feeling of long intimacy; yet, when she spoke to him, even when she drew closest, it was always without the feeling of passion, of the realization of contact, which she always felt with Massingale.
Her idea of love was more and more something unreasoning, violent and stirring, something that upset all that had been planned, a flame that consumed the will—something that was perhaps greatest when it hung on the threshold of tragedy, madness in some form or other, sweet and bitter—bitter, in the end, asTristan and Isolde. At this moment she could not conceive of this serenity that lay between her and Lindaberry as love; and, besides, it made her feel older, as if she were being hurried, as if something fragile and elusive were being stolen from her.
A curious thing—she sometimes had the feeling that she was married to him, that she was a wife, watching and devoted. It rather interested her to project herself thus. The feeling came to her at times strongly, when she rose to shift the pillows under his head, as Clarice had taught her, or, watchinghis averted eyes, hurried to moderate the glare that smote them from the windows.
Sometimes she thought of it with a sort of regret, wishing that she were not constituted as she was, that marriage were a possibility, that another had not seized on her imagination and awakened in her such fever. Here, alas! everything was too permissible; it lacked the element of danger, of the forbidden which alone could make the perfect Eden. But she felt with him a vast security, and a curious oneness of sympathies. If she were only ten years older—if she were not Dodo—
But one day an interruption from the outer world arrived to cast a stain of the matter-of-fact across the fragile fabric of this dream life. It was the first day that he had received permission to sit up in a chair, and the event had been duly celebrated with much gaiety. Lindaberry, in manly vanity, had insisted on taking ten steps alone without the humiliation of feminine support, but on the return trip had been forced to capitulate weakly. Having installed him again in bed, while Clarice had hurried off for luncheon, Dodo was bending over him, supporting his back with one arm, piling up the pillows, when the door opened and Lindaberry's brother entered, followed by Doctor Lampson.
"Hello, there, old bruiser!" he began, in a rough welcome in which a note of anxiety was trembling. "You're a nice, brotherly person! Why didn't you send me a telegram?"
All at once he stopped, perceiving that Dodo wasnot in nurse's dress. At the same moment she was seized with a sudden embarrassment. Doctor Lampson, in the background, equally at a loss, waited, rubbing his chin with quick nervous movements. Garry, engrossed in the joy of seeing his brother, did not at once perceive the situation.
"By the Lord Harry, Jock, glad to see you! I'm not all in yet, am I? Sat up—walked—" A little movement of Dodo's, stiffening and withdrawing, caught his eye, and recalled him to the necessity of an explanation. He hesitated only a moment, a little unprepared, but that momentary delay hurt her with a sudden swift pain.
"Jock, I want you to meet a good angel," he said quickly. He stretched out his hand, taking hers, and turned proudly: "This is Miss Baxter—Dodo. We are engaged to be married."
Jock Lindaberry's face at once lost the peculiar undecided stare it had borne. He stepped forward, bending over her hand with a trace of the old-fashioned courtesy that sat so naturally on Garry.
But the slight trace of awkwardness which had attended the explanation, a fugitive sensitive thought that Garry had said what he had to save the situation,—out ofnoblesse oblige,—had shocked Doré in her independent soul. She felt a sudden anger at the invalid, at the doctor who was a spectator, and at the brother who had made such an excuse a social necessity.
"Mr. Lindaberry is quite wrong!" she said hotly. "And his explanation is totally uncalled for, whateverhis motives! We are not engaged. I have never promised to marry him, and I do not need any such excuse to account for my being here. Mr. Lindaberry and Doctor Lampson both know what my motives are, and I consider them quite honorable enough to need no apology. Good day!"
Before she could be prevented, deaf to the entreaties of Lindaberry or the expostulations of his brother, she walked out, in a fine temper.
Lindaberry did not understand in the least the motive of her revolt. He rather ascribed it to a refusal on her part to commit herself. The next day, when she came, he stammered out:
"Dodo, look here. You don't understand! I'm not taking things for granted—I meant what I said. You're bound to nothing. What I—"
But she laid her hand across his lips, frowning.
"We won't discuss it!"
The evening came when Garry, still with a touch of weakness in voice and in complexion, was ready to go off for a month in the open with Doctor Lampson—a hunting trip in the clarifying wilds of snow-ridden Canada on the track of moose: a month in which to fight the first battles against old habits, with the strength of a devoted friend at his side, far from old associations, nightmares of interminable electric lights and the battering, nerve-tiring hammer of New York. He had come doggedly out of the shadow, fortified by the inspiration a great love had raised in him. Not that the fight was easy: on the contrary, alone he never would have conquered. He loved, andhe felt resurrected. He had no fear of the test. The old manhood, sharp and decisive, returned. Sometimes, when, on a sleepless night, he had gone trudging, in greatcoat and boots, for miles across frozen sleeping blocks, he would return to her home, gazing up at her window with the adoration of the Magi. For him she was the purest spirit that could exist, without evil—without even the power to perceive ugliness.
He had never again referred to their relations since the unfortunate introduction to his brother. He saw her every day, at every hour, but he guarded strictly the retinue of friendship, putting into this self-discipline a fierce pride. The result was that she little divined, under the soldier, how deep a love had been kindled. She believed in his gratitude only; but this, to her independent romantic spirit, raised an impossible barrier.
She went to the station with him, alone in the automobile, her hand in his all the way. He did not say a word. She spoke rapidly, and then by fits and starts, wondering at his silence. The truth was, he dared not permit himself a word, for fear of the torrent which lay pent up in his soul. Perhaps had the outburst come in one wild moment, it would have frightened her, given her a new insight, satisfied her and awakened in her other sides that craved for expression—the sides below the serenity and the tenderness that were so ready.
Doctor Lampson met them at the station, shooting a queer little glance at their quiet faces. The train wasready, the great iron cavern filled with the monster cries of steam animals, bells ringing, crowds frantic, bundles, trunks, children, babies, rushing by in pandemonium. There was nothing else to do but to say good-by.
"Better be getting on—better be moving!" remarked Doctor Lampson, in his nervous rough way. "Good-by, Miss Baxter. You're a trump—the finest of the fine! I'll take care of Garry. He'll come back like a drum-major! Good-by, good-by—God bless you! Come on now, Garry; come on."