There was nothing spectacular or startlingly precocious about Sheila's development during the next few years.
On her seventeenth birthday, her frocks were lowered to her slender ankles; on her eighteenth, she permanently assumed the dignity of full length skirts; on her nineteenth, she lifted her hair from its soft, girlish knot on her neck to a womanly coronet upon the top of her head. But despite her regal coiffure, she remained very much of a child.
Mrs. Caldwell had achieved the apparently impossible; she had eliminated the rôle of the "young lady" from Sheila'srepertoire. At nineteen the girl was ready, at the touch of fate, to merge the child in the woman; but there was nothing of the conventional young lady about her, though she led the same life as other girls in Shadyville, a life that abounded in parties—-in town through the winter and at the country houses in the summer—and little sex vanities and love affairs.
Sheila herself had never had a love affair. She was a charming young person—not quite pretty, but more alluring in her shy, wistful fashion, than handsomer girls—so it followed that susceptible youths sued for her favor. But they sued in vain. She smiled upon them until they said some word of love, and then she was on the wing like a wild bird.
Whatever ardor there was in her she had expended thus far upon her ambition to write. Under Peter's restraining tutelage, she had long since foresworn odes to the evening star for prose fantasies, and these were in turn being superseded by what promised to become a clean-cut, brilliant gift for narrative. She had a rich imagination, an unusual facility for characterization, a certain quaint, whimsical humor—that she never displayed in her speech; all of which raised her work, crude though it still was, distinctly above the level of the commonplace.
She had recently sold a little sketch, in her later and better manner, to an eastern magazine with a keen eye for young talent, and the event had been to her as truly the pinnacle of romance as a betrothal would have been to another girl. It had shed a veritable glory over life for her, and all her dreams were now of further triumphs, of approving editors and an applauding public. She would be a famous woman, she told herself, with the naïve assurance of youth. That was her destiny!
So it was small wonder, after all, that Shadyville lads had not induced her to regard them seriously. She would marry some time, of course. Everyone married—at least in Shadyville, where the elemental simplicities of existence prevailed for very lack of its complexities. There was really nothing to do in Shadyville except to participate, in one capacity or another, in birth, marriage and death. Sheila therefore considered marriage an inescapable end, but she thought very little about it along the way thither.
And yet, when the hour of sex romance finally struck for Sheila, when, for the first time, she realized love's moving power and beauty, her surrender to it was tenfold quicker and more unquestioning than would have been that of a girl who had dallied with sentiment from the days of her short frocks. Her very years of indifference were her undoing. Owing to them, love came to her with the shock of an instant and supreme revelation; she who had been blind suddenly beheld a whole undreamed of world, as it were, and the vastness of the vision inevitably dazed her to a degree that made clear perception of it impossible.
Perhaps Sheila would have been less ingenuously innocent, and more effectually prepared for this crisis, had Charlotte Davis been at hand during the formative period of her girlhood. But Charlotte had been traveling in Europe for a couple of years, and her letters—clever, witty, worldly-wise—were too infrequent to equip Sheila for the defense of her heart. So she went forward—profoundly unconscious, pitifully unready—to capture.
She was nineteen years old, and the season was summer, and the moon was shining—when it began. And summer is an opulent thing in Kentucky; a blue and golden thing by day; a thing of white witchery by night; and whether in the burnished glamour of the sun, or the pallid glamour of the moon, too sweet, too full-blooded, too poignant with the forces and the purposes of nature to leave the pulse unstirred.
Sheila, restless with this earth-magic, was standing at the garden gate one evening, when a young man came up and paused, smiling, before her. At first glance, and in the uncertain moonlight, she thought him a stranger, but a second look revealed his sturdy identity.
"Why,Ted!"
And Ted he was; a Ted grown to a fine, vigorous manliness—the manliness of a thoroughly healthy body and a cheerful, literal mind. It was obvious at once that there was not a subtlety in him; that, in his early maturity, he was of the same substantial quality that he had been as a child.
Sheila had not seen him for a long time—as time is measured at nineteen—for during his first year at college, his family had removed to Lexington, and neither they nor he had ever returned. But it seemed as natural to her to have him there as if they had parted only yesterday, as natural to have him, and as natural to admire him. She had admired him devoutly when she was a little girl, though she had sometimes had disconcerting glimpses of his limitations. And she admired him now. Instantly she felt that splendid, radiant materialism of his as a charm.
She walked up the path to the house at his side, in a flutter of girlish delight—all sex, all softness, the weaker, the submissive creature. So he had dominated her in the past—except in her rare, "queer" moments when the wings of her quick fancy had lifted her on some flight beyond his reach. Her wings did not lift her now, however; they were folded so meekly against her shoulders that they might as well not have been there at all.
They sat down on the veranda together, and a climbing rose shook down a shower of night fragrance upon them, and the moonlight streamed over their faces as if with the intent to glorify each to the other.
Mrs. Caldwell was playing whist at the house next door, so Sheila and Ted were there alone, save for the cook's tuneful presence in the kitchen. Her song floated out to them in her warm, caressing negro voice—"Weep no mo', my lady! Oh, weep no mo' to-day!" And suddenly Sheila felt that she would never weep again—life was such a joyous thing!
Ted sat on a step at her feet, and he leaned his head back against a pillar of the veranda as he talked. She noticed how crisp and strong his fair hair was, and the sense of his vitality weighed upon her like a compelling hand.
He was telling her what had brought him back. The editorship of theShadyville Star, the town's semi-weekly paper—the editorship and part ownership in fact—was open to him, and, alert as ever, he was seizing the opportunity.
"It's a chance—a good chance—to go into the newspaper game as my own boss, or as part proprietor anyhow," he explained. "Mr. Orcutt is making theStarinto a daily, and he wants a live man—a young man—to take charge of it. Father's let me have a couple of thousand dollars, and I've borrowed three thousand more, and I'm going in with Mr. Orcutt as a partner. It's a big thing for me if I can pull it through. And Iwillpull it through. I was editor of our college magazine, and I've worked on one or another of the Louisville papers every summer, so I know a little about the game—and I like it tremendously. Oh, I'll succeed all right!"
"Of course you will!" she agreed heartily. At the mere sound of his bright, confident voice she believed in his ability to succeed in anything whatever.
"Yes, of course I will. And it's nice to haveyousay so. The only question about it," he pursued, "is whether it's a bigenoughopportunity for me. But I'llmakeit big enough. I'll make the paper grow—and the paper will make the town grow. See? All Shadyville needs is enterprise—enterprise and advertising."
"Yes," she agreed again. An hour earlier she would have been ready to protect Shadyville's sacred precincts from the vandals of "enterprise" and "advertising" with her own slim fist, but here she was handing over the keys of the town to modern commercialism without a qualm of hesitation. "You'rejust what Shadyville needs, Ted," she added earnestly.
"I thought you'd feel that way about it!" And his voice was exultant. "You always were a good pal, Sheila!"
And at the tribute Sheila had a swift conception of woman's mission as the perfect comrade. Oh, that was a mission to thrill and inspire one, to move one to high and selfless endeavor! And she dedicated herself, in the secrecy of her own mind, to the cause of Ted and theShadyville Star.
Throughout the next few weeks she was, indeed, the perfect comrade. She who had never before been interested in the spectacle of actual, contemporary life, flung herself now, with a fervor which not even her personal ambitions had excited, into the business of life's presentment through the daily press, and in particular through the medium of theShadyville Star. She read newspapers avidly; she suggested subjects for editorials to Ted; she came down to the office of theShadyville Daily Star—under Mrs. Caldwell's reluctant chaperonage—to see the linotype machine which had been installed in honor of Ted's reign. She even read proof on the tumultuous day which preceded the transformedStar'sfirst appearance.
Peter watched her in amazement. "But I thought newspapers bored you!" he exclaimed one afternoon when, coming to read his beloved Theocritus with her, he found Sheila immersed in a whirlwind of New York papers, from which she was industriously clipping items for reprint in theStar.
"Oh," she cried, in the rapturous voice of the devotee, "I didn't understand how wonderful newspaper work could be! Why, Peter—I've got my finger on the pulse of the world!"
At which Peter put his Theocritus back into the safety of his pocket lest even its tranquil spirit be corrupted by the fever of journalism.
To Ted Sheila's magnificent energy in his behalf, her unflagging comprehension and sympathy, were steps by which he mounted blithely to his goal. Howcouldhe fail with Sheila to stimulate him, to assist him, to believe in him?
And indeed, theStardid reward the efforts of both its new editor and his silent partner. It made a triumphant debut, and it continued daily to fulfill the expectations which that debut had aroused.
Toward the end of the summer, Ted at last drew a breath of complete security. He was on Mrs. Caldwell's veranda at the time, and he and Sheila were alone together. It was just such a night as the first one of his return to Shadyville; the moonlight poured prodigally downward upon them, showing to each the other's face, silver-clear; the scent of the climbing roses stole to them on the light wind; from kitchenward came the soft notes of black Mandy's song as she finished her evening tasks—"Weep no mo', my lady!"
Everything was as it had been on that first night two months before—and yet everything was different. Within those two months Ted had proved himself as a man—a man who could do his chosen work. And Sheila—Ah, what had she not taught him—what had she not taught herself—of the woman's part in a man's work—a man's life? The same? No, everything was different!
Ted was sitting at Sheila's feet, in what had become his accustomed place. He glanced up at her, sweet and serene in the moonlight, and something rose within him as resistlessly as a mighty tide.
"I'm winning!" he said triumphantly, "I'm winning! But I couldn't have done it without you. Oh, Sheila, you've been the making of me! What a girl you are!—what a woman!You'dalways back a man up in his undertakings—if you loved him—wouldn't you?"
"Oh—if I loved him!—" And she looked past him with dreamy eyes. She had never looked like that before, though love had been named to her by others and in more persuasive language. To back up a man in his undertakings—because she loved him— Why, that would belife!
Ted had never had the superfine discernment of natures more delicately wrought than his, but he had the discernment of sex—as all young and healthy creatures have. He saw her dreaming look, and he knew something of the kindred thought.
"Sheila"—and his voice was less sure and bold—"Sheila, have you ever been in love? Is there—anybody else?"
"No," she answered simply. And she drew her gaze down from the stars to his upturned face. That which was in her eyes made him catch his breath and close his own for an instant; but she was unaware of the shining thing he had seen—the soul, not only of one woman, just awakening, but of all womanhood, at once innocent and passionate, brave and piteous. He had not needed any subtlety to perceive that—so frank and beautiful was its betrayal.
"Sheila"—and he fixed his eyes upon her now—"Sheila, maybe the town does need me—as you said when I first came back. I'll do my best to make it need me. Because—because I want to earn the right to a home. I want to be able to—marry!"
"To—marry?" she whispered.
He leaned forward and laid his hands upon her wrists—importunate hands that sent the blood swirling through her veins.
"Oh, Sheila—don't you understand?Ineedyou!"
For a moment the world swayed around her. Her heart was beating, not in her bosom, but in her throat—up, up to her dry and quivering lips. To back up a man in his undertakings—because she loved him!—that was what Ted was asking her to do for him—to do for him always. Yes—and that was life!
Then, slowly, the world grew still once more; the night wind blew down the fragrance of climbing roses; again she heard the familiar refrain—"Weep no mo', my lady! Oh, weep no mo' to-day!"—and now it seemed tender with the tenderness of insistent and protective love.
And all the while Ted's hands were on her wrists, silently imploring. This was life! Oh, she would never weep again—never again in her joy!
"Sheila?"
She bent toward him—as irresistibly as the rose above her head was drawn to the wind—and smiled.
"Oh, Sheila!—when you look at me like that!"
And then Ted's face was against her breast, his arms around her. She would never weep again—forthiswaslife!
Sheila had been married several months before she ceased to expect a miracle.
She had believed that moment of high rapture when, with Ted's face hidden against her breast, she had seemed to grasp life itself in her ardent young hands, to be but the forerunner of greater moments—of raptures and fulfillments compared to which the first awakening would appear no more than a pale shadow of joy.
Marriage, in some way mysterious and beautiful, would surely alter the world for her; nay, more, would transmute her own nature into something stronger, richer, happier, a wedded nature, wedded in its lightest moods, its deepest fastnesses. She would wear Ted's ring upon her very soul, and her soul would thereby be changed and glorified.
Other wives—all wives, indeed, who marry at the dictates of their hearts—expect as much. It is the way of women to dream and hope above the earth's level, and now and then, in a rarely perfect mating or in motherhood, their dreams come true. But oftenest they wait as Sheila waited—unrewarded. And after awhile they return contentedly to the lowland of everyday reality—where many paths are pleasant and their fellow travelers, though not knights errant, are usually faithful and kind.
This, after a few months, Sheila did, too. By that time she had begun to regard the first moment of acknowledged love as unique, one from which she had no right to ask more than itself. It was enough to have had it. Ithadbeen life—of that she was still convinced—but life at its high tide. And the very existence of every day—of tranquil affection and homely duty—was none the less life, too, and good after its own fashion.
So, missing the miracle, she set to work to discover a miracle in what she had; to find exquisite meanings in the fire upon her wedded hearth while her wedded soul remained cold and virginal. And she had the better chance to warm herself beside that fire because it never occurred to her that Ted might be in the least responsible for its limitations.
About her choice of a husband—or rather, her acceptance of the husband whom fate had chosen for her—she had no misgivings.
"Oh, Sheila, are you sure?" Mrs. Caldwell had inquired again and again in that heart-searching hour which had preceded her sanction of the engagement. "Are yousure?"
And Sheila had been sure, triumphantly sure. Even then, with the girl's rhapsodies ringing in her ears, Mrs. Caldwell had insisted upon an engagement of six months—"To give the child an opportunity to break it," she had confided to Peter. But the delay had proved unnecessary. At the end of the period imposed Sheila had been as sure as ever, and she was sure still. Ted loved her. Ted needed her. Of course he was the right man for her!
If she had thought to receive more than marriage had given her, the fault was hers, she loyally decided. She had always anticipated miracles. She had always seen life as an enchanting fairy tale, with a marvellous climax hidden somewhere in the chapters yet unread. But life wasn't a fairy tale; it was merely a bit of cheerful realism, with a happy, commonplace climax in accord with realistic standards. It hadn't been fair to demand princes and palaces and winged delights of a bit of realism! She knew now that her expectations had been childish and absurd; that she had asked for more than life had to give; that the joys of this world were simple, home-abiding things, without the wings for heavenly flights. Not even love itself was winged, and it was better so—for thus she need not fear lest it fly away as winged things are wont to do. She had prayed for ecstasy—which, at best, is fleeting. Instead she had been granted a safe and quiet happiness. Was not destiny wiser than she?
But though she reconciled herself to the realities of life and of marriage, she could not reconcile herself to her own unchanged spirit. She had looked to find Sheila Kent a new being, serene, complete—and Sheila Kent was neither.
"I'm just myself!" she admitted at last, when neither faith nor desire had availed to transform the fiber of her soul. "I'm just myself still. Ted used to think me a queer little girl—and I'm the same queer self now. Other married girls are satisfied with their husbands and their houses and—their babies—and I believed I would be, too. But I'm not. Marriage hasn't made me over—and it isn't enough for me. I want something wonderful—I want todosomething wonderful. I want—why, I want towrite!"
It seemed a solution of her perplexity—the conclusion that she still wanted to write—and she seized upon it with reviving fervor. Her gift, singling her out from other girls, was the explanation of those unconquered spaces in her soul, spaces never destined for the foot of any man, however dear. Genius, she had heard, was always celibate, and her genius, or talent, lived on in her inviolate, a thing yet to be reckoned with, yet to be appeased.
She had not written during her engagement, nor since her marriage. Not that she had deliberately renounced her ambitions, but that her days had been crowded with other things, with things that, for the time, she thought more vital. Peter had remonstrated with her once or twice, but to no avail, and when she went from the flurry of trousseau and wedding to the more serious business of keeping house in the traditional vine-clad cottage—Mrs. Caldwell having persisted in the wisdom of separate establishments—he no longer protested at all. An industrious young housekeeper and a blooming wife was obviously not to be condoled with over thwarted aspirations. So certain unfinished manuscripts lay forgotten in the bottom of Sheila's bridal trunk—forgotten, or at least ignored—until the day when she fixed on them as the reason of her vague discontent. Then she brought them forth with an eagerness that was, perhaps, the best answer to her self-analysis. Of course she had wanted to write; without knowing it, she must have wanted, for months, to write! Oh, lifewasn'ta bit of dull realism! It was a fairy tale after all—a fairy tale of poems and novels, of gracious publishers and an appreciative public!
She had never talked to Ted about her writing. Somehow she had always been absorbed in his work, his ambitions. He had all the initiative and enterprise that Shadyville, prior to his arrival, had lacked, and his labors and successes had consumed not only his own time and thoughts, but Sheila's as well. She admired his energy; she was dazzled by the juggleries of his mediocre cleverness; she was proud to help him. Like a strong, fresh wind he filled her world—and, incidentally, he was a wind that blew away all the delicate cobwebs, the gossamer filaments of her finer gift.
But now, for the first time since Ted's return to Shadyville, Sheila's individuality rose up within her and claimed something for itself. She had wanted to write—and shewouldwrite. There was no reason why she should not. Women, nowadays, were wives and artists also. Married women had "careers" as often as the unmarried. In short, fame was still hers to conquer!
She set about conquering it at once—that was Sheila's way—and when, in the middle of a busy morning, some one tapped imperiously on her closed door, she went to answer the summons with an inky finger and dream-laden eyes. But she opened the door to a vision that dispelled dreams by its more charming substance—a young woman whose smart, slender figure was clothed in a mode that had not yet reached Shadyville, and whose alert and smiling face seemed as unrelated as her garments to the sleepy little provincial town.
"Charlotte!"
"Yes," said the vision gaily, "yes—Mrs. Theodore Kent!"
And then the two girls were in each other's arms, laughing and chattering, and weeping a little, too, after the manner of girls—especially when there has been marriage and giving in marriage since their last meeting.
They had not seen each other for more than three years, for although Charlotte had been in America several times during that period, she had merely joined her family in New York for brief reunions, and had then hastened back to Paris where she was studying singing. They looked at each other curiously after that first embrace, and, when they were seated in Sheila's sunny sitting-room, they fell at once into confidences covering those three separated years. It was Charlotte, of course, who had food for conversation, but Sheila, as the bride, was the heroine of the occasion, even to Charlotte's broader mind. Marriage may not fulfill the ideals of high romance, but it can always cast a halo.
"Well," said Charlotte at last, when she had heard the tale of Ted's perfections and achievements, "well, I'll wait and see what you two make of it before I give up my liberty."
"You wouldn't be giving up your liberty if you married the man you loved," protested Sheila staunchly.
"Oh, I don't know about that! Suppose I married a man who resented my music?"
"But he wouldn't—if he loved you!"
"Oh! Then Ted doesn't mind your writing?"
"Of course not!" Sheila assured her. "Why, I was writing when you came!" And she held up the inky finger.
Charlotte surveyed the finger with evident respect: "That's right! I'm glad you aren't going to be submerged by marriage. I was afraid you might be. And really, Sheila, you have talent. The 'F—— Monthly' would never have taken that story of yours if it hadn't been exceptionally good. I know Mr. Bennett, the associate editor, and his standards——"
"YouknowMr. Bennett?" interrupted Sheila. And her tone was reverent.
"Yes," said Charlotte carelessly. "I know a lot of writing folks in New York. In fact I've brought one of them home with me—Alice North, the novelist. Maybe you've read something of hers?"
"Something? Why, I've read everything of hers I could lay my hands on! Oh, Charlotte, Iadoreher!"
"So do I," laughed Charlotte, "not her books, but her. She writes very well, but she's more interesting than her stories. Now, Sheila, I'll tell you what you must do—you must let me have some of your things to show her! She could be such a help to you if she found you worth the trouble. Let me have a story or two now, and come up to-morrow afternoon to tea—and to hear what she thinks of them."
Sheila caught her breath. "Oh, it's too presumptuous," she demurred, shyly. "Formeto botherAlice North!"
Her eyes were shining, nevertheless, as if at sight of a long-promised land, and Charlotte presently departed with a couple of manuscripts for the touchstone of Mrs. North's criticism.
When Ted came home that evening, he found a Sheila tremulous with excitement, her eyes shining still, her cheeks, which were usually pale, flushed to a vivid rose.
"Oh, Ted," she exclaimed at once, "Charlotte is back!"
"Yes," he assented good-naturedly, "I heard about it this morning and gave her a write-up with a picture." For Ted invariably looked upon events in the terms of their newspaper value.
"Did you know that she brought Alice North home with her?"
"Alice North?"
Apparently he had not the slightest idea who Alice North might be.
"Yes—Alice North—the novelist, Ted!"
"Is she anybody special—anything of a celebrity?"
"Is she? Oh, Ted, you must read something besides newspapers! Mrs. North hasn't been made a celebrity by the papers—somehow she's managed to keep clear of cheap notoriety—but there's scarcely a woman writing to-day whose work is better than hers. She is really—really—distinguished!"
Instantly he was "on the job," as he would have expressed it, at that revelation: "Well, she won't keep out of the 'Star'! I'll have a story about her to-morrow. Confound it! I wish I'd known to-day! But the Davises never let me know anything. I found out by accident that Charlotte was home. And such a time as I had getting her photograph. I don't believe that family care about their own town's paper!"
Sheila smiled. She had a pretty accurate conception of the place that Shadyville must occupy on Charlotte's horizon—and on Alice North's. But she only remarked soothingly, "I can tell you all about Alice North. I've read nearly everything she's written, and a number of magazine articles about her, too. I'll get you up a good story about her—the sort of story she won't object to either." Then her enthusiasm swept her from the subject of newspaper values to the true value of Mrs. North:
"Oh, Ted, isn't it splendid for a woman to have a talent like that—a talent that's made her famous at thirty!"
But there was no responsive enthusiasm in Ted's face, no leap of light in the eyes that met the fire of hers. "I suppose so," he conceded grudgingly, "yes, I suppose it is. But I don't care for that sort of woman myself—at least for that sort of married woman."
"But why, Ted? Why? Her work doesn't interfere with her loving her husband!"
"It interferes with her making a home for him. Andthat'sa woman's work—making a home."
"But, Ted, maybe he doesn't want a home—or maybe they have a housekeeper."
Ted shrugged: "Oh, if it suits him to live in a hotel, or at the mercy of a hired housekeeper, it's all right. But in that case, he's missing the best thing a man ever gets—I mean the kind of home a woman'slovemakes!"
At those words Sheila would have surrendered the argument—so easily was she swayed by a touch upon her heart. But Ted was not through with the subject. His masculine self-respect was aroused against this woman who was succeeding outside the sphere of strictly feminine occupation, and he was determined to show her, in her worst light, to Sheila.
"Has she any children?" he demanded belligerently.
"No—at least, I think not."
"Now you see that I'm right!" he exulted.
But the moment for yielding had passed with Sheila. "I see nothing of the sort," she replied with a flare of temper. "Her having children—or not having them—has no bearing whatever on the matter."
"Oh, yes, it has! You mark my words—she hasn't had any children because she's wanted to spend all her time advancing herself—building up a tawdry little fame for herself! I tell you, Sheila, talent's a bad thing for a woman—a bad thing!"
"But, Ted—Iwrite."
He stared at her in naïve surprise. Then his face softened into indulgent laughter. "Why, kitty, so you do! I'd forgotten that you scribble. But you don't take it seriously. I don't mind your playing at it, so long as you don't get the notion that it's the biggest thing in life." And he laughed again and pinched her cheek—reassuringly.
She didn't laugh in answer, however. She only gazed at him with an odd intentness, as if she were seeing him for the first time. Then, gravely, she inquired: "What would you think the biggest thing in life, Ted—if you were a woman—a woman like Alice North?"
He drew her down to his knee and whispered into her ear. She was very still for an instant, her whole body subdued, spellbound, by that whispered word. Then, with a movement singularly untender, she withdrew from his arms and stood erect—free—before him. The rich scarlet still flooded her cheek—now like a flag of reluctant womanhood—but he searched her eyes in vain for the glow that should have matched it.
"Well—you'll think so some day!" he insisted gently.
Sheila was not naturally secretive, and it was a measure of the antagonism which Ted had aroused in her that she said nothing to him of her projected visit to Alice North.
She had intended to tell him at once of Charlotte's kindly plan to interest Mrs. North in her work; she had been impatient to tell him, and her announcement of Charlotte's return, and Mrs. North's arrival with her, had been meant only as the preface to the confidence. She had been so sure of his sympathy, of his ambition for her and his pleasure in this opportunity to test her power.
His real attitude toward the achievements of women she had never suspected. He had so gladly and gratefully accepted her help in his own work, he had so generously acknowledged her ability, that she had never conceived of any sex distinction in his views. She had been his comrade—now he would be hers. And oh, she would make him proud of her! She would see his eyes light for her as, sometimes, she had seen them light over the story of men's successes. For Ted loved success.
If she looked forward to triumphs, he was always at the heart of them. Whatever she could do would be done more for his honor than for her own. Whatever was rare and fine in her she had come to value first because she was his wife—and afterward for her own profit. She imagined herself, crowned by Mrs. North's praise, returning to Ted to cry:
"It is the real, the true thing—my gift! I will do beautiful work. Oh, dearest, I have more to bring you than I dared to believe!"
So her impetuous mind had run onward to meet happy possibilities when Ted arrested it with the comment, "I don't care for that sort of woman myself—at least for that sort of married woman!" And at the words, Sheila's dreams had fallen, like broken-winged birds, to the ground.
For a moment—nay, through all the conversation that followed, a conversation that revealed to her with cruel clarity a phase of her husband's mind that she had not hitherto encountered—she was wondering if those dreams would ever rise again. Rude and stupid blows from the hand she loved best had struck them down. How could they recover themselves? How could they sing and soar—those fragile, shattered things?
But even as she glimpsed them thus, broken, defeated, there surged up within her the strength of resistance. Sweetly compliant in all the common affairs of her and Ted's joint life, she had, for this issue so vital to her, an amazing obstinacy. Defeated? She and her dreams?No! Her dreams were her own, born of her as surely as the children of her body would be. They were hers to save—hers to realize. And she was strong enough to do it!
That had been her thought when she withdrew herself from Ted's knee. His whisper—"The greatest thing that can happen to a woman is motherhood!"—had inspired no tenderness in her. For at that moment there was astir within her, violent and dominant, the impulse that is mightier than motherhood itself—the impulse ofcreation. And it was none the less imperative because it demanded to mould with written words rather than living flesh.
Ted's last gentle speech, his hurt expression when she turned coldly from him, moved her not at all. For the time, he was not Ted, her beloved, but Man, her enemy. True, she had not regarded man as an enemy before. Peter, for instance, had been an ally without whom she could not even have fared thus far. But Peter was not a husband; his masculinity had not been appealed to—nor threatened. She saw now that men would always fight for the mastery of their own women, would always seek to impose sex upon them as a yoke.
Ah, that black, bitter gulf of sex!
Sheila, looking into it for the first time, shuddered with revolt and rage. Sothiswas life; this the end of such moments as her exquisite awakening to love. Tothisthe high and heavenly raptures lured one at last! A bird in the wrong cage, impotently beating its breast against the bars—Sheila was like enough to such an one in that furious, unconsciously helpless hour.
By the next day, however, the fierce whirlwind of her astounded resentment had passed. She began to see that Ted might be the victim of his sex as she was the victim of hers; that the real tyranny was not that of Ted over her, but of Nature over them both; of Nature who would use them each with equal ruthlessness for her own purposes. But this perception did not daunt her. Unhesitatingly, she arrayed herself against Nature now; she would save her dreams even from that! And as Ted was a part of Nature's plan, she said nothing to him of her determination to fulfill herself in spite of it.
In the afternoon she set out resolutely for Charlotte's. It was summer, and Shadyville was at its fairest. As Sheila trod the wide, tree-canopied streets, with their old-fashioned houses in fragrant garden closes on either side, a hundred tiny voices whispered to her messages of peace; of life that goes on from summer to summer; of growth, in the dark and choking earth, that springs at last upward to the sun. But she did not hear. For her there was neither comfort nor peace nor any joy in the processes and victories of mere life.
When she reached the Davis house, Charlotte and Mrs. North were on the veranda, clad brightly in a summer frivolity, and their air of leisure and gayety was oddly unlike the tense and passionate mood of Sheila herself. In fact the whole scene—the porch with its fluttering awnings and festive flowers, the dainty tea-table that already awaited the guest, the two charming women presiding there—seemed far removed from the grave resolve and stormy emotions that Sheila had brought thither. For an instant, as she paused at the gate, she felt herself absurd. She had come to have afternoon tea with two women who were obviously of the big, conventional world—and she had brought her naked soul to them! Acutely self-conscious, painfully humiliated, she would have retreated if she could, but Charlotte was already hailing her. And then—her hand was clasped in Alice North's, her eyes were meeting eyes at once so probing and so luminous that they opened every door of her nature and flooded it with light.
Sheila had never had a case of hero-worship, but as she put her hand in Mrs. North's, she fell, figuratively, upon her knees. The very buoyancy and assurance of the latter's manner, which had, for an instant, chilled and rebuffed her, now appeared to her the outward manifestation of a brilliant and conquering spirit. Like a devotee, she watched Mrs. North's quick, graceful movements, her vivid, changeful face; like a devotee she listened to her sparkling, inconsequent chatter. This woman, handicapped by her womanhood, had done big things. Any word from her lips, any gesture of her hand was something to admire and remember.
It never even entered Sheila's head that, although she had done great things, Alice North might not be a great woman. It never occurred to her to askhowshe had triumphed—at whose or at what cost. She never even dreamed that one's life—just a noble submission to Nature, a willing and patient compliance with laws and purposes above one's own—might be the final and fullest expression of genius. Alice North had written books—and Sheila was at her feet.
After awhile Charlotte tactfully left her alone with her idol—in whose footsteps she meant to walk henceforth—toclimb!
"I've read your stories," said Mrs. North softly then. It was the first mention of Sheila's work, and the girl quivered from head to foot. She gazed mutely at the oracle—waiting for life, for death.
Suddenly Mrs. North leaned forward and caught Sheila's hands in hers. Alice North had never failed to be sensitive to drama; to play her part in it with sympathy and effect.
"My dear," she exclaimed, and her voice was clear and thrilling, "my dear, you have it—the divine gift!"
And as they looked at each other, the eyes of each filled with tears. Alice North was indeed sensitive to drama—so sensitive that her counterfeit emotions sometimes deceived even her—and Sheila was shaken to the heart, to the soul.
"You mean—you mean—that I—" began the girl brokenly.
"I mean," answered Mrs. North, "that you are already doing remarkable work—that you will go far—unless——"
"Unless what?" breathed Sheila.
"Will you let me advise you?"
"Oh, if you only will! What shall I do?" And Sheila bent trusting, obedient eyes upon her.
"Do? Dear child, I can tell you in a word. You must renounce!"
"Renounce?" repeated Sheila vaguely.
"Yes, renounce!" And Alice North turned a face of pale sacrifice upon her—with that inevitable instinct for the dramatic. Few women had renounced less than she—less, at least, of what pleased them—but at that moment, in the intensity of her artistic fervor, she believed herself an ascetic for her work's sake.
"The common lot of womanhood is not for you," she declared. "You must live for your art!" And her voice trembled with the touching earnestness that she had so easily assumed—and would as easily cast off.
To Sheila, however, there never came a doubt of Mrs. North's deep sincerity. She had listened, as if to a priestess, while the novelist proclaimed her sublime creed of renunciation, and she now offered the obstacle to it in her own situation with a sense of having fallen from grace in being thus human:
"But I'm married, you know."
"And so am I. But I am consecrated, nevertheless, to my art. And so, my dear, must you be. You must give yourself utterly,—utterly—to your art! Art won't take less.Yourhusband must live foryou—instead of your living for him after the fashion of most wives. And you'll be worth his living for—I'm sure of that."
"I—I don't understand," faltered Sheila. "I don't understand what it is I mustn't do for Ted."
Alice North held her hands more closely and fixed her luminous eyes upon her—eyes which, to many before Sheila, had seemed to shine with the light of a beautiful soul: "You mustn't do for him the one thing that you and he will want most—you mustn't have children for him! My dear,youmust be a mother with yourbrain—not with your body. You can't do both—at least, worthily—and you must give yourself to creation with your mind. There are women enough already to become mothers of the other sort!"
Sheila did not reply. Slowly the glow faded from her face, from her eyes. Slowly and listlessly she withdrew her hands from Mrs. North's fervid clasp and leaned back in her chair. Clearly the supreme moment had passed; the flame of her ardor had flickered out. Mrs. North glanced curiously at her. An instant before, the girl had been radiant, tremulous with aspiration and with hope. Now she was apathetic and cold, her spirit no more than a handful of ashes.
The silence lengthened—grew heavy with meaning. Alice North put out her hand again: "I trust I haven't intruded—offended?"
"Oh, no," said Sheila stiffly, "you have been very kind, and—I am sure—very wise." But her frank gaze had grown guarded; her whole manner had become that of defensive reserve.
Yes, clearly, the great moment was over; the drama was ended.
"What a queer girl," remarked Mrs. North! to Charlotte, when Sheila had gone. "I predicted a phenomenal future for her—I had her tingling to her finger tips. Then—quite suddenly—the light, the fire was quenched. And do what I would, I couldn't kindle it again. It was very strange—unless——"
"Unless——?"
"Unless she's going to have a child. I told her that she mustn't have children."
"You mean," cried Charlotte incredulously, "that you advised her to shirk the greatest experience possible to a woman? You advised her to foregothat?"
But Alice North lifted her pretty brows and shrugged her histrionic shoulders with an air of fine distaste. "Really, Charlotte," she drawled, "I hadn't suspected you of being so primitive."
Walking homeward through the sweet summer dusk, Sheila was far from the listless, extinguished creature whom Alice North had described, however. Never in her life had such a tempest of emotion swept through her being. For she was face to face, at last, with life.
The first night of Ted's courtship returned to her now; she smelt the fragrance of climbing roses; she felt his head again upon her breast—the indescribable first touch of love that is unlike all others!—she heard a voice deep within her exulting: "Thisislife!" Ah, how ignorant she had been—how pitifully innocent! To have thoughtthatlife!
For life was a thing that laid brutal, compelling hands upon you; that destroyed you and created you again; that rent you with unspeakable pangs, with unimaginable terrors, with frantic and powerless rebellions. It was not joy; it was not peace; it was not fulfillment. It was aforce. Merciless, implacable, irresistible, it seized upon you andusedyou. For that you were put into the world; for that you dreamed and hoped and struggled—for that moment out of an eternity, that moment ofuse!
As she hurried onward, stumbling now and then with a clumsiness alien to her, the sense of lying helpless in the grasp of this force almost drove her to cry out. More than once she lifted her hands to her mouth, and even then little shuddering murmurs broke from her.
Helpless? Oh, yes! yes! For that had come to her from which there was no escape. She was trapped. She, too, was to be put to use. Her own work must make way for Nature's. She saw that now.
Her own work must make way. For Alice North herself had said that one could not serve art and Nature, too—and Nature had exacted service of her. She had been strong enough to defy Ted's tyranny; but, after all, she could not defeat Nature's. Her work must make way.
She let herself noiselessly into the house. From the kitchen floated the sounds of the cook's evening activities, but otherwise the place was silent, and Ted's hat was not on its accustomed hook in the little hall. She could be alone a while.
She stole up the stairs to her bedroom, meaning to lie down in the quiet darkness, but once there, a panic assailed her, a senseless fear of the dim corners, the distorted shadows. Besides, she wanted to see herself; she wanted to see if Ted, promising her beautiful things from motherhood the night before, if Mrs. North, warning her against it to-day, had known that she—that she was going to have a child.
She turned on the lights and stood in their full glare before her mirror. Searchingly she inspected herself—the slender figure that was as yet only delicately rounded, the cheek that showed just a softer curve and bloom, the eyes——
And then she caught her breath in a sharp sob and leaned nearer to her reflection. What was it—who was it—that she saw in her eyes?
For something—some one—looked back at her that had not looked back at her before; something—some one—ineffably yearning, poignantly tender—looked back at her with the gaze of a mystery—of a miracle. It was as if, within herself, she beheld another self; and this other self was reconciled to life, was in harmony with its divine purpose. Strangely enough, at that moment, her childhood's fancy of another self recurred to her.
"Other-Sheila," she whispered, "Other-Sheila, is ityou?"
While she leaned thus, waiting, perhaps, for the answer of that reflected self, she saw that Ted had opened the door behind her. For an instant their eyes met in the mirror, and with that gaze Sheila's heart suddenly fled home to him. He was the father of her child!
"Oh," she cried, turning to him with outstretched, shaking hands and quivering face, "Oh, tell it to me again! Iwantto believe it!Tell me again that motherhood is the greatest thing!"