"So farewell, thou whom I have met too lateTo let thee come so near;Be happy while men call thee greatAnd one beloved woman feels thee dear—"
Something tightened around his heart and he took her cold fingers into his own. "There's nothing in all the world that hurts like that, Madonna. God keep you from knowing about it, little girl."
An older woman would have taken warning from his words, but she did not. The caressing way in which he said "little girl" filled her soul with strange joy. She had a childish, unquestioning faith in him. Some day when he was better—but further than this her maiden thought refused to go. She simply waited, as a queen might wait for her coronation day.
He was planning to repay her kindness if it were in any way possible. He knew she would not take money from him, but there were other ways. Flowers—for heknew she loved them—the books that she liked best, and perhaps something for the unfortunates to whom she gave herself so unreservedly.
The winter was over, and April, warm with May's promise, came in through the open window. Even the sullen roar of the city streets could not drown the cheering song of two or three stray birds.
The week before Easter she brought home a tall slender lily in a pot, with a single bud showing at the top of the green shaft. "They told me it would blossom for Easter," she said happily, but she did not tell him she had saved her carfare for days in order to buy it for him.
He was able to sit up now, but she would not let him go until it was quite safe for him to walk. She seemed to cling, hungrily, to her last days with him. "After Easter," she said bravely, "I won't keep you."
He was watching the lily with impatience almost equal to her own, and tiny lines of white appeared on the green sheath. One day, it seemed as if it would blossom too soon, and again, they feared that it would be after Easter when the perfect flower opened.
"It had to climb up through a pretty dark place to find the light, didn't it, Madonna?" he asked. "I suppose that's the way people do, and God knows I've had my share of the dark."
Her eyes filled with tender pity and he went on. "You know, Madonna, there's a pretty theory to the effect that you must suffer before you amount to anything. A man can't write nor paint, and a woman can't sing nor play before a cruel hurt. I don't mean the kind that makes a few tears and is followed by forgetfulness—It's the kind that goes right down where you live and cuts and stings and burns. You never think of it without a shudder, even when the place heals up, if it ever does. If it's lost friendship, you never have such a friend again—if it's a lost love, you never can care again. Suffering would make a saint of you, but I don't want you hurt like that—dear little girl."
He spoke no more, but the questioning maiden eyes sought his. It was the day before Easter, and on the day following it he was to leave her.
For almost two months, she had been unfailingly kind to him; reading to him night and day, caring for him as thoughhe were a child, and soothing him with her unspoken sympathy. Memory brought it all to him with peculiar distinctness, and a new impulse came to him—an impulse to lay bare his heart before the deep peaceful eyes of this child.
"Dear little Madonna of the Tambourine," he began, "there's a lot of things I want to tell you before we say good-bye.
"I saw your sweet face at a curbstone meeting once, in the days when I wasn't an outcast, and it's haunted me ever since. I wanted to find the peace which made you so secure and happy—to get at your secret of life. I wanted to be more worthy of—" He stopped and looked at her. Her eyes were shining like stars and with a little catch in his voice, he went on.
"There's a woman, Madonna, and worthless as I am she loved me, and married me. We were happy for a little while, but I couldn't keep away from the cursed drink. That's what put me into the slums. At last her patience and her love gave out, and she sent me away from her. She told me to come back to her, either with my shield, or on it, and thanks to you, I'm going back to her to-morrow—with my shield."
No sound escaped her, but her hand grew cold as ice. Turning, he looked for those starry eyes once more and, in a sudden flash of understanding, he read her secret.
He started to his feet. "Can it be possible that you—that you—I never dreamed—Oh, Madonna! Forgive me—if you can."
There was a long silence, then she said trying to speak steadily, "You are not in the least to blame. I have had no thought of you she could not know."
For a moment they looked into each other's eyes. "I am not worthy of it, Madonna," he said huskily, "I do not deserve the love of any good sweet woman."
"Would—would you go away to-day?" she asked almost in a whisper; then with a brave little smile that went straight to his heart, she added: "It's better, I think, to be quite alone."
He made his simple preparations, and she helped him as best she could with trembling hands, but it was dark when he was ready to go. Neither could frame the words they were wont to speak at parting, so they stood in silence, hand clasping hand.
With only pity and understanding in his heart, he wanted to take her into his arms for a moment, but she moved away from him. "No," she said brokenly, "it must be like this. Be what she would have you be—she and I."
She stood as he had left her until the street door closed below. She watched him on the sidewalk, walking with slow uncertain steps, until he was lost in the crowd. Then, stretching out in the dark, her empty hands, she dropped on her knees beside the window. Her shoulders shook with sobs, but there are no tears for such as she. She was far beyond the blessed flow which blinds some eyes to the reality of pain. The inner depths, bare and quivering, are healed by no such balm as this.
She voiced only the simple question which women of all ages have asked in the midst of a cruel hurt—"Why? Dear God, why must it be?"
Some of the last lines of "A Denial" came to her, seemingly in pitiful comment—
"So farewell, thou whom I have met too lateTo let thee come so near;Be counted happy—"
"If only she can care again," she said to herself, "it will not be so hard for me—if 'one beloved woman feels thee dear!'"
The grey dawn broke at last and found her still upon her knees.
With the brightening east the signs of life began again in the street below. After a little she stood up and looked far across the irregular lines of roofs and chimney tops to the glowing tapestry of the morning spread like a promise in the dull grey of the sky.
"He didn't want me hurt like this," she said aloud. "He told me he didn't want me hurt like this."
The first rays of the sun shot into the little room and rested with loving touch upon her face. The old childish look was gone, but in the eyes of the woman who had wrought and suffered, something of the old peace still lay. She turned back to her bare cheerless room, ready to face the world again, and then a little cry escaped her. White, radiant, glorified, her Easter lily had bloomed.
A Mistress of Art
"You're not going out again this evening, are you, George?" Pretty Mrs. Carson seemed on the point of dissolving in tears, but her liege lord buttoned his coat indifferently, and began the usual search for his hat. Having found it, he hesitated for a moment, then came and stood before her. "See here, Kitty," he began, not unkindly; "we might just as well understand this thing first as last. There's no use in your speaking to me in that tone just because I choose to go out in the evening. When I married you, I didn't expect to be tied to your apron string, and I don't intend to be. I consider myself as free as I was before I was married, and I am perfectly willing to accord the same freedom to you. When you go out, I never ask you where you've been, nor what time you came home, and I'd be glad to have you equally considerate of me. Let's be sensible, Kitty. I hatetears and heroics. See?" He stooped to kiss her, and then went off, whistling a jaunty air meant to indicate extreme cheerfulness.
For three evenings of that week Mr. George Carson had sought relaxation and entertainment away from his own fireside. This made the fourth, and the wife of only six months' standing, had a heavy and joyless heart.
Twice before she had spoken of it,—the first time to be answered by a laugh, the second time by very visible irritation, and to-night by the very cool "understanding" chronicled above.
Kitty had made a marriage vow which was not in the ceremony, but which was none the less sincerely meant. "Whatever happens," she said to herself, "I simply will not nag."
She had read the journals for women, written and edited by men, and this seemed to be the corner-stone of every piece of advice; moreover, she believed in pretty gowns, good dinners, and bright conversation with sentiment omitted.
"I can't think what it is," she meditated, during the long cheerless evening. Mr. Carson's appetite had proved beyond question that the dinner was good, and herpretty house gown was certainly becoming—and then Kitty broke down and wept, for the gown was a new one and George had not noticed it. On such trifles does the happiness of women depend!
In the journals for women, written and edited by men, great stress was laid on the fact that after a woman was married, she must keep her troubles to herself. She believed this, too, but the next day, her old school friend, Helen Everett, happened in, and she sobbed out her woes in the customary place—on the shoulder of a spinster—forgetting the deterrent effect on the marriage license business.
"My dear," said that wise young person, "men simply will go out nights. I shouldn't care myself—it leaves a nice long evening to read or study, or embroider, or practice, and if Mr. Helen Everett didn't want to stay with me, I'd be the last one to hint that I wanted him to."
"You're a man-hater, Helen," said Mrs. Carson, trying to smile, "but I'm not. I want George to stay at home a part of the time. Of course I'm willing for him to go out occasionally, for of all things, I despise a 'sissy-man', but four or five evenings a week—is—too—much!"
The dainty handkerchief came into use again.
"Philosophy teaches us," said Helen, reminiscently, "that people, especially men, always want what they can't get." Kitty was reminded of the scholarly tone in which Helen had delivered her thesis at commencement. "To quote a contemporary essayist, 'If a mortal knows that his mate cannot get away, he is often severe and unreasonable.' There is also a good old doctrine to the effect that 'like cures like.'"
"Well?" said Kitty, enquiringly.
"I never put my fingers into anybody's matrimonial pie," resumed Helen, "so I'll let you think out your own schemes to keep the charming Mr. Carson under his own vine and fig tree, but you know I live only three blocks away, and there are no followers in my camp. My brother would take you home, any time you might care to come."
Kitty was silent.
"Think it over, dear," said Helen as she rose to go.
After several minutes of hard thought, Kitty arrived at Helen's meaning. "This evening shall decide it," she said to herself."If he stays at home, I shall think that he cares just a little bit; but if he doesn't, I'll make him care." There was a smouldering fire in Kitty's brown eyes, that might at any time leap into a flame.
The pretty house gown appeared at dinner again, but George, seemingly, took no notice of it. Moreover, immediately after the meal he found his hat, and merely saying: "Bye-bye, Kitty," began the jaunty whistle. She heard it as it grew fainter, and at last, only lost it in the distant sound of a street car.
The emancipated husband had no particular place to go, and his present nocturnal pilgrimage was undertaken purely in the interest of wifely discipline. He dropped into his club, but found it dull; and perhaps the thought of Kitty's sad little face tugged remorsefully at his heartstrings, for he went home early.
The lights were low in the drawing-room, she always left them so for him. "Must have gone to bed about nine," he mused. He went up-stairs, expecting to hear her say: "Is that you, dear?" But no sound of any sort greeted him. The house was as silent as a tomb. After a few minutes, it became evident that she was not at home,and he sat down with a book to await her arrival.
It seemed strange, someway, without her,—perhaps because her gown hung from the back of a chair. It was a soft pretty thing of pinky-yellow—he mentally decided that must be the colour—trimmed with creamy lace and black velvet ribbon. It was a very pretty gown—a most adorable gown.
It was half-past eleven, when Kitty came home humming the chorus of a popular song. She started in apparent surprise when she saw him. "Oh, it's you, is it?" she said indifferently.
"Certainly it's me," he responded irritably. "Whom did you expect to see here?"
Kitty laughed pleasantly, and drew off her gloves. Her tailor-made gown fitted her to perfection, it was his favorite colour, too, and her collar and cuffs were irreproachable.
"Where have you been, Kitty?" he asked in a different tone.
"Oh, just out," she responded with a yawn. "Where have you been?"
"Humph," responded Mr. Carson.
The following evening, she appeared atdinner in the same severe gown. She was very pleasant and chatted on topics of current interest quite as if he were a casual acquaintance. She watched him with evident uneasiness afterward, and he was certain that he detected a faint shade of relief on her face when he commenced hunting for his hat.
Before ten he came home, and as he half suspected, Kitty was out. His irritation grew until he was afraid to trust himself to speak, so he pretended to be asleep, when she came home.
The cloud on the matrimonial horizon grew larger. Outwardly Kitty was kind and considerate, and her vigilant care for his comfort was in no way lessened. His things were kept in order and something he particularly liked was always on the table, but the old confidence was gone and in its place was something that he hesitated to analyse.
She went out every night, now. More than once she had left him with a laconic "Bye-bye," and he had spent a miserable evening before an unsympathetic fire. He learned to detest the severely correct gowns that she always wore now.
"I say, Kit," he said as he rose from thetable, "don't you want to go to the theatre to-night?"
"Can't," she returned shortly, "much obliged for the 'bid' though."
George Carson's hair rose "like quills upon the fretful porcupine." He had a horror of slang from feminine lips, and he had been drawn to Kitty in the first place, because she never used it. "Bid!" Oh, Heavens!
He paid no attention to her cheerful farewell when she left him. He poked the fire morosely, smoked without enjoying it, and at last cast about for something to read. One of the Journals for women, written and edited by men, lay on the table, and he grasped it as the proverbial drowning man is wont to clutch the proverbial straw.
He consulted the pages of the oracle anxiously, and he learned that it was not wise to marry a man who had served a term in the penitentiary, that it was harmless enough for either man or woman to kiss a lady cousin, but that a man cousin must be kept at a fixed and rigid distance—that it was wrong for cousins to marry, and that it was not only immoral, but very dangerous to bleach or dye the hair.
No rule of conduct was specified for theman whose wife went out nights, and he wandered aimlessly into the street. The light and cheer of the club house seemed inopportune, like mirth at a funeral, and he retired into a distant corner to think. His intimates hailed him joyously, but were met with marked coldness. One of them, more daring than the rest, laid a sympathetic hand upon his shoulder.
"What's the matter, old man?"
"Oh, the deuce," growled George, "can't you let a fellow alone?"
He was glad that he got home before Kitty did, for he could pretend to be asleep when she came in. He knew it would be only a pretence, and until midnight he listened for her latch-key in the door. It was long after twelve, when a carriage stopped at the door, and then he heard a manly voice say: "Good night, Mrs. Carson."
"Good night, Johnnie," she returned, "and thank you for a pleasant evening."
"Johnnie!" Who in creation was "Johnnie?"
But there was no time to wonder, for Kitty's foot was on the stair, and in a frame of mind not usually favourable to repose, he simulated sleep.
There was a beautiful bracelet at her plate the following evening.
"Oh, how sweet!" she said, with evident pleasure in her eyes.
"Aren't you going to put it on?" he asked, when she laid it aside.
"Oh, yes," she answered brightly, "only I can't wear it with this gown. Bracelets don't go well with linen cuffs."
She didn't even take it from the table after dinner, as he noted with a pang. Almost immediately she came in with her hat on and stood leisurely drawing on her gloves.
"You're not going out again to-night, are you Kitty?" he asked.
"See here, George," she returned, "we might just as well understand this thing, first as last. There's no use in you speaking to me in that tone, just because I choose to go out in the evening. When I married you, I didn't intend to be tied to your apron string—I suppose, I should say, suspender, and I don't intend to be. I consider myself as free as I was before I was married, and I am perfectly willing to accord the same freedom to you. When you go out I never ask you where you have been, or what time you camehome, and I'd be glad to have you equally considerate of me. See?"
Without other farewell, she slammed the outer door. He was petrified with astonishment. Were such words ever before addressed by a tyrannical wife to a devoted husband? In the midst of his trouble, the door-bell rang. Friends of his and of Kitty's had come to call.
"Where's Kit?" asked Mrs. Clay, after they had chatted a moment.
"She's gone out a minute—yes—no—that is—I don't know," returned George incoherently.
Mr. Clay's ready tact came to the rescue and he picked up a program which lay on the table, half hidden by a magazine.
"Tannhauser," he said cheerfully, "with Gadski as Elizabeth! So you went Tuesday night? We wanted to go, but there were no seats left. How early did you get yours?"
"I—ah—yes—Gadski as Elizabeth—that is—rather early. Yes, she was very fine," said George miserably. The stunning revelation had come to him that on Tuesday night—the evening in which he had heard the carriage and the voices, Kitty had been to the opera with anotherman! And it seemed to fairly paralyse his powers of speech. After a little while the guests politely departed, wondering what in the world was the matter with the Carsons.
"Is he crazy?" asked Mrs. Clay.
"Looks like it," answered her husband concisely.
Carson went up-stairs and searched the closet until he found the pinky-yellow gown with the black velvet bows. He sat down with the pretty fluffy thing in his hands. A delicate odour of violets clung to it—Kitty always had violets around her—and the scent seemed like a haunting memory of a happy past, when he had a wife who wore soft womanly things—who loved to have him kiss her, and never went out nights.
With a sudden rush of tenderness he held the little gown close, but it yielded him no caress in return, and he flung it bitterly aside, feeling as he did so, that he sat among the ashes of a desolate and forsaken home.
He grew white and worn in the days that followed. He knew dimly what a grave might mean, since he felt the hurt of a living loss.
He wandered through the lonely rooms evening after evening. The sight of her dainty fluffy things made him suffer keenly, and a tiny jewelled slipper he found on the floor almost unmanned him.
He no longer went to the club, but sat at home among Kitty's things while she went out as usual. One evening, after saying "good-bye" she caught her gown on a rocker, and turned back to free herself.
He was sitting before the fire, his elbow resting on his knee, and his chin in the palm of his hand. It was a saddened face that Kitty saw, with all the joy and youth gone out of it. The flickering light made the lines of pain very distinct, and her heart smote her at the realisation of what she had done. Quickly she ran up-stairs and took off her tailor-made costume. When she came down, he was sitting as she had left him, unhearing, unseeing and unheeding.
As she came toward him, he looked up. At the first sight of her in the pinky-yellow gown, he rubbed his eyes as if he had seen wrongly. She came nearer to him, smiling, her hands outstretched, and he sprang to his feet. "Kitty," hecried, "are you going to stay at home to-night?"
"To-night, and always, dear, if you want me," she replied.
"Want you—Oh, my little wife!" he said brokenly, and gathered her into his arms.
They had a long talk after that, and Kitty explained that she had been spending her evenings with Helen Everett, who was writing a book, and reading it to her, chapter by chapter as it was finished.
"Who is Johnnie?" demanded George abruptly.
"Helen's brother. He's only a boy, but he's a very nice one, and he takes us to all sorts of lovely places."
After a moment she continued wistfully: "Helen's awfully clever—books, colleges, degrees, and everything."
"And you have only me," said George, laughing, and drawing her closer.
"You're enough, if I can only keep you," she returned mischievously.
His face grew very grave. "I have been a thoughtless brute, sweetheart. Forgive me," he said kissing her fondly. "And know all men by these presents, I hereby confer upon you the degree of Mistress of Arts."
A Rosary of Tears
The orchestra had paused, either through simple human pity, or, as seemed more likely, to rest. Even a good orchestra must have time for physical and mental refreshment, and the guests at the St. James would gladly have accorded eternity to this one, had the management been kindly disposed and permitted it.
A faint breath of the tropical night stirred the foliage in the palm-room, where there was light and laughter and the crystalline tinkle of glasses. The predatory lady from Memphis, clad resplendently in white lace, and paste jewels, moved restlessly about the room. Her blue eyes were cat-like in their quick intense scrutiny. They said, at the St. James, that nothing under the roof escaped her knowledge.
Designedly she passed the two who sat at a glass-covered table in a secluded corner, affecting not to notice them. When therustle of her garments and the clatter of her high heels died away, the man spoke.
"She must have spilled the peroxide," he said with a grating laugh. Her hair was indeed more brilliant than usual.
The woman laughed too—a little hysterical laugh which sounded more like a sob. She took her watch from the silver bag that hung at her belt, opened it, and laid it before them.
"An hour more," she answered irrelevantly. "Like Cinderella, I must go at twelve."
"Are you afraid your auto will turn into a pumpkin drawn by white rats and your chauffeur into—let's see, who was Cinderella's footman?"
She shook her head. "I used to know, but it was long ago when I was a child."
"You're only a child now," he returned quickly.
"No, I'm a woman, and I must meet whatever comes to me as a brave woman should." She fixed her clear eyes on his and spoke steadily. "I mustn't be a coward, I mustn't refuse to do anything just because it is hard. I've got to be true to my best self, and you've got to help me."
The war correspondent's face whitened for an instant, then the colour surged back in waves. "Come out on the balcony," he whispered, "it's insufferable in here."
She followed him through the French window. Their two chairs were in their own particular corner still, placed as they had been every night for a week. He arranged the rose and green velvet cushion at her back precisely as she liked it, and drew his own chair near hers—just close enough not to touch.
A white-coated waiter whisked out of sight tactfully. He was needed within where the lady from Memphis had cornered a hardware drummer from Pittsburg and was coyly inquiring whether or not champagne was intoxicating.
"A week ago to-night," said the war correspondent abruptly. "I believe now that the world was made in seven days. Mine has been made and shattered into atoms in an equal space of time."
"Don't say that! There's good in it—there's got to be good in it somewhere! We'll have to find it together, past all the pain."
The late moon rose slowly above the grove of palms beyond them; the Southernnight breathed orange blossoms and roses. A tiny ray of blue light shot from the solitaire on the third finger of her left hand. It was the only ring she wore.
"I can't believe it's true," he said, somewhat roughly. "If you cared as you say you do, you'd"—he choked on the word, and stopped abruptly, but his eyes made his meaning clear.
They were unusual eyes—for a man. So she had thought a week ago, when she went down the corridor to her room at midnight, humming gaily to herself a little fragment of a love song. They were big and brown and boyish, with laughter lurking in their depths—they met her own clearly and honestly, always, and in their look there had never been that which makes a woman ashamed. Yes, they were unusual eyes—for a man.
"Honour is an elastic word," she replied. "For most women, it means only one thing. A woman may lie and steal and nag and break up homes, and steam open other people's letters, and betray her friends, and yet, if she is chaste, she is called honourable. I made up my mind early in life, that I'd make my own personal honour include not only that, but thethings men are judged by, too. If a man broke his solemn pledge, you'd call him a coward and a cur. So," she concluded with a pitiful pride, "I'll not break mine."
Her voice was uneven and he felt, rather than saw, the suffering plainly written on her face. "Tell me," he began gently, "of him. What does he look like? What sort of man is he?"
"I came away in such a rush that I forgot his picture, else I'd show it to you. I would have sent back for it, only I didn't want my people to think I was silly, and besides, there is no need, I could remember how he looked, and every tone of his voice until a week ago to-night."
"Is he tall?" The war correspondent himself was a trifle over six feet.
"No, not very,—only a little taller than I."
"Smooth-shaven?"
"Yes."
"Dark?"
"Very."
"What does he do?"
"Business in a stuffy office, from nine to six. He spends his evenings with me."
"Every evening?"
"Yes, and all day Sunday. There arejust two things in his life—the office and me."
"Go on," he reminded her, after a pause.
"It's simple, and, in a way, commonplace. We met, and he cared—terribly—from the first. I didn't, because it was difficult for me to trust any man. I told him so, and he said he'd make me trust him. He did, but it took him a long time. It's pathetically easy for a woman to love a man she can trust. And so I wear his ring and have for two years. When I go back, we're to be married."
"Do you call it honourable to marry one man while you love another?"
"He's been everything in the world to me," she continued, ignoring the thrust. "I've never had a doubt nor a difficulty of any kind, since I've known him, that he hasn't helped me through. Every thought that came into my mind, I have felt perfectly free to tell him. We've never quarrelled. On my side, the feeling has been of long slow growth, but there are no hard words lying between us. It's all been sweet until now. He's clean-minded and clean-hearted and true-souled. If he has ever lied to me, I've never found it out. He has been absolutely and unswervinglyloyal in thought, word, and deed, and as for jealousy—why, I don't believe he knows what the word means.
"You know there are two kinds of love. One is an infinite peace that illumines all your life, so surely and so certainly that it's not to be taken away. It's like daily bread to you. The other is like wine—swift and terrible and full of fatal fascination. The one has come to me from him—the other from you."
"Honey!" It was the shrill, high, bird-like voice of the lady from Memphis swiftly rounding the corner of the balcony. "Is this your watch? I've found it on the table and I've been looking all over for you!"
"Thank you." Miss Ward took the trinket coldly and never turned her head. The man, having small respect for the lady from Memphis, never rose from his chair.
After a little hesitation she retreated, pausing in the background, among the palms, to shake a warning finger with assumed coquetry.
"Naughty," she shrilled. "You mustn't flirt! If you do, I'll write to your honey and tell him what you are doing. You seeif I don't. And then he'll come and catch you at it, and where will you be then?" With a mirthless cackle, she vanished into the palm-room, where there was light and the tinkle of glasses and the bubbling of champagne.
"Half-past eleven," said Miss Ward dully. "Thirty minutes more."
The war correspondent caught his breath as if he had been suddenly hurt. "One little hour," he answered, his voice low and tense with suppressed feeling. "Only one little hour to last us for all eternity, and we're wasting it like this. I love you, I love you, I love you! I love you with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my strength, and with all my will. I love you so much that heaven would be hell without you, and hell itself would be heaven if you were there. I love you with a love that will not die, when I do. I love you, do you understand? God knows I love you!"
She turned her face towards him thrilled to the depths of her soul. "And I," she breathed, caught in the whirlwind of his emotion, "love you—in just that way!"
His hands closed quickly over hers. "Then," he pleaded, "come. There areno barriers between us—they are nothing but cobwebs. Sweep them aside with one stroke of magnificent daring and come. We'll be married in the morning and sail for New York immediately, then go abroad for a year. Two telegrams will set you free, and explain everything! Come," he whispered, "only come! Youth and love, and the wide world before us! We'll be together till death divides us! Come—promise me you'll come!"
In thought she surrendered for an instant, then broke away from him, shuddering. "Don't," she gasped. "Don't make it so hard for me to do what is right. I won't be dishonourable, I won't be disloyal, I won't be untrue. Happiness that comes from wrong doing is always brief, but, oh, dear lad, I love you with a love nobody ever had before, or ever will have again. I'm not taking anything away from anybody else to give to you, so it isn't dishonourable—it can't be. Tell me it isn't!" she cried. "Oh, tell me."
"It isn't," he assured her. "You couldn't be dishonourable if you tried. You're the bravest, finest woman I've ever known."
From within came the notes of a violinmuted. The piano, mercifully softened, followed the melody with the full rich accompaniment which even miserable playing can never wholly spoil.
"The hours I spent with thee, dear heart,Are as a string of pearls to me;I count them o'er, every one apart—My rosary! My rosary!"
"The pearls mean tears," she whispered brokenly. "Our rosary is made of tears!"
The lady from Memphis clattered past them on the balcony, singing the words apparently to herself, but really with an eye to dramatic—and impertinent—effect.
For a week they had been together, the gayest of the gay crowd. That day all plans had mysteriously fallen through. Miss Ward's chaperon had been called home by a telegram. A letter had caused another unexpected departure, a forgotten engagement loomed up before another, a sick headache laid low a fourth, and only they two were left—the "tattered remnant of the old guard," she laughingly said that morning when they met in the palm-room after breakfast, as usual, to discuss the program of the day.
"Then," he retorted, "the old guard will make the best of it!"
So they had spent the day together in public places, mindful of the proprieties. A long talk in the afternoon, full of intimate and searching details, had paved the way for the dazzling revelation made by an accidental touching of hands. In an instant, the world was changed.
"Suppose," she said, "that you had been obliged to go away this afternoon, before everything was fully acknowledged between us? Oh, don't you see what we have? We've got one whole day—a little laughter, and a great deal of love and pain, crystallised by parting and denial, into something sweet to keep in our hearts for always. Nothing can take to-day away from us—it's ours beyond the reach of estrangement or change. To-night we'll shut the door upon it and steal away, as from a casket enshrining the dead."
"Not dead," he flashed bitterly, "but buried alive!"
"Oh, memories that bless and burn,Oh, barren gain and bitter loss,I kiss each bead and strive at last to learnTo kiss the cross, sweetheart! To kiss the cross."
The last echo died away, the violin rattled into its case, the piano was closed. The musicians went home, and there was a general movement toward the doors. A far clock chimed twelve and she rose wearily from her chair. "Good night," she faltered, her hand fluttering toward his; "I cannot say good-bye, but we must never see each other again."
How it happened they never knew, but he took her into his arms, unresisting, and kissed her fully, passionately, upon the lips.
All the joy and pain of the world seemed crowded into the instant they stood there, locked in each other's arms. Then the high, bird-like voice of the lady from Memphis broke on their ears in a grating staccato.
"She was out here, when I saw her last, flirting dreadfully with the war correspondent. I guess she didn't know you were coming on that late train."
Eagerly, happily, the Other Man rushed out on the balcony, crying boyishly, "Mabel! Are you here?"
The words died on his lips. The man who held her in his arms kissed her again, slowly, hungrily; then reluctantly releasedher. She steadied herself against the railing of the balcony. In the moonlight her face was ghastly. The scent of the orange blossoms seemed overpowering her with deadly fragrance.
"Didn't I tell you?" asked the lady from Memphis gleefully. From the open window she was enjoying the situation to the full.
The Other Man was bewildered.
"Mabel," he said enquiringly, "I don't quite understand. Didn't you get my wire?"
The war correspondent stepped forward. He had faced the guns of the enemy before and was not afraid now. A single commanding glance, mingled with scorn, sent the lady from Memphis scurrying back into the palm-room.
"I know who you are," he said to the Other Man, "and I owe you an explanation. I love Miss Ward and I have been trying all day to induce her to break her engagement with you and marry me instead."
The Other Man laughed. He went to the balcony rail, where the girl stood, half fainting, and put his arm around her. "I don't doubt it," he said. "Isn't shethe finest, sweetest, truest woman the Lord ever made? Any man who doesn't love her is a chump. You and I will be good friends—we have a great deal in common."
He offered his hand but the war correspondent bowed and swerved aside. "Good night," he said thickly. "I have played and lost. I lay down my hand." He went through the window hastily, leaving the two alone.
"Mabel, dear Mabel!" said the Other Man softly. "You've been through something that is almost too much for you. Sit down and rest—you're tired!"
The words, calm and tender, brought back to her tortured soul a hint of the old peace. In a pitiless flash of insight she saw before her two women, either of which she might become. One was serene and content, deeply and faithfully loved, sheltered from everything love could shield her from, watched, taken care of in all the countless little ways that mean so much. The other was to know Life to its uttermost, all its rage, jealousy and despair, to be shaken in body and soul by fierce elemental passions, to face eclipsing miseries alone, and drain the cup to the lees. The differencewas precisely that between a pleasure craft, anchored in a sunny harbour, and the toiling ship that breasts the tempestuous seas.
She sat down and suffered him to take her hand. He stroked her wrist silently, in the old comforting way he had when she was nervous or tired. His face was troubled—hers was working piteously. The lights had died down in the palm-room and the last of the revellers went away. The house detective paced through the long rooms twice and made a careful survey of the balcony.
"Darling," said the Other Man, "you don't have to tell me anything you don't want to—you know that; but wouldn't it make you feel better? You've always told me things, and I'm the best friend you've got. Surely you're not afraid now?"
His voice failed at the end, and the girl drew a quick shuddering breath but she did not answer.
"He was kissing you, wasn't he?" asked the Other Man, "when I came?"
"Yes," she said dully, "he was kissing me, but it was for good-bye. He told me he loved me, and I had told him I lovedhim. I've known him only a week. He never so much as touched my hand until to-day, but it was only my own personal honour that kept me from marrying him to-morrow, as he begged me to do. I've told you the worst now. Believe what you like—do what you will."
The Other Man sighed. His mouth was boyish and for the moment unsteady, but his eyes sought hers as honestly and clearly as the war correspondent's, who had unusual eyes—for a man.
"I think I understand," he said brokenly. "I don't blame any man for loving you, dear—I'm prepared for that—and we've been separated so long, and the moonlight and the palms and the roses and all, and you were used to being loved—I think that's why. You were lonesome, wer'n't you, sweetheart? Didn't you want me?"
Infinite love and infinite pain surged together in her heart, blending into unspeakable tenderness. "Yes, I wanted you," she whispered—"I always want you. I'm—I'm a bit upset just now, but I haven't taken anything away from you to give to anybody else. It's only an undiscovered country—a big one, that he found to-day. I haven't been intentionally dishonourable. I fought but it was no use—he simply swept me off my feet. Forgive me if you can!"