Young Bradley was not subtle or astoundingly clever, but he did know better than to go to thank a beautiful girl in the company of his two friends. He went alone.
He was instantly struck down, completely conquered, by Madeline’s haughty glance. It was the first time he had met a haughty girl. He found most girls very much otherwise. He was accustomed to the ardent pursuit of mothers and aunts, and not much coyness on the part of their protégées. He had no conception of Made[Pg 97]line’s idea of man as a dangerous and persistent hunter, with woman as his prey. In his circle the girls did the hunting and he the evading.
He was captivated by her severity. She refused to go out with him that evening; so he came again the next evening.
“Please come!” he entreated. “I’ve got the car outside. I’ll wait for you as long as you like, and then we’ll run up to a little place on the Post Road.”
“No, thank you,” said Madeline. “I never go out with strange gentlemen.”
“How am I going to stop being a strange gentleman if you’ll never go out with me?” he complained.
Madeline didn’t know, and didn’t care to encourage strange young men by trying to explain. She knew perfectly well that he would come back.
To be sure, he did, and this time he was dreadfully insistent. Now perhaps the cause of Madeline’s hauteur was the take-it-or-leave-it attitude of the men she knew. Certainly she had never before encountered a persistent suitor, or one who was not offended by rebuffs. Customers inclined to gallantry were very much annoyed if not encouraged. Even Mr. Ritchie was fatally ready to be insulted; but this young fellow didn’t care in the least. Let her be haughty, captious, even cruel, still he was charmed and delighted.
Though she did not think this quite manly, Madeline could not withstand the cajolery of the handsome and good-natured boy. She was thrilled with pride that this splendid creature should come to seek her in Compson’s lowly chophouse. She was secretly overwhelmed when he brought her orchids. She didn’t really resent the innuendoes of the other girls. They were simply jealous because no such hero ever had or ever would come to seek them.
In her heart she was grateful, almost humble. She regarded her incomparable Bradley with something very like awe. To placate Compson, he would order coffee and pie while he waited to talk to her; and his manner of eating and drinking, the way he rose and remained standing when she approached, all the careless ease and grace of him, were a marvel and a joy. Moreover, even in her most fervent admiration, she had never lost the protective tenderness she had felt the first time she had seen him. She worried about him, about his health and his morals.
This was really the reason why she finally consented to go out with him—so that she could talk seriously and firmly, and perhaps reclaim him.
“Well, you can be waiting for me to-morrow at nine o’clock,” she said. “You’d better go along now.”
As he was leaving—a notable figure in a suit such as never entered Compson’s, and a straw hat, and a walking stick—he was met by Ritchie coming in. Ritchie was dressed in threadbare serge, and wore brown shoes, which he had attempted to make black. Bradley went by without a sign—not by intention, for he would have saluted his benefactor joyously if he had known him; but Ritchie, to him, was exactly like countless others, and quite indistinguishable.
Of course Ritchie took this apparent neglect as a personal insult. He sat down at his usual table, burning with shame and fury. When Madeline approached, he said truculently:
“I suppose you don’t want to go to the movies to-morrow night?”
It was an announcement, rather than a question.
“Well, I’m sorry,” replied Madeline, “only I got a date.”
“Him, isn’t it? All right! Go ahead! That’s just like a woman,” said Ritchie. “If a feller has good clothes and a fine physique, what do they care if he drinks, or anything?”
“I wasn’t aware I was requesting your valuable advice, Mr. Ritchie,” observed Madeline frigidly.
“I wasn’t giving it,” said he. “All I was saying was, women are all for show. They never see below the surface. Anyway, I’m going to Chicago the end of this week. I’m sick of New York!”
“My! Poor New York!” murmured she.
“I’m sick of the girls here,” he went on vehemently. “Just a lot of jazz babies—that’s what they are!”
“Here, now!” she cried.
“Jazz babies,” he repeated. “There isn’t one of them with—with any brains or any feelings.”
Madeline had turned pale.
“I’m not paid to be insulted by customers,” said she. “I’ll send some one else to wait on you. I’m sure I hope you’ll find some one in Chicago that’s good enough for you, if such a thing is possible![Pg 98]”
And thus terminated their acquaintance. They were now complete strangers.
In the course of her twenty years Madeline had not shed so many tears as during this one night. There was time for a deluge, for it was surely the longest night that had ever covered the earth. It had the interminable confusion of a dream; and, like a dream, it was made up of vivid and apparently unconnected flashes.
First there was herself leaving Compson’s with a not very genuine air of composure, entering Bradley’s car, and settling herself by his side, determined not to be impressed or perturbed either by his magnificence or by the rakishness of the small car.
Then there was the flight through the bejeweled and marvelous city—a delight seriously marred by her companion’s sinister silence. Not being a driver herself, she had mistaken his preoccupation with traffic signals and so on for a grim and alarming determination. She had, as etiquette required, tried to talk, but he scarcely answered.
Then they shot out into the country—a world dark and unfamiliar to her. Almost the first thing Bradley did was to draw up the car by the roadside and produce a pocket flask. He had been surprised and amused at her indignation, and not overawed by her firm principles. She had said that she wished to go home, but he had been so very persuasive about the supper agreed upon that she had yielded.
She had regretted her weakness. The road house was an awful place. It was like the “haunts of vice” that she had read about in the Sunday newspapers. The prices on the menu appalled her, and the dancing was beyond imagining. Bradley knew some of those people, and had danced with a girl, leaving Madeline alone and unprotected at their table.
He said that what he had to drink was ginger ale, but she didn’t believe it. Ginger ale couldn’t have made him so flushed and silly; and when at last, after he had sat there smoking cigarettes and dawdling, they rose to go, she had noticed that his gait was unsteady. He had grown talkative, too, and never had she heard such silly conversation.
And now here they stood, on the brow of a hill. It was dark, but the dawn was already tingeing the sky. The birds were awake all about them, each one giving his own note—a reedy quaver, a chirp, a clear, exultant carol, each one indifferent and independent, but part of a glorious orchestral symphony. It was dawn, and here they were, for the graceless Bradley had lost his way in the dark.
They had gone jolting up lanes that ended in walls and fences, they had rushed across bridges, they had turned this way and that. Bradley made inquiries, but was not quite capable of profiting by them. Moreover, Madeline’s tears and reproaches had made him frantic. Dawn, and here they were! So fair and tranquil a dawn, it might have inspired to poetry the most insensitive soul; but to poor Madeline it meant only another working day. It made her think of Compson’s.
“Oh, my!” she cried. “Oh, what shall I do? Oh, how could you do such a thing?”
“I’m very sorry,” was all that the sobered young man could say. “I didn’t mean to.”
“My aunt’ll never let me in the house again!” she lamented. “Somebody’s sure to come from Compson’s and ask where I am, and my aunt’ll say she don’t know. I wish I was dead!”
“But can’t you explain?” Bradley asked patiently.
She was amazed at his stupidity, but the poor chap was quite unaware of the villainous aspect he had in the eyes of Compson’s staff. He had never considered himself a villain—certainly not where Madeline was concerned. He was very grateful to her, and he had tried to show his gratitude. That had not been at all difficult, because she was so pretty; but, thought he, what an awful temper!
Bradley was used to girls who concealed the most fiendish rages when in his company, and he believed that all girls were amiable. Ritchie would have understood Madeline’s outbreak. He might perhaps have quarreled with her, but all the time he quarreled he would have been terribly moved by her plight. Bradley couldn’t see that there was any plight. If she hadn’t been so terribly upset, he would have thought the thing a joke.
“Explain!” she cried. “Who do you think would believe me?”
He was about to speak, but when he looked at her, he could not. Some faint comprehension of her point of view came[Pg 99]to him. The more he looked, the better he understood.
Grief had dignified her. Her tear-stained face, her brimming eyes, her trembling lip, distressed him beyond measure. He was an honest and kind-hearted fellow, and even something more than that. In his way, he was chivalrous. He felt deeply ashamed just then to remember that only a few hours before he had thought it rather comic to be taking out a waitress. He regretted the harmless but not very decorous jokes that he and his friends had made about the episode. He wished he had shown his gratitude in some other way. She wasn’t a waitress—she was a forlorn and miserable girl whom his ill-behavior had got into a situation which she regarded as serious.
“I’ll make it all right,” he said earnestly, wondering how this might be done.
“Well, you ought to!” she replied.
She didn’t mean to be ungracious or unkind, but she was in anguish. Neither she nor any of the people she knew could take such things lightly. She saw herself irretrievably disgraced, her haughty respectability forever tarnished. She knew so well what the girls at Compson’s would say!
She had been so proud of her discretion, of her superiority! She had been so very cautious about “strange gentlemen”! And to be away from home all night! She couldn’t bear it. Grief and resentment drove her to tears again.
“Don’t!” entreated Bradley. “Please don’t! I’ll make it all right, somehow—I give you my word I will!”
What he meant was that he would fly to some sympathetic feminine spirit, who could and would make it right for him.
Madeline’s aunt didn’t believe one word of her niece’s story. Madeline quarreled haughtily and scornfully with her, but in her own heart she couldn’t blame her. She wouldn’t have believed it herself. Getting lost in a motor car with a millionaire! That was simply nonsense.
She lay down on the bed in her dismal little room, as close to despair as she was ever likely to be. One of the girls had come from Compson’s, and her aunt had said she didn’t know where Madeline was.
“I can never go back there!” she thought. “Never, never!”
She might have been mourning for a lost paradise. After all, it was as hard for her to lose her standing among her peers at the chophouse as for a duchess to lose prestige in the drawing-rooms of Mayfair. She had nothing else.
She neither expected nor wished to see Bradley again. He was a sinister mystery to her; she couldn’t understand him at all. She was convinced that he had got lost on purpose. The very fact of his not having tried to make love to her made the case all the more perturbing. He must have some deep design which she could not yet fathom.
He was bad. He drank. He went gladly to road houses where every one was bad, and drank, and danced improperly. His fascination was the fascination of a villain. His whole life must be a phantasmagoria of splendid evil.
As the room grew dark, she shuddered at the very thought of him. She dozed, and dreamed nightmares, and woke and cried and slept again. The blessed security of her honest, hard-working life was gone. She would have to give up her job. She couldn’t face the other girls again. Perhaps she was caught in one of those awful snares elaborately laid by millionaires for the daughters of the poor. Perhaps it was Bradley’s purpose to see that she never got another job—to hound her to the brink of starvation, that she might be obliged to listen to his evil proposals.
“I’d rather die!” she cried to herself with a sob.
There was not a soul in the world to assuage the heartsick young creature, no one to speak a word of common sense or solace. Her preposterous fears were terribly real to her. She had eaten nothing all day. She was exhausted, frightened, inimitably wretched.
She heard her aunt moving about in the kitchen. She knew that nothing on earth could induce the older woman to bring her even a cup of tea, and nothing could persuade her to ask for it.
“Not after what she said!” thought Madeline. “It would choke me!”
She fell asleep again, and was awakened by her aunt’s hand on her shoulder.
“Here’s that Mr. Ritchie,” the aunt announced.
“Well, tell him to go away!” replied Madeline.
“Tell him yourself,” said her aunt promptly. “I guess I got something better to do than carry messages for you!”
Her aunt was a severe, stout, bespec[Pg 100]tacled creature of fifty, a woman of invincible propriety, and Madeline’s conduct had stricken her to the heart. She was as glad to see Ritchie as if he were an angel, because obviously he could remedy all that was wrong; but she had no other way of expressing gratification, affection, or the most profound grief, than by her habitual disagreeableness.
“That’s just like you,” said Madeline.
She rose, too wretched to care how she looked, and went into the lugubrious little parlor where Ritchie waited.
“Well! I thought maybe you were sick,” said he.
“Well, I’m not,” she replied.
There was an awkward silence.
“Well!” he said at last. “Then what about going to the movies?”
Although he refused, as always, to look squarely at her, he had none the less observed her wan and tear-stained face, her untidy hair, her piteous dejection. Something which he imagined to be anger came over him.
“You been out with that feller?” he demanded.
“That’s my business!” returned Madeline valiantly.
“Well, if you—if you had more sense,” he said, and paused. He could not well have been more miserable than he was at that moment, nor could he have concealed it better. “Well!” he said again, with a sort of fury. “All right! It’s nothing to do with me. Go ahead! Suit yourself!”
He drew one of his books from his pocket, opened it, and held it out to her in a shaking hand.
“You can just look at this, if you like,” he said. “I’m going away to-morrow—that’s all I’ve got to say!”
She did look. Heavily underscored were two lines unfamiliar to her, and of striking beauty and significance:
’Tis better to have loved and lostThan never to have loved at all.
’Tis better to have loved and lostThan never to have loved at all.
’Tis better to have loved and lostThan never to have loved at all.
Mr. Ritchie flung the book down on the table and walked out.
The very next evening, when he should have been on his way to Chicago, he was ringing the door bell of Madeline’s flat. His presence brought ineffable consolation to the aunt, and was not displeasing to the girl herself.
“My!” she said loftily. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d come back!”
“Well, I did,” said he. “Aren’t you going back to Compson’s any more?”
“That’s my business!” she answered, but she let him in, and he did not appear rebuffed.
“Well, I guess they miss you there,” he observed.
“Let ’em!” she retorted with spirit. They were both too polite, too formal, to take any notice of the tears rolling down her cheeks. “I went out with that Mr. Bradley, and we got lost in his car. We never got back here until near noon. There’s no use telling those girls that. They’re awful spiteful, and they’d never believe me.”
“Well, I do,” said Ritchie.
“I should think you ought to!” said Madeline, with a sternness that concealed a very warm gratitude.
“Well, I said I did, didn’t I?” pursued Ritchie.
There was a pause.
“He was here to-day,” said Madeline; “him and his sister. I must say I didn’t think much of her—all painted and everything. She wants to get me a job with one of those Fifth Avenue dressmakers, as a model, to show off the dresses.”
There was calm triumph in her tone, but despair seized Ritchie’s heart.
“She says I’d be an elegant model,” observed Madeline.
“All right!” said Ritchie. “Go ahead! Be one! Suit yourself!”
Another pause.
“That po’try you showed me,” said Madeline. “I thought it was sweet.”
“It’s not meant to be sweet,” replied Ritchie severely. “It’s more like, now, tragic. If you’d read more—”
“I always admired the way you read such a lot,” said Madeline.
In spite of himself, he was mollified. He glanced at her covertly. She was quite as lovely and disturbing as ever.
“Well,” he said, “of course I got to read. I want to get on. I’m making twenty-seven a week now, and more when there’s overtime. I spend a good lot on those correspondence courses, and the Coyote Club and all; but I guess I could do without them, if I felt like it.”
“I’m not going to take that job,” said Madeline suddenly. “I wouldn’t—not for anything. I guess I’ve had enough of that[Pg 101]kind of people—all that drinking and all. I’d never get on with that kind!”
“Well, twenty-seven a week,clear—” said Ritchie.
The collapse of castles in the air doesn’t make a sound. Down came the magnificent edifice of Everard Ritchie’s ambitions, and the airy palace of Madeline’s dreams. In their place was instantaneously erected a three-room flat in a respectable quarter.
Their hands met, but not their eyes. They were timid lovers; but by that handclasp they could say all they wished.
“Those people just make me sick,” said Madeline. “You ought to have seen them dancing out at that place!”
Then their eyes did meet, full of profound confidence and understanding. His arm went round her shoulders, and she drew close to him.
“I know!” said he. “Fellers like that are no good at all; and those girls!” He looked at his haughty and incorruptible Madeline. “Those girls,” said he, from the depths of his vast worldly knowledge, “are nothing but a bunch of jazz babies![Pg 102]”
MUNSEY’SMAGAZINE
AUGUST, 1923Vol. LXXIXNUMBER 3
[Pg 103]
By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
MILDRED stood like a statue—a trite figure of speech, but in this case an apt one. With the white satin draped about her bare shoulders, immobile in her cool and tranquil loveliness, she was truly like a statue, and an admirable one.
The dressmaker knelt at her feet as if before an idol, gathered the gleaming material into folds here and there, and put in pins, serious and happy in this congenial work. She admired Mildred immeasurably, because Miss Henaberry was polite and kind and beautiful, and did justice to a dressmaker’s art.
Mildred was not the first idol to be obliged to stand still and look lovely while the keenest anguish racked her. Not by the flicker of an eyelash would she betray what she suffered. She had read the letter calmly; she held it now in fingers that trembled not at all. Obediently she turned, or lifted an arm, and did everything necessary, so that the dress might be perfect.
It was her wedding dress, and her wedding had been announced for the first day of June—and for the past fifteen minutes she had known that there would be no wedding then.
The dressmaker rose and stood back a few feet, to look at the tall, straight young creature, with her proud little dark head, so nobly set off by the lustrous satin.
“My!” said she. “You’ll be a perfect vision, Miss Henaberry!”
Mildred smiled then, somewhat faintly. She was able, even willing, to endure the worst that fate could inflict upon her; but she very much wanted one hour alone, to endure the first shock. She did not want to cry, or even to think; all that she needed was a little space of time to steady and fortify that pride so horribly shaken.
Pride was at once the girl’s finest quality, and her worst. It was a splendid pride that had made her come out so bravely after her father’s bankruptcy and death, and, after twenty years of easy and luxurious living, had set to work to earn her bread as a teacher in a private school. It was a pride diabolic that made her stand so aloof, and refuse friendship, because of her morbid fear that some one might pity her.
You could read all that in her face; for though she had the profile, the wide, low brow, and the fine, grave eyes of Minerva, there was that about her mouth and chin which was simply mulish obstinacy. She never had listened, she never would listen, to any warning or advice. Any number of people had wanted to warn and advise her about Will Mallet.
“My dear,” said Mrs. Terhune, an old friend of her mother’s, “Will can’t support a wife.”
“He’s never tried,” answered Mildred. “He’s never had a wife.”
“But Will is—” Mrs. Terhune began, and had to stop.
Impossible to describe just what was wrong with Will Mallet. He came of a good family, and, though he hadn’t a penny, he had influential connections. He wasn’t lazy, he hadn’t a vice in the world, he was intelligent, almost scholarly, and altogether a handsome and endearing boy. Even the fact that at twenty-four he was still at loose ends, and still looking for his appointed work in the world, couldn’t justify what Mrs. Terhune said.
She declared that as a husband Will was impossible. He couldn’t be taken seriously. It was nice to dance with him, play tennis with him, hear him recite his poems—but marry him!
He had seldom been seen in the little[Pg 104]town on the Hudson where he had been born. Now and then he came to visit an indulgent relative, and to get assistance moral and material, after which he would go off to try his luck once more. Every one liked him and no one respected him.
On this last visit he had surprised them all by deciding to stay. He said he intended to open a florist’s shop and greenhouses. He had looked about for a likely site, and had asked for advice—which he got in generous measure. His relations were pleased and rather touched by this venture, which seemed at once practical and poetic, and he had received more attention and encouragement than was good for him; but when his engagement to Mildred was made known, he lost all favor. He was severely condemned, and remonstrated with, and still further advised.
Will was a young man of no great vanity or self-assurance. He was fatally inclined to agree with people. He listened, downcast and wretched, to the admonitions of friends and relatives, and hastened off to tell Mildred that he was no good, and that she would be better off without him.
She thought otherwise. She had few illusions about her Will, but she thought that with help and encouragement he might be improved. She had for him a maternal sort of love, exacting and yet very tender. She didn’t wish to spoil him. She meant to inspire him with greater energy and self-reliance. She told him that he was capable of great things, for she really thought so. She was kind, indulgent, and yet firm with him—and she never suspected how she terrified him.
She had all the virtues. She worked hard and earnestly, she saved money, she read, she studied, she was intelligent, tender-hearted, modest, reserved, and matchlessly polite. She was beautiful, she knew how to dress and how to carry herself, and socially she was perfect; but there is one little truth which Mildred had never been taught. A good example must not be too good, or, instead of producing a desire for imitation, the beholders feel only despair and hopeless inferiority.
The bell rang for lunch, and Mildred had difficulty in suppressing a sob of relief. The dressmaker had the pleasure of going downstairs and eating at the same table with her idol. She looked about the dismal dining room of the boarding house with a happy smile.
“Well, you won’t be here much longer, Miss Henaberry,” she said.
Mildred agreed with that. She knew what she could endure, and she knew also what would be too much for her. She could not endure to remain there, among those friendly, interested people—not after this!
Mrs. Terhune read the letter, read it again with a distressed frown, and passed it to her husband.
Dear Mrs. Terhune:Please believe that I am very sorry to go away without seeing you and thanking you for all your many, many kindnesses. Will and I have been obliged to change our plans, however, and to postpone our wedding for a time; so in order to avoid all the awkward and tiresome explaining, and so on, I thought it better to go for a visit to some old friends in the country, until our arrangements were complete. Of course I shall let you know all about it at the earliest possible moment.Please, dear Mrs. Terhune, don’t think me ungrateful or lacking in affection for running off this way. As you know, I have an almost morbid horror of gossip, and I couldn’t bear to stay and explain a hundred times that the wedding was postponed until Will had improved his position. He is inclined to be far too sensitive about his earning powers, but I am sure you agree with me that a man is not to be judged by his financial success. I have perfect faith in Will.
Dear Mrs. Terhune:
Please believe that I am very sorry to go away without seeing you and thanking you for all your many, many kindnesses. Will and I have been obliged to change our plans, however, and to postpone our wedding for a time; so in order to avoid all the awkward and tiresome explaining, and so on, I thought it better to go for a visit to some old friends in the country, until our arrangements were complete. Of course I shall let you know all about it at the earliest possible moment.
Please, dear Mrs. Terhune, don’t think me ungrateful or lacking in affection for running off this way. As you know, I have an almost morbid horror of gossip, and I couldn’t bear to stay and explain a hundred times that the wedding was postponed until Will had improved his position. He is inclined to be far too sensitive about his earning powers, but I am sure you agree with me that a man is not to be judged by his financial success. I have perfect faith in Will.
Mr. Terhune shook his gray head.
“Too bad!” he said. “Well, I’m not surprised.”
And then and there, over the breakfast table, floated the word from which poor Mildred had run away—that word bitter as death, which she could not tolerate the thought of hearing. It passed between Mr. and Mrs. Terhune, it went out to the servants in the kitchen, it found its way into many other houses—the word “jilted.”
The Terhunes were very fond of Mildred, and were really perturbed by her disappearance. They knew she had no money and no friends elsewhere. They consoled themselves, however, by their knowledge of her remarkable dignity, self-possession, and determination. A girl like Mildred, they said, would be sure to get on, wherever she went.
“And, in a way, it was the best thing she could have done,” Mrs. Terhune said, after a week or so. “There’s so much spiteful gossip about the affair. Poor Mildred!”
Even Mrs. Terhune’s genuine affection was tinged by a faint hue of complacency.
“Of course I knew how it would be,[Pg 105]” she remarked. “I knew Will was absolutely worthless. Poor Mildred!”
Now, in order to comprehend the case of Mildred Henaberry, one thing must be admitted. She had a thousand good qualities, the best manners in the world, and a rare type of beauty, but she was not lovable. You were obliged to respect and to admire her, and sometimes you resented the obligation.
As a result, the gossip about her had a decidedly malicious flavor. Any number of people were delighted at being able to laugh at perfection brought low. All the malice was toward Mildred—none for Will. Perhaps, if she had stayed for pity, she would have been pitied, but in running away she forfeited all claim to generosity.
So that when Robert Dacier arrived, a few months later, he heard Mildred spoken of as a jilted spinster, who had vanished in order to hide her hideous disappointment. He heard that she had been a school-teacher, that she had been “dignified” and “fastidious.” This conveyed to his mind the picture of a severe and unpleasant female of forty who had got what she deserved.
Not that Dacier gave much time to thinking about Mildred, for he was not at all a thoughtful young man. He was a cheerful, careless, good-looking fellow, who was a nephew of Mrs. Terhune. That lady refused to admit that of all her nephews and nieces he was her favorite, because she prided herself upon being a just and sensible woman, far too reasonable to be beguiled by the lad’s curly head and debonair good humor.
Not that he didn’t have solid and excellent qualities. He was doing very well as an architect, and was making a creditable income. Certainly he spent it all, but he spent it in a nice, gentlemanly way.
He earned less in a year than his uncle spent in a month; yet when the fellow came on a visit to the Terhunes, there was not a trace of poor relation about him. He had excellent cigars to offer to his uncle, and he showed his aunt all sorts of little attentions that touched and delighted her beyond measure. She had never had children of her own, and I don’t believe she had ever felt much happier than she felt when making a round of calls with that engaging and delightful nephew, showing him off with naïve complacency, and fairly basking in his affection.
Naturally she talked to him about Mildred Henaberry, because the affair had upset and troubled her. He listened good-humoredly, not in the least interested; but he was destined to be plunged into that affair, head over heels, and it was Mrs. Terhune who was to push him into it.
It happened simply enough.
“I heard about a new tea room up near Beacon,” he said to his aunt one afternoon. “Let’s run up there, Aunt Kate!”
“You don’t want to go with your old aunt,” said she, beaming with delight. “At your age, you want the society of young people.”
He answered exactly as she wanted him to answer. She dressed herself in her best and most imposing style, and off they went.
It was the most perfect sort of August day—bland, fair, not too hot, not dusty. Mrs. Terhune leaned back, greatly enjoying it all—the light air blowing against her face, the pleasant scents of the countryside, and, above all, the festive feeling caused by the presence of the holiday-making nephew.
Being only twenty-five to her fifty, Dacier was perhaps not quite so contented. He would have liked to drive, but it made his aunt nervous, so he had foregone that pleasure—although, to tell the truth, it madehimnervous to sit back and go creeping along at such a calm, moderate pace. However, he enjoyed life so much that he was indulgent toward other people, and wished to make them happy as well; so on they went, conversing affectionately.
“Mercy!” suddenly cried Mrs. Terhune. “Can it be? Johnson, please stop the car!”
This Johnson did, and Mrs. Terhune pointed to a field to the right of the road, across which a white figure was sauntering.
“Robert,” she said to her nephew, “I’m sure that’s Mildred. I should know that figure and that walk anywhere. Oh, dear, she’s going through the fence! I can’t lose her. Do run after her and bring her back—that’s a dear boy!”
So off went young Dacier across the sunny field, bareheaded, and, his aunt thought, marvelously fleet and graceful.
The figure in white had gone through a gap in the fence, and had turned up a shady little road, but Dacier took a short cut, leaped over the fence, and stood be[Pg 106]fore her, flushed and very hot. He had forgotten the jilted spinster’s surname, if he had ever heard it; but he felt quite certain that this was not she—not this serene and lovely young creature.
“Excuse me,” said he, “but I thought you were Mildred.”
She was startled.
“That is my name,” she said; “but—”
“But I’m afraid you’re not the right one—not Mrs. Terhune’s Mildred.”
“Oh, Mrs. Terhune!” cried the girl, very much distressed. “Did she send you?”
“Yes,” he replied, rather absent-mindedly, because he was trying to reconcile his imaginary portrait of the jilted spinster with the reality before him. He was impressed, deeply impressed, by this dignified and serious girl, because he was not very dignified or serious himself, but careless and light-hearted and sometimes a little impertinent. “Then,” he added politely, “if you are the right one, won’t you come and speak to Mrs. Terhune? She’s waiting in the car. She’s very anxious to see you.”
Mildred turned. Mrs. Terhune had now got out of the car, and was standing beside it. At that distance she seemed a small and shapeless creature, with veil and scarf fluttering, and her hand waving in earnest welcome.
“Oh, the dear thing!” said Mildred.
Her tone was so odd that Dacier looked quickly at her, and saw her gray eyes filled with tears. Why tears at the sight of Aunt Kate?
“I’m sorry,” she went on. “I can’t see her just now. If you’ll please tell her”—Mildred turned away her face—“please tell her I’ll write. Please tell her I’m just as fond of her. Thank you! Good-by!”
After a few steps she stopped again, because Dacier was still beside her.
“Thank you!” she repeated significantly, with meaning.
“You’re welcome,” he said courteously. “Very pretty country about here, isn’t it?”
“You mustn’t keep Mrs. Terhune waiting,” was her reply.
“Well, you see, I hate to go back and disappoint her. She wanted so much to see you. She’s always talking about you.”
He positively jumped at the look he got from Mildred.
“Is she?” the girl asked, with a cold, unpleasant smile.
“Yes,” he said. “She—”
“Then please tell her that Will—Mr. Mallet—is coming back very soon. I’ll let her know, of course, when the wedding is definitely arranged. Just now I’m very busy with my preparations.”
Dacier was not lacking in wit. He didn’t believe a word of this, but he was so sorry for the girl, he so much admired her fine pride, that he answered in the most convincing way. He remembered everything he had ever heard about Mallet, and he spoke of him seriously, with interest. He asked about the florist project, and talked to Mildred as to a girl authentically and eternally engaged. It was the nature of the fellow to make himself agreeable. He did it without effort, and almost without motive—although he was by no means unsusceptible to Mildred’s grave beauty.
She was disarmed. She scarcely noticed that he went on walking beside her to the very gate of her little garden, so absorbed was she in her talk about Will. Dacier still didn’t believe her, but he was not at all amused. He thought it very pitiful that she should bring out this phantom lover, should lean upon this straw man, when she herself was so strong, so splendidly alive.
“Mercy!” she suddenly exclaimed. “What will Mrs. Terhune think? Please hurry back to her! And you’ll tell her—about Will, won’t you?”
He did hurry back, leaping over the fence again and running across the field.
“But where’s Mildred?” asked his aunt, terribly disappointed.
“She was too busy to come,” he said, with a smile. “She’s too busy waiting for Mallet.”
“Oh, dear, how very foolish! She’s a splendid girl, but sheisso obstinate. I can’t bear to lose her again!”
“Don’t worry,” said her nephew cheerfully. “We’ll arrange all that, Aunt Kate. I’m rather obstinate myself.”
Mildred lived in the most wonderful little cottage, so tiny, so neat, like the cottage of the three bears, or the abode of the dwarfs. The old woman who came to keep it so bright and spotless was exactly like a witch, too, and Mildred herself might well have been an enchanted princess—except that she worked rather hard, and kept accounts. A small sign in the window read, “Miss Mildred Henaberry—piano lessons,” and all through the day confirmation[Pg 107a]of this floated out across the garden and into the road—stumbling scales, painful excursions in Czemy, and then the masterly touch of the teacher herself, showing what might be done.
Her pupils liked her, because she was patient, polite, and always clear and definite. She liked them because they were young, and because they had such stubby little fingers, such earnest scowls, and such jolly laughs.
On this morning of pelting summer rain she had escorted one of them to the front door—a rosy, moonfaced little girl in spectacles—and was opening a minute umbrella that would shelter the little cropped head, when she saw, coming down the lane, the young man who had been Mrs. Terhune’s emissary. He saw Mildred, raised his hat, and came splashing on through the mud, with his coat collar turned up and his cap pulled down. He entered the gate and reached the veranda steps just as the little girl was coming down.
He smiled down at the child; and, if you will believe it, this youthful creature, not more than ten years old, hesitated, and then came up the steps after him.
“What is it, dear?” asked Mildred.
“If he’s going away soon,” said the little girl, “shan’t I wait and let him go under my umbrella?”
Dacier kissed her.
“I’m very much obliged,” he told her; “but I’ve come for a music lesson, so you’d better not wait.”
They were both silent while the child went down the path.
“Really,” said Mildred, “I am—”
“Of course it’s a subterfuge,” said he; “but even at that, why shouldn’t I have a music lesson? It would be such a good way for us to get acquainted.”
“I see no reason for our becoming acquainted,” said Mildred.
Dacier looked into the distance.
“Even that little girl,” he said, “could read my face and see the sort of fellow I am—honest as daylight, kind, simple—”
Not for the world would Mildred smile.
“I take only children as pupils,” she remarked.
“The sign doesn’t say so,” Dacier pointed out. “I noticed that sign when I was here before. Legally, I’m not so sure that you’d be allowed to discriminate against any person of good character who—”
“Did Mrs. Terhune send you?”
“No. She didn’t need to.”
“Then I’m sorry, but I’m very busy.”
“Miss Henaberry,” said Dacier firmly, “if I’m personally repulsive to you, of course I’ll go at once; but otherwise, why can’t I talk to you for a few minutes? I’m Mrs. Terhune’s nephew, Robert Dacier. I didn’t bring a certificate in my pocket, but I hope you’ll believe me without that.”
Now Dacier was not personally repulsive to Mildred—not in the least. She considered him somewhat presumptuous and overconfident, yet there was about him something that pleased her, something gallant and high-spirited and endearing.
“And he’s Mrs. Terhune’s nephew,” she thought. “Ioughtto be nice to him.”
To tell you the truth, no matter whose nephew he had happened to be, I don’t believe that Mildred could have helped being nice to him. Very few people could. She let him into her neat little sitting room, and she felt concerned, as any properly constituted woman would have felt, because he was dripping wet. She made him a cup of tea, and, having an hour to wait for the next pupil, sat down to talk to him. Dacier was good at talking.
After he had gone, she was not sorry that he had said he would come again. The smoke of his cigarette lingered in the room, and was not disagreeable. The sound of his voice lingered, too, and perhaps the memory of his audacious, blue-eyed, sunburned face. It was as if a fresh breeze had blown through her neat, lonely little house.
Come again he did, the very next evening, and he made of it the single happy, jolly evening in a long succession of solitary ones. They sat out on the veranda, with the moon shining; and if he had not the respectful humility she had found in other young men, he was none the less interesting for that.
He had no poems to read, as Will Mallet had had. Indeed, he knew little about poetry, or music, or any of the arts; but he said he would like to learn, if she would teach him. When he was going, he asked what time he should come the next day.
“I don’t think you had better come to-morrow,” she said, a little regretfully.
He pointed out that his holiday wouldn’t last forever, and that it did him good to come and hear her talk. He gave other unreasonable reasons, and he did come the next day, and the day after, as well.[Pg 107]
Before a week had passed, Mildred saw that this must be stopped. It made her angry—so very angry that she nearly wept over it alone at night.
“I suppose he thinks, and Mrs. Terhune thinks, that he’s doing a kindness to a poor, forlorn, jilted old maid,” she thought. “He’s entirely too sure of himself. He takes it for granted that I’m glad to see him all the time. He thinks—”
Her ideas of what he thought distressed her beyond measure. That evening, when he appeared again, he found her very cool and aloof—even on the moonlit veranda, and even while he made his best efforts to amuse her.
“Mr. Dacier,” she said suddenly, “I’m very sorry, but I think you’d better not come any more.”
His voice, when he answered had a curious gentleness.
“Why?” he asked.
She was silent for a few moments.
“Because—I’m afraid Mr. Mallet wouldn’t like it,” she said at length. “While he’s away—”
Dacier got down from the railing and began to walk up and down.
“You know, I’m engaged to him,” she added.
“Yes, I know,” said Dacier; “but—”
Mildred felt her face grow hot in the darkness.
“I suppose you’ve heard all sorts of malicious gossip!” she said vehemently.
“Yes—I did hear—something,” he answered slowly.
“You thought he wasn’t coming back?”
Dacier had taken his hat. He paused at the top of the steps, and looked at her.
“I can’t imagine any man not coming back—to you!” he said.
As he was coming down the lane the next morning, he met the rosy, moonfaced little girl in spectacles, and they stopped for a chat. She told him all about her kitten at home, and talked of other interesting topics. They shook hands at parting.
“Oh, my goodness, Mr. Dacier!” she called, as he was moving off. “I’ve forgotten Miss Henaberry’s letter. I stop in at the post office for her, you know, to ask if there are any letters, only there never are; but there was one to-day.”
“I’ll take it,” said Dacier, not sorry for this pretext.
He was at a loss how to proceed. He couldn’t hurt the obstinate, proud creature by so much as hinting that he knew Mallet would never come back. He had decided to entreat her to give up this elusive lover; and he understood Mildred well enough to know that she would make it hard for him.
Not that Dacier shirked things that were hard. Whatever his faults, he was not lacking in courage and persistence. It was the pretense, the cruel comedy which her rebellious haughtiness made necessary, that he dreaded. He wanted to be utterly candid and truthful with her, because it was his nature to be so, and because he loved her.
He was notably less cheerful than usual as he entered her cottage.
“Here’s a letter,” he said casually.
When he saw her face, however, he was no longer casual. She had grown very pale. She looked at the letter with the oddest expression.
“Oh!” she said, with a gasp.
“What’s the matter?” he asked anxiously. “Please tell me, Mildred!”
She recovered herself, and even managed a constrained smile.
“It’s from Will,” she said. “Excuse me, please, while I read it.”
In great agitation, Dacier walked up and down the room.
“Did she write it herself?” he thought. “It can’t be from him! Good Lord, if he did come back, she’d marry him, whatever he was, just out of sheer pig-headedness! Nothing would count with her, in comparison with her infernal pride. All she wants is to show people—who don’t care a straw—that she hasn’t been jilted. She deserves to be jilted! She’s heartless! She’s inhuman! She doesn’t care—”
When she reëntered the room, every trace of anger and resentment left him. In her face, still pale, but very composed now, he saw plain and clear, her secret anguish and her terrible stubbornness. She was going to send him away, at any cost to herself or to him. She was going to drive away love and keep cold pride alone in her heart.
“Will’s coming back,” she said quietly.
Dacier looked at her. He thought that he had never seen so lovely a face as this, with her dark, straight brows, her steady eyes, her mutinous and defiant mouth. Even folly was dignified there.
“Are you glad, Mildred?” he asked.
What humiliation and loneliness and bit[Pg 108]ter disillusionment had never been able to do, his question accomplished. Tears filled her eyes. She struggled with them, and with rising sobs.
“Yes,” she said. “Of course I’m very glad!”
Will Mallet had an unhappy, furtive conscience trapped inside him. The words of other people, even things that he read, would stir up the poor creature and send it rushing about in its cage, terribly alarmed. It made Will so uncomfortable that he would do anything to quiet it. Sometimes he fed it with lies, sometimes he reasoned with it, and sometimes he plunged into rash action.
He had told his conscience that it was for Mildred’s sake alone that he left her. When he had “got on his feet,” he would come back and claim her, and she would praise his nobility and self-sacrifice. In the meantime he wouldn’t be obliged to work so very hard and be so very earnest—two things which disagreed with him.
Unfortunately, however, he could not “get on his feet.” On the contrary, it might be said that he fell down pretty heavily. Of course, he was proud of the fact that his poems were not “popular,” but he would not have objected to their being a little more profitable. Bitterly he said that a man must live, and he got a job as proof reader in a publishing house. No use! When certain phrases of an author distressed him, he would make changes. When he had been forbidden to do that, he wanted to point out such passages and argue about them.
After this, a cousin got him an amorphous job in an office, but the light hurt his eyes. Then, on the strength of his good appearance and his learning, he secured a position as rewrite man on a newspaper. Well, newspaper offices are easy to get into and still easier to get out of. Again a cousin helped him, and again he failed. It was summer now, and he began to think with longing of the country.
“The only thing left,” he reflected, “is to go back and try that florist business seriously. I’ll write to Mildred first, of course. She’ll understand. She’s very loyal. Moreover, she’s not the sort of girl most men take to. She’s—well, she’s too fine. She’ll help me to get the thing started, and then we’ll be married.”
So he had written, and very promptly he received an answer. He sat on the edge of the bed in his furnished room and read it again, while his conscience flew wildly about inside him.