She hadn't told her husband.
She had been on the point of telling him, but for once her great gift of frankness had failed her. She had not feared any storm that might burst upon her own head; it was only that her heart had rebelled against adding to the weight of care and sorrow which her husband already carried. Let him have what pleasure he could out of the trip to Palm Beach. When he returned she could do her telling.
The fact that she had not told, and was not going to for some time, troubled her. She felt, she said, as if she was lying. She made it very clear that her reticence was for his sake, not for her own.
Personally I rejoiced in the failure of her frankness. Trouble enough was bound to come of our love for each other; at best there would be weary months of waiting for old knots to be untied before there could be any question of tying new ones. There would be at least one dreadful interview to be gone through with John Fulton; many readjustments of friendships, some friends would side with him, some with her; and last and worst, that moment when I should have to tell my mother and she would grow old before my eyes.
"There'll be heaps of little worries and troubles, Lucy, dear," I said; "bound to be. But we'll not begin to think about them till John comes back from Palm Beach. If it's wrong for us to love each other at all, at least we are going to make it as right as we can. We owe ourselves all the unalloyed happiness we can lay hands on. So—let's pretend."
We sat on the sofa in the Fultons' living-room holding hands, like two children.
"Let's pretend," I said, "that there aren't any complications; that time has gone backward ten years; that we've just gotten engaged; that there's nobody to disapprove and be unhappy about it. I can pretend true, if you can."
"It's easy for me," said Lucy; "I was never any good at remembering or looking forward, never any good at anything that wasn't going on right there and then. Oh, I'm so glad it'syou!"
"Why, Lucy?"
"Because you're not a bit like me. If you were like me, we wouldn't think of what would happen later on, we'd just go away together. It's so complicated and foolish to think we can't. Laws and people make such a snarl of things. I wouldn't try to untangle it, I'd just cut it all to pieces, and then I suppose we'd be sorry."
"Yes, dear, we'd be very, very sorry. And the world would make us suffer almost more than our love could make up to us for. So we'll just have to pretend for a while."
"And besides," she said in a startled sort of way, "I might fall out of love with you, mightn't I? Oh, I've fallen out of love lots of times—then with John, and maybe I'll fail you. You must know that I'm not any good. But even if I'm not, I do love you. Oh, I do."
"Do you?"
"And Itrustyou so. There's nobody so kind and thoughtful and strong."
It is pleasant for an unkind, thoughtless weak man to be told such untruths by the woman he loves. And for a few moments I imagined I had the qualities that she had wished upon me, nay, loved upon me. For a few moments there was no kindness, no thoughtfulness, no strength of which I was incapable.
"When your arms are around me I know that nothing can hurt me."
I was holding her in my arms now. But there came in through the hall a pattering of little feet, and by the time Jock and Hurry had burst into the room I was at a garden window looking out, and Lucy had caught up from her work bag that Penelope's web of a silk necktie upon which she so often worked, and made no progress.
"Has Favver come back?"
"Why, no, you little goose. He's gone to Palm Beach. We took him to the train. He won't be back tomorrow, nor the day after. Nor the day after that," and she halted only when she had come to about the tenth tomorrow. "And now make your manners to Mr. Mannering."
In fiction children and dogs have an intuitive aversion for the villain of the piece. But Jock and Hurry had none for me. Indeed they liked me very much and looked to me for treats, and rides round the block, and romping games in which I fled and they pursued. But then it was only since yesterday that I had become a genuine villain. Had their intuition made the discovery? I think I was a little anxious.
But they rushed upon me, and we were to remain for the present at least, so it seemed, the same old friends.
It flashed across my mind that some day in the not far future these children would live under my roof; surely the courts would award them to Lucy; and I highly resolved to be a genuine father to them through thick and thin. Somehow or other they must always be fond of me. Whatever I had to leave when I died they must share equally with any children that I might happen to have of my own. Children? I caught Lucy's eyes. We looked at each other across the tops of those children's heads, and read each other's thoughts. I know this, because when Jock and Hurry had been sent away, I said: "Did you know what I was thinking of just then? I was thinking, wondering, hoping——"
"I couldn't love you," she said quietly, "and not want what you want and hope what you hope."
"Lucy!"
I touched her hair with the tips of my fingers.
"What, dear?"
"There was never anyone in the world so wonderful as you, so beautiful, so generous."
"I suppose it's nice to have you think so." She looked with great contentment at the necktie.
"You haven't told me when Schuyler is coming."
"He's coming tomorrow."
"That's fine. But it will have its funny side."
"Why?"
"Well, I shall have to tell him all about us, won't I? And we were schoolmates together, and I think telling him I love his sister and want to marry her and asking his consent has its funny side.He'llbe on our side anyway, Lucy."
"I'm afraid nobody will think it's as nice as we do."
"Well, of course, it isn't as nice for anybody as it is for us."
"Will you tell him right away?"
"Couldn't I wait a few days? Somehow I like to bask in the sunshine of justyouknowing and justmeknowing. What doyouthink?"
She gave me a wonderful look. "I'm not here to think—I'm here to take orders from my dear."
I let five days go before I told Schuyler. They were five wonderful days, during which we borrowed no trouble from the past or the future; five days during which we agreed to cross our bridges only when we came to them. On that fifth day I received a long letter from Harry Colemain dated Palm Beach.
MY DEAR FELLOW [he wrote]: At the risk of losing you I think that I must tell you something of the experiences that I have been having with John Fulton. To begin with he told me about his wife's failure of affection and their domestic smash-up. He told me going down in the train. We shared the drawing-room. Every time I was jolted into wakefulness, I found him wide awake. For five days I don't think he has slept a wink. He looks parched and dry like a mummy. He has tried very hard to be a cheerful companion, and we have fished and swum and gone through the motions of all the Palm Beach recreations. But his mind is never for one single instant clear of his troubles. We have become very intimate. I think he had to talk or die. He apologizes very often for having talked and continuing to do so, but throws himself upon what he calls my mercifulness. He talks in a circle, always coming back to the questionswhyandwhat.Whyhas it happened?Whathas he done to deserve it? He searches his memory for reasons as you look for bits of gold in a handful of sand. Yes, he was very cross once about some money, but that was years before she stopped loving him. It couldn't bethat, etc., etc.
Our rooms are separated by a little parlor. I'm a sound sleeper, and hate being disturbed, but I have given him positive orders to wake me if he gets lonely and wants to talk. He's only obeyed these orders once. And then he didn't exactly obey them, he waked me because he couldn't control his nerves. He couldn't sleep, as usual, so he started to get up, and just when he got his legs over the side of the bed he began to laugh. It was his laughter that waked me. By the time I was wide awake the laughter sounded very ugly, and by the time I got to him it was mixed with awful sobs that came all the way from his diaphragm and seemed as if they were going to tear him to pieces. I turned on the light, but the moment I saw his face I turned it off. It isn't decent for one man to see another have hysterics. We haven't spoken of the thing since, but he knows that I came in and sat by him and felt horribly sorry for him. I can read this in his eye. And I think he would do anything in the world for me. The next morning his voice was very hoarse; sometimes a woman's voice is that way after she's paid somewhat over-handsomely for being a woman. I am trying to convey to you the impression that the man is in a terribly bad way, and through no possible fault of his own, which must make his torment harder to bear.
What I think about Lucy Fulton is simply this: that she ought to be cowhided until she sees which side her bread is buttered on. And this is where you come in. You're great friends with her, and have a lot of influence with her. John says so. She admires what she is pleased to call your judgment. Can't you make her see that just because she has been spoiled, and given all the best of everything, she's gotten bored, and is letting one of the best men in this world eat his heart out with grieving? She ought to lie to him. She ought to telegraph him to come back, and when she gets him back she ought to make him think that she still loves him. Every woman has at heart one chance to be decent. This is hers.
Another thing. John has betrayed his notion that Lucy sees too much of you for her own good, at this time. He doesn't even imagine that she cares for you in any way that she shouldn't or you for her; but he does wish—well, that you'd gone to California when you planned to, etc., etc. Now the season's pretty nearly over, and I know that a few weeks one way or the other never did matter to you and won't now. Of course, it has its ridiculous side, but I really think it would comfort John Fulton quite a little if he heard that you had left Aiken. You see he's half crazy with grief and insomnia, and he's got it in his head that if Lucy had fewer other people to amuse her, she might get bored again and in sheer boredom turn again to him. But just use your influence with Lucy, if you've got any. I tell you on the honor of a cynical and skeptical man, that if things go on the way they are going, I think John Fulton will die of a broken heart. You see, he's had too much—more than you and I can possibly imagine—and that much he has now lost. If he isn't to get back any portion of it, he'll curl up and die.
Hoping you're having a fine time and fine weather,Always your affectionate friend,H.C.
Well, the days of basking in the sunshine on top of the powder magazine were over.
After some thought, I went to Lucy's brother and gave him Harry's letter to read. He had slept late, and I found him dressing.
Schuyler was, of course, deeply troubled and concerned. That he himself hadn't had "an inkling of this—not an inkling," seemed for some minutes quite important to him, for he made the statement a number of times. Then, for he was energetic, and, like Lucy, oftenest in a hurry, he said:
"The thing to do is for us to take this letter to Lucy, stand over her while she reads it, and then throw hot shot into her. Why it's a damned shame! John's been twice as good a husband as Lucy's been a wife. And now she does this to him." Then something appeared to strike Schuyler's sense of humor, for he burst out laughing. "And he's getting jealous of you!" he said gleefully. "When did you first become a snake in the grass?"
"Perhaps you'll end by calling me that," I said gravely. "Stop laughing, Schuyler. A very sad thing has happened and a very wonderful thing. Lucy and I——"
His face became instantly as grave as mine. "Lucy and you?"
"We hope that you'll be on our side."
"And John doesn't know?"
"You see by Harry's letter that although he doesn'tknow, his intuition is trying to tell him."
"How long's this been goin' on?"
"It just came, Schuyler, happened, was—not many days ago. We didn't see it coming, and——"
He interrupted sharply, his eyes grown suddenly cold. "I want to know if you have still a sort of right to be in this house?"
"Why—yes—I think so."
"Think—don't youknow?"
He gave a harsh short laugh.
"I know what you are driving at, of course. We care about each other. Ifthat'swrong, that's all that is wrong."
"You take a weight off me," he said, and his tone was more friendly.
"You always maintained that love was its own justification, Schuyler?"
"And I've heard you maintain that it wasn't. Now we seem to have swapped beliefs."
He turned to his dressing-table and tied his tie. While so doing he muttered: "Pleasant vacation in sunny South."
And then was silent. I could not think of anything to say. Having finished dressing he thrust his hands into his trousers pockets and began to pace about the disordered room.
"Shall we go out in the sun?" I suggested.
"A dark cave would be more in keepin' with my feelings. Let's stop here a little and talk. What's the idea anyway?"
"Why, the usual idea, I suppose."
"John to give Lucy a divorce, you and Lucy to marry shortly after, and Jock and Hurry to go to hell! I think less than nothing of the usual idea. To begin with, why should John give Lucy a divorce? She's the one that's done all the harm. IknowI'm her brother. It only helps me to see her character clearer than other people do. Well, say he isn't the fool I think he is. Say hewon'tgive her a divorce? What then?"
"Hadn't we better cross that bridge when we come to it?"
"In the usual way, I suppose. No. I'm too old-fashioned to like usual ways of doing things. Furthermore, I like you and Lucy too much. I don't want to see her life ruined, and John after all is a manufacturer of ammunition. How about crossin' the bridge and findin' him on the other side with a big bang-stick in his hand?"
I shrugged my shoulders, though at heart I was not indifferent to the picture which Schuyler had conjured up.
"Oh," said he, "what a damned mess! Come, we'll talk to Lucy."
I went with him most unwillingly. And I thought it good fortune that we did not find her alone, but with Evelyn, Dawson and the children.
Schuyler kissed his sister good morning with warm, brotherly affection and gave her a playful pat or two on the back.
"All we need," he said cheerfully, "is old John, and a girl apiece for Archie and me, to be a happy family party."
He made goat's eyes at Evelyn and Dawson. The latter blushed. But the former returned his glance with a fine and mischievous indifference.
"Now, people," Schuyler continued, "I'm on my vacation. I've plenty of energy, and I'm open to suggestion. You, Evelyn, do you want to ride with me or with Dawson?"
"I want to ride with you, but I'm going to play golf with Dawson."
"When?"
"We were just lingering to say good morning."
She rose a little languidly, and I perceived with misgivings that she and Dawson were really about to depart.
"Well," said Schuyler, "any time you feel like shakin' Dawson, just put me wise, there's a good fellow!"
When Dawson and Evelyn had gone, Schuyler proceeded to get rid of the children. He gave them fifty cents apiece, and said that if he didn't see them or hear them for half an hour they could keep the money.
"Are you trying to get this room all to yourself?" asked Lucy. "Do you want Archie and me to vanish, too?"
"No," said Schuyler; "much as you and Archie may wish to, I want nothing of the kind. Lucy, I think you'd better telegraph John to come home, don't you?"
"I've told Schuyler, Lucy," I said.
"And that's a good thing," said Schuyler; "because I don't have to take sides. I like you all. You and Archiehaveto take your side, and John has to take his, naturally."
Lucy, her hands folded in her lap, looked bored and annoyed.
"A lot of talk isn't going to help any," she said.
"For certain reasons, Lucy," said Schuyler, "you and Archie are just now as blind as two bats. You don't see what you are doing, and you don't see what you are up against."
"I've only one life," said Lucy, "and it's my own."
"But it isn't," said Schuyler; "you gave it to John. I'd be mightily hurt and shocked to find out that you were an Indian giver."
"John will give my life back to me when he knows."
"Well, find out if he will or not. Send for him. Tell him what's happened."
"I think that would be best, Lucy," I said.
"Then, of course, I'll send," she said. "But——"
"John, you know," said Schuyler, "may not take you two very seriously. He may think that Lucy's feelings for you, Archie, are just a passing whim. Upon the grounds of his own experience with Lucy, he would be within his rights to feel that way. Why not," his face brightened into a sort of cheerfulness, "why not test yourselves a little? You go north, Archie, and wait around, and then, after a while, if you and Lucy feel the same, it will be time enough to tell John. It's all been too sudden for you to feel sure of yourselves. It isn't as if neither of you had ever been in love before and gotten over it. As a matter of cold fact, you've both been tried before now and found wanting. So I think you ought to go slow—for John's sake. He's the fellow that's been tried and that hasn't been found wanting."
It was obvious that Lucy did not like her brother's suggestion at all, for she rose suddenly, her hands clenched, and exclaimed:
"Oh, you don't understand at all. How can I go on living with a man I don't love? How can you ask me to be so false to myself and to Archie——"
"And to Jock and Hurry?" asked Schuyler gently.
She showed no emotion at the mention of these names.
"Don't they count for anything?" persisted Schuyler.
"Of course they count for something, so does poor John. Do you think it's any pleasure to have hurt him so? But is it my fault if they don't countenough?"
Here she came swiftly to my side, and slid her hand under my arm and clung to it. "They count," she said, "but they don't count enough." And she turned to me. "You are all that counts. I'd give up my life for you, and I'd give up my children and everything. You know that."
"'You are all that counts . . . you know that.'""'You are all that counts . . . you know that.'"
"'You are all that counts . . . you know that.'""'You are all that counts . . . you know that.'"
There was a long silence. Then Schuyler, speaking very slowly, said: "You'd go away with him, and never see Jock and Hurry again, not be able to go to them when they were sick, not to be at little Hurry's wedding when she grows up and gets married.… For God's sake!"
"Nowdo you realize that I'm in earnest?" she cried.
Schuyler turned quietly on his heel and left the room. After a while we heard his voice in the distance, mingling joyfully with the voices of Jock and Hurry.
Lucy's face, all tears now, was pressed to my breast.
"You are giving up too much for me, my darling," I said; "I'm not worth it."
"But if you went out of my life I'd die!"
"I won't go out of your life, Lucy. But there are lives and lives. We could meet and be together to gather strength for the times we had to be apart."
At that she had a renewal of crying, and cried for a long time.
"It isn't right for Jock and Hurry to run any risk of losing you," I said, "and love—Lucy—love with renunciation is a wonderful thing, and a strong thing."
"I'm not strong. I don't want to be strong. I just want to give and give and give."
"We could have our own life apart from everybody else—but not a hidden guilty life—a life to be proud of—a life in which you would strengthen me for my other life and I would strengthen you for yours."
She stopped crying all at once and freed herself from my arms. "Then you don't want me?"
"I want you."
She lifted her hands to my shoulders. "Suppose we find that we can't stand a life of love—with renunciation?"
"At least we would have tried to do what seemed to make for the happiness of the most people."
"And you think I ought to live on with John, as—as his wife?"
"No, I couldn't bear that—but as his friend, Lucy, as the mother of Jock and Hurry. Oh, no," I said; "I couldn't bear it, if—if you weren't faithful to me."
"And you would be faithful to me?"
"In thought and deed."
"And we'd just be wonderful friends?"
"Lovers, too, Lucy. We couldn't help that."
And I kissed her on the forehead. And at that moment I felt very noble, and that the way of life which I had proposed was a very fine way of life, and possible of being lived.
"Then," she said, "John mustn't know. He must never know. It will always be our secret. But then Schuyler knows."
"When I tell him what we mean to do, he won't tell."
And the first chance I had I told Schuyler. And finished with, "So don't tell John, will you?"
"I'll see how happy Lucy manages to make him, first," said Schuyler. "But if you think he won't find out all by himself, you're mistaken. It's a rotten business all around."
And he looked at me with a kind of comical amazement. "Think of Lucy carin' more for you than for Jock and Hurry!" he exclaimed. "I suppose you regale her from time to time with episodes from your past life?… Well, if I didn't think you'd both get tired of each other before long, I'd feel worse. One thing, though, if I promise you that I won't give you away to John, will you promise me for yourself and for Lucy that you won't take any serious step, without telling me first, and giving me a chance to try to dissuade you?"
"As there is to be no question of a serious step," I said, "I promise."
Ours was to be one of the most beautiful and beneficial loves of history. Almost we fell in love with our new way of loving. It had, we felt, a dignity and a purpose lacking in other loves. To look each other in the eyes, and feel that in a moment of strength, spurred by pity for those who had no such love as ours to sustain them, we had renounced each other, was a state of serenity and peace.
It added to the beauty of our renunciation that it claimed no luster of publicity, but had been made in quiet privacy. No one, we thought, will ever know; yet it will have been strong and pure, so that the world cannot but be the better for it.
We delighted for a while in our supreme renunciation as children delight in a new toy. And even now I can look back upon that time and wish that there could have been a little more substance to the shadow. It was a time of wonderful and sweet intimacy. We were to tell each other everything. There was delight in that. There was the delight of looking ahead and planning the meetings that should be ours in other places, until at last John himself came to realize that in our loving friendship was nothing unbeautiful, or unbeneficent, and meetings would happen when or where we pleased, the world silenced by the husband's approval.
So I did not take Harry Colemain's well-meant advice, and leave Aiken.
For a while it would suffice John to know that Lucy intended to stand by him and be the keeper of his house; to put his interests first, and to make up to him in dutifulness and economy for the love which she could not but reserve. Yes, indeed! Riding slowly through the spring woods, I made bold to preach a gospel of new life to her, and she listened very meekly, like a blessed angel, and she felt sure that from me she would derive the will and the strength. Mostly it was a gospel of economy that I preached and how best she might help her husband back upon his feet. And before his return from Palm Beach she had made a beginning. She bought a book to keep accounts in, and she got together all the bills she could lay hands on, and added them up to an appalling total (several, for it came different each time) and she stacked the bills in order of their pressingness, with the requests for payment from lawyers and collectors on top, and she felt an unparalleled glow of virtue and helpfulness.
And one day she took Jock and Hurry in the runabout (Cornelius Twombly behind) and drove to the station to welcome John home. How sweet the sight of those three faces must have seemed to him after absence! Indeed they had seemed very sweet to me as I looked into them just before they drove stationward. I was not to show up for two or three days. That was one compromise on Harry Colemain's advice. It would show John that Lucy and I were not entirely engrossed in each other's society. It would give him time to turn around and see how he liked the fact that Lucy was going to stick to him, and in many ways be a better wife to him. It would give me an opportunity to see, and be seen by many people. It would, in short, be a beginning of knocking on the head and silencing most of the talk that there had been about Lucy and me.
When you have a secret you might as well do your best to keep it.
So I did not see John Fulton for three days after his return from Palm Beach, and then by accident.
He had stopped at my father's house to leave the rod and tackle-box which I had loaned him, and I, happening to be in the hall, opened the door myself, and went out to speak with him.
"Have a good time?" I asked.
The man looked so sick that I pitied him.
"Mechanically, yes. I went through the motions," he said. "That's a beautiful rod. It was the most useful thing I had along. Going to the club? I'll drive you."
"Will you? Thanks. I'll just put these things in the hall."
We drove slowly toward the club.
"Glad to be back?"
"Very. I couldn't have stayed away from Lucy and the kids much longer, even if I'd been held."
He laughed gently.
"Lucy," he said, "must have thought that I wasn't ever coming back. She's been trying to put the house in order."
"How do you mean?"
"Oh, finding out how much money's owed, and making a beginning of tying up loose ends."
"Kids all right? I haven't set eyes on 'em for three or four days."
"Yes, the kids are fine," and he added, after a pause, "and Lucy's fine too."
There were several men in the club and they made John heartily welcome, and told him how much better he looked than when he went away. As a matter of fact he looked much worse.
We all had tea together and asked questions about Palm Beach, and if he had seen so and so, and if he'd brought any money away from the gambling place, and what was new, and amusing, etc.
"Do you know," he said all of a sudden, "there was one very interesting thing that happened. Anybody mind if I talk shop?"
Nobody did; so he went on: "I had a telegram from a Baron Schroeder asking if it would be convenient for me to see him. He came all the way down to Palm Beach, talked to me all the time between trains, and flew away north again. He wanted to know how many rifle cartridges I could make in a year, at a price, a very round price, how many in five years. He wanted to know if I could convert any of my plant into a manufactory for shrapnel, and so on. What interested me is that he should take all that trouble over a small concern like mine. It looks as if someone saw a time when there would be a great dearth of ammunition. Two days ago Schroeder had gone away. I was braced, while in swimming, by a Russian gentleman. He apologized and plied me with the same sort of questions; I gave him the same sort of offhand answers that I had given Schroeder, and then I asked him what it was all about, and I told him about Schroeder without mentioning names. He said he could only guess, but that if I would sign a contract he would keep my plant running full for five years. It looks, doesn't it, as if somebody had decided to change the map of Europe, and as if others suspected the design?"
"Well, what came of it? Did you land a contract? Tell more."
"Nothing has come of it yet. But I think something will. I'm to meet the Russian in New York shortly."
"Why the Russian? The Baron saw you first."
"The Russian had better manners," said Fulton simply. "I think he liked me, and I know I liked him!"
Fulton asked me to dinner, but I refused, and so it was nearly four days before I saw Lucy again. In the meanwhile Harry Colemain told me more about the Palm Beach trip. The ammunition inquiries had, it seemed, strengthened Fulton's nerves; there had been no repetition of the hysterics.
"A man," Harry said, "must be even more down and out than Fulton not to be braced by a prospect of good business. From what he told me, if the contract goes through, he stands to make a fortune."
"Is there anything peculiarly good about the Fulton cartridges, or is Europe just out to gather up all the ammunition she can?"
"It looks rather like a sudden general demand. But of course nobodyknowsanything except the insiders. Fulton says if the contract goes through he can die any time and be sure that his family will be well provided for. That feeling will stiffen his backbone. But you haven't told me if you said anything to Lucy?"
I had been dreading that question as one which could not be answered with complete frankness. I don't enjoy lying. Not that my moral sense revolts, but because I am lazy. Lying calls for deliberate efforts of invention.
"In a general way, yes," I evaded. "But her own good sense has come to the rescue. John's absence gave her a chance to see how she really felt about things. She won't leave him. Indeed, she'll try to make up to him in every way she can for her failure of affection."
"If she doesthat," said Harry, "I daresay the affection will come back. The more you benefit a person the more you like that person. The more you fail in your duty to a person, the less you like that person. I'm delighted with what you say. With all her charm and beauty she can make him happy if she tries."
"I think it's not a question of charm and beauty," I said. "It's a question of keeping house for him, and being a good mother to the children, and being loyal to him and them."
"There are reservations?"
"She doesn't love him."
"Oh," said Harry scornfully, "thatsort of thing won't work."
"We know a good many cases where that sort of thing seems to work."
"It only works when the husband acts like a natural man. Fulton won't. For him only Lucy is possible. There can be no substitute. No. In this case it won't work. He's too young and she's too good-looking."
"Then it won't work," I said shortly.
"She makes me sick," said Harry. "She gets her board and lodging and her clothes and spending money from him, and love and protection, and—Oh, it isn't as if there'd never been anything between them. After all, as far as he's concerned, she's no novice."
"The moment she stopped loving him she became spiritually separated from him."
"Spiritually be damned!" exclaimed Harry. "Don't talk to me. There are women in New York who to keep from starvation, will make love to any man that comes along, for a pittance. They do the very best they can to earn the money. I can't help admiring 'em. But your fashionable married woman, she's too refined, too delicately souled, too spiritual to do anything but eat herself sick on her man's money and spend him into a hole. It's bad enough to be a prostitute who plays the game, but it's a damned sight worse to be a prostitute who doesn't."
"I'm not going to get angry with you, Harry. We've been through too much together. But I think you have said enough. Lucy is one of the finest, purest-minded women in the world."
"Then she ought to be her husband's wife, or get out. If she's not his wife, she's no business grafting on him for board and lodging and pocket money. How long does a pure-minded, good-looking woman keep off the streets if she can't raise the wind any other way? Not long. And how many men can she graft on? Plenty of 'em—once. But not twice. The word goes round about her. 'She's a beauty to look at,' says the word, 'but she doesn't earn her money.'"
"Many marriages," I said, "haveto be re-arranged and compromised."
"Don't sayhaveto be, sayare."
"Harry," I said with great firmness, "the country needs rain like the devil."
After a moment, good humor returned to his face. He said; "You've just won an argument. I also am dry as a bone."
"This isn't the last ride together," said Lucy, "but almost. This time we are really going."
We had turned into Lovers' Lane, outward-bound, the ponies walking.
"John will have to be in New York for many days about this Russian contract, and he doesn't want to take the long trip back. So we're all going together."
"I shan't stay here very long after you've gone."
"No, you mustn't."
"We'll have lots of nice parties in New York."
"John says he's going to sell our house here, or rent it, or get rid of it somehow."
"Why?"
"Because he's been so unhappy in it. He says unless his whole mind is made over we'll never come to Aiken again."
She drew a long breath, and her eyes roved among the great pine trees on either side of the road as if she wished to impress them forever upon her memory.
"I love it all so much," she said simply.
"I'm so sorry," I said; "and it means that I won't ever be coming back for more than a minute. And I love it, too."
"We're to spend the summer in Stamford to be near the works.Stamford!"
"You'll find lots of people to like, and bully sailing and swimming."
"And bully spells of white-hot, damp weather, and bully big mosquitoes."
"It ought to be cheap."
"Very cheap."
Then we both laughed. Then we were silent.
"Tell me," I said, "how is the great compromise working?"
"I don't know. I told him how I'd made up my mind to stick by the ship, so that there wouldn't be any scandal, or anything to break up his home, or hurt the children, and how I was going to be better about money, and he said, 'Very well, Lucy, we'll try it for a while, but I don't think compromises are much good.' He wants me to do all I'm trying to do, and be his wife too. I thought he'd—Oh, I thought he'd be pleased and grateful—instead of that he tries to be cold to me, and is very sharp and stern."
"It takes time to settle down to any new modus vivendi."
"Well," she cried, "I'm not doing it because I want to, am I? I'm only doing it for his sake. I'm doing every blessed thing Icanto save the situation; and if there are things I simplycan'tdo—why he ought to be generous and understand. Oh, I know it isn't going to work! And all the time when he isn't being cold and stern, he—he's trying to make me love him again, and come back to him. And right in the middle of that he'll fly into a rage, and say that I ought to becompelledto behave like a rational human being."
"But he wouldn't compel you to do anything you didn't want to do, Lucy. Trust him for that."
"I don't know. He's so different from the way he used to be. Sometimes I'm afraid. Sometimes I am afraid to be alone in the same house with him. If I didn't have you to back me up, and give me strength I'd—but it can't last long. I know it can't. And I don't know that it's worth trying."
"You are still fond of him, Lucy?"
"And sorry for him, Oh, so sorry. But fondness and sorrow aren't everything."
"It will be better when he has the new contract to occupy him, and keep him away. It won't be an all-day affair then. And all the time you and I'll be meeting to talk things over, and borrow strength to go on with. It isn't easy for me either, dear. And of course, if after trial we find it won't work, why then it will be our duty to ourselves to cut the Gordian knot."
She turned toward me and we looked into each other's eyes for a long time.
"I've given him all I can," she said. "It isn't enough. It never will be enough. Oh, if there are knots to be cut, let's cut 'em and have done with it."
I dropped my reins, and leaning wide, took her in my arms and kissed her many times.
"We are romantic children," I said, "to think that there could be any other way. God bless you, my darling, we'll cut all the knots, and begin life all over again, and always be together."
She became then wonderfully cheerful and excited, and riding always at a walk, no longer on roads, but through the deep woods, we made our plans for the future.
Nothing was to be said to John until we were in a bigger place than Aiken. The bigger the place the smaller the scandal. I offered (with grave misgivings) to do the telling; but Lucy would not have it so. "It's his right," she said, "to know from me." John having been told, would, we felt sure from what we knew of his character, be willing to do the right thing. It wasn't as if he had been dishonored in any way. He would even be grateful to us for having been strong-minded and aboveboard. It would hurt him terribly. Yes, but a sudden final hurt was better than the lingering sickness from which he was now suffering. There would, of course, be no question of alimony. My father, much as he might disapprove of the whole affair, was not only fond of me, but fond of Lucy, and he would see us through.
It would take a long while to get a divorce. That was the darkest cloud on the horizon. But we must face that cheerfully; our reward would be all the greater when it came.
That John would be unwilling to give up Lucy even when he knew that she loved someone else never occurred to us. He belonged to that class of men whose code is to give the women all the best of everything. He was too fond of Lucy to wish to see her hurt. And if he wouldn't give her a divorce, hurt she would be, for in that unlikely event we were determined to jump on the nearest steamer and sail away for parts unknown.
"Why not come in?" said Lucy, when we had finished our ride. "You haven't been near the house for days, so it won't be very noticeable."
"All right," I said, "for a minute."
It was between dusk and dark. The lights had not been turned on in the hall. The opportunity seemed rare and sweet. We stood for one brief fleeting moment closely enlaced—and swiftly separated, and stood breathing fast, and listening.
Lucy was the first to make up her mind.
She stepped swiftly to the dining-room door and flung it open. She was in time to see the trim shoulders and white cap of a servant disappearing from the dining-room into the pantry.
"Who was it?"
"My new waitress."
"Hilda?"
Lucy smiled grimly. "She'll leave tomorrow."
"Don't discharge her. She might tell. Perhaps she didn't see."
I joined Lucy in the dining-room, closed the door, knelt and looked back into the hall through the keyhole.
"Could she see?"
I rose to my feet and nodded.
"He mustn't hear from anyone but me," said Lucy. "I'll speak to her."
But Hilda was not in the pantry.
"I don't think she'll tell," I said, "and after all what does it matter? Let's take a chance."
Mentally I resolved to communicate with Hilda at the earliest possible moment, and to use whatever influence I had upon her. So I was no sooner in my room at home than I took the receiver from my private telephone and gave the number of the Fultons' house. After an interval I heard Hilda's voice.
"It's Mr. Mannering, Hilda."
"Yes, sir."
"I want to see you about something important."
"I know."
So she knew, did she?
"Can you meet me at ten o'clock tonight?"
"Where?"
"Leave the house at ten sharp, and walk toward the town; I'll be watching for you. You'll come?"
"Yes, sir."