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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/11221-0.txt b/11221-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0b05974 --- /dev/null +++ b/11221-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,16918 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11221 *** + +THE BENT TWIG + +BY + +DOROTHY CANFIELD + +1915 + + + + +CONTENTS + +BOOK I +_IN ARCADIA_ + +CHAPTER + +I SYLVIA'S HOME +II THE MARSHALLS' FRIENDS +III BROTHER AND SISTER +IV EVERY ONE'S OPINION OF EVERY ONE ELSE +V SOMETHING ABOUT HUSBANDS +VI THE SIGHTS OF LA CHANCE +VII "WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF-EVIDENT ..." +VIII SABOTAGE +IX THE END OF CHILDHOOD + + +BOOK II +_A FALSE START TO ATHENS_ + +X SYLVIA'S FIRST GLIMPSE OF MODERN CIVILIZATION +XI ARNOLD'S FUTURE Is CASUALLY DECIDED +XII ONE MAN'S MEAT +XIII AN INSTRUMENT IN TUNE +XIV HIGHER EDUCATION +XV MRS. DRAPER BLOWS THE COALS +XVI PLAYING WITH MATCHES +XVII MRS. MARSHALL STICKS TO HER PRINCIPLES +XVIII SYLVIA SKATES MERRILY ON THIN ICE +XIX AS A BIRD OUT OF A SNARE +XX "BLOW, WIND; SWELL, BILLOW; AND SWIM, BARK!" +XXI SOME YEARS DURING WHICH NOTHING HAPPENS + + +BOOK III +_IN CAPUA AT LAST_ + +XXII A GRATEFUL CARTHAGINIAN +XXIII MORE TALK BETWEEN YOUNG MODERNS +XXIV ANOTHER BRAND OF MODERN TALK +XXV NOTHING IN THE LEAST MODERN +XXVI MOLLY IN HER ELEMENT +XXVII BETWEEN WINDWARD AND HEMLOCK MOUNTAINS +XXVIII SYLVIA ASKS HERSELF "WHY NOT?" +XXIX A HYPOTHETICAL LIVELIHOOD +XXX ARNOLD CONTINUES TO DODGE THE RENAISSANCE +XXXI SYLVIA MEETS WITH PITY +XXXII MUCH ADO +XXXIII "WHOM GOD HATH JOINED..." +XXXIV SYLVIA TELLS THE TRUTH +XXXV "A MILESTONE PASSED, THE ROAD SEEMS CLEAR" +XXXVI THE ROAD IS NOT SO CLEAR +XXXVII "... _His wife and children perceiving it, began + to cry after him to return; but the man put his + fingers in his ears and ran on, crying, 'Life! + Life Eternal_!'" +XXXVIII SYLVIA COMES TO THE WICKET GATE +XXXIX SYLVIA DRIFTS WITH THE MAJORITY + + +BOOK IV +_THE STRAIT PATH_ + +XL A CALL FROM HOME +XLI HOME AGAIN +XLII "_Strange that we creatures of the petty ways, + Poor prisoners behind these fleshly bars, + Can sometimes think us thoughts with God ablaze, + Touching the fringes of the outer stars_" +XLIII "_Call now; is there any that will answer thee_?" +XLIV "_A bruised reed will He not break, and a dimly + burning wick will He not quench_" +XLV "_That our soul may swim + We sink our heart down, bubbling, under wave_" +XLVI A LONG TALK WITH ARNOLD +XLVII "...AND ALL THE TRUMPETS SOUNDED!" + + + + +THE BENT TWIG + + + + +BOOK I + +_IN ARCADIA_ + + + + +CHAPTER I + +SYLVIA'S HOME + + +Like most happy childhoods, Sylvia's early years lay back of her in a +long, cheerful procession of featureless days, the outlines of which +were blurred into one shimmering glow by the very radiance of their +sunshine. Here and there she remembered patches, sensations, pictures, +scents: Mother holding baby sister up for her to kiss, and the +fragrance of the baby powder--the pine-trees near the house chanting +loudly in an autumn wind--her father's alert face, intent on the +toy water-wheel he was setting for her in the little creek in their +field--the beautiful sheen of the pink silk dress Aunt Victoria had +sent her--the look of her mother's steady, grave eyes when she was so +sick--the leathery smell of the books in the University Library +one day when she followed her father there--the sound of the rain +pattering on the low, slanting roof of her bedroom--these were the +occasional clearly outlined, bright-colored illuminations wrought on +the burnished gold of her sunny little life. But from her seventh +birthday her memories began to have perspective, continuity. She +remembered an occasional whole scene, a whole afternoon, just as it +happened. + +The first of these must have marked the passing of some unrecognized +mental milestone, for there was nothing about it to set it apart from +any one of a hundred afternoons. It may have been the first time she +looked at what was about her, and saw it. + +Mother was putting the baby to bed for his nap--not the +baby-sister--she was a big girl of five by this time, but another +baby, a little year-old brother, with blue eyes and yellow hair, +instead of brown eyes and hair like his two sisters'. And when Mother +stooped over the little bed, her white fichu fell forward and Sylvia +leaned to hold it back from the baby's face, a bit of thoughtfulness +which had a rich reward in a smile of thanks from Mother. That was +what began the remembered afternoon. Mother's smiles were golden coin, +not squandered on every occasion. Then, she and Mother and Judith +tiptoed out of the bedroom into Mother's room and there stood Father, +with his University clothes on and yet his hair rather rumpled up, as +though he had been teaching very hard. He had a pile of papers in his +hand and he said, "Barbara, are you awfully busy just now?" + +Mother said, Oh no, she wasn't at all. (She never was busy when Father +asked her to do something, although Sylvia could not remember ever +once having seen her sit and do nothing, no, not even for a minute!) +Then Father said, "Well, if you _could_ run over these, I'd have time +to have some ball with the seminar after they're dismissed. These are +the papers the Freshmen handed in for that Economics quiz." Mother +said, "Sure she could," or the equivalent of that, and Father thanked +her, turned Judith upside-down and right-side-up again so quick that +she didn't know what had happened, and left them all laughing as they +usually were when Father ran down from the study for something. + +So Sylvia and Judith, quite used to this procedure, sat down on the +floor with a book to keep them quiet until Mother should be through. +Neither of them could read, although Sylvia was beginning to learn, +but they had been told the stories so many times that they knew them +from the pictures. The book they looked at that day had the story of +the people who had rowed a great boat across the water to get a gold +sheepskin, and Sylvia told it to Judith, word for word, as Father +always told it. She glanced up at Mother from time to time to make +sure she was getting it right; and ever afterwards the mention of the +Argonauts brought up before Sylvia's eyes the picture of her mother +that day, sitting very straight, her strong brown fingers making an +occasional mark on the papers, as she turned them over with a crisp +rustle, her quiet face bent, in a calm fixity of attention, over the +pages. + +Before they knew it, the work was done, Father had come for the +papers, and showed Sylvia one more twist in the acrobatic stunt they +were learning together. She could already take his hands and run up +to his shoulders in one squirrel-like dash; but she was to learn the +reverse and come down on the other side, and she still got tangled up +with which foot to put first. So they practised whenever they had, as +now, a minute or two to spare. + +Then Judith was set to play with her blocks like the baby she still +was, while Sylvia and Mother had a lesson in reading. Sylvia could +remember the very sound of Mother's clear voice as she corrected a +mistake. They were reading a story about what happened to a drop of +water that fell into the brook in their field; how, watering the +thirsty cornfields as it flowed, the brook ran down to the river +near La Chance, where it worked ever so many mills and factories and +things. Then on through bigger and bigger rivers until it reached +the Mississippi, where boats rode on its back; and so on down to the +ocean. And there, after resting a while, it was pumped up by the sun +and made into a cloud, and the wind blew it back over the land and +to their field again, where it fell into the brook and said, "Why, +how-de-do, Sylvia--you still here?" + +Father had written the story, and Mother had copied it out on the +typewriter so it would be easy for Sylvia to read. + +After they had finished she remembered looking out of the window and +watching the big white clouds drift across the pale bright April sky. +They were full of hundreds of drops of water, she thought, that were +going to fall into hundreds of other brooks, and then travel and work +till they reached the sea, and then rest for a while and begin all +over again. Her dark eyes grew very wide as she watched the endless +procession of white mountains move across the great arch of the sky. +Her imagination was stirred almost painfully, her mind expanding with +the effort to take in the new conception of size, of great numbers, of +the small place of her own brook, her own field in the hugeness of +the world. And yet it was an ordered hugeness full of comforting +similarity! Now, no matter where she might go, or what brooks she +might see, she would know that they were all of one family, that the +same things happened to them all, that every one ended in the ocean. +Something she had read on a piece of paper made her see the familiar +home field with the yellow water of the little creek, as a part of the +whole world. It was very strange. She tried to tell Mother something +of what was in her mind, but, though Mother listened in a sympathetic +silence, it was evident that she could make nothing out of the +incoherent account. Sylvia thought that she would try to tell Father, +the next chance she had. Even at seven, although she loved her mother +passionately and jealously, she was aware that her father's mind was +more like her own. He understood some things that Mother didn't, +although Mother was always, always right, and Father wasn't. She fell +into silence again, standing by her mother's knee, staring out of the +window and watching the clouds move steadily across the sky doing +their share of the world's work for all they looked so soft and lazy. +Her mother did not break in on this meditative contemplation. She took +up her sewing-basket and began busily to sew buttons on a small pair +of half-finished night-drawers. The sobered child beside her, gazing +up at the blue-and-white infinity of the sky, heard faintly and +distantly, for the first time in her life, the whirring reverberations +of the great mystic wheel of change and motion and life. + +Then, all at once, there was a scraping of chairs overhead in Father's +study, a clattering on the stairs, and the sound of a great many +voices. The Saturday seminar was over. The door below opened, and the +students came out, Father at the head, very tall, very straight, his +ruddy hair shining in the late afternoon sun, his shirt-sleeves rolled +up over his arms, and a baseball in his hand. "Come on, folks," Sylvia +heard him call, as he had so many times before. "Let's have a couple +of innings before you go!" Sylvia must have seen the picture a hundred +times before, but that was the first time it impressed itself on her, +the close-cut grass of their yard as lustrous as enamel, the big +pine-trees standing high, the scattered players, laughing and running +about, the young men casting off their coats and hats, the detached +fielders running long-legged to their places. At the first sound of +the voices, Judith, always alert, never wasting time in reveries, had +scampered down the stairs and out in the midst of the stir-about. +Judith was sure to be in the middle of whatever was going on. She had +attached herself to young Professor Saunders, a special favorite of +the children, and now was dragging him from the field to play horse +with her. Father looked up to the window where Sylvia and Mother sat, +and called: "Come on, Barbara! Come on and amuse Judith. She won't let +Saunders pitch." + +Mother nodded, ran downstairs, coaxed Judith over beyond first base to +play catch with a soft rubber ball; and Sylvia, carried away by the +cheerful excitement, hopped about everywhere at once, screaming +encouragement to the base runners, picking up foul balls, and sending +them with proud importance back to the pitcher. + +So they all played and shouted and ran and laughed, while the long, +pale-golden spring afternoon stood still, until Mother held up her +finger and stopped the game. "The baby's awake!" she said, and Father +went bounding off. When he came back with the downy pink morsel, +everybody gathered around to see it and exclaim over the tiny fat +hands and hungry little rosebud mouth. "He's starved!" said Mother. +"He wants his supper, poor little Buddy! He doesn't want a lot of +people staring at him, do you, Buddy-baby?" She snatched him out +of Father's arms and went off with him, holding him high over her +shoulders so that the sunshine shone on his yellow hair, and made a +circle of gold around his flushed, sleepy face. Then everybody picked +up books and wraps and note-books and said, "Good-by, 'Perfessor!'" +and went off. + +Father and Sylvia and Judith went out in the garden to the hotbed to +pick the lettuce for supper and then back in the kitchen to get things +ready. When Mother was through giving Buddy his supper and came +hurrying in to help, Sylvia was proud that they had nearly everything +done--all but the omelet. Father had made cocoa and creamed +potatoes--nobody in the world could make creamed potatoes as good as +his--and Sylvia and Judith had between them, somewhat wranglingly, +made the toast and set the table. Sylvia was sure that Judith was +really too little to be allowed to help, but Father insisted that she +should try, for he said, with a turn in his voice that made Sylvia +aware he was laughing at her, "You only learned through trying, all +those many years ago when you were Judith's age!" + +Mother put on one of her big gingham aprons and made the omelet, and +they sat down to the table out on the veranda as they always did in +warm weather. In La Chance it begins to be warm enough for outdoor +life in April. Although it was still bright daylight for ever so long +after the sun had set, the moon came and looked at them palely over +the tops of the trees. + +After supper they jumped up to "race through the dishes," as the +family catchword ran. They tried to beat their record every evening +and it was always a lively occasion, with Mother washing like +lightning, and Father hurrying to keep up, Sylvia running back and +forth to put things away, and Judith bothering 'round, handing out dry +dish-towels, and putting away the silver. She was allowed to handle +that because she couldn't break it. Mother and Judith worked in a +swift silence, but a great deal of talking and laughing went on +between Sylvia and her father, while Buddy, from his high-chair where +he was watching the others, occasionally broke out in a loud, high +crow of delight. They did it all, even to washing and hanging out +the dish-towels, in eleven and a half minutes that evening, Sylvia +remembered. + +Then she and Judith went to sit on the porch on the little bench +Mother had made them. They tried to see who could catch the first +glimpse of the evening star every evening. Mother was putting Buddy to +bed and Father was starting the breakfast cereal cooking on the stove. +After a while he went into the living-room and began to play something +on the piano, something full of deep, swaying chords that lifted +Sylvia's heart up and down as though she were floating on the water. +The air was full of the moist fragrance of spring. When the music held +its breath for a moment you could hear the bedtime note of sleepy +birds in the oaks. Judith, who did not care much for music, began +to get sleepy and leaned all her soft, warm weight against her big +sister. Sylvia for the first time in her life was consciously aware of +being very happy. When, some time later, the evening star shone out +through the trees, she drew a long breath. "See, Judith," she cried +softly and began to recite, + + "Star-light, star-bright, + First star I've seen tonight--" + +She stopped short--it was Aunt Victoria who had taught her that poem, +the last time she had come to see them, a year ago, the time when she +had brought Sylvia the pink silk dress, the only dress-up dress with +lace and ribbons on it Sylvia had had up to that time. As suddenly as +the evening star had shone out, another radiant vision flashed across +Sylvia's mind, Aunt Victoria, magnificent in her lacy dress, her +golden hair shining under the taut silk of her parasol, her white, +soft fingers gleaming with rings, her air of being a condescending +goddess, visiting mortals ... + +After a time Mother stepped out on the porch and said, "Oh, quick, +children, wish on the shooting star." + +Judith had dropped asleep like a little kitten tired of play, and +Sylvia looked at her mother blankly. "I didn't see any shooting star," +she said. + +Mother was surprised. "Why, your face was pointed right up at the +spot." + +"I didn't see it," repeated Sylvia. + +Mother fixed her keen dark eyes on Sylvia. "What's the matter?" she +asked in her voice that always required an answer. Sylvia wriggled +uncomfortably. Hers was a nature which suffers under the categorical +question; but her mother's was one which presses them home. + +"What's the matter with you?" she said again. + +Sylvia turned a clouded face to her mother. "I was wondering why it's +not nice to be idyllic." + +"_What_?" asked her mother, quite at a loss. Sylvia was having one of +her unaccountable notions. + +Sylvia went to lean on her mother's knee, looking with troubled eyes +up into the kind, attentive, uncomprehending face. "Why, the last time +Aunt Victoria was here--that long time ago--when they were all out +playing ball--she looked round and round at everything--at your dress +and mine and the furniture--_you_ know--the--the uncomfortable way she +does sometimes--and she said, 'Well, Sylvia--nobody can say that your +parents aren't leading you a very idyllic life.'" + +Mother laughed out. Her rare laugh was too sudden and loud to be very +musical, but it was immensely infectious, like a man's hearty mirth. +"I didn't hear her say it--but I can imagine that she did. Well, what +_of_ it? What if she did?" + +For once Sylvia did not respond to another's mood. She continued +anxiously, "Well, it means something perfectly horrid, doesn't it?" + +Mother was still laughing. "No, no, child, what in the world makes you +think that?" + +"Oh, if you'd heard Aunt Victoria _say_ it!" cried Sylvia with +conviction. Father came out on the veranda, saying to Mother, "Isn't +that crescendo superb?" To Sylvia he said, as though sure of her +comprehension, "Didn't you like the ending, dear--where it sounded +like the Argonauts all striking the oars into the water at once and +shouting?" + +Sylvia had been taught above everything to tell the truth. Moreover +(perhaps a stronger reason for frankness), Mother was there, who would +know whether she told the truth or not. "I didn't hear the end." + +Father looked quickly from Sylvia's face to her mother's. "What's the +matter?" he asked. + +"Sylvia was so concerned because her Aunt Victoria had called our life +idyllic that she couldn't think of anything else," explained Mother +briefly, still smiling. Father did not smile. He sat down by Sylvia +and had her repeat to him what she had said to her mother. When she +had finished he looked grave and said: "You mustn't mind what your +Aunt Victoria says, dear. Her ideas are very different from ours." + +Sylvia's mother cried out, "Why, a child of Sylvia's age couldn't have +taken in the significance of--" + +"I'm afraid," said Father, "that Sylvia's very quick to take in such a +significance." + +Sylvia remained silent, uncomfortable at being discussed, vaguely +ashamed of herself, but comforted that Father had not laughed, had +understood. As happened so frequently, it was Father who understood +and Mother who did the right thing. She suddenly made an enigmatic, +emphatic exclamation, "Goodness _gracious_!" and reaching out her long +arms, pulled Sylvia up on her lap, holding her close. The last thought +of that remembered time for Sylvia was that Mother's arms were very +strong, and her breast very soft. The little girl laid her head down +on it with a contented sigh, watching the slow, silent procession of +the stars. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE MARSHALLS' FRIENDS + + +Any one of the more sophisticated members of the faculty of the State +University at La Chance would have stated without hesitation that the +Marshalls had not the slightest part in the social activities of the +University; but no one could have called their life either isolated or +solitary. Sylvia, in her memories of childhood, always heard the low, +brown house ringing with music or echoing to the laughter and talk +of many voices. To begin with, a good many of Professor Marshall's +students came and went familiarly through the plainly furnished rooms, +although there was, of course, in each year's class, a little circle +of young people with a taste for social distinctions who held aloof +from the very unselect and heterogeneous gatherings at the Marshall +house. + +These young aristocrats were, for the most part, students from the +town itself, from La Chance's "best families," who through parental +tyranny or temporary financial depression were not allowed to go East +to a well-known college with a sizable matriculation fee, but were +forced to endure four years of the promiscuous, swarming, gratuitous +education of the State University. All these august victims of family +despotism associated as little as possible with the common rabble of +their fellow-students, and accepted invitations only from such faculty +families as were recognized by the inner circle of the town society. + +The Marshalls were not among this select circle. Indeed, no faculty +family was farther from it. Every detail of the Marshalls' life was in +contradiction not only to the standards and ideals of the exclusive +"town set," but to those of their own colleagues. They did not live +in the right part of town. They did not live in the right sort of a +house. They did not live in the right sort of a way. And consequently, +although no family had more visitors, they were not the right sort of +visitors. + +This was, of course, not apparent to the children for a good many +years. Home was home, as it is to children. It did not seem strange +to them that instead of living in a small rented house on a closely +built-up street near the campus in the section of the city occupied by +the other faculty families, they lived in a rambling, large-roomed old +farmhouse with five acres of land around it, on the edge of the West +Side. They did not know how heartily this land-owning stability was +condemned as folly by the rent-paying professors, perching on the +bough with calculated impermanence so that they might be free to +accept at any moment the always anticipated call to a larger salary. +They did not know, not even Sylvia, for many years, that the West Side +was the quite unfashionable part of town. It did not seem strange to +them to see their father sweeping his third-floor study with his own +hands, and they were quite used to a family routine which included +housework for every one of them. Indeed, a certain amount of this was +part of the family fun. "Come on, folks!" Professor Marshall would +call, rising up from the breakfast table, "Tuesday--day to clean the +living-room--all hands turn to!" In a gay helter-skelter all hands +turned to. The lighter furniture was put out on the porch. Professor +Marshall, joking and laughing, donned a loose linen overall suit to +protect his "University clothes," and cleaned the bare floor with a +big oiled mop; Mrs. Marshall, silent and swift, looked after mirrors, +windows, the tops of bookcases, things hard for children to reach; +Sylvia flourished a duster; and Judith and Lawrence out on the porch, +each armed with a whisk-broom, brushed and whacked at the chairs and +sofas. There were no rugs to shake, and it took but an instant to set +things back in their places in the clean-smelling, dustless room. + +This daily drill, coming as it did early in the morning, usually +escaped the observation of any but passing farmers, who saw nothing +amiss in it; but facetiously exaggerated reports of its humors reached +the campus, and a certain set considered it very clever to lay bets as +to whether the Professor of Political Economy would pull out of his +pocket a handkerchief, or a duster, or a child's shirt, for it was +notorious that the children never had nursemaids and that their father +took as much care of them as their mother. + +The question of clothes, usually such a sorely insoluble problem for +academic people of small means, was solved by the Marshalls in an +eccentric, easy-going manner which was considered by the other faculty +families as nothing less than treasonable to their caste. Professor +Marshall, it is true, having to make a public appearance on the +campus every day, was generally, like every other professor, +undistinguishable from a commercial traveler. But Mrs. Marshall, who +often let a good many days pass without a trip to town, had adopted +early in her married life a sort of home uniform, which year after +year she wore in one form or another. It varied according to the +season, and according to the occasion on which she wore it, but it had +certain unchanging characteristics. It was always very plain as to +line, and simple as to cut, having a skirt neither full nor scant, a +waist crossed in front with a white fichu, and sleeves reaching just +below the elbow with white turn-back cuffs. As Mrs. Marshall, though +not at all pretty, was a tall, upright, powerfully built woman, with +a dark, shapely head gallantly poised on her shoulders, this garb, +whether short-skirted, of blue serge in the morning, or trailing, of +ruby-colored cashmere in the evening, was very becoming to her. But +there is no denying that it was always startlingly and outrageously +unfashionable. At a time when every woman and female child in the +United States had more cloth in her sleeves than in all the rest of +her dress, the rounded muscles of Mrs. Marshall's arm, showing through +the fabric of her sleeves, smote shockingly upon the eye of the +ordinary observer, trained to the American habit of sheep-like +uniformity of appearance. And at the time when the front of every +woman's waist fell far below her belt in a copiously blousing sag, +Mrs. Marshall's trim tautness had in it something horrifying. It must +be said for her that she did not go out of her way to inflict these +concussions upon the brains of spectators, since she always had in +her closet one evening dress and one street dress, sufficiently +approximating the prevailing style to pass unnoticed. These costumes +lasted long, and they took in the long run but little from the +Marshall exchequer: for she wore them seldom, only assuming what her +husband called, with a laugh, her "disguise" when going into town. + +For a long time, until Sylvia's individuality began to assert itself, +the question of dress for the children was solved, with similar ease, +by the typical Marshall expedient, most heartily resented by their +faculty acquaintances, the mean-spirited expedient of getting along +comfortably on inadequate means by not attempting to associate with +people to whose society their brains and cultivation gave them the +right--that is to say, those families of La Chance whose incomes were +from three to five times that of college professors. The Marshall +children played, for the most part, with the children of their +neighbors, farmers, or small merchants, and continued this humble +connection after they went into the public schools, where their +parents sent them, instead of to "the" exclusive private school +of town. Consequently the plainest, simplest clothes made them +indistinguishable from their fellows. Sylvia and Judith also enjoyed +the unfair advantage of being quite unusually pretty little girls +(Judith being nothing less than a beauty), so that even on the few +occasions when they were invited to a children's party in the faculty +circle their burnished, abundant hair, bright eyes, and fresh, alert +faces made up for the plainness of their white dresses and thick +shoes. + +It was, moreover, not only in externals like clothes that the +childhood of Sylvia and Judith and Lawrence differed from that of the +other faculty children. Their lives were untouched by the ominous +black cloud familiar to academic households, the fear for the future, +the fear which comes of living from hand to mouth, the dread of "being +obliged to hand in one's resignation," a truly academic periphasis +which is as dismally familiar to most faculty children as its blunt +Anglo-Saxon equivalent of "losing your job" is to children of plainer +workpeople. Once, it is true, this possibility had loomed up large +before the Marshalls, when a high-protection legislature objected +loudly to the professor's unreverent attitude towards the tariff. But +although the Marshall children knew all about this crisis, as they +knew all about everything that happened to the family, they had had +no experience of the anxious talks and heartsick consultations which +would have gone on in any other faculty household. Their father had +been angry, and their mother resolute--but there was nothing new in +that. There had been, on Professor Marshall's part, belligerent, +vociferous talk about "freedom of speech," and on Mrs. Marshall's a +quiet estimate that, with her early training on a Vermont farm, and +with the high state of cultivation under which she had brought their +five acres, they could successfully go into the truck-farming +business like their neighbors. Besides this, they had the resource, +extraordinary among University families, of an account in the +savings-bank on which to fall back. They had always been able to pay +their debts and have a small surplus by the expedient of refusing to +acknowledge a tenth part of the social obligations under which +the rest of the faculty groaned and sweated with martyr's pride. +Perfidiously refusing to do their share in the heart-breaking struggle +to "keep up the dignity" of the academic profession, they were not +overwhelmed by the super-human difficulties of that undertaking. + +So it happened that the Marshall children heard no forebodings about +the future, but only heated statements of what seemed to their father +the right of a teacher to say what he believed. Professor Marshall had +gone of his own initiative to face the legislative committee which was +"investigating" him, had quite lost his temper (never very securely +held in leash), had told them his highly spiced opinion of their +strictures on his teaching and of the worth of any teacher they could +find who would submit to them. Then he had gone home and put on +his overalls. This last was rather a rhetorical flourish; for his +cosmopolitan, urban youth had left him ineradicably ignorant of the +processes of agriculture. But like all Professor Marshall's flourishes +it was a perfectly sincere one. He was quite cheerfully prepared to +submit himself to his wife's instruction in the new way of life. + +All these picturesque facts, as was inevitable in America, had +instantly reached the newspapers, which, lacking more exciting news +for the moment, took that matter up with headlined characterizations +of Professor Marshall as a "martyr of the cause of academic freedom," +and other rather cheap phrases about "persecution" and "America, the +land of free speech." The legislative committee, alarmed, retreated +from its position. Professor Marshall had not "been obliged to hand in +his resignation," but quite the contrary, had become the hero of the +hour and was warmly complimented by his colleagues, who hoped to +profit by an action which none of them would have dared to imitate. +It had been an exciting drama to the Marshall children as long as it +lasted. They had looked with pride at an abominable reproduction of +their father's photograph in the evening paper of La Chance, and they +had added an acquaintance with the manners of newspaper reporters to +their already very heterogeneous experience with callers of every +variety; but of real anxiety the episode had brought them nothing. + +As to that same extraordinary assortment of visitors at the Marshall +house, one of the University co-eds had said facetiously that you +met there every sort of person in the world, from spiritualists to +atheists--everybody except swells. The atheist of her dictum was the +distinguished and misanthropic old Professor Kennedy, head of +the Department of Mathematics, whose ample means and high social +connections with the leading family of La Chance made his misanthropy +a source of much chagrin to the faculty ladies, and who professed +for the Marshalls, for Mrs. Marshall in particular, a wrong-headed +admiration which was inexplicable to the wives of the other +professors. The faculty circle saw little to admire in the Marshalls. +The spiritualist of the co-ed's remark was, of course, poor foolish +Cousin Parnelia, the children's pet detestation, whose rusty clothes +and incoherent speech they were prevented from ridiculing only by +stern pressure from their mother. She always wore a black straw hat, +summer and winter, always carried a faded green shopping bag, with a +supply of yellow writing paper, and always had tucked under one arm +the curious, heart-shaped bit of wood, with the pencil attached, which +spiritualists call "planchette." The Marshall children thought this +the most laughable name imaginable, and were not always successful +in restraining the cruel giggles of childhood when she spoke of +planchette's writing such beautiful messages from her long-since-dead +husband and children. Although he had a dramatic sympathy for her +sorrow, Professor Marshall's greater vivacity of temperament made it +harder for him than for his wife to keep a straight face when Cousin +Parnelia proposed to be the medium whereby he might converse with +Milton or Homer. Indeed, his fatigued tolerance for her had been a +positive distaste ever since the day when he found her showing Sylvia, +aged ten, how to write with planchette. With an outbreak of temper, +for which he had afterwards apologized to his wife, he had forbidden +her ever to mention her damn unseemly nonsense to his children again. +He himself was a stout unbeliever in individual immortality, teaching +his children that the craving for it was one of the egotistic impulses +of the unregenerate human heart. + +Between the two extremes represented by shabby, crack-brained Cousin +Parnelia and elegant, sardonic old Professor Kennedy, there were many +other habitual visitors at the house--raw, earnest, graceless students +of both sexes, touchingly grateful for the home atmosphere they were +allowed to enter; a bushy-haired Single-tax fanatic named Hecht, who +worked in the iron-foundries by day, and wrote political pamphlets by +night; Miss Lindström, the elderly Swedish woman laboring among +the poor negroes of Flytown; a constant sprinkling from the +Scandinavian-Americans whose well-kept truck-farms filled the region +near the Marshall home; one-armed Mr. Howell, the editor of a luridly +radical Socialist weekly paper, whom Judith called in private the +"old puss-cat" on account of his soft, rather weak voice and mild, +ingratiating ways. Yes, the co-ed had been right, one met at the +Marshalls' every variety of person except the exclusive. + +These habituĂ©s of the house came and went with the greatest +familiarity. As they all knew there was no servant to answer the +doorbell, they seldom bothered to ring, but opened the door, stepped +into the hall, hung up their wraps on the long line of hooks, and went +into the big, low-ceilinged living-room. If nobody was there, they +usually took a book from one of the shelves lining the room and sat +down before the fire to wait. Sometimes they stayed to the next +meal and helped wash up the dishes afterwards. Sometimes they had a +satisfactory visit with each other, two or three callers happening to +meet together before the fire, and went away without having seen any +of the Marshalls. Informality could go no further. + +The only occurrence in the Marshall life remotely approaching the +regularity and formality of a real social event was the weekly meeting +of the string quartet which Professor Marshall had founded soon after +his arrival in La Chance. + +It was on Sunday evening that the quartet met regularly for their +seance. Old Reinhardt, the violin teacher, was first violin and +leader; Mr. Bauermeister (in everyday life a well-to-do wholesale +plumber) was second violin; Professor Marshall played the viola, and +old Professor Kennedy bent his fine, melancholy face over the 'cello. +Any one who chose might go to the Marshall house on Sunday evenings, +on condition that he should not talk during the music, and did not +expect any attention. + +The music began at seven promptly and ended at ten. A little before +that time, Mrs. Marshall, followed by any one who felt like helping, +went out into the kitchen and made hot coffee and sandwiches, and when +the last chord had stopped vibrating, the company adjourned into the +dining-room and partook of this simple fare. During the evening no +talk was allowed except the occasional wranglings of the musicians +over tempo and shading, but afterwards, every one's tongue, chastened +by the long silence, was loosened into loud and cheerful loquacity. +Professor Marshall, sitting at the head of the table, talked faster +and louder than any one else, throwing the ball to his especial +favorite, brilliant young Professor Saunders, who tossed it back with +a sureness and felicity of phrase which he had learned nowhere but in +this give-and-take. Mrs. Marshall poured the coffee, saw that every +one was served with sandwiches, and occasionally when the talk, +running over every known topic, grew too noisy, or the discussion too +hot, cast in one of the pregnant and occasionally caustic remarks of +which she held the secret. They were never brilliant, Mrs. Marshall's +remarks--but they were apt to have a dry humor, and almost always when +she had said her brief say? there loomed out of the rainbow mist of +her husband's flashing, controversial talk the outlines of the true +proportions of the case. + +After the homely feast was eaten, each guest rose and carried his own +cup and saucer and plate into the kitchen in a gay procession, and +since it was well known that, for the most part, the Marshalls "did +their own work," several of the younger ones helped wash the dishes, +while the musicians put away the music-racks and music, and the rest +put on their wraps. Then Professor Marshall stood at the door holding +up a lamp while the company trooped down the long front walk to +the gate in the hedge, and turned along the country road to the +cross-roads where the big Interurban cars whizzed by. + +All this happened with that unbroken continuity which was the +characteristic of the Marshall life, most marking them as different +from the other faculty families. Week after week, and month after +month, this program was followed with little variation, except for the +music which was played, and the slight picturesque uncertainty as +to whether old Reinhardt would or would not arrive mildly under the +influence of long Sunday imbibings. Not that this factor interfered at +all with the music. One of Sylvia's most vivid childhood recollections +was the dramatic contrast between old Reinhardt with, and without, his +violin. Partly from age, and partly from a too convivial life, the +old, heavily veined hands trembled so that he could scarcely unbutton +his overcoat, or handle his cup of hot coffee. His head shook too, and +his kind, rheumy eyes, in their endeavor to focus themselves, seemed +to flicker back and forth in their sockets. The child used to watch +him, fascinated, as he fumbled endlessly at the fastenings of his +violin-case, and put back the top with uncertain fingers. She was +waiting for the thrilling moment when he should tuck the instrument +away under his pendulous double chin and draw his bow across the +strings in the long sonorous singing chord, which ran up and down +Sylvia's back like forked lightning. + +This was while all the others were tuning and scraping and tugging at +their pegs, a pleasant bustle of discord which became so much a +part of Sylvia's brain that she could never in after years hear the +strumming and sawing of an orchestra preparing to play, without seeing +the big living-room of her father's house, with its low whitewashed +ceiling, its bare, dully shining floor, its walls lined with books, +its shabby, comfortable furniture, the whole quickened by the +Promethean glow from the blaze in the grate and glorified by the +chastened passion of the singing strings. + +The two Anglo-Saxon, professors were but able amateurs of their +instruments. Bauermeister, huge, red, and impassive, was by virtue of +his blood, a lifelong training, and a musical ancestry, considerably +more than an amateur; and old Reinhardt was the master of them all. +His was a history which would have been tragic if it had happened to +any but Reinhardt, who cared for nothing but an easy life, beer, and +the divine tones which he alone could draw from his violin. He had +offered, fifty years ago in Vienna, the most brilliant promise of a +most brilliant career, a promise which had come to naught because +of his monstrous lack of ambition, and his endless yielding to +circumstance, which had finally, by a series of inconceivable +migrations, landed him in the German colony of La Chance, impecunious +and obscure and invincibly convinced that he had everything worth +having in life. "Of vat use?" he would say, even now, when asked to +play in public--"de moosic ist all--and dat is eben so goodt here mit +friends." Or, "Dere goes a thousand peoples to a goncert--maybe fife +from dat thousand lofes de moosic--let dose fife gome to me--and +I play dem all day for noding!" or again, more iconoclastically +still,--when told of golden harvests to be reaped, "And for vat den? I +can't play on more dan von fioleen at a time--is it? I got a good one +now. And if I drink more beer dan now, I might make myself seeck!" +This with a prodigiously sly wink of one heavy eyelid. + +He gave enough music lessons to pay his small expenses, although after +one or two stormy passages in which he treated with outrageous and +unjustifiable violence the dawdling pupils coming from well-to-do +families, he made it a rule to take no pupils whose parents employed a +servant, and confined himself to children of the poorer classes, among +whom he kept up a small orchestra which played together twice a week +and never gave any concerts. And almost since the arrival of the +Marshalls in La Chance and his unceremonious entrance into the house +as, walking across the fields on a Sunday afternoon, he had heard +Professor Marshall playing the Doric Toccata on the newly installed +piano, he had spent his every Sunday evening in their big living-room. + +He had seen the children appear and grow older, and adored them +with Teutonic sentimentality, especially Sylvia, whom he called his +"Moonbeam brincess," his "little ellfen fairy," and whom, when she was +still tiny, he used to take up on his greasy old knees and, resting +his violin on her head, play his wildest fantasies, that she might +feel how it "talked to her bones." + +In early childhood Sylvia was so used to him that, like the others +of her circle, she accepted, indeed hardly noticed, his somewhat +startling eccentricities, his dirty linen, his face and hands to +match, his shapeless garments hanging loosely over the flabby +corpulence of his uncomely old body, his beery breath. To her, old +Reinhardt was but the queer external symbol of a never-failing +enchantment. Through the pleasant harmonious give-and-take of the +other instruments, the voice of his violin vibrated with the throbbing +passion of a living thing. His dirty old hand might shake and quaver, +but once the neck of the fiddle rested between thumb and forefinger, +the seraph who made his odd abiding-place in old Reinhardt's soul +sang out in swelling tones and spoke of heavenly things, and of the +Paradise where we might live, if we were but willing. + +Even when they were quite little children, Sylvia and Judith, and +later, Lawrence, were allowed to sit up on Sunday evenings to +listen to the music. Judith nearly always slept, steadily; and not +infrequently after a long day of outdoor fun, stupefied with fresh +air and exercise, Lawrence, and Sylvia too, could not keep their eyes +open, and dozed and woke and dozed again, coiled like so many little +kittens among the cushions of the big divan. In all the intensely +enjoyed personal pleasures of her later youth, and these were many for +Sylvia, she was never to know a more utter sweetness than thus to fall +asleep, the music a far-off murmur in her ears, and to wake again to +the restrained, clarified ecstasy of the four concerted voices. + +And yet it was in connection with this very quartet that she had her +first shocked vision of how her home-life appeared to other people. +She once chanced, when she was about eight years old, to go with her +father on a Saturday to his office at the University, where he had +forgotten some papers necessary for his seminar. There, sitting on +the front steps of the Main Building, waiting for her father, she had +encountered the wife of the professor of European History with her +beautiful young-lady sister from New York and her two daughters, +exquisite little girls in white serge, whose tailored, immaculate +perfection made Sylvia's heart heavy with a sense of the plebeian +inelegance of her own Saturday-morning play-clothes. Mrs. Hubert, +obeying an impulse of curiosity, stopped to speak to the little +Marshall girl, about whose queer upbringing there were so many stories +current, and was struck with the decorative possibilities of the +pretty child, apparent to her practised eye. As she made the kindly +intended, vague remarks customarily served out to unknown children, +she was thinking: "How _can_ any woman with a vestige of a woman's +instinct dress that lovely child in ready-made, commonplace, +dark-colored clothes? She would repay any amount of care and +"thought." So you take music-lessons too, besides your school?" she +asked mechanically. She explained to her sister, a stranger in La +Chance: "Music is one of the things I _starve_ for, out here! We never +hear it unless we go clear to Chicago--and such prices! Here, there is +simply _no_ musical feeling!" She glanced again at Sylvia, who was +now answering her questions, fluttered with pleasure at having the +beautiful lady speak to her. The beautiful lady had but an inattentive +ear for Sylvia's statement that, yes, lately Father had begun to give +her lessons on the piano. With the smoothly working imagination coming +from a lifetime of devotion to the subject, Mrs. Hubert was stripping +off Sylvia's trite little blue coat and uninteresting dark hat, and +was arraying her in scarlet serge with a green velvet collar--"with +those eyes and that coloring she could carry off striking 'color +combinations--and a big white felt hat with a soft pompon of silk +on one side--no, a long, stiff, scarlet quill would suit her style +better. Then, with white stockings and shoes and gloves--or perhaps +pearl-gray would be better. Yes, with low-cut suede shoes, fastening +with two big smoked-pearl buttons." She looked down with pitying eyes +at Sylvia's sturdy, heavy-soled shoes which could not conceal the +slender, shapely feet within them--"but, what on earth was the child +saying?--" + +"--every Sunday evening--it's beautiful, and now I'm getting so big I +can help some. I can turn over the pages for them in hard places, +and when old Mr. Reinhardt has had too much to drink and his hands +tremble, he lets me unfasten his violin-case and tighten up his bow +and--" + +Mrs. Hubert cried out, "Your parents don't let you have anything to do +with that old, drunken Reinhardt!" + +Sylvia was smitten into silence by the other's horrified tone and +hung her head miserably, only murmuring, after a pause, in damning +extenuation, "He's never so _very_ drunk!" + +"Well, upon my word!" exclaimed Mrs. Hubert, in a widely spaced, +emphatic phrase of condemnation. To her sister she added, "It's really +not exaggeration then, what one hears about their home life." One of +her daughters, a child about Sylvia's age, turned a candid, blank +little face up to hers, "Mother, what is a drunken reinhardt?" she +asked in a thin little pipe. + +Mrs. Hubert frowned, shook her head, and said in a tone of dark +mystery: "Never mind, darling, don't think about it. It's something +that nice little girls shouldn't know anything about. Come, Margery; +come, Eleanor." She took their hands and began to draw them away +without another look at Sylvia, who remained behind, drooping, +ostracised, pierced momentarily with her first blighting misgiving +about the order of things she had always known. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +BROTHER AND SISTER + + +A fuller initiation into the kaleidoscopic divergencies of adult +standards was given Sylvia during the visits of her Aunt Victoria. +These visits were angelic in their extreme rarity, and for Sylvia were +always a mixture of the beatific and the distressing. Only to look at +Aunt Victoria was a bright revelation of elegance and grace. And yet +the talk around table and hearth on the two or three occasions when +the beautiful young widow honored their roof with a sojourn was hard +on Sylvia's sensitive nerves. + +It was not merely that a good deal of what was said was +unintelligible. The Marshall children were quite accustomed to +incessant conversations between their elders of which they could +gather but the vaguest glimmering. They played about, busy in +their own absorbing occupations, lending an absent but not wholly +unattentive ear to the gabble of their elders, full of odd and +ridiculous-sounding words like Single-tax, and contrapuntal +development, and root-propagation, and Benthamism, and Byzantine, +and nitrogenous fertilizers, and Alexandrine, and chiaroscuro, and +surviving archaisms, and diminishing utility--for to keep up such a +flood-tide of talk as streamed through the Marshall house required +contributions from many diverging rivers. Sylvia was entirely used to +this phenomenon and, although it occasionally annoyed her that good +attention was wasted on projects so much less vital than those of the +children, she bore it no grudge. But on the rare occasions when Aunt +Victoria was with them, there was a different and ominous note to the +talk which made Sylvia acutely uneasy, although she was quite unable +to follow what was said. This uncomfortable note did not at all come +from mere difference of opinion, for that too was a familiar element +in Sylvia's world. Indeed, it seemed to her that everybody who came to +the Marshall house disagreed with everybody else about everything. +The young men, students or younger professors, engaged in perpetual +discussions, carried on in acrimonious tones which nevertheless seemed +not in the least to impair the good feeling between them. When there +was nobody else there for Father to disagree with, he disagreed with +Mother, occasionally, to his great delight, rousing her from her +customary self-contained economy of words to a heat as voluble as his +own. Often as the two moved briskly about, preparing a meal together, +they shouted out from the dining-room to the kitchen a discussion on +some unintelligible topic such as the "anachronism of the competitive +system," so loudly voiced and so energetically pursued that when +they came to sit down to table, they would be quite red-cheeked and +stirred-up, and ate their dinners with as vigorous an appetite as +though they had been pursuing each other on foot instead of verbally. + +The older habituĂ©s of the house were no more peaceable and were +equally given to what seemed to childish listeners endless disputes +about matters of no importance. Professor La Rue's white mustache and +pointed beard quivered with the intensity of his scorn for the modern +school of poetry, and Madame La Rue, who might be supposed to be +insulated by the vast bulk of her rosy flesh from the currents of +passionate conviction flashing through the Marshall house, had fixed +ideas on the Franco-Prussian War, on the relative values of American +and French bed-making, and the correct method of bringing up girls +(she was childless), which needed only to be remotely stirred to burst +into showers of fiery sparks. And old Professor Kennedy was nothing +less than abusive when started on an altercation about one of the +topics vital to him, such as the ignoble idiocy of the leisure-class +ideal, or the generally contemptible nature of modern society. No, it +was not mere difference of opinion which so charged the air during +Aunt Victoria's rare visits with menacing electricity. + +As a matter of fact, if she did differ in opinion from her brother and +his wife, the children would never have been able to guess it from the +invariably restrained tones of her fluent and agreeable speech, so +different from the outspoken virulence with which people in that house +were accustomed to defend their ideas. But, indefinable though it was +to Sylvia's undeveloped powers of analysis, she felt that the advent +of her father's beautiful and gracious sister was like a drop of +transparent but bitter medicine in a glass of clear water. There +was no outward sign of change, but everything was tinctured by +it. Especially was her father changed from his usual brilliantly +effervescent self. In answer to the most harmless remark of Aunt +Victoria, he might reply with a sudden grim sneering note in his voice +which made Sylvia look up at him half-afraid. If Aunt Victoria noticed +this sardonic accent, she never paid it the tribute of a break in the +smooth surface of her own consistent good-will, rebuking her brother's +prickly hostility only by the most indulgent tolerance of his +queer ways, a tolerance which never had on Professor Marshall's +sensibilities the soothing effect which might have seemed its natural +result. + +The visit which Aunt Victoria paid them when Sylvia was ten years old +was more peaceable than the one before it. Perhaps the interval of +five years between the two had mellowed the relationship; or more +probably the friction was diminished because Aunt Victoria arranged +matters so that she was less constantly in the house than usual. On +that occasion, in addition to the maid who always accompanied her, +she brought her little stepson and his tutor, and with characteristic +thoughtfulness refused to impose this considerable train of attendants +on a household so primitively organized as that of the Marshalls. They +all spent the fortnight of their stay at the main hotel of the town, a +large new edifice, the conspicuous costliness of which was one of the +most recent sources of civic pride in La Chance. Here in a suite of +four much-decorated rooms, which seemed unutterably elegant to Sylvia, +the travelers slept, and ate most of their meals, making their trips +out to the Marshall house in a small, neat, open carriage, which, +although engaged at a livery-stable by Mrs. Marshall-Smith for the +period of her stay, was not to be distinguished from a privately owned +equipage. + +It can be imagined what an event in the pre-eminently stationary life +of the Marshall children was this fortnight. To Judith and Lawrence, +eight and four respectively, Aunt Victoria's charms and amenities were +non-existent. She was for Judith as negligible as all other grown-ups, +save the few who had good sense enough to play games and go in +swimming. Judith's interest centered in the new boy, whom the +Marshalls now saw for the first time, and who was in every way a +specimen novel in their limited experience of children. During their +first encounter, the well-groomed, white-linen-clad boy with his +preternaturally clean face, his light-brown hair brushed till it shone +like lacquer, his polished nails and his adult appendage of a tutor, +aroused a contempt in Judith's mind which was only equaled by her +astonishment. On that occasion he sat upright in a chair between his +stepmother and his tutor, looking intently out of very bright blue +eyes at the two gipsy-brown little girls in their single-garment +linen play-clothes, swinging their tanned bare legs and feet from the +railing of the porch. They returned this inspection in silence--on +Sylvia's part with the keen and welcoming interest she always felt in +new people who were well-dressed and physically attractive, but as for +Judith with a frankly hostile curiosity, as at some strange and quite +unattractive new animal. + +The next morning, a still, oppressive day of brazen heat, it was +suggested that the children take their guest off to visit some of +their own favorite haunts to "get acquainted." This process began +somewhat violently by the instant halt of Arnold as soon as they were +out of sight of the house. "I'm going to take off these damn socks and +shoes," he announced, sitting down in the edge of a flower-bed. + +"Oh, don't! You'll get your clean suit all dirty!" cried Sylvia, +springing forward to lift him out of the well-tilled black loam. +Arnold thrust her hand away and made a visible effort to increase his +specific gravity. "I hope to the Lord I _do_ get it dirty!" he said +bitterly. + +"Isn't it your best?" asked Sylvia, aghast. "Have you another?" "I +haven't anything but!" said the boy savagely. "There's a whole trunk +full of them!" He was fumbling with a rough clumsiness at the lacing +of his shoes, but made no progress in loosening them, and now began +kicking at the grass. "I don't know how to get them off!" he cried, +his voice breaking nervously. Judith was down on her knees, inspecting +with a competent curiosity the fastenings, which were of a new +variety. + +"It's _easy_!" she said. "You just lift this little catch up and turn +it back, and that lets you get at the knot." As she spoke, she acted, +her rough brown little fingers tugging at the silken laces. "How'd +you ever _get_ it fastened," she inquired, "if you don't know how to +unfasten it?" + +"Oh, Pauline puts my shoes on for me," explained Arnold. "She dresses +and undresses me." + +Judith stopped and looked up at him. "Who's Pauline?" she asked, +disapproving astonishment in her accent. + +"Madrina's maid." + +Judith pursued him further with her little black look of scorn. "Who's +Madrina?" + +"Why--you know--your Aunt Victoria--my stepmother--she married my +father when I was a little baby--she doesn't want me to call her +'mother' so I call her Madrina.' That's Italian for--" + +Judith had no interest in this phenomenon and no opinion about it. +She recalled the conversation to the point at issue with her usual +ruthless directness. "And you wouldn't know how to undress yourself +if somebody didn't help you!" She went on loosening the laces in a +contemptuous silence, during which the boy glowered resentfully at the +back of her shining black hair. Sylvia essayed a soothing remark +about what pretty shoes he had, but with small success. Already the +excursion was beginning to take on the color of its ending,--an +encounter between the personalities of Judith and Arnold, with Sylvia +and Lawrence left out. When the shoes finally came off, they revealed +white silk half-hose, which, discarded in their turn, showed a pair of +startlingly pale feet, on which the new boy now essayed wincingly to +walk. "Ouch! Ouch! OUCH!" he cried, holding up first one and then the +other from contact with the hot sharp-edged pebbles of the path, "How +do you _do it_?" + +"Oh, it always hurts when you begin in the spring," said Judith +carelessly. "You have to get used to it. How old are you?" + +"Ten, last May." + +"Buddy here began going barefoot last summer and he's only four," she +stated briefly, proceeding towards the barn and chicken-house. + +After that remark the new boy walked forward with no more articulate +complaints, though his face was drawn and he bit his lips. He was +shown the chicken-yard--full of gawky, half-grown chickens shedding +their down and growing their feathers--and forgot his feet in the +fascination of scattering grain to them and watching their fluttering +scrambles. He was shown the rabbit-house and allowed to take one of +the limp, unresponsive little bunches of fur in his arms, and feed +a lettuce-leaf into its twitching pink mouth. He was shown the +house-in-the-maple-tree, a rough floor fixed between two large +branches, with a canvas roof over it, ensconced in which retreat his +eyes shone with happy excitement. He was evidently about to make some +comment on it, but glanced at Judith's dark handsome little face, +unsmiling and suspicious, and remained silent. He tried the same +policy when being shown the children's own garden, but Judith tracked +him out of this attempt at self-protection with some direct and +searching questions, discovering in him such ignorance of the broadest +division-lines of the vegetable kingdom that she gave herself up +to open scorn, vainly frowned down by the more naturally civilized +Sylvia, who was by no means enjoying herself. The new boy was not +in the least what he had looked. She longed to return to the +contemplation of Aunt Victoria's perfections. Lawrence was, as usual, +deep in an unreal world of his own, where he carried forth some +enterprise which had nothing to do with any one about him. He was +frowning and waving his arms, and making stabbing gestures with his +fingers, and paid no attention to the conversation between Judith and +the new boy. + +"What _can_ you do? What _do_ you know?" asked the former at last. + +"I can ride horseback," said Arnold defiantly. + +Judith put him to the test at once, leading the way to the stall which +was the abode of the little pinto broncho, left them, she explained, +as a trust by one of Father's students from the Far West, who was now +graduated and a civil engineer in Chicago, where it cost too much to +keep a horse. Arnold emerged from this encounter with the pony with +but little more credit than he had earned in the garden, showing an +ineptness about equine ways which led Judith through an unsparing +cross-examination to the information that the boy's experience of +handling a horse consisted in being ready in a riding-costume at a +certain hour every afternoon, and mounting a well-broken little +pony, all saddled and bridled, which was "brought round" to the +porte-cochère. + +"What's a porte-cochère?" she asked, with her inimitable air of +despising it, whatever it might turn out to be. + +Arnold stared with an attempt to copy her own frank scorn for +another's ignorance. "Huh! Don't you even know that much? It's the big +porch without any floor to it, where carriages drive up so you can get +in and out without getting wet if it rains. Every house that's good +for anything has one." + +So far from being impressed or put down, Judith took her stand as +usual on the offensive. "'Fore I'd be afraid of a little rain!" she +said severely, an answer which caused Arnold to seem disconcerted, and +again to look at her hard with the startled expression of arrested +attention which from the first her remarks and strictures seemed to +cause in him. + +They took the pinto out. Judith rode him bareback at a gallop down +to the swimming pool and dived from his back into the yellow water +shimmering hotly in the sun. This feat stung Arnold into a final fury. +Without an instant's pause he sprang in after her. As he came to the +top, swimming strongly with a lusty, regular stroke, and rapidly +overhauled the puffing Judith, his face shone brilliantly with relief. +He was another child. The petulant boy of a few moments before had +vanished. "Beat you to the springboard!" he sputtered joyously, +swimming low and spitting water as he slid easily through it at twice +Judith's speed. She set her teeth and drove her tough little body with +a fierce concentration of all her forces, but Arnold was sitting on +the springboard, dangling his red and swollen feet when she arrived. + +She clambered out and sat down beside him, silent for an instant. Then +she said with a detached air, "You can swim better than any boy I ever +saw." + +Arnold's open, blond face flushed scarlet at this statement. He looked +at the dripping little brown rat beside him, and returned impulsively, +"I'd rather play with you than any girl I ever saw." + +They were immediately reduced to an awkward silence by these two +unpremeditated superlatives. Judith found nothing to say beyond a +"huh" in an uncertain accent, and they turned with relief to alarums +and excursions from the forgotten and abandoned Sylvia and Lawrence. +Sylvia was forcibly restraining her little brother from following +Judith into the water. "You _mustn't_, Buddy! You _know_ we aren't +allowed to go in till an hour after eating and you only had your +breakfast a little while ago!" She led him away bellowing. + +Arnold, surprised, asked Judith, "'Cept for that, are you allowed to +go in whenever you want?" + +"Sure! We're not to stay in more than ten minutes at a time, and then +get out and run around for half an hour in the sun. There's a clock +under a little roof-thing, nailed up to a tree over there, so's we can +tell." + +"And don't you get what-for, if you go in with all your clothes on +this way?" + +"I haven't any clothes _on_ but my rompers," said Judith. "They're +just the same as a bathing suit." She snatched back her prerogative of +asking questions. "Where _did_ you learn to swim so?" + +"At the seashore! I get taken there a month every summer. It's the +most fun of any of the places I get taken. I've had lessons there from +the professor of swimming ever since I was six. Madrina doesn't know +what to do with me but have me take lessons. I like the swimming ones +the best. I hate dancing--and going to museums." + +"What else can you do?" asked Judith with a noticeable abatement of +her previous disesteem. + +Arnold hesitated, his own self-confidence as evidently dashed. +"Well--I can fence a little--and talk French; we are in Paris winters, +you know. We don't stay in Lydford for the winter. Nobody does." + +"_Everybody_ goes away?" queried Judith. "What a funny town!" + +"Oh, except the people who _live_ there--the Vermonters." + +Judith was more and more at a loss. "Don't _you_ live there?" + +"No, we don't _live_ anywhere. We just stay places for a while. Nobody +that we know lives anywhere." He interrupted a further question from +the astonished Judith to ask, "How'd you happen to have such a dandy +swimming-pool out of such a little brook?" + +Judith, switched off upon a topic of recent and absorbing interest, +was diverted from investigation into the odd ways of people who +lived nowhere. "Isn't it great!" she said ardently. "It's new this +summer--that's why I don't swim so very well yet. Why, it was this +way. The creek ran through a corner of our land, and a lot of Father's +students that are engineers or something, wanted to do something +for Father when they graduated--lots of students do, you know--and +everybody said the creek didn't have water enough and they bet each +other it did, and after Commencement we had a kind of camp for +a week--tents and things all round here--and Mother cooked for +them--camp fires--oh, lots of fun!--and they let us children tag +around as much as we pleased--and they and Father dug, and fixed +concrete--say, did you ever get let to stir up concrete? It's great!" + +Seeing in the boy's face a blankness as great as her own during his +chance revelations of life on another planet, she exclaimed, "Here, +come on, down to the other end, and I'll _show_ you how they made the +dam and all--they began over there with--" The two pattered along the +edge hand-in-hand, talking incessantly on a common topic at last, +interrupting each other, squatting down, peering into the water, +pointing, discussing, arguing, squeezing the deliciously soft mud up +and down between their toes, their heads close together--they might +for the moment have been brother and sister who had grown up together. + +They were interrupted by voices, and turning flushed and candid faces +of animation towards the path, beheld Aunt Victoria, wonderful and +queen-like in a white dress, a parasol, like a great rose, over her +stately blond head, attended by Sylvia adoring; Mrs. Marshall quiet +and observant; Mr. Rollins, the tutor, thin, agitated, and unhappily +responsible; and Professor Marshall smiling delightedly at the +children. + +"Why, Arnold _Smith_!" cried his tutor, too much overcome by the +situation to express himself more forcibly than by a repetition of the +boy's name. "Why, _Arnold_! Come here!" + +The cloud descended upon the boy's face. "I _will_ not!" he said +insolently. + +"But we were just _looking_ for you to start back to the hotel," +argued Mr. Rollins. + +"I don't care if you were!" said the boy in a sullen accent. + +Sylvia and Judith looked on in amazement at this scene of +insubordination, as new to them as all the rest of the boy's actions. +He was standing still now, submitting in a gloomy silence to the +various comments on his appearance, which was incredibly different +from that with which he had started on his travels. The starch +remaining in a few places in his suit, now partly dried in the +hot sun, caused the linen to stand out grotesquely in peaks and +mud-streaked humps, his hair, still wet, hung in wisps about his very +dirty face, his bare, red feet and legs protruded from shapeless +knickerbockers. His stepmother looked at him with her usual +good-natured amused gaze. "It is customary, before going in swimming, +isn't it, Arnold, to take your watch out of your pocket and put your +cuff-links in a safe-place?" she suggested casually. + +"Good Heavens! His watch!" cried Mr. Rollins, clutching at his own +sandy hair. + +Professor Marshall clapped the boy encouragingly on the shoulder. +"Well, sir, you look more like a human being," he said heartily, +addressing himself, with defiance in his tone, to his sister. + +She replied with a smile, "That rather depends, doesn't it, Elliott, +upon one's idea of what constitutes a human being?" + +Something in her sweet voice roused Judith to an ugly wrath. She came +forward and took her place protectingly beside her new playmate, +scowling at her aunt. "We were having a _lovely_ time!" she said +challengingly. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith looked down at the grotesque little figure and +touched the brown cheek indulgently with her forefinger. "That too +rather depends upon one's definition of a lovely time," she replied, +turning away, leaving with the indifference of long practice the +unfortunate Mr. Rollins to the task of converting Arnold into a +product possible to transport through the streets of a civilized town. + +Before they went away that day, Arnold managed to seek Judith out +alone, and with shamefaced clumsiness to slip his knife, quite new and +three-bladed, into her hand. She looked at it uncomprehendingly. "For +you--to keep," he said, flushing again, and looking hard into her +dark eyes, which in return lightened suddenly from their usual rather +somber seriousness into a smile, a real smile. Judith's smiles were +far from frequent, but the recipient of one did not forget it. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +EVERY ONE'S OPINION OF EVERY ONE ELSE + + +In this way, almost from the first, several distinct lines of cleavage +were established in the family party during the next fortnight. Arnold +imperiously demanded a complete vacation from "lessons," and when, it +was indolently granted, he spent it incessantly with Judith, the two +being always out of doors and usually joyously concocting what in any +but the easy-going, rustic plainness of the Marshall mode of life +would have been called mischief. Mrs. Marshall, aided by the others +in turn, toiled vigorously between the long rows of vegetables and +a little open shack near by, where, on a superannuated but still +serviceable cook-stove, she "put up," for winter use, an endless +supply of the golden abundance which, Ceres-like, she poured out every +year from the Horn of Plenty of her garden. Sylvia, in a state of +hypnotized enchantment, dogged her Aunt Victoria's graceful footsteps +and still more graceful, leisurely halts; Lawrence bustled about on +his own mysterious business in a solitary and apparently exciting +world of his own which was anywhere but in La Chance; and Professor +Marshall, in the intervals of committee work at the University, now +about to open, alternated between helping his wife, playing a great +deal of very noisy and very brilliant music on the piano, and +conversing in an unpleasant voice with his sister. + +Mr. Rollins, for whom, naturally, Arnold's revolt meant unwonted +freedom, was for the most part invisible, "seeing the sights of La +Chance, I suppose," conjectured Aunt Victoria indifferently, in +her deliciously modulated voice, when asked what had become of the +sandy-haired tutor. And because, in the intense retirement and +rustication of this period, Mrs. Marshall-Smith needed little +attention paid to her toilets, Pauline also was apparently enjoying an +unusual vacation. A short time after making the conjecture about her +stepson's tutor, Aunt Victoria had added the suggestion, level-browed, +and serene as always, "Perhaps he and Pauline are seeing the sights +together." + +Sylvia, curled on a little stool at her aunt's feet, turned an +artless, inquiring face up to her. "What _are_ the 'sights' of La +Chance, Auntie?" she asked. + +Her father, who was sitting at the piano, his long fingers raised +as though about to play, whirled about and cut in quickly with an +unintelligible answer, "Your Aunt Victoria refers to non-existent +phenomena, my dear, in order to bring home to us the uncouth +provinciality in which we live." + +Aunt Victoria, leaning back, exquisitely passive, in one of the big, +shabby arm-chairs, raised a protesting hand. "My dear Elliott, +you don't do your chosen abiding-place justice. There is the new +Court-House. Nobody can deny that that is a sight. I spent a long time +the other day contemplating it. That and the Masonic Building are a +_pair_ of sights. I conceive Rollins, who professes to be interested +in architecture, as constantly vibrating between the two." + +To which handsome tribute to La Chance's high-lights, Professor +Marshall returned with bitterness, "Good Lord, Vic, why do you come, +then?" + +She answered pleasantly, "I might ask in my turn why you stay." She +went on, "I might also remind you that you and your children are the +only human ties I have." She slipped a soft arm about Sylvia as she +spoke, and turned the vivid, flower-like little face to be kissed. +When Aunt Victoria kissed her, Sylvia always felt that she had, like +Diana in the story-book, stooped radiant from a shining cloud. + +There was a pause in the conversation. Professor Marshall faced the +piano again and precipitated himself headlong into the diabolic +accelerandos of "The Hall of the Mountain-King." His sister listened +with extreme and admiring appreciation of his talent. "Upon my word, +Elliott," she said heartily, "under the circumstances it's incredible, +but it's true--your touch positively improves." + +He stopped short, and addressed the air above the piano with +passionate conviction. "I stay because, thanks to my wife, I've +savored here fourteen years of more complete reconciliation with +life--I've been vouchsafed more usefulness--I've discovered more +substantial reasons for existing than I ever dreamed possible in the +old life--than any one in that world can conceive!" + +Aunt Victoria looked down at her beautiful hands clasped in her lap. +"Yes, quite so," she breathed. "Any one who knows you well must agree +that whatever you are, or do, or find, nowadays, is certainly 'thanks +to your wife.'" + +Her brother flashed a furious look at her, and was about to speak, +but catching sight of Sylvia's troubled little face turned to him +anxiously, gave only an impatient shake to his ruddy head--now graying +slightly. A little later he said: "Oh, we don't speak the same +language any more, Victoria. I couldn't make you understand--you don't +know--how should you? You can't conceive how, when one is really +_living_, nothing of all that matters. What does architecture matter, +for instance?" + +"Some of it matters very little indeed," concurred his sister blandly. + +This stirred him to an ungracious laugh. "As for keeping up only human +ties, isn't a fortnight once every five years rather slim rations?" + +"Ah, there are difficulties--the Masonic Building--" murmured Aunt +Victoria, apparently at random. But then, it seemed to Sylvia that +they were always speaking at random. For all she could see, neither of +them ever answered what the other had said. + +The best times were when she and Aunt Victoria were all alone +together--or with only the silent, swift-fingered, Pauline in +attendance during the wonderful processes of dressing or undressing +her mistress. These occasions seemed to please Aunt Victoria best +also. She showed herself then so winning and gracious and altogether +magical to the little girl that Sylvia forgot the uncomfortableness +which always happened when her aunt and her father were together. As +they came to be on more intimate terms, Sylvia was told a great many +details about Aunt Victoria's present and past life, in the form of +stories, especially about that early part of it which had been spent +with her brother. Mrs. Marshall-Smith took pains to talk to Sylvia +about her father as he had been when he was a brilliant dashing youth +in Paris at school, or as the acknowledged social leader of his class +in the famous Eastern college. "You see, Sylvia," she explained, +"having no father or mother or any near relatives, we saw more of +each other than a good many brothers and sisters do. We had nobody +else--except old Cousin Ellen, who kept house for us in the summers +in Lydford and traveled around with us," Lydford was another topic on +which, although it was already very familiar to her from her mother's +reminiscences of her childhood in Vermont, Aunt Victoria shed much +light for Sylvia. Aunt Victoria's Lydford was so different from +Mother's, it seemed scarcely possible they could be the same place. +Mother's talk was all about the mountains, the sunny upland pastures, +rocky and steep, such a contrast to the rich, level stretches of +country about La Chance; about the excursions through these slopes +of the mountains every afternoon, accompanied by a marvelously +intelligent collie dog, who helped find the cows; about the orchard +full of old trees more climbable than any others which have grown +since the world began; about the attic full of drying popcorn and +old hair-trunks and dusty files of the New York _Tribune_; about the +pantry with its cookie-jar, and the "back room" with its churn and +cheese-press. + +Nothing of all this existed in the Lydford of which Aunt Victoria +spoke, although some of her recollections were also of childhood +hours. Once Sylvia asked her, "But if you were a little girl there, +and Mother was too,--then you and Father and she must have played +together sometimes?" + +Aunt Victoria had replied with decision, "No, I never saw your mother, +and neither did your father--until a few months before they were +married." + +"Well, wasn't that _queer_?" exclaimed Sylvia--"she _always_ lived in +Lydford except when she went away to college." + +Aunt Victoria seemed to hesitate for words, something unusual with +her, and finally brought out, "Your mother lived on a farm, and we +lived in our summer house in the village." She added after a moment's +deliberation: "Her uncle, who kept the farm, furnished us with our +butter. Sometimes your mother used to deliver it at the kitchen door." +She looked hard at Sylvia as she spoke. + +"Well, I should have thought you'd have seen her _there_!" said Sylvia +in surprise. Nothing came to the Marshalls' kitchen door which was not +in the children's field of consciousness. + +"It was, in fact, there that your father met her," stated Aunt +Victoria briefly. + +"Oh yes, I remember," said Sylvia, quoting fluently from an often +heard tale. "I've heard them tell about it lots of times. She was +earning money to pay for her last year in college, and dropped a +history book out of her basket as she started to get back in the +wagon, and Father picked it up and said, 'Why, good Lord! who in +Lydford reads Gibbon?' And Mother said it was hers, and they talked a +while, and then he got in and rode off with her." + +"Yes," said Aunt Victoria, "that was how it happened.... Pauline, get +out the massage cream and do my face, will you?" + +She did not talk any more for a time, but when she began, it was again +of Lydford that she spoke, running along in a murmured stream of +reminiscences breathed faintly between motionless lips that Pauline's +reverent ministrations might not be disturbed. Through the veil of +these half-understood recollections, Sylvia saw highly inaccurate +pictures of great magnificent rooms filled with heavy old mahogany +furniture, of riotously colored rose-gardens, terraced and +box-edged, inhabited by beautiful ladies always, like Aunt Victoria, +"dressed-up," who took tea under brightly striped, pagoda-shaped +tents, waited upon by slant-eyed Japanese (it seemed Aunt Victoria had +nothing but Japanese servants). The whole picture shimmered in the +confused imagination of the listening little girl, till it blended +indistinguishably with the enchantment of her fairy-stories. It all +seemed a background natural enough for Aunt Victoria, but Sylvia could +not fit her father into it. + +"Ah, he's changed greatly--he's transformed--he is not the same +creature," Aunt Victoria told her gravely, speaking according to her +seductive habit with Sylvia, as though to an equal. "The year when +we lost our money and he married, altered all the world for us." +She linked the two events together, and was rewarded by seeing the +reference slide over Sylvia's head. + +"Did you lose _your_ money, too?" asked Sylvia, astounded. It had +never occurred to her that Aunt Victoria might have been affected by +that event in her father's life, with which she was quite familiar +through his careless references to what he seemed to regard as an +interesting but negligible incident. + +"All but the slightest portion of it, my dear--when I was twenty years +old. Your father was twenty-five." + +Sylvia looked about her at the cut-glass and silver utensils on +the lace-covered dressing-table, at Aunt Victoria's pale lilac +crĂŞpe-de-chine nĂ©gligĂ©e, at the neat, pretty young maid deft-handedly +rubbing the perfumed cream into the other woman's well-preserved face, +impassive as an idol's. "Why--why, I thought--" she began and stopped, +a native delicacy making her hesitate as Judith never did. + +Aunt Victoria understood. "Mr. Smith had money," she explained +briefly. "I married when I was twenty-one." + +"Oh," said Sylvia. It seemed an easy way out of difficulties. She +had never before chanced to hear Aunt Victoria mention her long-dead +husband. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +SOMETHING ABOUT HUSBANDS + + +She did not by any means always sit in the hotel and watch +Pauline care for different portions of Aunt Victoria's body. Mrs. +Marshall-Smith took, on principle, a drive every day, and Sylvia was +her favorite companion. At first they went generally over the asphalt +and in front of the costly and incredibly differing "mansions" of +the "residential portion" of town, but later their drives took them +principally along the winding roads and under the thrifty young trees +of the State University campus. They often made an excuse of fetching +Professor Marshall home from a committee meeting, and as the faculty +committees at that time of year were, for the most part, feverishly +occupied with the classification of the annual flood-tide of Freshmen, +he was nearly always late, and they were obliged to wait long +half-hours in front of the Main Building. + +Sylvia's cup of satisfaction ran over as, dressed in her simple best, +which her mother without comment allowed her to put on every day now, +she sat in the well-appointed carriage beside her beautiful aunt, at +whom every one looked so hard and so admiringly. The University work +had not begun, but unresigned and harassed professors and assistants, +recalled from their vacations for various executive tasks, were +present in sufficient numbers to animate the front steps of the Main +Building with constantly gathering and dissolving little groups. These +called out greetings to each other, and exchanged dolorous mutual +condolences on their hard fate; all showing, with a helpless masculine +naĂŻvetĂ©, their consciousness of the lovely, observant figure in the +carriage below them. Of a different sort were the professors' wives, +who occasionally drifted past on the path. Aunt Victoria might have +been a blue-uniformed messenger-boy for all that was betrayed by their +skilfully casual glance at her and then away, and the subsequent +directness of their forward gaze across the campus. Mrs. +Marshall-Smith had for both these manifestations of consciousness of +her presence the same imperturbable smile of amusement. "They are +delightful, these colleagues of your father's!" she told Sylvia. +Sylvia had hoped fervently that the stylish Mrs. Hubert might see +her in this brief apotheosis, and one day her prayer was answered. +Straight down the steps of the Main Building they came, Mrs. Hubert +glistening in shiny blue silk, extremely unaware of Aunt Victoria, +the two little girls looking to Sylvia like fairy princesses, with +pink-and-white, lace-trimmed dresses, and big pink hats with rose +wreaths. Even the silk laces in their low, white kid shoes were of +pink to match the ribbons, which gleamed at waist and throat and +elbow. Sylvia watched them in an utter admiration, and was beyond +measure shocked when Aunt Victoria said, after they had stepped +daintily past, "Heavens! What a horridly over-dressed family! Those +poor children look too absurd, tricked out like that. The one nearest +me had a sweet, appealing little face, too." + +"That is Eleanor," said Sylvia, with a keen, painful recollection of +the scene a year ago. She added doubtfully, "Didn't you think their +dresses pretty, Aunt Victoria?" + +"I thought they looked like pin-cushions on a kitchen-maid's +dressing-table," returned Aunt Victoria more forcibly than she usually +expressed herself. "You look vastly better with the straight lines +of your plain white dresses. You have a great deal of style, Sylvia. +Judith is handsomer than you, but she will never have any style." This +verdict, upon both the Huberts and herself, delivered with a serious +accent of mature deliberation, impressed Sylvia. It was one of the +speeches she was to ponder. + +Although Professor Marshall showed himself noticeably negligent in the +matter of introducing his colleagues to his sister, it was only two +or three days before Aunt Victoria's half-hours of waiting before the +Main Building had other companionship than Sylvia's. This was due to +the decisive action of young Professor Saunders, just back from the +British Museum, where, at Professor Marshall's suggestion, he had been +digging up facts about the economic history of the twelfth century in +England. Without waiting for an invitation he walked straight up to +the carriage with the ostensible purpose of greeting Sylvia, who was a +great favorite of his, and who in her turn had a romantic admiration +for the tall young assistant. Of all the faculty people who frequented +the Marshall house, he and old Professor Kennedy were the only people +whom Sylvia considered "stylish," and Professor Kennedy, in spite of +his very high connection with the aristocracy of La Chance, was so +cross and depressed that really his "style" did not count. She was +now greatly pleased by the younger professor's public and cordial +recognition of her, and, with her precocious instinct for social ease, +managed to introduce him to her aunt, even adding quaintly a phrase +which she had heard her mother use in speaking of him, "My father +thinks Professor Saunders has a brilliant future before him." + +This very complimentary reference had not the effect she hoped for, +since both the young man and Aunt Victoria laughed, exchanging glances +of understanding, and said to each other, "Isn't she delicious?" But +at least it effectually broke any ice of constraint, so that the +new-comer felt at once upon the most familiarly friendly terms with +the sister of his chief. Thereafter he came frequently to lean an arm +on the side of the carriage and talk with the "ladies-in-waiting," +as he called the pretty woman and child. Once or twice Sylvia was +transferred to the front seat beside Peter, the negro driver, on the +ground that she could watch the horses better, and they took Professor +Saunders for a drive through the flat, fertile country, now beginning +to gleam ruddy with autumnal tints of bronze and scarlet and gold. +Although she greatly enjoyed the social brilliance of these occasions, +on which Aunt Victoria showed herself unexpectedly sprightly and +altogether enchanting, Sylvia felt a little guilty that they did not +return to pick up Professor Marshall, and she was relieved, when they +met at supper, that he made no reference to their defection. + +He did not, in fact, mention his assistant's name at all, and yet he +did not seem surprised when Professor Saunders, coming to the Sunday +evening rehearsal of the quartet, needed no introduction to his +sister, but drew a chair up with the evident intention of devoting +all his conversation to her. For a time this overt intention was +frustrated by old Reinhardt, smitten with an admiration as unconcealed +for the beautiful stranger. In the interval before the arrival of the +later members of the quartet, he fluttered around her like an ungainly +old moth, racking his scant English for complimentary speeches. These +were received by Aunt Victoria with her best calm smile, and by +Professor Saunders with open impatience. His equanimity was not +restored by the fact that there chanced to be rather more general talk +than usual that evening, leaving him but small opportunity for his +tĂŞte-Ă -tĂŞte. + +It began by the arrival of Professor Kennedy, a little late, delayed +at a reunion of the Kennedy family. He was always reduced to bilious +gloom by any close contact with that distinguished, wealthy, and much +looked-up-to group of citizens of La Chance, and this evening he +walked into the front door obviously even more depressed than usual. +The weather had turned cool, and his imposingly tall old person was +wrapped in a cape-overcoat. Sylvia had no fondness for Professor +Kennedy, but she greatly admired his looks and his clothes, and his +handsome, high-nosed old face. She watched him wrestle himself out of +his coat as though it were a grappling enemy, and was not surprised at +the irritability which sat visibly upon his arching white eyebrows. +He entered the room trailing his 'cello-bag beside him and plucking +peevishly at its drawstrings, and although Aunt Victoria quite roused +herself at the sight of him, he received his introduction to her with +reprehensible indifference. He sank into a chair and looked sadly at +the fire, taking the point of his white beard in his long, tapering +fingers. Professor Marshall turned from the piano, where he sat, +striking A for the conscientious Bauermeister to tune, and said +laughingly, "Hey there, Knight of the Dolorous Countenance, what +vulture is doing business at the old stand on your liver?" + +Professor Kennedy crossed one long, elegantly slim leg over the other, +"I've been dining with the Kennedy family," he said, with a neat and +significant conciseness. + +"Anything specially the matter with the predatory rich?" queried +Marshall, reaching for his viola-case. + +Professor Kennedy shook his head. "Alas! there's never anything the +matter with them. _Comme le diable, ils se portent toujours bien_." + +At the purity of accent with which this embittered remark was made, +Mrs. Marshall-Smith opened her eyes, and paid more attention as the +old professor went on. + +"The last of my unmarried nieces has shown herself a true Kennedy by +providing herself with a dolichocephalic blond of a husband, like all +the others. The dinner was given in honor of the engagement." + +Sylvia was accustomed to finding Professor Kennedy's remarks quite +unintelligible, and this one seemed no odder to her than the rest, so +that she was astonished that Aunt Victoria was not ashamed to confess +as blank an ignorance as the little girl's. The beautiful woman leaned +toward the morose old man with the suave self-confidence of one who +has never failed to charm, and drew his attention to her by a laugh +of amused perplexity. "May I ask," she inquired, "_what_ kind of a +husband is that? It is a new variety to me." + +Professor Kennedy looked at her appraisingly. "It's the kind most +women aspire to," he answered enigmatically. He imparted to this +obscure remark the air of passing a sentence of condemnation. + +Sylvia's mother stirred uneasily in her chair and looked at her +husband. He had begun to take his viola from the case, but now +returned it and stood looking quizzically from his sister to his +guest. "Professor Kennedy talks a special language, Vic," he said +lightly. "Some day he'll make a book of it and be famous. He divides +us all into two kinds: the ones that get what they want by taking it +away from other people--those are the dolichocephalic blonds--though +I believe it doesn't refer to the color of their hair. The other kind +are the white folks, the unpredatory ones who have scruples, and get +pushed to the wall for their pains." + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith turned to the young man beside her. "It makes one +wonder, doesn't it," she conjectured pleasantly, "to which type one +belongs oneself?" + +In this welcome shifting from the abstract to the understandably +personal, old Reinhardt saw his opportunity. "Ach, womens, beautifool +and goot womens!" he cried in his thick, kindly voice. "Dey are abofe +being types. To every good man, dey can be only wie eine blume, so +hold and schön--" + +Professor Kennedy's acid voice broke in--"So you're still in the 1830 +Romantische Schule period, are you, Reinhardt?" He went on to Mrs. +Marshall-Smith: "But there _is_ something in that sort of talk. Women, +especially those who consider themselves beautiful and good, escape +being _either_ kind of type, by the legerdemain with which they get +what they want, and yet don't soil their fingers with predatory acts." + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith was, perhaps, a shade tardy in asking the question +which he had evidently cast his speech to extract from her, but after +an instant's pause she brought it out bravely. "How in the world do +you mean?" she asked, smiling, and received, with a quick flicker of +her eyelids, the old man's response of, "They buy a dolichocephalic +blond to do their dirty work for them and pay for him with their +persons." + +"_Oh!_" cried Mrs. Marshall, checking herself in a sudden deprecatory +gesture of apology towards her sister-in-law. She looked at her +husband and gave him a silent, urgent message to break the awkward +pause, a message which he disregarded, continuing coolly to inspect +his fingernails with an abstracted air, contradicted by the half-smile +on his lips. Sylvia, listening to the talk, could make nothing out of +it, but miserably felt her little heart grow leaden as she looked from +one face to another. Judith and Lawrence, tired of waiting for the +music to begin, had dropped asleep among the pillows of the divan. Mr. +Bauermeister yawned, looked at the clock, and plucked at the strings +of his violin. He hated all talk as a waste of time. Old Reinhardt's +simple face looked as puzzled and uneasy as Sylvia's own. Young Mr. +Saunders seemed to have no idea that there was anything particularly +unsettling in the situation, but, disliking the caustic vehemence of +his old colleague's speech, inter-posed to turn it from the lady by +his side. "And you're the man who's opposed on principle to sweeping +generalizations!" he said in cheerful rebuke. + +"Ah, I've just come from a gathering of the Clan Kennedy," repeated +the older man. "I defy anybody to produce a more successfully +predatory family than mine. The fortunes of the present generation of +Kennedys don't come from any white-livered subterfuge, like the rise +in the value of real estate, as my own ill-owned money does. No, sir; +the good, old, well-recognized, red-blooded method of going out and +taking it away from people not so smart as they are, is good enough +for them, if you please. And my woman relatives--" He swept them away +with a gesture. "When I--" + +Mrs. Marshall cut him short resolutely. "Are you going to have any +music tonight, or aren't you?" she said. + +He looked at her with a sudden, unexpected softening of his somber +eyes. "Do you know, Barbara Marshall, that there are times when you +keep one unhappy old misanthrope from despairing of his kind?" + +She had at this unlooked-for speech only the most honest astonishment. +"I don't know what you're talking about," she said bluntly. + +Judith stirred in her sleep and woke up blinking. When she saw that +Professor Kennedy had come in, she did what Sylvia would never have +dared do; she ran to him and climbed up on his knee, laying her +shining, dark head against his shoulder. The old man's arms closed +around her. "Well, spitfire," he said, "_comment ça roule_, eh?" + +Judith did not trouble herself to answer. With a gesture of +tenderness, as unexpected as his speech to her mother, her old friend +laid his cheek against hers. "You're another, Judy, _You'll_ never +marry a dolichocephalic blond and make him pull the chestnuts out of +the fire for you, will you?" he said confidently. + +Mrs. Marshall rose with the exasperated air of one whose patience is +gone. She made a step as though to shield her husband's sister from +the cantankerous old man. "If I hear another word of argument in this +house tonight--" she threatened. "Mr. Reinhardt, what are these people +_here for_?" + +The musician awoke, with a sigh, from his dazzled contemplation of +his host's sister, and looked about him. "Ach, yes! Ach, yes!" +he admitted. With a glance of adoration at the visitor, he added +impressively what to his mind evidently signified some profoundly +significant tribute, "Dis night we shall blay only Schubert!" + +Sylvia heaved a sigh of relief as the four gathered in front of the +music-racks at the other end of the room, tuning and scraping. Young +Mr. Saunders, evidently elated that his opportunity had come, leaned +toward Aunt Victoria and began talking in low tones. Once or twice +they laughed a little, looking towards Professor Kennedy. + +Then old Reinhardt, gravely pontifical, rapped with his bow on his +rack, lifted his violin to his chin, and--an obliterating sponge was +passed over Sylvia's memory. All the queer, uncomfortable talk, the +unpleasant voices, the angry or malicious or uneasy eyes, the unkindly +smiling lips, all were washed away out of her mind. The smooth, +swelling current of the music was like oil on a wound. As she listened +and felt herself growing drowsy, it seemed to her that she was +being floated away, safely away from the low-ceilinged room where +personalities clashed, out to cool, star-lit spaces. + +All that night in her dreams she heard only old Reinhardt's angel +voice proclaiming, amid the rich murmur of assent from the other +strings: + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE SIGHTS OF LA CHANCE + + +One day at the end of a fortnight, Aunt Victoria and Arnold were late +in their daily arrival at the Marshall house, and when the neat surrey +at last drove up, they both showed signs of discomposure. Discomposure +was no unusual condition for Arnold, who not infrequently made his +appearance red-faced and sullen, evidently fresh from angry revolt +against his tutor, but on that morning he was anything but red-faced, +and looked a little scared. His stepmother's fine complexion, on +the contrary, had more pink than usual in its pearly tones, and her +carriage had less than usual of sinuous grace. Sylvia and Judith ran +down the porch steps to meet them, but stopped, startled by their +aspect. Aunt Victoria descended, very straight, her head high-held, +and without giving Sylvia the kiss with which she usually marked her +preference for her older niece, walked at once into the house. + +Although the impressionable Sylvia was so struck by these phenomena, +that, even after her aunt's disappearance, she remained daunted and +silent, Judith needed only the removal of the overpowering presence +to restore her coolness. She pounced on Arnold with questions. "What +_you_ been doing that's so awful bad? I bet _you_ caught it all +right!" + +"'Tisn't me," said Arnold in a subdued voice. "It's Pauline and old +Rollins that caught it. They're the ones that ha' been bad." + +Judith was at a loss, never having conceived that grown-ups might do +naughty things. Arnold went on, "If you'd ha' heard Madrina talking to +Pauline--say! Do you know what I did? I crawled under the bed--honest +I did. It didn't last but a minute, but it scared the liver out o' +me." This vigorous expression was a favorite of his. + +Judith was somewhat impressed by his face and manner, but still +inclined to mock at a confession of fear. "Under the _bed_!" she +sneered. + +Arnold evidently felt the horror of the recently enacted scene so +vividly that there was no room for shame in his mind. "You bet I did! +And so would you too, if you'd ha' been there. _Gee_!" + +In spite of herself Judith looked somewhat startled by the vibration +of sincerity in his voice, and Sylvia, with her quick sympathy of +divination, had turned almost as pale as the little boy, who, all his +braggart turbulence gone, stood looking at them with a sick expression +in his eyes. + +"Was it in your room?" asked Judith. "I thought Pauline's room was on +the top floor. What was she doing down there?" + +"No, it was in old Rollins' room--next to mine. I don't know what +Pauline was doing there." + +"What did Pauline do when Aunt Victoria scolded her?" asked Sylvia. +She had come to be fond of the pretty young maid with her fat, quick +hands and her bright, warm-hearted smile for her mistress' little +niece. One day, when Mrs. Marshall-Smith had, for a moment, chanced to +leave them alone, Pauline had given her a sudden embrace, and had told +her: "At 'ome zere are four leetle brozers and sisters. America is a +place mos' solitary!" "What did Pauline do?" asked Sylvia again as +Arnold did not answer. + +The boy looked down. "Pauline just cried and cried," he said in a low +tone. "I _liked_ Pauline! She was awful good to me. I--I heard her +crying afterwards as she went away. Seemed to me I could hear her +crying all the way out here." + +"Did she go away?" asked Judith, trying to make something coherent out +of the story. Arnold nodded. + +"You bet she did. Madrina turned her right out--and old Rollins too." + +"Was _he_ there? What was the matter anyhow?" Judith persisted. + +Arnold twisted uncomfortably, loath to continue bringing up the scene. +"I d'n know what was the matter. Yes, old Rollins was there, all +right. He's gone away too, the doggoned old thing--for good. That's +_something_!" He added, "Aw, quit talkin' about it, can't you! Let's +play!" + +"It's my turn to help Mother with the tomatoes," said Judith. "She's +doing the last of the canning this morning. Maybe she'd let you help." + +Arnold brightened. "Maybe she would!" he said, adding eagerly, "Maybe +she'd tell us another of the stories about her grandmother." + +Judith snatched at his hand and began racing down the path to the +garden. "Maybe she would!" she cried. They both called as they ran, +"Mother, _oh_, Mother!" and as they ran, they leaped and bounded into +the bright autumn air like a couple of puppies. + +Sylvia's mental resiliency was not of such sturdily elastic stuff. She +stood still, thinking of Pauline crying, and crying--and started aside +when her aunt came out again on the porch. + +"I don't find any one in the house, Sylvia dear," said Mrs. +Marshall-Smith quietly. Sylvia looked up into the clear, blue eyes, so +like her father's, and felt the usual magic spell lay hold on her. The +horrid impression made by Arnold's story dimmed and faded. Arnold was +always getting things twisted. She came up closer to her aunt's +side and took the soft, smooth fingers between her two little hard, +muscular hands. In her relief, she had forgotten to answer. Mrs. +Marshall-Smith said again, "Where are your parents, dear?" + +"Oh," said Sylvia. "Oh yes--why, Father's at the University at a +committee meeting and Mother's out by the garden putting up tomatoes. +Judy and Arnold are helping her." + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith hesitated, looked about her restlessly, and +finally raised her parasol, of a gold-colored silk, a lighter tone, +but the same shade as her rich plain broadcloth costume of tan. "Shall +we take a little walk, my dear?" she suggested. "I don't feel like +sitting still just now--nor"--she looked down into Sylvia's eyes--"nor +yet like canning tomatoes," + +That walk, the last one taken with Aunt Victoria, became one of +Sylvia's memories, although she never had a vivid recollection of what +they saw during their slow ramble. It was only Aunt Victoria whom the +little girl remembered--Aunt Victoria moving like a goddess over their +rough paths and under the changing glory of the autumn leaves. She +herself was a brighter glory, with her shining blond hair crowned by +a halo of feathery, gold-colored plumes, the soft, fine, supple +broadcloth of her garments gleaming in the sunshine with a sheen like +that of a well-kept animal's coat. There breathed from all her person +a faint odor of grace and violets and unhurried leisure. + +Sylvia clung close to her side, taking in through all her pores this +lovely emanation, not noticing whether they were talking or not, not +heeding the direction of their steps. She was quite astonished to find +herself on the University campus, in front of the Main Building. Aunt +Victoria had never walked so far before. "Oh, did you want to see +Father?" she asked, coming a little to herself. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith said, as if in answer, "Just sit down here and +wait for me a minute, will you, Sylvia?" moving thereupon up the steps +and disappearing through the wide front door. Sylvia relapsed into +her day-dreams and, motionless in a pool of sunlight, waited, quite +unconscious of the passage of time. + +This long reverie was at last broken by the return of Mrs. +Marshall-Smith. She was not alone, but the radiant young man who +walked beside her was not her brother, and nothing could have +differed more from the brilliantly hard gaze which Professor Marshall +habitually bent on his sister, than the soft intentness with which +young Mr. Saunders regarded the ripely beautiful woman. The dazzled +expression of his eyes was one of the remembered factors of the day +for Sylvia. + +The two walked down the shaded steps, Sylvia watching them admiringly, +the scene forever printed on her memory, and emerged into the pool of +sunshine where she sat, swinging her legs from the bench. They stood +there for some minutes, talking together in low tones. Sylvia, +absorbed in watching the play of light on Aunt Victoria's smooth +cheek, heard but a few words of what passed between them. She had a +vague impression that Professor Saunders continually began sentences +starting firmly with "But" and ending somehow on quite another note. +She felt dimly that Aunt Victoria was less calmly passive than usual +in a conversation, that it was not only the enchanting rising and +falling inflections of her voice which talked, but her eyes, her arms, +her whole self. Once she laid her hand for an instant on Professor +Saunders' arm. + +More than that Sylvia could not remember, even when she was asked +later to repeat as much as she could of what she had heard. She was +resolving when she was grown-up to have a ruffle of creamy lace +falling away from her neck and wrists as Aunt Victoria did. She had +not only forgotten Arnold's story, she had forgotten that such a boy +existed. She was living in a world all made up of radiance and bloom, +lace and sunshine and velvet, and bright hair and gleaming cloth and +smooth voices and the smell of violets. + +After a time she was aware that Professor Saunders shook hands and +turned back up the steps. Aunt Victoria began to move with her slow +grace along the road towards home, and Sylvia to follow, soaking +herself in an impression of supreme suavity. + +When, after the walk through the beech-woods, they reached the edge of +the Marshall field, they saw a stiff plume of blue smoke stand up over +the shack by the garden and, as they approached, heard a murmur of +voices. Mrs. Marshall-Smith stopped, furled her parasol, and surveyed +the scene within. Her sister-in-law, enveloped in a large blue apron, +by no means fresh, sat beside a roughly built table, peeling +tomatoes, her brown stained fingers moving with the rapidity of a +prestidigitator's. Judith stood beside her, also attacking the pile of +crimson fruit, endeavoring in vain to emulate her mother's speed. Over +the hot, rusty stove hung Arnold, red-faced and bright-eyed, armed +with a long, wooden spatula which he continually dug into the steaming +contents of an enormous white-lined kettle. As, at the arrival of +the new-comers, Mrs. Marshall's voice stopped, he looked around and +frowned impatiently at his stepmother. "She's just got to the excitin' +part," he said severely, and to the raconteur eagerly, "'N'_en_ what?" + +Mrs. Marshall looked up at her husband's sister, smiled, and went +on,--Sylvia recognized the story as one of her own old favorites. +"Well, it was very early dawn when she had to go over to the +neighbor's to borrow some medicine for her father, who kept getting +sicker all the time. As she hurried along across the meadow towards +the stile, she kept wondering, in spite of herself, if there was any +truth in what Nat had said about having seen bear tracks near the +house the day before. When she got to the stile she ran up the +steps--and on the top one she stood still, for there--" She made +a dramatic pause and reached for another tray of tomatoes. Arnold +stopped stirring the pot and stood motionless, his eyes fixed on +the narrator, the spatula dripping tomato-juice all along his white +trousers. "There on the other side, looking up at her, was a bear--a +big black bear." + +Arnold's mouth dropped open and his eyes widened. + +"My grandmother was dreadfully frightened. She was only seventeen, and +she hadn't any kind of a weapon, not so much as a little stick with +her. Her first idea was to turn and run as fast as she could, back +home. But she remembered how sick her father was, and how much he +needed the medicine; and then besides, she used to say, all of a +sudden it made her angry, all over, to have that great stupid animal +get in her way. She always said that nothing 'got her mad up' like +feeling afraid. So what do you suppose she did?" + +Arnold could only shake his head silently in an ecstasy of impatience +for the story to continue. Judith and Sylvia smiled at each other with +the insufferable complacence of auditors who know the end by heart. + +"She just pointed her finger at the bear, and she said in a loud, +harsh voice: 'Shame! Shame! Shame on you! For sha-a-ame!' She'd taught +district school, you know, and had had lots of practice saying that +to children who had been bad. The bear looked up at her hard for +a minute, then dropped his head and began to walk slowly away. +Grandmother always said, 'The great lummox lumbered off into the +bushes like a gawk of a boy who's been caught in mischief,' She waited +just a minute and then ran like lightning along the path through the +woods to the neighbors and got the medicine." + +The story was evidently over, the last tomato was peeled. Mrs. +Marshall rose, wiping her stained and dripping hands on her apron, +and went to the stove. Arnold started as if coming out of a dream +and looked about him with wondering eyes. "Well, +what-d'you-think-o'-_that?_" he commented, all in one breath. "Say, +Mother," he went on, looking up at her with trusting eyes, searching +the quiet face, "what do you suppose _made_ the bear go away? You +wouldn't think a little thing like that would scare a _bear_!" + +Mrs. Marshall began dipping the hot, stewed tomatoes into the glass +jars ready in a big pan of boiling water on the back of the stove. The +steam rose up, like a cloud, into her face, which began to turn red +and to glisten with perspiration. "Oh, I don't suppose it really +frightened the bear," she said moderately, refraining from the +dramatic note of completeness which her husband, in spite of himself, +gave to everything he touched, and adding instead the pungent, homely +savor of reality, which none relished more than Sylvia and her father, +incapable themselves of achieving it. "'Most likely the bear would +have gone away of his own accord anyhow. They don't attack people +unless they're stirred up." Arnold bit deeply into the solidity of +this unexaggerated presentation, and was silent for a moment, saying +then: "Well, anyhow, she didn't _know_ he'd go away! She was a sport, +all right!" + +"Oh yes, indeed," said Mrs. Marshall, dipping and steaming, and wiping +away the perspiration, which ran down in drops to the end of her +large, shapely nose. "Yes, my grandmother was a sport, all right." The +acrid smell of hot, cooking tomatoes filled the shed and spread to the +edge where Sylvia and her aunt stood, still a little aloof. Although +it bore no resemblance to the odor of violets, it could not be called +a disgusting smell: it was the sort of smell which is quite agreeable +when one is very hungry. But Sylvia was not hungry at all. She stepped +back involuntarily. Mrs. Marshall-Smith, on the contrary, advanced a +step or so, until she stood close to her sister-in-law. "Barbara, I'd +like to see you a few minutes without the children," she remarked in +the neutral tone she always had for her brother's wife. "A rather +unpleasant occurrence--I'm in something of a quandary." + +Mrs. Marshall nodded. "All right," she agreed. "Scatter out of here, +you children! Go and let out the hens, and give them some water!" + +Arnold needed no second bidding, reminded by his stepmother's words +of his experiences of the morning. He and Judith scampered away in +a suddenly improvised race to see who would reach the chicken-house +first. Sylvia went more slowly, looking back once or twice at the +picture made by the two women, so dramatically contrasted--her mother, +active, very upright, wrapped in a crumpled and stained apron, her +dark hair bound closely about her round head, her moist, red face and +steady eyes turned attentively upon the radiant creature beside her, +cool and detached, leaning willow-like on the slender wand of the +gold-colored parasol. + +Professor Marshall chanced to be late that day in coming home for +luncheon, and Aunt Victoria and Arnold had returned to the hotel +without seeing him. His wife remarked that Victoria had asked her +to tell him something, but, acting on her inviolable principle that +nothing must interfere with the cheerful peace of mealtime, said +nothing more to him until after they had finished the big plate of +purple grapes from her garden, with which the meal ended. + +Then Judith vanished out to the shop, where she was constructing a +rabbit-house for the latest family. Sylvia took Lawrence, yawning and +rubbing his eyes, but fighting desperately against his sleepiness, +upstairs for his nap. When this task fell to Judith's lot it was +despatched with business-like promptness, but Lawrence had early +discovered a temperamental difference between his two sisters, and +Sylvia was seldom allowed to leave the small bed until she had paid +tribute to her ever-present desire to please, in the shape of a story +or a song. On that day Buddy was more exacting than usual. Sylvia told +the story of Cinderella and sang, "A Frog He Would a-Wooing Go," twice +through, before the little boy's eyes began to droop. Even then, the +clutch of his warm, moist fingers about her hand did not relax. When +she tried to slip her fingers out of his, his eyelids fluttered open +and he tightened his grasp with a wilful frown. So she sat still on +the edge of his bed, waiting till he should be really asleep. + +From the dining-room below her rose the sound of voices, or rather of +one voice--her father's. She wondered why it sounded so angry, and +then, mixed with some unintelligible phrases--"turned out on the +street, in trouble--in a foreign land--Good God!" she caught Pauline's +name. Oh yes, that must be the trouble. Mother was telling Father +about Pauline--whatever it was she had done--and he was as mad about +it as Aunt Victoria had been. If Aunt Victoria's voice had sounded +like that, she didn't wonder that Arnold had hidden under the bed. If +she could have moved, she, too, would have run away, although the +idea that she ought to do so did not occur to her. There had been no +secrets in that house. The talk had always been for all to hear who +would. + +But when she tried again to slip her hand away from Buddy's the little +boy pulled at it hard, and half opening his eyes, said sleepily, +"Sylvie stay with Buddy--Sylvie stay--" Sylvia yielded weakly, said: +"Yes--sh! sh! Sister'll stay. Go to sleep, Buddy." + +From below came the angry voice, quite loud now, so that she caught +every queer-sounding word--"righteous indignation indeed! What else +did _she_ do, I'd like to know, when she wanted money. The only +difference was that she was cold-blooded enough to extract a legal +status from the old reprobate she accosted." + +Sylvia heard her mother's voice saying coldly, "You ought to be +ashamed to use such a word!" and her father retort, "It's the _only_ +word that expresses it! You know as well as I do that she cared no +more for Ephraim Smith than for the first man she might have solicited +on the street--nor so much! God! It makes me sick to look at her and +think of the price she paid for her present damn Olympian serenity." + +Sylvia heard her mother begin to clear off the table. There was a +rattle of dishes through which her voice rose impatiently. "Oh, +Elliott, why be so melodramatic always, and spoil so much good +language! She did only what every girl brought up as she was, would +have done. And, anyhow, are you so very sure that in your heart +you're not so awfully hard on her because you're envious of that very +prosperity?" + +He admitted, with acrimony, the justice of this thrust. "Very likely. +Very likely!--everything base and mean in me, that you keep down, +springs to life in me at her touch. I dare say I do envy her--I'm +quite capable of that--am I not her brother, with the same--" + +Mrs. Marshall said hastily: "Hush! Hush! Here's Judith. For Heaven's +sake don't let the child hear you!" + +For the first time the idea penetrated Sylvia's head that she ought +not to have listened. Buddy was now soundly asleep: she detached her +hand from his, and went soberly along the hall into her own room. She +did not want to see her father just then. + +A long time after, Mother called up to say that Aunt Victoria had come +for her afternoon drive, and to leave Arnold. Sylvia opened the door a +crack and asked, "Where's Father?" + +"Oh, gone back to the University this long time," answered her mother +in her usual tone. Sylvia came down the stairs slowly and took her +seat in the carriage beside Aunt Victoria with none of her usual +demonstrative show of pleasure. + +"Don't you like my dress?" asked Aunt Victoria, as they drove away. +"You don't even notice it, and I put it on 'specially to please +you--you're the one discriminating critic in this town!" As Sylvia +made no answer to this sally, she went on: "It's hard to get into +alone, too. I had to ask the hotel chambermaid to hook it up on the +shoulders." + +Thus reminded of Pauline, Sylvia could have but inattentive eyes for +the creation of amber silk and lace, and brown fur, which seductively +clad the handsome body beside her. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith gave her favorite a penetrating look. "What's the +matter with you, Sylvia?" she asked in the peremptory note which her +sweet voice of many modulations could startlingly assume on occasion. +Sylvia had none of Judith's instant pugnacious antagonism to any +peremptory note. She answered in one imploring rush of a question, +"Aunt Victoria, why should _Father_ be so very mad at Pauline?" + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith looked a little startled at this direct reference +to the veiled storm-center of the day, but not at all displeased. "Oh, +your mother told him? Was he so very angry?" she asked with a slight +smile. + +"Oh, dreadfully!" returned Sylvia. "I didn't _mean_ to listen, but I +couldn't help it. Buddy wouldn't go to sleep and Father's voice was so +loud--and he got madder and madder at her." She went on with another +question, "Auntie, who was Ephraim Smith?" + +Aunt Victoria turned upon her in astonishment, and did not, for a +moment, answer; then: "Why, that was the name of my husband, Sylvia. +What has that to do with anything?" + +"Why didn't Pauline like him?" asked Sylvia. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith replied with a vivacity of surprise which carried +her out of her usual delicate leisure in speech. "_Pauline?_ Why, she +never saw him in her life! _What_ are you talking about, child?" + +"But, Father said--I thought--he seemed to mean--" Sylvia halted, not +able to remember in her bewilderment what it had been that Father had +said. In a blur of doubt and clouded perceptions she lost all definite +impression of what she had heard. Evidently, as so often happened, she +had grown-ups' affairs all twisted up in her mind. Aunt Victoria was +touched with kindly amusement at the little girl's face of perplexity, +and told her, dismissing the subject: "Never mind, dear, you evidently +misunderstood something. But I wonder what your father could have said +to give you such a funny idea." + +Sylvia gave it up, shaking her head. They turned into the main street +of La Chance, and Aunt Victoria directed the coachman to drive them to +"the" drug store of town, and offered Sylvia her choice of any soda +water confection she might select. This completed the "about-face" of +the mobile little mind. After several moments of blissful anguish of +indecision, Sylvia decided on a peach ice-cream soda, and thereafter +was nothing but sense of taste as she ecstatically drew through a +straw the syrupy, foamy draught of nectar. She took small sips at a +time and held them in the back of her mouth till every minute bubble +of gas had rendered up its delicious prickle to her tongue. Her +consciousness was filled to its uttermost limits with a voluptuous +sense of present physical delight. + +And yet it was precisely at this moment that from her subconscious +mind, retracing with unaided travail a half-forgotten clue, there +sprang into her memory a complete phrase of what her father had said. +She gave one more suck to the straw and laid it aside for a moment +to say in quite a comfortable accent to her aunt: "Oh yes, now I +remember. He said she didn't care for him any more than for the first +man she might have solicited in the street." For an instant the words +came back as clearly as though they had just been uttered, and she +repeated them fluently, returning thereupon at once to the charms of +the tall, foam-filled frosted glass. + +Evidently Aunt Victoria did not follow this sudden change of subject, +for she asked blankly, "_Who_? Who didn't care for who?" + +"Why, I supposed, Pauline for Ephraim Smith. It was that that made +Father so mad," explained Sylvia, sucking dreamily, her eyes on +the little maelstrom created in the foaming liquid by the straw, +forgetting everything else. The luxurious leisure in which she +consumed her potation made it last a long time, and it was not until +her suction made only a sterile rattling in the straw that she looked +up at her aunt to thank her. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith's face was averted and she did not turn it back +as she said, "Just run along into the shop and leave your glass, +Sylvia--here is the money." + +After Sylvia took her seat again in the carriage, the coachman turned +the horse's head back up the Main Street. "Aren't you going to the +campus?" asked Sylvia in surprise. + +"No, we are going to the hotel," said Aunt Victoria. She spoke +quietly, and seemed to look as usual, but Sylvia's inner barometer +fell fast with a conviction of a change in the emotional atmosphere. +She sat as still as possible, and only once glanced up timidly at +her aunt's face. There was no answering glance. Aunt Victoria gazed +straight in front of her. Her face looked as it did when it was being +massaged--all smooth and empty. There was, however, one change. For +the first time that day, she looked a little pale. + +As the carriage stopped in front of the onyx-lined, palm-decorated, +plate-glass-mirrored "entrance hall" of the expensive hotel, Aunt +Victoria descended, motioning to Sylvia not to follow her. "I haven't +time to drive any more this afternoon," she said. "Peter will take you +home. And have him bring Arnold back at once." She turned away and, as +Sylvia sat watching her, entered the squirrel-cage revolving door of +glass, which a little boy in livery spun about for her. + +But after she was inside the entrance hall, she signified to him that +she had forgotten something, and came immediately out again. What +she had forgotten surprised Sylvia as much as it touched her. Aunt +Victoria came rapidly to the side of the carriage and put out her +arms. "Come here, dear," she said in a voice Sylvia had never +heard her use. It trembled a little, and broke. With her quick +responsiveness, Sylvia sprang into the outstretched arms, overcome by +the other's emotion. She hid her face against the soft, perfumed laces +and silk, and heard from beneath them the painful throb of a quickly +beating heart. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith held her niece for a long moment and then turned +the quivering little face up to her own grave eyes, in which Sylvia, +for all her inexperience, read a real suffering. Aunt Victoria looked +as though somebody were hurting her--hurting her awfully--Sylvia +pressed her cheek hard against her aunt's, and Mrs. Marshall-Smith +felt, soft and Warm and ardent on her lips, the indescribably fresh +kiss of a child's mouth. "Oh, little Sylvia!" she cried, in that +new, strange, uncertain voice which trembled and broke, "Oh, little +Sylvia!" She seemed to be about to say something more, said in fact in +a half-whisper, + +"I hope--I hope--" but then shook her head, kissed Sylvia gently, put +her back in the carriage, and again disappeared through the revolving +door. + +This time she did not turn back. She did not even look back. After a +moment's wait, Peter gathered up the reins and Sylvia, vaguely uneasy, +and much moved, drove home in a solitary state, which she forgot to +enjoy. + +The next morning there was no arrival, even tardy, of the visitors +from the hotel. Instead came a letter, breaking the startling news +that Aunt Victoria had been called unexpectedly to the East, and had +left on the midnight train, taking Arnold with her, of course. Judith +burst into angry expressions of wrath over the incompleteness of the +cave which she and Arnold had been excavating together. The next day +was the beginning of school, she reminded her auditors, and she'd have +no time to get it done! Never! She characterized Aunt Victoria as a +mean old thing, an epithet for which she was not reproved, her mother +sitting quite absent and absorbed in the letter. She read it over +twice, with a very puzzled air, which gave an odd look to her usually +crystal-clear countenance. She asked her husband one question as he +went out of the door. "You didn't see Victoria yesterday--or say +anything to her?" to which he answered, with apparently uncalled-for +heat, "I did _not_! I thought it rather more to the purpose to try to +look up Pauline." + +Mrs. Marshall sprang up and approached him with an anxious face. He +shook his head: "Too late. Disappeared. No trace." + +She sat down again, looking sad and stern. + +Professor Marshall put on his hat with violence, and went away. + +When he came home to luncheon there was a fresh sensation, and again +a disagreeable one. He brought the astounding news that, at the very +beginning of the semester's work, he had been deserted by his most +valuable assistant, and abandoned, apparently forever, by his +most-loved disciple. Saunders had left word, a mere laconic note, that +he had accepted the position left vacant by the dismissal of Arnold's +tutor, and had entered at once upon the duties of his new position. + +Professor Marshall detailed this information in a hard, level voice, +and without further comment handed his wife Saunders' note. She read +it rapidly, this time with no perplexity, and laid it down, saying to +her husband, briefly, "Will you kindly remember that the children are +here?" + +Judith looked at Sylvia in astonishment, this being the first time +that that well-worn phrase, so familiar to most children, had ever +been heard in the Marshall house. Why shouldn't Father remember they +were there? Couldn't he _see_ them? Judith almost found the idea funny +enough to laugh at, although she had not at all in general Sylvia's +helpless response to the ridiculous. Sylvia did not laugh now. She +looked anxiously at her father's face, and was relieved when he only +answered her mother's exhortation by saying in a low tone: "Oh, I have +nothing to say. It's beyond words!" + +Luncheon went on as usual, with much chatter among the children. Some +time later--in the midst of a long story from Lawrence, Mrs. Marshall +herself brought up the subject again. Buddy was beginning to struggle +with the narrative form of self-expression, and to trip his tongue +desperately over the tenses. He had just said, "And the rabbit _was_ +naughty, didn't he was?" when his mother exclaimed, addressing her +husband's grim face, "Good Heavens, don't take it so hard, Elliott." + +He raised an eyebrow, but did not look up from the pear he was +eating. "To be responsible, as I feel I am, for the pitching into a +_cul-de-sac_ of the most promising young--" + +His wife broke in, "_Responsible_! How in the world are _you_ +responsible!" she added quickly, as if at random, to prevent the reply +which her husband was evidently about to cast at her. "Besides, how do +_you_ know?--one never knows how things will turn out--she may--she +may marry him, and he may have a life which will give him more leisure +for investigation than if--" + +Professor Marshall wiped his lips violently on his napkin and stood +up. "Nothing would induce her to marry him--or any one else. She's +extracted from marriage all she wants of it. No, she'll just keep him +trailing along, in an ambiguous position, sickened and tantalized and +fevered, till all the temper is drawn out of him--and then hell be +dropped," + +He turned away with an impatient fling of his head. His wife stood up +now and looked at him anxiously. "Go play us something on the piano," +she urged. This was not a common exhortation from her. She cared very +little for music, and with her usual honesty she showed, as a rule, a +very passive attitude towards it. + +Professor Marshall glanced at her with a flash of anger. "Sometimes +you count too much on my childishness, Barbara," he said resentfully, +and went out of the door without further words. + +Decidedly the discomposing effect of Aunt Victoria's visit lasted even +after she had gone away. But the next day was the beginning of the +school term, the busy, regular routine was taken up, Sylvia was +promoted to the 5A grade, and at home Father let her begin to learn +the Pilgrim's Chorus, from Tannhauser. + +Life for the eager little girl moved quickly forward at its usual +brisk pace, through several years to come. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +"WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF-EVIDENT ..." + + +The public school to which the Marshall children went as soon as they +were old enough was like any one of ten thousand public schools--a +large, square, many-windowed, extravagantly ugly building, once red +brick, but long ago darkened almost to black by soft-coal smoke. About +it, shaded by three or four big cottonwood-trees, was an inclosed +space of perhaps two acres of ground, beaten perfectly smooth by +hundreds of trampling little feet, a hard, bare earthen floor, so +entirely subdued to its fate that even in the long summer vacation no +spear of grass could penetrate its crust to remind it that it was made +of common stuff with fields and meadows. + +School began at nine o'clock in the morning and, as a rule, +three-fourths of the children had passed through the front gate twenty +or thirty minutes earlier. Nobody knew why it should be considered +such a hideous crime to be "tardy," but the fact was that not the most +reckless and insubordinate of the older boys cared to risk it. Any +one of the four hundred children in any public school in the city +preferred infinitely to be absent a day than to have the ghastly +experience of walking through deserted streets (that is, with no +children on them), across the empty playground frighteningly unlike +itself, into the long, desolate halls which, walk as cat-like as one +might, resounded to the guilty footsteps with accusing echoes. And +then the narrow cloakroom, haunted with limp, hanging coats and caps +and hats, and finally the entry into the schoolroom, seated rank on +rank with priggishly complacent schoolmates, looking up from their +books with unfriendly eyes of blame at the figure of the late-comer. + +AH over that section of La Chance, during the hour between half-past +seven and half-past eight in the morning, the families of school +children were undergoing a most rigorous discipline in regularity +and promptness. No child was too small or too timid to refrain from +embittering his mother's life with clamorous upbraidings if breakfast +were late, or his school-outfit of clothes were not ready to the last +button, so that he could join the procession of schoolward-bound +children, already streaming past his door at a quarter past eight. The +most easy-going and self-indulgent mother learned to have at least one +meal a day on time; and the children themselves during those eight +years of their lives had imbedded in the tissue of their brains and +the marrow of their bones that unrebelling habit of bending +their backs daily to a regular burden of work not selected by +themselves--which, according to one's point of view, is either the +bane or the salvation of our modern industrial society. + +The region where the school stood was inhabited, for the most part, by +American families or German and Irish ones so long established as to +be virtually American; a condition which was then not infrequent in +moderate-sized towns of the Middle West and which is still by no means +unknown there. The class-rolls were full of Taylors and Aliens and +Robinsons and Jacksons and Websters and Rawsons and Putnams, with +a scattering of Morrisseys and Crimminses and O'Hearns, and some +Schultzes and Brubackers and Helmeyers. There was not a Jew in the +school, because there were almost none in that quarter of town, and, +for quite another reason, not a single negro child. There were plenty +of them in the immediate neighborhood, swarming around the collection +of huts and shanties near the railroad tracks given over to negroes, +and known as Flytown. But they had their own school, which looked +externally quite like all the others in town, and their playground, +beaten bare like that of the Washington Street School, was filled +with laughing, shouting children, ranging from shoe-black through +coffee-color to those occasional tragic ones with white skin and blue +eyes, but with the telltale kink in the fair hair and the bluish +half-moon at the base of the finger-nails. + +The four hundred children in the Washington Street School were, +therefore, a mass more homogeneous than alarmists would have us +believe it possible to find in this country. They were, for all +practical purposes, all American, and they were all roughly of one +class. Their families were neither rich nor poor (at least so far as +the children's standards went). Their fathers were grocers, small +clerks, merchants, two or three were truck-farmers, plumbers, +carpenters, accountants, employees of various big businesses in town. + +It was into this undistinguished and plebeian mediocrity that the +Marshall children were introduced when they began going to school. + +The interior of the school-building resembled the outside in being +precisely like that of ten thousand other graded schools in this +country. The halls were long and dark and dusty, and because the +building had been put up under contract at a period when public +contract-work was not so scrupulously honest as it notably is in our +present cleanly muck-raked era, the steps of the badly built staircase +creaked and groaned and sagged and gave forth clouds of dust under the +weight of the myriads of little feet which climbed up and clown those +steep ascents every day. Everything was of wood. The interior looked +like the realized dream of a professional incendiary. + +The classrooms were high and well-lighted, with many large windows, +never either very clean or very dirty, which let in a flood of our +uncompromisingly brilliant American daylight upon the rows of little +seats and desks screwed, like those of an ocean liner, immovably to +the floor, as though at any moment the building was likely to embark +upon a cruise in stormy waters. + +Outwardly the rows of clean-faced, comfortably dressed, well-shod +American children, sitting in chairs, bore no resemblance to +shaven-headed, barefooted little Arabian students, squatting on the +floor, gabbling loud uncomprehended texts from the Koran; but the +sight of Sylvia's companions bending over their school-books with +glazed, vacant eyes, rocking back and forth as a rhythmical aid to +memorizing, their lips moving silently as they repeated over and over, +gabblingly, the phrases of the printed page, might have inclined a +hypothetical visitor from Mars to share the bewildered amusement of +the American visitors to Moslem schools. Sylvia rocked and twisted a +favorite button, gabbled silently, and recited fluently with the rest, +being what was known as an apt and satisfactory pupil. In company with +the other children she thus learned to say, in answer to questions, +that seven times seven is forty-nine; that the climate of Brazil is +hot and moist; that the capital of Arkansas is Little Rock; and that +"through" is spelled with three misleading and superfluous letters. + +What she really learned was, as with her mates, another matter--for, +of course, those devouringly active little minds did not spend six +hours a day in school without learning something incessantly. The few +rags and tatters of book-information they acquired were but the +merest fringes on the great garment of learning acquired by these +public-school children, which was to wrap them about all their lives. +What they learned during those eight years of sitting still and not +whispering had nothing to do with the books in their desks or the lore +in their teachers' brains. The great impression stamped upon the wax +of their minds, which became iron in after years, was democracy--a +crude, distorted, wavering image of democracy, like every image an +ideal in this imperfect world, but in its essence a reflection of the +ideal of their country. No European could have conceived how literally +it was true that the birth or wealth or social position of a child +made no difference in the estimation of his mates. There were no +exceptions to the custom of considering the individual on his own +merits. These merits were often queerly enough imagined, a faculty for +standing on his head redounding as much, or more, to a boy's credit as +the utmost brilliance in recitation, or generosity of temperament, but +at least he was valued for something he himself could do, and not for +any fortuitous incidents of birth and fortune. + +Furthermore there lay back of these four hundred children, who shaped +their world to this rough-and-ready imitation of democracy, their +families, not so intimately known to each other, of course, as the +children themselves, but still by no means unknown in their general +characteristics; four hundred American families who were, on the +whole, industrious, law-abiding, who loved their children, who were +quite tasteless in matters of art, and quite sound though narrow in +matters of morals, utterly mediocre in intelligence and information, +with no breadth of outlook in any direction; but who somehow lived +their lives and faced and conquered all the incredible vicissitudes of +that Great Adventure, with an unconscious, cheerful fortitude which +many an acuter mind might have envied them. + +It is possible that the personal knowledge of these four hundred +enduring family lives was, perhaps, the most important mental ballast +taken on by the children of the community during their eight years' +cruise at school. Certainly it was the most important for the +sensitive, complicated, impressionable little Sylvia Marshall, with +her latent distaste for whatever lacked distinction and external +grace, and her passion for sophistication and elegance, which was to +spring into such fierce life with the beginning of her adolescence. +She might renounce, as utterly as she pleased, the associates of her +early youth, but the knowledge of their existence, the acquaintance +with their deep humanity, the knowledge that they found life sweet and +worth living, all this was to be a part of the tissue of her brain +forever, and was to add one to the conflicting elements which battled +within her for the mastery during all the clouded, stormy radiance of +her youth. + +The families which supplied the Washington Street School being quite +stationary in their self-owned houses, few new pupils entered during +the school-year. There was, consequently, quite a sensation on the day +in the middle of March when the two Fingál girls entered, Camilla in +the "Fifth A" grade, where Sylvia was, and CĂ©cile in the third grade, +in the next seat to Judith's. The girls themselves were so different +from other children in school that their arrival would have excited +interest even at the beginning of the school-year. Coming, as they +did, at a time when everybody knew by heart every detail of every +one else's appearance from hair-ribbon to shoes, these two beautiful +exotics, in their rich, plain, mourning dresses were vastly stared at. +Sylvia's impressionable eyes were especially struck by the air of race +and breeding of the new-comer in her class. Everything about the other +child, from her heavy black hair, patrician nose, and large dark eyes +to her exquisitely formed hands, white and well-cared-for, seemed to +Sylvia perfection itself. + +During recess she advanced to the new-comer, saying, with a bright +smile: "Aren't you thirsty? Don't you want me to show you where the +pump is?" She put out her hand as she spoke and took the slim white +fingers in her own rough little hand, leading her new schoolmate along +in silence, looking at her with an open interest. + +She had confidently expected amicable responsiveness in the other +little girl, because her experience had been that her own frank +friendliness nearly always was reflected back to her from others; but +she had not expected, or indeed ever seen, such an ardent look of +gratitude as burned in the other's eyes. She stopped, startled, +uncomprehending, as though her companion had said something +unintelligible, and felt the slim fingers in her hand close about her +own in a tight clasp. "You are so very kind to show me this pump," +breathed Camilla shyly. The faint flavor of a foreign accent which, +to Sylvia's ear, hung about these words, was the final touch of +fascination for her. That instant she decided in her impetuous, +enthusiastic heart that Camilla was the most beautiful, sweetest, +best-dressed, loveliest creature she had ever seen, or would ever see +in her life; and she bent her back joyfully in the service of her +ideal. She would not allow Camilla to pump for herself, but flew to +the handle with such energy that the white water gushed out in a +flood, overflowing Camilla's cup, spattering over on her fingers, and +sparkling on the sheer white of her hemstitched cuffs. This made them +both laugh, the delicious silly laugh of childhood. + +Already they seemed like friends. "How do you pronounce your name?" +Sylvia asked familiarly. + +"Cam-eela Fingál," said the other, looking up from her cup, her upper +lip red and moist. She accented the surname on the last syllable. + +"What a perfectly lovely name!" cried Sylvia. "Mine is Sylvia +Marshall." + +"That's a pretty name too," said Camilla, smiling. She spoke less +timidly now, but her fawn-like eyes still kept their curious +expression, half apprehension, half hope. + +"How old are you?" asked Sylvia. + +"Eleven, last November." + +"Why, my birthday is in November, and I was eleven too!" cried Sylvia. +"I thought you must be older--you're so tall." + +Camilla looked down and said nothing. + +Sylvia went on: "I'm crazy about the way you do your hair, in those +twists over your ears. When I was studying my spelling lesson, I was +trying to figure out how you do it." + +"Oh, I don't do it. Mattice does it for us--for CĂ©cile and +me--CĂ©cile's my sister. She's in the third grade." + +"Why, I have a sister in the third grade too!" exclaimed Sylvia, much +struck by this second propitious coincidence. "Her name is Judith and +she's a darling. Wouldn't it be nice if she and CĂ©cile should be +good friends _too_!" She put her arm about her new comrade's waist, +convinced that they were now intimates of long standing. They ran +together to take their places at the sound of the bell; all during +the rest of the morning session she smiled radiantly at the new-comer +whenever their eyes met. + +She planned to walk part way home with her at noon, but she was +detained for a moment by the teacher, and when she reached the front +gate, where Judith was waiting for her, Camilla was nowhere in sight. +Judith explained with some disfavor that a surrey had been waiting for +the Fingál girls and they had been driven away. + +Sylvia fell into a rhapsody over her new acquaintance and found to her +surprise (it was always a surprise to Sylvia that Judith's tastes and +judgments so frequently differed from hers) that Judith by no means +shared her enthusiasm. She admitted, but as if it were a matter of no +importance, that both Camilla and CĂ©cile were pretty enough, but she +declared roundly that CĂ©cile was a little sneak who had set out from +the first to be "Teacher's pet." This title, in the sturdy democracy +of the public schools, means about what "sycophantic lickspittle" +means in the vocabulary of adults, and carries with it a crushing +weight of odium which can hardly ever be lived down. + +"_Judith_, what makes you think so?" cried Sylvia, horrified at the +epithet. + +"The way she looks at Teacher--she never takes her eyes off her, +and just jumps to do whatever Teacher says. And then she looks at +everybody so kind o' scared--'s'if she thought she was goin' to be hit +over the head every minute and was so thankful to everybody for not +doing it. Makes me feel just _like_ doin' it!" declared Judith, the +Anglo-Saxon. + +Sylvia recognized a scornful version of the appealing expression which +she had found so touching in Camilla. + +"Why, I think it's sweet of them to look so! When they're so awfully +pretty, and have such good clothes--and a carriage--and everything! +They might be as stuck-up as anything! I think it's just _nice_ for +them to be so sweet!" persisted Sylvia. + +"I don't call it bein' sweet," said Judith, "to watch Teacher every +minute and smile all over your face if she looks at you and hold on to +her hand when she's talkin' to you! It's silly!" + +They argued all the way home, and the lunch hour was filled with +appeals to their parents to take sides. Professor and Mrs. Marshall, +always ready, although occasionally somewhat absent, listeners to +school news, professed themselves really interested in these new +scholars and quite perplexed by the phenomenon of two beautiful +dark-eyed children, called Camilla and CĂ©cile Fingál. Judith refused +to twist her tongue to pronounce the last syllable accented, and her +version of the name made it sound Celtic. "Perhaps their father +is Irish and the mother Italian or Spanish," suggested Professor +Marshall. + +Sylvia was delighted with this hypothesis, and cried out +enthusiastically, "Oh yes--Camilla _looks_ Italian--like an Italian +princess!" + +Judith assumed an incredulous and derisive expression and remained +silent, an achievement of self-control which Sylvia was never able to +emulate. + +The Fingál girls continued to occupy a large space in Sylvia's +thoughts and hours, and before long they held a unique position in +the opinion of the school, which was divided about evenly between the +extremes represented by Sylvia and Judith. The various accomplishments +of the new-comers were ground both for uneasy admiration and +suspicion. They could sing like birds, and, what seemed like +witchcraft to the unmusical little Americans about them, they could +sing in harmony as easily as they could carry an air. And they recited +with fire, ease, and evident enjoyment, instead of with the show of +groaning, unwilling submission to authority which it was etiquette +in the Washington Street School to show before beginning to "speak a +piece." + +They were good at their books too, and altogether, with their quick +docility, picturesqueness, and eagerness to please, were the delight +of their teachers. In the fifth grade, Sylvia's example of intimate, +admiring friendship definitely threw popular favor on the side of +Camilla, who made every effort to disarm the hostility aroused by her +too-numerous gifts of nature. She was ready to be friends with the +poorest and dullest of the girls, never asked the important rĂ´les in +any games, hid rather than put forward the high marks she received in +her studies, and was lavish with her invitations to her schoolmates to +visit her at home. + +The outside of this house, which Mr. Fingál had rented a month or so +before when they first moved to La Chance, was like any one of many in +the region; but the interior differed notably from those to which the +other children were accustomed. For one thing there was no "lady of +the house," Mrs. Fingál having died a short time before. Camilla and +CĂ©cile could do exactly as they pleased, and they gave the freedom of +the house and its contents lavishly to their little friends. In the +kitchen was an enormous old negro woman, always good-natured, always +smelling of whiskey. She kept on hand a supply of the most meltingly +delicious cakes and cookies, and her liberal motto, "Heah, chile, +put yo' han' in the cookie-jah and draw out what you lights on!" was +always flourished in the faces of the schoolmates of the two daughters +of the house. + +In the rest of the house, filled with dark, heavy, dimly shining +furniture, reigned Mattice, another old negro woman, but, unlike the +jolly, fat cook, yellow and shriveled and silent. She it was who +arrayed Camille and CĂ©cile with such unerring taste, and her skilful +old hands brushed and dressed their long black hair in artful twists +and coils. + +Here, against their own background, the two girls seemed more at their +ease and showed more spontaneity than at school. They were fond of +"dressing up" and of organizing impromptu dramatizations of the +stories of familiar books, and showed a native ability for acting +which explained their success in recitations. Once when the fun was +very rollicking, Camilla brought out from a closet a banjo and, +thrumming on its strings with skilful fingers, played a tingling +accompaniment to one of her songs. The other little girls were +delighted and clamored for more, but she put it away quickly with +almost a frown on her sweet face, and for once in her life did not +yield to their demands. + +"Well, I think more of her for that!" remarked Judith, when this +incident was repeated to her by Sylvia, who cried out, "Why, Judy, how +_hateful_ you are about poor Camilla!" + +Nothing was learned about the past history of the Fingáls beyond the +fact, dropped once by the cook, that they had lived in Louisiana +before coming to La Chance, but there were rumors, based on nothing +at all, and everywhere credited, that their mother had been a +Spanish-American heiress, disinherited by her family for marrying a +Protestant. Such a romantic and picturesque element had never before +entered the lives of the Washington Street school-children. Once +a bold and insensitive little girl, itching to know more of this +story-book history, had broken the silence about Mrs. Fingál and had +asked Camilla bluntly, "Say, who _was_ your mother, anyway?" The +question had been received by Camilla with whitening lips and a +desperate silence--ended by a sudden loud burst of sobs, which tore +Sylvia's heart. "You mean, horrid thing!" she cried to the inquisitor. +"Her mother isn't dead a year yet! Camilla can't bear to talk about +her!" + +Once in a great while Mr. Fingál was visible,--a bald, middle-aged man +with a white, sad face, and eyes that never smiled, although his lips +often did when he saw the clusters of admiring children hanging about +his daughters. + +Judith held aloof from these gatherings at the Fingál house, her +prejudice against the girls never weakening, although CĂ©cile as well +as Camilla had won over almost all the other girls of her grade. +Judith showed the self-contained indifference which it was her habit +to feel about matters which did not deeply stir her, and made no +further attempts to analyze or even to voice her animosity beyond +saying once, when asked to go with them on a drive, that she didn't +like their "meechin' ways,"--a vigorous New England phrase which she +had picked up from her mother. + + * * * * * + +About a month after the Fingál girls entered school, the project of a +picnic took form among the girls of the Fifth A grade. One of them had +an uncle who lived three or four miles from town on a farm which was +passed by the inter-urban trolley line, and he had sent word that +the children could, if they liked, picnic in his maple woods, which +overhung the brown waters of the Piquota river. There was to be no +recess that day in Five A, and the grade was to be dismissed half an +hour earlier than usual, so that the girls could go out on the trolley +in time to get the supper ready. The farmer was to bring them back by +moonlight in his hay-wagon. + +The prospect seemed ideal. Five A hummed with excitement and +importance as the various provisions were allotted to the different +girls and the plans talked over. Sylvia was to bring bananas enough +for the crowd; one of the German-American girls, whose father kept a +grocery-store, promised pickles and olives; three or four together +were to make the sandwiches, and Camilla Fingál was to bring along a +big bag of the famous rich and be-raisined cookies that lived in +the "cookie-jah." Sylvia, who always enjoyed prodigiously both in +anticipation and in reality any social event, could scarcely contain +herself as the time drew near with every prospect of fair weather. + +The morning of the day was clear and fine, a perfect example of early +spring, with silvery pearls showing on the tips of the red-twig +osiers, and pussy-willows gleaming gray along the margins of swampy +places. Sylvia and Judith felt themselves one with this upward surge +of new life. They ran to school together, laughing aloud for no +reason, racing and skipping like a couple of spring lambs, their minds +and hearts as crystal-clear of any shadow as the pale-blue, smiling +sky above them. The rising sap beat in their young bodies as well +as in the beech-trees through which they scampered, whirling their +school-books at the end of their straps, and shouting aloud to hear +the squirrel's petulant, chattering answer. + +When they came within sight and hearing of the schoolhouse, their +practised ears detected (although with no hint of foreboding) that +something unusual had happened. The children were not running about +and screaming, but standing with their heads close together, talking, +and talking, and talking. As Judith and Sylvia came near, several ran +to meet them, hurling out at them like a hard-flung stone: "Say--what +d'ye think? Those Fingál girls are niggers!" + +To the end of her life, Sylvia would never forget the rending shock +of disillusion brought her by these blunt words. She did not dream +of disbelieving them, or of underestimating their significance. A +thousand confirmatory details leaped into her mind: the rich, sweet +voices--the dramatic ability--the banjo--the deprecatory air of +timidity--the self-conscious unwillingness to take the leading +position to which their talents and beauty gave them a right. Yes, +of course it was true! In the space of a heartbeat, all her +romantic Italian imaginings vanished. She continued to walk forward +mechanically, in an utter confusion of mind. + +She heard Judith asking in an astonished voice, "Why, what makes you +think so?" and she listened with a tortured attention to the statement +vouchsafed in an excited chorus by a great many shrill little voices +that the Fingáls' old cook had taken a little too much whiskey for +once and had fallen to babbling at the grocery-store before a highly +entertained audience of neighbors, about the endless peregrinations +of the Fingál family in search of a locality where the blood of the +children would not be suspected--"an' theah motheh, fo' all heh +good looks, second cousin to Mattice!" she had tittered foolishly, +gathering up her basket and rolling tipsily out of the store. + +"_Well_--" said Judith, "did you ever!" She was evidently as much +amazed as her sister, but Sylvia felt with a sinking of the heart +that what seemed to her the real significance of the news had escaped +Judith. + +The Five A girls came trooping up to Sylvia.--"Of course we can't +have Camilla at the picnic."--"My uncle wouldn't want a _nigger_ +there."--"We'll have to tell her she can't come." + +Sylvia heard from the other groups of children about them snatches +of similar talk.--"Anybody might ha' known it--singin' the way they +do--just like niggers' voices."--"They'll have to go to the _nigger_ +school now."--"Huh! puttin' on airs with their carriage and their +black dresses--nothin' but niggers!" The air seemed full of that word. +Sylvia sickened and quailed. + +Not so Judith! It had taken her a moment to understand the way in +which the news was being received. When she did, she turned very +pale, and broke out into a storm of anger. She stuttered and halted +as she always did when overmastered by feeling, but her words were +molten. She ignored the tacit separation between children of different +grades and, though but a third-grader, threw herself passionately +among the girls who were talking of the picnic, clawing at their arms, +forcing her way to the center, a raging, white-faced, hot-eyed little +thunderbolt. "You're the meanest low-down things I ever heard of!" she +told the astonished older girls, fairly spitting at them in her fury. +"You--you go and s-sponge off the Fingáls for c-c-cakes and rides and +s-s-soda water--and you think they're too l-l-lovely for w-words--and +you t-t-try to do your hair just the way C-C-Camilla does. They aren't +any different today f-f-from what they were yesterday--are they? You +make me sick--you m-m-make m-m-me--" + +The big bell rang out its single deep brazen note for the formation of +lines, and the habit of unquestioning, instant obedience to its voice +sent the children all scurrying to their places, from which they +marched forward to their respective classrooms in their usual convict +silence. Just as the line ahead was disappearing into the open door, +the well-kept, shining surrey drove up in haste and Camilla and +CĂ©cile, dazzling in fresh white dresses and white hair ribbons, ran +to their places. Evidently they had heard nothing. Camilla turned and +smiled brightly at her friend as she stepped along in front of her. + +Sylvia experienced another giddy reaction of feeling. Up to that +moment, she had felt nothing but shocked and intensely self-centered +horror at the disagreeableness of what had happened, and a wild desire +to run away to some quiet spot where she would not have to think about +it, where it could not make her unhappy, where her heart would stop +beating so furiously. What had she ever done to have such a horrid +thing happen in her world! She had been as much repelled by Judith's +foaming violence as by any other element of the situation. If she +could only get away! Every sensitive nerve in her, tuned to a graceful +and comely order of life, was rasped to anguish by the ugliness of it +all. Up to the moment Camilla came running to her place--this had been +the dominant impulse in the extreme confusion of Sylvia's mind. + +But at the sight of Camilla she felt bursting up through this +confusion of mind, and fiercely attacking her instinct of +self-preservation, a new force, unsuspected, terribly alive--sympathy +with Camilla--Camilla, with her dog-like, timid, loving eyes--Camilla, +who had done nothing to deserve unhappiness except to be +born--Camilla, always uneasy with tragic consciousness of the sword +over her head, and now smiling brightly with tragic unconsciousness +that it was about to fall. Sylvia's heart swelled almost unendurably. +She was feeling, for the first time in her life consciously, the two +natures under her skin, and this, their first open struggle for the +mastery of her, was like a knife in her side. + +She sat during the morning session, her eyes on the clock, fearing +miserably the moment of dismissal at noon, when she must take some +action--she who only longed to run away from discord and dwell in +peace. Her mind swung, pendulum-like, from one extreme of feeling to +another. Every time that Camilla smiled at her across the heads of the +other children, sullenly oblivious of their former favorite, Sylvia +turned sick with shame and pity. But when her eyes rested on the hard, +hostile faces which made up her world, the world she had to live in, +the world which had been so full of sweet and innocent happiness for +her, the world which would now be ranged with her or against her +according to her decision at noon, she was overcome by a panic at the +very idea of throwing her single self against this many-headed tyrant. +With an unspeakable terror she longed to feel the safe walls of +conformity about her. There was a battle with drawn swords in the +heart of the little girl trying blindly to see where the _n_ came in +"pneumonia." + +The clock crept on, past eleven, towards twelve. Sylvia had come to no +decision. She could come to no decision! She felt herself consciously +to be unable to cope with the crisis. She was too small, too weak, too +shrinking, to make herself iron, and resist an overwhelming force. + +It was five minutes of twelve. The order was given to put away books +and pencils in the desks. Sylvia's hands trembled so that she could +hardly close the lid. + +"Turn!" said the teacher, in her tired, mechanical voice. The children +turned their stubbed-toed shoes out into the aisle, their eyes +menacingly on Camilla. + +"Rise!" Like a covey of partridge, they all stood up, stretching, +twisting their bodies, stiff and torpid after the long hours of +immobility. + +"Pass!" Clattering feet all over the building began moving along the +aisles and out towards the cloakrooms. Every one seized his own wraps +with a practised snatch, and passed on, still in line, over the dusty +wooden floors of the hall, down the ill-built, resounding stairs, out +to the playground--out to Sylvia's ordeal. + +As she came out blinkingly into the strong spring sunlight, she still +had reached no decision. Her impulse was to run, as fast as she could, +out to the gate and down the street--home! But another impulse held +her back. The lines were breaking up. Camilla was turning about with +a smile to speak to her. Malevolent eyes were fixed on them from all +sides. Sylvia felt her indecision mount in a cloud about her, like +blinding, scalding steam. + +And then, there before her, stood Judith, her proud dark little face +set in an angry scowl, her arm about CĂ©cile Fingál's neck. + +Sylvia never could think what she would have done if Judith had not +been there; but then, Judith was one of the formative elements of her +life--as much as was the food she ate or the thoughts she had. What +she did was to turn as quickly and unhesitatingly as though she had +always meant to do it, put her arm through Camilla's and draw her +rapidly towards the gate where the surrey waited. Judith and CĂ©cile +followed. The crowds of astonished, and for the moment silenced, +children fell back before them. + +Once she had taken her action, Sylvia saw that it was the only one +possible. But she was upheld by none of the traditional pride in a +righteous action, nor by a raging single-mindedness like Judith's, who +stalked along, her little fists clenched, frowning blackly to right +and left on the other children, evidently far more angry with them +than sympathetic for CĂ©cile. Sylvia did not feel angry with any one. +She was simply more acutely miserable than she had ever dreamed +possible. The distance to the surrey seemed endless to her. + +Her sudden rush had taken Camilla so completely by surprise that +not until they were at the gate did she catch her breath to ask +laughingly: "What in the world's the _matter_ with you, Sylvia? You +act so queer!" + +Sylvia did not answer, every nerve bent on getting Camilla into +safety, but a little red-headed boy from the second grade, who could +scarcely talk plainly, burst out chantingly, pointing his dirty +forefinger at Camilla: + + "Nigger, nigger, never die, + Black face and shiny eye, + Curly hair and curly toes-- + _That's_ the way the nigger goes!" + +There was a loud laugh from the assembled children. + +Camilla wavered as though she had been struck. Her lovely face turned +ashy-gray, and she looked at Sylvia with the eyes of one dying. + +From the deepest of her nature, Sylvia responded to that look. She +forgot the crowd,--boldly, unafraid, beside herself with pity, she +flung her arms about her friend's neck, hiding the white face on her +shoulder. Judith ran up, blazing with rage, and pulled at Camilla's +arm. "Don't give in! Don't give in!" she screamed. "Don't cry! Don't +let 'em see you care! Sass 'em back, why don't you? Hit that little +boy over the head! Sass them back, why don't you?" + +But Camilla only shook her head vehemently and shrank away into the +carriage, little CĂ©cile stumbling after, the silent tears streaming +down her face. The two clasped each other, and the surrey drove +quickly away, leaving the Marshall girls standing on the curb. + +Judith turned around and faced the crowds of enemies back of them. +"Nasty old things!" she cried, sticking out her tongue at them. She +was answered by a yell, at which she made another face and walked +away, pulling Sylvia with her. For a few steps they were followed by +some small boys who yelled in chorus: + + "Judith's mad and I'm glad, + And I know what'll please her: + A bottle of wine to make her shine, + And two little niggers to squeeze her!" + +They were beginning this immemorially old chant over again when Judith +turned and ran back towards them with a white, terrible face of wrath. +At the sight they scattered like scared chickens. + +Judith was so angry that she was shivering all over her small body, +and she kept repeating at intervals, in a suffocated voice: "Nasty old +things! Just wait till I tell my father and mother!" + +As they passed under the beech-trees, it seemed to Sylvia a physical +impossibility that only that morning they had raced and scampered +along, whirling their school-books and laughing. + +They ran into the house, calling for their parents in excited voices, +and pouring out incoherent exclamations. Sylvia cried a little at +the comforting sight of her mother's face and was taken up on Mrs. +Marshall's lap and closely held. Judith never cried; she had not cried +even when she ran the sewing-machine needle through her thumb; +but when infuriated she could not talk, her stammering growing so +pronounced that she could not get out a word, and it was Sylvia who +told the facts. She was astonished to find them so few and so quickly +stated, having been under the impression that something of intense and +painful excitement had been happening every moment of the morning. + +But the experience of her parents supplied the tragic background of +strange, passionate prejudice which Sylvia could not phrase, and which +gave its sinister meaning to her briefly told story: "--and so Judith +and I walked with them out to the gate, and then that little Jimmy +Cohalan yelled out, 'nigger--nigger'--_you_ know--" + +Judith broke in, her nostrils distended, "And they never sassed back, +or hit anybody or anything--just crumpled up and cried!" + +Sylvia was aghast with bewilderment. "Why, I thought you were on their +side!" + +"Well, I _am_!" asserted Judith, beginning to stammer again. "But I +don't have to _like_ 'em any better, do I--because I get mad when +a l-l-lot of mean, n-nasty girls that have b-b-b-been s-s-spongin' +off--" She stopped, balked by her infirmity, and appealed to her +parents with a silent look of fury. + +"What _shall_ we do, Mother?" asked Sylvia despairingly, looking up +into her mother's face from the comfortable shelter of her long, +strong arms. Mrs. Marshall looked down at her without speaking. It +occurred to Sylvia disquietingly that her mother's expression was a +little like Judith's. But when Mrs. Marshall spoke it was only to say +in her usual voice: "Well, the first thing to do is to have something +to eat. Whatever else you do, don't let a bad condition of your +body interfere with what's going on in your mind. Lunch is getting +cold--and don't talk about trouble while you're eating. After you're +through, Father'll tell you what to do." + +Professor Marshall made a gesture of dismay. "Good Lord, Barbara, +don't put it off on me!" + +His wife looked at him with smoldering eyes. "I certainly have nothing +to say that would be fit for children to hear!" she said in an +energetic tone, beginning to serve the baked beans, which were the +main dish for the day. + +After the meal, always rather hasty because of the children's short +noon-hour, Sylvia and Judith went to sit on their father's knees, +while he put an arm about each and, looking from one serious expectant +face to the other, began his explanation. He cleared his throat, and +hesitated before beginning, and had none of his usual fluency as he +went on. What he finally said was: "Well, children, you've stumbled +into about the hardest problem there is in this country, and the +honest truth is that we don't any of us know what's right to do about +it. The sort of thing that's just happened in the Washington Street +School is likely to happen 'most anywhere, and it's no harder on these +poor little playmates of yours than on all colored people. But it's +awfully hard on them all. The best we can do is to hope that after a +great many people have lived and died, all trying to do their best, +maybe folks will have learned how to manage better. Of course, if +grown men and women don't know how to help matters, you little girls +can't expect to fix things either. All you can do is to go on being +nice to Camilla and--" + +Judith broke in here hotly, "You don't mean we oughtn't to _do_ +something about the girls being so mean to them--not letting Camilla +go to the picnic and--" + +"What _could_ you do?" asked her father quietly, "that would make +things any better for Camilla? If you were forty times as strong as +you are, you couldn't make the other girls _want_ Camilla at the +picnic. It would only spoil the picnic and wouldn't help Camilla a +bit." Professor Marshall meditated a moment, and went on, "Of course +I'm proud of my little daughters for being kind to friends who are +unhappy through no fault of theirs" (Sylvia winced at this, and +thought of confessing that she was very near running away and leaving +Camilla to her fate), "and I hope you'll go on being as nice to your +unfortunate friends as ever--" + +Judith said: "They aren't friends of mine! I don't like them!" + +As not infrequently happened, something about Judith's attitude had +been irritating her father, and he now said with some severity, "Then +it's a case where Sylvia's loving heart can do more good than your +anger, though you evidently think it very fine of you to feel that!" + +Judith looked down in a stubborn silence, and Sylvia drooped miserably +in the consciousness of receiving undeserved praise. She opened her +mouth to explain her vacillations of the morning, but her moral fiber +was not equal to the effort. She felt very unhappy to have Judith +blamed and herself praised when things ought to have been reversed, +but she could not bring herself to renounce her father's good opinion. + +Professor Marshall gave them both a kiss and set them down. "It's +twenty minutes to one. You'd better run along, dears," he said. + +After the children had gone out, his wife, who had preserved an +unbroken silence, remarked dryly, "So that's the stone we give them +when they ask for bread." + +Professor Marshall made no attempt to defend himself. "My dim +generalities are pretty poor provender for honest children's minds, I +admit," he said humbly, "but what else have we to give them that isn't +directly contradicted by our lives? There's no use telling children +something that they never see put into practice." + +"It's not impossible, I suppose, to change our lives," suggested his +wife uncompromisingly. + +Professor Marshall drew a great breath of disheartenment. "As long as +I can live without thinking of that element in American life--it's all +right. But when anything brings it home--like this today--I feel that +the mean compromise we all make must be a disintegrating moral force +in the national character. I feel like gathering up all of you, and +going away--away from the intolerable question--to Europe--and earning +the family living by giving English lessons!" + +Mrs. Marshall cried out, "It makes _me_ feel like going out right here +in La Chance with a bomb in one hand and a rifle in the other!" + +From which difference of impression it may perhaps be seen that the +two disputants were respectively the father and mother of Sylvia and +Judith. + +Mrs. Marshall rose and began clearing away the luncheon dishes. As she +disappeared into the kitchen, she paused a moment behind the door, a +grim, invisible voice, remarking, "And what we shall do is, of course, +simply nothing at all!" + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +SABOTAGE + + +Sylvia and Judith walked to school in a profound silence. Sylvia was +shrinking with every nerve from the ordeal of facing again those four +hundred hostile faces; from the new and painful relations with her +playmates which lay before her. She was now committed irrevocably to +the cause of the Fingáls, and she felt a terrified doubt of having +enough moral strength to stick to that position. + +For the moment the problem was settled by their arriving at the +schoolhouse almost too late. The lines were just marching into the +building, and both girls barely slipped into their places in time. +Sylvia noticed with relief that Camilla was absent. + +All the Five A girls had paper bags or pasteboard boxes, and in the +air of the Five A cloakroom was a strong smell of vinegar. Gretchen +Schmidt's pickles had begun to soak through the bag, and she borrowed +the cover of a box to set them in. These sounds and smells recalled +the picnic to Sylvia's mind, the picnic to which she had been looking +forward with such inexpressible pleasure. For an instant she was +aghast to think that she had forgotten her bananas, tied up all ready +at home on the sideboard. But the next instant she thought sadly that +she probably would not be welcome at the picnic. She went to her seat +and sat forlorn through the changing lessons of the afternoon. + +The teacher ground out the half-hour lessons wearily, her eyes on the +clock, as unaware of the crisis in her class as though she were in +another planet. At four o'clock Sylvia filed out with the other +children to the cloakroom, but there was not the usual quick, +practised grab, each for his own belongings. The girls remained +behind, exclaiming and lamenting. Such a clamor arose that the teacher +came hurrying in, anxious for the reputation for good behavior of +her class. Good behavior in the Washington Street School, as in a +penitentiary, was gauged by the degree of silence and immobility +achieved by the inmates. + +The girls ran to Miss Miller, crying out, "Somebody's stolen our +lunches,--we left them here--all our boxes and things--and they're all +gone--!" + +Sylvia hung back in the door to the schoolroom, apart from the others, +half relieved by the unexpected event which diverted attention from +her. + +One of the boys who had gone ahead in the line now came back, a large +cucumber stuck in the corner of his mouth like a fat, green cigar. He +announced with evident satisfaction in the girls' misfortune that the +steps were strewn with pickles. The bag must have burst entirely +as they were being carried downstairs. Gretchen Schmidt began to +weep,--"all them good pickles--!" One of the girls flew at the boy who +brought the bad news. "I just bet you did it yourself, Jimmy Weaver, +you an' Frank Kennedy. You boys were mad anyhow because we didn't ask +you to come to the picnic." + +Jimmy's face assumed the most unmistakably genuine expression of +astonishment and aggrieved innocence. "Aw, you're off yer base! I +wouldn't ha' gone to your darned old picnic--an' wasn't I in the room +every minute this afternoon?" + +"No, you weren't--you weren't!" More of the girls had come to the +attack, and now danced about the boy, hurling accusations at him. "You +got excused to get a drink of water! And so did Pete Roberts! You did +it then! You did it then! You did--" + +"Hush, children! Not so loud!" said Miss Miller. "_You'll have the +Principal down here_!" + +At this terrible threat the children, in spite of their heat, lowered +their voices. Jimmy was beginning an angry, half-alarmed protest--"Aw, +'twas a tramp must ha' got in an' saw--" when he was pushed out of the +way by a small, vigorous hand. Judith Marshall walked in, her face +very pale. She was breathing hard, and through her parted lips, as +though she had been running fast, her small white teeth showed like +those of an enraged squirrel. "I threw your picnic things in the +river," she said. + +The older children recoiled from this announcement, and from the +small, tense figure. Even the teacher kept her distance, as though +Judith were some dangerous little animal, + +"What in the world did you do that for?" she asked in a tone of +stupefaction. + +"Because they are n-n-nasty, mean things," said Judith, "and if they +weren't going to let C-C-Camilla go to the picnic, I wasn't going to +let them _have_ any picnic!" + +The teacher turned around to Sylvia, now almost as white as her +sister, and said helplessly, "Sylvia, do you know what she's talking +about?" + +Sylvia went forward and took Judith's hand. She was horrified beyond +words by what Judith had done, but Judith was her little sister. "Yes, +ma'am," she said, to Miss Miller's question, speaking, for all her +agitation, quickly and fluently as was her habit, though not very +coherently. "Yes, ma'am, I know. Everybody was saying this morning +that the Fingáls' mother was a negro, and so the girls weren't going +to invite Camilla to the picnic, and it made Judith mad." + +"Why, _she_ didn't know Camilla very well, did she?" asked the +teacher, astonished. + +"No, ma'am," said Sylvia, still speaking quickly, although the tears +of fright were beginning to stand in her eyes. "It just made her mad +because the girls weren't going to invite her because she didn't think +it was anyhow her fault." + +"_Whose_ fault!" cried the teacher, completely lost. + +"Camilla's," quavered Sylvia, the tears beginning to fall. + +There was a pause. "_Well_--I _never_!" exclaimed the teacher, whose +parents had come from New England. She was entirely at a loss to know +how to treat this unprecedented situation, and like other potentates +with a long habit of arbitrary authority, she covered her perplexity +with a smart show of decision. "You children go right straight home, +along out of the building this minute," she commanded. "You know +you're not allowed to loiter around after school-hours. Sylvia and +Judith, stay here. _I'm going to take you up to the Principal's +office_." + +The girls and Jimmy Weaver ran clattering down the stairs, in an +agreeably breathless state of excitement. In their opinion the +awfulness of the situation had been adequately recognized by the +teacher and signaled by the equally awful expedient of a visit to +the Principal's office, the last resort in the case of the rarely +occurring insubordinate boy. + +Because Miss Miller had not the least idea what to say in an event so +far out of the usual routine, she talked a great deal during the trip +through the empty halls and staircases up to the Principal's office +on the top floor; chiefly to the effect that as many years as she had +taught, never had she encountered such a bad little girl as Judith. +Judith received this in stony silence, but Sylvia's tears fell fast. +All the years of her docile school existence had trained her in the +habit of horror at insubordination above every other crime. She felt +as disgraced as though Judith had been caught stealing,--perhaps more +so. + +Miss Miller knocked at the door; the Principal, stooping and +hollow-chested, opened it and stood confronting with tired, kind eyes +the trio before him--the severe woman, with her pathetic, prematurely +old face and starved flat body, the pretty little girl hanging down +her head and weeping, the smaller child who gave him one black defiant +look and then gazed past him out of the window. + +"Well, Miss Miller--?" he asked. + +"I've brought you a case that I don't know what to do with," she +began. "This is Judith Marshall, in the third grade, and she has just +done one of the naughtiest things I ever heard of--" + +When she had finished her recital, "How do you know this child did +it?" asked Mr. Bristol, always his first question in cases between +teachers and pupils. + +"She was so brazen as to come right back and tell us so," said Miss +Miller, her tone growing more and more condemnatory. + +Judith's face, capable of such rare and positive beauty, had now shut +down into a hard, repellent little mask of hate. Mr. Bristol looked +at her for a moment in silence, and then at Sylvia, sobbing, her arm +crooked over her face, hiding everything but her shining curls. "And +what has this little girl to do with anything?" he asked. + +"This is Sylvia Marshall, Judith's sister, and of course she feels +dreadfully about Judith's doing such a dreadful thing," explained Miss +Miller inelegantly. + +Mr. Bristol walked back to his desk and sat down. "Well, I think I +needn't keep you any longer, Miss Miller," he said. "If you will just +leave the little girls here for a while perhaps I can decide what to +do about it." + +Thus mildly but unmistakably dismissed, the teacher took her +departure, pushing Sylvia and Judith inside the door and shutting it +audibly after her. She was so tired as she walked down the stairs that +she ached, and she thought to herself, "As if things weren't hard +enough without their going and being naughty--!" + +Inside the room there was a moment's silence, filled almost palpably +by Sylvia's quivering alarm, and by Judith's bitter mental resistance. +Mr. Bristol drew out a big book from the shelf over his desk and held +it out to Sylvia. "I guess you all got pretty excited about this, +didn't you?" he said, smiling wisely at the child. "You and your +sister sit down and look at the pictures in this for a while, till you +get cooled off, and then I'll hear all about it." + +Sylvia took the book obediently, and drew Judith to a chair, opening +the pages, brushing away her tears, and trying to go through the form +of looking at the illustrations, which were of the birds native to the +region. In spite of her emotion, the large, brightly colored pictures +did force their way through her eye to her brain, instinct in every +fiber with the modern habit of taking in impressions from the printed +page; and for years afterwards she could have told the names of the +birds they saw during that long, still half-hour, broken by no sound +but the tap-tap-tap of Mr. Bristol's typewriter. He did not once look +towards them. This was partly a matter of policy, and partly because +he was trying desperately to get a paper written for the next +Convention of Public School Principals, which he was to address on +the "Study of Arithmetic in the Seventh Grade." He had very fixed and +burning ideas about the teaching of arithmetic in the seventh grade, +which he longed with a true believer's fervor to see adopted by all +the schools in the country. He often said that if they would only do +so, the study of arithmetic would be revolutionized in a decade. + +Judith sat beside her sister, not pretending to look at the book, +although the rigidity of her face insensibly softened somewhat in the +contagious quiet of the room. + +When they had turned over the last page and shut the book, Mr. Bristol +faced them again, leaning back in his swivel-chair, and said: "Now, +children--all quiet? One of you begin at the beginning and tell me how +it happened." Judith's lips shut together in a hard line, so Sylvia +began, surprised to find her nerves steadied and calmed by the silent +half-hour of inaction back of her. She told how they were met that +morning by the news, how the children shouted after Camilla as she got +into the carriage, how the Five A girls had decided to exclude her +from the picnic, how angry Judith had been, and then--then--she knew +no more to tell beyond the bare fact of Judith's passionate misdeed. + +Mr. Bristol began to cross-examine Judith in short, quiet sentences. +"What made you think of throwing the things into the river?" + +"I was afraid they'd get them back somehow if I didn't," said Judith, +as if stating a self-evident argument. + +"Where did you go to throw them in? To the Monroe Street bridge?" + +"No, I didn't have time to go so far. I just went down through +Randolph Street to the bank and there was a boat there tied to a tree, +and I got in and pushed it out as far as the rope would go and dropped +the things in from the other end." + +Sylvia caught her breath in terror at this recital. The Piquota river +ran swift and turbid and deep between high banks at that point. +"Weren't you afraid to venture out in a boat all by yourself?" asked +the man, looking at Judith's diminutive person. + +"Yes, I was," said Judith unexpectedly. + +Mr. Bristol said "Oh--" and stood in thought for a moment. Some one +knocked on the door, and he turned to open it. At the sight of the +tall figure standing there in his pepper-and-salt suit, Sylvia's +heart gave a great bound of incredulous rapture. The appearance of +a merciful mediator on the Day of Judgment could not have given her +keener or more poignant relief. She and Judith both ran headlong to +their father, catching his hands in theirs, clinging to his arms and +pressing their little bodies against his. The comfort Sylvia felt in +his mere physical presence was inexpressible. It is one of the pure +golden emotions of childhood, which no adult can ever recover, save +perhaps a mystic in a moment of ecstatic contemplation of the power +and loving-kindness of his God. + +Professor Marshall put out his hand to the Principal, introducing +himself, and explained that he and his wife had been a little uneasy +when the children had not returned from school. Mr. Bristol shook the +other's hand, saying that he knew of him through mutual acquaintances +and assuring him that he could not have come at a more opportune +moment. "Your little daughter has given me a hard nut to crack. I need +advice." + +Both men sat down, Sylvia and Judith still close to their father's +side, and Mr. Bristol told what had happened in a concise, colorless +narration, ending with Judith's exploit with the boat. "Now what would +_you_ do in _my_ place?" he said, like one proposing an insoluble +riddle. + +Sylvia, seeing the discussion going on in such a quiet, conversational +tone, ventured in a small voice the suggestion that Judith had done +well to confess, since that had saved others from suspicion. "The +girls were sure that Jimmy Weaver had done it." + +"Was that why you came back and told?" asked Professor Marshall. + +"No," said Judith bluntly, "I never thought of that. I wanted to be +sure they knew why it happened." + +The two men exchanged glances. Professor Marshall said: "Didn't you +understand me when I told you at noon that even if you could make the +girls let Camilla go to the picnic, she wouldn't have a good time? You +couldn't make them like to have her?" + +"Yes, I understood all right," said Judith, looking straight at her +father, "but if she couldn't have a good time--and no fault of hers--I +wasn't going to let _them_ have a good time either. I wasn't trying to +make them want her. I was trying to get even with them!" + +Professor Marshall looked stern. "That is just what I feared, Judith, +and that hateful spirit is the bad thing about the whole business." He +turned to the Principal: "How many girls were going to the picnic?" + +The other, with a wide gesture, disavowed any knowledge of the matter. +"Good Heavens! how should I know?" + +Sylvia counted rapidly. "Fourteen," she said. + +"Well, Mr. Bristol, how would this do for a punishment? Judith has +worked in various ways, digging up dandelions from the lawn, weeding +flower-beds, running errands--you know--all the things children +do--and she has a little more than five dollars in her iron +savings-bank, that she has been saving for more than a year to buy a +collie puppy. Would you be satisfied if she took that money, divided +it into fourteen parts, and took it herself in person to each of the +girls?" + +During this proposal Judith's face had taken on an expression of utter +dismay. She looked more childlike, more like her years than at any +moment during the interview. "Oh, _Father_!" she implored him, with a +deep note of entreaty. + +He did not look at her, but over her head at the Principal, who was +rising from his chair with every indication of relief on his face." +Nothing could be better," he said. "That will be just right--every one +will be satisfied. And I'll just say for the sake of discipline +that little Judith shan't come back to school till she has done her +penance. Of course she can get it all done before supper-time tonight. +All our families live in the vicinity of the school." He was shaking +Professor Marshall's hand again and edging him towards the door, his +mind once more on his paper, hoping that he might really finish it +before night--if only there were no more interruptions! + +His achievement in divining the mental processes of two children +hysterical with excitement, his magnetic taming of those fluttering +little hearts, his inspired avoidance of a fatal false step at +a critical point in the moral life of two human beings in the +making--all this seemed as nothing to him--an incident of the day's +routine already forgotten. He conceived that his real usefulness to +society lay in the reform of arithmetic-teaching in the seventh grade, +and he turned back to his arguments with the ardor of the great +landscape painter who aspires to be a champion at billiards. + +Professor Marshall walked home in silence with his two daughters, +explained the matter to his wife, and said that he and Sylvia would +go with Judith on her uncomfortable errand. Mrs. Marshall listened +in silence and went herself to get the little bank stuffed full of +painfully earned pennies and nickels. Then she bade them into the +kitchen and gave Judith and Sylvia each a cookie and a glass of milk. + +She made no comment whatever on the story, or on her husband's +sentence for the culprit, but just as the three, were going out of the +door, she ran after them, caught Judith in her arms, and gave her a +passionate kiss. + + * * * * * + +The next day was Saturday, and it was suggested that Judith and Sylvia +carry on their campaign by going to see the Fingáls and spending the +morning playing with them as though nothing had happened. + +As they approached the house, somewhat perturbed by the prospect, they +saw with surprise that the windows were bare of the heavy yellow lace +curtains which had hung in the parlor, darkening that handsomely +furnished room to a rich twilight. They went up on the porch, and +Judith rang the bell resolutely, while Sylvia hung a little back of +her. From this position she could see into the parlor, and exclaimed, +"Why, Judy, this isn't the right house--nobody lives here!" The big +room was quite empty, the floors bare of the large soft rugs, and as +the children pressed their faces to the pane, they could see through +an open door into a bedroom also dismantled and deserted. + +They ran around the house to the back door and knocked on it. There +was no answer. Judith turned the knob, the door opened, and they stood +in what had been unmistakably the Fingáls' kitchen. Evidence of wild +haste and confusion was everywhere about them--the floor was littered +with excelsior, the shelves half cleared and half occupied still with +cooking supplies, a packing-box partly filled with kitchenware which +at the last moment the fugitives had evidently decided to abandon. + +The little girls stood in this silent desolation, looking about them +with startled eyes. A lean mother-cat came and rubbed her thin, +pendent flanks against their legs, purring and whining. Three kittens +skirmished joyfully in the excelsior, waylaying one another in ambush +and springing out with bits of the yellow fibers clinging to their +woolly soft fur. + +"They've _gone_!" breathed Sylvia. "They've gone away for good!" + +Judith nodded, even her bold and unimaginative spirit somewhat +daunted by the ghostly silence of the house. Sylvia tiptoed to the +swinging-door and pushed it open. Yes, there was the pantry, like the +kitchen, in chaotic disorder, tissue paper and excelsior thick on the +floor, and entangled with it the indescribable jumble of worthless, +disconnected objects always tumbled together by a domestic crisis +like a fire or a removal--old gloves, whisk-brooms, hat-forms, lamps, +magazines, tarnished desk-fittings. The sight was so eloquent of panic +haste that Sylvia let the door swing shut, and ran back into the +kitchen. + +Judith was pointing silently to a big paper bag on the shelf. It had +been tossed there with some violence evidently, for the paper had +burst and the contents had cascaded out on the shelf and on the +floor--the rich, be-raisined cookies which Camilla was to have taken +to the picnic. Sylvia felt the tears stinging her eyelids, and pulled +Judith out of the tragic house. They stood for a moment in the yard, +beside a bed of flowering crocuses, brilliant in the sun. The forsaken +house looked down severely at them from its blank windows. Judith was +almost instantly relieved of mental tension by the outdoor air, and +stooped down unconcernedly to tie her shoe. She broke the lacing and +had to sit down, take it out of the shoe, tie it, and put it back +again. The operation took some time, during which Sylvia stood still, +her mind whirling. + +For the first time in her steadily forward-going life there was a +sharp, irrevocable break. Something which had been yesterday was now +no more. She would never see Camilla again, she who recalled Camilla's +look of anguish as though they still stood side by side. Her heart +filled with unspeakable thankfulness that she had put her arms around +Camilla's neck at that supreme last moment. That had not been Judith's +doing. That had come from her own heart. Unconsciously she had laid +the first stone in the wall of self-respect which might in the future +fortify her against her weaknesses. + +She stood looking up blindly at the house, shivering again at the +recollection of its echoing, empty silence. The moment was one she +never forgot. Standing there in that commonplace backyard, staring up +at a house like any one of forty near her, she felt her heart grow +larger. In that moment, tragedy, mystery, awe, and pity laid their +shadowy fingers on her shining head. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE END OF CHILDHOOD + + +That afternoon a couple of children who came to play in the Marshall +orchard brought news that public opinion, after the fashion of that +unstable weathercock, was veering rapidly, and blowing from a wholly +unexpected quarter. "My papa says," reported Gretchen Schmidt, who +never could keep anything to herself, even though it might be by no +means to her advantage to proclaim it--"my papa says that he thinks +the way American people treats colored peoples is just fierce; and he +says if he'd ha' known about our not letting Camilla go to the picnic, +he'd ha' taken the trouble to me '_mit der flachen Hand schlagen._' +That means he'd have spanked me good and plenty." + +Maria Perkins, from the limb where she hung by her knees, responded, +"Yup, my Uncle Eben says he likes Judy's spunk." + +"I guess he wouldn't have, if it'd ha' been his pickles!" Gretchen +made a last stand against the notorious injustice of fickle adult +prejudices. + +But the tide had begun to turn. On Monday morning Sylvia and Judith +found themselves far from ostracized, rather the center of much +respectful finger-pointing on the part of children from the other +grades who had never paid the least attention to them before. And +finally when the Principal, passing majestically from room to room in +his daily tour of inspection, paused in his awful progress and spoke +to Judith by name, asking her quite familiarly and condescendingly +what cities you would pass through if you went from Chicago to New +Orleans, the current set once and for all in the other direction. No +mention was ever made of the disappearance of the Fingáls, and the +Marshall children found their old places waiting for them. + +It was not long before Judith had all but forgotten the episode; but +Sylvia, older and infinitely more impressionable, found it burned +irrevocably into her memory. For many and many a week, she did not +fall asleep without seeing Camilla's ashy face of wretchedness. And it +was years before she could walk past the house where the Fingáls had +lived, without feeling sick. + +Her life was, however, brimming with active interests which occupied +her, mind and body. There was rarely a day when a troop of children +did not swarm over the Marshall house and barn, playing and playing +and playing with that indomitable zest in life which is the birthright +of humanity before the fevers and chills of adolescence begin. Sylvia +and Judith, moreover, were required to assume more and more of the +responsibility of the housework, while their mother extracted from the +Marshall five acres an ever increasing largesse of succulent food. +Sylvia's sĂ©ances with old Reinhardt and the piano were becoming +serious affairs: for it was now tentatively decided that she was to +earn her living by teaching music. There were many expeditions on foot +with their mother, for Mrs. Marshall had become, little by little, +chief nurse and adviser to all the families of the neighborhood; and +on her errands of service one of her daughters was needed to carry +supplies and act as assistant. And finally, as the children grew +older, and the family tradition of bookishness took hold of +them, there were shelves and shelves to be devoured, a strange +mixture--Thackeray, Maeterlinck, Fielding, Hakluyt, Ibsen, Dickens, +Ruskin, Shaw, Austen, Molière, Defoe, Cervantes, Shakespeare,--the +children dipped, or tasted or swallowed whole, according to their +temperaments and the books they happened on. + +When Sylvia was thirteen, almost fourteen years old, she "graduated" +from the eighth grade of the public schools and was ready to enter the +High School. But after a good many family councils, in most of which, +after the unreticent Marshall manner, she herself was allowed to be +present, it was decided not to send her to the huge new Central High +School, which had cost La Chance such a big slice of its taxes, but to +prepare her at home for her course at the State University. She had +been growing very fast, was a little thin and white, and had been +outgrowing her strength. This at least was the reason given out to +inquirers. In reality her father's prejudice against High School +life for adolescents was the determining cause. In the course of his +University work he was obliged to visit a good many High Schools, and +had acquired a violent prejudice against the stirring social life +characteristic of those institutions. + +Sylvia's feelings about this step aside from the beaten track were, +like many of Sylvia's feelings, decidedly mixed. She was drawn towards +the High School by the suction of the customary. A large number of her +classmates expected as a matter of course to pass on in the usual way; +but, with an uneasy qualm, half pride and half apprehension, Sylvia +was beginning to feel her difference from ordinary children. She was +not altogether sorry to say good-bye to her playmates, with whom she +no longer had much in common. She would miss the fun of class-life, of +course; but there was a certain distinction involved in being educated +"differently." She might be queer, but since she was apparently fated +to be queer, she might as well not be "common" as well. Finally, +because she was still, at fourteen, very much of a child, the scale +was tipped by her thinking what fun it would be to go down-town on +errands in school hours. Charles Lamb, lost in painful wonder at his +own leisure after thirty-six years of incessant office-hours, could +savor no more acutely than an American school-child the exquisite +flavor of freedom at an hour formerly dedicated to imprisonment. + +As a matter of fact, during the next three years Sylvia's time was +more constantly occupied than when there was a fixed time-limit to her +studies. Her teachers were always about her, and lightly as the new +yoke pressed, she wore it practically without intermission. Her +immersion in the ideals, the standards, the concepts of her parents +was complete, engulfing. Somebody was nearly always teaching her +something. She studied history and Latin with her father; mathematics +with her mother. She learned to swim, to play tennis, to ride in the +summer-time, and to skate on the frozen swimming-pool in winter, all +without stirring from home. Old Reinhardt was supposed to come twice +a week to give her a piano-lesson, but actually he dropped in almost +every day to smoke meditatively and keep a watchful ear on her +practising. + +Although during those years she was almost literally rooted to the +Marshall soil, watered by Marshall convictions, and fed by Marshall +information, the usual miracle of irresistibly individual growth went +silently and unconsciously forward in her. She was growing up to be +herself, and not her mother or her father, little as any one in her +world suspected the presence of this unceasingly recurrent phenomenon +of growth. She was alive to all the impressions reflected so +insistently upon her, but she transmuted them into products which +would immensely have surprised her parents, they being under the +usual parental delusion that they knew every corner of her heart. Her +budding aversions, convictions, ambitions were not in the least the +aversions, convictions, and ambitions so loudly voiced about her; and +a good deal of her energy was taken up in a more or less conscious +reaction from the family catchwords, with especial emphasis laid on an +objection to the family habit of taking their convictions with great +seriousness. + +Her father would have been aghast if he could have felt the slightest +reflection from the heat of her detestation of his favorite, +Emersonian motto, which, now that he had reached five and forty, he +was apt to repeat with the iteration natural to his age, rousing in +Sylvia the rebellious exasperation felt by _her_ age for over-emphatic +moralizings. + +On the occasion of one of the annual gatherings at the Marshall house +of the Seniors in her father's classes, she remarked fiercely to +Judith, "If Father gets off that old Emerson, 'What will you have, +quoth God. Take it and pay for it,' again tonight in his speech, I'm +going to get right up and scream." + +Judith stared. The girls were in the kitchen, large aprons over their +best dresses, setting out rows of plates for the chicken salad which +was to come after the music. "I don't see anything to scream about in +that!" said Judith with a wondering contempt for Sylvia's notions. + +"I'm so _sick_ of it!" cried Sylvia, tearing the lettuce-leaves apart +with venom. "Father never gets through any sort of a speech that he +doesn't work it in--and I hate it, anyhow! It makes me feel as though +somebody had banged a big door in my face and shut me up in prison." + +"Well, for goodness' sakes!" cried Judith, who, at this period of +their lives, had remained rather more than her three years behind +Sylvia's intelligence. "How do you get all that out of _that_!" + +"You haven't sense enough to know what it means, that's all!" retorted +Sylvia. "It means something perfectly hateful, the way Father uses it. +It means you've got to pay for every single thing you do or get in +this world! It's somebody tagging you round with an account-book, +seeing how big a bill you're running up. It's the perfectly horrid way +Father and Mother make us do, of _always_ washing up the dishes we +dirty, and _always_ picking up the things we drop. Seems as though I'd +die happy, if I could just step out of my nightgown in the morning and +_leave_ it there, and know that it would get hung up without my doing +it." + +"Well, if that's all you want, to die happy," said Judith, the +literal-minded, "I will do that much for you!" + +"Oh gracious, no! That wouldn't do any good! You know I couldn't take +any satisfaction letting _you_ do that!" objected Sylvia, peevishly, +fuming and fumbling helplessly before the baffling quality of her +desires. "I don't want just somebody to pick it up for me. I want it +picked up by somebody that I don't care about, that I don't see, that +I'd just as soon have do the tiresome things as not. I want somebody +to do it, and me to feel all right about _having_ them do it!" + +"Well, for goodness' sakes!" Judith was reduced again to mere wonder. + +Professor and Mrs. Marshall stepped into the kitchen for a moment to +see that everything was progressing smoothly. The professor had his +viola in his hand and was plucking softly at the strings, a pleasant, +tranquil anticipation of harmony on his face. He looked affectionately +at his daughters and thought what dear good children they were. Judith +appealed to her parents: "Sylvia's as crazy as a loon. She says she +wants somebody to do her work for her, and yet she wants to feel all +right about shirking it!" + +Mrs. Marshall did not follow, and did not care. "What?" she said +indifferently, tasting the chicken-salad in the big yellow bowl, and, +with an expression of serious consideration, adding a little more salt +to it. + +But Sylvia's father understood, "What you want to remember, daughter," +he said, addressing himself to his oldest child with a fond certainty +of her quick apprehension, "is that fine saying of Emerson, 'What will +you have, quoth--'" A raw-boned assistant appeared in the doorway. +"Everybody here, I guess, Perfesser," he said. + +When the girls were alone again, Sylvia stole a look at Judith and +broke into noiseless giggles. She laughed till the tears ran down her +cheeks and she had to stop work and go to the kitchen sink to wash +her face and take a drink of water. "You never do what you say you're +going to," said Judith, as gravely alien to this mood as to the other. +"I thought you said you'd scream." + +"I _am_ screaming," said Sylvia, wiping her eyes again. + +They were very familiar with the work of preparing the simple +"refreshments" for University gatherings. Their mother always +provided exactly the same viands, and long practice had made them +letter-perfect in the moves to be made. When they had finished +portioning off the lettuce-leaves and salad on the plates, they +swiftly set each one on a fresh crĂŞpe-paper napkin. Sylvia professed +an undying hatred for paper napkins. "I don't see why," said Judith. +"They're so much less bother than the other kind when you're only +going to use them once, this way." "That's it," asserted Sylvia; +"that's the very stingy, economical thing about them I hate, their +_not_ being a bother! I'd like to use big, fine-damask ones, all +shiny, that somebody had ironed twenty minutes, every one, like those +we had at Eleanor Hubert's birthday party. And then I'd scrunch them +up and throw them in the laundry if there was the least speck on +them." + +"I wouldn't like the job of doing them up," said Judith. + +"Neither would I. I'd hate it! And I wouldn't," continued Sylvia, +roaming at will in her enchanted garden; "I'd hire somebody to take +all the bother of buying them and hemming them and doing them up and +putting them on the table. All I'd do, would be to shake them out and +lay them across my lap," she went through a dainty-fingered pantomime, +"and never think a thing about how they got there. That's all _I_ want +to do with napkins. But I do love 'em big and glossy. I could _kiss_ +them!" + +Judith was almost alarmed at the wildness of Sylvia's imaginings. +"Why, you talk as though you didn't have good sense tonight, Sylvie. +It's the party. You always get so excited over parties." Judith +considered it a "come-down" to get excited over anything. + +"Great Scotland! I guess I don't get excited over one of these +_student_ parties!" Sylvia repudiated the idea. "All Father's +'favorite students' are such rough-necks. And it makes me tired to +have all our freaks come out of their holes when we have company--Miss +Lindström and Mr. Hecht and Cousin Parnelia and all." + +"The President comes," advanced Judith. + +Sylvia was sweeping in her iconoclasm. "What if he does--old +fish-mouth! _He's_ nobody--he's a rough-neck himself. He used to be a +Baptist minister. He's only President because he can talk the hayseeds +in the Legislature into giving the University big appropriations. And +anyhow, he only comes here because he _has_ to--part of his job. He +doesn't like the freaks any better than I do. The last time he +was here, I heard Cousin Parnelia trying to persuade him to have +planchette write him a message from Abraham Lincoln. Isn't she the +limit, anyhow!" + +The girls put off their aprons and slipped into the big, low-ceilinged +living-room, singing like a great sea-shell with thrilling +violin-tones. Old Reinhardt was playing the Kreutzer, with Professor +Marshall at the piano. Judith went quietly to sit near Professor +Kennedy, and Sylvia sat down near a window, leaning her head against +the pane as she listened, her eyes fixed on the blackness outside. +Her face cleared and brightened, like a cloudy liquor settling to +limpidity in a crystal vase. Her lips parted a little, her eyes were +fixed on a point incalculably distant. Her mind emptied itself of +everything but her joy in the glorious cadences.... + +If she had been asked what she and Judith had been talking of, she +could not have told; but when, after the second movement was finished, +old Reinhardt put down his violin and began to loosen his bow (he +never played the presto finale), it all came back to the girl as she +looked around her at her father's guests. She hated the way the young +men's Adam's apples showed through their too-widely opened collars, +and she loathed the way the thin brown hair of one of the co-eds +was strained back from her temples. She received the President's +condescending, oleaginous hand-shake with a qualm at his loud +oratorical voice and plebeian accent, and she headed Cousin Parnelia +off from a second mediumistic attack, hating her badly adjusted +false-front of hair as intensely as ever Loyola hated a heretic. And +this, although uncontrollably driven by her desire to please, to +please even a roomful of such mediocrities, she bore to the outward +eyes the most gracious aspect of friendly, smiling courtesy. Professor +Marshall looked at her several times, as she moved with her slim young +grace among his students and friends, and thought how fortunate he was +in his children. + +After the chicken-salad and coffee had been successfully served and +eaten, one of the Seniors stepped forward with an awkward crudeness +and presented Professor Marshall with a silver-mounted blotting-pad. +The house was littered with such testimonials to the influence of the +Professor on the young minds under his care, testimonials which his +children took as absolutely for granted as they did everything else in +the home life. On this occasion Sylvia was so afflicted because the +young rustic appointed to make the presentation speech, forgot most of +what he had planned to say, that she felt nothing but the liveliest +impatience with the whole proceeding. But her father's quick heart was +touched, and more than half of his usual little speech of farewell +to his Seniors was an expression of thanks to them. Before he had +finished the last part, which consisted of eloquent exhortations +to the higher life, none the less sincerely heartfelt for being +remarkably like similar speeches he had made during the last twenty +years, he had quoted his favorite saying from Emerson. Judith looked +apprehensively at Sylvia; but she was not laughing. She evidently was +not hearing a word her father said, being lost in the contemplation +of the perfect evening costume of the newest assistant in Professor +Marshall's department. He was a young man from Massachusetts, fresh +from Harvard, who had come West to begin his teaching that year. His +was certainly the most modern dress-suit in the University faculty; +and he wore it with a supercilious disregard for its perfections which +greatly impressed Sylvia. + +After these usual formalities were thus safely past, some one +suggested a game of charades to end the evening. Amid great laughter +and joking from the few professors present and delighted response +from the students who found it immensely entertaining to be on such +familiar terms with their instructors, two leaders began to "choose +sides." The young assistant from Harvard said in a low tone to his +friend, not noticing Professor Marshall's young daughter near them: +"They won't really go on and _do_ this fool, undignified, backwoods +stunt, will they? They don't expect us to join _in_!" + +"Oh yes, they will," answered his friend, catching up his tone of +sophisticated scorn. He too was from Harvard, from an earlier class. +"You'll be lucky if they don't have a spelling-down match, later on." + +"Good Lord!" groaned the first young man. + +"Oh, you mustn't think all of the University society is like _this_!" +protested the second. "And anyhow, we can slope now, without being +noticed," + +Sylvia understood the accent and tone of this passage more than the +exact words, but it summed up and brought home to her in a cruelly +clarified form her own groping impressions. The moment was a terribly +painful one for her. Her heart swelled, the tears came to her eyes, +she clenched her fists. Her fine, lovely, and sensitive face darkened +to a tragic intensity of resolve. She might have been the young +Hannibal, vowing to avenge Carthage. What she was saying to herself +passionately was, "When _I_ get into the University, I will _not_ be a +jay!" + +It was under these conditions that Sylvia passed from childhood, +and emerged into the pains and delights and responsibilities of +self-consciousness. + + + + +BOOK II + +_A FALSE START TO ATHENS_ + + + + +CHAPTER X + +SYLVIA'S FIRST GLIMPSE OF MODERN CIVILIZATION + + +Although there was not the slightest actual connection between +the two, the trip to Chicago was always in Sylvia's mind like the +beginning of her University course. It is true that the journey, +practically the first in Sylvia's life, was undertaken shortly before +her matriculation as a Freshman, but this fortuitous chronological +connection could not account for Sylvia's sense of a deeper unity +between the two experiences. The days in Chicago, few as they were, +were as charged with significance for her as the successive acts in a +drama, and that significance was of the substance and marrow of the +following and longer passage in her life. + +The fact that her father and her mother disagreed about the +advisability of the trip was one of the salient points in the +beginning. When Aunt Victoria, breaking a long silence with one of her +infrequent letters, wrote to say that she was to be in Chicago "on +business" during the last week of September, and would be very glad +to have her sister-in-law bring her two nieces to see her there, +Professor Marshall said, with his usual snort: "Business nothing! She +never has any business. She won't come to see them _here_, that's all. +The idea's preposterous." But Mrs. Marshall, breaking a long silence +of her own, said vigorously: "She is your sister, and you and your +family are the only blood-kin she has in the world. I've a notion--I +have had for some time--that she was somehow terribly hurt on that +last visit here. It would be ungenerous not to go half-way to meet her +now." + +Sylvia, anxiously hanging on her father's response, was surprised +when he made no protest beyond, "Well, do as you please. I can keep +Lawrence all right. She only speaks of seeing you and the girls." It +did not occur to Sylvia, astonished at this sudden capitulation, that +there might be a discrepancy between her father's habit of vehement +speech and his real feeling in this instance. + +It was enough for her, however, that they were going to take a long +journey on the train overnight, that they were going to see a great +city, that they were going to see Aunt Victoria, about whom her +imagination had always hovered with a constancy enhanced by the odd +silence concerning her which was the rule in the Marshall house. + +She was immensely stirred by the prospect. She made herself, in the +brief interval between the decision and the beginning of the journey, +a new shirt-waist of handkerchief linen. It took the last cent of +her allowance to buy the material, and she was obliged, by a secret +arrangement with her father, to discount the future, in order to have +some spending-money in the city. + +Mrs. Marshall was quite disappointed by the dullness of Sylvia's +perceptions during that momentous first trip, which she had looked +forward to as an occasion for widening the girls' horizon to new +interests. Oddly enough it was Judith, usually so much less quick than +Sylvia, who asked the intelligent questions and listened attentively +to her mother's explanations about the working of the air-brakes, and +the switching systems in railroad yards, and the harvesting of the +crops in the flat, rich country gliding past the windows. It was +quite evident that not a word of this highly instructive talk +reached Sylvia, sitting motionless, absorbing every detail of her +fellow-passengers' aspect, in a sort of trance of receptivity. She +scarcely glanced out of the windows, except when the train stopped at +the station in a large town, when she transferred her steady gaze to +the people coming and going from the train. "Just look, Sylvia, at +those blast-furnaces!" cried her mother as they passed through the +outskirts of an industrial town. "They have to keep them going, you +know, night and day." + +"Oh, do they? What for?" asked Judith, craning her neck to watch the +splendid leap of the flames into the darkness. + +"Because they can't allow the ore to become--" Mrs. Marshall wondered +why, during her conscientious explanation of blast-furnaces, Sylvia +kept her eyes dully fixed on her hands on her lap. Sylvia was, as a +matter of fact, trying imaginary bracelets on her slim, smooth, white +wrists. The woman opposite her wore bracelets. + +"Isn't it fine," remarked the civic-minded Mrs. Marshall, "to see all +these little prairie towns so splendidly lighted?" + +"I hadn't noticed them," said Sylvia, her gaze turned on the elegant +nonchalance of a handsome, elderly woman ahead of her. Her mother +looked at her askance, and thought that children are unaccountable. + +There were four of the Chicago days, and such important events marked +them that each one had for all time a physiognomy of its own. Years +afterwards when their travels had far outrun that first journey, +Sylvia and Judith could have told exactly what occurred on any given +day of that sojourn, as "on the third day we were in Chicago." + +The event of the first day was, of course, the meeting with Aunt +Victoria. They went to see her in a wonderful hotel, entering through +a classic court, with a silver-plashing fountain in the middle, and +slim Ionic pillars standing up white and glorious out of masses of +palms. This dreamlike spot of beauty was occupied by an incessantly +restless throng of lean, sallow-faced men in sack-coats, with hats on +the backs of their heads and cigars in the corners of their mouths. +The air was full of tobacco smoke and the click of heels on the marble +pavement. At one side was a great onyx-and-marble desk, looking like +a soda-water fountain without the silver faucets, and it was the +thin-cheeked, elegant young-old man behind this structure who gave +instructions whereby Mrs. Marshall and her two daughters found their +way to Aunt Victoria's immense and luxurious room. She was very glad +to see them, shaking hands with her sister-in-law in the respectful +manner which that lady always seemed to inspire in her, and embracing +her two tall young nieces with a fervor which melted Sylvia's heart +back to her old childish adoration. + +"What _beautiful_ children you have, Barbara!" cried Mrs. +Marshall-Smith, holding Judith off at arm's length and looking from +her to Sylvia; "although I suppose I ought not to tell them that!" She +looked at Sylvia with an affectionate laugh. "Will you be spoiled if I +tell you you are very pretty?" she asked. + +"I can't think of anything but how pretty _you_ are!" said Sylvia, +voicing honestly what was in her mind. + +This answer caused her aunt to cry out: "Oh! Oh! And tact too! She's +meant for social success!" She left this note to vibrate in Sylvia's +ears and turned again to her sister-in-law with hospitable remarks +about the removing of wraps. As this was being done, she took +advantage of the little bustle to remark from the other side of the +room, "I rather hoped Elliott would come with you." She spoke lightly, +but there was the tremor of feeling in her sweet voice which Sylvia +found she remembered as though it had been but yesterday she had heard +it last. + +"You didn't ask him," said Mrs. Marshall, with her usual directness. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith arched her eyebrows, dropped her eyelids, and +shook her head. "No, I didn't ask him," she admitted, and then with a +little wry twist of her lips, "But I rather hoped he might feel like +coming." She looked down at her hands. + +Mrs. Marshall surprised her daughters very much by going across the +room and kissing her husband's sister. Mrs. Marshall-Smith took the +other's strong, hard hand between her soft fingers. "That's generous +in you, Barbara," she said, looking intently into the pitying dark +eyes, "I'm human, you know," + +"Yes, I know you're human," said Mrs. Marshall, looking down at her +gravely. "So are we all of us. So's Elliott. Don't forget that." With +which obscure reference, entirely unintelligible to the two girls, the +matter was forever dropped. + +The two ladies thereupon embarked upon the difficult business of +laying out to the best advantage the few days before them so that +every hour might be utilized for the twofold purpose of seeing each +other and having the girls see the sights. Judith went to the window +during this conversation, and looked down into the crowded street, the +first city street she had ever seen. Sylvia sat quietly and imprinted +upon her memory every item in the appearance of the two women before +her, not the first time she had compared them. Mrs. Marshall was +dressed in a dark-blue, well-preserved, ready-made suit, dating from +the year before. It was in perfect condition and quite near enough +the style of the moment to pass unnoticed. Sylvia saw nothing to be +ashamed of in her mother's unaccented and neutral costume, but there +was no denying that she looked exactly like any one else. What was +most apparent to the discerning eye was that her garb had been +organized in every detail so as to consume as little thought and +effort as possible. Whereas Aunt Victoria--Sylvia's earnest and +thoughtful efforts at home-dressmaking had fitted her, if for nothing +else, for a full appreciation of Mrs. Marshall-Smith's costume. She +had struggled with cloth enough to bow her head in respect and awe +before the masterly tailoring of the rich, smooth broadcloth dress. +She knew from her own experience that the perfection of those welted +seams could not be accomplished by even the most intense temporary +concentration of amateur forces. No such trifling fire of twigs +lighted the way to that pinnacle. The workman who had achieved that +skill had cut down the whole tree of his life and thrown it into the +flame. + +Like a self-taught fiddler at the concert of a master, Sylvia's +failures had taught her the meaning of success. Although her +inexperience kept her from making at all a close estimate of the +literal cost of the toilet, her shrewdness made her divine the truth, +which was that Mrs. Marshall-Smith, in spite of the plainness of her +attire, could have clad herself in cloth-of-gold at a scarcely greater +expenditure of the efforts and lives of others. Sylvia felt that her +aunt was the most entirely enviable person in the world, and would +gladly have changed places with her in a moment. + +That was, on the whole, the note of the Chicago trip, all the dazzling +lights and reflections of which focused, for Sylvia, upon Aunt +Victoria's radiant person. At times, the resultant beam was almost too +much for the young eyes; as, for example, on the next day when the +two made a momentous shopping expedition to the largest and finest +department store in the city. "I've a curiosity to see," Aunt Victoria +had declared carelessly, "what sort of things are sold in a big +Western shop, and besides I've some purchases to make for the Lydford +house. Things needs freshening up there. I've thought of wicker and +chintz for the living-room. It would be a change from what I've had. +Perhaps it would amuse the children to go along?" + +At this, Judith, who had a boy's detestation of shopping, looked so +miserable that Aunt Victoria had laughed out, her frank, amused laugh, +and said, "Well, Sylvia and I alone, then!" + +"Judith and I'll go to Lincoln Park to take a walk by the lake," said +Mrs. Marshall. "Our inland young folks have never seen so much water +all at once." + +Sylvia had been, of course, in the two substantial and well-run +department stores of La Chance, when she went with her mother to make +their carefully considered purchases. They always went directly to +the department in question, where Mrs. Marshall's concise formula ran +usually along such lines as, "I would like to look at misses' coats, +size 16, blue or brown serge, moderate style, price somewhere between +ten and fifteen dollars." And then they looked at misses' coats, size +16, blue or brown serge, of the specified price; and picked out +one. Sylvia's mother was under the impression that she allowed her +daughters to select their own clothes because, after all these +defining and limiting preliminaries, she always, with a very genuine +indifference, abandoned them to their own choice between the four or +five garments offered. + +Even when Sylvia, as she grew older, went by herself to make a small +purchase or two, she was so deeply under the influence of her mother's +example that she felt it unbecoming to loiter, or to examine anything +she knew she could not buy. Besides, nearly all the salespeople, who, +for the most part, had been at their posts for many years, knew her +from childhood, and if she stopped to look at a show-case of new +collars, or jabots, they always came pleasantly to pass the time of +day, and ask how her little brother was, and how she liked studying at +home. She was ashamed to show in their presence anything but a casual, +dignified interest in the goods they handled. + +After these feeble and diluted tipplings, her day with Aunt Victoria +was like a huge draught of raw spirits. That much-experienced shopper +led her a leisurely course up one dazzling aisle and down another, +pausing ruthlessly to look and to handle and to comment, even if she +had not the least intention of buying. With an inimitable ease +of manner she examined whatever took her fancy, and the languid, +fashionably dressed salesladies, all in aristocratic black, showed to +these whims a smiling deference, which Sylvia knew could come +from nothing but the exquisite tailoring of Aunt Victoria's blue +broadcloth. This perception did not in the least lower her opinion of +the value of the deference. It heightened her opinion of the value of +tailoring. + +They stood by glass tables piled high with filmy and costly underwear, +such underwear as Sylvia had never dreamed could exist, and Aunt +Victoria looked casually at the cobweb tissues which the saleswoman +held up, herself hankering in a hungry adoration of the luxury she +would never touch in any other way. Without apology or explanation, +other than Aunt Victoria's gracious nod of dismissal, they moved on +to the enchanted cave where, under the stare of innumerable electric +lights, evening wraps were exhibited. The young woman who served them +held the expensive, fragile chiffon of the garments up in front of her +black uniform, her eyes wistful and unsatisfied. Her instant of glory +was over when Aunt Victoria bought one of these, exclaiming humorously +about the quaintness of going from Paris to Chicago to shop. It was of +silver tissue over white brocade, with a collar of fur, and the price +was a hundred and thirty-seven dollars. Sylvia's allowance for all her +personal expenses for a whole year was a hundred and twenty. To +reach the furniture, they passed by, with an ignoring contempt, huge +counters heaped with hundreds and hundreds of shirt-waists, any one of +which was better than the one Sylvia had made with so much care and +interest before leaving home. + +Among the furniture they made a long stay. Aunt Victoria was +unexpectedly pleased by the design of the wicker pieces, and +bought and bought and bought; till Sylvia turned her head away in +bewilderment. She looked down a long perspective of glittering +show-cases filled with the minor luxuries of the toilet, the ruffs, +the collars, the slipper-rosettes, the embroidered belts, the hair +ornaments, the chiffon scarves, all objects diverse, innumerable, +perishable as mist in tree-branches, all costly in exact ratio to +their fragility. Back of her were the children's dresses, fairy-like, +simple with an extravagantly costly simplicity. It occurred to Sylvia +as little as to many others of the crowd of half-hypnotized women, +wandering about with burning eyes and watering mouths through the +shrewdly designed shop, that the great closets back of these adroitly +displayed fineries might be full of wearable, firm-textured little +dresses, such as she herself had always worn. It required an effort of +the will to remember that, and wills weak, or not yet formed, wavered +and bent before the lust of the eye, so cunningly inflamed. Any sense +of values, of proportion, in Sylvia was dumfounded by the lavishness, +the enormous quantities, the immense varieties of the goods displayed. +She ached with covetousness.... + +When they joined the others at the hotel her mother, after commenting +that she looked rather flushed and tired, happened to ask, "Oh, by the +way, Sylvia, did you happen to come across anything in serge suits +that would be suitable for school-wear?" + +Sylvia quivered, cried out explosively, "_No!_" and turned away, +feeling a hot pulse beating through her body. But Aunt Victoria +happened to divert attention at that moment. She had been reading, +with a very serious and somewhat annoyed expression, a long telegram +just handed her, and now in answer to Mrs. Marshall's expression of +concern, said hastily, "Oh, it's Arnold again.... It's always Arnold!" +She moved to a desk and wrote a brief telegram which she handed to +the waiting man-servant. Sylvia noticed it was addressed to Mr. A.H. +Saunders, a name which set dimly ringing in her head recollections now +muffled and obscured. + +Aunt Victoria went on to Mrs. Marshall: "Arnold hates this school so. +He always hates his schools." + +"Oh, he is at school now?" asked Mrs. Marshall. "You haven't a tutor +for him?" + +"Oh yes, Mr. Saunders is still with him--in the summers and during +holidays." Mrs. Marshall-Smith explained further: "To keep him up in +his _studies_. He doesn't learn anything in his school, you know. They +never do. It's only for the atmosphere--the sports; you know, they +play cricket where he is now--and the desirable class of boys he +meets.... _All_ the boys have tutors in vacation times to coach them +for the college-entrance examinations." + +The face of the college professor's wife continued immovably grave +during this brief summary of an educational system. She inquired, "How +old is Arnold now?" learned that he was seventeen, remembered that, oh +yes, he was a year older than Sylvia, and allowed the subject to drop +into one of the abysmal silences for which she alone had the courage. +Her husband's sister was as little proof against it as her husband. As +it continued, Mrs. Marshall-Smith went through the manoeuvers which in +a less perfectly bred person would have been fidgeting.... + +No one paid any attention to Sylvia, who sat confronting herself in a +long mirror and despising every garment she wore. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +ARNOLD'S FUTURE IS CASUALLY DECIDED + + +The next day was to have been given up to really improving pursuits. +The morning in the Art Institute came off as planned. The girls were +marshaled through the sculpture and paintings and various art objects +with about the result which might have been expected. As blankly +inexperienced of painting and sculpture as any Bushmen, they +received this sudden enormous dose of those arts with an instant, +self-preservatory incapacity to swallow even a small amount of them. +It is true that the very first exhibits they saw, the lions outside +the building, the first paintings they encountered, made an +appreciable impression on them; but after this they followed their +elders through the interminable crowded halls of the museum, their +legs aching with the effort to keep their balance on the polished +floors, their eyes increasingly glazed and dull. For a time a few +eccentric faces or dresses among the other sightseers penetrated +through this merciful insensibility, but by noon the capacity for even +so much observation as this had left them. They set one foot before +the other, they directed their eyes upon the multitudinous objects +exhibited, they nodded their heads to comments made by the others, but +if asked suddenly what they had just seen in the room last visited, +neither of them could have made the faintest guess. + +At half-past twelve, their aunt and mother, highly self-congratulatory +over the educational morning, voted that enough was as good as a +feast, and led their stunned and stupefied charges away to Aunt +Victoria's hotel for lunch. + +It was while they were consuming this exceedingly appetizing meal that +Sylvia saw, threading his way towards them between the other tables, a +tall, weedy, expensively dressed young man, with a pale freckled face +and light-brown hair. When he saw her eyes on him he waved his hand, +a largely knuckled hand, and grinned. Then she saw that it was not a +young man, but a tall boy, and that the boy was Arnold. The quality of +the grin reminded her that she had always liked Arnold. + +His arrival, though obviously unexpected to the last degree, caused +less of a commotion than might have seemed natural. It was as if +this were for Aunt Victoria only an unexpected incident in a general +development, quite resignedly anticipated. After he had shaken hands +with everybody, and had sat down and ordered his own luncheon very +capably, his stepmother remarked in a tolerant tone, "You didn't get +my telegram, then?" He shook his head: "I started an hour or so after +I wired you. We'd gone down to the town with one of the masters for a +game with Concord. There was a train just pulling out as we went by +the station, and I ran and jumped on." + +"How'd you know where it was going?" challenged Judith. + +"I didn't," he explained lightly. He looked at her with the teasing, +provocative look of masculine seventeen for feminine thirteen. "Same +old spitfire, I see, Miss Judy," he said, his command of unhackneyed +phrases by no means commensurate with his desire to be facetious. + +Judith frowned and went on eating her Ă©clair in silence. It was the +first Ă©clair she had ever eaten, and she was more concerned with it +than with the new arrival. + +Nobody made any comment on Arnold's method of beginning journeys until +Mrs. Marshall asked, "What did you do it for?" She put the question +with an evident seriousness of inquiry, not at all with the rhetorical +reproach usually conveyed in the formula she used. + +Arnold looked up from the huge, costly, bloody beefsteak he was eating +and, after an instant's survey of the grave, kind, face opposite him, +answered with a seriousness like her own, "Because I wanted to get +away." He added after a moment, laughing and looking again at the +younger girl, "I wanted to come out and pull Judy's hair again!" He +spoke with his mouth full, and this made him entirely a boy and not at +all the young man his well-cut clothes made him appear. + +Without speaking, Judith pulled her long, smooth braid around over her +shoulder where she could protect the end of it. Her mouth was also +full, bulgingly, of the last of her Ă©clair. They might have been +brother and sister in a common nursery. + +"My! Aren't you pretty, Sylvia!" was Arnold's next remark. "You're a +regular peach; do you know it?" He turned to the others: "Say, let's +go to a show this afternoon," he proposed. "Tling-Tling's in town. I +saw it in the papers as I came in. The original company's singing. +Did you ever hear them?" he asked Sylvia. "They beat the other road +companies all hollow." + +Sylvia shook her head. She had never heard the name before, the +Broadway brand of comic opera being outside her experience to a degree +which would have been inconceivable to Arnold. + +There was some discussion over the matter, but in the end, apparently +because there was nothing else to do with Arnold, they all did go +to the "show," Arnold engineering the expedition with a trained +expertness in the matter of ticket-sellers, cabs, and ushers which was +in odd contrast to his gawky physical immaturity. At all the stages +of the process where it was possible, he smoked cigarettes, producing +them in rapid succession out of a case studded with little pearls. His +stepmother looked on at this, her beautiful manner of wise tolerance +tightening up a little, and after dinner, as they sat in a glittering +corridor of the hotel to talk, she addressed him suddenly in a quite +different tone. "I don't want you to do that so much, Arnold," she +said. His hand was fumbling for his case again. "You're too young to +smoke at all," she said definitely. He went on with his automatic +movements, opening the case, taking out a cigarette and tapping it on +the cover. "Oh, all the fellows do," he said rebelliously, and struck +a match. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith aroused herself to a sudden, low-toned, iron +masterfulness of voice and manner which, for all its quietness, had +the quality of a pistol shot in the family group. She said only, "Put +away that cigarette"; but by one effort of her will she massed against +the rebellion of his disorganized adolescence her mature, well-ripened +capacity to get her own way. She held him with her eyes as an +animal-trainer is supposed to cow his snarling, yellow-fanged +captives, and in a moment Arnold, with a pettish gesture, blew out the +match and shut the cigarette case with a snap. Mrs. Marshall-Smith +forbore to over-emphasize her victory by a feather-weight of gloating, +and turned to her sister-in-law with a whimsical remark about the +preposterousness of one of the costumes passing. Arnold sulked +in silence until Judith, emerging from her usual self-contained +reticence, made her first advance to him. "Let's us all go there +by the railing where we can look down into the central court," she +suggested, and having a nodded permission from their elders, the three +children walked away. + +They looked down into the great marble court, far below them, now +fairy-like with carefully arranged electric lights, gleaming through +the palms. The busily trampling cohorts in sack-coats and derby hats +were, from here, subdued by distance to an aesthetic inoffensiveness +of mere ant-like comings and goings. + +"Not so bad," said Arnold, with a kindly willingness to be pleased, +looking about him discriminatingly at one detail after another of +the interior, the heavy velvet and gold bullion of the curtains, the +polished marble of the paneling, the silk brocade of the upholstery, +the heavy gilding of the chairs.... Everything in sight exhaled an +intense consciousness of high cost, which was heavy on the air like a +musky odor, suggesting to a sensitive nose, as does the odor of musk, +another smell, obscured but rancidly perceptible--the unwashed smell, +floating up from the paupers' cellars which support Aladdin's palaces +of luxury. + +But the three adolescents, hanging over the well-designed solid +mahogany railing, had not noses sensitive to this peculiar, very +common blending of odors. Judith, in fact, was entirely unconscious +even of the more obvious of the two. She was as insensitive to all +about her as to the too-abundant pictures of the morning. She might +have been leaning over a picket fence. "I wouldn't give in to Her!" +she said to Arnold, staring squarely at him. + +Arnold looked nettled. "Oh, I don't! I don't pay any attention to what +she says, except when she's around where I am, and that's not so often +you could notice it much! _Saunders_ isn't that kind! Saunders is a +gay old bird, I tell you! We have some times together when we get +going!" + +It dawned on Sylvia that he was speaking of the man who, five years +before, had been their young Professor Saunders. She found that she +remembered vividly his keen, handsome face, softened by music to quiet +peace. She wondered what Arnold meant by saying he was a gay old bird. + +Arnold went on, shaking his head sagely: "But it's my belief that +Saunders is beginning to take to dope ... bad business! Bad business! +He's in love with Madrina, you know, and has to drown his sorrows some +way." + +Even Judith, for all her Sioux desire to avoid seeming surprised or +impressed, could not restrain a rather startled look at this lordly +knowledge of the world. Sylvia, although she had scarcely taken in the +significance of Arnold's words, dropped her eyes and blushed. Arnold +surveyed them with the indulgent look of a rakish but good-hearted man +of the world patting two pretty children on the head. + +Judith upset his pose by bringing the talk abruptly back to where she +had begun it. "But you _did_ give in to her! You pretend you didn't +because you are ashamed. She just looked you down. I wouldn't let +_any_body look me down; I wouldn't give in to anybody!" + +Under this attack, the man of the world collapsed into an awkward +overgrown boy, ill at ease, with red lids to his eyes and premature +yellow stains on two fingers of his left hand. He shifted his feet and +said defensively: "Aw, she's a woman. A fellow can't knock her down. I +wouldn't let a man do it." He retreated still further, through another +phase, and became a little boy, heated and recriminatory: "I'd like +to know who _you_ are to talk! You give in to _your_ mother all the +time!" + +"I don't give in to my mother; I _mind_ her," said Judith, drawing a +distinction which Arnold could not follow but which he was not acute +enough to attack other than by a jeering, "Oh, what a crawl! What's +the diff?" + +"And I mind her whether she's there or not! _I_ do!" continued Judith, +pressing what she seemed, inexplicably to Arnold, to consider her +advantage. + +Sylvia was vexed with them for talking so loudly and getting so +red-faced and being so generally out of key with the booming note of +luxury resounding about them. "Hush! hush!" she said; "don't be so +silly. We ought to be going back." + +Arnold took her rebuke without protest. Either something in this +passage-at-arms had perversely brought a sudden impulse to his mind, +or he had all along a purpose in his fantastic trip West. As they +reached the two ladies, he burst out, "Say, Madrina, why couldn't I go +on to La Chance and go to school there, and live with the Marshalls?" + +Four amazed faces were turned on him. His stepmother evidently thought +him stricken with sudden insanity and strove distractedly to select, +from the heaped pile of her reasons for so thinking, some few which +might be cited without too great offense to her brother's mode of +life: "Why, what a strange idea, Arnold! What ever made you think of +such a thing? _You_ wouldn't like it!" She was going on, as in decency +bound, to add that it would be also rather a large order for the +Marshalls to adopt a notably "difficult" boy, when Judith broke in +with a blunt divination of what was in her aunt's mind. "You'd have +to wash dishes if you came to our house," she said, "and help peel +potatoes, and weed the celery bed." + +"I'd like it!" declared Arnold. "We'd have lots of fun." + +"I _bet_ we would!" said Judith, with an unexpected assent. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith laughed gently. "You don't know what you're +talking about, you silly boy. You never did an hour's work in your +life!" + +Arnold sat down by Mrs. Marshall. "I wouldn't be in the way, _would_ +I?" he said, with a clumsy pleading. He hesitated obviously over the +"Mother" which had risen to his lips, the name he had had for her +during the momentous visit of five years before, and finally, +blushing, could not bring it out. "I'd like it like anything! _I_ +wouldn't be ... I'd be _different_! Sylvie and Judy seem like little +sisters to me." The red on his face deepened. "It's--it's good for a +fellow to have sisters, and a home," he said in a low tone not audible +to his stepmother's ears. + +Mrs. Marshall put out a large, strong hand and took his slack, +big-knuckled fingers into a tight clasp. Mrs. Marshall-Smith evidently +thought a light tone best now, as always, to take. "I tell you, +Barbara"--she suggested laughingly, "we'll exchange. You give me +Sylvia, and take Arnold." + +Mrs. Marshall ignored this as pure facetiousness, and said seriously: +"Why really, Victoria, it might not be a bad thing for Arnold to come +to us. I know Elliott would be glad to have him, and so would I." + +For an instant Arnold's life hung in the balance. Mrs. Marshall-Smith, +gleaming gold and ivory in her evening-dress of amber satin, sat +silent, startled by the suddenness with which the whole astonishing +question had come up. There was in her face more than one hint that +the proposition opened a welcome door of escape to her.... + +And then Arnold himself, with the tragic haste of youth, sent one +end of the scales down, weighted so heavily that the sight of his +stepmother's eyes and mouth told him it could never rise again. In the +little, pregnant pause, he cried out joyfully, "Oh, Mother! Mother!" +and flung his arms around Mrs. Marshall's neck. It was the only time +he had shown the slightest emotion over anything. It burst from him +with surprising effect. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith was, as she had said, only human, and at this +she rose, her delicate face quiet and impassive, and shook out the +shimmering folds of her beautiful dress. She said casually, picking +up her fan and evidently preparing for some sort of adjournment: "Oh, +Arnold, don't be so absurd. Of course you can't foist yourself off +on a family that's no relation to you, that way. And in any case, +it wouldn't do for you to graduate from a co-educational State +University. Not a person you know would have heard of it. You know +you're due at Harvard next fall." With adroit fingers, she plucked the +string sure to vibrate in Arnold's nature. "Do go and order a table +for us in the Rose-Room, there's a good boy. And be sure to have the +waiter give you one where we can see the dancing." + +The matter was settled. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +ONE MAN'S MEAT ... + + +That night after the Marshalls had gone back to their somewhat shabby +boarding-house, "things" happened to the two people they had left in +the great hotel. Sylvia and Judith never knew the details, but it was +apparent that something portentous had occurred, from the number of +telegrams Aunt Victoria had managed to receive and send between the +hour when they left her in the evening, and eleven o'clock the next +morning, when they found her, hatted and veiled, with an array of +strapped baggage around her. + +"It's Arnold again!" she told them, with a resigned gesture. She laid +down the time-table she had been consulting and drew Mrs. Marshall to +the window for a low-voiced explanation. When she came back, "I'm so +sorry, dears, to cut short even by a single day this charming time +together," she told the girls. "But the news I've been getting from +Arnold's school--there's nothing for me to do but to stop everything +and take him back there to see what can be done to patch things +up." She spoke with the patient air of one inured to the sacrifices +involved in the upbringing of children. "We leave on the +eleven-forty--oh, I _am_ so sorry! But it would have been only one day +more. I meant to get you both a dress--I've 'phoned to have them sent +to you." + +The rest was only the dreary, bustling futility of the last moments +before train-time--kisses, remarks about writing more often; a promise +from Aunt Victoria to send Sylvia from time to time a box of old +dresses and fineries as material for her niece's dressmaking +skill;--from Arnold, appearing at the last minute, a good deal of +rather flat, well-meant chaffing, proffered with the most entire +unconcern as to the expressed purpose of their journey; and then the +descent through long, mirrored, softly carpeted corridors to the +classic beauty of the Grecian temple where the busy men, with tired +eyes, came and went hurriedly, treading heavily on their heels. +Outside was the cab, Arnold extremely efficient in browbeating the +driver as to the stowing away of bags, more kisses, in the general +cloud of which Arnold pecked shyly at Sylvia's ear and Judith's chin; +then the retreating vehicle with Arnold standing up, a tall, ungainly +figure, waving a much-jointed hand. + +After it was out of sight the three watchers looked at each other in a +stale moment of anticlimax. + +"Arnold's horrid, isn't he?" said Judith thoughtfully. + +"Why, I _like_ him!" opposed Sylvia. + +"Oh, I _like_ him, all right," said Judith. + +Then both girls looked at their mother. What next ...? They were not +to have gone back to La Chance until the next night. Would this change +of plans alter their schedule? Mrs. Marshall saw no reason why it +should. She proposed a sightseeing expedition to a hospital. Miss +Lindström, the elderly Swedish woman who worked among the destitute +negroes of La Chance, had a sister who was head-nurse in the biggest +and newest hospital in Chicago, and she had written very cordially +that if her sister's friends cared to inspect such an institution, she +was at their service. Neither of the girls having the slightest idea +of what a hospital was like, nor of any other of the sights in the +city which they might see instead, no objection was made to this plan. + +They made inquiries of a near-by policeman and found that they could +reach it by the elevated. Their encounter with this metropolitan +facility for transportation turned out to be among the most memorable +bits of sightseeing of their trip. Neither of the girls had ever +imagined anything so lurid as the Saturday noon jam, the dense, packed +throngs waiting on the platforms and bursting out through the opened +doors like beans from a split bag, their places instantly taken by +an even greater crowd, perspiring, fighting grimly for foot-room and +expecting and receiving no other kind. Judith was fired contagiously +with the spirit about her, set her teeth, thrust out her elbows, +shoved, pushed, grunted, fought, all with a fresh zest in the +performance which gave her an immense advantage over the fatigued +city-dwellers, who assaulted their fellow-citizens with only a +preoccupied desire for an approach to a breathing space, and, that +attained, subsided into lurching, strap-hanging quiescence. Judith +secured with ease, on all the public vehicles they utilized that day, +a place on the outside edge of a platform, where she had fresh air +in abundance and could hang over the grating to watch with extreme +interest the intimate bits of tenement-house life which flashed +jerkily by. + +But Sylvia, a shuddering chip on the torrent, always found herself +in the exact middle of the most crowded spot, feeling her body +horrifyingly pressed upon by various invisible ones behind her and +several only too visible ones in front, breathing down the back of +somebody's neck, often a dirty and sweaty one, with somebody breathing +hotly down the back of her own. Once as a very fat and perspiring +German-American began to fight the crowd in the endeavor to turn +around and leave the car, his slowly revolving bulbous bulk pushed her +so smotheringly into the broad back of a negro ahead of her that she +felt faint. As they left the car, she said vehemently: "Oh, Mother, +this makes me sick! Why couldn't we have taken a cab? Aunt Victoria +always does!" + +Her mother laughed. "You little country girl! A cab for as far as this +would cost almost as much as the ticket back to La Chance." + +"I don't see why we came, then!" cried Sylvia. "It's simply awful! And +this is a _horrid_ part of town!" She suddenly observed that they were +walking through a very poor, thickly inhabited street, such as she +had never seen before. As she looked about her, her mother stopped +laughing and watched her face with a painful attention. Sylvia looked +at the tall, dingy houses, the frowzy little shops, the swarms of +dirty-nosed children, shrill-voiced, with matted hair, running and +whooping in the street, at the slatternly women yelling unobeyed +orders to them out of half-glimpsed, cheerless interiors, smelling of +cabbage and dishwater. It was Sylvia's first sight of the life of city +poor, and upon her face of disgust and revulsion her mother bent a +stern and anxious eye. + +"See here, Sylvia!" she said abruptly, "do you know what _I_ was +thinking about back there in the crowd on the elevated? I was thinking +that lots of girls, no older than _my_ girl, have to stand that twice +a day, going to earn their livings." + +Sylvia chafed under the obviously admonitory tone of this. "I don't +see that that makes it any easier for us if they _do!_" she said in a +recalcitrant voice. She stepped wide to avoid a pile of filth on the +sidewalk, and clutched at her skirt. She had a sudden vision of the +white-tiled, velvet-carpeted florist's shop in a corner of Aunt +Victoria's hotel where, behind spotless panes of shining plate-glass, +the great clusters of cut-flowers dreamed away an enchanted +life--roses, violets, lilies of the valley, orchids.... + +"Here we are at the hospital," said Mrs. Marshall, a perplexed line +of worry between her brows. But at once she was swept out of herself, +forgot her seriously taken responsibility of being the mother of a +girl like Sylvia. She was only Barbara Marshall, thrilled by a noble +spectacle. She looked up at the great, clean, many-windowed façade +above them, towering, even above the huge bulk of the gas-tanks across +the street, and her dark eyes kindled. "A hospital is one of the most +wonderful places in the world!" she cried, in a voice of emotion. "All +this--to help people get well!" + +They passed into a wide, bare hall, where a busy young woman at a desk +nodded on hearing their names, and spoke into a telephone. There +was an odd smell in the air, not exactly disagreeable, yet rather +uncomfortably pungent. "Oh, iodoform," remarked the young woman at the +desk, hearing them comment on it. "Do you get it? We don't notice it +_here_ at all." + +Then came Miss Lindström's sister, powerfully built, gaunt, gray, with +a professional, impersonal cheerfulness. The expedition began. "I'll +take you to the children's ward first," said Miss Lindström; "that +always interests visitors so much...." + +Rows on rows of little white beds and white, bloodless faces with an +awful patience on them, and little white hands lying in unchildlike +quiet on the white spreads; rows on rows of hollow eyes turned in +listless interest on the visitors; nurses in white, stepping briskly +about, bending over the beds, lifting a little emaciated form, deftly +unrolling a bandage; heat; a stifling smell of iodoform; a sharp +sudden cry of pain from a distant corner; somewhere a dully beating +pulse of low, suppressed sobs.... + +They were out of the children's ward now, walking along a clean bare +corridor. Sylvia swallowed hard. Her eyes felt burning. Judith held +her mother's hand tightly. Miss Lindström was explaining to Mrs. +Marshall a new system of ventilation. + +"This is one of the women's wards," said their leader, opening another +swinging door, from which rushed forth a fresh blast of iodoform. More +rows of white beds, each with its mound of suffering, each with its +haggard face of pain. More nurses, bearing basins of curious shape, +bandages, hot-water bottles, rubber tubes. There was more restlessness +here than in the children's ward, less helpless prostration before the +Juggernaut of disease ... fretfulness, moans, tossing heads, wretched +eyes which stared at the visitors in a hostile indifference. + +"Oh, they are just putting the dressing on such an _interesting_ +case!" said Miss Lindström's voice coming to Sylvia from a great +distance. She spoke with the glow of professional enthusiasm, with +that certainty, peculiar to sincere doctors and nurses, that a +complicated wound is a fascinating object. + +In spite of herself Sylvia had one glimpse of horribly lacerated red +tissues.... She gripped her hands together after this and looked +fixedly at a button on her glove, until Miss Lindström's voice +announced: "It's the Embury stitch that makes that possible: we've +just worked out the application of it to skin-graft cases. Two years +ago she'd have lost her leg. Isn't it simply splendid!" + +She said cordially as they moved forward: "Sister Selma said to treat +you as though you were the Queen of Sweden, and I am! You're seeing +things that visitors are _never_ allowed to see." + +They walked on and on interminably, past innumerable sick souls, +each whirling alone in a self-centered storm of suffering; and then, +somehow, they were in a laboratory, where an immensely stout and +immensely jovial doctor in white linen got down from a high stool to +shake hands with them and profess an immense willingness to entertain +them. "... but I haven't got anything much today," he said, with a +disparaging wave of his hand towards his test-tubes. "Not a single +death-warrant. Oh yes, I have too, one brought in yesterday." He +brought them a test-tube, stoppered with cotton, and bade them note +a tiny bluish patch on the clear gelatine at the bottom. "That means +he's a dead one, as much as if he faced the electric chair," he +explained. To the nurse he added, "A fellow in the men's ward, +Pavilion G. Very interesting culture ... first of that kind I've had +since I've been here." As he spoke he was looking at Sylvia with an +open admiration, bold, intrusive, flippant. + +They were passing along another corridor, hot, silent, their footsteps +falling dully on a long runner of corrugated rubber, with red borders +which drew together in the distance like the rails streaming away from +a train. Behind a closed door there suddenly rose, and as quickly died +away, a scream of pain. With an effort Sylvia resisted the impulse to +clap her hands over her ears. + +"Here we are, at the minor operating-room," said Miss Lindström, +pausing. "It's against the rules, but if you want to look from across +the room--just to say you've been there--" She held the door open a +little, a suffocating odor of anaesthetics blew out in their faces, +like a breath from a dragon's cave. Mrs. Marshall and Judith stepped +forward. But Sylvia clutched at her mother's arm and whispered: +"Mother! Mother! I don't think I'll go on. I feel--I feel--I'll go +back down to the entrance hall to wait." + +Mrs. Marshall nodded a preoccupied assent, and Sylvia fled away down +the endless corridor, looking neither to the right nor the left, down +repeated flights of scrubbed and sterilized marble stairs, into the +entrance hall, and, like a bolt from a bow, out of it on the other +side, out into the street, into the sunshine, the heat, the clatter, +the blessed, blessed smell of cabbage and dish-water.... + +After a time she went to sit down on the top step of the hospital +entrance to wait. She contemplated with exquisite enjoyment the +vigorous, profane, hair-pulling quarrel between two dirty little +savages across the street. She could have kissed her hand to the +loud-voiced woman who came scuffling to the window to scold them, +clutching a dirty kimono together over a Hogarth-like expanse of +bosom. They were well, these people, blood ran in their veins, their +skin was whole, they breathed air, not iodoform! Her mother had pulled +the string too tight, and Sylvia's ears were full of the ugly twang of +its snapping. + +When, at last, Judith and Mrs. Marshall came out, hand-in-hand, Sylvia +sprang up to say: "What an _awful_ place! I hope I'll never have to +set foot in one again!" But quick as was her impulse to speech, her +perceptions were quicker, and before the pale exaltation of the other +two, she fell silent, irritated, rebellious, thoroughly alien. They +walked along in silence. Then Judith said, stammering a little with +emotion, "M-M-Mother, I want to b-b-b-be a trained n-n-nurse when I +grow up." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +AN INSTRUMENT IN TUNE + + +As they drew near to their boarding-house late that afternoon, very +hot, very crumpled, very solemn, and very much out of tune with one +another, they were astonished to see a little eager-faced boy dash out +of the house and run wildly to meet them, shouting as he came. + +"Why, Lawrence _Marshall_!" cried his mother, picking him up in strong +arms; "how ever in the world did you get here!" + +"Father brungded me," cried the child, clasping her tightly around the +neck. "We got so lonesome for Mother we couldn't wait." + +And then Sylvia had stamped on her mind a picture which was to come +back later--her father's face and eyes as he ran down the steps to +meet his wife. For he looked at his daughters only afterwards, as they +were all walking along together, much excited, everybody talking at +once, and hanging on everybody's arm."... Yes, Buddy's right! We +found we missed you so, we decided life wasn't worth it. You don't +know, Barbara, what it's like without you--you don't _know_!" + +Her father's voice sounded to Sylvia so loud, so gay, so vital, so +inexpressibly welcome.... She leaped up at his face like a young +dog, for another kiss. "Oh, I'm _awfully_ glad you came!" she cried, +wondering a little herself at the immensity of her relief. She thought +that she must get him by himself quickly and tell him her side of that +hospital story, before her mother and Judith began on any virtuous +raptures over it. + +But there was no consecutive talk about anything after they all were +joyfully gathered in their ugly, commonplace boarding-house bedroom. +They loosened collars and belts, washed their perspiring and dusty +faces, and brushed hair, to the tune of a magpie chatter. Sylvia did +not realize that she and her father were the main sources of this +volubility, she did not realize how she had missed his exuberance, she +only knew that she felt a weight lifted from her heart. She had been +telling him with great enjoyment of the comic opera they had seen, as +she finished putting the hairpins into her freshly smoothed hair, and +turned, a pin still in her mouth, in time to be almost abashed by the +expression in his eyes as he suddenly drew his wife to him. + +"Jove! Barbara!" he cried, half laughing, but with a quiver in his +voice, "it's hell to be happily married! A separation is--well, never +mind about it. I came along anyhow! And now I'm here I'll go to see +Vic of course." + +"No, you won't," said Judith promptly. "She's gone back. To get Arnold +out of a scrape." + +Mrs. Marshall explained further, and incidentally touched upon her +sister-in-law's views of the relation between expensive boys' schools +and private tutors. Her dryly humorous version of this set her husband +off in a great mirthful roar, to which Sylvia, after a moment of +blankness, suddenly joined a burst of her own clear laughter. At the +time she had seen nothing funny in Aunt Victoria's statement, but +she was now immensely tickled to remember Aunt Victoria's Olympian +certainty of herself and her mother's grave mask of serious +consideration of the idea. Long after her father had stopped laughing, +she still went on, breaking out into delighted giggles. Her new +understanding of the satire back of her mother's quiet eyes, lent to +Aunt Victoria's golden calm the quaint touch of caricature which made +it self-deceived complacency. At the recollection she sent up rocket +after rocket of schoolgirl laughter. + +Her mother, absorbed in conscientious anxiety about Sylvia's +development, and deeply disappointed by the result of the visit to the +hospital, ignored this laughter, nor did Sylvia at all guess that she +was laughing away half the spell which Aunt Victoria had cast about +her. When they went down to their supper of watery creamed potatoes, +and stewed apricots in thick saucers, she was in such good humor that +she ate this unappetizing fare with no protest. + +"Now, folks," said Professor Marshall, after supper, "we have to go +home tomorrow early, so we ought to have one more fling tonight. While +I was waiting for you to come back this afternoon, I looked up what +Chicago has to offer in the way of flings, and this is what I found. +Here, Barbara," he took a tiny envelope out of his upper waistcoat +pocket, "are two tickets for the symphony orchestra. By the greatest +of luck they're giving a special concert for some charity or other, a +beautiful program; a sort of musical requiem. Sylvia mustn't miss it; +you take her. And here," he spun round to face Judith and Lawrence, +producing another slim, tiny envelope from the other upper waistcoat +pocket, "since symphony concerts are rather solid meat for milk teeth, +and since they last till way after bedtime, I have provided another +sort of entertainment; to wit: three seats for moving pictures of +the only real and authentic Cheyenne Bill's Congress of the World's +Frontiersmen. All in favor of going there with me, say 'Aye.'" + +"Aye!" screamed Judith and Lawrence. Everybody laughed in pleased +excitement and everybody seemed satisfied except Mrs. Marshall, who +insisted that she should go to the moving pictures while the Professor +took Sylvia to the concert. + +Then followed the most amiable, generous wrangle as to which of the +parents should enjoy the adult form of amusement. But while the +Professor grew more and more half-hearted in his protestations that +he really didn't care where he went, Mrs. Marshall grew more and +more positive that he must not be allowed to miss the music, finally +silencing his last weak proffer of self-abnegation by saying +peremptorily: "No, no, Elliott; go on in to your debauch of emotion. +I'll take the children. Don't miss your chance. You know it means ten +times as much to you as to me. You haven't heard a good orchestra in +years." + +Sylvia had never been in such a huge hall as the one where they +presently sat, high, giddily high in the eyrie of a top gallery. They +looked down into yawning space. The vast size of the auditorium so +dwarfed the people now taking their innumerable seats, that even after +the immense audience was assembled the great semicircular enclosure +seemed empty and blank. It received those thousands of souls into its +maw, and made no sign; awaiting some visitation worthy of its bulk. + +The orchestra, an army of ants, straggled out on the stage. Sylvia was +astonished at their numbers--sixteen first violins, she saw by the +program! She commented to her father on the difficulty of keeping +them all in tune. He smiled at her absently, bade her, with an air +of suppressed excitement, wait until she had heard them, and fell +to biting his nails nervously. She re-read the program and all the +advertisements, hypnotized, like every one else in the audience, by +the sight of printed matter. She noticed that the first number of this +memorial concert was the funeral march from the Götterdämmerung, which +she knew very well from having heard a good many times a rather thin +version of it for four strings and a piano. + +The conductor, a solitary ant, made his toilsome way across the great +front of the stage, evoking a burst of applause, which resounded +hollowly in the inhuman spaces of the building. He mounted a step, +waved his antennae, there was a great indrawn breath of silence, +and then Sylvia, waiting with agreeable curiosity to hear how a big +orchestra would really sound, gasped and held her breath. The cup of +that vast building suddenly brimmed with a magical flood of pure tone, +coming from everywhere, from nowhere, from her own heart as well as +from outside her body. The immense hall rang to the glorious quality +of this sound as a violin-back vibrates to the drawn bow. It rained +down on her, it surged up to her, she could not believe that she +really heard it. + +She looked quickly at her father. His arms were folded tightly across +his chest. He was looking frowningly at the back of the chair in front +of him. It was evident that Sylvia did not exist for him. She was +detached from her wonder at his pale sternness by the assault on her +nerves made by the first of those barbaric outcries of woe, that +sudden, brief clamor of grief, the shouts of despair, the beating upon +shields. Her heart stood still--There rose, singing like an archangel, +the mystic call of the Volsung, then the yearning melody of love; such +glory, such longing for beauty, for life--and then brusquely, again +and again, the screaming, sobbing recollection of the fact of +death.... + +When it was over, Sylvia's breath was still coming pantingly. "Oh, +Father! How--how wonderful--how--" she murmured. + +He looked at her, as though he were angry with her, and yet scarcely +seeming to know her, and spoke in a hard, bitter tone: "And it is +_years_ since I have heard one!" He seemed to cry out upon her for the +conditions of his life. + +She had no key for these words, could not imagine a meaning for them, +and, chilled and repelled, wondered if she had heard him rightly. + +The funeral march from the Eroica began, and her father's face +softened. The swelling volume of tone rose like a flood-tide. The +great hall, the thousands of human hearts, all beat solemnly in the +grave and hopeless pulsations of the measured chords. The air +was thick with sorrow, with quiet despair. No outcries here, no +screams--the modern soul advancing somberly with a pale composure to +the grave of its love, aware that during all the centuries since the +dead Siegfried was lifted high on the shoulders of his warriors not a +word of explanation, of consolation has been found; that the modern, +barren self-control means only what the barbarian yells out in his +open abandonment to sorrow--and yet such beauty, such beauty in that +singing thread of melody--"_durch Leiden, Freude!_" + +Not even the shadow of death had ever fallen across Sylvia's life, or +that of her father, to explain the premonitory emotion which now drew +them together like two frightened children. Sylvia felt the inexorable +music beating in her own veins, and when she took her father's hand +it seemed to her that its strong pulses throbbed to the same rhythm; +beauty, and despair ... hope ... life ... death. + +At the end, "Oh, Father--oh, Father!" she said under her breath, +imploringly, struggling to free herself from the muffling, enveloping +sense of imminent disaster. He pressed her hand hard and smiled at +her. It was his own old smile, the father-look which had been her +heart's home all her life--but it was infinitely sweeter to her now +than ever before. She had never felt closer to him. There was a pause +during which they did not speak, and then there burst upon them the +splendid tumult of "Death and Transfiguration," which, like a great +wind, swept Sylvia out of herself. She could not follow the music--she +had never heard of it before. She was beaten down, overwhelmed, freed, +as though the transfiguration were her own, from the pitiful barriers +of consciousness.... + +"Was the concert good?" asked Mrs. Marshall, yawning, and reaching out +of bed to kiss Sylvia sleepily. She laughed a little at their faces. +"Oh, music _is_ a madness! To spend a cheerful evening listening to +death-music, and then come back looking like Moses before the Burning +Bush!" + +"Say, you ought to have seen the stunt they did with their lassos," +cried Judith, waking in the bed on the other side of the room, and +sitting up with her black hair tousled about her face. "I'm going to +try it with the pinto when we get home." + +"I _bet_ you'll do it, too," came from Lawrence the loyal, always sure +of Judith's strength, Judith's skill. + +Sylvia looked at her father over their heads and smiled faintly. It +was a good smile, from a full heart. + +"Aunt Victoria sent our dresses," said Judith, dropping back on the +pillow. "That big box over there. Mine has pink ribbons, and yours are +blue." + +Mrs. Marshall looked at the big box with disfavor, and then at Sylvia, +now sunk in a chair, her hands clasped behind her head, her eyes +dreamy and half closed. Across the room the long pasteboard box +displayed a frothy mass of white lace and pale shining ribbons. Sylvia +looked at it absently and made no move to examine it. She closed her +eyes again and beat an inaudible rhythm with her raised fingers. All +through her was ringing the upward-surging tide of sound at the end of +"Death and Transfiguration." + +"Oh, go to bed, Sylvia; don't sit there maundering over the concert," +said her mother, with a good-natured asperity. But there was relief in +her voice. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +HIGHER EDUCATION + + +To any one who is familiar with State University life, the color +of Sylvia's Freshman year will be vividly conveyed by the simple +statement that she was not invited to join a fraternity. To any one +who does not know State University life, no description can convey +anything approaching an adequate notion of the terribly determinative +significance of that fact. + +The statement that she was invited to join no sorority is not +literally true, for in the second semester when it was apparent that +none of the three leading fraternities intended to take her in, there +came a late "bid" from one of the third-rate sororities, of recent +date, composed of girls like Sylvia who had not been included in the +membership of the older, socially distinguished organizations. Cut to +the quick by her exclusion from the others, Sylvia refused this tardy +invitation with remorseless ingratitude. If she were not to form one +of the "swell" set of college, at least she would not proclaim herself +one of the "jays," the "grinds," the queer girls, who wore their hair +straight back from their foreheads, who invariably carried off Phi +Beta Kappa, whose skirts hung badly, whose shoe-heels turned over as +they walked, who stood first in their classes, whose belts behind made +a practice of revealing large white safety-pins; and whose hats, even +disassociated from their dowdy wearers, and hanging in the cloakroom, +were of an almost British eccentricity. + +Nothing of this sort could be alleged against Sylvia's appearance, +which she felt, as she arrayed herself every morning, to be all that +the most swagger frat could ask of a member. Aunt Victoria's boxes +of clothing, her own nimble fingers and passionate attention to the +subject, combined to turn her out a copy, not to be distinguished from +the original, of the daughter of a man with an income five times that +of her father. As she consulted her mirror, it occurred to her also, +as but an honest recognition of a conspicuous fact, that her suitable +and harmonious toilets adorned a person as pleasing to the eye as any +of her classmates. + +During the last year of her life at home she had shot up very fast, +and she was now a tall, slender presence, preserved from even the +usual touching and delightful awkwardness of seventeen by the trained +dexterity and strength with which she handled her body, as muscular, +for all its rounded slimness, as a boy's. Her hair was beautiful, a +bright chestnut brown with a good deal of red, its brilliant gloss +broken into innumerable high-lights by the ripple of its waviness; and +she had one other positive beauty, the clearly penciled line of her +long, dark eyebrows, which ran up a trifle at the outer ends with a +little quirk, giving an indescribable air of alertness and vivacity to +her expression. Otherwise she was not at that age, nor did she ever +become, so explicitly handsome as her sister Judith, who had at every +period of her life a head as beautiful as that on a Greek coin. +But when the two were together, although the perfectly adjusted +proportions of Judith's proud, dark face brought out the +irregularities of Sylvia's, disclosed the tilt of her small nose, made +more apparent the disproportionate width between her eyes, and showed +her chin to be of no mold in particular, yet a modern eye rested with +far more pleasure on the older sister's face. A bright, quivering +mobility like sunshine on water, gave it a charm which was not +dependent on the more obvious prettinesses of a fine-grained, white +skin, extremely clear brown eyes, and a mouth quick to laugh and +quiver, with pure, sharply cut outline and deeply sunk corners. Even +in repose, Sylvia's face made Judith's seem unresponsive, and when +it lighted up in talk and laughter, it seemed to give out a visible +light. In contrast Judith's beautiful countenance seemed carved out of +some very hard and indestructible stone. + +And yet, in spite of this undeniably satisfactory physical outfit, and +pre-eminent ability in athletics, Sylvia was not invited to join any +of the best fraternities. It is not surprising that there was +mingled with her bitterness on the subject a justifiable amount of +bewilderment. What _did_ they want? They recruited, from her very side +in classes, girls without half her looks or cleverness. What _was_ the +matter with her? She would not for her life have given a sign to her +family of her mental sufferings as, during that first autumn, day +after day went by with no sign of welcome from the social leaders of +her new world; but a mark was left on her character by her affronted +recognition of her total lack of success in this, her first appearance +outside the sheltering walls of her home; her first trial by the real +standards of the actual world of real people. + +The fact, which would have been balm to Sylvia's vanity, had she ever +had the least knowledge of it, was that upon her appearance in the +Freshman class she had been the occasion of violent discussion and +almost of dissension in the councils of the two "best" fraternities. +Her beauty, her charm, and the rumors of her excellence in tennis had +made a flutter in the first fraternity meetings after the opening of +the autumn term. The younger members of both Sigma Beta and Alpha +Kappa counseled early and enthusiastic "rushing" of the new prize, but +the Juniors and Seniors, wise in their day and generation, brought +out a number of damning facts which would need to be taken into +consideration if Sylvia wore their pin. + +There were, in both fraternities, daughters of other faculty families, +who were naturally called upon to furnish inside information. They +had been brought up from childhood on the tradition of the Marshalls' +hopeless queerness, and their collective statement of the Marshalls' +position ran somewhat as follows: "The only professors who have +anything to do with them are some of the jay young profs from the +West, with no families; the funny old La Rues--you know what a +hopeless dowd Madame La Rue is--and Professor Kennedy, and though he +comes from a swell family he's an awful freak himself. They live on a +farm, like farmers, at the ends of the earth from anybody that anybody +knows. They are never asked to be patrons of any swell college +functions. None of the faculty ladies with any social position ever +call on Mrs. Marshall--and no wonder. She doesn't keep any help, and +when the doorbell rings she's as apt to come running in from the +chicken house with rubber boots on, and a basket of eggs--and the +_queerest_ clothes! Like a costume out of a book; and they never have +anybody to wait on the table, just jump up and down themselves--you +can imagine what kind of a frat tea or banquet Sylvia would give in +such a home--and of course if we took her in, we couldn't very +well _tell_ her her family's so impossible we wouldn't want their +connection with the frat known--and the students who go there are a +perfect collection of all the jays and grinds and freaks in college. +It's enough to mark you one to be seen there--you meet all the crazy +guys you see in classes and never anywhere else--and of course that +wouldn't stop when Sylvia's frat sisters began going there. And their +house wouldn't do at _all_ to entertain in--it's queer--no rugs--dingy +old furniture--nothing but books everywhere, even in their substitute +for a parlor--and you're likely to meet not only college freaks, but +worse ones from goodness knows where. There's a beer-drinking old +monster who goes there every Sunday to play the fiddle that you +wouldn't have speak to you on the street for anything in the world. +And the way they entertain! My, in such a countrified way! Some of the +company go out into the kitchen to help Mrs. Marshall serve up the +refreshments--and everything homemade--and they play charades, and +nobody knows what else--bean-bag, or spelling-down maybe--" + +This appalling picture, which in justice to the young delineators must +be conceded to be not in the least overdrawn, was quite enough to give +pause to those impetuous and immature young Sophomores who had lacked +the philosophical breadth of vision to see that Sylvia was not an +isolated phenomenon, but (since her family live in La Chance) an +inseparable part of her background. After all, the sororities made no +claim to be anything but social organizations. Their standing in the +college world depended upon their social background, and of course +this could only be made up of a composite mingling of those of their +individual members. + +Fraternities did not wish to number more than sixteen or eighteen +undergraduates. That meant only four or five to be chosen from each +Freshman class, and that number of "nice" girls was not hard to find, +girls who were not only well dressed, and lively and agreeable in +themselves, but who came from large, well-kept, well-furnished houses +on the right streets of La Chance; with presentable, card-playing, +call-paying, reception-giving mothers, who hired caterers for their +entertainments; and respectably absentee fathers with sizable +pocketbooks and a habit of cash liberality. The social standing of the +co-eds in State Universities was already precarious enough, without +running the risk of acquiring dubious social connections. + +If Sylvia had been a boy, it is almost certain that the deficiencies +of her family would have been overlooked in consideration of her +potentialities in the athletic world. Success in athletics was to the +men's fraternities what social standing was to the girls'. It must be +remarked parenthetically that neither class of these organizations +had the slightest prejudice against high scholastic standing. On the +contrary it was regarded very kindly by fraternity members, as a +desirable though not indispensable addition to social standing and +physical prowess. + +But Sylvia was not a boy, and her fine, promising game of tennis, her +excellence in the swimming-pool, and her success on the gymnasium +floor and on the flying rings, served no purpose but to bring to her +the admiration of the duffers among the girls, whom she despised, +and the unspoken envy of the fraternity girls, whose overtures at +superficial friendliness she constantly rebuffed with stern, wounded +pride. + +The sharpest stab to her pride came from the inevitable publicity of +her ordeal. For, though her family knew nothing of what that first +year out in the world meant to her, she had not the consolation of +hoping that her condition was not perfectly apparent to every one else +in the college world. At the first of the year, all gatherings of +undergraduates not in fraternities hummed and buzzed with speculations +about who would or would not be "taken" by the leading fraternities. +For every girl who was at all possible, each day was a long suspense, +beginning in hope and ending in listlessness; and for Sylvia in an +added shrinking from the eyes of her mates, which were, she knew, +fixed on her with a relentless curiosity which was torture to one +of her temperament. She had been considered almost sure to be early +invited to join Alpha Kappa, the frat to which most of the faculty +daughters belonged, and all during the autumn she was aware that when +she took off her jacket in the cloakroom, a hundred glances swept her +to see if she wore at last the coveted emblem of the "pledged" girl; +and when an Alpha Kappa girl chanced to come near her with a casual +remark, she seemed to hear a significant hush among the other girls, +followed by an equally significant buzz of whispered comment when the +fraternity member moved away again. This atmosphere would have made +no impression on a nature either more sturdily philosophic, or more +unimaginative than Sylvia's (Judith, for instance, was not in the +least affected by the experience), but it came to be a morbid +obsession of this strong, healthy, active-minded young creature. +It tinged with bitterness and blackness what should have been the +crystal-clear cup holding her youth and intelligence and health. She +fancied that every one despised her. She imagined that people who were +in reality quite unaware of her existence were looking at her and +whispering together a wondering discussion as to why she was not "in +the swim" as such a girl ought to be--all girls worth their salt were. + +Above all she was stung into a sort of speechless rage by her +impotence to do anything to regain the decent minimum of personal +dignity which she felt was stripped from her by this constant play of +bald speculation about whether she would or would not be considered +"good enough" to be invited into a sorority. If only something +definite would happen! If there were only an occasion on which +she might in some way proudly proclaim her utter indifference to +fraternities and their actions! If only the miserable business were +not so endlessly drawn out! She threw herself with a passionate +absorption into her studies, her music, and her gymnasium work, +cut off both from the "elect" and from the multitude, a proudly +self-acknowledged maverick. She never lacked admiring followers among +less brilliant girls who would have been adorers if she had not held +them off at arm's length, but her vanity, far from being omnivorous, +required more delicate food. She wished to be able to cry aloud to her +world that she thought nothing and cared nothing about fraternities, +and by incessant inner absorption in this conception she did to +a considerable extent impose it upon the collective mind of her +contemporaries. She, the yearningly friendly, sympathetic, sensitive, +praise-craving Sylvia, came to be known, half respected and half +disliked, as proud and clever, and "high-brow," and offish, and +conceited, and so "queer" that she cared nothing for the ordinary +pleasures of ordinary girls. + +This reputation for a high-browed indifference to commonplace mortals +was naturally not a recommendation to the masculine undergraduates of +the University. These young men, under the influence of reports +of what was done at Cornell and other more eastern co-educational +institutions, were already strongly inclined to ignore the co-eds as +much as possible. The tradition was growing rapidly that the proper +thing was to invite the "town-girls" to the college proms and dances, +and to sit beside them in the grandstand during football games. As +yet, however, this tendency had not gone so far but that those +co-eds who were members of a socially recognized fraternity were +automatically saved from the neglect which enveloped all other but +exceptionally flirtatious and undiscriminating girls. Each girls' +fraternity, like the masculine organizations, gave one big hop in +the course of the season and several smaller dances, as well as +lawn-parties and teas and stage-coach parties to the football games. +The young men naturally wished to be invited to these functions, +the increasing elaborateness of which kept pace with the increasing +sophistication of life in La Chance and the increasing cost of which +made the parents of the girls groan. Consequently each masculine +fraternity took care that it did not incur the enmity of the organized +and socially powerful sororities. But Sylvia was not protected by this +aegis. She was not invited during her Freshman year to the dances +given by either the sororities or the fraternities; and the large +scattering crowd of masculine undergraduates were frightened away from +the handsome girl by her supposed haughty intellectual tastes. + +Here again her isolation was partly the result of her own wish. The +raw-boned, badly dressed farmers' lads, with red hands and rough hair, +she quite as snobbishly ignored as she was ignored in her turn by the +well-set-up, fashionably dressed young swells of the University, with +their white hands, with their thin, gaudy socks tautly pulled over +their ankle-bones, and their shining hair glistening like lacquer on +their skulls (that being the desideratum in youthful masculine society +of the place and time). Sylvia snubbed the masculine jays of college +partly because it was a breath of life to her battered vanity to be +able to snub some one, and partly because they seemed to her, in +comparison with the smart set, seen from afar, quite and utterly +undesirable. She would rather have no masculine attentions at all than +such poor provender for her feminine desire to conquer. + +Thus she trod the leafy walks of the beautiful campus alone, ignoring +and ignored, keenly alive under her shell of indifference to the +brilliant young men and their chosen few feminine companions. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +MRS. DRAPER BLOWS THE COALS + + +The most brilliant of these couples were Jermain Fiske, Jr., +and Eleanor Hubert. The first was the son of the well-known and +distinguished Colonel Jermain Fiske, one of the trustees of the +University, ex-Senator from the State. He belonged to the old, +free-handed, speech-making type of American statesmen, and, with his +florid good looks, his great stature, his loud, resonant, challenging +voice, and his picturesque reputation for highly successful +double-dealing, he was one of the most talked-of men in the State, +despite his advanced years. His enemies, who were not few, said that +the shrewdest action of his surpassingly shrewd life had been his +voluntary retirement from the Senate and from political activities at +the first low murmur heralding the muck-raking cyclone which was to +devastate public life as men of his type understood it. But every +inhabitant of the State, including his enemies, took an odd pride in +his fiercely debonair defiance to old age, in his grandiloquent, too +fluent public addresses, and in the manner in which, despite his +dubious private reputation, he held open to him, by sheer will-power, +sanctimonious doors which were closed to other less robust bad +examples to youth. + +This typical specimen of an American class now passing away, had sent +his son to the State University instead of to an expensive Eastern +college because of his carefully avowed attitude of bluff acceptance +of a place among the plain people of the region. The presence of +Jermain, Jr., in the classrooms of the State University had been +capital for many a swelling phrase on his father's part--"What's good +enough for the farmers' boys of my State is good enough for my boy," +etc., etc. + +As far as the young man in question was concerned, he certainly showed +no signs whatever of feeling himself sacrificed for his father's +advantage, and apparently considered that a leisurely sojourn for +seven years (he took both the B.A. and the three-year Law course) in a +city the size of La Chance was by no means a hardship for a young man +in the best of health, provided with ample funds, and never questioned +as to the disposition of his time. He had had at first a reputation +for dissipation which, together with his prowess on the football +field, had made him as much talked of on the campus as his father in +the State; but during his later years, those spent in the Law School, +he had, as the college phrase ran, "taken it out in being swagger," +had discarded his former shady associates, had two rooms in the finest +frat house on the campus, and was the only student of the University +to drive two horses tandem to a high, red-wheeled dog-cart. His fine +physique and reputation for quick assertion of his rights saved him +from the occasional taunt of dandyism which would have been flung at +any other student indulging in so unusual a freak of fashion. + +During Sylvia's Freshman year there usually sat beside him, on the +lofty seat of this equipage, a sweet-faced, gentle-browed young +lady, the lovely flower blooming out of the little girl who had so +innocently asked her mother some ten years ago what was a drunken +reinhardt. The oldest daughter of the professor of European History +was almost precisely Sylvia's age, but now, when Sylvia was laboring +over her books in the very beginning of her college life, Eleanor +Hubert was a finished product, a graduate of an exclusive, expensive +girls' boarding-school in New York, and a that-year's dĂ©butante in La +Chance society. Her name was constantly in the items of the society +columns, she wore the most profusely varied costumes, and she +drove about the campus swaying like a lily beside the wealthiest +undergraduate. Sylvia's mind was naturally too alert and vigorous, and +now too thoroughly awakened to intellectual interests, not to seize +with interest on the subjects she studied that year; but enjoy as much +as she tried to do, and did, this tonic mental discipline, there were +many moments when the sight of Eleanor Hubert made her wonder if after +all higher mathematics and history were of any real value. + +During this wretched year of stifled unhappiness, she not only studied +with extreme concentration, but, with a healthy instinct, spent a +great deal of time in the gymnasium. It was a delight to her to be +able to swim in the winter-time, she organized the first water-polo +team among the co-eds, and she began to learn fencing from the +Commandant of the University Battalion. He had been a crack with the +foils at West Point, and never ceased trying to arouse an interest in +what seemed to him the only rational form of exercise; but fencing at +that time had no intercollegiate vogue, and of all the young men and +women at the State University, Sylvia alone took up his standing offer +of free instruction to any one who cared to give the time to learn; +and even Sylvia took up fencing primarily because it promised to give +her one more occupation, left her less time for loneliness. As it +turned out, however, these lessons proved far more to her than a +temporary anodyne: they brought her a positive pleasure. She delighted +the dumpy little captain with her aptness, and he took the greatest +pains in his instruction. Before the end of her Freshman year she +twice succeeded in getting through his guard and landing a thrust on +his well-rounded figure; and though to keep down her conceit he told +her that he must be losing, along with his slenderness, some of his +youthful agility, he confessed to his wife that teaching Miss Marshall +was the best fun he had had in years. The girl was as quick as a cat, +and had a natural-born fencer's wrist. + +During the summer vacation she kept up her practice with her father, +who remembered enough of his early training in Paris to be more than a +match for her, and in the autumn of her Sophomore year, at the annual +Gymnasium exhibition, she gave with the Commandant a public bout with +the foils in which she notably distinguished herself. The astonished +and long-continued applause for this new feature of the exhibition +was a draught of nectar to her embittered young heart, but she +acknowledged it with not the smallest sign of pleasure, showing an +impassive face as she stood by the portly captain, slim and tall and +young and haughty, joining him in a sweeping, ceremonious salute with +her foil to the enthusiastic audience, and turning on her heel with +a brusqueness as military as his own, to march firmly with high-held +head beside him back to the ranks of blue-bloomered girls who stood +watching her. + +The younger girls in Alpha Kappa and Sigma Beta were seizing this +opportunity to renew an old quarrel with their elders in the +fraternities and were acrimoniously hoping that the older ones +were quite satisfied with their loss of a brilliant member. These +accusations met with no ready answer from the somewhat crestfallen +elders, whose only defense was the entire unexpectedness of the way in +which Sylvia was distinguishing herself. Who ever heard before of a +girl doing anything remarkable in athletics? And anyhow, now in her +Sophomore year it was too late to do anything. A girl so notoriously +proud would certainly not consider a tardy invitation, and it would +not do to run the risk of being refused. It is not too much to say +that to have overheard a conversation like this would have changed the +course of Sylvia's development, but of such colloquies she could know +nothing, attributing to the fraternities, with all an outsider's +resentful overestimation of their importance, an arrogant solidarity +of opinion and firmness of purpose which they were very far from +possessing. + +Professor and Mrs. Marshall and Lawrence and Judith, up in the front +row of chairs set for the audience about the running track, followed +this exploit of Sylvia's with naĂŻvely open pride and sympathy, +applauding even more heartily than did their neighbors. Lawrence, as +usual, began to compose a poem, the first line of which ran, + + "Splendid, she wields her gleaming sword--" + +The most immediate result of this first public success of Sylvia's was +the call paid to Mrs. Marshall on the day following by Mrs. Draper, +the wife of the professor of Greek. Although there had never been any +formal social intercourse between the two ladies, they had for a good +many years met each other casually on the campus, and Mrs. Draper, +with the extremely graceful manner of assurance which was her especial +accomplishment, made it seem quite natural that she should call to +congratulate Sylvia's mother on the girl's skill and beauty as shown +in her prowess on the evening before. Mrs. Marshall prided herself on +her undeceived view of life, but she was as ready to hear praise of +her spirited and talented daughter as any other mother, and quite +melted to Mrs. Draper, although her observations from afar of the +other woman's career in La Chance had never before inclined her to +tolerance. So that when Mrs. Draper rose to go and asked casually if +Sylvia couldn't run in at five that afternoon to have a cup of tea at +her house with a very few of her favorites among the young people, +Mrs. Marshall, rather inflexible by nature and quite unused to the +subtleties of social intercourse, found herself unable to retreat +quickly enough from her reflected tone of cordiality to refuse the +invitation for her daughter. + +When Sylvia came back to lunch she was vastly fluttered and pleased +by the invitation, and as she ate, her mind leaped from one possible +sartorial combination to another. Whatever she wore must be exactly +right to be worthy of such a hostess: for Mrs. Draper was a +conspicuous figure in faculty society. She had acquired, through +years of extremely intelligent manoeuvering, a reputation for choice +exclusiveness which was accepted even in the most venerable of the old +families of La Chance, those whose founders had built their log huts +there as long as fifty years before. In faculty circles she occupied +a unique position, envied and feared and admired and distrusted and +copiously gossiped about by the faculty ladies, who accepted with +eagerness any invitations to entertainments in her small, aesthetic, +and perfectly appointed house. She was envied even by women with +much more than her income:--for of course Professor Draper had an +independent income; it was hardly possible to be anybody unless one +belonged to that minority of the faculty families with resources +beyond the salary granted by the State. + +Faculty ladies were, however, not favored with a great number of +invitations to Mrs. Draper's select and amusing teas and dinners, +as that lady had a great fancy for surrounding herself with youth, +meaning, for the most part, naturally enough, masculine youth. With +an unerring and practised eye she picked out from each class the few +young men who were to her purpose, and proclaiming with the most +express lack of reticence the forty-three years which she by no means +looked, she took these chosen few under a wing frankly maternal, +giving them, in the course of an intimate acquaintance with her and +the dim and twilight ways of her house and life, an enlightening +experience of a civilization which she herself said, with a humorous +appreciation of her own value, quite made over the young, unlicked +cubs. This statement of her influence on most of the young men drawn +into her circle was perhaps not much exaggerated. + +From time to time she also admitted into this charmed circle a young +girl or two, though almost never one of the University girls, of whom +she made the jolliest possible fun. Her favorites were the daughters +of good La Chance families who at seventeen had "finished" at Miss +Home's Select School for Young Ladies, and who came out in society not +later than eighteen. She seemed able, as long as she cared to do it, +to exercise as irresistible a fascination over these youthful members +of her own sex as over the older masculine undergraduates of the +University. They copied their friend's hats and neckwear and shoes and +her mannerisms of speech, were miserable if she neglected them for a +day, furiously jealous of each other, and raised to the seventh +heaven by attention from her. Just at present the only girl admitted +frequently to Mrs. Draper's intimacy was Eleanor Hubert. + +On the day following the Gymnasium exhibition, when Sylvia, promptly +at five, entered the picturesque vine-covered Draper house, she +found it occupied by none of the usual habituĂ©s of the place. The +white-capped, black-garbed maid who opened the door to the girl held +aside for her a pair of heavy brown-velvet portières which veiled +the entrance to the drawing-room. The utter silence of this servitor +seemed portentous and inhuman to the young guest, unused to the polite +convention that servants cast no shadow and do not exist save when +serving their superiors. + +She found herself in a room as unlike any she had ever seen as though +she had stepped into a new planet. The light here was as yellow +as gold, and came from a great many candles which, in sconces and +candelabra, stood about the room, their oblong yellow flame as steady +in the breathless quiet of the air as though they burned in a vault +underground. There was not a book in the room, except one in a yellow +cover lying beside a box of candy on the mantelpiece, but every ledge, +table, projection, or shelf was covered with small, queerly fashioned, +dully gleaming objects of ivory, or silver, or brass, or carved wood, +or porcelain. + +The mistress of the room now came in. She was in a loose garment of +smoke-brown chiffon, held in place occasionally about her luxuriously +rounded figure by a heavy cord of brown silk. She advanced to Sylvia +with both hands outstretched, and took the girl's slim, rather hard +young fingers in the softest of melting palms. "Aren't you a _dear_, +to be so exactly on time!" she exclaimed. + +Sylvia was a little surprised. She had thought it axiomatic that +people kept their appointments promptly. "Oh, I'm always on time," she +answered simply. + +Mrs. Draper laughed and pulled her down on the sofa. "You clear-eyed +young Diana, you won't allow me even an instant's illusion that you +were eager to come to see _me_!" + +"Oh yes, I _was_!" said Sylvia hastily, fearing that she might have +said something rude. + +Mrs. Draper laughed again and gave the hand she still held a squeeze. +"You're adorable, that's what _you_ are!" She exploded this pointblank +charge in Sylvia's face with nonchalant ease, and went on with +another. "Jerry Fiske is quite right about you. I suppose you know +that you're here today so that Jerry can meet you." + +As there was obviously not the faintest possibility of Sylvia's having +heard this save through her present informant, she could only +look what she felt, very much at a loss, and rather blank, with a +heightened color. Mrs. Draper eyed her with an intentness at variance +with the lightness of her tone, as she continued: "I do think Jerry'd +have burned up in one flare, like a torch, if he couldn't have seen +you at once! After you'd fenced and disappeared again into that stupid +crowd of graceless girls, he kept track of you every minute with his +opera-glasses, and kept saying: 'She's a goddess! Good Lord! how she +carries herself!' It was rather hard on poor Eleanor right there +beside him, but I don't blame him. Eleanor's a sweet thing, but she'd +be sugar and water compared to champagne if she stood up by you." + +For a good many months Sylvia had been craving praise with a starved +appetite, and although she found this downpour of it rather drenching, +she could not sufficiently collect herself to make the conventional +decent pretense that it was unwelcome. She flushed deeply and looked +at her hostess with dazzled eyes. Mrs. Draper affected to see in her +silence a blankness as to the subject of the talk, and interrupted +the flow of personalities to cry out, with a pretense of horror, "You +don't mean to say you don't know who Jerry Fiske _is_!" + +Sylvia, as unused as her mother to conversational traps, fell into +this one with an eager promptness. "Oh yes, indeed; I know him +by sight very well," she said and stopped, flushing again at a +significant laugh from Mrs. Draper. "I mean," she went on +with dignity, "that Mr. Fiske has always been so prominent in +college--football and all, you know--and his father being one of our +State Senators so long--I suppose everybody on the campus knows him by +sight." Mrs. Draper patted the girl's shoulder propitiatingly. "Yes, +yes, of course," she assented. She added, "He's ever so good-looking, +don't you think--like a great Viking with his yellow hair and bright +blue eyes?" + +"I never noticed his eyes," said Sylvia stiffly, suspicious of +ridicule in the air. + +"Well, you'll have a chance to this afternoon," answered her hostess, +"for he's the only other person who's to be admitted to the house. I +had a great time excusing myself to Eleanor--she was coming to take me +out driving--but of course it wouldn't do--for her own sake--the poor +darling--to have her here today!" + +Sylvia thought she could not have rightly understood the significance +of this speech, and looked uncomfortable. Mrs. Draper said: "Oh, you +needn't mind cutting Eleanor out--she's only a dear baby who can't +feel anything very deeply. It's Mamma Hubert who's so mad about +catching Jerry. Since she's heard he's to have the Fiske estate at +Mercerton as soon as he graduates from Law School, she's like a wild +creature! If Eleanor weren't the most unconscious little bait that +ever hung on a hook Jerry'd have turned away in disgust long ago. He +may not be so very acute, but Mamma Hubert and her manoeuvers are not +millstones for seeing through!" + +The doorbell rang, one long and one short tap. "That's Jerry's ring," +said Mrs. Draper composedly, as though she had been speaking of her +husband. In an instant the heavy portières were flung back by a +vigorous arm, and a very tall, broad-shouldered, clean-shaven young +man, in a well-tailored brown suit, stepped in. He accosted his +hostess with easy assurance, but went through his introduction to +Sylvia in a rather awkward silence. + +"Now we'll have tea," said Mrs. Draper at once, pressing a button. In +a moment a maid brought in a tray shining with silver and porcelain, +set it down on the table in front of Mrs. Draper, and then wheeled in +a little circular table with shelves, a glorified edition in gleaming +mahogany of the homely, white-painted wheeled-tray of Sylvia's home. +On the shelves was a large assortment of delicate, small cakes and +paper-thin sandwiches. While she poured out the amber-colored tea into +the translucent cups, Mrs. Draper kept up with the new-comer a lively +monologue of personalities, in which Sylvia, for very ignorance of the +people involved, could take no part. She sat silent, watching with +concentration the two people before her, the singularly handsome man, +certainly the handsomest man she had ever seen, and the far from +handsome but singularly alluring woman who faced him, making such a +display of her two good points, her rich figure and her fine dark +eyes, that for an instant the rest of her person seemed non-existent. + +"How do you like your tea, dear?" The mistress of the house brought +her stranded guest back into the current of talk with this well-worn +hook. + +"Oh, it doesn't make any difference," said Sylvia, who, as it +happened, did not like the taste of tea. + +"You really ought to have it nectar; with whipped ambrosia on top." +Mrs. Draper troweled this statement on with a dashing smear, saving +Sylvia from being forced to answer, by adding lightly to the man, "Is +ambrosia anything that will whip, do you suppose?" + +"Never heard of it before," he answered, breaking his silence with a +carefree absence of shame at his confession of ignorance. "Sounds +like one of those labels on a soda-water fountain that nobody ever +samples." + +Mrs. Draper made a humorously exaggerated gesture of despair and +turned to Sylvia. "Well, it's just as well, my dear, that you should +know at the very beginning what a perfect monster of illiteracy he is! +You needn't expect anything from him but his stupid good-looks, and +money and fascination. Otherwise he's a Cave-Man for ignorance. You +must take him in hand!" She turned back to the man. "Sylvia, you know, +is as clever as she is beautiful. She had the highest rank but three +in her class last year." + +Sylvia was overcome with astonishment by this knowledge of a fact +which had seemed to make no impression on the world of the year +before. "Why, how could you know that!" she cried. + +Mrs. Draper laughed. "Just hear her!" she appealed to the young man. +Her method of promoting the acquaintance of the two young people +seemed to consist in talking to each of the other. "Just hear her! She +converses as she fences--one bright flash, and you're skewered against +the wall--no parryings possible!" She faced Sylvia again: "Why, my +dear, in answer to your rapier-like question, I must simply confess +that this morning, being much struck with Jerry's being struck with +you, I went over to the registrar's office and looked you up. I know +that you passed supremely well in mathematics and French (what a +quaint combination!), very well indeed in history and chemistry, and +moderately in botany. What's the matter with botany? I have always +found Professor Cross a very obliging little man." + +"He doesn't make me see any sense to botany," explained Sylvia, taking +the question seriously. "I don't seem to get hold of any real reason +for studying it at all. What difference does it make if a bush is a +hawthorn or not?--and anyhow, I know it's a hawthorn without studying +botany." + +The young man spoke for himself now, with a keen relish for Sylvia's +words. He faced her for the first time. "Now you're _shouting_, Miss +Marshall!" he said. "That's the most sensible thing I ever heard said. +That's just what I always felt about the whole B.A. course, anyhow! +What's the diff? Who cares whether Charlemagne lived in six hundred or +sixteen hundred? It all happened before we were born. What's it all +_to_ us?" + +Sylvia looked squarely at him, a little startled at his directly +addressing her, not hearing a word of what he said in the vividness of +her first-hand impression of his personality, his brilliant blue eyes, +his full, very red lips, his boldly handsome face and carriage, his +air of confidence. In spite of his verbal agreement with her opinion, +his look crossed hers dashingly, like a challenge, a novelty in the +amicable harmony which had been the tradition of her life. She felt +that tradition to be not without its monotony, and her young blood +warmed. She gazed back at him silently, wonderingly, frankly. + +With her radiantly sensuous youth in the first splendor of its +opening, with this frank, direct look, she had a moment of brilliance +to make the eyes of age shade themselves as against a dazzling +brightness. The eyes of the man opposite her were not those of age. +They rested on her, roused, kindling to heat. His head went up like a +stag's. She felt a momentary hot throb of excitement, as though +her body were one great fiddle-string, twanging under a vigorously +plucking thumb. It was thrilling, it was startling, it was not +altogether pleasant. The corners of her sensitive mouth twitched +uncertainly. + +Mrs. Draper, observing from under her down-drooped lids this silent +passage between the two, murmured amusedly to herself, "Ah, now you're +shouting, my children!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +PLAYING WITH MATCHES + + +There was much that was acrid about the sweetness of triumph which the +next months brought Sylvia. The sudden change in her life had not come +until there was an accumulation of bitterness in her heart the venting +of which was the strongest emotion of that period of strong emotions. +As she drove about the campus, perched on the high seat of the +red-wheeled dog-cart, her lovely face looked down with none of Eleanor +Hubert's gentleness into the envying eyes of the other girls. A high +color burned in her cheeks, and her bright eyes were not soft. She +looked continually excited. + +At home she was hard to live with, quick to take offense at the +least breath of the adverse criticism which she felt, unspoken and +forbearing but thick in the air about her. She neglected her music, +she neglected her studies; she spent long hours of feverish toil over +Aunt Victoria's chiffons and silks. There was need for many toilets +now, for the incessantly recurring social events to which she went +with young Fiske, chaperoned by Mrs. Draper, who had for her old rival +and enemy, Mrs. Hubert, the most mocking of friendly smiles, as she +entered a ballroom, the acknowledged sponsor of the brilliant young +sensation of the college season. + +At these dances Sylvia had the grim satisfaction, not infrequently the +experience of intelligent young ladies, of being surrounded by crowds +of admiring young men, for whom she had no admiration, the barren +sterility of whose conversation filled her with astonishment, even +in her fever of exultation. She knew the delights of frequently +"splitting" her dances so that there might be enough to go around. She +was plunged headlong into the torrent of excitement which is the life +of a social favorite at a large State University, that breathless +whirl of one engagement after another for every evening and for most +of the days, which is one of the oddest developments of the academic +life as planned and provided for by the pioneer fathers of those great +Western commonwealths; and she savored every moment of it, for during +every moment she drank deep at the bitter fountain of personal +vindication. She went to all the affairs which had ignored her +the year before, to all the dances given by the "swell men's +fraternities," to the Sophomore hop, to the "Football Dance," at the +end of the season, to the big reception given to the Freshman class by +the Seniors. And in addition to these evening affairs, she appeared +beside Jerry Fiske at every football game, at the first Glee Club +Concert, at the outdoor play given by the Literary Societies, and very +frequently at the weekly receptions to the students tendered by the +ladies of the faculty. + +These affairs were always spoken of by the faculty as an attempt to +create a homogeneous social atmosphere on the campus; but this attempt +had ended, as such efforts usually do, in adding to the bewildering +plethora of social life of those students who already had too much, +and in being an added sting to the solitude and ostracism of those who +had none. Naturally enough, the ladies of the faculty who took most +interest in these afternoon functions were the ones who cared most for +society life, and there was only too obvious a contrast between their +manner of kindly, vague, condescending interest shown to one of the +"rough-neck" students, and the easy familiarity shown to one of those +socially "possible." The "rough-necks" seldom sought out more than +once the prettily decorated tables spread every Friday afternoon +in the Faculty Room, off the reading-room of the Library. Sylvia +especially had, on the only occasion when she had ventured into +this charming scene, suffered too intensely from the difference of +treatment accorded her and that given Eleanor Hubert to feel anything +but angry resentment. After that experience, she had passed along the +halls with the other outsiders, books in hand, her head held proudly +high, and never turned even to glance in at the gleaming tables, +the lighted candles, and the little groups of easily self-confident +fraternity men and girls laughing and talking over their teacups, and +revenging vicariously the rest of the ignored student-body by the +calm young insolence with which they in their turn ignored their +presumptive hostesses, the faculty ladies. + +Mrs. Draper changed all this for Sylvia with a wave of her wand. She +took the greatest pains to introduce her protĂ©gĂ©e into this phase of +the social life of the University. On these occasions, as beautiful +and as over-dressed as any girl in the room, with Jermain Fiske in +obvious attendance; with the exclusive Mrs. Draper setting in a rich +frame of commentary any remark she happened to make (Sylvia was +acquiring a reputation for great wit); with Eleanor Hubert, eclipsed, +sitting in a corner, quite deserted save for a funny countrified freak +assistant in chemistry; with all the "swellest frat men" in college +rushing to get her tea and sandwiches; with Mrs. Hubert plunged +obviously into acute unhappiness, Sylvia knew as ugly moments of mean +satisfaction as often fall to the lot even of very pretty young women. + +At home she knew no moments of satisfaction of any variety, although +there was no disapprobation expressed by any one, except in one or two +characteristically recondite comments by Professor Kennedy, who was +taking a rather uneasy triumph in the proof of an old theory of his as +to Sylvia's character. One afternoon, at a football game, he came up +to her on the grandstand, shook hands with Jermain Fiske, whom he had +flunked innumerable times in algebra, and remarked in his most acid +voice that he wished to congratulate the young man on being the +perfect specimen of the dolichocephalic blond whose arrival in +Sylvia's life he had predicted years before. Sylvia, belligerently +aware of the attitude of her home world, and ready to resent +criticism, took the liveliest offense at this obscure comment, which +she perfectly understood. She flushed indignantly and glared in +silence with the eyes of an angry young goddess. + +Young Fiske, who found the remark, or any other made by a college +prof, quite as unintelligible as it was unimportant, laughed with +careless impudence in the old man's face; and Mrs. Draper, for all her +keenness, could make nothing of it. It sounded, however, so quite +like a dictum which she herself would have liked to make, that she +cross-questioned Sylvia afterwards as to its meaning; but Sylvia lied +fluently, asserting that it was just some of Professor Kennedy's +mathematical gibberish which had no meaning. + +In the growing acquaintance of Sylvia and Jermain, Mrs. Draper acted +assiduously as chaperon, a refinement of sophisticated society which +was, as a rule, but vaguely observed in the chaotic flux of State +University social life, and she so managed affairs that they were +seldom together alone. For obvious reasons Sylvia preferred to see the +young man elsewhere than in her own home, where indeed he made almost +no appearance, beyond standing at the door of an evening, very +handsome and distinguished in his evening dress, waiting for Sylvia to +put on her wraps and go out with him to the carriage where Mrs. Draper +sat expectant, furred and velvet-wrapped. This discreet manager made +no objection to Sylvia's driving about the campus in the daytime +alone with Jermain, but to his proposal to drive the girl out to the +country-club for dinner one evening she added blandly the imperious +proviso that she be of the party; and she discouraged with firmness +any projects for solitary walks together through the woods near +the campus, although this was a recognized form of co-educational +amusement at that institution of learning. + +For all her air of free-and-easy equality with the young man, she had +at times a certain blighting glance which, turned on him suddenly, +always brought him to an agreement with her opinion, an agreement +which might obviously ring but verbal on his tongue, but which was +nevertheless the acknowledged basis of action. As for Sylvia, she +acquiesced, with an eagerness which she did not try to understand, in +any arrangement which precluded tĂŞte-Ă -tĂŞtes with Jerry. + +She did not, as a matter of fact, try to understand anything of what +was happening to her. She was by no means sure that she liked it, but +was stiffened into a stubborn resistance to any doubts by the unvoiced +objection to it all at home. With an instinct against disproportion, +perverse perhaps in this case, but with a germ of soundness in it, +she felt confusedly and resentfully that since her home circle was so +patently narrow and exaggerated in its standard of personality, she +would just have to even things up by being a little less fastidious +than was her instinct; and on the one or two occasions when a sudden +sight of Jerry sent through her a strange, unpleasant stir of all her +flesh, she crushed the feeling out of sight under her determination to +assert her own judgment and standards against those which had (she now +felt) so tyrannically influenced her childhood. But for the most +part she did little thinking, shaking as loudly as possible the +reverberating rattle of physical excitement. + +Thus everything progressed smoothly under Mrs. Draper's management. +The young couple met each other usually in the rather close air of her +candle-lighted living-room, drinking a great deal of tea, consuming +large numbers of delicate, strangely compounded sandwiches, +and listening to an endless flow of somewhat startlingly frank +personalities from the magnetic mistress of the house. Sylvia and +Jermain did not talk much on these occasions. They listened with +edification to the racy remarks of their hostess, voicing that +theoretical "broadness" of opinion as to the conduct of life which, +quite as much as the perfume which she always used, was a specialty of +her provocative personality; they spoke now and then, to be sure, as +she drew them into conversation, but their real intercourse was almost +altogether silent. They eyed each other across the table, breathing +quickly, and flushing or paling if their hands chanced to touch in the +services of the tea-table. Once the young man came in earlier than +usual and found Sylvia alone for a moment in the silent, glowing, +perfumed room. He took her hand, apparently for the ordinary handclasp +of greeting, but with a surge of his blood retained it, pressing it +so fiercely that his ring cut into her finger, causing a tiny drop of +bright red to show on the youthful smoothness of her skin. At this +living ruby they both stared fixedly for an instant; then Mrs. Draper +came hastily into the room, saying chidingly, "Come, come, children!" +and looking with displeasure at the man's darkly flushed face. Sylvia +was paler than usual for the rest of the afternoon, and could not +swallow a mouthful of the appetizing food, which as a rule she +devoured with the frank satisfaction of a hungry child. She sat, +rather white, not talking much, avoiding Jerry's eyes for no reason +that she could analyze, and, in the pauses of the conversation, could +hear the blood singing loudly in her ears. + +Yet, although she felt the oddest relief, as after one more escape, +at the end of each of these afternoons with her new acquaintances, +afternoons in which the three seemed perpetually gliding down a +steep incline and as perpetually being arrested on the brink of some +unexplained plunge, she found that their atmosphere had spoiled +entirely her relish for the atmosphere of her home. The home +supper-table seemed to her singularly flat and distasteful with its +commonplace fare--hot chocolate and creamed potatoes and apple sauce, +and its brisk, impersonal talk of socialism, and politics, and small +home events, and music. As it happened, the quartet had the lack of +intuition to play a great deal of Haydn that autumn, and to Sylvia +the cheerful, obvious tap-tap-tap of the hearty old master seemed to +typify the bald, unsubtle obtuseness of the home attitude towards +life. She herself took to playing the less difficult of the Chopin +nocturnes with a languorous over-accentuation of their softness which +she was careful to keep from the ears of old Reinhardt. But one +evening he came in, unheard, listened to her performance of the B-flat +minor nocturne with a frown, and pulled her away from the piano before +she had finished. "Not true music, not true love, not true anydings!" +he said, speaking however with an unexpected gentleness, and patting +her on the shoulder with a dirty old hand. "Listen!" He clapped his +fiddle under his chin and played the air of the andante from the +Kreutzer Sonata with so singing and heavenly a tone that Sylvia, as +helpless an instrument in his skilful hands as the violin itself, felt +the nervous tears stinging her eyelids. + +This did not prevent her making a long dĂ©tour the next day to avoid +meeting the uncomely old musician on the street and being obliged to +recognize him publicly. She lived in perpetual dread of being thus +forced, when in the company of Mrs. Draper or Jermain, to acknowledge +her connection with him, or with Cousin Parnelia, or with any of +the eccentrics who frequented her parents' home, and whom it was +physically impossible to imagine drinking tea at Mrs. Draper's table. + +It was beside this same table that she met, one day in early December, +Jermain Fiske's distinguished father. He explained that he was in La +Chance for a day on his way from Washington to Mercerton, where the +Fiske family was collecting for its annual Christmas house-party, and +had dropped in on Mrs. Draper quite unexpectedly. He was, he added, +delighted that it happened to be a day when he could meet the lovely +Miss Marshall of whom (with a heavy accent of jocose significance) +he had heard so much. Sylvia was a little confused by the pointed +attentions of this gallant old warrior, oddly in contrast with the +manner of other elderly men she knew; but she thought him very +handsome, with his sweeping white mustache, his bright blue eyes, +so like his son's, and she was much impressed with his frock-coat, +fitting snugly around his well-knit, erect figure, and with the +silk hat which she noticed on the table in the hall as she went in. +Frock-coats and silk hats were objects seldom encountered in La +Chance, except in illustrations to magazine-stories, or in photographs +of life in New York or Washington. But of course, she reflected, +Colonel Fiske lived most of his life in Washington, about the +cosmopolitan delights of which he talked most eloquently to the two +ladies. + +As was inevitable, Sylvia also met Eleanor Hubert more or less at Mrs. +Draper's. Sylvia had been rendered acutely self-conscious in that +direction by Mrs. Draper's very open comments on her rĂ´le in the life +of the other girl, and at first had been so smitten by embarrassment +as positively to be awkward, a rare event in her life: but she was +soon set at ease by the other girl's gentle friendliness, so simple +and sincere that even Sylvia's suspicious vanity could not feel it +to be condescension. Eleanor's sweet eyes shone so kindly on her +successful rival, and she showed so frank and unenvious an +admiration of Sylvia's wit and learning, displayed perhaps a trifle +ostentatiously by that young lady in the ensuing conversation with +Mrs. Draper, that Sylvia had a fresh, healing impulse of shame for her +own recently acquired attitude of triumphing hostility towards the +world. + +At the same time she felt a surprised contempt for the other girl's +ignorance and almost illiteracy. Whatever else Eleanor had learned in +the exclusive and expensive girls' school in New York, she had not +learned to hold her own in a conversation on the most ordinary topics; +and as for Mrs. Draper's highly spiced comments on life and folk, her +young friend made not the slightest attempt to cope with them or even +to understand them. The alluring mistress of the house might talk of +sex-antagonism and the hatefulness of the puritanical elements of +American life as much as she pleased. It all passed over the head of +the lovely, fair girl, sipping her tea and raising her candid eyes +to meet with a trustful smile, perhaps a little blank, the glance of +whomever chanced to be looking at her. It was significant that she had +the same smile for each of the three very dissimilar persons who sat +about the tea-table. Of all the circle into which Sylvia's changed +life had plunged her, Eleanor, the type of the conventional society +bud, was, oddly enough, the only one she cared to talk about in her +own extremely unconventional home. But even on this topic she felt +herself bruised and jarred by the severity, the unpicturesque +austerity of the home standards. As she was trying to give her mother +some idea of Eleanor's character, she quoted one day a remark of Mrs. +Draper's, to the effect that "Eleanor no more knows the meaning of her +beauty than a rose the meaning of its perfume." Mrs. Marshall kept +a forbidding silence for a moment and then said: "I don't take much +stock in that sort of unconsciousness. Eleanor isn't a rose, she isn't +even a child. She's a woman. The sooner girls learn that distinction, +the better off they'll be, and the fewer chances they'll run of being +horribly misunderstood." + +Sylvia felt very angry with her mother for this unsympathetic +treatment of a pretty phrase, and thought with resentment that it was +not _her_ fault if she were becoming more and more alienated from her +family. + +This was a feeling adroitly fostered by Mrs. Draper, who, in her +endless talks with Sylvia and Jermain about themselves, had hit upon +an expression and a turn of phrase which was to have more influence on +Sylvia's development than its brevity seemed to warrant. She had, one +day, called Sylvia a little Athenian, growing up, by the oddest of +mistakes, in Sparta. Sylvia, who was in the Pater-reading stage of +development, caught at her friend's phrase as at the longed-for key to +her situation. It explained everything. It made everything appear in +the light she wished for. Above all it enabled her to clarify her +attitude towards her home. Now she understood. One did not scorn +Sparta. One respected it, it was a noble influence in life; but for an +Athenian, for whom amenity and beauty and suavity were as essential as +food, Sparta was death. As was natural to her age and temperament, she +sucked a vast amount of pleasure out of this pitying analysis of her +subtle, complicated needs and the bare crudity of her surroundings. +She now read Pater more assiduously than ever, always carrying a +volume about with her text-books, and feeding on this delicate fare +in such unlikely and dissimilar places as on the trolley-cars, in the +kitchen, in the intervals of preparing a meal, or in Mrs. Draper's +living-room, waiting for the problematical entrance of that erratic +luminary. + +There was none of Mrs. Draper's habits of life which made more of an +impression on Sylvia's imagination than her custom of disregarding +engagements and appointments, of coming and going, appearing and +disappearing quite as she pleased. To the daughter of a scrupulously +exact family, which regarded tardiness as a fault, and breaking an +appointment as a crime, this high-handed flexibility in dealing with +time and bonds and promises had an exciting quality of freedom. + +On a good many occasions these periods of waiting chanced to be shared +by Eleanor Hubert, for whom, after the first two or three encounters, +Sylvia came to have a rather condescending sympathy, singularly in +contrast to the uneasy envy with which she had regarded her only a +few months before. However, as regards dress, Eleanor was still a +phenomenon of the greatest interest, and Sylvia never saw her without +getting an idea or two, although it was plain to any one who knew +Eleanor that this mastery of the technique of modern American costume +was no achievement of her own, that she was merely the lovely and +plastic material molded, perhaps to slightly over-complicated effects, +by her mother's hands. + +From that absent but pervasive personality Sylvia took one suggestion +after another. For instance, a very brief association with Eleanor +caused her to relegate to the scrapheap of the "common" the ready-made +white ruching for neck and sleeves which she had always before taken +for granted. Eleanor's slim neck and smooth wrists were always set +off by a few folds of the finest white chiffon, laid with dexterous +carelessness, and always so exquisitely fresh that they were obviously +renewed by a skilful hand after only a few hours' wearing. The first +time she saw Eleanor, Sylvia noticed this detail with appreciation, +and immediately struggled to reproduce it in her own costume. Like +other feats of the lesser arts this perfect trifle turned out to +depend upon the use of the lightest and most adroit touch. None of the +chiffon which came in Aunt Victoria's boxes would do. It must be fresh +from the shop-counter, ruinous as this was to Sylvia's very modest +allowance for dress. Even then she spoiled many a yard of the filmy, +unmanageable stuff before she could catch the spirit of those +apparently careless folds, so loosely disposed and yet never +displaced. It was a phenomenon over which a philosopher might +well have pondered, this spectacle of Sylvia's keen brain and +well-developed will-power equally concerned with the problems of +chemistry and philosophy and history, and with the problem of +chiffon folds. She herself was aware of no incongruity, indeed of no +difference, between the two sorts of efforts. + +Many other matters of Eleanor's attire proved as fruitful of +suggestion as this, although Aunt Victoria's well-remembered dictum +about the "kitchen-maid's pin-cushion" was a guiding finger-board +which warned Sylvia against the multiplication of detail, even +desirable detail. + +Mrs. Hubert had evidently studied deeply the sources of distinction +in modern dress, and had grasped with philosophic thoroughness the +underlying principle of the art, which is to show effects obviously +costly, but the cost of which is due less to mere brute cash than to +prodigally expended effort. Eleanor never wore a costume which did not +show the copious exercise by some alert-minded human being, presumably +with an immortal soul, of the priceless qualities of invention, +creative thought, trained attention, and prodigious industry. Mrs. +Hubert's unchallengeable slogan was that dress should be an expression +of individuality, and by dint of utilizing all the details of the +attire of herself and of her two daughters, down to the last ruffle +and buttonhole, she found this medium quite sufficient to express the +whole of her own individuality, the conspicuous force of which was +readily conceded by any observer of the lady's life. + +As for Eleanor's own individuality, any one in search of that very +unobtrusive quality would have found it more in the expression of her +eyes and in the childlike lines of her lips than in her toilets. It +is possible that Mrs. Hubert might have regarded it as an unkind +visitation of Providence that the results of her lifetime of effort +in an important art should have been of such slight interest to +her daughter, and should have served, during the autumn under +consideration, chiefly as hints and suggestions for her daughter's +successful rival. + +That she was Eleanor's successful rival, Sylvia had Mrs. Draper's more +than outspoken word. That lady openly gloried in the impending defeat +of Mrs. Hubert's machinations to secure the Fiske money and position +for Eleanor; although she admitted that a man like Jerry had his two +opposing sides, and that he was quite capable of being attracted by +two such contrasting types as Sylvia and Eleanor. She informed Sylvia +indeed that the present wife of Colonel Fiske--his third, by the +way--had evidently been in her youth a girl of Eleanor's temperament. +It was more than apparent, however, that in the case of the son, +Sylvia's "type" was in the ascendent; but it must be set down to +Sylvia's credit that the circumstance of successful competition gave +her no satisfaction. She often heartily wished Eleanor out of it. She +could never meet the candid sweetness of the other's eyes without a +qualm of discomfort, and she suffered acutely under Eleanor's gentle +amiability. + +Once or twice when Mrs. Draper was too outrageously late at an +appointment for tea, the two girls gave her up, and leaving the house, +walked side by side back across the campus, Sylvia quite aware of the +wondering surmise which followed their appearance together. On these +occasions, Eleanor talked with more freedom than in Mrs. Draper's +presence, always in the quietest, simplest way, of small events and +quite uninteresting minor matters in her life, or the life of the +various household pets, of which she seemed extremely fond. Sylvia +could not understand why, when she bade her good-bye at the driveway +leading into the Hubert house, she should feel anything but a rather +contemptuous amusement for the other's insignificance, but the odd +fact was that her heart swelled with inexplicable warmth. Once she +yielded to this foolish impulse, and felt a quivering sense of +pleasure at the sudden startled responsiveness with which Eleanor +returned a kiss, clinging to her as though she were an older, stronger +sister. + +One dark late afternoon in early December, Sylvia waited alone in the +candle-lighted shrine, neither Eleanor nor her hostess appearing. +After five o'clock she started home alone along the heavily shaded +paths of the campus, as dim as caves in the interval before the big, +winking sputtering arc-lights were flashed on. She walked swiftly and +lightly as was her well-trained habit, and before she knew it, was +close upon a couple sauntering in very close proximity. With the +surety of long practice Sylvia instantly diagnosed them as a college +couple indulging in what was known euphemistically as "campus work," +and prepared to pass them with the slight effect of scorn for +philanderings which she always managed to throw into her high-held +head and squarely swinging shoulders. But as she came up closer, +walking noiselessly in the dusk, she recognized an eccentric, +flame-colored plume just visible in the dim light, hanging down +from the girl's hat--and stopped short, filled with a rush of very +complicated feelings. The only flame-colored plume in La Chance was +owned and worn by Eleanor Hubert, and if she were out sauntering +amorously in the twilight, with whom could she be but Jerry +Fiske,--and that meant--Sylvia's pangs of conscience about supplanting +Eleanor were swept away by a flood of anger as at a defeat. She could +not make out the girl's companion, beyond the fact that he was tall +and wore a long, loose overcoat. Jerry was tall and wore a long, loose +overcoat. Sylvia walked on, slowly now, thoroughly aroused, quite +unaware of the inconsistency of her mental attitude. She felt a rising +tide of heat. She had, she told herself, half a notion to step forward +and announce her presence to the couple, whose pace as the Hubert +house was approached became slower and slower. + +But then, as they stood for a moment at the entrance of the Hubert +driveway, the arc-lights blazed up all over the campus at once and she +saw two things: one was that Eleanor was walking very close to her +companion, with her arm through his, and her little gloved fingers +covered by his hand, and next that he was not Jerry Fiske at all, +but the queer, countrified "freak" assistant in chemistry with +whom Eleanor, since Jerry's defection, had more or less masked her +abandonment. + +At the same moment the two started guiltily apart, and Sylvia halted, +thinking they had discovered her. But it was Mrs. Hubert whom they had +seen, advancing from the other direction, and making no pretense that +she was not in search of an absent daughter. She bore down upon the +couple, murmured a very brief greeting to the man, accompanied by a +faint inclination of her well-hatted head, drew Eleanor's unresisting +hand inside her arm, and walked her briskly into the house. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +MRS. MARSHALL STICKS TO HER PRINCIPLES + + +During the autumn and early winter it not only happened unfortunately +that the quartet played altogether too much Haydn, but that Sylvia's +father, contrary to his usual custom, was away from home a great deal. +The State University had arrived at that stage of its career when, if +its rapidly increasing needs and demands for State money were to be +recognized by the Legislature, it must knit itself more closely to +the rest of the State system of education, have a more intimate +affiliation with the widely scattered public high schools, and weld +into some sort of homegeneity their extremely various standards of +scholarship. This was a delicate undertaking, calling for much tact +and an accurate knowledge of conditions in the State, especially in +the rural districts. Professor Marshall's twenty years of popularity +with the more serious element of the State University students (that +popularity which meant so little to Sylvia, and which she so ignored) +had given him a large acquaintance among the class which it was +necessary to reach. He knew the men who at the University had been the +digs, and jays, and grinds, and who were now the prosperous +farmers, the bankers, the school-trustees, the leading men in their +communities; and his geniality, vivacity, and knack for informal +public speaking made him eminently fitted to represent the University +in the somewhat thankless task of coaxing and coercing backward +communities to expend the necessary money and effort to bring their +schools up to the State University standard. + +If all this had happened a few years sooner, he undoubtedly would have +taken Sylvia with him on many of these journeys into remote corners +of the State, but Sylvia had her class-work to attend to, and the +Professor shared to the fullest extent the academic prejudice against +parents who broke in upon the course of their children's regular +instruction by lawless and casual junketings. Instead, it was Judith +who frequently accompanied him, Judith who was now undergoing that +home-preparation for the University through which Sylvia had passed, +and who, since her father was her principal instructor, could carry +on her studies wherever he happened to be; as well as have the +stimulating experience of coming in contact with a wide variety of +people and conditions. It is possible that Professor Marshall's +sociable nature not only shrank from the solitude which his wife +would have endured with cheerfulness, but that he also wished to take +advantage of this opportunity to come in closer touch with his second +daughter, for whose self-contained and occasionally insensitive nature +he had never felt the instinctive understanding he had for Sylvia's +moods. It is certain that the result was a better feeling between the +two than had existed before. During the long hours of jolting over +branch railroads back to remote settlements, or waiting at cheerless +junctions for delayed trains, or gaily eating impossible meals at +extraordinary country hotels, the ruddy, vigorous father, now growing +both gray and stout, and the tall, slender, darkly handsome girl of +fifteen, were cultivating more things than history and mathematics and +English literature. The most genuine feeling of comradeship sprang up +between the two dissimilar natures, a feeling so strong and so warm +that Sylvia, in addition to her other emotional complications, felt +occasionally a faint pricking of jealousy at seeing her primacy with +her father usurped. + +A further factor in her temporary feeling of alienation from him was +the mere physical fact that she saw him much less frequently and that +he had nothing like his usual intimate knowledge of her comings and +goings. And finally, Lawrence, now a too rapidly growing and delicate +lad of eleven, had a series of bronchial colds which kept his mother +much occupied with his care. As far as her family was concerned, +Sylvia was thus left more alone than ever before, and although she had +been trained to too delicate and high a personal pride to attempt the +least concealment of her doings, it was not without relief that she +felt that her parents had but a very superficial knowledge of the +extent and depth to which she was becoming involved in her new +relations. She herself shut her eyes as much as possible to the rate +at which she was progressing towards a destination rapidly becoming +more and more imperiously visible; and consciously intoxicated herself +with the excitements and fatigues of her curiously double life of +intellectual effort in classes and her not very skilful handling of +the shining and very sharp-edged tools of flirtation. + +But this ambiguous situation was suddenly clarified by the unexpected +call upon Mrs. Marshall, one day about the middle of December, of no +less a person than Mrs. Jermain Fiske, Sr., wife of the Colonel, and +Jerry's stepmother. Sylvia happened to be in her room when the shining +car drove up the country road before the Marshall house, stopped at +the gate in the osage-orange hedge, and discharged the tall, stooping, +handsomely dressed lady in rich furs, who came with a halting step up +the long path to the front door. Although Sylvia had never seen Mrs. +Fiske, Mrs. Draper's gift for satiric word-painting had made her +familiar with some items of her appearance, and it was with a rapidly +beating heart that she surmised the identity of the distinguished +caller. But although her quick intelligence perceived the probable +significance of the appearance, and although she felt a distinct shock +at the seriousness of having Jerry's stepmother call upon her, she was +diverted from these capital considerations of such vital importance to +her life by the trivial consideration which had, so frequently during +the progress of this affair, absorbed her mind to the exclusion of +everything else--the necessity for keeping up appearances. If the +Marshall tradition had made it easier for her to achieve this not very +elevated goal, she might have perceived more clearly where her rapid +feet were taking her. Just now, for example, there was nothing in her +consciousness but the embittered knowledge that there was no maid to +open the door when Mrs. Fiske should ring. + +She was a keen-witted modern young woman of eighteen, with a +well-trained mind stored with innumerable facts of science, but it +must be admitted that at this moment she reverted with passionate +completeness to quite another type. She would have given--she would +have given a year of her life--one of her fingers--all her knowledge +of history--anything! if the Marshalls had possessed what she felt any +decently prosperous grocer's family ought to possess--a well-appointed +maid in the hall to open the door, take Mrs. Fiske's card, show her +into the living-room, and go decently and in order to summon the +mistress of the house. Instead she saw with envenomed foresight what +would happen. At the unusual sound of the bell, her mother, who was +playing dominoes with Lawrence in one of his convalescences, would +open the door with her apron still on, and her spectacles probably +pushed up, rustic fashion, on top of her head. And then their +illustrious visitor, used as of course she was to ceremony in social +matters, would not know whether this was the maid, or her hostess; +and Mrs. Marshall would frankly show her surprise at seeing a richly +dressed stranger on the doorstep, and would perhaps think she had made +a mistake in the house; and Mrs. Fiske would not know whether to hand +over the cards she held ready in her whitely gloved fingers--in the +interval between the clanging shut of the gate and the tinkle of the +doorbell Sylvia endured a sick reaction against life, as an altogether +hateful and horrid affair. + +As a matter of fact, nothing of all this took place. When the bell +rang, her mother called out a tranquil request to her to go and open +the door, and so it was Sylvia herself who confronted the unexpected +visitor,--Sylvia a little flurried and breathless, but ushering the +guest into the house with her usual graceful charm of manner. + +She had none of this as a moment later she went rather slowly upstairs +to summon her mother. It occurred to her that Mrs. Marshall might very +reasonably be at a loss as to the reason of this call. Indeed, she +herself felt a sinking alarm at the definiteness of the demonstration. +What could Mrs. Fiske have to say to Mrs. Marshall that would not lead +to some agitating crystallization of the dangerous solution which +during the past months Mrs. Marshall's daughter had been so +industriously stirring up? Mrs. Marshall showed the most open surprise +at the announcement, "Mrs. Colonel Fiske to see me? What in the +world--" she began, but after a glance at Sylvia's down-hung head and +twisting fingers, she stopped short, looking very grave, and rose to +go, with no more comments. + +They went down the stairs in silence, tall mother and tall daughter, +both sobered, both frightened at what might be in the other's mind, +and at what might be before them, and entered the low-ceilinged +living-room together. A pale woman, apparently as apprehensive as +they, rose in a haste that had almost some element of apology in it, +and offered her hand to Mrs. Marshall. "I'm Mrs. Fiske," she said +hurriedly, in a low voice, "Jerry's stepmother, you know. I hope you +won't mind my coming to see you. What a perfectly lovely home you +have! I was wishing I could just stay and _stay_ in this room." +She spoke rapidly with the slightly incoherent haste of shy people +overcoming their weakness, and glanced alternately, with faded blue +eyes, at Sylvia and at her mother. In the end she remained standing, +looking earnestly into Mrs. Marshall's face. That lady now made a step +forward and again put out her hand with an impulsive gesture at which +Sylvia wondered. She herself had felt no attraction towards the thin, +sickly woman who had so little grace or security of manner. It was +constantly surprising Sylvia to discover how often people high in +social rank seemed to possess no qualifications for their position. +She always felt that she could have filled their places with vastly +more aplomb. + +"I'm very glad to see you," said Mrs. Marshall in a friendly tone. "Do +sit down again. Sylvia, go and make us some tea, won't you? Mrs. Fiske +must be cold after driving out here from town." + +When Sylvia came back ten minutes later, she found the guest saying, +"My youngest is only nine months old, and he is having _such_ a time +with his teeth." + +"Oh!" thought Sylvia scornfully, pouring out the tea. "She's _that_ +kind of a woman, is she?" With the astonishingly quick shifting of +viewpoint of the young, she no longer felt the least anxiety that her +home, or even that she herself should make a good impression on this +evidently quite negligible person. Her anguish about the ceremony of +opening the door seemed years behind her. She examined with care all +the minutiae of the handsome, unindividualized costume of black velvet +worn by their visitor, but turned an absent ear to her talk, which +brought out various facts relating to a numerous family of young +children. "I have six living," said Mrs. Fiske, not meeting Mrs. +Marshall's eyes as she spoke, and stirring her tea slowly, "I lost +four at birth." + +Sylvia was indeed slightly interested to learn through another turn of +the conversation that the caller, who looked to her unsympathetic eyes +any age at all, had been married at eighteen, and that that was only +thirteen years ago. Sylvia thought she certainly looked older than +thirty-one, advanced though that age was. + +The call passed with no noteworthy incidents beyond a growing wonder +in Sylvia's mind that the brilliant and dashing old Colonel, after +his other matrimonial experiences, should have picked out so dull and +colorless a wife. She was not even pretty, not at all pretty, in spite +of her delicate, regular features and tall figure. Her hair was dry +and thin, her eyes lusterless, her complexion thick, with brown +patches on it, and her conversation was of a domesticity unparalleled +in Sylvia's experience. She seemed oddly drawn to Mrs. Marshall, +although that lady was now looking rather graver than was her wont, +and talked to her of the overflowing Fiske nursery with a loquacity +which was evidently not her usual habit. Indeed, she said naĂŻvely, as +she went away, that she had been much relieved to find Mrs. Marshall +so approachable. "One always thinks of University families as so +terribly learned, you know," she said, imputing to her hostess, with a +child's tactlessness, an absence of learning like her own. "I really +dreaded to come--I go out so little, you know--but Jerry and the +Colonel thought I ought, you know--and now I've really enjoyed it--and +if Miss Marshall will come, Jerry and the Colonel will be quite +satisfied. And so, of course, will I." With which rather jerky +valedictory she finally got herself out of the house. + +Sylvia looked at her mother inquiringly. "If I go where?" she asked. +Something must have taken place while she was out of the room getting +the tea. + +"She called to invite you formally to a Christmas house-party at the +Fiskes' place in Mercerton," said Mrs. Marshall, noting smilelessly +Sylvia's quick delight at the news. "Oh, what have I got to wear!" +cried the girl. Mrs. Marshall said merely, "We'll see, we'll see," +and without discussing the matter further, went back to finish the +interrupted game with Lawrence. + +But the next evening, when Professor Marshall returned from his latest +trip, the subject was taken up in a talk between Sylvia and her +parents which was more agitating to them all than any other incident +in their common life, although it was conducted with a great effort +for self-control on all sides. Judith and Lawrence had gone upstairs +to do their lessons, and Professor Marshall at once broached the +subject by saying with considerable hesitation, "Sylvia--well--how +about this house-party at the Fiskes'?" + +Sylvia was on the defense in a moment. "Well, how about it?" she +repeated. + +"I hope you don't feel like going." + +"But I do, very much!" returned Sylvia, tingling at the first clear +striking of the note of disapproval she had felt for so many weeks +like an undertone in her life. As her father said nothing more, biting +his nails and looking at her uncertainly, she added in the accent +which fitted the words, "Why shouldn't I?" + +He took a turn about the room and glanced at his wife, who was hemming +a napkin very rapidly, her hands trembling a little. She looked up at +him warningly, and he waited an instant before speaking. Finally he +brought out with the guarded tone of one forcing himself to moderation +of speech, "Well, the Colonel is an abominable old black-guard in +public life, and his private reputation is no better." + +Sylvia flushed. "I don't see what that has to do with his son. It's +not fair to judge a young man by his father--or by anything but what +he is himself--you yourself are always saying that, if the trouble is +that the father is poor or ignorant or something else tiresome." + +Professor Marshall said cautiously, "From what I hear, I gather that +the son in this case is a good deal like his father." + +"No, he _isn't!_" cried Sylvia quickly. "He may have been wild when he +first came up to the University, but he's all right now!" She spoke as +with authoritative and intimate knowledge of all the details of Fiske, +Jr.'s, life. "And anyhow, I don't see what difference it makes, _what_ +the Colonel's reputation is. I'm just going up there with a lot of +other young people to have a good time. Eleanor Hubert's invited, and +three or four other society girls. I don't see why we need to be such +a lot more particular than other people. We never are when it's a +question of people being dirty, or horrid, other ways! How about +Cousin Parnelia and Mr. Reinhardt? I guess the Fiskes would laugh +at the idea of people who have as many queer folks around as we do, +thinking _they_ aren't good enough." + +Professor Marshall sat down across the table from his daughter and +looked at her. His face was rather ruddier than usual and he swallowed +hard. "Why, Sylvia, the point is this. It's evident, from what your +mother tells me of Mrs. Fiske's visit, that going to this house party +means more in your case than with the other girls. Mrs. Fiske came all +the way to La Chance to invite you, and from what she said about +you and her stepson, it was evident that she and the Colonel--" He +stopped, opening his hands nervously. + +"I don't know how they think they know anything about it," returned +Sylvia with dignity, though she felt an inward qualm at this news. +"Jerry's been ever so nice to me and given me a splendid time, but +that's all there is to it. Lots of fellows do that for lots of girls, +and nobody makes such a fuss about it." + +Mrs. Marshall laid down her work and went to the heart of the matter. +"Sylvia, you don't _like_ Mr. Fiske?" + +"Yes, I do!" said Sylvia defiantly, qualifying this statement an +instant later by, "Quite well, anyhow. Why _shouldn't_ I?" + +Her mother assumed this rhetorical question to be a genuine one and +answered it accordingly. "Why, he doesn't seem at all like the type of +young man who would be liked by a girl with your tastes and training. +I shouldn't think you'd find him interesting or--" + +Sylvia broke out: "Oh, you don't know how sick I get of being so +everlastingly high-brow! What's the _use_ of it? People don't think +any more of you! They think less! You don't have any better time--nor +so good! And why should you and Father always be so down on anybody +that's rich, or dresses decently? _Jerry's_ all right--if his clothes +_do_ fit!" + +"Do you really _know_ him at all?" asked her father pointedly. + +"Of course I do--I know he's very handsome, and awfully good-natured, +and he's given me the only good time I've had at the University. You +just don't know how ghastly last year was to me! I'm awfully grateful +to Jerry, and that's all there is to it!" + +Before this second disclaimer, her parents were silent again, Sylvia +looking down at her lap, picking at her fingers. Her expression was +that of a naughty child--that is, with a considerable admixture of +unhappiness in her wilfulness. + +By this time Professor Marshall's expression was clearly one of +downright anger, controlled by violent effort. Mrs. Marshall was the +first one to speak. She went over to Sylvia and laid her hand on her +shoulder. "Well, Sylvia dear, I'm sorry about--" She stopped and +began again. "You know, dear, that we always believed in letting our +children, as far as possible, make their own decisions, and we won't +go back on that now. But I want you to understand that that puts a +bigger responsibility on you than on most girls to make the _right_ +decisions. We trust you--your good sense and right feeling--to keep +you from being carried away by unworthy motives into a false position. +And, what's just as important, we trust to your being clear-headed +enough to see what your motives really are." + +"I don't see," began Sylvia, half crying, "why something horrid should +come up just because I want a good time--other girls don't have to be +all the time so solemn, and thinking about things!" + +"There'd be more happy women if they did," remarked Mrs. Marshall, +adding: "I don't believe we'd better talk any more about this now. You +know how we feel, and you must take that into consideration. You think +it over." + +She spoke apparently with her usual calmness, but as she finished she +put her arms about the girl's neck and kissed the flushed cheeks. +Caresses from Mrs. Marshall were unusual, and, even through her tense +effort to resist, Sylvia was touched. "You're just worrying about +nothing at all, Mother," she said, trying to speak lightly, but +escaped from a possible rejoinder by hurriedly gathering up her +text-books and following Judith and Lawrence upstairs. + +Her father and mother confronted each other. "_Well!_" said Professor +Marshall hotly, "of all the weak, inconclusive, modern parents--is +_this_ what we've come to?" + +Mrs. Marshall took up her sewing and said in the tone which always +quelled her husband, "Yes, this is what we've come to." + +His heat abated at once, though he went on combatively, "Oh, I know +what you mean, reasonable authority and not tyranny and all that--yes, +I believe in it--of course--but this goes beyond--" he ended. "Is +there or is there not such a thing as parental authority?" + +Mrs. Marshall answered with apparent irrelevance, "You remember what +Cavour said?" + +"Good Heaven! No, I don't remember!" cried Professor Marshall, with an +impatience which might have been Sylvia's. + +"He said, 'Any idiot can rule by martial law.'" + +"Yes, of course, that theory is all right, but--" + +"If a theory is all right, it ought to be acted upon." + +Professor Marshall cried out in exasperation, "But see here, +Barbara--here is a concrete fact--our daughter--our precious +Sylvia--is making a horrible mistake--and because of a theory we +mustn't reach out a hand to pull her back." + +"We _can't_ pull her back by force," said his wife. "She's eighteen +years old, and she has the habit of independent thought. We can't go +back on that now." + +"We don't seem to be pulling her back by force or in any other way! We +seem to be just weakly sitting back and letting her do exactly as she +pleases." + +"If during all these years we've had her under our influence we +haven't given her standards that--" began the mother. + +"You heard how utterly she repudiated our influence and our standards +and--" + +"Oh, what she _says_--it's what she's made of that'll count--that's +the _only_ thing that'll count when a crisis comes--" + +Professor Marshall interrupted hastily: "When a crisis! What do you +call _this_ but a crisis--she's like a child about to put her hand +into the fire." + +"I trust in the training she's had to give her firm enough nerves to +pull it out again when she feels the heat," said her mother steadily. + +Professor Marshall sprang up, with clenched hands, tall, powerful, +helpless. "It's outrageous, Barbara, for all your talk! We're +responsible! We ought to shut her up under lock and key--" + +"So _many_ girls have been deterred from a mistake by being shut up +under lock and key!" commented Mrs. Marshall, with an ironical accent. + +"But, good Heavens! Think of her going to that old scoundrel's--how +can I look people in the face, when they all know my opinion of +him--how I've opposed his being a Trustee and--" + +"_Ah_,--!" remarked his wife significantly, "that's the trouble, is +it?" + +Professor Marshall flushed, and for a moment made no rejoinder. Then, +shifting his ground, he said bitterly: "I think you're forgetting that +I've had a disillusionizing experience in this sort of thing which you +were spared. You forget that Sylvia is closely related to my sister." + +"I don't forget that--but I don't forget either that Sylvia has had +a very different sort of early life from poor Victoria's. She has +breathed pure air always--I trust her to recognize its opposite." + +He made an impatient gesture of exasperation. "But she'll be _in_ +it--it'll be too late--" + +"It's never too late." She spoke quickly, but her unwavering +opposition began to have in it a note of tension. + +"She'll be caught--she'll have to go on because it'll be too hard to +get out--" + +"The same vigor that makes her resist us now will give her strength +then--she's not Eleanor Hubert." + +Her husband burst out upon her in a frightened, angry rush of +reproach: "Barbara--how _can_ you! You make me turn cold! This isn't a +matter of talk--of theories--we're confronted with--" + +She faced him down with unflinching, unhappy eyes. "Oh, of course +if we are to believe in liberty only so long as everything goes +smoothly--" She tried to add something to this, but her voice broke +and she was silent. Her husband looked at her, startled at her pallor +and her trembling lips, immensely moved by the rare discomposure of +that countenance. She said in a whisper, her voice shaking, "Our +little Sylvia--my first baby--" + +He flung himself down in the chair beside her and took her hand. "It's +damnable!" he said. + +His wife answered slowly, with long pauses. "No--it's all right--it's +part of the whole thing--of life. When you bring children into the +world--when you live at all--you must accept the whole. It's not fair +to rebel--to rebel at the pain--when--" + +"Good God, it's not _our_ pain I'm shrinking from--!" he broke out. + +"No--oh no--that would be easy--" + +With an impulse of yearning, and protection, and need, he leaned to +put his arms around her, his graying beard against her pale cheek. +They sat silent for a long time. + +In the room above them, Sylvia bent over a problem in trigonometry, +and rapidly planned a new evening-dress. After a time she got up and +opened her box of treasures from Aunt Victoria. The yellow chiffon +would do--Jerry had said he liked yellow--she could imagine how Mrs. +Hubert would expend herself on Eleanor's toilets for this great +occasion--if she could only hit on a design which wouldn't look +as though it came out of a woman's magazine--something really +sophisticated--she could cover her old white slippers with that bit +of gold-tissue off Aunt Victoria's hat--she shook out the chiffon and +laid it over the bed, looking intently at its gleaming, shimmering +folds and thinking, "How horrid of Father and Mother to go and try to +spoil everything so!" She went back to the problem in trigonometry and +covered a page with figures, at which she gazed unseeingly. She was by +no means happy. She went as far as the door, meaning to go down and +kiss her parents good-night, but turned back. They were not a family +for surface demonstrations. If she could not yield her point--She +began to undress rapidly, turned out the light, opened the windows, +and sprang into bed. "If they only wouldn't take things so awfully +_solemnly_!" she said to herself petulantly. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +SYLVIA SKATES MERRILY ON THIN ICE + + +The design for the yellow chiffon dropped almost literally at Sylvia's +feet the next day, on the frontispiece of a theatrical magazine left +by another passenger in the streetcar in which she chanced to be +riding. Sylvia pounced on it with instant recognition of its value. +It was "different" and yet not "queer," it was artistic and yet +fashionable, and with its flowing lines it would not be hard to +construct. It was the creation of a Parisian boulevard actress, known +widely for her costumes, for the extraordinary manner in which she +dressed her hair, and for the rapidity of her succeeding emotional +entanglements. Her name meant nothing to Sylvia. She tore out the +page, folded it, and put it for safe-keeping between the pages of her +text-book on Logic. + +That afternoon she began work on it, running the long seams up on the +machine with whirring rapidity, acutely aware of her mother's silent, +uncommenting passage back and forth through the sewing-room. With an +impulse of secrecy which she did not analyze, she did the trying-on in +her own room, craning and turning about before her own small mirror. +She knew that her mother would think the dress was cut too low, +although, as she told herself, looking with complacency at the smooth, +white, exquisitely fine-grained skin thus disclosed, it wasn't nearly +as low cut as the dresses Eleanor Hubert wore to any little dance. She +had long felt it to be countrified in the extreme to wear the mild +compromises towards evening-dress which she and most of the State +University girls adopted, as compared with the frankly disclosing +gowns of the "town girls" whose clothes came from Chicago and New +York. She knew from several outspoken comments that Jerry admired +Eleanor's shoulders, and as she looked at her own, she was not sorry +that he was to compare them to those of the other girl. + +After this brief disposal of the question, she gave it no more +thought, working with desperate speed to complete all her +preparations. She had but a week for these, a week filled with +incessant hurry, since she was naturally unwilling to ask help of her +mother. Judith was off again with her father. + +This absence greatly facilitated the moment of Sylvia's departure, +which she had dreaded. But, as it happened, there was only her mother +to whom to say the rather difficult good-bye, her mother who could be +counted on never to make a scene. + +About the middle of the morning of the twenty-third of December, +she came down the stairs, her hand-bag in her hand, well-hatted, +well-gloved, freshly veiled, having achieved her usual purpose of +looking to the casual eye like the daughter of a wealthy man. She had +put all of her autumn allowance for dress into a set of furs, those +being something which no ingenuity could evolve at home. The rest +of her outfit, even to the odd little scarlet velvet hat, with its +successful and modish touch of the ugly, was the achievement of her +own hands. Under its absurd and fashionable brim, her fresh face shone +out, excessively pretty and very young. + +Mrs. Marshall kissed her good-bye gently, not smiling at Sylvia's +attempt to lighten the moment's seriousness by saying playfully, +"Now, Mother, don't you be such an old worrier!" But she said nothing +"uncomfortable," for which Sylvia was very grateful. + +She had no sooner embarked upon the big Interurban trolley-car which +was to take her to Mercerton than her attention was wholly diverted +from uneasy reflections by the unexpected appearance of two of the +house-party guests. Eleanor Hubert, every detail of her Complicated +costume exquisitely finished as a Meissonier painting, sat looking out +of the window rather soberly, and so intently that she saw neither +Sylvia's entrance, nor, close upon her heels, that of a florid-faced, +rather heavily built young man with a large, closely shaven jaw, who +exclaimed joyfully at seeing Miss Marshall, and appropriated with +ready assurance the other half of her seat. + +"Now, this is surely dandy! You're going to the house-party too, +of course!" he cried, unbuttoning and throwing back his bright tan +overcoat. "Here's where I cut Jerry out all right, all right! Wait +a minute! _How_ much time have we?" He appealed to the conductor +as though a matter of life and death depended on the answer. "Four +minutes?--here goes--" He sprang to his feet, dashed out of the car +and disappeared, leaving his coat beside Sylvia. It was evidently +quite new, of the finest material, with various cunningly stitched +seams and straps disposed upon its surface in a very knowing way. +Sylvia noted out of the corner of her eye that the address of the +maker, woven into the neckband, was on Fifth Avenue, New York. + +The four minutes passed--and the conductor approached Sylvia. "Your +friend's coming back, ain't he?" he asked, with the tolerant, +good-natured respect natural for the vagaries of expensively dressed +young men who wore overcoats made on Fifth Avenue. Sylvia, who had met +the young man but once before, when Jerry had introduced him as an +old friend, was a little startled at having a casual acquaintance so +publicly affixed to her; but after an instant's hesitation, in which +she was reflecting that she positively did not even remember her +"friend's" name, she answered, "Oh yes, yes, I suppose so--here he is +now." + +The young man bounded up on the back platform panting, holding his hat +on with one hand, a large box of candy in the other. Sylvia glanced at +the name on the cover. "You didn't go all the way to _Button's!_" she +cried. + +He nodded, breathless, evidently proud of his feat, and when he caught +his breath enough to speak, explained, "Yepp,--it's the only place in +this bum town where you can get Alligretti's, and they're the only +kind that're fit to eat" He tore open the box as he spoke, demolishing +with ruthless and practised hands the various layers of fine paper +and gold cord which wrapped it about, and presented the rich layer of +black chocolates to Sylvia. "Get a move on and take one," he urged +cordially; "I pretend I buy 'em for the girls, but I'm crazy about 'em +myself," He bit into one with an air of prodigious gusto, took off his +hat, wiped his forehead, and looked at Sylvia with a relish as frank +as his enjoyment of the bonbon. "That's a corking hat you got on," +he commented. "Most girls would look like the old Harry with that +dangling thing in their eyes, but _you_ can carry it off all right." + +Sylvia's face assumed a provocative expression. "Did you ever make +that remark to any other girl, I wonder?" she said reflectively. + +He laughed aloud, eyeing her with appreciation, and clapping another +large black chocolate into his mouth. "You're the prompt article, +aren't you?" he said. He hitched himself over and leaned towards her. +"Something tells me I'm goin' to have a good time at this house-party, +what?" + +Sylvia stiffened. She did not like his sitting so close to her, she +detected now on his breath a faint odor of alcohol, and she was afraid +that Eleanor Hubert would think her lacking in dignity. She regretted +having succumbed to the temptation to answer him in his own tone; but, +under her bravado, she was really somewhat apprehensive about this +expedition, and she welcomed a diversion. Besides, the voluble young +man showed not the slightest sign of noting her attempt to rebuff him, +and she found quite unavailing all her efforts to change the current +of the talk, the loud, free-and-easy, personally admiring note of +which had the effect on her nerves of a draught of raw spirits. She +did not enjoy the taste while it was being administered, but the +effect was certainly stimulating, not to say exciting, and absorbed +her attention so entirely that uncomfortable self-questionings were +impossible. She was also relieved to note that, although the young +man flung himself about in the public conveyance with the same +unceremonious self-assurance that he would have shown in a lady's +drawing-room, Eleanor Hubert, at the other end of the car, was +apparently unaware of his presence. Perhaps she too had some grounds +for uncomfortable thought, for throughout the hour's journey she +continued to stare unseeingly out of the window, or to look down +fixedly and rather sadly at her gloved hands. + +Even through the confusion of her own ideas and plans, and the need +for constant verbal self-defense against the encroaching familiarity +of her companion, the notion flitted across Sylvia's mind that +probably Eleanor was thinking of the young assistant in chemistry. How +queer and topsy-turvy everything was, she reflected, as she bandied +lively words with the lively young man at her side, continuing to eat +his candies, although their rich, cloying taste had already palled on +her palate--here was Mrs. Hubert throwing Eleanor at Jerry's head, +when what Eleanor wanted was that queer, rough-neck freak of an +assistant prof; and here were Jerry's parents making such overtures +to Sylvia, when what _she_ wanted--she didn't know what she did want. +Yes, she did, she wanted a good time, which was somehow paradoxically +hard to attain. Something always kept spoiling it,--half the time +something intangible inside her own mind. She gave the candy-box a +petulant push. "Oh, take it away!" she said impatiently; "I've eaten +so many now, it makes me sick to look at them!" + +The donor showed no resentment at this ingratitude, holding the box on +his knees, continuing to help himself to its contents with unabated +zest, and to keep the conversation up to concert pitch: "--the only +girl I ever saw who'd stop eating Alligretti's while there was one +left--another proof that there's only one of you--I said right off, +that any co-ed that Jerry Fiske would take to must be a unique +specimen--" He did not further specify the period to which he +referred by his "right off," but the phrase gave Sylvia a tingling, +uncomfortable sense of having been for some time the subject of +speculation in circles of which she knew nothing. + +They were near Mercerton now, and as she gathered her wraps together +she found that she was bracing herself as for an ordeal of some sort. +The big car stopped, a little way out of town, in front of a long +driveway bordered with maple-trees; she and the young man descended +from one end-platform and Eleanor Hubert from the other, into the +midst of loud and facetious greetings from the young people who had +come down to meet them. Jerry was there, very stalwart, his white +sweater stretched over his broad chest. All the party carried skates, +which flashed like silver in the keen winter sun. They explained with +many exclamations that they had been out on the ice, which was, so the +three new-comers were assured many times, "perfectly grand, perfectly +dandy, simply elegant!" + +A big, many-seated sled came jingling down the driveway now, driven by +no less a personage than Colonel Fiske himself, wrapped in a fur-lined +coat, his big mustache white against the red of his strongly marked +old face. With many screams and shouts the young people got themselves +into this vehicle, the Colonel calling out in a masterful roar above +the din, "Miss Marshall's to come up here with me!" + +He held in his pawing, excited horses with one hand and helped Sylvia +with the other. In the seat behind them sat Jerry and Eleanor Hubert +and the young man of the trolley trip. Sylvia strained her ears to +catch Jerry's introduction of him to Eleanor, so that she might +know his name. It was too absurd not even to know his name! But the +high-pitched giggles and deeper shouts of mirth from the rest of the +party drowned out the words. As a matter of fact, although he played +for an instant a rather important rĂ´le in Sylvia's drama, she was +destined never to know his name. + +The Colonel looked back over the sleighload, shouted out "All aboard!" +loosened the reins, and snapped his whip over the horses' heads. They +leaped forward with so violent a spring that the front runners of the +long sled were for an instant lifted into the air. Immediately all the +joyful shrieking and screaming which had gone on before, became as +essential silence compared to the delighted uproar which now rose from +the sleigh. The jerk had thrown most of the young people over backward +into each other's arms and laps, where, in a writhing, promiscuous +mass, they roared and squealed out their joy in the joke, and made +ineffectual and not very determined efforts to extricate themselves. +Sylvia had seen the jerk coming and saved herself by a clutch forward +at the dashboard. Glancing back, she saw that Jerry and Eleanor Hubert +still sat upright; although the gay young man beside them had let +himself go backward into the waving arms and legs, and, in a frenzy of +high spirits, was shouting and kicking and squirming with the others. +It was a joke after his own heart. + +Colonel Fiske, so far from slackening his pace to help his young +guests out of their predicament, laughed loudly and cracked his whip +over the horses' ears. They went up the long, curving driveway like +a whirlwind, and drew up under the porte-cochère of a very large +brick-and-stone house with another abrupt jerk which upset those in +the sleigh who had succeeded in regaining their seats. Pandemonium +broke out again, in the midst of which Sylvia saw that Mrs. Fiske had +come to the doorway and stood in it with a timid smile. The Colonel +did not look at her, Jerry nodded carelessly to her as he passed in, +and of all the disheveled, flushed, and laughing young people who +crowded past her into the house, only Sylvia and Eleanor recognized +her existence. The others went past her without a glance, exclaimed at +the lateness of the hour, cried out that they must go and "fix up" for +lunch, and ran upstairs, filling the house with their voices. Sylvia +heard one girl cry to another, "_Oh_, I've had such a good time! I've +hollered till I'm hoarse!" + +After luncheon, a meal at which more costly food was served than +Sylvia had ever before seen, Jerry suggested between puffs of the +cigarette he was lighting that they have a game of billiards. Most of +the young people trooped off after him into the billiard-room, but +Sylvia, after a moment's hesitation, lingered near the big wood-fire +in the hall, unwilling to admit that she had never seen a billiard +table. She made a pretext of staying to talk to Mrs. Fiske, who sat +stooping her tall figure forward in a chair too small for her. Sylvia +looked at this ungraceful attitude with strong disapproval. What she +thought was that such inattention to looks was perfectly inexcusable. +What she said was, in a very gracious voice: "What a beautiful home +you have, Mrs. Fiske! How wonderfully happy you must be in it." + +The other woman started a little at being addressed, and looked around +vaguely at the conventional luxury of the room, with its highly +polished floors, its huge rich rugs, its antlers on the wall, and its +deeply upholstered leather chairs. When Sylvia signified her intention +of continuing the talk by taking a seat beside the fire, Mrs. Fiske +roused herself to the responsibility of entertaining the young guest. +After some futile attempts at conversation in the abstract, she +discharged this responsibility through the familiar expedient of the +family photograph album. With this between them, the two women were +able to go through the required form of avoiding silences. Sylvia was +fearfully bored by the succession of unknown faces, and utterly unable +to distinguish, in her hostess' somewhat disconnected talk, between +the different sets of the Colonel's children. "This one is Stanley, +Jermain's brother, who died when he was a baby," the dull voice droned +on; "and this is Mattie in her wedding dress." + +"Oh, I didn't know Jerry had a married sister," murmured Sylvia +indifferently, glad of any comment to make. + +"She's only his half-sister, a great deal older." + +"But _you_ haven't a daughter old enough to be married?" queried +Sylvia, astonished. + +"Oh--no--no. Mattie is the daughter of the Colonel's first wife." + +"Oh," said Sylvia awkwardly, remembering now that Mrs. Draper had +spoken of the Colonel's several marriages. She added to explain her +question, "I'd forgotten that Jerry's mother was the Colonel's second +wife and not his first." + +"She was his third," breathed Mrs. Fiske, looking down at the pages of +the album. + +Sylvia repressed a "Good gracious!" of startled repugnance to the +topic, and said, to turn the conversation, "Oh, who is that beautiful +little girl with the fur cap?" + +"That is my picture," said Mrs. Fiske, "when I was eighteen. I was +married soon after. I've changed very much since my marriage." +Decidedly it was not Sylvia's lucky day for finding topics of talk. +She was wondering how the billiard game was progressing, and was sorry +she had not risked going with the others. She was recalled by Mrs. +Fiske's saying with a soft earnestness, "I want you to know, Miss +Marshall, how I _appreciate_ your kindness to me!" + +Sylvia looked at her in astonishment, half fearing that she was being +made fun of. + +The other went on: "It was _very_ nice of you--your staying here to +talk with me instead of going off with the young people--the others +don't often--" She played nervously with a gleaming pendant on a +platinum chain which hung over her flat chest, and went on: "I--you +have _always_ seemed to me the very nicest of Jerry's friends--and I +shall never forget your mother's kindness. I hope--I hope so much I +shall see more of her. The Colonel thinks so too--we've liked so much +having him like you." The incoherence of this did not prevent Sylvia's +having a chillingly accurate grasp on its meaning. "It is the +Colonel's hope," she went on painfully, "to have Jerry marry as soon +as he graduates from the Law School. The Colonel thinks that nothing +is so good for a young man as an early marriage--though of course +Jerry isn't so very, very young any more. He--the--Colonel is a great +believer in marriage--" Her voice died away into murmurs. Her long, +thin throat contracted in a visible swallow. + +At this point only Sylvia's perception of the other's anguished +embarrassment prevented her from literally running away. As it was, +they sat silent, fingering over the pages of the album and gazing +unseeingly at the various set countenances which looked out at them +with the unnatural glare of the photographed. Sylvia was canvassing +desperately one possibility of escape after another when the door +opened, and the lively young man of the trolley-car stepped in. +He tiptoed to the fireplace with exaggerated caution, looking +theatrically over his shoulder for a pursuer. Sylvia positively +welcomed his appearance and turned to him with a cordiality quite +unlike the cool dignity with which she had planned to treat him. He +sat down on the rug before the fire, very close to her feet, and +looked up at her, grinning. "Here's where I get another one on +Jerry--what?" he said, ignoring Mrs. Fiske. "Old Jerry thinks he's +playing such a wonderful game in there he can't tear himself away--but +there'll be something doing, I guess, when he does come and finds +where I am!" He had partaken freely of the excellent white wine served +at luncheon (the first Sylvia had ever seen), and though entirely +master of his speech, was evidently even more uplifted than was his +usual hilarious wont. Sylvia looked down at him, and across at the +weak-faced woman opposite her, and had a moment of wishing heartily +she had never come. She stood up impatiently, a movement which the +young man took to mean a threat of withdrawal. "Aw, _don't_ go!" he +pleaded, sprawling across the rug towards her. As she turned away, he +snatched laughingly at her skirts, crying out, "Tag! You're caught! +You're It!" + +At this moment Jerry Fiske appeared in the doorway. He looked darkly +at his friend's cheerful face and said shortly: "Here, Stub--quit it! +Get up out of that!" He added to Sylvia, holding out his hand: "Come +on, go skating with me. The ice is great." + +"Are the others going?" asked Sylvia. + +"Oh yes, I suppose so," said Jerry, a trifle impatiently. + +The young man on the floor scrambled up. "Here's one that's going, +whoever else don't," he announced. + +"Get yourself a girl, then," commanded Jerry, "and tell the rest to +come along. There's to be eats at four o'clock." + + * * * * * + +The ice was even as fine as it had been so redundantly represented to +Sylvia. Out of doors, leaning her supple, exquisitely poised body to +the wind as she veered like a bird on her flying skates, Sylvia's +spirits rebounded with an instant reaction into enjoyment. She adored +skating, and she had in it, as in all active exercise, the half-wild +pleasure of one whose childhood is but a short time behind her. +Furthermore, her costume prepared for this event (Mrs. Draper had told +her of the little lake on the Fiske estate) was one of her successes. +It had been a pale cream broadcloth of the finest texture, one of Aunt +Victoria's reception gowns, which had evidently been spoiled by having +coffee spilled down the front breadth. Sylvia had had the bold notion +of dyeing it scarlet and making it over with bands of black plush +(the best bits from an outworn coat of her mother's). On her gleaming +red-brown hair she had perched a little red cap with a small black +wing on either side (one of Lawrence's pet chickens furnished this), +and she carried the muff which belonged with her best set of furs. +Thus equipped, she looked like some impish, slender young Brunhilde, +with her two upspringing wings. The young men gazed at her with the +most unconcealed delight. As she skated very well, better than any +of the other girls, she felt, sweeping about the pond in long, swift +curves, that she was repaid for her ignorance of billiards. + +Jerry and the young man he called Stub were openly in competition +for her attention, highly jocose on Stub's part and not at all so on +Jerry's, whose brow did not clear at the constant crackling of the +other's witticisms. On the shore burned a big fire, tended by a +man-servant in livery, who was occupied in setting out on a long table +a variety of sandwiches and cups of steaming bouillon. Sylvia had +never encountered before a real man-servant in livery. She looked at +him with the curiosity she might have shown at seeing a mediaeval +knight in full armor. Jerry brought her a cup of the bouillon, which +was deliciously hot and strong. Experienced as she was in the prudent +provisioning of the Marshall kitchen she was staggered to think how +many chickens had gone into filling with that clear liquor the big +silver tureen which steamed over the glittering alcohol lamp. The +table was set, for that casual outdoor picnic lunch, as she could +hardly have imagined a royal board. + +"What beautiful things your people have!" she exclaimed to Jerry, +looking at a pile of small silver forks with delicately carved ivory +handles. "The rugs in the house are superb." + +Jerry waved them aside as phenomena of no importance. "All of 'em +tributes from Dad's loving constituents," he said, repeating what was +evidently an old joke in the family. "You'd better believe Dad doesn't +vote to get the tariff raised on anything unless he sees to it that +the manufacturers know who they have to thank. It works something +fine! Talk about the presents a doctor gets from his grateful +patients! Nothing to it!" + +This picturesque statement of practical politics meant so little to +Sylvia's mind that she dismissed it unheard, admiring, in spite of her +effort to take things for granted, the fabulous fineness of the +little fringed napkin set under the bouillon cup. Jerry followed +the direction of her eyes. "Yep--tariff on linen," he commented +pregnantly. + +The young man called Stub now sped up to them, skating very fast, and +swept Sylvia off. "_Here's_ where we show 'em how to do it!" he cried +cheerfully, skating backward with crazy rapidity, and pulling Sylvia +after him. There was a clang of swift steel on ice, and Jerry bore +down upon them, the muscles of his jaw showing prominently. Without a +word he thrust his friend aside, caught at Sylvia's hands, and bore +her in a swooping flight to the other end of the pond, now deserted by +the other skaters. + +As they sped along he bent over Sylvia fiercely and said in a low, +angry tone, "You don't like that bounder, do you? You _don't_!" + +Sylvia was astonished at the heat of his suspicion. She had known that +Jerry was not notably acute, but it had seemed to her that her dislike +for his friend must be more than apparent to any one. They had reached +the edge of the ice now, and Sylvia's hands were still in Jerry's, +although they were not skating, but stood facing each other. A bush +of osier, frozen into the ice, lifted its red twigs near them. Sylvia +looked down at it, hesitating how to express her utter denial of any +liking for the hilarious young man. Jerry misunderstood her pause and +cried out: "Good God! Sylvia! Don't say you _do._" + +Sylvia's heart gave a frightened leap. "Oh no--no--not a bit!" she +said hastily, looking longingly across the pond at the group around +the fire. Jerry caught his breath with a gasp and gripped her hands +hard. "It makes me crazy to see you look at another fellow," he said. +He forced her eyes to meet his. "Sylvia--you know--you know what I +mean." + +Yes, Sylvia knew what he meant. Her very white face showed that. The +young man went on, pressing, masterful, confident, towering over her: +"It's idiotic to speak of it now, out here--with all these people +around--but it just _got_ me to see you with that--I wasn't sure how I +felt about you till I saw how I felt when you seemed so friendly +with him, when you got off the car together. Then I knew. It made me +crazy--I _wanted_ you!" + +Sylvia had not been able once to look away from him since he began to +speak. Her mouth was a little open in her white face, her eyes fixed +with a painful intensity on his. He moistened his lips with his +tongue. "Sylvia--_it's all right_--isn't it?" + +With no change of expression in her strained face, Sylvia nodded. As +suddenly and apparently as automatically she took a backward step. + +The young man made a great stride towards her--there was a sound of +quick strokes on the ice and--"BOO!" shouted the hilarious young man, +bursting between them at railroad speed. He executed a marvelous +pirouette and returned instantly, calling out, "Less spooning in +the corners if you please--or if it's got to be, let me in!" He +was followed closely by a string of young men and girls, playing +snap-the-whip. They "snapped" just as they reached Jerry. The end girl +flew off and bumped, screaming with joy, into Jerry's arms. He looked +furiously over her head towards Sylvia, but she had been enveloped in +a ring and was being conveyed away to the accompaniment of the usual +squeals and shouts. The Colonel had come down to take them all back, +she was informed, and was waiting for them with the sleigh. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +AS A BIRD OUT OF A SNARE + + +Sylvia dressed for dinner literally like one in a dream. Outwardly she +was so calm that she thought she was so inwardly. It was nothing like +so exciting as people said, to get engaged, she thought as she brushed +out her hair and put it up in a big, gleaming knot. Here she had been +engaged for a whole hour and a half, and was getting calmer every +minute, instead of the reverse. She astonished herself by the lucidity +of her brain, although it only worked by snatches--there being lacunae +when she could not have told what she was doing. And yet, as she had +approached the house, sitting again beside the Colonel, she had looked +with a new thrill of interest at its imposing battlemented façade. The +great hall had seemed familiar to her already as she stepped across +it on her way to the stairs, her feet had pressed the rugs with +assurance, she had been able to be quite nonchalant about refusing the +services of the maid who offered to help her dress. + +It was true that from time to time she suddenly flushed or paled; it +was true that her mind seemed incapable of the slightest consecutive +thought; it was true that she seemed to be in a dream, peopled by +crazily inconsequent images--she had again and again a vision, +startlingly vivid, of the red-twigged osier beside which she had +stood; it was true that she had a slight feeling of vertigo when she +tried to think ahead of the next moment--but still she was going ahead +with her unpacking and dressing so steadily that she marveled. She +decided again from the depth of her experience that getting engaged +was nothing like so upsetting an event as people made out. She thrust +the last pin into her hair and tipped her head preeningly before the +big triplicate mirror--the first time she had ever encountered this +luxury outside of a ready-made clothes shop. The yellow chiffon +came out from the trunk in perfect condition, looking like a big, +silk-petaled flower as she slipped it on over her bare shoulders, and +emerged above, triumphant and yet half afraid to look at herself in +the mirror lest she should see that her home-made toilet had not "the +right look." One glance satisfied even her jealous eagerness. It had +exactly the right look--that is, it looked precisely like the picture +from which she had copied it. She gazed with naĂŻve satisfaction at the +faithfulness with which her reflected appearance resembled that of the +Parisian demi-mondaine whose photograph she had seen, and settled +on her slim, delicately modeled shoulders the straps of shirred and +beaded chiffon which apparently performed the office of keeping her +dress from sliding to the floor. In reality, under its fluid, gauzy +draperies, it was constructed on a firm, well-fitting, well-fastened +foundation of opaque cloth which quite adequately clothed the young +body, but its appearance was of a transparent cloud, only kept from +floating entirely away by those gleaming straps on the shoulders, an +effect carefully calculated in the original model, and inimitably +caught by Sylvia's innocent fingers. + +She turned herself about, artlessly surprised to see that her neck and +shoulders looked quite like those of the women in the fashion-plates +and the magazine illustrations. She looked at the clock. It was early +yet. She reflected that she never _could_ take the time other girls +did in dressing. She wondered what they did. What could one do, after +one's bath was taken, one's hair done, and one's gown donned--oh, of +course, powder! She applied it liberally, and then wiped away every +grain, that being what she had seen older girls do in the Gymnasium +dressing-room. Then with a last survey of her face, unaltered by the +ceremonial with the powder-puff, she stepped to the door. + +But there, with her hand on the knob, she was halted by an +inexplicable hesitation about opening the door and showing herself. +She looked down at her bare shoulders and bosom, and faintly blushed. +It was really very, very low, far lower than any dress she had ever +worn! And the fact that Eleanor Hubert, that all the "swell" girls +wore theirs low, did not for the moment suffice her--it was somehow +different--their showing their shoulders and her showing her own. +She could not turn the knob and stood, irresolute, frowning vaguely, +though not very deeply disquieted. Finally she compromised by taking +up a pretty spangled scarf Aunt Victoria had sent her, wrapping it +about her like a shawl, in which quaint garb she went out in more +confidence, and walked down the hall to the stairway. Half-way down +she met Colonel Fiske just coming up to dress. Seeing one of his young +guests arrayed for the evening he made her his compliments, the first +words rather absent and perfunctory. But when he was aware which guest +she was, he warmed into a pressing and personal note, as his practised +eyes took in the beauty, tonight startlingly enhanced by excitement, +of the girl's dark, shining eyes, flushed cheeks, and white neck and +arms. He ended by lifting her hand, in his florid way, and pressing +it to his white mustache for a very fervent kiss. Sylvia blushed +prettily, meeting his hot old eyes with a dewy unconsciousness, +and smiling frankly up into the deeply lined carnal face with the +simple-hearted pleasure she would have felt at the kind word of any +elderly man. The Colonel seemed quite old to her--much older than her +father--like Professor Kennedy. + +"Jerry's in the library, waiting," his father announced with a sly +laugh. "I wondered at the young rascal's being dressed so far ahead of +time." He turned reluctantly and went on up the stairs, leaving Sylvia +to go forward to her first meeting alone with the man she had promised +to marry. As she descended the long flight of stairs, her scarf, +loosened by her movement, slipped unobserved in her excitement and +hung lightly about her shoulders. + +The door to the library was shut. She opened it with a rapidly beating +heart and stood on the threshold, shyly hesitating to advance further, +looking with agitation at the stalwart, handsome, well-groomed figure +which stood in an attitude of impatient expectation by the window. +Except for the light which came in from the electric bulb on the porch +outside, the big room was in twilight. In the brilliantly lighted +door-opening, she stood revealed as by a searchlight. + +At the sound of the opening door, and his name spoken in a quavering +voice, the young man turned, paused an instant as if blinded by the +vision, and sprang forward. The door behind Sylvia swung shut, and her +eyes, widening in the dusk, saw only the headlong, overwhelming rush +upon her of her lover. She was enfolded strongly in muscular arms, +she was pressed closer and yet closer to a powerful body, whose heat +burned through the thin broadcloth, she was breathless, stunned, +choked. As the man bent forward over her, clasping her to him, her +flexible spine bent and her head drooped backward, her face with its +flush all gone, gleaming white in the dusk. At this he rained kisses +on it, on her eyes, hair, cheeks, mouth, the burning softness of his +full lips seeming to leave a smear on her skin where they pressed it. +Still holding her with one arm, pressed to him as though the two young +bodies were gripped together by a vice, he loosened the other arm and +thrust it at the back of her dress, through the flimsy gauze of her +scarf, down next her body. His stiff cuff caught on the edge of her +dress, and his sleeve slid up--it was his bare arm against her naked +flesh. He gave a savage, smothered, gasping exclamation, pressed his +fingers deeply into her side, still kissing her passionately, her +neck, her shoulders, burying his hot face in her bosom. + +It was the girl's body which acted, since at the first instant of the +whirlwind which had broken over her, her mind had been shocked into +a swooning paralysis. Only her strong, sound body, hardened by work, +fortified by outdoor exercise, was ready in its every fiber for this +moment. Her body bent suddenly like a spring of fine steel, its +strength momentarily more than a match for his, and thrust the man +from her with staggering violence. Her reaction from him was as +physical a sensation as though she had bitten into a tempting fruit +and found it not sweet--not even bitter--but nasty. She sickened at +the sight of him. + +As he caught his balance, laughing a little but not at all +good-naturedly, and started back towards her with a dangerous dark +face of excited anger and desire, his headlong rush was checked an +instant by the fierce eyes which flamed at him from her crimson face. +Even her neck and shoulders were now scarlet. She held him off for the +space of a breath, giving one deep exclamation, "_Oh_!" short, sharply +exhaled, almost like a blow in his face. + +But his blood was up as well as hers, and after his momentary pause, +he rushed forward again, his handsome, blond face black with passion. + +Sylvia stooped, gathered up her skirts, turned, burst open the door, +and fled out of the room, running in her high-heeled satin slippers as +she did on the track in the Gymnasium, with long, deer-like bounds. In +a flash she had crossed the wide hall--which was as it happened empty, +although she would not have slackened her pace for all the assembled +company--and was darting arrow-like up the stairs, her torn scarf +flying behind her like a banner. Her flight had been so unexpected +and so swift that young Fiske did not attempt to follow her; but she +reached her room, flung the door shut, and locked it with as much +precipitancy as though he were on her heels, instead of standing quite +still, open-mouthed, where she had left him. + +The sharp crack of her slamming door, loud in the quiet house, broke +the spell which held him. His mouth shut, and his clenched hands +loosened from their fierce tension. He took an aimless step and drew a +long breath. A moment later, quite automatically, he fumbled for his +cigarette-case, and finding it, took out a cigarette and lighted it +with fingers that were not steady. The familiar action and the first +puff of smoke affected him like emerging from a turmoil of darkness +into the quiet and order of a well-lighted room. "Well, may I be +damned!" he said to himself with the beginning of a return of his +usual assurance--"the damn little spitfire!" + +He walked about the room, puffing vigorously, feeling with relief his +blood resume its usual rate of circulation. His head seemed to clear +of a thick vapor. The startling recollection of the anger in his +fiancĂ©e's eyes was fading rapidly from his mind. Now he only saw her, +blushing, recoiling, fleeing--he laughed out a little, this time not +angrily, but with relish. "Ain't she the firebrand!" he said aloud. He +found his desire for her a hundredfold enhanced and stood still, his +eyes very lustrous, feeling again in imagination the warm softness of +her bosom under his lips. "Gee!" he exclaimed, turning restlessly in +his pacing walk. + +He was aware that some one in the room moved. "Jermain," said his +stepmother's faint voice. He looked at her smiling. "Hello, Momma," he +said good-naturedly, "when did _you_ gum-shoe in?" + +"Oh, just now," she told him, giving him an assurance which he +doubted, and which he would not have valued had he known it to +be true. He was perfectly indifferent as to the chance that this +negligible person might have been a spectator to the scene between the +son of the house and a guest. If she said anything about it, he meant +to give the all-sufficing explanation that he and Miss Marshall had +just become engaged. This would of course, it seemed self-evident to +him, make it all right. + +But Mrs. Fiske did not make any remark calling forth that information. +She only said, in her usual listless manner, "Your sleeve is shoved +up." + +He glanced down in surprise, realizing how excited he must be not to +have noticed that before, and remained for a moment silent, looking at +the splendidly muscular white arm, and the large well-manicured +hand. He was feeling in every nerve the reminiscence of the yielding +firmness of Sylvia's flesh, bare against his own. The color came up +flamingly into his face again. He moistened his lips with his tongue. +"Jesus _Christ_!" he exclaimed, contemptuously careless of his +listener, "I'm wild in love with that girl!" He pulled his sleeve down +with a quick, vigorous gesture, deftly shot the cuff out beyond the +black broadcloth, and, the picture of handsome, well-groomed youth in +easy circumstances, turned again to his father's wife. "What you in +here _for_, anyhow?" he asked still with his light absence of concern +about anything she did or did not do. + +She hesitated, looking about the room. "I thought Miss Marshall would +be here. She promised to come down early to write the names on the +place-cards. I thought I heard her voice." + +"You did," he told her. "She came down early all right--but she went +back again." He laughed, tossed his cigarette-end in the fireplace, +and vouchsafing no more explanation, strolled into the billiard-room, +and began to knock the balls about, whistling a recent dance tune with +great precision and vivacity. He was anticipating with quickened blood +the next meeting with Sylvia. As he thrust at the gleaming balls, his +mouth smiled and his eyes burned. + +Mrs. Fiske went upstairs and knocked at Sylvia's door. There was a +rush of quick footsteps and the girl asked from the other side in a +muffled voice, "Who is it?" Mrs. Fiske gave her name, and added, in +answer to another question, that she was alone. The door opened enough +for her to enter, and closed quickly after her. She looked about the +disordered room, saw the open trunk, the filmy cascade of yellow +chiffon half on and half off the bed, the torn and crumpled spangled +scarf, and Sylvia herself, her hastily donned kimono clutched about +her with tense hands. + +The mistress of the house made no comment on this scene, looking at +Sylvia with dull, faded eyes in which there was no life, not even the +flicker of an inquiry. But Sylvia began in a nervous voice to attempt +an explanation: "Oh, Mrs. Fiske--I--you'll have to excuse me--I must +go home at once--I--I was just packing. I thought--if I hurried I +could make the eight-o'clock trolley back to La Chance, and you could +send my trunk after me." Her every faculty was so concentrated on the +single idea of flight--flight back to the safety of home, that she did +not think of the necessity of making an excuse, giving a reason for +her action. It seemed that it must be self-evident to the universe +that she could not stay another hour in that house. + +Mrs. Fiske nodded. "Yes, I'll send your trunk after you," she said. +She drew a long breath, almost audible, and looked down at the fire on +the hearth. Sylvia came up close to her, looking into her lusterless +eyes with deep entreaty. "And, Mrs. Fiske, _would_ you mind not +telling any one I'm going, until I'm gone--_nobody_ at all! It's +because--I--you could say I didn't feel well enough to come down to +dinner. I--if you--and say I don't want any dinner up here either!" + +"Won't you be afraid to go down through the grounds to the trolley +alone, at night?" asked Mrs. Fiske, without looking at her. + +"Everybody will be at dinner, won't they?" asked Sylvia. + +Mrs. Fiske nodded, her eyes on the floor. + +Upon which, "Oh no, I won't be afraid!" cried Sylvia. + +Her hostess turned to the door. "Well, I won't tell them if you don't +want me to," she said. She went out, without another word, closing the +door behind her. Sylvia locked it, and went on with her wild packing. +When she came to the yellow chiffon she rolled it up tightly and +jammed it into a corner of her trunk; but the instant afterward she +snatched it out and thrust it fiercely into the fire. The light fabric +caught at once, the flames leaped up, filling the room with a roaring +heat and flare, which almost as quickly died down to blackened +silence. + +Sylvia faced that instant of red glare with a grimly set jaw and a +deeply flushed face. It did not look at all like her own face. + +At a quarter of eight the room was cleared, the trunk strapped and +locked, and Sylvia stood dressed for the street, gloved, veiled, and +furred. Under her veil her face showed still very flushed. She took up +her small handbag and her umbrella and opened the door with caution. +A faint clatter of dishes and a hum of laughing talk came up to her +ears. Dinner was evidently in full swing. She stepped out and went +noiselessly down the stairs. On the bottom step, close to the +dining-room door, her umbrella-tip caught in the balustrade and fell +with a loud clatter on the bare polished floor of the hall. Sylvia +shrank into herself and waited an instant with suspended breath for +the pause in the chatter and laughter which it seemed must follow. The +moment was forever connected in her mind with the smell of delicate +food, and fading flowers, and human beings well-washed and perfumed, +which floated out to her from the dining-room. She looked about her at +the luxuriously furnished great hall, and hated every inch of it. + +If the noise was heard, it evidently passed for something dropped by a +servant, for Colonel Fiske, who was telling a humorous story, went on, +his recital punctuated by bass and treble anticipatory laughter from +his auditors: "--and when he called her upon the 'phone the next day +to ask her about it, she said _she_ didn't know he'd been there at +all!" A roar of appreciation greeted this recondite climax, under +cover of which Sylvia opened the front door and shut it behind her. + +The pure coldness of the winter night struck sharply and gratefully on +her senses after the warmth and indoor odors of the house. She sprang +forward along the porch and down the steps, distending her nostrils +and filling her lungs again and again. These long deep breaths seemed +to her like the renewal of life. + +As her foot grated on the gravel of the driveway she heard a stealthy +sound back of her, at which her heart leaped up and stood still. The +front door of the house had opened very quietly and shut again. She +looked over her shoulder fearfully, preparing to race down the road, +but seeing only Mrs. Fiske's tall, stooping figure, stopped and turned +expectantly. The older woman came down the steps towards the fugitive, +apparently unaware of the biting winter wind on her bared shoulders. +Quite at a loss, and suspiciously on her guard, Sylvia waited for her, +searching the blurred pale face with impatient inquiry. + +"I--I thought I'd walk with you a little ways," said the other, +looking down at her guest. + +"Oh no! _Don't_!" pleaded Sylvia in despair lest some one notice her +hostess' absence. "You'll take a dreadful cold! With no wraps on--_do_ +go back! I'm not a bit afraid!" + +The other looked at her with a smoldering flush rising through the +ashes of her gray face. "It wasn't that--I didn't suppose you'd +be afraid--I--I just thought I'd like to go a ways with you," +she repeated, bringing out the words confusedly and with obvious +difficulty. "_I_ won't make you late," she added, as if guessing the +girl's thoughts. She put a thin hand on Sylvia's arm and drew her +rapidly along the driveway. For a moment they walked in silence. Then, +"How soon will you reach home?" she asked. + +"Oh, about a quarter to ten--the Interurban gets into La Chance +at nine-fifteen, and it's about half an hour across town on the +Washington Street trolley." + +"In less than two hours!" cried Mrs. Fiske wildly. "In less than two +hours!" + +Seeing no cause for wonder in her statement, and not welcoming at +all this unsought escort, Sylvia made no answer. There was another +silence, and then, looking in the starlight at her companion, the girl +saw with consternation that the quiet tears were running down her +cheeks. She stopped short, "Oh ... _oh_!" she cried. She caught up the +other's hand in a bewildered surprise. She had not the faintest idea +what could cause her hostess' emotion. She was horribly afraid she +would lose the trolley. Her face painted vividly her agitation and her +impatience. + +Mrs. Fiske drew back her hand and wiped her eyes with her palm. "Well, +I must be going back," she said. She looked dimly at the girl's face, +and suddenly threw her arms about Sylvia's neck, clinging to her. She +murmured incoherent words, the only ones which Sylvia could make out +being, "I can't--I can't--I _can't!_" + +What it was she could not do, remained an impenetrable mystery to +Sylvia, for at that moment she turned away quickly, and went back up +the driveway, her face in her hands. Sylvia hesitated, penetrated, +in spite of her absorption in her own affairs, by a vague pity, but +hearing in the distance the clang of the trolley-car's bell, she +herself turned and ran desperately down the driveway. She reached the +public road just in time to stop the heavy car, and to swing herself +lightly on, to all appearances merely a rather unusually well-set-up, +fashionably dressed young lady, presenting to the heterogeneous +indifference of the other passengers in the car even a more +ostentatiously abstracted air than is the accepted attitude for young +ladies traveling alone. One or two of her fellow voyagers wondered at +the deep flush on her face, but forgot it the next moment. It was a +stain which was not entirely to fade from Sylvia's face and body for +many days to come. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +"BLOW, WIND; SWELL, BILLOW; AND SWIM, BARK!" + + +She reached home, as she had thought, before ten o'clock, her +unexpected arrival occasioning the usual flurry of exclamation and +question not to be suppressed even by the most self-contained family +with a fixed desire to let its members alone, and a firm tradition of +not interfering in their private affairs. Judith had come home before +her father and now looked up from her game of checkers with wondering +eyes. Sylvia explained that she was not sick, and that nothing had +happened to break up or disturb the house-party. "I just _felt_ like +coming home, that's all!" she said irritably, touched on the raw by +the friendly loving eyes and voices about her. She was glad at least +that her father was not at home. That was one less to look at her. + +"Well, get along to bed with you!" said her mother, in answer to her +impatient explanation. "And, you children--keep still! Don't bother +her!" + +Sylvia crept upstairs into the whiteness of her own slant-ceilinged +room, and without lighting a lamp sat down on the bed. Her knees shook +under her. She made no move to take off her furs or hat. She felt no +emotion, only a leaden fatigue and lameness as though she had been +beaten. Her mother, coming in five minutes later with a lighted lamp +and a cup of hot chocolate, made no comment at finding her still +sitting, fully dressed in the dark. She set the lamp down, and with +swift deftness slipped out hatpins, unhooked furs, unbuttoned and +unlaced and loosened, until Sylvia woke from her lethargy and quickly +completed the process, slipping on her nightgown and getting into bed. +Not a word had been exchanged. Mrs. Marshall brought the cup of hot +chocolate and Sylvia drank it as though she were a little girl again. +Her mother kissed her good-night, drew the blankets a little more +snugly over her, opened two windows wide, took away the lamp, and shut +the door. + +Sylvia, warmed and fed by the chocolate, lay stretched at full length +in the bed, breathing in the fresh air which rushed across her face +from the windows, feeling herself in a white beatitude of safety and +peace. Especially did she feel grateful to her mother. "Isn't Mother +_great_!" she said to herself. Everything that had passed seemed like +a confusing dream to her, so dreadful, so terrifying that she was +amazed to feel herself, in spite of it, overcome with drowsiness. Now +the rĂ´les were reversed. It was her brain that was active, racing and +shuddering from one frightening mental picture to another, while her +body, young, sound, healthful, fell deeper and deeper into torpor, +dragging the quivering mind down to healing depths of oblivion. The +cold, pure air blew so strongly in her face that she closed her eyes. +When she opened them again the sun was shining. + +She started up nervously, still under the influence of a vivid +dream--strange.... Then as she blinked and rubbed her eyes she saw her +mother standing by the bed, with a pale, composed face. + +"It's nine o'clock, Sylvia," she said, "and Mr. Fiske is downstairs, +asking to see you. He tells me that you and he are engaged to be +married." + +Sylvia was instantly wide awake. "Oh no! Oh no!" she said +passionately. "No, we're not! I won't be! I won't see him!" She +looked about her wildly, and added, "I'll write him that--just wait a +minute." She sprang out of bed, caught up a pad of paper, and wrote +hastily: "It was all a mistake--I don't care for you at all--not a +bit! I hope I shall never have to speak to you again." "There," she +said, thrusting it into her mother's hands. She stood for a moment, +shivering in her thin nightgown in the icy draught, and then jumped +back into bed again. + +Her mother came back in a few moments, closed the windows, and opened +the register. There was not in her silence or in a line of her quiet +presence the faintest hint of curiosity about Sylvia's actions. +She had always maintained in theory, and now at this crisis with +characteristic firmness of purpose acted upon her theory, that +absolutely unforced confidence was the only kind worth having, and +that moreover, unless some help was necessary, it might be as well for +the younger generation early to acquire the strengthening capacity to +keep its own intimate experiences to the privacy of its own soul, +and learn to digest them and feed upon them without the dubiously +peptonizing aid of blundering adult counsel. Sylvia watched her mother +with wondering gratitude. She wasn't going to ask! She was going to +let Sylvia shut that ghastly recollection into the dark once for +all. She wasn't going by a look or a gesture to force her helplessly +responsive child to give, by words, weight and substance to a black, +shapeless horror from which Sylvia with a vivid impulse of sanity +averted her eyes. + +She got out of bed and put her arms around her mother's neck. "Say, +Mother, you are _great_!" she said in an unsteady voice. Mrs. Marshall +patted her on the back. + +"You'd better go and take your bath, and have your breakfast," she +said calmly. "Judith and Lawrence have gone skating." + +When Sylvia, tingling with the tonic shock of cold water and rough +toweling, and rosy in her old blue sailor-suit, came downstairs, she +found her mother frying pancakes for her in the kitchen blue with +smoke from the hot fat. She was touched, almost shocked by this +strange lapse from the tradition of self-help of the house, and said +with rough self-accusation: "My goodness! The idea of _your_ waiting +on _me_!" She snatched away the handle of the frying-pan and turned +the cakes deftly. Then, on a sudden impulse, she spoke to her mother, +standing by the sink. "I came back because I found I didn't like Jerry +Fiske as much as I thought I did. I found I didn't like him at all," +she said, her eyes on the frying-pan. + +At this announcement her mother's face showed pale, and for an instant +tremulous through the smoke. She did not speak until Sylvia lifted +the cakes from the pan and piled them on a plate. At this signal of +departure into the dining-room she commented, "Well, I won't pretend +that I'm not very glad." + +Sylvia flushed a little and looked towards her silently. She had a +partial, momentary vision of what the past two months must have been +to her mother. The tears stood in her eyes. "Say, Mother dear," she +said in a quavering voice that tried to be light, "why don't you eat +some of these cakes to keep me company? It's 'most ten. You must have +had breakfast three hours ago. It'd be fun! I can't begin to eat all +these." + +"Well, I don't care if I do," answered Mrs. Marshall. Sylvia laughed +at the turn of her phrase and went into the dining-room. Mrs. Marshall +followed in a moment with a cup of hot chocolate and buttered toast. +Sylvia pulled her down and kissed her. "You'd prescribe hot chocolate +for anything from getting religion to a broken leg!" she said, +laughing. Her voice shook and her laugh ended in a half-sob. + +"No--oh no!" returned her mother quaintly. "Sometimes hot milk is +better. Here, where is my share of those cakes?" She helped herself, +went around the table, and sat down. "Cousin Parnelia was here +this morning," she went on. "Poor old idiot, she was certain that +planchette would tell who it was that stole our chickens. I told her +to go ahead--but planchette wouldn't write. Cousin Parnelia laid it to +the blighting atmosphere of skepticism of this house." + +Sylvia laughed again. Alone in the quiet house with her mother, +refreshed by sleep, aroused by her bath, safe, sheltered, secure, she +tried desperately not to think of the events of the day before. But in +spite of herself they came back to her in jagged flashes--above all, +the handsome blond face darkened by passion. She shivered repeatedly, +her voice was quite beyond her control, and once or twice her hands +trembled so that she laid down her knife and fork. She was silent +and talkative by turns--a phenomenon of which Mrs. Marshall took no +outward notice, although when the meal was finished she sent her +daughter out into the piercing December air with the command to +walk six miles before coming in. Sylvia recoiled at the prospect of +solitude. "Oh, I'd rather go and skate with Judy and Larry!" she +cried. + +"Well, if you skate hard enough," her mother conceded. + + * * * * * + +The day after her return Sylvia had a long letter from Jermain Fiske, +a letter half apologetic, half aggrieved, passionately incredulous of +the seriousness of the break between them, and wholly unreconciled to +it. The upshot of his missive was that he was sorry if he had done +anything to offend her, but might he be everlastingly confounded if +he thought she had the slightest ground for complaint! Everything had +been going on so swimmingly--his father had taken the greatest notion +to her--had said (the very evening she'd cut and run that queer way) +that if he married that rippingly pretty Marshall girl he could have +the house and estate at Mercerton and enough to run it on, and could +practise as much or as little law as he pleased and go at once into +politics--and now she had gone and acted so--what in the world was +the matter with her--weren't they engaged to be married--couldn't an +engaged man kiss his girl--had he ever been anything but too polite +for words to her before she had promised to marry him--and what +_about_ that promise anyhow? His father had picked out the prettiest +little mare in the stables to give her when the engagement should be +announced--the Colonel was as much at a loss as he to make her out--if +the trouble was that she didn't want to live in Mercerton, he was sure +the Colonel would fix it up for them to go direct to Washington, where +with his father's connection she could imagine what an opening they'd +have! And above all he was crazy about her--he really was! He'd never +had any idea what it was to be in love before--he hadn't slept a wink +the night she'd gone away--just tossed on his bed and thought of her +and longed to have her in his arms again--Sylvia suddenly tore the +letter in two and cast it into the fire, breathing hard. In answer she +wrote, "It makes me sick to think of you!" + +She could not endure the idea of "talking over" the experience with +any one, and struggled to keep it out of her mind, but her resolution +to keep silence was broken by Mrs. Draper, who was informed, +presumably by Jermain himself, of the circumstances, and encountering +Sylvia in the street waited for no invitation to confidence by the +girl, but pounced upon her with laughing reproach and insidiously +friendly ridicule. Sylvia, helpless before the graceful assurance of +her friend, heard that she was a silly little unawakened schoolgirl +who was throwing away a brilliantly happy and successful life for the +queerest and funniest of ignorant notions. "What did you suppose, you +baby? You wouldn't have him marry you unless he was in love with you, +would you? Why do you suppose a man _wants_ to marry a woman? Did you +suppose that men in love carry their sweethearts around wrapped in +cotton-wool? You're a woman now, you ought to welcome life--rich, +full-blooded life--not take this chilly, suspicious attitude toward +it! Why, Sylvia, I thought you were a big, splendid, vital, fearless +modern girl--and here you are acting like a little, thin-blooded New +England old maid. How can you blame Jerry? He was engaged to you. What +do you think marriage _is_? Oh, Sylvia, just think what your life +would be in Washington with your beauty and charm!" + +This dexterously aimed attack penetrated Sylvia's armor at a dozen +joints. She winced visibly, and hung her head, considering profoundly. +She found that she had nothing to oppose to the other's arguments. +Mrs. Draper walked beside her in a silence as dexterous as her +exhortation, her hand affectionately thrust through Sylvia's arm. +Finally, Sylvia's ponderings continuing so long that they were +approaching the Marshall house, in sight of which she had no mind to +appear, she gave Sylvia's arm a little pat, and stood still. She said +cheerfully, in a tone which seemed to minimize the whole affair into +the smallest of passing incidents: "Now, you queer darling, don't +stand so in your own light! A word would bring Jerry back to you +now--but I won't say it will always. I don't suppose you've ever +considered, in your young selfishness, how cruelly you have hurt his +feelings! He was awfully sore when I saw him. And Eleanor Hubert is +right on the spot with Mamma Hubert in the background to push." + +Sylvia broke her silence to say in a low tone, blushing scarlet, "He +was--_horrid_!" + +Mrs. Draper dropped her light tone and said earnestly: "Dear little +ignorant Sylvia--you don't recognize life when you see it. That's the +way men are--all men--and there's no use thinking it horrid unless +you're going into a convent. It's not so bad either,--once you get the +hang of managing it--it's a hold on them. It's a force, like any other +force of nature that you can either rebel against, or turn to your +account and make serviceable, if you'll only accept it and not try to +quarrel with water for running downhill. As long as she herself isn't +carried away by it, it's a weapon in the hand of a clever woman. Only +the stupid women get hurt by it--the silly ones who can't keep their +heads. And after all, my dear, it _is_ a force of nature--and you're +too intelligent not to know that there's no use fighting against that. +It's just idiotic and puritanic to revolt from it--and doesn't do any +good besides!" She looked keenly into Sylvia's downcast, troubled +face, and judged it a propitious moment for leaving her. "_Good_-bye, +darling," she said, with a final pat on the shoulder. + +Sylvia walked slowly into the house, her heart like lead. Her food had +no savor to her. She did not know what she was eating, nor what her +mother, the only one at home for lunch, was saying to her. As a matter +of fact Mrs. Marshall said very little, even less than was her custom. +Her face had the look of terrible, patient endurance it had worn +during the time when Lawrence had had pneumonia, and his life had hung +in the balance for two days; but she went quietly about her usual +household tasks. + +After the meal was over, Sylvia continued to sit alone at the table, +staring palely down at the tablecloth, her mind full of Mrs. Draper's +illuminating comments on life, which had gone through her entire +system like a dexterously administered drug. And yet that ingenious +lady would have been surprised to know how entirely her attack had +failed in the one point which seemed to her important, the possibility +of a reconciliation between Sylvia and Jermain. The girl was deeply +under the impression made by the philosophy of the older woman; she +did not for the moment dream of denying its truth; but she stood +granite in a perfectly illogical denial of its implications in her own +case. She did not consciously revolt against the suggestion that she +renew her relations to Jerry Fiske, because with a united action of +all her faculties she refused utterly to consider it for an instant. +She would no more have been persuaded to see Jerry again, by a +consideration of the material advantages to be gained, than she could +have been persuaded to throw herself down from the housetop. That +much was settled, not by any coherent effort of her brain, but by a +co-ordination of every instinct in her, by the action of her whole +being, by what her life had made her. + +But that certainty brought her small comfort in the blackness of the +hour. What hideous world was this in which she had walked unawares +until now! Mrs. Draper's jaunty, bright acceptance of it affected her +to moral nausea. All the well-chosen words of her sophisticated friend +were imbedded in the tissue of her brain like grains of sand in an +eyeball. She could not see for very pain. And yet her inward vision +was lurid with the beginning of understanding of the meaning of those +words, lighted up as they were by her experience of the day before, +now swollen in her distraught mind to the proportions of a nightmare: +"It's a weapon in the hand of a clever woman--it's not so bad once +you get the hang of managing it--it's a hold on men--" Sylvia turned +whiter and whiter at the glimpse she had had of what was meant by +Mrs. Draper's lightly evasive "it"; a comprehension of which all her +"advanced" reading and study had left her mind as blankly ignorant as +a little child's. Now it was vain to try to shut her thoughts away +from Jermain. She lived over and over the scene with him, she endured +with desperate passivity the recollection of his burning lips on her +bosom, his fingers pressing into her side. Why not, if every man was +like that as soon as he dared? Why not, if that was all that men +wanted of women? Why not, if that was the sole ghastly reality which +underlay the pretty-smooth surface of life? + +And beyond this bleak prospect, which filled her with dreary horror, +there rose glimpsed vistas which sent the shamed blood up to her face +in a flood--if every man was like that, why, so were the men she had +known and loved and trusted; old Reinhardt, who seemed so simple, +what had been his thoughts when he used years ago to take her on his +knee--what were his thoughts now when he bent over her to correct her +mistakes on the piano? + +The expression of Colonel Fiske's eyes, as he had complimented her, +brought her to her feet with a shudder--but Colonel Fiske was an old, +old man--as old as Professor Kennedy-- + +Why, perhaps Professor Kennedy--perhaps--she flung out her +arms--perhaps her father-- + +She ran to the piano as to a refuge, meaning to drown out these +maddening speculations, which were by this time tinctured with +insanity; but the first chords she struck jarred on her ear like a +discordant scream. She turned away and stood looking at the floor with +a darkening face, one hand at her temple. + + * * * * * + +Her mother, darning stockings by the window, suddenly laid down her +work and said: "Sylvia, how would you like to walk with me over to the +Martins' to see if they have any eggs? Our hens have absolutely gone +back on us." + +Sylvia did not welcome this idea at all, feeling as overwhelming an +aversion to companionship as to solitude, but she could think of no +excuse, and in an ungracious silence put on her wraps and joined her +mother, ready on the porch, the basket in her mittened hand. + +Mrs. Marshall's pace was always swift, and on that crisp, cold, sunny +day, with the wind sweeping free over the great open spaces of the +plain about them, she walked even more rapidly than usual. Not a word +was spoken. Sylvia, quite as tall as her mother now, and as vigorous, +stepped beside her, not noticing their pace, nor the tingling of the +swift blood in her feet and hands. Her fresh young face was set in +desolate bitterness. + +The Martins' house was about six miles from the Marshalls'. It was +reached, the eggs procured, and the return begun. Still not a word had +been exchanged between the two women. Mrs. Marshall would have been +easily capable, under the most ordinary circumstances, of this long +self-contained silence, but it had worked upon Sylvia like a sojourn +in the dim recesses of a church. She felt moved, stirred, shaken. But +it was not until the brief winter sun was beginning to set red +across the open reaches of field and meadow that her poisoned heart +overflowed. "Oh, Mother--!" she exclaimed in an unhappy tone, and said +no more. She knew no words to phrase what was in her mind. + +"Yes, dear," said her mother gently. She looked at her daughter +anxiously, expectantly, with a passion of yearning in her eyes, but +she said no more than those two words. + +There was a silence. Sylvia was struggling for expression. They +continued to walk swiftly through the cold, ruddy, sunset air, the +hard-frozen road ringing beneath their rapid advance. Sylvia clasped +her hands together hard in her muff. She felt that something in her +heart was dying, was suffocating for lack of air, and yet that it +would die if she brought it to light. She could find no words at all +to ask for help, agonizing in a shy reticence impossible for an adult +to conceive. Finally, beginning at random, very hurriedly, looking +away, she brought out, faltering, "Mother, _is_ it true that all men +are--that when a girl marries she must expect to--aren't there _any_ +men who--" She stopped, burying her burning face in her muff. + +Her words, her tone, the quaver of desperate sincerity in her accent, +brought her mother up short. She stopped abruptly and faced the girl. +"Sylvia, look at me!" she said in a commanding voice which rang loud +in the frosty silences about them. Sylvia started and looked into her +mother's face. It was moved so darkly and so deeply from its usual +serene composure that she would have recoiled in fear, had she not +been seized upon and held motionless by the other's compelling eyes. + +"Sylvia," said her mother, in a strong, clear voice, acutely +contrasted to Sylvia's muffled tones, "Sylvia, it's a lie that men +are nothing but sensual! There's nothing in marriage that a good girl +honestly in love with a good man need fear." + +"But--but--" began Sylvia, startled out of her shyness. + +Her mother cut her short. "Anything that's felt by decent men in love +is felt just as truly, though maybe not always so strongly, by women +in love. And if a woman doesn't feel that answer in her heart to what +he feels--why, he's no mate for her. Anything's better for her than +going on. And, Sylvia, you mustn't get the wrong idea. Sensual feeling +isn't bad in itself. It's in the world because we have bodies as well +as minds--it's like the root of a plant. But it oughtn't to be a very +big part of the plant. And it must be the root of the woman's feeling +as well as the man's, or everything's all wrong." + +"But how can you _tell_!" burst out Sylvia. + +"You can tell by the way you feel, if you don't lie to yourself, or +let things like money or social position count. If an honest +girl shrinks from a man instinctively, there's something not +right--sensuality is too big a part of what the man feels for her--and +look here, Sylvia, that's not always the man's fault. Women don't +realize as they ought how base it is to try to attract men by their +bodies," she made her position clear with relentless precision, "when +they wear very low-necked dresses, for instance--" At this chance +thrust, a wave of scarlet burst up suddenly over Sylvia's face, but +she could not withdraw her eyes from her mother's searching, honest +gaze, which, even more than her words, spoke to the girl's soul. The +strong, grave voice went on unhesitatingly. For once in her life +Mrs. Marshall was speaking out. She was like one who welcomes the +opportunity to make a confession of faith. "There's no healthy life +possible without some sensual feeling between the husband and wife, +but there's nothing in the world more awful than married life when +it's the only common ground." + +Sylvia gazed with wide eyes at the older woman's face, ardent, +compelling, inspired, feeling too deeply, to realize it wholly, +the vital and momentous character of the moment. She seemed to see +nothing, to be aware of nothing but her mother's heroic eyes of truth; +but the whole scene was printed on her mind for all her life--the +hard, brown road they stood on, the grayed old rail-fence back of Mrs. +Marshall, a field of brown stubble, a distant grove of beech-trees, +and beyond and around them the immense sweeping circle of the horizon. +The very breath of the pure, scentless winter air was to come back to +her nostrils in after years. + +"Sylvia," her mother went on, "it is one of the responsibilities of +men and women to help each other to meet on a high plane and not on +a low one. And on the whole--health's the rule of the world--on +the whole, that's the way the larger number of husbands and wives, +imperfect as they are, do live together. Family life wouldn't be +possible a day if they didn't." + +Like a strong and beneficent magician, she built up again and +illuminated Sylvia's black and shattered world. "Your father is just +as pure a man as I am a woman, and I would be ashamed to look any +child of mine in the face if he were not. You know no men who are not +decent--except two--and those you did not meet in your parents' home." + +For the first time she moved from her commanding attitude of prophetic +dignity. She came closer to Sylvia, but although she looked at her +with a sudden sweetness which affected Sylvia like a caress, she but +made one more impersonal statement: "Sylvia dear, don't let anything +make you believe that there are not as many decent men in the world as +women, and they're just as decent. Life isn't worth living unless you +know that--and it's true." Apparently she had said all she had to say, +for she now kissed Sylvia gently and began again to walk forward. + +The sun had completely set, and the piled-up clouds on the horizon +flamed and blazed. Sylvia stood still, looking at them fixedly. The +great shining glory seemed reflected from her heart, and cast its +light upon a regenerated world--a world which she seemed to see for +the first time. Strange, in that moment of intensely personal life, +how her memory was suddenly flooded with impersonal impressions of +childhood, little regarded at the time and long since forgotten, +but now recurring to her with the authentic and uncontrovertible +brilliance which only firsthand experiences in life can bring with +them--all those families of her public-school mates, the plain, ugly +homes in and out of which she had come and gone, with eyes apparently +oblivious of all but childish interests, but really recording +life-facts which now in her hour of need stretched under her feet like +a solid pathway across an oozing marsh. All those men and women whom +she had seen in a thousand unpremeditated acts, those tired-faced, +kind-eyed, unlettered fathers and mothers were not breathing poisoned +air, were not harboring in their simple lives a ghastly devouring +wild-beast. She recalled with a great indrawn breath all the +farmer-neighbors, parents working together for the children, the +people she knew so well from long observation of their lives, whose +mediocre, struggling existence had filled her with scornful pity, but +whom now she recalled with a great gratitude for the explicitness of +the revelations made by their untutored plainness. For all she could +ever know, the Drapers and the Fiskes and the others of their +world might be anything, under the discreet reticence of their +sophistication; but they did not make up all the world. She knew, from +having breathed it herself, the wind of health which blew about those +other lives, bare and open to the view, as less artless lives were +not. There was some other answer to the riddle, beside Mrs. Draper's. + +Sylvia was only eighteen years old and had the childish immaturity of +her age, but her life had been so ordered that she was not, even at +eighteen, entirely in the helpless position of a child who must depend +on the word of others. She had accumulated, unknown to herself, quite +apart from polished pebbles of book-information, a small treasury +of living seeds of real knowledge of life, taken in at first-hand, +knowledge of which no one could deprive her. The realization of this +was a steadying ballast which righted the wildly rolling keel under +her feet. She held up her head bravely against the first onslaught of +the storm. She set her hand to the rudder! + +Perceiving that her mother had passed on ahead of her she sprang +forward in a run. She ran like a schoolboy, like a deer, like a man +from whose limbs heavy shackles have been struck off. She felt so +suddenly lightened of a great heaviness that she could have clapped +her hands over her head and bounded into the air. She was, after all, +but eighteen years old, and three years before had been a child. + +She came up to her mother with a rush, radiating life. Mrs. Marshall +looked at the glowing face and her own eyes, dry till then, filled +with the tears so rare in her self-controlled life. She put out her +hand, took Sylvia's, and they sped along through the quick-gathering +dusk, hand-in-hand like sisters. + +Judith and Lawrence had reached home before them, and the low brown +house gleamed a cheerful welcome to them from shining windows. For the +first time in her life, Sylvia did not take for granted her home, with +all that it meant. For an instant it looked strangely sweet to her. +She had a passing glimpse, soon afterwards lost in other impressions, +of how in after years she would look back on the roof which had +sheltered and guarded her youth. + +She lay awake that night a long time, staring up into the cold +blackness, her mind very active and restless in the intense stillness +about her. She thought confusedly but intensely of many things--the +months behind her, of Jerry, of Mrs. Draper, of her yellow dress, +of her mother--of herself. In the lucidity of those silent hours of +wakefulness she experienced for a time the piercing, regenerating +thrust of self-knowledge. For a moment the full-beating pulses of her +youth slackened, and between their throbs there penetrated to her +perplexed young heart the rarest of human emotions, a sincere +humility. If she had not burned the yellow dress at Mercerton, she +would have arisen and burned it that night.... + +During the rest of the Christmas vacation she avoided being alone. She +and Judith and Lawrence skated a great deal, and Sylvia learned at +last to cut the grapevine pattern on the ice. She also mastered the +first movement of the Sonata PathĂ©tique, so that old Reinhardt was +almost satisfied. + +The day after the University opened for the winter term the Huberts +announced the engagement of their daughter Eleanor to Jermain Fiske, +Jr., the brilliant son of that distinguished warrior and statesman, +Colonel Jermain Fiske. Sylvia read this announcement in the Society +Column of the La Chance _Morning Herald_, with an enigmatic expression +on her face, and betaking herself to the skating-pond, cut grapevines +with greater assiduity than ever, and with a degree of taciturnity +surprising in a person usually so talkative. That she had taken the +first step away from the devouring egotism of childhood was proved by +the fact that at least part of the time, this vigorous young creature, +swooping about the icy pond like a swallow, was thinking pityingly of +Eleanor Hubert's sweet face. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +SOME YEARS DURING WHICH NOTHING HAPPENS + + +Judith had said to the family, taking no especial pains that her +sister should not hear her, "Well, folks, now that Sylvia's got +through with that horrid Fiske fellow, I do hope we'll all have some +peace!" a remark which proved to be a prophecy. They all, including +Sylvia herself, knew the tranquillity of an extended period of peace. + +It began abruptly, like opening a door into a new room. Sylvia had +dreaded the beginning of the winter term and the inevitable sight of +Jerry, the enforced crossings of their paths. But Jerry never returned +to his classes at all. The common talk was to the effect that the +Colonel had "worked his pull" to have Jerry admitted to the bar +without further preliminaries. After some weeks of relief, it occurred +to Sylvia that perhaps Jerry had dreaded meeting her as much as she +had seeing him. For whatever reason, the campus saw young Fiske no +more, except on the day in May when he passed swiftly across it on his +way to the Hubert house where Eleanor, very small and white-faced, +waited for him under a crown of orange blossoms. + +Sylvia did not go to the wedding, although an invitation had come, +addressed economically and compendiously to "Professor and Mrs. +Marshall and family." It was a glorious spring day and in her Greek +history course they had just reached the battle of Salamis, at the +magnificent recital of which Sylvia's sympathetic imagination leaped +up rejoicing, as all sympathetic imaginations have for all these many +centuries. She was thrilling to a remembered bit of "The Persians" as +she passed by the Hubert house late that afternoon. She was chanting +to herself, "The right wing, well marshaled, led on foremost in good +order, and we heard a mighty shout--'Sons of the Greeks! On! Free your +country!'" She did not notice that she trod swiftly across a trail of +soiled rice in the Hubert driveway. + +She was like a person recovered from a fever who finds mere health a +condition of joy. She went back to her music, to her neglected books, +with a singing heart. And in accordance with the curious ways of +Providence, noted in the proverb relating the different fates of him +who hath and him who hath not, there was at once added to her pleasure +in the old elements of her life the very elements she had longed for +unavailingly. Seeing her friendly and shining of face, friendliness +went out to her. She had made many new acquaintances during her brief +glittering flight and had innumerable more points of contact with the +University life than before. She was invited to a quite sufficient +number of hops and proms, had quite the normal number of masculine +"callers," and was naĂŻvely astonished and disillusioned to find that +those factors in life were by no means as entirely desirable and +amusing as her anguished yearning had fancied them. She joined one of +the literary societies and took a leading part in their annual outdoor +play. At the beginning of her Junior year, Judith entered as a +Freshman and thereafter became a close companion. Sylvia devoured +certain of her studies, history, and English, and Greek, with +insatiable zest and cast aside certain others like political economy +and physics, which bored her, mastering just enough of their elements +to pass an examination and promptly forgetting them thereafter. She +grew rapidly in intellectual agility and keenness, not at all in +philosophical grasp, and emotionally remained as dormant as a potato +in a cellar. + +She continually looked forward with a bright, vague interest to +"growing up," to the mastery of life which adolescents so trustfully +associate with the arrival of adult years. She spent three more years +in college, taking a Master's degree after her B.A., and during those +three years, through the many-colored, shifting, kaleidoscopic, +disorganized life of an immensely populous institution of learning, +she fled with rapid feet, searching restlessly everywhere for that +entity, as yet non-existent, her own soul. + +She had, in short, a thoroughly usual experience of modern American +education, emerging at the end with a vast amount of information, with +very little notion of what it was all about, with Phi Beta Kappa and a +great wonder what she was to do with herself. + +Up to that moment almost every step of her life had been ordered and +systematized, that she might the more quickly and surely arrive at the +goal of her diploma. Rushing forward with the accumulated impetus of +years of training in swiftly speeding effort, she flashed by the goal +... and stopped short, finding herself in company with a majority of +her feminine classmates in a blind alley. "_Now_ what?" they asked +each other with sinking hearts. Judith looked over their heads with +steady eyes which saw but one straight and narrow path in life, and +passed on by them into the hospital where she began her nurse's +training. Sylvia began to teach music to a few children, to take on +some of Reinhardt's work as he grew older. She practised assiduously, +advanced greatly in skill in music, read much, thought acutely, +rebelliously and not deeply, helped Lawrence with his studies ... and +watched the clock. + +For there was no denying that the clock stood still. She was not going +forward to any settled goal now, she was not going forward at all. She +was as far from suspecting any ordered pattern in the facts of life as +when she had been in college, surrounded by the conspiracy of +silence about a pattern in facts which university professors so +conscientiously keep up before their students. She was slowly +revolving in an eddy. Sometimes she looked at the deep, glowing +content of her father and mother with a fierce resentment. "How _can_ +they!" she cried to herself. At other times she tried to chide herself +for not being as contented herself, "... but it's their life they're +living," she said moodily, "and I haven't any to live. I can't live on +their happiness any more than the beefsteaks somebody else has eaten +can keep me from starving to death." + +The tradition of her life was that work and plenty of it would keep +off all uneasiness, that it was a foolishness, not to say a downright +crime, to feel uneasiness. So she practised many hours a day, and took +a post-graduate course in early Latin. But the clock stood still. + +One of the assistants in her father's department proposed to her. +She refused him automatically, with a wondering astonishment at his +trembling hands and white lips. Decidedly the wheels of the clock +would never begin to revolve. + +And then it struck an hour, loudly. Aunt Victoria wrote inviting +Sylvia to spend a few weeks with her during the summer at Lydford. + +Sylvia read this letter aloud to her mother on the vine-covered porch +where she had sat so many years before, and repeated "star-light, +star-bright" until she had remembered Aunt Victoria. Mrs. Marshall +watched her daughter's face as she read, and through the tones of the +clear eager voice she heard the clock striking. It sounded to her +remarkably like a tolling bell, but she gave no sign beyond a slight +paling. She told herself instantly that the slowly ticking clock +had counted her out several years of grace beyond what a mother +may expect. When Sylvia finished and looked up, the dulled look of +resignation swept from her face by the light of adventurous change, +her mother achieved the final feat of nodding her head in prompt, +cheerful assent. + +But when Sylvia went away, light-hearted, fleeting forward to new +scenes, there was in her mother's farewell kiss a solemnity which she +could not hide. "Oh, Mother dear!" protested Sylvia, preferring +as always to skim over the depths which her mother so dauntlessly +plumbed. "Oh, Mother darling! How can you be so--when it's only for a +few weeks!" + + + + +BOOK III + +_IN CAPUA AT LAST_ + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +A GRATEFUL CARTHAGINIAN + + +Arnold Smith put another lump of sugar on his saucer, poured out +a very liberal allowance of rum into his tea, and reached for a +sandwich, balancing the cup and saucer with a deftness out of keeping +with his long, ungraceful loose-jointedness. He remarked in an +indifferent tone to Sylvia, back of the exquisitely appointed +tea-tray: "I don't say anything because I haven't the least idea what +you are talking about. Who _was_ Capua, anyhow?" + +Sylvia broke into a peal of laughter which rang like a silver +chime through the vine-shaded, airy spaces of the pergola. Old Mr. +Sommerville, nosing about in his usual five-o'clock quest, heard +her and came across the stretch of sunny lawn to investigate. +"Oh, _here's_ tea!" he remarked on seeing Arnold, lounging, +white-flanneled, over his cup. He spoke earnestly, as was his custom +when eating was in question, and Sylvia served him earnestly and +carefully, with an instant harmonious response to his mood, putting +in exactly the right amount of rum and sugar to suit his taste, and +turning the slim-legged "curate's assistant" so that his favorite +sandwiches were nearest him. + +"You spoil the old gentlemen, Sylvia," commented Arnold, evidently +caring very little whether she did or not. + +"She spoils everybody," returned Mr. Sommerville, tasting his tea +complacently; "'_c'est son mĂ©tier._' She has an uncanny instinct for +suiting everybody's taste." + +Sylvia smiled brightly at him, exactly the brilliant smile which +suited her brilliant, frank face and clear, wide-open eyes. Under her +smile she was saying to herself, "If that's so, I wonder--not that I +care at all--but I really wonder why you don't like me." + +Sylvia was encountering for the first time this summer a society +guided by tradition and formula, but she was not without excellent +preparation for almost any contact with her fellow-beings, a +preparation which in some ways served her better than that more +conscious preparation of young ladies bred up from childhood to +sit behind tea-tables and say the right things to tea-drinkers. +Association with the crude, outspoken youth at the State University +had been an education in human nature, especially masculine nature, +for her acute mind. Her unvarnished association with the other sex in +classroom and campus had taught her, by means of certain rough knocks +which more sheltered boarding-school girls never get, an accuracy +of estimate as to the actual feeling of men towards the women they +profess to admire unreservedly which (had he been able to conceive of +it) old Mr. Sommerville would have thought nothing less than cynical. + +But he did not conceive of it, and now sat, mellowed by the +rightness of his tea, white-haired, smooth-shaven, pink-gilled, +white-waistcoated, the picture of old age at its best, as he smiled +gallantly at the extremely pretty girl behind the table. Unlike Sylvia +he knew exactly why he did not like her and he wasted no time in +thinking about it. "What were you laughing about, so delightfully, as +I came in, eh?" he asked, after the irretrievable first moment of joy +in gratified appetite had gone. + +Sylvia had not the slightest backwardness about explaining. In fact +she always took the greatest pains to be explicit with old Mr. +Sommerville about the pit from which she had been digged. "Why, this +visit to Aunt Victoria is like stepping into another world for me. +Everything is so different from my home-life. I was just thinking, as +I sat there behind all this glorious clutter," she waved a slim hand +over the silver and porcelain of the tea-table, "what a change it +was from setting the table one's self and washing up the dishes +afterwards. That's what we always do at home. I hated it and I said +to Arnold, 'I've reached Capua at last!' and he said," she stopped to +laugh again, heartily, full-throated, the not-to-be-imitated laugh of +genuine amusement, "he said, 'Who is Capua, anyhow?'" + +Mr. Sommerville laughed, but grudgingly, with an impatient shake of +his white head and an uneasy look in his eyes. For several reasons he +did not like to hear Sylvia laugh at Arnold. He distrusted a young +lady with too keen a sense of humor, especially when it was directed +towards the cultural deficiencies of a perfectly eligible young man. +To an old inhabitant of the world, with Mr. Sommerville's views as to +the ambitions of a moneyless young person, enjoying a single, brief +fling in the world of young men with fortunes, it seemed certain that +Sylvia's lack of tactful reticence about Arnold's ignorance could only +be based on a feeling that Arnold's fortune was not big enough. She +was simply, he thought with dismay, reserving her tact and reticence +for a not-impossible bigger. His apprehensions about the fate of a +bigger of his acquaintance if its owner ever fell into the hands of +this altogether too well-informed young person rose to a degree which +almost induced him to cry out, "Really, you rapacious young creature, +Arnold's is all any girl need ask, ample, well-invested, solid...." +But instead he said, "Humph! Rather a derogatory remark about your +surroundings, eh?" + +Arnold did not understand, did not even hear, leaning back, long, +relaxed, apathetic, in his great wicker-chair and rolling a cigarette +with a detached air, as though his hands were not a part of him. +But Sylvia heard, and understood, even to the hostility in the old +gentleman's well-bred voice. "Being in Capua usually referring to the +fact that the Carthaginians went to pieces that winter?" she asked. +"Oh yes, of course I know that. Good gracious! I was brought up on the +idea of the dangers of being in Capua. Perhaps that's why I always +thought it would be such fun to get there." She spoke rebelliously. + +"They got everlastingly beaten by the Romans," advanced Mr. +Sommerville. + +"Yes, but they had had one grand good time before! The Romans couldn't +take _that_ away from them! I think the Carthaginians got the best of +it!" Provocative, light-hearted malice was in her sparkling face. She +was thinking to herself with the reckless bravado of youth, "Well, +since he insists, I'll _give_ him some ground for distrusting my +character!" + +Arnold suddenly emitted a great puff of smoke and a great shout of +"Help! help! Molly to the rescue!" and when a little white-clad +creature flitting past the door turned and brought into that quiet +spot of leafy shadow the dazzling quickness of her smile, her eyes, +her golden hair, he said to her nonchalantly: "Just in time to head +them off. Sylvia and your grandfather were being so high-brow I was +beginning to feel faint," + +Molly laughed flashingly. "Did Grandfather keep his end up? I bet he +couldn't!" + +Arnold professed an entire ignorance of the relative status. "Oh, I +fell off so far back I don't know who got in first. Who _was_ this man +Capua, anyhow? I'm a graduate of Harvard University and I never heard +of him." + +"I'm a graduate of Miss Braddon's Mountain School for Girls," said +Molly, "and _I_ think it's a river." + +Mr. Sommerville groaned out, exaggerating a real qualm, "What my +mother would have said to such ignorance, prefaced by 'I bet!' from +the lips of a young lady!" + +"Your mother," said Molly, "would be my great-grandmother!" She +disposed of him conclusively by this statement and went on: "And I'm +not a young lady. Nobody is nowadays." + +"What _are_ you, if a mere grandfather may venture to inquire?" asked +Mr. Sommerville deferentially. + +"I'm a _femme watt-man"_ said Molly, biting a large piece from a +sandwich. + +Arnold explained to the others: "That's Parisian for a lady +motor-driver; some name!" + +"Well, you won't be that, or anything else alive, if you go on driving +your car at the rate I saw it going past the house this morning," +said her grandfather. He spoke with an assumption of grandfatherly +severity, but his eyes rested on her with a grandfather's adoration. + +"Oh, I'd die if I went under thirty-five," observed Miss Sommerville +negligently. + +"Why, Mr. Sommerville," Arnold backed up his generation. "You can't +call thirty-five per hour dangerous, not for a girl who can drive like +Molly." + +"Oh, I'm as safe as if I were in a church," continued Molly. "I keep +my mind on it. If I ever climb a telegraph-pole you can be sure it'll +be because I wanted to. I never take my eye off the road, never once." + +"How you must enjoy the landscape," commented her grandfather. + +"Heavens! I don't drive a car to look at the landscape!" cried Molly, +highly amused at the idea, apparently quite new to her. + +"Will you gratify the curiosity of the older generation once more, and +tell me what you _do_ drive a car for?" inquired old Mr. Sommerville, +looking fondly at the girl's lovely face, like a pink-flushed pearl. + +"Why, I drive to see how fast I can go, of course," explained Molly. +"The fun of it is to watch the road eaten up." + +"It _is_ fascinating," Sylvia gave the other girl an unexpected +reinforcement. "I've driven with Molly, and I've been actually +hypnotized seeing the road vanish under the wheels." + +"Oh, children, children! When you reach my age," groaned Arnold, "and +have eaten up as many thousand miles as I, you'll stay at home." + +"I've driven for three years now," asserted Molly, "and every time I +buy a new car I get the craze all over again. This one I have now is +a peach of an eight. I never want to drive a six again,--never! I can +bring it up from a creep to--to fast enough to scare Grandfather into +a fit, without changing gears at all--just on the throttle--" She +broke off to ask, as at a sudden recollection, "What was it about +Capua, anyhow?" She went to sit beside Sylvia, and put her arm around +her shoulder in a caressing gesture, evidently familiar to her. + +"It wasn't about Capua at all," explained Sylvia indulgently, patting +the lovely cheek, as though the other girl had been a child. "It was +your grandfather finding out what a bad character I am, and how I +wallow in luxury, now I have the chance." + +"Luxury?" inquired Molly, looking about her rather blankly. + +Sylvia laughed, this time with a little veiled, pensive note of +melancholy, lost on the others but which she herself found very +touching. "There, you see you're so used to it, you don't even know +what I'm talking about!" + +"Never mind, Molly," Arnold reassured her. "Neither do I! Don't try to +follow; let it float by, the way I do!" + +Miss Sommerville did not smile. She thrust out her red lips in a +wistful pout, and looking down into the sugar-bowl intently, she +remarked, her voice as pensive as Sylvia's own: "I wish I _did_! I +wish I understood! I wish I were as clever as Sylvia!" + +As if in answer to this remark, another searcher after tea announced +himself from the door--a tall, distinguished, ugly, graceful man, +who took a very fine Panama hat from a very fine head of brown hair, +slightly graying, and said in a rich, cultivated voice: "Am I too late +for tea? I don't mind at all if it's strong." + +"Oh!" said Molly Sommerville, flushing and drawing away from Sylvia; +"_Lord_!" muttered Arnold under his breath; and "Not at all. I'll make +some fresh. I haven't had mine yet," said Sylvia, busying herself with +the alcohol flame. + +"How're you, Morrison?" said Mr. Sommerville with no enthusiasm, +holding out a well-kept old hand for the other to shake. + +Arnold stood up, reached under his chair, and pulled out a tennis +racquet. "Excuse me, Morrison, won't you, if I run along?" he said. +"It's not because you've come. I want a set of tennis before dinner +if I can find somebody to play with me. Here, Molly, you've got your +tennis shoes on already. Come along." + +The little beauty shook her head violently. "No ... goodness no! It's +too hot. And anyhow, I don't ever want to play again, since I've seen +Sylvia's game." She turned to the other girl, breathing quickly. +"_You_ go, Sylvia dear. _I'll_ make Mr. Morrison's tea for him." + +Sylvia hesitated a barely perceptible instant, until she saw old Mr. +Sommerville's eyes fixed speculatively on her. Then she stood up with +an instant, cheerful alacrity. "That's _awfully_ good of you, Molly +darling! _You_ won't mind, will you, Mr. Morrison!" She nodded +brightly to the old gentleman, to the girl who had slipped into her +place, to the other man, and was off. + +The man she had left looked after her, as she trod with her long, +light step beside the young man, and murmured, "_Et vera incessu +patuit dea._" + +Molly moved a plate on the table with some vehemence. "I suppose +Sylvia would understand that language." + +"She would, my dear Molly, and what's more, she would scorn me for +using such a hackneyed quotation." To Mr. Sommerville he added, +laughing, "Isn't it the quaintest combination--such radiant girlhood +and her absurd book-learning!" + +Mr. Sommerville gave his assent to the quaintness by silence, as he +rose and prepared to retreat. + +"_Good_-bye, Grandfather," said Molly with enthusiasm. + + * * * * * + +As they walked along, Arnold was saying to Sylvia with a listless +appreciation: "You certainly know the last word of the game, don't +you, Sylvia? I bet Morrison hasn't had a jolt like that for years." + +"What are you _talking_ about?" asked Sylvia, perhaps slightly +overdoing her ignorance of his meaning. + +"Why, it's a new thing for _him_, let me tell you, to have a girl jump +up as soon as he comes in and delightedly leave him to another girl. +And then to thank the other girl for being willing to take him off +your hands,--that's more than knowing the rules,--that's art!" He +laughed faintly at the recollection. "It's a new one for Morrison to +meet a girl who doesn't kowtow. He's a very great personage in +his line, and he can't help knowing it. The very last word on +Lord-knows-what-all in the art business is what one Felix Morrison +says about it. He's an eight-cylinder fascinator too, into the +bargain. Mostly he makes me sore, but when I think about him straight, +I wonder how he manages to keep on being as decent as he is--he's +really a good enough sort!--with all the high-powered petticoats in +New York burning incense. It's enough to turn the head of a hydrant. +That's the hold Madrina has on him. She doesn't burn any incense. She +wants all the incense there is being burned, for herself; and it keeps +old Felix down in his place--keeps him hanging around too. You stick +to the same method if you want to make a go of it." + +"I thought he wrote. I thought he did aesthetic criticisms and +essays," said Sylvia, laughing aloud at Arnold's quaint advice. + +"Oh, he does. I guess he's chief medicine-man in his tribe all right. +It's not only women who kowtow; when old man Merriman wants to know +for sure whether to pay a million for a cracked Chinese vase, he +always calls in Felix Morrison. Chief adviser to the predatory rich, +that's one of his jobs! So you see," he came back to his first point, +"it must be some jolt for the sacred F.M. to have a young lady, _just +a young lady_, refuse to bow at the shrine. You couldn't have done a +smarter trick, by heck! I've been watching you all those weeks, just +too tickled for words. And I've been watching Morrison. It's been as +good as a play! He can't stick it out much longer, unless I miss my +guess, and I've known him ever since I was a kid. He's just waiting +for a good chance to turn on the faucet and hand you a full cup of his +irresistible fascination." He added carelessly, bouncing a ball up and +down on the tense catgut of his racquet: "What all you girls see in +that old wolf-hound, to lose your heads over! It gets me!" + +"Why in the world 'wolf-hound'?" asked Sylvia. + +"Oh, just as to his looks. He has that sort of tired, dignified, +deep-eyed look a big dog has. I bet his eyes would be phosphorescent +at night too. They are that kind; don't you know, when you strike a +match in the evening, how a dog's eyes glow? It's what makes 'em look +so soft and deep in the daytime. But as to his innards--no, Lord +no! Whatever else Morrison is he's not a bit like any dog that ever +lived--first cousin to a fish, I should say." + +Sylvia laughed. "Why not make it grizzly bear, to take in the rest of +the animal kingdom?" + +"No," persisted Arnold. "Now I've thought of it, I _mean_ fish, a +great big, wise old fellow, who lives in a deep pool and won't rise to +any ordinary fly." He made a brain-jolting change of metaphor and went +on: "The plain truth, and it's not so low-down as it seems, is that a +big fat check-book is admission to the grandstand with Felix. It _has_ +to be that way! He hasn't got much of his own, and his tastes are +some--" + +"Molly must be sitting in the front row, then," commented Sylvia +indifferently, as though tired of the subject. They were now at the +tennis-court. "Run over to the summer-house and get my racquet, will +you? It's on the bench." + +"Yes, Molly's got plenty of _money_," Arnold admitted as he came +back, his accent implying some other lack which he forgot to mention, +absorbed as he at once became in coping with his adversary's strong, +swift serve. + +The change in him, as he began seriously to play, was startling, +miraculous. His slack loose-jointedness stiffened into quick, +flexible accuracy, his lounging, flaccid air disappeared in a glow +of concentrated vigorous effort. The bored good-nature in his eyes +vanished, burned out by a stern, purposeful intensity. He was +literally and visibly another person. Sylvia played her best, which +was excellent, far better than that of any other girl in the summer +colony. She had been well trained by her father and her gymnasium +instructor, and played with an economy of effort delightful to see; +but she was soon driven by her opponent's tiger-like quickness into +putting out at once her every resource. There, in the slowly fading +light of the long mountain afternoon, the two young Anglo-Saxons +poured out their souls in a game with the immemorial instinct of their +race, fierce, grim, intent, every capacity of body and will-power +brought into play, everything else in the world forgotten.... + +For some time they were on almost equal terms, and then Sylvia became +aware that her adversary was getting the upper hand of her. She had, +however, no idea what the effort was costing him, until after a +blazing fire of impossibly rapid volleys under which she went down +to defeat, she stopped, called out, "Game _and_ set!" and added in a +generous tribute, "Say, you can _play_!" Then she saw that his face +was almost purple, his eyes bloodshot, and his breath came in short, +gasping pants. "Good gracious, what's the matter!" she cried, running +towards him in alarm. She was deeply flushed herself, but her eyes +were as clear as clear water, and she ran with her usual fawn-like +swiftness. Arnold dropped on the bench, waving her a speechless +reassurance. With his first breath he said, "Gee! but you can hit it +up, for a girl!" + +"What's the _matter_ with you?" Sylvia asked again, sitting down +beside him. + +"Nothing! Nothing!" he panted. "My wind! It's confoundedly short." +He added a moment later, "It's tobacco--this is the sort of time the +cigarettes get back at you, you know!" The twilight dropped slowly +about them like a thin, clear veil. He thrust out his feet, shapely in +their well-made white shoes, surveyed them with dissatisfaction, and +added with moody indifference: "And cocktails too. They play the +dickens with a fellow's wind." + +Sylvia said nothing for a moment, looking at him by no means +admiringly. Her life in the State University had brought her into such +incessant contact with young men that the mere fact of sitting +beside one in the twilight left her unmoved to a degree which Mr. +Sommerville's mother would have found impossible to imagine. When she +spoke, it was with an impatient scorn of his weakness, which might +have been felt by a fellow-athlete: "What in the world makes you do +it, then?" + +"Why not?" he said challengingly. + +"You've just said why not--it spoils your tennis. It must spoil your +polo. Was that what spoiled your baseball in college? You'd be twice +the man if you wouldn't." + +"Oh, what's the use?" he said, an immense weariness in his voice. + +"What's the use of anything, if you are going to use _that_ argument?" +said Sylvia, putting him down conclusively. + +He spoke with a sudden heartfelt simplicity, "Damn 'f I _know_, +Sylvia." For the first time in all the afternoon, his voice lost its +tonelessness, and rang out with the resonance of sincerity. + +She showed an unflattering surprise. "Why, I didn't know you ever +thought about such things." + +He looked at her askance, dimly amused. "High opinion you have of me!" + +She looked annoyed at herself and said with a genuine good-will in her +voice, "Why, Arnold, you _know_ I've always liked you." + +"You like me, but you don't think much of me," he diagnosed her, "and +you show your good sense." He looked up at the picturesque white +house, spreading its well-proportioned bulk on the top of the terraced +hillside before them. "I hope Madrina is looking out of a window and +sees us here, our heads together in the twilight. You've guessed, I +suppose, that she had you come on here for my benefit. She thinks +she's tried everything else,--now it's her idea to get me safely +married. She'd have one surprise, wouldn't she, if she could hear what +we're saying!" + +"Well, it _would_ be a good thing for you," remarked Sylvia, as +entirely without self-consciousness as though they were discussing the +tennis game. + +He was tickled by her coolness. "Well, Madrina sure made a mistake +when she figured on _you_!" he commented ironically. And then, not +having been subjected to the cool, hardy conditions which caused +Sylvia's present clear-headedness, he felt his blood stirred to feel +her there, so close, so alive, so young, so beautiful in the twilight. +He leaned towards her and spoke in a husky voice, "See here, Sylvia, +why _don't_ you try it!" + +"Oh, nonsense!" said the girl, not raising her voice at all, not +stirring. "You don't care a bit for me." + +"Yes, I do! I've _always_ liked you!" he said, not perceiving till +after the words were out of his mouth that he had repeated her own +phrase. + +She laughed to hear it, and he drew back, his faint stirring of warmth +dashed, extinguished. "The fact is, Sylvia," he said, "you're too nice +a girl to fall in love with." + +"What a horrid thing to say!" she exclaimed. + +"About _you_?" he defended himself. "I mean it as a compliment." + +"About falling in love," she said. + +"Oh!" he said blankly, evidently not at all following her meaning. + +"What time is it?" she now inquired, and on hearing the hour, "Oh, +we'll be late to dress for dinner," she said in concern, rising and +ascending the marble steps to the terrace next above them. + +He came after her, long, loose-jointed, ungraceful. He was laughing. +"Do you realize that I've proposed marriage to you and you've turned +me down?" he said. + +"No such a thing!" she said, as lightly as he. + +"It's the nearest _I_ ever came to it!" he averred. + +She continued to flit up the terraces before him, her voice rippling +with amusement dropping down on him through the dusk. "Well, you'll +have to come nearer than that, if you ever want to make a go of +it!" she called over her shoulder. Upon which note this very modern +conversation ended. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +MORE TALK BETWEEN YOUNG MODERNS + + +When they met at dinner, they laughed outright at the sight of one +another, a merry and shadowless laugh. For an instant they looked like +light-hearted children. The change of Arnold's long sallow face was +indeed so noticeable that Mrs. Marshall-Smith glanced sharply at him, +and then looked again with great satisfaction. She leaned to Sylvia +and laid her charming white hand affectionately over the girl's slim, +strong, tanned fingers. "It's just a joy to have you here, my dear. +You're brightening us stupid, bored people like fresh west wind!" She +went on addressing herself to the usual guest of the evening: "Isn't +it always the most beautiful sight, Felix, how the mere presence of +radiant youth can transform the whole atmosphere of life!" + +"I hadn't noticed that my radiant youth had transformed much," +commented Arnold dryly; "and Sylvia's only a year younger than I." + +He was, as usual, disregarded by the course of the conversation. "Yes, +sunshine in a shady place ..." quoted Morrison, in his fine mellow +tenor, looking at Sylvia. It was a wonderful voice, used with +discretion, with a fine instinct for moderation which would have kept +the haunting beauty of its intonations from seeming objectionable or +florid to any but American ears. In spite of the invariable good taste +with which it was used, American men, accustomed to the toneless +speech of the race, and jealously suspicious of anything approaching +art in everyday life, distrusted Morrison at the first sound of his +voice. Men who were his friends (and they were many) were in the habit +of rather apologizing for those rich and harmonious accents. The first +time she had heard it, Sylvia had thought of the G string of old +Reinhardt's violin. + +"I never in my life saw anything that looked less like a shady place," +observed Sylvia, indicating with an admiring gesture the table before +them, gleaming and flashing its glass and silver and close-textured, +glossy damask up into the light. + +"It's _morally_ that we're so shady!" said Arnold, admiring his own +wit so much that he could not refrain from adding, "Not so bad, what?" +The usual conversation at his stepmother's table was, as he would have +said, so pestilentially high-brow that he seldom troubled himself +to follow it enough to join in. Arnold was in the habit of dubbing +"high-brow" anything bearing on aesthetics; and Mrs. Marshall-Smith's +conversational range hardly extending at all outside of aesthetics of +one kind or another, communication between these two house-mates +of years' standing was for the most part reduced to a primitive +simplicity for which a sign-language would have sufficed. Arnold's +phrase for the situation was, "I let Madrina alone, and she don't +bother me." But now, seeing that neither the façade of Rouen, nor the +influence of Chardin on Whistler, had been mentioned, his unusual +loquacity continued. "Well, if one west wind (I don't mean that as a +slam on Sylvia for coming from west of the Mississippi) has done us so +much good, why not have another?" he inquired. "Why couldn't Judith +come on and make us a visit too? It would be fun to have a scrap with +her again." He explained to Morrison: "She's Sylvia's younger sister, +and we always quarreled so, as kids, that after we'd been together +half an hour the referee had to shoulder in between and tell us, 'Nix +on biting in clinches.' She was great, all right, Judith was! How _is_ +she now?" he asked Sylvia. "I've been meaning ever so many times to +ask you about her, and something else has seemed to come up. I can't +imagine Judy grown up. She hasn't pinned up that great long braid, has +she, that used to be so handy to pull?" + +Sylvia took the last of her soup, put the spoon on the plate, and +launched into a description of Judith, one of her favorite topics. +"Oh, Judith's just _fine_! You ought to see her! She's worth ten +of me: she has such lots of character! And handsome! You never saw +anything like Judith's looks. Yes, she's put her hair up! She's twenty +years old now, what do you _suppose_ she does with her hair? She wears +it in a great smooth braid all around her head. And she has _such_ +hair, Aunt Victoria!" She turned from Arnold to another woman, as from +some one who would know nothing of the fine shades of the subject. "No +short hairs at all, you know, like everybody else, that _will_ hang +down and look untidy!" She pulled with an explanatory petulance at the +soft curls which framed her own face in an aureole of light. "Hers is +all long and smooth, and the color like a fresh chestnut, just out +of the burr; and her nose is like a Greek statue--she _is_ a Greek +statue!" + +She had been carried by her affectionate enthusiasm out of her usual +self-possession, her quick divination of how she was affecting +everybody, and now, suddenly finding Morrison's eyes on her with an +expression she did not recognize, she was brought up short. What had +she said to make him look at her so oddly? + +He answered her unspoken question at once, his voice making his every +casual word of gold: "I am thinking that I am being present at a +spectacle which cynics say is impossible, the spectacle of a woman +delighting--and with the most obvious sincerity--in the beauty of +another." + +"Oh!" said Sylvia, relieved to know that the odd look concealed no +criticism, "I didn't know that anybody nowadays made such silly +Victorian generalizations about woman's cattiness,--anybody under old +Mr. Sommerville's age, that is. And anyhow, Judith's my _sister_." + +"Cases of sisters, jealous of each other's good looks, have not been +entirely unknown to history," said Morrison, smiling and beginning to +eat his fish with a delicate relish. + +"Well, if Judy's so all-fired good-looking, let's _have_ her come +on, Madrina," said Arnold. "With her and Sylvia together, we'd crush +Lydford into a pulp." He attacked his plate with a straggling fork, +eating negligently, as he did everything else. + +"She has a standing invitation, of course," said Mrs. Marshall-Smith. +"Indeed, I wrote the other day, asking her if she could come here +instead of to La Chance for her vacation. It's far nearer for her." + +"Oh, Judith couldn't waste time to go visiting," said Sylvia. "I've +told you she is worth ten of me. She's on the home-stretch of her +trained-nurse's course now. She has only two weeks' vacation." + +"She's going to be a trained nurse?" asked Arnold in surprise, washing +down a large mouthful of fish with a large mouthful of wine. "What the +dickens does she do that for?" + +"Why, she's crazy about it,--ever since she was a little girl, +fifteen years old and first saw the inside of a hospital. That's just +Judith,--so splendid and purposeful, and single-minded. I wish to +goodness _I_ knew what I want to do with myself half so clearly as she +always has." + +If she had, deep under her consciousness, a purpose to win more +applause from Morrison, by more disinterested admiration of Judith's +good points, she was quite rewarded by the quickness with which he +championed her against her own depreciation. "I've always noticed," +he said meditatively, slowly taking a sip from his wine-glass, "that +nobody can be single-minded who isn't narrow-minded; and I think it +likely that people who aren't so cocksure what they want to do with +themselves, hesitate because they have a great deal more to do _with_. +A nature rich in fine and complex possibilities takes more time +to dispose of itself, but when it does, the world's beauty is the +gainer." He pointed the reference frankly by a smile at Sylvia, who +flushed with pleasure and looked down at her plate. She was surprised +at the delight which his leisurely, whimsically philosophical little +speech gave her. She forgot to make any answer, absorbed as she was +in poring over it and making out new meanings in it. How he had +understood at less than a word the secret uncertainty of herself which +so troubled her; and with what astonishing sureness he had known what +to say to reassure her, to make her see clear! And then, her quick +mind leaped to another significance.... All during these past weeks +when she had been falling more and more under the fascination of his +personality, when she had been piqued at his disregard of her, when +she had thought he found her "young," and had bracketed her carelessly +with Arnold, he had been in reality watching her, he had found her +interesting enough to observe her, to study her, to have a theory +about her character; and having done all that, to admire her as she +admired him. Never in her life had she been the recipient of flattery +so precisely to her taste. Her glow of pleasure was so warm that she +suddenly distrusted her own judgment, she looked up at him quickly to +see if she had not mistaken his meaning, had not absurdly exaggerated +the degree to which he ... she found his eyes on hers, deep-set, +shadowy eyes which did not, as she looked up, either smile or look +away. Under cover of a rather wrangling discussion between Arnold +and his stepmother as to having some champagne served, the older man +continued to look steadily into Sylvia's eyes, with the effect of +saying to her, gravely, kindly, intimately: "Yes, I am here. You did +not know how closely you have drawn me to you, but here I am." Across +the table, across the lights, the service, the idle talk of the other +two, she felt him quietly, ever so gently but quite irresistibly, open +an inner door of her nature ... and she welcomed him in. + + * * * * * + +After dinner, when Mrs. Marshall-Smith lifted her eyebrows at Sylvia +and rose to go, Arnold made no bones of his horror at the prospect of +a tĂŞte-Ă -tĂŞte with the distinguished critic. "Oh, I'm going in with +you girls!" he said, jumping up with his usual sprawling uncertainty +of action. He reserved for athletic sports all his capacity for +physical accuracy. "Morrison and I bore each other more than's legal!" + +"I may bore _you_, my dear Arnold," said the other, rising, "but you +never bored me in your life, and I've known you from childhood." + +To which entirely benevolent speech, Arnold returned nothing but +the uneasy shrug and resentful look of one baffled by a hostile +demonstration too subtle for his powers of self-defense. He picked up +the chair he had thrown over, and waited sulkily till the others were +in the high-ceilinged living-room before he joined them. Then when +Morrison, in answer to a request from his hostess and old friend, sat +down to the piano and began to play a piece of modern, plaintive, very +wandering and chromatic music, the younger man drew Sylvia out on the +wide, moon-lighted veranda. + +"Morrison is the very devil for making you want to punch his head, and +yet not giving you a decent excuse. I declare, Sylvia, I don't know +but that what I like best of all about you is the way you steer clear +of him. He's opening up on you too. Maybe you didn't happen to notice +... at the dinner-table? It wasn't much, but I spotted it for a +beginning. I know old Felix, a few." Sylvia felt uneasy at the +recurrence of this topic, and cast about for something to turn the +conversation. "Oh, Arnold," she began, rather at random, "whatever +became of Professor Saunders? I've thought about him several times +since I've been here, but I've forgotten to ask you or Tantine. He was +my little-girl admiration, you know." + +Arnold smoked for a moment before answering. Then, "Well, I wouldn't +ask Madrina about him, if I were you. He's not one of her successes. +He wouldn't stay put." + +Sylvia scented something uncomfortable, and regretted having +introduced the subject. + +Arnold added thoughtfully, looking hard at the ash of his cigarette, +"I guess Madrina was pretty bad medicine for Saunders, all right." + +Sylvia shivered a little and drew back, but she instantly put the +matter out of her mind with a trained and definite action of her will. +It was probably "horrid"; nothing could be done about it now; what +else could they talk about that would be cheerful? This was a +thought-sequence very familiar to Sylvia, through which she passed +with rapid ease. + +Arnold made a fresh start by offering her his cigarette-box. "Have +one," he invited her, sociably. + +She shook her head. + +"Oh, all the girls do," he urged her. + +Sylvia laughed. "I may be a fresh breeze from beyond the Mississippi, +but I'm not so fresh as to think it's wicked for a girl to smoke. In +fact I like to, myself, but I can't stand the dirty taste in my mouth +the next morning. Smoking's not worth it." + +"_Well_ ..." commented Arnold. Apparently he found something very +surprising in this speech. His surprise spread visibly from the +particular to the general, like the rings widening from a thrown +pebble, and he finally broke out: "You certainly do beat the band, +Sylvia. You get _me_! You're a sample off a piece of goods that I +never saw before!" + +"What now?" asked Sylvia, amused. + +"Why, for instance,--that reason for your not smoking. That's not a +girl's reason. That's a man's ... a man who's tried it!" + +"No, it isn't!" she said, the flicker of amusement still on her lips. +"A man wouldn't have sense enough to know that smoking isn't worth +waking up with your mouth full of rancid fur." + +"Oh gosh!" cried Arnold, tickled by the metaphor: "rancid fur!" + +"The point about me, why I seem so queer to you," explained Sylvia, +brightening, "is that I'm a State University girl. I'm used to you. +I've seen hundreds of you! The fact that you wear trousers and have +to shave and wear your hair cut short, and smell of tobacco, doesn't +thrill me for a cent. I know that I could run circles around you if it +came to a problem in calculus, not that I want to brag." + +Arnold did not seem as much amused as she thought he would be. He +smoked in a long, meditative silence, and when he spoke again it was +with an unusual seriousness. "It's not what _you_ feel or don't feel +about me ... it's what _I_ feel and don't feel about you, that gets +me," he explained, not very lucidly. "I mean liking you so, without +... I never felt so about a girl. I like it.... I don't make it +out...." He looked at her with sincerely puzzled eyes. + +She answered him as seriously. "I think," she said, speaking a little +slowly, "I think the two go together, don't they?" + +"How do you mean?" he asked. + +"Why--it's hard to say--" she hesitated, but evidently not at all in +embarrassment, looking at him with serious eyes, limpid and unafraid. +"I've been with boys and men a lot, of course, in my classes and in +the laboratories and everywhere, and I've found out that in most cases +if the men and the girls really, really in their own hearts don't want +to hurt each other, don't want to get something out of the other, but +just want to be friends--why, they _can_ be! Psychologists and all +the big-wigs say they can't be, I know--but, believe me!--I've tried +it--and it's awfully nice, and it's a shame that everybody shouldn't +know that lots of the time you _can_ do it--in spite of the folks who +write the books! Maybe it wasn't so when the books were written, maybe +it's only going to be so, later, if we all are as square as we can be +now. But as a plain matter of fact, in one girl's experience, it's +so, _now_! Of course," she modified by a sweeping qualification the +audacity of her naĂŻvely phrased, rashly innocent guess at a new +possibility for humanity, "of course if the man's a _decent_ man." + +Arnold had not taken his gaze for an instant from her gravely +thoughtful eyes. He was quite pale. He looked astonishingly moved, +startled, arrested. When she stopped, he said, almost at once, in +a very queer voice as though it were forced out of him, "I'm not a +decent man." + +And then, quite as though he could endure no longer her clear, steady +gaze, he covered his eyes with his hand. An instant later he had +sprung up and walked rapidly away out to the low marble parapet which +topped the terrace. His gesture, his action had been so eloquent of +surprised, intolerable pain, that Sylvia ran after him, all one quick +impulse to console. "Yes, you are, Arnold; yes, you are!" she said in +a low, energetic tone, "you _are_!" + +He made a quavering attempt to be whimsical. "I'd like to know what +_you_ know about it!" he said. + +"I know! I _know_!" she simply repeated. + +He faced her in an exasperated shame. "Why, a girl like you can no +more know what's done by a man like me ..." his lips twitched in a +moral nausea. + +"Oh ... what you've _done_ ..." said Sylvia ... "it's what you are!" + +"What I _am_," repeated Arnold bitterly. "If I were worth my salt I'd +hang myself before morning!" The heartsick excitement of a man on the +crest of some moral crisis looked out luridly from his eyes. + +Sylvia rose desperately to meet that crisis. "Look here, Arnold. I'm +going to tell you something I've never spoken of to anybody ... not +even Mother ... and I'm going to do it, so you'll _believe_ me when I +say you're worth living. When I was eighteen years old I was a horrid, +selfish, self-willed child. I suppose everybody's so at eighteen. I +was just crazy for money and fine dresses and things like that, that +we'd never had at home; and a man with a lot of money fell in love +with me. It was my fault. I made him, though I didn't know then what I +was doing, or at least I wouldn't let myself think what I was doing. +And I got engaged to him. I got engaged at half-past four in the +afternoon, and at seven o'clock that evening I was running away from +him, and I've never seen him since." Her voice went on steadily, but +a quick hot wave of scarlet flamed up over her face. "He was not a +decent man," she said briefly, and went on: "It frightened me almost +to death before I got my bearings: I was just a little girl and I +hadn't understood anything--and I don't _understand_ much now. But I +did learn one thing from all that--I learned to know when a man isn't +decent. I can't tell you how I know--it's all over him--it's all over +me--it's his eyes, the way he stands, the expression of his mouth--I +don't only see it--I feel it--I feel it the way a thermometer feels +it when you put a match under the bulb ... I _know_!" She brought her +extravagant, her preposterous, her ignorant, her incredibly convincing +claims to an abrupt end. + +"And you 'feel' that I ..." began Arnold, and could not go on. + +"I'd like you for my brother," she said gently. + +He tried to laugh at her, but the honest tears were in his eyes. +"You don't know what you're talking about, you silly dear," he said +unsteadily, "but I'm awfully glad you came to Lydford." + +With her instinct for avoiding breaks, rough places, Sylvia quickly +glided into a transition from this speech back into less personal +talk. "Another queer thing about that experience I've never +understood:--it cured me of being so crazy about clothes. You wouldn't +think it would have anything to do with _that_, would you? And I don't +see how it did. Oh, I don't mean I don't dearly love pretty dresses +now. I _do_. And I spend altogether too much time thinking about +them--but it's not the same. Somehow the poison is out. I used to be +like a drunkard who can't get a drink, when I saw girls have things +I didn't. I suppose," she speculated philosophically, "I suppose any +great jolt that shakes you up a lot, shakes things into different +proportions." + +"Say, that fellow must have been just about the limit!" Arnold's +rather torpid imagination suddenly opened to the story he had heard. + +"No, no!" said Sylvia. "As I look back on it, I make a lot more sense +out of it" (she might have been, by her accent, fifty instead of +twenty-three), "and I can see that he wasn't nearly as bad as I +thought him. When I said he wasn't decent, I meant that he belonged in +the Stone Age, and I'm twentieth-century. We didn't fit together. I +suppose that's what we all mean when we say somebody isn't decent ... +that he's stayed behind in the procession. I don't mean that man was +a degenerate or anything like that ... if he could have found a Stone +Age woman he'd have ... they'd have made a good Stone Age marriage of +it. But he _didn't_, the girl he...." + +"Do you know, Sylvia," Arnold broke in wonderingly, "I never before in +all my life had anybody speak to me of anything that really mattered. +And I never spoke this way myself. I've wanted to, lots of times; but +I didn't know people ever did. And to think of its being a girl who +does it for me, a girl who...." His astonishment was immense. + +"Look here, Arnold," said Sylvia, with a good-natured peremptoriness. +"Let a girl be something besides a girl, can't you!" + +But her attempt to change the tone to a light one failed. Apparently, +now that Arnold had broken his long silence, he could not stop +himself. He turned towards her with a passionate gesture of +bewilderment and cried: "Do you remember, before dinner, you asked +me as a joke what was the use of anything, and I said I didn't know? +Well, I _don't!_ I've been getting sicker and sicker over everything. +What the devil _am_ I here for, anyhow!" + +As he spoke, a girl's figure stepped from the house to the veranda, +from the veranda to the turf of the terrace, and walked towards them. +She was tall, and strongly, beautifully built; around her small head +was bound a smooth braid of dark hair. She walked with a long, free +step and held her head high. As she came towards them, the moonlight +full on her dark, proud, perfect face, she might have been the +youthful Diana. + +But it was no antique spirit which looked out of those frank, fearless +eyes, and it was a very modern and colloquially American greeting +which she now gave to the astonished young people. "Well, Sylvia, +don't you know your own sister?" and "Hello there, Arnold." + +"Why, Judith _Marshall_!" cried Sylvia, falling upon her breathlessly. +"However in the world did you get _here_!" + +Arnold said nothing. He had fallen back a step and now looked at the +new-comer with a fixed, dazzled gaze. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +ANOTHER BRAND OF MODERN TALK + + +"Where's Judith?" said Arnold for sole greeting, as he saw Morrison at +the piano and Sylvia sitting near it, cool and clear in a lacy white +dress. Morrison lifted long fingers from the keys and said gravely, +"She came through a moment ago, saying, '_Where's_ Arnold?' and went +out through that door." His fingers dropped and Chopin's voice once +more rose plaintively. + +The sound of Arnold's precipitate rush across the room and out of the +door was followed by a tinkle of laughter from Sylvia. Morrison looked +around at her over his shoulder, with a flashing smile of mutual +understanding, but he finished the prelude before he spoke. Then, +without turning around, as he pulled out another sheet from the music +heaped on the piano, he remarked: "If that French philosopher was +right when he said no disease is as contagious as love-making, we may +expect soon to find the very chairs and tables in this house clasped +in each other's arms. Old as I am, I feel it going to my head, like a +bed of full-blooming valerian." + +Sylvia made no answer. She felt herself flushing, and could not trust +her voice to be casual. He continued for a moment to thumb over the +music aimlessly, as though waiting for her to speak. + +The beautiful room, darkened against the midsummer heat, shimmered +dimly in a transparent half-light, the vivid life of its bright +chintz, its occasional brass, its clean, daring spots of crimson and +purple flowers, subdued into a fabulous, half-seen richness. There was +not a sound. The splendid heat of the early August afternoon flamed, +and paused, and held its breath. + +Into this silence, like a bird murmuring a drowsy note over a still +pool, there floated the beginning of _Am Meer_. Sylvia sat, passive +to her finger-tips, a vase filled to the brim with melody. She stared +with unseeing eyes at the back of the man at the piano. She was not +thinking of him, she was not aware that she was conscious of him at +all; but hours afterward wherever she looked, she saw for an instant +again in miniature the slender, vigorous, swaying figure; the thick +brown hair, streaked with white and curling slightly at the ends; the +brooding head.... + +When the last note was still, the man stood up and moved away from the +piano. He dropped into an arm-chair near Sylvia, and leaning his +fine, ugly head back against the brilliant chintz, he looked at her +meditatively. His great bodily suavity gave his every action a curious +significance and grace. Sylvia, still under the spell of his singing, +did not stir, returning his look out of wide, dreaming eyes. + +When he spoke, his voice blended with the silence almost as +harmoniously as the music.... "Do you know what I wish you would +do, Miss Sylvia Marshall? I wish you would tell me something about +yourself. Now that I'm no longer forbidden to look at you, or think +about you...." + +"Forbidden?" asked Sylvia, very much astonished. + +"There!" he said, wilfully mistaking her meaning, and smiling faintly, +"I am such an old gentleman that I'm perfectly negligible to a young +lady. She doesn't even notice or not whether I look at her, and think +about her." + +A few years before this Sylvia would have burst out impetuously, "Oh +yes, I have! I've wondered awfully what made you so indifferent," but +now she kept this reflection to herself and merely said, "What in the +world did you fancy was 'forbidding' you?" + +"Honor!" said Morrison, with a note of mock solemnity. "_Honor!_ +Victoria was so evidently snatching at you as a last hope for Arnold. +She gave me to understand that everybody else but Arnold was to be +strictly non-existent. But now that Arnold has found a character +beautifully and archaically simple to match his own primitive needs, I +don't see why I shouldn't enjoy a little civilized talk with you. In +any case, it was absurd to think of _you_ for Arnold. It merely shows +how driven poor Victoria was!" + +Sylvia tried to speak lightly, although she was penetrated with +pleasure at this explanation of his holding aloof. "Oh, _I_ like +Arnold very much. I always have. There's something ... something sort +of _touching_ about Arnold, don't you think? Though I must say that +I've heard enough about the difference between training quail dogs +and partridge dogs to last me the rest of my life. But that's rather +touching too, his not knowing what to do with himself but fiddle +around with his guns and tennis-racquets. They're all he has to keep +him from being bored to death, and they don't go nearly far enough. +Some day he will just drop dead from ennui, poor Arnold! Wouldn't he +have enjoyed being a civil engineer, and laying out railroads in wild +country! He'd have been a good one too! The same amount of energy +he puts into his polo playing would make him fight his way through +darkest Thibet." She meditated over this hypothesis for a moment and +then added with a nod of her head, "Oh yes, I like Arnold ever so much +... one kind of 'liking.'" + +"Of course you like him," assented the older man, who had been +watching her as she talked, and whose manner now, as he took up the +word himself, resembled that of an exquisitely adroit angler, casting +out the lightest, the most feathery, the most perfectly controlled of +dry-flies. "You're too intelligent not to like everybody who's not +base--and Arnold's not base. And he 'likes' you. If you had cared to +waste one of your red-brown tresses on him, you could have drawn him +by a single hair. But then, everybody 'likes' you." + +"Old Mr. Sommerville doesn't!" said Sylvia, on an impulse. + +Morrison looked at her admiringly, and put the tips of his fingers +together with exquisite precision. "So you add second sight to your +other accomplishments! How in the world could a girl of your age have +the experience and intuition to feel that? Old Sommerville passes for +a great admirer of yours. You won't, I hope, go so uncannily far in +your omniscience as to pretend to know _why_ he doesn't like you?" + +"No, I won't," said Sylvia, "because I haven't the very faintest idea. +Have you?" + +"I know exactly why. It's connected with one of the old gentleman's +eccentricities. He's afraid of you on account of his precious nephew." + +"I didn't know he _had_ a nephew." Sylvia was immensely astonished. + +"Well, he has, and he bows down and worships him, as he does his +granddaughter. You see how he adores Molly. It's nice of the old +fellow, the cult he has for his descendants, but occasionally +inconvenient for innocent bystanders. He thinks everybody wants to +make off with his young folks. You and I are fellow-suspects. Haven't +you felt him wish he could strike me dead, when Molly makes tea for +me, or turns over music as I play?" He laughed a little, a gentle, +kind, indulgent laugh. "_Molly!_" he said, as if his point were more +than elucidated by the mere mention of her name. + +Sylvia intimated with a laugh that her point was clearer yet in that +she had no name to mention. "But I never saw his nephew. I never even +heard of him until this minute." + +"No, and very probably never will see him. He's very seldom here. And +if you did see him, you wouldn't like him--he's an eccentric of the +worst brand," said Morrison tranquilly. "But monomanias need no +foundation in fact--" He broke off abruptly to say: "Is this all +another proof of your diabolical cleverness? I started in to hear +something about yourself, and here I find myself talking about +everything else in the world." + +"I'm not clever," said Sylvia, hoping to be contradicted. + +"Well, you're a great deal too nice to be _consciously_ so," admitted +Morrison. "See here," he went on, "it's evident that you're more +than a match for me at this game. Suppose we strike a bargain. You +introduce yourself to me and I'll do the same by you. Isn't it quite +the most fantastic of all the bizarreries of human intercourse that +an 'introduction' to a fellow-being consists in being informed of his +name,--quite the most unimportant, fortuitous thing about him?" + +Sylvia considered. "What do you want to know?" she asked finally. + +"Well, I'd _like_ to know everything," said the man gaily. "My +curiosity has been aroused to an almost unappeasable pitch. But of +course I'll take any information you feel like doling out. In the +first place, _how_, coming from such a ..." He checked himself and +changed the form of his question: "I overheard you speaking to +Victoria's maid, and I've been lying awake nights ever since, +wondering how it happened that you speak French with so pure an +accent." + +"Oh, that's simple! Professor and Madame La Rue are old friends of the +family and I've spent a lot of time with them. And then, of course, +French is another mother-language for Father. He and Aunt Victoria +were brought up in Paris, you know." + +Morrison sighed. "Isn't it strange how all the miracles evaporate into +mere chemical reactions when you once investigate! All the white-clad, +ghostly spirits turn out to be clothes on the line. I suppose there's +some equally natural explanation about your way on the piano--the +clear, limpid phrasing of that Bach the other day, and then the color +of the Bizet afterwards. It's astonishing to hear anybody of your +crude youth playing Bach at all--and then to hear it played right--and +afterwards to hear a modern given _his_ right note...." + +Sylvia was perfectly aware that she was being flattered, and she was +immensely enjoying it. She became more animated, and the peculiar +sparkle of her face more spirited. "Oh, that's old Reinhardt, my music +teacher. He would take all the skin off my knuckles if I played a Bach +gigue the least bit like that ArlĂ©sienne Minuet. He doesn't approve of +Bizet very much, anyhow. He's a tremendous classicist." + +"Isn't it," inquired Morrison, phrasing his question carefully, +"isn't it, with no disrespect to La Chance intended, isn't it rather +unusually good fortune for a smallish Western city to own a real +musician?" + +"Well, La Chance bears up bravely under its good fortune," said Sylvia +dryly. "Old Mr. Reinhardt isn't exactly a prime favorite there. He's a +terribly beery old man, and he wipes his nose on his sleeve. Our house +was the only respectable one in town that he could go into. But then, +our house isn't so very respectable. It has its advantages, not being +so very respectable, though it 'most killed me as a young girl to feel +us so. But I certainly have a choice gallery of queer folks in my +acquaintance, and I have the queerest hodge-podge of scraps of things +learned from them. I know a little Swedish from Miss Lindström. She's +a Swedish old maid who does uplift work among the negroes--isn't that +a weird combination? You just ought to hear what she makes of negro +dialect! And I know all the socialist arguments from hearing a +socialist editor get them off every Sunday afternoon. And I even +know how to manage planchette and write mediumistically--save the +mark!--from Cousin Parnelia, a crazy old cousin of Mother's who hangs +round the house more or less." + +"I begin to gather," surmised Morrison, "that you must have a +remarkable father and mother. What are _they_ like?" + +"Well," said Sylvia thoughtfully, "Mother's the bravest thing you +ever saw. She's not afraid of _anything_! I don't mean cows, or the +house-afire, or mice, or such foolishness. I mean life and death, and +sickness and poverty and fear...." + +Morrison nodded his head understandingly, a fine light of appreciation +in his eyes, "Not to be afraid of fear--that's splendid." + +Sylvia went on to particularize. "When any of us are sick--it's +my little brother Lawrence who is mostly--Judith and I are always +well--Father just goes all to pieces, he gets so frightened. But +Mother stiffens her back and _makes_ everything in the house go on +just as usual, very quiet, very calm. She holds everything together +_tight_. She says it's sneaking and cowardly if you're going to accept +life at all, not to accept _all_ of it--the sour with the sweet--and +not whimper." + +"Very fine,--very fine! Possibly a very small bit ... grim?" commented +Morrison, with a rising inflection. + +"Oh, perhaps, a little!" agreed Sylvia, as if it did not matter; "but +I can't give you any idea of Mother. She's--she's just _great_! And +yet I couldn't live like her, without wanting to smash everything up. +She's somebody that Seneca would have liked." + +"And your father?" queried Morrison. + +"Oh, he's great too--dear Father--but so different! He and Mother +between them have just about all the varieties of human nature that +are worth while! Father's red-headed (though it's mostly gray now), +and quick, and blustering, and awfully clever, and just adored by +his students, and talks every minute, and apparently does all the +deciding, and yet ... he couldn't draw the breath of life without +Mother; and when it comes right down to _doing_ anything, what he +always does is what he knows will come up to her standard." + +Morrison raised delightedly amused hands to heaven. "The Recording +Angel domiciled in the house!" he cried. "It had never occurred to me +before how appallingly discerning the eye of the modern offspring must +be. Go on, go on!" + +Elated by the sensation of appearing clever, Sylvia continued with +a fresh flow of eloquence. "And there never was such a highly moral +bringing-up as we children have had. It's no fault of my family's if +I've turned out a grasping materialist! I was brought up"--she flamed +out suddenly as at some long-hoarded grievance--"I was brought up in a +moral hot-house, and I haven't yet recovered from the shock of being +transplanted into real earth in the real world." + +Morrison paid instant tribute to her aroused and serious feeling by a +grave look of attention. "Won't you explain?" he asked. "I'm so dull I +don't follow you. But I haven't been so interested in years." + +"Why, I mean," said Sylvia, trying hard to reduce to articulateness +a complicated conception, "I mean that Father and Mother just +deliberately represented values to me as different from what they +really are, with real folks! And now I find that _I'm_ real folks! I +can't help it. You are as you _are_, you know. They kept representing +to me always that the _best_ pleasures are the ones that are the most +important to folks--music, I mean, and Milton's poetry, and a fine +novel--and, in Mother's case, a fine sunset, or a perfect rose, or +things growing in the garden." + +No old associate of Morrison's would have recognized the man's face, +shocked as it was by surprise and interest out of his usual habit +of conscious, acute, self-possessed observation. The angler had +inadvertently stepped off a ledge into deep water, and a very swift +current was tugging at him. He leaned forward, his eyes as eager with +curiosity as a boy's. "Do I understand you to say that you repudiate +those 'best pleasures'?" + +"Of course you don't understand anything of the sort," said Sylvia +very earnestly. "They've soaked me so in music that I'm a regular +bond-slave to it. And a perfect rose is associated with so many lovely +recollections of Mother's wonderful silent joy in it, that I could +weep for pleasure. What I'm talking about--what I'm trying to tell +you, is the shock it was to me, when I got out of that artificially +unworldly atmosphere of home--for there's no use talking, it _is_ +artificial!--to find that _those_ pleasures aren't the ones that are +considered important and essential. How did I find things in the real +world? Why, I find that people don't give a thought to those 'best +pleasures' until they have a lot of other things first. Everything +_I_'d been trained to value and treasure was negligible, not +worth bothering about. But money--position--not having to +work--elegance--_those_ are _vital_--prime! Real people can't enjoy +hearing a concert if they know they've got to wash up a lot of dishes +afterwards. Hiring a girl to do that work is the _first_ thing to do! +There isn't another woman in the world, except my mother, who'd take +any pleasure in a perfect rose if she thought her sleeves were so +old-fashioned that people would stare at her. Folks _talk_ about +liking to look at a fine sunset, but what they give their blood and +bones for, is a fine house on the best street in town!" + +"Well, but you're not 'people' in that vulgar sense!" protested +Morrison. He spoke now without the slightest _arrière-pensĂ©e_ of +flattering her, and Sylvia in her sudden burst for self-expression was +unconscious of him, save as an opponent in an argument. + +"You just _say_ that, in that superior way," she flashed at him, +"because _you_ don't have to bother your head about such matters, +because you don't have to associate with people who are fighting for +those essentials. For they _are_ what everybody except Father and +Mother--_every_ body feels to be the essentials--a pretty house, +handsome clothes, servants to do the unpleasant things, social +life--oh, plenty of money sums it all up, 'vulgar' as it sounds. And I +don't believe you are different. I don't believe anybody you know is +really a bit different! Let Aunt Victoria, let old Mr. Sommerville, +lose their money, and you'd see how unimportant Debussy and Masaccio +would be to them, compared to having to black their own shoes!" + +"Well, upon my word!" exclaimed Morrison. "Are you at eighteen +presuming to a greater knowledge of life than I at forty?" + +"I'm not eighteen, I'm twenty-three," said Sylvia. "The difference +is enormous. And if I don't know more about plain unvarnished human +nature than you, I miss my guess! _You_ haven't gone through five +years at a State University, rubbing shoulders with folks who haven't +enough sophistication to pretend to be different from what they +are. _You_ haven't taught music for three years in the middle-class +families of a small Western city!" She broke off to laugh an +apologetic depreciation of her own heat. "You'd think I was addressing +a meeting," she said in her usual tone. "I got rather carried away +because this is the first time I ever really spoke out about it. There +are so few who could understand. If I ever tried to explain it to +Father and Mother, I'd be sure to find them so deep in a discussion of +the relation between Socrates and Christ that they couldn't pay any +attention! Professor Kennedy could understand--but he's such a fanatic +on the other side." + +Morrison looked a quick suspicion. "Who is Professor Kennedy?" he +inquired; and was frankly relieved when Sylvia explained: "He's the +head of the Mathematics Department, about seventy years old, and the +crossest, cantankerousest old misanthrope you ever saw. And thinks +himself immensely clever for being so! He just loathes people--the way +they really are--and he dotes on Mother and Judith because they're not +like anybody else. And he hates me because they couldn't all hypnotize +me into looking through their eyes. He thinks it low of me to realize +that if you're going to live at all, you've got to live _with people_, +and you can't just calmly brush their values on one side. He said +once that any sane person in this world was like a civilized man with +plenty of gold coin, cast away on a desert island with a tribe of +savages who only valued beads and calico, and buttons and junk. And +I said (I knew perfectly well he was hitting at me) that if he was +really cast away and couldn't get to another island, I thought the +civilized man would be an idiot to starve to death, when he could buy +food of the savages by selling them junk. And I thought he just wasted +his breath by swearing at the savages for not knowing about the value +of gold. There I was hitting at _him!_ He's spoiled his digestion, +hating the way people are made. And Professor Kennedy said something +nasty and neat (he's awfully clever) about that being rather a low +occupation for a civilized being--taking advantage of the idiocies +of savages--he meant me, of course--and he's right, it _is_ a mean +business; I hate it. And that's why I've always wanted to get on +another island--not an uninhabited island, like the one Father and +Mother have--but one where--well, _this_ is one!" she waved her +hand about the lovely room, "this _is_ just one! Where everything's +beautiful--costly too--but not just costly; where all the horrid, +necessary consequences of things are taken care of without one's +bothering--where flowers are taken out of the vases when they wilt +and fresh ones put in; and dishes get themselves washed invisibly, +inaudibly--and litter just vanishes without our lifting a hand. Of +course the people who live so always, can rejoice with a clear mind in +sunsets and bright talk. That's what I meant the other day--the day +Judith came--when I said I'd arrived in Capua at last; when old Mr. +Sommerville thought me so materialistic and cynical. If _he_ did that, +on just that phrase--what must _you_ think, after all this _confession +intime d'un enfant du siècle?_" She stopped with a graceful pretense +of dreading his judgment, although she knew that she had been talking +well, and read nothing but admiration in his very expressive face. + +"But all this means, you extraordinary young person, that you're not +in the least an _enfant du siècle!_" he cried. "It means that you're +dropped down in this groaning, heavy-spirited twentieth century, +troubled about many things, from the exact year that was the golden +climax of the Renaissance; that you're a perfect specimen of the +high-hearted, glorious ..." he qualified on a second thought, "unless +your astonishing capacity to analyze it all, comes from the nineteenth +century?" + +"No, that comes from Father," explained Sylvia, laughing. "Isn't it +funny, using the tool Father taught me to handle, against his ideas! +He's just great on analysis. As soon as we were old enough to think at +all, he was always practising us on analysis--especially of what made +us want things, or not like them. It's one of his sayings--he's always +getting it off to his University classes--that if you have once really +called an emotion or an ambition by its right name, you have it by +the tail, so to speak--that if you know, for instance, that it's your +vanity and not your love that's wounded by something, you'll stop +caring. But I never noticed that it really worked if you cared _hard_ +enough. Diagnosing a disease doesn't help you any, if you keep right +on being sick with it." + +"My dear! My dear!" cried the man, leaning towards her again, and +looking--dazzled--into the beauty and intelligence of her eyes, "the +idea that you are afflicted with any disease could only occur to the +morbid mind of the bluest-nosed Puritan who ever cut down a May-pole! +You're wonderfully, you're terrifyingly, you are superbly sound and +vigorous!" + +Breaking in upon this speech, there came the quick, smooth purr of an +automobile with all its parts functioning perfectly, a streak of dark +gray past the shutters, the sigh of an engine stopped suddenly--Molly +Sommerville sprang from behind the steering wheel and ran into the +house. She was exquisitely flushed and eager when she came in, but +when she saw the two alone in the great, cool, dusky room, filled to +its remotest corners with the ineffable aroma of long, intimate, +and interrupted talk, she was brought up short. She faltered for an +instant and then continued to advance, her eyes on Sylvia. "It's so +hot," she said, at random, "and I thought I'd run over for tea--" + +"Oh, of course," said Sylvia, jumping up in haste, "it's late! I'd +forgotten it was time for tea! Blame _me!_ Since I've been here, Aunt +Victoria has left it to me--where shall I say to have it set?" + +"The pergola's lovely," suggested Molly. She took her close motor-hat +from the pure gold of her hair with a rather listless air. + +"All right--the pergola!" agreed Sylvia, perhaps a little too +anxiously. In spite of herself, she gave, and she knew she was giving, +the effect of needing somehow to make something up to Molly.... + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +NOTHING IN THE LEAST MODERN + + +Sylvia was sitting in the garden, an unread book on her knees, +dreaming among red and yellow and orange gladioli. She looked with a +fixed, bright, beatific stare at the flame-colored flowers and did not +see them. She saw only Felix Morrison, she heard only his voice, she +was brimming with the sense of him. In a few moments she would go into +the house and find him in the darkened living-room, as he had been +every afternoon for the last fortnight, ostensibly come in to lounge +away the afternoon over a book, really waiting for her to join +him. And when she came in, he would look up at her, that wonderful +penetrating deep look of his ... and she would welcome him with her +eyes. + +And then they would talk! Judith and Arnold would be playing tennis, +oblivious of the heat, and Aunt Victoria would be annihilating the +tedious center of the day by sleep. Nobody would interrupt them for +hours. How they would talk! How they had talked! As she thought of it +the golden fortnight hummed and sang about Sylvia's ears like a Liszt +Liebes-Traum. + +They had talked of everything in the world, and it all meant but one +thing, that they had discovered each other, a discovery visibly as +wonderful for Morrison as for the girl. They had discovered each +other, and they had been intelligent enough to know at once what it +meant. They knew! And in a moment she would go into the house to him. +She half closed her eyes as before a too-great brilliance.... + +Arnold appeared at the other end of the long row of gladioli. He +was obviously looking for some one. Sylvia called to him, with the +friendly tone she always had for him: "Here I am! I don't know where +Judith is. Will I do?" + +From a distance Arnold nodded, and continued to advance, the +irregularity of his wavering gait more pronounced than usual. As soon +as she could see the expression of his face, Sylvia's heart began +to beat fast, with a divination of something momentous. He sat down +beside her, took off his hat, and laid it on the bench. "Do you +remember," he asked in a strange, high voice, "that you said you would +like me for your brother?" + +She nodded. + +"Well, I'm going to be," he said, and covering his face with his +hands, burst into sobs. + +Sylvia was so touched by his emotion, so sympathetically moved by his +news, that even through her happy ejaculations the tears rained down +her own cheeks. She tried to wipe them away and discovered, absurdly +enough, that she had lost her handkerchief. "Aren't we idiots!" she +cried in a voice of joyful quavers. "I never understood before +why everybody cries at a wedding. See here, Arnold, I've lost my +handkerchief. Loan me yours." She pulled his handkerchief out of his +pocket, she wiped her eyes, she put a sisterly kiss on his thin, +sallow cheek, she cried: "You dears! Isn't it too good to be true! +Arnold! So soon! Inside two weeks! How ever could you have the +courage? Judith! My Judith! Why, she never looked at a man before. How +did you dare?" + +His overmastering fit of emotion was passed now. His look was of +white, incredulous exaltation. "We saw each other and ran into +each other's arms," he said; "I didn't have to 'dare.' It was like +breathing." + +"Oh, how perfect!" she cried, "how simply, simply perfect!" and now +there was for an instant a note of wistful envy in her voice. "It's +_all_ perfect! She never so much as looked at a man before, and you +said the other night you'd never been in love before." + +Arnold looked at her wildly. "I said that!" he cried. + +"Why, yes, don't you remember, after that funny, joking talk with me, +you said that was the nearest you'd ever come to proposing to any +girl?" + +"God Almighty!" cried the man, and did not apologize for the +blasphemy. He looked at her fixedly, as though unguessed-at horizons +of innocence widened inimitably before his horrified eyes. And then, +following some line of association which escaped Sylvia, "I'm not fit +to _look_ at Judith!" he cried. The idea seemed to burst upon him like +a thunder-clap. + +Sylvia patted him on the shoulder reassuringly. "That's the proper +thing for a lover to think!" she said with cheerful, commonplace +inanity. She did not notice that he shrank from her hand, because she +now sprang up, crying, "But where's Judy? Where _is_ Judy?" + +He nodded towards the house. "She sent me out to get you. She's in her +room--she wants to tell you--but when I saw you, I couldn't keep it +to myself." His exaltation swept back like a wave, from the crest of +which he murmured palely, "Judith! Judith!" and Sylvia laughed at him, +with the tears of sympathy in her eyes, and leaving him there on the +bench staring before him at the living fire of the flame-colored +flowers, she ran with all her speed into the house. + +Morrison, lounging in a chair with a book, looked up, startled at her +whirlwind entrance. "What's up?" he inquired. + +At the sound of his voice, she checked herself and pirouetted with a +thistle-down lightness to face him. Her face, always like a clear, +transparent vase lighted from within, now gave out, deeply moved as +she was, an almost visible brightness. "Judith!" she cried, her voice +ringing like a silver trumpet, "Judith and Arnold!" She was poised +like a butterfly, and as she spoke she burst into flight again, and +was gone. + +She had not been near him, but the man had the distinct impression +that she had thrown herself on his neck and kissed him violently, in +a transport of delight. In the silent room, still fragrant, still +echoing with her passage, he closed his book, and later his eyes, and +sat with the expression of a connoisseur savoring an exquisite, a +perfect impression.... + + * * * * * + +Tea that afternoon was that strangest of phenomena, a formal ceremony +of civilized life performed in the abashing and disconcerting presence +of naked emotion. Arnold and Judith sat on opposite sides of the +pergola, Judith shining and radiant as the dawn, her usually firmly +set lips soft and tremulous; Arnold rather pale, impatient, oblivious +to what was going on around him, his spirit prostrated before the +miracle; and when their starry eyes met, there flowed from them and +towards them from every one in the pergola, a thousand unseen waves of +excitement. + +The mistress of the house herself poured tea in honor of the great +occasion, and she was very humorous and amusing about the mistakes +caused by her sympathetic agitation. "There! I've put three lumps in +yours, Mr. Sommerville. How _could_ I! But I really don't know what +I'm doing. This business of having love-at-first-sight in one's very +family--! Give your cup to Molly; I'll make you a fresh one. Oh, +Arnold! How _could_ you look at Judith just then! You made me fill +this cup so full I can't pass it!" + +Mr. Sommerville, very gallant and full of compliments and whimsical +allusions, did his best to help their hostess strike the decent note +of easy pleasantry; but they were both battling with something too +strong for them. Unseconded as they were by any of the others, they +gave a little the effect of people bowing and smirking to each other +at the foot of a volcano in full eruption. Morrison, picking up +the finest and sharpest of his conversational tools, ventured +the hazardous enterprise of expressing this idea to them. Mrs. +Marshall-Smith, trying one topic after another, expressed an +impatience with the slow progress of a Henry James novel she was +reading, and Mr. Sommerville, remarking with a laugh, "Oh, you cannot +hurry Henry," looked to see his mild witticism rewarded by a smile +from the critic. But Morrison shook his head, "No, my dear old friend. +_Il faut hurler avec les loups_--especially if you are so wrought +up by their hurlements that you can't hear yourself think. I'm just +giving myself up to the rareness, the richness of the impression." + +The new fiancĂ©e herself talked rather more than usual, though this +meant by no means loquacity, and presented more the appearance of +composure than any one else there; although this was amusingly broken +by a sudden shortness of breath whenever she met Arnold's eyes. +She said in answer to a question that she would be going on to her +hospital the day after tomorrow--her two weeks' vacation over--oh yes, +she would finish her course at the hospital; she had only a few more +months. And in answer to another question, Arnold replied, obviously +impatient at having to speak to any one but Judith, that of course he +didn't mind if she went on and got her nurse's diploma--didn't she +_want_ to? Anything she wanted.... + +No--decidedly the thing was too big to make a successful fĂŞte of. +Morrison was silent and appreciatively observant, his eyes sometimes +on Sylvia, sometimes on Judith; Mr. Sommerville, continuing doggedly +to make talk, descended to unheard-of trivialities in reporting the +iniquities of his chauffeur; Molly stirred an untasted cup, did not +raise her eyes at all, and spoke only once or twice, addressing to +Sylvia a disconnected question or two, in the answers to which she had +obviously no interest. Judith and Arnold had never been very malleable +social material, and in their present formidable condition they were +as little assistance in the manufacture of geniality as a couple of +African lions. + +The professional fĂŞte-makers were consequently enormously relieved +when it was over and their unavailing efforts could be decently +discontinued. Professing different reasons for escape, they moved in +disjointed groups across the smooth perfection of the lawn towards +the house, where Molly's car stood, gleaming in the sun. Sylvia found +herself, as she expected, manoeuvered to a place beside Morrison. He +arranged it with his unobtrusive deftness in getting what he wanted +out of a group of his fellow-beings, and she admired his skill, and +leaned on it confidently. They had had no opportunity that day for the +long talk which had been a part of every afternoon for the last week; +and she now looked with a buoyant certainty to have him arrange an +hour together before dinner. Her anticipation of it on that burning +day of reflected heat sent thrills of eager disquietude over her. It +was not only for Judith and Arnold that the last week had been one of +meeting eyes, long twilight evenings of breathless, quick-ripening +intimacy.... + +As they slackened their pace to drop behind Mr. Sommerville, who +walked hand-in-hand with his granddaughter in front of them, Morrison +said, looking at her with burning eyes, "... an instrument so finely +strung that it vibrates at the mere sound of another wakened to +melody--what mortal man lives who would not dream of its response if +he could set his own hand to the bow?" + +The afternoon had been saturated with emotional excitement and the +moment had come for its inevitable crystallization into fateful words. +The man spoke as though he were not wholly conscious of what he was +saying. He stepped beside her like one in a dream. He could not take +his eyes from her, from her flushed, grave, receptive face, from her +downcast, listening eyes, her slow, trance-like step as she waited for +him to go on. He went on: "It becomes, my dear, I assure you--the idea +of that possibility becomes absolutely an obsession--even to a man +usually quite his own master--" + +They were almost at a standstill now, and the two in front of them +had reached the house. Sylvia had a moment of what seemed to her the +purest happiness she had ever known.... + +From across the lawn they saw a violent gesture--Molly had thrown her +grandfather's clinging hand from her, and flashed back upon the two, +lingering there in the sunlight. She cast herself on Sylvia, panting +and trying to laugh. Her little white teeth showed in what was almost +a grimace. "Why in the world are you two poking along so?" she cried, +passing her arm through Sylvia's. Her beautiful sunny head came no +more than to Sylvia's shoulder. Without waiting for an answer she went +on hurriedly, speaking in the tones of suppressed excitement which +thrilled in every one's voice that day: "Come on, Sylvia--let's work +it off together! Let me take you somewhere--let's go to Rutland and +back." + +"That's thirty miles away!" said Sylvia, "and it's past five now." + +"I'll have you there and back long before seven," asserted Molly. +"Come on ... come on ..." She pulled impatiently, petulantly at the +other girl's arm. + +"I'm not invited, I suppose," said Morrison, lighting a cigarette with +care. + +Molly looked at him a little wildly. "No, Felix, you're not invited!" +she said, and laughed unsteadily. + +She had hurried them along to the car, and now they stood by the swift +gray machine, Molly's own, the one she claimed to love more than +anything else in the world. She sprang in and motioned Sylvia to the +seat beside her. + +"Hats?" suggested Morrison, looking at their bare, shining heads. He +was evidently fighting for time, manoeuvering for an opening. His +success was that of a man gesticulating against a gale. Molly's baldly +unscrupulous determination beat down the beginnings of his carefully +composed opposition before he could frame one of his well-balanced +sentences. "No--no--it takes too long to go and get hats!" she cried +peremptorily. "If you can't have what you want when you want it, it's +no use having it at all!" + +"I'm not sure," remarked Morrison, "that Miss Marshall wants this at +all." + +"Yes, she does; yes, she does!" Molly contradicted him heatedly. +Sylvia, hanging undecided at the step, felt herself pulled into the +car; the door banged, the engine started with a smooth sound of +powerful machinery, the car leaped forward. Sylvia cast one backward +glance at Morrison, an annoyed, distinguished, futile presence, +standing motionless, and almost instantly disappearing in the distance +in which first he, and then the house and tall poplars over it, shrank +to nothingness. + +Their speed was dizzying. The blazing summer air blew hot and vital in +their faces; their hair tugged at the pins and flew back in fluttering +strands; their thin garments clung to their limbs, molded as closely +by the compressing wind as by water. Molly did not turn her eyes from +the road ahead, leaping up to meet them, and vanishing under the car. +She tried to make a little casual talk: "Don't you love to let it out, +give it all the gas there is?" "There's nothing like a quick spin for +driving the nightmares out of your mind, is there?" But as Sylvia made +no answer to these overtures (the plain fact was that Sylvia had no +breath for speech,--for anything but a horrified fascinated glare at +the road), she said suddenly, somberly, "If I were you, I certainly +should despise me!" She took the car around a sharp curve on two +wheels. + +Sylvia clutched at the side and asked wonderingly, "_Why_ in the +world?" in a tone so permeated with sincerity that even Molly felt it. + +"Don't you _know_?" she cried. "Do you mean to say you don't _know_?" + +"Know _what_?" asked Sylvia. Hypnotized by the driver's intent and +unwavering gaze on the road, she kept her own eyes as fiercely +concentrated, her attention leaping from one quickly seen, instantly +disappearing detail to another,--a pile of gravel here,--a half-buried +rock there.--They both raised their voices to be heard above the sound +of the engine and the rush of the car. "Know what?" repeated Sylvia +loudly. + +"Why do you _suppose_ I made myself ridiculous by pulling you away +from Felix that idiotic, humiliating way!" Molly threw this inquiry +out, straight before her, angrily. The wind caught at her words and +hurled them behind. + +In a flash Sylvia understood something to which she had been +resolutely closing her perceptions. She felt sick and scared. She +clutched the side, watched a hill rise up steep before them and +flatten out under the forward leap of the car. She thought hard. +Something of her little-girl, overmastering horror of things, rough, +outspoken, disagreeable, swept over her. She violently wished that she +could escape from the conversation before her. She would have paid +almost any price to escape. + +But Molly's nerves were not so sensitive. She evidently had no +desire to escape or to let Sylvia. The grim little figure at the +steering-wheel controlled with her small hands the fate of the two. +She broke out now, impatient at Sylvia's silence: "Any fool could see +that it was because I couldn't bear to see you with Felix another +minute, and because I hadn't any other way to get you apart. Everybody +else there knew why. I knew they knew. But I couldn't help it. I +couldn't bear it another instant!" + +She broke the glass of decent reticence with a great clattering blow. +It shivered into fragments. There was nothing now between them but the +real issue in all its uncomely bareness. This real issue, the +maenad at the wheel now held up before them in a single brutal +statement--"Are you in love with Felix? I am." + +There was something eerie, terrifying, in her casting these words +out, straight before her. Sylvia looked in awe at the pale, pinched +profile, almost unrecognizable in its stern misery. "Because if you're +not," Molly went on, her white lower lip twitching, "I wish you'd keep +out. It was all right before you came with your horrible cleverness. +It was all right. It was all right." + +Through the iteration of this statement, through the tumult of her own +thoughts, through the mad rush of the wind past her ears, Sylvia heard +as clearly as though she sat again in the great, dim, quiet room, a +melodious voice saying gently, indulgently, laughingly, "_Molly!_" +Secure in her own safe place of favor she felt a great wave of +generous pity for the helpless self-deception of her sister-woman. +Fired by this and by the sudden perception of an opening for an act of +spectacular magnanimity--would it be any the less magnanimous because +it would cost her nothing in the end?--she reached for the mantle of +the _beau rĂ´le_ and cast it about her shoulders. "Why, Molly dear!" +she cried, and her quick sympathies had never been more genuinely +aroused, "Molly dear, of course I'll keep out, if you want me to. I'll +leave the coast clear to you as long as you please." + +She was almost thrown from the seat by the jarring grind of the car +brought to a sudden standstill. Molly caught her hands, looked into +her face, the first time their eyes had met. "Do you mean it ... +Sylvia?" + +Sylvia nodded, much agitated, touched by the other's pain, half +ashamed of her own apparent generosity which was to mean no loss to +her, no gain to Molly. In the sudden becalmed stillness of the hot +afternoon their bright, blown hair fell about their faces in shining +clouds. + +"I didn't understand before," said Sylvia; and she was speaking the +truth. + +"And you'll let him alone? You won't talk to him--play his +accompaniments--oh, those long talks of yours!" + +"We've been talking, you silly dear, of the Renaissance compared to +the Twentieth Century, and of the passing of the leisure class, and +all the beauty they always create," said Sylvia. Again she spoke +the literal truth. But the true truth, burning on Molly's tongue, +shriveled this to ashes. "You've been making him admire you, be +interested in you, see how little _I_ amount to!" she cried. "But +if you _don't_ care about him yourself--if you'll--_two weeks_, +Sylvia--just keep out for two weeks...." As if it were part of the +leaping forward of her imagination, she suddenly started the car +again, and with a whirling, reckless wrench at the steering-wheel she +had turned the car about and was racing back over the road they had +come. + +"Where are you going?" cried Sylvia to her, above the noise of their +progress. + +"Back!" she answered, laughing out. "What's the use of going on now?" +She opened the throttle to its widest and pressing her lips together +tightly, gave herself up to the intoxication of speed. + +Once she said earnestly: "You're _fine_, Sylvia! I never knew a girl +could be like you!" And once more she threw out casually: "Do you know +what I was going to do if I found out you and Felix--if you hadn't...? +I was going to jump the car over the turn there on Prospect +Hill." + +Remembering the terrible young face of pain and wrath which she had +watched on the way out, Sylvia believed her; or at least believed that +she believed her. In reality, her immortal youth was incapable of +believing in the fact of death in any form. But the words put a stamp +of tragic sincerity on their wild expedition, and on her companion's +suffering. She thought of the two weeks which lay before Molly, and +turned away her eyes in sympathy.... + + * * * * * + +Ten days after this, an announcement was made of the engagement of +Mary Montgomery Sommerville, sole heiress of the great Montgomery +fortune, to Felix Morrison, the well-known critic of aesthetics. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +MOLLY IN HER ELEMENT + + +Sylvia faced her aunt's dictum with heartsick shrinking from its +rigor; but she recognized it as an unexaggerated statement of the +facts. "You can't go home now, Sylvia--everybody would say you +couldn't stand seeing Molly's snatch at Felix successful. You really +must stay on to let people see that you are another kind of girl from +Molly, capable of impersonal interest in a man of Felix's brains." + +Sylvia thought of making the obviously suitable remark that she +cared nothing about what people thought, but such a claim was so +preposterously untrue to her character that she could not bring the +words past her lips. As a matter of fact, she did care what people +thought. She always had! She always would! She remained silent, +looking fixedly out of the great, plate-glass window, across the +glorious sweep of blue mountain-slope and green valley commanded by +Mrs. Marshall-Smith's bedroom. She did not resemble the romantic +conception of a girl crossed in love. She looked very quiet, no paler +than usual, quite self-possessed. The only change a keen eye could +have noted was that now there was about her an atmosphere of slightly +rigid dignity, which had not been there before. She seemed less +girlish. + +No eyes could have been more keenly analytical than those of Mrs. +Marshall-Smith. She saw perfectly the new attribute, and realized +perfectly what a resolute stiffening of the will it signified. She +had never admired and loved Sylvia more, and being a person adept in +self-expression, she saturated her next speech with her admiration and +affection. "Of course, you know, my dear, that _I'm_ not one of the +herd. I know entirely that your feeling for Felix was just what mine +is--immense admiration for his taste and accomplishments. As a matter +of fact it was apparent to every one that, even in spite of all +Molly's money, if you'd really cared to ..." + +Sylvia winced, actually and physically, at this speech, which brought +back to her with a sharp flick the egregiousness of her absurd +self-deception. What a simpleton she had been--what a little naĂŻve, +provincial simpleton! In spite of her high opinion of her own +cleverness and knowledge of people, how stupidly steeped she had +been in the childish, idiotic American tradition of entire +disinterestedness in the relations of men and women. It was another +instance of how betrayed she constantly was, in any manoeuver in +the actual world, by the fatuous idealism which had so colored her +youth--she vented her emotion in despising that idealism and thinking +of hard names to call it. + +"... though of course you showed your intelligence by _not_ really +caring to," went on Mrs. Marshall-Smith; "it would have meant a +crippled life for both of you. Felix hasn't a cent more than he needs +for himself. If he was going to marry at all, he was forced to marry +carefully. Indeed, it has occurred to me that he may have thrown +himself into this, because he was in danger of losing his head over +you, and knew how fatal it would be. For you, you lovely thing of +great possibilities, you need a rich soil for _your_ roots, too, if +you're to bloom out as you ought to." + +Sylvia, receiving this into a sore and raw consciousness, said to +herself with an embittered instinct for cynicism that she had never +heard more euphonious periphrases for selling yourself for money. For +that was what it came down to, she had told herself fiercely a great +many times during the night. Felix had sold himself for money as +outright as ever a woman of the streets had done. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith, continuing steadily to talk (on the theory that +talking prevents too great concentration of thought), and making the +round of all the possible things to say, chanced at this moment upon +a qualification to this theory of Morrison's conduct which for an +instant caught Sylvia's attention, "--and then there's always the +possibility that even if you _had_ cared to--Molly might have been +too much for you, for both of you. She always has had just what she +wanted--and people who have, get the habit. I don't know if you've +noticed it, in the little you've seen of her, but it's very apparent +to me, knowing her from childhood up as I have, that there's a slight +coarseness of grain in Molly, when it's a question of getting what she +wants. I don't mean she's exactly horrid. Molly's a dear in her way, +and I'm very fond of her, of course. If she can get what she wants +_without_ walking over anybody's prostrate body, she'll go round. +But there's a directness, a brilliant lack of fine shades in Molly's +grab.... It makes one remember that her Montgomery grandfather had +firmness of purpose enough to raise himself from an ordinary Illinois +farmer to arbiter of the wheat pit. Such impossible old aunts--such +cousins--occasionally crop up still from the Montgomery connection. +But all with the same crude force. It's almost impossible for a +temperament like Felix's to contend with a nature like that." + +Sylvia was struck by the reflection, but on turning it over she saw +in it only another reason for anger at Morrison. "You make your old +friend out as a very weak character," she said. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith's tolerant, clear view of the infirmities of +humanity was grieved by this fling of youthful severity. "Oh, my dear! +my dear! A young, beautiful, enormendously rich, tremendously enamored +girl? That's a combination! I don't think we need consider Felix +exactly weak for not having resisted!" + +Sylvia thought she knew reasons for his not yielding, but she did not +care to discuss them, and said nothing. + +"But whether," continued Mrs. Marshall-Smith, attempting delicately +to convey the only reflection supposed to be of comfort to a girl in +Sylvia's situation, "whether or not Molly will find after marriage +that even a very masterful and ruthless temperament may fail entirely +to possess and hold the things it has grabbed and carried off ..." + +Sylvia repudiated the tacit conception that this would be a balm to +her. "Oh, I'm sure I hope they'll manage!" she said earnestly. + +"Of course! Of course!" agreed Mrs. Marshall-Smith. "Who doesn't hope +so?" She paused, her loquacity run desperately thin. There was +the sound of a car, driving up to the front door. Sylvia rose in +apprehension. Her aunt motioned a reassurance. "I told Tojiko to tell +every one that we are not in--to anybody." + +HĂ©lène came to the door on silent, felt-shod feet, a black-and-white +picture of well-trained servility. "Pardon, Madame, Tojiko says that +Mlle. Sommerville wishes to see Mlle. Sylvie." + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith looked with considerable apprehension at her +niece. "You must get it over with some time, Sylvia. It'll be easier +here than with a lot of people staring at you both, and making nasty +speculations." Neither she nor Sylvia noticed that for an instant, in +her haste, she had quite dropped her careful pretension that Sylvia +could, of course, if she had really cared to.... + +Sylvia set her jaw, an action curiously visible under the smooth, +subtle modeling of her young cheeks. She said to HĂ©lène in a quiet +voice: "_Mais bien sĂ»r!_ Tell her we're not yet dressed, but if she +will give herself the trouble to come up...." + +HĂ©lène nodded and retreated. Sylvia looked rather pale. + +"You don't know what a joy your perfect French is to me, dear," said +Mrs. Marshall-Smith, still rapidly turning every peg in sight in an +endeavor to loosen tension; but no noticeable relaxation took place in +Sylvia. It did not seem to her at just that moment of great importance +that she could speak good French. + +With desperate haste she was saying to herself, "At least Molly +doesn't know about anything. I told her I didn't care. She believed +me. I must go on pretending that I don't. But can I! But can I!" + +Light, rapid steps came flying up the stairs and down the long hall. +"Sylvia! Sylvia!" Molly was evidently hesitating between doors. + +"Here--this way--last door--Aunt Victoria's room!" called Sylvia, and +felt like a terror-stricken actor making a first public appearance, +enormously surprised, relieved, and heartened to find her usual voice +still with her. As Molly came flying into the room, she ran to meet +her. They fell into each other's arms with incoherent ejaculations +and, under the extremely appreciative eye of Mrs. Marshall-Smith, +kissed each other repeatedly. + +"Oh, isn't she the dear!" cried Molly, shaking out amply to the breeze +a victor's easy generosity. "Isn't she the darlingest girl in the +world! She _understands_ so! When I saw how perfectly _sweet_ she was +the day Arnold and Judith announced their engagement, I said to myself +I wanted her to be the first person I spoke to about mine." + +The approach of the inexorable necessity for her first words roused +Sylvia to an inspiration which struck out an almost visible spark +of admiration from her aunt. "You just count too much on my being +'queer,' Molly," she said playfully, pulling the other girl down +beside her, with an affectionate gesture. "How do _you_ know that I'm +not fearfully jealous of you? _Such_ a charmer as your fiancĂ© is!" + +Molly laughed delightedly. "Isn't she wonderful--not to care a +bit--really!" she appealed to Sylvia's aunt. "How anybody _could_ +resist Felix--but then she's so clever. She's wonderful!" + +Sylvia, smiling, cordial, clear-eyed and bitter-hearted, thought that +she really was. + +"But I can't talk about it here!" cried Molly restlessly. "I came to +carry Sylvia off. I can't sit still at home. I want to go ninety miles +an hour! I can't think straight unless I'm behind the steering-wheel. +Come along, Sylvia!" + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith thereupon showed herself, for all her amenity and +grace, more of a match of Molly's force and energy than either Sylvia +or Morrison had been on a certain rather memorable occasion ten +days before. She opposed the simple irresistible obstacle of a flat +command. "Sylvia's _not_ going out in a car dressed in a lace-trimmed +nĂ©gligĂ©e, with a boudoir cap on, whether you get what you want the +minute you want it or not, Molly Sommerville," she said with the +authoritative accent which had always quelled Arnold in his boyhood +(as long as he was within earshot). The method was effective now. +Molly laughed. Sylvia even made shift to laugh; and Helene was +summoned to put on the trim shirt-waist, the short cloth skirt and +close hat which Mrs. Marshall-Smith selected with care and the history +of which she detailed at length, so copiously that there was no +opportunity to speak of anything less innocuous. Her unusual interest +in the matter even caused her to accompany the girls to the head of +the stairs, still talking, and she called down to them finally as they +went out of the front door, "... it's the only way with Briggs--he's +simply incorrigible about delays--and yet nobody does skirts as he +does! You just have to tell him you _will not take it_, if he doesn't +get it done on time!" + +Sylvia cast an understanding, grateful upward look at her aunt and +stepped into the car. So far it had gone better than she feared. But a +tĂŞte-Ă -tĂŞte with Molly, overflowing with the confidences of the newly +betrothed--she was not sure that she could get through with that with +credit. + +Molly, however, seemed as little inclined to overflow as Sylvia to +have her. She talked of everything in the world except of Felix +Morrison; and it was not long before Sylvia's acuteness discovered +that she was not thinking of what she was saying. There passed through +her mind a wild, wretched notion that Molly might after all know--that +Felix might have been base enough to talk about her to Molly, that +Molly might be trying to "spare her." But this idea was instantly +rejected: Molly was not subtle enough to conceive of such a course, +and too headlong not to make a hundred blunders in carrying it out; +and besides, it would not explain her manner. She was abstracted +obviously for the simple reason that she had something on her mind, +something not altogether to her liking, judging from the uneasy color +which came and went in her face, by her rattling, senseless flow of +chatter, by her fidgeting, unnecessary adjustments of the mechanism of +the car. + +Sylvia herself, in spite of her greater self-control, looked out upon +the world with nothing of her usual eager welcome. The personality of +the man they did not name hung between and around the two women like a +cloud. As they swept along rapidly, young, fair, well-fed, beautifully +dressed, in the costly, shining car, their clouded faces might to a +country eye have been visible proofs of the country dictum that "rich +city folks don't seem to get no good out'n their money and their +automobiles: always layin' their ears back and lookin' 'bout as +cheerful as a balky horse." + +But the country eyes which at this moment fell on them were anything +but conscious of class differences. It was a desperate need which +reached out a gaunt claw and plucked at them when, high on the flank +of the mountain, as they swung around the corner of a densely wooded +road, they saw a wild-eyed man in overalls leap down from the bushes +and yell at them. + +Sylvia was startled and her first impression was the natural feminine +one of fear--a lonely road, a strange man, excited, perhaps drunk--But +Molly, without an instant's hesitation, ground the car to a stop in a +cloud of dust. "What's the matter?" she shouted as the man sprang up +on the running-board. He was gasping, purple, utterly spent, and for +an instant could only beat the air with his hands. Then he broke out +in a hoarse shout--the sound in that quiet sylvan spot was like a +tocsin: "Fire! An awful fire! Hewitt's pine woods--up that road!" He +waved a wild, bare arm--his shirt-sleeve was torn to the shoulder. "Go +and git help. They need all the men they can git!" + +He dropped from the running-board and ran back up the hill through the +bushes. They saw him lurch from one side to the other; he was still +exhausted from his dash down the mountain to the road; they heard the +bushes crash, saw them close behind him. He was gone. + +Sylvia's eyes were still on the spot where he had disappeared when she +was thrown violently back against the seat in a great leap forward of +the car. She caught at the side, at her hat, and saw Molly's face. It +was transfigured. The brooding restlessness was gone as acrid smoke +goes when the clear flame leaps up. + +"What are you doing?" shouted Sylvia. + +"To get help," answered Molly, opening the throttle another notch. +The first staggering plunge over, the car settled down to a terrific +speed, purring softly its puissant vibrant song of illimitable +strength. "Hear her sing! Hear her sing!" cried Molly. In three +minutes from the time the man had left them, they tore into the +nearest village, two miles from the woods. It seemed that in those +three minutes Molly had not only run the car like a demon, but had +formed a plan. Slackening speed only long enough to waltz with the car +on a street-corner while she shouted an inquiry to a passer-by, she +followed the wave of his hand and flashed down a side-street to a +big brick building which proclaimed itself in a great sign, "Peabody +Brush-back Factory." + +The car stopped. Molly sprang out and ran as though the car were a +rifle and she the bullet emerging from it. She ran into a large, ugly, +comfortable office, where several white-faced girls were lifting their +thin little fingers from typewriter keys to stare at the young woman +who burst through and in at a door marked "Manager." + +"There's a fire on the mountain--a great fire in Hewitt's pine woods," +she cried in a clear, peremptory voice that sounded like a young +captain leading a charge. "I can take nine men on my car. Will you +come with me and tell which men to go?" + +A dignified, elderly man, with smooth, gray hair and a black alpaca +office coat, sat perfectly motionless behind his desk and stared at +her in a petrified silence. Molly stamped her foot. "There's not an +instant to lose," she said; "they need every man they can get." + +"Who's the fire-warden of this township?" said the elderly man +foolishly, trying to assemble his wits. + +Molly appeared visibly to propel him from his chair by her fury. "Oh, +they need help _NOW_!" she cried. "Come on! Come on!" + +Then they stood together on the steps of the office. "Those men +unloading lumber over there could go," said the manager, "and I'll get +three more from the packing-rooms." + +"Don't go yourself! Send somebody to get them!" commanded Molly. "You +go and telephone anybody in town who has a car. There'll be sure to be +one or two at the garage." + +Sylvia gasped at the prodigy taking place before her eyes, the +masterful, keen-witted captain of men who emerged like a thunderbolt +from their Molly--Molly, the pretty little beauty of the summer +colony! + +She had galvanized the elderly New Englander beside her out of his +first momentary apathy of stupefaction. He now put his own competent +hand to the helm and took command. + +"Yes," he said, and with the word it was evident that he was aroused. +Over his shoulder, in a quiet voice that carried like the crack of a +gun: "Henderson, go get three men from the packing-room to go to a +forest-fire. Shut down the machinery. Get all the able-bodied men +ready in gangs of seven. Perkins, you 'phone Tim O'Keefe to bring my +car here at once. And get Pat's and Tom's and the two at the hotel." + +"Tools?" said Molly. + +He nodded and called out to the men advancing with a rush on the car: +"There are hoes and shovels inside the power-house door. Better take +some axes too." + +In four minutes from the time they had entered the village (Sylvia had +her watch in her hand) they were flying back, the car packed with men +in overalls and clustered thick with others on the running-board. Back +of them the whistle of the factory shrieked a strident announcement of +disaster. Women and children ran to the doors to stare up and down, +to cry out, to look and with dismayed faces to see the great cloud of +gray smoke pouring up from the side of the mountain. There was no soul +in that village who did not know what a forest-fire meant. + +Then in a flash the car had left the village and was rushing along the +dusty highroad, the huge, ominous pillar of smoke growing nearer. The +men stared up at it with sober faces. "Pretty hot fire!" said one +uneasily. + +They reached the place where the man had yelled to them--ten minutes +exactly since they had left it. Molly turned the car into the steep +sandy side-road which led up the mountain. The men shouted out in +remonstrance, "Hey, lady! You can't git a car up there. We'll have to +walk the rest of the way. They don't never take cars there." + +"This one is going up," sang out Molly gallantly, almost gaily, +opening the throttle to its fullest and going into second speed. + +The sound of the laboring engine jarred loudly through all the still, +hot woods; the car shook and trembled under the strain on it. Molly +dropped into low. A cloud of evil-smelling blue gasoline smoke rose +up from the exhaust behind, but the car continued to advance. Rising +steadily, coughing and choking, up the cruelly steep grades, +bumping heavily down over the great water-bars, smoking, rattling, +quivering--the car continued to advance. A trickle of perspiration ran +down Molly's cheeks. The floor was hot under their feet, the smell of +hot oil pungent in their nostrils. + +They were eight minutes from the main road now, and near the fire. +Over the trail hung a cloud of smoke, and, as they turned a corner and +came through this, they saw that they had arrived. Sylvia drew back +and crooked her arm over her eyes. She had never seen a forest fire +before. She came from the plain-country, where trees are almost +sacred, and her first feeling was of terror. But then she dropped her +arm and looked, and looked again at the glorious, awful sight which +was to furnish her with nightmares for months to come. + +The fire was roaring down one side of the road towards them, and away +to the right was eating its furious, sulphurous way into the heart of +the forest. They stopped a hundred feet short, but the blare of heat +struck on their faces like a blow. Through the dense masses of smoke, +terrifying glimpses of fierce, clean flame; a resinous dead stump +burning like a torch; a great tree standing helpless like a martyr at +the stake, suddenly transformed into a frenzied pillar of fire.... +Along the front of this whirlpool of flame toiled, with despairing +fury, four lean, powerful men. As they raised their blackened, +desperate faces and saw the car there, actually there, incredibly +there, black with its load of men, they gave a deep-throated shout of +relief, though they did not for an instant stop the frantic plying of +their picks and hoes. The nine men sprang out, their implements in +their hands, and dispersed along the fighting-line. + +Molly backed the car around, the rear wheels churning up the sand, and +plunged down the hill into the smoke. Through the choking fumes of +this, Sylvia shouted at her, "Molly! Molly! You're _great_!" She felt +that she would always hear ringing in her ears that thrilling, hoarse +shout of relief. + +Molly shouted in answer, "I could scream, I'm so happy!" And as they +plunged madly down the mountain road, she said: "Oh, Sylvia, you don't +know--I never was any use before--never once--never! I got the first +load of help there! How they shouted!" + +At the junction of the side-road with the highway, a car was +discharging a load of men with rakes and picks. "_I_ took my car up!" +screamed Molly, leaning from the steering wheel but not slackening +speed as she tore past them. + +The driver of the other car, a young man with the face of a fighting +Celt, flushed at the challenge and, motioning the men back into the +car, started up the sandy hill. Molly laughed aloud. "I never was so +happy in my life!" she said again. + +Both girls had forgotten the existence of Felix Morrison. + +They passed cars now, many of them, streaming south at breakneck +speed, full to overflowing with unsmiling men in working clothes, +bristling with long-handled implements. But as they fled down the +street to the factory they saw, waiting still, some twenty or more men +in overalls drawn up, ready, armed, resolute.... + +"How strong men are!" said Molly, gazing in ecstasy at this array of +factory hands. "I love them!" She added under her breath, "But _I_ +take them there!" + +While the men were swarming into the car, the gray-haired manager +came out to report, as though to an officer equal in command, "I've +telephoned to Ward and Howe's marble-works in Chitford," he said. +"They've sent down fifty men from there. About seventy-five have gone +from this village. I suppose all the farmers in that district are +there by this time." + +"Will they ever stop it!" asked Sylvia despairingly, seeing wherever +she looked nothing but that ravening, fiery leap of the flames, +feeling that terrible hot breath on her cheek. + +The question and accent brought the man for the first time to a +realization of the girls' youth and sex. He shifted to paternal +reassurance. "Oh yes, oh yes," he said, looking up the valley +appraisingly at the great volume of the smoke, "with a hundred and +fifty men there, almost at once, they'll have it under control before +long. Everything with a forest fire depends on getting help there +_quickly_. Ten men there almost at once do more than fifty men an hour +later. That's why your friend's promptness was so important. I guess +it might have been pretty bad if they'd had to wait for help till one +of them could have run to the village. A fire, a bad fire like that, +gets so in an hour that you can't stop it--can't stop it till it gets +out where you can plow a furrow around it. And that's a terrible place +for a fire up there. Lots of slash left." + +Molly called over her shoulder to the men climbing on the car, "All +ready there?" and was off, a Valkyr with her load of heroes. + +Once more the car toiled and agonized up the execrable sandy steepness +of the side-road; but in the twenty minutes since they had been there +the tide had turned. Sylvia was amazed at the total shifting of +values. Instead of four solitary workers, struggling wildly against +overwhelming odds, a long line of men, working with a disciplined, +orderly haste, stretched away into the woods. Imperious and savage, +the smoke and swift flames towered above them, leaping up into the +very sky, darkening the sun. Bent over their rakes, their eyes on the +ground, mere black specks against the raging glory of the fire, the +line of men, with an incessant monotonous haste, drew away the dry +leaves with their rakes, while others who followed them tore at the +earth with picks and hoes. It was impossible to believe that such +ant-labors could avail, but already, near the road, the fire had burnt +itself out, baffled by its microscopic assailants. As far as the girls +could see into the charred underbrush, a narrow, clean line of freshly +upturned earth marked where the fiercest of all the elements had +been vanquished by the humblest of all the tools of men. Bewildered, +Sylvia's eyes shifted from the toiling men to the distance, across the +blackened desolation near them, to where the fire still tossed its +wicked crest of flames defiantly into the forest. She heard, but +she did not believe the words of the men in the car, who cried out +expertly as they ran forward, "Oh, the worst's over. They're shutting +down on it." How could the worst be over, when there was still that +whirling horror of flame and smoke beyond them? + +Just after the men had gone, exultant, relieved, the girls turned +their heads to the other side of the road, and there, very silent, +very secret and venomous, leaped and glittered a little ring of +flames. An hour before, it would have looked a pretty, harmless sight +to the two who now sat, stricken by horror into a momentary frozen +stillness. The flames licked at the dry leaves and playfully sprang up +into a clump of tall dry grass. The fire was running swiftly towards a +bunch of dead alders standing at the edge of the forest. Before it had +spread an inch further, the girls were upon it, screaming for help, +screaming as people in civilization seldom scream, with all their +lungs. With uplifted skirts they stamped and trod out, under swift and +fearless feet, the sinister, silent, yellow tongues. They snatched +branches of green leaves and beat fiercely at the enemy. It had been +so small a spot compared to the great desolation across the road, they +stamped out the flames so easily, that the girls expected with every +breath to see the last of it. To see it escape them, to see it +suddenly flare up where it had been dead, to see it appear behind +them while they were still fighting it in front, was like being in a +nightmare when effort is impossible. The ring widened with appalling, +with unbelievable rapidity. Sylvia could not think it possible that +anything outside a dream could have such devouring swiftness. She trod +and snatched and stamped and screamed, and wondered if she were indeed +awake.... + +Yet in an instant their screams had been heard, three or four +smoke-blackened fire-fighters from beyond the road ran forward with +rakes, and in a twinkling the danger was past. Its disappearance was +as incredible as its presence. + +"Ain't that just like a fire in the woods?" said one of the men, an +elderly farmer. He drew a long, tremulous breath. "It's so tarnation +_quick_! It's either all over before you can ketch your breath, or +it's got beyond you for good." It evidently did not occur to him to +thank the girls for their part. They had only done what every one did +in an emergency, the best they could. He looked back at the burned +tract on the other side of the road and said: "They've got the best +of that all right, too. I jest heard 'em shoutin' that the men from +Chitford had worked round from the upper end. So they've got a ring +round it. Nothin' to do now but watch that it don't jump. My! 'Twas a +close call. I've been to a lot of fires in my day, but I d'know as I +ever see a _closeter_ call!" + +"It can't be _over_!" cried Sylvia, looking at the lurid light across +the road. "Why, it isn't an hour since we--" + +"Land! No, it ain't _over!_" he explained, scornful of her +inexperience. "They'll have to have a gang of men here watchin' it all +night--and maybe all tomorrow--'less we have some rain. But it won't +go no further than the fire-line, and as soon as there're men enough +to draw that all around, it's _got_ to stop!" He went on to his +companion, irritably, pressing his hand to his side: "There ain't no +use talkin', I got to quit fire-fightin'. My heart 'most gi'n out on +me in the hottest of that. And yit I'm only sixty!" + +"It ain't no job for old folks," said the other bitterly. "If it had +ha' gone a hundred feet further that way, 'twould ha' been in where +Ed Hewitt's been lumberin', and if it had got into them dry tops and +brush--well, I guess 'twould ha' gone from here to Chitford village +before it stopped. And 'twouldn't ha' stopped there, neither!" + +The old man said reflectively: "'Twas the first load of men did the +business. 'Twas nip and tuck down to the last foot if we could stop it +on that side. I tell you, ten minutes of that kind o' work takes about +ten years off'n a man's life. We'd just about gi'n up when we saw 'em +coming. I bet I won't be no gladder to see the pearly gates than I was +to see them men with hoes." + +Molly turned a glowing, quivering face of pride on Sylvia, and then +looked past her shoulder with a startled expression into the eyes of +one of the fire-fighters, a tall, lean, stooping man, blackened +and briar-torn like the rest. "Why, Cousin Austin!" she cried with +vehement surprise, "what in the world--" In spite of his grime, she +gave him a hearty, astonished, affectionate kiss. + +"I was just wondering," said the man, smiling indulgently down on her, +"how soon you'd recognize me, you little scatter-brain." + +"I thought you were going to stick in Colorado all summer," said +Molly. + +"Well, I heard they were short of help at Austin Farm and I came on +to help get in the hay," said the man. Both he and Molly seemed to +consider this a humorous speech. Then, remembering Sylvia, Molly went +through a casual introduction. "This is my cousin--Austin Page--my +_favorite_ cousin! He's really awfully nice, though so plain to look +at." She went on, still astonished, "But how'd you get _here?_" + +"Why, how does anybody in Vermont get to a forest fire?" he answered. +"We were out in the hayfield, saw the smoke, left the horses, grabbed +what tools we could find, and beat it through the woods. That's the +technique of the game up here." + +"I didn't know your farm ran anywhere near here," said Molly. + +"It isn't so terribly near. We came across lots tolerable fast. But +there's a little field, back up on the edge of the woods that isn't so +far. Grandfather used to raise potatoes there. I've got it into hay +now," he explained. + +As they talked, the fire beyond them gave definite signs of yielding. +It had evidently been stopped on the far side and now advanced +nowhere, showed no longer a malign yellow crest, but only rolling +sullenly heavenward a diminishing cloud of smoke. The fire-fighters +began to straggle back across the burned tract towards the road, their +eyeballs gleaming white in their dark faces. + +"Oh, they mustn't walk! I'll take them back--the darlings!" said +Molly, starting for her car. She was quite her usual brisk, +free-and-easy self now. "Cracky! I hope I've got gas enough. I've +certainly been going _some!_" + +"Why don't you leave me here?" suggested Sylvia. "I'll walk home. +That'll leave room for one more." + +"Oh, you can't do that!" protested Molly faintly, though she was +evidently at once struck with the plan. "How'd you find your way +home?" She turned to her cousin. "See here, Austin, why don't _you_ +take Sylvia home? You ought to go anyhow and see Grandfather. Hell be +awfully hurt to think you're here and haven't been to see him." She +threw instantly into this just conceived idea the force which always +carried through her plans. "Do go! I feel so grateful to these men I +don't want one of them to walk a step!" + +Sylvia had thought of a solitary walk, longing intensely for +isolation, and she did not at all welcome the suggestion of adapting +herself to a stranger. The stranger, on his part, looked a very +unchivalrous hesitation; but this proved to be only a doubt of +Sylvia's capacity as a walker. + +"If you don't mind climbing a bit, I can take you over the gap between +Hemlock and Windward Mountain and make a bee-line for Lydford. It's +not an hour from here, that way, but it's ten miles around by the +road--and hot and dusty too." + +"Can she _climb_!" ejaculated Molly scornfully, impatient to be off +with her men. "She went up to Prospect Rock in forty minutes." + +She high-handedly assumed that everything was settled as she wished +it, and running towards the car, called with an easy geniality to the +group of men, starting down the road on foot, "Here, wait a minute, +folks, I'll take you back!" + +She mounted the car, started the engine, waved her hand to the two +behind her, and was off. + +The lean, stooping man looked dubiously at Sylvia. "You're sure you +don't mind a little climb?" he said. + +"Oh no, I like it," she said listlessly. The moment for her was of +stale, wearied return to real life, to the actual world which she was +continually finding uglier than she hoped. The recollection of Felix +Morrison came back to her in a bitter tide. + +"All ready?" asked her companion, mopping his forehead with a very +dirty handkerchief. + +"All ready," she said and turned, with a hanging head, to follow him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +BETWEEN WINDWARD AND HEMLOCK MOUNTAINS + + +For a time as they plodded up the steep wood-road, overgrown with +ferns and rank grass, with dense green walls of beech and oak saplings +on either side, what few desultory remarks they exchanged related to +Molly, she being literally the only topic of common knowledge between +them. Sylvia, automatically responding to her deep-lying impulse to +give pleasure, to be pleasing, made an effort to overcome her somber +lassitude and spoke of Molly's miraculous competence in dealing with +the fire. Her companion said that of course Molly hadn't made all that +up out of her head on the spur of the moment. After spending every +summer of her life in Lydford, it would be surprising if so energetic +a child as Molly hadn't assimilated the Vermont formula for fighting +fire. "They always put for the nearest factory and get all hands out," +he explained, adding meditatively, as he chewed on a twig: "All the +same, the incident shows what I've always maintained about Molly: +that she is, like 'most everybody, lamentably miscast. Molly's spirit +oughtn't to have taken up its abiding place in that highly ornamental +blond shell, condemned after a fashionable girl's education to +pendulum swings between Paris and New York and Lydford. It doesn't fit +for a cent. It ought to have for habitation a big, gaunt, powerful +man's body, and for occupation the running of a big factory." He +seemed to be philosophizing more to himself than to Sylvia, and beyond +a surprised look into his extremely grimy face, she made no comment. +She had taken for granted from the talk between him and Molly that he +was one of the "forceful, impossible Montgomery cousins," and had +cast her own first remarks in a tone calculated to fit in with +the supposititious dialect of such a person. But his voice, his +intonations, and his whimsical idea about Molly fitted in with the +conception of an "impossible" as little as with the actual visible +facts of his ragged shirt-sleeves and faded, earth-stained overalls. +They toiled upwards in silence for some moments, the man still chewing +on his birch-twig. He noticed her sidelong half-satirical glance at +it. "Don't you want one?" he asked, and gravely cut a long, slim rod +from one of the saplings in the green wall shutting them into the +road. As he gave it to her he explained, "It's the kind they make +birch beer of. You nip off the bark with your teeth. You'll like it." + +Still more at sea as to what sort of person he might be, and now +fearing perhaps to wound him if he should turn out to be a very +unsophisticated one, Sylvia obediently set her teeth to the lustrous, +dark bark and tore off a bit, which gave out in her mouth a mild, +pleasant aromatic tang, woodsy and penetrating, unlike any other taste +she knew. "Good, isn't it?" said her companion simply. + +She nodded, slowly awakening to a tepid curiosity about the individual +who strode beside her, lanky and powerful in his blue jeans. What an +odd circumstance, her trudging off through the woods thus with a guide +of whom she knew nothing except that he was Molly Sommerville's cousin +and worked a Vermont farm--and had certainly the dirtiest face she had +ever seen, with the exception of the coal-blackened stokers in the +power-house of the University. He spoke again, as though in answer +to what might naturally be in her mind: "At the top of the road it +crosses a brook, and I think a wash would be possible. I've a bit +of soap in my pocket that'll help--though it takes quite a lot of +scrubbing to get off fire-fighting grime." He looked pointedly down at +her as he talked. + +Sylvia was so astonished that she dropped back through years of +carefully acquired self-consciousness into a moment of the stark +simplicity of childhood. "Why--is _my_ face dirty?" she cried out. + +The man beside her apparently found the contrast between her looks and +the heartfelt sincerity of her question too much for him. He burst +into helpless laughter, though he was adroit enough to thrust forward +as a pretext, "The picture of my _own_ grime that I get from your +accent is tremendous!" But it was evidently not at his own joke that +he was laughing. + +For an instant Sylvia hung poised very near to extreme annoyance. +Never since she had been grown up, had she appeared at such an absurd +disadvantage. But at once the mental picture of herself, making +inaudible carping strictures on her companion's sootiness and, all +unconscious, lifting to observe it a critical countenance as swart as +his own--the incongruity smote her deliciously, irresistibly! Sore +heart or not, black depression notwithstanding, she needs must laugh, +and having laughed, laugh again, laugh louder and longer, and finally, +like a child, laugh for the sake of laughing, till out through this +unexpected channel she discharged much of the stagnant bitterness +around her heart. + +Her companion laughed with her. The still, sultry summer woods echoed +with the sound. "How human, how lusciously _human_!" he exclaimed. +"Neither of us thought that _he_ might be the blackened one!" + +"Oh, mine _can't_ be as bad as yours!" gasped out Sylvia, but when +she rubbed a testing handkerchief on her cheek, she went off in fresh +peals at the sight of the resultant black smears. + +"Don't, for Heaven's sake, waste that handkerchief," cautioned her +companion. "It's the only towel between us. Mine's impossible!" He +showed her the murky rag which was his own; and as they spoke, they +reached the top of the road, heard the sound of water, and stood +beside the brook. + +He stepped across it, in one stride of his long legs, rolled up his +shirt-sleeves, took a book out of his pocket, laid it on a stone, and +knelt down. "I choose this for _my_ wash-basin," he said, indicating a +limpid pool paved with clean gray pebbles. + +Sylvia answered in the same note of play, "This'll be mine." It lay +at the foot of a tiny waterfall, plashing with a tinkling note into +transparent shallows. She cast an idle glance on the book he had laid +down and read its title, "A History of the Institution of Property," +and reflected that she had been right in thinking it had a +familiar-looking cover. She had dusted books with that sort of cover +all her life. + +Molly's cousin produced from his overalls a small piece of yellow +kitchen-soap, which he broke into scrupulously exact halves and +presented with a grave flourish to Sylvia. "Now, go to it," he +exhorted her; "I bet I get a better wash than you." + +Sylvia took off her hat, rolled up her sleeves, and began on vigorous +ablutions. She had laughed, yes, and heartily, but in her complicated +many-roomed heart a lively pique rubbed shoulders with her mirth, and +her merriment was tinctured with a liberal amount of the traditional +feminine horrified disgust at having been uncomely, at having +unconsciously been subjected to an indignity. She was determined that +no slightest stain should remain on her smooth, fine-textured skin. +She felt, as a pretty woman always feels, that her personality was +indissolubly connected with her looks, and it was a symbolic act which +she performed as she fiercely scrubbed her face with the yellow soap +till its acrid pungency blotted out for her the woodland aroma of +moist earth and green leaves. She dashed the cold water up on her +cheeks till the spattering drops gleamed like crystals on the crisp +waviness of her ruddy brown hair. She washed her hands and arms in the +icy mountain water till they were red with the cold, hot though the +day was. She was chilled, and raw with the crude astringency of the +soap, but she felt cleansed to the marrow of her bones, as though +there had been some mystic quality in this lustration in running +water, performed under the open sky. The racy, black-birch tang still +lingering on her tongue was a flavor quite in harmony with this +severely washed feeling. It was a taste notably clean. + +She looked across the brook at her companion, now sitting back on his +heels, and saw that there had emerged from his grime a thin, tanned, +high-nosed face, topped by drab-colored hair of no great abundance and +lighted by a pair of extraordinarily clear, gray eyes. She perceived +no more in the face at that moment, because the man, as he looked up +at her, became nothing but a dazzled mirror from which was reflected +back to her the most flattering image of her own appearance. Almost +actually she saw herself as she appeared to him, a wood-nymph, +kneeling by the flowing water, vital, exquisite, strong, radiant in a +cool flush, her uncovered hair gleaming in a thousand loosened waves. +Like most comely women of intelligence Sylvia was intimately familiar +with every phase of her own looks, and she knew down to the last +blood-corpuscle that she had never looked better. But almost at once +came the stab that Felix Morrison was not the man who was looking at +her, and the heartsick recollection that he would never again be there +to see her. Her moment of honest joy in being lovely passed. She stood +up with a clouded face, soberly pulled down her sleeves, and picked up +her hat. + +"Oh, why don't you leave it off?" said the man across the brook. +"You'd be so much more comfortable!" She knew that he meant her hair +was too pretty to cover, and did not care what he meant. "All right, +I'll carry it," she assented indifferently. + +He did not stir, gazing up at her frankly admiring. Sylvia made out, +from the impression he evidently now had of her, that her face had +really been very, very dirty; and at the recollection of that absurd +ascent of the mountain by those two black-faced, twig-chewing +individuals, a return of irrepressible laughter quivered on her lips. +Before his eyes, as swiftly, as unaccountably, as utterly as an April +day shifts its moods, she had changed from radiant, rosy wood-goddess +to saddened mortal and thence on into tricksy, laughing elf. He burst +out on her, "Who _are_ you, anyhow?" + +She remembered with a start. "Why, that's so, Molly didn't mention my +name--isn't that like Molly! Why, I'm Sylvia Marshall," + +"You may be _named_ Sylvia Marshall!" he said, leaving an inference in +the air like incense. + +"Well, yes, to be sure," rejoined Sylvia; "I heard somebody only the +other day say that an introduction was the quaintest of grotesques, +since people's names are the most--" + +He applied a label with precision. "Oh, you know Morrison?" + +She was startled at this abrupt emergence of the name which secretly +filled her mind and was aware with exasperation that she was blushing. +Her companion appeared not to notice this. He was attempting the +difficult feat of wiping his face on the upper part of his sleeve, +and said in the intervals of effort: "Well, you know _my_ name. Molly +didn't forget that." + +"But _I_ did," Sylvia confessed. "I was so excited by the fire I never +noticed at all. I've been racking my brains to remember, all the way +up here." + +For some reason the man seemed quite struck with this statement and +eyed her with keenness as he said: "Oh--really? Well, my name is +Austin Page." At the candid blankness of her face he showed a boyish +flash of white teeth in a tanned face. "Do you mean to say you've +never heard of me?" + +"_Should_ I?" said Sylvia, with a graceful pretense of alarm. "Do you +write, or something? Lay it to my ignorance. It's immense." + +He shook his head. He smiled down on her. She noticed now that his +eyes were very kind as well as clear and keen. "No, I don't write, or +anything. There's no reason why you should ever have heard of me. I +only thought--I thought possibly Molly or Uncle George might have +happened to mention me." + +"I'm only on from the West for a visit," explained Sylvia. "I never +was in Lydford before. I don't know the people there." + +"Well then, to avoid Morrison's strictures on introductions I'll add +to my name the information that I am thirty-two years old; a graduate +of Columbia University; that I have some property in Colorado which +gives me a great deal of trouble; and a farm with a wood lot in +Vermont which is the joy of my heart. I cannot endure politics; I +play the flute, like my eggs boiled three minutes, and admire George +Meredith." + +His manoeuvers with his sleeve were so preposterous that Sylvia now +cried to him: "Oh, don't twist around that way. You'll give yourself +a crick in the neck. Here's my handkerchief. We were going to share +that, anyhow." + +"And you," he went on gravely, wiping his face with the bit of +cambric, "are Sylvia Marshall, presumably Miss; you can laugh at a +joke on yourself; are not afraid to wash your face with kitchen soap; +and apparently are the only girl in the twentieth century who has not +a mirror and a powder-puff concealed about her person." + +All approbation was sweet to Sylvia. She basked in this. "Oh, I'm +a Hottentot, a savage from the West, as I told you," she said +complacently. + +"You've been in Lydford long enough to hear Morrison hold forth on the +idiocies of social convention, the while he neatly manipulates them to +his own advantage." + +Sylvia had dreaded having to speak of Morrison, but she was now +greatly encouraged by the entire success of her casual tone, as she +explained, "Oh, he's an old friend of my aunt's, and he's been at the +house a good deal." She ventured to try herself further, and inquired +with a bright look of interest, "What do you think of his engagement +to your cousin Molly?" + +He was petrified with astonishment. "_Molly_ engaged to _Morrison_!" +he cried. "We can't be talking about the same people. I mean _Felix_ +Morrison the critic." + +She felt vindicated by his stupefaction and liked him for it. "Why, +yes; hadn't you heard?" she asked, with an assumption of herself +seeing nothing surprising in the news. + +"No, I hadn't, and I can't believe it now!" he said, blinking his +eyes. "I never heard such an insane combination of names in my life." +He went on, "What under the _sun_ does Molly want of Morrison!" + +Sylvia was vexed with him for this unexpected view. He was not so +discerning as she had thought. She turned away and picked up her hat. +"We ought to be going on," she said, and as they walked she answered, +"You don't seem to have a very high opinion of Mr. Morrison." + +He protested with energy. "Oh yes, I have. Quite the contrary, I think +him one of the most remarkable men I know, and one of the finest. I +admire him immensely. I'd trust his taste sooner than I would my own." + +To this handsome tribute Sylvia returned, smiling, "The inference is +that you don't think much of Molly." + +"I _know_ Molly!" he said simply. "I've known her and loved her ever +since she was a hot-tempered, imperious little girl--which is all she +is now. Engaged ... and engaged to Morrison! It's a plain case of +schoolgirl infatuation!" He was lost in wonder, uneasy wonder it +seemed, for after a period of musing he brought out: "They'll cut each +other's throats inside six months. Or Molly'll cut her own. What under +the sun was her grandfather thinking of?" + +Sylvia said gravely, "Girls' grandfathers have such an influence in +their marriages." + +He smiled a rueful recognition of the justice of her thrust and then +fell into silence. + +The road did not climb up now, but led along the side of the mountain. +Through the dense woods the sky-line, first guessed at, then clearly +seen between the thick-standing tree-trunks, sank lower and lower. +"We are approaching," said Page, motioning in front of them, "the +jumping-off place." They passed from the tempered green light of the +wood and emerged upon a great windy plateau, carpeted thickly with +deep green moss, flanked right and left with two mountain peaks and +roofed over with an expanse of brilliant summer sky. Before them the +plateau stretched a mile or more, wind-swept, sun-drenched, with an +indescribable bold look of great altitude; but close to them at one +side ran a parapet-like line of tumbled rock and beyond this a sheer +descent. The eye leaped down abrupt slopes of forest to the valley +they had left, now a thousand feet below them, jewel-like with mystic +blues and greens, tremulous with heat. On the noble height where they +stood, the wind blew cool from the sea of mist-blue peaks beyond the +valley. + +Sylvia was greatly moved. "Oh, what a wonderful spot!" she said under +her breath. "I never dreamed that anything could be--" She burst out +suddenly, scarcely knowing what she said, "Oh, I wish my _mother_ +could be here!" She had not thought of her mother for days, and now +hardly knew that she had spoken her name. Standing there, poised above +the dark richness of the valley, her heart responding to those vast +airy spaces by an upward-soaring sweep, the quick tears of ecstasy +were in her eyes. She had entirely forgotten herself and her +companion. He did not speak. His eyes were on her face. + +She moved to the parapet of rock and leaned against it. The action +brought her to herself and she flashed around on Page a grateful +smile. "It's a very beautiful spot you've brought me to," she said. + +He came up beside her now. "It's a favorite of mine," he said quietly. +"If I come straight through the woods it's not more than a mile from +my farm. I come up here for the sunsets sometimes--or for dawn." + +Sylvia found the idea almost too much for her. "_Oh!_" she +cried--"dawn here!" + +"Yes," said the man, smiling faintly. "It's all of that!" + +In her life of plains and prairies Sylvia had never been upon a great +height, had never looked down and away upon such reaches of far +valley, such glorious masses of sunlit mountain; and beyond them, +giving wings to the imagination, were mountains, more mountains, +distant, incalculably distant, with unseen hollow valleys between; and +finally, mountains again, half cloud, melting indistinguishably into +the vaporous haze of the sky. Above her, sheer and vast, lay Hemlock +Mountain, all its huge bulk a sleeping, passionless calm. Beyond was +the solemnity of Windward Mountain's concave shell, full to the +brim with brooding blue shadows, a well of mystery in that day of +wind-blown sunshine. Beneath her, above her, before her, seemingly the +element in which she was poised, was space, illimitable space. She had +never been conscious of such vastness, she was abashed by it, she was +exalted by it, she knew a moment of acute shame for the pettiness of +her personal grievances. For a time her spirit was disembarrassed +of the sorry burden of egotism, and she drank deep from the cup of +healing which Nature holds up in such instants of beatitude. Her eyes +were shining pools of peace.... + +They went on in a profound silence across the plateau, the deep, soft +moss bearing them up with a tough elasticity, the sun hot and lusty +on their heads, the sweet, strong summer wind swift and loud in their +ears, the only sound in all that enchanted upland spot. Often Sylvia +lifted her face to the sky, so close above her, to the clouds moving +with a soundless rhythm across the sky; once or twice she turned her +head suddenly from one side to the other, to take in all the beauty at +one glance, and smiled on it all, a vague, sunny, tender smile. But +she did not speak. + +As she trod on the thick moss upspringing under her long, light step, +her advance seemed as buoyant as though she stepped from cloud to +cloud.... + +When they reached the other side, and were about to begin the descent +into Lydford valley, she lingered still. She looked down into the +valley before her, across to the mountains, and, smiling, with +half-shut eyes of supreme satisfaction, she said under her breath: +"It's Beethoven--just the blessedness of Beethoven! The valley is +a legato passage, quiet and flowing; those far, up-pricking hills, +staccato; and the mountains here, the solemn chords." + +Her companion did not answer. She looked up at him, inquiringly, +thinking that he had not heard her, and found him evidently too deeply +moved to speak. She was startled, almost frightened, almost shocked by +the profundity of his gaze upon her. Her heart stood still and gave +a great leap. Chiefly she was aware of an immense astonishment and +incredulity. An hour before he had never seen her, had never heard of +her--and during that hour she had been barely aware of him, absorbed +in herself, indifferent. How could he in that hour have ... + +He looked away and said steadily, "--and the river is the melody that +binds it all together." + +Sylvia drew a great breath of relief. She had been the victim of some +extraordinary hallucination: "--with the little brooks for variations +on the theme," she added hastily. + +He held aside an encroaching briar, stretching its thorny arm across +the path. "Here's the beginning of the trail down to Lydford," he +said. "We will be there in twenty minutes. It's almost a straight drop +down." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +SYLVIA ASKS HERSELF "WHY NOT?" + + +If Sylvia wondered, as she dropped down the heights to the valley, +what her reception might be at her aunt's ceremonious household when +she entered escorted by a strange hatless man in blue overalls, her +fancy fell immeasurably short of the actual ensuing sensation. Mrs. +Marshall-Smith, her stepson, Felix Morrison, and old Mr. Sommerville +were all sitting together on the wide north veranda, evidently waiting +to be called to luncheon when, at half-past one, the two pedestrians +emerged through a side wicket in the thick green hedge of spruce, and +advanced up the path, with the free, swinging step of people who have +walked far and well. The effect on the veranda was unimaginable. +Sheer, open-mouthed stupefaction blurred for an instant the composed, +carefully arranged masks of those four exponents of decorum. They +gaped and stared, unable to credit their eyes. + +And then, according to their natures, they acted. Mrs. Marshall-Smith +rose quickly, smiled brilliantly, and stepped forward with welcoming +outstretched hands. "Why, Sylvia dear, how delightful! What an +unexpected pleasure, Mr. Page!" + +Old Mr. Sommerville fairly bounded past Sylvia, caught the man's arm, +and said in an anxious, affectionate, startled voice, "Why, Austin! +Austin! Austin!" + +Morrison rose, but stood quietly by his chair, his face entirely +expressionless, palpably and correctly "at attention." He had not seen +Sylvia since the announcement of his engagement the day before. He +gave her now a graceful, silent, friendly salute from a distance as +she stood by her aunt, he called out to her companion a richly cordial +greeting of "Well, Page. This is luck indeed!" but he indicated by his +immobility that as a stranger he would not presume to go further until +the first interchange between blood-kin was over. + +As for Arnold, he neither stirred from his chair, nor opened his mouth +to speak. A slow smile widened on his lips: it expanded. He grinned +delightedly down at his cigarette, and up at the ceiling, and finally +broke into an open laugh of exquisite enjoyment of the scene before +him. + +Four people were talking at once; Mr. Sommerville, a dismayed old hand +still clutching at the new-comer, was protesting with extreme vigor, +and being entirely drowned out by the others. "Of course he can't +stay--as he _is!_ I'll go home with him at once! His room at my house +is always ready for him!--fresh clothes!--No, no--impossible to stay!" +Mrs. Marshall-Smith was holding firm with her loveliest manner of warm +friendliness concentrated on Page. "Oh, no ceremony, Mr. Page, not +between old friends. Luncheon is just ready--who cares how you look?" +She did not physically dispute with Mr. Sommerville the possession of +the new-comer, but she gave entirely that effect. + +Sylvia, unable to meet Morrison's eyes, absorbed in the difficulty of +the moment for her, unillumined by the byplay between her aunt and old +Mr. Sommerville, strove for an appearance of vivacious loquacity, and +cast into the conversation entirely disregarded bits of description +of the fire. "Oh, Tantine, such an excitement!--we took nine men +with hoes up such a steep--!" And finally Page, resisting old Mr. +Sommerville's pull on his arm, was saying: "If luncheon is ready, +and I'm invited, no more needs to be said. I've been haying and +fire-fighting since seven this morning. A wolf is nothing compared +with me." He looked across the heads of the three nearest him and +called to Arnold: "Smith, you'll lend me some flannels, won't you? We +must be much of the same build." + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith turned, taking no pains to hide her satisfaction. +She positively gloated over the crestfallen Mr. Sommerville. "Sylvia, +run quick and have HĂ©lène smooth your hair. And call to Tojiko to put +on an extra place for luncheon. Arnold, take Mr. Page up to your room, +won't you, so that he--" + +Sylvia, running up the stairs, heard her late companion protesting: +"Oh, just for a change of clothes, only a minute--you needn't expect +me to do any washing. I'm clean. I'm washed within an inch of my +life--yellow soap--kitchen soap!" + +"And our little scented toilet futilities," Morrison's cameo of +small-talk carried to the upper hall. "What could they add to such a +Spartan lustration?" + +"Hurry, HĂ©lène," said Sylvia. "It is late, and Mr. Page is dying of +hunger," + +In spite of the exhortation to haste, HĂ©lène stopped short, uplifted +brush in hand. "Mr. Page, the millionaire!" she exclaimed. + +Sylvia blinked at her in the glass, amazed conjectures racing through +her mind. But she had sufficient self-possession to say, carelessly as +though his identity was nothing to her: "I don't know. It is the first +time I have seen him. He certainly is not handsome." + +HĂ©lène thrust in the hairpins with impassioned haste and deftness, and +excitedly snatched a lace jacket from a drawer. To the maid's despair +Sylvia refused this adornment, refused the smallest touch of rouge, +refused an ornament in her hair. HĂ©lène wrung her hands. "But see, +Mademoiselle is not wise! For what good is it to be so savage! He is +more rich than all! They say he owns all the State of Colorado!" + +Sylvia, already in full retreat towards the dining-room, caught this +last geographic extravagance of Gallic fancy, and laughed, and with +this mirth still in her face made her re-entry on the veranda. She had +not been away three minutes from the group there, and she was to the +eye as merely flushed and gay when she came back as when she went +away; but a revolution had taken place. Closely shut in her hand, she +held, held fast, the key HĂ©lène had thrust there. Behind her smile, +her clear, bright look of valiant youth, a great many considerations +were being revolved with extreme rapidity by an extremely swift and +active brain. + +Swift and active as was the brain, it fairly staggered under the task +of instantly rearranging the world according to the new pattern: +for the first certainty to leap into sight was that the pattern was +utterly changed by the events of the morning. She had left the +house, betrayed, defenseless save for a barren dignity, and she had +re-entered it in triumph, or at least with a valid appearance of +triumph, an appearance which had already tided her over the aching +difficulty of the first meeting with Morrison and might carry her ... +she had no time now to think how far. + +Page and Arnold were still invisible when she emerged again on the +veranda, and Mrs. Marshall-Smith pounced on her with the frankest +curiosity. "Sylvia, do tell us--how in the world--" + +Sylvia was in the midst of a description of the race to the fire, as +vivid as she could make it, when Arnold sauntered back and after him, +in a moment, Page, astonishingly transformed by clothes. His height +meant distinction now. Sylvia noted again his long, strong hands, his +aquiline, tanned face and clear eyes, his thoughtful, observant eyes. +There was a whimsical quirk of his rather thin but gentle lips which +reminded her of the big bust of Emerson in her father's study. She +liked all this; but her suspiciousness, alert for affront, since the +experience with Morrison, took offense at his great ease of manner. It +had seemed quite natural and unaffected to her, in fact she had not at +all noticed it before; but now that she knew of his great wealth, she +instantly conceived a resentful idea that possibly it might come from +the self-assurance of a man who knows himself much courted. She held +her head high, gave to him as to Arnold a nod of careless recognition, +and continued talking: "Such a road--so steep--sand half-way to the +hubs, such water-bars!" She turned to Morrison with her first overt +recognition of the new status between them. "You ought to have seen +your fiancĂ©e! She was wonderful! I was proud of her!" + +Morrison nodded a thoughtful assent. "Yes, Molly's energy is +irresistible," he commented, casting his remark in the form of a +generalization the significance of which did not pass unnoticed by +Sylvia's sharp ears. They were the first words he had spoken to her +since his engagement. + +"Luncheon is ready," said Mrs. Marshall-Smith. "Do come in." Every one +by this time being genuinely hungry, and for various reasons extremely +curious about the happenings back of Sylvia's appearance, the meal was +dedicated frankly to eating, varied only by Sylvia's running account +of the fire. "And then Molly wanted to take the fire-fighters home, +and I offered to walk to have more room for them, and Mr. Page brought +me up the other side of Hemlock and over the pass between Hemlock and +Windward and down past Deer Cliff, home," she wound up, compressing +into tantalizing brevity what was patently for her listeners by far +the most important part of the expedition. + +"Well, whatever route he took, it is astonishing that he knew the way +to Lydford at all," commented Mrs. Marshall-Smith. "I don't believe +you've been here before for years!" she said to Page. + +"It's my confounded shyness," he explained, turning to Sylvia with a +twinkle. "The grand, sophisticated ways of Lydford are too much for +the nerves of a plain-living rustic like me. When I farm in Vermont +the spirit of the place takes hold of me. I'm quite apt to eat my pie +with my knife, and Lydford wouldn't like that." + +Sylvia was aware, through the laughter which followed this joking +remark, that there was an indefinable stir around the table. His +turning to her had been pronounced. She took a sore pleasure in +Morrison's eclipse. For the first time he was not the undisputed +center of that circle. He accepted it gravely, a little preoccupied, +a little absent, a wonderfully fine and dignified figure. Under her +misanthropic exultation, Sylvia felt again and again the stab of +her immense admiration for him, her deep affinity for his way of +conducting life. Whatever place he might take in the circle around the +luncheon table, she found him inevitably at the center of all her own +thoughts. However it might seem to those evidently greatly struck with +her extraordinary good luck, her triumph was in reality only the most +pitiful of pretenses. But such as it was, and it gleamed richly enough +on the eyes of the onlookers, she shook it out with a flourish and +gave no sign of heartsick qualms. She gave a brilliantly undivided +attention to the bit of local history Page was telling her, of a +regiment of Green Mountain Boys who had gone down to the Battle of +Bennington over the pass between Windward and Hemlock Mountain, and +she was able to stir Page to enthusiasm by an appreciative comparison +of their march with the splendid and affecting incident before +Marathon, when the thousand hoplites from the little town of Plataea +crossed the Cithaeron range and went down to the plain to join the +Athenians in their desperate stand. + +"How do you _happen_ to come East just now, anyhow?" inquired old Mr. +Sommerville, resolutely shouldering his way into the conversation. + +"My yellow streak!" affirmed his nephew. "Colorado got too much for +me. And besides, I was overcome by an atavistic longing to do chores." +He turned to Sylvia again, the gesture as unconscious and simple as a +boy's. "My great-grandfather was a native of these parts, and about +once in so often I revert to type." + +"All my mother's people came from this region too," Sylvia said. She +added meditatively, "And I think I must have reverted to type--up +there on the mountain, this morning." + +He looked at her silently, with softening eyes. + +"You'll be going back soon, I suppose, as usual!" said old Mr. +Sommerville with determination. + +"To Colorado?" inquired Page. "No, I think--I've a notion I'll stay on +this summer for some time. There is an experiment I want to try with +alfalfa in Vermont." + +Over his wineglass Arnold caught Sylvia's eye, and winked. + +"Still reading as much as ever, I suppose." Mr. Sommerville was not +to be put down. "When I last saw you, it was some fool socialistic +poppycock about the iniquity of private exploitation of natural +resources. How'd they ever have been exploited any other way I'd like +to know! What's socialism? Organized robbery! Nothing else! 'Down with +success! Down with initiative! Down with brains!' Stuff!" + +"It's not socialism this time: it's Professor Merritt's theories on +property," said Sylvia to the old gentleman, blandly ignoring his +ignoring of her. + +Page stared at her in astonishment. "Are you a clairvoyant?" he cried. + +"No, no," she explained, laughing. "You took it out of your pocket up +there by the brook." + +"But you saw only the title. Merritt's name isn't on the cover." + +"Oh, it's a pretty well-known book," said Sylvia easily. "And my +father's a professor of Economics. When I was little I used to have +books like that to build houses with, instead of blocks. And I've had +to keep them in order and dusted ever since. I'm not saying that I +know much about their insides." + +"Just look there!" broke in Arnold. "Did I ever see a young lady pass +up such a perfectly good chance to bluff!" + +As usual nobody paid the least attention to his remark. The +conversation shifted to a radical play which had been on the boards in +Paris, the winter before. + +After luncheon, they adjourned into the living-room. As the company +straggled across the wide, dimly shining, deeply shaded hall, Sylvia +felt her arm seized and held, and turning her head, looked into the +laughing face of Arnold. "What kind of flowers does Judy like the +best?" he inquired, the question evidently the merest pretext to +detain her, for as the others moved out of earshot he said in a +delighted whisper, his eyes gleaming in the dusk with amused malice: +"Go it, Sylvia! Hit 'em out! It's worth enduring oceans of Greek +history to see old Sommerville squirm. Molly gone--Morrison as poor as +a church mouse; and now Page going fast before his very eyes--" + +She shook off his hand with genuine annoyance. "I don't know what +you're talking about, Arnold. You're horrid! Judith doesn't like cut +flowers at all,--any kind. She likes them alive, on plants." + +"She _would!_" Arnold was rapt in his habitual certainty that every +peculiarity of Judith's was another reason for prostrate adoration. +"I'll send her a window-box for every window in the hospital." His +admiration overflowed to Judith's sister. He patted her on the +shoulder. "You're all right too, Sylvia. You're batting about +three-sixty, right now. I've always told the girls when they said Page +was offish that if they could only get in under his guard once--and +somehow you've done it. I bet on _you_--" He began to laugh at her +stern face of reproof. "Oh, yes, yes, I agree! You don't know what I'm +talking about! It's just alfalfa in Vermont! Only my low vulgarity to +think anything else!" He moved away down the hall. "Beat it! I slope!" + +"Where are you going?" she asked. + +"Away! Away!" he answered. "Anywhere that's away. The air is rank with +Oscar Wilde and the Renaissance. I feel them coming." Still laughing, +he bounded upstairs, three steps at a time. + +Sylvia stepped forward, crossed the threshold of the living-room, +and paused by the piano, penetrated by bitter-sweet associations. If +Morrison felt them also, he gave no sign. He had chosen a chair by a +distant window and was devoting himself to Molly's grandfather, who +accepted this delicate and entirely suitable attention with a rather +glum face. Mrs. Marshall-Smith and Page still stood in the center +of the room, and turned as Sylvia came in. "Do give us some music, +Sylvia," said her aunt, sinking into a chair while Page came forward +to sit near the piano. + +Sylvia's fingers rested on the keys for a moment, her face very grave, +almost somber, and then, as though taking a sudden determination, she +began to play a Liszt Liebes-Traum. It was the last music Morrison had +played to her before the beginning of the change. Into its fevered +cadences she poured the quivering, astonished hurt of her young heart. + +No one stirred during the music nor for the moment afterward, in which +she turned about to face the room. She looked squarely at Morrison, +who was rolling a cigarette with meticulous care, and as she looked, +he raised his eyes and gave her across the room one deep, flashing +glance of profound significance. That was all. That was enough. That +was everything. Sylvia turned back to the piano shivering, hot and +cold with secret joy. His look said, "Yes, of course, a thousand times +of course, you are the one in my heart." What the facts said for him +was, "But I am going to marry Molly because she has money." + +Sylvia was horrified that she did not despise him, that she did not +resent his entering her heart again with the intimacy of that +look. Her heart ran out to welcome him back; but from the sense of +furtiveness she shrank back with her lifetime habit and experience of +probity, with the instinctive distaste for stealth engendered only by +long and unbroken acquaintance with candor. With a mental action as +definite as the physical one of freeing her feet from a quicksand she +turned away from the alluring, dim possibility opened to her by that +look. No, no! No stains, no smears, no shufflings! She was conscious +of no moral impulse, in the usual sense of the word. Her imagination +took in no possibility of actual wrong. But when, with a fastidious +impulse of good taste, she turned her back on something ugly, she +turned her back unwittingly on something worse than ugly. + +But it was not easy! Oh, not at all easy! She quailed with a sense of +her own weakness, so unexpected, so frightening. Would she resist it +the next time? How pierced with helpless ecstasy she had been by that +interchange of glances! What was there, in that world, by which she +could steady herself? + +"How astonishingly well you play," said Page, rousing himself from the +dreamy silence of appreciation. + +"I ought to," she said with conscious bitterness. "I earn my living by +teaching music." + +She was aware from across the room of an electric message from Aunt +Victoria protesting against her perversity; and she reflected with +a morose amusement that however delicately phrased Aunt Victoria's +protests might be, its substance was the same as that of HĂ©lène, +crying out on her for not adding the soupçon of rouge. She took a +sudden resolution. Well, why not? Everything conspired to push her +in that direction. The few factors which did not were mere imbecile +idealism, or downright hypocrisy. She drew a long breath. She smiled +at Page, a smile of reference to something in common between them. +"Shan't I play you some Beethoven?" she asked, "something with a +legato passage and great solemn chords, and a silver melody binding +the whole together?" + +"Oh yes, do!" he said softly. And in a moment she was putting all of +her intelligence, her training, and her capacity to charm into the +tones of the E-flat Minuet. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +A HYPOTHETICAL LIVELIHOOD + + +The millionaire proprietor had asked them all over to the Austin Farm, +and as they drew near the end of the very expensive and delicately +served meal which Page had spoken of as a "picnic-lunch," various +plans for the disposition of the afternoon were suggested. These +suggestions were prefaced by the frank statement of the owner of the +place that whatever else the others did, it was his own intention to +take Miss Marshall through a part of his pine plantations and explain +his recent forestry operations to her. The assumption that Miss +Marshall would of course be interested in his pine plantations and +lumbering operations struck nobody but Miss Marshall as queer. With +the most hearty and simple unconsciousness, they unanimously felt that +of course Miss Marshall _would_ be interested in the pine plantations +and the lumbering operations of any man who was worth nobody knew how +many millions in coal, and who was so obviously interested in her. + +Sylvia had been for some weeks observing the life about her with very +much disillusioned eyes and she now labeled the feeling on the part of +her friends with great accuracy, saying to herself cynically, "If it +were prize guinea-pigs or collecting beer-steins, they would all be +just as sure that I would jump up and say, 'Oh yes, _do_ show me, Mr. +Page!'" Following this moody reflection she immediately jumped up +and said enthusiastically, "Oh yes, _do_ show me, Mr. Page!" The +brilliance in her eyes during these weeks came partly from a relieved +sense of escape from a humiliating position, and partly from an +amusement at the quality of human nature which was as dubiously +enjoyable as the grim amusement of biting on a sore tooth. + +She now took her place by the side of their host, and thought, looking +at his outdoor aspect, that her guess at what to wear had been better +than Aunt Victoria's or Molly's. For the question of what to wear had +been a burning one. Pressure had been put on her to don just a lacy, +garden-party toilette of lawn and net as now automatically barred both +Aunt Victoria and Molly from the proposed expedition to the woods. +Nobody had had the least idea what was to be the color of the +entertainment offered them, for the great significance of the affair +was that it was the first time that Page had ever invited any one to +the spot for which he evidently felt such an unaccountable affection. +Aunt Victoria had explained to Sylvia, "It's always at the big Page +estate in Lenox that he entertains, or rather that he gets his mother +to do the absolutely indispensable entertaining for him." Morrison +said laughingly: "Isn't it the very quintessence of quaintness to +visit him there! To watch his detached, whimsical air of not being +in the least a part of all the magnificence which bears his name. He +insists, you know, that he doesn't begin to know his way around that +huge house!" "It was his father who built the Lenox place," commented +Mrs. Marshall-Smith. "It suited _his_ taste to perfection. Austin +seems to have a sort of Marie-Antoinette reaction towards a somewhat +painfully achieved simplicity. He's not the man to take any sort of +pose. If he were, it would be impossible not to suspect him of +a little pose in his fondness for going back to his farmer +great-grandfather's setting." Guided by this conversation, and by +shrewd observations of her own, Sylvia had insisted, even to the point +of strenuousness, upon wearing to this first housewarming a cloth +skirt and coat, tempering the severity of this costume with a +sufficiently feminine and beruffled blouse of silk. As their car had +swung up before the plain, square, big-chimneyed old house, and Page +had come to meet them, dressed in khaki-colored forester's garb, +with puttees, Aunt Victoria had been generous enough to admit by an +eye-flash to Sylvia that the girl knew her business very well. There +was not, of course, Sylvia reflected, the slightest pretense of +obscurity between them as to what, under the circumstances, her +business was. + +All this lay back of the fact that, as Sylvia, her face bright with +spontaneous interest in pine plantations and lumbering operations, +stepped to the side of the man in puttees, her costume exactly suited +his own. + +From the midst of a daring and extremely becoming arrangement of black +and white striped chiffon and emerald-green velvet, Molly's beautiful +face smiled on them approvingly. For various reasons, the spectacle +afforded her as much pleasure as it did extreme discomfort to her +grandfather, and with her usual masterful grasp on a situation she +began to arrange matters so that the investigation of pine plantations +and lumber operations should be conducted _en tĂŞte-Ă -tĂŞte_. "Mrs. +Marshall-Smith, you're going to stay here, of course, to look at +Austin's lovely view! Think of his having hidden that view away from +us all till now! I want to go through the house later on, and without +Austin, so I can linger and pry if I like! I want to look at every +single thing. It's lovely--the completest Yankee setting! It looks +as though we all ought to have on clean gingham aprons and wear +steel-rimmed spectacles. No, Austin, don't frown! I don't mean that +for a knock. I love it, honestly I do! I always thought I'd like to +wear clean gingham aprons myself. The only things that are out of +keeping are those shelves and shelves and shelves of solemn books with +such terrible titles!" + +"That's a fact, Page," said Morrison, laughing. "Molly's hit the +nail squarely. Your modern, economic spasms over the organization of +industrialism are out of place in that delightful, eighteenth century, +plain old interior. They threw _their_ fits over theology!" + +The owner of the house nodded. "Yes, you know your period! A +great-great-grandfather of mine, a ministerial person, had left a lot +of books on the nature of the Trinity and Free Will and such. They had +to be moved up to the attic to make room for mine. What books will be +on those shelves a hundred years from now, I wonder?" + +"Treatises on psychic analysis, on how to transfer thought without +words, unless I read the signs of the times wrong," Morrison hazarded +a guess. + +Molly was bored by this talk and anxious to get the walkers off. +"You'd better be starting if you're going far up on the mountain, +Austin. We have to be back for a tea at Mrs. Neville's, where Sylvia's +to pour. Mrs. Neville would have a thing or two to say to us, if we +made her lose her main drawing card." + +"Are you coming, Morrison?" asked Page. + +"No, he isn't," said Molly decidedly. "He's going to stay to play to +me on that delicious tin-panny old harpsichordy thing in your 'best +room.' You do call it the 'best room,' don't you? They always do in +New England dialect stories. Grandfather, you have your cards with +you, haven't you? You always have. If you'll get them out, Felix and +Arnold and I'll play whist with you." + +Only one of those thus laid hold of, slipped out from her strong +little fingers. Arnold raised himself, joint by joint, from his chair, +and announced that he was a perfect nut-head when it came to whist. +"And, anyhow," he went on insistently, raising his voice as Molly +began to order him back into the ranks--"And, anyhow, I don't want to +play whist! And I do want to see what Page has been up to all this +time he's kept so dark about his goings-on over here. No, Molly, you +needn't waste any more perfectly good language on me. You can boss +everybody else if you like, but I'm the original, hairy wild-man who +gets what he wants." + +He strolled off across the old-fashioned garden and out of the gate +with the other two, his attention given as usual to lighting a +cigarette. It was an undertaking of some difficulty on that day of +stiff September wind which blew Sylvia's hair about her ears in +bright, dancing flutters. + +They were no more than out of earshot of the group left on the porch, +than Sylvia, as so often happened in her growing acquaintanceship with +Page, found herself obliged entirely to reconstruct an impression of +him. It was with anything but a rich man's arrogant certainty of +her interest that he said, very simply as he said everything: "I +appreciate very much, Miss Marshall, your being willing to come along +and see all this. It's a part of your general kindness to everybody. +I hope it won't bore you to extremity. I'm so heart and soul in it +myself, I shan't know when to stop talking about it. In fact I shan't +want to stop, even if I know I should. I've never said much about it +to any one before, and I very much want your opinion on it." + +Sylvia felt a decent pinch of shame, and her eyes were not brilliant +with sardonic irony but rather dimmed with self-distrust as she +answered with a wholesome effort for honesty: "I really don't know a +single thing about forestry, Mr. Page. You'll have to start in at the +very beginning, and explain everything. I hope I've sense enough +to take an intelligent interest." Very different, this, from the +meretricious sparkle of her, "Oh yes, _do_ show me, Mr. Page." She +felt that to be rather cheap, as she remembered it. She wondered if he +had seen its significance, had seen through her. From a three weeks' +intensive acquaintance with him, she rather thought he had. His eyes +were clear, formidably so. He put her on her mettle. + +Arnold had lighted his cigarette by this time, offered one to Page +with his incurable incapacity to remember that not every sane man +smokes, and on being refused, put his hands deep in his pockets. The +three tall young people were making short work of the stretch of +sunny, windy, upland pasture, and were already almost in the edge of +the woods which covered the slope of the mountain above them up to the +very crest, jewel-green against the great, piled, cumulus clouds. + +"Well, I _will_ begin at the beginning, then," said Page. "I'll +begin back in 1762, when this valley was settled and my +ever-so-many-greats-grandfather took possession of a big slice of this +side of Hemlock Mountain, with the sole idea that trees were men's +enemies. The American colonists thought of forests, you know, as +places for Indians to lurk, spots that couldn't be used for corn, +growths to be exterminated as fast as possible." + +They entered the woods now, walking at a good pace up the steeply +rising, grass-grown wood-road. Sylvia quite consciously summoned all +her powers of attention and concentration for the hour before her, +determined to make a good impression to counteract whatever too great +insight her host might have shown in the matter of her first interest. +She bent her fine brows with the attention she had so often summoned +to face a difficult final examination, to read at the correct tempo a +complicated piece of music, to grasp the essentials of a new subject. +Her trained interest in understanding things, which of late had been +feeding on rather moldy scraps of cynical psychology, seized with +energy and delight on a change of diet. She not only tried to be +interested. Very shortly she was interested, absorbed, intent. What +Page had to say fascinated her. She even forgot who he was, and that +he was immensely rich. Though this forgetfulness was only momentary it +was an unspeakable relief and refreshment to her. + +She listened intently; at times she asked a pertinent question; as she +walked she gave the man an occasional direct survey, as impersonal as +though he were a book from which she was reading. And exactly as an +intelligent reader, in a first perusal of a new subject, snatches the +heart out of paragraph after paragraph, ignoring the details until +later, she took to herself only the gist of her host's recital. Yes, +yes, she saw perfectly the generations of Vermont farmers who had +hated trees because they meant the wilderness, and whose destruction +of forests was only limited by the puniness of the forces they matched +against the great wooded slopes of the mountains they pre-empted. And +she saw later, the long years of utter neglect of those hacked-at and +half-destroyed forests while Page's grandfather and father descended +on the city and on financial operations with the fierce, fresh energy +of frontiersmen. She was struck by the fact that those ruthless +victors of Wall Street had not sold the hundreds of worthless acres, +which they never took the trouble to visit; and by the still more +significant fact that as the older ones of the family died, the +Austins, the Pages, the Woolsons, the Hawkers, and as legacy after +legacy of more worthless mountain acres came by inheritance to the +financiers, those tracts too were never sold. They never thought of +them, Page told her, except grumblingly to pay the taxes on them; they +considered them of ridiculously minute proportions compared to their +own titanic manipulations, but they had never sold them. Sylvia saw +them vividly, those self-made exiles from the mountains, and felt in +them some unacknowledged loyalty to the soil, the barren soil which +had borne them, some inarticulate affection which had lived through +the heat and rage of their embattled lives. The taproot had been too +deep for them to break off, and now from it there was springing up +this unexpected stem, this sole survivor of their race who turned +away from what had been the flaming breath of life in their brazen +nostrils, back to the green fragrance of their mutilated and forgotten +forests. + +Not the least of the charm of this conception for Sylvia came from +the fact that she quarried it out for herself from the bare narration +presented to her, that she read it not at all in the words, but in the +voice, the face, the manner of the raconteur. She was amused, she was +touched, she was impressed by his studiously matter-of-fact version of +his enterprise. He put forward with the shy, prudish shamefacedness of +the New Englander the sound financial basis of his undertaking, as its +main claim on his interest, as its main value. "I heard so much about +forestry being nothing but a rich man's plaything," he said. "I just +got my back up, and wanted to see if it couldn't be made a paying +thing. And I've proved it can be. I've had the closest account kept of +income and outgo, and so far from being a drain on a man to reforest +his woodland and administer it as he should, there's an actual profit +in it, enough to make a business of it, enough to occupy a man for his +lifetime and his son after him, if he gives it his personal care." + +At this plain statement of a comprehensible fact, Arnold's inattention +gave place to a momentary interest. "Is there?" he asked with +surprise. "How much?" + +"Well," said Page, "my system, as I've gradually worked it out, is to +clear off a certain amount each year of our mediocre woodland, such as +for the most part grows up where the bad cutting was done a couple of +generations ago--maple and oak and beech it is, mostly, with little +stands of white birch, where fires have been. I work that up in my +own sawmill so as to sell as little of a raw product as possible; and +dispose of it to the wood-working factories in the region." (Sylvia +remembered the great "brush-back factory" whence Molly had recruited +her fire-fighters.) "Then I replant that area to white pine. That's +the best tree for this valley. I put about a thousand trees to the +acre. Or if there seems to be a good prospect of natural reproduction, +I try for that. There's a region over there, about a hundred acres," +he waved his hand to the north of them, "that's thick with seedling +ash. I'm leaving that alone. But for the most part, white pine's our +best lay. Pine thrives on soil that stunts oak and twists beech. Our +oak isn't good quality, and maple is such an interminably slow +grower. In about twenty years from planting, you can make your first, +box-board cutting of pine, and every ten years thereafter--" + +Arnold had received this avalanche of figures and species with an +astonished blink, and now protested energetically that he had had not +the slightest intention of precipitating any such flood. "Great Scott, +Page, catch your breath! If you're talking to me, you'll have to use +English, anyhow. I've no more idea what you're talking about! Who do +you take me for? _I_ don't know an ash-tree from an ash-cart. You +started in to tell me what the profit of the thing is." + +Page looked pained but patient, like a reasonable man who knows his +hobby is running away with him, but who cannot bring himself to use +the curb. "Oh yes," he said apologetically. "Why, we cleared last year +(exclusive of the farm, which yields a fair profit)--we cleared about +two thousand dollars." Arnold seemed to regard this statement as quite +the most ridiculous mouse which ever issued from a mountain. He burst +into an open laugh. "Almost enough to buy you a new car a year, isn't +it?" he commented. + +Page looked extremely nettled. An annoyed flush showed through the +tan of his clear skin. He was evidently very touchy about his pet +lumbering operations. "A great many American families consider that a +sufficient income," he said stiffly. + +Sylvia had another inspiration, such as had been the genesis of her +present walking-costume. "You're too silly, Arnold. The important +thing isn't what the proportion with Mr. Page's own income is! What he +was trying to do, and what he _has_ done, only you don't know +enough to see it, is to prove that sane forestry is possible for +forest-owners of small means. I know, if you don't, that two thousand +is plenty to live on. My father's salary is only twenty-four hundred +now, and we were all brought up when it was two thousand." + +She had had an intuitive certainty that this frank revelation would +please Page, and she was rewarded by an openly ardent flash from his +clear eyes. There was in his look at her an element of enchanted, +relieved recognition, as though he had nodded and said: "Oh, you _are_ +my kind of a woman after all! I was right about you." + +Arnold showed by a lifted eyebrow that he was conscious of being +put down, but he survived the process with his usual negligent +obliviousness of reproof. "Well, if two thousand a year produced +Judith, go ahead, Page, and my blessing on you!" He added in a +half-apology for his offensive laughter, "It just tickled me to hear +a man who owns most of several counties of coal-mines so set up over +finding a nickel on the street!" + +Page had regained his geniality. "Well, Smith, maybe I needn't have +jumped so when you stepped on my toe. But it's my pet toe, you see. +You're quite right--I'm everlastingly set up over my nickel. But it's +not because I found it. It's because I earned it. It happens to be the +only nickel I ever earned. It's natural I should want it treated with +respect." + +Arnold did not trouble to make any sense out of this remark, and +Sylvia was thinking bitterly to herself: "But that's pure bluff! I'm +_not_ his kind of a woman. I'm Felix Morrison's kind!" No comment, +therefore, was made on the quaintness of the rich man's interest in +earning capacity. + +They were now in one of the recent pine plantations, treading a +wood-road open to the sky, running between acres and acres of thrifty +young pines. Page's eyes glistened with affection as he looked at +them, and with the unwearied zest of the enthusiast he continued +expanding on his theme. Sylvia knew the main outline of her new +subject now, felt that she had walked all around it, and was agreeably +surprised at her sympathy with it. She continued with a genuine +curiosity to extract more details; and like any man who talks of a +process which he knows thoroughly, Page was wholly at the mercy of a +sympathetic listener. His tongue tripped itself in his readiness to +answer, to expound, to tell his experiences, to pour out a confidently +accurate and precise flood of information. Sylvia began to take a +playful interest in trying to find a weak place in his armor, to ask a +question he could not answer. But he knew all the answers. He knew the +relative weight per cubic foot of oak and pine and maple; he knew the +railroad rates per ton on carload lots; he knew why it is cheaper in +the long run to set transplants in sod-land instead of seeding it; he +knew what per cent to write off for damage done by the pine weevil, he +reveled in complicated statistics as to the actual cost per thousand +for chopping, skidding, drawing, sawing logs. He laughed at Sylvia's +attempts to best him, and in return beat about her ears with +statistics for timber cruising, explained the variations of the +Vermont and the scribner's decimal log rule, and recited log-scaling +tables as fluently as the multiplication table. They were in the midst +of this lively give-and-take, listened to with a mild amusement on +Arnold's part, when they emerged on a look-out ledge of gray slate, +and were struck into silence by the grave loveliness of the immense +prospect below them. + +"--and of course," murmured Page finally, on another note, "of course +it's rather a satisfaction to feel that you are making waste land of +use to the world, and helping to protect the living waters of all +that--" He waved his hand over the noble expanse of sunlit valley. "It +seems"--he drew a long breath--"it seems something quite worth doing." + +Sylvia was moved to a disinterested admiration for him; and it was a +not unworthy motive which kept her from looking up to meet his eyes +on her. She felt a petulant distaste for the calculating speculations +which filled the minds of all her world about his intentions towards +her. He was really too fine for that. At least, she owed it to her +own dignity not to abuse this moment of fine, impersonal emotion to +advance another step into intimacy with him. + +But as she stood, looking fixedly down at the valley, she was quite +aware that a sympathetic silence and a thoughtful pose might make, on +the whole, an impression quite as favorable as the most successfully +managed meeting of eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +ARNOLD CONTINUES TO DODGE THE RENAISSANCE + + +A gaunt roaming figure of ennui and restlessness, Arnold appeared at +the door of the pergola and with a petulant movement tore a brilliant +autumn leaf to pieces as he lingered for a moment, listening moodily +to the talk within. He refused with a grimace the chair to which +Sylvia motioned him. "Lord, no! Hear 'em go it!" he said quite audibly +and turned away to lounge back towards the house. Sylvia had had time +to notice, somewhat absently, that he looked ill, as though he had a +headache. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith glanced after him with misgiving, and, under cover +of a brilliantly resounding passage at arms between Morrison and +Page, murmured anxiously to Sylvia, "I wish Judith would give up her +nonsense and _marry_ Arnold!" + +"Oh, they've only been engaged a couple of months," said Sylvia. +"What's the hurry! She'll get her diploma in January. It'd be a pity +to have her miss!" + +Arnold's stepmother broke in rather impatiently, "If I were a girl +engaged to Arnold, I'd _marry_ him!" + +"--the trouble with all you connoisseurs, Morrison, is that you're +barking up the wrong tree. You take for granted, from your own tastes, +when people begin to buy jade Buddhas and Zuloaga bull-fighters that +they're wanting to surround themselves with beauty. Not much! It's the +consciousness of money they want to surround themselves with!" + +Morrison conceded part of this. "Oh, I grant you, there's a +disheartening deal of imitation in this matter. But America's new to +aesthetics. Don't despise beginnings because they're small!" + +"A nettle leaf is small. But that's not the reason why it won't ever +grow into an oak. Look here! A sheaf of winter grasses, rightly +arranged in clear glass, has as much of the essence of beauty as a +bronze vase of the Ming dynasty. I ask you just one question, How many +people do you know who are capable of--" + +The art-critic broke in: "Oh come! You're setting up an impossibly +high standard of aesthetic feeling." + +"I'm not presuming to do any such thing as setting up a standard! +I'm just insisting that people who can't extract joy from the shadow +pattern of a leafy branch on a gray wall, are liars if they claim to +enjoy a fine Japanese print. What they enjoy in the print is the sense +that they've paid a lot for it. In my opinion, there's no use trying +to advance a step towards any sound aesthetic feeling till _some_ step +is taken away from the idea of cost as the criterion of value about +anything." He drew a long breath and went on, rather more rapidly than +was his usual habit of speech: "I've a real conviction on that point. +It's come to me of late years that one reason we haven't any national +art is because we have too much magnificence. All our capacity for +admiration is used up on the splendor of palace-like railway stations +and hotels. Our national tympanum is so deafened by that blare of +sumptuousness that we have no ears for the still, small voice of +beauty. And perhaps," he paused, looking down absently at a crumb he +rolled between his thumb and finger on the table, "it's possible that +the time is ripening for a wider appreciation of another kind of +beauty ... that has little to do even with such miracles as the shadow +of a branch on a wall." + +Morrison showed no interest in this vaguely phrased hypothesis, and +returned to an earlier contention: "You underestimate," he said, +"the amount of education and taste and time it takes to arrange that +simple-looking vase of grasses, to appreciate your leaf-shadows." + +"All I'm saying is that your campaign of aesthetic education hasn't +made the matter vital enough to people, to any people, not even to +people who call themselves vastly aesthetic, so that they _give_ time +and effort and self-schooling to the acquisition of beauty. They not +only want their money to do their dirty work for them, they try to +make it do their fine living for them too, with a minimum of effort on +their part. They want to _buy_ beauty, outright, with cash, and have +it stay put, where they can get their fingers on it at any time, +without bothering about it in the meantime. That's the way a Turk +likes his women--same impulse exactly," + +"I've known a few Caucasians too ...," Mrs. Marshall-Smith contributed +a barbed point of malice to the talk. + +Page laughed, appreciating her hit. "Oh, I mean Turk as a generic +term." Sylvia, circling warily about the contestants, looking for a +chance to make her presence felt, without impairing the masculine +gusto with which they were monopolizing the center of the stage, +tossed in a suggestion, "Was it Hawthorne's--it's a queer fancy like +Hawthorne's--the idea of the miser, don't you remember, whose joy was +to roll naked in his gold pieces?" + +Page snatched up with a delighted laugh the metaphor she had laid in +his hand. "Capital! Precisely! There's the thing in a nutshell. We +twentieth century Midases have got beyond the simple taste of that +founder of the family for the shining yellow qualities of money, but +we love to wallow in it none the less. We like to put our feet on it, +in the shape of rugs valued according to their cost, we like to eat it +in insipid, out-of-season fruit and vegetables." + +"Doesn't it occur to you," broke in Morrison, "that you may be +attacking something that's a mere phase, an incident of transition?" + +"Is anything ever anything else!" Page broke in to say. + +Morrison continued, with a slight frown at the interruption, "America +is simply emerging from the frontier condition of bareness, and it is +only natural that one, or perhaps two generations must be sacrificed +in order to attain a smooth mastery of an existence charged and +enriched with possession." He gave the effect of quoting a paragraph +from one of his lectures. + +"Isn't the end of that 'transition,'" inquired Page, "usually simply +that after one or two generations people grow dulled to everything +_but_ possession and fancy themselves worthily occupied when they +spend their lives regulating and caring for their possessions. I +hate," he cried with sudden intensity, "I hate the very sound of the +word!" + +"Does you great credit, I'm sure," said Morrison, with a faint irony, +a hidden acrimony, pricking, for an instant, an ugly ear through his +genial manner. + +Ever since the day of the fire, since Page had become a more and more +frequent visitor in Lydford and had seen more and more of Sylvia, she +had derived a certain amount of decidedly bad-tasting amusement from +the fact of Morrison's animosity to the other man. But this was going +too far. She said instantly, "Do you know, I've just thought what it +is you all remind me of--I mean Lydford, and the beautiful clothes, +and nobody bothering about anything but tea and ideas and knowing the +right people. I knew it made me think of something else, and now I +know--it's a Henry James novel!" + +Page took up her lead instantly, and said gravely, putting himself +beside her as another outsider: "Well, of course, that's their ideal. +That's what they _try_ to be like--at least to talk like James people. +But it's not always easy. The vocabulary is so limited." + +"Limited!" cried Mrs. Marshall-Smith. "There are more words in a Henry +James novel than in any dictionary!" + +"Oh yes, _words_ enough!" admitted Page, "but all about the same sort +of thing. It reminds me of the seminarists in Rome, who have to use +Latin for everything. They can manage predestination and vicarious +atonement like a shot, but when it comes to ordering somebody to call +them for the six-twenty train to Naples they're lost. Now, you can +talk about your bric-Ă -brac in Henry-Jamesese, you can take away your +neighbor's reputation by subtle suggestion, you can appreciate a fine +deed of self-abnegation, if it's not too definite! I suppose a man +could even make an attenuated sort of love in the lingo, but I'll be +hanged if I see how anybody could order a loaf of bread," + +"One might do without bread, possibly?" suggested Morrison, pressing +the tips of his beautiful fingers together. + +"By Jove," cried Page, in hearty assent, "I've a notion that lots of +times they do!" + +This was getting nowhere. Mrs. Marshall-Smith put her hand to the +helm, and addressed herself to Morrison with a plain reminder of the +reason for the grotesqueness of his irritability. "Where's _Molly_ +keeping herself nowadays?" she inquired. "She hasn't come over with +you, to tea, for ever so long. The pergola isn't itself without her +sunny head." + +"Molly is a grain of sand in a hurricane, nowadays," said Morrison +seriously. "It seems that the exigencies of divine convention decree +that a girl who is soon to be married belongs neither to herself, to +her family, to her fiancĂ©--oh, least of all to her fiancĂ©--but heart +and soul and body to a devouring horde of dressmakers and tailors and +milliners and hairdressers and corsetières and petticoat specialists +and jewelers and hosiery experts and--" + +They were all laughing at the interminable defile of words proceeding +with a Spanish gravity, and Mrs. Marshall-Smith broke in, "I don't +hear anything about house-furnishers." + +"No," said Morrison, "the house-furnisher's name is F. Morrison, and +he has no show until after the wedding." + +"What _are_ your plans?" asked Mrs. Marshall-Smith. + +"Nothing very definite except the great Date. That's fixed for the +twenty-first." + +"Oh, so soon ... less than three weeks from now!" + +Morrison affected to feel a note of disapproval in her voice, and said +with his faint smile, "You can hardly blame me for not wishing to +delay." + +"Oh, no _blame!_" she denied his inference. "After all it's over a +month since the engagement was announced, and who knows how much +longer before that you and Molly knew about it. No. I'm not one who +believes in long engagements. The shorter the better." + +Sylvia saw an opportunity to emerge with an appearance of ease from a +silence that might seem ungracious. It was an enforced manoeuver with +which the past weeks had made her wearily familiar. "Aunt Victoria's +hitting at Arnold and Judith over your head," she said to Morrison. +"It's delicious, the way Tantine shows herself, for all her veneer of +modernity, entirely nineteen century in her impatience of Judith's +work. Now that there's a chance to escape from it into the blessed +haven of idle matrimony, she can't see why Judith doesn't give up her +lifetime dream and marry Arnold tomorrow." + +Somewhat to her surprise, her attempt at playfulness had no notable +success. The intent of her remarks received from her aunt and Morrison +the merest formal recognition of a hasty, dim smile, and with one +accord they looked at once in another direction. "And after the +wedding?" Mrs. Marshall-Smith inquired--"or is that a secret?" + +"Oh no, when one belongs to Molly's exalted class or is about to be +elevated into it, nothing is secret. I'm quite sure that the society +editor of the _Herald_ knows far better than I the names of the hotels +in Jamaica we're to frequent." + +"Oh! Jamaica! How ... how ... original!" Mrs. Marshall-Smith cast +about her rather desperately for a commendatory adjective. + +"Yes, quite so, isn't it?" agreed Morrison. "It's Molly's idea. She +_is_ original, you know. It's one of her greatest charms. She didn't +want to go to Europe because there is so much to see there, to do. She +said she wanted a honeymoon and not a personally conducted trip." + +They all laughed again, and Sylvia said: "How _like_ Molly! How +clever! Nobody does her thinking for her!" + +"The roads in Jamaica are excellent for motoring, too, I hear," added +Morrison. "That's another reason, of course." + +Page gave a great laugh. "Well, as Molly's cousin, let me warn you! +Molly driving a car in Jamaica will be like Pavlova doing a bacchante +on the point of a needle! You'll have to keep a close watch on her to +see that she doesn't absentmindedly dash across the island and jump +off the bank right on into the ocean." + +"Where does F. Morrison, house-furnishing-expert, come in?" asked Mrs. +Marshall-Smith. + +"After the wedding, after Jamaica," said Morrison. "We're to come back +to New York and for a few months impose on the good nature of Molly's +grandfather's household, while we struggle with workmen _et al_. +The Montgomery house on Fifth Avenue, that's shut up for so many +years,--ever since the death of Molly's parents,--is the one we've +settled on. It's very large, you know. It has possibilities. I have +a plan for remodeling it and enlarging it with a large inner court, +glass-roofed--something slightly Saracenic about the arches--and what +is now a suite of old-fashioned parlors on the north side is to +be made into a long gallery. There'll be an excellent light for +paintings. I've secured from Duveen a promise for some tapestries +I've admired for a long time--Beauvais, not very old, Louis XVII--but +excellent in color. Those for the staircase ..." + +He spoke with no more animation than was his custom, with no more +relish than was seemly; his carefully chosen words succeeded each +other in their usual exquisite precision, no complacency showed above +the surface; his attitude was, as always, composed of precisely +the right proportion of dignity and ease; but as he talked, some +untarnished instinct in Sylvia shrank away in momentary distaste, the +first she had ever felt for him. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith evidently did not at all share this feeling. "Oh, +what a house that will be!" she cried, lost in forecasting admiration. +"_You!_ with a free hand! A second house of Jacques Coeur!" Sylvia +stood up, rather abruptly. "I think I'll go for a walk beside the +river," she said, reaching for her parasol. + +"May I tag along?" said Page, strolling off beside her with the ease +of familiarity. + +Sylvia turned to wave a careless farewell to the two thus left +somewhat unceremoniously in the pergola. She was in brown corduroy +with suede leather sailor collar and broad belt, a costume which +brought out vividly the pure, clear coloring of her face. "Good-bye," +she called to them with a pointedly casual accent, nodding her +gleaming head. + +"She's a _very_ pretty girl, isn't she?" commented Mrs. +Marshall-Smith. Morrison, looking after the retreating figures, agreed +with her briefly. "Yes, very. Extraordinarily perfect specimen of her +type." His tone was dry. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith looked with annoyance across the stretch of lawn +to the house. "I think I would better go to see where Arnold is," she +said. Her tone seemed to signify more to the man than her colorless +words. He frowned and said, "Oh, is Arnold ...?" + +She gave a fatigued gesture. "No--not yet--but for the last two or +three days ..." + +He began impatiently, "Why can't you get him off this time before he...." + +"An excellent idea," she broke in, with some impatience of her own. +"But slightly difficult of execution." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +SYLVIA MEETS WITH PITY + + +Under the scarlet glory of frost-touched maples, beside the river +strolled Sylvia, conscious of looking very well and being admired; but +contrary to the age-old belief about her sex and age, the sensation +of looking very well and being admired by no means filled the entire +field of her consciousness. In fact, the corner occupied by the +sensation was so small that occasional efforts on her part to escape +to it from the less agreeable contents of her mind were lamentable +failures. Aloud, in terms as felicitous as she could make them, she +was commenting on the beauty of the glass-smooth river, with the +sumptuously colored autumn trees casting down into it the imperial +gold and crimson of their reflections. Silently she was struggling to +master and dominate and suppress a confusion of contradictory mental +processes. At almost regular intervals, like a hollow stroke on a +brazen gong, her brain resounded to the reverberations of "The wedding +is on the twenty-first." And each time that she thrust that away, +there sprang up with a faint hissing note of doubt and suspicion, "Why +does Aunt Victoria want Arnold married?" A murmur, always drowned out +but incessantly recurring, ran: "What about Father and Mother? +What about their absurd, impossible, cruel, unreal, and +beautiful standards?" Contemptible little echoes from the silly +self-consciousness of the adolescence so recently left behind her ... +"I must think of something clever to say. I must try to seem different +and original and independent and yet must attract," mingled with an +occasional fine sincerity of appreciation and respect for the humanity +of the man beside her. Like a perfume borne in gusts came reaction to +the glorious color about her. Quickly recurring and quickly gone, a +sharp cymbal-clap of alarm ... "What shall I do if Austin Page now +... today ... or tomorrow ... tells me ...!" And grotesquely, the +companion cymbal on which this smote, gave forth an antiphonal alarm +of, "What shall I do if he does not!" While, unheard of her conscious +ear, but coloring everything with its fundamental note of sincerity, +rose solemnly from the depths of her heart the old cry of desperate +youth, "What am I to do with my life?" + +No, the eminently successful brown corduroy, present though it was +to the mind of the handsome girl wearing it, was hardly the sure and +sufficient rock of refuge which tradition would have had it. + +With an effort she turned her attention from this confused tumult in +her ears, and put out her hand, rather at random, for an introduction +to talk. "You spoke, back there in the pergola, of another kind of +beauty--I didn't know what you meant." He answered at once, with his +usual direct simplicity, which continued to have for Sylvia at +this period something suspiciously like the calmness of a reigning +sovereign who is above being embarrassed, who may speak, without +shamefacedness, of anything, even of moral values, that subject tabu +in sophisticated conversation. "Ah, just a notion of mine that perhaps +all this modern ferment of what's known as 'social conscience' or +'civic responsibility,' isn't a result of the sense of duty, but of +the old, old craving for beauty." + +Sylvia looked at him, astonished. "Beauty?" + +"Why yes, beauty isn't only a matter of line and color, is it? There's +the desire for harmony, for true proportions, for grace and suavity, +for nobility of movement. Perhaps the lack of those qualities is felt +in human lives as much as on canvases ... at least perhaps it may be +felt in the future." + +"It's an interesting idea," murmured Sylvia, "but I don't quite see +what it means, concretely, as applied to our actual America." + +He meditated, looking, as was his habit when walking, up at the trees +above them. "Well, let's see. I think I mean that perhaps our race, +not especially inspired in its instinct for color and external form, +may possibly be fumbling toward an art of living. Why wouldn't it be +an art to keep your life in drawing as well as a mural decoration?" He +broke off to say, laughing, "I bet you the technique would be quite +as difficult to acquire," and went on again, thoughtfully: "In this +modern maze of terrible closeness of inter-relation, to achieve a life +that's happy and useful and causes no undeserved suffering to +the untold numbers of other lives which touch it--isn't there an +undertaking which needs the passion for harmony and proportion? Isn't +there a beauty as a possible ideal of aspiration for a race that +probably never could achieve a Florentine or Japanese beauty of line?" +He cast this out casually, as an idea which had by chance been brought +up to the top by the current of the talk, and showed no indication to +pursue it further when Sylvia only nodded her head. It was one of the +moments when she heard nothing but the brazen clangor of "the wedding +is on the twenty-first," and until the savage constriction around her +heart had relaxed she had not breath to speak. But that passed again, +and the two sauntered onward, in the peaceable silence which was one +of the great new pleasures which Page was able to give her. It now +seemed like a part of the mellow ripeness of the day. + +They had come to a bend in the slowly flowing river, where, instead +of torch-bright maples and poplars, rank upon rank of somber pines +marched away to the summit of a steeply ascending foothill. The river +was clouded dark with their melancholy reflections. On their edge, +overhanging the water, stood a single sumac, a standard-bearer with a +thousand little down-drooping flags of crimson. + +"Oh," said Sylvia, smitten with admiration. She sat down on a rock +partly because she wanted to admire at her leisure, partly because she +was the kind of a girl who looks well sitting on a rock; and as she +was aware of this latter motive, she felt a qualm of self-scorn. What +a cheap vein of commonness was revealed in her--in every one--by the +temptation of a great fortune! Morrison had succumbed entirely. She +was nowadays continually detecting in herself motives which made her +sick. + +Page stretched his great length on the dry leaves at her feet. Any +other man would have rolled a cigarette. It was one of his oddities +that he never smoked. Sylvia looked down at his thoughtful, clean face +and reflected wonderingly that he seemed the only person not warped +by money. Was it because he had it, or was it because he was a very +unusual person? + +He was looking partly at the river, at the pines, at the flaming tree, +and partly at the human embodiment of the richness and color of autumn +before him. After a time Sylvia said: "There's Cassandra. She's the +only one who knows of the impending doom. She's trying to warn the +pines." It had taken her some moments to think of this. + +Page accepted it with no sign that he considered it anything +remarkable, with the habit of a man for whom people produced their +best: "She's using some very fine language for her warning, but like +some other fine language it's a trifle misapplied. She forgets that +no doom hangs over the pines. _She's_ the fated one. They're safe +enough." + +Sylvia clasped her hands about her knees and looked across the dark +water at the somber trees. "And yet they don't seem to be very +cheerful about it." It was her opinion that they were talking very +cleverly. + +"Perhaps," suggested Page, rolling over to face the river--"perhaps +she's not prophesying doom at all, but blowing a trumpet-peal of +exultation over her own good fortune. The pines may be black with envy +of her." + +Sylvia enjoyed this rather macabre fancy with all the zest of +healthful youth, secure in the conviction of its own immortality. +"Yes, yes, life's ever so much harder than death." + +Page dissented with a grave irony from the romantic exaggeration +of this generalization. "I don't suppose the statistics as to the +relative difficulty of life and death are really very reliable." + +Sylvia perceived that she was being, ever so delicately, laughed at, +and tried to turn her remark so that she could carry it off. "Oh, I +don't mean for those who die, but those who are left know something +about it, I imagine. My mother always said that the encounter with +death is the great turning-point in the lives of those who live on. +She said you might miss everything else irrevocable and vital--falling +in love, having children, accomplishing anything--but that sooner or +later you have to reckon with losing somebody dear to you." She spoke +with an academic interest in the question. + +"I should think," meditated Page, taking the matter into serious +consideration, "that the vitalness of even that experience would +depend somewhat on the character undergoing it. I've known some +temperaments of a proved frivolity which seemed to have passed through +it without any great modifications. But then I know nothing about it +personally. I lost my father before I could remember him, and since +then I haven't happened to have any close encounter with such loss. My +mother, you know, is very much alive." + +"Well, I haven't any personal experience with death in my immediate +circle either," said Sylvia. "But I wasn't brought up with the usual +cult of the awfulness of it. Father was always anxious that we +children should feel it something as natural as breathing--you are +dipped up from the great river of consciousness, and death only pours +you back. If you've been worth living, there are more elements of +fineness in humanity." + +Page nodded. "Yes, that's what they all say nowadays. Personal +immortality is as out of fashion as big sleeves." + +"Do you believe it?" asked Sylvia, seeing the talk take an intimate +turn, "or are you like me, and don't know at all what you do believe?" +If she had under this pseudo-philosophical question a veiled purpose +analogous to that of the less subtle charmer whose avowed expedient +is to get "a man to talk about himself" the manoeuver was eminently +successful. + +"I've never had the least chance to think about it," he said, sitting +up, "because I've always been so damnably beset by the facts of +living. I know I am not the first of my race to feel convinced that +his own problems are the most complicated, but ..." + +"_Yours!_" cried Sylvia, genuinely astonished. + +"And one of the hardships of my position," he told her at once with +a playful bitterness, "is that everybody refuses to believe in the +seriousness of it. Because my father, after making a great many bad +guesses as to the possible value of mining stock in Nevada, happened +to make a series of good guesses about the value of mining stock in +Colorado, it is assumed that all questions are settled for me, that I +can joyously cultivate my garden, securely intrenched in the certainty +that this is the best possible of all possible worlds," + +"Oh yes--labor unions--socialism--I.W.W.," Sylvia murmured vaguely, +unable, in spite of her intelligence, to refrain from marking, by a +subsidence of interest, her instinctive feeling that those distant +questions could not in the nature of things be compared to present, +personal complications. + +"No--no--!" he protested. "That's no go! I've tried for five years now +to shove it out of sight on some one of those shelves. I've learned +all the arguments on both sides. I can discuss on both sides of those +names as glibly as any other modern quibbler. I can prove the rights +of all those labels or I can prove the wrongs of them, according to +the way my dinner is digesting. What stays right there, what I never +can digest (if you'll pardon an inelegant simile that's just occurred +to me), a lump I never can either swallow entirely down or get up +out of my throat, is the fact that there are men, hundreds of men, +thousands of men, working with picks underground all day, every day, +all their lives, and that part of their labor goes to provide me with +the wherewithal to cultivate my taste, to pose as a patron of the +arts, to endow promising pianists--to go through all the motions +suitable to that position to which it has pleased Providence to call +me. It sticks in my crop that my only connection with the entire +business was to give myself the trouble to be born my father's son." + +"But you _do_ work!" protested Sylvia. "You work on your farm here. +You run all sorts of lumbering operations in this region. The first +time I saw you, you certainly looked less like the traditional idea of +a predatory coal-operator." She laughed at the recollection. + +"Oh yes, I work. When my undigested lump gets too painful I try to +work it off--but what I do bears the same relation to real sure-enough +work that playing tennis does to laying brick. But such as it is, it's +real satisfaction I get out of my minute Vermont holdings. They come +down to me from my farmer great-grandfather who held the land by +working it himself. There's no sore spot there. But speak of Colorado +or coal--and you see me jump with the same shooting twinge you feel +when the dentist's probe reaches a nerve. An intelligent conscience +is a luxury a man in my position can't afford to have." He began with +great accuracy to toss small stones at a log showing above the surface +of the water. + +Sylvia, reverting to a chance remark, now said: "I never happened to +hear you speak of your mother before. Does she ever come to Lydford?" + +He shook his head. "No, she vibrates between the Madison Avenue house +and the Newport one. She's very happy in those two places. She's Mr. +Sommerville's sister, you know. She's one of Morrison's devotees too. +She collects under his guidance." + +"Collects?" asked Sylvia, a little vaguely. + +"Oh, it doesn't matter much what--the instinct, the resultant +satisfaction are the same. As a child, it's stamps, or buttons, +or corks, later on--As a matter of fact, it's lace that my mother +collects. She specializes in Venetian lace--the older the better, of +course. The connection with coal-mines is obvious. But after all, her +own fortune, coming mostly from the Sommerville side, is derived from +oil. The difference is great!" + +"Do you live with her?" asked Sylvia. + +"My washing is said to be done in New York," he said seriously. "I +believe that settles the question of residence for a man." + +"Oh, how quaint!" said Sylvia, laughing. Then with her trained +instinct for contriving a creditable exit before being driven to an +enforced one by flagging of masculine interest, she rose and looked at +her watch. + +"Oh, don't go!" he implored her. "It's so beautiful here--we never +were so--who knows when we'll ever again be in so ..." + +Sylvia divined with one of her cymbal-claps that he had meant, +perhaps, that very afternoon to--She felt a dissonant clashing of +triumph and misgiving. She thought she decided quite coolly, quite +dryly, that pursuit always lent luster to the object pursued; but in +reality she did not at all recognize the instinct which bade her say, +turning her watch around on her wrist: "It's quite late. I don't think +I'd better stay longer. Aunt Victoria likes dinner promptly." She +turned to go. + +He took his small defeat with his usual imperturbable good nature, in +which Sylvia not infrequently thought she detected a flavor of the +unconscious self-assurance of the very rich and much-courted man. +He scrambled to his feet now promptly, and fell into step with her +quick-treading advance. "You're right, of course. There's no need to +be grasping. There's tomorrow--and the day after--and the day after +that--and if it rains we can wear rubbers and carry umbrellas." + +"Oh, I don't carry an umbrella for a walk in the rain," she told him. +"It's one of our queer Marshall ways. We only own one umbrella for the +whole family at home, and that's to lend. I wear a rubber coat and put +on a sou'wester and _let_ it rain." + +"You would!" he said in an unconscious imitation of Arnold's accent. + +She laughed up at him. "Shall I confess why I do? Because my hair is +naturally curly." + +"Confession has to be prompter than that to save souls," he answered. +"I knew it was, five weeks ago, when you splashed the water up on it +so recklessly there by the brook." + +She was astonished by this revelation of depths behind that +well-remembered clear gaze of admiration, and dismayed by such +unnatural accuracy of observation. + +"How cynical of you to make such a mental comment!" + +He apologized. "It was automatic--unconscious. I've had a good deal of +opportunity to observe young ladies." And then, as though aware that +the ice was thin over an unpleasant subject, he shifted the talk. +"Upon my word, I wonder how Molly and Morrison _will_ manage?" + +"Oh, Molly's wonderful. She'd manage anything," said Sylvia with +conviction. + +"Morrison is rather wonderful himself," advanced Page. "And that's a +magnanimous concession for me to make when I'm now so deep in his +bad books. Do you know, by the way," he asked, looking with a quick +interrogation at the girl, "_why_ I'm so out of favor with him?" + +Sylvia's eyes opened wide. She gazed at him, startled, fascinated. +Could "it" be coming so suddenly, in this casual, abrupt manner? "No, +I don't know," she managed to say; and braced herself. + +"I don't blame him in the least. It was very vexing. I went back on +him--so to speak; dissolved an aesthetic partnership, in which he +furnished the brains, and my coal-mines the sinews of art. _I_ was one +of his devotees, you know. For some years after I got out of college I +collected under his guidance, as my mother does, as so many people do. +I even specialized. I don't like to boast, but I dare affirm that no +man knows more than I about sixteenth century mezza-majolica. It is +a branch of human knowledge which you must admit is singularly +appropriate for a dweller in the twentieth century. And of great value +to the world. My collection was one of Morrison's triumphs." + +Sylvia felt foolish and discomfited. With an effort she showed a +proper interest in his remarks. "Was?" she asked. "What happened to +it?" + +"I went back on it. In one of the first of those fits of moral +indigestion. One day, I'd been reading a report in one of the +newspapers on the status of the coal-miner, and the connection between +my bright-colored pots and platters, and my father's lucky guess, +became a little too dramatic for my taste. I gave the collection to +the Metropolitan, and I've never bought a piece since. Morrison was +immensely put out. He'd been to great trouble to find some fine +Fontana specimens for me. And then not to have me look at them--He +was right too. It was a silly, pettish thing to do. I didn't know any +better then. I don't know any better now." + +It began to dawn on Sylvia that, under his air of whimsical +self-mockery he was talking to her seriously. She tried to adjust +herself to this, to be sympathetic, earnest; though she was still +smarting with the sense of having appeared to herself as undignified +and ridiculous. + +"And besides that," he went on, looking away, down the dusty highroad +they were then crossing on their way back to the house--"besides that, +I went back on a great scheme of Morrison's for a National Academy of +Aesthetic Instruction, which I was to finance and he to organize. He +had gone into all the details. He had shown wonderful capacity. It's +really very magnanimous of him not to bear me more of a grudge. He +thought that giving it up was one of my half-baked ideas. And it was. +As far as anything I've accomplished since, I might as well have been +furthering the appreciation of Etruscan vases in the Middle West. But +then, I don't think he'll miss it now. If he still has a fancy for it, +he can do it with Molly's money. She has plenty. But I don't believe +he will. It has occurred to me lately (it's an idea that's been +growing on me about everybody) that Morrison, like most of us, has +been miscast. He doesn't really care a continental about the aesthetic +salvation of the country. It's only the contagion of the American +craze for connecting everything with social betterment, tagging +everything with that label, that ever made him think he did. He's far +too thoroughgoing an aesthete himself. What he was brought into +the world for, was to appreciate, as nobody else can, all sorts of +esoterically fine things. Now that he'll be able to gratify that +taste, he'll find his occupation in it. Why shouldn't he? It'd be a +hideously leveled world if everybody was, trying to be a reformer. +Besides, who'd be left to reform? I love to contemplate a genuine, +whole-souled appreciator like Morrison, without any qualms about the +way society is put together. And I envy him! I envy him as blackly as +your pines envied the sumac. He's got out of the wrong rĂ´le into the +right one. I wish to the Lord I could!" + +They were close to the house now, in the avenue of poplars, yellow as +gold above them in the quick-falling autumn twilight. Sylvia spoke +with a quick, spirited sincerity, her momentary pique forgotten, her +feeling rushing out generously to meet the man's simple openness. "Oh, +that's the problem for all of us! To know what rĂ´le to play! If you +think it hard for you who have only to choose--how about the rest of +us who must--?" She broke off. "What's that? What's that?" + +She had almost stumbled over a man's body, lying prone, half in the +driveway, half on the close-clipped grass on the side; a well-dressed +man, tall, thin, his limbs sprawled about broken-jointedly. He lay on +his back, his face glimmering white in the clear, dim dusk. Sylvia +recognized him with a cry. "Oh, it's Arnold! He's been struck by a +car! He's dead!" + +She sprang forward, and stopped short, at gaze, frozen. + +The man sat up, propping himself on his hands and looked at her, a +wavering smile on his lips. He began to speak, a thick, unmodulated +voice, as though his throat were stiff. "Comingtomeetyou," he +articulated very rapidly and quite unintelligibly, "an 'countered hill +in driveway ... no hill _in_ driveway, and climbed and climbed"--he +lost himself in repetition and brought up short to begin again, +"--labor so 'cessive had to rest--" + +Sylvia turned a paper-white face on her companion. "What's the matter +with him?" she tried to say, but Page only saw her lips move. He made +no answer. That she would know in an instant what was the matter +flickered from her eyes, from her trembling white lips; that she did +know, even as she spoke, was apparent from the scorn and indignation +which like sheet-lightning leaped out on him. "Arnold! For _shame_! +Arnold! Think of Judith!" + +At the name he frowned vaguely as though it suggested something +extremely distressing to him, though he evidently did not recognize +it. "Judish? Judish?" he repeated, drawing his brows together and +making a grimace of great pain. "What's Judish?" + +And then, quite suddenly the pain and distress were wiped from his +face by sodden vacuity. He had hitched himself to one of the poplars, +and now leaned against this, his head bent on his shoulder at the +sickening angle of a man hanged, his eyes glassy, his mouth open, +a trickle of saliva flowing from one corner. He breathed hard and +loudly. There was nothing there but a lump of uncomely flesh. + +Sylvia shrank back from the sight with such disgust that she felt her +flesh creep. She turned a hard, angry face on Page. "Oh, the beast! +The beast!" she cried, under her breath. She felt defiled. She hated +Arnold. She hated life. + +Page said quietly: "You'll excuse my not going with you to the house? +I'll have my car and chauffeur here in a moment." He stepped away +quickly and Sylvia turned to flee into the house. + +But something halted her flying feet. She hesitated, stopped, and +pressed her hands together hard. He could not be left alone there in +the driveway. A car might run over him in the dusk. She turned back. + +She stood there, alone with the horror under the tree. She turned her +back on it, but she could see nothing but the abject, strengthless +body, the dreadful ignominy of the face. They filled the world. + +And then quickly--everything came quickly to Sylvia--there stood +before her the little boy who had come to see them in La Chance so +long ago, the little honest-eyed boy who had so loved her mother and +Judith, who had loved Pauline the maid and suffered with her pain; and +then the bigger boy who out of his weakness had begged for a share +of her mother's strength and been refused; and then the man, still +honest-eyed, who, aimless, wavering, had cried out to her in misery +upon the emptiness of his life; and who later had wept those pure +tears of joy that he had found love. She had a moment of insight, of +vision, of terrible understanding. She did not know what was taking +place within her, something racking--spasmodic throes of sudden +growth, the emergence for the first time in all her life of the +capacity for pity ... + +When, only a moment or two later, Page's car came swiftly down the +driveway, and he sprang out, he found Sylvia sitting by the drunkard, +the quiet tears streaming down her face. She had wiped his mouth with +her handkerchief, she held his limp hand in hers, his foolish staring +face was hidden on her shoulder.... + +The two men lifted him bodily, an ignoble, sagging weight, into the +car. She stood beside him and, without a word, stooped and gently +disposed his slackly hanging arms beside him. + +Dark had quite fallen by this time. They were all silent, shadowy +forms. She felt that Page was at her side. He leaned to her. Her hand +was taken and kissed. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +MUCH ADO ... + + +The rest of October was a period never clear in Sylvia's head. +Everything that happened was confusing and almost everything was +painful; and a great deal happened. She had thought at the time that +nothing would ever blur in her mind the shock of finding Aunt Victoria +opposed to what seemed to her the first obvious necessity: writing +to Judith about Arnold. She had been trying for a long time now with +desperate sincerity to take the world as she found it, to see +people as they were with no fanatic intolerance, to realize her own +inexperience of life, to be broad, to take in without too much of a +wrench another point of view; but to Aunt Victoria's idea, held quite +simply and naturally by that lady, that Judith be kept in ignorance +of Arnold's habits until after marriage, Sylvia's mind closed as +automatically, as hermetically as an oyster-shell snaps shut. She +could not discuss it, she could not even attend with hearing ears to +Mrs. Marshall-Smith's very reasonable presentation of her case; the +long tradition as to the justifiability of such ignorance on a bride's +part; the impossibility that any woman should ever know all of any +man's character before marriage; the strong presumption that marriage +with a woman he adored would cure habits contracted only through +the inevitable aimlessness of too much wealth; the fact that, once +married, a woman like Judith would accept, and for the most part deal +competently with, facts which would frighten her in her raw girlish +state of ignorance and crudeness. Sylvia did not even hear these +arguments and many more like them, dignified with the sanction of +generations of women trying their best to deal with life. She had +never thought of the question before. It was the sort of thing from +which she had always averted her moral eyes with extreme distaste; but +now that it was forced on her, her reaction to it was instantaneous. +From the depths of her there rose up fresh in its original vigor, +never having been dulled by a single enforced compliance with a +convention running counter to a principle, the most irresistible +instinct against concealment. She did not argue; she could not. She +could only say with a breathless certainty against which there was no +holding out: "Judith must know! Judith must know!" + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith, alarmed by the prospect of a passage-at-arms, +decreed quietly that they should both sleep on the question and take +it up the next morning. Sylvia had not slept. She had lain in her +bed, wide-eyed; a series of pictures passing before her eyes with the +unnatural vividness of hallucinations. These pictures were not only of +Arnold, of Arnold again, of Arnold and Judith. There were all sorts of +odd bits of memories--a conversation overheard years before, between +her father and Lawrence, when Lawrence was a little, little boy. He +had asked--it was like Lawrence's eerie ways--apropos of nothing at +all, "What sort of a man was Aunt Victoria's husband?" + +His father had said, "A rich man, very rich." This prompt appearance +of readiness to answer had silenced the child for a moment: and then +(Sylvia could see his thin little hands patting down the sand-cake he +was making) he had persisted, "What kind of a rich man?" His father +had said, "Well, he was bald--quite bald--Lawrence, come run a race +with me to the woodshed." Sylvia now, ten years later, wondered why +her father had evaded. What kind of a man _had_ Arnold's father been? + +But chiefly she braced herself for the struggle with Aunt Victoria in +the morning. It came to her in fleeting glimpses that Aunt Victoria +would be only human if she resented with some heat this entire +disregard of her wishes; that the discussion might very well end in +a quarrel, and that a quarrel would mean the end of Lydford with all +that Lydford meant now and potentially. But this perception was +swept out of sight, like everything else, in the singleness of her +conviction: "Judith must know! Judith must know!" + +There was, however, no struggle with Aunt Victoria in the morning. +Mrs. Marshall-Smith, encountering the same passionate outcry, +recognized an irresistible force when she encountered it; recognized +it, in fact, soon enough to avoid the long-drawn-out acrimony of +discussion into which a less intelligent woman would inevitably have +plunged; recognized it almost, but not quite, in time to shut off from +Sylvia's later meditations certain startling vistas down which she +had now only fleeting glimpses. "Very well, my dear," said Mrs. +Marshall-Smith, her cherished clarity always unclouded by small +resentments,--"very well, we will trust in your judgment rather than +my own. I don't pretend to understand present-day girls, though I +manage to be very fond of one of them. Judith is your sister. You will +do, of course, what you think is right. It means, of course, Judith +being what she is, that she will instantly cast him off; and Arnold +being what he is, that means that he will drink himself into delirium +tremens in six months. His father ..." She stopped short, closing with +some haste the door to a vista, and poured herself another cup of +coffee. They were having breakfast in her room, both in nĂ©gligĂ©e +and lacy caps, two singularly handsome representatives of differing +generations. Mrs. Marshall-Smith looked calm, Sylvia extremely +agitated. She had been awake at the early hour of deadly pale dawn +when a swift, long-barreled car had drawn up under the porte-cochère +and Arnold had been taken away under the guard of a short, broad, +brawny man with disproportionately long arms. She was not able to +swallow a mouthful of breakfast. + +During the night, she had not looked an inch beyond her blind passion +of insistence. Now that Aunt Victoria yielded with so disconcerting +a suddenness, she faced with a pang what lay beyond. "Oh, Judith +wouldn't cast him off! She loves him so! She'll give him a chance. You +don't know Judith. She doesn't care about many things, but she gives +herself up absolutely to those that do matter to her. She adores +Arnold! It fairly frightened me to see how she was burning up when +he was near. She'll insist on his reforming, of course--she ought +to--but--" + +"Suppose he doesn't reform to suit her," suggested Mrs. +Marshall-Smith, stirring her coffee. "He's been reformed at intervals +ever since he was fifteen. He never could stay through a whole term +in any decent boys' school." Here was a vista, ruthlessly opened. +Sylvia's eyes looked down it and shuddered. "Poor Arnold!" she said +under her breath, pushing away her untasted cup. + +"I'm dull enough to find you take an odd way to show your sympathy for +him," murmured Mrs. Marshall-Smith, with none of the acidity the words +themselves seemed to indicate. She seemed indeed genuinely perplexed. +"It's not been exactly a hilarious element in _my_ life either. But +I've always tried to hold on to Arnold. I thought it my duty. And now, +since Felix Morrison has found this excellent specialist for me, it's +much easier. I telegraph to him and he comes at once and takes Arnold +back to his sanitarium, till he's himself again." For the first time +in weeks Morrison's name brought up between them no insistently +present, persistently ignored shadow. The deeper shadow now blotted +him out. + +"But Aunt Victoria, it's for Judith to decide. _She_'ll do the right +thing." + +"Sometimes people are thrown by circumstances into a situation where +they wouldn't have dreamed of putting themselves--and yet they rise to +it and conquer it," philosophized Aunt Victoria. "Life takes hold of +us with strong hands and makes us greater than we thought. Judith will +_mean_ to do the right thing. If she were married, she'd _have_ to do +it! It seems to me a great responsibility you take, Sylvia--you may, +with the best of intentions in the world, be ruining the happiness of +two lives." + +Sylvia got up, her eyes red with unshed tears. It was not the first +time that morning. "It's all too horrible," she murmured. "But I +haven't any right to conceal it from Judith." + +Her eyes were still red when, an hour later, she stepped into the room +again and said, "I've mailed it." + +Her aunt, still in lavender silk nĂ©gligĂ©e, so far progressed towards +the day's toilet as to have her hair carefully dressed, looked up +from the _Revue Bleue_, and nodded. Her expression was one of quiet +self-possession. + +Sylvia came closer to her and sat down on a straight-backed chair. She +was dressed for the street, and hatted, as though she herself had +gone out to mail the letter. "And now, Tantine," she said, with the +resolute air of one broaching a difficult subject, "I think I ought to +be planning to go home very soon." It was a momentous speech, and a +momentous pause followed it. It had occurred to Sylvia, still shaken +with the struggle over the question of secrecy, that she could, +in decency, only offer to take herself away, after so violently +antagonizing her hostess. She realized with what crude intolerance she +had attacked the other woman's position, how absolutely with claw and +talon she had demolished it. She smarted with the sense that she +had seemed oblivious of an "obligation." She detested the sense of +obligation. And having become aware of a debt due her dignity, she had +paid it hastily, on the impulse of the moment. But as the words still +echoed in the air, she was struck to see how absolutely her immediate +future, all her future, perhaps, depended on the outcome of that +conversation she herself had begun. She looked fixedly at her aunt, +trying to prepare herself for anything. But she was not prepared for +what Mrs. Marshall-Smith did. + +She swept the magazine from her lap to the floor and held out her arms +to Sylvia. "I had hoped--I had hoped you were happy--with me," she +said, and in her voice was that change of quality, that tremor of +sincerity which Sylvia had always found profoundly moving. The girl +was overcome with astonishment and remorse--and immense relief. She +ran to her. "Oh, I am! I am! I was only thinking--I've gone against +your judgment." Her nerves, stretched with the sleepless night and the +strain of writing the dreadful letter to Judith, gave way. She broke +into sobs. She put her arms tightly around her aunt's beautiful neck +and laid her head on her shoulder, weeping, her heart swelling, her +mind in a whirling mass of disconnected impressions. Arnold--Judith +... how strange it was that Aunt Victoria really cared for her--did +she really care for Aunt Victoria or only admire her?--did she really +care for anybody, since she was agreeing to stay longer away from +her father and mother?--how good it would be not to have to give up +HĂ©lène's services--what a heartless, materialistic girl she was--she +cared for nothing but luxury and money--she would be going abroad now +to Paris--Austin Page--he had kissed her hand ... and yet she felt +that he saw through her, saw through her mean little devices and +stratagems--how astonishing that he should be so very, very rich--it +seemed that a very, very rich man ought to be different from other +men--his powers were so unnaturally great--girls could not feel +naturally about him ... And all the while that these varying +reflections passed at lightning speed through her mind, her nervous +sobs were continuing. + +Aunt Victoria taking them, naturally enough, as signs of continued +remorse, lifted her out of this supposed slough of despond with +affectionate peremptoriness. "Don't feel so badly about it, darling. +We won't have any more talk for the present about differing judgments, +or of going away, or of anything uncomfortable"; and in this way, +with nothing clearly understood, on a foundation indeed of +misunderstanding, the decision was made, in the haphazard fashion +which characterizes most human decisions. + +The rest of the month was no more consecutive or logical. Into the +midst of the going-away confusion of a household about to remove +itself half around the world, into a house distracted with packing, +cheerless with linen-covers, desolate with rolled-up rugs and cold +lunches and half-packed trunks, came, in a matter-of-fact manner +characteristic of its writer, Judith's answer to Sylvia's letter. +Sylvia opened it, shrinking and fearful of what she would read. She +had, in the days since hers had been sent, imagined Judith's answer in +every possible form; but never in any form remotely resembling what +Judith wrote. The letter stated in Judith's concise style that of +course she agreed with Sylvia that there should be no secrets between +betrothed lovers, nor, in this case, were there any. Arnold had told +her, the evening before she left Lydford, that he had inherited an +alcoholic tendency from his father. She had been in communication +with a great specialist in Wisconsin about the case. She knew of the +sanitarium to which Arnold had been taken and did not like it. The +medical treatment there was not serious. She hoped soon to have +him transferred to the care of Dr. Rivedal. If Arnold's general +constitution were still sound, there was every probability of a cure. +Doctors knew so much more about that sort of thing than they used +to. Had Sylvia heard that Madame La Rue was not a bit well, that old +trouble with her heart, only worse? They'd been obliged to hire a +maid--how in the world were the La Rues going to exist on American +cooking? Cousin Parnelia said she could cure Madame with some +Sanopractic nonsense, a new fad that Cousin Parnelia had taken up +lately. Professor Kennedy had been elected vice-president of the +American Mathematical Association, and it was funny to see him try to +pretend that he wasn't pleased. Mother's garden this autumn was ... + +"_Well_!" ejaculated Sylvia, stopping short. Mrs. Marshall-Smith had +stopped to listen in the midst of the exhausting toil of telling +HĂ©lène which dresses to pack and which to leave hanging in the Lydford +house. She now resumed her labors unflaggingly, waving away to +the closet a mauve satin, and beckoning into a trunk a favorite +black-and-white chiffon. To Sylvia she said, "Now I know exactly how a +balloon feels when it is pricked." + +Sylvia agreed ruefully. "I might have known Judith would manage to +make me feel flat if I got wrought up about it. She hates a fuss made +over anything, and she can always take you down if you make one." +She remembered with a singular feeling of discomfiture the throbbing +phrases of her letter, written under the high pressure of the quarrel +with Aunt Victoria. She could almost see the expression of austere +distaste in the stern young beauty of Judith's face. Judith was always +making her appear foolish! + +"We were both of us," commented Mrs. Marshall-Smith dryly, "somewhat +mistaken about the degree of seriousness with which Judith would take +the information." + +Sylvia forgot her vexation and sprang loyally to Judith's defense. +"Why, of course she takes it like a trained nurse, like a +doctor--feels it a purely medical affair--as I suppose it is. We might +have known she'd feel that way. But as to how she really feels inside, +personally, you can't tell anything by her letter! You probably +couldn't tell anything by her manner if she were here. You never can. +She may be simply wild about a thing inside, but you'd never guess." + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith ventured to express some skepticism as to the +existence of volcanic feelings always so sedulously concealed. "After +all, can you be so very sure that she is ever 'simply wild' if she +never shows anything?" + +"Oh, you're _sure_, all right, if you've lived with her--you feel it. +And then, after about so long a time of keeping it down, she breaks +loose and _does_ something awful, that I'd never have the nerve to do, +and tears into flinders anything she doesn't think is right. Why, when +we were little girls and went to the public schools together, two of +our little playmates, who turned out to have a little negro blood, +we ..." Sylvia stopped, suddenly warned by some instinct that Aunt +Victoria would not be a sympathetic listener to that unforgotten +episode of her childhood, that episode which had seemed to have no +consequences, no sequel, but which ever since that day had insensibly +affected the course of her growth, like a great rock fallen into the +Current of her life. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith, deliberating with bated breath between broadcloth +and blue panama, did not notice the pause. She did, however, add a +final comment on the matter, some moments later, when she observed, +"How any girl in her senses can go on studying, when she's engaged to +a man who needs her as much as Arnold needs Judith!" To which Sylvia +answered irrelevantly with a thought which had just struck her +thrillingly, "But how perfectly fine of Arnold to tell her himself!" + +"She must have hypnotized him," said Mrs. Marshall-Smith with +conviction, "but then I don't pretend to understand the ways of young +people nowadays." She was now forty-five, in the full bloom of a +rarely preserved beauty, and could afford to make remarks about the +younger generation. "At any rate," she went on, "it is a comfort to +know that Judith has set her hand to the wheel. I have not in years +crossed the ocean with so much peace of mind about Arnold as I shall +have this time," said his stepmother. "No, leave that blue voile, +HĂ©lène, the collar never fitted." + +"Oh, he doesn't spend the winters in Paris with you?" asked Sylvia. + +"He's been staying here in Lydford of late--crazy as it sounds. He was +simply so bored that he couldn't think of anything else to do. He has, +besides, an absurd theory that he enjoys it more in winter than in +summer. He says the natives are to be seen then. He's been here from +his childhood. He knows a good many of them, I suppose. Now, HĂ©lène, +let's see the gloves and hats." + +It came over Sylvia with a passing sense of great strangeness that she +had been in this spot for four months and, with the exception of the +men at the fire, she had not met, had not spoken to, had not even +consciously seen a single inhabitant of the place. + +And in the end, she went away in precisely the same state of +ignorance. On the day they drove to the station she did, indeed, give +one fleeting glimpse over the edge of her narrow prison-house of +self-centered interest. Surrounded by a great many strapped and +buckled pieces of baggage, with HĂ©lène, fascinatingly ugly in her +serf's uniform, holding the black leather bag containing Aunt +Victoria's jewels, they passed along the street for the last time, +under the great elms already almost wintry with their bare boughs. +Now that it was too late, Sylvia felt a momentary curiosity about the +unseen humanity which had been so near her all the summer. She looked +out curiously at the shabby vehicles (it seemed to her that there +were more of them than in the height of the season), at the +straight-standing, plainly dressed, briskly walking women and children +(there seemed to be a new air of life and animation about the street +now that most of the summer cottages were empty), and at the lounging, +indifferent, powerfully built men. She wondered, for a moment, what +they were like, with what fortitude their eager human hearts bore the +annual display of splendor they might never share. They looked, in +that last glimpse, somehow quite strong, as though they would care +less than she would in their places. Perhaps they were only hostile, +not envious. + +"I dare say," said Aunt Victoria, glancing out at a buck-board, very +muddy as to wheels, crowded with children, "that it's very forlorn for +the natives to have the life all go out of the village when the summer +people leave. They must feel desolate enough!" + +Sylvia wondered. + +The last thing she saw as the train left the valley was the upland +pass between Windward and Hemlock mountains. It brought up to her the +taste of black birch, the formidably clean smell of yellow soap, and +the rush of summer wind past her ears. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +"WHOM GOD HATH JOINED ..." + + +They were to sail on the 23d, and ever since the big square invitation +had come it had been a foregone conclusion, conceded with no need +for wounding words, that there was no way out of attending the +Sommerville-Morrison wedding on the 21st. They kept, of course, no +constrained silence about it. Aunt Victoria detested the awkwardness +of not mentioning difficult subjects as heartily as she did the +mention of them; and as the tree toad evolves a skin to answer his +needs, she had evolved a method all her own of turning her back +squarely on both horns of a dilemma. No, there was no silence about +the wedding, only about the possibility that it might be an ordeal, or +that the ordeal might be avoided. It could not be avoided. There was +nothing to be said on that point. But there was much talk, during the +few days of their stay in New York, about the elaborate preparations +for the ceremony. Morrison, who came to see them in their temporary +quarters, kept up a somewhat satirical report as to the magnificence +of the performance, and on the one occasion when they went to see +Molly they found her flushed, excited, utterly inconsecutive, +distracted by a million details, and accepting the situation as the +normal one for a bride-to-be. There were heart-searchings as to +toilets to match the grandeur of the occasion; and later satisfaction +with the moss-green chiffon for Sylvia and violet-colored velvet for +her aunt. There were consultations about the present Aunt Victoria +was to send from them both, a wonderfully expensive, newly patented, +leather traveling-case for a car, guaranteed to hold less to the +square inch and pound than any other similar, heavy, gold-mounted +contrivance. Mrs. Marshall-Smith told Morrison frankly, in this +connection, that she had tried to select a present which Molly herself +would enjoy. + +"Am I not to have a present myself?" asked Morrison. "Something that +you selected expressly for me?" + +"No," said Sylvia, dropping the sugar into his tea with deliberation. +"You are not to have any present for yourself." + +She was guiltily conscious that she was thinking of a certain scene in +"The Golden Bowl," a scene in which a wedding present figures largely; +and when, a moment later, he said, "I have a new volume of Henry James +I'd like to loan you," she knew that the same scene had been in his +head. She would not look at him lest she read in his eyes that he had +meant her to know. As she frequently did in those days, she rose, and +making an excuse of a walk in the park, took herself off. + +She was quite calm during this period, her mind full of trivial +things. She had the firm conviction that she was living in a dream, +that nothing of what was happening was irrevocable. And besides, as at +Lydford, for much of the day, she was absorbed in the material details +of her life, being rubbed and dressed and undressed, and adorned and +fed and catered to. They were spending the few days before sailing in +a very grand hotel, overlooking Central Park. Sylvia had almost every +day the thought that she herself was now in the center of exactly the +same picture in which, as a child, she had enviously watched Aunt +Victoria. She adored every detail of it. It was an opening-out, even +from the Lydford life. She felt herself expanding like a dried sponge +placed in water, to fill every crack and crevice of the luxurious +habits of life. The traveling along that road is always swift; and +Sylvia's feet were never slow. During the first days in Vermont, +it had seemed a magnificence to her that she need never think of +dish-washing or bed-making. By this time it seemed quite natural to +her that HĂ©lène drew and tempered the water for her bath, and put on +her stockings. Occasionally she noticed with a little surprise that +she seemed to have no more free time than in the laborious life of La +Chance; but for the most part she threw out, in all haste, innumerable +greedy root-tendrils into the surcharged richness of her new soil and +sent up a rank growth of easeful acquiescence in redundance. + +The wedding was quite as grand as the Sommervilles had tried to make +it. The street was crowded with staring, curious, uninvited people on +either side of the church, and when the carriage containing the bride +drove up, the surge forward to see her was as fierce as though she had +been a defaulting bank-president being taken to prison. The police +had to intervene. The interior, fern and orchid swathed, very dimly +lighted by rich purple stained glass and aristocratic dripping wax +candles instead of the more convenient electric imitations, was +murmurous with the wonderful throbbing notes of a great organ and with +the discreet low tones of the invited guests as they speculated about +the relative ages and fortunes of the bride and bridegroom. The +chancel was filled with a vested choir which, singing and carrying a +cross, advanced down the aisle to meet the bridal party. Molly, who +had not been in a church since her childhood, had needed to be coached +over and over again in the ins and outs of the complicated service. + +Sylvia, seated several guests away from the aisle, saw little of the +procession as it went up into the chancel. She caught a glimpse of a +misty mass of white and, beside it, old Mr. Sommerville's profile, +very white and nervous and determined. She did not at that time see +the bridegroom at all. The ceremony, which took place far within the +chancel, was long and interspersed with music from the choir. Sylvia, +feeling very queer and callous, as though, under an anaesthetic, she +were watching with entire unconcern the amputation of one of her +limbs, fell to observing the people about her. The woman in front of +her leaned against the pew and brought her broad, well-fed back close +under Sylvia's eyes. It was covered with as many layers as a worm in +a cocoon. There were beads on lace, the lace incrusted on other lace, +chiffon, fish-net, a dimly seen filmy satin, cut in points, and, lower +down, an invisible foundation of taffeta. Through the interstices +there gleamed a revelation of the back itself, fat, white, again like +a worm in a cocoon. + +Sylvia began to plan out a comparison of dress with architecture, +bringing out the insistent tendency in both to the rococo, to the +burying of structural lines in ornamentation. The cuff, for instance, +originally intended to protect the skin from contact with unwashable +fabrics, degenerated into a mere bit of "trimming," which has lost all +its meaning, which may be set anywhere on the sleeve. Like a strong +hand about her throat came the knowledge that she was planning to say +all this to please Felix Morrison, who was now within fifty feet of +her, being married to another woman. + +She flamed to fever and chilled again to her queer absence of +spirit.... There was a chorister at the end of the line near her, a +pale young man with a spiritual face who chanted his part with shining +rapt eyes. While he sang he slipped his hand under his white surplice +and took out his watch. Still singing "Glory be to the Father, the +Son, and the Holy Ghost," he cast a hasty eye on the watch and frowned +impatiently. He was evidently afraid the business in hand would drag +along and make him late to another appointment, "--is now and ever +shall be, world without end. Amen!" he sang fervently. Sylvia +repressed an hysterical desire to laugh. + +The ceremony was over; the air in the building beat wildly against the +walls, the stained-glass windows, and the ears of the worshipers in +the excited tumult of the wedding-march; the procession began to +leave the chancel. This time Sylvia caught one clear glimpse of the +principals, but it meant nothing to her. They looked like wax effigies +of themselves, self-conscious, posed, emptied of their personalities +by the noise, the crowds, the congestion of ceremony. The idea +occurred to Sylvia that they looked as though they had taken in as +little as she the significance of what had happened. The people about +her were moving in relieved restlessness after the long immobility of +the wedding. The woman next her went down on her knees for a devout +period, her face in her white gloves. When she rose, she said +earnestly to her companion, "Do you know if I had to choose one +hat-trimming for all the rest of my life, I should make it small pink +roses in clusters. It's perfectly miraculous how, with black chiffon, +they _never_ go out!" She settled in place the great cluster of costly +violets at her breast which she seemed to have exuded like some +natural secretion of her plump and expensive person. "Why don't they +let us out!" she said complainingly. + +A young man, one of those born to be a wedding usher, now came swiftly +up the aisle on patent leather feet and untied with pearl-gray fingers +the great white satin ribbon which restrained them in the pew. Sylvia +caught her aunt's eye on her, its anxiety rather less well hidden than +usual. With no effort at all the girl achieved a flashing smile. It +was not hard. She felt quite numb. She had been present only during +one or two painful, quickly passed moments. + +But the reception at the house, the big, old-fashioned, very rich +Sommerville house, was more of an ordeal. There was the sight of the +bride and groom in the receiving-line, now no longer badly executed +graven images, but quite themselves--Molly starry-eyed, triumphant, +astonishingly beautiful, her husband distinguished, ugly, +self-possessed, easily the most interesting personality in the room; +there was the difficult moment of the presentation, the handclasp with +Felix, the rapturous vague kiss from Molly, evidently too uplifted to +have any idea as to the individualities of the people defiling before +her; then the passing on into the throng, the eating and drinking and +talking with acquaintances from the Lydford summer colony, of whom +there were naturally a large assortment. Sylvia had a growing sense of +pain, which was becoming acute when across the room she saw Molly, +in a lull of arrivals, look up to her husband and receive from him a +smiling, intimate look of possession. Why, they were _married_! It was +done! + +The delicate food in Sylvia's mouth turned to ashes. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith's voice, almost fluttered, almost (for her) +excited, came to her ears: "Sylvia--here is Mr. Page! And he's just +told me the most delightful news, that he's decided to run over to +Paris for a time this fall." + +"I hope Miss Marshall will think that Paris will be big enough for all +of us?" asked Austin Page, fixing his remarkably clear eyes on the +girl. + +She made a great effort for self-possession. She turned her back on +the receiving-line. She held out her hand cordially. "I hope Paris +will be quite, quite small, so that we shall all see a great deal of +each other," she said warmly. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +SYLVIA TELLS THE TRUTH + + +They left Mrs. Marshall-Smith with a book, seated on a little +yellow-painted iron chair, the fifteen-centime kind, at the top of the +great flight of steps leading down to the wide green expanse of the +Tapis Vert. She was alternately reading Huysmans' highly imaginative +ideas on Gothic cathedrals, and letting her eyes stray up and down the +long façade of the great Louis. Her powers of aesthetic assimilation +seemed to be proof against this extraordinary mixture of impressions. +She had insisted that she would be entirely happy there in the sun, +for an hour at least, especially if she were left in solitude with her +book. On which intimation Sylvia and Page had strolled off to do some +exploring. It was a situation which a month of similar arrangements +had made very familiar to them. + +"No, I don't know Versailles very well," he said in answer to her +question, "but I believe the gardens back of the Grand and Petit +Trianon are more interesting than these near the Château itself. +The conscientiousness with which they're kept up is not quite so +formidable." + +So they walked down the side of the Grand Canal, admiring the rather +pensive beauty of the late November woods, and talking, as was the +proper thing, about the great Louis and his court, and how they both +detested his style of gilded, carved wall ornamentation, although his +chairs weren't as bad as some others. They turned off at the cross-arm +of the Canal towards the Great Trianon; they talked, again dutifully +in the spirit of the place, about Madame de Maintenon. They differed +on this subject just enough to enjoy discussing it. Page averred that +the whole affair had always passed his comprehension, "--what that +ease-loving, vain, indulgent, trivial-minded grandson of Henri Quatre +could ever have seen for all those years in that stiff, prim, cold old +school-ma'am--" + +But Sylvia shook her head. "I know how he felt. He _had_ to have her, +once he'd found her. She was the only person in all his world he could +depend on." + +"Why not depend on himself?" Page asked. + +"Oh, he couldn't! He couldn't! She had character and he hadn't." + +"What do you mean by character?" he challenged her. + +"It's what I haven't!" she said. + +He attempted a chivalrous exculpation. "Oh, if you mean by character +such hard, insensitive lack of imagination as Madame de Maintenon's--" + +"No, not that," said Sylvia. "_You_ know what I mean by character as +well as I." + +By the time they were back of the Little Trianon, this beginning had +led them naturally enough away from the frivolities of historical +conversation to serious considerations, namely themselves. The start +had been a reminiscence of Sylvia's, induced by the slow fall of +golden leaves from the last of the birches into the still water of the +lake in the midst of Marie Antoinette's hamlet. They stopped on an +outrageously rustic bridge, constructed quite in the artificially +rural style of the place, and, leaning on the railing, watched in a +fascinated silence the quiet, eddying descent of the leaves. There was +not a breath of wind. The leaves detached themselves from the tree +with no wrench. They loosened their hold gradually, gradually, and +finally out of sheer fullness of maturity floated down to their graves +with a dreamy content. + +"I never happened to see that effect before," said Page. "I supposed +leaves were detached only by wind. It's astonishingly peaceful, isn't +it?" + +"I saw it once before," said Sylvia, her eyes fixed on the noiseless +arabesques traced by the leaves in their fall--"at home in La Chance. +I'll never forget it." She spoke in a low tone as though not to break +the charmed silence about them, and, upon his asking her for the +incident, she went on, almost in a murmur: "It isn't a story you could +possibly understand. You've never been poor. But I'll tell you if you +like. I've talked to you such a lot about home and the queer people we +know--did I ever mention Cousin Parnelia? She's a distant cousin of my +mother's, a queer woman who lost her husband and three children in a +train-wreck years ago, and has been a little bit crazy ever since. She +has always worn, for instance, exactly the same kind of clothes, hat +and everything, that she had on, the day the news was brought to her. +The Spiritualists got hold of her then, and she's been one herself for +ever so long--table-rapping--planchette-writing--all the horrid rest +of it, and she makes a little money by being a "medium" for ignorant +people. But she hardly earns enough that way to keep her from +starving, and Mother has for ever so long helped her out. + +"Well, there was a chance to buy a tiny house and lot for her--two +hundred and twenty dollars. It was just a two-roomed cottage, but it +would be a roof over her head at least. She is getting old and ought +to have something to fall back on. Mother called us all together and +said this would be a way to help provide for Cousin Parnelia's +old age. Father never could bear her (he's so hard on ignorant, +superstitious people), but he always does what Mother thinks best, +so he said he'd give up the new typewriter he'd been hoping to buy. +Mother gave up her chicken money she'd been putting by for some new +rose-bushes, and she loves her roses too! Judith gave what she'd +earned picking raspberries, and I--oh, how I hated to do it! but I was +ashamed not to--I gave what I'd saved up for my autumn suit. Lawrence +just stuck it out that he hated Cousin Parnelia and he wouldn't give a +bit. But he was so little that he only had thirty cents or something +like that in a tin bank, so it didn't matter. When we put it all +together it wasn't nearly enough of course, and we took the rest out +of our own little family savings-bank rainy-day savings and bought the +tiny house and lot. Father wanted to 'surprise' Cousin Parnelia with +the deed. He wanted to lay it under some flowers in a basket, or slip +it into her pocket, or send it to her with some eggs or something. But +Mother--it was so like her!--the first time Cousin Parnelia happened +to come to the house, Mother picked up the deed from her desk and said +offhand, 'Oh, Parnelia, we bought the little Garens house for you,' +and handed her the paper, and went to talking about cutworms or +Bordeaux mixture." + +Page smiled, appreciative of the picture. "I see her. I see your +mother--Vermont to the core." + +"Well, it was only about two weeks after that, I was practising and +Mother was rubbing down a table she was fixing over. Nobody else +happened to be at home. Cousin Parnelia came in, her old battered +black straw hat on one ear as usual. She was all stirred up and +pleased about a new 'method' of using planchette. You know what +planchette is, don't you? The little heart-shaped piece of wood +spiritualists use, with a pencil fast to it, to take down their silly +'messages,' Some spiritualistic fake was visiting town conducting +sĂ©ances and he claimed he'd discovered some sort of method for +inducing greater receptivity--or something like that. I don't know +anything about spiritualism but little tags I've picked up from +hearing Cousin Parnelia talk. Anyway, he was 'teaching' other mediums +for a big price. And it came out that Cousin Parnelia had mortgaged +the house for more than it was worth, and had used the money to take +those 'lessons.' I couldn't believe it for a minute. When I really +understood what she'd done, I was so angry I felt like smashing +both fists down on the piano keys and howling! I thought of my blue +corduroy I'd given up--I was only fourteen and just crazy about +clothes. Mother was sitting on the floor, scraping away at the +table-leg. She got up, laid down her sandpaper, and asked Cousin +Parnelia if she'd excuse us for a few minutes. Then she took me by +the hand, as though I was a little girl. I felt like one too, I felt +almost frightened by Mother's face, and we both marched out of the +house. She didn't say a word. She took me down to our swimming-hole +in the river. There is a big maple-tree leaning over that. It was a +perfectly breathless autumn day like this, and the tree was shedding +its leaves like that birch, just gently, slowly, steadily letting them +go down into the still water. We sat down on the bank and watched +them. The air was full of them, yet all so quiet, without any hurry. +The water was red with them, they floated down on our shoulders, on +our heads, in our laps--not a sound--so peaceful--so calm--so perfect. +It was like the andante of the Kreutzer. + +"I knew what Mother wanted, to get over being angry with Cousin +Parnelia. And she was. I could see it in her face, like somebody in +church. I felt it myself--all over, like an E string that's been +pulled too high, slipping down into tune when you turn the peg. But +I didn't _want_ to feel it. I _wanted_ to hate Cousin Parnelia. I +thought it was awfully hard in Mother not to want us to have even the +satisfaction of hating Cousin Parnelia! I tried to go on doing it. +I remember I cried a little. But Mother never said a word--just +sat there in that quiet autumn sunshine, watching the leaves +falling--falling--and I had to do as she did. And by and by I felt, +just as she did, that Cousin Parnelia was only a very small part of +something very big. + +"When we went in, Mother's face was just as it always was, and we got +Cousin Parnelia a cup of tea and gave her part of a boiled ham to +take home and a dozen eggs and a loaf of graham bread, just as though +nothing had happened." + +She stopped speaking. There was no sound at all but the delicate, +forlorn whisper of the leaves. + +"That is a very fine story!" said Page finally. He spoke with a +measured, emphatic, almost solemn accent. + +"Yes, it's a very fine story," murmured Sylvia a little wistfully. +"It's finer as a story than it was as real life. It was years before I +could look at blue corduroy without feeling stirred up. I really cared +more about my clothes than I did about that stupid, ignorant old +woman. If it's only a cheerful giver the Lord loves, He didn't feel +much affection for me." + +They began to retrace their steps. "You gave up the blue corduroy," +he commented as they walked on, "and you didn't scold your silly old +kinswoman." + +"That's only because Mother hypnotized me. _She_ has character. I did +it as Louis signed the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, because +Madame de Maintenon thought he ought to." + +"But she couldn't hypnotize your brother Lawrence, althought he was so +much younger. He didn't give up his thirty-seven cents. I think you're +bragging without cause if you claim any engaging and picturesque +absence of character." + +"Oh, Lawrence--he's different! He's extraordinary! Sometimes I think +he is a genius. And it's Judith who hypnotizes him. _She_ supplies his +character." + +They emerged into an opening and walked in silence for some moments +towards the Grand Trianon. + +"You're lucky, very lucky," commented Page, "to have such an ample +supply of character in the family. I'm an only child. There's nobody +to give me the necessary hypodermic supply of it at the crucial +moments." He went on, turning his head to look at the Great Trianon, +very mellow in the sunshine. "It's my belief, however, that at the +crucial moments you have plenty of it of your own." + +"That's a safe guess!" said Sylvia ironically, "since there never have +_been_ any crucial moments in a life so uninterestingly eventless as +mine. I wonder what I _would_ do," she mused. "My own conviction is +that--suppose I'd lived in the days of the Reformation--in the days of +Christ--in the early Abolition days--" She had an instant certainty: +"Oh, I have been entirely on the side of whatever was smooth, and +elegant, and had amenity--I'd have hated the righteous side!" + +Page did not look very deeply moved by this revelation of depravity. +Indeed, he smiled rather amusedly at her, and changed the subject. +"You said a moment ago that I couldn't understand, because I'd always +had money. Isn't it a bit paradoxical to say that the people who +haven't a thing are the only ones who know anything about it?" + +"But you couldn't realize what _losing_ the money meant to us. You +can't know what the absence of money can do to a life." + +"I can know," said Page, "what the presence of it cannot do for +a life." His accent implied rather sadly that the omissions were +considerable. + +"Oh, of course, of course," Sylvia agreed. "There's any amount it +can't do. After you have it, you must get the other things too." + +He brought his eyes down to her from a roving quest among the tops +of the trees. "It seems to me you want a great deal," he said +quizzically. + +"Yes, I do," she admitted. "But I don't see that you have any call +to object to my wanting it. You don't have to wish for everything at +once. You have it already." + +He received this into one of his thoughtful silences, but presently it +brought him to a standstill. They were within sight of the Grand Canal +again, looking down from the terrace of the Trianon. He leaned against +the marble balustrade and thrust his hands deep into his pockets. His +clear eyes were clouded. He looked profoundly grave. "I am thirty-two +years old," he said, "and never for a moment of that time have I +made any sense out of my position in life. If you call that 'having +everything'--" + +It occurred to Sylvia fleetingly that she had never made any sense out +of her position in life either, and had been obliged to do a great +many disagreeable things into the bargain, but she kept this thought +to herself, and looked conspicuously what she genuinely felt, a +sympathetic interest. The note of plain direct sincerity which was +Page's hallmark never failed to arrest her attention, a little to +arouse her wonder, and occasionally, for a reason that she did not +like to dwell upon, somewhat to abash her. The reason was that he +never spoke for effect, and she often did. He was not speaking for +effect now: he seemed scarcely even to be speaking to her, rather to +be musingly formulating something for his own enlightenment. He +went on. "The fact is that there _is_ no sense to be made out of my +situation in life. I am like a man with a fine voice, who has no ear." + +He showed surprise that Sylvia failed to follow this, and explained. +"I mean the voice is no good to that kind of a man, it's no good to +anybody. It's the craziest, accidental affair anyhow, haven't you ever +noticed it?--who draws the fine voices. Half the time--more than half +the time, _most_ of the time it seems to me when I've been recently to +a lot of concerts, the people who have the voices haven't any other +qualifications for being singers. And it's so with coal-mines, with +everything else that's inherited. For five years now I've given up +what I'd like to do, and I've tried, under the best _maestri_ I could +find, to make something out of my voice, so to speak. And it's no +go. It's in the nature of things that I can't make a go of it. +Over everything I do lies the taint that I'm the 'owner'! They are +suspicious of me, always will be--and rightly so. Anybody else not +connected with the mediaeval idea of 'possession' could do better than +I. The whole relation's artificial. I'm in it for the preposterous +reason that my father, operating on Wall Street, made a lucky +guess,--as though I should be called upon to run a locomotive because +my middle initial is L!" + +Sylvia still felt the same slight sense of flatness when this +recurring topic thrust itself into a personal talk; but during the +last month she had adjusted herself to Page so that this no longer +showed on the surface. She was indeed quite capable of taking an +interest in the subject, as soon as she could modulate herself into +the new key. "Yes, of course," she agreed, "it's like so many other +things that are perfectly necessary to go on with, perfectly absurd +when you look closely at them. My father nearly lost his position once +for saying that all inheritance was wrong. But even he never had +the slightest suggestion as to what to do about it, how to get an +inheritance into the hands of the people who might make the best use +of it." She was used from her childhood to this sort of academic doubt +of everything, conducted side by side with a practical acceptance of +everything. Professor and Madame La Rue, in actual life devotedly +faithful married lovers, staid, stout, habit-ridden elderly people, +professed a theoretical belief in the flexibility of relationships +sanctioned by the practice of free love. It was perhaps with this +recollection in her mind that she suggested, "Don't you suppose it +will be like the institution of marriage, very, very gradually altered +till it fits conditions better?" + +"In the meantime, how about the cases of those who are unhappily +married?" + +"I don't see anything for them but just to get along the best they +can," she told him. + +"You think I'd better give up trying to do anything with my +Colorado--?" he asked her, as though genuinely seeking advice. + +"I should certainly think that five years was plenty long enough for a +fair trial! You'd make a better ambassador than an active captain of +industry, anyhow," she said with conviction. Whereupon he bestowed on +her a long, thoughtful stare, as though he were profoundly pondering +her suggestion. + +They moved forward towards the Grand Canal in silence. Privately she +was considering his case hardly one of extreme hardship. Privately +also, as they advanced nearer and nearer the spot where they had left +Mrs. Marshall-Smith, she was a little dreading the return to the +perfect breeding with which Aunt Victoria did not ask, or intimate, or +look, the question which was in her mind after each of these strolling +tĂŞte-Ă -tĂŞtes which consistently led nowhere. There were instants when +Sylvia would positively have preferred the vulgar openness of a direct +question to which she might have answered, with the refreshing effect +to her of a little honest blood-letting: "Dear Aunt Victoria, I +haven't the least idea myself what's happening! I'm simply letting +myself go because I don't see anything else to do. I have even no very +clear idea as to what is going on inside my own head. I only know that +I like Austin Page so much (in spite of a certain quite unforgotten +episode) there would be nothing at all unpleasant about marrying him; +but I also know that I didn't feel the least interest in him until +HĂ©lène told me about his barrels of money: I also know that I feel the +strongest aversion to returning to the Spartan life of La Chance; and +it occurs to me that these two things may throw considerable light +on my 'liking' for Austin. As for what's in _his_ mind, there is +no subject on which I'm in blacker ignorance. And after being so +tremendously fooled, in the case of Felix, about the degree of +interest a man was feeling, I do not propose to take anything for +granted which is not on the surface. It is quite possible that this +singularly sincere and simple-mannered man may not have the slightest +intention of doing anything more than enjoy a pleasant vacation from +certain rather hair-splitting cares which seem to trouble him from +time to time." As they walked side by side along the stagnant waters, +she was sending inaudible messages of this sort towards her aunt; she +had even selected the particular mauve speck at the top of the steps +which might be Mrs. Marshall-Smith. + +In the glowing yellow gold of the sky, a faintly whirring dark-gray +spot appeared: an airman made his way above the Grand Canal, passed +above the Château, and disappeared. They had sat down on a bench, the +better to crane their heads to watch him out of sight. Sylvia was +penetrated with the strangeness of that apparition in that spot and +thrilled out: "Isn't it wonderful! Isn't it wonderful! _Here!_" + +"There's something _more_ wonderful!" he said, indicating with his +cane the canal before them, where a group of neat, poorly dressed, +lower middle-class people looked proudly out from their triumphal +progress in the ugly, gasping little motor-boat which operates at +twenty-five centimes a trip. + +She had not walked and talked a month with him for nothing. She knew +that he did not refer to motor-boats as against aĂ«roplanes. "You +mean," she said appreciatively, "you mean those common people going +freely around the royal canal where two hundred years ago--" + +He nodded, pleased by her quickness. "Two hundred years from now," +he conjectured, "the stubs of my checkbook will be exhibited in an +historical museum along with the regalia of the last hereditary +monarch." + +Here she did not follow, and she was too intelligent to pretend she +did. + +He lifted his eyebrows. "Relic of a quaint old social structure +inexplicably tolerated so late as the beginning of the twentieth +century," + +"Oh, coal-mines forever!" she said, smiling, her eyes brilliant with +friendly mockery. + +"Aye! _Toujours perdrix!_" he admitted. He continued to look steadily +and seriously into her smiling, sparkling face, until, with a sudden +pulse of premonition, she was stricken into a frightened gravity. And +then, with no prelude, no approach, quite simply and directly, he +spoke. "I wonder how much you care for me?" he said musingly, as he +had said everything else that afternoon: and as she positively paled +at the eeriness of this echo from her own thought, he went on, his +voice vibrating in the deep organ note of a great moment, "You must +know, of course, by this time that I care everything possible for +you." + +Compressed into an instant of acute feeling Sylvia felt the pangs +which had racked her as a little girl when she had stood in the +schoolyard with Camilla Fingál before her, and the terrifying hostile +eyes about her. Her two selves rose up against each other fiercely, +murderously, as they had then. The little girl sprang forward to help +the woman who for an instant hesitated. The fever and the struggle +vanished as instantly as they had come. Sylvia felt very still, very +hushed. Page had told her that she always rose to crucial moments. She +rose to this one. "I don't know," she said as quietly as he, with as +utter a bravery of bare sincerity, "I don't know how much I care for +you--but I think it is a great deal." She rose upon a solemn wing of +courage to a greater height of honesty. Her eyes were on his, as clear +as his. The mere beauty of her face had gone like a lifted veil. For a +instant he saw her as Sylvia herself did not dream she could be. "It +is very hard," said Sylvia Marshall, with clear eyes and trembling +lips of honest humility, "for a girl with no money to know how much +she cares for a very rich man." + +She had never been able to imagine what she would say if the moment +should come. She had certainly not intended to say this. But an +unsuspected vein of granite in her rang an instant echo to his +truth. She was bewildered to see his ardent gaze upon her deepen to +reverence. He took her hand in his and kissed it. He tried to speak, +but his voice broke. + +She was immensely moved to see him so moved. She was also entirely at +a loss. How strangely different things always were from forecasts of +them! They had suddenly taken the long-expected stride away from their +former relation, but she did not know where they had arrived. What was +the new status between them? What did Austin think she meant? It came +to her with a shock that the new status between them was, on the +surface, exactly what it was in reality; that the avowed relation +between them was, as far as it went, precisely in accord with the +facts of the case. The utter strangeness of this in any human +relationship filled her with astonishment, with awe, almost with +uneasiness. It seemed unnatural not to have to pretend anything! + +Apparently it did not seem unnatural to the man beside her. "You are a +very wonderful woman," he now said, his voice still but partly under +his control. "I had not thought that you could exist." He took her +hand again and continued more steadily: "Will you let me, for a little +while longer, go on living near you? Perhaps things may seem clearer +to us both, later--" + +Sylvia was swept by a wave of gratitude as for some act of +magnanimity. "_You_ are the wonderful one!" she cried. Not since the +day HĂ©lène had told her who he was, had she felt so whole, so sound, +so clean, as now. The word came rushing on the heels of the thought: +"You make one feel so _clean_!" she said, unaware that he could +scarcely understand her, and then she smiled, passing with her free, +natural grace from the memorable pause, and the concentration of a +great moment forward into the even-stepping advance of life. "That +first day--even then you made me feel clean--that soap! that cold, +clean water--it is your aroma!" + +Their walk along the silent water, over the great lawn, and up the +steps was golden with the level rays of the sun setting back of them, +at the end of the canal, between the distant, sentinel poplars. Their +mood was as golden as the light. Sometimes they spoke, sometimes they +were silent. Truth walked between them. + +Sylvia's mind, released from the tension of that great moment, began +making its usual, sweeping, circling explorations of its own depths. +Not all that it found was of an equal good report. Once she thought +fleetingly: "This is only a very, very pretty way of saying that it +is all really settled. With his great wealth, he is like a reigning +monarch--let him be as delicate-minded as he pleases, when he +indicates a wish--" More than once--many, many times--Felix Morrison's +compelling dark eyes looked at her penetratingly, but she resolutely +turned away her head from them, and from the impulse to answer their +reproach even with an indignant, well-founded reproach of her own. +Again and again she felt a sweet strangeness in her new position. The +aroma of utter sincerity was like the scent of a wildflower growing in +the sun, spicy, free. She wondered at a heart like his that could be +at once ardent and subtle, that could desire so profoundly (the deep +vibrations of that voice of yearning were in her ears still) and yet +pause, and stand back, and wait, rather than force a hair's breadth +of pretense. How he had liberated her! And once she found herself +thinking, "I shall have sables myself, and diamonds, and a house as +great as Molly's, and I shall learn how to entertain ambassadors, +as she will never know." She was ashamed of this, she knew it to be +shockingly out of key with the grand passage behind them. But she had +thought it. + +And, as these thoughts, and many more, passed through her mind, as she +spoke with a quiet peace, or was silent, she was transfigured into a +beauty almost startling, by the accident of the level golden beams of +light back of her. Her aureole of bright hair glowed like a saint's +halo. The curiously placed lights and unexpected shadows brought +out new subtleties in the modeling of her face. Her lightened heart +gleamed through her eyes, like a lighted lamp. After a time, the man +fell into a complete silence, glancing at her frequently as though +storing away a priceless memory.... + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + +"A MILESTONE PASSED, THE ROAD SEEMS CLEAR" + + +As the "season" heightened, the beautiful paneled walls of Mrs. +Marshall-Smith's salon were frequently the background for chance +gatherings of extremely appropriate callers. They seemed a visible +emanation of the room, so entirely did they represent what that sort +of a room was meant to contain. They were not only beautifully but +severely dressed, with few ornaments, and those few a result of the +same concentrated search for the rare which had brought together the +few bibelots in the room, which had laid the single great dull Persian +rug on the unobtrusively polished oaken floor, which had set in the +high, south windows the boxes of feathery green plants with delicate +star-like flowers. + +And it was not only in externals that these carefully brushed and +combed people harmonized with the mellow beauty of their background. +They sat, or stood, moved about, took their tea, and talked with an +extraordinary perfection of manner. There was not a voice there, +save perhaps Austin Page's unstudied tones, which was not carefully +modulated in a variety of rhythm and pitch which made each sentence a +work of art. They used, for the most part, low tones and few gestures, +but those well chosen. There was an earnest effort apparent to achieve +true conversational give-and-take, and if one of the older men found +himself yielding to the national passion for lengthy monologues on a +favorite theme, or to the mediocre habit of anecdote, there was an +instant closing in on him of carefully casual team-work on the part of +the others which soon reduced him to the tasteful short comment +and answer which formed the framework of the afternoon's social +activities. + +The topics of the conversation were as explicitly in harmony with the +group-ideal as the perfectly fitting gloves of the men, or the smooth, +burnished waves of the women's hair. They talked of the last play at +the Français, of the exhibitions then on view at the Petit Palais, of +a new tenor in the choir of the Madeleine, of the condition of the +automobile roads in the Loire country, of the restoration of the +stained glass at Bourges. + +On such occasions, a good deal of Sylvia's attention being given to +modulating her voice and holding her hands and managing her skirts as +did the guests of the hour, she usually had an impression that the +conversation was clever. Once or twice, looking back, she had been +somewhat surprised to find that she could remember nothing of what had +been said. It occurred to her, fleetingly, that of so much talk, some +word ought to stick in her usually retentive memory; but she gave the +matter no more thought. She had also been aware, somewhat dimly, that +Austin Page was more or less out of drawing in the carefully composed +picture presented on those social afternoons. He had the inveterate +habit of being at his ease under all circumstances, but she had felt +that he took these great people with a really exaggerated lack of +seriousness, answering their chat at random, and showing no chagrin +when he was detected in the grossest ignorance about the latest move +of the French Royalist party, or the probabilities as to the winner +of the Grand Prix. She had seen in the corners of his mouth an +inexplicable hidden imp of laughter as he gravely listened, cup in +hand, to the remarks of the beautiful Mrs. William Winterton Perth +about the inevitable promiscuity of democracy, and he continually +displayed a tendency to gravitate into the background, away from the +center of the stage where their deference for his name, fortune, and +personality would have placed him. Sylvia's impression of him was far +from being one of social brilliance, but rather of an almost wilful +negligence. She quite grew used to seeing him, a tall, distinguished +figure, sitting at ease in a far corner, and giving to the scene a +pleasant though not remarkably respectful attention. + +On such an afternoon in January, the usual routine had been preserved. +The last of the callers, carrying off Mrs. Marshall-Smith with her, +had taken an urbane, fair-spoken departure. Sylvia turned back from +the door of the salon, feeling a fine glow of conscious amenity, and +found that Austin Page's mood differed notably from her own. He had +lingered for a tĂŞte-Ă -tĂŞte, as was so frequently his habit, and now +stood before the fire, his face all one sparkle of fun. "Don't they +do it with true American fervor!" he remarked. "It would take a +microscope to tell the difference between them and a well-rehearsed +society scene on the stage of the Français! That's their model, +of course. It is positively touching to see old Colonel Patterson +subduing his twang and shutting the lid down on his box of comic +stories. I should think Mrs. Patterson might allow him at least that +one about the cowboy and the tenderfoot who wanted to take a bath!" + +The impression made on Sylvia had not in the least corresponded to +this one; but with a cat-like twist of her flexible mind, she fell +on her feet, took up his lead, and deftly produced the only suitable +material she had at command. "They _seem_ to talk well, about such +interesting things, and yet I can never remember anything they say. +It's odd," she sat down near the fireplace with a great air of +pondering the strange phenomenon. + +"No, it isn't odd," he explained, dropping into the chair opposite her +and stretching out his long legs to the blaze. "It's only people who +do something, who have anything to say. These folks don't do anything +except get up and sit down the right way, and run their voices up and +down the scale so that their great-aunts would faint away to hear +them! They haven't any energy left over. If some one would only write +out suitable parts for them to memorize, the performance would be +perfect!" He threw back his head and laughed aloud, the sound ringing +through the room. Sylvia had seldom seen him so light-heartedly +amused. He explained: "I haven't seen this sort of solemn, genteel +posturing for several years now, and I find it too delicious! To see +the sweet, invincible American naĂŻvetĂ© welling up in their intense +satisfaction in being so sophisticated,--oh, the harmless dears!" He +cried out upon them gaily, with the indulgence of an adult who looks +on at children's play. + +Sylvia was a trifle breathless, seeing him disappear so rapidly down +this unexpected path, but she was for the moment spared the effort to +overtake him by the arrival of Tojiko with a tray of fresh mail. "Oh, +letters from home!" Sylvia rejoiced, taking a bulky one and a thin one +from the pile. "The fat one is from Father," she said, holding it up. +"He is like me, terribly given to loquaciousness. We always write each +other reams when we're apart. The little flat one is from Judith. She +never can think of anything to say except that she is still alive and +hopes I am, and that her esteem for me is undiminished. Dear Spartan +Judy!" + +"Do you know," said the man opposite her, "if I hadn't met you, I +should have been tempted to believe that the institution of the +family had disappeared. I never saw anything like you Marshalls! You +positively seem to have a real regard for each other in spite of +what Bernard Shaw says about the relations of blood-kin. You even, +incredible as it seems, appear to feel a mutual respect!" + +"That's a very pretty compliment indeed," said Sylvia, smiling at him +flashingly, "and I'm going to reward you by reading some of Judith's +letter aloud. Letters do paint personalities so, don't they?" + +He settled himself to listen. + +"Oh, it won't take long!" she reassured him laughingly. She read: + +"'DEAR SYLVIE: Your last letter about the palaces at Versailles was +very interesting. Mother looked you up on the plan of the grounds in +Father's old Baedeker. I'm glad to know you like Paris so much. Our +chief operating surgeon says he thinks the opportunities at the School +of Medicine in Paris are fully as good as in Vienna, and chances for +individual diagnoses greater. Have you visited that yet?'" Over +the letter Sylvia raised a humorous eyebrow at Page, who smiled, +appreciative of the point. + +She went on: "'Lawrence is making me a visit of a few days. Isn't he +a queer boy! I got Dr. Wilkinson to agree, as a great favor, to let +Lawrence see a very interesting operation. Right in the middle of it, +Lawrence fainted dead away and had to be carried out. But when he came +to, he said he wouldn't have missed it for anything, and before he +could really sit up he was beginning a poem about the "cruel mercy of +the shining knives."'" Sylvia shook her head. "Isn't that Lawrence! +Isn't that Judith!" + +Page agreed thoughtfully, their eyes meeting in a trustful intimacy. +They themselves might have been bound together by a family tie, so +wholly natural seemed their sociable sitting together over the fire. +Sylvia thought with an instant's surprise, "Isn't it odd how close he +has come to seem--as though I'd always, always known him; as though I +could speak to him of anything--nobody else ever seemed that way to +me, nobody!" + +She read on from the letter: "'All of us at St. Mary's are feeling +very sore about lawyers. Old Mr. Winthrop had left the hospital +fifteen thousand dollars in his will, and we'd been counting on that +to make some changes in the operating-room and the men's accident ward +that are awfully needed. And now comes along a miserable lawyer who +finds something the matter with the will, and everything goes to that +worthless Charlie Winthrop, who'll probably blow it all in on one +grand poker-playing spree. It makes me tired! We can't begin to keep +up with the latest X-ray developments without the new apparatus, and +only the other day we lost a case, a man hurt in a railroad wreck, +that I know we could have pulled through if we'd been better equipped! +Well, hard luck! But I try to remember Mother's old uncle's motto, +"Whatever else you do, _don't_ make a fuss!" Father has been off for a +few days, speaking before Alumni reunions. He looks very well. Mother +has got her new fruit cellar fixed up, and it certainly is great. +She's going to keep the carrots and parsnips there too. I've just +heard that I'm going to graduate first in my class--thought you might +like to know. Have a good time, Sylvia. And don't let your imagination +get away with you. + +"'Your loving sister, + +"'JUDITH,'" + +"Of all the perfect characterizations!" murmured Page, as Sylvia +finished. "I can actually see her and hear her!" + +"Oh, there's nobody like Judith!" agreed Sylvia, falling into a +reverie, her eyes on the fire. + +The peaceful silence which ensued spoke vividly of the intimacy +between them. + +After a time Sylvia glanced up, and finding her companion's eyes +abstractedly fixed on the floor, she continued to look into his face, +noting its fine, somewhat gaunt modeling, the level line of his brown +eyebrows, the humor and kindness of his mouth. The winter twilight +cast its first faint web of blue shadow into the room. The fire burned +with a steady blaze. + +As minute after minute of this hushed, wordless calm continued, Sylvia +was aware that something new was happening to her, that something in +her stirred which had never before made its presence known. She felt +very queer, a little startled, very much bewildered. What was that +half-thought fluttering a dusky wing in the back of her mind? It came +out into the twilight and she saw it for what it was. She had been +wondering what she would feel if that silent figure opposite her +should rise and take her in his arms. As she looked at that tender, +humorous mouth, she had been wondering what she would feel to press +her lips upon it? + +She was twenty-three years old, but so occupied with mental effort and +physical activity had been her life, that not till now had she known +one of those half-daring, half-frightened excursions of the fancy +which fill the hours of any full-blooded idle girl of eighteen. It was +a woman grown with a girl's freshness of impression, who knew that +ravished, scared, exquisite moment of the first dim awakening of the +senses. But because it was a woman grown with a woman's capacity for +emotion, the moment had a solemnity, a significance, which no girl +could have felt. This was no wandering, flitting, wingèd excursion. +It was a grave step upon a path from which there was no turning back. +Sylvia had passed a milestone. But she did not know this. She sat very +still in her chair as the twilight deepened, only knowing that she +could not take her eyes from those tender, humorous lips. That was the +moment when if the man had spoken, if he had but looked at her ... + +But he was following out some thought of his own, and now rose, went +to Mrs. Marshall-Smith's fine, small desk, snapped on an electric +light, and began to write. + +When he finished, he handed a bit of paper to Sylvia. "Do you suppose +your sister would be willing to let me make up for the objectionable +Charlie Winthrop's deficiences?" he asked with a deprecatory air as +though he feared a refusal. + +Sylvia looked at the piece of paper. It was a check for fifteen +thousand dollars. She held there in her hand seven years of her +father's life, as much money as they all had lived on from the years +she was sixteen until now. And this man had but to dip pen into ink to +produce it. There was something stupefying about the thought to her. +She no longer saw the humor and tenderness of his mouth. She looked up +at him and thought, "What an immensely rich man he is!" She said to +him wonderingly, "You can't imagine how strange it is--like magic--not +to be believed--to have money like that!" + +His face clouded. He looked down uncertainly at his feet and away at +the lighted electric bulb. "I thought it might please your sister," he +said and turned away. + +Sylvia was aghast to think that she had perhaps wounded him. He seemed +to fear that he had flaunted his fortune in her face. He looked +acutely uncomfortable. She found that, as she had thought, she could +say anything, anything to him, and say it easily. She went to him +quickly and laid her hand on his arm. "It's splendid," she said, +looking deeply and frankly into his eyes. "Judith will be too +rejoiced! It _is_ like magic. And nobody but you could have done it so +that the money seems the least part of the deed!" + +He looked down at her, touched, moved, his eyes very tender, but sad +as though with a divination of the barrier his fortune eternally +raised between them. + +The door opened suddenly and Mrs. Marshall-Smith came in quickly, +not looking at them at all. From the pale agitation of her face they +recoiled, startled and alarmed. She sat down abruptly as though her +knees had given way under her. Her gloved hands were perceptibly +trembling in her lap. She looked straight at Sylvia, and for an +instant did not speak. If she had rushed in screaming wildly, her +aspect to Sylvia's eyes would scarcely have been more eloquent of +portentous news to come. It was a fitting introduction to what she now +said to them in an unsteady voice: "I've just heard--a despatch +from Jamiaca--something terrible has happened. The news came to +the American Express office when I was there. It is awful. Molly +Sommerville driving her car alone--an appalling accident to the +steering-gear, they think. Molly found dead under the car." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + +THE ROAD IS NOT SO CLEAR + + +It shocked Sylvia that Molly's death should make so little difference. +After one sober evening with the stunning words fresh before their +eyes, the three friends quickly returned to their ordinary routine +of life. It was not that they did not care, she reflected--she _did_ +care. She had cried and cried at the thought of that quivering, vital +spirit broken by the inert crushing mass of steel--she could not bring +herself to think of the soft body, mangled, bloody. Austin cared too: +she was sure of it; but when they had expressed their pity, what more +could they do? The cabled statement was so bald, they hardly could +believe it--they failed altogether to realize what it meant--they +had no details on which to base any commentary. She who had lived so +intensely, was dead. They were sorry for her. That was all. + +As an apology for their seeming callousness they reiterated Aunt +Victoria's dictum: "We can know nothing about it until Felix comes. +Let us hold our minds in suspense until we know what to think." That +Morrison would be in Paris soon, none of them doubted. Indeed, +they united in insisting on the number of natural--oh, perfectly +natural--reasons for his coming. He had always spent a part of every +winter there, had in fact a tiny apartment on the Rue St. HonorĂ© which +dated from his bachelor life; and now he had a double reason for +coming, since much of Molly's fortune chanced to be in French bonds. +Her father had been (among other things) American agent for the +Comptoir National des Escomptes, and he had taken advantage of his +unusual opportunities for acquiring solid French and remunerative +Algerian securities. Page had said at once that Morrison would need to +go through a good many formalities, under the French laws. So pending +fuller information, they did not discuss the tragedy. Their lives ran +on, and Molly, dead, was in their minds almost as little as Molly, +living but absent, had been. + +It was only two months before Felix Morrison arrived in Paris. They +had expected him. They had spoken of the chance of his arrival on +this or that day. Sylvia had rehearsed all the possible forms of +self-possession for their first meeting; but on the rainy February +afternoon when she came in from representing Aunt Victoria at a +reception and saw him sitting by the fire, her heart sank down and +stopped for an instant, and when it went on beating she could hear no +sound but the drumming of her pulse. The back of his chair was towards +her. All she could see as she stood for a moment in the doorway +was his head, the thick, graying dark hair, and one long-fingered, +sensitive, beautiful hand lying on the arm of the chair. At the +sight, she felt in her own palm the soft firmness of those fingers as +palpably as ever she had in reality. + +The instant's pause before Aunt Victoria saw her standing there, gave +her back her self-control. When Mrs. Marshall-Smith turned and gravely +held out her hand, Sylvia came forward with a sober self-possession. +The man turned too, sprang up with an exclamation apparently of +surprise, "Miss Marshall, you _here_!" and extended his hand. Sylvia, +searching his face earnestly, found it so worn, saw in it such dark +traces of suffering and sorrow, that the quick tears of sympathy stood +in her eyes. + +Her dread of the meeting, a morbid dread that had in it an +acknowledged element of horror, vanished. Before that moment she had +seen only Molly's face as it had looked the day of their desperate +talk, white and despairing, and resolutely bent over the +steering-wheel. She had not been able to imagine Felix' face at all, +had instinctively put it out of her mind; but as she looked into it +now, her fear of it disappeared. It was the fine, sensitive face of a +fine, sensitive man who has known a great shock. What had she feared +she would see there? He was still holding her hand, very much affected +at seeing her, evidently still in a super-sensitive condition when +everything affected him strongly. "She loved you--she admired you so!" +he said, his wonderful voice wavering and uncertain. Sylvia's tears +fell openly at this. She sat down on a low stool near her aunt's +knees. "I can't believe it--I haven't been able to believe it!" she +told him; "Molly was--she was more alive than anybody I ever saw!" + +"If you had seen her that morning," he told them both,--"like a flame +of vitality--almost frightening--so vivid. She waved good-bye, and +then that was not enough; she got out of the car and ran back up +the hotel-step to say good-bye for just those few moments--and was +off--such youth! such youth in all her--" + +Sylvia cried out, "Oh, no! no! it's too dreadful!" She felt the horror +sweep down on her again; but now it did not bear Felix' face among +its baneful images. He stood there, shocked, stricken, but utterly +bewildered, utterly ignorant--for the moment in her relief she had +called his ignorance utter innocence ... + +They did not see him again for many days, and when he came, very +briefly, speaking of business technicalities which absorbed him, he +was noticeably absent and careworn. He looked much older. The gray in +his thick hair had increased. He looked very beautiful and austere to +Sylvia. They exchanged no more than the salutations of arrival and +farewell. + +Then one day, as she and Aunt Victoria and Austin Page strolled down +the long gallery of the Louvre, they came upon him, looking at the +Ribera Entombment. He joined them, walking with them through the Salon +CarrĂ© and out to the Winged Victory, calling Sylvia's attention to the +Botticelli frescoes beyond on the landing. "It's the first time I've +been here," he told them, his only allusion to what lay back of him. +"It is like coming back to true friends. Blessed be all true friends." +He shook hands with them, and went away down the great stairway, a +splendid figure of dignity and grace. + +After this he came once and again to the apartment of the Rue de +Presbourg, generally it would appear to use the piano. He had none in +his own tiny _pied-Ă -terre_ and he missed it. Sylvia immensely liked +his continuing to cling for a time to the simple arrangements of his +frugal bachelor days. He could now of course have bought a thousand +pianos. They understood how he would miss his music, and stole in +quietly when, upon opening the door, Tojiko told them that Mr. +Morrison had come in, and they heard from the salon his delicately +firm touch on the keys. Sometimes they listened from their rooms, +sometimes the two women took possession of the little octagonal room +off the salon, all white paneling and gilt chairs, and listened there; +sometimes, as the weeks went on and an especially early spring began +to envelop Paris in a haze of sunshine and budding leaves, they +stepped out to listen on the wrought-iron balcony which looked down +the long, shining vista of the tree-framed avenue. For the most part +he played Bach, grave, courageous, formal, great-hearted music. + +Sometimes he went away with no more than a nod and a smile to them, +but more and more, when he had finished, he came out where they were, +and stood or sat to exchange brief impressions on the enchanting +season, or on some social or aesthetic treat which "_ces dames_" had +been enjoying. Austin Page was frequently with them, as in the earlier +part of the winter, and it was finally he himself who one day took the +step of asking Morrison if he would not go with them to the Louvre. +"No one could appreciate more than Miss Marshall what has always been +such a delight to us all." + +They went, and not only once. That was the beginning of another phase; +a period when, as he began to take up life again, he turned to his old +friends to help him do it. He saw almost no one else, certainly no one +else there, for he was sure to disappear upon the arrival of a caller, +or the announcement of an expedition in which other people were +included. But he returned again and again to the Louvre with them, his +theory of galleries necessitating frequent visits. Nothing could be +more idiotic, he held, than to try to see on one occasion all, or even +half, or even a tenth part, of a great collection of works of art. "It +is exactly as reasonable," he contended, "as to read through on the +same day every poem in a great anthology. Who could have anything but +nausea for poetry after such a gorge? And they _must_ hate pictures or +else be literally blind to them, the people who look at five hundred +in a morning! If I had looked at every picture in the Long Gallery +in one walk through it, I should thrust my cane through the Titian +Francis-First itself when I came to the Salon CarrĂ©." + +So he took them to see only a few, five or six, carefully selected +things--there was one wonderful day when he showed them nothing +but the Da Vinci Saint Anne, and the Venus of Melos, comparing the +dissimilar beauty of those two divine faces so vitally, that Sylvia +for days afterwards, when she closed her eyes and saw them, felt that +she looked on two living women. She told them this and, "Which one do +you see most?" he asked her. "Oh, the Saint Anne," she told him. + +He seemed dissatisfied. But she did not venture to ask him why. They +lived in an atmosphere where omissions were vital. + +Sylvia often wondered in those days if there ever had been a situation +so precariously balanced which continued to hang poised and stable, +minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day. There were +moments when her head was swimming with moral dizziness. She wondered +if such moments ever came to the two quiet, self-controlled men who +came and went, with cordial, easy friendliness, in and out of the +appartement on the Rue de Presbourg. They gave no sign of it, they +gave no sign of anything beyond the most achieved appearance of a +natural desire to be obliging and indulgent to the niece of an old +friend. This appearance was kept up with such unflagging perseverance +that it almost seemed consciously concerted between them. They so +elaborately avoided the slightest appearance of rivalry that their +good taste, like a cloth thrown over an unknown object, inevitably +excited curiosity as to what was concealed beneath it. + +And Sylvia was not to be outdone. She turned her own eyes away from +it as sedulously as they. She never let a conscious thought dwell on +it--and like all other repressed and strangled currents of thought, it +grew swollen and restive, filling her subconsciousness with monstrous, +unformulated speculations. She was extremely absorbed in the luxury, +the amenity, the smooth-working perfection of the life about her. +She consciously concentrated all her faculties on her prodigious +opportunity for aesthetic growth, for appreciation of the fine and +marvelous things about her. She let go the last scruple which had held +her back from accepting from Aunt Victoria the shower of beautiful +things to wear which that connoisseur in wearing apparel delighted +to bestow upon an object so deserving. She gave a brilliant outward +effect of enjoying life as it came which was as impersonal as that of +the two men who looked at her so frequently, and this effect went as +deep as her will-power had command. But beneath--unacknowledged waves +beating on the shore of her life and roughly, irresistibly, rudely +fashioning it--rolled a ground-swell of imperious questionings.... + +Was Felix' perfect manner of impersonal interest solely due to the +delicacy of his situation? Did he feel now that he was as rich as +Austin ...? But, on the other hand, why did he come now and put +himself in a situation which required the utmost efforts for +unconsciousness on everybody's part if not because Austin's being +there had meant he dared not wait? And Austin's change of manner since +the arrival of the other man, the film of ceremony which had slid +imperceptibly over the tender friendliness of his manner, did that +mean that he would not take advantage of Morrison's temporarily tied +hands, but, with a scrupulousness all his own, would wait until the +race was even and they stood foot to foot on the same level? Or had he +noticed at once, with those formidably clear eyes of his, some shade +of her manner to Felix which she had not been able to command, and was +he waiting for some move from her? And how could she move until she +had some sign from Felix and how could he give a sign? There was +nothing to do but to wait, to hope that the thin ice which now bent +perilously under the pleasant ceremonies of their life in common, +would hold them until.... Even the wildest up-leaping wave of that +tossing tide never went beyond the blank wall which came after the +"until...." + +There were other moments when all that surge swung back and forth +to the rhythm of the poisoned recollection of her unacknowledged +humiliation in Lydford; when, inflamed with determination to avoid +another such blow in the face, Sylvia almost consciously asked +herself, self-contemptuously, "Who am I, an obscure, poverty-stricken +music-teacher out of the West, to fancy that I have but to choose +between two such men, two such fortunes?" but against this counted +strongly the constantly recurring revelations of the obscure pasts of +many of the women whom she met during those days, women who were now +shining, acknowledged firsts in the procession of success. The serene, +stately, much-admired Princesse de Chevrille had been a Miss Sommers +from Cleveland, Ohio, and she had come to Paris first as a governess. +The beautiful Mrs. William Winterton Perth, now Aunt Victoria's +favorite friend, who entertained lesser royalty and greater men of +letters with equal quiet dignity, had in her youth, so she chanced +casually one day to mention, known what it was to be thrifty about +car-fares. There was nothing intrinsically impossible in any of the +glittering vistas down which Sylvia's quick eye cast involuntary +glances. + +But inevitably, when the heaving dark tide rose as high as this, there +came a swift and deadly ebbing away of it all, and into Sylvia's +consciousness (always it seemed to her with the most entire +irrelevance) there flared up the picture of Molly as she had seen +her last, shimmering like a jewel in her white veil--then the other +picture, the over-turned car, the golden head bruised and bloody and +forever stilled--and always, always beyond that, the gaunt, monstrous +possibility, too awful ever to be put into words, too impossible for +credence ... + +From that shapeless, looming, black mass, Sylvia fled away actually +and physically, springing to her feet wherever she was, entering +another room, taking up some other occupation. + +Just once she had the faintest sign from beyond the wall that she was +not alone in her fear of this horror. She was sitting near Austin Page +at a tea, one of the frequent, small, richly chosen assemblages which +Mrs. Marshall-Smith gathered about her. Part of the ensuing chatter on +one of these occasions turned, as modern chatter frequently does, on +automobiles. The husband of Mrs. William Winterton Perth was an expert +on such matters, having for some years diverted by an interest +in mechanics the immense enforced leisure of a transplanted male +American. He was talking incessantly that day of the wonderful +improvement in steering mechanism the last few years had brought +about. "I tell you what, Miss Marshall!" he insisted, as though she +had disputed the point with him, "I tell you _what_, there used to +be some excuse for piling your car up by the side of the road, but +nowadays any one who doesn't keep in the road and right side up must +be just plain _looking_ for a chance to use his car like a dose of +cold poison." For a moment Sylvia could not conceive why she felt so +sickening a thrust at her heart. She turned her eyes from the speaker. +They fell on a man's hand, on the arm of the chair next hers. It was +Austin's hand and it was shaking uncontrollably. As she gazed at it, +fascinated, he thrust it deep into his pocket. She did not look at +him. In a moment he rose and crossed the room. The husband of Mrs. +William Winterton Perth asked for another _petit four_, confessing his +fondness for chocolate Ă©clairs,--and embarked upon demountable rims. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + +"_... His wife and children perceiving it, began to cry after him to +return; but the man put his fingers in his ears and ran on, crying, +'Life! Life Eternal!_'" + + +They had been in the Louvre, had spent an hour with Felix in that +glowing embodiment of the pomp and majesty of human flesh known as the +Rubens Medici-Room, and now, for the sheer pleasure of it, had decided +to walk home. Mrs. Marshall-Smith, endowed with a figure which showed +as yet no need for exercise, and having passed youth's restless liking +for it, had vetoed the plan as far as she went, and entering her +waiting ear, had been borne smoothly off, an opulent Juno without her +peacocks. + +The three who were left, lingered for a moment in the quiet sunny +square of the Louvre, looking up at the statue of Lafayette, around at +the blossoming early shrubs. Sylvia was still under the spell of the +riotous, full-blown splendor of the paintings she had seen. Wherever +she looked, she saw again the rainbow brilliance of those glossy +satins, that rippling flooding golden hair, those ample, heaving +bosoms, those liquid gleaming eyes, the soft abundance of that white +and ruddy flesh, with the patina of time like a golden haze over it. +The spectacle had been magnificent and the scene they now entered was +a worthy successor to it. They walked down through the garden of the +Tuileries and emerged upon the Place de la Concorde at five o'clock of +a perfect April afternoon, when the great square hummed and sang with +the gleaming traffic of luxury. Countless automobiles, like glistening +beetles, darted about, each one with its load of carefully dressed and +coiffed women, looking out on the weaving glitter of the street with +the proprietary, complacent stare of those who feel themselves in the +midst of a civilization with which they are in perfect accord. Up the +avenue, beyond, streamed an incessant parade of more costly ears, more +carriages, shining, caparisoned horses, every outfit sumptuous to its +last detail, every one different from all the others, and hundreds and +hundreds and hundreds of them, till in the distance they dwindled to +a black stream dominated by the upward sweep of the Arc de Triomphe, +magnified to fabulous proportions by the filmy haze of the spring day. +To their left flowed the Seine, blue and flashing. A little breeze +stirred the new leaves on the innumerable trees. + +Sylvia stopped for an instant to take in the marvel of this pageant, +enacted every day of every season against that magnificent background. +She made a gesture to call her companions' attention to it--"Isn't it +in the key of Rubens--bloom, radiance, life expansive!" + +"And Chabrier should set it to music," said Morrison. + +"What does it make you think of?" she asked. "It makes me think of a +beautiful young Greek, in a purple chiton, with a wreath of roses in +his hair." + +"It makes me think of a beautiful young woman, all fire and spirit, +and fineness, who drinks life like a perfumed wine," said Morrison, +his eyes on hers. She felt a little shiver of frightened pleasure, and +turned to Page to carry it off, "What does it make you think of?" she +asked. + +"It makes me think," he answered her at once, his eyes on the haze +caught like a dream in the tender green of the budding trees,--"it +makes me think of a half-naked, sweating man, far underground in black +night, striking at a rock with a pick." + +If he had burst into loud profanity, the effect could not have been +more shocking. "_Oh!_" said Sylvia, vexed and put out. She began to +walk forward. Morrison in his turn gave an exclamation which seemed +the vent of long-stored exasperation, and said with heat: "Look here, +Page, you're getting to be a perfect monomaniac on the subject! What +earthly good does it do your man with a pick to ruin a fine moment by +lugging him in!" + +They were all advancing up the avenue now, Sylvia between the two men. +They talked at each other across her. She listened intently, with the +feeling that Morrison was voicing for her the question she had +been all her life wishing once for all to let fly at her parents' +standards: "What good _did_ it do anybody to go without things you +might have? Conditions were too vast for one person to influence." + +"No earthly good," said Page peaceably; "I didn't say it did him any +good. Miss Marshall asked me what all this made me think of, and I +told her." + +"It is simply becoming an obsession with you!" urged Morrison. Sylvia +remembered what Page had said about his irritation years ago when +Austin had withdrawn from the collector's field. + +"Yes, it's becoming an obsession with me," agreed Page thoughtfully. +He spoke as he always did, with the simplest manner of direct +sincerity. + +"You ought to make an effort against it, really, my dear fellow. It's +simply spoiling your life for you!" + +"Worse than that, it's making me bad company!" said Page whimsically. +"I either ought to reform or get out." + +Morrison set his enemy squarely before him and proceeded to do battle. +"I believe I know just what's in your mind, Page: I've been watching +it grow in you, ever since you gave up majolica." + +"I never claimed that was anything but the blindest of impulses!" +protested Page mildly. + +"But it wasn't. I knew! It was a sign you had been infected by the +spirit of the times and had 'caught it' so hard that it would be +likely to make an end of you. It's all right for the collective mind. +That's dense, obtuse; it resists enough to keep its balance. But it's +not all right for you. Now you just let me talk for a few minutes, +will you? I've an accumulated lot to say! We are all of us living +through the end of an epoch, just as much as the people of the old +rĂ©gime lived through the last of an epoch in the years before the +French Revolution. I don't believe it's going to come with guillotines +or any of those picturesque trimmings. We don't do things that way any +more. In my opinion it will come gradually, and finally arrive about +two or three generations from now. And it oughtn't to come any sooner! +Sudden changes never save time. There's always the reaction to be +gotten over with, if they're sudden. Gradual growths are what last. +Now anybody who knows about the changes of society knows that there's +little enough any one person can do to hasten them or to put them +off. They're actuated by a law of their own, like the law which makes +typhoid fever come to a crisis in seven days. Now then, if you admit +that the process ought not to be hastened, and in the second place +that you couldn't hasten it if you tried, what earthly use _is_ there +in bothering your head about it! There are lots of people, countless +people, made expressly to do whatever is necessary, blunt chisels fit +for nothing but shaping grindstones. _Let them do it!_ You'll only get +in their way if you try to interfere. It's not your job. For the few +people capable of it, there is nothing more necessary to do for the +world than to show how splendid and orderly and harmonious a thing +life can be. While the blunt chisels hack out the redemption of the +overworked (and Heaven knows I don't deny their existence), let those +who can, preserve the almost-lost art of living, so that when the +millennium comes (you see I don't deny that this time it's on the +way!) it won't find humanity solely made up of newly freed serfs who +don't know what use to make of their liberty. How is beauty to be +preserved by those who know and love and serve her, and how can they +guard beauty if they insist on going down to help clean out the +sewers? Miss Marshall, don't you see how I am right? Don't you see how +no one can do more for the common weal than just to live, as finely, +as beautifully, as intelligently as possible? And people who are +capable of this noblest service to the world only waste themselves and +serve nobody if they try to do the work of dray-horses." + +Sylvia had found this wonderfully eloquent and convincing. She now +broke in. "When I was a young girl in college, I used to have a +pretentious, jejune sort of idea that what I wanted out of life was to +find Athens and live in it--and your idea sounds like that. The best +Athens, you know, not sensuous and selfish, but full of lovely and +leisurely sensations and fine thoughts and great emotions." + +"It wasn't pretentious and jejune at all!" said Morrison warmly, "but +simply the most perfect metaphor of what must have been--of course, +I can see it from here--the instinctive sane effort of a nature like +yours. Let's all try to live in Athens so that there will be some one +there to welcome in humanity." + +Page volunteered his first contribution to the talk. "Oh, I wouldn't +mind a bit if I thought we were really doing what Morrison thinks is +our excuse for living, creating fine and beautiful lives and keeping +alive the tradition of beauty and fineness. But our lives aren't +beautiful, they're only easeful. They're not fine, they're only +well-upholstered. You've got to have fitly squared and substantial +foundations before you can build enduring beauty. And all this," he +waved his hand around him at the resplendent, modern city, "this isn't +Athens; it's--it's Corinth, if you want to go on being classic. +As near as I can make out from what Sylvia lets fall, the nearest +approach to Athenian life that I ever heard of, was the life she left +behind her, her parents' life. That has all the elements of the best +Athenian color, except physical ease. And ease is no Athenian quality! +It's Persian! Socrates was a stone-cutter, you know. And even in the +real Athens, even that best Athens, the one in Plato's mind--there was +a whole class given over to doing the dirty work for the others. That +never seemed to bother Plato--happy Plato! but--I'm sure I don't +pretend to say if it ultimately means more or less greatness for the +human race--but somehow since Christianity, people find it harder and +harder to get back to Plato's serenity on that point. I'm not arguing +the case against men like you, Morrison--except that there's only one +of you. You've always seemed to me more like Plato than anybody alive, +and I've regarded you as the most enviable personality going. I'd +emulate you in a minute--if I could; but if mine is a case of mania, +it's a genuine case. I'm sane on everything else, but when it comes +to that--it's being money that I don't earn, but they, those men off +there underground, do earn and are forced to give to me--when it comes +to that, I'm as fixed in my opinion as the man who thought he was a +hard-boiled egg. I don't blame you for being out of patience with me. +As you say I only spoil fine minutes by thinking of it, and as you +charitably refrained from saying, I spoil other people's fine moments +by speaking of it." + +"What would you _have_ us do!" Morrison challenged him--"all turn in +and clean sewers for a living? And wouldn't it be a lovely world, if +we did!" + +Page did not answer for a moment. "I wonder," he finally suggested +mildly, "if it were all divided up, the dirty work, and each of us did +our share--" + +"Oh, impractical! impractical! Wholly a back-eddy in the +forward-moving current. You can't go back of a world-wide movement. +Things are too complicated now for everybody to do his share of +anything. It's as reasonable, as to suggest that everybody do his +share of watchmaking, or fancy juggling. Every man to his trade! +And if the man who makes watches, or cleans sewers, or even mines +coal--your especial sore spot--does his work well, and is suited to it +in temperament, who knows that he does not find it a satisfaction as +complete as mine in telling a bit of genuine Palissy ware from an +imitation. You, for instance, you'd make a _pretty_ coal-miner, +wouldn't you? You're about as suited to it as Miss Marshall here for +being a college settlement worker!" + +Sylvia broke out into an exclamation of wonder. "Oh, how you do put +your finger on the spot! If you knew how I've struggled to justify +myself for not going into 'social work' of some kind! Every girl +nowadays who doesn't marry at twenty, is slated for 'social +betterment' whether she has the least capacity for it or not. Public +opinion pushes us into it as mediaeval girls were shoved into +convents, because it doesn't know what else to do with us. It's all +right for Judith,--it's fine for her. She's made for it. I envy her. +I always have. But me--I never could bear the idea of interfering in +people's lives to tell them what to do about their children and their +husbands just because they were poor. It always seemed to me it was +bad enough to be poor without having other people with a little more +money messing around in your life. I'm different from that kind of +people. If I'm sincere I can't pretend I'm not different. And I'm not +a bit sure I know what's any better for them to do than what they're +doing!" She had spoken impetuously, hotly, addressing not the men +beside her but a specter of her past life. + +"How true that is--how unerring the instinct which feels it!" said +Morrison appreciatively. + +Page looked at Sylvia quickly, his clear eyes very tender. "Yes, +yes; it's her very own life that Sylvia needs to live," he said in +unexpected concurrence of opinion. Sylvia felt that the honors of the +discussion so far were certainly with Felix. And Austin seemed oddly +little concerned by this. He made no further effort to retrieve his +cause, but fell into a silence which seemed rather preoccupied than +defeated. + +They were close to the Arc de Triomphe now. A brilliant sunset was +firing a salvo of scarlet and gold behind it, and they stood for a +moment to admire. "Oh, Paris! Paris!" murmured Morrison. "Paris +in April! There's only one thing better, and that we have before +us--Paris in May!" + +They turned in past the loge of the concierge, and mounted in the +languidly moving elevator to the appartement. Felix went at once +to the piano and began playing something Sylvia did not recognize, +something brilliantly colored, vivid, resonant, sonorous, perhaps +Chabrier, she thought, remembering his remark on the avenue. Without +taking off her hat she stepped to her favorite post of observation, +the balcony, and sat down in the twilight with a sigh of exquisitely +complete satisfaction, facing the sunset, the great arch lifting +his huge, harmonious bulk up out of the dim, encircling trees, the +resplendent long stretch of the lighted boulevard. The music seemed to +rise up from the scene like its natural aroma. + +Austin Page came out after her and leaned silently on the railing, +looking over the city. Morrison finished the Chabrier and began on +something else before the two on the balcony spoke. Sylvia was asking +no questions of fate or the future, accepting the present with wilful +blindness to its impermanence. + +Austin said: "I have been trying to say good-bye all afternoon. I am +going back to America tomorrow." + +Sylvia was so startled and shocked that she could not believe her +ears. Her heart beat hard. To an incoherent, stammered inquiry of +hers, he answered, "It's my Colorado property--always that. It spoils +everything. I must go back, and make a decision that's needed there. +I've been trying to tell you. But I can't. Every time I have tried, I +have not dared. If I told you, and you should beckon me back, I should +not be strong enough to go on. I could not leave you, Sylvia, if you +lifted your hand. And that would be the end of the best of us both." +He had turned and faced her, his hands back of him, gripping the +railing. The deep vibrations of his voice transported her to that +never-forgotten moment at Versailles. He went on: "When it is--when +the decision is made, I'll write you. I'll write you, and then--I +shall wait to hear your answer!" From inside the room Felix poured a +dashing spray of diamond-like trills upon them. + +She murmured something, she did not know what; her breathing oppressed +by her emotion. "Won't you--shan't we see you--here--?" She put her +hand to her side, feeling an almost intolerable pain. + +He moved near her, and, to bring himself to her level, knelt down on +one knee, putting his elbows on the arm of her chair. The dusk had +fallen so thickly that she had not seen his face before. She now saw +that his lips were quivering, that he was shaking from head to foot. +"It will be for you to say, Sylvia," his voice was rough and harsh +with feeling, "whether you see me again." He took her hands in his and +covered them with kisses--no grave tokens of reverence these, as on +the day at Versailles, but human, hungry, yearning kisses that burned, +that burned-- + +And then he was gone. Sylvia was there alone in the enchanted +twilight, the Triumphal Arch before her, the swept and garnished and +spangled city beneath her. She lifted her hand and saw that he had +left on it not only kisses but tears. If he had been there then, she +would have thrown herself into his arms. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + +SYLVIA COMES TO THE WICKET-GATE + + +Three weeks passed before his letter came. The slow, thrilling +crescendo of May had lifted the heart up to a devout certainty of +June. The leaves were fully out, casting a light, new shadow on the +sprinkled streets. Every woman was in a bright-colored, thin summer +dress, and every young woman looked alluring. The young men wore their +hats tilted to one side, swung jaunty canes as they walked, and peered +hopefully under the brim of every flowered feminine headdress. +The days were like golden horns of plenty, spilling out sunshine, +wandering perfumed airs, and the heart-quickening aroma of the new +season. The nights were cool and starry. Every one in Paris spent as +much as possible of every hour out of doors. The pale-blue sky flecked +with creamy clouds seemed the dome, and the city the many-colored +pavement of some vast building, so grandly spacious that the +sauntering, leisurely crowds thronging the thoroughfares seemed no +crowds at all, but only denoted a delightful sociability. + +All the spring vegetables were at their crispest, most melting +perfection, and the cherries from Anjou were like miniature apples of +Hesperus. Up and down the smaller streets went white-capped little old +women, with baskets on their arms, covered with snowy linen, and they +chanted musically on the first three notes of the scale, so that the +sunny vault above them resounded to the cry, "De la crème, fromage Ă +la crème!" The three Americans had enchanted expeditions to Chantilly, +to Versailles again, called back from the past and the dead by the +miracle of spring; to more distant formidable Coucy, grimly looking +out over the smiling country at its foot, to Fontainebleau, even a two +days' dash into Touraine, to Blois, Amboise, Loches, jewels set in the +green enamels of May ... and all the time Sylvia's attempt to take +the present and to let the future bring what it would, was pitched +perforce in a higher and higher key,--took a more violent effort to +achieve. + +She fell deeper than ever under Morrison's spell, and yet the lack of +Austin was like an ache to her. She had said to herself, "I will not +let myself think of him until his letter comes," and she woke up in +the night suddenly, seeing the fire and tenderness and yearning of his +eyes, and stretching out her arms to him before she was awake. And +yet she had never tried so hard to divine every shade of Morrison's +fastidiousness and had never felt so supreme a satisfaction in knowing +that she did. There were strange, brief moments in her life now, when +out of the warring complexity in her heart there rose the simple +longing of a little girl to go to her mother, to feel those strong, +unfailing arms about her. She began to guess dimly, without thinking +about it at all, that her mother knew some secret of life, of balance, +that she did not. And yet if her mother were at hand, she knew she +could never explain to her--how could she, when she did not know +herself?--what she was living through. How long she had waited the +moment when she _would_ know! + +One day towards the end of May, Morrison had come in for lunch, a +delicately chosen, deceptively simple meal for which Yoshida had +outdone himself. There had been a savory mixture of sweetbreads and +mushrooms in a smooth, rich, creamy sauce; green peas that had been on +the vines at three o'clock that morning, and which still had the aroma +of life in their delectable little balls; sparkling Saumur; butter +with the fragrance of dew and clover in it; crisp, crusty rolls; +artichokes in oil--such a meal as no money can buy anywhere but in +Paris in the spring, such a simple, simple meal as takes a great deal +of money to buy even in Paris. + +"It is an art to eat like this," said Morrison, more than half +seriously, after he had taken the first mouthful of the golden soufflĂ© +which ended the meal. "What a May we have had! I have been thinking so +often of Talleyrand's saying that no one who had not lived before the +French Revolution, under the old rĂ©gime, could know how sweet life +could be; and I've been thinking that we may live to say that about +the end of this rĂ©gime. Such perfect, golden hours as it has for those +who are able to seize them. It is a debt we own the Spirit of Things +to be grateful and to appreciate our opportunity." + +"As far as the luncheon goes, it's rather a joke, isn't it," said his +hostess, "that it should be an Oriental cook who has so caught the +true Gallic accent? I'll tell Tojiko to tell Yoshido that his efforts +weren't lost on you. He adores cooking for you. No, you speak about it +yourself. Here comes Tojiko with the mail." + +She reached for the _Herald_ with one hand, and with the other gave +Sylvia a letter with the American postmark. "Oh, Tojiko," said +Morrison with the familiarity of an habituĂ© of the house, "will you +tell your brother for me that I never tasted anything like his ..." + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith broke in with an exclamation of extreme +astonishment. "Oh--what _do_ you think--! Sylvia, did you know +anything about this? Of all the crazy--why, what under the sun--? +I always knew there was a vein of the fanatic--any man who won't +smoke--you may be sure there's something unbalanced--!" She now turned +the paper as she spoke and held it so that the headlines leaped out +across the table: + + MILLIONAIRE COAL OPERATOR TURNS VAST + HOLDINGS OVER TO THE STATE + + Son of Old Peter Page Converted to Socialism + +"_What_!" cried Morrison. Even in the blankness of her stupefaction, +Sylvia was aware of a rising note in his voice that was by no means +dismay. + +"Yes," continued Mrs. Marshall-Smith, reading rapidly and +disconnectedly from the paper, beginning an item and dropping it, as +she saw it was not the one she was searching for, "'Mr. Page is said +to have contemplated some such step for a long ...'--m-m-m, not that +... 'well-known collector of ceramics--Metropolitan Museum--member of +the Racquet, the Yacht, the Century, the Yale--thirty-two--Mother Miss +Allida Sommerville of Baltimore, formerly a great beauty'--_here_ it +is," she stopped skimming and read consecutively: "'Mr. Page's plan +has been worked out in all detail with experts. A highly paid, +self-perpetuating commission of labor experts, sociologists, and +men of practical experience in coal-operating has been appointed to +administer Mr. Page's extremely extensive holdings. The profits form +a fund which, under the stipulations of Mr. Page's agreement with +the State, is to be used to finance a program of advanced social +activities; to furnish money for mothers' pensions, even perhaps +for fathers' pensions in the case of families too numerous to be +adequately cared for on workingmen's wages; to change the public +school system of the locality into open-air schools with spacious +grounds for manual activities of all kinds; greatly to raise wages; to +lengthen the period of schooling before children go into remunerative +occupations ...'" Mrs. Marshall-Smith looked up, said, "Oh, _you_ +know, the kind of thing such people are always talking about," and +began to skip again, "'--extensive plans for garden cities--public +libraries--books of the business to be open to employĂ©s--educational +future--no philanthropy--and so forth and so forth.'" She glanced +hurriedly down the page, caught the beginning of another sentence, +and read: "'The news has created an immense sensation all over the +country. It is prophesied that Mr. Page's unexpected action will throw +the coal business into great confusion. Other operators will find it +extremely difficult to go on with the old conditions. Already it is +rumored that the Chilton Coal and Coke Company ...'" + +"Well, I should think so indeed!" cried Morrison emphatically, +breaking in. "With modern industrial conditions hung on a hair trigger +as they are, it's as though a boy had exploded a fire-cracker in the +works of a watch. That means his whole fortune gone. Old Peter put +everything into coal. Austin will not have a cent--nothing but those +Vermont scrub forests of his. What a mad thing to do! But it's been +growing on him for a long time. I've seen--I've felt it!" + +Sylvia gave a dazed, mechanical look at the letter she held and +recognized the handwriting. She turned very white. + +Aunt Victoria said instantly: "I see you have a letter to read, my +dear, and I want Felix to play that D'Indy Interlude for me and +explain it--Bauer is going to play it tonight for the Princess de +Chevrille. We'll bother you with our chatter. Don't you want to take +it to your room to read?" + +Sylvia stood up, holding the unopened letter in her hand. She looked +about her a little wildly and said: "Oh no, no! I think I'd rather be +out of doors. I'll go out on the balcony." + +"It's raining," said Mrs. Marshall-Smith. + +"No, not yet," said Morrison, making a great effort to speak in an +ordinary tone. "It's only going to." He sat down at the piano. Sylvia +passed him and went out to the balcony. She opened the letter and read +it through very carefully. It was a long one and this took some time. +She did not hear a note of the music which poured its plaintive, eerie +cadences around her. When she had finished the letter she instantly +started to read it again, with the sensation that she had not yet +begun to understand it. She was now deeply flushed. She continually +put back a floating strand of hair, which recurrently fell across her +forehead and cheek. + +After a time, Mrs. Marshall-Smith said from the open door: "Felix and +I are going to Madeleine Perth's. Would you rather stay here?" Sylvia +nodded without looking up. + +She sat motionless, looking at the letter long after she had finished +it. An hour passed thus. Then she was aware that it was beginning to +rain. The drops falling on the open letter dissolved the ink into +blurred smears. She sprang up hastily and went into the salon, where +she stood irresolute for a moment, and then, without calling HĂ©lène, +went to her room and dressed for the street. She moved very quickly as +though there were some need for extreme haste, and when she stepped +into the street she fell at once automatically into the swinging step +of the practised walker who sees long miles before him. + +Half an hour later she was looking up at the façade of Notre Dame +through the rain, and seeing there these words: "I shall be waiting at +Austin Farm to hear if you are at all able to sympathize with me in +what I have done. The memory of our last words together may help you +to imagine with what anxiety I shall be waiting." + +She pushed open the greasy, shining leather door, passed into the +interior, and stood for a moment in the incense-laden gloom of the +nave. A mass was being said. The rapidly murmured Latin words came +to her in a dim drone, in which she heard quite clearly, quite +distinctly: "There is another kind of beauty I faintly glimpse--that +isn't just sweet smells and lovely sights and harmonious lines--it's +the beauty that can't endure disharmony in conduct, the fine, true ear +for the loveliness of life lived at its best--Sylvia, finest, truest +Sylvia, it's what you could, if you would--you more than any other +woman in the world--if we were together to try--" + +Sylvia sank to her knees on a prie-Dieu and hid her face in her hands, +trying to shut out the words, and yet listening to them so intently +that her breath was suspended.... "What Morrison said is true--for +him, since he feels it to be true. No man can judge for another. But +other things are true too, things that concern me. It's true that an +honest man cannot accept an ease founded, even remotely, on the misery +of others. And my life has been just that. I don't know what success I +shall have with the life that's beginning, but I know at least it +will begin straight. There seems a chance for real shapeliness if the +foundations are all honest--doesn't there? Oh, Sylvia--oh, my dearest +love, if I could think you would begin it with me, Sylvia! Sylvia!" + +The girl sprang up and went hastily out of the church. The nun +kneeling at the door, holding out the silent prayer for alms for the +poor, looked up in her face as she passed and then after her with +calm, understanding eyes. Kneeling there, day after day, she had seen +many another young, troubled soul fleeing from its own thoughts. + +Sylvia crossed the parvis of Notre Dame, glistening wet, and passed +over the gray Seine, slate under the gray mist of the rain. Under her +feet the impalpable dust of a city turned to gray slime which clung to +her shoes. She walked on through a narrow, mean street of mediaeval +aspect where rag-pickers, drearily oblivious of the rain, quarreled +weakly over their filthy piles of trash. She looked at them in +astonishment, in dismay, in horror. Since leaving La Chance, save for +that one glimpse over the edge back in the Vermont mountains, she had +been so consistently surrounded by the padded satin of possessions +that she had forgotten how actual poverty looked. In fact, she had +never had more than the briefest fleeting glances at it. This was +so extravagant, so extreme, that it seemed impossible to her. And +yet--and yet--She looked fleetingly into those pale, dingy, underfed, +repulsive faces and wondered if coal-miners' families looked like +that. + +But she said aloud at once, almost as though she had crooked an arm to +shield herself: "But he _said_ he did not want me to answer at once! +He _said_ he wanted me to take time--to take time--to take time ..." +She hastened her steps to this refrain, until she was almost running; +and emerged upon the broad, well-kept expanse of the Boulevard St. +Germain with a long-drawn breath of relief. + +Ahead of her to the right, the Rue St. Jacques climbed the hill to the +Pantheon. She took it because it was broad and clean and differed from +the musty darkness from which she had come out; she fled up the steep +grade with a swift, light step as though she were on a country walk. +She might indeed have been upon some flat road near La Chance for all +she saw of the buildings, the people around her. + +How like Austin's fine courage that was, his saying that he did not +want her to decide in haste, but to take time to know what she was +doing! What other man would not have stayed to urge her, to hurry her, +to impose his will on hers, masterfully to use his personality to +confuse her, to carry her off? For an instant, through all her +wretched bewilderment, she thrilled to a high, impersonal appreciation +of his saying: "If I had stayed with you, I should have tried to take +you by force--but you are too fine for that, Sylvia! What you could be +to the man you loved if you went to him freely--that is too splendid +to risk losing. I want all of you--heart, soul, mind--or nothing!" +Sylvia looked up through this clear white light to Austin's yearning +eyes, and back through the ages with a wondering pity at the dark +figure of Jerry Fiske, emerging from his cave. She had come a long way +since then. + +And then all this, everything fine, everything generous, ebbed away +from her with deadly swiftness, and in a cold disgust with herself she +knew that she had been repeating over and over Morrison's "Austin will +not have a cent left ... nothing but those Vermont scrub forests." So +that was the kind of a woman she was. Well, if that was the kind of +woman she was, let her live her life accordingly. She was sick with +indecision as she fled onward through the rain. + +Few pedestrians were abroad in the rain, and those who were, sheltered +themselves slant-wise with their umbrellas against the wind, and +scudded with the storm. Sylvia had an umbrella, but she did not open +it. She held her face up once, to feel the rain fall on it, and this +reminded her of home, and long rainy walks with her father. She +winced at this, and put him hastily out of her mind. And she had been +unconsciously wishing to see her mother! At the very recollection of +her mother she lengthened her stride. There was another thought to run +away from! + +She swung around the corner near the Pantheon and rapidly approached +the door of the great Library of Ste. Geneviève. A thin, draggled, +middle-aged woman-student, entering hastily, slipped on the wet stones +and knocked from under his arm the leather portfolio of a thin, +draggled, middle-aged man who was just coming out. The woman did not +stop to help repair the damage she had done, but hastened desperately +on into the shelter of the building. Sylvia's eyes, absent as they +were, were caught and held by the strange, blank look of the man, who +stood motionless, his shabby hat knocked to one side of his thin, gray +hair, his curiously filmed eyes fixed stupidly on the litter of papers +scattered at his feet. The rain was beginning to convert them into +sodden pulp, but he did not stir. The idea occurred to Sylvia that he +might be ill, and she advanced to help him. As he saw her stoop +to pick them up, he said in French, in a toneless voice, very +indifferently: "Don't give yourself the trouble. They are of no +value. I carry them only to make the Library attendants think I am a +bona-fide reader. I go there to sleep because I have no other roof." + +His French was entirely fluent, but the accent was American. Sylvia +looked up at him surprised. He returned her gaze dully, and without +another look at the papers, scuffled off through the rain, across the +street towards the Pantheon. His boots were lamentable. + +Sylvia had an instantly vanishing memory of a pool of quiet sunshine, +of a ripely beautiful woman and a radiant young man. Before she knew +she was speaking, an impulsive cry had burst from her: "Why, Professor +Saunders! Professor Saunders! Don't you know me? I am Sylvia +Marshall!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + +SYLVIA DRIFTS WITH THE MAJORITY + + +"No, they don't let you sit down in here if you're as shabby as I am," +said the man, continuing his slow, feeble, shuffling progress. "They +know you're only a vagrant, here to get out of the rain. They won't +even let you stand still long." + +Sylvia had not been inside the Pantheon before, had never been inside +a building with so great a dome. They stood under it now. She sent her +glance up to its vast, dim, noble heights and brought it down to the +saturnine, unsavory wreck at her side. She was regretting the impulse +which had made her call out to him. What could she say to him now they +were together? What word, what breath could be gentle enough, light +enough not to be poison to that open sore? + +On his part he seemed entirely unconcerned about the impression he +made on her. His eyes, his sick, filmed eyes, looked at her with no +shrinking, with no bravado, with an entire indifference which gave, +through all the desolation of his appearance, the strangest, careless +dignity to the man. He did not care what she thought of him. He did +not care what any one thought of him. He gave the impression of a man +whose accounts are all reckoned and the balance struck, long ago. + +"So this is Sylvia," he said, with the slightest appearance of +interest, glancing at her casually. "I always said you would make a +beautiful woman. But since I knew Victoria, I've seen that you must be +quite what she was at your age." It might have been a voice speaking +from beyond the grave, so listless, so dragging was its rhythm. "How +do you happen to be in Paris?" he asked. "Are your parents still +alive?" + +"Oh _yes_!" said Sylvia, half startled by the preposterousness of the +idea that they might not be. "They're very well too. I had such a good +letter from Mother the other day. Do you remember Professor Kennedy? +He has just given up his position to be professor emeritus. I suppose +now he'll write that book on the idiocy of the human race he's been +planning so long. And old Mr. Reinhardt, he's still the same, they say +... wonderful, isn't it, at his age?" She was running on, not knowing +what to say, and chattering rather foolishly in her embarrassment. +"Judith is a trained nurse; isn't that just the right thing for her? +I'm visiting Aunt Victoria here for a while. Lawrence is a Freshman at...." + +He broke in, his hollow voice resounding in the immense, vault-like +spaces around them. "You'd better go home," he said. "I'd leave +tonight, if I were you." She looked at him startled, half-scared, +thinking that she had been right to fancy him out of his mind. She saw +with relief a burly attendant in a blue uniform lounging near a group +of statuary. She could call to him, if it became necessary. + +"You'd better go away from her at once," went on the man, advancing +aimlessly from one bay of the frescoes to another. + +Sylvia knew now of whom he was speaking, and as he continued talking +with a slow, dreary monotony, her mind raced back over the years, +picking up a scrap here, a half-forgotten phrase there, an intercepted +look between her father and mother, a recollection of her own, a +half-finished sentence of Arnold's ... + +"She can't be fatal for you in the same way she has been for the +others, of course," the man was saying. "What she'll do for you is to +turn you into a woman like herself. I remember now, I have thought +many times, that you _were_ like her ... of the same clay. But you +have something else too, you have something that she'll take away from +you if you stay. You can't keep her from doing it. No one can get the +better of her. She doesn't fight. But she always takes life. She has +taken mine. She must have taken her bogie-husband's, she took young +Gilbert's, she took Gilbert's wife's, she took Arnold's in another +way.... God! think of leaving a young, growing, weak soul in the care +of a woman like Victoria! She took that poet's, I forget his name; I +suppose by this time Felix Morrison is ..." + +At this name, a terrible contraction of the heart told Sylvia that she +was listening to what he said. "Felix Morrison!" she cried in stern, +angry protest. "I don't know what you're talking about--but if you +think that Aunt Victoria--if you think Felix Morrison--" She was +inarticulate in her indignation. "He was married last autumn to a +beautiful girl--and Aunt Victoria--what an idea!--_no_ one was more +pleased than she--why--you are _crazy_!" She flung out at him the +word, which two moments before she would not have been so cruel as to +think. + +It gave him no discomfort. "Oh no, I'm not," he said with a spectral +laugh, which had in it, to Sylvia's dismay, the very essence of +sanity. She did not know why she now shrank away from him, far more +frightened than before. "I'm about everything else you might mention, +but I'm not crazy. And you take my word for it and get out while you +still can ... _if_ you still can?" He faintly indicated an inquiry, +looking at her sideways, his dirty hand stroking the dishonoring gray +stubble of his unshaven face. "As for Morrison's wife ... let her get +out too. Gilbert tried marrying, tried it in all unconsciousness. It's +only when they try to get away from her that they know she's in the +marrow of their bones. She lets them try. She doesn't even care. She +knows they'll come back. Gilbert did. And his wife ... well, I'm sorry +for Morrison's wife." + +"She's dead," said Sylvia abruptly. + +He took this in with a nod of the head. "So much the better for her. +How did it happen that _you_ didn't fall for Morrison's ..." he looked +at her sharply at a change in her face she could not control. "Oh, +you did," he commented slackly. "Well, you'd better start home for La +Chance tonight," he said again. + +They were circling around and around the shadowy interior, making no +pretense of looking at the frescoed walls, to examine which had been +their ostensible purpose in entering. Sylvia was indeed aware of great +pictured spaces, crowded dimly with thronging figures, men, horses, +women--they reached no more than the outer retina of her eye. She +remembered fleetingly that they had something to do with the story of +Ste. Geneviève. She wanted intensely to escape from this phantom whom +she herself had called up from the void to stalk at her side. But she +felt she ought not to let pass, even coming from such a source, such +utterly frenzied imaginings against one to whom she owed loyalty. She +spoke coldly, with extreme distaste for the subject: "You're entirely +wrong about Aunt Victoria. She's not in the least that kind of a +woman." + +He shook his head slowly. "No, no; you misunderstand me. Your Aunt +Victoria is quite irreproachable, she always has been, she always will +be. She is always in the right. She always will be. She did nothing +to me but hire me to teach her stepson, and when my habits became too +bad, discharge me, as any one would have done. She did nothing to +Arnold except to leave him to the best schools and the best tutors +money could buy. What more could any one have done? She had not the +slightest idea that Horace Gilbert would try to poison his wife, +had not the slightest connection with their quarrel. The young +poet,--Adams was his name, now I remember--did not consult her before +he took to cocaine. Morphine is my own specialty. Victoria of course +deplored it as much as any one could. No, I'm not for a minute +intimating that Victoria is a Messalina. We'd all be better off if she +were. It's only our grossness that finds fault with her. Your aunt +is one of the most respectable women who ever lived, as 'chaste as +unsunned snow--the very ice of chastity is in her!' Indeed, I've often +wondered if the redoubtable Ephraim Smith himself, for all that he +succeeded in marrying her, fared any better than the rest of us. +Victoria would be quite capable of cheating him out of his pay. She +parches, yes, she dries up the blood--but it's not by her passion, not +even by ours. Honest passion never kills. It's the Sahara sands of her +egotism into which we've all emptied our veins." + +Sylvia was frozen to the spot by her outraged indignation that any one +should dare speak to her thus. She found herself facing a fresco of a +tall, austere figure in an enveloping white garment, an elderly woman +with a thin, worn, noble face, who laid one fine old hand on a stone +parapet and with divine compassion and tenderness looked out over a +sleeping city. The man followed the direction of her eyes. "It's Puvis +de Chavannes' Ste. Geneviève as an old woman, guarding and praying for +the city. Very good, isn't it? I especially admire the suggestion of +the plain bare cell she has stepped out from. I often come here to +look at it when I've nothing to eat." He seemed as flaccidly willing +to speak on this as on any other topic; to find it no more interesting +than the subject of his former speech. + +Sylvia was overcome with horror of him. She walked rapidly away, +towards the door, hoping he would not follow her. He did not. When she +glanced back fearfully over her shoulder, she saw him still standing +there, looking up at the gaunt gray figure of beneficent old age. His +dreadful broken felt hat was in his hand, the water dripped from his +frayed trousers over the rotting leather of his shoes. As she looked, +he began to cough, loudly, terribly, so that the echoing reaches of +the great nave resounded to the sound. Sylvia ran back to him and +thrust her purse into his hand. At first he could not speak, for +coughing, but in a moment he found breath to ask, "Is it Victoria's +money?" + +She did not answer. + +He held it for a moment, and then opening his hand let it drop. As she +turned away Sylvia heard it fall clinking on the stone floor. At the +door she turned for one last look, and saw him weakly stooping to pick +it up again. She fairly burst out of the door. + +It was almost dusk when she was on the street again, looking down the +steep incline to the Luxembourg Gardens. In the rainy twilight the +fierce tension of the Rodin "Thinker" in front of the Pantheon loomed +huge and tragic. She gave it a glance of startled sympathy. She had +never understood the statue before. Now she was a prey to those same +ravaging throes. There was for the moment no escaping them. She felt +none of her former wild impulse to run away. What she had been running +away from had overtaken her. She faced it now, looked at it squarely, +gave it her ear for the first time; the grinding, dissonant note under +the rich harmony of the life she had known for all these past months, +the obscure vaults underlying the shining temple in which she had been +living. + +What beauty could there be which was founded on such an action as +Felix' marriage to Molly--Molly, whose passionate directness had known +the only way out of the impasse into which Felix should never have let +her go?... An echo from what she had heard in the mass at Notre Dame +rang in her ears, and now the sound was louder--Austin's voice, +Austin's words: "A beauty that can't endure disharmony in conduct, the +fine true ear for the deeper values, the foundations--" It was Austin, +asking himself what beauty could be in any life founded, even remotely +as his was, on any one's misery? + +For a long time she stood there, silent, motionless, her hands +clenched at her sides, looking straight before her in the rain. Above +her on his pedestal, the great, bronze, naked, tortured man ground his +teeth as he glared out from under the inexorable limitations of his +ape-like forehead, and strove wildly against the barriers of his +flesh.... + +Wildly and vainly, against inexorable limitations! Sylvia was aware +that an insolent young man, with moist protuberant eyes, had come up +where she stood there, alone, motionless on the public street. He put +his arm in hers, clasped her hand in a fat, soft palm, and, "_Allons, +ma belle!_" he said with a revolting gayety. + +Sylvia pulled away from him, cried out fiercely in English, "Don't you +dare to touch me!" and darted away. + +He made no attempt at pursuit, acknowledging his mistake with an easy +shrug and turning off to roam, a dim, predatory figure, along the +dusky street. He had startled and frightened the girl so that she was +trembling when she ventured to slow down to a walk under the glaring +lights of the Boulevard St. Michel. She was also shivering with wet +and cold, and without knowing it, she was extremely hungry. As she +fled along the boulevard in the direction of her own quarter of the +city, her eye caught the lighted clock at the kiosk near Cluny. She +was astonished to see that it was after seven o'clock. How long could +she have stood there, under the shadow of that terrific Thinker, +consumed quite as much as he by the pain of trying to rise above mere +nature? An hour--more than an hour, she must have been there. The +Pantheon must have closed during that time, and the dreadful, sick +man must have passed close by her. Where was he now? What makeshift +shelter harbored that cough, those dirty, skeleton hands, those awful +eyes which had outlived endurance and come to know peace before death.... + +She shivered and tried to shrink away from her wet, clinging clothing. +She had never, in all her life before, been wet and cold and hungry +and frightened, she had never known from what she had been protected. +And now the absence of money meant that she must walk miles in the +rain before she could reach safety and food. For three cents she could +ride. But she had not three cents. How idiotic she had been not to +keep a few sous from her purse. What a sickening thing it had been to +see him stoop to pick it up after he had tried to have the pride not +to touch it. That was what morphine had done for him. And he would buy +more morphine with that money, that was the reason he had not been +able to let it lie ... the man who had been to her little girlhood the +radiant embodiment of strength and fineness! + +Her teeth were chattering, her feet soaked and cold. She tried to walk +faster to warm her blood, and discovered that she was exhausted, tired +to the marrow of her bones. Her feet dragged on the pavement, her arms +hung heavily by her side, but she dared not stop a moment lest some +other man with abhorrent eyes should approach her. + +She set her teeth and walked; walked across the Seine without a glance +at its misted lights blinking through the rain, walked on past the +prison of Marie Antoinette, without a thought of that other harmless +woman who had loved bright and lovely things while others suffered: +walked on upon the bridge across the Seine again. This bewildered her, +making her think that she was so dazed she had doubled on her tracks. +She saw, a long way off, a solitary hooded sergent de ville, and +dragged herself across an endless expanse of wet asphalt to ask him +her way. But just before she reached him, she remembered suddenly that +of course she was on the island and was obliged to cross the Seine +again before reaching the right bank. She returned weary and +disheartened to her path, crossed the bridge, and then endlessly, +endlessly, set one heavy foot before the other under the glare of +innumerable electric lights staring down on her and on the dismal, +wet, and deserted streets. The clocks she passed told her that it +was nearly eight o'clock. Then it was past eight. What must they be +thinking of her on the Rue de Presbourg? She tried again to hurry, but +could force her aching muscles to no more than the plod, plod, plod of +her dogged advance over those interminable miles of pavement. There +was little of her then that was not cold, weary, wet flesh, suffering +all the discomforts that an animal can know. She counted her steps for +a long time, and became so stupidly absorbed in this that she made a +wrong turning and was blocks out of her way before she noticed her +mistake. This mishap reduced her almost to tears, and it was when she +was choking them weakly back and setting herself again to the cruel +long vista of the Champs-ElysĂ©es that an automobile passed her at top +speed with a man's face pressed palely to the panes. Almost at once +the car stopped in answer to a shouted command; it whirled about +and bore down on her. Felix Morrison sprang out and ran to her with +outstretched arms, his rich voice ringing through the desolation of +the rain and the night--"Sylvia! Sylvia! Are you safe?" + +He almost carried her back to the car, lifted her in. There were +wraps there, great soft, furry, velvet wraps which he cast about her, +murmuring broken ejaculations of emotion, of pity, of relief--"Oh, +your hands, how cold! Sylvia, how _could_ you? Here, drink this! I've +been insane,--absolutely out of my mind! Let me take off your hat--Oh, +your poor feet--I was on my way to--I was afraid you might have--Oh, +Sylvia, Sylvia, to have you safe!" She tried to bring to mind +something she had intended to remember; she even repeated the phrase +over to herself, "It was an ugly, ugly thing to have married Molly," +but she knew only that he was tenderness and sheltering care and +warmth and food and safety. She drew long quivering breaths like a +child coming out of a sobbing fit. + +Then before there was time for more thought, the car had whirled them +back to the door, where Aunt Victoria, outwardly calm, but very pale, +stood between the concierge and his wife, looking out into the rainy +deserted street. + +At the touch of those warm embracing arms, at that radiant presence, +at the sound of that relieved, welcoming voice, the nightmare of the +Pantheon faded away to blackness.... + +Half an hour later, she sat, fresh from a hot bath, breathing out +delicately a reminiscence of recent violet water and perfumed powder; +fresh, fine under-linen next her glowing skin; shining and refreshed, +in a gown of chiffon and satin; eating her first mouthful of Yoshido's +ambrosial soup. + +"Why, I'm so sorry," she was saying. "I went out for a walk, and then +went further than I meant to. I've been over on the left bank part of +the time, in Notre Dame and the Pantheon. And then when I started to +come home it took longer than I thought. It's so apt to, you know." + +"Why in the world, my dear, did you _walk_ home?" cried Aunt Victoria, +still brooding over her in pitying sympathy. + +"I'd--I'd lost my purse. I didn't have any money." + +"But you don't pay for a cab till you come to the end of your journey! +You could have stepped into a taxi and borrowed the money of the +concierge here." + +Sylvia was immensely disconcerted by her rustic naĂŻvetĂ© in not +thinking of this obvious device. "Oh, of course! How could I have been +so--but I was tired when I came to start home--I was very tired--too +tired to think clearly!" + +This brought them all back to the recollection of what had set her off +on her walk. There was for a time rather a strained silence; but they +were all very hungry--dinner was two hours late--and the discussion +of Yoshido's roast duckling was anything but favorable for the +consideration of painful topics. They had champagne to celebrate her +safe escape from the adventure. To the sensation of perfect ease +induced by the well-chosen dinner this added a little tingling through +all Sylvia's nerves, a pleasant, light, bright titillation. + +All might have gone well if, after the dinner, Felix had not stepped, +as was his wont, to the piano. Sylvia had been, up to that moment, +almost wholly young animal, given over to bodily ecstasy, of which not +the least was the agreeable warmth on her silk-clad ankle as she held +her slippered foot to the fire. + +But at the first chords something else in her, slowly, with extreme +pain, awoke to activity. All her life music had spoken a language to +which she could not shut her ears, and now--her face clouded, she +shifted her position, she held up a little painted screen to shield +her face from the fire, she finally rose and walked restlessly about +the room. Every grave and haunting cadence from the piano brought to +her mind, flickering and quick, like fire, a darting question, and +every one she stamped out midway, with an effort of the will. + +The intimacy between Felix and Aunt Victoria, it was strange she had +never before thought--of course not--what a hideous idea! That book, +back in Lydford, with Horace Gilbert's name on the fly-leaf, and Aunt +Victoria's cool, casual voice as she explained, "Oh, just a young +architect who used to--" Oh, the man in the Pantheon was simply +brutalized by drugs; he did not know what he was saying. His cool, +spectral laugh of sanity sounded faintly in her ears again. + +And then, out of a mounting foam of arpeggios, there bloomed for her +a new idea, solid enough, broad enough, high enough, for a refuge +against all these wolfish fangs. She sat down to think it out, hot on +the trail of an answer, the longed-for answer. + +It had just occurred to her that there was no possible logical +connection between any of those skulking phantoms and the golden +lovely things they tried to defile. Even if some people of wealth +and ease and leisure were not as careful about moral values as about +colors, and aesthetic harmonies--that meant nothing. The connection +was purely fortuitous. How silly she had been not to see that. Grant, +for purposes of argument, that Aunt Victoria was self-centered and +had lived her life with too little regard for its effect on other +people,--grant even that Felix had, under an almost overpowering +temptation, not kept in a matter of conduct the same rigid nicety of +fastidiousness which characterized his judgment of marbles--what of +it? That did not mean that one could only be fine and true in conduct +by giving up all lovely things and wearing hair-shirts. What an +outgrown, mediaeval idea! How could she have been for a moment under +its domination! It was just that old Puritanism, Spartanism of her +childhood, which was continually reaching up its bony hand from the +grave where she had interred it. + +The only danger came, she saw it now, read it plainly and +clear-headedly in the lives of the two people with her, the only +danger came from a lack of proportion. It certainly did seem to be +possible to allow the amenities and aesthetic pleasures to become so +important that moral fineness must stand aside till they were safe. +But anybody who had enough intelligence could keep his head, even +if the temptation was alluring. And simply because there was that +possible danger, why not enjoy delightful things as long as they did +not run counter to moral fineness! How absurd to think there was any +reason why they should; quite the contrary, as a thousand philosophers +attested. They would not in her case, at least! Of course, if +a decision had to be taken between the two, she would never +hesitate--never! As she phrased this conviction to herself, she turned +a ring on her white slim finger and had a throb of pleasure in the +color of the gem. What harmless, impersonal pleasures they were! How +little they hurt any one! And as to this business of morbidly probing +into healthy flesh, of insisting on going back of everything, farther +than any one could possibly go, and scrutinizing the origin of every +dollar that came into your hand ... why, that way lay madness! As +soon try to investigate all the past occupants of a seat in a railway +before using it for a journey. Modern life was not organized that way. +It was too complicated. + +Her mind rushed on excitedly, catching up more certainty, more and +more reinforcements to her argument as it advanced. There was, +therefore, nothing inherent in the manner of life she had known these +last months to account for what seemed ugly underneath. There was no +reason why some one more keenly on his guard could not live as they +did and escape sounding that dissonant note! + +The music stopped. Morrison turned on the stool and seeing her bent +head and moody stare at the fire, sent an imploring glance for help to +Mrs. Marshall-Smith. + +Just let her have the wealth and leisure and let her show how worthily +she could use it! There would be an achievement! Sylvia came around to +another phase of her new idea, there would be something worth doing, +to show that one could be as fine and true in a palace as in a +hut,--even as in a Vermont farmhouse! At this, suddenly all thought +left her. Austin Page stood before her, fixing on her his clear and +passionate and tender eyes. At that dear and well-remembered gaze, her +lip began to quiver like a child's, and her eyes filled. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith stirred herself with the effect of a splendid ship +going into action with all flags flying. "Sylvia dear," she said, +"this rain tonight makes me think of a new plan. It will very likely +rain for a week or more now. Paris is abominable in the rain. What do +you say to a change? Madeleine Perth was telling me this afternoon +that the White Star people are running a few ships from Portsmouth by +way of Cherbourg around by Gibraltar, through the Mediterranean to +Naples. That's one trip your rolling-stone of an aunt has never taken, +and I'd rather like to add it to my collection. We could be in Naples +in four days from Cherbourg and spend a month in Italy, going north as +the heat arrived. Felix--why don't you come along? You've been wanting +to see the new low reliefs in the Terme, in Rome?" + +Sylvia's heart, like all young hearts, was dazzled almost to blinking +by the radiance shed from the magic word Italy. She turned, looking +very much taken aback and bewildered, but with light in her eyes, +color in her face. + +Morrison burst out: "Oh, a dream realized! Something to live on all +one's days, the pines of the Borghese--the cypresses of the Villa +Medici--roses cascading over the walls in Rome, the view across the +Campagna from the terraces at Rocca di Papa--" + +Sylvia thought rapidly to herself: "Austin _said_ he did not want me +to answer at once. He _said_ he wanted me to take time--to take time! +I can decide better, make more sense out of everything, if I--after I +have thought more, have taken more time. No, I am not turning my back +on him. Only I must have more time to think--" + +Aloud she said, after a moment's silence, "Oh, nothing could be +lovelier!" + +She lay in her warm, clean white bed that night, sleeping the sound +sleep of the healthy young animal which has been wet and cold and +hungry, and is now dry and warmed and fed. + +Outside, across the city, on his bronze pedestal, the tortured +Thinker, loyal to his destiny, still strove terribly against the +limitations of his ape-like forehead. + + + + +BOOK IV; + +_THE STRAIT PATH_ + + + + +CHAPTER XL + +A CALL FROM HOME + + +It was quite dark when they arrived in the harbor at Naples; and +they were too late to go through the necessary formalities of harbor +entering. In company with several other in-and outward-bound steamers, +the _Carnatic_ lay to for the night. Some one pointed out a big liner +which would sail for New York the next morning, lying like a huge, +gaily lighted island, the blare of her band floating over the still +water. + +Sylvia slept little that night, missing the rolling swing of the ship, +and feeling breathless in the stifling immobility of the cabin. She +tossed about restlessly, dozing off at intervals and waking with a +start to get up on her knees and look out through the port-hole at the +lights of Naples blazing steadily in their semicircle. She tried to +think several times, about her relations to Felix, to Austin--but +nothing came to her mind except a series of scenes in which they had +figured, scenes quite disconnected, which brought no enlightenment to +her. + +As she lay awake thus, staring at the ceiling, feeling in the intense +silence and blackness that the fluttering of her eyelids was almost +audible, her heart beating irregularly, now slow, now fast, it +occurred to her that she was beginning to know something of the +intensity of real life--real grown-up life. She was astonished to +enjoy it so little. + +She fell at last, suddenly, fathoms deep into youthful slumber, and +at once passed out from tormented darkness into some strange, sunny, +wind-swept place on a height. And she was all one anguish of longing +for Austin. And he came swiftly to her and took her in his arms and +kissed her on the lips. And it was as it had been when she was a child +and heard music, she was carried away by a great swelling tide of joy +... But dusk began to fall again; Austin faded; through the darkness +something called and called to her, imperatively. With great pain she +struggled up through endless stages of half-consciousness, until she +was herself again, Sylvia Marshall, heavy-eyed, sitting up in her +berth and saying aloud, "Yes, what is it?" in answer to a knocking on +the door. + +The steward's voice answered, announcing that the first boat for shore +would leave in an hour. Sylvia sprang out of bed, the dream already +nothing more than confused brightness in her mind. By the time she was +dressed, it had altogether gone, and she only knew that she had had +a restless night. She went out on the deck, longing for the tonic of +pure air. The morning was misty--it had rained during the night--and +clouds hung heavy and low over the city. Out from this gray smother +the city gleamed like a veiled opal. Neither Felix nor her aunt was to +be seen. When she went down to breakfast, after a brisk tramp back and +forth across the deck, she was rosy and dewy, her triumphant youth +showing no sign of her vigils. She was saying to herself: "Now I've +come, it's too idiotic not to enjoy it. I _shall_ let myself go!" + +HĂ©lène attended to the ladies' packing and to the labeling and care +of the baggage. Empty-handed, care-free, feeling like a traveling +princess, Sylvia climbed down from the great steamer into a dirty, +small harbor-boat. Aunt Victoria sat down at once on the folding +camp-chair which HĂ©lène always carried for her. Sylvia and Felix stood +together at the blunt prow, watching the spectacle before them. The +clouds were lifting from the city and from Vesuvius, and from Sylvia's +mind. Her spirits rose as the boat went forward into the strange, +foreign, glowing scene. + +The oily water shimmered in smooth heavings as the clumsy boat +advanced upon it. The white houses on the hills gleamed out from their +palms. As the boat came closer to the wharf, the travelers could see +the crowds of foreign-looking people, with swarthy faces and cheap, +ungraceful clothes, looking out at the boat with alert, speculative, +unwelcoming eyes. The noise of the city streets, strange to their ears +after the days of sea silence, rose clattering, like a part of the +brilliance, the sparkle. The sun broke through the clouds, poured a +flood of glory on the refulgent city, and shone hotly on the pools of +dirty water caught in the sunken spots of the uneven stone pavement. + +Aunt Victoria made her way up the gang-plank to the landing dock, +achieving dignity even there. Felix sprang after her, to hand her her +chair, and Helene and Sylvia followed. Mrs. Marshall-Smith sat down +at once, opening her dark-purple parasol, the tense silk of which was +changed by the hot Southern sun into an iridescent bubble. "We will +wait here till the steward gets our trunks out," she announced." +It will be amusing to watch the people." The four made an oasis of +aristocracy in the seething, shouting, frowzy, gaudy, Southern +crowd, running about with the scrambling, undignified haste of ants, +sweating, gesticulating, their faces contorted with care over their +poor belongings. Sylvia was acutely conscious of her significance in +the scene. She was also fully aware that Felix missed none of the +contrast she made with the other women. She felt at once enhanced and +protected by the ignobly dressed crowd about her. Felix was right--in +America there could be no distinction, there was no background for it. + +The scene about them was theatrically magnificent. In the distance +Vesuvius towered, cloud-veiled and threatening, the harbor shone and +sparkled in the sun, the vivid, outreaching arms of Naples clasped +the jewel-like water. From it all Sylvia extracted the most perfect +distillation of traveler's joy. She felt the well-to-do tourist's +care-free detachment from the fundamentals of life, the tourist's +sense that everything exists for the purpose of being a sight for him +to see. She knew, and knew with delight, the wanderer's lightened, +emancipated sense of being at a distance from obligations, that +cheerful sense of an escape from the emprisoning solidarity of +humanity which furnishes the zest of life for the tourist and the +tramp, enabling the one light-heartedly to offend proprieties and +the other casually to commit murder. She was embarked upon a moral +vacation. She was out of the Bastile of right and wrong. She had a +vision of what freedom from entangling responsibilities is secured by +traveling. She understood her aunt's classing it as among the positive +goods of life. + +A man in a shabby blue uniform, with a bundle of letters in his hand, +walked past them towards the boat. + +"Oh, the mail," said Mrs. Marshall-Smith. "There may be some for us." +She beckoned the man to her, and said, "Marshall-Smith? Marshall? +Morrison?" + +The man sorted over his pile. "Cable for Miss Marshall," he said, +presenting it to the younger lady with a bold, familiar look +of admiration. "Letter for F. Morrison: two letters for Mrs. +Marshall-Smith." Sylvia opened her envelope, spread out the folded +sheet of paper, and read what was scrawled on it, with no realization +of the meaning. She knew only that the paper, Felix, her aunt, the +crowd, vanished in thick blackness, through which, much later, with a +great roaring in her ears, she read, as though by jagged flashes of +lightning: "Mother very ill. Come home at once. Judith." + +It seemed to her an incalculably long time between her first glance at +the words and her understanding of them, but when she emerged from the +blackness and void, into the flaunting sunlight, the roaring still +in her ears, the paper still in her hands, the scrawled words still +venomous upon it, she saw that not a moment could have passed, for +Felix and her aunt were unfolding letters of their own, their eyes +beginning to run quickly over the pages. + +Sylvia stood quite still, feeling immeasurably and bitterly alone. +She said to herself: "Mother is very sick. I must go home at once. +Judith." But she did not know what she said. She felt only an impulse +to run wildly away from something that gave her intolerable pain. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith turned over a page of her letter, smiling to +herself, and glanced up at her niece. Her smile was smitten from her +lips. Sylvia had a fantastic vision of her own aspect from the gaping +face of horror with which her aunt for an instant reflected it. She +had never before seen Aunt Victoria with an unprepared and discomposed +countenance. It was another feature of the nightmare. + +For suddenly everything resolved itself into a bad dream,--her aunt +crying out, HĂ©lène screaming and running to her, Felix snatching the +telegram from her and reading it aloud--it seemed to Sylvia that she +had heard nothing for years but those words, "Mother very sick. Come +home at once. Judith." She heard them over and over after his voice +was silent. Through their constant echoing roar in her ears she heard +but dimly the babel of talk that arose--Aunt Victoria saying that she +could not of course leave at once because no passage had been engaged, +HĂ©lène foolishly offering smelling-salts, Felix darting off to get a +carriage to take them to the hotel where she could be out of the crowd +and they could lay their plans--"Oh, my poor dear!--but you may have +more reassuring news tomorrow, you know," said Mrs. Marshall-Smith +soothingly. + +The girl faced her aunt outraged. She thought she cried out angrily, +"tomorrow!" but she did not break her silence. She was so torn by the +storm within her that she had no breath for recriminations. She turned +and ran rapidly some distance away to the edge of the wharf, where +some small rowboats hung bobbing, their owners sprawled on the seats, +smoking cigarettes and chattering. Sylvia addressed the one nearest +her in a strong, imperious voice. "I want you to take me out to that +steamer," she said, pointing out to the liner in the harbor. + +The man looked up at her blankly, his laughing, impertinent brown face +sobered at once by the sight of her own. He made a reply in Italian, +raising his shoulders. Some ill-dressed, loafing stragglers on the +wharf drew near Sylvia with an indolent curiosity. She turned to them +and asked, "Do any of you speak English?" although it was manifestly +inconceivable that any of those typical Neapolitans should. One of +them stepped forward, running his hand through greasy black curls. "I +kin, lady," he said with a fluent, vulgar New York accent. "What ye +want?" + +"Tell that man," said Sylvia, her lips moving stiffly, "to take me out +to the ship that is to leave for America this morning--and now--this +minute, I may be late now!" + +After a short impassioned colloquy, the loafer turned to her and +reported: "He says if he took you out, you couldn't git on board. Them +big ships ain't got no way for folks in little boats to git on. And +he'd ask you thirty lire, anyhow. That's a fierce price. Say, if +you'll wait a minute, I can get you a man that'll do it for--" Mrs. +Marshall-Smith and HĂ©lène had followed, and now broke through the line +of ill-smelling loungers. Mrs. Marshall-Smith took hold of her niece's +arm firmly, and began to draw her away with a dignified gesture. "You +don't know what you are doing, child," she said with a peremptory +accent of authority. "You are beside yourself. Come with me at once. +This is no--" + +Sylvia did not resist her. She ignored her. In fact, she did not +understand a word that her aunt said. She shook off the older woman's +hand with one thrust of her powerful young arm, and gathering her +skirts about her, leaped down into the boat. She took out her purse +and showed the man a fifty-lire bill. "Row fast! Fast!" she motioned +to him, sitting down in the stern and fixing her eyes on the huge bulk +of the liner, black upon the brilliance of the sunlit water. She heard +her name called from the wharf and turned her face backward, as the +light craft began to move jerkily away. + +Felix had come up and now stood between Mrs. Marshall-Smith and her +maid, both of whom were passionately appealing to him! He looked over +their heads, saw the girl already a boat-length from the wharf, and +gave a gesture of utter consternation. He ran headlong to the edge of +the dock and again called her name loudly, "Sylvia! _Sylvia!_" There +was no mistaking the quality of that cry. It was the voice of a man +who sees the woman he loves departing from him, and who wildly, +imperiously calls her back to him. But she did not return. The boat +was still so close that she could look deeply into his eyes. Through +all her tumult of horror, there struck cold to Sylvia's heart the +knowledge that they were the eyes of a stranger. The blow that had +pierced her had struck into a quivering center of life, so deep within +her, that only something as deep as its terrible suffering could seem +real. The man who stood there, so impotently calling to her, belonged +to another order of things--things which a moment ago had been +important to her, and which now no longer existed. He had become for +her as remote, as immaterial as the gaudy picturesqueness of the +scene in which he stood. She gave him a long strange look, and made a +strange gesture, a gesture of irrevocable leave-taking. She turned her +face again to the sea, and did not look back. + +They approached the liner, and Sylvia saw some dark heads looking over +the railing at her. Her boatman rowed around the stern to the other +side, where the slanting stairs used in boarding the harbor-boats +still hung over the side. The landing was far above their heads. +Sylvia stood up and cried loudly to the dull faces, staring down at +her from the steerage deck. "Send somebody down on the stairs to speak +to me." There was a stir; a man in a blue uniform came and looked over +the edge, and went away. After a moment, an officer in white ran down +the stairs to the hanging landing with the swift, sure footing of a +seaman. Sylvia stood up again, turning her white face up to him, her +eyes blazing in the shadow of her hat. "I've just heard that my mother +is very sick, and I must get back to America at once. If you will let +down the rope ladder, I can climb up. I must go! I have plenty of +money. I _must_!" + +The officer stared, shook his head, and ran back up the stairs, +disappearing into the black hole in the ship's side. The dark, heavy +faces continued to hang over the railing, staring fixedly down at the +boat with a steady, incurious gaze. Sylvia's boatman balanced his +oar-handles on his knees, rolled a cigarette and lighted it. The boat +swayed up and down on the shimmering, heaving roll of the water, +although the ponderous ship beside it loomed motionless as a rock. +The sun beat down on Sylvia's head and up in her face from the molten +water till she felt sick, but when another officer in white, an +elderly man with an impassive, bearded face, came down the stairs, she +rose up, instantly forgetful of everything but her demand. She called +out her message again, straining her voice until it broke, poised so +impatiently in the little boat, swinging under her feet, that she +seemed almost about to spring up towards the two men leaning over to +catch her words. When she finished, the older man nodded, the younger +one ran back up the stairs, and returned with a rope ladder. + +Sylvia's boatman stirred himself with an ugly face of misgiving. +He clutched at her arm, and made close before her face the hungry, +Mediterranean gesture of fingering money. She took out her purse, gave +him the fifty-lire note, and catching at the ladder as it was flung +down, disregarding the shouted commands of the men above her to +"wait!" she swung herself upon it, climbing strongly and surely in +spite of her hampering skirts. + +The two men helped her up, alarmed and vexed at the risk she had +taken. They said something about great crowds on the boat, and that +only in the second cabin was there a possibility for accommodations. +If she answered them, she did not know what she said. She followed the +younger man down a long corridor, at first dark and smelling of hemp, +later white, bright with electric light, smelling strongly of fresh +paint, stagnant air, and machine-oil. They emerged in a round hallway +at the foot of a staircase. The officer went to a window for a +conference with the official behind it, and returned to Sylvia to say +that there was no room, not even a single berth vacant. Some shabby +woman-passengers with untidy hair and crumpled clothes drew near, +looking at her with curiosity. Sylvia appealed to them, crying out +again, "My mother is very sick and I must go back to America at +once. Can't any of you--can't you--?" she stopped, catching at the +banisters. Her knees were giving way under her. A woman with a flabby +pale face and disordered gray hair sprang towards her and took her in +her arms with a divine charity. "You can have half my bed!" she cried, +drawing Sylvia's head down on her shoulder. "Poor girl! Poor girl! I +lost my only son last year!" + +Her accent, her look, the tones of her voice, some emanation of deep +humanity from her whole person, reached Sylvia's inner self, the +first message that had penetrated to that core of her being since the +deadly, echoing news of the telegram. Upon her icy tension poured a +flood of dissolving warmth. Her hideous isolation was an illusion. +This plain old woman, whom she had never seen before, was her sister, +her blood-kin,--they were both human beings. She gave a cry and flung +her arms about the other's neck, clinging to her like a person falling +from a great height, the tears at last streaming down her face. + + + + +CHAPTER XLI + +HOME AGAIN + + +The trip home passed like a long shuddering bad dream in which one +waits eternally, bound hand and foot, for a blow which does not fall. +Somehow, before the first day was over, an unoccupied berth was found +for Sylvia, in a tiny corner usually taken by one of the ship's +servants. Sylvia accepted this dully. She was but half alive, all her +vital forces suspended until the journey should be over. The throbbing +of the engines came to seem like the beating of her own heart, and +she lay tensely in her berth for hours at a time, feeling that it was +partly her energy which was driving the ship through the waters. She +only thought of accomplishing the journey, covering the miles which +lay before her. From what lay at the end she shrank back, returning +again to her hypnotic absorption in the throbbing of the engines. The +old woman who had offered to share her berth had disappeared at the +first rough water and had been invisible all the trip. Sylvia did not +think of her again. That was a recollection which with all its sacred +significance was to come back later to Sylvia's maturer mind. + +The ship reached New York late in the afternoon, and docked that +night. Sylvia stood alone, in her soiled wrinkled suit, shapeless from +constant wear, her empty hands clutching at the railing, and was the +first passenger to dart down the second-class gang-plank. She ran to +see if there were letters or a telegram for her. + +"Yes, there is a telegram for you," said the steward, holding out a +sealed envelope to her. "It came on with the pilot and ought to have +been given you before." + +She took the envelope, but was unable to open it. The arc lights +flared and winked above her in the high roof of the wharf; the crowds +of keen-faced, hard-eyed men and women in costly, neat-fitting +clothing were as oblivious of her and as ferociously intent on their +own affairs as the shabby, noisy crowd she had left in Naples, +brushing by her as though she were a part of the wharf as they bent +over their trunks anxiously, and locked them up with determination. It +seemed to Sylvia that she could never break the spell of fear which +bound her fast. Minute after minute dragged by, and she still stood, +very white, very sick. + +She was aware that some one stood in front of her, looking into her +face, and she recognized one of the ship's officials whom she had +noticed from a distance on the ship, an under-officer, somehow +connected with the engines, who had sat at table with the second-class +passengers. He was a burly, red-faced man, with huge strong hands and +a bald head. + +He looked at her now for a moment with an intent kindness, and taking +her arm led her a step to a packing-case on which he made her sit +down. At the break in her immobility, a faintness came over Sylvia. +The man bent over her and began to fan her with his cap. A strong +smell of stale and cheap tobacco reached Sylvia from all of his +obese person, but his vulgar, ugly face expressed a profoundly +self-forgetful concern. "There, feelin' better?" he asked, his eyes +anxiously on hers. The man looked at the envelope comprehendingly: +"Oh--bad news--" he murmured. Sylvia opened her hand and showed him +that it had not been opened. "I haven't looked at it yet," she said +pitifully. + +The man made an inarticulate murmur of pity--put out his thick red +fingers, took the message gently from her hand, and opened it. As he +read she searched his face with an impassioned scrutiny. + +When he raised his eyes from the paper, she saw in them, in that +grossly fleshy countenance, such infinite pity that even her swift +intuition of its meaning was not so swift as to reach her heart first. +The blow did not reach her naked and unprotected in the solitude of +her egotism, as it had at Naples. Confusedly, half-resentfully, but +irresistibly she knew that she did not--could not--stand alone, was +not the first thus to be struck down. This knowledge brought the tonic +summons to courage. She held out her hand unflinchingly, and stood +up as she read the message, "Mother died this morning at dawn." The +telegram was dated three days before. She was now two days from home. + +She looked up at the man before her and twice tried to speak before +she could command her voice. Then she said quite steadily: "I live in +the West. Can you tell me anything about trains to Chicago?" + +"I'm going with ye, to th' train," he said, taking her arm and moving +forward. Two hours later his vulgar, ugly, compassionate face was the +last she saw as the train moved out of the station. He did not seem a +stranger to Sylvia. She saw that he was more than middle-aged, he must +have lost _his_ mother, there must have been many deaths in his past. +He seemed more familiar to her than her dearest friends had seemed +before; but from now on she was to feel closer to every human being +than before to her most loved. A great breach had been made in the +wall of her life--the wall which had hidden her fellows from her. She +saw them face the enigma as uncomprehendingly, as helplessly as she, +and she felt the instinct of terror to huddle close to others, even +though they feel--_because_ they feel--a terror as unrelieved. It was +not that she loved her fellow-beings more from this hour, rather that +she felt, to the root of her being, her inevitable fellowship with +them. + +The journey home was almost as wholly a period of suspended animation +for Sylvia as the days on the ocean had been. She had read the +telegram at last; now she knew what had happened, but she did not yet +know what it meant. She felt that she would not know what it meant +until she reached home. How could her mother be dead? What did it mean +to have her mother dead? + +She said the grim words over and over, handling them with heartsick +recklessness as a desperate man might handle the black, ugly objects +with smoking fuses which he knows carry death. But for Sylvia no +explosion came. No ravaging perception of the meaning of the words +reached her strained inner ear. She said them over and over, the sound +of them was horrifying to her, but in her heart she did not believe +them. Her mother, _her_ mother could not die! + +There was no one, of course, at the La Chance station to meet her, +and she walked out through the crowd and took the street-car without +having seen a familiar face. It was five o'clock in the afternoon +then, and six when she walked up the dusty country road and turned in +through the gate in the hedge. There was home--intimately a part of +her in every detail of its unforgotten appearance. The pines stood up +strong in their immortal verdure, the thick golden hush of the summer +afternoon lay like an enchantment about the low brown house. And +something horrible, unspeakably horrible had happened there. Under the +forgotten dust and grime of her long railway journey, she was deadly +pale as she stepped up on the porch. Judith came to the door, saw her +sister, opened her arms with a noble gesture, and clasped Sylvia to +her in a strong and close embrace. Not a word was spoken. The two +clung to each other silently, Sylvia weeping incessantly, holding fast +to the dear human body in her arms, feeling herself dissolved in a +very anguish of love and pain. Her wet cheek was pressed against +Judith's lips, the tears rained down in a torrent. All the rich, +untapped strength of her invincible youth was in that healthful flood +of tears. + +There were none such in the eyes of Professor Marshall as he came down +the stairs to greet his daughter. Sylvia was immeasurably shocked by +his aspect. He did not look like her father. She sought in vain in +that gray countenance for any trace of her father's expression. He +came forward with a slow, dragging step, and kissed his daughter, +taking her hand--his, she noticed, felt like a sick man's, parched, +the skin like a dry husk. He spoke, in a voice which had no resonance, +the first words that had been uttered: "You must be very tired, +Sylvia. You would better go and lie down. Your sister will go with +you." He himself turned away and walked slowly towards the open door. +Sylvia noticed that he shuffled his feet as he walked. + +Judith drew Sylvia away up the stairs to her own slant-ceilinged room, +and the two sat down on the bed, side by side, with clasped hands. +Judith now told briefly the outline of what had happened. Sylvia +listened, straining her swollen eyes to see her sister's face, wiping +away the tears which ran incessantly down her pale, grimy cheeks, +repressing her sobs to listen, although they broke out in one burst +after another. Her mother had gone down very suddenly and they had +cabled at once--then she grew better--she had been unspeakably +brave--fighting the disease by sheer will-power--she had conquered +it--she was gaining--they were sorry they had cabled Sylvia--she had +not known she was going to die--none of them had dreamed she was going +to die--suddenly as the worst of her disease had spent itself and the +lungs were beginning to clear--suddenly her heart had given way, and +before the nurse could call her husband and children to her, she was +gone. They had been there under the same roof, and had not been with +her at the last. The last time they had seen her, she was alive and +smiling at them--such a brave, wan shadow of her usual smile--for a +few moments they went about their affairs, full of hope--and when they +entered the sick-room again-- + +Sylvia could bear no more, screaming out, motioning Judith imperiously +to stop;--she began to understand what had happened to her; the words +she had repeated so dully were like thunder in her ears. Her mother +was dead. + +Judith took her sister again in her arms, holding her close, as though +she were the older. Sylvia was weeping again, the furious, healing, +inexhaustible tears of youth. To both the sisters it seemed that they +were passing an hour of supreme bitterness; but their strong young +hearts, clinging with unconscious tenacity to their right to joy, +were at that moment painfully opening and expanding beyond the narrow +bounds of childhood. Henceforth they were to be great enough to harbor +joy--a greater joy--and sorrow, side by side. + +Moreover, as though their action-loving mother were still watching +over them, they found themselves confronted at once with an inexorable +demand for their strength and courage. + +Judith detached herself, and said in a firm voice: "Sylvia, you +mustn't cry any more. We must think what to do." + +As Sylvia looked at her blankly, she went on: "Somehow Lawrence must +be taken away for a while--until Father's--either you or I must +go with him and stay, and the other one be here with Father until +he's--he's more like himself." + +Sylvia, fresh from the desolation of solitude in sorrow, cried out: +"Oh, Judith, how can you! Now's the time for us all to stay together! +Why should we--?" + +Judith went to the door and closed it before answering, a precaution +so extraordinary in that house of frank openness that Sylvia was +struck into silence by it. Standing by the door, Judith said in a low +tone, "You didn't notice--anything--about Father?" + +"Oh yes, he looks ill. He is so pale--he frightened me!" + +Judith looked down at the floor and was silent a moment. Sylvia's +heart began to beat fast with a new foreboding. "Why, what _is_ the +matter with--" she began. + +Judith covered her face with her hands. "I don't know what to _do_!" +she said despairingly. + +No phrase coming from Judith could have struck a more piercing alarm +into her sister's heart. She ran to Judith, pulled her hands down, and +looked into her face anxiously. "What do you mean, Judy--what do you +mean?" + +"Why--it's five days now since Mother died, three days since the +funeral--and Father has hardly eaten a mouthful--and I don't think +he's slept at all. I know he hasn't taken his clothes off. And--and--" +she drew Sylvia again to the bed, and sat down beside her, "he says +such things ... the night after Mother died Lawrence had cried so I +was afraid he would be sick, and I got him to bed and gave him some +hot milk,"--the thought flashed from one to the other almost palpably, +"That is what Mother would have done"--"and he went to sleep--he was +perfectly worn out. I went downstairs to find Father. It was after +midnight. He was walking around the house into one room after another +and out on the porch and even out in the garden, as fast as he could +walk. He looked so--" She shuddered. "I went up to him and said, +'Father, Father, what are you doing?' He never stopped walking an +instant, but he said, as though I was a total stranger and we were in +a railway station or somewhere like that, 'I am looking for my wife. I +expect to come across her any moment, but I can't seem to remember +the exact place I was to meet her. She must be somewhere about, and +I suppose--' and then, Sylvia, before I could help it, he opened the +door to Mother's room quick--and the men were there, and the coffin--" +She stopped short, pressing her hand tightly over her mouth to stop +its quivering. Sylvia gazed at her in horrified silence. + +After a pause, Judith went on: "He turned around and ran as fast as +he could up the stairs to his study and locked the door. He locked +me out--the night after Mother died. I called and called to him--he +didn't answer. I was afraid to call very loud for fear of waking +Lawrence. I've had to think of Lawrence too." She stopped again to +draw a long breath. She stopped and suddenly reached out imploring +hands to hold fast to Sylvia. "I'm so _glad_ you have come!" she +murmured. + +This from Judith ran like a galvanic shock through Sylvia's +sorrow-sodden heart. She sat up, aroused as she had never been before +to a stern impulse to resist her emotion, to fight it down. She +clasped Judith's hand hard, and felt the tears dry in her eyes. Judith +went on: "If it hadn't been for Lawrence--he's sick as it is. I've +kept him in his room--twice when he's been asleep I've managed to get +Father to eat something and lie down--there seem to be times when he's +so worn out that he doesn't know what he's doing. But it comes back to +him. One night I had just persuaded him to lie down, when he sat up +again with that dreadful face and said very loud: 'Where is my wife? +Where is Barbara?' That was on the night after the funeral. And the +next day he came to me, out in the garden, and said,--he never seems +to know who I am: 'I don't mind the separation from my wife, you +understand--it's not that--I'm not a child, I can endure that--but I +_must_ know where she is. I _must_ know where she is!' He said it over +and over, until his voice got so loud he seemed to hear it himself and +looked around--and then he went back into the house and began walking +all around, opening and shutting all the doors. What I'm afraid of is +his meeting Lawrence and saying something like that. Lawrence would go +crazy. I thought, as soon as you came, you could take him away to the +Helman farm--the Helmans have been so good--and Mrs. Helman offered to +take Lawrence--only he oughtn't to be alone--he needs one of us--" + +Judith was quiet now, and though very pale, spoke with her usual +firmness. Sylvia too felt herself iron under the pressure of her +responsibilities. She said: "Yes, I see. All right--I'll go," and the +two went together into Lawrence's room. He was lying on the bed, his +face in the pillows. At the sound of their steps he turned over and +showed a pitiful white face. He got up and moved uncertainly towards +Sylvia, sinking into her arms and burying his face on her shoulder. + +But a little later when their plan was told him, he turned to +Judith with a cry: "No, _you_ go with me, Judy! I want _you_! You +'know'--about it." + +Over his head the sisters looked at each other with questioning eyes; +and Sylvia nodded her consent. Lawrence had always belonged to Judith. + + + + +CHAPTER XLII + + "_Strange that we creatures of the petty ways, + Poor prisoners behind these fleshly bars, + Can sometimes think us thoughts with God ablaze, + Touching the "fringes of the outer stars_."" + + +And so they went away, Lawrence very white, stooping with the weight +of his suitcase, his young eyes, blurred and red, turned upon Judith +with an infinite confidence in her strength. Judith herself was pale, +but her eyes were dry and her lips firm in her grave, steadfast face, +so like her mother's, except for the absence of the glint of humor. +Sylvia kissed her good-bye, feeling almost a little fear of her +resolute sister; but as she watched them go down the path, and noted +the appealing drooping of the boy towards Judith, Sylvia was swept +with a great wave of love and admiration--and courage. + +She turned to face the difficult days and nights before her and forced +herself to speak cheerfully to her father, who sat in a chair on the +porch, watching the departing travelers and not seeing them. "How +splendid Judith is!" she cried, and went on with a break in the voice +she tried to control: "She will take Mother's place for us all!" + +Her father frowned slightly, as though she had interrupted him in some +effort where concentration was necessary, but otherwise gave no sign +that he heard her. + +Sylvia watched him anxiously through the window. Presently she saw +him relax from his position of strained attention with a great sigh, +almost a groan, and lean back in his chair, covering his eyes with +his hands. When he took them down, his face had the aged, ravaged +expression of exhaustion which had so startled her on her arrival. Now +she felt none of her frightened revulsion, but only an aching pity +which sent her out to him in a rush, her arms outstretched, crying to +him brokenly that he still had his children who loved him more than +anything in the world. + +For the first time in her life, her father repelled her, shrinking +away from her with a brusque, involuntary recoil that shocked her, +thrusting her arms roughly to one side, and rising up hastily to +retreat into the house. He said in a bitter, recriminating tone, "You +don't know what you are talking about," and left her standing there, +the tears frozen in her eyes. He went heavily upstairs to his study on +the top floor and locked the door. Sylvia heard the key turn. It shut +her into an intolerable solitude. She had not thought before that +anything could seem worse than the desolation of her mother's absence. + +She felt a deathlike sinking of her heart. She was afraid of her +father, who no longer seemed her father, created to protect and +cherish her, but some maniac stranger. She felt an impulse like that +of a terrified child to run away, far away to some one who should +stand before her and bear the brunt. She started up from her chair +with panic haste, but the familiar room, saturated with recollections +of her mother's gallant spirit, stood about her like a wall, shutting +her in to the battle with her heart. Who was there to summon whom she +could endure as a spectator of her father's condition? Her mother's +empty chair stood opposite her, against the wall. She looked at it +fixedly; and drawing a long breath sat down quietly. + +This act of courage brought a reward in the shape of a relaxation +of the clutch on her throat and about her heart. Her mother's wise +materialism came to her mind now and she made a heartsick resolve that +she would lead as physically normal a life as possible, working out of +doors, forcing herself to eat, and that, above all things, she would +henceforth deny herself the weakening luxury of tears. And yet but an +hour later, as she bent over her mother's flower-beds blazing in the +sun, she found the tears again streaming from her eyes. + +She tried to wipe them away, but they continued to rain down on her +cheeks. Her tongue knew their saltness. She was profoundly alarmed and +cowed by this irresistible weakness, and stood helplessly at bay among +the languid roses. The sensation of her own utter weakness, prostrate +before her dire need for strength, was as bitter as the taste of her +tears. + +She stood there, among the sun-warmed flowers, looking like a symbolic +figure of youth triumphant ... and she felt herself to be in a black +and windowless prison, where the very earth under her feet was +treacherous, where everything betrayed her. + +Then, out of her need, her very great need, out of the wide and empty +spaces of her inculcated unbelief, something rose up and overwhelmed +her. The force stronger than herself which she had longed to feel, +blew upon her like a wind out of eternity. + +She found herself on her knees, her face hidden in her hands, sending +out a passionate cry which transcended words. The child of the +twentieth century, who had been taught not to pray, was praying. + +She did not know how long she knelt there before the world emerged +from the white glory which had whirled down upon it, and hidden it +from her. But when she came to herself, her eyes were dry, and the +weakening impulse to tears had gone. She stretched out her hands +before her, and they did not tremble. The force stronger than herself +was now in her own heart. From her mother's garden there rose a +strong, fragrant exhalation, as sweet as honey. + + * * * * * + +For more than an hour Sylvia worked steadily among the flowers, +consciously wrought upon by the healing emanations from the crushed, +spicy leaves, the warm earth, and the hot, pure breath of the summer +wind on her face. + +Once she had a passing fancy that her mother stood near her ... +smiling. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII + +"_Call now; is there any that will answer thee?_"--JOB. + + +When she went back to the silent, echoing house, she felt calmer than +at any time since she had read the telegram in Naples. She did not +stop to wash her earth-stained hands, but went directly up the stairs +to the locked door at the top. She did not knock this time. She stood +outside and said authoritatively in a clear, strong voice, the sound +of which surprised her, "Father dear, please open the door and let me +in." + +There was a pause, and then a shuffle of feet. The door opened and +Professor Marshall appeared, his face very white under the thick +stubble of his gray, unshaven beard, his shoulders bowed, his head +hanging. Sylvia went to his side, took his hand firmly in hers, and +said quietly: "Father, you must eat something. You haven't taken a bit +of food in two days. And then you must lie down and rest," She poured +all of her new strength into these quietly issued commands, and +permitted herself no moment's doubt of his obedience to them. He +lifted his head, looked at her, and allowed her to lead him down the +stairs and again into the dining-room. Here he sat, quite spent, +staring before him until Sylvia returned from the kitchen with a plate +of cold meat and some bread. She sat down beside him, putting out +again consciously all her strength, and set the knife and fork in his +nerveless hands. In the gentle monologue with which she accompanied +his meal she did not mention her mother, or anything but slight, +casual matters about the house and garden. She found herself speaking +in a hushed tone, as though not to awake a sleeping person. Although +she sat quite quietly, her hands loosely folded on the table, her +heart was thrilling and burning to a high resolve. "Now it is my turn +to help my father." + +After he had eaten a few mouthfuls and laid down the knife and fork, +she did not insist further, but rose to lead him to the couch in the +living-room. She dared not risk his own room, the bed on which her +mother had died. + +"Now you must lie down and rest, Father," she said, loosening his +clothes and unlacing his shoes as though he had been a sick child. +He let her do what she would, and as she pushed him gently back, he +yielded and lay down at full length. Sylvia sat down beside him, +feeling her strength ebbing. Her father lay on his back, his eyes wide +open. On the ceiling above him a circular flicker of light danced and +shimmered, reflected from a glass of water on the table. His eyes +fastened upon this, at first unwinkingly, with a fixed intensity, +and later with dropped lids and half-upturned eyeballs. He was quite +quiet, and finally seemed asleep, although the line of white between +his eyelids made Sylvia shudder. + +With the disappearance of the instant need for self-control and +firmness, she felt an immense fatigue. It had cost her dearly, this +victory, slight as it was. She drooped in her chair, exhausted and +undone. She looked down at the ash-gray, haggard face on the pillow, +trying to find in those ravaged features her splendidly life-loving +father. It was so quiet that she could hear the big clock in the +dining-room ticking loudly, and half-consciously she began to +count the swings of the pendulum: One--two--three--four--five--six-- +seven--eight--nine--ten--eleven--twelve--thirteen--fourteen-- + +She awoke to darkness and the sound of her mother's name loudly +screamed. She started up, not remembering where she was, astonished to +find herself sitting in a chair. As she stood bewildered in the +dark, the clock in the dining-room struck two. At once from a little +distance, outside the window apparently, she heard the same wild +cry ringing in her ears--"_Bar-ba-ra!_" All the blood in her body +congealed and the hair on her head seemed to stir itself, in the +instant before she recognized her father's voice. + +The great impulse of devotion which had entered her heart in the +garden still governed her. Now she was not afraid. She did not think +of running away. She only knew that she must find her father quickly +and take care of him. Outside on the porch, the glimmering light from +the stars showed her his figure, standing by one of the pillars, +leaning forward, one hand to his ear. As she came out of the door, he +dropped his hand, threw back his head, and again sent out an agonizing +cry--"_Bar-ba-ra!_ Where are you?" It was not the broken wail of +despair; it was the strong, searching cry of a lost child who thinks +trustingly that if he but screams loudly enough his mother must hear +him and come--and yet who is horribly frightened because she does not +answer. But this was a man in his full strength who called! It seemed +the sound must reach beyond the stars. Sylvia felt her very bones +ringing with it. She went along the porch to her father, and laid +her hand on his arm. Through his sleeve she could feel how tense and +knotted were the muscles. "Oh, Father, _don't!_" she said in a low +tone. He shook her off roughly, but did not turn his head or look at +her. Sylvia hesitated, not daring to leave him and not daring to try +to draw him away; and again was shaken by that terrible cry. + +The intensity of his listening attitude seemed to hush into +breathlessness the very night about him, as it did Sylvia. There was +not a sound from the trees. They stood motionless, as though carved in +wood; not a bird fluttered a wing; not a night-insect shrilled; the +brook, dried by the summer heat to a thread, crept by noiselessly. As +once more the frantic cry resounded, it seemed to pierce this opaque +silence like a palpable missile, and to wing its way without hindrance +up to the stars. Not the faintest murmur came in answer. The silence +shut down again, stifling. Sylvia and her father stood as though +in the vacuum of a great bell-glass which shut them away from the +rustling, breathing, living world. Sylvia said again, imploringly, +"Oh, _Father_!" He looked at her angrily, sprang from the porch, and +walked rapidly towards the road, stumbling and tripping over the laces +of his shoes, which Sylvia had loosened when she had persuaded him to +lie down. Sylvia ran after him, her long bounds bringing her up to +his side in a moment. The motion sent the blood racing through her +stiffened limbs again. She drew a long breath of liberation. As she +stepped along beside her father, peering in the starlight at his +dreadful face, half expecting him to turn and strike her at any +moment, she felt an immense relief. The noise of their feet on the +path was like a sane voice of reality. Anything was more endurable +than to stand silent and motionless and hear that screaming call lose +itself in the grimly unanswering distance. + +They were on the main road now, walking so swiftly that, in the hot +summer night, Sylvia felt her forehead beaded and her light dress +cling to her moist body. She took her father's hand. It was parched +like a sick man's, the skin like a dry husk. After this, they walked +hand-in-hand. Professor Marshall continued to walk rapidly, scuffling +in his loose, unlaced shoes. They passed barns and farmhouses, the +latter sleeping, black in the starlight, with darkened windows. In +one, a poor little shack of two rooms, there was a lighted pane, and +as they passed, Sylvia heard the sick wail of a little child. The +sound pierced her heart. She longed to go in and put her arms about +the mother. Now she understood. She tightened her hold on her father's +hand and lifted it to her lips. + +He suffered this with no appearance of his former anger, and soon +after Sylvia was aware that his gait was slackening. She looked at him +searchingly, and saw that he had swung from unnatural tension to spent +exhaustion. His head was hanging and as he walked he wavered. She put +her hand under his elbow and turned him about on the road. "Now we +will go home," she said, drawing his arm through hers. He made no +resistance, not seeming to know what she had done, and shuffled along +wearily, leaning all his weight on her arm. She braced herself against +this drag, and led him slowly back, wiping her face from time to time +with her sleeve. There were moments when she thought she must let him +sink on the road, but she fought through these, and as the sky was +turning faintly gray over their heads, and the implacably silent stars +were disappearing in this pale light, the two stumbled up the walk to +the porch. + +Professor Marshall let himself be lowered into the steamer chair. +Sylvia stood by him until she was sure he would not stir, and then +hurried into the kitchen. In a few moments she brought him a cup of +hot coffee and a piece of bread. He drank the one and ate the other +without protest She set the tray down and put a pillow under her +father's head, raising the foot-rest. He did not resist her. His head +fell back on the pillow, but his eyes did not close. They were fixed +on a distant point in the sky. + +Sylvia tiptoed away into the house and sank down shivering into a +chair. A great fit of trembling and nausea came over her. She rose, +walked into the kitchen, her footsteps sounding in her ears like her +mother's. There was some coffee left, which she drank resolutely, and +she cooked an egg and forced it down, her mother's precepts loud in +her ears. Whatever else happened, she must have her body in condition +to be of use. + +After this she went out to the porch again and lay down in the hammock +near her father. The dawn had brightened into gold, and the sun was +showing on the distant, level, green horizon-line. + + * * * * * + +It was almost the first moment of physical relaxation she had known, +and to her immense, her awed astonishment it was instantly filled with +a pure, clear brilliance, the knowledge that Austin Page lived and +loved her. It was the first, it was the only time she thought of +anything but her father, and this was not a thought, it was a vision. +In the chaos about her, a great sunlit rock had emerged. She laid hold +on it and knew that she would not sink. + + * * * * * + +But now, _now_ she must think of nothing but her father! There was no +one else who could help her father. Could she? Could any one? + +She herself, since her prayer among the roses, cherished in her +darkened heart a hope of dawn. But how could she tell her father of +that? Even if she had been able to force him to listen to her, she had +nothing that words could say, nothing but the recollection of that +burning hour in the garden to set against the teachings of a lifetime. +That had changed life for her ... but what could it mean to her +father? How could she tell him of what was only a wordless radiance? +Her father had taught her that death meant the return of the spirit to +the great, impersonal river of life. If the spirit had been superb and +splendid, like her mother's, the river of life was the brighter for +it, but that was all. Her mother had lived, and now lived no more. +That was what they had tried to teach her to believe. That was what +her father had taught her--without, it now appeared, believing it +himself. + +And yet she divined that it was not that he would not, but that he +could not now believe it. He was like a man set in a vacuum fighting +for the air without which life is impossible. And she knew no way +to break the imprisoning wall and let in air for him. _Was_ there, +indeed, any air outside? There must be, or the race could not live +from one generation to the next. Every one whose love had encountered +death must have found an air to breathe or have died. + +Constantly through all these thoughts, that day and for many days and +months to come, there rang the sound of her mother's name, screamed +aloud. She heard it as though she were again standing by her father +under the stars. And there had been no answer. + +She felt the tears stinging at her eyelids and sat up, terrified at +the idea that her weakness was about to overtake her. She would go +again out to the garden where she had found strength before. The +morning sun was now hot and glaring in the eastern sky. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIV + +"_A bruised reed will He not break, and a dimly burning wick will He +not quench_,"--ISAIAH. + + +As she stepped down the path, she saw a battered black straw hat on +the other side of the hedge. Cousin Parnelia's worn old face and +dim eyes looked at her through the gate. Under her arm she held +planchette. Sylvia stepped through the gate and drew it inhospitably +shut back of her. "What is it, Cousin Parnelia?" she said +challengingly, determined to protect her father. + +The older woman's face was all aglow. "Oh, my dear; I've had such a +wonderful message from your dear mother. Last night--" + +Sylvia recoiled from the mad old creature. She could not bear to have +her sane, calm, strong mother's name on those lips. Cousin Parnelia +went on, full of confidence: "I was sound asleep last night when I +was awakened by the clock's striking two. It sounded so loud that I +thought somebody had called to me. I sat up in bed and said, 'What is +it?' and then I felt a great longing to have planchette write. I got +out of bed in my nightgown and sat down in the dark at the table. +Planchette wrote so fast that I could hardly keep up with it. And when +it stopped, I lighted a match and see ... here ... in your mother's +very handwriting"--fervently she held the bit of paper up for Sylvia +to see. The girl cast a hostile look at the paper and saw that the +writing on it was the usual scrawl produced by Cousin Parnelia, hardly +legible, and resembling anything rather than her mother's handwriting. + +"Read it--read it--it is too beautiful!" quivered the other, "and then +let me show it to your father. It was meant for him--" + +Sylvia shook like a roughly plucked fiddle-string. She seized the +wrinkled old hand fiercely. "Cousin Parnelia, I forbid you going +anywhere near my father! You know as well as I do how intensely he +has always detested spiritualism. To see you might be the thing that +would--" + +The old woman broke in, protesting, her hat falling to one side, her +brown false front sliding with it and showing the thin, gray hairs +beneath. "But, Sylvia, this is the very thing that would save +him--such a beautiful, beautiful message from your mother,--_see_! In +her own handwriting!" + +Sylvia snatched the sheet of yellow paper. "_That's_ not my mother's +handwriting! Do you think I am as crazy as _you_ are!" She tore the +paper into shreds and scattered them from her, feeling a relief in the +violence of her action. The next moment she remembered how patient her +mother had always been with her daft kinswoman and seeing tears in the +blurred old eyes, went to put placating arms about the other's neck. +"Never mind, Cousin Parnelia," she said with a vague kindness, "I know +you mean to do what's right--only we don't believe as you do, and +Father _must_ not be excited!" She turned sick as she spoke and shrank +away from the hedge, carrying her small old cousin with her. Above the +hedge appeared her father's gray face and burning eyes. + +He was not looking at her, but at Cousin Parnelia, who now sprang +forward, crying that she had had a beautiful, beautiful message from +Cousin Barbara. "_It_ came last night at two o'clock ... just after +the clock struck two--" + +Professor Marshall looked quickly at his daughter, and she saw that he +too had heard the clock striking in the dreadful night, and that he +noted the coincidence. + +"Just after the clock struck two she wrote the loveliest message for +you with planchette. Sylvia tore it up. But I'm sure that if we try +with faith, she will repeat it ..." + +Professor Marshall's eyes were fixed on his wife's old cousin. "Come +in," he said in a hoarse voice. They were almost the first words +Sylvia had heard him say. + +Cousin Parnelia hastened up the path to the house. Sylvia followed +with her father, at the last extremity of agitation and perplexity. + +When Cousin Parnelia reached the dining-room table, she sat down by +it, pushed the cloth to one side, and produced a fresh sheet of yellow +paper from her shabby bag. "Put yourselves in a receptive frame of +mind," she said in a glib, professional manner. Sylvia stiffened and +tried to draw her father away, but he continued to stand by the table, +staring at the blank sheet of paper with a strange, wild expression on +his white face. He did not take his eyes from the paper. In a moment, +he sat down suddenly, as though his knees had failed him. + +There was a long silence, in which Sylvia could hear the roaring of +the blood in her arteries. Cousin Parnelia put one deeply veined, +shrunken old hand on planchette and the other over her eyes and +waited, her wrinkled, commonplace old face assuming a solemn +expression of importance. The clock ticked loudly. + +Planchette began to write--at first in meaningless flourishes, then +with occasional words, and finally Sylvia saw streaming away from the +pencil the usual loose, scrawling handwriting. Several lines were +written and then the pencil stopped abruptly. Sylvia standing near her +father heard his breathing grow loud and saw in a panic that the veins +on his temples were swollen. + +Cousin Parnelia took her hand off planchette, put on her spectacles, +read over what had been written, and gave it to Professor Marshall. +Sylvia was in such a state of bewilderment that nothing her father +could have done would have surprised her. She half expected to see him +dash the paper in the old woman's face, half thought that any moment +he would fall, choking with apoplexy. + +What he did was to take the paper and try to hold it steadily enough +to read. But his hand shook terribly. + +"I will read it to you," said Cousin Parnelia, and she read aloud +in her monotonous, illiterate voice: "'I am well and happy, dearest +Elliott, and never far from you. When you call to me, I hear you. +All is not yet clear, but I wish I could tell you more of the whole +meaning. I am near you this moment. I wish that--' The message stopped +there," explained Cousin Parnelia, laying down the paper. + +Professor Marshall leaned over it, straining his eyes to the rude +scrawls, passing his hand over his forehead as though to brush away a +web. He broke out in a loud, high voice. "That is her handwriting.... +Good God, her very handwriting--the way she writes Elliott--it is from +_her!_" He snatched the paper up and took it to the window, stumbling +over the chairs blindly as he went. As he held it up to the light, +poring over it again, he began to weep, crying out his wife's name +softly, the tears streaming down his unshaven cheeks. He came back to +the table, and sank down before it, still sobbing, still murmuring +incessantly, "Oh, Barbara--Barbara!" and laid his head on his +outstretched arms. + +"Let him cry!" whispered Cousin Parnelia sentimentally to Sylvia, +drawing her away into the hall. A few moments later when they looked +in, he had fallen asleep, his head turned to one side so that Sylvia +saw his face, tear-stained and exhausted, but utterly relaxed and at +peace, like that of a little child in sleep. Crushed in one hand was +the yellow sheet of paper covered with coarse, wavering marks. + + + + +CHAPTER XLV + + "_That our soul may swim + We sink our heart down, bubbling, under wave_" + + +The two sisters, their pale faces grave in the shadow of their wide +hats, were on their knees with trowels in a border of their mother's +garden. Judith had been giving a report of Lawrence's condition, and +Sylvia was just finishing an account of what had happened at home, +when the gate in the osage-orange hedge clicked, and a blue-uniformed +boy came whistling up the path. He made an inquiry as to names, and +handed Sylvia an envelope. She opened it, read silently, "Am starting +for America and you at once. Felix." She stood looking at the paper +for a moment, her face quite unmoved from its quiet sadness. The boy +asked, "Any answer?" + +"No," she said decisively, shaking her head. "No answer." + +As he lingered, lighting a cigarette, she put a question in her turn, +"Anything to pay?" + +"No," said the boy, putting the cigarette-box back in his pocket, +"Nothing to pay." He produced a worn and greasy book, "Sign on this +line," he said, and after she had signed, he went away down the path, +whistling. The transaction was complete. + +Sylvia looked after the retreating figure and then turned to Judith +as though there had been no interruption. "... and you can see for +yourself how little use I am to him now. Since he got Cousin Parnelia +in the house, there's nothing anybody else could do for him. Even you +couldn't, if you could leave Lawrence. Not for a while, anyhow. I +suppose he'll come slowly out of this to be himself again ... but I'm +not sure that he will. And for now, I actually believe that he'd be +easier in his mind if we were both away. I never breathe a word of +criticism about planchette, of course. But he knows. There's that much +left of his old self. He knows how I must feel. He's really ever so +much better too, you know. He's taken up his classes in the Summer +School again. He said he had 'a message' from Mother that he was to go +back to his work bravely; and the very next day he went over to the +campus, and taught all his classes as though nothing had happened. +Isn't it awfully, terribly touching to see how even such a poor, +incoherent make-believe of a 'message' from Mother has more power to +calm him than anything we could do with our whole hearts? But how +_can_ he! I can't understand it! I can't bear it, to come in on him +and Cousin Parnelia, in their evenings, and see them bent over that +grotesque planchette and have him look up at me so defiantly, as +though he were just setting his teeth and saying he wouldn't care what +I thought of him. He doesn't really care either. He doesn't think of +anything but of having evening come when he can get another 'message' +from Mother ... from Mother! Mother!" + +"Well, perhaps it would be as well for us not to be here for a while," +murmured Judith. There were deep dark rings under her eyes, as though +she had slept badly for a long time. "Perhaps it may be better later +on. I can take Lawrence back with me when I go to the hospital. I want +to keep him near me of course, dear little Lawrence. My little boy! +He'll be my life now. He'll be what I have to live for." + +Something in the quality of her quiet voice sent a chill to Sylvia's +heart. "Why, Judy dear, after you are married of course you and Arnold +can keep Lawrence with you. That'll be the best for him, a real home, +with you. Oh, Judy dear," she laid down her trowel, fighting hard +against a curious sickness which rose within her. She tried to speak +lightly. "Oh, Judy dear, when _are_ you going to be married? Or don't +you want to speak about it now, for a while? You never write long +letters, I know--but your late ones haven't had _any_ news in them! +You positively haven't so much as mentioned Arnold's name lately." + +As she spoke, she knew that she was voicing an uneasiness which had +been an unacknowledged occupant of her mind for a long time. But she +looked confidently to see one of Judith's concise, comprehensive +statements make her dim apprehensions seem fantastic and far-fetched, +as Judith always made any flight of the imagination appear. But +nothing which Sylvia's imagination might have been able to conceive +would have struck her such a blow as the fact which Judith now +produced, in a dry, curt phrase: "I'm not going to be married." + +Sylvia did not believe her ears. She looked up wildly as Judith rose +from the ground, and advanced upon her sister with a stern, white +face. Before she had finished speaking, she had said more than Sylvia +had ever heard her say about a matter personal to her; but even so, +her iron words were few. "Sylvia, I want to tell you about it, of +course. I've got to. But I won't say a word, unless you can keep +quiet, and not make a fuss. I couldn't stand that. I've got all I can +stand as it is." + +She stood by an apple-tree and now broke from it a small, leafy +branch, which she held as she spoke. There was something shocking in +the contrast between the steady rigor of her voice and the fury of her +fingers as they tore and stripped and shredded the leaves. "Arnold is +an incurable alcoholic," she said; "Dr. Rivedal has pronounced him +hopeless. Dr. Charton and Dr. Pansard (they're the best specialists in +that line) have had him under observation and they say the same thing. +He's had three dreadful attacks lately. We ... none of their treatment +does any good. It's been going on too long--from the time he was +first sent away to school, at fourteen, alone! There was an inherited +tendency, anyhow. Nobody took it seriously, that and--and the other +things boys with too much money do. Apparently everybody thought it +was just the way boys are--if anybody thought anything about it, +except that it was a bother. He never had anybody, you know--_never, +never_ anybody who ..." her voice rose, threatened to break. She +stopped, swallowed hard, and began again: "The trouble is he has +no constitution left--nothing for a doctor to work with. It's not +Arnold's fault. If he had come out to us, that time in Chicago when he +wanted to--we--he could--with Mother to--" Her steady voice gave way +abruptly. She cast the ravaged, leafless branch violently to the +ground and stood looking down at it. There was not a fleck of color in +her beautiful, stony face. + +Sylvia concentrated all her will-power on an effort to speak as Judith +would have her, quietly, without heroics; but when she broke her +silence she found that she had no control of her voice. She tried to +say, "But, Judith dear, if Arnold is like that--doesn't he need you +more than ever? You are a nurse. How can you abandon him now!" But +she could produce only a few, broken, inarticulate words in a choking +voice before she was obliged to stop short, lest she burst out in the +flood of horror which Judith had forbidden. + +Broken and inarticulate as they were, Judith knew what was the meaning +of those words. The corners of her mouth twitched uncontrollably. She +bit her marble lower lip repeatedly before she could bring out the few +short phrases which fell like clods on a coffin. "If I--if we--Arnold +and I are in love with each other." She stopped, drew a painful +breath, and said again: "Arnold and I are in love with each other. Do +you know what that means? He is the only man I could not take care +of--Arnold! If I should try, we would soon be married, or lovers. If +we were married or lovers, we would soon have--" She had overestimated +her strength. Even she was not strong enough to go on. + +She sat down on the ground, put her long arms around her knees, and +buried her face in them. She was not weeping. She sat as still as +though carved in stone. + +Sylvia herself was beyond tears. She sat looking down at the moist +earth on the trowel she held, drying visibly in the hot sun, turning +to dust, and falling away in a crumbling, impalpable powder. It was +like seeing a picture of her heart. She thought of Arnold with an +indignant, passionate pity--how could Judith--? But she was so close +to Judith's suffering that she felt the dreadful rigidity of her body. +The flat, dead tones of the man in the Pantheon were in her ears. It +seemed to her that Life was an adventure perilous and awful beyond +imagination. There was no force to cope with it, save absolute +integrity. Everything else was a vain and foolish delusion, a +two-edged sword which wounded the wielding hand. + +She did not move closer to Judith, she did not put out her hand. +Judith would not like that. She sat quite motionless, looking into +black abysses of pain, of responsibilities not met, feeling press upon +her the terrifying closeness of all human beings to all other +human beings--there in the sun of June a cold sweat stood on her +forehead.... + +But then she drew a long breath. Why, there was Austin! The anguished +contraction of her heart relaxed. The warm blood flowed again through +her veins. There was Austin! + +She was rewarded for her effort to bring herself to Judith's ways, +when presently her sister moved and reached out blindly for her hand. +At this she opened her arms and took Judith in. No word was spoken. +Their mother was there with them. + +Sylvia looked out over the proud, dark head, now heavy on her bosom, +and felt herself years older. She did not try to speak. She had +nothing to say. There was nothing she could do, except to hold Judith +and love her. + +There was nothing, _nothing_ left but love. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVI + +A LONG TALK WITH ARNOLD + + +The tall, lean young man, sitting his galloping horse very slackly, +riding fast with a recklessly loose rein, and staring with bloodshot +eyes down at the dust of the road, gave an exclamation, brought the +mare upon her haunches, and sprang down from the saddle. A woman, +young, tall, grave, set like a pearl in her black mourning dress, +stood up from the roadside brook and advanced to meet him. They looked +at each other as people do who meet after death has passed by. They +stammered vague words, their eyes brimming. + +"I--she was always so good to me," said Arnold, his voice breaking +and quavering as he wrung Sylvia's hand again and again. "I never +knew--saw much of her, I know--but when I was a little boy, I used--I +used to dream about her at night." His thin, sallow face flushed with +his earnestness. "I don't believe--honestly, Sylvia, I don't believe +her own children loved her any more than I did. I've thought so many +times how different everything would have been if I'd--I don't suppose +you remember, but years ago when you and she were in Chicago, I ran +away from school to go out there, and ask if--" + +Sylvia remembered, had thought of nothing else from the moment she had +seen far down the road the horseman vainly fleeing the black beast +on his crupper. She shook her head now, her hand at her throat, and +motioned him to silence. "Don't! Don't!" she said urgently. "Yes, I +remember. I remember." + +There was a moment's silence, filled by the murmur of the little brook +at their feet. The mare, which had been drinking deeply, now lifted +her head, the water running from the corners of her mouth. She gave a +deep breath of satisfaction, and began cropping the dense green grass +which grew between the water and the road. Her master tossed the reins +over the pommel and let her go. He began speaking again on a different +note. "But, Sylvia, what in the world--here, can't we go up under +those trees a few minutes and have a talk? I can keep my eye on the +mare." As they took the few steps he asked again, "How ever does it +happen that you're here at Lydford Junction of all awful holes?" + +Sylvia took an abrupt resolution, sat down on the pine-needles, and +said, very directly, "I am on my way to Austin Farm to see if Austin +Page still wants to marry me." Her manner had the austere simplicity +of one who has been moving in great and grave emotions. + +Arnold spoke with an involuntary quickness: "But you've heard, haven't +you, about his giving up all his Colorado ..." + +Sylvia flushed a deep crimson and paid with a moment of bitter, shamed +resentment for the other bygone moments of calculation. "Yes, yes, of +course." She spoke with a stern impatience. "Did you suppose it was +for his fortune that--" She paused and said humbly, "Of course, it's +natural that you should think that of me." + +Arnold attempted no self-exculpation. He sat down by her, his +riding-crop across his knees. "Could you--do you feel like telling me +about it?" he asked. + +She nodded. It came to her like an inspiration that only if she opened +her heart utterly to Arnold, could he open his sore heart to her. +"There's not much to tell. I don't know where to begin. Perhaps +there's too much to tell, after all, I didn't know what any of it +meant till now. It's the strangest thing, Arnold, how little people +know what is growing strong in their lives! I supposed all the time +I only liked him because he was so rich. I thought it must be so. +I thought that was the kind of girl I was. And then, besides, +I'd--perhaps you didn't know how much I'd liked Felix Morrison." + +Arnold nodded. "I sort of guessed so. You were awfully game, then, +Sylvia. You're game now--it's awfully white to fall in love with a man +because he's rich and then stick to him when he's--" + +Sylvia waved her hand impatiently. "Oh, you don't understand. It's not +because I think _I ought_ to--Heavens, no! Let me try to tell you. +Listen! When the news came, about this Colorado business--I was about +crazy for a while. I just went to pieces. I knew I ought to answer +his letter, but I couldn't. I see now, looking back, that I had just +crumpled up under the weight of my weakness. I didn't know it then. +I kept saying to myself that I was only putting off deciding till I +could think more about it, but I know now that I had decided to give +him up, never to see him again--Felix was there, you know--I'd decided +to give Austin up because he wasn't rich any more. Did you know I was +that base sort of a woman? Do you suppose he will ever be willing to +take me back?--now after this long time? It's a month since I got his +letter." + +Arnold bent his riding-crop between his thin, nervous hands. "Are you +sure now, Sylvia, are you sure now, dead sure?" he asked. "It would be +pretty hard on Austin if you--afterwards--he's such a square, straight +sort of a man, you ought to be awfully careful not to--" + +Sylvia said quickly, her quiet voice vibrant, her face luminous: +"Oh, Arnold, I could never tell you how sure I am. There just isn't +anything else. Over there in Paris, I tried so hard to think about +it--and I couldn't get anywhere at all. The more I tried, the baser I +grew; the more I loved the things I'd have to give up, the more I hung +on to them. Thinking didn't do a bit of good, though I almost killed +myself thinking--thinking--All I'd done was to think out an ingenious, +low, mean compromise to justify myself in giving him up. And then, +after Judith's cablegram came, I started home--Arnold, what a journey +that was!--and I found--I found Mother was gone, just gone away +forever--and I found Father out of his head with sorrow--and Judith +told me about--about her trouble. It was like going through a long +black corridor. It seemed as though I'd never come out on the other +side. But when I did--A door that I couldn't ever, ever break +down--somehow it's been just quietly opened, and I've gone through +it into the only place where it's worth living. It's the last thing +Mother did for me--what nobody but Mother could have done. I don't +want to go back. I couldn't if I wanted to. Those things don't matter +to me now. I don't think they're wrong, the ease, the luxury, if you +can have them without losing something finer. And I suppose some +people's lives are arranged so they don't lose the finer. But mine +wouldn't be. I see that now. And I don't care at all--it all seems so +unimportant to me, what I was caring about, before. Nothing matters +now but Austin. He is the only thing that has lived on for me. I'm +down on my knees with thankfulness that he just exists, even if he +can't forgive me--even if he doesn't care for me any more--even if I +shouldn't ever see him again--even if he should die--he would be +like Mother, he couldn't die, for me. He's there. I know what he is. +Somehow everything's all right--because there's Austin." + +She broke off, smiling palely and quietly at the man beside her. He +raised his eyes to hers for an instant and then dropped them. Sylvia +went on. "I don't pretend to know all the ins and outs of this +Colorado business. It may be that it was quixotic on Austin's part. +Maybe it _has_ upset business conditions out there a lot. It's too +complicated to be _sure_ about how anything, I suppose, is likely to +affect an industrial society. But I'm sure about how it has affected +the people who live in the world--it's a great golden deed that has +enriched everybody--not just Austin's coal-miners, but everybody who +had heard of it. The sky is higher because of it. Everybody has a new +conception of the good that's possible. And then for me, it means that +a man who sees an obligation nobody else sees and meets it--why, with +such a man to help, anybody, even a weak fumbling person like me, can +be sure of at least loyally _trying_ to meet the debts life brings. +It's awfully hard to know what they are, and to meet them--and it's +too horrible if you don't." + +She stopped, aware that the life of the man beside her was one of the +unpaid debts so luridly present to her mind. + +"Sylvia," said Arnold, hesitating, "Sylvia, all this sounds so--look +here, are you sure you're in _love_ with Austin?" + +She looked at him, her eyes steady as stars. "Aren't there as many +ways of being in love, as there are people?" she asked. "I don't +know--I don't know if it's what everybody would call being in +love--but--" She met his eyes, and unashamed, regally, opened her +heart to him with a look. "I can't live without Austin," she said +quickly, in a low tone. + +He looked at her long, and turned away. "Oh yes, you're in love with +him, all right!" he murmured finally, "and I don't believe that the +Colorado business or any of the rest of what you're saying has much to +do with anything. Austin's a live man and you're in love with him; +and that's all there is to it. You're lucky!" He took out his +handkerchief, and wiped his forehead and the back of his neck. Sylvia, +looking at him more closely, was shocked to see how thin and haggard +was his face. He asked now, "Did you ever think that maybe what Austin +was thinking about when he chucked the money was what you'd say, how +you'd take it? I should imagine," he added with a faint smile,' "that +he is hard to please if he's not pretty well satisfied." + +Sylvia was startled. "No. Why no," she said, "I thought I'd looked at +every single side of it, but I never dreamed of that." + +"Oh, I don't mean he did it _for_ that! Lord, no! I suppose it's been +in his mind for years. But afterwards, don't you suppose he thought +... he'd been run after for his money such a terrible lot, you know +... don't you suppose he thought he'd be sure of you one way or the +other, about a million times surer than he could have been any other +way; if you stuck by him, don't you see, with old Felix there with all +his fascinations, plus Molly's money." He turned on her with a sudden +confused wonder in his face. "God! What a time he took to do it! I +hadn't realized all his nerve till this minute. He must have known +what it meant, to leave you there with Felix ... to risk losing you as +well as--Any other man would have tried to marry you first and then--! +Well, what a dead-game sport he was! And all for a lot of dirty +Polacks who'd never laid eyes on him!" + +He took his riding-cap from his head and tossed it on the dried +pine-needles. Sylvia noticed that his dry, thin hair was already +receding from his parchment-like forehead. There were innumerable fine +lines about his eyes. One eyelid twitched spasmodically at intervals. +He looked ten years older than his age. He looked like a man who would +fall like a rotten tree at the first breath of sickness. + +He now faced around to her with a return to everyday matters. "See +here, Sylvia, I've just got it through my head. Are you waiting here +for that five-fifteen train to West Lydford and then are you planning +to walk out to the Austin Farm? Great Scott! don't do that, in this +heat. I'll just run back to the village and get a car and take you +there in half an hour." He rose to his feet, but Sylvia sprang up +quickly, catching at his arm in a panic. "No! no! Arnold, you don't +understand. I haven't written Austin a word--he doesn't know I'm +coming. At first in Paris I couldn't--I was so despicable--and then +afterwards I couldn't either,--though it was all right then. There +aren't any words. It's all too big, too deep to talk about. I didn't +want to, either. I wanted to _see_ him--to see if he still, if he +wants me now. He could _write_ anything. He'd feel he'd have to. How +would I ever know but that it was only because he thought he ought to? +I thought I would just go to him all by myself, without his knowing +I was coming. _I_ can tell--the first moment he looks at me I can +tell--for all my life, I'll be sure, one way or the other. That first +look, what's in him will show! He can't hide anything then, not even +to be kind. I'll know! I'll know!" + +Arnold sat down again with no comment. Evidently he understood. He +leaned his head back against the rough bark of the pine, and closed +his eyes. There was a painful look of excessive fatigue about his +whole person. He glanced up and caught Sylvia's compassionate gaze on +him. "I haven't been sleeping very well lately," he said very dryly. +"It breaks a fellow up to lose sleep." Sylvia nodded. Evidently he was +not minded to speak of his own troubles. He had not mentioned Judith. + +She looked up thoughtfully at the well-remembered high line of the +mountain against the sky. Her mother's girlhood eyes had looked at +that high line. She fell into a brooding meditation, and presently, +obeying one of her sure instincts, she sat down by Arnold, and began +to talk to him about what she divined for the moment would most touch +and move him; she began to talk about her mother. He was silent, his +worn, sallow face impassive, but she knew he was listening. + +She told one incident after another of her mother's life, incidents +which, she told him, she had not noted at the time, incidents which +were now windows in her own life, letting in the sunlight her mother +loved so well. "All the time I was growing up, I was blind, I didn't +see anything. I don't feel remorseful, I suppose that is the way +children have to be. But I didn't see her. There were so many minor +differences between us ... tastes, interests. I always said hatefully +to myself that Mother didn't understand me. And it was true too. As +if it matters! What if she didn't! She never talked morality to us, +anyhow. She never talked much at all. She didn't need to. She was +herself. No words would express that. She lived her life. And there +it is now, there it always will be for me, food for me to live on. I +thought she had died. But she has never been so living for me. She's +part of me now, for always. And just because I see the meaning of her +life, why, there's the meaning of mine as clear as morning. How can +poor Father crave those 'messages' from her! Everything is a message +from her. We've lived with her. We have her in our hearts. It's all +brightness when I think of her. And I see by that brightness what's in +my heart, and that's Austin ... Austin!" On the name, her voice rose, +expanded, soared, wonderfully rang in the ensuing silence.... + +Arnold said slowly, without opening his eyes: "Yes, yes, I see. I see +how it is all right with you and Austin. He's big enough for you, all +of you. And Felix--he's not so bad either--but he has, after all, a +yellow streak. Poor Felix!" + +This brought up to Sylvia the recollection of the day, so short a time +ago when she had sat on the ground thus, much as she now sat next to +Arnold, and had felt Judith's body rigid and tense. There was nothing +rigid about Arnold. He was relaxed in an exhausted passivity, a beaten +man. Let what would, befall. He seemed beyond feeling. She knew that +probably never again, so life goes, could they speak together thus, +like disembodied spirits, freed for once from the blinding, entangling +tragic web of self-consciousness. She wondered again if he would find +it in his heart to speak to her of Judith. She remembered something +else she had meant to ask him, if she could ever find words for her +question; and she found that, in that hour of high seriousness, +they came quite without effort. "Arnold, when I was in Paris, I met +Professor Saunders. I ran across him by accident. He told me +some dreadful things. I thought they couldn't all be true. But I +wondered--" + +Arnold opened his eyes and turned them on her. She saw again, as she +had so many times, the honesty of them. They were bloodshot, yellowed, +set deep in dark hollows; but it was a good gaze they gave. "Oh, don't +take poor old Saunders too seriously. He went all to pieces in the +end. He had a lot to say about Madrina, I suppose. I shouldn't pay +much attention to it. Madrina's not such a bad lot as he makes her +out. Madrina's all right if you don't want anything out of her. She's +the way she is, that's all. It's not fair to blame her. We're all like +that," he ended with a pregnant, explanatory phrase which fell with an +immense significance on Sylvia's ear. "Madrina's all right when she's +got what she wants." + +The girl pondered in silence on this characterization. After a time +Arnold roused himself to say again: "I mean she wouldn't go out of +her way to hurt anybody, for anything. She's not the kind that enjoys +seeing other folks squirm. Only she wants things the way she wants +them. Don't let anything old Saunders said worry you. I suppose he +laid all my worthlessness at Madrina's door too. He'd got into that +way of thinking, sort of dotty on the subject anyhow. He was terribly +hard hit, you know. I don't deny either that Madrina did keep him +strung on hot wire for several years. I don't suppose it occurred +to her that there was any reason why she shouldn't if he were fool +enough. I never could see that he wasn't some to blame too. All he had +to do--all they any of them ever had to do, was to get out and stay +out. Madrina'd never lift a finger to hinder. Even Saunders, I guess, +would have had to admit that Madrina always had plenty of dignity. And +as for me, great Scott! what could you expect a woman like Madrina to +do with a boy like me! She never liked me, for one thing; and then +I always bored her almost more than she could stand. But she never +showed her impatience, never once. She's really awfully good-natured +in her way. She wanted to make me into a salon sort of person, +somebody who'd talk at her teas--converse, don't you know. You see +_me_, don't you! It was hard on her. If she'd had you, now--I always +thought you were the only person in the world she ever really cared +for. She does, you know. All this year you've been with her, she's +seemed so different, more like a real woman. Maybe she's had her +troubles too. Maybe she's been deathly lonely. Don't you go back on +her too hard. Madrina's no vampire. That's just old Saunders' addled +wits. She's one of the nicest people in the world to live with, if you +don't need her for anything. And she really does care a lot for you, +Sylvia. That time out in Chicago, when we were all kids, when I wanted +to go to live with your mother, I remember that Madrina suggested to +her (and Madrina would have done it in a minute, too)--she suggested +that they change off, she take you to bring up and I go out to live +with your mother," He stopped to look at the woman beside him. "I +don't know about you, Sylvia, but I guess it would have made some +difference in my life!" + +Sylvia drew back, horrified that he was even in thought, even for a +moment robbing her of her mother. "Oh, what I would have been--I can't +bear to _think_ of what kind of woman I would have been without my +mother!" The idea was terrible to her. She shrank away from her +aunt as never before in her life. The reminiscence brought an idea, +evidently as deeply moving, into Arnold's mind. The words burst from +him, "I might now be married to Judith!" He put his hands over his +eyes and cast himself down among the pine-needles. + +Sylvia spoke quickly lest she lose courage. "Arnold! Arnold! What are +you going to do with yourself now? I'm so horribly anxious about you. +I haven't dared speak before--" + +He turned over and lay on his back, staring up into the dark green of +the pine. "I'm going to drink myself to death as soon as I can," he +said very quietly. "The doctors say it won't take long." + +She looked at his wasted face and gave a shocked, pitying exclamation, +thinking that it would be illness and not drink which was to come to +his rescue soon. + +He looked at her askance, with his bloodshot eyes. "Can you give me +any single reason why I shouldn't?" he challenged her. + +Sylvia, the modern, had no answer. She murmured weakly, "Why must any +of us try to be decent?" + +"That's for the rest of you," he said. "I'm counted out. The sooner +I get myself out of the way, the better for everybody. That's what +_Judith_ thinks." + +The bitterness of his last phrase was savage. Sylvia cried out against +it. "Arnold! That's cruel of you! It's killing Judith!" + +"She can't care for me," he said, with a deep, burning resentment. +"She can't ever have cared a rap, or she wouldn't be _able_ to--" + +Sylvia would not allow him to go on. "You must not say such a thing, +Arnold. You know Judith's only reason is--she feels if she--if she had +children and they were--" + +He interrupted her with an ugly hardness. "Oh, I know what her reason +is, all right. It's the latest fad. Any magazine article can tell you +all about it. And I don't take any stock in it, I tell you. It's just +insanity to try to guess at every last obligation you may possibly +have! You've got to live your life, and have some nerve about it! If +Judith and I love each other, what is it to anybody else if we get +married? Maybe we wouldn't have any children. Maybe they'd be all +right--how could they be anything else with Judith for their mother? +And anyhow, leave that to them! Let them take care of themselves! +We've had to do it for ourselves! What the devil did my father do for +me, I'd like to know, that I should die to keep my children unborn? My +mother was a country girl from up here in the mountains. Since I've +been staying here winters, I've met some of her people. Her aunt told +me that my father was as drunk as a lord on his wedding night--What +did he think of _his_ son? Why should I think of mine?" + +He was so evidently talking wildly, desperately, that Sylvia made no +attempt to stop him, divining with an aching pity what lay under his +dreadful words. But when he said again, "It's simply that Judith +doesn't care enough about me to stick by me, now I'm down and out. She +can't bear me in her narrow little good world!" Judith's sister could +keep her silence no more. + +"Look here, Arnold, I haven't meant to tell you, but I _can't_ +have you thinking that. Listen! You know Judith, how splendid and +self-controlled she is. She went all through the sorrow of Mother's +death without once breaking down, not once. But the night before I +started to come here, in the middle of the night, I heard such a sound +from Judith's room! It frightened me, so I could hardly get my breath! +It was Judith crying, crying terribly, so that she couldn't keep it +back any more. I never knew her to cry before. I didn't dare go into +her room--Mother would--but I didn't dare. And yet I couldn't leave +her there alone in such awful trouble. I stood by the door in the +dark--oh, Arnold, I don't know how long--and heard her--When it began +to be light she was quiet, and I went back to bed; and after a while +I tiptoed in. She had gone to sleep at last. Arnold, there under her +cheek was that old baseball cap of yours ... all wet, all wet with her +tears, Judith's tears." + +Before she had finished she was sorry she had spoken. Arnold's face +was suffused with purple. He put his hand up to his collar and +wrenched at it, clenched his fists, and finally, flinging his +riding-crop far from him, hid his face in his hands and burst +into tears. "Isn't it damnable!" he said over and over. "Isn't it +damnable!" + +Sylvia had nothing more to say. It seemed indeed damnable to her. She +wondered again at Judith's invincible force of will. That alone was +the obstacle--no, it was something back of Judith's will, something +which even Arnold recognized; for now, to her astonishment, he looked +up, his face smeared like a weeping child's, and said in a low tone, +"You know, of course, that Judith's right." + +The testimony was wrung out of him. But it came. The moment was one +never to be forgotten. + +Out of her passionate pity was born strength that was not to be +denied. She took his hand in hers, his dry, sick man's hand. "Arnold, +you asked me to give you a reason why you should get the best you can +out of yourself. I'll give you a reason. Judith is a reason. Austin is +a reason. I'm a reason. I am never going to let you go. Judith can't +be the one to help you get through the best you can, even though it +may not be so very well--poor, poor Judith, who would die to be able +to help you! Mother wasn't allowed to. She wanted to, I see that now. +But I can. I'm not a thousandth part as strong or as good as they; but +if we hang together! All my life is going to be settled for me in a +few hours. I don't know how it's going to be. But however it is, you +will always be in my life. For as long as you live," she caught her +breath at the realization of how little that phrase meant, "for as +long as you live, you are going to be what you wanted to be, what you +ought to have been, my brother--my mother's son." + +He clung to her hand, he clung to it with such a grip that her fingers +ached--and she blessed the pain for what it meant. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVII + +"... AND ALL THE TRUMPETS SOUNDED!" + + +They had told her at the farm, the old man and the old woman who had +looked so curiously at her, that Mr. Page had gone on up the wood-road +towards the upper pasture. He liked to go there sometimes, they said, +to look at the sunset from a big rock that stood in the edge of the +white birch woods. They added, in extenuation of this, that of course +somebody had to go up there anyhow, once in a while, to salt the +sheep. + +Sylvia had passed on, passed the great, square, many-chimneyed house, +passed the old-fashioned garden, and struck into the wood-road beyond +the bars. The sun was so low now, almost below the edge of the Notch, +that the rays were level and long behind her. So she had walked, +bathed in luminous gold at Versailles, on the day when Austin had +first told her that he loved her, on the day she had told him the +truth. From the first moment she had seen him how he had always +brought out from her the truest and best, finer and truer than +anything she had thought was in her, like a reflection from his own +integrity. His eyes that day, what clear wells of loyalty and honor +... how her mother would have loved him! And that other day, when he +said farewell and went away to his ordeal ... she closed her eyes for +an instant, pierced with the recollection of his gaze on her! What was +she, what poor thing transfigured to divinity, that such passion, such +tenderness had been hers ... even for a moment ... even if now ... + +She looked timidly up the green tunnel of the arching trees, fearing +to see him at any moment. And yet how she hastened her steps towards +where he was! The moments were too long till she should find her +heart's home! + +After a time, there came a moment of such terrible throbbing of the +heart, such trembling, that she could not go on. She sat down on a +rock beside the road and pressed her shaking hands on her cheeks. No, +it was too awful. She had been insane to think of putting everything, +her whole life, to the test of a moment's shock. She would go back. +She would write him.... + +She looked up and saw her mother's gallant figure standing there +before her. She smiled, and started on. Strange that she had thought +her mother could be dead. Her first instinct had been right. Her +mother, _her_ mother could not die. + +The road turned sharply to the left. She came out from the white +birches. She was in the edge of the pasture, sweet-fern at her feet, +a group of sheep raising startled heads to gaze at her, the sun's rim +red on the horizon below her. And up there, the sunlight on his face, +above her, stood Austin. + +The sight of him was like a great burst of music in her heart, like a +great flood of light. Her doubts, her uncertainties, they were gone +out, as utterly as night goes before the sun. Her ears rang to a sound +like singing voices. For a moment she did not feel the ground under +her feet.... + +Austin looked down and saw her. He stood like a man in a dream. + +And then he knew. He knew. And Sylvia knew. He gave a great cry +of welcome which was to ring in her ears for all her life, like a +benediction. He ran down to meet her, and took her in his arms. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Bent Twig, by Dorothy Canfield + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11221 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2cc65c5 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #11221 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11221) diff --git a/old/11221-8.txt b/old/11221-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a891a13 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/11221-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,17340 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Bent Twig, by Dorothy Canfield + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Bent Twig + +Author: Dorothy Canfield + +Release Date: February 22, 2004 [EBook #11221] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BENT TWIG *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Josephine Paolucci and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + +THE BENT TWIG + +BY + +DOROTHY CANFIELD + +1915 + + + + +CONTENTS + +BOOK I +_IN ARCADIA_ + +CHAPTER + +I SYLVIA'S HOME +II THE MARSHALLS' FRIENDS +III BROTHER AND SISTER +IV EVERY ONE'S OPINION OF EVERY ONE ELSE +V SOMETHING ABOUT HUSBANDS +VI THE SIGHTS OF LA CHANCE +VII "WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF-EVIDENT ..." +VIII SABOTAGE +IX THE END OF CHILDHOOD + + +BOOK II +_A FALSE START TO ATHENS_ + +X SYLVIA'S FIRST GLIMPSE OF MODERN CIVILIZATION +XI ARNOLD'S FUTURE Is CASUALLY DECIDED +XII ONE MAN'S MEAT +XIII AN INSTRUMENT IN TUNE +XIV HIGHER EDUCATION +XV MRS. DRAPER BLOWS THE COALS +XVI PLAYING WITH MATCHES +XVII MRS. MARSHALL STICKS TO HER PRINCIPLES +XVIII SYLVIA SKATES MERRILY ON THIN ICE +XIX AS A BIRD OUT OF A SNARE +XX "BLOW, WIND; SWELL, BILLOW; AND SWIM, BARK!" +XXI SOME YEARS DURING WHICH NOTHING HAPPENS + + +BOOK III +_IN CAPUA AT LAST_ + +XXII A GRATEFUL CARTHAGINIAN +XXIII MORE TALK BETWEEN YOUNG MODERNS +XXIV ANOTHER BRAND OF MODERN TALK +XXV NOTHING IN THE LEAST MODERN +XXVI MOLLY IN HER ELEMENT +XXVII BETWEEN WINDWARD AND HEMLOCK MOUNTAINS +XXVIII SYLVIA ASKS HERSELF "WHY NOT?" +XXIX A HYPOTHETICAL LIVELIHOOD +XXX ARNOLD CONTINUES TO DODGE THE RENAISSANCE +XXXI SYLVIA MEETS WITH PITY +XXXII MUCH ADO +XXXIII "WHOM GOD HATH JOINED..." +XXXIV SYLVIA TELLS THE TRUTH +XXXV "A MILESTONE PASSED, THE ROAD SEEMS CLEAR" +XXXVI THE ROAD IS NOT SO CLEAR +XXXVII "... _His wife and children perceiving it, began + to cry after him to return; but the man put his + fingers in his ears and ran on, crying, 'Life! + Life Eternal_!'" +XXXVIII SYLVIA COMES TO THE WICKET GATE +XXXIX SYLVIA DRIFTS WITH THE MAJORITY + + +BOOK IV +_THE STRAIT PATH_ + +XL A CALL FROM HOME +XLI HOME AGAIN +XLII "_Strange that we creatures of the petty ways, + Poor prisoners behind these fleshly bars, + Can sometimes think us thoughts with God ablaze, + Touching the fringes of the outer stars_" +XLIII "_Call now; is there any that will answer thee_?" +XLIV "_A bruised reed will He not break, and a dimly + burning wick will He not quench_" +XLV "_That our soul may swim + We sink our heart down, bubbling, under wave_" +XLVI A LONG TALK WITH ARNOLD +XLVII "...AND ALL THE TRUMPETS SOUNDED!" + + + + +THE BENT TWIG + + + + +BOOK I + +_IN ARCADIA_ + + + + +CHAPTER I + +SYLVIA'S HOME + + +Like most happy childhoods, Sylvia's early years lay back of her in a +long, cheerful procession of featureless days, the outlines of which +were blurred into one shimmering glow by the very radiance of their +sunshine. Here and there she remembered patches, sensations, pictures, +scents: Mother holding baby sister up for her to kiss, and the +fragrance of the baby powder--the pine-trees near the house chanting +loudly in an autumn wind--her father's alert face, intent on the +toy water-wheel he was setting for her in the little creek in their +field--the beautiful sheen of the pink silk dress Aunt Victoria had +sent her--the look of her mother's steady, grave eyes when she was so +sick--the leathery smell of the books in the University Library +one day when she followed her father there--the sound of the rain +pattering on the low, slanting roof of her bedroom--these were the +occasional clearly outlined, bright-colored illuminations wrought on +the burnished gold of her sunny little life. But from her seventh +birthday her memories began to have perspective, continuity. She +remembered an occasional whole scene, a whole afternoon, just as it +happened. + +The first of these must have marked the passing of some unrecognized +mental milestone, for there was nothing about it to set it apart from +any one of a hundred afternoons. It may have been the first time she +looked at what was about her, and saw it. + +Mother was putting the baby to bed for his nap--not the +baby-sister--she was a big girl of five by this time, but another +baby, a little year-old brother, with blue eyes and yellow hair, +instead of brown eyes and hair like his two sisters'. And when Mother +stooped over the little bed, her white fichu fell forward and Sylvia +leaned to hold it back from the baby's face, a bit of thoughtfulness +which had a rich reward in a smile of thanks from Mother. That was +what began the remembered afternoon. Mother's smiles were golden coin, +not squandered on every occasion. Then, she and Mother and Judith +tiptoed out of the bedroom into Mother's room and there stood Father, +with his University clothes on and yet his hair rather rumpled up, as +though he had been teaching very hard. He had a pile of papers in his +hand and he said, "Barbara, are you awfully busy just now?" + +Mother said, Oh no, she wasn't at all. (She never was busy when Father +asked her to do something, although Sylvia could not remember ever +once having seen her sit and do nothing, no, not even for a minute!) +Then Father said, "Well, if you _could_ run over these, I'd have time +to have some ball with the seminar after they're dismissed. These are +the papers the Freshmen handed in for that Economics quiz." Mother +said, "Sure she could," or the equivalent of that, and Father thanked +her, turned Judith upside-down and right-side-up again so quick that +she didn't know what had happened, and left them all laughing as they +usually were when Father ran down from the study for something. + +So Sylvia and Judith, quite used to this procedure, sat down on the +floor with a book to keep them quiet until Mother should be through. +Neither of them could read, although Sylvia was beginning to learn, +but they had been told the stories so many times that they knew them +from the pictures. The book they looked at that day had the story of +the people who had rowed a great boat across the water to get a gold +sheepskin, and Sylvia told it to Judith, word for word, as Father +always told it. She glanced up at Mother from time to time to make +sure she was getting it right; and ever afterwards the mention of the +Argonauts brought up before Sylvia's eyes the picture of her mother +that day, sitting very straight, her strong brown fingers making an +occasional mark on the papers, as she turned them over with a crisp +rustle, her quiet face bent, in a calm fixity of attention, over the +pages. + +Before they knew it, the work was done, Father had come for the +papers, and showed Sylvia one more twist in the acrobatic stunt they +were learning together. She could already take his hands and run up +to his shoulders in one squirrel-like dash; but she was to learn the +reverse and come down on the other side, and she still got tangled up +with which foot to put first. So they practised whenever they had, as +now, a minute or two to spare. + +Then Judith was set to play with her blocks like the baby she still +was, while Sylvia and Mother had a lesson in reading. Sylvia could +remember the very sound of Mother's clear voice as she corrected a +mistake. They were reading a story about what happened to a drop of +water that fell into the brook in their field; how, watering the +thirsty cornfields as it flowed, the brook ran down to the river +near La Chance, where it worked ever so many mills and factories and +things. Then on through bigger and bigger rivers until it reached +the Mississippi, where boats rode on its back; and so on down to the +ocean. And there, after resting a while, it was pumped up by the sun +and made into a cloud, and the wind blew it back over the land and +to their field again, where it fell into the brook and said, "Why, +how-de-do, Sylvia--you still here?" + +Father had written the story, and Mother had copied it out on the +typewriter so it would be easy for Sylvia to read. + +After they had finished she remembered looking out of the window and +watching the big white clouds drift across the pale bright April sky. +They were full of hundreds of drops of water, she thought, that were +going to fall into hundreds of other brooks, and then travel and work +till they reached the sea, and then rest for a while and begin all +over again. Her dark eyes grew very wide as she watched the endless +procession of white mountains move across the great arch of the sky. +Her imagination was stirred almost painfully, her mind expanding with +the effort to take in the new conception of size, of great numbers, of +the small place of her own brook, her own field in the hugeness of +the world. And yet it was an ordered hugeness full of comforting +similarity! Now, no matter where she might go, or what brooks she +might see, she would know that they were all of one family, that the +same things happened to them all, that every one ended in the ocean. +Something she had read on a piece of paper made her see the familiar +home field with the yellow water of the little creek, as a part of the +whole world. It was very strange. She tried to tell Mother something +of what was in her mind, but, though Mother listened in a sympathetic +silence, it was evident that she could make nothing out of the +incoherent account. Sylvia thought that she would try to tell Father, +the next chance she had. Even at seven, although she loved her mother +passionately and jealously, she was aware that her father's mind was +more like her own. He understood some things that Mother didn't, +although Mother was always, always right, and Father wasn't. She fell +into silence again, standing by her mother's knee, staring out of the +window and watching the clouds move steadily across the sky doing +their share of the world's work for all they looked so soft and lazy. +Her mother did not break in on this meditative contemplation. She took +up her sewing-basket and began busily to sew buttons on a small pair +of half-finished night-drawers. The sobered child beside her, gazing +up at the blue-and-white infinity of the sky, heard faintly and +distantly, for the first time in her life, the whirring reverberations +of the great mystic wheel of change and motion and life. + +Then, all at once, there was a scraping of chairs overhead in Father's +study, a clattering on the stairs, and the sound of a great many +voices. The Saturday seminar was over. The door below opened, and the +students came out, Father at the head, very tall, very straight, his +ruddy hair shining in the late afternoon sun, his shirt-sleeves rolled +up over his arms, and a baseball in his hand. "Come on, folks," Sylvia +heard him call, as he had so many times before. "Let's have a couple +of innings before you go!" Sylvia must have seen the picture a hundred +times before, but that was the first time it impressed itself on her, +the close-cut grass of their yard as lustrous as enamel, the big +pine-trees standing high, the scattered players, laughing and running +about, the young men casting off their coats and hats, the detached +fielders running long-legged to their places. At the first sound of +the voices, Judith, always alert, never wasting time in reveries, had +scampered down the stairs and out in the midst of the stir-about. +Judith was sure to be in the middle of whatever was going on. She had +attached herself to young Professor Saunders, a special favorite of +the children, and now was dragging him from the field to play horse +with her. Father looked up to the window where Sylvia and Mother sat, +and called: "Come on, Barbara! Come on and amuse Judith. She won't let +Saunders pitch." + +Mother nodded, ran downstairs, coaxed Judith over beyond first base to +play catch with a soft rubber ball; and Sylvia, carried away by the +cheerful excitement, hopped about everywhere at once, screaming +encouragement to the base runners, picking up foul balls, and sending +them with proud importance back to the pitcher. + +So they all played and shouted and ran and laughed, while the long, +pale-golden spring afternoon stood still, until Mother held up her +finger and stopped the game. "The baby's awake!" she said, and Father +went bounding off. When he came back with the downy pink morsel, +everybody gathered around to see it and exclaim over the tiny fat +hands and hungry little rosebud mouth. "He's starved!" said Mother. +"He wants his supper, poor little Buddy! He doesn't want a lot of +people staring at him, do you, Buddy-baby?" She snatched him out +of Father's arms and went off with him, holding him high over her +shoulders so that the sunshine shone on his yellow hair, and made a +circle of gold around his flushed, sleepy face. Then everybody picked +up books and wraps and note-books and said, "Good-by, 'Perfessor!'" +and went off. + +Father and Sylvia and Judith went out in the garden to the hotbed to +pick the lettuce for supper and then back in the kitchen to get things +ready. When Mother was through giving Buddy his supper and came +hurrying in to help, Sylvia was proud that they had nearly everything +done--all but the omelet. Father had made cocoa and creamed +potatoes--nobody in the world could make creamed potatoes as good as +his--and Sylvia and Judith had between them, somewhat wranglingly, +made the toast and set the table. Sylvia was sure that Judith was +really too little to be allowed to help, but Father insisted that she +should try, for he said, with a turn in his voice that made Sylvia +aware he was laughing at her, "You only learned through trying, all +those many years ago when you were Judith's age!" + +Mother put on one of her big gingham aprons and made the omelet, and +they sat down to the table out on the veranda as they always did in +warm weather. In La Chance it begins to be warm enough for outdoor +life in April. Although it was still bright daylight for ever so long +after the sun had set, the moon came and looked at them palely over +the tops of the trees. + +After supper they jumped up to "race through the dishes," as the +family catchword ran. They tried to beat their record every evening +and it was always a lively occasion, with Mother washing like +lightning, and Father hurrying to keep up, Sylvia running back and +forth to put things away, and Judith bothering 'round, handing out dry +dish-towels, and putting away the silver. She was allowed to handle +that because she couldn't break it. Mother and Judith worked in a +swift silence, but a great deal of talking and laughing went on +between Sylvia and her father, while Buddy, from his high-chair where +he was watching the others, occasionally broke out in a loud, high +crow of delight. They did it all, even to washing and hanging out +the dish-towels, in eleven and a half minutes that evening, Sylvia +remembered. + +Then she and Judith went to sit on the porch on the little bench +Mother had made them. They tried to see who could catch the first +glimpse of the evening star every evening. Mother was putting Buddy to +bed and Father was starting the breakfast cereal cooking on the stove. +After a while he went into the living-room and began to play something +on the piano, something full of deep, swaying chords that lifted +Sylvia's heart up and down as though she were floating on the water. +The air was full of the moist fragrance of spring. When the music held +its breath for a moment you could hear the bedtime note of sleepy +birds in the oaks. Judith, who did not care much for music, began +to get sleepy and leaned all her soft, warm weight against her big +sister. Sylvia for the first time in her life was consciously aware of +being very happy. When, some time later, the evening star shone out +through the trees, she drew a long breath. "See, Judith," she cried +softly and began to recite, + + "Star-light, star-bright, + First star I've seen tonight--" + +She stopped short--it was Aunt Victoria who had taught her that poem, +the last time she had come to see them, a year ago, the time when she +had brought Sylvia the pink silk dress, the only dress-up dress with +lace and ribbons on it Sylvia had had up to that time. As suddenly as +the evening star had shone out, another radiant vision flashed across +Sylvia's mind, Aunt Victoria, magnificent in her lacy dress, her +golden hair shining under the taut silk of her parasol, her white, +soft fingers gleaming with rings, her air of being a condescending +goddess, visiting mortals ... + +After a time Mother stepped out on the porch and said, "Oh, quick, +children, wish on the shooting star." + +Judith had dropped asleep like a little kitten tired of play, and +Sylvia looked at her mother blankly. "I didn't see any shooting star," +she said. + +Mother was surprised. "Why, your face was pointed right up at the +spot." + +"I didn't see it," repeated Sylvia. + +Mother fixed her keen dark eyes on Sylvia. "What's the matter?" she +asked in her voice that always required an answer. Sylvia wriggled +uncomfortably. Hers was a nature which suffers under the categorical +question; but her mother's was one which presses them home. + +"What's the matter with you?" she said again. + +Sylvia turned a clouded face to her mother. "I was wondering why it's +not nice to be idyllic." + +"_What_?" asked her mother, quite at a loss. Sylvia was having one of +her unaccountable notions. + +Sylvia went to lean on her mother's knee, looking with troubled eyes +up into the kind, attentive, uncomprehending face. "Why, the last time +Aunt Victoria was here--that long time ago--when they were all out +playing ball--she looked round and round at everything--at your dress +and mine and the furniture--_you_ know--the--the uncomfortable way she +does sometimes--and she said, 'Well, Sylvia--nobody can say that your +parents aren't leading you a very idyllic life.'" + +Mother laughed out. Her rare laugh was too sudden and loud to be very +musical, but it was immensely infectious, like a man's hearty mirth. +"I didn't hear her say it--but I can imagine that she did. Well, what +_of_ it? What if she did?" + +For once Sylvia did not respond to another's mood. She continued +anxiously, "Well, it means something perfectly horrid, doesn't it?" + +Mother was still laughing. "No, no, child, what in the world makes you +think that?" + +"Oh, if you'd heard Aunt Victoria _say_ it!" cried Sylvia with +conviction. Father came out on the veranda, saying to Mother, "Isn't +that crescendo superb?" To Sylvia he said, as though sure of her +comprehension, "Didn't you like the ending, dear--where it sounded +like the Argonauts all striking the oars into the water at once and +shouting?" + +Sylvia had been taught above everything to tell the truth. Moreover +(perhaps a stronger reason for frankness), Mother was there, who would +know whether she told the truth or not. "I didn't hear the end." + +Father looked quickly from Sylvia's face to her mother's. "What's the +matter?" he asked. + +"Sylvia was so concerned because her Aunt Victoria had called our life +idyllic that she couldn't think of anything else," explained Mother +briefly, still smiling. Father did not smile. He sat down by Sylvia +and had her repeat to him what she had said to her mother. When she +had finished he looked grave and said: "You mustn't mind what your +Aunt Victoria says, dear. Her ideas are very different from ours." + +Sylvia's mother cried out, "Why, a child of Sylvia's age couldn't have +taken in the significance of--" + +"I'm afraid," said Father, "that Sylvia's very quick to take in such a +significance." + +Sylvia remained silent, uncomfortable at being discussed, vaguely +ashamed of herself, but comforted that Father had not laughed, had +understood. As happened so frequently, it was Father who understood +and Mother who did the right thing. She suddenly made an enigmatic, +emphatic exclamation, "Goodness _gracious_!" and reaching out her long +arms, pulled Sylvia up on her lap, holding her close. The last thought +of that remembered time for Sylvia was that Mother's arms were very +strong, and her breast very soft. The little girl laid her head down +on it with a contented sigh, watching the slow, silent procession of +the stars. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE MARSHALLS' FRIENDS + + +Any one of the more sophisticated members of the faculty of the State +University at La Chance would have stated without hesitation that the +Marshalls had not the slightest part in the social activities of the +University; but no one could have called their life either isolated or +solitary. Sylvia, in her memories of childhood, always heard the low, +brown house ringing with music or echoing to the laughter and talk +of many voices. To begin with, a good many of Professor Marshall's +students came and went familiarly through the plainly furnished rooms, +although there was, of course, in each year's class, a little circle +of young people with a taste for social distinctions who held aloof +from the very unselect and heterogeneous gatherings at the Marshall +house. + +These young aristocrats were, for the most part, students from the +town itself, from La Chance's "best families," who through parental +tyranny or temporary financial depression were not allowed to go East +to a well-known college with a sizable matriculation fee, but were +forced to endure four years of the promiscuous, swarming, gratuitous +education of the State University. All these august victims of family +despotism associated as little as possible with the common rabble of +their fellow-students, and accepted invitations only from such faculty +families as were recognized by the inner circle of the town society. + +The Marshalls were not among this select circle. Indeed, no faculty +family was farther from it. Every detail of the Marshalls' life was in +contradiction not only to the standards and ideals of the exclusive +"town set," but to those of their own colleagues. They did not live +in the right part of town. They did not live in the right sort of a +house. They did not live in the right sort of a way. And consequently, +although no family had more visitors, they were not the right sort of +visitors. + +This was, of course, not apparent to the children for a good many +years. Home was home, as it is to children. It did not seem strange +to them that instead of living in a small rented house on a closely +built-up street near the campus in the section of the city occupied by +the other faculty families, they lived in a rambling, large-roomed old +farmhouse with five acres of land around it, on the edge of the West +Side. They did not know how heartily this land-owning stability was +condemned as folly by the rent-paying professors, perching on the +bough with calculated impermanence so that they might be free to +accept at any moment the always anticipated call to a larger salary. +They did not know, not even Sylvia, for many years, that the West Side +was the quite unfashionable part of town. It did not seem strange to +them to see their father sweeping his third-floor study with his own +hands, and they were quite used to a family routine which included +housework for every one of them. Indeed, a certain amount of this was +part of the family fun. "Come on, folks!" Professor Marshall would +call, rising up from the breakfast table, "Tuesday--day to clean the +living-room--all hands turn to!" In a gay helter-skelter all hands +turned to. The lighter furniture was put out on the porch. Professor +Marshall, joking and laughing, donned a loose linen overall suit to +protect his "University clothes," and cleaned the bare floor with a +big oiled mop; Mrs. Marshall, silent and swift, looked after mirrors, +windows, the tops of bookcases, things hard for children to reach; +Sylvia flourished a duster; and Judith and Lawrence out on the porch, +each armed with a whisk-broom, brushed and whacked at the chairs and +sofas. There were no rugs to shake, and it took but an instant to set +things back in their places in the clean-smelling, dustless room. + +This daily drill, coming as it did early in the morning, usually +escaped the observation of any but passing farmers, who saw nothing +amiss in it; but facetiously exaggerated reports of its humors reached +the campus, and a certain set considered it very clever to lay bets as +to whether the Professor of Political Economy would pull out of his +pocket a handkerchief, or a duster, or a child's shirt, for it was +notorious that the children never had nursemaids and that their father +took as much care of them as their mother. + +The question of clothes, usually such a sorely insoluble problem for +academic people of small means, was solved by the Marshalls in an +eccentric, easy-going manner which was considered by the other faculty +families as nothing less than treasonable to their caste. Professor +Marshall, it is true, having to make a public appearance on the +campus every day, was generally, like every other professor, +undistinguishable from a commercial traveler. But Mrs. Marshall, who +often let a good many days pass without a trip to town, had adopted +early in her married life a sort of home uniform, which year after +year she wore in one form or another. It varied according to the +season, and according to the occasion on which she wore it, but it had +certain unchanging characteristics. It was always very plain as to +line, and simple as to cut, having a skirt neither full nor scant, a +waist crossed in front with a white fichu, and sleeves reaching just +below the elbow with white turn-back cuffs. As Mrs. Marshall, though +not at all pretty, was a tall, upright, powerfully built woman, with +a dark, shapely head gallantly poised on her shoulders, this garb, +whether short-skirted, of blue serge in the morning, or trailing, of +ruby-colored cashmere in the evening, was very becoming to her. But +there is no denying that it was always startlingly and outrageously +unfashionable. At a time when every woman and female child in the +United States had more cloth in her sleeves than in all the rest of +her dress, the rounded muscles of Mrs. Marshall's arm, showing through +the fabric of her sleeves, smote shockingly upon the eye of the +ordinary observer, trained to the American habit of sheep-like +uniformity of appearance. And at the time when the front of every +woman's waist fell far below her belt in a copiously blousing sag, +Mrs. Marshall's trim tautness had in it something horrifying. It must +be said for her that she did not go out of her way to inflict these +concussions upon the brains of spectators, since she always had in +her closet one evening dress and one street dress, sufficiently +approximating the prevailing style to pass unnoticed. These costumes +lasted long, and they took in the long run but little from the +Marshall exchequer: for she wore them seldom, only assuming what her +husband called, with a laugh, her "disguise" when going into town. + +For a long time, until Sylvia's individuality began to assert itself, +the question of dress for the children was solved, with similar ease, +by the typical Marshall expedient, most heartily resented by their +faculty acquaintances, the mean-spirited expedient of getting along +comfortably on inadequate means by not attempting to associate with +people to whose society their brains and cultivation gave them the +right--that is to say, those families of La Chance whose incomes were +from three to five times that of college professors. The Marshall +children played, for the most part, with the children of their +neighbors, farmers, or small merchants, and continued this humble +connection after they went into the public schools, where their +parents sent them, instead of to "the" exclusive private school +of town. Consequently the plainest, simplest clothes made them +indistinguishable from their fellows. Sylvia and Judith also enjoyed +the unfair advantage of being quite unusually pretty little girls +(Judith being nothing less than a beauty), so that even on the few +occasions when they were invited to a children's party in the faculty +circle their burnished, abundant hair, bright eyes, and fresh, alert +faces made up for the plainness of their white dresses and thick +shoes. + +It was, moreover, not only in externals like clothes that the +childhood of Sylvia and Judith and Lawrence differed from that of the +other faculty children. Their lives were untouched by the ominous +black cloud familiar to academic households, the fear for the future, +the fear which comes of living from hand to mouth, the dread of "being +obliged to hand in one's resignation," a truly academic periphasis +which is as dismally familiar to most faculty children as its blunt +Anglo-Saxon equivalent of "losing your job" is to children of plainer +workpeople. Once, it is true, this possibility had loomed up large +before the Marshalls, when a high-protection legislature objected +loudly to the professor's unreverent attitude towards the tariff. But +although the Marshall children knew all about this crisis, as they +knew all about everything that happened to the family, they had had +no experience of the anxious talks and heartsick consultations which +would have gone on in any other faculty household. Their father had +been angry, and their mother resolute--but there was nothing new in +that. There had been, on Professor Marshall's part, belligerent, +vociferous talk about "freedom of speech," and on Mrs. Marshall's a +quiet estimate that, with her early training on a Vermont farm, and +with the high state of cultivation under which she had brought their +five acres, they could successfully go into the truck-farming +business like their neighbors. Besides this, they had the resource, +extraordinary among University families, of an account in the +savings-bank on which to fall back. They had always been able to pay +their debts and have a small surplus by the expedient of refusing to +acknowledge a tenth part of the social obligations under which +the rest of the faculty groaned and sweated with martyr's pride. +Perfidiously refusing to do their share in the heart-breaking struggle +to "keep up the dignity" of the academic profession, they were not +overwhelmed by the super-human difficulties of that undertaking. + +So it happened that the Marshall children heard no forebodings about +the future, but only heated statements of what seemed to their father +the right of a teacher to say what he believed. Professor Marshall had +gone of his own initiative to face the legislative committee which was +"investigating" him, had quite lost his temper (never very securely +held in leash), had told them his highly spiced opinion of their +strictures on his teaching and of the worth of any teacher they could +find who would submit to them. Then he had gone home and put on +his overalls. This last was rather a rhetorical flourish; for his +cosmopolitan, urban youth had left him ineradicably ignorant of the +processes of agriculture. But like all Professor Marshall's flourishes +it was a perfectly sincere one. He was quite cheerfully prepared to +submit himself to his wife's instruction in the new way of life. + +All these picturesque facts, as was inevitable in America, had +instantly reached the newspapers, which, lacking more exciting news +for the moment, took that matter up with headlined characterizations +of Professor Marshall as a "martyr of the cause of academic freedom," +and other rather cheap phrases about "persecution" and "America, the +land of free speech." The legislative committee, alarmed, retreated +from its position. Professor Marshall had not "been obliged to hand in +his resignation," but quite the contrary, had become the hero of the +hour and was warmly complimented by his colleagues, who hoped to +profit by an action which none of them would have dared to imitate. +It had been an exciting drama to the Marshall children as long as it +lasted. They had looked with pride at an abominable reproduction of +their father's photograph in the evening paper of La Chance, and they +had added an acquaintance with the manners of newspaper reporters to +their already very heterogeneous experience with callers of every +variety; but of real anxiety the episode had brought them nothing. + +As to that same extraordinary assortment of visitors at the Marshall +house, one of the University co-eds had said facetiously that you +met there every sort of person in the world, from spiritualists to +atheists--everybody except swells. The atheist of her dictum was the +distinguished and misanthropic old Professor Kennedy, head of +the Department of Mathematics, whose ample means and high social +connections with the leading family of La Chance made his misanthropy +a source of much chagrin to the faculty ladies, and who professed +for the Marshalls, for Mrs. Marshall in particular, a wrong-headed +admiration which was inexplicable to the wives of the other +professors. The faculty circle saw little to admire in the Marshalls. +The spiritualist of the co-ed's remark was, of course, poor foolish +Cousin Parnelia, the children's pet detestation, whose rusty clothes +and incoherent speech they were prevented from ridiculing only by +stern pressure from their mother. She always wore a black straw hat, +summer and winter, always carried a faded green shopping bag, with a +supply of yellow writing paper, and always had tucked under one arm +the curious, heart-shaped bit of wood, with the pencil attached, which +spiritualists call "planchette." The Marshall children thought this +the most laughable name imaginable, and were not always successful +in restraining the cruel giggles of childhood when she spoke of +planchette's writing such beautiful messages from her long-since-dead +husband and children. Although he had a dramatic sympathy for her +sorrow, Professor Marshall's greater vivacity of temperament made it +harder for him than for his wife to keep a straight face when Cousin +Parnelia proposed to be the medium whereby he might converse with +Milton or Homer. Indeed, his fatigued tolerance for her had been a +positive distaste ever since the day when he found her showing Sylvia, +aged ten, how to write with planchette. With an outbreak of temper, +for which he had afterwards apologized to his wife, he had forbidden +her ever to mention her damn unseemly nonsense to his children again. +He himself was a stout unbeliever in individual immortality, teaching +his children that the craving for it was one of the egotistic impulses +of the unregenerate human heart. + +Between the two extremes represented by shabby, crack-brained Cousin +Parnelia and elegant, sardonic old Professor Kennedy, there were many +other habitual visitors at the house--raw, earnest, graceless students +of both sexes, touchingly grateful for the home atmosphere they were +allowed to enter; a bushy-haired Single-tax fanatic named Hecht, who +worked in the iron-foundries by day, and wrote political pamphlets by +night; Miss Lindström, the elderly Swedish woman laboring among +the poor negroes of Flytown; a constant sprinkling from the +Scandinavian-Americans whose well-kept truck-farms filled the region +near the Marshall home; one-armed Mr. Howell, the editor of a luridly +radical Socialist weekly paper, whom Judith called in private the +"old puss-cat" on account of his soft, rather weak voice and mild, +ingratiating ways. Yes, the co-ed had been right, one met at the +Marshalls' every variety of person except the exclusive. + +These habitués of the house came and went with the greatest +familiarity. As they all knew there was no servant to answer the +doorbell, they seldom bothered to ring, but opened the door, stepped +into the hall, hung up their wraps on the long line of hooks, and went +into the big, low-ceilinged living-room. If nobody was there, they +usually took a book from one of the shelves lining the room and sat +down before the fire to wait. Sometimes they stayed to the next +meal and helped wash up the dishes afterwards. Sometimes they had a +satisfactory visit with each other, two or three callers happening to +meet together before the fire, and went away without having seen any +of the Marshalls. Informality could go no further. + +The only occurrence in the Marshall life remotely approaching the +regularity and formality of a real social event was the weekly meeting +of the string quartet which Professor Marshall had founded soon after +his arrival in La Chance. + +It was on Sunday evening that the quartet met regularly for their +seance. Old Reinhardt, the violin teacher, was first violin and +leader; Mr. Bauermeister (in everyday life a well-to-do wholesale +plumber) was second violin; Professor Marshall played the viola, and +old Professor Kennedy bent his fine, melancholy face over the 'cello. +Any one who chose might go to the Marshall house on Sunday evenings, +on condition that he should not talk during the music, and did not +expect any attention. + +The music began at seven promptly and ended at ten. A little before +that time, Mrs. Marshall, followed by any one who felt like helping, +went out into the kitchen and made hot coffee and sandwiches, and when +the last chord had stopped vibrating, the company adjourned into the +dining-room and partook of this simple fare. During the evening no +talk was allowed except the occasional wranglings of the musicians +over tempo and shading, but afterwards, every one's tongue, chastened +by the long silence, was loosened into loud and cheerful loquacity. +Professor Marshall, sitting at the head of the table, talked faster +and louder than any one else, throwing the ball to his especial +favorite, brilliant young Professor Saunders, who tossed it back with +a sureness and felicity of phrase which he had learned nowhere but in +this give-and-take. Mrs. Marshall poured the coffee, saw that every +one was served with sandwiches, and occasionally when the talk, +running over every known topic, grew too noisy, or the discussion too +hot, cast in one of the pregnant and occasionally caustic remarks of +which she held the secret. They were never brilliant, Mrs. Marshall's +remarks--but they were apt to have a dry humor, and almost always when +she had said her brief say? there loomed out of the rainbow mist of +her husband's flashing, controversial talk the outlines of the true +proportions of the case. + +After the homely feast was eaten, each guest rose and carried his own +cup and saucer and plate into the kitchen in a gay procession, and +since it was well known that, for the most part, the Marshalls "did +their own work," several of the younger ones helped wash the dishes, +while the musicians put away the music-racks and music, and the rest +put on their wraps. Then Professor Marshall stood at the door holding +up a lamp while the company trooped down the long front walk to +the gate in the hedge, and turned along the country road to the +cross-roads where the big Interurban cars whizzed by. + +All this happened with that unbroken continuity which was the +characteristic of the Marshall life, most marking them as different +from the other faculty families. Week after week, and month after +month, this program was followed with little variation, except for the +music which was played, and the slight picturesque uncertainty as +to whether old Reinhardt would or would not arrive mildly under the +influence of long Sunday imbibings. Not that this factor interfered at +all with the music. One of Sylvia's most vivid childhood recollections +was the dramatic contrast between old Reinhardt with, and without, his +violin. Partly from age, and partly from a too convivial life, the +old, heavily veined hands trembled so that he could scarcely unbutton +his overcoat, or handle his cup of hot coffee. His head shook too, and +his kind, rheumy eyes, in their endeavor to focus themselves, seemed +to flicker back and forth in their sockets. The child used to watch +him, fascinated, as he fumbled endlessly at the fastenings of his +violin-case, and put back the top with uncertain fingers. She was +waiting for the thrilling moment when he should tuck the instrument +away under his pendulous double chin and draw his bow across the +strings in the long sonorous singing chord, which ran up and down +Sylvia's back like forked lightning. + +This was while all the others were tuning and scraping and tugging at +their pegs, a pleasant bustle of discord which became so much a +part of Sylvia's brain that she could never in after years hear the +strumming and sawing of an orchestra preparing to play, without seeing +the big living-room of her father's house, with its low whitewashed +ceiling, its bare, dully shining floor, its walls lined with books, +its shabby, comfortable furniture, the whole quickened by the +Promethean glow from the blaze in the grate and glorified by the +chastened passion of the singing strings. + +The two Anglo-Saxon, professors were but able amateurs of their +instruments. Bauermeister, huge, red, and impassive, was by virtue of +his blood, a lifelong training, and a musical ancestry, considerably +more than an amateur; and old Reinhardt was the master of them all. +His was a history which would have been tragic if it had happened to +any but Reinhardt, who cared for nothing but an easy life, beer, and +the divine tones which he alone could draw from his violin. He had +offered, fifty years ago in Vienna, the most brilliant promise of a +most brilliant career, a promise which had come to naught because +of his monstrous lack of ambition, and his endless yielding to +circumstance, which had finally, by a series of inconceivable +migrations, landed him in the German colony of La Chance, impecunious +and obscure and invincibly convinced that he had everything worth +having in life. "Of vat use?" he would say, even now, when asked to +play in public--"de moosic ist all--and dat is eben so goodt here mit +friends." Or, "Dere goes a thousand peoples to a goncert--maybe fife +from dat thousand lofes de moosic--let dose fife gome to me--and +I play dem all day for noding!" or again, more iconoclastically +still,--when told of golden harvests to be reaped, "And for vat den? I +can't play on more dan von fioleen at a time--is it? I got a good one +now. And if I drink more beer dan now, I might make myself seeck!" +This with a prodigiously sly wink of one heavy eyelid. + +He gave enough music lessons to pay his small expenses, although after +one or two stormy passages in which he treated with outrageous and +unjustifiable violence the dawdling pupils coming from well-to-do +families, he made it a rule to take no pupils whose parents employed a +servant, and confined himself to children of the poorer classes, among +whom he kept up a small orchestra which played together twice a week +and never gave any concerts. And almost since the arrival of the +Marshalls in La Chance and his unceremonious entrance into the house +as, walking across the fields on a Sunday afternoon, he had heard +Professor Marshall playing the Doric Toccata on the newly installed +piano, he had spent his every Sunday evening in their big living-room. + +He had seen the children appear and grow older, and adored them +with Teutonic sentimentality, especially Sylvia, whom he called his +"Moonbeam brincess," his "little ellfen fairy," and whom, when she was +still tiny, he used to take up on his greasy old knees and, resting +his violin on her head, play his wildest fantasies, that she might +feel how it "talked to her bones." + +In early childhood Sylvia was so used to him that, like the others +of her circle, she accepted, indeed hardly noticed, his somewhat +startling eccentricities, his dirty linen, his face and hands to +match, his shapeless garments hanging loosely over the flabby +corpulence of his uncomely old body, his beery breath. To her, old +Reinhardt was but the queer external symbol of a never-failing +enchantment. Through the pleasant harmonious give-and-take of the +other instruments, the voice of his violin vibrated with the throbbing +passion of a living thing. His dirty old hand might shake and quaver, +but once the neck of the fiddle rested between thumb and forefinger, +the seraph who made his odd abiding-place in old Reinhardt's soul +sang out in swelling tones and spoke of heavenly things, and of the +Paradise where we might live, if we were but willing. + +Even when they were quite little children, Sylvia and Judith, and +later, Lawrence, were allowed to sit up on Sunday evenings to +listen to the music. Judith nearly always slept, steadily; and not +infrequently after a long day of outdoor fun, stupefied with fresh +air and exercise, Lawrence, and Sylvia too, could not keep their eyes +open, and dozed and woke and dozed again, coiled like so many little +kittens among the cushions of the big divan. In all the intensely +enjoyed personal pleasures of her later youth, and these were many for +Sylvia, she was never to know a more utter sweetness than thus to fall +asleep, the music a far-off murmur in her ears, and to wake again to +the restrained, clarified ecstasy of the four concerted voices. + +And yet it was in connection with this very quartet that she had her +first shocked vision of how her home-life appeared to other people. +She once chanced, when she was about eight years old, to go with her +father on a Saturday to his office at the University, where he had +forgotten some papers necessary for his seminar. There, sitting on +the front steps of the Main Building, waiting for her father, she had +encountered the wife of the professor of European History with her +beautiful young-lady sister from New York and her two daughters, +exquisite little girls in white serge, whose tailored, immaculate +perfection made Sylvia's heart heavy with a sense of the plebeian +inelegance of her own Saturday-morning play-clothes. Mrs. Hubert, +obeying an impulse of curiosity, stopped to speak to the little +Marshall girl, about whose queer upbringing there were so many stories +current, and was struck with the decorative possibilities of the +pretty child, apparent to her practised eye. As she made the kindly +intended, vague remarks customarily served out to unknown children, +she was thinking: "How _can_ any woman with a vestige of a woman's +instinct dress that lovely child in ready-made, commonplace, +dark-colored clothes? She would repay any amount of care and +"thought." So you take music-lessons too, besides your school?" she +asked mechanically. She explained to her sister, a stranger in La +Chance: "Music is one of the things I _starve_ for, out here! We never +hear it unless we go clear to Chicago--and such prices! Here, there is +simply _no_ musical feeling!" She glanced again at Sylvia, who was +now answering her questions, fluttered with pleasure at having the +beautiful lady speak to her. The beautiful lady had but an inattentive +ear for Sylvia's statement that, yes, lately Father had begun to give +her lessons on the piano. With the smoothly working imagination coming +from a lifetime of devotion to the subject, Mrs. Hubert was stripping +off Sylvia's trite little blue coat and uninteresting dark hat, and +was arraying her in scarlet serge with a green velvet collar--"with +those eyes and that coloring she could carry off striking 'color +combinations--and a big white felt hat with a soft pompon of silk +on one side--no, a long, stiff, scarlet quill would suit her style +better. Then, with white stockings and shoes and gloves--or perhaps +pearl-gray would be better. Yes, with low-cut suede shoes, fastening +with two big smoked-pearl buttons." She looked down with pitying eyes +at Sylvia's sturdy, heavy-soled shoes which could not conceal the +slender, shapely feet within them--"but, what on earth was the child +saying?--" + +"--every Sunday evening--it's beautiful, and now I'm getting so big I +can help some. I can turn over the pages for them in hard places, +and when old Mr. Reinhardt has had too much to drink and his hands +tremble, he lets me unfasten his violin-case and tighten up his bow +and--" + +Mrs. Hubert cried out, "Your parents don't let you have anything to do +with that old, drunken Reinhardt!" + +Sylvia was smitten into silence by the other's horrified tone and +hung her head miserably, only murmuring, after a pause, in damning +extenuation, "He's never so _very_ drunk!" + +"Well, upon my word!" exclaimed Mrs. Hubert, in a widely spaced, +emphatic phrase of condemnation. To her sister she added, "It's really +not exaggeration then, what one hears about their home life." One of +her daughters, a child about Sylvia's age, turned a candid, blank +little face up to hers, "Mother, what is a drunken reinhardt?" she +asked in a thin little pipe. + +Mrs. Hubert frowned, shook her head, and said in a tone of dark +mystery: "Never mind, darling, don't think about it. It's something +that nice little girls shouldn't know anything about. Come, Margery; +come, Eleanor." She took their hands and began to draw them away +without another look at Sylvia, who remained behind, drooping, +ostracised, pierced momentarily with her first blighting misgiving +about the order of things she had always known. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +BROTHER AND SISTER + + +A fuller initiation into the kaleidoscopic divergencies of adult +standards was given Sylvia during the visits of her Aunt Victoria. +These visits were angelic in their extreme rarity, and for Sylvia were +always a mixture of the beatific and the distressing. Only to look at +Aunt Victoria was a bright revelation of elegance and grace. And yet +the talk around table and hearth on the two or three occasions when +the beautiful young widow honored their roof with a sojourn was hard +on Sylvia's sensitive nerves. + +It was not merely that a good deal of what was said was +unintelligible. The Marshall children were quite accustomed to +incessant conversations between their elders of which they could +gather but the vaguest glimmering. They played about, busy in +their own absorbing occupations, lending an absent but not wholly +unattentive ear to the gabble of their elders, full of odd and +ridiculous-sounding words like Single-tax, and contrapuntal +development, and root-propagation, and Benthamism, and Byzantine, +and nitrogenous fertilizers, and Alexandrine, and chiaroscuro, and +surviving archaisms, and diminishing utility--for to keep up such a +flood-tide of talk as streamed through the Marshall house required +contributions from many diverging rivers. Sylvia was entirely used to +this phenomenon and, although it occasionally annoyed her that good +attention was wasted on projects so much less vital than those of the +children, she bore it no grudge. But on the rare occasions when Aunt +Victoria was with them, there was a different and ominous note to the +talk which made Sylvia acutely uneasy, although she was quite unable +to follow what was said. This uncomfortable note did not at all come +from mere difference of opinion, for that too was a familiar element +in Sylvia's world. Indeed, it seemed to her that everybody who came to +the Marshall house disagreed with everybody else about everything. +The young men, students or younger professors, engaged in perpetual +discussions, carried on in acrimonious tones which nevertheless seemed +not in the least to impair the good feeling between them. When there +was nobody else there for Father to disagree with, he disagreed with +Mother, occasionally, to his great delight, rousing her from her +customary self-contained economy of words to a heat as voluble as his +own. Often as the two moved briskly about, preparing a meal together, +they shouted out from the dining-room to the kitchen a discussion on +some unintelligible topic such as the "anachronism of the competitive +system," so loudly voiced and so energetically pursued that when +they came to sit down to table, they would be quite red-cheeked and +stirred-up, and ate their dinners with as vigorous an appetite as +though they had been pursuing each other on foot instead of verbally. + +The older habitués of the house were no more peaceable and were +equally given to what seemed to childish listeners endless disputes +about matters of no importance. Professor La Rue's white mustache and +pointed beard quivered with the intensity of his scorn for the modern +school of poetry, and Madame La Rue, who might be supposed to be +insulated by the vast bulk of her rosy flesh from the currents of +passionate conviction flashing through the Marshall house, had fixed +ideas on the Franco-Prussian War, on the relative values of American +and French bed-making, and the correct method of bringing up girls +(she was childless), which needed only to be remotely stirred to burst +into showers of fiery sparks. And old Professor Kennedy was nothing +less than abusive when started on an altercation about one of the +topics vital to him, such as the ignoble idiocy of the leisure-class +ideal, or the generally contemptible nature of modern society. No, it +was not mere difference of opinion which so charged the air during +Aunt Victoria's rare visits with menacing electricity. + +As a matter of fact, if she did differ in opinion from her brother and +his wife, the children would never have been able to guess it from the +invariably restrained tones of her fluent and agreeable speech, so +different from the outspoken virulence with which people in that house +were accustomed to defend their ideas. But, indefinable though it was +to Sylvia's undeveloped powers of analysis, she felt that the advent +of her father's beautiful and gracious sister was like a drop of +transparent but bitter medicine in a glass of clear water. There +was no outward sign of change, but everything was tinctured by +it. Especially was her father changed from his usual brilliantly +effervescent self. In answer to the most harmless remark of Aunt +Victoria, he might reply with a sudden grim sneering note in his voice +which made Sylvia look up at him half-afraid. If Aunt Victoria noticed +this sardonic accent, she never paid it the tribute of a break in the +smooth surface of her own consistent good-will, rebuking her brother's +prickly hostility only by the most indulgent tolerance of his +queer ways, a tolerance which never had on Professor Marshall's +sensibilities the soothing effect which might have seemed its natural +result. + +The visit which Aunt Victoria paid them when Sylvia was ten years old +was more peaceable than the one before it. Perhaps the interval of +five years between the two had mellowed the relationship; or more +probably the friction was diminished because Aunt Victoria arranged +matters so that she was less constantly in the house than usual. On +that occasion, in addition to the maid who always accompanied her, +she brought her little stepson and his tutor, and with characteristic +thoughtfulness refused to impose this considerable train of attendants +on a household so primitively organized as that of the Marshalls. They +all spent the fortnight of their stay at the main hotel of the town, a +large new edifice, the conspicuous costliness of which was one of the +most recent sources of civic pride in La Chance. Here in a suite of +four much-decorated rooms, which seemed unutterably elegant to Sylvia, +the travelers slept, and ate most of their meals, making their trips +out to the Marshall house in a small, neat, open carriage, which, +although engaged at a livery-stable by Mrs. Marshall-Smith for the +period of her stay, was not to be distinguished from a privately owned +equipage. + +It can be imagined what an event in the pre-eminently stationary life +of the Marshall children was this fortnight. To Judith and Lawrence, +eight and four respectively, Aunt Victoria's charms and amenities were +non-existent. She was for Judith as negligible as all other grown-ups, +save the few who had good sense enough to play games and go in +swimming. Judith's interest centered in the new boy, whom the +Marshalls now saw for the first time, and who was in every way a +specimen novel in their limited experience of children. During their +first encounter, the well-groomed, white-linen-clad boy with his +preternaturally clean face, his light-brown hair brushed till it shone +like lacquer, his polished nails and his adult appendage of a tutor, +aroused a contempt in Judith's mind which was only equaled by her +astonishment. On that occasion he sat upright in a chair between his +stepmother and his tutor, looking intently out of very bright blue +eyes at the two gipsy-brown little girls in their single-garment +linen play-clothes, swinging their tanned bare legs and feet from the +railing of the porch. They returned this inspection in silence--on +Sylvia's part with the keen and welcoming interest she always felt in +new people who were well-dressed and physically attractive, but as for +Judith with a frankly hostile curiosity, as at some strange and quite +unattractive new animal. + +The next morning, a still, oppressive day of brazen heat, it was +suggested that the children take their guest off to visit some of +their own favorite haunts to "get acquainted." This process began +somewhat violently by the instant halt of Arnold as soon as they were +out of sight of the house. "I'm going to take off these damn socks and +shoes," he announced, sitting down in the edge of a flower-bed. + +"Oh, don't! You'll get your clean suit all dirty!" cried Sylvia, +springing forward to lift him out of the well-tilled black loam. +Arnold thrust her hand away and made a visible effort to increase his +specific gravity. "I hope to the Lord I _do_ get it dirty!" he said +bitterly. + +"Isn't it your best?" asked Sylvia, aghast. "Have you another?" "I +haven't anything but!" said the boy savagely. "There's a whole trunk +full of them!" He was fumbling with a rough clumsiness at the lacing +of his shoes, but made no progress in loosening them, and now began +kicking at the grass. "I don't know how to get them off!" he cried, +his voice breaking nervously. Judith was down on her knees, inspecting +with a competent curiosity the fastenings, which were of a new +variety. + +"It's _easy_!" she said. "You just lift this little catch up and turn +it back, and that lets you get at the knot." As she spoke, she acted, +her rough brown little fingers tugging at the silken laces. "How'd +you ever _get_ it fastened," she inquired, "if you don't know how to +unfasten it?" + +"Oh, Pauline puts my shoes on for me," explained Arnold. "She dresses +and undresses me." + +Judith stopped and looked up at him. "Who's Pauline?" she asked, +disapproving astonishment in her accent. + +"Madrina's maid." + +Judith pursued him further with her little black look of scorn. "Who's +Madrina?" + +"Why--you know--your Aunt Victoria--my stepmother--she married my +father when I was a little baby--she doesn't want me to call her +'mother' so I call her Madrina.' That's Italian for--" + +Judith had no interest in this phenomenon and no opinion about it. +She recalled the conversation to the point at issue with her usual +ruthless directness. "And you wouldn't know how to undress yourself +if somebody didn't help you!" She went on loosening the laces in a +contemptuous silence, during which the boy glowered resentfully at the +back of her shining black hair. Sylvia essayed a soothing remark +about what pretty shoes he had, but with small success. Already the +excursion was beginning to take on the color of its ending,--an +encounter between the personalities of Judith and Arnold, with Sylvia +and Lawrence left out. When the shoes finally came off, they revealed +white silk half-hose, which, discarded in their turn, showed a pair of +startlingly pale feet, on which the new boy now essayed wincingly to +walk. "Ouch! Ouch! OUCH!" he cried, holding up first one and then the +other from contact with the hot sharp-edged pebbles of the path, "How +do you _do it_?" + +"Oh, it always hurts when you begin in the spring," said Judith +carelessly. "You have to get used to it. How old are you?" + +"Ten, last May." + +"Buddy here began going barefoot last summer and he's only four," she +stated briefly, proceeding towards the barn and chicken-house. + +After that remark the new boy walked forward with no more articulate +complaints, though his face was drawn and he bit his lips. He was +shown the chicken-yard--full of gawky, half-grown chickens shedding +their down and growing their feathers--and forgot his feet in the +fascination of scattering grain to them and watching their fluttering +scrambles. He was shown the rabbit-house and allowed to take one of +the limp, unresponsive little bunches of fur in his arms, and feed +a lettuce-leaf into its twitching pink mouth. He was shown the +house-in-the-maple-tree, a rough floor fixed between two large +branches, with a canvas roof over it, ensconced in which retreat his +eyes shone with happy excitement. He was evidently about to make some +comment on it, but glanced at Judith's dark handsome little face, +unsmiling and suspicious, and remained silent. He tried the same +policy when being shown the children's own garden, but Judith tracked +him out of this attempt at self-protection with some direct and +searching questions, discovering in him such ignorance of the broadest +division-lines of the vegetable kingdom that she gave herself up +to open scorn, vainly frowned down by the more naturally civilized +Sylvia, who was by no means enjoying herself. The new boy was not +in the least what he had looked. She longed to return to the +contemplation of Aunt Victoria's perfections. Lawrence was, as usual, +deep in an unreal world of his own, where he carried forth some +enterprise which had nothing to do with any one about him. He was +frowning and waving his arms, and making stabbing gestures with his +fingers, and paid no attention to the conversation between Judith and +the new boy. + +"What _can_ you do? What _do_ you know?" asked the former at last. + +"I can ride horseback," said Arnold defiantly. + +Judith put him to the test at once, leading the way to the stall which +was the abode of the little pinto broncho, left them, she explained, +as a trust by one of Father's students from the Far West, who was now +graduated and a civil engineer in Chicago, where it cost too much to +keep a horse. Arnold emerged from this encounter with the pony with +but little more credit than he had earned in the garden, showing an +ineptness about equine ways which led Judith through an unsparing +cross-examination to the information that the boy's experience of +handling a horse consisted in being ready in a riding-costume at a +certain hour every afternoon, and mounting a well-broken little +pony, all saddled and bridled, which was "brought round" to the +porte-cochčre. + +"What's a porte-cochčre?" she asked, with her inimitable air of +despising it, whatever it might turn out to be. + +Arnold stared with an attempt to copy her own frank scorn for +another's ignorance. "Huh! Don't you even know that much? It's the big +porch without any floor to it, where carriages drive up so you can get +in and out without getting wet if it rains. Every house that's good +for anything has one." + +So far from being impressed or put down, Judith took her stand as +usual on the offensive. "'Fore I'd be afraid of a little rain!" she +said severely, an answer which caused Arnold to seem disconcerted, and +again to look at her hard with the startled expression of arrested +attention which from the first her remarks and strictures seemed to +cause in him. + +They took the pinto out. Judith rode him bareback at a gallop down +to the swimming pool and dived from his back into the yellow water +shimmering hotly in the sun. This feat stung Arnold into a final fury. +Without an instant's pause he sprang in after her. As he came to the +top, swimming strongly with a lusty, regular stroke, and rapidly +overhauled the puffing Judith, his face shone brilliantly with relief. +He was another child. The petulant boy of a few moments before had +vanished. "Beat you to the springboard!" he sputtered joyously, +swimming low and spitting water as he slid easily through it at twice +Judith's speed. She set her teeth and drove her tough little body with +a fierce concentration of all her forces, but Arnold was sitting on +the springboard, dangling his red and swollen feet when she arrived. + +She clambered out and sat down beside him, silent for an instant. Then +she said with a detached air, "You can swim better than any boy I ever +saw." + +Arnold's open, blond face flushed scarlet at this statement. He looked +at the dripping little brown rat beside him, and returned impulsively, +"I'd rather play with you than any girl I ever saw." + +They were immediately reduced to an awkward silence by these two +unpremeditated superlatives. Judith found nothing to say beyond a +"huh" in an uncertain accent, and they turned with relief to alarums +and excursions from the forgotten and abandoned Sylvia and Lawrence. +Sylvia was forcibly restraining her little brother from following +Judith into the water. "You _mustn't_, Buddy! You _know_ we aren't +allowed to go in till an hour after eating and you only had your +breakfast a little while ago!" She led him away bellowing. + +Arnold, surprised, asked Judith, "'Cept for that, are you allowed to +go in whenever you want?" + +"Sure! We're not to stay in more than ten minutes at a time, and then +get out and run around for half an hour in the sun. There's a clock +under a little roof-thing, nailed up to a tree over there, so's we can +tell." + +"And don't you get what-for, if you go in with all your clothes on +this way?" + +"I haven't any clothes _on_ but my rompers," said Judith. "They're +just the same as a bathing suit." She snatched back her prerogative of +asking questions. "Where _did_ you learn to swim so?" + +"At the seashore! I get taken there a month every summer. It's the +most fun of any of the places I get taken. I've had lessons there from +the professor of swimming ever since I was six. Madrina doesn't know +what to do with me but have me take lessons. I like the swimming ones +the best. I hate dancing--and going to museums." + +"What else can you do?" asked Judith with a noticeable abatement of +her previous disesteem. + +Arnold hesitated, his own self-confidence as evidently dashed. +"Well--I can fence a little--and talk French; we are in Paris winters, +you know. We don't stay in Lydford for the winter. Nobody does." + +"_Everybody_ goes away?" queried Judith. "What a funny town!" + +"Oh, except the people who _live_ there--the Vermonters." + +Judith was more and more at a loss. "Don't _you_ live there?" + +"No, we don't _live_ anywhere. We just stay places for a while. Nobody +that we know lives anywhere." He interrupted a further question from +the astonished Judith to ask, "How'd you happen to have such a dandy +swimming-pool out of such a little brook?" + +Judith, switched off upon a topic of recent and absorbing interest, +was diverted from investigation into the odd ways of people who +lived nowhere. "Isn't it great!" she said ardently. "It's new this +summer--that's why I don't swim so very well yet. Why, it was this +way. The creek ran through a corner of our land, and a lot of Father's +students that are engineers or something, wanted to do something +for Father when they graduated--lots of students do, you know--and +everybody said the creek didn't have water enough and they bet each +other it did, and after Commencement we had a kind of camp for +a week--tents and things all round here--and Mother cooked for +them--camp fires--oh, lots of fun!--and they let us children tag +around as much as we pleased--and they and Father dug, and fixed +concrete--say, did you ever get let to stir up concrete? It's great!" + +Seeing in the boy's face a blankness as great as her own during his +chance revelations of life on another planet, she exclaimed, "Here, +come on, down to the other end, and I'll _show_ you how they made the +dam and all--they began over there with--" The two pattered along the +edge hand-in-hand, talking incessantly on a common topic at last, +interrupting each other, squatting down, peering into the water, +pointing, discussing, arguing, squeezing the deliciously soft mud up +and down between their toes, their heads close together--they might +for the moment have been brother and sister who had grown up together. + +They were interrupted by voices, and turning flushed and candid faces +of animation towards the path, beheld Aunt Victoria, wonderful and +queen-like in a white dress, a parasol, like a great rose, over her +stately blond head, attended by Sylvia adoring; Mrs. Marshall quiet +and observant; Mr. Rollins, the tutor, thin, agitated, and unhappily +responsible; and Professor Marshall smiling delightedly at the +children. + +"Why, Arnold _Smith_!" cried his tutor, too much overcome by the +situation to express himself more forcibly than by a repetition of the +boy's name. "Why, _Arnold_! Come here!" + +The cloud descended upon the boy's face. "I _will_ not!" he said +insolently. + +"But we were just _looking_ for you to start back to the hotel," +argued Mr. Rollins. + +"I don't care if you were!" said the boy in a sullen accent. + +Sylvia and Judith looked on in amazement at this scene of +insubordination, as new to them as all the rest of the boy's actions. +He was standing still now, submitting in a gloomy silence to the +various comments on his appearance, which was incredibly different +from that with which he had started on his travels. The starch +remaining in a few places in his suit, now partly dried in the +hot sun, caused the linen to stand out grotesquely in peaks and +mud-streaked humps, his hair, still wet, hung in wisps about his very +dirty face, his bare, red feet and legs protruded from shapeless +knickerbockers. His stepmother looked at him with her usual +good-natured amused gaze. "It is customary, before going in swimming, +isn't it, Arnold, to take your watch out of your pocket and put your +cuff-links in a safe-place?" she suggested casually. + +"Good Heavens! His watch!" cried Mr. Rollins, clutching at his own +sandy hair. + +Professor Marshall clapped the boy encouragingly on the shoulder. +"Well, sir, you look more like a human being," he said heartily, +addressing himself, with defiance in his tone, to his sister. + +She replied with a smile, "That rather depends, doesn't it, Elliott, +upon one's idea of what constitutes a human being?" + +Something in her sweet voice roused Judith to an ugly wrath. She came +forward and took her place protectingly beside her new playmate, +scowling at her aunt. "We were having a _lovely_ time!" she said +challengingly. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith looked down at the grotesque little figure and +touched the brown cheek indulgently with her forefinger. "That too +rather depends upon one's definition of a lovely time," she replied, +turning away, leaving with the indifference of long practice the +unfortunate Mr. Rollins to the task of converting Arnold into a +product possible to transport through the streets of a civilized town. + +Before they went away that day, Arnold managed to seek Judith out +alone, and with shamefaced clumsiness to slip his knife, quite new and +three-bladed, into her hand. She looked at it uncomprehendingly. "For +you--to keep," he said, flushing again, and looking hard into her +dark eyes, which in return lightened suddenly from their usual rather +somber seriousness into a smile, a real smile. Judith's smiles were +far from frequent, but the recipient of one did not forget it. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +EVERY ONE'S OPINION OF EVERY ONE ELSE + + +In this way, almost from the first, several distinct lines of cleavage +were established in the family party during the next fortnight. Arnold +imperiously demanded a complete vacation from "lessons," and when, it +was indolently granted, he spent it incessantly with Judith, the two +being always out of doors and usually joyously concocting what in any +but the easy-going, rustic plainness of the Marshall mode of life +would have been called mischief. Mrs. Marshall, aided by the others +in turn, toiled vigorously between the long rows of vegetables and +a little open shack near by, where, on a superannuated but still +serviceable cook-stove, she "put up," for winter use, an endless +supply of the golden abundance which, Ceres-like, she poured out every +year from the Horn of Plenty of her garden. Sylvia, in a state of +hypnotized enchantment, dogged her Aunt Victoria's graceful footsteps +and still more graceful, leisurely halts; Lawrence bustled about on +his own mysterious business in a solitary and apparently exciting +world of his own which was anywhere but in La Chance; and Professor +Marshall, in the intervals of committee work at the University, now +about to open, alternated between helping his wife, playing a great +deal of very noisy and very brilliant music on the piano, and +conversing in an unpleasant voice with his sister. + +Mr. Rollins, for whom, naturally, Arnold's revolt meant unwonted +freedom, was for the most part invisible, "seeing the sights of La +Chance, I suppose," conjectured Aunt Victoria indifferently, in +her deliciously modulated voice, when asked what had become of the +sandy-haired tutor. And because, in the intense retirement and +rustication of this period, Mrs. Marshall-Smith needed little +attention paid to her toilets, Pauline also was apparently enjoying an +unusual vacation. A short time after making the conjecture about her +stepson's tutor, Aunt Victoria had added the suggestion, level-browed, +and serene as always, "Perhaps he and Pauline are seeing the sights +together." + +Sylvia, curled on a little stool at her aunt's feet, turned an +artless, inquiring face up to her. "What _are_ the 'sights' of La +Chance, Auntie?" she asked. + +Her father, who was sitting at the piano, his long fingers raised +as though about to play, whirled about and cut in quickly with an +unintelligible answer, "Your Aunt Victoria refers to non-existent +phenomena, my dear, in order to bring home to us the uncouth +provinciality in which we live." + +Aunt Victoria, leaning back, exquisitely passive, in one of the big, +shabby arm-chairs, raised a protesting hand. "My dear Elliott, +you don't do your chosen abiding-place justice. There is the new +Court-House. Nobody can deny that that is a sight. I spent a long time +the other day contemplating it. That and the Masonic Building are a +_pair_ of sights. I conceive Rollins, who professes to be interested +in architecture, as constantly vibrating between the two." + +To which handsome tribute to La Chance's high-lights, Professor +Marshall returned with bitterness, "Good Lord, Vic, why do you come, +then?" + +She answered pleasantly, "I might ask in my turn why you stay." She +went on, "I might also remind you that you and your children are the +only human ties I have." She slipped a soft arm about Sylvia as she +spoke, and turned the vivid, flower-like little face to be kissed. +When Aunt Victoria kissed her, Sylvia always felt that she had, like +Diana in the story-book, stooped radiant from a shining cloud. + +There was a pause in the conversation. Professor Marshall faced the +piano again and precipitated himself headlong into the diabolic +accelerandos of "The Hall of the Mountain-King." His sister listened +with extreme and admiring appreciation of his talent. "Upon my word, +Elliott," she said heartily, "under the circumstances it's incredible, +but it's true--your touch positively improves." + +He stopped short, and addressed the air above the piano with +passionate conviction. "I stay because, thanks to my wife, I've +savored here fourteen years of more complete reconciliation with +life--I've been vouchsafed more usefulness--I've discovered more +substantial reasons for existing than I ever dreamed possible in the +old life--than any one in that world can conceive!" + +Aunt Victoria looked down at her beautiful hands clasped in her lap. +"Yes, quite so," she breathed. "Any one who knows you well must agree +that whatever you are, or do, or find, nowadays, is certainly 'thanks +to your wife.'" + +Her brother flashed a furious look at her, and was about to speak, +but catching sight of Sylvia's troubled little face turned to him +anxiously, gave only an impatient shake to his ruddy head--now graying +slightly. A little later he said: "Oh, we don't speak the same +language any more, Victoria. I couldn't make you understand--you don't +know--how should you? You can't conceive how, when one is really +_living_, nothing of all that matters. What does architecture matter, +for instance?" + +"Some of it matters very little indeed," concurred his sister blandly. + +This stirred him to an ungracious laugh. "As for keeping up only human +ties, isn't a fortnight once every five years rather slim rations?" + +"Ah, there are difficulties--the Masonic Building--" murmured Aunt +Victoria, apparently at random. But then, it seemed to Sylvia that +they were always speaking at random. For all she could see, neither of +them ever answered what the other had said. + +The best times were when she and Aunt Victoria were all alone +together--or with only the silent, swift-fingered, Pauline in +attendance during the wonderful processes of dressing or undressing +her mistress. These occasions seemed to please Aunt Victoria best +also. She showed herself then so winning and gracious and altogether +magical to the little girl that Sylvia forgot the uncomfortableness +which always happened when her aunt and her father were together. As +they came to be on more intimate terms, Sylvia was told a great many +details about Aunt Victoria's present and past life, in the form of +stories, especially about that early part of it which had been spent +with her brother. Mrs. Marshall-Smith took pains to talk to Sylvia +about her father as he had been when he was a brilliant dashing youth +in Paris at school, or as the acknowledged social leader of his class +in the famous Eastern college. "You see, Sylvia," she explained, +"having no father or mother or any near relatives, we saw more of +each other than a good many brothers and sisters do. We had nobody +else--except old Cousin Ellen, who kept house for us in the summers +in Lydford and traveled around with us," Lydford was another topic on +which, although it was already very familiar to her from her mother's +reminiscences of her childhood in Vermont, Aunt Victoria shed much +light for Sylvia. Aunt Victoria's Lydford was so different from +Mother's, it seemed scarcely possible they could be the same place. +Mother's talk was all about the mountains, the sunny upland pastures, +rocky and steep, such a contrast to the rich, level stretches of +country about La Chance; about the excursions through these slopes +of the mountains every afternoon, accompanied by a marvelously +intelligent collie dog, who helped find the cows; about the orchard +full of old trees more climbable than any others which have grown +since the world began; about the attic full of drying popcorn and +old hair-trunks and dusty files of the New York _Tribune_; about the +pantry with its cookie-jar, and the "back room" with its churn and +cheese-press. + +Nothing of all this existed in the Lydford of which Aunt Victoria +spoke, although some of her recollections were also of childhood +hours. Once Sylvia asked her, "But if you were a little girl there, +and Mother was too,--then you and Father and she must have played +together sometimes?" + +Aunt Victoria had replied with decision, "No, I never saw your mother, +and neither did your father--until a few months before they were +married." + +"Well, wasn't that _queer_?" exclaimed Sylvia--"she _always_ lived in +Lydford except when she went away to college." + +Aunt Victoria seemed to hesitate for words, something unusual with +her, and finally brought out, "Your mother lived on a farm, and we +lived in our summer house in the village." She added after a moment's +deliberation: "Her uncle, who kept the farm, furnished us with our +butter. Sometimes your mother used to deliver it at the kitchen door." +She looked hard at Sylvia as she spoke. + +"Well, I should have thought you'd have seen her _there_!" said Sylvia +in surprise. Nothing came to the Marshalls' kitchen door which was not +in the children's field of consciousness. + +"It was, in fact, there that your father met her," stated Aunt +Victoria briefly. + +"Oh yes, I remember," said Sylvia, quoting fluently from an often +heard tale. "I've heard them tell about it lots of times. She was +earning money to pay for her last year in college, and dropped a +history book out of her basket as she started to get back in the +wagon, and Father picked it up and said, 'Why, good Lord! who in +Lydford reads Gibbon?' And Mother said it was hers, and they talked a +while, and then he got in and rode off with her." + +"Yes," said Aunt Victoria, "that was how it happened.... Pauline, get +out the massage cream and do my face, will you?" + +She did not talk any more for a time, but when she began, it was again +of Lydford that she spoke, running along in a murmured stream of +reminiscences breathed faintly between motionless lips that Pauline's +reverent ministrations might not be disturbed. Through the veil of +these half-understood recollections, Sylvia saw highly inaccurate +pictures of great magnificent rooms filled with heavy old mahogany +furniture, of riotously colored rose-gardens, terraced and +box-edged, inhabited by beautiful ladies always, like Aunt Victoria, +"dressed-up," who took tea under brightly striped, pagoda-shaped +tents, waited upon by slant-eyed Japanese (it seemed Aunt Victoria had +nothing but Japanese servants). The whole picture shimmered in the +confused imagination of the listening little girl, till it blended +indistinguishably with the enchantment of her fairy-stories. It all +seemed a background natural enough for Aunt Victoria, but Sylvia could +not fit her father into it. + +"Ah, he's changed greatly--he's transformed--he is not the same +creature," Aunt Victoria told her gravely, speaking according to her +seductive habit with Sylvia, as though to an equal. "The year when +we lost our money and he married, altered all the world for us." +She linked the two events together, and was rewarded by seeing the +reference slide over Sylvia's head. + +"Did you lose _your_ money, too?" asked Sylvia, astounded. It had +never occurred to her that Aunt Victoria might have been affected by +that event in her father's life, with which she was quite familiar +through his careless references to what he seemed to regard as an +interesting but negligible incident. + +"All but the slightest portion of it, my dear--when I was twenty years +old. Your father was twenty-five." + +Sylvia looked about her at the cut-glass and silver utensils on +the lace-covered dressing-table, at Aunt Victoria's pale lilac +crępe-de-chine négligée, at the neat, pretty young maid deft-handedly +rubbing the perfumed cream into the other woman's well-preserved face, +impassive as an idol's. "Why--why, I thought--" she began and stopped, +a native delicacy making her hesitate as Judith never did. + +Aunt Victoria understood. "Mr. Smith had money," she explained +briefly. "I married when I was twenty-one." + +"Oh," said Sylvia. It seemed an easy way out of difficulties. She +had never before chanced to hear Aunt Victoria mention her long-dead +husband. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +SOMETHING ABOUT HUSBANDS + + +She did not by any means always sit in the hotel and watch +Pauline care for different portions of Aunt Victoria's body. Mrs. +Marshall-Smith took, on principle, a drive every day, and Sylvia was +her favorite companion. At first they went generally over the asphalt +and in front of the costly and incredibly differing "mansions" of +the "residential portion" of town, but later their drives took them +principally along the winding roads and under the thrifty young trees +of the State University campus. They often made an excuse of fetching +Professor Marshall home from a committee meeting, and as the faculty +committees at that time of year were, for the most part, feverishly +occupied with the classification of the annual flood-tide of Freshmen, +he was nearly always late, and they were obliged to wait long +half-hours in front of the Main Building. + +Sylvia's cup of satisfaction ran over as, dressed in her simple best, +which her mother without comment allowed her to put on every day now, +she sat in the well-appointed carriage beside her beautiful aunt, at +whom every one looked so hard and so admiringly. The University work +had not begun, but unresigned and harassed professors and assistants, +recalled from their vacations for various executive tasks, were +present in sufficient numbers to animate the front steps of the Main +Building with constantly gathering and dissolving little groups. These +called out greetings to each other, and exchanged dolorous mutual +condolences on their hard fate; all showing, with a helpless masculine +naďveté, their consciousness of the lovely, observant figure in the +carriage below them. Of a different sort were the professors' wives, +who occasionally drifted past on the path. Aunt Victoria might have +been a blue-uniformed messenger-boy for all that was betrayed by their +skilfully casual glance at her and then away, and the subsequent +directness of their forward gaze across the campus. Mrs. +Marshall-Smith had for both these manifestations of consciousness of +her presence the same imperturbable smile of amusement. "They are +delightful, these colleagues of your father's!" she told Sylvia. +Sylvia had hoped fervently that the stylish Mrs. Hubert might see +her in this brief apotheosis, and one day her prayer was answered. +Straight down the steps of the Main Building they came, Mrs. Hubert +glistening in shiny blue silk, extremely unaware of Aunt Victoria, +the two little girls looking to Sylvia like fairy princesses, with +pink-and-white, lace-trimmed dresses, and big pink hats with rose +wreaths. Even the silk laces in their low, white kid shoes were of +pink to match the ribbons, which gleamed at waist and throat and +elbow. Sylvia watched them in an utter admiration, and was beyond +measure shocked when Aunt Victoria said, after they had stepped +daintily past, "Heavens! What a horridly over-dressed family! Those +poor children look too absurd, tricked out like that. The one nearest +me had a sweet, appealing little face, too." + +"That is Eleanor," said Sylvia, with a keen, painful recollection of +the scene a year ago. She added doubtfully, "Didn't you think their +dresses pretty, Aunt Victoria?" + +"I thought they looked like pin-cushions on a kitchen-maid's +dressing-table," returned Aunt Victoria more forcibly than she usually +expressed herself. "You look vastly better with the straight lines +of your plain white dresses. You have a great deal of style, Sylvia. +Judith is handsomer than you, but she will never have any style." This +verdict, upon both the Huberts and herself, delivered with a serious +accent of mature deliberation, impressed Sylvia. It was one of the +speeches she was to ponder. + +Although Professor Marshall showed himself noticeably negligent in the +matter of introducing his colleagues to his sister, it was only two +or three days before Aunt Victoria's half-hours of waiting before the +Main Building had other companionship than Sylvia's. This was due to +the decisive action of young Professor Saunders, just back from the +British Museum, where, at Professor Marshall's suggestion, he had been +digging up facts about the economic history of the twelfth century in +England. Without waiting for an invitation he walked straight up to +the carriage with the ostensible purpose of greeting Sylvia, who was a +great favorite of his, and who in her turn had a romantic admiration +for the tall young assistant. Of all the faculty people who frequented +the Marshall house, he and old Professor Kennedy were the only people +whom Sylvia considered "stylish," and Professor Kennedy, in spite of +his very high connection with the aristocracy of La Chance, was so +cross and depressed that really his "style" did not count. She was +now greatly pleased by the younger professor's public and cordial +recognition of her, and, with her precocious instinct for social ease, +managed to introduce him to her aunt, even adding quaintly a phrase +which she had heard her mother use in speaking of him, "My father +thinks Professor Saunders has a brilliant future before him." + +This very complimentary reference had not the effect she hoped for, +since both the young man and Aunt Victoria laughed, exchanging glances +of understanding, and said to each other, "Isn't she delicious?" But +at least it effectually broke any ice of constraint, so that the +new-comer felt at once upon the most familiarly friendly terms with +the sister of his chief. Thereafter he came frequently to lean an arm +on the side of the carriage and talk with the "ladies-in-waiting," +as he called the pretty woman and child. Once or twice Sylvia was +transferred to the front seat beside Peter, the negro driver, on the +ground that she could watch the horses better, and they took Professor +Saunders for a drive through the flat, fertile country, now beginning +to gleam ruddy with autumnal tints of bronze and scarlet and gold. +Although she greatly enjoyed the social brilliance of these occasions, +on which Aunt Victoria showed herself unexpectedly sprightly and +altogether enchanting, Sylvia felt a little guilty that they did not +return to pick up Professor Marshall, and she was relieved, when they +met at supper, that he made no reference to their defection. + +He did not, in fact, mention his assistant's name at all, and yet he +did not seem surprised when Professor Saunders, coming to the Sunday +evening rehearsal of the quartet, needed no introduction to his +sister, but drew a chair up with the evident intention of devoting +all his conversation to her. For a time this overt intention was +frustrated by old Reinhardt, smitten with an admiration as unconcealed +for the beautiful stranger. In the interval before the arrival of the +later members of the quartet, he fluttered around her like an ungainly +old moth, racking his scant English for complimentary speeches. These +were received by Aunt Victoria with her best calm smile, and by +Professor Saunders with open impatience. His equanimity was not +restored by the fact that there chanced to be rather more general talk +than usual that evening, leaving him but small opportunity for his +tęte-ŕ-tęte. + +It began by the arrival of Professor Kennedy, a little late, delayed +at a reunion of the Kennedy family. He was always reduced to bilious +gloom by any close contact with that distinguished, wealthy, and much +looked-up-to group of citizens of La Chance, and this evening he +walked into the front door obviously even more depressed than usual. +The weather had turned cool, and his imposingly tall old person was +wrapped in a cape-overcoat. Sylvia had no fondness for Professor +Kennedy, but she greatly admired his looks and his clothes, and his +handsome, high-nosed old face. She watched him wrestle himself out of +his coat as though it were a grappling enemy, and was not surprised at +the irritability which sat visibly upon his arching white eyebrows. +He entered the room trailing his 'cello-bag beside him and plucking +peevishly at its drawstrings, and although Aunt Victoria quite roused +herself at the sight of him, he received his introduction to her with +reprehensible indifference. He sank into a chair and looked sadly at +the fire, taking the point of his white beard in his long, tapering +fingers. Professor Marshall turned from the piano, where he sat, +striking A for the conscientious Bauermeister to tune, and said +laughingly, "Hey there, Knight of the Dolorous Countenance, what +vulture is doing business at the old stand on your liver?" + +Professor Kennedy crossed one long, elegantly slim leg over the other, +"I've been dining with the Kennedy family," he said, with a neat and +significant conciseness. + +"Anything specially the matter with the predatory rich?" queried +Marshall, reaching for his viola-case. + +Professor Kennedy shook his head. "Alas! there's never anything the +matter with them. _Comme le diable, ils se portent toujours bien_." + +At the purity of accent with which this embittered remark was made, +Mrs. Marshall-Smith opened her eyes, and paid more attention as the +old professor went on. + +"The last of my unmarried nieces has shown herself a true Kennedy by +providing herself with a dolichocephalic blond of a husband, like all +the others. The dinner was given in honor of the engagement." + +Sylvia was accustomed to finding Professor Kennedy's remarks quite +unintelligible, and this one seemed no odder to her than the rest, so +that she was astonished that Aunt Victoria was not ashamed to confess +as blank an ignorance as the little girl's. The beautiful woman leaned +toward the morose old man with the suave self-confidence of one who +has never failed to charm, and drew his attention to her by a laugh +of amused perplexity. "May I ask," she inquired, "_what_ kind of a +husband is that? It is a new variety to me." + +Professor Kennedy looked at her appraisingly. "It's the kind most +women aspire to," he answered enigmatically. He imparted to this +obscure remark the air of passing a sentence of condemnation. + +Sylvia's mother stirred uneasily in her chair and looked at her +husband. He had begun to take his viola from the case, but now +returned it and stood looking quizzically from his sister to his +guest. "Professor Kennedy talks a special language, Vic," he said +lightly. "Some day he'll make a book of it and be famous. He divides +us all into two kinds: the ones that get what they want by taking it +away from other people--those are the dolichocephalic blonds--though +I believe it doesn't refer to the color of their hair. The other kind +are the white folks, the unpredatory ones who have scruples, and get +pushed to the wall for their pains." + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith turned to the young man beside her. "It makes one +wonder, doesn't it," she conjectured pleasantly, "to which type one +belongs oneself?" + +In this welcome shifting from the abstract to the understandably +personal, old Reinhardt saw his opportunity. "Ach, womens, beautifool +and goot womens!" he cried in his thick, kindly voice. "Dey are abofe +being types. To every good man, dey can be only wie eine blume, so +hold and schön--" + +Professor Kennedy's acid voice broke in--"So you're still in the 1830 +Romantische Schule period, are you, Reinhardt?" He went on to Mrs. +Marshall-Smith: "But there _is_ something in that sort of talk. Women, +especially those who consider themselves beautiful and good, escape +being _either_ kind of type, by the legerdemain with which they get +what they want, and yet don't soil their fingers with predatory acts." + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith was, perhaps, a shade tardy in asking the question +which he had evidently cast his speech to extract from her, but after +an instant's pause she brought it out bravely. "How in the world do +you mean?" she asked, smiling, and received, with a quick flicker of +her eyelids, the old man's response of, "They buy a dolichocephalic +blond to do their dirty work for them and pay for him with their +persons." + +"_Oh!_" cried Mrs. Marshall, checking herself in a sudden deprecatory +gesture of apology towards her sister-in-law. She looked at her +husband and gave him a silent, urgent message to break the awkward +pause, a message which he disregarded, continuing coolly to inspect +his fingernails with an abstracted air, contradicted by the half-smile +on his lips. Sylvia, listening to the talk, could make nothing out of +it, but miserably felt her little heart grow leaden as she looked from +one face to another. Judith and Lawrence, tired of waiting for the +music to begin, had dropped asleep among the pillows of the divan. Mr. +Bauermeister yawned, looked at the clock, and plucked at the strings +of his violin. He hated all talk as a waste of time. Old Reinhardt's +simple face looked as puzzled and uneasy as Sylvia's own. Young Mr. +Saunders seemed to have no idea that there was anything particularly +unsettling in the situation, but, disliking the caustic vehemence of +his old colleague's speech, inter-posed to turn it from the lady by +his side. "And you're the man who's opposed on principle to sweeping +generalizations!" he said in cheerful rebuke. + +"Ah, I've just come from a gathering of the Clan Kennedy," repeated +the older man. "I defy anybody to produce a more successfully +predatory family than mine. The fortunes of the present generation of +Kennedys don't come from any white-livered subterfuge, like the rise +in the value of real estate, as my own ill-owned money does. No, sir; +the good, old, well-recognized, red-blooded method of going out and +taking it away from people not so smart as they are, is good enough +for them, if you please. And my woman relatives--" He swept them away +with a gesture. "When I--" + +Mrs. Marshall cut him short resolutely. "Are you going to have any +music tonight, or aren't you?" she said. + +He looked at her with a sudden, unexpected softening of his somber +eyes. "Do you know, Barbara Marshall, that there are times when you +keep one unhappy old misanthrope from despairing of his kind?" + +She had at this unlooked-for speech only the most honest astonishment. +"I don't know what you're talking about," she said bluntly. + +Judith stirred in her sleep and woke up blinking. When she saw that +Professor Kennedy had come in, she did what Sylvia would never have +dared do; she ran to him and climbed up on his knee, laying her +shining, dark head against his shoulder. The old man's arms closed +around her. "Well, spitfire," he said, "_comment ça roule_, eh?" + +Judith did not trouble herself to answer. With a gesture of +tenderness, as unexpected as his speech to her mother, her old friend +laid his cheek against hers. "You're another, Judy, _You'll_ never +marry a dolichocephalic blond and make him pull the chestnuts out of +the fire for you, will you?" he said confidently. + +Mrs. Marshall rose with the exasperated air of one whose patience is +gone. She made a step as though to shield her husband's sister from +the cantankerous old man. "If I hear another word of argument in this +house tonight--" she threatened. "Mr. Reinhardt, what are these people +_here for_?" + +The musician awoke, with a sigh, from his dazzled contemplation of +his host's sister, and looked about him. "Ach, yes! Ach, yes!" +he admitted. With a glance of adoration at the visitor, he added +impressively what to his mind evidently signified some profoundly +significant tribute, "Dis night we shall blay only Schubert!" + +Sylvia heaved a sigh of relief as the four gathered in front of the +music-racks at the other end of the room, tuning and scraping. Young +Mr. Saunders, evidently elated that his opportunity had come, leaned +toward Aunt Victoria and began talking in low tones. Once or twice +they laughed a little, looking towards Professor Kennedy. + +Then old Reinhardt, gravely pontifical, rapped with his bow on his +rack, lifted his violin to his chin, and--an obliterating sponge was +passed over Sylvia's memory. All the queer, uncomfortable talk, the +unpleasant voices, the angry or malicious or uneasy eyes, the unkindly +smiling lips, all were washed away out of her mind. The smooth, +swelling current of the music was like oil on a wound. As she listened +and felt herself growing drowsy, it seemed to her that she was +being floated away, safely away from the low-ceilinged room where +personalities clashed, out to cool, star-lit spaces. + +All that night in her dreams she heard only old Reinhardt's angel +voice proclaiming, amid the rich murmur of assent from the other +strings: + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE SIGHTS OF LA CHANCE + + +One day at the end of a fortnight, Aunt Victoria and Arnold were late +in their daily arrival at the Marshall house, and when the neat surrey +at last drove up, they both showed signs of discomposure. Discomposure +was no unusual condition for Arnold, who not infrequently made his +appearance red-faced and sullen, evidently fresh from angry revolt +against his tutor, but on that morning he was anything but red-faced, +and looked a little scared. His stepmother's fine complexion, on +the contrary, had more pink than usual in its pearly tones, and her +carriage had less than usual of sinuous grace. Sylvia and Judith ran +down the porch steps to meet them, but stopped, startled by their +aspect. Aunt Victoria descended, very straight, her head high-held, +and without giving Sylvia the kiss with which she usually marked her +preference for her older niece, walked at once into the house. + +Although the impressionable Sylvia was so struck by these phenomena, +that, even after her aunt's disappearance, she remained daunted and +silent, Judith needed only the removal of the overpowering presence +to restore her coolness. She pounced on Arnold with questions. "What +_you_ been doing that's so awful bad? I bet _you_ caught it all +right!" + +"'Tisn't me," said Arnold in a subdued voice. "It's Pauline and old +Rollins that caught it. They're the ones that ha' been bad." + +Judith was at a loss, never having conceived that grown-ups might do +naughty things. Arnold went on, "If you'd ha' heard Madrina talking to +Pauline--say! Do you know what I did? I crawled under the bed--honest +I did. It didn't last but a minute, but it scared the liver out o' +me." This vigorous expression was a favorite of his. + +Judith was somewhat impressed by his face and manner, but still +inclined to mock at a confession of fear. "Under the _bed_!" she +sneered. + +Arnold evidently felt the horror of the recently enacted scene so +vividly that there was no room for shame in his mind. "You bet I did! +And so would you too, if you'd ha' been there. _Gee_!" + +In spite of herself Judith looked somewhat startled by the vibration +of sincerity in his voice, and Sylvia, with her quick sympathy of +divination, had turned almost as pale as the little boy, who, all his +braggart turbulence gone, stood looking at them with a sick expression +in his eyes. + +"Was it in your room?" asked Judith. "I thought Pauline's room was on +the top floor. What was she doing down there?" + +"No, it was in old Rollins' room--next to mine. I don't know what +Pauline was doing there." + +"What did Pauline do when Aunt Victoria scolded her?" asked Sylvia. +She had come to be fond of the pretty young maid with her fat, quick +hands and her bright, warm-hearted smile for her mistress' little +niece. One day, when Mrs. Marshall-Smith had, for a moment, chanced to +leave them alone, Pauline had given her a sudden embrace, and had told +her: "At 'ome zere are four leetle brozers and sisters. America is a +place mos' solitary!" "What did Pauline do?" asked Sylvia again as +Arnold did not answer. + +The boy looked down. "Pauline just cried and cried," he said in a low +tone. "I _liked_ Pauline! She was awful good to me. I--I heard her +crying afterwards as she went away. Seemed to me I could hear her +crying all the way out here." + +"Did she go away?" asked Judith, trying to make something coherent out +of the story. Arnold nodded. + +"You bet she did. Madrina turned her right out--and old Rollins too." + +"Was _he_ there? What was the matter anyhow?" Judith persisted. + +Arnold twisted uncomfortably, loath to continue bringing up the scene. +"I d'n know what was the matter. Yes, old Rollins was there, all +right. He's gone away too, the doggoned old thing--for good. That's +_something_!" He added, "Aw, quit talkin' about it, can't you! Let's +play!" + +"It's my turn to help Mother with the tomatoes," said Judith. "She's +doing the last of the canning this morning. Maybe she'd let you help." + +Arnold brightened. "Maybe she would!" he said, adding eagerly, "Maybe +she'd tell us another of the stories about her grandmother." + +Judith snatched at his hand and began racing down the path to the +garden. "Maybe she would!" she cried. They both called as they ran, +"Mother, _oh_, Mother!" and as they ran, they leaped and bounded into +the bright autumn air like a couple of puppies. + +Sylvia's mental resiliency was not of such sturdily elastic stuff. She +stood still, thinking of Pauline crying, and crying--and started aside +when her aunt came out again on the porch. + +"I don't find any one in the house, Sylvia dear," said Mrs. +Marshall-Smith quietly. Sylvia looked up into the clear, blue eyes, so +like her father's, and felt the usual magic spell lay hold on her. The +horrid impression made by Arnold's story dimmed and faded. Arnold was +always getting things twisted. She came up closer to her aunt's +side and took the soft, smooth fingers between her two little hard, +muscular hands. In her relief, she had forgotten to answer. Mrs. +Marshall-Smith said again, "Where are your parents, dear?" + +"Oh," said Sylvia. "Oh yes--why, Father's at the University at a +committee meeting and Mother's out by the garden putting up tomatoes. +Judy and Arnold are helping her." + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith hesitated, looked about her restlessly, and +finally raised her parasol, of a gold-colored silk, a lighter tone, +but the same shade as her rich plain broadcloth costume of tan. "Shall +we take a little walk, my dear?" she suggested. "I don't feel like +sitting still just now--nor"--she looked down into Sylvia's eyes--"nor +yet like canning tomatoes," + +That walk, the last one taken with Aunt Victoria, became one of +Sylvia's memories, although she never had a vivid recollection of what +they saw during their slow ramble. It was only Aunt Victoria whom the +little girl remembered--Aunt Victoria moving like a goddess over their +rough paths and under the changing glory of the autumn leaves. She +herself was a brighter glory, with her shining blond hair crowned by +a halo of feathery, gold-colored plumes, the soft, fine, supple +broadcloth of her garments gleaming in the sunshine with a sheen like +that of a well-kept animal's coat. There breathed from all her person +a faint odor of grace and violets and unhurried leisure. + +Sylvia clung close to her side, taking in through all her pores this +lovely emanation, not noticing whether they were talking or not, not +heeding the direction of their steps. She was quite astonished to find +herself on the University campus, in front of the Main Building. Aunt +Victoria had never walked so far before. "Oh, did you want to see +Father?" she asked, coming a little to herself. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith said, as if in answer, "Just sit down here and +wait for me a minute, will you, Sylvia?" moving thereupon up the steps +and disappearing through the wide front door. Sylvia relapsed into +her day-dreams and, motionless in a pool of sunlight, waited, quite +unconscious of the passage of time. + +This long reverie was at last broken by the return of Mrs. +Marshall-Smith. She was not alone, but the radiant young man who +walked beside her was not her brother, and nothing could have +differed more from the brilliantly hard gaze which Professor Marshall +habitually bent on his sister, than the soft intentness with which +young Mr. Saunders regarded the ripely beautiful woman. The dazzled +expression of his eyes was one of the remembered factors of the day +for Sylvia. + +The two walked down the shaded steps, Sylvia watching them admiringly, +the scene forever printed on her memory, and emerged into the pool of +sunshine where she sat, swinging her legs from the bench. They stood +there for some minutes, talking together in low tones. Sylvia, +absorbed in watching the play of light on Aunt Victoria's smooth +cheek, heard but a few words of what passed between them. She had a +vague impression that Professor Saunders continually began sentences +starting firmly with "But" and ending somehow on quite another note. +She felt dimly that Aunt Victoria was less calmly passive than usual +in a conversation, that it was not only the enchanting rising and +falling inflections of her voice which talked, but her eyes, her arms, +her whole self. Once she laid her hand for an instant on Professor +Saunders' arm. + +More than that Sylvia could not remember, even when she was asked +later to repeat as much as she could of what she had heard. She was +resolving when she was grown-up to have a ruffle of creamy lace +falling away from her neck and wrists as Aunt Victoria did. She had +not only forgotten Arnold's story, she had forgotten that such a boy +existed. She was living in a world all made up of radiance and bloom, +lace and sunshine and velvet, and bright hair and gleaming cloth and +smooth voices and the smell of violets. + +After a time she was aware that Professor Saunders shook hands and +turned back up the steps. Aunt Victoria began to move with her slow +grace along the road towards home, and Sylvia to follow, soaking +herself in an impression of supreme suavity. + +When, after the walk through the beech-woods, they reached the edge of +the Marshall field, they saw a stiff plume of blue smoke stand up over +the shack by the garden and, as they approached, heard a murmur of +voices. Mrs. Marshall-Smith stopped, furled her parasol, and surveyed +the scene within. Her sister-in-law, enveloped in a large blue apron, +by no means fresh, sat beside a roughly built table, peeling +tomatoes, her brown stained fingers moving with the rapidity of a +prestidigitator's. Judith stood beside her, also attacking the pile of +crimson fruit, endeavoring in vain to emulate her mother's speed. Over +the hot, rusty stove hung Arnold, red-faced and bright-eyed, armed +with a long, wooden spatula which he continually dug into the steaming +contents of an enormous white-lined kettle. As, at the arrival of +the new-comers, Mrs. Marshall's voice stopped, he looked around and +frowned impatiently at his stepmother. "She's just got to the excitin' +part," he said severely, and to the raconteur eagerly, "'N'_en_ what?" + +Mrs. Marshall looked up at her husband's sister, smiled, and went +on,--Sylvia recognized the story as one of her own old favorites. +"Well, it was very early dawn when she had to go over to the +neighbor's to borrow some medicine for her father, who kept getting +sicker all the time. As she hurried along across the meadow towards +the stile, she kept wondering, in spite of herself, if there was any +truth in what Nat had said about having seen bear tracks near the +house the day before. When she got to the stile she ran up the +steps--and on the top one she stood still, for there--" She made +a dramatic pause and reached for another tray of tomatoes. Arnold +stopped stirring the pot and stood motionless, his eyes fixed on +the narrator, the spatula dripping tomato-juice all along his white +trousers. "There on the other side, looking up at her, was a bear--a +big black bear." + +Arnold's mouth dropped open and his eyes widened. + +"My grandmother was dreadfully frightened. She was only seventeen, and +she hadn't any kind of a weapon, not so much as a little stick with +her. Her first idea was to turn and run as fast as she could, back +home. But she remembered how sick her father was, and how much he +needed the medicine; and then besides, she used to say, all of a +sudden it made her angry, all over, to have that great stupid animal +get in her way. She always said that nothing 'got her mad up' like +feeling afraid. So what do you suppose she did?" + +Arnold could only shake his head silently in an ecstasy of impatience +for the story to continue. Judith and Sylvia smiled at each other with +the insufferable complacence of auditors who know the end by heart. + +"She just pointed her finger at the bear, and she said in a loud, +harsh voice: 'Shame! Shame! Shame on you! For sha-a-ame!' She'd taught +district school, you know, and had had lots of practice saying that +to children who had been bad. The bear looked up at her hard for +a minute, then dropped his head and began to walk slowly away. +Grandmother always said, 'The great lummox lumbered off into the +bushes like a gawk of a boy who's been caught in mischief,' She waited +just a minute and then ran like lightning along the path through the +woods to the neighbors and got the medicine." + +The story was evidently over, the last tomato was peeled. Mrs. +Marshall rose, wiping her stained and dripping hands on her apron, +and went to the stove. Arnold started as if coming out of a dream +and looked about him with wondering eyes. "Well, +what-d'you-think-o'-_that?_" he commented, all in one breath. "Say, +Mother," he went on, looking up at her with trusting eyes, searching +the quiet face, "what do you suppose _made_ the bear go away? You +wouldn't think a little thing like that would scare a _bear_!" + +Mrs. Marshall began dipping the hot, stewed tomatoes into the glass +jars ready in a big pan of boiling water on the back of the stove. The +steam rose up, like a cloud, into her face, which began to turn red +and to glisten with perspiration. "Oh, I don't suppose it really +frightened the bear," she said moderately, refraining from the +dramatic note of completeness which her husband, in spite of himself, +gave to everything he touched, and adding instead the pungent, homely +savor of reality, which none relished more than Sylvia and her father, +incapable themselves of achieving it. "'Most likely the bear would +have gone away of his own accord anyhow. They don't attack people +unless they're stirred up." Arnold bit deeply into the solidity of +this unexaggerated presentation, and was silent for a moment, saying +then: "Well, anyhow, she didn't _know_ he'd go away! She was a sport, +all right!" + +"Oh yes, indeed," said Mrs. Marshall, dipping and steaming, and wiping +away the perspiration, which ran down in drops to the end of her +large, shapely nose. "Yes, my grandmother was a sport, all right." The +acrid smell of hot, cooking tomatoes filled the shed and spread to the +edge where Sylvia and her aunt stood, still a little aloof. Although +it bore no resemblance to the odor of violets, it could not be called +a disgusting smell: it was the sort of smell which is quite agreeable +when one is very hungry. But Sylvia was not hungry at all. She stepped +back involuntarily. Mrs. Marshall-Smith, on the contrary, advanced a +step or so, until she stood close to her sister-in-law. "Barbara, I'd +like to see you a few minutes without the children," she remarked in +the neutral tone she always had for her brother's wife. "A rather +unpleasant occurrence--I'm in something of a quandary." + +Mrs. Marshall nodded. "All right," she agreed. "Scatter out of here, +you children! Go and let out the hens, and give them some water!" + +Arnold needed no second bidding, reminded by his stepmother's words +of his experiences of the morning. He and Judith scampered away in +a suddenly improvised race to see who would reach the chicken-house +first. Sylvia went more slowly, looking back once or twice at the +picture made by the two women, so dramatically contrasted--her mother, +active, very upright, wrapped in a crumpled and stained apron, her +dark hair bound closely about her round head, her moist, red face and +steady eyes turned attentively upon the radiant creature beside her, +cool and detached, leaning willow-like on the slender wand of the +gold-colored parasol. + +Professor Marshall chanced to be late that day in coming home for +luncheon, and Aunt Victoria and Arnold had returned to the hotel +without seeing him. His wife remarked that Victoria had asked her +to tell him something, but, acting on her inviolable principle that +nothing must interfere with the cheerful peace of mealtime, said +nothing more to him until after they had finished the big plate of +purple grapes from her garden, with which the meal ended. + +Then Judith vanished out to the shop, where she was constructing a +rabbit-house for the latest family. Sylvia took Lawrence, yawning and +rubbing his eyes, but fighting desperately against his sleepiness, +upstairs for his nap. When this task fell to Judith's lot it was +despatched with business-like promptness, but Lawrence had early +discovered a temperamental difference between his two sisters, and +Sylvia was seldom allowed to leave the small bed until she had paid +tribute to her ever-present desire to please, in the shape of a story +or a song. On that day Buddy was more exacting than usual. Sylvia told +the story of Cinderella and sang, "A Frog He Would a-Wooing Go," twice +through, before the little boy's eyes began to droop. Even then, the +clutch of his warm, moist fingers about her hand did not relax. When +she tried to slip her fingers out of his, his eyelids fluttered open +and he tightened his grasp with a wilful frown. So she sat still on +the edge of his bed, waiting till he should be really asleep. + +From the dining-room below her rose the sound of voices, or rather of +one voice--her father's. She wondered why it sounded so angry, and +then, mixed with some unintelligible phrases--"turned out on the +street, in trouble--in a foreign land--Good God!" she caught Pauline's +name. Oh yes, that must be the trouble. Mother was telling Father +about Pauline--whatever it was she had done--and he was as mad about +it as Aunt Victoria had been. If Aunt Victoria's voice had sounded +like that, she didn't wonder that Arnold had hidden under the bed. If +she could have moved, she, too, would have run away, although the +idea that she ought to do so did not occur to her. There had been no +secrets in that house. The talk had always been for all to hear who +would. + +But when she tried again to slip her hand away from Buddy's the little +boy pulled at it hard, and half opening his eyes, said sleepily, +"Sylvie stay with Buddy--Sylvie stay--" Sylvia yielded weakly, said: +"Yes--sh! sh! Sister'll stay. Go to sleep, Buddy." + +From below came the angry voice, quite loud now, so that she caught +every queer-sounding word--"righteous indignation indeed! What else +did _she_ do, I'd like to know, when she wanted money. The only +difference was that she was cold-blooded enough to extract a legal +status from the old reprobate she accosted." + +Sylvia heard her mother's voice saying coldly, "You ought to be +ashamed to use such a word!" and her father retort, "It's the _only_ +word that expresses it! You know as well as I do that she cared no +more for Ephraim Smith than for the first man she might have solicited +on the street--nor so much! God! It makes me sick to look at her and +think of the price she paid for her present damn Olympian serenity." + +Sylvia heard her mother begin to clear off the table. There was a +rattle of dishes through which her voice rose impatiently. "Oh, +Elliott, why be so melodramatic always, and spoil so much good +language! She did only what every girl brought up as she was, would +have done. And, anyhow, are you so very sure that in your heart +you're not so awfully hard on her because you're envious of that very +prosperity?" + +He admitted, with acrimony, the justice of this thrust. "Very likely. +Very likely!--everything base and mean in me, that you keep down, +springs to life in me at her touch. I dare say I do envy her--I'm +quite capable of that--am I not her brother, with the same--" + +Mrs. Marshall said hastily: "Hush! Hush! Here's Judith. For Heaven's +sake don't let the child hear you!" + +For the first time the idea penetrated Sylvia's head that she ought +not to have listened. Buddy was now soundly asleep: she detached her +hand from his, and went soberly along the hall into her own room. She +did not want to see her father just then. + +A long time after, Mother called up to say that Aunt Victoria had come +for her afternoon drive, and to leave Arnold. Sylvia opened the door a +crack and asked, "Where's Father?" + +"Oh, gone back to the University this long time," answered her mother +in her usual tone. Sylvia came down the stairs slowly and took her +seat in the carriage beside Aunt Victoria with none of her usual +demonstrative show of pleasure. + +"Don't you like my dress?" asked Aunt Victoria, as they drove away. +"You don't even notice it, and I put it on 'specially to please +you--you're the one discriminating critic in this town!" As Sylvia +made no answer to this sally, she went on: "It's hard to get into +alone, too. I had to ask the hotel chambermaid to hook it up on the +shoulders." + +Thus reminded of Pauline, Sylvia could have but inattentive eyes for +the creation of amber silk and lace, and brown fur, which seductively +clad the handsome body beside her. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith gave her favorite a penetrating look. "What's the +matter with you, Sylvia?" she asked in the peremptory note which her +sweet voice of many modulations could startlingly assume on occasion. +Sylvia had none of Judith's instant pugnacious antagonism to any +peremptory note. She answered in one imploring rush of a question, +"Aunt Victoria, why should _Father_ be so very mad at Pauline?" + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith looked a little startled at this direct reference +to the veiled storm-center of the day, but not at all displeased. "Oh, +your mother told him? Was he so very angry?" she asked with a slight +smile. + +"Oh, dreadfully!" returned Sylvia. "I didn't _mean_ to listen, but I +couldn't help it. Buddy wouldn't go to sleep and Father's voice was so +loud--and he got madder and madder at her." She went on with another +question, "Auntie, who was Ephraim Smith?" + +Aunt Victoria turned upon her in astonishment, and did not, for a +moment, answer; then: "Why, that was the name of my husband, Sylvia. +What has that to do with anything?" + +"Why didn't Pauline like him?" asked Sylvia. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith replied with a vivacity of surprise which carried +her out of her usual delicate leisure in speech. "_Pauline?_ Why, she +never saw him in her life! _What_ are you talking about, child?" + +"But, Father said--I thought--he seemed to mean--" Sylvia halted, not +able to remember in her bewilderment what it had been that Father had +said. In a blur of doubt and clouded perceptions she lost all definite +impression of what she had heard. Evidently, as so often happened, she +had grown-ups' affairs all twisted up in her mind. Aunt Victoria was +touched with kindly amusement at the little girl's face of perplexity, +and told her, dismissing the subject: "Never mind, dear, you evidently +misunderstood something. But I wonder what your father could have said +to give you such a funny idea." + +Sylvia gave it up, shaking her head. They turned into the main street +of La Chance, and Aunt Victoria directed the coachman to drive them to +"the" drug store of town, and offered Sylvia her choice of any soda +water confection she might select. This completed the "about-face" of +the mobile little mind. After several moments of blissful anguish of +indecision, Sylvia decided on a peach ice-cream soda, and thereafter +was nothing but sense of taste as she ecstatically drew through a +straw the syrupy, foamy draught of nectar. She took small sips at a +time and held them in the back of her mouth till every minute bubble +of gas had rendered up its delicious prickle to her tongue. Her +consciousness was filled to its uttermost limits with a voluptuous +sense of present physical delight. + +And yet it was precisely at this moment that from her subconscious +mind, retracing with unaided travail a half-forgotten clue, there +sprang into her memory a complete phrase of what her father had said. +She gave one more suck to the straw and laid it aside for a moment +to say in quite a comfortable accent to her aunt: "Oh yes, now I +remember. He said she didn't care for him any more than for the first +man she might have solicited in the street." For an instant the words +came back as clearly as though they had just been uttered, and she +repeated them fluently, returning thereupon at once to the charms of +the tall, foam-filled frosted glass. + +Evidently Aunt Victoria did not follow this sudden change of subject, +for she asked blankly, "_Who_? Who didn't care for who?" + +"Why, I supposed, Pauline for Ephraim Smith. It was that that made +Father so mad," explained Sylvia, sucking dreamily, her eyes on +the little maelstrom created in the foaming liquid by the straw, +forgetting everything else. The luxurious leisure in which she +consumed her potation made it last a long time, and it was not until +her suction made only a sterile rattling in the straw that she looked +up at her aunt to thank her. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith's face was averted and she did not turn it back +as she said, "Just run along into the shop and leave your glass, +Sylvia--here is the money." + +After Sylvia took her seat again in the carriage, the coachman turned +the horse's head back up the Main Street. "Aren't you going to the +campus?" asked Sylvia in surprise. + +"No, we are going to the hotel," said Aunt Victoria. She spoke +quietly, and seemed to look as usual, but Sylvia's inner barometer +fell fast with a conviction of a change in the emotional atmosphere. +She sat as still as possible, and only once glanced up timidly at +her aunt's face. There was no answering glance. Aunt Victoria gazed +straight in front of her. Her face looked as it did when it was being +massaged--all smooth and empty. There was, however, one change. For +the first time that day, she looked a little pale. + +As the carriage stopped in front of the onyx-lined, palm-decorated, +plate-glass-mirrored "entrance hall" of the expensive hotel, Aunt +Victoria descended, motioning to Sylvia not to follow her. "I haven't +time to drive any more this afternoon," she said. "Peter will take you +home. And have him bring Arnold back at once." She turned away and, as +Sylvia sat watching her, entered the squirrel-cage revolving door of +glass, which a little boy in livery spun about for her. + +But after she was inside the entrance hall, she signified to him that +she had forgotten something, and came immediately out again. What +she had forgotten surprised Sylvia as much as it touched her. Aunt +Victoria came rapidly to the side of the carriage and put out her +arms. "Come here, dear," she said in a voice Sylvia had never +heard her use. It trembled a little, and broke. With her quick +responsiveness, Sylvia sprang into the outstretched arms, overcome by +the other's emotion. She hid her face against the soft, perfumed laces +and silk, and heard from beneath them the painful throb of a quickly +beating heart. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith held her niece for a long moment and then turned +the quivering little face up to her own grave eyes, in which Sylvia, +for all her inexperience, read a real suffering. Aunt Victoria looked +as though somebody were hurting her--hurting her awfully--Sylvia +pressed her cheek hard against her aunt's, and Mrs. Marshall-Smith +felt, soft and Warm and ardent on her lips, the indescribably fresh +kiss of a child's mouth. "Oh, little Sylvia!" she cried, in that +new, strange, uncertain voice which trembled and broke, "Oh, little +Sylvia!" She seemed to be about to say something more, said in fact in +a half-whisper, + +"I hope--I hope--" but then shook her head, kissed Sylvia gently, put +her back in the carriage, and again disappeared through the revolving +door. + +This time she did not turn back. She did not even look back. After a +moment's wait, Peter gathered up the reins and Sylvia, vaguely uneasy, +and much moved, drove home in a solitary state, which she forgot to +enjoy. + +The next morning there was no arrival, even tardy, of the visitors +from the hotel. Instead came a letter, breaking the startling news +that Aunt Victoria had been called unexpectedly to the East, and had +left on the midnight train, taking Arnold with her, of course. Judith +burst into angry expressions of wrath over the incompleteness of the +cave which she and Arnold had been excavating together. The next day +was the beginning of school, she reminded her auditors, and she'd have +no time to get it done! Never! She characterized Aunt Victoria as a +mean old thing, an epithet for which she was not reproved, her mother +sitting quite absent and absorbed in the letter. She read it over +twice, with a very puzzled air, which gave an odd look to her usually +crystal-clear countenance. She asked her husband one question as he +went out of the door. "You didn't see Victoria yesterday--or say +anything to her?" to which he answered, with apparently uncalled-for +heat, "I did _not_! I thought it rather more to the purpose to try to +look up Pauline." + +Mrs. Marshall sprang up and approached him with an anxious face. He +shook his head: "Too late. Disappeared. No trace." + +She sat down again, looking sad and stern. + +Professor Marshall put on his hat with violence, and went away. + +When he came home to luncheon there was a fresh sensation, and again +a disagreeable one. He brought the astounding news that, at the very +beginning of the semester's work, he had been deserted by his most +valuable assistant, and abandoned, apparently forever, by his +most-loved disciple. Saunders had left word, a mere laconic note, that +he had accepted the position left vacant by the dismissal of Arnold's +tutor, and had entered at once upon the duties of his new position. + +Professor Marshall detailed this information in a hard, level voice, +and without further comment handed his wife Saunders' note. She read +it rapidly, this time with no perplexity, and laid it down, saying to +her husband, briefly, "Will you kindly remember that the children are +here?" + +Judith looked at Sylvia in astonishment, this being the first time +that that well-worn phrase, so familiar to most children, had ever +been heard in the Marshall house. Why shouldn't Father remember they +were there? Couldn't he _see_ them? Judith almost found the idea funny +enough to laugh at, although she had not at all in general Sylvia's +helpless response to the ridiculous. Sylvia did not laugh now. She +looked anxiously at her father's face, and was relieved when he only +answered her mother's exhortation by saying in a low tone: "Oh, I have +nothing to say. It's beyond words!" + +Luncheon went on as usual, with much chatter among the children. Some +time later--in the midst of a long story from Lawrence, Mrs. Marshall +herself brought up the subject again. Buddy was beginning to struggle +with the narrative form of self-expression, and to trip his tongue +desperately over the tenses. He had just said, "And the rabbit _was_ +naughty, didn't he was?" when his mother exclaimed, addressing her +husband's grim face, "Good Heavens, don't take it so hard, Elliott." + +He raised an eyebrow, but did not look up from the pear he was +eating. "To be responsible, as I feel I am, for the pitching into a +_cul-de-sac_ of the most promising young--" + +His wife broke in, "_Responsible_! How in the world are _you_ +responsible!" she added quickly, as if at random, to prevent the reply +which her husband was evidently about to cast at her. "Besides, how do +_you_ know?--one never knows how things will turn out--she may--she +may marry him, and he may have a life which will give him more leisure +for investigation than if--" + +Professor Marshall wiped his lips violently on his napkin and stood +up. "Nothing would induce her to marry him--or any one else. She's +extracted from marriage all she wants of it. No, she'll just keep him +trailing along, in an ambiguous position, sickened and tantalized and +fevered, till all the temper is drawn out of him--and then hell be +dropped," + +He turned away with an impatient fling of his head. His wife stood up +now and looked at him anxiously. "Go play us something on the piano," +she urged. This was not a common exhortation from her. She cared very +little for music, and with her usual honesty she showed, as a rule, a +very passive attitude towards it. + +Professor Marshall glanced at her with a flash of anger. "Sometimes +you count too much on my childishness, Barbara," he said resentfully, +and went out of the door without further words. + +Decidedly the discomposing effect of Aunt Victoria's visit lasted even +after she had gone away. But the next day was the beginning of the +school term, the busy, regular routine was taken up, Sylvia was +promoted to the 5A grade, and at home Father let her begin to learn +the Pilgrim's Chorus, from Tannhauser. + +Life for the eager little girl moved quickly forward at its usual +brisk pace, through several years to come. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +"WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF-EVIDENT ..." + + +The public school to which the Marshall children went as soon as they +were old enough was like any one of ten thousand public schools--a +large, square, many-windowed, extravagantly ugly building, once red +brick, but long ago darkened almost to black by soft-coal smoke. About +it, shaded by three or four big cottonwood-trees, was an inclosed +space of perhaps two acres of ground, beaten perfectly smooth by +hundreds of trampling little feet, a hard, bare earthen floor, so +entirely subdued to its fate that even in the long summer vacation no +spear of grass could penetrate its crust to remind it that it was made +of common stuff with fields and meadows. + +School began at nine o'clock in the morning and, as a rule, +three-fourths of the children had passed through the front gate twenty +or thirty minutes earlier. Nobody knew why it should be considered +such a hideous crime to be "tardy," but the fact was that not the most +reckless and insubordinate of the older boys cared to risk it. Any +one of the four hundred children in any public school in the city +preferred infinitely to be absent a day than to have the ghastly +experience of walking through deserted streets (that is, with no +children on them), across the empty playground frighteningly unlike +itself, into the long, desolate halls which, walk as cat-like as one +might, resounded to the guilty footsteps with accusing echoes. And +then the narrow cloakroom, haunted with limp, hanging coats and caps +and hats, and finally the entry into the schoolroom, seated rank on +rank with priggishly complacent schoolmates, looking up from their +books with unfriendly eyes of blame at the figure of the late-comer. + +AH over that section of La Chance, during the hour between half-past +seven and half-past eight in the morning, the families of school +children were undergoing a most rigorous discipline in regularity +and promptness. No child was too small or too timid to refrain from +embittering his mother's life with clamorous upbraidings if breakfast +were late, or his school-outfit of clothes were not ready to the last +button, so that he could join the procession of schoolward-bound +children, already streaming past his door at a quarter past eight. The +most easy-going and self-indulgent mother learned to have at least one +meal a day on time; and the children themselves during those eight +years of their lives had imbedded in the tissue of their brains and +the marrow of their bones that unrebelling habit of bending +their backs daily to a regular burden of work not selected by +themselves--which, according to one's point of view, is either the +bane or the salvation of our modern industrial society. + +The region where the school stood was inhabited, for the most part, by +American families or German and Irish ones so long established as to +be virtually American; a condition which was then not infrequent in +moderate-sized towns of the Middle West and which is still by no means +unknown there. The class-rolls were full of Taylors and Aliens and +Robinsons and Jacksons and Websters and Rawsons and Putnams, with +a scattering of Morrisseys and Crimminses and O'Hearns, and some +Schultzes and Brubackers and Helmeyers. There was not a Jew in the +school, because there were almost none in that quarter of town, and, +for quite another reason, not a single negro child. There were plenty +of them in the immediate neighborhood, swarming around the collection +of huts and shanties near the railroad tracks given over to negroes, +and known as Flytown. But they had their own school, which looked +externally quite like all the others in town, and their playground, +beaten bare like that of the Washington Street School, was filled +with laughing, shouting children, ranging from shoe-black through +coffee-color to those occasional tragic ones with white skin and blue +eyes, but with the telltale kink in the fair hair and the bluish +half-moon at the base of the finger-nails. + +The four hundred children in the Washington Street School were, +therefore, a mass more homogeneous than alarmists would have us +believe it possible to find in this country. They were, for all +practical purposes, all American, and they were all roughly of one +class. Their families were neither rich nor poor (at least so far as +the children's standards went). Their fathers were grocers, small +clerks, merchants, two or three were truck-farmers, plumbers, +carpenters, accountants, employees of various big businesses in town. + +It was into this undistinguished and plebeian mediocrity that the +Marshall children were introduced when they began going to school. + +The interior of the school-building resembled the outside in being +precisely like that of ten thousand other graded schools in this +country. The halls were long and dark and dusty, and because the +building had been put up under contract at a period when public +contract-work was not so scrupulously honest as it notably is in our +present cleanly muck-raked era, the steps of the badly built staircase +creaked and groaned and sagged and gave forth clouds of dust under the +weight of the myriads of little feet which climbed up and clown those +steep ascents every day. Everything was of wood. The interior looked +like the realized dream of a professional incendiary. + +The classrooms were high and well-lighted, with many large windows, +never either very clean or very dirty, which let in a flood of our +uncompromisingly brilliant American daylight upon the rows of little +seats and desks screwed, like those of an ocean liner, immovably to +the floor, as though at any moment the building was likely to embark +upon a cruise in stormy waters. + +Outwardly the rows of clean-faced, comfortably dressed, well-shod +American children, sitting in chairs, bore no resemblance to +shaven-headed, barefooted little Arabian students, squatting on the +floor, gabbling loud uncomprehended texts from the Koran; but the +sight of Sylvia's companions bending over their school-books with +glazed, vacant eyes, rocking back and forth as a rhythmical aid to +memorizing, their lips moving silently as they repeated over and over, +gabblingly, the phrases of the printed page, might have inclined a +hypothetical visitor from Mars to share the bewildered amusement of +the American visitors to Moslem schools. Sylvia rocked and twisted a +favorite button, gabbled silently, and recited fluently with the rest, +being what was known as an apt and satisfactory pupil. In company with +the other children she thus learned to say, in answer to questions, +that seven times seven is forty-nine; that the climate of Brazil is +hot and moist; that the capital of Arkansas is Little Rock; and that +"through" is spelled with three misleading and superfluous letters. + +What she really learned was, as with her mates, another matter--for, +of course, those devouringly active little minds did not spend six +hours a day in school without learning something incessantly. The few +rags and tatters of book-information they acquired were but the +merest fringes on the great garment of learning acquired by these +public-school children, which was to wrap them about all their lives. +What they learned during those eight years of sitting still and not +whispering had nothing to do with the books in their desks or the lore +in their teachers' brains. The great impression stamped upon the wax +of their minds, which became iron in after years, was democracy--a +crude, distorted, wavering image of democracy, like every image an +ideal in this imperfect world, but in its essence a reflection of the +ideal of their country. No European could have conceived how literally +it was true that the birth or wealth or social position of a child +made no difference in the estimation of his mates. There were no +exceptions to the custom of considering the individual on his own +merits. These merits were often queerly enough imagined, a faculty for +standing on his head redounding as much, or more, to a boy's credit as +the utmost brilliance in recitation, or generosity of temperament, but +at least he was valued for something he himself could do, and not for +any fortuitous incidents of birth and fortune. + +Furthermore there lay back of these four hundred children, who shaped +their world to this rough-and-ready imitation of democracy, their +families, not so intimately known to each other, of course, as the +children themselves, but still by no means unknown in their general +characteristics; four hundred American families who were, on the +whole, industrious, law-abiding, who loved their children, who were +quite tasteless in matters of art, and quite sound though narrow in +matters of morals, utterly mediocre in intelligence and information, +with no breadth of outlook in any direction; but who somehow lived +their lives and faced and conquered all the incredible vicissitudes of +that Great Adventure, with an unconscious, cheerful fortitude which +many an acuter mind might have envied them. + +It is possible that the personal knowledge of these four hundred +enduring family lives was, perhaps, the most important mental ballast +taken on by the children of the community during their eight years' +cruise at school. Certainly it was the most important for the +sensitive, complicated, impressionable little Sylvia Marshall, with +her latent distaste for whatever lacked distinction and external +grace, and her passion for sophistication and elegance, which was to +spring into such fierce life with the beginning of her adolescence. +She might renounce, as utterly as she pleased, the associates of her +early youth, but the knowledge of their existence, the acquaintance +with their deep humanity, the knowledge that they found life sweet and +worth living, all this was to be a part of the tissue of her brain +forever, and was to add one to the conflicting elements which battled +within her for the mastery during all the clouded, stormy radiance of +her youth. + +The families which supplied the Washington Street School being quite +stationary in their self-owned houses, few new pupils entered during +the school-year. There was, consequently, quite a sensation on the day +in the middle of March when the two Fingál girls entered, Camilla in +the "Fifth A" grade, where Sylvia was, and Cécile in the third grade, +in the next seat to Judith's. The girls themselves were so different +from other children in school that their arrival would have excited +interest even at the beginning of the school-year. Coming, as they +did, at a time when everybody knew by heart every detail of every +one else's appearance from hair-ribbon to shoes, these two beautiful +exotics, in their rich, plain, mourning dresses were vastly stared at. +Sylvia's impressionable eyes were especially struck by the air of race +and breeding of the new-comer in her class. Everything about the other +child, from her heavy black hair, patrician nose, and large dark eyes +to her exquisitely formed hands, white and well-cared-for, seemed to +Sylvia perfection itself. + +During recess she advanced to the new-comer, saying, with a bright +smile: "Aren't you thirsty? Don't you want me to show you where the +pump is?" She put out her hand as she spoke and took the slim white +fingers in her own rough little hand, leading her new schoolmate along +in silence, looking at her with an open interest. + +She had confidently expected amicable responsiveness in the other +little girl, because her experience had been that her own frank +friendliness nearly always was reflected back to her from others; but +she had not expected, or indeed ever seen, such an ardent look of +gratitude as burned in the other's eyes. She stopped, startled, +uncomprehending, as though her companion had said something +unintelligible, and felt the slim fingers in her hand close about her +own in a tight clasp. "You are so very kind to show me this pump," +breathed Camilla shyly. The faint flavor of a foreign accent which, +to Sylvia's ear, hung about these words, was the final touch of +fascination for her. That instant she decided in her impetuous, +enthusiastic heart that Camilla was the most beautiful, sweetest, +best-dressed, loveliest creature she had ever seen, or would ever see +in her life; and she bent her back joyfully in the service of her +ideal. She would not allow Camilla to pump for herself, but flew to +the handle with such energy that the white water gushed out in a +flood, overflowing Camilla's cup, spattering over on her fingers, and +sparkling on the sheer white of her hemstitched cuffs. This made them +both laugh, the delicious silly laugh of childhood. + +Already they seemed like friends. "How do you pronounce your name?" +Sylvia asked familiarly. + +"Cam-eela Fingál," said the other, looking up from her cup, her upper +lip red and moist. She accented the surname on the last syllable. + +"What a perfectly lovely name!" cried Sylvia. "Mine is Sylvia +Marshall." + +"That's a pretty name too," said Camilla, smiling. She spoke less +timidly now, but her fawn-like eyes still kept their curious +expression, half apprehension, half hope. + +"How old are you?" asked Sylvia. + +"Eleven, last November." + +"Why, my birthday is in November, and I was eleven too!" cried Sylvia. +"I thought you must be older--you're so tall." + +Camilla looked down and said nothing. + +Sylvia went on: "I'm crazy about the way you do your hair, in those +twists over your ears. When I was studying my spelling lesson, I was +trying to figure out how you do it." + +"Oh, I don't do it. Mattice does it for us--for Cécile and +me--Cécile's my sister. She's in the third grade." + +"Why, I have a sister in the third grade too!" exclaimed Sylvia, much +struck by this second propitious coincidence. "Her name is Judith and +she's a darling. Wouldn't it be nice if she and Cécile should be +good friends _too_!" She put her arm about her new comrade's waist, +convinced that they were now intimates of long standing. They ran +together to take their places at the sound of the bell; all during +the rest of the morning session she smiled radiantly at the new-comer +whenever their eyes met. + +She planned to walk part way home with her at noon, but she was +detained for a moment by the teacher, and when she reached the front +gate, where Judith was waiting for her, Camilla was nowhere in sight. +Judith explained with some disfavor that a surrey had been waiting for +the Fingál girls and they had been driven away. + +Sylvia fell into a rhapsody over her new acquaintance and found to her +surprise (it was always a surprise to Sylvia that Judith's tastes and +judgments so frequently differed from hers) that Judith by no means +shared her enthusiasm. She admitted, but as if it were a matter of no +importance, that both Camilla and Cécile were pretty enough, but she +declared roundly that Cécile was a little sneak who had set out from +the first to be "Teacher's pet." This title, in the sturdy democracy +of the public schools, means about what "sycophantic lickspittle" +means in the vocabulary of adults, and carries with it a crushing +weight of odium which can hardly ever be lived down. + +"_Judith_, what makes you think so?" cried Sylvia, horrified at the +epithet. + +"The way she looks at Teacher--she never takes her eyes off her, +and just jumps to do whatever Teacher says. And then she looks at +everybody so kind o' scared--'s'if she thought she was goin' to be hit +over the head every minute and was so thankful to everybody for not +doing it. Makes me feel just _like_ doin' it!" declared Judith, the +Anglo-Saxon. + +Sylvia recognized a scornful version of the appealing expression which +she had found so touching in Camilla. + +"Why, I think it's sweet of them to look so! When they're so awfully +pretty, and have such good clothes--and a carriage--and everything! +They might be as stuck-up as anything! I think it's just _nice_ for +them to be so sweet!" persisted Sylvia. + +"I don't call it bein' sweet," said Judith, "to watch Teacher every +minute and smile all over your face if she looks at you and hold on to +her hand when she's talkin' to you! It's silly!" + +They argued all the way home, and the lunch hour was filled with +appeals to their parents to take sides. Professor and Mrs. Marshall, +always ready, although occasionally somewhat absent, listeners to +school news, professed themselves really interested in these new +scholars and quite perplexed by the phenomenon of two beautiful +dark-eyed children, called Camilla and Cécile Fingál. Judith refused +to twist her tongue to pronounce the last syllable accented, and her +version of the name made it sound Celtic. "Perhaps their father +is Irish and the mother Italian or Spanish," suggested Professor +Marshall. + +Sylvia was delighted with this hypothesis, and cried out +enthusiastically, "Oh yes--Camilla _looks_ Italian--like an Italian +princess!" + +Judith assumed an incredulous and derisive expression and remained +silent, an achievement of self-control which Sylvia was never able to +emulate. + +The Fingál girls continued to occupy a large space in Sylvia's +thoughts and hours, and before long they held a unique position in +the opinion of the school, which was divided about evenly between the +extremes represented by Sylvia and Judith. The various accomplishments +of the new-comers were ground both for uneasy admiration and +suspicion. They could sing like birds, and, what seemed like +witchcraft to the unmusical little Americans about them, they could +sing in harmony as easily as they could carry an air. And they recited +with fire, ease, and evident enjoyment, instead of with the show of +groaning, unwilling submission to authority which it was etiquette +in the Washington Street School to show before beginning to "speak a +piece." + +They were good at their books too, and altogether, with their quick +docility, picturesqueness, and eagerness to please, were the delight +of their teachers. In the fifth grade, Sylvia's example of intimate, +admiring friendship definitely threw popular favor on the side of +Camilla, who made every effort to disarm the hostility aroused by her +too-numerous gifts of nature. She was ready to be friends with the +poorest and dullest of the girls, never asked the important rôles in +any games, hid rather than put forward the high marks she received in +her studies, and was lavish with her invitations to her schoolmates to +visit her at home. + +The outside of this house, which Mr. Fingál had rented a month or so +before when they first moved to La Chance, was like any one of many in +the region; but the interior differed notably from those to which the +other children were accustomed. For one thing there was no "lady of +the house," Mrs. Fingál having died a short time before. Camilla and +Cécile could do exactly as they pleased, and they gave the freedom of +the house and its contents lavishly to their little friends. In the +kitchen was an enormous old negro woman, always good-natured, always +smelling of whiskey. She kept on hand a supply of the most meltingly +delicious cakes and cookies, and her liberal motto, "Heah, chile, +put yo' han' in the cookie-jah and draw out what you lights on!" was +always flourished in the faces of the schoolmates of the two daughters +of the house. + +In the rest of the house, filled with dark, heavy, dimly shining +furniture, reigned Mattice, another old negro woman, but, unlike the +jolly, fat cook, yellow and shriveled and silent. She it was who +arrayed Camille and Cécile with such unerring taste, and her skilful +old hands brushed and dressed their long black hair in artful twists +and coils. + +Here, against their own background, the two girls seemed more at their +ease and showed more spontaneity than at school. They were fond of +"dressing up" and of organizing impromptu dramatizations of the +stories of familiar books, and showed a native ability for acting +which explained their success in recitations. Once when the fun was +very rollicking, Camilla brought out from a closet a banjo and, +thrumming on its strings with skilful fingers, played a tingling +accompaniment to one of her songs. The other little girls were +delighted and clamored for more, but she put it away quickly with +almost a frown on her sweet face, and for once in her life did not +yield to their demands. + +"Well, I think more of her for that!" remarked Judith, when this +incident was repeated to her by Sylvia, who cried out, "Why, Judy, how +_hateful_ you are about poor Camilla!" + +Nothing was learned about the past history of the Fingáls beyond the +fact, dropped once by the cook, that they had lived in Louisiana +before coming to La Chance, but there were rumors, based on nothing +at all, and everywhere credited, that their mother had been a +Spanish-American heiress, disinherited by her family for marrying a +Protestant. Such a romantic and picturesque element had never before +entered the lives of the Washington Street school-children. Once +a bold and insensitive little girl, itching to know more of this +story-book history, had broken the silence about Mrs. Fingál and had +asked Camilla bluntly, "Say, who _was_ your mother, anyway?" The +question had been received by Camilla with whitening lips and a +desperate silence--ended by a sudden loud burst of sobs, which tore +Sylvia's heart. "You mean, horrid thing!" she cried to the inquisitor. +"Her mother isn't dead a year yet! Camilla can't bear to talk about +her!" + +Once in a great while Mr. Fingál was visible,--a bald, middle-aged man +with a white, sad face, and eyes that never smiled, although his lips +often did when he saw the clusters of admiring children hanging about +his daughters. + +Judith held aloof from these gatherings at the Fingál house, her +prejudice against the girls never weakening, although Cécile as well +as Camilla had won over almost all the other girls of her grade. +Judith showed the self-contained indifference which it was her habit +to feel about matters which did not deeply stir her, and made no +further attempts to analyze or even to voice her animosity beyond +saying once, when asked to go with them on a drive, that she didn't +like their "meechin' ways,"--a vigorous New England phrase which she +had picked up from her mother. + + * * * * * + +About a month after the Fingál girls entered school, the project of a +picnic took form among the girls of the Fifth A grade. One of them had +an uncle who lived three or four miles from town on a farm which was +passed by the inter-urban trolley line, and he had sent word that +the children could, if they liked, picnic in his maple woods, which +overhung the brown waters of the Piquota river. There was to be no +recess that day in Five A, and the grade was to be dismissed half an +hour earlier than usual, so that the girls could go out on the trolley +in time to get the supper ready. The farmer was to bring them back by +moonlight in his hay-wagon. + +The prospect seemed ideal. Five A hummed with excitement and +importance as the various provisions were allotted to the different +girls and the plans talked over. Sylvia was to bring bananas enough +for the crowd; one of the German-American girls, whose father kept a +grocery-store, promised pickles and olives; three or four together +were to make the sandwiches, and Camilla Fingál was to bring along a +big bag of the famous rich and be-raisined cookies that lived in +the "cookie-jah." Sylvia, who always enjoyed prodigiously both in +anticipation and in reality any social event, could scarcely contain +herself as the time drew near with every prospect of fair weather. + +The morning of the day was clear and fine, a perfect example of early +spring, with silvery pearls showing on the tips of the red-twig +osiers, and pussy-willows gleaming gray along the margins of swampy +places. Sylvia and Judith felt themselves one with this upward surge +of new life. They ran to school together, laughing aloud for no +reason, racing and skipping like a couple of spring lambs, their minds +and hearts as crystal-clear of any shadow as the pale-blue, smiling +sky above them. The rising sap beat in their young bodies as well +as in the beech-trees through which they scampered, whirling their +school-books at the end of their straps, and shouting aloud to hear +the squirrel's petulant, chattering answer. + +When they came within sight and hearing of the schoolhouse, their +practised ears detected (although with no hint of foreboding) that +something unusual had happened. The children were not running about +and screaming, but standing with their heads close together, talking, +and talking, and talking. As Judith and Sylvia came near, several ran +to meet them, hurling out at them like a hard-flung stone: "Say--what +d'ye think? Those Fingál girls are niggers!" + +To the end of her life, Sylvia would never forget the rending shock +of disillusion brought her by these blunt words. She did not dream +of disbelieving them, or of underestimating their significance. A +thousand confirmatory details leaped into her mind: the rich, sweet +voices--the dramatic ability--the banjo--the deprecatory air of +timidity--the self-conscious unwillingness to take the leading +position to which their talents and beauty gave them a right. Yes, +of course it was true! In the space of a heartbeat, all her +romantic Italian imaginings vanished. She continued to walk forward +mechanically, in an utter confusion of mind. + +She heard Judith asking in an astonished voice, "Why, what makes you +think so?" and she listened with a tortured attention to the statement +vouchsafed in an excited chorus by a great many shrill little voices +that the Fingáls' old cook had taken a little too much whiskey for +once and had fallen to babbling at the grocery-store before a highly +entertained audience of neighbors, about the endless peregrinations +of the Fingál family in search of a locality where the blood of the +children would not be suspected--"an' theah motheh, fo' all heh +good looks, second cousin to Mattice!" she had tittered foolishly, +gathering up her basket and rolling tipsily out of the store. + +"_Well_--" said Judith, "did you ever!" She was evidently as much +amazed as her sister, but Sylvia felt with a sinking of the heart +that what seemed to her the real significance of the news had escaped +Judith. + +The Five A girls came trooping up to Sylvia.--"Of course we can't +have Camilla at the picnic."--"My uncle wouldn't want a _nigger_ +there."--"We'll have to tell her she can't come." + +Sylvia heard from the other groups of children about them snatches +of similar talk.--"Anybody might ha' known it--singin' the way they +do--just like niggers' voices."--"They'll have to go to the _nigger_ +school now."--"Huh! puttin' on airs with their carriage and their +black dresses--nothin' but niggers!" The air seemed full of that word. +Sylvia sickened and quailed. + +Not so Judith! It had taken her a moment to understand the way in +which the news was being received. When she did, she turned very +pale, and broke out into a storm of anger. She stuttered and halted +as she always did when overmastered by feeling, but her words were +molten. She ignored the tacit separation between children of different +grades and, though but a third-grader, threw herself passionately +among the girls who were talking of the picnic, clawing at their arms, +forcing her way to the center, a raging, white-faced, hot-eyed little +thunderbolt. "You're the meanest low-down things I ever heard of!" she +told the astonished older girls, fairly spitting at them in her fury. +"You--you go and s-sponge off the Fingáls for c-c-cakes and rides and +s-s-soda water--and you think they're too l-l-lovely for w-words--and +you t-t-try to do your hair just the way C-C-Camilla does. They aren't +any different today f-f-from what they were yesterday--are they? You +make me sick--you m-m-make m-m-me--" + +The big bell rang out its single deep brazen note for the formation of +lines, and the habit of unquestioning, instant obedience to its voice +sent the children all scurrying to their places, from which they +marched forward to their respective classrooms in their usual convict +silence. Just as the line ahead was disappearing into the open door, +the well-kept, shining surrey drove up in haste and Camilla and +Cécile, dazzling in fresh white dresses and white hair ribbons, ran +to their places. Evidently they had heard nothing. Camilla turned and +smiled brightly at her friend as she stepped along in front of her. + +Sylvia experienced another giddy reaction of feeling. Up to that +moment, she had felt nothing but shocked and intensely self-centered +horror at the disagreeableness of what had happened, and a wild desire +to run away to some quiet spot where she would not have to think about +it, where it could not make her unhappy, where her heart would stop +beating so furiously. What had she ever done to have such a horrid +thing happen in her world! She had been as much repelled by Judith's +foaming violence as by any other element of the situation. If she +could only get away! Every sensitive nerve in her, tuned to a graceful +and comely order of life, was rasped to anguish by the ugliness of it +all. Up to the moment Camilla came running to her place--this had been +the dominant impulse in the extreme confusion of Sylvia's mind. + +But at the sight of Camilla she felt bursting up through this +confusion of mind, and fiercely attacking her instinct of +self-preservation, a new force, unsuspected, terribly alive--sympathy +with Camilla--Camilla, with her dog-like, timid, loving eyes--Camilla, +who had done nothing to deserve unhappiness except to be +born--Camilla, always uneasy with tragic consciousness of the sword +over her head, and now smiling brightly with tragic unconsciousness +that it was about to fall. Sylvia's heart swelled almost unendurably. +She was feeling, for the first time in her life consciously, the two +natures under her skin, and this, their first open struggle for the +mastery of her, was like a knife in her side. + +She sat during the morning session, her eyes on the clock, fearing +miserably the moment of dismissal at noon, when she must take some +action--she who only longed to run away from discord and dwell in +peace. Her mind swung, pendulum-like, from one extreme of feeling to +another. Every time that Camilla smiled at her across the heads of the +other children, sullenly oblivious of their former favorite, Sylvia +turned sick with shame and pity. But when her eyes rested on the hard, +hostile faces which made up her world, the world she had to live in, +the world which had been so full of sweet and innocent happiness for +her, the world which would now be ranged with her or against her +according to her decision at noon, she was overcome by a panic at the +very idea of throwing her single self against this many-headed tyrant. +With an unspeakable terror she longed to feel the safe walls of +conformity about her. There was a battle with drawn swords in the +heart of the little girl trying blindly to see where the _n_ came in +"pneumonia." + +The clock crept on, past eleven, towards twelve. Sylvia had come to no +decision. She could come to no decision! She felt herself consciously +to be unable to cope with the crisis. She was too small, too weak, too +shrinking, to make herself iron, and resist an overwhelming force. + +It was five minutes of twelve. The order was given to put away books +and pencils in the desks. Sylvia's hands trembled so that she could +hardly close the lid. + +"Turn!" said the teacher, in her tired, mechanical voice. The children +turned their stubbed-toed shoes out into the aisle, their eyes +menacingly on Camilla. + +"Rise!" Like a covey of partridge, they all stood up, stretching, +twisting their bodies, stiff and torpid after the long hours of +immobility. + +"Pass!" Clattering feet all over the building began moving along the +aisles and out towards the cloakrooms. Every one seized his own wraps +with a practised snatch, and passed on, still in line, over the dusty +wooden floors of the hall, down the ill-built, resounding stairs, out +to the playground--out to Sylvia's ordeal. + +As she came out blinkingly into the strong spring sunlight, she still +had reached no decision. Her impulse was to run, as fast as she could, +out to the gate and down the street--home! But another impulse held +her back. The lines were breaking up. Camilla was turning about with +a smile to speak to her. Malevolent eyes were fixed on them from all +sides. Sylvia felt her indecision mount in a cloud about her, like +blinding, scalding steam. + +And then, there before her, stood Judith, her proud dark little face +set in an angry scowl, her arm about Cécile Fingál's neck. + +Sylvia never could think what she would have done if Judith had not +been there; but then, Judith was one of the formative elements of her +life--as much as was the food she ate or the thoughts she had. What +she did was to turn as quickly and unhesitatingly as though she had +always meant to do it, put her arm through Camilla's and draw her +rapidly towards the gate where the surrey waited. Judith and Cécile +followed. The crowds of astonished, and for the moment silenced, +children fell back before them. + +Once she had taken her action, Sylvia saw that it was the only one +possible. But she was upheld by none of the traditional pride in a +righteous action, nor by a raging single-mindedness like Judith's, who +stalked along, her little fists clenched, frowning blackly to right +and left on the other children, evidently far more angry with them +than sympathetic for Cécile. Sylvia did not feel angry with any one. +She was simply more acutely miserable than she had ever dreamed +possible. The distance to the surrey seemed endless to her. + +Her sudden rush had taken Camilla so completely by surprise that +not until they were at the gate did she catch her breath to ask +laughingly: "What in the world's the _matter_ with you, Sylvia? You +act so queer!" + +Sylvia did not answer, every nerve bent on getting Camilla into +safety, but a little red-headed boy from the second grade, who could +scarcely talk plainly, burst out chantingly, pointing his dirty +forefinger at Camilla: + + "Nigger, nigger, never die, + Black face and shiny eye, + Curly hair and curly toes-- + _That's_ the way the nigger goes!" + +There was a loud laugh from the assembled children. + +Camilla wavered as though she had been struck. Her lovely face turned +ashy-gray, and she looked at Sylvia with the eyes of one dying. + +From the deepest of her nature, Sylvia responded to that look. She +forgot the crowd,--boldly, unafraid, beside herself with pity, she +flung her arms about her friend's neck, hiding the white face on her +shoulder. Judith ran up, blazing with rage, and pulled at Camilla's +arm. "Don't give in! Don't give in!" she screamed. "Don't cry! Don't +let 'em see you care! Sass 'em back, why don't you? Hit that little +boy over the head! Sass them back, why don't you?" + +But Camilla only shook her head vehemently and shrank away into the +carriage, little Cécile stumbling after, the silent tears streaming +down her face. The two clasped each other, and the surrey drove +quickly away, leaving the Marshall girls standing on the curb. + +Judith turned around and faced the crowds of enemies back of them. +"Nasty old things!" she cried, sticking out her tongue at them. She +was answered by a yell, at which she made another face and walked +away, pulling Sylvia with her. For a few steps they were followed by +some small boys who yelled in chorus: + + "Judith's mad and I'm glad, + And I know what'll please her: + A bottle of wine to make her shine, + And two little niggers to squeeze her!" + +They were beginning this immemorially old chant over again when Judith +turned and ran back towards them with a white, terrible face of wrath. +At the sight they scattered like scared chickens. + +Judith was so angry that she was shivering all over her small body, +and she kept repeating at intervals, in a suffocated voice: "Nasty old +things! Just wait till I tell my father and mother!" + +As they passed under the beech-trees, it seemed to Sylvia a physical +impossibility that only that morning they had raced and scampered +along, whirling their school-books and laughing. + +They ran into the house, calling for their parents in excited voices, +and pouring out incoherent exclamations. Sylvia cried a little at +the comforting sight of her mother's face and was taken up on Mrs. +Marshall's lap and closely held. Judith never cried; she had not cried +even when she ran the sewing-machine needle through her thumb; +but when infuriated she could not talk, her stammering growing so +pronounced that she could not get out a word, and it was Sylvia who +told the facts. She was astonished to find them so few and so quickly +stated, having been under the impression that something of intense and +painful excitement had been happening every moment of the morning. + +But the experience of her parents supplied the tragic background of +strange, passionate prejudice which Sylvia could not phrase, and which +gave its sinister meaning to her briefly told story: "--and so Judith +and I walked with them out to the gate, and then that little Jimmy +Cohalan yelled out, 'nigger--nigger'--_you_ know--" + +Judith broke in, her nostrils distended, "And they never sassed back, +or hit anybody or anything--just crumpled up and cried!" + +Sylvia was aghast with bewilderment. "Why, I thought you were on their +side!" + +"Well, I _am_!" asserted Judith, beginning to stammer again. "But I +don't have to _like_ 'em any better, do I--because I get mad when +a l-l-lot of mean, n-nasty girls that have b-b-b-been s-s-spongin' +off--" She stopped, balked by her infirmity, and appealed to her +parents with a silent look of fury. + +"What _shall_ we do, Mother?" asked Sylvia despairingly, looking up +into her mother's face from the comfortable shelter of her long, +strong arms. Mrs. Marshall looked down at her without speaking. It +occurred to Sylvia disquietingly that her mother's expression was a +little like Judith's. But when Mrs. Marshall spoke it was only to say +in her usual voice: "Well, the first thing to do is to have something +to eat. Whatever else you do, don't let a bad condition of your +body interfere with what's going on in your mind. Lunch is getting +cold--and don't talk about trouble while you're eating. After you're +through, Father'll tell you what to do." + +Professor Marshall made a gesture of dismay. "Good Lord, Barbara, +don't put it off on me!" + +His wife looked at him with smoldering eyes. "I certainly have nothing +to say that would be fit for children to hear!" she said in an +energetic tone, beginning to serve the baked beans, which were the +main dish for the day. + +After the meal, always rather hasty because of the children's short +noon-hour, Sylvia and Judith went to sit on their father's knees, +while he put an arm about each and, looking from one serious expectant +face to the other, began his explanation. He cleared his throat, and +hesitated before beginning, and had none of his usual fluency as he +went on. What he finally said was: "Well, children, you've stumbled +into about the hardest problem there is in this country, and the +honest truth is that we don't any of us know what's right to do about +it. The sort of thing that's just happened in the Washington Street +School is likely to happen 'most anywhere, and it's no harder on these +poor little playmates of yours than on all colored people. But it's +awfully hard on them all. The best we can do is to hope that after a +great many people have lived and died, all trying to do their best, +maybe folks will have learned how to manage better. Of course, if +grown men and women don't know how to help matters, you little girls +can't expect to fix things either. All you can do is to go on being +nice to Camilla and--" + +Judith broke in here hotly, "You don't mean we oughtn't to _do_ +something about the girls being so mean to them--not letting Camilla +go to the picnic and--" + +"What _could_ you do?" asked her father quietly, "that would make +things any better for Camilla? If you were forty times as strong as +you are, you couldn't make the other girls _want_ Camilla at the +picnic. It would only spoil the picnic and wouldn't help Camilla a +bit." Professor Marshall meditated a moment, and went on, "Of course +I'm proud of my little daughters for being kind to friends who are +unhappy through no fault of theirs" (Sylvia winced at this, and +thought of confessing that she was very near running away and leaving +Camilla to her fate), "and I hope you'll go on being as nice to your +unfortunate friends as ever--" + +Judith said: "They aren't friends of mine! I don't like them!" + +As not infrequently happened, something about Judith's attitude had +been irritating her father, and he now said with some severity, "Then +it's a case where Sylvia's loving heart can do more good than your +anger, though you evidently think it very fine of you to feel that!" + +Judith looked down in a stubborn silence, and Sylvia drooped miserably +in the consciousness of receiving undeserved praise. She opened her +mouth to explain her vacillations of the morning, but her moral fiber +was not equal to the effort. She felt very unhappy to have Judith +blamed and herself praised when things ought to have been reversed, +but she could not bring herself to renounce her father's good opinion. + +Professor Marshall gave them both a kiss and set them down. "It's +twenty minutes to one. You'd better run along, dears," he said. + +After the children had gone out, his wife, who had preserved an +unbroken silence, remarked dryly, "So that's the stone we give them +when they ask for bread." + +Professor Marshall made no attempt to defend himself. "My dim +generalities are pretty poor provender for honest children's minds, I +admit," he said humbly, "but what else have we to give them that isn't +directly contradicted by our lives? There's no use telling children +something that they never see put into practice." + +"It's not impossible, I suppose, to change our lives," suggested his +wife uncompromisingly. + +Professor Marshall drew a great breath of disheartenment. "As long as +I can live without thinking of that element in American life--it's all +right. But when anything brings it home--like this today--I feel that +the mean compromise we all make must be a disintegrating moral force +in the national character. I feel like gathering up all of you, and +going away--away from the intolerable question--to Europe--and earning +the family living by giving English lessons!" + +Mrs. Marshall cried out, "It makes _me_ feel like going out right here +in La Chance with a bomb in one hand and a rifle in the other!" + +From which difference of impression it may perhaps be seen that the +two disputants were respectively the father and mother of Sylvia and +Judith. + +Mrs. Marshall rose and began clearing away the luncheon dishes. As she +disappeared into the kitchen, she paused a moment behind the door, a +grim, invisible voice, remarking, "And what we shall do is, of course, +simply nothing at all!" + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +SABOTAGE + + +Sylvia and Judith walked to school in a profound silence. Sylvia was +shrinking with every nerve from the ordeal of facing again those four +hundred hostile faces; from the new and painful relations with her +playmates which lay before her. She was now committed irrevocably to +the cause of the Fingáls, and she felt a terrified doubt of having +enough moral strength to stick to that position. + +For the moment the problem was settled by their arriving at the +schoolhouse almost too late. The lines were just marching into the +building, and both girls barely slipped into their places in time. +Sylvia noticed with relief that Camilla was absent. + +All the Five A girls had paper bags or pasteboard boxes, and in the +air of the Five A cloakroom was a strong smell of vinegar. Gretchen +Schmidt's pickles had begun to soak through the bag, and she borrowed +the cover of a box to set them in. These sounds and smells recalled +the picnic to Sylvia's mind, the picnic to which she had been looking +forward with such inexpressible pleasure. For an instant she was +aghast to think that she had forgotten her bananas, tied up all ready +at home on the sideboard. But the next instant she thought sadly that +she probably would not be welcome at the picnic. She went to her seat +and sat forlorn through the changing lessons of the afternoon. + +The teacher ground out the half-hour lessons wearily, her eyes on the +clock, as unaware of the crisis in her class as though she were in +another planet. At four o'clock Sylvia filed out with the other +children to the cloakroom, but there was not the usual quick, +practised grab, each for his own belongings. The girls remained +behind, exclaiming and lamenting. Such a clamor arose that the teacher +came hurrying in, anxious for the reputation for good behavior of +her class. Good behavior in the Washington Street School, as in a +penitentiary, was gauged by the degree of silence and immobility +achieved by the inmates. + +The girls ran to Miss Miller, crying out, "Somebody's stolen our +lunches,--we left them here--all our boxes and things--and they're all +gone--!" + +Sylvia hung back in the door to the schoolroom, apart from the others, +half relieved by the unexpected event which diverted attention from +her. + +One of the boys who had gone ahead in the line now came back, a large +cucumber stuck in the corner of his mouth like a fat, green cigar. He +announced with evident satisfaction in the girls' misfortune that the +steps were strewn with pickles. The bag must have burst entirely +as they were being carried downstairs. Gretchen Schmidt began to +weep,--"all them good pickles--!" One of the girls flew at the boy who +brought the bad news. "I just bet you did it yourself, Jimmy Weaver, +you an' Frank Kennedy. You boys were mad anyhow because we didn't ask +you to come to the picnic." + +Jimmy's face assumed the most unmistakably genuine expression of +astonishment and aggrieved innocence. "Aw, you're off yer base! I +wouldn't ha' gone to your darned old picnic--an' wasn't I in the room +every minute this afternoon?" + +"No, you weren't--you weren't!" More of the girls had come to the +attack, and now danced about the boy, hurling accusations at him. "You +got excused to get a drink of water! And so did Pete Roberts! You did +it then! You did it then! You did--" + +"Hush, children! Not so loud!" said Miss Miller. "_You'll have the +Principal down here_!" + +At this terrible threat the children, in spite of their heat, lowered +their voices. Jimmy was beginning an angry, half-alarmed protest--"Aw, +'twas a tramp must ha' got in an' saw--" when he was pushed out of the +way by a small, vigorous hand. Judith Marshall walked in, her face +very pale. She was breathing hard, and through her parted lips, as +though she had been running fast, her small white teeth showed like +those of an enraged squirrel. "I threw your picnic things in the +river," she said. + +The older children recoiled from this announcement, and from the +small, tense figure. Even the teacher kept her distance, as though +Judith were some dangerous little animal, + +"What in the world did you do that for?" she asked in a tone of +stupefaction. + +"Because they are n-n-nasty, mean things," said Judith, "and if they +weren't going to let C-C-Camilla go to the picnic, I wasn't going to +let them _have_ any picnic!" + +The teacher turned around to Sylvia, now almost as white as her +sister, and said helplessly, "Sylvia, do you know what she's talking +about?" + +Sylvia went forward and took Judith's hand. She was horrified beyond +words by what Judith had done, but Judith was her little sister. "Yes, +ma'am," she said, to Miss Miller's question, speaking, for all her +agitation, quickly and fluently as was her habit, though not very +coherently. "Yes, ma'am, I know. Everybody was saying this morning +that the Fingáls' mother was a negro, and so the girls weren't going +to invite Camilla to the picnic, and it made Judith mad." + +"Why, _she_ didn't know Camilla very well, did she?" asked the +teacher, astonished. + +"No, ma'am," said Sylvia, still speaking quickly, although the tears +of fright were beginning to stand in her eyes. "It just made her mad +because the girls weren't going to invite her because she didn't think +it was anyhow her fault." + +"_Whose_ fault!" cried the teacher, completely lost. + +"Camilla's," quavered Sylvia, the tears beginning to fall. + +There was a pause. "_Well_--I _never_!" exclaimed the teacher, whose +parents had come from New England. She was entirely at a loss to know +how to treat this unprecedented situation, and like other potentates +with a long habit of arbitrary authority, she covered her perplexity +with a smart show of decision. "You children go right straight home, +along out of the building this minute," she commanded. "You know +you're not allowed to loiter around after school-hours. Sylvia and +Judith, stay here. _I'm going to take you up to the Principal's +office_." + +The girls and Jimmy Weaver ran clattering down the stairs, in an +agreeably breathless state of excitement. In their opinion the +awfulness of the situation had been adequately recognized by the +teacher and signaled by the equally awful expedient of a visit to +the Principal's office, the last resort in the case of the rarely +occurring insubordinate boy. + +Because Miss Miller had not the least idea what to say in an event so +far out of the usual routine, she talked a great deal during the trip +through the empty halls and staircases up to the Principal's office +on the top floor; chiefly to the effect that as many years as she had +taught, never had she encountered such a bad little girl as Judith. +Judith received this in stony silence, but Sylvia's tears fell fast. +All the years of her docile school existence had trained her in the +habit of horror at insubordination above every other crime. She felt +as disgraced as though Judith had been caught stealing,--perhaps more +so. + +Miss Miller knocked at the door; the Principal, stooping and +hollow-chested, opened it and stood confronting with tired, kind eyes +the trio before him--the severe woman, with her pathetic, prematurely +old face and starved flat body, the pretty little girl hanging down +her head and weeping, the smaller child who gave him one black defiant +look and then gazed past him out of the window. + +"Well, Miss Miller--?" he asked. + +"I've brought you a case that I don't know what to do with," she +began. "This is Judith Marshall, in the third grade, and she has just +done one of the naughtiest things I ever heard of--" + +When she had finished her recital, "How do you know this child did +it?" asked Mr. Bristol, always his first question in cases between +teachers and pupils. + +"She was so brazen as to come right back and tell us so," said Miss +Miller, her tone growing more and more condemnatory. + +Judith's face, capable of such rare and positive beauty, had now shut +down into a hard, repellent little mask of hate. Mr. Bristol looked +at her for a moment in silence, and then at Sylvia, sobbing, her arm +crooked over her face, hiding everything but her shining curls. "And +what has this little girl to do with anything?" he asked. + +"This is Sylvia Marshall, Judith's sister, and of course she feels +dreadfully about Judith's doing such a dreadful thing," explained Miss +Miller inelegantly. + +Mr. Bristol walked back to his desk and sat down. "Well, I think I +needn't keep you any longer, Miss Miller," he said. "If you will just +leave the little girls here for a while perhaps I can decide what to +do about it." + +Thus mildly but unmistakably dismissed, the teacher took her +departure, pushing Sylvia and Judith inside the door and shutting it +audibly after her. She was so tired as she walked down the stairs that +she ached, and she thought to herself, "As if things weren't hard +enough without their going and being naughty--!" + +Inside the room there was a moment's silence, filled almost palpably +by Sylvia's quivering alarm, and by Judith's bitter mental resistance. +Mr. Bristol drew out a big book from the shelf over his desk and held +it out to Sylvia. "I guess you all got pretty excited about this, +didn't you?" he said, smiling wisely at the child. "You and your +sister sit down and look at the pictures in this for a while, till you +get cooled off, and then I'll hear all about it." + +Sylvia took the book obediently, and drew Judith to a chair, opening +the pages, brushing away her tears, and trying to go through the form +of looking at the illustrations, which were of the birds native to the +region. In spite of her emotion, the large, brightly colored pictures +did force their way through her eye to her brain, instinct in every +fiber with the modern habit of taking in impressions from the printed +page; and for years afterwards she could have told the names of the +birds they saw during that long, still half-hour, broken by no sound +but the tap-tap-tap of Mr. Bristol's typewriter. He did not once look +towards them. This was partly a matter of policy, and partly because +he was trying desperately to get a paper written for the next +Convention of Public School Principals, which he was to address on +the "Study of Arithmetic in the Seventh Grade." He had very fixed and +burning ideas about the teaching of arithmetic in the seventh grade, +which he longed with a true believer's fervor to see adopted by all +the schools in the country. He often said that if they would only do +so, the study of arithmetic would be revolutionized in a decade. + +Judith sat beside her sister, not pretending to look at the book, +although the rigidity of her face insensibly softened somewhat in the +contagious quiet of the room. + +When they had turned over the last page and shut the book, Mr. Bristol +faced them again, leaning back in his swivel-chair, and said: "Now, +children--all quiet? One of you begin at the beginning and tell me how +it happened." Judith's lips shut together in a hard line, so Sylvia +began, surprised to find her nerves steadied and calmed by the silent +half-hour of inaction back of her. She told how they were met that +morning by the news, how the children shouted after Camilla as she got +into the carriage, how the Five A girls had decided to exclude her +from the picnic, how angry Judith had been, and then--then--she knew +no more to tell beyond the bare fact of Judith's passionate misdeed. + +Mr. Bristol began to cross-examine Judith in short, quiet sentences. +"What made you think of throwing the things into the river?" + +"I was afraid they'd get them back somehow if I didn't," said Judith, +as if stating a self-evident argument. + +"Where did you go to throw them in? To the Monroe Street bridge?" + +"No, I didn't have time to go so far. I just went down through +Randolph Street to the bank and there was a boat there tied to a tree, +and I got in and pushed it out as far as the rope would go and dropped +the things in from the other end." + +Sylvia caught her breath in terror at this recital. The Piquota river +ran swift and turbid and deep between high banks at that point. +"Weren't you afraid to venture out in a boat all by yourself?" asked +the man, looking at Judith's diminutive person. + +"Yes, I was," said Judith unexpectedly. + +Mr. Bristol said "Oh--" and stood in thought for a moment. Some one +knocked on the door, and he turned to open it. At the sight of the +tall figure standing there in his pepper-and-salt suit, Sylvia's +heart gave a great bound of incredulous rapture. The appearance of +a merciful mediator on the Day of Judgment could not have given her +keener or more poignant relief. She and Judith both ran headlong to +their father, catching his hands in theirs, clinging to his arms and +pressing their little bodies against his. The comfort Sylvia felt in +his mere physical presence was inexpressible. It is one of the pure +golden emotions of childhood, which no adult can ever recover, save +perhaps a mystic in a moment of ecstatic contemplation of the power +and loving-kindness of his God. + +Professor Marshall put out his hand to the Principal, introducing +himself, and explained that he and his wife had been a little uneasy +when the children had not returned from school. Mr. Bristol shook the +other's hand, saying that he knew of him through mutual acquaintances +and assuring him that he could not have come at a more opportune +moment. "Your little daughter has given me a hard nut to crack. I need +advice." + +Both men sat down, Sylvia and Judith still close to their father's +side, and Mr. Bristol told what had happened in a concise, colorless +narration, ending with Judith's exploit with the boat. "Now what would +_you_ do in _my_ place?" he said, like one proposing an insoluble +riddle. + +Sylvia, seeing the discussion going on in such a quiet, conversational +tone, ventured in a small voice the suggestion that Judith had done +well to confess, since that had saved others from suspicion. "The +girls were sure that Jimmy Weaver had done it." + +"Was that why you came back and told?" asked Professor Marshall. + +"No," said Judith bluntly, "I never thought of that. I wanted to be +sure they knew why it happened." + +The two men exchanged glances. Professor Marshall said: "Didn't you +understand me when I told you at noon that even if you could make the +girls let Camilla go to the picnic, she wouldn't have a good time? You +couldn't make them like to have her?" + +"Yes, I understood all right," said Judith, looking straight at her +father, "but if she couldn't have a good time--and no fault of hers--I +wasn't going to let _them_ have a good time either. I wasn't trying to +make them want her. I was trying to get even with them!" + +Professor Marshall looked stern. "That is just what I feared, Judith, +and that hateful spirit is the bad thing about the whole business." He +turned to the Principal: "How many girls were going to the picnic?" + +The other, with a wide gesture, disavowed any knowledge of the matter. +"Good Heavens! how should I know?" + +Sylvia counted rapidly. "Fourteen," she said. + +"Well, Mr. Bristol, how would this do for a punishment? Judith has +worked in various ways, digging up dandelions from the lawn, weeding +flower-beds, running errands--you know--all the things children +do--and she has a little more than five dollars in her iron +savings-bank, that she has been saving for more than a year to buy a +collie puppy. Would you be satisfied if she took that money, divided +it into fourteen parts, and took it herself in person to each of the +girls?" + +During this proposal Judith's face had taken on an expression of utter +dismay. She looked more childlike, more like her years than at any +moment during the interview. "Oh, _Father_!" she implored him, with a +deep note of entreaty. + +He did not look at her, but over her head at the Principal, who was +rising from his chair with every indication of relief on his face." +Nothing could be better," he said. "That will be just right--every one +will be satisfied. And I'll just say for the sake of discipline +that little Judith shan't come back to school till she has done her +penance. Of course she can get it all done before supper-time tonight. +All our families live in the vicinity of the school." He was shaking +Professor Marshall's hand again and edging him towards the door, his +mind once more on his paper, hoping that he might really finish it +before night--if only there were no more interruptions! + +His achievement in divining the mental processes of two children +hysterical with excitement, his magnetic taming of those fluttering +little hearts, his inspired avoidance of a fatal false step at +a critical point in the moral life of two human beings in the +making--all this seemed as nothing to him--an incident of the day's +routine already forgotten. He conceived that his real usefulness to +society lay in the reform of arithmetic-teaching in the seventh grade, +and he turned back to his arguments with the ardor of the great +landscape painter who aspires to be a champion at billiards. + +Professor Marshall walked home in silence with his two daughters, +explained the matter to his wife, and said that he and Sylvia would +go with Judith on her uncomfortable errand. Mrs. Marshall listened +in silence and went herself to get the little bank stuffed full of +painfully earned pennies and nickels. Then she bade them into the +kitchen and gave Judith and Sylvia each a cookie and a glass of milk. + +She made no comment whatever on the story, or on her husband's +sentence for the culprit, but just as the three, were going out of the +door, she ran after them, caught Judith in her arms, and gave her a +passionate kiss. + + * * * * * + +The next day was Saturday, and it was suggested that Judith and Sylvia +carry on their campaign by going to see the Fingáls and spending the +morning playing with them as though nothing had happened. + +As they approached the house, somewhat perturbed by the prospect, they +saw with surprise that the windows were bare of the heavy yellow lace +curtains which had hung in the parlor, darkening that handsomely +furnished room to a rich twilight. They went up on the porch, and +Judith rang the bell resolutely, while Sylvia hung a little back of +her. From this position she could see into the parlor, and exclaimed, +"Why, Judy, this isn't the right house--nobody lives here!" The big +room was quite empty, the floors bare of the large soft rugs, and as +the children pressed their faces to the pane, they could see through +an open door into a bedroom also dismantled and deserted. + +They ran around the house to the back door and knocked on it. There +was no answer. Judith turned the knob, the door opened, and they stood +in what had been unmistakably the Fingáls' kitchen. Evidence of wild +haste and confusion was everywhere about them--the floor was littered +with excelsior, the shelves half cleared and half occupied still with +cooking supplies, a packing-box partly filled with kitchenware which +at the last moment the fugitives had evidently decided to abandon. + +The little girls stood in this silent desolation, looking about them +with startled eyes. A lean mother-cat came and rubbed her thin, +pendent flanks against their legs, purring and whining. Three kittens +skirmished joyfully in the excelsior, waylaying one another in ambush +and springing out with bits of the yellow fibers clinging to their +woolly soft fur. + +"They've _gone_!" breathed Sylvia. "They've gone away for good!" + +Judith nodded, even her bold and unimaginative spirit somewhat +daunted by the ghostly silence of the house. Sylvia tiptoed to the +swinging-door and pushed it open. Yes, there was the pantry, like the +kitchen, in chaotic disorder, tissue paper and excelsior thick on the +floor, and entangled with it the indescribable jumble of worthless, +disconnected objects always tumbled together by a domestic crisis +like a fire or a removal--old gloves, whisk-brooms, hat-forms, lamps, +magazines, tarnished desk-fittings. The sight was so eloquent of panic +haste that Sylvia let the door swing shut, and ran back into the +kitchen. + +Judith was pointing silently to a big paper bag on the shelf. It had +been tossed there with some violence evidently, for the paper had +burst and the contents had cascaded out on the shelf and on the +floor--the rich, be-raisined cookies which Camilla was to have taken +to the picnic. Sylvia felt the tears stinging her eyelids, and pulled +Judith out of the tragic house. They stood for a moment in the yard, +beside a bed of flowering crocuses, brilliant in the sun. The forsaken +house looked down severely at them from its blank windows. Judith was +almost instantly relieved of mental tension by the outdoor air, and +stooped down unconcernedly to tie her shoe. She broke the lacing and +had to sit down, take it out of the shoe, tie it, and put it back +again. The operation took some time, during which Sylvia stood still, +her mind whirling. + +For the first time in her steadily forward-going life there was a +sharp, irrevocable break. Something which had been yesterday was now +no more. She would never see Camilla again, she who recalled Camilla's +look of anguish as though they still stood side by side. Her heart +filled with unspeakable thankfulness that she had put her arms around +Camilla's neck at that supreme last moment. That had not been Judith's +doing. That had come from her own heart. Unconsciously she had laid +the first stone in the wall of self-respect which might in the future +fortify her against her weaknesses. + +She stood looking up blindly at the house, shivering again at the +recollection of its echoing, empty silence. The moment was one she +never forgot. Standing there in that commonplace backyard, staring up +at a house like any one of forty near her, she felt her heart grow +larger. In that moment, tragedy, mystery, awe, and pity laid their +shadowy fingers on her shining head. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE END OF CHILDHOOD + + +That afternoon a couple of children who came to play in the Marshall +orchard brought news that public opinion, after the fashion of that +unstable weathercock, was veering rapidly, and blowing from a wholly +unexpected quarter. "My papa says," reported Gretchen Schmidt, who +never could keep anything to herself, even though it might be by no +means to her advantage to proclaim it--"my papa says that he thinks +the way American people treats colored peoples is just fierce; and he +says if he'd ha' known about our not letting Camilla go to the picnic, +he'd ha' taken the trouble to me '_mit der flachen Hand schlagen._' +That means he'd have spanked me good and plenty." + +Maria Perkins, from the limb where she hung by her knees, responded, +"Yup, my Uncle Eben says he likes Judy's spunk." + +"I guess he wouldn't have, if it'd ha' been his pickles!" Gretchen +made a last stand against the notorious injustice of fickle adult +prejudices. + +But the tide had begun to turn. On Monday morning Sylvia and Judith +found themselves far from ostracized, rather the center of much +respectful finger-pointing on the part of children from the other +grades who had never paid the least attention to them before. And +finally when the Principal, passing majestically from room to room in +his daily tour of inspection, paused in his awful progress and spoke +to Judith by name, asking her quite familiarly and condescendingly +what cities you would pass through if you went from Chicago to New +Orleans, the current set once and for all in the other direction. No +mention was ever made of the disappearance of the Fingáls, and the +Marshall children found their old places waiting for them. + +It was not long before Judith had all but forgotten the episode; but +Sylvia, older and infinitely more impressionable, found it burned +irrevocably into her memory. For many and many a week, she did not +fall asleep without seeing Camilla's ashy face of wretchedness. And it +was years before she could walk past the house where the Fingáls had +lived, without feeling sick. + +Her life was, however, brimming with active interests which occupied +her, mind and body. There was rarely a day when a troop of children +did not swarm over the Marshall house and barn, playing and playing +and playing with that indomitable zest in life which is the birthright +of humanity before the fevers and chills of adolescence begin. Sylvia +and Judith, moreover, were required to assume more and more of the +responsibility of the housework, while their mother extracted from the +Marshall five acres an ever increasing largesse of succulent food. +Sylvia's séances with old Reinhardt and the piano were becoming +serious affairs: for it was now tentatively decided that she was to +earn her living by teaching music. There were many expeditions on foot +with their mother, for Mrs. Marshall had become, little by little, +chief nurse and adviser to all the families of the neighborhood; and +on her errands of service one of her daughters was needed to carry +supplies and act as assistant. And finally, as the children grew +older, and the family tradition of bookishness took hold of +them, there were shelves and shelves to be devoured, a strange +mixture--Thackeray, Maeterlinck, Fielding, Hakluyt, Ibsen, Dickens, +Ruskin, Shaw, Austen, Moličre, Defoe, Cervantes, Shakespeare,--the +children dipped, or tasted or swallowed whole, according to their +temperaments and the books they happened on. + +When Sylvia was thirteen, almost fourteen years old, she "graduated" +from the eighth grade of the public schools and was ready to enter the +High School. But after a good many family councils, in most of which, +after the unreticent Marshall manner, she herself was allowed to be +present, it was decided not to send her to the huge new Central High +School, which had cost La Chance such a big slice of its taxes, but to +prepare her at home for her course at the State University. She had +been growing very fast, was a little thin and white, and had been +outgrowing her strength. This at least was the reason given out to +inquirers. In reality her father's prejudice against High School +life for adolescents was the determining cause. In the course of his +University work he was obliged to visit a good many High Schools, and +had acquired a violent prejudice against the stirring social life +characteristic of those institutions. + +Sylvia's feelings about this step aside from the beaten track were, +like many of Sylvia's feelings, decidedly mixed. She was drawn towards +the High School by the suction of the customary. A large number of her +classmates expected as a matter of course to pass on in the usual way; +but, with an uneasy qualm, half pride and half apprehension, Sylvia +was beginning to feel her difference from ordinary children. She was +not altogether sorry to say good-bye to her playmates, with whom she +no longer had much in common. She would miss the fun of class-life, of +course; but there was a certain distinction involved in being educated +"differently." She might be queer, but since she was apparently fated +to be queer, she might as well not be "common" as well. Finally, +because she was still, at fourteen, very much of a child, the scale +was tipped by her thinking what fun it would be to go down-town on +errands in school hours. Charles Lamb, lost in painful wonder at his +own leisure after thirty-six years of incessant office-hours, could +savor no more acutely than an American school-child the exquisite +flavor of freedom at an hour formerly dedicated to imprisonment. + +As a matter of fact, during the next three years Sylvia's time was +more constantly occupied than when there was a fixed time-limit to her +studies. Her teachers were always about her, and lightly as the new +yoke pressed, she wore it practically without intermission. Her +immersion in the ideals, the standards, the concepts of her parents +was complete, engulfing. Somebody was nearly always teaching her +something. She studied history and Latin with her father; mathematics +with her mother. She learned to swim, to play tennis, to ride in the +summer-time, and to skate on the frozen swimming-pool in winter, all +without stirring from home. Old Reinhardt was supposed to come twice +a week to give her a piano-lesson, but actually he dropped in almost +every day to smoke meditatively and keep a watchful ear on her +practising. + +Although during those years she was almost literally rooted to the +Marshall soil, watered by Marshall convictions, and fed by Marshall +information, the usual miracle of irresistibly individual growth went +silently and unconsciously forward in her. She was growing up to be +herself, and not her mother or her father, little as any one in her +world suspected the presence of this unceasingly recurrent phenomenon +of growth. She was alive to all the impressions reflected so +insistently upon her, but she transmuted them into products which +would immensely have surprised her parents, they being under the +usual parental delusion that they knew every corner of her heart. Her +budding aversions, convictions, ambitions were not in the least the +aversions, convictions, and ambitions so loudly voiced about her; and +a good deal of her energy was taken up in a more or less conscious +reaction from the family catchwords, with especial emphasis laid on an +objection to the family habit of taking their convictions with great +seriousness. + +Her father would have been aghast if he could have felt the slightest +reflection from the heat of her detestation of his favorite, +Emersonian motto, which, now that he had reached five and forty, he +was apt to repeat with the iteration natural to his age, rousing in +Sylvia the rebellious exasperation felt by _her_ age for over-emphatic +moralizings. + +On the occasion of one of the annual gatherings at the Marshall house +of the Seniors in her father's classes, she remarked fiercely to +Judith, "If Father gets off that old Emerson, 'What will you have, +quoth God. Take it and pay for it,' again tonight in his speech, I'm +going to get right up and scream." + +Judith stared. The girls were in the kitchen, large aprons over their +best dresses, setting out rows of plates for the chicken salad which +was to come after the music. "I don't see anything to scream about in +that!" said Judith with a wondering contempt for Sylvia's notions. + +"I'm so _sick_ of it!" cried Sylvia, tearing the lettuce-leaves apart +with venom. "Father never gets through any sort of a speech that he +doesn't work it in--and I hate it, anyhow! It makes me feel as though +somebody had banged a big door in my face and shut me up in prison." + +"Well, for goodness' sakes!" cried Judith, who, at this period of +their lives, had remained rather more than her three years behind +Sylvia's intelligence. "How do you get all that out of _that_!" + +"You haven't sense enough to know what it means, that's all!" retorted +Sylvia. "It means something perfectly hateful, the way Father uses it. +It means you've got to pay for every single thing you do or get in +this world! It's somebody tagging you round with an account-book, +seeing how big a bill you're running up. It's the perfectly horrid way +Father and Mother make us do, of _always_ washing up the dishes we +dirty, and _always_ picking up the things we drop. Seems as though I'd +die happy, if I could just step out of my nightgown in the morning and +_leave_ it there, and know that it would get hung up without my doing +it." + +"Well, if that's all you want, to die happy," said Judith, the +literal-minded, "I will do that much for you!" + +"Oh gracious, no! That wouldn't do any good! You know I couldn't take +any satisfaction letting _you_ do that!" objected Sylvia, peevishly, +fuming and fumbling helplessly before the baffling quality of her +desires. "I don't want just somebody to pick it up for me. I want it +picked up by somebody that I don't care about, that I don't see, that +I'd just as soon have do the tiresome things as not. I want somebody +to do it, and me to feel all right about _having_ them do it!" + +"Well, for goodness' sakes!" Judith was reduced again to mere wonder. + +Professor and Mrs. Marshall stepped into the kitchen for a moment to +see that everything was progressing smoothly. The professor had his +viola in his hand and was plucking softly at the strings, a pleasant, +tranquil anticipation of harmony on his face. He looked affectionately +at his daughters and thought what dear good children they were. Judith +appealed to her parents: "Sylvia's as crazy as a loon. She says she +wants somebody to do her work for her, and yet she wants to feel all +right about shirking it!" + +Mrs. Marshall did not follow, and did not care. "What?" she said +indifferently, tasting the chicken-salad in the big yellow bowl, and, +with an expression of serious consideration, adding a little more salt +to it. + +But Sylvia's father understood, "What you want to remember, daughter," +he said, addressing himself to his oldest child with a fond certainty +of her quick apprehension, "is that fine saying of Emerson, 'What will +you have, quoth--'" A raw-boned assistant appeared in the doorway. +"Everybody here, I guess, Perfesser," he said. + +When the girls were alone again, Sylvia stole a look at Judith and +broke into noiseless giggles. She laughed till the tears ran down her +cheeks and she had to stop work and go to the kitchen sink to wash +her face and take a drink of water. "You never do what you say you're +going to," said Judith, as gravely alien to this mood as to the other. +"I thought you said you'd scream." + +"I _am_ screaming," said Sylvia, wiping her eyes again. + +They were very familiar with the work of preparing the simple +"refreshments" for University gatherings. Their mother always +provided exactly the same viands, and long practice had made them +letter-perfect in the moves to be made. When they had finished +portioning off the lettuce-leaves and salad on the plates, they +swiftly set each one on a fresh crępe-paper napkin. Sylvia professed +an undying hatred for paper napkins. "I don't see why," said Judith. +"They're so much less bother than the other kind when you're only +going to use them once, this way." "That's it," asserted Sylvia; +"that's the very stingy, economical thing about them I hate, their +_not_ being a bother! I'd like to use big, fine-damask ones, all +shiny, that somebody had ironed twenty minutes, every one, like those +we had at Eleanor Hubert's birthday party. And then I'd scrunch them +up and throw them in the laundry if there was the least speck on +them." + +"I wouldn't like the job of doing them up," said Judith. + +"Neither would I. I'd hate it! And I wouldn't," continued Sylvia, +roaming at will in her enchanted garden; "I'd hire somebody to take +all the bother of buying them and hemming them and doing them up and +putting them on the table. All I'd do, would be to shake them out and +lay them across my lap," she went through a dainty-fingered pantomime, +"and never think a thing about how they got there. That's all _I_ want +to do with napkins. But I do love 'em big and glossy. I could _kiss_ +them!" + +Judith was almost alarmed at the wildness of Sylvia's imaginings. +"Why, you talk as though you didn't have good sense tonight, Sylvie. +It's the party. You always get so excited over parties." Judith +considered it a "come-down" to get excited over anything. + +"Great Scotland! I guess I don't get excited over one of these +_student_ parties!" Sylvia repudiated the idea. "All Father's +'favorite students' are such rough-necks. And it makes me tired to +have all our freaks come out of their holes when we have company--Miss +Lindström and Mr. Hecht and Cousin Parnelia and all." + +"The President comes," advanced Judith. + +Sylvia was sweeping in her iconoclasm. "What if he does--old +fish-mouth! _He's_ nobody--he's a rough-neck himself. He used to be a +Baptist minister. He's only President because he can talk the hayseeds +in the Legislature into giving the University big appropriations. And +anyhow, he only comes here because he _has_ to--part of his job. He +doesn't like the freaks any better than I do. The last time he +was here, I heard Cousin Parnelia trying to persuade him to have +planchette write him a message from Abraham Lincoln. Isn't she the +limit, anyhow!" + +The girls put off their aprons and slipped into the big, low-ceilinged +living-room, singing like a great sea-shell with thrilling +violin-tones. Old Reinhardt was playing the Kreutzer, with Professor +Marshall at the piano. Judith went quietly to sit near Professor +Kennedy, and Sylvia sat down near a window, leaning her head against +the pane as she listened, her eyes fixed on the blackness outside. +Her face cleared and brightened, like a cloudy liquor settling to +limpidity in a crystal vase. Her lips parted a little, her eyes were +fixed on a point incalculably distant. Her mind emptied itself of +everything but her joy in the glorious cadences.... + +If she had been asked what she and Judith had been talking of, she +could not have told; but when, after the second movement was finished, +old Reinhardt put down his violin and began to loosen his bow (he +never played the presto finale), it all came back to the girl as she +looked around her at her father's guests. She hated the way the young +men's Adam's apples showed through their too-widely opened collars, +and she loathed the way the thin brown hair of one of the co-eds +was strained back from her temples. She received the President's +condescending, oleaginous hand-shake with a qualm at his loud +oratorical voice and plebeian accent, and she headed Cousin Parnelia +off from a second mediumistic attack, hating her badly adjusted +false-front of hair as intensely as ever Loyola hated a heretic. And +this, although uncontrollably driven by her desire to please, to +please even a roomful of such mediocrities, she bore to the outward +eyes the most gracious aspect of friendly, smiling courtesy. Professor +Marshall looked at her several times, as she moved with her slim young +grace among his students and friends, and thought how fortunate he was +in his children. + +After the chicken-salad and coffee had been successfully served and +eaten, one of the Seniors stepped forward with an awkward crudeness +and presented Professor Marshall with a silver-mounted blotting-pad. +The house was littered with such testimonials to the influence of the +Professor on the young minds under his care, testimonials which his +children took as absolutely for granted as they did everything else in +the home life. On this occasion Sylvia was so afflicted because the +young rustic appointed to make the presentation speech, forgot most of +what he had planned to say, that she felt nothing but the liveliest +impatience with the whole proceeding. But her father's quick heart was +touched, and more than half of his usual little speech of farewell +to his Seniors was an expression of thanks to them. Before he had +finished the last part, which consisted of eloquent exhortations +to the higher life, none the less sincerely heartfelt for being +remarkably like similar speeches he had made during the last twenty +years, he had quoted his favorite saying from Emerson. Judith looked +apprehensively at Sylvia; but she was not laughing. She evidently was +not hearing a word her father said, being lost in the contemplation +of the perfect evening costume of the newest assistant in Professor +Marshall's department. He was a young man from Massachusetts, fresh +from Harvard, who had come West to begin his teaching that year. His +was certainly the most modern dress-suit in the University faculty; +and he wore it with a supercilious disregard for its perfections which +greatly impressed Sylvia. + +After these usual formalities were thus safely past, some one +suggested a game of charades to end the evening. Amid great laughter +and joking from the few professors present and delighted response +from the students who found it immensely entertaining to be on such +familiar terms with their instructors, two leaders began to "choose +sides." The young assistant from Harvard said in a low tone to his +friend, not noticing Professor Marshall's young daughter near them: +"They won't really go on and _do_ this fool, undignified, backwoods +stunt, will they? They don't expect us to join _in_!" + +"Oh yes, they will," answered his friend, catching up his tone of +sophisticated scorn. He too was from Harvard, from an earlier class. +"You'll be lucky if they don't have a spelling-down match, later on." + +"Good Lord!" groaned the first young man. + +"Oh, you mustn't think all of the University society is like _this_!" +protested the second. "And anyhow, we can slope now, without being +noticed," + +Sylvia understood the accent and tone of this passage more than the +exact words, but it summed up and brought home to her in a cruelly +clarified form her own groping impressions. The moment was a terribly +painful one for her. Her heart swelled, the tears came to her eyes, +she clenched her fists. Her fine, lovely, and sensitive face darkened +to a tragic intensity of resolve. She might have been the young +Hannibal, vowing to avenge Carthage. What she was saying to herself +passionately was, "When _I_ get into the University, I will _not_ be a +jay!" + +It was under these conditions that Sylvia passed from childhood, +and emerged into the pains and delights and responsibilities of +self-consciousness. + + + + +BOOK II + +_A FALSE START TO ATHENS_ + + + + +CHAPTER X + +SYLVIA'S FIRST GLIMPSE OF MODERN CIVILIZATION + + +Although there was not the slightest actual connection between +the two, the trip to Chicago was always in Sylvia's mind like the +beginning of her University course. It is true that the journey, +practically the first in Sylvia's life, was undertaken shortly before +her matriculation as a Freshman, but this fortuitous chronological +connection could not account for Sylvia's sense of a deeper unity +between the two experiences. The days in Chicago, few as they were, +were as charged with significance for her as the successive acts in a +drama, and that significance was of the substance and marrow of the +following and longer passage in her life. + +The fact that her father and her mother disagreed about the +advisability of the trip was one of the salient points in the +beginning. When Aunt Victoria, breaking a long silence with one of her +infrequent letters, wrote to say that she was to be in Chicago "on +business" during the last week of September, and would be very glad +to have her sister-in-law bring her two nieces to see her there, +Professor Marshall said, with his usual snort: "Business nothing! She +never has any business. She won't come to see them _here_, that's all. +The idea's preposterous." But Mrs. Marshall, breaking a long silence +of her own, said vigorously: "She is your sister, and you and your +family are the only blood-kin she has in the world. I've a notion--I +have had for some time--that she was somehow terribly hurt on that +last visit here. It would be ungenerous not to go half-way to meet her +now." + +Sylvia, anxiously hanging on her father's response, was surprised +when he made no protest beyond, "Well, do as you please. I can keep +Lawrence all right. She only speaks of seeing you and the girls." It +did not occur to Sylvia, astonished at this sudden capitulation, that +there might be a discrepancy between her father's habit of vehement +speech and his real feeling in this instance. + +It was enough for her, however, that they were going to take a long +journey on the train overnight, that they were going to see a great +city, that they were going to see Aunt Victoria, about whom her +imagination had always hovered with a constancy enhanced by the odd +silence concerning her which was the rule in the Marshall house. + +She was immensely stirred by the prospect. She made herself, in the +brief interval between the decision and the beginning of the journey, +a new shirt-waist of handkerchief linen. It took the last cent of +her allowance to buy the material, and she was obliged, by a secret +arrangement with her father, to discount the future, in order to have +some spending-money in the city. + +Mrs. Marshall was quite disappointed by the dullness of Sylvia's +perceptions during that momentous first trip, which she had looked +forward to as an occasion for widening the girls' horizon to new +interests. Oddly enough it was Judith, usually so much less quick than +Sylvia, who asked the intelligent questions and listened attentively +to her mother's explanations about the working of the air-brakes, and +the switching systems in railroad yards, and the harvesting of the +crops in the flat, rich country gliding past the windows. It was +quite evident that not a word of this highly instructive talk +reached Sylvia, sitting motionless, absorbing every detail of her +fellow-passengers' aspect, in a sort of trance of receptivity. She +scarcely glanced out of the windows, except when the train stopped at +the station in a large town, when she transferred her steady gaze to +the people coming and going from the train. "Just look, Sylvia, at +those blast-furnaces!" cried her mother as they passed through the +outskirts of an industrial town. "They have to keep them going, you +know, night and day." + +"Oh, do they? What for?" asked Judith, craning her neck to watch the +splendid leap of the flames into the darkness. + +"Because they can't allow the ore to become--" Mrs. Marshall wondered +why, during her conscientious explanation of blast-furnaces, Sylvia +kept her eyes dully fixed on her hands on her lap. Sylvia was, as a +matter of fact, trying imaginary bracelets on her slim, smooth, white +wrists. The woman opposite her wore bracelets. + +"Isn't it fine," remarked the civic-minded Mrs. Marshall, "to see all +these little prairie towns so splendidly lighted?" + +"I hadn't noticed them," said Sylvia, her gaze turned on the elegant +nonchalance of a handsome, elderly woman ahead of her. Her mother +looked at her askance, and thought that children are unaccountable. + +There were four of the Chicago days, and such important events marked +them that each one had for all time a physiognomy of its own. Years +afterwards when their travels had far outrun that first journey, +Sylvia and Judith could have told exactly what occurred on any given +day of that sojourn, as "on the third day we were in Chicago." + +The event of the first day was, of course, the meeting with Aunt +Victoria. They went to see her in a wonderful hotel, entering through +a classic court, with a silver-plashing fountain in the middle, and +slim Ionic pillars standing up white and glorious out of masses of +palms. This dreamlike spot of beauty was occupied by an incessantly +restless throng of lean, sallow-faced men in sack-coats, with hats on +the backs of their heads and cigars in the corners of their mouths. +The air was full of tobacco smoke and the click of heels on the marble +pavement. At one side was a great onyx-and-marble desk, looking like +a soda-water fountain without the silver faucets, and it was the +thin-cheeked, elegant young-old man behind this structure who gave +instructions whereby Mrs. Marshall and her two daughters found their +way to Aunt Victoria's immense and luxurious room. She was very glad +to see them, shaking hands with her sister-in-law in the respectful +manner which that lady always seemed to inspire in her, and embracing +her two tall young nieces with a fervor which melted Sylvia's heart +back to her old childish adoration. + +"What _beautiful_ children you have, Barbara!" cried Mrs. +Marshall-Smith, holding Judith off at arm's length and looking from +her to Sylvia; "although I suppose I ought not to tell them that!" She +looked at Sylvia with an affectionate laugh. "Will you be spoiled if I +tell you you are very pretty?" she asked. + +"I can't think of anything but how pretty _you_ are!" said Sylvia, +voicing honestly what was in her mind. + +This answer caused her aunt to cry out: "Oh! Oh! And tact too! She's +meant for social success!" She left this note to vibrate in Sylvia's +ears and turned again to her sister-in-law with hospitable remarks +about the removing of wraps. As this was being done, she took +advantage of the little bustle to remark from the other side of the +room, "I rather hoped Elliott would come with you." She spoke lightly, +but there was the tremor of feeling in her sweet voice which Sylvia +found she remembered as though it had been but yesterday she had heard +it last. + +"You didn't ask him," said Mrs. Marshall, with her usual directness. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith arched her eyebrows, dropped her eyelids, and +shook her head. "No, I didn't ask him," she admitted, and then with a +little wry twist of her lips, "But I rather hoped he might feel like +coming." She looked down at her hands. + +Mrs. Marshall surprised her daughters very much by going across the +room and kissing her husband's sister. Mrs. Marshall-Smith took the +other's strong, hard hand between her soft fingers. "That's generous +in you, Barbara," she said, looking intently into the pitying dark +eyes, "I'm human, you know," + +"Yes, I know you're human," said Mrs. Marshall, looking down at her +gravely. "So are we all of us. So's Elliott. Don't forget that." With +which obscure reference, entirely unintelligible to the two girls, the +matter was forever dropped. + +The two ladies thereupon embarked upon the difficult business of +laying out to the best advantage the few days before them so that +every hour might be utilized for the twofold purpose of seeing each +other and having the girls see the sights. Judith went to the window +during this conversation, and looked down into the crowded street, the +first city street she had ever seen. Sylvia sat quietly and imprinted +upon her memory every item in the appearance of the two women before +her, not the first time she had compared them. Mrs. Marshall was +dressed in a dark-blue, well-preserved, ready-made suit, dating from +the year before. It was in perfect condition and quite near enough +the style of the moment to pass unnoticed. Sylvia saw nothing to be +ashamed of in her mother's unaccented and neutral costume, but there +was no denying that she looked exactly like any one else. What was +most apparent to the discerning eye was that her garb had been +organized in every detail so as to consume as little thought and +effort as possible. Whereas Aunt Victoria--Sylvia's earnest and +thoughtful efforts at home-dressmaking had fitted her, if for nothing +else, for a full appreciation of Mrs. Marshall-Smith's costume. She +had struggled with cloth enough to bow her head in respect and awe +before the masterly tailoring of the rich, smooth broadcloth dress. +She knew from her own experience that the perfection of those welted +seams could not be accomplished by even the most intense temporary +concentration of amateur forces. No such trifling fire of twigs +lighted the way to that pinnacle. The workman who had achieved that +skill had cut down the whole tree of his life and thrown it into the +flame. + +Like a self-taught fiddler at the concert of a master, Sylvia's +failures had taught her the meaning of success. Although her +inexperience kept her from making at all a close estimate of the +literal cost of the toilet, her shrewdness made her divine the truth, +which was that Mrs. Marshall-Smith, in spite of the plainness of her +attire, could have clad herself in cloth-of-gold at a scarcely greater +expenditure of the efforts and lives of others. Sylvia felt that her +aunt was the most entirely enviable person in the world, and would +gladly have changed places with her in a moment. + +That was, on the whole, the note of the Chicago trip, all the dazzling +lights and reflections of which focused, for Sylvia, upon Aunt +Victoria's radiant person. At times, the resultant beam was almost too +much for the young eyes; as, for example, on the next day when the +two made a momentous shopping expedition to the largest and finest +department store in the city. "I've a curiosity to see," Aunt Victoria +had declared carelessly, "what sort of things are sold in a big +Western shop, and besides I've some purchases to make for the Lydford +house. Things needs freshening up there. I've thought of wicker and +chintz for the living-room. It would be a change from what I've had. +Perhaps it would amuse the children to go along?" + +At this, Judith, who had a boy's detestation of shopping, looked so +miserable that Aunt Victoria had laughed out, her frank, amused laugh, +and said, "Well, Sylvia and I alone, then!" + +"Judith and I'll go to Lincoln Park to take a walk by the lake," said +Mrs. Marshall. "Our inland young folks have never seen so much water +all at once." + +Sylvia had been, of course, in the two substantial and well-run +department stores of La Chance, when she went with her mother to make +their carefully considered purchases. They always went directly to +the department in question, where Mrs. Marshall's concise formula ran +usually along such lines as, "I would like to look at misses' coats, +size 16, blue or brown serge, moderate style, price somewhere between +ten and fifteen dollars." And then they looked at misses' coats, size +16, blue or brown serge, of the specified price; and picked out +one. Sylvia's mother was under the impression that she allowed her +daughters to select their own clothes because, after all these +defining and limiting preliminaries, she always, with a very genuine +indifference, abandoned them to their own choice between the four or +five garments offered. + +Even when Sylvia, as she grew older, went by herself to make a small +purchase or two, she was so deeply under the influence of her mother's +example that she felt it unbecoming to loiter, or to examine anything +she knew she could not buy. Besides, nearly all the salespeople, who, +for the most part, had been at their posts for many years, knew her +from childhood, and if she stopped to look at a show-case of new +collars, or jabots, they always came pleasantly to pass the time of +day, and ask how her little brother was, and how she liked studying at +home. She was ashamed to show in their presence anything but a casual, +dignified interest in the goods they handled. + +After these feeble and diluted tipplings, her day with Aunt Victoria +was like a huge draught of raw spirits. That much-experienced shopper +led her a leisurely course up one dazzling aisle and down another, +pausing ruthlessly to look and to handle and to comment, even if she +had not the least intention of buying. With an inimitable ease +of manner she examined whatever took her fancy, and the languid, +fashionably dressed salesladies, all in aristocratic black, showed to +these whims a smiling deference, which Sylvia knew could come +from nothing but the exquisite tailoring of Aunt Victoria's blue +broadcloth. This perception did not in the least lower her opinion of +the value of the deference. It heightened her opinion of the value of +tailoring. + +They stood by glass tables piled high with filmy and costly underwear, +such underwear as Sylvia had never dreamed could exist, and Aunt +Victoria looked casually at the cobweb tissues which the saleswoman +held up, herself hankering in a hungry adoration of the luxury she +would never touch in any other way. Without apology or explanation, +other than Aunt Victoria's gracious nod of dismissal, they moved on +to the enchanted cave where, under the stare of innumerable electric +lights, evening wraps were exhibited. The young woman who served them +held the expensive, fragile chiffon of the garments up in front of her +black uniform, her eyes wistful and unsatisfied. Her instant of glory +was over when Aunt Victoria bought one of these, exclaiming humorously +about the quaintness of going from Paris to Chicago to shop. It was of +silver tissue over white brocade, with a collar of fur, and the price +was a hundred and thirty-seven dollars. Sylvia's allowance for all her +personal expenses for a whole year was a hundred and twenty. To +reach the furniture, they passed by, with an ignoring contempt, huge +counters heaped with hundreds and hundreds of shirt-waists, any one of +which was better than the one Sylvia had made with so much care and +interest before leaving home. + +Among the furniture they made a long stay. Aunt Victoria was +unexpectedly pleased by the design of the wicker pieces, and +bought and bought and bought; till Sylvia turned her head away in +bewilderment. She looked down a long perspective of glittering +show-cases filled with the minor luxuries of the toilet, the ruffs, +the collars, the slipper-rosettes, the embroidered belts, the hair +ornaments, the chiffon scarves, all objects diverse, innumerable, +perishable as mist in tree-branches, all costly in exact ratio to +their fragility. Back of her were the children's dresses, fairy-like, +simple with an extravagantly costly simplicity. It occurred to Sylvia +as little as to many others of the crowd of half-hypnotized women, +wandering about with burning eyes and watering mouths through the +shrewdly designed shop, that the great closets back of these adroitly +displayed fineries might be full of wearable, firm-textured little +dresses, such as she herself had always worn. It required an effort of +the will to remember that, and wills weak, or not yet formed, wavered +and bent before the lust of the eye, so cunningly inflamed. Any sense +of values, of proportion, in Sylvia was dumfounded by the lavishness, +the enormous quantities, the immense varieties of the goods displayed. +She ached with covetousness.... + +When they joined the others at the hotel her mother, after commenting +that she looked rather flushed and tired, happened to ask, "Oh, by the +way, Sylvia, did you happen to come across anything in serge suits +that would be suitable for school-wear?" + +Sylvia quivered, cried out explosively, "_No!_" and turned away, +feeling a hot pulse beating through her body. But Aunt Victoria +happened to divert attention at that moment. She had been reading, +with a very serious and somewhat annoyed expression, a long telegram +just handed her, and now in answer to Mrs. Marshall's expression of +concern, said hastily, "Oh, it's Arnold again.... It's always Arnold!" +She moved to a desk and wrote a brief telegram which she handed to +the waiting man-servant. Sylvia noticed it was addressed to Mr. A.H. +Saunders, a name which set dimly ringing in her head recollections now +muffled and obscured. + +Aunt Victoria went on to Mrs. Marshall: "Arnold hates this school so. +He always hates his schools." + +"Oh, he is at school now?" asked Mrs. Marshall. "You haven't a tutor +for him?" + +"Oh yes, Mr. Saunders is still with him--in the summers and during +holidays." Mrs. Marshall-Smith explained further: "To keep him up in +his _studies_. He doesn't learn anything in his school, you know. They +never do. It's only for the atmosphere--the sports; you know, they +play cricket where he is now--and the desirable class of boys he +meets.... _All_ the boys have tutors in vacation times to coach them +for the college-entrance examinations." + +The face of the college professor's wife continued immovably grave +during this brief summary of an educational system. She inquired, "How +old is Arnold now?" learned that he was seventeen, remembered that, oh +yes, he was a year older than Sylvia, and allowed the subject to drop +into one of the abysmal silences for which she alone had the courage. +Her husband's sister was as little proof against it as her husband. As +it continued, Mrs. Marshall-Smith went through the manoeuvers which in +a less perfectly bred person would have been fidgeting.... + +No one paid any attention to Sylvia, who sat confronting herself in a +long mirror and despising every garment she wore. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +ARNOLD'S FUTURE IS CASUALLY DECIDED + + +The next day was to have been given up to really improving pursuits. +The morning in the Art Institute came off as planned. The girls were +marshaled through the sculpture and paintings and various art objects +with about the result which might have been expected. As blankly +inexperienced of painting and sculpture as any Bushmen, they +received this sudden enormous dose of those arts with an instant, +self-preservatory incapacity to swallow even a small amount of them. +It is true that the very first exhibits they saw, the lions outside +the building, the first paintings they encountered, made an +appreciable impression on them; but after this they followed their +elders through the interminable crowded halls of the museum, their +legs aching with the effort to keep their balance on the polished +floors, their eyes increasingly glazed and dull. For a time a few +eccentric faces or dresses among the other sightseers penetrated +through this merciful insensibility, but by noon the capacity for even +so much observation as this had left them. They set one foot before +the other, they directed their eyes upon the multitudinous objects +exhibited, they nodded their heads to comments made by the others, but +if asked suddenly what they had just seen in the room last visited, +neither of them could have made the faintest guess. + +At half-past twelve, their aunt and mother, highly self-congratulatory +over the educational morning, voted that enough was as good as a +feast, and led their stunned and stupefied charges away to Aunt +Victoria's hotel for lunch. + +It was while they were consuming this exceedingly appetizing meal that +Sylvia saw, threading his way towards them between the other tables, a +tall, weedy, expensively dressed young man, with a pale freckled face +and light-brown hair. When he saw her eyes on him he waved his hand, +a largely knuckled hand, and grinned. Then she saw that it was not a +young man, but a tall boy, and that the boy was Arnold. The quality of +the grin reminded her that she had always liked Arnold. + +His arrival, though obviously unexpected to the last degree, caused +less of a commotion than might have seemed natural. It was as if +this were for Aunt Victoria only an unexpected incident in a general +development, quite resignedly anticipated. After he had shaken hands +with everybody, and had sat down and ordered his own luncheon very +capably, his stepmother remarked in a tolerant tone, "You didn't get +my telegram, then?" He shook his head: "I started an hour or so after +I wired you. We'd gone down to the town with one of the masters for a +game with Concord. There was a train just pulling out as we went by +the station, and I ran and jumped on." + +"How'd you know where it was going?" challenged Judith. + +"I didn't," he explained lightly. He looked at her with the teasing, +provocative look of masculine seventeen for feminine thirteen. "Same +old spitfire, I see, Miss Judy," he said, his command of unhackneyed +phrases by no means commensurate with his desire to be facetious. + +Judith frowned and went on eating her éclair in silence. It was the +first éclair she had ever eaten, and she was more concerned with it +than with the new arrival. + +Nobody made any comment on Arnold's method of beginning journeys until +Mrs. Marshall asked, "What did you do it for?" She put the question +with an evident seriousness of inquiry, not at all with the rhetorical +reproach usually conveyed in the formula she used. + +Arnold looked up from the huge, costly, bloody beefsteak he was eating +and, after an instant's survey of the grave, kind, face opposite him, +answered with a seriousness like her own, "Because I wanted to get +away." He added after a moment, laughing and looking again at the +younger girl, "I wanted to come out and pull Judy's hair again!" He +spoke with his mouth full, and this made him entirely a boy and not at +all the young man his well-cut clothes made him appear. + +Without speaking, Judith pulled her long, smooth braid around over her +shoulder where she could protect the end of it. Her mouth was also +full, bulgingly, of the last of her éclair. They might have been +brother and sister in a common nursery. + +"My! Aren't you pretty, Sylvia!" was Arnold's next remark. "You're a +regular peach; do you know it?" He turned to the others: "Say, let's +go to a show this afternoon," he proposed. "Tling-Tling's in town. I +saw it in the papers as I came in. The original company's singing. +Did you ever hear them?" he asked Sylvia. "They beat the other road +companies all hollow." + +Sylvia shook her head. She had never heard the name before, the +Broadway brand of comic opera being outside her experience to a degree +which would have been inconceivable to Arnold. + +There was some discussion over the matter, but in the end, apparently +because there was nothing else to do with Arnold, they all did go +to the "show," Arnold engineering the expedition with a trained +expertness in the matter of ticket-sellers, cabs, and ushers which was +in odd contrast to his gawky physical immaturity. At all the stages +of the process where it was possible, he smoked cigarettes, producing +them in rapid succession out of a case studded with little pearls. His +stepmother looked on at this, her beautiful manner of wise tolerance +tightening up a little, and after dinner, as they sat in a glittering +corridor of the hotel to talk, she addressed him suddenly in a quite +different tone. "I don't want you to do that so much, Arnold," she +said. His hand was fumbling for his case again. "You're too young to +smoke at all," she said definitely. He went on with his automatic +movements, opening the case, taking out a cigarette and tapping it on +the cover. "Oh, all the fellows do," he said rebelliously, and struck +a match. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith aroused herself to a sudden, low-toned, iron +masterfulness of voice and manner which, for all its quietness, had +the quality of a pistol shot in the family group. She said only, "Put +away that cigarette"; but by one effort of her will she massed against +the rebellion of his disorganized adolescence her mature, well-ripened +capacity to get her own way. She held him with her eyes as an +animal-trainer is supposed to cow his snarling, yellow-fanged +captives, and in a moment Arnold, with a pettish gesture, blew out the +match and shut the cigarette case with a snap. Mrs. Marshall-Smith +forbore to over-emphasize her victory by a feather-weight of gloating, +and turned to her sister-in-law with a whimsical remark about the +preposterousness of one of the costumes passing. Arnold sulked +in silence until Judith, emerging from her usual self-contained +reticence, made her first advance to him. "Let's us all go there +by the railing where we can look down into the central court," she +suggested, and having a nodded permission from their elders, the three +children walked away. + +They looked down into the great marble court, far below them, now +fairy-like with carefully arranged electric lights, gleaming through +the palms. The busily trampling cohorts in sack-coats and derby hats +were, from here, subdued by distance to an aesthetic inoffensiveness +of mere ant-like comings and goings. + +"Not so bad," said Arnold, with a kindly willingness to be pleased, +looking about him discriminatingly at one detail after another of +the interior, the heavy velvet and gold bullion of the curtains, the +polished marble of the paneling, the silk brocade of the upholstery, +the heavy gilding of the chairs.... Everything in sight exhaled an +intense consciousness of high cost, which was heavy on the air like a +musky odor, suggesting to a sensitive nose, as does the odor of musk, +another smell, obscured but rancidly perceptible--the unwashed smell, +floating up from the paupers' cellars which support Aladdin's palaces +of luxury. + +But the three adolescents, hanging over the well-designed solid +mahogany railing, had not noses sensitive to this peculiar, very +common blending of odors. Judith, in fact, was entirely unconscious +even of the more obvious of the two. She was as insensitive to all +about her as to the too-abundant pictures of the morning. She might +have been leaning over a picket fence. "I wouldn't give in to Her!" +she said to Arnold, staring squarely at him. + +Arnold looked nettled. "Oh, I don't! I don't pay any attention to what +she says, except when she's around where I am, and that's not so often +you could notice it much! _Saunders_ isn't that kind! Saunders is a +gay old bird, I tell you! We have some times together when we get +going!" + +It dawned on Sylvia that he was speaking of the man who, five years +before, had been their young Professor Saunders. She found that she +remembered vividly his keen, handsome face, softened by music to quiet +peace. She wondered what Arnold meant by saying he was a gay old bird. + +Arnold went on, shaking his head sagely: "But it's my belief that +Saunders is beginning to take to dope ... bad business! Bad business! +He's in love with Madrina, you know, and has to drown his sorrows some +way." + +Even Judith, for all her Sioux desire to avoid seeming surprised or +impressed, could not restrain a rather startled look at this lordly +knowledge of the world. Sylvia, although she had scarcely taken in the +significance of Arnold's words, dropped her eyes and blushed. Arnold +surveyed them with the indulgent look of a rakish but good-hearted man +of the world patting two pretty children on the head. + +Judith upset his pose by bringing the talk abruptly back to where she +had begun it. "But you _did_ give in to her! You pretend you didn't +because you are ashamed. She just looked you down. I wouldn't let +_any_body look me down; I wouldn't give in to anybody!" + +Under this attack, the man of the world collapsed into an awkward +overgrown boy, ill at ease, with red lids to his eyes and premature +yellow stains on two fingers of his left hand. He shifted his feet and +said defensively: "Aw, she's a woman. A fellow can't knock her down. I +wouldn't let a man do it." He retreated still further, through another +phase, and became a little boy, heated and recriminatory: "I'd like +to know who _you_ are to talk! You give in to _your_ mother all the +time!" + +"I don't give in to my mother; I _mind_ her," said Judith, drawing a +distinction which Arnold could not follow but which he was not acute +enough to attack other than by a jeering, "Oh, what a crawl! What's +the diff?" + +"And I mind her whether she's there or not! _I_ do!" continued Judith, +pressing what she seemed, inexplicably to Arnold, to consider her +advantage. + +Sylvia was vexed with them for talking so loudly and getting so +red-faced and being so generally out of key with the booming note of +luxury resounding about them. "Hush! hush!" she said; "don't be so +silly. We ought to be going back." + +Arnold took her rebuke without protest. Either something in this +passage-at-arms had perversely brought a sudden impulse to his mind, +or he had all along a purpose in his fantastic trip West. As they +reached the two ladies, he burst out, "Say, Madrina, why couldn't I go +on to La Chance and go to school there, and live with the Marshalls?" + +Four amazed faces were turned on him. His stepmother evidently thought +him stricken with sudden insanity and strove distractedly to select, +from the heaped pile of her reasons for so thinking, some few which +might be cited without too great offense to her brother's mode of +life: "Why, what a strange idea, Arnold! What ever made you think of +such a thing? _You_ wouldn't like it!" She was going on, as in decency +bound, to add that it would be also rather a large order for the +Marshalls to adopt a notably "difficult" boy, when Judith broke in +with a blunt divination of what was in her aunt's mind. "You'd have +to wash dishes if you came to our house," she said, "and help peel +potatoes, and weed the celery bed." + +"I'd like it!" declared Arnold. "We'd have lots of fun." + +"I _bet_ we would!" said Judith, with an unexpected assent. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith laughed gently. "You don't know what you're +talking about, you silly boy. You never did an hour's work in your +life!" + +Arnold sat down by Mrs. Marshall. "I wouldn't be in the way, _would_ +I?" he said, with a clumsy pleading. He hesitated obviously over the +"Mother" which had risen to his lips, the name he had had for her +during the momentous visit of five years before, and finally, +blushing, could not bring it out. "I'd like it like anything! _I_ +wouldn't be ... I'd be _different_! Sylvie and Judy seem like little +sisters to me." The red on his face deepened. "It's--it's good for a +fellow to have sisters, and a home," he said in a low tone not audible +to his stepmother's ears. + +Mrs. Marshall put out a large, strong hand and took his slack, +big-knuckled fingers into a tight clasp. Mrs. Marshall-Smith evidently +thought a light tone best now, as always, to take. "I tell you, +Barbara"--she suggested laughingly, "we'll exchange. You give me +Sylvia, and take Arnold." + +Mrs. Marshall ignored this as pure facetiousness, and said seriously: +"Why really, Victoria, it might not be a bad thing for Arnold to come +to us. I know Elliott would be glad to have him, and so would I." + +For an instant Arnold's life hung in the balance. Mrs. Marshall-Smith, +gleaming gold and ivory in her evening-dress of amber satin, sat +silent, startled by the suddenness with which the whole astonishing +question had come up. There was in her face more than one hint that +the proposition opened a welcome door of escape to her.... + +And then Arnold himself, with the tragic haste of youth, sent one +end of the scales down, weighted so heavily that the sight of his +stepmother's eyes and mouth told him it could never rise again. In the +little, pregnant pause, he cried out joyfully, "Oh, Mother! Mother!" +and flung his arms around Mrs. Marshall's neck. It was the only time +he had shown the slightest emotion over anything. It burst from him +with surprising effect. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith was, as she had said, only human, and at this +she rose, her delicate face quiet and impassive, and shook out the +shimmering folds of her beautiful dress. She said casually, picking +up her fan and evidently preparing for some sort of adjournment: "Oh, +Arnold, don't be so absurd. Of course you can't foist yourself off +on a family that's no relation to you, that way. And in any case, +it wouldn't do for you to graduate from a co-educational State +University. Not a person you know would have heard of it. You know +you're due at Harvard next fall." With adroit fingers, she plucked the +string sure to vibrate in Arnold's nature. "Do go and order a table +for us in the Rose-Room, there's a good boy. And be sure to have the +waiter give you one where we can see the dancing." + +The matter was settled. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +ONE MAN'S MEAT ... + + +That night after the Marshalls had gone back to their somewhat shabby +boarding-house, "things" happened to the two people they had left in +the great hotel. Sylvia and Judith never knew the details, but it was +apparent that something portentous had occurred, from the number of +telegrams Aunt Victoria had managed to receive and send between the +hour when they left her in the evening, and eleven o'clock the next +morning, when they found her, hatted and veiled, with an array of +strapped baggage around her. + +"It's Arnold again!" she told them, with a resigned gesture. She laid +down the time-table she had been consulting and drew Mrs. Marshall to +the window for a low-voiced explanation. When she came back, "I'm so +sorry, dears, to cut short even by a single day this charming time +together," she told the girls. "But the news I've been getting from +Arnold's school--there's nothing for me to do but to stop everything +and take him back there to see what can be done to patch things +up." She spoke with the patient air of one inured to the sacrifices +involved in the upbringing of children. "We leave on the +eleven-forty--oh, I _am_ so sorry! But it would have been only one day +more. I meant to get you both a dress--I've 'phoned to have them sent +to you." + +The rest was only the dreary, bustling futility of the last moments +before train-time--kisses, remarks about writing more often; a promise +from Aunt Victoria to send Sylvia from time to time a box of old +dresses and fineries as material for her niece's dressmaking +skill;--from Arnold, appearing at the last minute, a good deal of +rather flat, well-meant chaffing, proffered with the most entire +unconcern as to the expressed purpose of their journey; and then the +descent through long, mirrored, softly carpeted corridors to the +classic beauty of the Grecian temple where the busy men, with tired +eyes, came and went hurriedly, treading heavily on their heels. +Outside was the cab, Arnold extremely efficient in browbeating the +driver as to the stowing away of bags, more kisses, in the general +cloud of which Arnold pecked shyly at Sylvia's ear and Judith's chin; +then the retreating vehicle with Arnold standing up, a tall, ungainly +figure, waving a much-jointed hand. + +After it was out of sight the three watchers looked at each other in a +stale moment of anticlimax. + +"Arnold's horrid, isn't he?" said Judith thoughtfully. + +"Why, I _like_ him!" opposed Sylvia. + +"Oh, I _like_ him, all right," said Judith. + +Then both girls looked at their mother. What next ...? They were not +to have gone back to La Chance until the next night. Would this change +of plans alter their schedule? Mrs. Marshall saw no reason why it +should. She proposed a sightseeing expedition to a hospital. Miss +Lindström, the elderly Swedish woman who worked among the destitute +negroes of La Chance, had a sister who was head-nurse in the biggest +and newest hospital in Chicago, and she had written very cordially +that if her sister's friends cared to inspect such an institution, she +was at their service. Neither of the girls having the slightest idea +of what a hospital was like, nor of any other of the sights in the +city which they might see instead, no objection was made to this plan. + +They made inquiries of a near-by policeman and found that they could +reach it by the elevated. Their encounter with this metropolitan +facility for transportation turned out to be among the most memorable +bits of sightseeing of their trip. Neither of the girls had ever +imagined anything so lurid as the Saturday noon jam, the dense, packed +throngs waiting on the platforms and bursting out through the opened +doors like beans from a split bag, their places instantly taken by +an even greater crowd, perspiring, fighting grimly for foot-room and +expecting and receiving no other kind. Judith was fired contagiously +with the spirit about her, set her teeth, thrust out her elbows, +shoved, pushed, grunted, fought, all with a fresh zest in the +performance which gave her an immense advantage over the fatigued +city-dwellers, who assaulted their fellow-citizens with only a +preoccupied desire for an approach to a breathing space, and, that +attained, subsided into lurching, strap-hanging quiescence. Judith +secured with ease, on all the public vehicles they utilized that day, +a place on the outside edge of a platform, where she had fresh air +in abundance and could hang over the grating to watch with extreme +interest the intimate bits of tenement-house life which flashed +jerkily by. + +But Sylvia, a shuddering chip on the torrent, always found herself +in the exact middle of the most crowded spot, feeling her body +horrifyingly pressed upon by various invisible ones behind her and +several only too visible ones in front, breathing down the back of +somebody's neck, often a dirty and sweaty one, with somebody breathing +hotly down the back of her own. Once as a very fat and perspiring +German-American began to fight the crowd in the endeavor to turn +around and leave the car, his slowly revolving bulbous bulk pushed her +so smotheringly into the broad back of a negro ahead of her that she +felt faint. As they left the car, she said vehemently: "Oh, Mother, +this makes me sick! Why couldn't we have taken a cab? Aunt Victoria +always does!" + +Her mother laughed. "You little country girl! A cab for as far as this +would cost almost as much as the ticket back to La Chance." + +"I don't see why we came, then!" cried Sylvia. "It's simply awful! And +this is a _horrid_ part of town!" She suddenly observed that they were +walking through a very poor, thickly inhabited street, such as she +had never seen before. As she looked about her, her mother stopped +laughing and watched her face with a painful attention. Sylvia looked +at the tall, dingy houses, the frowzy little shops, the swarms of +dirty-nosed children, shrill-voiced, with matted hair, running and +whooping in the street, at the slatternly women yelling unobeyed +orders to them out of half-glimpsed, cheerless interiors, smelling of +cabbage and dishwater. It was Sylvia's first sight of the life of city +poor, and upon her face of disgust and revulsion her mother bent a +stern and anxious eye. + +"See here, Sylvia!" she said abruptly, "do you know what _I_ was +thinking about back there in the crowd on the elevated? I was thinking +that lots of girls, no older than _my_ girl, have to stand that twice +a day, going to earn their livings." + +Sylvia chafed under the obviously admonitory tone of this. "I don't +see that that makes it any easier for us if they _do!_" she said in a +recalcitrant voice. She stepped wide to avoid a pile of filth on the +sidewalk, and clutched at her skirt. She had a sudden vision of the +white-tiled, velvet-carpeted florist's shop in a corner of Aunt +Victoria's hotel where, behind spotless panes of shining plate-glass, +the great clusters of cut-flowers dreamed away an enchanted +life--roses, violets, lilies of the valley, orchids.... + +"Here we are at the hospital," said Mrs. Marshall, a perplexed line +of worry between her brows. But at once she was swept out of herself, +forgot her seriously taken responsibility of being the mother of a +girl like Sylvia. She was only Barbara Marshall, thrilled by a noble +spectacle. She looked up at the great, clean, many-windowed façade +above them, towering, even above the huge bulk of the gas-tanks across +the street, and her dark eyes kindled. "A hospital is one of the most +wonderful places in the world!" she cried, in a voice of emotion. "All +this--to help people get well!" + +They passed into a wide, bare hall, where a busy young woman at a desk +nodded on hearing their names, and spoke into a telephone. There +was an odd smell in the air, not exactly disagreeable, yet rather +uncomfortably pungent. "Oh, iodoform," remarked the young woman at the +desk, hearing them comment on it. "Do you get it? We don't notice it +_here_ at all." + +Then came Miss Lindström's sister, powerfully built, gaunt, gray, with +a professional, impersonal cheerfulness. The expedition began. "I'll +take you to the children's ward first," said Miss Lindström; "that +always interests visitors so much...." + +Rows on rows of little white beds and white, bloodless faces with an +awful patience on them, and little white hands lying in unchildlike +quiet on the white spreads; rows on rows of hollow eyes turned in +listless interest on the visitors; nurses in white, stepping briskly +about, bending over the beds, lifting a little emaciated form, deftly +unrolling a bandage; heat; a stifling smell of iodoform; a sharp +sudden cry of pain from a distant corner; somewhere a dully beating +pulse of low, suppressed sobs.... + +They were out of the children's ward now, walking along a clean bare +corridor. Sylvia swallowed hard. Her eyes felt burning. Judith held +her mother's hand tightly. Miss Lindström was explaining to Mrs. +Marshall a new system of ventilation. + +"This is one of the women's wards," said their leader, opening another +swinging door, from which rushed forth a fresh blast of iodoform. More +rows of white beds, each with its mound of suffering, each with its +haggard face of pain. More nurses, bearing basins of curious shape, +bandages, hot-water bottles, rubber tubes. There was more restlessness +here than in the children's ward, less helpless prostration before the +Juggernaut of disease ... fretfulness, moans, tossing heads, wretched +eyes which stared at the visitors in a hostile indifference. + +"Oh, they are just putting the dressing on such an _interesting_ +case!" said Miss Lindström's voice coming to Sylvia from a great +distance. She spoke with the glow of professional enthusiasm, with +that certainty, peculiar to sincere doctors and nurses, that a +complicated wound is a fascinating object. + +In spite of herself Sylvia had one glimpse of horribly lacerated red +tissues.... She gripped her hands together after this and looked +fixedly at a button on her glove, until Miss Lindström's voice +announced: "It's the Embury stitch that makes that possible: we've +just worked out the application of it to skin-graft cases. Two years +ago she'd have lost her leg. Isn't it simply splendid!" + +She said cordially as they moved forward: "Sister Selma said to treat +you as though you were the Queen of Sweden, and I am! You're seeing +things that visitors are _never_ allowed to see." + +They walked on and on interminably, past innumerable sick souls, +each whirling alone in a self-centered storm of suffering; and then, +somehow, they were in a laboratory, where an immensely stout and +immensely jovial doctor in white linen got down from a high stool to +shake hands with them and profess an immense willingness to entertain +them. "... but I haven't got anything much today," he said, with a +disparaging wave of his hand towards his test-tubes. "Not a single +death-warrant. Oh yes, I have too, one brought in yesterday." He +brought them a test-tube, stoppered with cotton, and bade them note +a tiny bluish patch on the clear gelatine at the bottom. "That means +he's a dead one, as much as if he faced the electric chair," he +explained. To the nurse he added, "A fellow in the men's ward, +Pavilion G. Very interesting culture ... first of that kind I've had +since I've been here." As he spoke he was looking at Sylvia with an +open admiration, bold, intrusive, flippant. + +They were passing along another corridor, hot, silent, their footsteps +falling dully on a long runner of corrugated rubber, with red borders +which drew together in the distance like the rails streaming away from +a train. Behind a closed door there suddenly rose, and as quickly died +away, a scream of pain. With an effort Sylvia resisted the impulse to +clap her hands over her ears. + +"Here we are, at the minor operating-room," said Miss Lindström, +pausing. "It's against the rules, but if you want to look from across +the room--just to say you've been there--" She held the door open a +little, a suffocating odor of anaesthetics blew out in their faces, +like a breath from a dragon's cave. Mrs. Marshall and Judith stepped +forward. But Sylvia clutched at her mother's arm and whispered: +"Mother! Mother! I don't think I'll go on. I feel--I feel--I'll go +back down to the entrance hall to wait." + +Mrs. Marshall nodded a preoccupied assent, and Sylvia fled away down +the endless corridor, looking neither to the right nor the left, down +repeated flights of scrubbed and sterilized marble stairs, into the +entrance hall, and, like a bolt from a bow, out of it on the other +side, out into the street, into the sunshine, the heat, the clatter, +the blessed, blessed smell of cabbage and dish-water.... + +After a time she went to sit down on the top step of the hospital +entrance to wait. She contemplated with exquisite enjoyment the +vigorous, profane, hair-pulling quarrel between two dirty little +savages across the street. She could have kissed her hand to the +loud-voiced woman who came scuffling to the window to scold them, +clutching a dirty kimono together over a Hogarth-like expanse of +bosom. They were well, these people, blood ran in their veins, their +skin was whole, they breathed air, not iodoform! Her mother had pulled +the string too tight, and Sylvia's ears were full of the ugly twang of +its snapping. + +When, at last, Judith and Mrs. Marshall came out, hand-in-hand, Sylvia +sprang up to say: "What an _awful_ place! I hope I'll never have to +set foot in one again!" But quick as was her impulse to speech, her +perceptions were quicker, and before the pale exaltation of the other +two, she fell silent, irritated, rebellious, thoroughly alien. They +walked along in silence. Then Judith said, stammering a little with +emotion, "M-M-Mother, I want to b-b-b-be a trained n-n-nurse when I +grow up." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +AN INSTRUMENT IN TUNE + + +As they drew near to their boarding-house late that afternoon, very +hot, very crumpled, very solemn, and very much out of tune with one +another, they were astonished to see a little eager-faced boy dash out +of the house and run wildly to meet them, shouting as he came. + +"Why, Lawrence _Marshall_!" cried his mother, picking him up in strong +arms; "how ever in the world did you get here!" + +"Father brungded me," cried the child, clasping her tightly around the +neck. "We got so lonesome for Mother we couldn't wait." + +And then Sylvia had stamped on her mind a picture which was to come +back later--her father's face and eyes as he ran down the steps to +meet his wife. For he looked at his daughters only afterwards, as they +were all walking along together, much excited, everybody talking at +once, and hanging on everybody's arm."... Yes, Buddy's right! We +found we missed you so, we decided life wasn't worth it. You don't +know, Barbara, what it's like without you--you don't _know_!" + +Her father's voice sounded to Sylvia so loud, so gay, so vital, so +inexpressibly welcome.... She leaped up at his face like a young +dog, for another kiss. "Oh, I'm _awfully_ glad you came!" she cried, +wondering a little herself at the immensity of her relief. She thought +that she must get him by himself quickly and tell him her side of that +hospital story, before her mother and Judith began on any virtuous +raptures over it. + +But there was no consecutive talk about anything after they all were +joyfully gathered in their ugly, commonplace boarding-house bedroom. +They loosened collars and belts, washed their perspiring and dusty +faces, and brushed hair, to the tune of a magpie chatter. Sylvia did +not realize that she and her father were the main sources of this +volubility, she did not realize how she had missed his exuberance, she +only knew that she felt a weight lifted from her heart. She had been +telling him with great enjoyment of the comic opera they had seen, as +she finished putting the hairpins into her freshly smoothed hair, and +turned, a pin still in her mouth, in time to be almost abashed by the +expression in his eyes as he suddenly drew his wife to him. + +"Jove! Barbara!" he cried, half laughing, but with a quiver in his +voice, "it's hell to be happily married! A separation is--well, never +mind about it. I came along anyhow! And now I'm here I'll go to see +Vic of course." + +"No, you won't," said Judith promptly. "She's gone back. To get Arnold +out of a scrape." + +Mrs. Marshall explained further, and incidentally touched upon her +sister-in-law's views of the relation between expensive boys' schools +and private tutors. Her dryly humorous version of this set her husband +off in a great mirthful roar, to which Sylvia, after a moment of +blankness, suddenly joined a burst of her own clear laughter. At the +time she had seen nothing funny in Aunt Victoria's statement, but +she was now immensely tickled to remember Aunt Victoria's Olympian +certainty of herself and her mother's grave mask of serious +consideration of the idea. Long after her father had stopped laughing, +she still went on, breaking out into delighted giggles. Her new +understanding of the satire back of her mother's quiet eyes, lent to +Aunt Victoria's golden calm the quaint touch of caricature which made +it self-deceived complacency. At the recollection she sent up rocket +after rocket of schoolgirl laughter. + +Her mother, absorbed in conscientious anxiety about Sylvia's +development, and deeply disappointed by the result of the visit to the +hospital, ignored this laughter, nor did Sylvia at all guess that she +was laughing away half the spell which Aunt Victoria had cast about +her. When they went down to their supper of watery creamed potatoes, +and stewed apricots in thick saucers, she was in such good humor that +she ate this unappetizing fare with no protest. + +"Now, folks," said Professor Marshall, after supper, "we have to go +home tomorrow early, so we ought to have one more fling tonight. While +I was waiting for you to come back this afternoon, I looked up what +Chicago has to offer in the way of flings, and this is what I found. +Here, Barbara," he took a tiny envelope out of his upper waistcoat +pocket, "are two tickets for the symphony orchestra. By the greatest +of luck they're giving a special concert for some charity or other, a +beautiful program; a sort of musical requiem. Sylvia mustn't miss it; +you take her. And here," he spun round to face Judith and Lawrence, +producing another slim, tiny envelope from the other upper waistcoat +pocket, "since symphony concerts are rather solid meat for milk teeth, +and since they last till way after bedtime, I have provided another +sort of entertainment; to wit: three seats for moving pictures of +the only real and authentic Cheyenne Bill's Congress of the World's +Frontiersmen. All in favor of going there with me, say 'Aye.'" + +"Aye!" screamed Judith and Lawrence. Everybody laughed in pleased +excitement and everybody seemed satisfied except Mrs. Marshall, who +insisted that she should go to the moving pictures while the Professor +took Sylvia to the concert. + +Then followed the most amiable, generous wrangle as to which of the +parents should enjoy the adult form of amusement. But while the +Professor grew more and more half-hearted in his protestations that +he really didn't care where he went, Mrs. Marshall grew more and +more positive that he must not be allowed to miss the music, finally +silencing his last weak proffer of self-abnegation by saying +peremptorily: "No, no, Elliott; go on in to your debauch of emotion. +I'll take the children. Don't miss your chance. You know it means ten +times as much to you as to me. You haven't heard a good orchestra in +years." + +Sylvia had never been in such a huge hall as the one where they +presently sat, high, giddily high in the eyrie of a top gallery. They +looked down into yawning space. The vast size of the auditorium so +dwarfed the people now taking their innumerable seats, that even after +the immense audience was assembled the great semicircular enclosure +seemed empty and blank. It received those thousands of souls into its +maw, and made no sign; awaiting some visitation worthy of its bulk. + +The orchestra, an army of ants, straggled out on the stage. Sylvia was +astonished at their numbers--sixteen first violins, she saw by the +program! She commented to her father on the difficulty of keeping +them all in tune. He smiled at her absently, bade her, with an air +of suppressed excitement, wait until she had heard them, and fell +to biting his nails nervously. She re-read the program and all the +advertisements, hypnotized, like every one else in the audience, by +the sight of printed matter. She noticed that the first number of this +memorial concert was the funeral march from the Götterdämmerung, which +she knew very well from having heard a good many times a rather thin +version of it for four strings and a piano. + +The conductor, a solitary ant, made his toilsome way across the great +front of the stage, evoking a burst of applause, which resounded +hollowly in the inhuman spaces of the building. He mounted a step, +waved his antennae, there was a great indrawn breath of silence, +and then Sylvia, waiting with agreeable curiosity to hear how a big +orchestra would really sound, gasped and held her breath. The cup of +that vast building suddenly brimmed with a magical flood of pure tone, +coming from everywhere, from nowhere, from her own heart as well as +from outside her body. The immense hall rang to the glorious quality +of this sound as a violin-back vibrates to the drawn bow. It rained +down on her, it surged up to her, she could not believe that she +really heard it. + +She looked quickly at her father. His arms were folded tightly across +his chest. He was looking frowningly at the back of the chair in front +of him. It was evident that Sylvia did not exist for him. She was +detached from her wonder at his pale sternness by the assault on her +nerves made by the first of those barbaric outcries of woe, that +sudden, brief clamor of grief, the shouts of despair, the beating upon +shields. Her heart stood still--There rose, singing like an archangel, +the mystic call of the Volsung, then the yearning melody of love; such +glory, such longing for beauty, for life--and then brusquely, again +and again, the screaming, sobbing recollection of the fact of +death.... + +When it was over, Sylvia's breath was still coming pantingly. "Oh, +Father! How--how wonderful--how--" she murmured. + +He looked at her, as though he were angry with her, and yet scarcely +seeming to know her, and spoke in a hard, bitter tone: "And it is +_years_ since I have heard one!" He seemed to cry out upon her for the +conditions of his life. + +She had no key for these words, could not imagine a meaning for them, +and, chilled and repelled, wondered if she had heard him rightly. + +The funeral march from the Eroica began, and her father's face +softened. The swelling volume of tone rose like a flood-tide. The +great hall, the thousands of human hearts, all beat solemnly in the +grave and hopeless pulsations of the measured chords. The air +was thick with sorrow, with quiet despair. No outcries here, no +screams--the modern soul advancing somberly with a pale composure to +the grave of its love, aware that during all the centuries since the +dead Siegfried was lifted high on the shoulders of his warriors not a +word of explanation, of consolation has been found; that the modern, +barren self-control means only what the barbarian yells out in his +open abandonment to sorrow--and yet such beauty, such beauty in that +singing thread of melody--"_durch Leiden, Freude!_" + +Not even the shadow of death had ever fallen across Sylvia's life, or +that of her father, to explain the premonitory emotion which now drew +them together like two frightened children. Sylvia felt the inexorable +music beating in her own veins, and when she took her father's hand +it seemed to her that its strong pulses throbbed to the same rhythm; +beauty, and despair ... hope ... life ... death. + +At the end, "Oh, Father--oh, Father!" she said under her breath, +imploringly, struggling to free herself from the muffling, enveloping +sense of imminent disaster. He pressed her hand hard and smiled at +her. It was his own old smile, the father-look which had been her +heart's home all her life--but it was infinitely sweeter to her now +than ever before. She had never felt closer to him. There was a pause +during which they did not speak, and then there burst upon them the +splendid tumult of "Death and Transfiguration," which, like a great +wind, swept Sylvia out of herself. She could not follow the music--she +had never heard of it before. She was beaten down, overwhelmed, freed, +as though the transfiguration were her own, from the pitiful barriers +of consciousness.... + +"Was the concert good?" asked Mrs. Marshall, yawning, and reaching out +of bed to kiss Sylvia sleepily. She laughed a little at their faces. +"Oh, music _is_ a madness! To spend a cheerful evening listening to +death-music, and then come back looking like Moses before the Burning +Bush!" + +"Say, you ought to have seen the stunt they did with their lassos," +cried Judith, waking in the bed on the other side of the room, and +sitting up with her black hair tousled about her face. "I'm going to +try it with the pinto when we get home." + +"I _bet_ you'll do it, too," came from Lawrence the loyal, always sure +of Judith's strength, Judith's skill. + +Sylvia looked at her father over their heads and smiled faintly. It +was a good smile, from a full heart. + +"Aunt Victoria sent our dresses," said Judith, dropping back on the +pillow. "That big box over there. Mine has pink ribbons, and yours are +blue." + +Mrs. Marshall looked at the big box with disfavor, and then at Sylvia, +now sunk in a chair, her hands clasped behind her head, her eyes +dreamy and half closed. Across the room the long pasteboard box +displayed a frothy mass of white lace and pale shining ribbons. Sylvia +looked at it absently and made no move to examine it. She closed her +eyes again and beat an inaudible rhythm with her raised fingers. All +through her was ringing the upward-surging tide of sound at the end of +"Death and Transfiguration." + +"Oh, go to bed, Sylvia; don't sit there maundering over the concert," +said her mother, with a good-natured asperity. But there was relief in +her voice. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +HIGHER EDUCATION + + +To any one who is familiar with State University life, the color +of Sylvia's Freshman year will be vividly conveyed by the simple +statement that she was not invited to join a fraternity. To any one +who does not know State University life, no description can convey +anything approaching an adequate notion of the terribly determinative +significance of that fact. + +The statement that she was invited to join no sorority is not +literally true, for in the second semester when it was apparent that +none of the three leading fraternities intended to take her in, there +came a late "bid" from one of the third-rate sororities, of recent +date, composed of girls like Sylvia who had not been included in the +membership of the older, socially distinguished organizations. Cut to +the quick by her exclusion from the others, Sylvia refused this tardy +invitation with remorseless ingratitude. If she were not to form one +of the "swell" set of college, at least she would not proclaim herself +one of the "jays," the "grinds," the queer girls, who wore their hair +straight back from their foreheads, who invariably carried off Phi +Beta Kappa, whose skirts hung badly, whose shoe-heels turned over as +they walked, who stood first in their classes, whose belts behind made +a practice of revealing large white safety-pins; and whose hats, even +disassociated from their dowdy wearers, and hanging in the cloakroom, +were of an almost British eccentricity. + +Nothing of this sort could be alleged against Sylvia's appearance, +which she felt, as she arrayed herself every morning, to be all that +the most swagger frat could ask of a member. Aunt Victoria's boxes +of clothing, her own nimble fingers and passionate attention to the +subject, combined to turn her out a copy, not to be distinguished from +the original, of the daughter of a man with an income five times that +of her father. As she consulted her mirror, it occurred to her also, +as but an honest recognition of a conspicuous fact, that her suitable +and harmonious toilets adorned a person as pleasing to the eye as any +of her classmates. + +During the last year of her life at home she had shot up very fast, +and she was now a tall, slender presence, preserved from even the +usual touching and delightful awkwardness of seventeen by the trained +dexterity and strength with which she handled her body, as muscular, +for all its rounded slimness, as a boy's. Her hair was beautiful, a +bright chestnut brown with a good deal of red, its brilliant gloss +broken into innumerable high-lights by the ripple of its waviness; and +she had one other positive beauty, the clearly penciled line of her +long, dark eyebrows, which ran up a trifle at the outer ends with a +little quirk, giving an indescribable air of alertness and vivacity to +her expression. Otherwise she was not at that age, nor did she ever +become, so explicitly handsome as her sister Judith, who had at every +period of her life a head as beautiful as that on a Greek coin. +But when the two were together, although the perfectly adjusted +proportions of Judith's proud, dark face brought out the +irregularities of Sylvia's, disclosed the tilt of her small nose, made +more apparent the disproportionate width between her eyes, and showed +her chin to be of no mold in particular, yet a modern eye rested with +far more pleasure on the older sister's face. A bright, quivering +mobility like sunshine on water, gave it a charm which was not +dependent on the more obvious prettinesses of a fine-grained, white +skin, extremely clear brown eyes, and a mouth quick to laugh and +quiver, with pure, sharply cut outline and deeply sunk corners. Even +in repose, Sylvia's face made Judith's seem unresponsive, and when +it lighted up in talk and laughter, it seemed to give out a visible +light. In contrast Judith's beautiful countenance seemed carved out of +some very hard and indestructible stone. + +And yet, in spite of this undeniably satisfactory physical outfit, and +pre-eminent ability in athletics, Sylvia was not invited to join any +of the best fraternities. It is not surprising that there was +mingled with her bitterness on the subject a justifiable amount of +bewilderment. What _did_ they want? They recruited, from her very side +in classes, girls without half her looks or cleverness. What _was_ the +matter with her? She would not for her life have given a sign to her +family of her mental sufferings as, during that first autumn, day +after day went by with no sign of welcome from the social leaders of +her new world; but a mark was left on her character by her affronted +recognition of her total lack of success in this, her first appearance +outside the sheltering walls of her home; her first trial by the real +standards of the actual world of real people. + +The fact, which would have been balm to Sylvia's vanity, had she ever +had the least knowledge of it, was that upon her appearance in the +Freshman class she had been the occasion of violent discussion and +almost of dissension in the councils of the two "best" fraternities. +Her beauty, her charm, and the rumors of her excellence in tennis had +made a flutter in the first fraternity meetings after the opening of +the autumn term. The younger members of both Sigma Beta and Alpha +Kappa counseled early and enthusiastic "rushing" of the new prize, but +the Juniors and Seniors, wise in their day and generation, brought +out a number of damning facts which would need to be taken into +consideration if Sylvia wore their pin. + +There were, in both fraternities, daughters of other faculty families, +who were naturally called upon to furnish inside information. They +had been brought up from childhood on the tradition of the Marshalls' +hopeless queerness, and their collective statement of the Marshalls' +position ran somewhat as follows: "The only professors who have +anything to do with them are some of the jay young profs from the +West, with no families; the funny old La Rues--you know what a +hopeless dowd Madame La Rue is--and Professor Kennedy, and though he +comes from a swell family he's an awful freak himself. They live on a +farm, like farmers, at the ends of the earth from anybody that anybody +knows. They are never asked to be patrons of any swell college +functions. None of the faculty ladies with any social position ever +call on Mrs. Marshall--and no wonder. She doesn't keep any help, and +when the doorbell rings she's as apt to come running in from the +chicken house with rubber boots on, and a basket of eggs--and the +_queerest_ clothes! Like a costume out of a book; and they never have +anybody to wait on the table, just jump up and down themselves--you +can imagine what kind of a frat tea or banquet Sylvia would give in +such a home--and of course if we took her in, we couldn't very +well _tell_ her her family's so impossible we wouldn't want their +connection with the frat known--and the students who go there are a +perfect collection of all the jays and grinds and freaks in college. +It's enough to mark you one to be seen there--you meet all the crazy +guys you see in classes and never anywhere else--and of course that +wouldn't stop when Sylvia's frat sisters began going there. And their +house wouldn't do at _all_ to entertain in--it's queer--no rugs--dingy +old furniture--nothing but books everywhere, even in their substitute +for a parlor--and you're likely to meet not only college freaks, but +worse ones from goodness knows where. There's a beer-drinking old +monster who goes there every Sunday to play the fiddle that you +wouldn't have speak to you on the street for anything in the world. +And the way they entertain! My, in such a countrified way! Some of the +company go out into the kitchen to help Mrs. Marshall serve up the +refreshments--and everything homemade--and they play charades, and +nobody knows what else--bean-bag, or spelling-down maybe--" + +This appalling picture, which in justice to the young delineators must +be conceded to be not in the least overdrawn, was quite enough to give +pause to those impetuous and immature young Sophomores who had lacked +the philosophical breadth of vision to see that Sylvia was not an +isolated phenomenon, but (since her family live in La Chance) an +inseparable part of her background. After all, the sororities made no +claim to be anything but social organizations. Their standing in the +college world depended upon their social background, and of course +this could only be made up of a composite mingling of those of their +individual members. + +Fraternities did not wish to number more than sixteen or eighteen +undergraduates. That meant only four or five to be chosen from each +Freshman class, and that number of "nice" girls was not hard to find, +girls who were not only well dressed, and lively and agreeable in +themselves, but who came from large, well-kept, well-furnished houses +on the right streets of La Chance; with presentable, card-playing, +call-paying, reception-giving mothers, who hired caterers for their +entertainments; and respectably absentee fathers with sizable +pocketbooks and a habit of cash liberality. The social standing of the +co-eds in State Universities was already precarious enough, without +running the risk of acquiring dubious social connections. + +If Sylvia had been a boy, it is almost certain that the deficiencies +of her family would have been overlooked in consideration of her +potentialities in the athletic world. Success in athletics was to the +men's fraternities what social standing was to the girls'. It must be +remarked parenthetically that neither class of these organizations +had the slightest prejudice against high scholastic standing. On the +contrary it was regarded very kindly by fraternity members, as a +desirable though not indispensable addition to social standing and +physical prowess. + +But Sylvia was not a boy, and her fine, promising game of tennis, her +excellence in the swimming-pool, and her success on the gymnasium +floor and on the flying rings, served no purpose but to bring to her +the admiration of the duffers among the girls, whom she despised, +and the unspoken envy of the fraternity girls, whose overtures at +superficial friendliness she constantly rebuffed with stern, wounded +pride. + +The sharpest stab to her pride came from the inevitable publicity of +her ordeal. For, though her family knew nothing of what that first +year out in the world meant to her, she had not the consolation of +hoping that her condition was not perfectly apparent to every one else +in the college world. At the first of the year, all gatherings of +undergraduates not in fraternities hummed and buzzed with speculations +about who would or would not be "taken" by the leading fraternities. +For every girl who was at all possible, each day was a long suspense, +beginning in hope and ending in listlessness; and for Sylvia in an +added shrinking from the eyes of her mates, which were, she knew, +fixed on her with a relentless curiosity which was torture to one +of her temperament. She had been considered almost sure to be early +invited to join Alpha Kappa, the frat to which most of the faculty +daughters belonged, and all during the autumn she was aware that when +she took off her jacket in the cloakroom, a hundred glances swept her +to see if she wore at last the coveted emblem of the "pledged" girl; +and when an Alpha Kappa girl chanced to come near her with a casual +remark, she seemed to hear a significant hush among the other girls, +followed by an equally significant buzz of whispered comment when the +fraternity member moved away again. This atmosphere would have made +no impression on a nature either more sturdily philosophic, or more +unimaginative than Sylvia's (Judith, for instance, was not in the +least affected by the experience), but it came to be a morbid +obsession of this strong, healthy, active-minded young creature. +It tinged with bitterness and blackness what should have been the +crystal-clear cup holding her youth and intelligence and health. She +fancied that every one despised her. She imagined that people who were +in reality quite unaware of her existence were looking at her and +whispering together a wondering discussion as to why she was not "in +the swim" as such a girl ought to be--all girls worth their salt were. + +Above all she was stung into a sort of speechless rage by her +impotence to do anything to regain the decent minimum of personal +dignity which she felt was stripped from her by this constant play of +bald speculation about whether she would or would not be considered +"good enough" to be invited into a sorority. If only something +definite would happen! If there were only an occasion on which +she might in some way proudly proclaim her utter indifference to +fraternities and their actions! If only the miserable business were +not so endlessly drawn out! She threw herself with a passionate +absorption into her studies, her music, and her gymnasium work, +cut off both from the "elect" and from the multitude, a proudly +self-acknowledged maverick. She never lacked admiring followers among +less brilliant girls who would have been adorers if she had not held +them off at arm's length, but her vanity, far from being omnivorous, +required more delicate food. She wished to be able to cry aloud to her +world that she thought nothing and cared nothing about fraternities, +and by incessant inner absorption in this conception she did to +a considerable extent impose it upon the collective mind of her +contemporaries. She, the yearningly friendly, sympathetic, sensitive, +praise-craving Sylvia, came to be known, half respected and half +disliked, as proud and clever, and "high-brow," and offish, and +conceited, and so "queer" that she cared nothing for the ordinary +pleasures of ordinary girls. + +This reputation for a high-browed indifference to commonplace mortals +was naturally not a recommendation to the masculine undergraduates of +the University. These young men, under the influence of reports +of what was done at Cornell and other more eastern co-educational +institutions, were already strongly inclined to ignore the co-eds as +much as possible. The tradition was growing rapidly that the proper +thing was to invite the "town-girls" to the college proms and dances, +and to sit beside them in the grandstand during football games. As +yet, however, this tendency had not gone so far but that those +co-eds who were members of a socially recognized fraternity were +automatically saved from the neglect which enveloped all other but +exceptionally flirtatious and undiscriminating girls. Each girls' +fraternity, like the masculine organizations, gave one big hop in +the course of the season and several smaller dances, as well as +lawn-parties and teas and stage-coach parties to the football games. +The young men naturally wished to be invited to these functions, +the increasing elaborateness of which kept pace with the increasing +sophistication of life in La Chance and the increasing cost of which +made the parents of the girls groan. Consequently each masculine +fraternity took care that it did not incur the enmity of the organized +and socially powerful sororities. But Sylvia was not protected by this +aegis. She was not invited during her Freshman year to the dances +given by either the sororities or the fraternities; and the large +scattering crowd of masculine undergraduates were frightened away from +the handsome girl by her supposed haughty intellectual tastes. + +Here again her isolation was partly the result of her own wish. The +raw-boned, badly dressed farmers' lads, with red hands and rough hair, +she quite as snobbishly ignored as she was ignored in her turn by the +well-set-up, fashionably dressed young swells of the University, with +their white hands, with their thin, gaudy socks tautly pulled over +their ankle-bones, and their shining hair glistening like lacquer on +their skulls (that being the desideratum in youthful masculine society +of the place and time). Sylvia snubbed the masculine jays of college +partly because it was a breath of life to her battered vanity to be +able to snub some one, and partly because they seemed to her, in +comparison with the smart set, seen from afar, quite and utterly +undesirable. She would rather have no masculine attentions at all than +such poor provender for her feminine desire to conquer. + +Thus she trod the leafy walks of the beautiful campus alone, ignoring +and ignored, keenly alive under her shell of indifference to the +brilliant young men and their chosen few feminine companions. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +MRS. DRAPER BLOWS THE COALS + + +The most brilliant of these couples were Jermain Fiske, Jr., +and Eleanor Hubert. The first was the son of the well-known and +distinguished Colonel Jermain Fiske, one of the trustees of the +University, ex-Senator from the State. He belonged to the old, +free-handed, speech-making type of American statesmen, and, with his +florid good looks, his great stature, his loud, resonant, challenging +voice, and his picturesque reputation for highly successful +double-dealing, he was one of the most talked-of men in the State, +despite his advanced years. His enemies, who were not few, said that +the shrewdest action of his surpassingly shrewd life had been his +voluntary retirement from the Senate and from political activities at +the first low murmur heralding the muck-raking cyclone which was to +devastate public life as men of his type understood it. But every +inhabitant of the State, including his enemies, took an odd pride in +his fiercely debonair defiance to old age, in his grandiloquent, too +fluent public addresses, and in the manner in which, despite his +dubious private reputation, he held open to him, by sheer will-power, +sanctimonious doors which were closed to other less robust bad +examples to youth. + +This typical specimen of an American class now passing away, had sent +his son to the State University instead of to an expensive Eastern +college because of his carefully avowed attitude of bluff acceptance +of a place among the plain people of the region. The presence of +Jermain, Jr., in the classrooms of the State University had been +capital for many a swelling phrase on his father's part--"What's good +enough for the farmers' boys of my State is good enough for my boy," +etc., etc. + +As far as the young man in question was concerned, he certainly showed +no signs whatever of feeling himself sacrificed for his father's +advantage, and apparently considered that a leisurely sojourn for +seven years (he took both the B.A. and the three-year Law course) in a +city the size of La Chance was by no means a hardship for a young man +in the best of health, provided with ample funds, and never questioned +as to the disposition of his time. He had had at first a reputation +for dissipation which, together with his prowess on the football +field, had made him as much talked of on the campus as his father in +the State; but during his later years, those spent in the Law School, +he had, as the college phrase ran, "taken it out in being swagger," +had discarded his former shady associates, had two rooms in the finest +frat house on the campus, and was the only student of the University +to drive two horses tandem to a high, red-wheeled dog-cart. His fine +physique and reputation for quick assertion of his rights saved him +from the occasional taunt of dandyism which would have been flung at +any other student indulging in so unusual a freak of fashion. + +During Sylvia's Freshman year there usually sat beside him, on the +lofty seat of this equipage, a sweet-faced, gentle-browed young +lady, the lovely flower blooming out of the little girl who had so +innocently asked her mother some ten years ago what was a drunken +reinhardt. The oldest daughter of the professor of European History +was almost precisely Sylvia's age, but now, when Sylvia was laboring +over her books in the very beginning of her college life, Eleanor +Hubert was a finished product, a graduate of an exclusive, expensive +girls' boarding-school in New York, and a that-year's débutante in La +Chance society. Her name was constantly in the items of the society +columns, she wore the most profusely varied costumes, and she +drove about the campus swaying like a lily beside the wealthiest +undergraduate. Sylvia's mind was naturally too alert and vigorous, and +now too thoroughly awakened to intellectual interests, not to seize +with interest on the subjects she studied that year; but enjoy as much +as she tried to do, and did, this tonic mental discipline, there were +many moments when the sight of Eleanor Hubert made her wonder if after +all higher mathematics and history were of any real value. + +During this wretched year of stifled unhappiness, she not only studied +with extreme concentration, but, with a healthy instinct, spent a +great deal of time in the gymnasium. It was a delight to her to be +able to swim in the winter-time, she organized the first water-polo +team among the co-eds, and she began to learn fencing from the +Commandant of the University Battalion. He had been a crack with the +foils at West Point, and never ceased trying to arouse an interest in +what seemed to him the only rational form of exercise; but fencing at +that time had no intercollegiate vogue, and of all the young men and +women at the State University, Sylvia alone took up his standing offer +of free instruction to any one who cared to give the time to learn; +and even Sylvia took up fencing primarily because it promised to give +her one more occupation, left her less time for loneliness. As it +turned out, however, these lessons proved far more to her than a +temporary anodyne: they brought her a positive pleasure. She delighted +the dumpy little captain with her aptness, and he took the greatest +pains in his instruction. Before the end of her Freshman year she +twice succeeded in getting through his guard and landing a thrust on +his well-rounded figure; and though to keep down her conceit he told +her that he must be losing, along with his slenderness, some of his +youthful agility, he confessed to his wife that teaching Miss Marshall +was the best fun he had had in years. The girl was as quick as a cat, +and had a natural-born fencer's wrist. + +During the summer vacation she kept up her practice with her father, +who remembered enough of his early training in Paris to be more than a +match for her, and in the autumn of her Sophomore year, at the annual +Gymnasium exhibition, she gave with the Commandant a public bout with +the foils in which she notably distinguished herself. The astonished +and long-continued applause for this new feature of the exhibition +was a draught of nectar to her embittered young heart, but she +acknowledged it with not the smallest sign of pleasure, showing an +impassive face as she stood by the portly captain, slim and tall and +young and haughty, joining him in a sweeping, ceremonious salute with +her foil to the enthusiastic audience, and turning on her heel with +a brusqueness as military as his own, to march firmly with high-held +head beside him back to the ranks of blue-bloomered girls who stood +watching her. + +The younger girls in Alpha Kappa and Sigma Beta were seizing this +opportunity to renew an old quarrel with their elders in the +fraternities and were acrimoniously hoping that the older ones +were quite satisfied with their loss of a brilliant member. These +accusations met with no ready answer from the somewhat crestfallen +elders, whose only defense was the entire unexpectedness of the way in +which Sylvia was distinguishing herself. Who ever heard before of a +girl doing anything remarkable in athletics? And anyhow, now in her +Sophomore year it was too late to do anything. A girl so notoriously +proud would certainly not consider a tardy invitation, and it would +not do to run the risk of being refused. It is not too much to say +that to have overheard a conversation like this would have changed the +course of Sylvia's development, but of such colloquies she could know +nothing, attributing to the fraternities, with all an outsider's +resentful overestimation of their importance, an arrogant solidarity +of opinion and firmness of purpose which they were very far from +possessing. + +Professor and Mrs. Marshall and Lawrence and Judith, up in the front +row of chairs set for the audience about the running track, followed +this exploit of Sylvia's with naďvely open pride and sympathy, +applauding even more heartily than did their neighbors. Lawrence, as +usual, began to compose a poem, the first line of which ran, + + "Splendid, she wields her gleaming sword--" + +The most immediate result of this first public success of Sylvia's was +the call paid to Mrs. Marshall on the day following by Mrs. Draper, +the wife of the professor of Greek. Although there had never been any +formal social intercourse between the two ladies, they had for a good +many years met each other casually on the campus, and Mrs. Draper, +with the extremely graceful manner of assurance which was her especial +accomplishment, made it seem quite natural that she should call to +congratulate Sylvia's mother on the girl's skill and beauty as shown +in her prowess on the evening before. Mrs. Marshall prided herself on +her undeceived view of life, but she was as ready to hear praise of +her spirited and talented daughter as any other mother, and quite +melted to Mrs. Draper, although her observations from afar of the +other woman's career in La Chance had never before inclined her to +tolerance. So that when Mrs. Draper rose to go and asked casually if +Sylvia couldn't run in at five that afternoon to have a cup of tea at +her house with a very few of her favorites among the young people, +Mrs. Marshall, rather inflexible by nature and quite unused to the +subtleties of social intercourse, found herself unable to retreat +quickly enough from her reflected tone of cordiality to refuse the +invitation for her daughter. + +When Sylvia came back to lunch she was vastly fluttered and pleased +by the invitation, and as she ate, her mind leaped from one possible +sartorial combination to another. Whatever she wore must be exactly +right to be worthy of such a hostess: for Mrs. Draper was a +conspicuous figure in faculty society. She had acquired, through +years of extremely intelligent manoeuvering, a reputation for choice +exclusiveness which was accepted even in the most venerable of the old +families of La Chance, those whose founders had built their log huts +there as long as fifty years before. In faculty circles she occupied +a unique position, envied and feared and admired and distrusted and +copiously gossiped about by the faculty ladies, who accepted with +eagerness any invitations to entertainments in her small, aesthetic, +and perfectly appointed house. She was envied even by women with +much more than her income:--for of course Professor Draper had an +independent income; it was hardly possible to be anybody unless one +belonged to that minority of the faculty families with resources +beyond the salary granted by the State. + +Faculty ladies were, however, not favored with a great number of +invitations to Mrs. Draper's select and amusing teas and dinners, +as that lady had a great fancy for surrounding herself with youth, +meaning, for the most part, naturally enough, masculine youth. With +an unerring and practised eye she picked out from each class the few +young men who were to her purpose, and proclaiming with the most +express lack of reticence the forty-three years which she by no means +looked, she took these chosen few under a wing frankly maternal, +giving them, in the course of an intimate acquaintance with her and +the dim and twilight ways of her house and life, an enlightening +experience of a civilization which she herself said, with a humorous +appreciation of her own value, quite made over the young, unlicked +cubs. This statement of her influence on most of the young men drawn +into her circle was perhaps not much exaggerated. + +From time to time she also admitted into this charmed circle a young +girl or two, though almost never one of the University girls, of whom +she made the jolliest possible fun. Her favorites were the daughters +of good La Chance families who at seventeen had "finished" at Miss +Home's Select School for Young Ladies, and who came out in society not +later than eighteen. She seemed able, as long as she cared to do it, +to exercise as irresistible a fascination over these youthful members +of her own sex as over the older masculine undergraduates of the +University. They copied their friend's hats and neckwear and shoes and +her mannerisms of speech, were miserable if she neglected them for a +day, furiously jealous of each other, and raised to the seventh +heaven by attention from her. Just at present the only girl admitted +frequently to Mrs. Draper's intimacy was Eleanor Hubert. + +On the day following the Gymnasium exhibition, when Sylvia, promptly +at five, entered the picturesque vine-covered Draper house, she +found it occupied by none of the usual habitués of the place. The +white-capped, black-garbed maid who opened the door to the girl held +aside for her a pair of heavy brown-velvet portičres which veiled +the entrance to the drawing-room. The utter silence of this servitor +seemed portentous and inhuman to the young guest, unused to the polite +convention that servants cast no shadow and do not exist save when +serving their superiors. + +She found herself in a room as unlike any she had ever seen as though +she had stepped into a new planet. The light here was as yellow +as gold, and came from a great many candles which, in sconces and +candelabra, stood about the room, their oblong yellow flame as steady +in the breathless quiet of the air as though they burned in a vault +underground. There was not a book in the room, except one in a yellow +cover lying beside a box of candy on the mantelpiece, but every ledge, +table, projection, or shelf was covered with small, queerly fashioned, +dully gleaming objects of ivory, or silver, or brass, or carved wood, +or porcelain. + +The mistress of the room now came in. She was in a loose garment of +smoke-brown chiffon, held in place occasionally about her luxuriously +rounded figure by a heavy cord of brown silk. She advanced to Sylvia +with both hands outstretched, and took the girl's slim, rather hard +young fingers in the softest of melting palms. "Aren't you a _dear_, +to be so exactly on time!" she exclaimed. + +Sylvia was a little surprised. She had thought it axiomatic that +people kept their appointments promptly. "Oh, I'm always on time," she +answered simply. + +Mrs. Draper laughed and pulled her down on the sofa. "You clear-eyed +young Diana, you won't allow me even an instant's illusion that you +were eager to come to see _me_!" + +"Oh yes, I _was_!" said Sylvia hastily, fearing that she might have +said something rude. + +Mrs. Draper laughed again and gave the hand she still held a squeeze. +"You're adorable, that's what _you_ are!" She exploded this pointblank +charge in Sylvia's face with nonchalant ease, and went on with +another. "Jerry Fiske is quite right about you. I suppose you know +that you're here today so that Jerry can meet you." + +As there was obviously not the faintest possibility of Sylvia's having +heard this save through her present informant, she could only +look what she felt, very much at a loss, and rather blank, with a +heightened color. Mrs. Draper eyed her with an intentness at variance +with the lightness of her tone, as she continued: "I do think Jerry'd +have burned up in one flare, like a torch, if he couldn't have seen +you at once! After you'd fenced and disappeared again into that stupid +crowd of graceless girls, he kept track of you every minute with his +opera-glasses, and kept saying: 'She's a goddess! Good Lord! how she +carries herself!' It was rather hard on poor Eleanor right there +beside him, but I don't blame him. Eleanor's a sweet thing, but she'd +be sugar and water compared to champagne if she stood up by you." + +For a good many months Sylvia had been craving praise with a starved +appetite, and although she found this downpour of it rather drenching, +she could not sufficiently collect herself to make the conventional +decent pretense that it was unwelcome. She flushed deeply and looked +at her hostess with dazzled eyes. Mrs. Draper affected to see in her +silence a blankness as to the subject of the talk, and interrupted +the flow of personalities to cry out, with a pretense of horror, "You +don't mean to say you don't know who Jerry Fiske _is_!" + +Sylvia, as unused as her mother to conversational traps, fell into +this one with an eager promptness. "Oh yes, indeed; I know him +by sight very well," she said and stopped, flushing again at a +significant laugh from Mrs. Draper. "I mean," she went on +with dignity, "that Mr. Fiske has always been so prominent in +college--football and all, you know--and his father being one of our +State Senators so long--I suppose everybody on the campus knows him by +sight." Mrs. Draper patted the girl's shoulder propitiatingly. "Yes, +yes, of course," she assented. She added, "He's ever so good-looking, +don't you think--like a great Viking with his yellow hair and bright +blue eyes?" + +"I never noticed his eyes," said Sylvia stiffly, suspicious of +ridicule in the air. + +"Well, you'll have a chance to this afternoon," answered her hostess, +"for he's the only other person who's to be admitted to the house. I +had a great time excusing myself to Eleanor--she was coming to take me +out driving--but of course it wouldn't do--for her own sake--the poor +darling--to have her here today!" + +Sylvia thought she could not have rightly understood the significance +of this speech, and looked uncomfortable. Mrs. Draper said: "Oh, you +needn't mind cutting Eleanor out--she's only a dear baby who can't +feel anything very deeply. It's Mamma Hubert who's so mad about +catching Jerry. Since she's heard he's to have the Fiske estate at +Mercerton as soon as he graduates from Law School, she's like a wild +creature! If Eleanor weren't the most unconscious little bait that +ever hung on a hook Jerry'd have turned away in disgust long ago. He +may not be so very acute, but Mamma Hubert and her manoeuvers are not +millstones for seeing through!" + +The doorbell rang, one long and one short tap. "That's Jerry's ring," +said Mrs. Draper composedly, as though she had been speaking of her +husband. In an instant the heavy portičres were flung back by a +vigorous arm, and a very tall, broad-shouldered, clean-shaven young +man, in a well-tailored brown suit, stepped in. He accosted his +hostess with easy assurance, but went through his introduction to +Sylvia in a rather awkward silence. + +"Now we'll have tea," said Mrs. Draper at once, pressing a button. In +a moment a maid brought in a tray shining with silver and porcelain, +set it down on the table in front of Mrs. Draper, and then wheeled in +a little circular table with shelves, a glorified edition in gleaming +mahogany of the homely, white-painted wheeled-tray of Sylvia's home. +On the shelves was a large assortment of delicate, small cakes and +paper-thin sandwiches. While she poured out the amber-colored tea into +the translucent cups, Mrs. Draper kept up with the new-comer a lively +monologue of personalities, in which Sylvia, for very ignorance of the +people involved, could take no part. She sat silent, watching with +concentration the two people before her, the singularly handsome man, +certainly the handsomest man she had ever seen, and the far from +handsome but singularly alluring woman who faced him, making such a +display of her two good points, her rich figure and her fine dark +eyes, that for an instant the rest of her person seemed non-existent. + +"How do you like your tea, dear?" The mistress of the house brought +her stranded guest back into the current of talk with this well-worn +hook. + +"Oh, it doesn't make any difference," said Sylvia, who, as it +happened, did not like the taste of tea. + +"You really ought to have it nectar; with whipped ambrosia on top." +Mrs. Draper troweled this statement on with a dashing smear, saving +Sylvia from being forced to answer, by adding lightly to the man, "Is +ambrosia anything that will whip, do you suppose?" + +"Never heard of it before," he answered, breaking his silence with a +carefree absence of shame at his confession of ignorance. "Sounds +like one of those labels on a soda-water fountain that nobody ever +samples." + +Mrs. Draper made a humorously exaggerated gesture of despair and +turned to Sylvia. "Well, it's just as well, my dear, that you should +know at the very beginning what a perfect monster of illiteracy he is! +You needn't expect anything from him but his stupid good-looks, and +money and fascination. Otherwise he's a Cave-Man for ignorance. You +must take him in hand!" She turned back to the man. "Sylvia, you know, +is as clever as she is beautiful. She had the highest rank but three +in her class last year." + +Sylvia was overcome with astonishment by this knowledge of a fact +which had seemed to make no impression on the world of the year +before. "Why, how could you know that!" she cried. + +Mrs. Draper laughed. "Just hear her!" she appealed to the young man. +Her method of promoting the acquaintance of the two young people +seemed to consist in talking to each of the other. "Just hear her! She +converses as she fences--one bright flash, and you're skewered against +the wall--no parryings possible!" She faced Sylvia again: "Why, my +dear, in answer to your rapier-like question, I must simply confess +that this morning, being much struck with Jerry's being struck with +you, I went over to the registrar's office and looked you up. I know +that you passed supremely well in mathematics and French (what a +quaint combination!), very well indeed in history and chemistry, and +moderately in botany. What's the matter with botany? I have always +found Professor Cross a very obliging little man." + +"He doesn't make me see any sense to botany," explained Sylvia, taking +the question seriously. "I don't seem to get hold of any real reason +for studying it at all. What difference does it make if a bush is a +hawthorn or not?--and anyhow, I know it's a hawthorn without studying +botany." + +The young man spoke for himself now, with a keen relish for Sylvia's +words. He faced her for the first time. "Now you're _shouting_, Miss +Marshall!" he said. "That's the most sensible thing I ever heard said. +That's just what I always felt about the whole B.A. course, anyhow! +What's the diff? Who cares whether Charlemagne lived in six hundred or +sixteen hundred? It all happened before we were born. What's it all +_to_ us?" + +Sylvia looked squarely at him, a little startled at his directly +addressing her, not hearing a word of what he said in the vividness of +her first-hand impression of his personality, his brilliant blue eyes, +his full, very red lips, his boldly handsome face and carriage, his +air of confidence. In spite of his verbal agreement with her opinion, +his look crossed hers dashingly, like a challenge, a novelty in the +amicable harmony which had been the tradition of her life. She felt +that tradition to be not without its monotony, and her young blood +warmed. She gazed back at him silently, wonderingly, frankly. + +With her radiantly sensuous youth in the first splendor of its +opening, with this frank, direct look, she had a moment of brilliance +to make the eyes of age shade themselves as against a dazzling +brightness. The eyes of the man opposite her were not those of age. +They rested on her, roused, kindling to heat. His head went up like a +stag's. She felt a momentary hot throb of excitement, as though +her body were one great fiddle-string, twanging under a vigorously +plucking thumb. It was thrilling, it was startling, it was not +altogether pleasant. The corners of her sensitive mouth twitched +uncertainly. + +Mrs. Draper, observing from under her down-drooped lids this silent +passage between the two, murmured amusedly to herself, "Ah, now you're +shouting, my children!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +PLAYING WITH MATCHES + + +There was much that was acrid about the sweetness of triumph which the +next months brought Sylvia. The sudden change in her life had not come +until there was an accumulation of bitterness in her heart the venting +of which was the strongest emotion of that period of strong emotions. +As she drove about the campus, perched on the high seat of the +red-wheeled dog-cart, her lovely face looked down with none of Eleanor +Hubert's gentleness into the envying eyes of the other girls. A high +color burned in her cheeks, and her bright eyes were not soft. She +looked continually excited. + +At home she was hard to live with, quick to take offense at the +least breath of the adverse criticism which she felt, unspoken and +forbearing but thick in the air about her. She neglected her music, +she neglected her studies; she spent long hours of feverish toil over +Aunt Victoria's chiffons and silks. There was need for many toilets +now, for the incessantly recurring social events to which she went +with young Fiske, chaperoned by Mrs. Draper, who had for her old rival +and enemy, Mrs. Hubert, the most mocking of friendly smiles, as she +entered a ballroom, the acknowledged sponsor of the brilliant young +sensation of the college season. + +At these dances Sylvia had the grim satisfaction, not infrequently the +experience of intelligent young ladies, of being surrounded by crowds +of admiring young men, for whom she had no admiration, the barren +sterility of whose conversation filled her with astonishment, even +in her fever of exultation. She knew the delights of frequently +"splitting" her dances so that there might be enough to go around. She +was plunged headlong into the torrent of excitement which is the life +of a social favorite at a large State University, that breathless +whirl of one engagement after another for every evening and for most +of the days, which is one of the oddest developments of the academic +life as planned and provided for by the pioneer fathers of those great +Western commonwealths; and she savored every moment of it, for during +every moment she drank deep at the bitter fountain of personal +vindication. She went to all the affairs which had ignored her +the year before, to all the dances given by the "swell men's +fraternities," to the Sophomore hop, to the "Football Dance," at the +end of the season, to the big reception given to the Freshman class by +the Seniors. And in addition to these evening affairs, she appeared +beside Jerry Fiske at every football game, at the first Glee Club +Concert, at the outdoor play given by the Literary Societies, and very +frequently at the weekly receptions to the students tendered by the +ladies of the faculty. + +These affairs were always spoken of by the faculty as an attempt to +create a homogeneous social atmosphere on the campus; but this attempt +had ended, as such efforts usually do, in adding to the bewildering +plethora of social life of those students who already had too much, +and in being an added sting to the solitude and ostracism of those who +had none. Naturally enough, the ladies of the faculty who took most +interest in these afternoon functions were the ones who cared most for +society life, and there was only too obvious a contrast between their +manner of kindly, vague, condescending interest shown to one of the +"rough-neck" students, and the easy familiarity shown to one of those +socially "possible." The "rough-necks" seldom sought out more than +once the prettily decorated tables spread every Friday afternoon +in the Faculty Room, off the reading-room of the Library. Sylvia +especially had, on the only occasion when she had ventured into +this charming scene, suffered too intensely from the difference of +treatment accorded her and that given Eleanor Hubert to feel anything +but angry resentment. After that experience, she had passed along the +halls with the other outsiders, books in hand, her head held proudly +high, and never turned even to glance in at the gleaming tables, +the lighted candles, and the little groups of easily self-confident +fraternity men and girls laughing and talking over their teacups, and +revenging vicariously the rest of the ignored student-body by the +calm young insolence with which they in their turn ignored their +presumptive hostesses, the faculty ladies. + +Mrs. Draper changed all this for Sylvia with a wave of her wand. She +took the greatest pains to introduce her protégée into this phase of +the social life of the University. On these occasions, as beautiful +and as over-dressed as any girl in the room, with Jermain Fiske in +obvious attendance; with the exclusive Mrs. Draper setting in a rich +frame of commentary any remark she happened to make (Sylvia was +acquiring a reputation for great wit); with Eleanor Hubert, eclipsed, +sitting in a corner, quite deserted save for a funny countrified freak +assistant in chemistry; with all the "swellest frat men" in college +rushing to get her tea and sandwiches; with Mrs. Hubert plunged +obviously into acute unhappiness, Sylvia knew as ugly moments of mean +satisfaction as often fall to the lot even of very pretty young women. + +At home she knew no moments of satisfaction of any variety, although +there was no disapprobation expressed by any one, except in one or two +characteristically recondite comments by Professor Kennedy, who was +taking a rather uneasy triumph in the proof of an old theory of his as +to Sylvia's character. One afternoon, at a football game, he came up +to her on the grandstand, shook hands with Jermain Fiske, whom he had +flunked innumerable times in algebra, and remarked in his most acid +voice that he wished to congratulate the young man on being the +perfect specimen of the dolichocephalic blond whose arrival in +Sylvia's life he had predicted years before. Sylvia, belligerently +aware of the attitude of her home world, and ready to resent +criticism, took the liveliest offense at this obscure comment, which +she perfectly understood. She flushed indignantly and glared in +silence with the eyes of an angry young goddess. + +Young Fiske, who found the remark, or any other made by a college +prof, quite as unintelligible as it was unimportant, laughed with +careless impudence in the old man's face; and Mrs. Draper, for all her +keenness, could make nothing of it. It sounded, however, so quite +like a dictum which she herself would have liked to make, that she +cross-questioned Sylvia afterwards as to its meaning; but Sylvia lied +fluently, asserting that it was just some of Professor Kennedy's +mathematical gibberish which had no meaning. + +In the growing acquaintance of Sylvia and Jermain, Mrs. Draper acted +assiduously as chaperon, a refinement of sophisticated society which +was, as a rule, but vaguely observed in the chaotic flux of State +University social life, and she so managed affairs that they were +seldom together alone. For obvious reasons Sylvia preferred to see the +young man elsewhere than in her own home, where indeed he made almost +no appearance, beyond standing at the door of an evening, very +handsome and distinguished in his evening dress, waiting for Sylvia to +put on her wraps and go out with him to the carriage where Mrs. Draper +sat expectant, furred and velvet-wrapped. This discreet manager made +no objection to Sylvia's driving about the campus in the daytime +alone with Jermain, but to his proposal to drive the girl out to the +country-club for dinner one evening she added blandly the imperious +proviso that she be of the party; and she discouraged with firmness +any projects for solitary walks together through the woods near +the campus, although this was a recognized form of co-educational +amusement at that institution of learning. + +For all her air of free-and-easy equality with the young man, she had +at times a certain blighting glance which, turned on him suddenly, +always brought him to an agreement with her opinion, an agreement +which might obviously ring but verbal on his tongue, but which was +nevertheless the acknowledged basis of action. As for Sylvia, she +acquiesced, with an eagerness which she did not try to understand, in +any arrangement which precluded tęte-ŕ-tętes with Jerry. + +She did not, as a matter of fact, try to understand anything of what +was happening to her. She was by no means sure that she liked it, but +was stiffened into a stubborn resistance to any doubts by the unvoiced +objection to it all at home. With an instinct against disproportion, +perverse perhaps in this case, but with a germ of soundness in it, +she felt confusedly and resentfully that since her home circle was so +patently narrow and exaggerated in its standard of personality, she +would just have to even things up by being a little less fastidious +than was her instinct; and on the one or two occasions when a sudden +sight of Jerry sent through her a strange, unpleasant stir of all her +flesh, she crushed the feeling out of sight under her determination to +assert her own judgment and standards against those which had (she now +felt) so tyrannically influenced her childhood. But for the most +part she did little thinking, shaking as loudly as possible the +reverberating rattle of physical excitement. + +Thus everything progressed smoothly under Mrs. Draper's management. +The young couple met each other usually in the rather close air of her +candle-lighted living-room, drinking a great deal of tea, consuming +large numbers of delicate, strangely compounded sandwiches, +and listening to an endless flow of somewhat startlingly frank +personalities from the magnetic mistress of the house. Sylvia and +Jermain did not talk much on these occasions. They listened with +edification to the racy remarks of their hostess, voicing that +theoretical "broadness" of opinion as to the conduct of life which, +quite as much as the perfume which she always used, was a specialty of +her provocative personality; they spoke now and then, to be sure, as +she drew them into conversation, but their real intercourse was almost +altogether silent. They eyed each other across the table, breathing +quickly, and flushing or paling if their hands chanced to touch in the +services of the tea-table. Once the young man came in earlier than +usual and found Sylvia alone for a moment in the silent, glowing, +perfumed room. He took her hand, apparently for the ordinary handclasp +of greeting, but with a surge of his blood retained it, pressing it +so fiercely that his ring cut into her finger, causing a tiny drop of +bright red to show on the youthful smoothness of her skin. At this +living ruby they both stared fixedly for an instant; then Mrs. Draper +came hastily into the room, saying chidingly, "Come, come, children!" +and looking with displeasure at the man's darkly flushed face. Sylvia +was paler than usual for the rest of the afternoon, and could not +swallow a mouthful of the appetizing food, which as a rule she +devoured with the frank satisfaction of a hungry child. She sat, +rather white, not talking much, avoiding Jerry's eyes for no reason +that she could analyze, and, in the pauses of the conversation, could +hear the blood singing loudly in her ears. + +Yet, although she felt the oddest relief, as after one more escape, +at the end of each of these afternoons with her new acquaintances, +afternoons in which the three seemed perpetually gliding down a +steep incline and as perpetually being arrested on the brink of some +unexplained plunge, she found that their atmosphere had spoiled +entirely her relish for the atmosphere of her home. The home +supper-table seemed to her singularly flat and distasteful with its +commonplace fare--hot chocolate and creamed potatoes and apple sauce, +and its brisk, impersonal talk of socialism, and politics, and small +home events, and music. As it happened, the quartet had the lack of +intuition to play a great deal of Haydn that autumn, and to Sylvia +the cheerful, obvious tap-tap-tap of the hearty old master seemed to +typify the bald, unsubtle obtuseness of the home attitude towards +life. She herself took to playing the less difficult of the Chopin +nocturnes with a languorous over-accentuation of their softness which +she was careful to keep from the ears of old Reinhardt. But one +evening he came in, unheard, listened to her performance of the B-flat +minor nocturne with a frown, and pulled her away from the piano before +she had finished. "Not true music, not true love, not true anydings!" +he said, speaking however with an unexpected gentleness, and patting +her on the shoulder with a dirty old hand. "Listen!" He clapped his +fiddle under his chin and played the air of the andante from the +Kreutzer Sonata with so singing and heavenly a tone that Sylvia, as +helpless an instrument in his skilful hands as the violin itself, felt +the nervous tears stinging her eyelids. + +This did not prevent her making a long détour the next day to avoid +meeting the uncomely old musician on the street and being obliged to +recognize him publicly. She lived in perpetual dread of being thus +forced, when in the company of Mrs. Draper or Jermain, to acknowledge +her connection with him, or with Cousin Parnelia, or with any of +the eccentrics who frequented her parents' home, and whom it was +physically impossible to imagine drinking tea at Mrs. Draper's table. + +It was beside this same table that she met, one day in early December, +Jermain Fiske's distinguished father. He explained that he was in La +Chance for a day on his way from Washington to Mercerton, where the +Fiske family was collecting for its annual Christmas house-party, and +had dropped in on Mrs. Draper quite unexpectedly. He was, he added, +delighted that it happened to be a day when he could meet the lovely +Miss Marshall of whom (with a heavy accent of jocose significance) +he had heard so much. Sylvia was a little confused by the pointed +attentions of this gallant old warrior, oddly in contrast with the +manner of other elderly men she knew; but she thought him very +handsome, with his sweeping white mustache, his bright blue eyes, +so like his son's, and she was much impressed with his frock-coat, +fitting snugly around his well-knit, erect figure, and with the +silk hat which she noticed on the table in the hall as she went in. +Frock-coats and silk hats were objects seldom encountered in La +Chance, except in illustrations to magazine-stories, or in photographs +of life in New York or Washington. But of course, she reflected, +Colonel Fiske lived most of his life in Washington, about the +cosmopolitan delights of which he talked most eloquently to the two +ladies. + +As was inevitable, Sylvia also met Eleanor Hubert more or less at Mrs. +Draper's. Sylvia had been rendered acutely self-conscious in that +direction by Mrs. Draper's very open comments on her rôle in the life +of the other girl, and at first had been so smitten by embarrassment +as positively to be awkward, a rare event in her life: but she was +soon set at ease by the other girl's gentle friendliness, so simple +and sincere that even Sylvia's suspicious vanity could not feel it +to be condescension. Eleanor's sweet eyes shone so kindly on her +successful rival, and she showed so frank and unenvious an +admiration of Sylvia's wit and learning, displayed perhaps a trifle +ostentatiously by that young lady in the ensuing conversation with +Mrs. Draper, that Sylvia had a fresh, healing impulse of shame for her +own recently acquired attitude of triumphing hostility towards the +world. + +At the same time she felt a surprised contempt for the other girl's +ignorance and almost illiteracy. Whatever else Eleanor had learned in +the exclusive and expensive girls' school in New York, she had not +learned to hold her own in a conversation on the most ordinary topics; +and as for Mrs. Draper's highly spiced comments on life and folk, her +young friend made not the slightest attempt to cope with them or even +to understand them. The alluring mistress of the house might talk of +sex-antagonism and the hatefulness of the puritanical elements of +American life as much as she pleased. It all passed over the head of +the lovely, fair girl, sipping her tea and raising her candid eyes +to meet with a trustful smile, perhaps a little blank, the glance of +whomever chanced to be looking at her. It was significant that she had +the same smile for each of the three very dissimilar persons who sat +about the tea-table. Of all the circle into which Sylvia's changed +life had plunged her, Eleanor, the type of the conventional society +bud, was, oddly enough, the only one she cared to talk about in her +own extremely unconventional home. But even on this topic she felt +herself bruised and jarred by the severity, the unpicturesque +austerity of the home standards. As she was trying to give her mother +some idea of Eleanor's character, she quoted one day a remark of Mrs. +Draper's, to the effect that "Eleanor no more knows the meaning of her +beauty than a rose the meaning of its perfume." Mrs. Marshall kept +a forbidding silence for a moment and then said: "I don't take much +stock in that sort of unconsciousness. Eleanor isn't a rose, she isn't +even a child. She's a woman. The sooner girls learn that distinction, +the better off they'll be, and the fewer chances they'll run of being +horribly misunderstood." + +Sylvia felt very angry with her mother for this unsympathetic +treatment of a pretty phrase, and thought with resentment that it was +not _her_ fault if she were becoming more and more alienated from her +family. + +This was a feeling adroitly fostered by Mrs. Draper, who, in her +endless talks with Sylvia and Jermain about themselves, had hit upon +an expression and a turn of phrase which was to have more influence on +Sylvia's development than its brevity seemed to warrant. She had, one +day, called Sylvia a little Athenian, growing up, by the oddest of +mistakes, in Sparta. Sylvia, who was in the Pater-reading stage of +development, caught at her friend's phrase as at the longed-for key to +her situation. It explained everything. It made everything appear in +the light she wished for. Above all it enabled her to clarify her +attitude towards her home. Now she understood. One did not scorn +Sparta. One respected it, it was a noble influence in life; but for an +Athenian, for whom amenity and beauty and suavity were as essential as +food, Sparta was death. As was natural to her age and temperament, she +sucked a vast amount of pleasure out of this pitying analysis of her +subtle, complicated needs and the bare crudity of her surroundings. +She now read Pater more assiduously than ever, always carrying a +volume about with her text-books, and feeding on this delicate fare +in such unlikely and dissimilar places as on the trolley-cars, in the +kitchen, in the intervals of preparing a meal, or in Mrs. Draper's +living-room, waiting for the problematical entrance of that erratic +luminary. + +There was none of Mrs. Draper's habits of life which made more of an +impression on Sylvia's imagination than her custom of disregarding +engagements and appointments, of coming and going, appearing and +disappearing quite as she pleased. To the daughter of a scrupulously +exact family, which regarded tardiness as a fault, and breaking an +appointment as a crime, this high-handed flexibility in dealing with +time and bonds and promises had an exciting quality of freedom. + +On a good many occasions these periods of waiting chanced to be shared +by Eleanor Hubert, for whom, after the first two or three encounters, +Sylvia came to have a rather condescending sympathy, singularly in +contrast to the uneasy envy with which she had regarded her only a +few months before. However, as regards dress, Eleanor was still a +phenomenon of the greatest interest, and Sylvia never saw her without +getting an idea or two, although it was plain to any one who knew +Eleanor that this mastery of the technique of modern American costume +was no achievement of her own, that she was merely the lovely and +plastic material molded, perhaps to slightly over-complicated effects, +by her mother's hands. + +From that absent but pervasive personality Sylvia took one suggestion +after another. For instance, a very brief association with Eleanor +caused her to relegate to the scrapheap of the "common" the ready-made +white ruching for neck and sleeves which she had always before taken +for granted. Eleanor's slim neck and smooth wrists were always set +off by a few folds of the finest white chiffon, laid with dexterous +carelessness, and always so exquisitely fresh that they were obviously +renewed by a skilful hand after only a few hours' wearing. The first +time she saw Eleanor, Sylvia noticed this detail with appreciation, +and immediately struggled to reproduce it in her own costume. Like +other feats of the lesser arts this perfect trifle turned out to +depend upon the use of the lightest and most adroit touch. None of the +chiffon which came in Aunt Victoria's boxes would do. It must be fresh +from the shop-counter, ruinous as this was to Sylvia's very modest +allowance for dress. Even then she spoiled many a yard of the filmy, +unmanageable stuff before she could catch the spirit of those +apparently careless folds, so loosely disposed and yet never +displaced. It was a phenomenon over which a philosopher might +well have pondered, this spectacle of Sylvia's keen brain and +well-developed will-power equally concerned with the problems of +chemistry and philosophy and history, and with the problem of +chiffon folds. She herself was aware of no incongruity, indeed of no +difference, between the two sorts of efforts. + +Many other matters of Eleanor's attire proved as fruitful of +suggestion as this, although Aunt Victoria's well-remembered dictum +about the "kitchen-maid's pin-cushion" was a guiding finger-board +which warned Sylvia against the multiplication of detail, even +desirable detail. + +Mrs. Hubert had evidently studied deeply the sources of distinction +in modern dress, and had grasped with philosophic thoroughness the +underlying principle of the art, which is to show effects obviously +costly, but the cost of which is due less to mere brute cash than to +prodigally expended effort. Eleanor never wore a costume which did not +show the copious exercise by some alert-minded human being, presumably +with an immortal soul, of the priceless qualities of invention, +creative thought, trained attention, and prodigious industry. Mrs. +Hubert's unchallengeable slogan was that dress should be an expression +of individuality, and by dint of utilizing all the details of the +attire of herself and of her two daughters, down to the last ruffle +and buttonhole, she found this medium quite sufficient to express the +whole of her own individuality, the conspicuous force of which was +readily conceded by any observer of the lady's life. + +As for Eleanor's own individuality, any one in search of that very +unobtrusive quality would have found it more in the expression of her +eyes and in the childlike lines of her lips than in her toilets. It +is possible that Mrs. Hubert might have regarded it as an unkind +visitation of Providence that the results of her lifetime of effort +in an important art should have been of such slight interest to +her daughter, and should have served, during the autumn under +consideration, chiefly as hints and suggestions for her daughter's +successful rival. + +That she was Eleanor's successful rival, Sylvia had Mrs. Draper's more +than outspoken word. That lady openly gloried in the impending defeat +of Mrs. Hubert's machinations to secure the Fiske money and position +for Eleanor; although she admitted that a man like Jerry had his two +opposing sides, and that he was quite capable of being attracted by +two such contrasting types as Sylvia and Eleanor. She informed Sylvia +indeed that the present wife of Colonel Fiske--his third, by the +way--had evidently been in her youth a girl of Eleanor's temperament. +It was more than apparent, however, that in the case of the son, +Sylvia's "type" was in the ascendent; but it must be set down to +Sylvia's credit that the circumstance of successful competition gave +her no satisfaction. She often heartily wished Eleanor out of it. She +could never meet the candid sweetness of the other's eyes without a +qualm of discomfort, and she suffered acutely under Eleanor's gentle +amiability. + +Once or twice when Mrs. Draper was too outrageously late at an +appointment for tea, the two girls gave her up, and leaving the house, +walked side by side back across the campus, Sylvia quite aware of the +wondering surmise which followed their appearance together. On these +occasions, Eleanor talked with more freedom than in Mrs. Draper's +presence, always in the quietest, simplest way, of small events and +quite uninteresting minor matters in her life, or the life of the +various household pets, of which she seemed extremely fond. Sylvia +could not understand why, when she bade her good-bye at the driveway +leading into the Hubert house, she should feel anything but a rather +contemptuous amusement for the other's insignificance, but the odd +fact was that her heart swelled with inexplicable warmth. Once she +yielded to this foolish impulse, and felt a quivering sense of +pleasure at the sudden startled responsiveness with which Eleanor +returned a kiss, clinging to her as though she were an older, stronger +sister. + +One dark late afternoon in early December, Sylvia waited alone in the +candle-lighted shrine, neither Eleanor nor her hostess appearing. +After five o'clock she started home alone along the heavily shaded +paths of the campus, as dim as caves in the interval before the big, +winking sputtering arc-lights were flashed on. She walked swiftly and +lightly as was her well-trained habit, and before she knew it, was +close upon a couple sauntering in very close proximity. With the +surety of long practice Sylvia instantly diagnosed them as a college +couple indulging in what was known euphemistically as "campus work," +and prepared to pass them with the slight effect of scorn for +philanderings which she always managed to throw into her high-held +head and squarely swinging shoulders. But as she came up closer, +walking noiselessly in the dusk, she recognized an eccentric, +flame-colored plume just visible in the dim light, hanging down +from the girl's hat--and stopped short, filled with a rush of very +complicated feelings. The only flame-colored plume in La Chance was +owned and worn by Eleanor Hubert, and if she were out sauntering +amorously in the twilight, with whom could she be but Jerry +Fiske,--and that meant--Sylvia's pangs of conscience about supplanting +Eleanor were swept away by a flood of anger as at a defeat. She could +not make out the girl's companion, beyond the fact that he was tall +and wore a long, loose overcoat. Jerry was tall and wore a long, loose +overcoat. Sylvia walked on, slowly now, thoroughly aroused, quite +unaware of the inconsistency of her mental attitude. She felt a rising +tide of heat. She had, she told herself, half a notion to step forward +and announce her presence to the couple, whose pace as the Hubert +house was approached became slower and slower. + +But then, as they stood for a moment at the entrance of the Hubert +driveway, the arc-lights blazed up all over the campus at once and she +saw two things: one was that Eleanor was walking very close to her +companion, with her arm through his, and her little gloved fingers +covered by his hand, and next that he was not Jerry Fiske at all, +but the queer, countrified "freak" assistant in chemistry with +whom Eleanor, since Jerry's defection, had more or less masked her +abandonment. + +At the same moment the two started guiltily apart, and Sylvia halted, +thinking they had discovered her. But it was Mrs. Hubert whom they had +seen, advancing from the other direction, and making no pretense that +she was not in search of an absent daughter. She bore down upon the +couple, murmured a very brief greeting to the man, accompanied by a +faint inclination of her well-hatted head, drew Eleanor's unresisting +hand inside her arm, and walked her briskly into the house. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +MRS. MARSHALL STICKS TO HER PRINCIPLES + + +During the autumn and early winter it not only happened unfortunately +that the quartet played altogether too much Haydn, but that Sylvia's +father, contrary to his usual custom, was away from home a great deal. +The State University had arrived at that stage of its career when, if +its rapidly increasing needs and demands for State money were to be +recognized by the Legislature, it must knit itself more closely to +the rest of the State system of education, have a more intimate +affiliation with the widely scattered public high schools, and weld +into some sort of homegeneity their extremely various standards of +scholarship. This was a delicate undertaking, calling for much tact +and an accurate knowledge of conditions in the State, especially in +the rural districts. Professor Marshall's twenty years of popularity +with the more serious element of the State University students (that +popularity which meant so little to Sylvia, and which she so ignored) +had given him a large acquaintance among the class which it was +necessary to reach. He knew the men who at the University had been the +digs, and jays, and grinds, and who were now the prosperous +farmers, the bankers, the school-trustees, the leading men in their +communities; and his geniality, vivacity, and knack for informal +public speaking made him eminently fitted to represent the University +in the somewhat thankless task of coaxing and coercing backward +communities to expend the necessary money and effort to bring their +schools up to the State University standard. + +If all this had happened a few years sooner, he undoubtedly would have +taken Sylvia with him on many of these journeys into remote corners +of the State, but Sylvia had her class-work to attend to, and the +Professor shared to the fullest extent the academic prejudice against +parents who broke in upon the course of their children's regular +instruction by lawless and casual junketings. Instead, it was Judith +who frequently accompanied him, Judith who was now undergoing that +home-preparation for the University through which Sylvia had passed, +and who, since her father was her principal instructor, could carry +on her studies wherever he happened to be; as well as have the +stimulating experience of coming in contact with a wide variety of +people and conditions. It is possible that Professor Marshall's +sociable nature not only shrank from the solitude which his wife +would have endured with cheerfulness, but that he also wished to take +advantage of this opportunity to come in closer touch with his second +daughter, for whose self-contained and occasionally insensitive nature +he had never felt the instinctive understanding he had for Sylvia's +moods. It is certain that the result was a better feeling between the +two than had existed before. During the long hours of jolting over +branch railroads back to remote settlements, or waiting at cheerless +junctions for delayed trains, or gaily eating impossible meals at +extraordinary country hotels, the ruddy, vigorous father, now growing +both gray and stout, and the tall, slender, darkly handsome girl of +fifteen, were cultivating more things than history and mathematics and +English literature. The most genuine feeling of comradeship sprang up +between the two dissimilar natures, a feeling so strong and so warm +that Sylvia, in addition to her other emotional complications, felt +occasionally a faint pricking of jealousy at seeing her primacy with +her father usurped. + +A further factor in her temporary feeling of alienation from him was +the mere physical fact that she saw him much less frequently and that +he had nothing like his usual intimate knowledge of her comings and +goings. And finally, Lawrence, now a too rapidly growing and delicate +lad of eleven, had a series of bronchial colds which kept his mother +much occupied with his care. As far as her family was concerned, +Sylvia was thus left more alone than ever before, and although she had +been trained to too delicate and high a personal pride to attempt the +least concealment of her doings, it was not without relief that she +felt that her parents had but a very superficial knowledge of the +extent and depth to which she was becoming involved in her new +relations. She herself shut her eyes as much as possible to the rate +at which she was progressing towards a destination rapidly becoming +more and more imperiously visible; and consciously intoxicated herself +with the excitements and fatigues of her curiously double life of +intellectual effort in classes and her not very skilful handling of +the shining and very sharp-edged tools of flirtation. + +But this ambiguous situation was suddenly clarified by the unexpected +call upon Mrs. Marshall, one day about the middle of December, of no +less a person than Mrs. Jermain Fiske, Sr., wife of the Colonel, and +Jerry's stepmother. Sylvia happened to be in her room when the shining +car drove up the country road before the Marshall house, stopped at +the gate in the osage-orange hedge, and discharged the tall, stooping, +handsomely dressed lady in rich furs, who came with a halting step up +the long path to the front door. Although Sylvia had never seen Mrs. +Fiske, Mrs. Draper's gift for satiric word-painting had made her +familiar with some items of her appearance, and it was with a rapidly +beating heart that she surmised the identity of the distinguished +caller. But although her quick intelligence perceived the probable +significance of the appearance, and although she felt a distinct shock +at the seriousness of having Jerry's stepmother call upon her, she was +diverted from these capital considerations of such vital importance to +her life by the trivial consideration which had, so frequently during +the progress of this affair, absorbed her mind to the exclusion of +everything else--the necessity for keeping up appearances. If the +Marshall tradition had made it easier for her to achieve this not very +elevated goal, she might have perceived more clearly where her rapid +feet were taking her. Just now, for example, there was nothing in her +consciousness but the embittered knowledge that there was no maid to +open the door when Mrs. Fiske should ring. + +She was a keen-witted modern young woman of eighteen, with a +well-trained mind stored with innumerable facts of science, but it +must be admitted that at this moment she reverted with passionate +completeness to quite another type. She would have given--she would +have given a year of her life--one of her fingers--all her knowledge +of history--anything! if the Marshalls had possessed what she felt any +decently prosperous grocer's family ought to possess--a well-appointed +maid in the hall to open the door, take Mrs. Fiske's card, show her +into the living-room, and go decently and in order to summon the +mistress of the house. Instead she saw with envenomed foresight what +would happen. At the unusual sound of the bell, her mother, who was +playing dominoes with Lawrence in one of his convalescences, would +open the door with her apron still on, and her spectacles probably +pushed up, rustic fashion, on top of her head. And then their +illustrious visitor, used as of course she was to ceremony in social +matters, would not know whether this was the maid, or her hostess; +and Mrs. Marshall would frankly show her surprise at seeing a richly +dressed stranger on the doorstep, and would perhaps think she had made +a mistake in the house; and Mrs. Fiske would not know whether to hand +over the cards she held ready in her whitely gloved fingers--in the +interval between the clanging shut of the gate and the tinkle of the +doorbell Sylvia endured a sick reaction against life, as an altogether +hateful and horrid affair. + +As a matter of fact, nothing of all this took place. When the bell +rang, her mother called out a tranquil request to her to go and open +the door, and so it was Sylvia herself who confronted the unexpected +visitor,--Sylvia a little flurried and breathless, but ushering the +guest into the house with her usual graceful charm of manner. + +She had none of this as a moment later she went rather slowly upstairs +to summon her mother. It occurred to her that Mrs. Marshall might very +reasonably be at a loss as to the reason of this call. Indeed, she +herself felt a sinking alarm at the definiteness of the demonstration. +What could Mrs. Fiske have to say to Mrs. Marshall that would not lead +to some agitating crystallization of the dangerous solution which +during the past months Mrs. Marshall's daughter had been so +industriously stirring up? Mrs. Marshall showed the most open surprise +at the announcement, "Mrs. Colonel Fiske to see me? What in the +world--" she began, but after a glance at Sylvia's down-hung head and +twisting fingers, she stopped short, looking very grave, and rose to +go, with no more comments. + +They went down the stairs in silence, tall mother and tall daughter, +both sobered, both frightened at what might be in the other's mind, +and at what might be before them, and entered the low-ceilinged +living-room together. A pale woman, apparently as apprehensive as +they, rose in a haste that had almost some element of apology in it, +and offered her hand to Mrs. Marshall. "I'm Mrs. Fiske," she said +hurriedly, in a low voice, "Jerry's stepmother, you know. I hope you +won't mind my coming to see you. What a perfectly lovely home you +have! I was wishing I could just stay and _stay_ in this room." +She spoke rapidly with the slightly incoherent haste of shy people +overcoming their weakness, and glanced alternately, with faded blue +eyes, at Sylvia and at her mother. In the end she remained standing, +looking earnestly into Mrs. Marshall's face. That lady now made a step +forward and again put out her hand with an impulsive gesture at which +Sylvia wondered. She herself had felt no attraction towards the thin, +sickly woman who had so little grace or security of manner. It was +constantly surprising Sylvia to discover how often people high in +social rank seemed to possess no qualifications for their position. +She always felt that she could have filled their places with vastly +more aplomb. + +"I'm very glad to see you," said Mrs. Marshall in a friendly tone. "Do +sit down again. Sylvia, go and make us some tea, won't you? Mrs. Fiske +must be cold after driving out here from town." + +When Sylvia came back ten minutes later, she found the guest saying, +"My youngest is only nine months old, and he is having _such_ a time +with his teeth." + +"Oh!" thought Sylvia scornfully, pouring out the tea. "She's _that_ +kind of a woman, is she?" With the astonishingly quick shifting of +viewpoint of the young, she no longer felt the least anxiety that her +home, or even that she herself should make a good impression on this +evidently quite negligible person. Her anguish about the ceremony of +opening the door seemed years behind her. She examined with care all +the minutiae of the handsome, unindividualized costume of black velvet +worn by their visitor, but turned an absent ear to her talk, which +brought out various facts relating to a numerous family of young +children. "I have six living," said Mrs. Fiske, not meeting Mrs. +Marshall's eyes as she spoke, and stirring her tea slowly, "I lost +four at birth." + +Sylvia was indeed slightly interested to learn through another turn of +the conversation that the caller, who looked to her unsympathetic eyes +any age at all, had been married at eighteen, and that that was only +thirteen years ago. Sylvia thought she certainly looked older than +thirty-one, advanced though that age was. + +The call passed with no noteworthy incidents beyond a growing wonder +in Sylvia's mind that the brilliant and dashing old Colonel, after +his other matrimonial experiences, should have picked out so dull and +colorless a wife. She was not even pretty, not at all pretty, in spite +of her delicate, regular features and tall figure. Her hair was dry +and thin, her eyes lusterless, her complexion thick, with brown +patches on it, and her conversation was of a domesticity unparalleled +in Sylvia's experience. She seemed oddly drawn to Mrs. Marshall, +although that lady was now looking rather graver than was her wont, +and talked to her of the overflowing Fiske nursery with a loquacity +which was evidently not her usual habit. Indeed, she said naďvely, as +she went away, that she had been much relieved to find Mrs. Marshall +so approachable. "One always thinks of University families as so +terribly learned, you know," she said, imputing to her hostess, with a +child's tactlessness, an absence of learning like her own. "I really +dreaded to come--I go out so little, you know--but Jerry and the +Colonel thought I ought, you know--and now I've really enjoyed it--and +if Miss Marshall will come, Jerry and the Colonel will be quite +satisfied. And so, of course, will I." With which rather jerky +valedictory she finally got herself out of the house. + +Sylvia looked at her mother inquiringly. "If I go where?" she asked. +Something must have taken place while she was out of the room getting +the tea. + +"She called to invite you formally to a Christmas house-party at the +Fiskes' place in Mercerton," said Mrs. Marshall, noting smilelessly +Sylvia's quick delight at the news. "Oh, what have I got to wear!" +cried the girl. Mrs. Marshall said merely, "We'll see, we'll see," +and without discussing the matter further, went back to finish the +interrupted game with Lawrence. + +But the next evening, when Professor Marshall returned from his latest +trip, the subject was taken up in a talk between Sylvia and her +parents which was more agitating to them all than any other incident +in their common life, although it was conducted with a great effort +for self-control on all sides. Judith and Lawrence had gone upstairs +to do their lessons, and Professor Marshall at once broached the +subject by saying with considerable hesitation, "Sylvia--well--how +about this house-party at the Fiskes'?" + +Sylvia was on the defense in a moment. "Well, how about it?" she +repeated. + +"I hope you don't feel like going." + +"But I do, very much!" returned Sylvia, tingling at the first clear +striking of the note of disapproval she had felt for so many weeks +like an undertone in her life. As her father said nothing more, biting +his nails and looking at her uncertainly, she added in the accent +which fitted the words, "Why shouldn't I?" + +He took a turn about the room and glanced at his wife, who was hemming +a napkin very rapidly, her hands trembling a little. She looked up at +him warningly, and he waited an instant before speaking. Finally he +brought out with the guarded tone of one forcing himself to moderation +of speech, "Well, the Colonel is an abominable old black-guard in +public life, and his private reputation is no better." + +Sylvia flushed. "I don't see what that has to do with his son. It's +not fair to judge a young man by his father--or by anything but what +he is himself--you yourself are always saying that, if the trouble is +that the father is poor or ignorant or something else tiresome." + +Professor Marshall said cautiously, "From what I hear, I gather that +the son in this case is a good deal like his father." + +"No, he _isn't!_" cried Sylvia quickly. "He may have been wild when he +first came up to the University, but he's all right now!" She spoke as +with authoritative and intimate knowledge of all the details of Fiske, +Jr.'s, life. "And anyhow, I don't see what difference it makes, _what_ +the Colonel's reputation is. I'm just going up there with a lot of +other young people to have a good time. Eleanor Hubert's invited, and +three or four other society girls. I don't see why we need to be such +a lot more particular than other people. We never are when it's a +question of people being dirty, or horrid, other ways! How about +Cousin Parnelia and Mr. Reinhardt? I guess the Fiskes would laugh +at the idea of people who have as many queer folks around as we do, +thinking _they_ aren't good enough." + +Professor Marshall sat down across the table from his daughter and +looked at her. His face was rather ruddier than usual and he swallowed +hard. "Why, Sylvia, the point is this. It's evident, from what your +mother tells me of Mrs. Fiske's visit, that going to this house party +means more in your case than with the other girls. Mrs. Fiske came all +the way to La Chance to invite you, and from what she said about +you and her stepson, it was evident that she and the Colonel--" He +stopped, opening his hands nervously. + +"I don't know how they think they know anything about it," returned +Sylvia with dignity, though she felt an inward qualm at this news. +"Jerry's been ever so nice to me and given me a splendid time, but +that's all there is to it. Lots of fellows do that for lots of girls, +and nobody makes such a fuss about it." + +Mrs. Marshall laid down her work and went to the heart of the matter. +"Sylvia, you don't _like_ Mr. Fiske?" + +"Yes, I do!" said Sylvia defiantly, qualifying this statement an +instant later by, "Quite well, anyhow. Why _shouldn't_ I?" + +Her mother assumed this rhetorical question to be a genuine one and +answered it accordingly. "Why, he doesn't seem at all like the type of +young man who would be liked by a girl with your tastes and training. +I shouldn't think you'd find him interesting or--" + +Sylvia broke out: "Oh, you don't know how sick I get of being so +everlastingly high-brow! What's the _use_ of it? People don't think +any more of you! They think less! You don't have any better time--nor +so good! And why should you and Father always be so down on anybody +that's rich, or dresses decently? _Jerry's_ all right--if his clothes +_do_ fit!" + +"Do you really _know_ him at all?" asked her father pointedly. + +"Of course I do--I know he's very handsome, and awfully good-natured, +and he's given me the only good time I've had at the University. You +just don't know how ghastly last year was to me! I'm awfully grateful +to Jerry, and that's all there is to it!" + +Before this second disclaimer, her parents were silent again, Sylvia +looking down at her lap, picking at her fingers. Her expression was +that of a naughty child--that is, with a considerable admixture of +unhappiness in her wilfulness. + +By this time Professor Marshall's expression was clearly one of +downright anger, controlled by violent effort. Mrs. Marshall was the +first one to speak. She went over to Sylvia and laid her hand on her +shoulder. "Well, Sylvia dear, I'm sorry about--" She stopped and +began again. "You know, dear, that we always believed in letting our +children, as far as possible, make their own decisions, and we won't +go back on that now. But I want you to understand that that puts a +bigger responsibility on you than on most girls to make the _right_ +decisions. We trust you--your good sense and right feeling--to keep +you from being carried away by unworthy motives into a false position. +And, what's just as important, we trust to your being clear-headed +enough to see what your motives really are." + +"I don't see," began Sylvia, half crying, "why something horrid should +come up just because I want a good time--other girls don't have to be +all the time so solemn, and thinking about things!" + +"There'd be more happy women if they did," remarked Mrs. Marshall, +adding: "I don't believe we'd better talk any more about this now. You +know how we feel, and you must take that into consideration. You think +it over." + +She spoke apparently with her usual calmness, but as she finished she +put her arms about the girl's neck and kissed the flushed cheeks. +Caresses from Mrs. Marshall were unusual, and, even through her tense +effort to resist, Sylvia was touched. "You're just worrying about +nothing at all, Mother," she said, trying to speak lightly, but +escaped from a possible rejoinder by hurriedly gathering up her +text-books and following Judith and Lawrence upstairs. + +Her father and mother confronted each other. "_Well!_" said Professor +Marshall hotly, "of all the weak, inconclusive, modern parents--is +_this_ what we've come to?" + +Mrs. Marshall took up her sewing and said in the tone which always +quelled her husband, "Yes, this is what we've come to." + +His heat abated at once, though he went on combatively, "Oh, I know +what you mean, reasonable authority and not tyranny and all that--yes, +I believe in it--of course--but this goes beyond--" he ended. "Is +there or is there not such a thing as parental authority?" + +Mrs. Marshall answered with apparent irrelevance, "You remember what +Cavour said?" + +"Good Heaven! No, I don't remember!" cried Professor Marshall, with an +impatience which might have been Sylvia's. + +"He said, 'Any idiot can rule by martial law.'" + +"Yes, of course, that theory is all right, but--" + +"If a theory is all right, it ought to be acted upon." + +Professor Marshall cried out in exasperation, "But see here, +Barbara--here is a concrete fact--our daughter--our precious +Sylvia--is making a horrible mistake--and because of a theory we +mustn't reach out a hand to pull her back." + +"We _can't_ pull her back by force," said his wife. "She's eighteen +years old, and she has the habit of independent thought. We can't go +back on that now." + +"We don't seem to be pulling her back by force or in any other way! We +seem to be just weakly sitting back and letting her do exactly as she +pleases." + +"If during all these years we've had her under our influence we +haven't given her standards that--" began the mother. + +"You heard how utterly she repudiated our influence and our standards +and--" + +"Oh, what she _says_--it's what she's made of that'll count--that's +the _only_ thing that'll count when a crisis comes--" + +Professor Marshall interrupted hastily: "When a crisis! What do you +call _this_ but a crisis--she's like a child about to put her hand +into the fire." + +"I trust in the training she's had to give her firm enough nerves to +pull it out again when she feels the heat," said her mother steadily. + +Professor Marshall sprang up, with clenched hands, tall, powerful, +helpless. "It's outrageous, Barbara, for all your talk! We're +responsible! We ought to shut her up under lock and key--" + +"So _many_ girls have been deterred from a mistake by being shut up +under lock and key!" commented Mrs. Marshall, with an ironical accent. + +"But, good Heavens! Think of her going to that old scoundrel's--how +can I look people in the face, when they all know my opinion of +him--how I've opposed his being a Trustee and--" + +"_Ah_,--!" remarked his wife significantly, "that's the trouble, is +it?" + +Professor Marshall flushed, and for a moment made no rejoinder. Then, +shifting his ground, he said bitterly: "I think you're forgetting that +I've had a disillusionizing experience in this sort of thing which you +were spared. You forget that Sylvia is closely related to my sister." + +"I don't forget that--but I don't forget either that Sylvia has had +a very different sort of early life from poor Victoria's. She has +breathed pure air always--I trust her to recognize its opposite." + +He made an impatient gesture of exasperation. "But she'll be _in_ +it--it'll be too late--" + +"It's never too late." She spoke quickly, but her unwavering +opposition began to have in it a note of tension. + +"She'll be caught--she'll have to go on because it'll be too hard to +get out--" + +"The same vigor that makes her resist us now will give her strength +then--she's not Eleanor Hubert." + +Her husband burst out upon her in a frightened, angry rush of +reproach: "Barbara--how _can_ you! You make me turn cold! This isn't a +matter of talk--of theories--we're confronted with--" + +She faced him down with unflinching, unhappy eyes. "Oh, of course +if we are to believe in liberty only so long as everything goes +smoothly--" She tried to add something to this, but her voice broke +and she was silent. Her husband looked at her, startled at her pallor +and her trembling lips, immensely moved by the rare discomposure of +that countenance. She said in a whisper, her voice shaking, "Our +little Sylvia--my first baby--" + +He flung himself down in the chair beside her and took her hand. "It's +damnable!" he said. + +His wife answered slowly, with long pauses. "No--it's all right--it's +part of the whole thing--of life. When you bring children into the +world--when you live at all--you must accept the whole. It's not fair +to rebel--to rebel at the pain--when--" + +"Good God, it's not _our_ pain I'm shrinking from--!" he broke out. + +"No--oh no--that would be easy--" + +With an impulse of yearning, and protection, and need, he leaned to +put his arms around her, his graying beard against her pale cheek. +They sat silent for a long time. + +In the room above them, Sylvia bent over a problem in trigonometry, +and rapidly planned a new evening-dress. After a time she got up and +opened her box of treasures from Aunt Victoria. The yellow chiffon +would do--Jerry had said he liked yellow--she could imagine how Mrs. +Hubert would expend herself on Eleanor's toilets for this great +occasion--if she could only hit on a design which wouldn't look +as though it came out of a woman's magazine--something really +sophisticated--she could cover her old white slippers with that bit +of gold-tissue off Aunt Victoria's hat--she shook out the chiffon and +laid it over the bed, looking intently at its gleaming, shimmering +folds and thinking, "How horrid of Father and Mother to go and try to +spoil everything so!" She went back to the problem in trigonometry and +covered a page with figures, at which she gazed unseeingly. She was by +no means happy. She went as far as the door, meaning to go down and +kiss her parents good-night, but turned back. They were not a family +for surface demonstrations. If she could not yield her point--She +began to undress rapidly, turned out the light, opened the windows, +and sprang into bed. "If they only wouldn't take things so awfully +_solemnly_!" she said to herself petulantly. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +SYLVIA SKATES MERRILY ON THIN ICE + + +The design for the yellow chiffon dropped almost literally at Sylvia's +feet the next day, on the frontispiece of a theatrical magazine left +by another passenger in the streetcar in which she chanced to be +riding. Sylvia pounced on it with instant recognition of its value. +It was "different" and yet not "queer," it was artistic and yet +fashionable, and with its flowing lines it would not be hard to +construct. It was the creation of a Parisian boulevard actress, known +widely for her costumes, for the extraordinary manner in which she +dressed her hair, and for the rapidity of her succeeding emotional +entanglements. Her name meant nothing to Sylvia. She tore out the +page, folded it, and put it for safe-keeping between the pages of her +text-book on Logic. + +That afternoon she began work on it, running the long seams up on the +machine with whirring rapidity, acutely aware of her mother's silent, +uncommenting passage back and forth through the sewing-room. With an +impulse of secrecy which she did not analyze, she did the trying-on in +her own room, craning and turning about before her own small mirror. +She knew that her mother would think the dress was cut too low, +although, as she told herself, looking with complacency at the smooth, +white, exquisitely fine-grained skin thus disclosed, it wasn't nearly +as low cut as the dresses Eleanor Hubert wore to any little dance. She +had long felt it to be countrified in the extreme to wear the mild +compromises towards evening-dress which she and most of the State +University girls adopted, as compared with the frankly disclosing +gowns of the "town girls" whose clothes came from Chicago and New +York. She knew from several outspoken comments that Jerry admired +Eleanor's shoulders, and as she looked at her own, she was not sorry +that he was to compare them to those of the other girl. + +After this brief disposal of the question, she gave it no more +thought, working with desperate speed to complete all her +preparations. She had but a week for these, a week filled with +incessant hurry, since she was naturally unwilling to ask help of her +mother. Judith was off again with her father. + +This absence greatly facilitated the moment of Sylvia's departure, +which she had dreaded. But, as it happened, there was only her mother +to whom to say the rather difficult good-bye, her mother who could be +counted on never to make a scene. + +About the middle of the morning of the twenty-third of December, +she came down the stairs, her hand-bag in her hand, well-hatted, +well-gloved, freshly veiled, having achieved her usual purpose of +looking to the casual eye like the daughter of a wealthy man. She had +put all of her autumn allowance for dress into a set of furs, those +being something which no ingenuity could evolve at home. The rest +of her outfit, even to the odd little scarlet velvet hat, with its +successful and modish touch of the ugly, was the achievement of her +own hands. Under its absurd and fashionable brim, her fresh face shone +out, excessively pretty and very young. + +Mrs. Marshall kissed her good-bye gently, not smiling at Sylvia's +attempt to lighten the moment's seriousness by saying playfully, +"Now, Mother, don't you be such an old worrier!" But she said nothing +"uncomfortable," for which Sylvia was very grateful. + +She had no sooner embarked upon the big Interurban trolley-car which +was to take her to Mercerton than her attention was wholly diverted +from uneasy reflections by the unexpected appearance of two of the +house-party guests. Eleanor Hubert, every detail of her Complicated +costume exquisitely finished as a Meissonier painting, sat looking out +of the window rather soberly, and so intently that she saw neither +Sylvia's entrance, nor, close upon her heels, that of a florid-faced, +rather heavily built young man with a large, closely shaven jaw, who +exclaimed joyfully at seeing Miss Marshall, and appropriated with +ready assurance the other half of her seat. + +"Now, this is surely dandy! You're going to the house-party too, +of course!" he cried, unbuttoning and throwing back his bright tan +overcoat. "Here's where I cut Jerry out all right, all right! Wait +a minute! _How_ much time have we?" He appealed to the conductor +as though a matter of life and death depended on the answer. "Four +minutes?--here goes--" He sprang to his feet, dashed out of the car +and disappeared, leaving his coat beside Sylvia. It was evidently +quite new, of the finest material, with various cunningly stitched +seams and straps disposed upon its surface in a very knowing way. +Sylvia noted out of the corner of her eye that the address of the +maker, woven into the neckband, was on Fifth Avenue, New York. + +The four minutes passed--and the conductor approached Sylvia. "Your +friend's coming back, ain't he?" he asked, with the tolerant, +good-natured respect natural for the vagaries of expensively dressed +young men who wore overcoats made on Fifth Avenue. Sylvia, who had met +the young man but once before, when Jerry had introduced him as an +old friend, was a little startled at having a casual acquaintance so +publicly affixed to her; but after an instant's hesitation, in which +she was reflecting that she positively did not even remember her +"friend's" name, she answered, "Oh yes, yes, I suppose so--here he is +now." + +The young man bounded up on the back platform panting, holding his hat +on with one hand, a large box of candy in the other. Sylvia glanced at +the name on the cover. "You didn't go all the way to _Button's!_" she +cried. + +He nodded, breathless, evidently proud of his feat, and when he caught +his breath enough to speak, explained, "Yepp,--it's the only place in +this bum town where you can get Alligretti's, and they're the only +kind that're fit to eat" He tore open the box as he spoke, demolishing +with ruthless and practised hands the various layers of fine paper +and gold cord which wrapped it about, and presented the rich layer of +black chocolates to Sylvia. "Get a move on and take one," he urged +cordially; "I pretend I buy 'em for the girls, but I'm crazy about 'em +myself," He bit into one with an air of prodigious gusto, took off his +hat, wiped his forehead, and looked at Sylvia with a relish as frank +as his enjoyment of the bonbon. "That's a corking hat you got on," +he commented. "Most girls would look like the old Harry with that +dangling thing in their eyes, but _you_ can carry it off all right." + +Sylvia's face assumed a provocative expression. "Did you ever make +that remark to any other girl, I wonder?" she said reflectively. + +He laughed aloud, eyeing her with appreciation, and clapping another +large black chocolate into his mouth. "You're the prompt article, +aren't you?" he said. He hitched himself over and leaned towards her. +"Something tells me I'm goin' to have a good time at this house-party, +what?" + +Sylvia stiffened. She did not like his sitting so close to her, she +detected now on his breath a faint odor of alcohol, and she was afraid +that Eleanor Hubert would think her lacking in dignity. She regretted +having succumbed to the temptation to answer him in his own tone; but, +under her bravado, she was really somewhat apprehensive about this +expedition, and she welcomed a diversion. Besides, the voluble young +man showed not the slightest sign of noting her attempt to rebuff him, +and she found quite unavailing all her efforts to change the current +of the talk, the loud, free-and-easy, personally admiring note of +which had the effect on her nerves of a draught of raw spirits. She +did not enjoy the taste while it was being administered, but the +effect was certainly stimulating, not to say exciting, and absorbed +her attention so entirely that uncomfortable self-questionings were +impossible. She was also relieved to note that, although the young +man flung himself about in the public conveyance with the same +unceremonious self-assurance that he would have shown in a lady's +drawing-room, Eleanor Hubert, at the other end of the car, was +apparently unaware of his presence. Perhaps she too had some grounds +for uncomfortable thought, for throughout the hour's journey she +continued to stare unseeingly out of the window, or to look down +fixedly and rather sadly at her gloved hands. + +Even through the confusion of her own ideas and plans, and the need +for constant verbal self-defense against the encroaching familiarity +of her companion, the notion flitted across Sylvia's mind that +probably Eleanor was thinking of the young assistant in chemistry. How +queer and topsy-turvy everything was, she reflected, as she bandied +lively words with the lively young man at her side, continuing to eat +his candies, although their rich, cloying taste had already palled on +her palate--here was Mrs. Hubert throwing Eleanor at Jerry's head, +when what Eleanor wanted was that queer, rough-neck freak of an +assistant prof; and here were Jerry's parents making such overtures +to Sylvia, when what _she_ wanted--she didn't know what she did want. +Yes, she did, she wanted a good time, which was somehow paradoxically +hard to attain. Something always kept spoiling it,--half the time +something intangible inside her own mind. She gave the candy-box a +petulant push. "Oh, take it away!" she said impatiently; "I've eaten +so many now, it makes me sick to look at them!" + +The donor showed no resentment at this ingratitude, holding the box on +his knees, continuing to help himself to its contents with unabated +zest, and to keep the conversation up to concert pitch: "--the only +girl I ever saw who'd stop eating Alligretti's while there was one +left--another proof that there's only one of you--I said right off, +that any co-ed that Jerry Fiske would take to must be a unique +specimen--" He did not further specify the period to which he +referred by his "right off," but the phrase gave Sylvia a tingling, +uncomfortable sense of having been for some time the subject of +speculation in circles of which she knew nothing. + +They were near Mercerton now, and as she gathered her wraps together +she found that she was bracing herself as for an ordeal of some sort. +The big car stopped, a little way out of town, in front of a long +driveway bordered with maple-trees; she and the young man descended +from one end-platform and Eleanor Hubert from the other, into the +midst of loud and facetious greetings from the young people who had +come down to meet them. Jerry was there, very stalwart, his white +sweater stretched over his broad chest. All the party carried skates, +which flashed like silver in the keen winter sun. They explained with +many exclamations that they had been out on the ice, which was, so the +three new-comers were assured many times, "perfectly grand, perfectly +dandy, simply elegant!" + +A big, many-seated sled came jingling down the driveway now, driven by +no less a personage than Colonel Fiske himself, wrapped in a fur-lined +coat, his big mustache white against the red of his strongly marked +old face. With many screams and shouts the young people got themselves +into this vehicle, the Colonel calling out in a masterful roar above +the din, "Miss Marshall's to come up here with me!" + +He held in his pawing, excited horses with one hand and helped Sylvia +with the other. In the seat behind them sat Jerry and Eleanor Hubert +and the young man of the trolley trip. Sylvia strained her ears to +catch Jerry's introduction of him to Eleanor, so that she might +know his name. It was too absurd not even to know his name! But the +high-pitched giggles and deeper shouts of mirth from the rest of the +party drowned out the words. As a matter of fact, although he played +for an instant a rather important rôle in Sylvia's drama, she was +destined never to know his name. + +The Colonel looked back over the sleighload, shouted out "All aboard!" +loosened the reins, and snapped his whip over the horses' heads. They +leaped forward with so violent a spring that the front runners of the +long sled were for an instant lifted into the air. Immediately all the +joyful shrieking and screaming which had gone on before, became as +essential silence compared to the delighted uproar which now rose from +the sleigh. The jerk had thrown most of the young people over backward +into each other's arms and laps, where, in a writhing, promiscuous +mass, they roared and squealed out their joy in the joke, and made +ineffectual and not very determined efforts to extricate themselves. +Sylvia had seen the jerk coming and saved herself by a clutch forward +at the dashboard. Glancing back, she saw that Jerry and Eleanor Hubert +still sat upright; although the gay young man beside them had let +himself go backward into the waving arms and legs, and, in a frenzy of +high spirits, was shouting and kicking and squirming with the others. +It was a joke after his own heart. + +Colonel Fiske, so far from slackening his pace to help his young +guests out of their predicament, laughed loudly and cracked his whip +over the horses' ears. They went up the long, curving driveway like +a whirlwind, and drew up under the porte-cochčre of a very large +brick-and-stone house with another abrupt jerk which upset those in +the sleigh who had succeeded in regaining their seats. Pandemonium +broke out again, in the midst of which Sylvia saw that Mrs. Fiske had +come to the doorway and stood in it with a timid smile. The Colonel +did not look at her, Jerry nodded carelessly to her as he passed in, +and of all the disheveled, flushed, and laughing young people who +crowded past her into the house, only Sylvia and Eleanor recognized +her existence. The others went past her without a glance, exclaimed at +the lateness of the hour, cried out that they must go and "fix up" for +lunch, and ran upstairs, filling the house with their voices. Sylvia +heard one girl cry to another, "_Oh_, I've had such a good time! I've +hollered till I'm hoarse!" + +After luncheon, a meal at which more costly food was served than +Sylvia had ever before seen, Jerry suggested between puffs of the +cigarette he was lighting that they have a game of billiards. Most of +the young people trooped off after him into the billiard-room, but +Sylvia, after a moment's hesitation, lingered near the big wood-fire +in the hall, unwilling to admit that she had never seen a billiard +table. She made a pretext of staying to talk to Mrs. Fiske, who sat +stooping her tall figure forward in a chair too small for her. Sylvia +looked at this ungraceful attitude with strong disapproval. What she +thought was that such inattention to looks was perfectly inexcusable. +What she said was, in a very gracious voice: "What a beautiful home +you have, Mrs. Fiske! How wonderfully happy you must be in it." + +The other woman started a little at being addressed, and looked around +vaguely at the conventional luxury of the room, with its highly +polished floors, its huge rich rugs, its antlers on the wall, and its +deeply upholstered leather chairs. When Sylvia signified her intention +of continuing the talk by taking a seat beside the fire, Mrs. Fiske +roused herself to the responsibility of entertaining the young guest. +After some futile attempts at conversation in the abstract, she +discharged this responsibility through the familiar expedient of the +family photograph album. With this between them, the two women were +able to go through the required form of avoiding silences. Sylvia was +fearfully bored by the succession of unknown faces, and utterly unable +to distinguish, in her hostess' somewhat disconnected talk, between +the different sets of the Colonel's children. "This one is Stanley, +Jermain's brother, who died when he was a baby," the dull voice droned +on; "and this is Mattie in her wedding dress." + +"Oh, I didn't know Jerry had a married sister," murmured Sylvia +indifferently, glad of any comment to make. + +"She's only his half-sister, a great deal older." + +"But _you_ haven't a daughter old enough to be married?" queried +Sylvia, astonished. + +"Oh--no--no. Mattie is the daughter of the Colonel's first wife." + +"Oh," said Sylvia awkwardly, remembering now that Mrs. Draper had +spoken of the Colonel's several marriages. She added to explain her +question, "I'd forgotten that Jerry's mother was the Colonel's second +wife and not his first." + +"She was his third," breathed Mrs. Fiske, looking down at the pages of +the album. + +Sylvia repressed a "Good gracious!" of startled repugnance to the +topic, and said, to turn the conversation, "Oh, who is that beautiful +little girl with the fur cap?" + +"That is my picture," said Mrs. Fiske, "when I was eighteen. I was +married soon after. I've changed very much since my marriage." +Decidedly it was not Sylvia's lucky day for finding topics of talk. +She was wondering how the billiard game was progressing, and was sorry +she had not risked going with the others. She was recalled by Mrs. +Fiske's saying with a soft earnestness, "I want you to know, Miss +Marshall, how I _appreciate_ your kindness to me!" + +Sylvia looked at her in astonishment, half fearing that she was being +made fun of. + +The other went on: "It was _very_ nice of you--your staying here to +talk with me instead of going off with the young people--the others +don't often--" She played nervously with a gleaming pendant on a +platinum chain which hung over her flat chest, and went on: "I--you +have _always_ seemed to me the very nicest of Jerry's friends--and I +shall never forget your mother's kindness. I hope--I hope so much I +shall see more of her. The Colonel thinks so too--we've liked so much +having him like you." The incoherence of this did not prevent Sylvia's +having a chillingly accurate grasp on its meaning. "It is the +Colonel's hope," she went on painfully, "to have Jerry marry as soon +as he graduates from the Law School. The Colonel thinks that nothing +is so good for a young man as an early marriage--though of course +Jerry isn't so very, very young any more. He--the--Colonel is a great +believer in marriage--" Her voice died away into murmurs. Her long, +thin throat contracted in a visible swallow. + +At this point only Sylvia's perception of the other's anguished +embarrassment prevented her from literally running away. As it was, +they sat silent, fingering over the pages of the album and gazing +unseeingly at the various set countenances which looked out at them +with the unnatural glare of the photographed. Sylvia was canvassing +desperately one possibility of escape after another when the door +opened, and the lively young man of the trolley-car stepped in. +He tiptoed to the fireplace with exaggerated caution, looking +theatrically over his shoulder for a pursuer. Sylvia positively +welcomed his appearance and turned to him with a cordiality quite +unlike the cool dignity with which she had planned to treat him. He +sat down on the rug before the fire, very close to her feet, and +looked up at her, grinning. "Here's where I get another one on +Jerry--what?" he said, ignoring Mrs. Fiske. "Old Jerry thinks he's +playing such a wonderful game in there he can't tear himself away--but +there'll be something doing, I guess, when he does come and finds +where I am!" He had partaken freely of the excellent white wine served +at luncheon (the first Sylvia had ever seen), and though entirely +master of his speech, was evidently even more uplifted than was his +usual hilarious wont. Sylvia looked down at him, and across at the +weak-faced woman opposite her, and had a moment of wishing heartily +she had never come. She stood up impatiently, a movement which the +young man took to mean a threat of withdrawal. "Aw, _don't_ go!" he +pleaded, sprawling across the rug towards her. As she turned away, he +snatched laughingly at her skirts, crying out, "Tag! You're caught! +You're It!" + +At this moment Jerry Fiske appeared in the doorway. He looked darkly +at his friend's cheerful face and said shortly: "Here, Stub--quit it! +Get up out of that!" He added to Sylvia, holding out his hand: "Come +on, go skating with me. The ice is great." + +"Are the others going?" asked Sylvia. + +"Oh yes, I suppose so," said Jerry, a trifle impatiently. + +The young man on the floor scrambled up. "Here's one that's going, +whoever else don't," he announced. + +"Get yourself a girl, then," commanded Jerry, "and tell the rest to +come along. There's to be eats at four o'clock." + + * * * * * + +The ice was even as fine as it had been so redundantly represented to +Sylvia. Out of doors, leaning her supple, exquisitely poised body to +the wind as she veered like a bird on her flying skates, Sylvia's +spirits rebounded with an instant reaction into enjoyment. She adored +skating, and she had in it, as in all active exercise, the half-wild +pleasure of one whose childhood is but a short time behind her. +Furthermore, her costume prepared for this event (Mrs. Draper had told +her of the little lake on the Fiske estate) was one of her successes. +It had been a pale cream broadcloth of the finest texture, one of Aunt +Victoria's reception gowns, which had evidently been spoiled by having +coffee spilled down the front breadth. Sylvia had had the bold notion +of dyeing it scarlet and making it over with bands of black plush +(the best bits from an outworn coat of her mother's). On her gleaming +red-brown hair she had perched a little red cap with a small black +wing on either side (one of Lawrence's pet chickens furnished this), +and she carried the muff which belonged with her best set of furs. +Thus equipped, she looked like some impish, slender young Brunhilde, +with her two upspringing wings. The young men gazed at her with the +most unconcealed delight. As she skated very well, better than any +of the other girls, she felt, sweeping about the pond in long, swift +curves, that she was repaid for her ignorance of billiards. + +Jerry and the young man he called Stub were openly in competition +for her attention, highly jocose on Stub's part and not at all so on +Jerry's, whose brow did not clear at the constant crackling of the +other's witticisms. On the shore burned a big fire, tended by a +man-servant in livery, who was occupied in setting out on a long table +a variety of sandwiches and cups of steaming bouillon. Sylvia had +never encountered before a real man-servant in livery. She looked at +him with the curiosity she might have shown at seeing a mediaeval +knight in full armor. Jerry brought her a cup of the bouillon, which +was deliciously hot and strong. Experienced as she was in the prudent +provisioning of the Marshall kitchen she was staggered to think how +many chickens had gone into filling with that clear liquor the big +silver tureen which steamed over the glittering alcohol lamp. The +table was set, for that casual outdoor picnic lunch, as she could +hardly have imagined a royal board. + +"What beautiful things your people have!" she exclaimed to Jerry, +looking at a pile of small silver forks with delicately carved ivory +handles. "The rugs in the house are superb." + +Jerry waved them aside as phenomena of no importance. "All of 'em +tributes from Dad's loving constituents," he said, repeating what was +evidently an old joke in the family. "You'd better believe Dad doesn't +vote to get the tariff raised on anything unless he sees to it that +the manufacturers know who they have to thank. It works something +fine! Talk about the presents a doctor gets from his grateful +patients! Nothing to it!" + +This picturesque statement of practical politics meant so little to +Sylvia's mind that she dismissed it unheard, admiring, in spite of her +effort to take things for granted, the fabulous fineness of the +little fringed napkin set under the bouillon cup. Jerry followed +the direction of her eyes. "Yep--tariff on linen," he commented +pregnantly. + +The young man called Stub now sped up to them, skating very fast, and +swept Sylvia off. "_Here's_ where we show 'em how to do it!" he cried +cheerfully, skating backward with crazy rapidity, and pulling Sylvia +after him. There was a clang of swift steel on ice, and Jerry bore +down upon them, the muscles of his jaw showing prominently. Without a +word he thrust his friend aside, caught at Sylvia's hands, and bore +her in a swooping flight to the other end of the pond, now deserted by +the other skaters. + +As they sped along he bent over Sylvia fiercely and said in a low, +angry tone, "You don't like that bounder, do you? You _don't_!" + +Sylvia was astonished at the heat of his suspicion. She had known that +Jerry was not notably acute, but it had seemed to her that her dislike +for his friend must be more than apparent to any one. They had reached +the edge of the ice now, and Sylvia's hands were still in Jerry's, +although they were not skating, but stood facing each other. A bush +of osier, frozen into the ice, lifted its red twigs near them. Sylvia +looked down at it, hesitating how to express her utter denial of any +liking for the hilarious young man. Jerry misunderstood her pause and +cried out: "Good God! Sylvia! Don't say you _do._" + +Sylvia's heart gave a frightened leap. "Oh no--no--not a bit!" she +said hastily, looking longingly across the pond at the group around +the fire. Jerry caught his breath with a gasp and gripped her hands +hard. "It makes me crazy to see you look at another fellow," he said. +He forced her eyes to meet his. "Sylvia--you know--you know what I +mean." + +Yes, Sylvia knew what he meant. Her very white face showed that. The +young man went on, pressing, masterful, confident, towering over her: +"It's idiotic to speak of it now, out here--with all these people +around--but it just _got_ me to see you with that--I wasn't sure how I +felt about you till I saw how I felt when you seemed so friendly +with him, when you got off the car together. Then I knew. It made me +crazy--I _wanted_ you!" + +Sylvia had not been able once to look away from him since he began to +speak. Her mouth was a little open in her white face, her eyes fixed +with a painful intensity on his. He moistened his lips with his +tongue. "Sylvia--_it's all right_--isn't it?" + +With no change of expression in her strained face, Sylvia nodded. As +suddenly and apparently as automatically she took a backward step. + +The young man made a great stride towards her--there was a sound of +quick strokes on the ice and--"BOO!" shouted the hilarious young man, +bursting between them at railroad speed. He executed a marvelous +pirouette and returned instantly, calling out, "Less spooning in +the corners if you please--or if it's got to be, let me in!" He +was followed closely by a string of young men and girls, playing +snap-the-whip. They "snapped" just as they reached Jerry. The end girl +flew off and bumped, screaming with joy, into Jerry's arms. He looked +furiously over her head towards Sylvia, but she had been enveloped in +a ring and was being conveyed away to the accompaniment of the usual +squeals and shouts. The Colonel had come down to take them all back, +she was informed, and was waiting for them with the sleigh. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +AS A BIRD OUT OF A SNARE + + +Sylvia dressed for dinner literally like one in a dream. Outwardly she +was so calm that she thought she was so inwardly. It was nothing like +so exciting as people said, to get engaged, she thought as she brushed +out her hair and put it up in a big, gleaming knot. Here she had been +engaged for a whole hour and a half, and was getting calmer every +minute, instead of the reverse. She astonished herself by the lucidity +of her brain, although it only worked by snatches--there being lacunae +when she could not have told what she was doing. And yet, as she had +approached the house, sitting again beside the Colonel, she had looked +with a new thrill of interest at its imposing battlemented façade. The +great hall had seemed familiar to her already as she stepped across +it on her way to the stairs, her feet had pressed the rugs with +assurance, she had been able to be quite nonchalant about refusing the +services of the maid who offered to help her dress. + +It was true that from time to time she suddenly flushed or paled; it +was true that her mind seemed incapable of the slightest consecutive +thought; it was true that she seemed to be in a dream, peopled by +crazily inconsequent images--she had again and again a vision, +startlingly vivid, of the red-twigged osier beside which she had +stood; it was true that she had a slight feeling of vertigo when she +tried to think ahead of the next moment--but still she was going ahead +with her unpacking and dressing so steadily that she marveled. She +decided again from the depth of her experience that getting engaged +was nothing like so upsetting an event as people made out. She thrust +the last pin into her hair and tipped her head preeningly before the +big triplicate mirror--the first time she had ever encountered this +luxury outside of a ready-made clothes shop. The yellow chiffon +came out from the trunk in perfect condition, looking like a big, +silk-petaled flower as she slipped it on over her bare shoulders, and +emerged above, triumphant and yet half afraid to look at herself in +the mirror lest she should see that her home-made toilet had not "the +right look." One glance satisfied even her jealous eagerness. It had +exactly the right look--that is, it looked precisely like the picture +from which she had copied it. She gazed with naďve satisfaction at the +faithfulness with which her reflected appearance resembled that of the +Parisian demi-mondaine whose photograph she had seen, and settled +on her slim, delicately modeled shoulders the straps of shirred and +beaded chiffon which apparently performed the office of keeping her +dress from sliding to the floor. In reality, under its fluid, gauzy +draperies, it was constructed on a firm, well-fitting, well-fastened +foundation of opaque cloth which quite adequately clothed the young +body, but its appearance was of a transparent cloud, only kept from +floating entirely away by those gleaming straps on the shoulders, an +effect carefully calculated in the original model, and inimitably +caught by Sylvia's innocent fingers. + +She turned herself about, artlessly surprised to see that her neck and +shoulders looked quite like those of the women in the fashion-plates +and the magazine illustrations. She looked at the clock. It was early +yet. She reflected that she never _could_ take the time other girls +did in dressing. She wondered what they did. What could one do, after +one's bath was taken, one's hair done, and one's gown donned--oh, of +course, powder! She applied it liberally, and then wiped away every +grain, that being what she had seen older girls do in the Gymnasium +dressing-room. Then with a last survey of her face, unaltered by the +ceremonial with the powder-puff, she stepped to the door. + +But there, with her hand on the knob, she was halted by an +inexplicable hesitation about opening the door and showing herself. +She looked down at her bare shoulders and bosom, and faintly blushed. +It was really very, very low, far lower than any dress she had ever +worn! And the fact that Eleanor Hubert, that all the "swell" girls +wore theirs low, did not for the moment suffice her--it was somehow +different--their showing their shoulders and her showing her own. +She could not turn the knob and stood, irresolute, frowning vaguely, +though not very deeply disquieted. Finally she compromised by taking +up a pretty spangled scarf Aunt Victoria had sent her, wrapping it +about her like a shawl, in which quaint garb she went out in more +confidence, and walked down the hall to the stairway. Half-way down +she met Colonel Fiske just coming up to dress. Seeing one of his young +guests arrayed for the evening he made her his compliments, the first +words rather absent and perfunctory. But when he was aware which guest +she was, he warmed into a pressing and personal note, as his practised +eyes took in the beauty, tonight startlingly enhanced by excitement, +of the girl's dark, shining eyes, flushed cheeks, and white neck and +arms. He ended by lifting her hand, in his florid way, and pressing +it to his white mustache for a very fervent kiss. Sylvia blushed +prettily, meeting his hot old eyes with a dewy unconsciousness, +and smiling frankly up into the deeply lined carnal face with the +simple-hearted pleasure she would have felt at the kind word of any +elderly man. The Colonel seemed quite old to her--much older than her +father--like Professor Kennedy. + +"Jerry's in the library, waiting," his father announced with a sly +laugh. "I wondered at the young rascal's being dressed so far ahead of +time." He turned reluctantly and went on up the stairs, leaving Sylvia +to go forward to her first meeting alone with the man she had promised +to marry. As she descended the long flight of stairs, her scarf, +loosened by her movement, slipped unobserved in her excitement and +hung lightly about her shoulders. + +The door to the library was shut. She opened it with a rapidly beating +heart and stood on the threshold, shyly hesitating to advance further, +looking with agitation at the stalwart, handsome, well-groomed figure +which stood in an attitude of impatient expectation by the window. +Except for the light which came in from the electric bulb on the porch +outside, the big room was in twilight. In the brilliantly lighted +door-opening, she stood revealed as by a searchlight. + +At the sound of the opening door, and his name spoken in a quavering +voice, the young man turned, paused an instant as if blinded by the +vision, and sprang forward. The door behind Sylvia swung shut, and her +eyes, widening in the dusk, saw only the headlong, overwhelming rush +upon her of her lover. She was enfolded strongly in muscular arms, +she was pressed closer and yet closer to a powerful body, whose heat +burned through the thin broadcloth, she was breathless, stunned, +choked. As the man bent forward over her, clasping her to him, her +flexible spine bent and her head drooped backward, her face with its +flush all gone, gleaming white in the dusk. At this he rained kisses +on it, on her eyes, hair, cheeks, mouth, the burning softness of his +full lips seeming to leave a smear on her skin where they pressed it. +Still holding her with one arm, pressed to him as though the two young +bodies were gripped together by a vice, he loosened the other arm and +thrust it at the back of her dress, through the flimsy gauze of her +scarf, down next her body. His stiff cuff caught on the edge of her +dress, and his sleeve slid up--it was his bare arm against her naked +flesh. He gave a savage, smothered, gasping exclamation, pressed his +fingers deeply into her side, still kissing her passionately, her +neck, her shoulders, burying his hot face in her bosom. + +It was the girl's body which acted, since at the first instant of the +whirlwind which had broken over her, her mind had been shocked into +a swooning paralysis. Only her strong, sound body, hardened by work, +fortified by outdoor exercise, was ready in its every fiber for this +moment. Her body bent suddenly like a spring of fine steel, its +strength momentarily more than a match for his, and thrust the man +from her with staggering violence. Her reaction from him was as +physical a sensation as though she had bitten into a tempting fruit +and found it not sweet--not even bitter--but nasty. She sickened at +the sight of him. + +As he caught his balance, laughing a little but not at all +good-naturedly, and started back towards her with a dangerous dark +face of excited anger and desire, his headlong rush was checked an +instant by the fierce eyes which flamed at him from her crimson face. +Even her neck and shoulders were now scarlet. She held him off for the +space of a breath, giving one deep exclamation, "_Oh_!" short, sharply +exhaled, almost like a blow in his face. + +But his blood was up as well as hers, and after his momentary pause, +he rushed forward again, his handsome, blond face black with passion. + +Sylvia stooped, gathered up her skirts, turned, burst open the door, +and fled out of the room, running in her high-heeled satin slippers as +she did on the track in the Gymnasium, with long, deer-like bounds. In +a flash she had crossed the wide hall--which was as it happened empty, +although she would not have slackened her pace for all the assembled +company--and was darting arrow-like up the stairs, her torn scarf +flying behind her like a banner. Her flight had been so unexpected +and so swift that young Fiske did not attempt to follow her; but she +reached her room, flung the door shut, and locked it with as much +precipitancy as though he were on her heels, instead of standing quite +still, open-mouthed, where she had left him. + +The sharp crack of her slamming door, loud in the quiet house, broke +the spell which held him. His mouth shut, and his clenched hands +loosened from their fierce tension. He took an aimless step and drew a +long breath. A moment later, quite automatically, he fumbled for his +cigarette-case, and finding it, took out a cigarette and lighted it +with fingers that were not steady. The familiar action and the first +puff of smoke affected him like emerging from a turmoil of darkness +into the quiet and order of a well-lighted room. "Well, may I be +damned!" he said to himself with the beginning of a return of his +usual assurance--"the damn little spitfire!" + +He walked about the room, puffing vigorously, feeling with relief his +blood resume its usual rate of circulation. His head seemed to clear +of a thick vapor. The startling recollection of the anger in his +fiancée's eyes was fading rapidly from his mind. Now he only saw her, +blushing, recoiling, fleeing--he laughed out a little, this time not +angrily, but with relish. "Ain't she the firebrand!" he said aloud. He +found his desire for her a hundredfold enhanced and stood still, his +eyes very lustrous, feeling again in imagination the warm softness of +her bosom under his lips. "Gee!" he exclaimed, turning restlessly in +his pacing walk. + +He was aware that some one in the room moved. "Jermain," said his +stepmother's faint voice. He looked at her smiling. "Hello, Momma," he +said good-naturedly, "when did _you_ gum-shoe in?" + +"Oh, just now," she told him, giving him an assurance which he +doubted, and which he would not have valued had he known it to +be true. He was perfectly indifferent as to the chance that this +negligible person might have been a spectator to the scene between the +son of the house and a guest. If she said anything about it, he meant +to give the all-sufficing explanation that he and Miss Marshall had +just become engaged. This would of course, it seemed self-evident to +him, make it all right. + +But Mrs. Fiske did not make any remark calling forth that information. +She only said, in her usual listless manner, "Your sleeve is shoved +up." + +He glanced down in surprise, realizing how excited he must be not to +have noticed that before, and remained for a moment silent, looking at +the splendidly muscular white arm, and the large well-manicured +hand. He was feeling in every nerve the reminiscence of the yielding +firmness of Sylvia's flesh, bare against his own. The color came up +flamingly into his face again. He moistened his lips with his tongue. +"Jesus _Christ_!" he exclaimed, contemptuously careless of his +listener, "I'm wild in love with that girl!" He pulled his sleeve down +with a quick, vigorous gesture, deftly shot the cuff out beyond the +black broadcloth, and, the picture of handsome, well-groomed youth in +easy circumstances, turned again to his father's wife. "What you in +here _for_, anyhow?" he asked still with his light absence of concern +about anything she did or did not do. + +She hesitated, looking about the room. "I thought Miss Marshall would +be here. She promised to come down early to write the names on the +place-cards. I thought I heard her voice." + +"You did," he told her. "She came down early all right--but she went +back again." He laughed, tossed his cigarette-end in the fireplace, +and vouchsafing no more explanation, strolled into the billiard-room, +and began to knock the balls about, whistling a recent dance tune with +great precision and vivacity. He was anticipating with quickened blood +the next meeting with Sylvia. As he thrust at the gleaming balls, his +mouth smiled and his eyes burned. + +Mrs. Fiske went upstairs and knocked at Sylvia's door. There was a +rush of quick footsteps and the girl asked from the other side in a +muffled voice, "Who is it?" Mrs. Fiske gave her name, and added, in +answer to another question, that she was alone. The door opened enough +for her to enter, and closed quickly after her. She looked about the +disordered room, saw the open trunk, the filmy cascade of yellow +chiffon half on and half off the bed, the torn and crumpled spangled +scarf, and Sylvia herself, her hastily donned kimono clutched about +her with tense hands. + +The mistress of the house made no comment on this scene, looking at +Sylvia with dull, faded eyes in which there was no life, not even the +flicker of an inquiry. But Sylvia began in a nervous voice to attempt +an explanation: "Oh, Mrs. Fiske--I--you'll have to excuse me--I must +go home at once--I--I was just packing. I thought--if I hurried I +could make the eight-o'clock trolley back to La Chance, and you could +send my trunk after me." Her every faculty was so concentrated on the +single idea of flight--flight back to the safety of home, that she did +not think of the necessity of making an excuse, giving a reason for +her action. It seemed that it must be self-evident to the universe +that she could not stay another hour in that house. + +Mrs. Fiske nodded. "Yes, I'll send your trunk after you," she said. +She drew a long breath, almost audible, and looked down at the fire on +the hearth. Sylvia came up close to her, looking into her lusterless +eyes with deep entreaty. "And, Mrs. Fiske, _would_ you mind not +telling any one I'm going, until I'm gone--_nobody_ at all! It's +because--I--you could say I didn't feel well enough to come down to +dinner. I--if you--and say I don't want any dinner up here either!" + +"Won't you be afraid to go down through the grounds to the trolley +alone, at night?" asked Mrs. Fiske, without looking at her. + +"Everybody will be at dinner, won't they?" asked Sylvia. + +Mrs. Fiske nodded, her eyes on the floor. + +Upon which, "Oh no, I won't be afraid!" cried Sylvia. + +Her hostess turned to the door. "Well, I won't tell them if you don't +want me to," she said. She went out, without another word, closing the +door behind her. Sylvia locked it, and went on with her wild packing. +When she came to the yellow chiffon she rolled it up tightly and +jammed it into a corner of her trunk; but the instant afterward she +snatched it out and thrust it fiercely into the fire. The light fabric +caught at once, the flames leaped up, filling the room with a roaring +heat and flare, which almost as quickly died down to blackened +silence. + +Sylvia faced that instant of red glare with a grimly set jaw and a +deeply flushed face. It did not look at all like her own face. + +At a quarter of eight the room was cleared, the trunk strapped and +locked, and Sylvia stood dressed for the street, gloved, veiled, and +furred. Under her veil her face showed still very flushed. She took up +her small handbag and her umbrella and opened the door with caution. +A faint clatter of dishes and a hum of laughing talk came up to her +ears. Dinner was evidently in full swing. She stepped out and went +noiselessly down the stairs. On the bottom step, close to the +dining-room door, her umbrella-tip caught in the balustrade and fell +with a loud clatter on the bare polished floor of the hall. Sylvia +shrank into herself and waited an instant with suspended breath for +the pause in the chatter and laughter which it seemed must follow. The +moment was forever connected in her mind with the smell of delicate +food, and fading flowers, and human beings well-washed and perfumed, +which floated out to her from the dining-room. She looked about her at +the luxuriously furnished great hall, and hated every inch of it. + +If the noise was heard, it evidently passed for something dropped by a +servant, for Colonel Fiske, who was telling a humorous story, went on, +his recital punctuated by bass and treble anticipatory laughter from +his auditors: "--and when he called her upon the 'phone the next day +to ask her about it, she said _she_ didn't know he'd been there at +all!" A roar of appreciation greeted this recondite climax, under +cover of which Sylvia opened the front door and shut it behind her. + +The pure coldness of the winter night struck sharply and gratefully on +her senses after the warmth and indoor odors of the house. She sprang +forward along the porch and down the steps, distending her nostrils +and filling her lungs again and again. These long deep breaths seemed +to her like the renewal of life. + +As her foot grated on the gravel of the driveway she heard a stealthy +sound back of her, at which her heart leaped up and stood still. The +front door of the house had opened very quietly and shut again. She +looked over her shoulder fearfully, preparing to race down the road, +but seeing only Mrs. Fiske's tall, stooping figure, stopped and turned +expectantly. The older woman came down the steps towards the fugitive, +apparently unaware of the biting winter wind on her bared shoulders. +Quite at a loss, and suspiciously on her guard, Sylvia waited for her, +searching the blurred pale face with impatient inquiry. + +"I--I thought I'd walk with you a little ways," said the other, +looking down at her guest. + +"Oh no! _Don't_!" pleaded Sylvia in despair lest some one notice her +hostess' absence. "You'll take a dreadful cold! With no wraps on--_do_ +go back! I'm not a bit afraid!" + +The other looked at her with a smoldering flush rising through the +ashes of her gray face. "It wasn't that--I didn't suppose you'd +be afraid--I--I just thought I'd like to go a ways with you," +she repeated, bringing out the words confusedly and with obvious +difficulty. "_I_ won't make you late," she added, as if guessing the +girl's thoughts. She put a thin hand on Sylvia's arm and drew her +rapidly along the driveway. For a moment they walked in silence. Then, +"How soon will you reach home?" she asked. + +"Oh, about a quarter to ten--the Interurban gets into La Chance +at nine-fifteen, and it's about half an hour across town on the +Washington Street trolley." + +"In less than two hours!" cried Mrs. Fiske wildly. "In less than two +hours!" + +Seeing no cause for wonder in her statement, and not welcoming at +all this unsought escort, Sylvia made no answer. There was another +silence, and then, looking in the starlight at her companion, the girl +saw with consternation that the quiet tears were running down her +cheeks. She stopped short, "Oh ... _oh_!" she cried. She caught up the +other's hand in a bewildered surprise. She had not the faintest idea +what could cause her hostess' emotion. She was horribly afraid she +would lose the trolley. Her face painted vividly her agitation and her +impatience. + +Mrs. Fiske drew back her hand and wiped her eyes with her palm. "Well, +I must be going back," she said. She looked dimly at the girl's face, +and suddenly threw her arms about Sylvia's neck, clinging to her. She +murmured incoherent words, the only ones which Sylvia could make out +being, "I can't--I can't--I _can't!_" + +What it was she could not do, remained an impenetrable mystery to +Sylvia, for at that moment she turned away quickly, and went back up +the driveway, her face in her hands. Sylvia hesitated, penetrated, +in spite of her absorption in her own affairs, by a vague pity, but +hearing in the distance the clang of the trolley-car's bell, she +herself turned and ran desperately down the driveway. She reached the +public road just in time to stop the heavy car, and to swing herself +lightly on, to all appearances merely a rather unusually well-set-up, +fashionably dressed young lady, presenting to the heterogeneous +indifference of the other passengers in the car even a more +ostentatiously abstracted air than is the accepted attitude for young +ladies traveling alone. One or two of her fellow voyagers wondered at +the deep flush on her face, but forgot it the next moment. It was a +stain which was not entirely to fade from Sylvia's face and body for +many days to come. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +"BLOW, WIND; SWELL, BILLOW; AND SWIM, BARK!" + + +She reached home, as she had thought, before ten o'clock, her +unexpected arrival occasioning the usual flurry of exclamation and +question not to be suppressed even by the most self-contained family +with a fixed desire to let its members alone, and a firm tradition of +not interfering in their private affairs. Judith had come home before +her father and now looked up from her game of checkers with wondering +eyes. Sylvia explained that she was not sick, and that nothing had +happened to break up or disturb the house-party. "I just _felt_ like +coming home, that's all!" she said irritably, touched on the raw by +the friendly loving eyes and voices about her. She was glad at least +that her father was not at home. That was one less to look at her. + +"Well, get along to bed with you!" said her mother, in answer to her +impatient explanation. "And, you children--keep still! Don't bother +her!" + +Sylvia crept upstairs into the whiteness of her own slant-ceilinged +room, and without lighting a lamp sat down on the bed. Her knees shook +under her. She made no move to take off her furs or hat. She felt no +emotion, only a leaden fatigue and lameness as though she had been +beaten. Her mother, coming in five minutes later with a lighted lamp +and a cup of hot chocolate, made no comment at finding her still +sitting, fully dressed in the dark. She set the lamp down, and with +swift deftness slipped out hatpins, unhooked furs, unbuttoned and +unlaced and loosened, until Sylvia woke from her lethargy and quickly +completed the process, slipping on her nightgown and getting into bed. +Not a word had been exchanged. Mrs. Marshall brought the cup of hot +chocolate and Sylvia drank it as though she were a little girl again. +Her mother kissed her good-night, drew the blankets a little more +snugly over her, opened two windows wide, took away the lamp, and shut +the door. + +Sylvia, warmed and fed by the chocolate, lay stretched at full length +in the bed, breathing in the fresh air which rushed across her face +from the windows, feeling herself in a white beatitude of safety and +peace. Especially did she feel grateful to her mother. "Isn't Mother +_great_!" she said to herself. Everything that had passed seemed like +a confusing dream to her, so dreadful, so terrifying that she was +amazed to feel herself, in spite of it, overcome with drowsiness. Now +the rôles were reversed. It was her brain that was active, racing and +shuddering from one frightening mental picture to another, while her +body, young, sound, healthful, fell deeper and deeper into torpor, +dragging the quivering mind down to healing depths of oblivion. The +cold, pure air blew so strongly in her face that she closed her eyes. +When she opened them again the sun was shining. + +She started up nervously, still under the influence of a vivid +dream--strange.... Then as she blinked and rubbed her eyes she saw her +mother standing by the bed, with a pale, composed face. + +"It's nine o'clock, Sylvia," she said, "and Mr. Fiske is downstairs, +asking to see you. He tells me that you and he are engaged to be +married." + +Sylvia was instantly wide awake. "Oh no! Oh no!" she said +passionately. "No, we're not! I won't be! I won't see him!" She +looked about her wildly, and added, "I'll write him that--just wait a +minute." She sprang out of bed, caught up a pad of paper, and wrote +hastily: "It was all a mistake--I don't care for you at all--not a +bit! I hope I shall never have to speak to you again." "There," she +said, thrusting it into her mother's hands. She stood for a moment, +shivering in her thin nightgown in the icy draught, and then jumped +back into bed again. + +Her mother came back in a few moments, closed the windows, and opened +the register. There was not in her silence or in a line of her quiet +presence the faintest hint of curiosity about Sylvia's actions. +She had always maintained in theory, and now at this crisis with +characteristic firmness of purpose acted upon her theory, that +absolutely unforced confidence was the only kind worth having, and +that moreover, unless some help was necessary, it might be as well for +the younger generation early to acquire the strengthening capacity to +keep its own intimate experiences to the privacy of its own soul, +and learn to digest them and feed upon them without the dubiously +peptonizing aid of blundering adult counsel. Sylvia watched her mother +with wondering gratitude. She wasn't going to ask! She was going to +let Sylvia shut that ghastly recollection into the dark once for +all. She wasn't going by a look or a gesture to force her helplessly +responsive child to give, by words, weight and substance to a black, +shapeless horror from which Sylvia with a vivid impulse of sanity +averted her eyes. + +She got out of bed and put her arms around her mother's neck. "Say, +Mother, you are _great_!" she said in an unsteady voice. Mrs. Marshall +patted her on the back. + +"You'd better go and take your bath, and have your breakfast," she +said calmly. "Judith and Lawrence have gone skating." + +When Sylvia, tingling with the tonic shock of cold water and rough +toweling, and rosy in her old blue sailor-suit, came downstairs, she +found her mother frying pancakes for her in the kitchen blue with +smoke from the hot fat. She was touched, almost shocked by this +strange lapse from the tradition of self-help of the house, and said +with rough self-accusation: "My goodness! The idea of _your_ waiting +on _me_!" She snatched away the handle of the frying-pan and turned +the cakes deftly. Then, on a sudden impulse, she spoke to her mother, +standing by the sink. "I came back because I found I didn't like Jerry +Fiske as much as I thought I did. I found I didn't like him at all," +she said, her eyes on the frying-pan. + +At this announcement her mother's face showed pale, and for an instant +tremulous through the smoke. She did not speak until Sylvia lifted +the cakes from the pan and piled them on a plate. At this signal of +departure into the dining-room she commented, "Well, I won't pretend +that I'm not very glad." + +Sylvia flushed a little and looked towards her silently. She had a +partial, momentary vision of what the past two months must have been +to her mother. The tears stood in her eyes. "Say, Mother dear," she +said in a quavering voice that tried to be light, "why don't you eat +some of these cakes to keep me company? It's 'most ten. You must have +had breakfast three hours ago. It'd be fun! I can't begin to eat all +these." + +"Well, I don't care if I do," answered Mrs. Marshall. Sylvia laughed +at the turn of her phrase and went into the dining-room. Mrs. Marshall +followed in a moment with a cup of hot chocolate and buttered toast. +Sylvia pulled her down and kissed her. "You'd prescribe hot chocolate +for anything from getting religion to a broken leg!" she said, +laughing. Her voice shook and her laugh ended in a half-sob. + +"No--oh no!" returned her mother quaintly. "Sometimes hot milk is +better. Here, where is my share of those cakes?" She helped herself, +went around the table, and sat down. "Cousin Parnelia was here +this morning," she went on. "Poor old idiot, she was certain that +planchette would tell who it was that stole our chickens. I told her +to go ahead--but planchette wouldn't write. Cousin Parnelia laid it to +the blighting atmosphere of skepticism of this house." + +Sylvia laughed again. Alone in the quiet house with her mother, +refreshed by sleep, aroused by her bath, safe, sheltered, secure, she +tried desperately not to think of the events of the day before. But in +spite of herself they came back to her in jagged flashes--above all, +the handsome blond face darkened by passion. She shivered repeatedly, +her voice was quite beyond her control, and once or twice her hands +trembled so that she laid down her knife and fork. She was silent +and talkative by turns--a phenomenon of which Mrs. Marshall took no +outward notice, although when the meal was finished she sent her +daughter out into the piercing December air with the command to +walk six miles before coming in. Sylvia recoiled at the prospect of +solitude. "Oh, I'd rather go and skate with Judy and Larry!" she +cried. + +"Well, if you skate hard enough," her mother conceded. + + * * * * * + +The day after her return Sylvia had a long letter from Jermain Fiske, +a letter half apologetic, half aggrieved, passionately incredulous of +the seriousness of the break between them, and wholly unreconciled to +it. The upshot of his missive was that he was sorry if he had done +anything to offend her, but might he be everlastingly confounded if +he thought she had the slightest ground for complaint! Everything had +been going on so swimmingly--his father had taken the greatest notion +to her--had said (the very evening she'd cut and run that queer way) +that if he married that rippingly pretty Marshall girl he could have +the house and estate at Mercerton and enough to run it on, and could +practise as much or as little law as he pleased and go at once into +politics--and now she had gone and acted so--what in the world was +the matter with her--weren't they engaged to be married--couldn't an +engaged man kiss his girl--had he ever been anything but too polite +for words to her before she had promised to marry him--and what +_about_ that promise anyhow? His father had picked out the prettiest +little mare in the stables to give her when the engagement should be +announced--the Colonel was as much at a loss as he to make her out--if +the trouble was that she didn't want to live in Mercerton, he was sure +the Colonel would fix it up for them to go direct to Washington, where +with his father's connection she could imagine what an opening they'd +have! And above all he was crazy about her--he really was! He'd never +had any idea what it was to be in love before--he hadn't slept a wink +the night she'd gone away--just tossed on his bed and thought of her +and longed to have her in his arms again--Sylvia suddenly tore the +letter in two and cast it into the fire, breathing hard. In answer she +wrote, "It makes me sick to think of you!" + +She could not endure the idea of "talking over" the experience with +any one, and struggled to keep it out of her mind, but her resolution +to keep silence was broken by Mrs. Draper, who was informed, +presumably by Jermain himself, of the circumstances, and encountering +Sylvia in the street waited for no invitation to confidence by the +girl, but pounced upon her with laughing reproach and insidiously +friendly ridicule. Sylvia, helpless before the graceful assurance of +her friend, heard that she was a silly little unawakened schoolgirl +who was throwing away a brilliantly happy and successful life for the +queerest and funniest of ignorant notions. "What did you suppose, you +baby? You wouldn't have him marry you unless he was in love with you, +would you? Why do you suppose a man _wants_ to marry a woman? Did you +suppose that men in love carry their sweethearts around wrapped in +cotton-wool? You're a woman now, you ought to welcome life--rich, +full-blooded life--not take this chilly, suspicious attitude toward +it! Why, Sylvia, I thought you were a big, splendid, vital, fearless +modern girl--and here you are acting like a little, thin-blooded New +England old maid. How can you blame Jerry? He was engaged to you. What +do you think marriage _is_? Oh, Sylvia, just think what your life +would be in Washington with your beauty and charm!" + +This dexterously aimed attack penetrated Sylvia's armor at a dozen +joints. She winced visibly, and hung her head, considering profoundly. +She found that she had nothing to oppose to the other's arguments. +Mrs. Draper walked beside her in a silence as dexterous as her +exhortation, her hand affectionately thrust through Sylvia's arm. +Finally, Sylvia's ponderings continuing so long that they were +approaching the Marshall house, in sight of which she had no mind to +appear, she gave Sylvia's arm a little pat, and stood still. She said +cheerfully, in a tone which seemed to minimize the whole affair into +the smallest of passing incidents: "Now, you queer darling, don't +stand so in your own light! A word would bring Jerry back to you +now--but I won't say it will always. I don't suppose you've ever +considered, in your young selfishness, how cruelly you have hurt his +feelings! He was awfully sore when I saw him. And Eleanor Hubert is +right on the spot with Mamma Hubert in the background to push." + +Sylvia broke her silence to say in a low tone, blushing scarlet, "He +was--_horrid_!" + +Mrs. Draper dropped her light tone and said earnestly: "Dear little +ignorant Sylvia--you don't recognize life when you see it. That's the +way men are--all men--and there's no use thinking it horrid unless +you're going into a convent. It's not so bad either,--once you get the +hang of managing it--it's a hold on them. It's a force, like any other +force of nature that you can either rebel against, or turn to your +account and make serviceable, if you'll only accept it and not try to +quarrel with water for running downhill. As long as she herself isn't +carried away by it, it's a weapon in the hand of a clever woman. Only +the stupid women get hurt by it--the silly ones who can't keep their +heads. And after all, my dear, it _is_ a force of nature--and you're +too intelligent not to know that there's no use fighting against that. +It's just idiotic and puritanic to revolt from it--and doesn't do any +good besides!" She looked keenly into Sylvia's downcast, troubled +face, and judged it a propitious moment for leaving her. "_Good_-bye, +darling," she said, with a final pat on the shoulder. + +Sylvia walked slowly into the house, her heart like lead. Her food had +no savor to her. She did not know what she was eating, nor what her +mother, the only one at home for lunch, was saying to her. As a matter +of fact Mrs. Marshall said very little, even less than was her custom. +Her face had the look of terrible, patient endurance it had worn +during the time when Lawrence had had pneumonia, and his life had hung +in the balance for two days; but she went quietly about her usual +household tasks. + +After the meal was over, Sylvia continued to sit alone at the table, +staring palely down at the tablecloth, her mind full of Mrs. Draper's +illuminating comments on life, which had gone through her entire +system like a dexterously administered drug. And yet that ingenious +lady would have been surprised to know how entirely her attack had +failed in the one point which seemed to her important, the possibility +of a reconciliation between Sylvia and Jermain. The girl was deeply +under the impression made by the philosophy of the older woman; she +did not for the moment dream of denying its truth; but she stood +granite in a perfectly illogical denial of its implications in her own +case. She did not consciously revolt against the suggestion that she +renew her relations to Jerry Fiske, because with a united action of +all her faculties she refused utterly to consider it for an instant. +She would no more have been persuaded to see Jerry again, by a +consideration of the material advantages to be gained, than she could +have been persuaded to throw herself down from the housetop. That +much was settled, not by any coherent effort of her brain, but by a +co-ordination of every instinct in her, by the action of her whole +being, by what her life had made her. + +But that certainty brought her small comfort in the blackness of the +hour. What hideous world was this in which she had walked unawares +until now! Mrs. Draper's jaunty, bright acceptance of it affected her +to moral nausea. All the well-chosen words of her sophisticated friend +were imbedded in the tissue of her brain like grains of sand in an +eyeball. She could not see for very pain. And yet her inward vision +was lurid with the beginning of understanding of the meaning of those +words, lighted up as they were by her experience of the day before, +now swollen in her distraught mind to the proportions of a nightmare: +"It's a weapon in the hand of a clever woman--it's not so bad once +you get the hang of managing it--it's a hold on men--" Sylvia turned +whiter and whiter at the glimpse she had had of what was meant by +Mrs. Draper's lightly evasive "it"; a comprehension of which all her +"advanced" reading and study had left her mind as blankly ignorant as +a little child's. Now it was vain to try to shut her thoughts away +from Jermain. She lived over and over the scene with him, she endured +with desperate passivity the recollection of his burning lips on her +bosom, his fingers pressing into her side. Why not, if every man was +like that as soon as he dared? Why not, if that was all that men +wanted of women? Why not, if that was the sole ghastly reality which +underlay the pretty-smooth surface of life? + +And beyond this bleak prospect, which filled her with dreary horror, +there rose glimpsed vistas which sent the shamed blood up to her face +in a flood--if every man was like that, why, so were the men she had +known and loved and trusted; old Reinhardt, who seemed so simple, +what had been his thoughts when he used years ago to take her on his +knee--what were his thoughts now when he bent over her to correct her +mistakes on the piano? + +The expression of Colonel Fiske's eyes, as he had complimented her, +brought her to her feet with a shudder--but Colonel Fiske was an old, +old man--as old as Professor Kennedy-- + +Why, perhaps Professor Kennedy--perhaps--she flung out her +arms--perhaps her father-- + +She ran to the piano as to a refuge, meaning to drown out these +maddening speculations, which were by this time tinctured with +insanity; but the first chords she struck jarred on her ear like a +discordant scream. She turned away and stood looking at the floor with +a darkening face, one hand at her temple. + + * * * * * + +Her mother, darning stockings by the window, suddenly laid down her +work and said: "Sylvia, how would you like to walk with me over to the +Martins' to see if they have any eggs? Our hens have absolutely gone +back on us." + +Sylvia did not welcome this idea at all, feeling as overwhelming an +aversion to companionship as to solitude, but she could think of no +excuse, and in an ungracious silence put on her wraps and joined her +mother, ready on the porch, the basket in her mittened hand. + +Mrs. Marshall's pace was always swift, and on that crisp, cold, sunny +day, with the wind sweeping free over the great open spaces of the +plain about them, she walked even more rapidly than usual. Not a word +was spoken. Sylvia, quite as tall as her mother now, and as vigorous, +stepped beside her, not noticing their pace, nor the tingling of the +swift blood in her feet and hands. Her fresh young face was set in +desolate bitterness. + +The Martins' house was about six miles from the Marshalls'. It was +reached, the eggs procured, and the return begun. Still not a word had +been exchanged between the two women. Mrs. Marshall would have been +easily capable, under the most ordinary circumstances, of this long +self-contained silence, but it had worked upon Sylvia like a sojourn +in the dim recesses of a church. She felt moved, stirred, shaken. But +it was not until the brief winter sun was beginning to set red +across the open reaches of field and meadow that her poisoned heart +overflowed. "Oh, Mother--!" she exclaimed in an unhappy tone, and said +no more. She knew no words to phrase what was in her mind. + +"Yes, dear," said her mother gently. She looked at her daughter +anxiously, expectantly, with a passion of yearning in her eyes, but +she said no more than those two words. + +There was a silence. Sylvia was struggling for expression. They +continued to walk swiftly through the cold, ruddy, sunset air, the +hard-frozen road ringing beneath their rapid advance. Sylvia clasped +her hands together hard in her muff. She felt that something in her +heart was dying, was suffocating for lack of air, and yet that it +would die if she brought it to light. She could find no words at all +to ask for help, agonizing in a shy reticence impossible for an adult +to conceive. Finally, beginning at random, very hurriedly, looking +away, she brought out, faltering, "Mother, _is_ it true that all men +are--that when a girl marries she must expect to--aren't there _any_ +men who--" She stopped, burying her burning face in her muff. + +Her words, her tone, the quaver of desperate sincerity in her accent, +brought her mother up short. She stopped abruptly and faced the girl. +"Sylvia, look at me!" she said in a commanding voice which rang loud +in the frosty silences about them. Sylvia started and looked into her +mother's face. It was moved so darkly and so deeply from its usual +serene composure that she would have recoiled in fear, had she not +been seized upon and held motionless by the other's compelling eyes. + +"Sylvia," said her mother, in a strong, clear voice, acutely +contrasted to Sylvia's muffled tones, "Sylvia, it's a lie that men +are nothing but sensual! There's nothing in marriage that a good girl +honestly in love with a good man need fear." + +"But--but--" began Sylvia, startled out of her shyness. + +Her mother cut her short. "Anything that's felt by decent men in love +is felt just as truly, though maybe not always so strongly, by women +in love. And if a woman doesn't feel that answer in her heart to what +he feels--why, he's no mate for her. Anything's better for her than +going on. And, Sylvia, you mustn't get the wrong idea. Sensual feeling +isn't bad in itself. It's in the world because we have bodies as well +as minds--it's like the root of a plant. But it oughtn't to be a very +big part of the plant. And it must be the root of the woman's feeling +as well as the man's, or everything's all wrong." + +"But how can you _tell_!" burst out Sylvia. + +"You can tell by the way you feel, if you don't lie to yourself, or +let things like money or social position count. If an honest +girl shrinks from a man instinctively, there's something not +right--sensuality is too big a part of what the man feels for her--and +look here, Sylvia, that's not always the man's fault. Women don't +realize as they ought how base it is to try to attract men by their +bodies," she made her position clear with relentless precision, "when +they wear very low-necked dresses, for instance--" At this chance +thrust, a wave of scarlet burst up suddenly over Sylvia's face, but +she could not withdraw her eyes from her mother's searching, honest +gaze, which, even more than her words, spoke to the girl's soul. The +strong, grave voice went on unhesitatingly. For once in her life +Mrs. Marshall was speaking out. She was like one who welcomes the +opportunity to make a confession of faith. "There's no healthy life +possible without some sensual feeling between the husband and wife, +but there's nothing in the world more awful than married life when +it's the only common ground." + +Sylvia gazed with wide eyes at the older woman's face, ardent, +compelling, inspired, feeling too deeply, to realize it wholly, +the vital and momentous character of the moment. She seemed to see +nothing, to be aware of nothing but her mother's heroic eyes of truth; +but the whole scene was printed on her mind for all her life--the +hard, brown road they stood on, the grayed old rail-fence back of Mrs. +Marshall, a field of brown stubble, a distant grove of beech-trees, +and beyond and around them the immense sweeping circle of the horizon. +The very breath of the pure, scentless winter air was to come back to +her nostrils in after years. + +"Sylvia," her mother went on, "it is one of the responsibilities of +men and women to help each other to meet on a high plane and not on +a low one. And on the whole--health's the rule of the world--on +the whole, that's the way the larger number of husbands and wives, +imperfect as they are, do live together. Family life wouldn't be +possible a day if they didn't." + +Like a strong and beneficent magician, she built up again and +illuminated Sylvia's black and shattered world. "Your father is just +as pure a man as I am a woman, and I would be ashamed to look any +child of mine in the face if he were not. You know no men who are not +decent--except two--and those you did not meet in your parents' home." + +For the first time she moved from her commanding attitude of prophetic +dignity. She came closer to Sylvia, but although she looked at her +with a sudden sweetness which affected Sylvia like a caress, she but +made one more impersonal statement: "Sylvia dear, don't let anything +make you believe that there are not as many decent men in the world as +women, and they're just as decent. Life isn't worth living unless you +know that--and it's true." Apparently she had said all she had to say, +for she now kissed Sylvia gently and began again to walk forward. + +The sun had completely set, and the piled-up clouds on the horizon +flamed and blazed. Sylvia stood still, looking at them fixedly. The +great shining glory seemed reflected from her heart, and cast its +light upon a regenerated world--a world which she seemed to see for +the first time. Strange, in that moment of intensely personal life, +how her memory was suddenly flooded with impersonal impressions of +childhood, little regarded at the time and long since forgotten, +but now recurring to her with the authentic and uncontrovertible +brilliance which only firsthand experiences in life can bring with +them--all those families of her public-school mates, the plain, ugly +homes in and out of which she had come and gone, with eyes apparently +oblivious of all but childish interests, but really recording +life-facts which now in her hour of need stretched under her feet like +a solid pathway across an oozing marsh. All those men and women whom +she had seen in a thousand unpremeditated acts, those tired-faced, +kind-eyed, unlettered fathers and mothers were not breathing poisoned +air, were not harboring in their simple lives a ghastly devouring +wild-beast. She recalled with a great indrawn breath all the +farmer-neighbors, parents working together for the children, the +people she knew so well from long observation of their lives, whose +mediocre, struggling existence had filled her with scornful pity, but +whom now she recalled with a great gratitude for the explicitness of +the revelations made by their untutored plainness. For all she could +ever know, the Drapers and the Fiskes and the others of their +world might be anything, under the discreet reticence of their +sophistication; but they did not make up all the world. She knew, from +having breathed it herself, the wind of health which blew about those +other lives, bare and open to the view, as less artless lives were +not. There was some other answer to the riddle, beside Mrs. Draper's. + +Sylvia was only eighteen years old and had the childish immaturity of +her age, but her life had been so ordered that she was not, even at +eighteen, entirely in the helpless position of a child who must depend +on the word of others. She had accumulated, unknown to herself, quite +apart from polished pebbles of book-information, a small treasury +of living seeds of real knowledge of life, taken in at first-hand, +knowledge of which no one could deprive her. The realization of this +was a steadying ballast which righted the wildly rolling keel under +her feet. She held up her head bravely against the first onslaught of +the storm. She set her hand to the rudder! + +Perceiving that her mother had passed on ahead of her she sprang +forward in a run. She ran like a schoolboy, like a deer, like a man +from whose limbs heavy shackles have been struck off. She felt so +suddenly lightened of a great heaviness that she could have clapped +her hands over her head and bounded into the air. She was, after all, +but eighteen years old, and three years before had been a child. + +She came up to her mother with a rush, radiating life. Mrs. Marshall +looked at the glowing face and her own eyes, dry till then, filled +with the tears so rare in her self-controlled life. She put out her +hand, took Sylvia's, and they sped along through the quick-gathering +dusk, hand-in-hand like sisters. + +Judith and Lawrence had reached home before them, and the low brown +house gleamed a cheerful welcome to them from shining windows. For the +first time in her life, Sylvia did not take for granted her home, with +all that it meant. For an instant it looked strangely sweet to her. +She had a passing glimpse, soon afterwards lost in other impressions, +of how in after years she would look back on the roof which had +sheltered and guarded her youth. + +She lay awake that night a long time, staring up into the cold +blackness, her mind very active and restless in the intense stillness +about her. She thought confusedly but intensely of many things--the +months behind her, of Jerry, of Mrs. Draper, of her yellow dress, +of her mother--of herself. In the lucidity of those silent hours of +wakefulness she experienced for a time the piercing, regenerating +thrust of self-knowledge. For a moment the full-beating pulses of her +youth slackened, and between their throbs there penetrated to her +perplexed young heart the rarest of human emotions, a sincere +humility. If she had not burned the yellow dress at Mercerton, she +would have arisen and burned it that night.... + +During the rest of the Christmas vacation she avoided being alone. She +and Judith and Lawrence skated a great deal, and Sylvia learned at +last to cut the grapevine pattern on the ice. She also mastered the +first movement of the Sonata Pathétique, so that old Reinhardt was +almost satisfied. + +The day after the University opened for the winter term the Huberts +announced the engagement of their daughter Eleanor to Jermain Fiske, +Jr., the brilliant son of that distinguished warrior and statesman, +Colonel Jermain Fiske. Sylvia read this announcement in the Society +Column of the La Chance _Morning Herald_, with an enigmatic expression +on her face, and betaking herself to the skating-pond, cut grapevines +with greater assiduity than ever, and with a degree of taciturnity +surprising in a person usually so talkative. That she had taken the +first step away from the devouring egotism of childhood was proved by +the fact that at least part of the time, this vigorous young creature, +swooping about the icy pond like a swallow, was thinking pityingly of +Eleanor Hubert's sweet face. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +SOME YEARS DURING WHICH NOTHING HAPPENS + + +Judith had said to the family, taking no especial pains that her +sister should not hear her, "Well, folks, now that Sylvia's got +through with that horrid Fiske fellow, I do hope we'll all have some +peace!" a remark which proved to be a prophecy. They all, including +Sylvia herself, knew the tranquillity of an extended period of peace. + +It began abruptly, like opening a door into a new room. Sylvia had +dreaded the beginning of the winter term and the inevitable sight of +Jerry, the enforced crossings of their paths. But Jerry never returned +to his classes at all. The common talk was to the effect that the +Colonel had "worked his pull" to have Jerry admitted to the bar +without further preliminaries. After some weeks of relief, it occurred +to Sylvia that perhaps Jerry had dreaded meeting her as much as she +had seeing him. For whatever reason, the campus saw young Fiske no +more, except on the day in May when he passed swiftly across it on his +way to the Hubert house where Eleanor, very small and white-faced, +waited for him under a crown of orange blossoms. + +Sylvia did not go to the wedding, although an invitation had come, +addressed economically and compendiously to "Professor and Mrs. +Marshall and family." It was a glorious spring day and in her Greek +history course they had just reached the battle of Salamis, at the +magnificent recital of which Sylvia's sympathetic imagination leaped +up rejoicing, as all sympathetic imaginations have for all these many +centuries. She was thrilling to a remembered bit of "The Persians" as +she passed by the Hubert house late that afternoon. She was chanting +to herself, "The right wing, well marshaled, led on foremost in good +order, and we heard a mighty shout--'Sons of the Greeks! On! Free your +country!'" She did not notice that she trod swiftly across a trail of +soiled rice in the Hubert driveway. + +She was like a person recovered from a fever who finds mere health a +condition of joy. She went back to her music, to her neglected books, +with a singing heart. And in accordance with the curious ways of +Providence, noted in the proverb relating the different fates of him +who hath and him who hath not, there was at once added to her pleasure +in the old elements of her life the very elements she had longed for +unavailingly. Seeing her friendly and shining of face, friendliness +went out to her. She had made many new acquaintances during her brief +glittering flight and had innumerable more points of contact with the +University life than before. She was invited to a quite sufficient +number of hops and proms, had quite the normal number of masculine +"callers," and was naďvely astonished and disillusioned to find that +those factors in life were by no means as entirely desirable and +amusing as her anguished yearning had fancied them. She joined one of +the literary societies and took a leading part in their annual outdoor +play. At the beginning of her Junior year, Judith entered as a +Freshman and thereafter became a close companion. Sylvia devoured +certain of her studies, history, and English, and Greek, with +insatiable zest and cast aside certain others like political economy +and physics, which bored her, mastering just enough of their elements +to pass an examination and promptly forgetting them thereafter. She +grew rapidly in intellectual agility and keenness, not at all in +philosophical grasp, and emotionally remained as dormant as a potato +in a cellar. + +She continually looked forward with a bright, vague interest to +"growing up," to the mastery of life which adolescents so trustfully +associate with the arrival of adult years. She spent three more years +in college, taking a Master's degree after her B.A., and during those +three years, through the many-colored, shifting, kaleidoscopic, +disorganized life of an immensely populous institution of learning, +she fled with rapid feet, searching restlessly everywhere for that +entity, as yet non-existent, her own soul. + +She had, in short, a thoroughly usual experience of modern American +education, emerging at the end with a vast amount of information, with +very little notion of what it was all about, with Phi Beta Kappa and a +great wonder what she was to do with herself. + +Up to that moment almost every step of her life had been ordered and +systematized, that she might the more quickly and surely arrive at the +goal of her diploma. Rushing forward with the accumulated impetus of +years of training in swiftly speeding effort, she flashed by the goal +... and stopped short, finding herself in company with a majority of +her feminine classmates in a blind alley. "_Now_ what?" they asked +each other with sinking hearts. Judith looked over their heads with +steady eyes which saw but one straight and narrow path in life, and +passed on by them into the hospital where she began her nurse's +training. Sylvia began to teach music to a few children, to take on +some of Reinhardt's work as he grew older. She practised assiduously, +advanced greatly in skill in music, read much, thought acutely, +rebelliously and not deeply, helped Lawrence with his studies ... and +watched the clock. + +For there was no denying that the clock stood still. She was not going +forward to any settled goal now, she was not going forward at all. She +was as far from suspecting any ordered pattern in the facts of life as +when she had been in college, surrounded by the conspiracy of +silence about a pattern in facts which university professors so +conscientiously keep up before their students. She was slowly +revolving in an eddy. Sometimes she looked at the deep, glowing +content of her father and mother with a fierce resentment. "How _can_ +they!" she cried to herself. At other times she tried to chide herself +for not being as contented herself, "... but it's their life they're +living," she said moodily, "and I haven't any to live. I can't live on +their happiness any more than the beefsteaks somebody else has eaten +can keep me from starving to death." + +The tradition of her life was that work and plenty of it would keep +off all uneasiness, that it was a foolishness, not to say a downright +crime, to feel uneasiness. So she practised many hours a day, and took +a post-graduate course in early Latin. But the clock stood still. + +One of the assistants in her father's department proposed to her. +She refused him automatically, with a wondering astonishment at his +trembling hands and white lips. Decidedly the wheels of the clock +would never begin to revolve. + +And then it struck an hour, loudly. Aunt Victoria wrote inviting +Sylvia to spend a few weeks with her during the summer at Lydford. + +Sylvia read this letter aloud to her mother on the vine-covered porch +where she had sat so many years before, and repeated "star-light, +star-bright" until she had remembered Aunt Victoria. Mrs. Marshall +watched her daughter's face as she read, and through the tones of the +clear eager voice she heard the clock striking. It sounded to her +remarkably like a tolling bell, but she gave no sign beyond a slight +paling. She told herself instantly that the slowly ticking clock +had counted her out several years of grace beyond what a mother +may expect. When Sylvia finished and looked up, the dulled look of +resignation swept from her face by the light of adventurous change, +her mother achieved the final feat of nodding her head in prompt, +cheerful assent. + +But when Sylvia went away, light-hearted, fleeting forward to new +scenes, there was in her mother's farewell kiss a solemnity which she +could not hide. "Oh, Mother dear!" protested Sylvia, preferring +as always to skim over the depths which her mother so dauntlessly +plumbed. "Oh, Mother darling! How can you be so--when it's only for a +few weeks!" + + + + +BOOK III + +_IN CAPUA AT LAST_ + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +A GRATEFUL CARTHAGINIAN + + +Arnold Smith put another lump of sugar on his saucer, poured out +a very liberal allowance of rum into his tea, and reached for a +sandwich, balancing the cup and saucer with a deftness out of keeping +with his long, ungraceful loose-jointedness. He remarked in an +indifferent tone to Sylvia, back of the exquisitely appointed +tea-tray: "I don't say anything because I haven't the least idea what +you are talking about. Who _was_ Capua, anyhow?" + +Sylvia broke into a peal of laughter which rang like a silver +chime through the vine-shaded, airy spaces of the pergola. Old Mr. +Sommerville, nosing about in his usual five-o'clock quest, heard +her and came across the stretch of sunny lawn to investigate. +"Oh, _here's_ tea!" he remarked on seeing Arnold, lounging, +white-flanneled, over his cup. He spoke earnestly, as was his custom +when eating was in question, and Sylvia served him earnestly and +carefully, with an instant harmonious response to his mood, putting +in exactly the right amount of rum and sugar to suit his taste, and +turning the slim-legged "curate's assistant" so that his favorite +sandwiches were nearest him. + +"You spoil the old gentlemen, Sylvia," commented Arnold, evidently +caring very little whether she did or not. + +"She spoils everybody," returned Mr. Sommerville, tasting his tea +complacently; "'_c'est son métier._' She has an uncanny instinct for +suiting everybody's taste." + +Sylvia smiled brightly at him, exactly the brilliant smile which +suited her brilliant, frank face and clear, wide-open eyes. Under her +smile she was saying to herself, "If that's so, I wonder--not that I +care at all--but I really wonder why you don't like me." + +Sylvia was encountering for the first time this summer a society +guided by tradition and formula, but she was not without excellent +preparation for almost any contact with her fellow-beings, a +preparation which in some ways served her better than that more +conscious preparation of young ladies bred up from childhood to +sit behind tea-tables and say the right things to tea-drinkers. +Association with the crude, outspoken youth at the State University +had been an education in human nature, especially masculine nature, +for her acute mind. Her unvarnished association with the other sex in +classroom and campus had taught her, by means of certain rough knocks +which more sheltered boarding-school girls never get, an accuracy +of estimate as to the actual feeling of men towards the women they +profess to admire unreservedly which (had he been able to conceive of +it) old Mr. Sommerville would have thought nothing less than cynical. + +But he did not conceive of it, and now sat, mellowed by the +rightness of his tea, white-haired, smooth-shaven, pink-gilled, +white-waistcoated, the picture of old age at its best, as he smiled +gallantly at the extremely pretty girl behind the table. Unlike Sylvia +he knew exactly why he did not like her and he wasted no time in +thinking about it. "What were you laughing about, so delightfully, as +I came in, eh?" he asked, after the irretrievable first moment of joy +in gratified appetite had gone. + +Sylvia had not the slightest backwardness about explaining. In fact +she always took the greatest pains to be explicit with old Mr. +Sommerville about the pit from which she had been digged. "Why, this +visit to Aunt Victoria is like stepping into another world for me. +Everything is so different from my home-life. I was just thinking, as +I sat there behind all this glorious clutter," she waved a slim hand +over the silver and porcelain of the tea-table, "what a change it +was from setting the table one's self and washing up the dishes +afterwards. That's what we always do at home. I hated it and I said +to Arnold, 'I've reached Capua at last!' and he said," she stopped to +laugh again, heartily, full-throated, the not-to-be-imitated laugh of +genuine amusement, "he said, 'Who is Capua, anyhow?'" + +Mr. Sommerville laughed, but grudgingly, with an impatient shake of +his white head and an uneasy look in his eyes. For several reasons he +did not like to hear Sylvia laugh at Arnold. He distrusted a young +lady with too keen a sense of humor, especially when it was directed +towards the cultural deficiencies of a perfectly eligible young man. +To an old inhabitant of the world, with Mr. Sommerville's views as to +the ambitions of a moneyless young person, enjoying a single, brief +fling in the world of young men with fortunes, it seemed certain that +Sylvia's lack of tactful reticence about Arnold's ignorance could only +be based on a feeling that Arnold's fortune was not big enough. She +was simply, he thought with dismay, reserving her tact and reticence +for a not-impossible bigger. His apprehensions about the fate of a +bigger of his acquaintance if its owner ever fell into the hands of +this altogether too well-informed young person rose to a degree which +almost induced him to cry out, "Really, you rapacious young creature, +Arnold's is all any girl need ask, ample, well-invested, solid...." +But instead he said, "Humph! Rather a derogatory remark about your +surroundings, eh?" + +Arnold did not understand, did not even hear, leaning back, long, +relaxed, apathetic, in his great wicker-chair and rolling a cigarette +with a detached air, as though his hands were not a part of him. +But Sylvia heard, and understood, even to the hostility in the old +gentleman's well-bred voice. "Being in Capua usually referring to the +fact that the Carthaginians went to pieces that winter?" she asked. +"Oh yes, of course I know that. Good gracious! I was brought up on the +idea of the dangers of being in Capua. Perhaps that's why I always +thought it would be such fun to get there." She spoke rebelliously. + +"They got everlastingly beaten by the Romans," advanced Mr. +Sommerville. + +"Yes, but they had had one grand good time before! The Romans couldn't +take _that_ away from them! I think the Carthaginians got the best of +it!" Provocative, light-hearted malice was in her sparkling face. She +was thinking to herself with the reckless bravado of youth, "Well, +since he insists, I'll _give_ him some ground for distrusting my +character!" + +Arnold suddenly emitted a great puff of smoke and a great shout of +"Help! help! Molly to the rescue!" and when a little white-clad +creature flitting past the door turned and brought into that quiet +spot of leafy shadow the dazzling quickness of her smile, her eyes, +her golden hair, he said to her nonchalantly: "Just in time to head +them off. Sylvia and your grandfather were being so high-brow I was +beginning to feel faint," + +Molly laughed flashingly. "Did Grandfather keep his end up? I bet he +couldn't!" + +Arnold professed an entire ignorance of the relative status. "Oh, I +fell off so far back I don't know who got in first. Who _was_ this man +Capua, anyhow? I'm a graduate of Harvard University and I never heard +of him." + +"I'm a graduate of Miss Braddon's Mountain School for Girls," said +Molly, "and _I_ think it's a river." + +Mr. Sommerville groaned out, exaggerating a real qualm, "What my +mother would have said to such ignorance, prefaced by 'I bet!' from +the lips of a young lady!" + +"Your mother," said Molly, "would be my great-grandmother!" She +disposed of him conclusively by this statement and went on: "And I'm +not a young lady. Nobody is nowadays." + +"What _are_ you, if a mere grandfather may venture to inquire?" asked +Mr. Sommerville deferentially. + +"I'm a _femme watt-man"_ said Molly, biting a large piece from a +sandwich. + +Arnold explained to the others: "That's Parisian for a lady +motor-driver; some name!" + +"Well, you won't be that, or anything else alive, if you go on driving +your car at the rate I saw it going past the house this morning," +said her grandfather. He spoke with an assumption of grandfatherly +severity, but his eyes rested on her with a grandfather's adoration. + +"Oh, I'd die if I went under thirty-five," observed Miss Sommerville +negligently. + +"Why, Mr. Sommerville," Arnold backed up his generation. "You can't +call thirty-five per hour dangerous, not for a girl who can drive like +Molly." + +"Oh, I'm as safe as if I were in a church," continued Molly. "I keep +my mind on it. If I ever climb a telegraph-pole you can be sure it'll +be because I wanted to. I never take my eye off the road, never once." + +"How you must enjoy the landscape," commented her grandfather. + +"Heavens! I don't drive a car to look at the landscape!" cried Molly, +highly amused at the idea, apparently quite new to her. + +"Will you gratify the curiosity of the older generation once more, and +tell me what you _do_ drive a car for?" inquired old Mr. Sommerville, +looking fondly at the girl's lovely face, like a pink-flushed pearl. + +"Why, I drive to see how fast I can go, of course," explained Molly. +"The fun of it is to watch the road eaten up." + +"It _is_ fascinating," Sylvia gave the other girl an unexpected +reinforcement. "I've driven with Molly, and I've been actually +hypnotized seeing the road vanish under the wheels." + +"Oh, children, children! When you reach my age," groaned Arnold, "and +have eaten up as many thousand miles as I, you'll stay at home." + +"I've driven for three years now," asserted Molly, "and every time I +buy a new car I get the craze all over again. This one I have now is +a peach of an eight. I never want to drive a six again,--never! I can +bring it up from a creep to--to fast enough to scare Grandfather into +a fit, without changing gears at all--just on the throttle--" She +broke off to ask, as at a sudden recollection, "What was it about +Capua, anyhow?" She went to sit beside Sylvia, and put her arm around +her shoulder in a caressing gesture, evidently familiar to her. + +"It wasn't about Capua at all," explained Sylvia indulgently, patting +the lovely cheek, as though the other girl had been a child. "It was +your grandfather finding out what a bad character I am, and how I +wallow in luxury, now I have the chance." + +"Luxury?" inquired Molly, looking about her rather blankly. + +Sylvia laughed, this time with a little veiled, pensive note of +melancholy, lost on the others but which she herself found very +touching. "There, you see you're so used to it, you don't even know +what I'm talking about!" + +"Never mind, Molly," Arnold reassured her. "Neither do I! Don't try to +follow; let it float by, the way I do!" + +Miss Sommerville did not smile. She thrust out her red lips in a +wistful pout, and looking down into the sugar-bowl intently, she +remarked, her voice as pensive as Sylvia's own: "I wish I _did_! I +wish I understood! I wish I were as clever as Sylvia!" + +As if in answer to this remark, another searcher after tea announced +himself from the door--a tall, distinguished, ugly, graceful man, +who took a very fine Panama hat from a very fine head of brown hair, +slightly graying, and said in a rich, cultivated voice: "Am I too late +for tea? I don't mind at all if it's strong." + +"Oh!" said Molly Sommerville, flushing and drawing away from Sylvia; +"_Lord_!" muttered Arnold under his breath; and "Not at all. I'll make +some fresh. I haven't had mine yet," said Sylvia, busying herself with +the alcohol flame. + +"How're you, Morrison?" said Mr. Sommerville with no enthusiasm, +holding out a well-kept old hand for the other to shake. + +Arnold stood up, reached under his chair, and pulled out a tennis +racquet. "Excuse me, Morrison, won't you, if I run along?" he said. +"It's not because you've come. I want a set of tennis before dinner +if I can find somebody to play with me. Here, Molly, you've got your +tennis shoes on already. Come along." + +The little beauty shook her head violently. "No ... goodness no! It's +too hot. And anyhow, I don't ever want to play again, since I've seen +Sylvia's game." She turned to the other girl, breathing quickly. +"_You_ go, Sylvia dear. _I'll_ make Mr. Morrison's tea for him." + +Sylvia hesitated a barely perceptible instant, until she saw old Mr. +Sommerville's eyes fixed speculatively on her. Then she stood up with +an instant, cheerful alacrity. "That's _awfully_ good of you, Molly +darling! _You_ won't mind, will you, Mr. Morrison!" She nodded +brightly to the old gentleman, to the girl who had slipped into her +place, to the other man, and was off. + +The man she had left looked after her, as she trod with her long, +light step beside the young man, and murmured, "_Et vera incessu +patuit dea._" + +Molly moved a plate on the table with some vehemence. "I suppose +Sylvia would understand that language." + +"She would, my dear Molly, and what's more, she would scorn me for +using such a hackneyed quotation." To Mr. Sommerville he added, +laughing, "Isn't it the quaintest combination--such radiant girlhood +and her absurd book-learning!" + +Mr. Sommerville gave his assent to the quaintness by silence, as he +rose and prepared to retreat. + +"_Good_-bye, Grandfather," said Molly with enthusiasm. + + * * * * * + +As they walked along, Arnold was saying to Sylvia with a listless +appreciation: "You certainly know the last word of the game, don't +you, Sylvia? I bet Morrison hasn't had a jolt like that for years." + +"What are you _talking_ about?" asked Sylvia, perhaps slightly +overdoing her ignorance of his meaning. + +"Why, it's a new thing for _him_, let me tell you, to have a girl jump +up as soon as he comes in and delightedly leave him to another girl. +And then to thank the other girl for being willing to take him off +your hands,--that's more than knowing the rules,--that's art!" He +laughed faintly at the recollection. "It's a new one for Morrison to +meet a girl who doesn't kowtow. He's a very great personage in +his line, and he can't help knowing it. The very last word on +Lord-knows-what-all in the art business is what one Felix Morrison +says about it. He's an eight-cylinder fascinator too, into the +bargain. Mostly he makes me sore, but when I think about him straight, +I wonder how he manages to keep on being as decent as he is--he's +really a good enough sort!--with all the high-powered petticoats in +New York burning incense. It's enough to turn the head of a hydrant. +That's the hold Madrina has on him. She doesn't burn any incense. She +wants all the incense there is being burned, for herself; and it keeps +old Felix down in his place--keeps him hanging around too. You stick +to the same method if you want to make a go of it." + +"I thought he wrote. I thought he did aesthetic criticisms and +essays," said Sylvia, laughing aloud at Arnold's quaint advice. + +"Oh, he does. I guess he's chief medicine-man in his tribe all right. +It's not only women who kowtow; when old man Merriman wants to know +for sure whether to pay a million for a cracked Chinese vase, he +always calls in Felix Morrison. Chief adviser to the predatory rich, +that's one of his jobs! So you see," he came back to his first point, +"it must be some jolt for the sacred F.M. to have a young lady, _just +a young lady_, refuse to bow at the shrine. You couldn't have done a +smarter trick, by heck! I've been watching you all those weeks, just +too tickled for words. And I've been watching Morrison. It's been as +good as a play! He can't stick it out much longer, unless I miss my +guess, and I've known him ever since I was a kid. He's just waiting +for a good chance to turn on the faucet and hand you a full cup of his +irresistible fascination." He added carelessly, bouncing a ball up and +down on the tense catgut of his racquet: "What all you girls see in +that old wolf-hound, to lose your heads over! It gets me!" + +"Why in the world 'wolf-hound'?" asked Sylvia. + +"Oh, just as to his looks. He has that sort of tired, dignified, +deep-eyed look a big dog has. I bet his eyes would be phosphorescent +at night too. They are that kind; don't you know, when you strike a +match in the evening, how a dog's eyes glow? It's what makes 'em look +so soft and deep in the daytime. But as to his innards--no, Lord +no! Whatever else Morrison is he's not a bit like any dog that ever +lived--first cousin to a fish, I should say." + +Sylvia laughed. "Why not make it grizzly bear, to take in the rest of +the animal kingdom?" + +"No," persisted Arnold. "Now I've thought of it, I _mean_ fish, a +great big, wise old fellow, who lives in a deep pool and won't rise to +any ordinary fly." He made a brain-jolting change of metaphor and went +on: "The plain truth, and it's not so low-down as it seems, is that a +big fat check-book is admission to the grandstand with Felix. It _has_ +to be that way! He hasn't got much of his own, and his tastes are +some--" + +"Molly must be sitting in the front row, then," commented Sylvia +indifferently, as though tired of the subject. They were now at the +tennis-court. "Run over to the summer-house and get my racquet, will +you? It's on the bench." + +"Yes, Molly's got plenty of _money_," Arnold admitted as he came +back, his accent implying some other lack which he forgot to mention, +absorbed as he at once became in coping with his adversary's strong, +swift serve. + +The change in him, as he began seriously to play, was startling, +miraculous. His slack loose-jointedness stiffened into quick, +flexible accuracy, his lounging, flaccid air disappeared in a glow +of concentrated vigorous effort. The bored good-nature in his eyes +vanished, burned out by a stern, purposeful intensity. He was +literally and visibly another person. Sylvia played her best, which +was excellent, far better than that of any other girl in the summer +colony. She had been well trained by her father and her gymnasium +instructor, and played with an economy of effort delightful to see; +but she was soon driven by her opponent's tiger-like quickness into +putting out at once her every resource. There, in the slowly fading +light of the long mountain afternoon, the two young Anglo-Saxons +poured out their souls in a game with the immemorial instinct of their +race, fierce, grim, intent, every capacity of body and will-power +brought into play, everything else in the world forgotten.... + +For some time they were on almost equal terms, and then Sylvia became +aware that her adversary was getting the upper hand of her. She had, +however, no idea what the effort was costing him, until after a +blazing fire of impossibly rapid volleys under which she went down +to defeat, she stopped, called out, "Game _and_ set!" and added in a +generous tribute, "Say, you can _play_!" Then she saw that his face +was almost purple, his eyes bloodshot, and his breath came in short, +gasping pants. "Good gracious, what's the matter!" she cried, running +towards him in alarm. She was deeply flushed herself, but her eyes +were as clear as clear water, and she ran with her usual fawn-like +swiftness. Arnold dropped on the bench, waving her a speechless +reassurance. With his first breath he said, "Gee! but you can hit it +up, for a girl!" + +"What's the _matter_ with you?" Sylvia asked again, sitting down +beside him. + +"Nothing! Nothing!" he panted. "My wind! It's confoundedly short." +He added a moment later, "It's tobacco--this is the sort of time the +cigarettes get back at you, you know!" The twilight dropped slowly +about them like a thin, clear veil. He thrust out his feet, shapely in +their well-made white shoes, surveyed them with dissatisfaction, and +added with moody indifference: "And cocktails too. They play the +dickens with a fellow's wind." + +Sylvia said nothing for a moment, looking at him by no means +admiringly. Her life in the State University had brought her into such +incessant contact with young men that the mere fact of sitting +beside one in the twilight left her unmoved to a degree which Mr. +Sommerville's mother would have found impossible to imagine. When she +spoke, it was with an impatient scorn of his weakness, which might +have been felt by a fellow-athlete: "What in the world makes you do +it, then?" + +"Why not?" he said challengingly. + +"You've just said why not--it spoils your tennis. It must spoil your +polo. Was that what spoiled your baseball in college? You'd be twice +the man if you wouldn't." + +"Oh, what's the use?" he said, an immense weariness in his voice. + +"What's the use of anything, if you are going to use _that_ argument?" +said Sylvia, putting him down conclusively. + +He spoke with a sudden heartfelt simplicity, "Damn 'f I _know_, +Sylvia." For the first time in all the afternoon, his voice lost its +tonelessness, and rang out with the resonance of sincerity. + +She showed an unflattering surprise. "Why, I didn't know you ever +thought about such things." + +He looked at her askance, dimly amused. "High opinion you have of me!" + +She looked annoyed at herself and said with a genuine good-will in her +voice, "Why, Arnold, you _know_ I've always liked you." + +"You like me, but you don't think much of me," he diagnosed her, "and +you show your good sense." He looked up at the picturesque white +house, spreading its well-proportioned bulk on the top of the terraced +hillside before them. "I hope Madrina is looking out of a window and +sees us here, our heads together in the twilight. You've guessed, I +suppose, that she had you come on here for my benefit. She thinks +she's tried everything else,--now it's her idea to get me safely +married. She'd have one surprise, wouldn't she, if she could hear what +we're saying!" + +"Well, it _would_ be a good thing for you," remarked Sylvia, as +entirely without self-consciousness as though they were discussing the +tennis game. + +He was tickled by her coolness. "Well, Madrina sure made a mistake +when she figured on _you_!" he commented ironically. And then, not +having been subjected to the cool, hardy conditions which caused +Sylvia's present clear-headedness, he felt his blood stirred to feel +her there, so close, so alive, so young, so beautiful in the twilight. +He leaned towards her and spoke in a husky voice, "See here, Sylvia, +why _don't_ you try it!" + +"Oh, nonsense!" said the girl, not raising her voice at all, not +stirring. "You don't care a bit for me." + +"Yes, I do! I've _always_ liked you!" he said, not perceiving till +after the words were out of his mouth that he had repeated her own +phrase. + +She laughed to hear it, and he drew back, his faint stirring of warmth +dashed, extinguished. "The fact is, Sylvia," he said, "you're too nice +a girl to fall in love with." + +"What a horrid thing to say!" she exclaimed. + +"About _you_?" he defended himself. "I mean it as a compliment." + +"About falling in love," she said. + +"Oh!" he said blankly, evidently not at all following her meaning. + +"What time is it?" she now inquired, and on hearing the hour, "Oh, +we'll be late to dress for dinner," she said in concern, rising and +ascending the marble steps to the terrace next above them. + +He came after her, long, loose-jointed, ungraceful. He was laughing. +"Do you realize that I've proposed marriage to you and you've turned +me down?" he said. + +"No such a thing!" she said, as lightly as he. + +"It's the nearest _I_ ever came to it!" he averred. + +She continued to flit up the terraces before him, her voice rippling +with amusement dropping down on him through the dusk. "Well, you'll +have to come nearer than that, if you ever want to make a go of +it!" she called over her shoulder. Upon which note this very modern +conversation ended. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +MORE TALK BETWEEN YOUNG MODERNS + + +When they met at dinner, they laughed outright at the sight of one +another, a merry and shadowless laugh. For an instant they looked like +light-hearted children. The change of Arnold's long sallow face was +indeed so noticeable that Mrs. Marshall-Smith glanced sharply at him, +and then looked again with great satisfaction. She leaned to Sylvia +and laid her charming white hand affectionately over the girl's slim, +strong, tanned fingers. "It's just a joy to have you here, my dear. +You're brightening us stupid, bored people like fresh west wind!" She +went on addressing herself to the usual guest of the evening: "Isn't +it always the most beautiful sight, Felix, how the mere presence of +radiant youth can transform the whole atmosphere of life!" + +"I hadn't noticed that my radiant youth had transformed much," +commented Arnold dryly; "and Sylvia's only a year younger than I." + +He was, as usual, disregarded by the course of the conversation. "Yes, +sunshine in a shady place ..." quoted Morrison, in his fine mellow +tenor, looking at Sylvia. It was a wonderful voice, used with +discretion, with a fine instinct for moderation which would have kept +the haunting beauty of its intonations from seeming objectionable or +florid to any but American ears. In spite of the invariable good taste +with which it was used, American men, accustomed to the toneless +speech of the race, and jealously suspicious of anything approaching +art in everyday life, distrusted Morrison at the first sound of his +voice. Men who were his friends (and they were many) were in the habit +of rather apologizing for those rich and harmonious accents. The first +time she had heard it, Sylvia had thought of the G string of old +Reinhardt's violin. + +"I never in my life saw anything that looked less like a shady place," +observed Sylvia, indicating with an admiring gesture the table before +them, gleaming and flashing its glass and silver and close-textured, +glossy damask up into the light. + +"It's _morally_ that we're so shady!" said Arnold, admiring his own +wit so much that he could not refrain from adding, "Not so bad, what?" +The usual conversation at his stepmother's table was, as he would have +said, so pestilentially high-brow that he seldom troubled himself +to follow it enough to join in. Arnold was in the habit of dubbing +"high-brow" anything bearing on aesthetics; and Mrs. Marshall-Smith's +conversational range hardly extending at all outside of aesthetics of +one kind or another, communication between these two house-mates +of years' standing was for the most part reduced to a primitive +simplicity for which a sign-language would have sufficed. Arnold's +phrase for the situation was, "I let Madrina alone, and she don't +bother me." But now, seeing that neither the façade of Rouen, nor the +influence of Chardin on Whistler, had been mentioned, his unusual +loquacity continued. "Well, if one west wind (I don't mean that as a +slam on Sylvia for coming from west of the Mississippi) has done us so +much good, why not have another?" he inquired. "Why couldn't Judith +come on and make us a visit too? It would be fun to have a scrap with +her again." He explained to Morrison: "She's Sylvia's younger sister, +and we always quarreled so, as kids, that after we'd been together +half an hour the referee had to shoulder in between and tell us, 'Nix +on biting in clinches.' She was great, all right, Judith was! How _is_ +she now?" he asked Sylvia. "I've been meaning ever so many times to +ask you about her, and something else has seemed to come up. I can't +imagine Judy grown up. She hasn't pinned up that great long braid, has +she, that used to be so handy to pull?" + +Sylvia took the last of her soup, put the spoon on the plate, and +launched into a description of Judith, one of her favorite topics. +"Oh, Judith's just _fine_! You ought to see her! She's worth ten +of me: she has such lots of character! And handsome! You never saw +anything like Judith's looks. Yes, she's put her hair up! She's twenty +years old now, what do you _suppose_ she does with her hair? She wears +it in a great smooth braid all around her head. And she has _such_ +hair, Aunt Victoria!" She turned from Arnold to another woman, as from +some one who would know nothing of the fine shades of the subject. "No +short hairs at all, you know, like everybody else, that _will_ hang +down and look untidy!" She pulled with an explanatory petulance at the +soft curls which framed her own face in an aureole of light. "Hers is +all long and smooth, and the color like a fresh chestnut, just out +of the burr; and her nose is like a Greek statue--she _is_ a Greek +statue!" + +She had been carried by her affectionate enthusiasm out of her usual +self-possession, her quick divination of how she was affecting +everybody, and now, suddenly finding Morrison's eyes on her with an +expression she did not recognize, she was brought up short. What had +she said to make him look at her so oddly? + +He answered her unspoken question at once, his voice making his every +casual word of gold: "I am thinking that I am being present at a +spectacle which cynics say is impossible, the spectacle of a woman +delighting--and with the most obvious sincerity--in the beauty of +another." + +"Oh!" said Sylvia, relieved to know that the odd look concealed no +criticism, "I didn't know that anybody nowadays made such silly +Victorian generalizations about woman's cattiness,--anybody under old +Mr. Sommerville's age, that is. And anyhow, Judith's my _sister_." + +"Cases of sisters, jealous of each other's good looks, have not been +entirely unknown to history," said Morrison, smiling and beginning to +eat his fish with a delicate relish. + +"Well, if Judy's so all-fired good-looking, let's _have_ her come +on, Madrina," said Arnold. "With her and Sylvia together, we'd crush +Lydford into a pulp." He attacked his plate with a straggling fork, +eating negligently, as he did everything else. + +"She has a standing invitation, of course," said Mrs. Marshall-Smith. +"Indeed, I wrote the other day, asking her if she could come here +instead of to La Chance for her vacation. It's far nearer for her." + +"Oh, Judith couldn't waste time to go visiting," said Sylvia. "I've +told you she is worth ten of me. She's on the home-stretch of her +trained-nurse's course now. She has only two weeks' vacation." + +"She's going to be a trained nurse?" asked Arnold in surprise, washing +down a large mouthful of fish with a large mouthful of wine. "What the +dickens does she do that for?" + +"Why, she's crazy about it,--ever since she was a little girl, +fifteen years old and first saw the inside of a hospital. That's just +Judith,--so splendid and purposeful, and single-minded. I wish to +goodness _I_ knew what I want to do with myself half so clearly as she +always has." + +If she had, deep under her consciousness, a purpose to win more +applause from Morrison, by more disinterested admiration of Judith's +good points, she was quite rewarded by the quickness with which he +championed her against her own depreciation. "I've always noticed," +he said meditatively, slowly taking a sip from his wine-glass, "that +nobody can be single-minded who isn't narrow-minded; and I think it +likely that people who aren't so cocksure what they want to do with +themselves, hesitate because they have a great deal more to do _with_. +A nature rich in fine and complex possibilities takes more time +to dispose of itself, but when it does, the world's beauty is the +gainer." He pointed the reference frankly by a smile at Sylvia, who +flushed with pleasure and looked down at her plate. She was surprised +at the delight which his leisurely, whimsically philosophical little +speech gave her. She forgot to make any answer, absorbed as she was +in poring over it and making out new meanings in it. How he had +understood at less than a word the secret uncertainty of herself which +so troubled her; and with what astonishing sureness he had known what +to say to reassure her, to make her see clear! And then, her quick +mind leaped to another significance.... All during these past weeks +when she had been falling more and more under the fascination of his +personality, when she had been piqued at his disregard of her, when +she had thought he found her "young," and had bracketed her carelessly +with Arnold, he had been in reality watching her, he had found her +interesting enough to observe her, to study her, to have a theory +about her character; and having done all that, to admire her as she +admired him. Never in her life had she been the recipient of flattery +so precisely to her taste. Her glow of pleasure was so warm that she +suddenly distrusted her own judgment, she looked up at him quickly to +see if she had not mistaken his meaning, had not absurdly exaggerated +the degree to which he ... she found his eyes on hers, deep-set, +shadowy eyes which did not, as she looked up, either smile or look +away. Under cover of a rather wrangling discussion between Arnold +and his stepmother as to having some champagne served, the older man +continued to look steadily into Sylvia's eyes, with the effect of +saying to her, gravely, kindly, intimately: "Yes, I am here. You did +not know how closely you have drawn me to you, but here I am." Across +the table, across the lights, the service, the idle talk of the other +two, she felt him quietly, ever so gently but quite irresistibly, open +an inner door of her nature ... and she welcomed him in. + + * * * * * + +After dinner, when Mrs. Marshall-Smith lifted her eyebrows at Sylvia +and rose to go, Arnold made no bones of his horror at the prospect of +a tęte-ŕ-tęte with the distinguished critic. "Oh, I'm going in with +you girls!" he said, jumping up with his usual sprawling uncertainty +of action. He reserved for athletic sports all his capacity for +physical accuracy. "Morrison and I bore each other more than's legal!" + +"I may bore _you_, my dear Arnold," said the other, rising, "but you +never bored me in your life, and I've known you from childhood." + +To which entirely benevolent speech, Arnold returned nothing but +the uneasy shrug and resentful look of one baffled by a hostile +demonstration too subtle for his powers of self-defense. He picked up +the chair he had thrown over, and waited sulkily till the others were +in the high-ceilinged living-room before he joined them. Then when +Morrison, in answer to a request from his hostess and old friend, sat +down to the piano and began to play a piece of modern, plaintive, very +wandering and chromatic music, the younger man drew Sylvia out on the +wide, moon-lighted veranda. + +"Morrison is the very devil for making you want to punch his head, and +yet not giving you a decent excuse. I declare, Sylvia, I don't know +but that what I like best of all about you is the way you steer clear +of him. He's opening up on you too. Maybe you didn't happen to notice +... at the dinner-table? It wasn't much, but I spotted it for a +beginning. I know old Felix, a few." Sylvia felt uneasy at the +recurrence of this topic, and cast about for something to turn the +conversation. "Oh, Arnold," she began, rather at random, "whatever +became of Professor Saunders? I've thought about him several times +since I've been here, but I've forgotten to ask you or Tantine. He was +my little-girl admiration, you know." + +Arnold smoked for a moment before answering. Then, "Well, I wouldn't +ask Madrina about him, if I were you. He's not one of her successes. +He wouldn't stay put." + +Sylvia scented something uncomfortable, and regretted having +introduced the subject. + +Arnold added thoughtfully, looking hard at the ash of his cigarette, +"I guess Madrina was pretty bad medicine for Saunders, all right." + +Sylvia shivered a little and drew back, but she instantly put the +matter out of her mind with a trained and definite action of her will. +It was probably "horrid"; nothing could be done about it now; what +else could they talk about that would be cheerful? This was a +thought-sequence very familiar to Sylvia, through which she passed +with rapid ease. + +Arnold made a fresh start by offering her his cigarette-box. "Have +one," he invited her, sociably. + +She shook her head. + +"Oh, all the girls do," he urged her. + +Sylvia laughed. "I may be a fresh breeze from beyond the Mississippi, +but I'm not so fresh as to think it's wicked for a girl to smoke. In +fact I like to, myself, but I can't stand the dirty taste in my mouth +the next morning. Smoking's not worth it." + +"_Well_ ..." commented Arnold. Apparently he found something very +surprising in this speech. His surprise spread visibly from the +particular to the general, like the rings widening from a thrown +pebble, and he finally broke out: "You certainly do beat the band, +Sylvia. You get _me_! You're a sample off a piece of goods that I +never saw before!" + +"What now?" asked Sylvia, amused. + +"Why, for instance,--that reason for your not smoking. That's not a +girl's reason. That's a man's ... a man who's tried it!" + +"No, it isn't!" she said, the flicker of amusement still on her lips. +"A man wouldn't have sense enough to know that smoking isn't worth +waking up with your mouth full of rancid fur." + +"Oh gosh!" cried Arnold, tickled by the metaphor: "rancid fur!" + +"The point about me, why I seem so queer to you," explained Sylvia, +brightening, "is that I'm a State University girl. I'm used to you. +I've seen hundreds of you! The fact that you wear trousers and have +to shave and wear your hair cut short, and smell of tobacco, doesn't +thrill me for a cent. I know that I could run circles around you if it +came to a problem in calculus, not that I want to brag." + +Arnold did not seem as much amused as she thought he would be. He +smoked in a long, meditative silence, and when he spoke again it was +with an unusual seriousness. "It's not what _you_ feel or don't feel +about me ... it's what _I_ feel and don't feel about you, that gets +me," he explained, not very lucidly. "I mean liking you so, without +... I never felt so about a girl. I like it.... I don't make it +out...." He looked at her with sincerely puzzled eyes. + +She answered him as seriously. "I think," she said, speaking a little +slowly, "I think the two go together, don't they?" + +"How do you mean?" he asked. + +"Why--it's hard to say--" she hesitated, but evidently not at all in +embarrassment, looking at him with serious eyes, limpid and unafraid. +"I've been with boys and men a lot, of course, in my classes and in +the laboratories and everywhere, and I've found out that in most cases +if the men and the girls really, really in their own hearts don't want +to hurt each other, don't want to get something out of the other, but +just want to be friends--why, they _can_ be! Psychologists and all +the big-wigs say they can't be, I know--but, believe me!--I've tried +it--and it's awfully nice, and it's a shame that everybody shouldn't +know that lots of the time you _can_ do it--in spite of the folks who +write the books! Maybe it wasn't so when the books were written, maybe +it's only going to be so, later, if we all are as square as we can be +now. But as a plain matter of fact, in one girl's experience, it's +so, _now_! Of course," she modified by a sweeping qualification the +audacity of her naďvely phrased, rashly innocent guess at a new +possibility for humanity, "of course if the man's a _decent_ man." + +Arnold had not taken his gaze for an instant from her gravely +thoughtful eyes. He was quite pale. He looked astonishingly moved, +startled, arrested. When she stopped, he said, almost at once, in +a very queer voice as though it were forced out of him, "I'm not a +decent man." + +And then, quite as though he could endure no longer her clear, steady +gaze, he covered his eyes with his hand. An instant later he had +sprung up and walked rapidly away out to the low marble parapet which +topped the terrace. His gesture, his action had been so eloquent of +surprised, intolerable pain, that Sylvia ran after him, all one quick +impulse to console. "Yes, you are, Arnold; yes, you are!" she said in +a low, energetic tone, "you _are_!" + +He made a quavering attempt to be whimsical. "I'd like to know what +_you_ know about it!" he said. + +"I know! I _know_!" she simply repeated. + +He faced her in an exasperated shame. "Why, a girl like you can no +more know what's done by a man like me ..." his lips twitched in a +moral nausea. + +"Oh ... what you've _done_ ..." said Sylvia ... "it's what you are!" + +"What I _am_," repeated Arnold bitterly. "If I were worth my salt I'd +hang myself before morning!" The heartsick excitement of a man on the +crest of some moral crisis looked out luridly from his eyes. + +Sylvia rose desperately to meet that crisis. "Look here, Arnold. I'm +going to tell you something I've never spoken of to anybody ... not +even Mother ... and I'm going to do it, so you'll _believe_ me when I +say you're worth living. When I was eighteen years old I was a horrid, +selfish, self-willed child. I suppose everybody's so at eighteen. I +was just crazy for money and fine dresses and things like that, that +we'd never had at home; and a man with a lot of money fell in love +with me. It was my fault. I made him, though I didn't know then what I +was doing, or at least I wouldn't let myself think what I was doing. +And I got engaged to him. I got engaged at half-past four in the +afternoon, and at seven o'clock that evening I was running away from +him, and I've never seen him since." Her voice went on steadily, but +a quick hot wave of scarlet flamed up over her face. "He was not a +decent man," she said briefly, and went on: "It frightened me almost +to death before I got my bearings: I was just a little girl and I +hadn't understood anything--and I don't _understand_ much now. But I +did learn one thing from all that--I learned to know when a man isn't +decent. I can't tell you how I know--it's all over him--it's all over +me--it's his eyes, the way he stands, the expression of his mouth--I +don't only see it--I feel it--I feel it the way a thermometer feels +it when you put a match under the bulb ... I _know_!" She brought her +extravagant, her preposterous, her ignorant, her incredibly convincing +claims to an abrupt end. + +"And you 'feel' that I ..." began Arnold, and could not go on. + +"I'd like you for my brother," she said gently. + +He tried to laugh at her, but the honest tears were in his eyes. +"You don't know what you're talking about, you silly dear," he said +unsteadily, "but I'm awfully glad you came to Lydford." + +With her instinct for avoiding breaks, rough places, Sylvia quickly +glided into a transition from this speech back into less personal +talk. "Another queer thing about that experience I've never +understood:--it cured me of being so crazy about clothes. You wouldn't +think it would have anything to do with _that_, would you? And I don't +see how it did. Oh, I don't mean I don't dearly love pretty dresses +now. I _do_. And I spend altogether too much time thinking about +them--but it's not the same. Somehow the poison is out. I used to be +like a drunkard who can't get a drink, when I saw girls have things +I didn't. I suppose," she speculated philosophically, "I suppose any +great jolt that shakes you up a lot, shakes things into different +proportions." + +"Say, that fellow must have been just about the limit!" Arnold's +rather torpid imagination suddenly opened to the story he had heard. + +"No, no!" said Sylvia. "As I look back on it, I make a lot more sense +out of it" (she might have been, by her accent, fifty instead of +twenty-three), "and I can see that he wasn't nearly as bad as I +thought him. When I said he wasn't decent, I meant that he belonged in +the Stone Age, and I'm twentieth-century. We didn't fit together. I +suppose that's what we all mean when we say somebody isn't decent ... +that he's stayed behind in the procession. I don't mean that man was +a degenerate or anything like that ... if he could have found a Stone +Age woman he'd have ... they'd have made a good Stone Age marriage of +it. But he _didn't_, the girl he...." + +"Do you know, Sylvia," Arnold broke in wonderingly, "I never before in +all my life had anybody speak to me of anything that really mattered. +And I never spoke this way myself. I've wanted to, lots of times; but +I didn't know people ever did. And to think of its being a girl who +does it for me, a girl who...." His astonishment was immense. + +"Look here, Arnold," said Sylvia, with a good-natured peremptoriness. +"Let a girl be something besides a girl, can't you!" + +But her attempt to change the tone to a light one failed. Apparently, +now that Arnold had broken his long silence, he could not stop +himself. He turned towards her with a passionate gesture of +bewilderment and cried: "Do you remember, before dinner, you asked +me as a joke what was the use of anything, and I said I didn't know? +Well, I _don't!_ I've been getting sicker and sicker over everything. +What the devil _am_ I here for, anyhow!" + +As he spoke, a girl's figure stepped from the house to the veranda, +from the veranda to the turf of the terrace, and walked towards them. +She was tall, and strongly, beautifully built; around her small head +was bound a smooth braid of dark hair. She walked with a long, free +step and held her head high. As she came towards them, the moonlight +full on her dark, proud, perfect face, she might have been the +youthful Diana. + +But it was no antique spirit which looked out of those frank, fearless +eyes, and it was a very modern and colloquially American greeting +which she now gave to the astonished young people. "Well, Sylvia, +don't you know your own sister?" and "Hello there, Arnold." + +"Why, Judith _Marshall_!" cried Sylvia, falling upon her breathlessly. +"However in the world did you get _here_!" + +Arnold said nothing. He had fallen back a step and now looked at the +new-comer with a fixed, dazzled gaze. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +ANOTHER BRAND OF MODERN TALK + + +"Where's Judith?" said Arnold for sole greeting, as he saw Morrison at +the piano and Sylvia sitting near it, cool and clear in a lacy white +dress. Morrison lifted long fingers from the keys and said gravely, +"She came through a moment ago, saying, '_Where's_ Arnold?' and went +out through that door." His fingers dropped and Chopin's voice once +more rose plaintively. + +The sound of Arnold's precipitate rush across the room and out of the +door was followed by a tinkle of laughter from Sylvia. Morrison looked +around at her over his shoulder, with a flashing smile of mutual +understanding, but he finished the prelude before he spoke. Then, +without turning around, as he pulled out another sheet from the music +heaped on the piano, he remarked: "If that French philosopher was +right when he said no disease is as contagious as love-making, we may +expect soon to find the very chairs and tables in this house clasped +in each other's arms. Old as I am, I feel it going to my head, like a +bed of full-blooming valerian." + +Sylvia made no answer. She felt herself flushing, and could not trust +her voice to be casual. He continued for a moment to thumb over the +music aimlessly, as though waiting for her to speak. + +The beautiful room, darkened against the midsummer heat, shimmered +dimly in a transparent half-light, the vivid life of its bright +chintz, its occasional brass, its clean, daring spots of crimson and +purple flowers, subdued into a fabulous, half-seen richness. There was +not a sound. The splendid heat of the early August afternoon flamed, +and paused, and held its breath. + +Into this silence, like a bird murmuring a drowsy note over a still +pool, there floated the beginning of _Am Meer_. Sylvia sat, passive +to her finger-tips, a vase filled to the brim with melody. She stared +with unseeing eyes at the back of the man at the piano. She was not +thinking of him, she was not aware that she was conscious of him at +all; but hours afterward wherever she looked, she saw for an instant +again in miniature the slender, vigorous, swaying figure; the thick +brown hair, streaked with white and curling slightly at the ends; the +brooding head.... + +When the last note was still, the man stood up and moved away from the +piano. He dropped into an arm-chair near Sylvia, and leaning his +fine, ugly head back against the brilliant chintz, he looked at her +meditatively. His great bodily suavity gave his every action a curious +significance and grace. Sylvia, still under the spell of his singing, +did not stir, returning his look out of wide, dreaming eyes. + +When he spoke, his voice blended with the silence almost as +harmoniously as the music.... "Do you know what I wish you would +do, Miss Sylvia Marshall? I wish you would tell me something about +yourself. Now that I'm no longer forbidden to look at you, or think +about you...." + +"Forbidden?" asked Sylvia, very much astonished. + +"There!" he said, wilfully mistaking her meaning, and smiling faintly, +"I am such an old gentleman that I'm perfectly negligible to a young +lady. She doesn't even notice or not whether I look at her, and think +about her." + +A few years before this Sylvia would have burst out impetuously, "Oh +yes, I have! I've wondered awfully what made you so indifferent," but +now she kept this reflection to herself and merely said, "What in the +world did you fancy was 'forbidding' you?" + +"Honor!" said Morrison, with a note of mock solemnity. "_Honor!_ +Victoria was so evidently snatching at you as a last hope for Arnold. +She gave me to understand that everybody else but Arnold was to be +strictly non-existent. But now that Arnold has found a character +beautifully and archaically simple to match his own primitive needs, I +don't see why I shouldn't enjoy a little civilized talk with you. In +any case, it was absurd to think of _you_ for Arnold. It merely shows +how driven poor Victoria was!" + +Sylvia tried to speak lightly, although she was penetrated with +pleasure at this explanation of his holding aloof. "Oh, _I_ like +Arnold very much. I always have. There's something ... something sort +of _touching_ about Arnold, don't you think? Though I must say that +I've heard enough about the difference between training quail dogs +and partridge dogs to last me the rest of my life. But that's rather +touching too, his not knowing what to do with himself but fiddle +around with his guns and tennis-racquets. They're all he has to keep +him from being bored to death, and they don't go nearly far enough. +Some day he will just drop dead from ennui, poor Arnold! Wouldn't he +have enjoyed being a civil engineer, and laying out railroads in wild +country! He'd have been a good one too! The same amount of energy +he puts into his polo playing would make him fight his way through +darkest Thibet." She meditated over this hypothesis for a moment and +then added with a nod of her head, "Oh yes, I like Arnold ever so much +... one kind of 'liking.'" + +"Of course you like him," assented the older man, who had been +watching her as she talked, and whose manner now, as he took up the +word himself, resembled that of an exquisitely adroit angler, casting +out the lightest, the most feathery, the most perfectly controlled of +dry-flies. "You're too intelligent not to like everybody who's not +base--and Arnold's not base. And he 'likes' you. If you had cared to +waste one of your red-brown tresses on him, you could have drawn him +by a single hair. But then, everybody 'likes' you." + +"Old Mr. Sommerville doesn't!" said Sylvia, on an impulse. + +Morrison looked at her admiringly, and put the tips of his fingers +together with exquisite precision. "So you add second sight to your +other accomplishments! How in the world could a girl of your age have +the experience and intuition to feel that? Old Sommerville passes for +a great admirer of yours. You won't, I hope, go so uncannily far in +your omniscience as to pretend to know _why_ he doesn't like you?" + +"No, I won't," said Sylvia, "because I haven't the very faintest idea. +Have you?" + +"I know exactly why. It's connected with one of the old gentleman's +eccentricities. He's afraid of you on account of his precious nephew." + +"I didn't know he _had_ a nephew." Sylvia was immensely astonished. + +"Well, he has, and he bows down and worships him, as he does his +granddaughter. You see how he adores Molly. It's nice of the old +fellow, the cult he has for his descendants, but occasionally +inconvenient for innocent bystanders. He thinks everybody wants to +make off with his young folks. You and I are fellow-suspects. Haven't +you felt him wish he could strike me dead, when Molly makes tea for +me, or turns over music as I play?" He laughed a little, a gentle, +kind, indulgent laugh. "_Molly!_" he said, as if his point were more +than elucidated by the mere mention of her name. + +Sylvia intimated with a laugh that her point was clearer yet in that +she had no name to mention. "But I never saw his nephew. I never even +heard of him until this minute." + +"No, and very probably never will see him. He's very seldom here. And +if you did see him, you wouldn't like him--he's an eccentric of the +worst brand," said Morrison tranquilly. "But monomanias need no +foundation in fact--" He broke off abruptly to say: "Is this all +another proof of your diabolical cleverness? I started in to hear +something about yourself, and here I find myself talking about +everything else in the world." + +"I'm not clever," said Sylvia, hoping to be contradicted. + +"Well, you're a great deal too nice to be _consciously_ so," admitted +Morrison. "See here," he went on, "it's evident that you're more +than a match for me at this game. Suppose we strike a bargain. You +introduce yourself to me and I'll do the same by you. Isn't it quite +the most fantastic of all the bizarreries of human intercourse that +an 'introduction' to a fellow-being consists in being informed of his +name,--quite the most unimportant, fortuitous thing about him?" + +Sylvia considered. "What do you want to know?" she asked finally. + +"Well, I'd _like_ to know everything," said the man gaily. "My +curiosity has been aroused to an almost unappeasable pitch. But of +course I'll take any information you feel like doling out. In the +first place, _how_, coming from such a ..." He checked himself and +changed the form of his question: "I overheard you speaking to +Victoria's maid, and I've been lying awake nights ever since, +wondering how it happened that you speak French with so pure an +accent." + +"Oh, that's simple! Professor and Madame La Rue are old friends of the +family and I've spent a lot of time with them. And then, of course, +French is another mother-language for Father. He and Aunt Victoria +were brought up in Paris, you know." + +Morrison sighed. "Isn't it strange how all the miracles evaporate into +mere chemical reactions when you once investigate! All the white-clad, +ghostly spirits turn out to be clothes on the line. I suppose there's +some equally natural explanation about your way on the piano--the +clear, limpid phrasing of that Bach the other day, and then the color +of the Bizet afterwards. It's astonishing to hear anybody of your +crude youth playing Bach at all--and then to hear it played right--and +afterwards to hear a modern given _his_ right note...." + +Sylvia was perfectly aware that she was being flattered, and she was +immensely enjoying it. She became more animated, and the peculiar +sparkle of her face more spirited. "Oh, that's old Reinhardt, my music +teacher. He would take all the skin off my knuckles if I played a Bach +gigue the least bit like that Arlésienne Minuet. He doesn't approve of +Bizet very much, anyhow. He's a tremendous classicist." + +"Isn't it," inquired Morrison, phrasing his question carefully, +"isn't it, with no disrespect to La Chance intended, isn't it rather +unusually good fortune for a smallish Western city to own a real +musician?" + +"Well, La Chance bears up bravely under its good fortune," said Sylvia +dryly. "Old Mr. Reinhardt isn't exactly a prime favorite there. He's a +terribly beery old man, and he wipes his nose on his sleeve. Our house +was the only respectable one in town that he could go into. But then, +our house isn't so very respectable. It has its advantages, not being +so very respectable, though it 'most killed me as a young girl to feel +us so. But I certainly have a choice gallery of queer folks in my +acquaintance, and I have the queerest hodge-podge of scraps of things +learned from them. I know a little Swedish from Miss Lindström. She's +a Swedish old maid who does uplift work among the negroes--isn't that +a weird combination? You just ought to hear what she makes of negro +dialect! And I know all the socialist arguments from hearing a +socialist editor get them off every Sunday afternoon. And I even +know how to manage planchette and write mediumistically--save the +mark!--from Cousin Parnelia, a crazy old cousin of Mother's who hangs +round the house more or less." + +"I begin to gather," surmised Morrison, "that you must have a +remarkable father and mother. What are _they_ like?" + +"Well," said Sylvia thoughtfully, "Mother's the bravest thing you +ever saw. She's not afraid of _anything_! I don't mean cows, or the +house-afire, or mice, or such foolishness. I mean life and death, and +sickness and poverty and fear...." + +Morrison nodded his head understandingly, a fine light of appreciation +in his eyes, "Not to be afraid of fear--that's splendid." + +Sylvia went on to particularize. "When any of us are sick--it's +my little brother Lawrence who is mostly--Judith and I are always +well--Father just goes all to pieces, he gets so frightened. But +Mother stiffens her back and _makes_ everything in the house go on +just as usual, very quiet, very calm. She holds everything together +_tight_. She says it's sneaking and cowardly if you're going to accept +life at all, not to accept _all_ of it--the sour with the sweet--and +not whimper." + +"Very fine,--very fine! Possibly a very small bit ... grim?" commented +Morrison, with a rising inflection. + +"Oh, perhaps, a little!" agreed Sylvia, as if it did not matter; "but +I can't give you any idea of Mother. She's--she's just _great_! And +yet I couldn't live like her, without wanting to smash everything up. +She's somebody that Seneca would have liked." + +"And your father?" queried Morrison. + +"Oh, he's great too--dear Father--but so different! He and Mother +between them have just about all the varieties of human nature that +are worth while! Father's red-headed (though it's mostly gray now), +and quick, and blustering, and awfully clever, and just adored by +his students, and talks every minute, and apparently does all the +deciding, and yet ... he couldn't draw the breath of life without +Mother; and when it comes right down to _doing_ anything, what he +always does is what he knows will come up to her standard." + +Morrison raised delightedly amused hands to heaven. "The Recording +Angel domiciled in the house!" he cried. "It had never occurred to me +before how appallingly discerning the eye of the modern offspring must +be. Go on, go on!" + +Elated by the sensation of appearing clever, Sylvia continued with +a fresh flow of eloquence. "And there never was such a highly moral +bringing-up as we children have had. It's no fault of my family's if +I've turned out a grasping materialist! I was brought up"--she flamed +out suddenly as at some long-hoarded grievance--"I was brought up in a +moral hot-house, and I haven't yet recovered from the shock of being +transplanted into real earth in the real world." + +Morrison paid instant tribute to her aroused and serious feeling by a +grave look of attention. "Won't you explain?" he asked. "I'm so dull I +don't follow you. But I haven't been so interested in years." + +"Why, I mean," said Sylvia, trying hard to reduce to articulateness +a complicated conception, "I mean that Father and Mother just +deliberately represented values to me as different from what they +really are, with real folks! And now I find that _I'm_ real folks! I +can't help it. You are as you _are_, you know. They kept representing +to me always that the _best_ pleasures are the ones that are the most +important to folks--music, I mean, and Milton's poetry, and a fine +novel--and, in Mother's case, a fine sunset, or a perfect rose, or +things growing in the garden." + +No old associate of Morrison's would have recognized the man's face, +shocked as it was by surprise and interest out of his usual habit +of conscious, acute, self-possessed observation. The angler had +inadvertently stepped off a ledge into deep water, and a very swift +current was tugging at him. He leaned forward, his eyes as eager with +curiosity as a boy's. "Do I understand you to say that you repudiate +those 'best pleasures'?" + +"Of course you don't understand anything of the sort," said Sylvia +very earnestly. "They've soaked me so in music that I'm a regular +bond-slave to it. And a perfect rose is associated with so many lovely +recollections of Mother's wonderful silent joy in it, that I could +weep for pleasure. What I'm talking about--what I'm trying to tell +you, is the shock it was to me, when I got out of that artificially +unworldly atmosphere of home--for there's no use talking, it _is_ +artificial!--to find that _those_ pleasures aren't the ones that are +considered important and essential. How did I find things in the real +world? Why, I find that people don't give a thought to those 'best +pleasures' until they have a lot of other things first. Everything +_I_'d been trained to value and treasure was negligible, not +worth bothering about. But money--position--not having to +work--elegance--_those_ are _vital_--prime! Real people can't enjoy +hearing a concert if they know they've got to wash up a lot of dishes +afterwards. Hiring a girl to do that work is the _first_ thing to do! +There isn't another woman in the world, except my mother, who'd take +any pleasure in a perfect rose if she thought her sleeves were so +old-fashioned that people would stare at her. Folks _talk_ about +liking to look at a fine sunset, but what they give their blood and +bones for, is a fine house on the best street in town!" + +"Well, but you're not 'people' in that vulgar sense!" protested +Morrison. He spoke now without the slightest _arričre-pensée_ of +flattering her, and Sylvia in her sudden burst for self-expression was +unconscious of him, save as an opponent in an argument. + +"You just _say_ that, in that superior way," she flashed at him, +"because _you_ don't have to bother your head about such matters, +because you don't have to associate with people who are fighting for +those essentials. For they _are_ what everybody except Father and +Mother--_every_ body feels to be the essentials--a pretty house, +handsome clothes, servants to do the unpleasant things, social +life--oh, plenty of money sums it all up, 'vulgar' as it sounds. And I +don't believe you are different. I don't believe anybody you know is +really a bit different! Let Aunt Victoria, let old Mr. Sommerville, +lose their money, and you'd see how unimportant Debussy and Masaccio +would be to them, compared to having to black their own shoes!" + +"Well, upon my word!" exclaimed Morrison. "Are you at eighteen +presuming to a greater knowledge of life than I at forty?" + +"I'm not eighteen, I'm twenty-three," said Sylvia. "The difference +is enormous. And if I don't know more about plain unvarnished human +nature than you, I miss my guess! _You_ haven't gone through five +years at a State University, rubbing shoulders with folks who haven't +enough sophistication to pretend to be different from what they +are. _You_ haven't taught music for three years in the middle-class +families of a small Western city!" She broke off to laugh an +apologetic depreciation of her own heat. "You'd think I was addressing +a meeting," she said in her usual tone. "I got rather carried away +because this is the first time I ever really spoke out about it. There +are so few who could understand. If I ever tried to explain it to +Father and Mother, I'd be sure to find them so deep in a discussion of +the relation between Socrates and Christ that they couldn't pay any +attention! Professor Kennedy could understand--but he's such a fanatic +on the other side." + +Morrison looked a quick suspicion. "Who is Professor Kennedy?" he +inquired; and was frankly relieved when Sylvia explained: "He's the +head of the Mathematics Department, about seventy years old, and the +crossest, cantankerousest old misanthrope you ever saw. And thinks +himself immensely clever for being so! He just loathes people--the way +they really are--and he dotes on Mother and Judith because they're not +like anybody else. And he hates me because they couldn't all hypnotize +me into looking through their eyes. He thinks it low of me to realize +that if you're going to live at all, you've got to live _with people_, +and you can't just calmly brush their values on one side. He said +once that any sane person in this world was like a civilized man with +plenty of gold coin, cast away on a desert island with a tribe of +savages who only valued beads and calico, and buttons and junk. And +I said (I knew perfectly well he was hitting at me) that if he was +really cast away and couldn't get to another island, I thought the +civilized man would be an idiot to starve to death, when he could buy +food of the savages by selling them junk. And I thought he just wasted +his breath by swearing at the savages for not knowing about the value +of gold. There I was hitting at _him!_ He's spoiled his digestion, +hating the way people are made. And Professor Kennedy said something +nasty and neat (he's awfully clever) about that being rather a low +occupation for a civilized being--taking advantage of the idiocies +of savages--he meant me, of course--and he's right, it _is_ a mean +business; I hate it. And that's why I've always wanted to get on +another island--not an uninhabited island, like the one Father and +Mother have--but one where--well, _this_ is one!" she waved her +hand about the lovely room, "this _is_ just one! Where everything's +beautiful--costly too--but not just costly; where all the horrid, +necessary consequences of things are taken care of without one's +bothering--where flowers are taken out of the vases when they wilt +and fresh ones put in; and dishes get themselves washed invisibly, +inaudibly--and litter just vanishes without our lifting a hand. Of +course the people who live so always, can rejoice with a clear mind in +sunsets and bright talk. That's what I meant the other day--the day +Judith came--when I said I'd arrived in Capua at last; when old Mr. +Sommerville thought me so materialistic and cynical. If _he_ did that, +on just that phrase--what must _you_ think, after all this _confession +intime d'un enfant du sičcle?_" She stopped with a graceful pretense +of dreading his judgment, although she knew that she had been talking +well, and read nothing but admiration in his very expressive face. + +"But all this means, you extraordinary young person, that you're not +in the least an _enfant du sičcle!_" he cried. "It means that you're +dropped down in this groaning, heavy-spirited twentieth century, +troubled about many things, from the exact year that was the golden +climax of the Renaissance; that you're a perfect specimen of the +high-hearted, glorious ..." he qualified on a second thought, "unless +your astonishing capacity to analyze it all, comes from the nineteenth +century?" + +"No, that comes from Father," explained Sylvia, laughing. "Isn't it +funny, using the tool Father taught me to handle, against his ideas! +He's just great on analysis. As soon as we were old enough to think at +all, he was always practising us on analysis--especially of what made +us want things, or not like them. It's one of his sayings--he's always +getting it off to his University classes--that if you have once really +called an emotion or an ambition by its right name, you have it by +the tail, so to speak--that if you know, for instance, that it's your +vanity and not your love that's wounded by something, you'll stop +caring. But I never noticed that it really worked if you cared _hard_ +enough. Diagnosing a disease doesn't help you any, if you keep right +on being sick with it." + +"My dear! My dear!" cried the man, leaning towards her again, and +looking--dazzled--into the beauty and intelligence of her eyes, "the +idea that you are afflicted with any disease could only occur to the +morbid mind of the bluest-nosed Puritan who ever cut down a May-pole! +You're wonderfully, you're terrifyingly, you are superbly sound and +vigorous!" + +Breaking in upon this speech, there came the quick, smooth purr of an +automobile with all its parts functioning perfectly, a streak of dark +gray past the shutters, the sigh of an engine stopped suddenly--Molly +Sommerville sprang from behind the steering wheel and ran into the +house. She was exquisitely flushed and eager when she came in, but +when she saw the two alone in the great, cool, dusky room, filled to +its remotest corners with the ineffable aroma of long, intimate, +and interrupted talk, she was brought up short. She faltered for an +instant and then continued to advance, her eyes on Sylvia. "It's so +hot," she said, at random, "and I thought I'd run over for tea--" + +"Oh, of course," said Sylvia, jumping up in haste, "it's late! I'd +forgotten it was time for tea! Blame _me!_ Since I've been here, Aunt +Victoria has left it to me--where shall I say to have it set?" + +"The pergola's lovely," suggested Molly. She took her close motor-hat +from the pure gold of her hair with a rather listless air. + +"All right--the pergola!" agreed Sylvia, perhaps a little too +anxiously. In spite of herself, she gave, and she knew she was giving, +the effect of needing somehow to make something up to Molly.... + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +NOTHING IN THE LEAST MODERN + + +Sylvia was sitting in the garden, an unread book on her knees, +dreaming among red and yellow and orange gladioli. She looked with a +fixed, bright, beatific stare at the flame-colored flowers and did not +see them. She saw only Felix Morrison, she heard only his voice, she +was brimming with the sense of him. In a few moments she would go into +the house and find him in the darkened living-room, as he had been +every afternoon for the last fortnight, ostensibly come in to lounge +away the afternoon over a book, really waiting for her to join +him. And when she came in, he would look up at her, that wonderful +penetrating deep look of his ... and she would welcome him with her +eyes. + +And then they would talk! Judith and Arnold would be playing tennis, +oblivious of the heat, and Aunt Victoria would be annihilating the +tedious center of the day by sleep. Nobody would interrupt them for +hours. How they would talk! How they had talked! As she thought of it +the golden fortnight hummed and sang about Sylvia's ears like a Liszt +Liebes-Traum. + +They had talked of everything in the world, and it all meant but one +thing, that they had discovered each other, a discovery visibly as +wonderful for Morrison as for the girl. They had discovered each +other, and they had been intelligent enough to know at once what it +meant. They knew! And in a moment she would go into the house to him. +She half closed her eyes as before a too-great brilliance.... + +Arnold appeared at the other end of the long row of gladioli. He +was obviously looking for some one. Sylvia called to him, with the +friendly tone she always had for him: "Here I am! I don't know where +Judith is. Will I do?" + +From a distance Arnold nodded, and continued to advance, the +irregularity of his wavering gait more pronounced than usual. As soon +as she could see the expression of his face, Sylvia's heart began +to beat fast, with a divination of something momentous. He sat down +beside her, took off his hat, and laid it on the bench. "Do you +remember," he asked in a strange, high voice, "that you said you would +like me for your brother?" + +She nodded. + +"Well, I'm going to be," he said, and covering his face with his +hands, burst into sobs. + +Sylvia was so touched by his emotion, so sympathetically moved by his +news, that even through her happy ejaculations the tears rained down +her own cheeks. She tried to wipe them away and discovered, absurdly +enough, that she had lost her handkerchief. "Aren't we idiots!" she +cried in a voice of joyful quavers. "I never understood before +why everybody cries at a wedding. See here, Arnold, I've lost my +handkerchief. Loan me yours." She pulled his handkerchief out of his +pocket, she wiped her eyes, she put a sisterly kiss on his thin, +sallow cheek, she cried: "You dears! Isn't it too good to be true! +Arnold! So soon! Inside two weeks! How ever could you have the +courage? Judith! My Judith! Why, she never looked at a man before. How +did you dare?" + +His overmastering fit of emotion was passed now. His look was of +white, incredulous exaltation. "We saw each other and ran into +each other's arms," he said; "I didn't have to 'dare.' It was like +breathing." + +"Oh, how perfect!" she cried, "how simply, simply perfect!" and now +there was for an instant a note of wistful envy in her voice. "It's +_all_ perfect! She never so much as looked at a man before, and you +said the other night you'd never been in love before." + +Arnold looked at her wildly. "I said that!" he cried. + +"Why, yes, don't you remember, after that funny, joking talk with me, +you said that was the nearest you'd ever come to proposing to any +girl?" + +"God Almighty!" cried the man, and did not apologize for the +blasphemy. He looked at her fixedly, as though unguessed-at horizons +of innocence widened inimitably before his horrified eyes. And then, +following some line of association which escaped Sylvia, "I'm not fit +to _look_ at Judith!" he cried. The idea seemed to burst upon him like +a thunder-clap. + +Sylvia patted him on the shoulder reassuringly. "That's the proper +thing for a lover to think!" she said with cheerful, commonplace +inanity. She did not notice that he shrank from her hand, because she +now sprang up, crying, "But where's Judy? Where _is_ Judy?" + +He nodded towards the house. "She sent me out to get you. She's in her +room--she wants to tell you--but when I saw you, I couldn't keep it +to myself." His exaltation swept back like a wave, from the crest of +which he murmured palely, "Judith! Judith!" and Sylvia laughed at him, +with the tears of sympathy in her eyes, and leaving him there on the +bench staring before him at the living fire of the flame-colored +flowers, she ran with all her speed into the house. + +Morrison, lounging in a chair with a book, looked up, startled at her +whirlwind entrance. "What's up?" he inquired. + +At the sound of his voice, she checked herself and pirouetted with a +thistle-down lightness to face him. Her face, always like a clear, +transparent vase lighted from within, now gave out, deeply moved as +she was, an almost visible brightness. "Judith!" she cried, her voice +ringing like a silver trumpet, "Judith and Arnold!" She was poised +like a butterfly, and as she spoke she burst into flight again, and +was gone. + +She had not been near him, but the man had the distinct impression +that she had thrown herself on his neck and kissed him violently, in +a transport of delight. In the silent room, still fragrant, still +echoing with her passage, he closed his book, and later his eyes, and +sat with the expression of a connoisseur savoring an exquisite, a +perfect impression.... + + * * * * * + +Tea that afternoon was that strangest of phenomena, a formal ceremony +of civilized life performed in the abashing and disconcerting presence +of naked emotion. Arnold and Judith sat on opposite sides of the +pergola, Judith shining and radiant as the dawn, her usually firmly +set lips soft and tremulous; Arnold rather pale, impatient, oblivious +to what was going on around him, his spirit prostrated before the +miracle; and when their starry eyes met, there flowed from them and +towards them from every one in the pergola, a thousand unseen waves of +excitement. + +The mistress of the house herself poured tea in honor of the great +occasion, and she was very humorous and amusing about the mistakes +caused by her sympathetic agitation. "There! I've put three lumps in +yours, Mr. Sommerville. How _could_ I! But I really don't know what +I'm doing. This business of having love-at-first-sight in one's very +family--! Give your cup to Molly; I'll make you a fresh one. Oh, +Arnold! How _could_ you look at Judith just then! You made me fill +this cup so full I can't pass it!" + +Mr. Sommerville, very gallant and full of compliments and whimsical +allusions, did his best to help their hostess strike the decent note +of easy pleasantry; but they were both battling with something too +strong for them. Unseconded as they were by any of the others, they +gave a little the effect of people bowing and smirking to each other +at the foot of a volcano in full eruption. Morrison, picking up +the finest and sharpest of his conversational tools, ventured +the hazardous enterprise of expressing this idea to them. Mrs. +Marshall-Smith, trying one topic after another, expressed an +impatience with the slow progress of a Henry James novel she was +reading, and Mr. Sommerville, remarking with a laugh, "Oh, you cannot +hurry Henry," looked to see his mild witticism rewarded by a smile +from the critic. But Morrison shook his head, "No, my dear old friend. +_Il faut hurler avec les loups_--especially if you are so wrought +up by their hurlements that you can't hear yourself think. I'm just +giving myself up to the rareness, the richness of the impression." + +The new fiancée herself talked rather more than usual, though this +meant by no means loquacity, and presented more the appearance of +composure than any one else there; although this was amusingly broken +by a sudden shortness of breath whenever she met Arnold's eyes. +She said in answer to a question that she would be going on to her +hospital the day after tomorrow--her two weeks' vacation over--oh yes, +she would finish her course at the hospital; she had only a few more +months. And in answer to another question, Arnold replied, obviously +impatient at having to speak to any one but Judith, that of course he +didn't mind if she went on and got her nurse's diploma--didn't she +_want_ to? Anything she wanted.... + +No--decidedly the thing was too big to make a successful fęte of. +Morrison was silent and appreciatively observant, his eyes sometimes +on Sylvia, sometimes on Judith; Mr. Sommerville, continuing doggedly +to make talk, descended to unheard-of trivialities in reporting the +iniquities of his chauffeur; Molly stirred an untasted cup, did not +raise her eyes at all, and spoke only once or twice, addressing to +Sylvia a disconnected question or two, in the answers to which she had +obviously no interest. Judith and Arnold had never been very malleable +social material, and in their present formidable condition they were +as little assistance in the manufacture of geniality as a couple of +African lions. + +The professional fęte-makers were consequently enormously relieved +when it was over and their unavailing efforts could be decently +discontinued. Professing different reasons for escape, they moved in +disjointed groups across the smooth perfection of the lawn towards +the house, where Molly's car stood, gleaming in the sun. Sylvia found +herself, as she expected, manoeuvered to a place beside Morrison. He +arranged it with his unobtrusive deftness in getting what he wanted +out of a group of his fellow-beings, and she admired his skill, and +leaned on it confidently. They had had no opportunity that day for the +long talk which had been a part of every afternoon for the last week; +and she now looked with a buoyant certainty to have him arrange an +hour together before dinner. Her anticipation of it on that burning +day of reflected heat sent thrills of eager disquietude over her. It +was not only for Judith and Arnold that the last week had been one of +meeting eyes, long twilight evenings of breathless, quick-ripening +intimacy.... + +As they slackened their pace to drop behind Mr. Sommerville, who +walked hand-in-hand with his granddaughter in front of them, Morrison +said, looking at her with burning eyes, "... an instrument so finely +strung that it vibrates at the mere sound of another wakened to +melody--what mortal man lives who would not dream of its response if +he could set his own hand to the bow?" + +The afternoon had been saturated with emotional excitement and the +moment had come for its inevitable crystallization into fateful words. +The man spoke as though he were not wholly conscious of what he was +saying. He stepped beside her like one in a dream. He could not take +his eyes from her, from her flushed, grave, receptive face, from her +downcast, listening eyes, her slow, trance-like step as she waited for +him to go on. He went on: "It becomes, my dear, I assure you--the idea +of that possibility becomes absolutely an obsession--even to a man +usually quite his own master--" + +They were almost at a standstill now, and the two in front of them +had reached the house. Sylvia had a moment of what seemed to her the +purest happiness she had ever known.... + +From across the lawn they saw a violent gesture--Molly had thrown her +grandfather's clinging hand from her, and flashed back upon the two, +lingering there in the sunlight. She cast herself on Sylvia, panting +and trying to laugh. Her little white teeth showed in what was almost +a grimace. "Why in the world are you two poking along so?" she cried, +passing her arm through Sylvia's. Her beautiful sunny head came no +more than to Sylvia's shoulder. Without waiting for an answer she went +on hurriedly, speaking in the tones of suppressed excitement which +thrilled in every one's voice that day: "Come on, Sylvia--let's work +it off together! Let me take you somewhere--let's go to Rutland and +back." + +"That's thirty miles away!" said Sylvia, "and it's past five now." + +"I'll have you there and back long before seven," asserted Molly. +"Come on ... come on ..." She pulled impatiently, petulantly at the +other girl's arm. + +"I'm not invited, I suppose," said Morrison, lighting a cigarette with +care. + +Molly looked at him a little wildly. "No, Felix, you're not invited!" +she said, and laughed unsteadily. + +She had hurried them along to the car, and now they stood by the swift +gray machine, Molly's own, the one she claimed to love more than +anything else in the world. She sprang in and motioned Sylvia to the +seat beside her. + +"Hats?" suggested Morrison, looking at their bare, shining heads. He +was evidently fighting for time, manoeuvering for an opening. His +success was that of a man gesticulating against a gale. Molly's baldly +unscrupulous determination beat down the beginnings of his carefully +composed opposition before he could frame one of his well-balanced +sentences. "No--no--it takes too long to go and get hats!" she cried +peremptorily. "If you can't have what you want when you want it, it's +no use having it at all!" + +"I'm not sure," remarked Morrison, "that Miss Marshall wants this at +all." + +"Yes, she does; yes, she does!" Molly contradicted him heatedly. +Sylvia, hanging undecided at the step, felt herself pulled into the +car; the door banged, the engine started with a smooth sound of +powerful machinery, the car leaped forward. Sylvia cast one backward +glance at Morrison, an annoyed, distinguished, futile presence, +standing motionless, and almost instantly disappearing in the distance +in which first he, and then the house and tall poplars over it, shrank +to nothingness. + +Their speed was dizzying. The blazing summer air blew hot and vital in +their faces; their hair tugged at the pins and flew back in fluttering +strands; their thin garments clung to their limbs, molded as closely +by the compressing wind as by water. Molly did not turn her eyes from +the road ahead, leaping up to meet them, and vanishing under the car. +She tried to make a little casual talk: "Don't you love to let it out, +give it all the gas there is?" "There's nothing like a quick spin for +driving the nightmares out of your mind, is there?" But as Sylvia made +no answer to these overtures (the plain fact was that Sylvia had no +breath for speech,--for anything but a horrified fascinated glare at +the road), she said suddenly, somberly, "If I were you, I certainly +should despise me!" She took the car around a sharp curve on two +wheels. + +Sylvia clutched at the side and asked wonderingly, "_Why_ in the +world?" in a tone so permeated with sincerity that even Molly felt it. + +"Don't you _know_?" she cried. "Do you mean to say you don't _know_?" + +"Know _what_?" asked Sylvia. Hypnotized by the driver's intent and +unwavering gaze on the road, she kept her own eyes as fiercely +concentrated, her attention leaping from one quickly seen, instantly +disappearing detail to another,--a pile of gravel here,--a half-buried +rock there.--They both raised their voices to be heard above the sound +of the engine and the rush of the car. "Know what?" repeated Sylvia +loudly. + +"Why do you _suppose_ I made myself ridiculous by pulling you away +from Felix that idiotic, humiliating way!" Molly threw this inquiry +out, straight before her, angrily. The wind caught at her words and +hurled them behind. + +In a flash Sylvia understood something to which she had been +resolutely closing her perceptions. She felt sick and scared. She +clutched the side, watched a hill rise up steep before them and +flatten out under the forward leap of the car. She thought hard. +Something of her little-girl, overmastering horror of things, rough, +outspoken, disagreeable, swept over her. She violently wished that she +could escape from the conversation before her. She would have paid +almost any price to escape. + +But Molly's nerves were not so sensitive. She evidently had no +desire to escape or to let Sylvia. The grim little figure at the +steering-wheel controlled with her small hands the fate of the two. +She broke out now, impatient at Sylvia's silence: "Any fool could see +that it was because I couldn't bear to see you with Felix another +minute, and because I hadn't any other way to get you apart. Everybody +else there knew why. I knew they knew. But I couldn't help it. I +couldn't bear it another instant!" + +She broke the glass of decent reticence with a great clattering blow. +It shivered into fragments. There was nothing now between them but the +real issue in all its uncomely bareness. This real issue, the +maenad at the wheel now held up before them in a single brutal +statement--"Are you in love with Felix? I am." + +There was something eerie, terrifying, in her casting these words +out, straight before her. Sylvia looked in awe at the pale, pinched +profile, almost unrecognizable in its stern misery. "Because if you're +not," Molly went on, her white lower lip twitching, "I wish you'd keep +out. It was all right before you came with your horrible cleverness. +It was all right. It was all right." + +Through the iteration of this statement, through the tumult of her own +thoughts, through the mad rush of the wind past her ears, Sylvia heard +as clearly as though she sat again in the great, dim, quiet room, a +melodious voice saying gently, indulgently, laughingly, "_Molly!_" +Secure in her own safe place of favor she felt a great wave of +generous pity for the helpless self-deception of her sister-woman. +Fired by this and by the sudden perception of an opening for an act of +spectacular magnanimity--would it be any the less magnanimous because +it would cost her nothing in the end?--she reached for the mantle of +the _beau rôle_ and cast it about her shoulders. "Why, Molly dear!" +she cried, and her quick sympathies had never been more genuinely +aroused, "Molly dear, of course I'll keep out, if you want me to. I'll +leave the coast clear to you as long as you please." + +She was almost thrown from the seat by the jarring grind of the car +brought to a sudden standstill. Molly caught her hands, looked into +her face, the first time their eyes had met. "Do you mean it ... +Sylvia?" + +Sylvia nodded, much agitated, touched by the other's pain, half +ashamed of her own apparent generosity which was to mean no loss to +her, no gain to Molly. In the sudden becalmed stillness of the hot +afternoon their bright, blown hair fell about their faces in shining +clouds. + +"I didn't understand before," said Sylvia; and she was speaking the +truth. + +"And you'll let him alone? You won't talk to him--play his +accompaniments--oh, those long talks of yours!" + +"We've been talking, you silly dear, of the Renaissance compared to +the Twentieth Century, and of the passing of the leisure class, and +all the beauty they always create," said Sylvia. Again she spoke +the literal truth. But the true truth, burning on Molly's tongue, +shriveled this to ashes. "You've been making him admire you, be +interested in you, see how little _I_ amount to!" she cried. "But +if you _don't_ care about him yourself--if you'll--_two weeks_, +Sylvia--just keep out for two weeks...." As if it were part of the +leaping forward of her imagination, she suddenly started the car +again, and with a whirling, reckless wrench at the steering-wheel she +had turned the car about and was racing back over the road they had +come. + +"Where are you going?" cried Sylvia to her, above the noise of their +progress. + +"Back!" she answered, laughing out. "What's the use of going on now?" +She opened the throttle to its widest and pressing her lips together +tightly, gave herself up to the intoxication of speed. + +Once she said earnestly: "You're _fine_, Sylvia! I never knew a girl +could be like you!" And once more she threw out casually: "Do you know +what I was going to do if I found out you and Felix--if you hadn't...? +I was going to jump the car over the turn there on Prospect +Hill." + +Remembering the terrible young face of pain and wrath which she had +watched on the way out, Sylvia believed her; or at least believed that +she believed her. In reality, her immortal youth was incapable of +believing in the fact of death in any form. But the words put a stamp +of tragic sincerity on their wild expedition, and on her companion's +suffering. She thought of the two weeks which lay before Molly, and +turned away her eyes in sympathy.... + + * * * * * + +Ten days after this, an announcement was made of the engagement of +Mary Montgomery Sommerville, sole heiress of the great Montgomery +fortune, to Felix Morrison, the well-known critic of aesthetics. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +MOLLY IN HER ELEMENT + + +Sylvia faced her aunt's dictum with heartsick shrinking from its +rigor; but she recognized it as an unexaggerated statement of the +facts. "You can't go home now, Sylvia--everybody would say you +couldn't stand seeing Molly's snatch at Felix successful. You really +must stay on to let people see that you are another kind of girl from +Molly, capable of impersonal interest in a man of Felix's brains." + +Sylvia thought of making the obviously suitable remark that she +cared nothing about what people thought, but such a claim was so +preposterously untrue to her character that she could not bring the +words past her lips. As a matter of fact, she did care what people +thought. She always had! She always would! She remained silent, +looking fixedly out of the great, plate-glass window, across the +glorious sweep of blue mountain-slope and green valley commanded by +Mrs. Marshall-Smith's bedroom. She did not resemble the romantic +conception of a girl crossed in love. She looked very quiet, no paler +than usual, quite self-possessed. The only change a keen eye could +have noted was that now there was about her an atmosphere of slightly +rigid dignity, which had not been there before. She seemed less +girlish. + +No eyes could have been more keenly analytical than those of Mrs. +Marshall-Smith. She saw perfectly the new attribute, and realized +perfectly what a resolute stiffening of the will it signified. She +had never admired and loved Sylvia more, and being a person adept in +self-expression, she saturated her next speech with her admiration and +affection. "Of course, you know, my dear, that _I'm_ not one of the +herd. I know entirely that your feeling for Felix was just what mine +is--immense admiration for his taste and accomplishments. As a matter +of fact it was apparent to every one that, even in spite of all +Molly's money, if you'd really cared to ..." + +Sylvia winced, actually and physically, at this speech, which brought +back to her with a sharp flick the egregiousness of her absurd +self-deception. What a simpleton she had been--what a little naďve, +provincial simpleton! In spite of her high opinion of her own +cleverness and knowledge of people, how stupidly steeped she had +been in the childish, idiotic American tradition of entire +disinterestedness in the relations of men and women. It was another +instance of how betrayed she constantly was, in any manoeuver in +the actual world, by the fatuous idealism which had so colored her +youth--she vented her emotion in despising that idealism and thinking +of hard names to call it. + +"... though of course you showed your intelligence by _not_ really +caring to," went on Mrs. Marshall-Smith; "it would have meant a +crippled life for both of you. Felix hasn't a cent more than he needs +for himself. If he was going to marry at all, he was forced to marry +carefully. Indeed, it has occurred to me that he may have thrown +himself into this, because he was in danger of losing his head over +you, and knew how fatal it would be. For you, you lovely thing of +great possibilities, you need a rich soil for _your_ roots, too, if +you're to bloom out as you ought to." + +Sylvia, receiving this into a sore and raw consciousness, said to +herself with an embittered instinct for cynicism that she had never +heard more euphonious periphrases for selling yourself for money. For +that was what it came down to, she had told herself fiercely a great +many times during the night. Felix had sold himself for money as +outright as ever a woman of the streets had done. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith, continuing steadily to talk (on the theory that +talking prevents too great concentration of thought), and making the +round of all the possible things to say, chanced at this moment upon +a qualification to this theory of Morrison's conduct which for an +instant caught Sylvia's attention, "--and then there's always the +possibility that even if you _had_ cared to--Molly might have been +too much for you, for both of you. She always has had just what she +wanted--and people who have, get the habit. I don't know if you've +noticed it, in the little you've seen of her, but it's very apparent +to me, knowing her from childhood up as I have, that there's a slight +coarseness of grain in Molly, when it's a question of getting what she +wants. I don't mean she's exactly horrid. Molly's a dear in her way, +and I'm very fond of her, of course. If she can get what she wants +_without_ walking over anybody's prostrate body, she'll go round. +But there's a directness, a brilliant lack of fine shades in Molly's +grab.... It makes one remember that her Montgomery grandfather had +firmness of purpose enough to raise himself from an ordinary Illinois +farmer to arbiter of the wheat pit. Such impossible old aunts--such +cousins--occasionally crop up still from the Montgomery connection. +But all with the same crude force. It's almost impossible for a +temperament like Felix's to contend with a nature like that." + +Sylvia was struck by the reflection, but on turning it over she saw +in it only another reason for anger at Morrison. "You make your old +friend out as a very weak character," she said. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith's tolerant, clear view of the infirmities of +humanity was grieved by this fling of youthful severity. "Oh, my dear! +my dear! A young, beautiful, enormendously rich, tremendously enamored +girl? That's a combination! I don't think we need consider Felix +exactly weak for not having resisted!" + +Sylvia thought she knew reasons for his not yielding, but she did not +care to discuss them, and said nothing. + +"But whether," continued Mrs. Marshall-Smith, attempting delicately +to convey the only reflection supposed to be of comfort to a girl in +Sylvia's situation, "whether or not Molly will find after marriage +that even a very masterful and ruthless temperament may fail entirely +to possess and hold the things it has grabbed and carried off ..." + +Sylvia repudiated the tacit conception that this would be a balm to +her. "Oh, I'm sure I hope they'll manage!" she said earnestly. + +"Of course! Of course!" agreed Mrs. Marshall-Smith. "Who doesn't hope +so?" She paused, her loquacity run desperately thin. There was +the sound of a car, driving up to the front door. Sylvia rose in +apprehension. Her aunt motioned a reassurance. "I told Tojiko to tell +every one that we are not in--to anybody." + +Hélčne came to the door on silent, felt-shod feet, a black-and-white +picture of well-trained servility. "Pardon, Madame, Tojiko says that +Mlle. Sommerville wishes to see Mlle. Sylvie." + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith looked with considerable apprehension at her +niece. "You must get it over with some time, Sylvia. It'll be easier +here than with a lot of people staring at you both, and making nasty +speculations." Neither she nor Sylvia noticed that for an instant, in +her haste, she had quite dropped her careful pretension that Sylvia +could, of course, if she had really cared to.... + +Sylvia set her jaw, an action curiously visible under the smooth, +subtle modeling of her young cheeks. She said to Hélčne in a quiet +voice: "_Mais bien sűr!_ Tell her we're not yet dressed, but if she +will give herself the trouble to come up...." + +Hélčne nodded and retreated. Sylvia looked rather pale. + +"You don't know what a joy your perfect French is to me, dear," said +Mrs. Marshall-Smith, still rapidly turning every peg in sight in an +endeavor to loosen tension; but no noticeable relaxation took place in +Sylvia. It did not seem to her at just that moment of great importance +that she could speak good French. + +With desperate haste she was saying to herself, "At least Molly +doesn't know about anything. I told her I didn't care. She believed +me. I must go on pretending that I don't. But can I! But can I!" + +Light, rapid steps came flying up the stairs and down the long hall. +"Sylvia! Sylvia!" Molly was evidently hesitating between doors. + +"Here--this way--last door--Aunt Victoria's room!" called Sylvia, and +felt like a terror-stricken actor making a first public appearance, +enormously surprised, relieved, and heartened to find her usual voice +still with her. As Molly came flying into the room, she ran to meet +her. They fell into each other's arms with incoherent ejaculations +and, under the extremely appreciative eye of Mrs. Marshall-Smith, +kissed each other repeatedly. + +"Oh, isn't she the dear!" cried Molly, shaking out amply to the breeze +a victor's easy generosity. "Isn't she the darlingest girl in the +world! She _understands_ so! When I saw how perfectly _sweet_ she was +the day Arnold and Judith announced their engagement, I said to myself +I wanted her to be the first person I spoke to about mine." + +The approach of the inexorable necessity for her first words roused +Sylvia to an inspiration which struck out an almost visible spark +of admiration from her aunt. "You just count too much on my being +'queer,' Molly," she said playfully, pulling the other girl down +beside her, with an affectionate gesture. "How do _you_ know that I'm +not fearfully jealous of you? _Such_ a charmer as your fiancé is!" + +Molly laughed delightedly. "Isn't she wonderful--not to care a +bit--really!" she appealed to Sylvia's aunt. "How anybody _could_ +resist Felix--but then she's so clever. She's wonderful!" + +Sylvia, smiling, cordial, clear-eyed and bitter-hearted, thought that +she really was. + +"But I can't talk about it here!" cried Molly restlessly. "I came to +carry Sylvia off. I can't sit still at home. I want to go ninety miles +an hour! I can't think straight unless I'm behind the steering-wheel. +Come along, Sylvia!" + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith thereupon showed herself, for all her amenity and +grace, more of a match of Molly's force and energy than either Sylvia +or Morrison had been on a certain rather memorable occasion ten +days before. She opposed the simple irresistible obstacle of a flat +command. "Sylvia's _not_ going out in a car dressed in a lace-trimmed +négligée, with a boudoir cap on, whether you get what you want the +minute you want it or not, Molly Sommerville," she said with the +authoritative accent which had always quelled Arnold in his boyhood +(as long as he was within earshot). The method was effective now. +Molly laughed. Sylvia even made shift to laugh; and Helene was +summoned to put on the trim shirt-waist, the short cloth skirt and +close hat which Mrs. Marshall-Smith selected with care and the history +of which she detailed at length, so copiously that there was no +opportunity to speak of anything less innocuous. Her unusual interest +in the matter even caused her to accompany the girls to the head of +the stairs, still talking, and she called down to them finally as they +went out of the front door, "... it's the only way with Briggs--he's +simply incorrigible about delays--and yet nobody does skirts as he +does! You just have to tell him you _will not take it_, if he doesn't +get it done on time!" + +Sylvia cast an understanding, grateful upward look at her aunt and +stepped into the car. So far it had gone better than she feared. But a +tęte-ŕ-tęte with Molly, overflowing with the confidences of the newly +betrothed--she was not sure that she could get through with that with +credit. + +Molly, however, seemed as little inclined to overflow as Sylvia to +have her. She talked of everything in the world except of Felix +Morrison; and it was not long before Sylvia's acuteness discovered +that she was not thinking of what she was saying. There passed through +her mind a wild, wretched notion that Molly might after all know--that +Felix might have been base enough to talk about her to Molly, that +Molly might be trying to "spare her." But this idea was instantly +rejected: Molly was not subtle enough to conceive of such a course, +and too headlong not to make a hundred blunders in carrying it out; +and besides, it would not explain her manner. She was abstracted +obviously for the simple reason that she had something on her mind, +something not altogether to her liking, judging from the uneasy color +which came and went in her face, by her rattling, senseless flow of +chatter, by her fidgeting, unnecessary adjustments of the mechanism of +the car. + +Sylvia herself, in spite of her greater self-control, looked out upon +the world with nothing of her usual eager welcome. The personality of +the man they did not name hung between and around the two women like a +cloud. As they swept along rapidly, young, fair, well-fed, beautifully +dressed, in the costly, shining car, their clouded faces might to a +country eye have been visible proofs of the country dictum that "rich +city folks don't seem to get no good out'n their money and their +automobiles: always layin' their ears back and lookin' 'bout as +cheerful as a balky horse." + +But the country eyes which at this moment fell on them were anything +but conscious of class differences. It was a desperate need which +reached out a gaunt claw and plucked at them when, high on the flank +of the mountain, as they swung around the corner of a densely wooded +road, they saw a wild-eyed man in overalls leap down from the bushes +and yell at them. + +Sylvia was startled and her first impression was the natural feminine +one of fear--a lonely road, a strange man, excited, perhaps drunk--But +Molly, without an instant's hesitation, ground the car to a stop in a +cloud of dust. "What's the matter?" she shouted as the man sprang up +on the running-board. He was gasping, purple, utterly spent, and for +an instant could only beat the air with his hands. Then he broke out +in a hoarse shout--the sound in that quiet sylvan spot was like a +tocsin: "Fire! An awful fire! Hewitt's pine woods--up that road!" He +waved a wild, bare arm--his shirt-sleeve was torn to the shoulder. "Go +and git help. They need all the men they can git!" + +He dropped from the running-board and ran back up the hill through the +bushes. They saw him lurch from one side to the other; he was still +exhausted from his dash down the mountain to the road; they heard the +bushes crash, saw them close behind him. He was gone. + +Sylvia's eyes were still on the spot where he had disappeared when she +was thrown violently back against the seat in a great leap forward of +the car. She caught at the side, at her hat, and saw Molly's face. It +was transfigured. The brooding restlessness was gone as acrid smoke +goes when the clear flame leaps up. + +"What are you doing?" shouted Sylvia. + +"To get help," answered Molly, opening the throttle another notch. +The first staggering plunge over, the car settled down to a terrific +speed, purring softly its puissant vibrant song of illimitable +strength. "Hear her sing! Hear her sing!" cried Molly. In three +minutes from the time the man had left them, they tore into the +nearest village, two miles from the woods. It seemed that in those +three minutes Molly had not only run the car like a demon, but had +formed a plan. Slackening speed only long enough to waltz with the car +on a street-corner while she shouted an inquiry to a passer-by, she +followed the wave of his hand and flashed down a side-street to a +big brick building which proclaimed itself in a great sign, "Peabody +Brush-back Factory." + +The car stopped. Molly sprang out and ran as though the car were a +rifle and she the bullet emerging from it. She ran into a large, ugly, +comfortable office, where several white-faced girls were lifting their +thin little fingers from typewriter keys to stare at the young woman +who burst through and in at a door marked "Manager." + +"There's a fire on the mountain--a great fire in Hewitt's pine woods," +she cried in a clear, peremptory voice that sounded like a young +captain leading a charge. "I can take nine men on my car. Will you +come with me and tell which men to go?" + +A dignified, elderly man, with smooth, gray hair and a black alpaca +office coat, sat perfectly motionless behind his desk and stared at +her in a petrified silence. Molly stamped her foot. "There's not an +instant to lose," she said; "they need every man they can get." + +"Who's the fire-warden of this township?" said the elderly man +foolishly, trying to assemble his wits. + +Molly appeared visibly to propel him from his chair by her fury. "Oh, +they need help _NOW_!" she cried. "Come on! Come on!" + +Then they stood together on the steps of the office. "Those men +unloading lumber over there could go," said the manager, "and I'll get +three more from the packing-rooms." + +"Don't go yourself! Send somebody to get them!" commanded Molly. "You +go and telephone anybody in town who has a car. There'll be sure to be +one or two at the garage." + +Sylvia gasped at the prodigy taking place before her eyes, the +masterful, keen-witted captain of men who emerged like a thunderbolt +from their Molly--Molly, the pretty little beauty of the summer +colony! + +She had galvanized the elderly New Englander beside her out of his +first momentary apathy of stupefaction. He now put his own competent +hand to the helm and took command. + +"Yes," he said, and with the word it was evident that he was aroused. +Over his shoulder, in a quiet voice that carried like the crack of a +gun: "Henderson, go get three men from the packing-room to go to a +forest-fire. Shut down the machinery. Get all the able-bodied men +ready in gangs of seven. Perkins, you 'phone Tim O'Keefe to bring my +car here at once. And get Pat's and Tom's and the two at the hotel." + +"Tools?" said Molly. + +He nodded and called out to the men advancing with a rush on the car: +"There are hoes and shovels inside the power-house door. Better take +some axes too." + +In four minutes from the time they had entered the village (Sylvia had +her watch in her hand) they were flying back, the car packed with men +in overalls and clustered thick with others on the running-board. Back +of them the whistle of the factory shrieked a strident announcement of +disaster. Women and children ran to the doors to stare up and down, +to cry out, to look and with dismayed faces to see the great cloud of +gray smoke pouring up from the side of the mountain. There was no soul +in that village who did not know what a forest-fire meant. + +Then in a flash the car had left the village and was rushing along the +dusty highroad, the huge, ominous pillar of smoke growing nearer. The +men stared up at it with sober faces. "Pretty hot fire!" said one +uneasily. + +They reached the place where the man had yelled to them--ten minutes +exactly since they had left it. Molly turned the car into the steep +sandy side-road which led up the mountain. The men shouted out in +remonstrance, "Hey, lady! You can't git a car up there. We'll have to +walk the rest of the way. They don't never take cars there." + +"This one is going up," sang out Molly gallantly, almost gaily, +opening the throttle to its fullest and going into second speed. + +The sound of the laboring engine jarred loudly through all the still, +hot woods; the car shook and trembled under the strain on it. Molly +dropped into low. A cloud of evil-smelling blue gasoline smoke rose +up from the exhaust behind, but the car continued to advance. Rising +steadily, coughing and choking, up the cruelly steep grades, +bumping heavily down over the great water-bars, smoking, rattling, +quivering--the car continued to advance. A trickle of perspiration ran +down Molly's cheeks. The floor was hot under their feet, the smell of +hot oil pungent in their nostrils. + +They were eight minutes from the main road now, and near the fire. +Over the trail hung a cloud of smoke, and, as they turned a corner and +came through this, they saw that they had arrived. Sylvia drew back +and crooked her arm over her eyes. She had never seen a forest fire +before. She came from the plain-country, where trees are almost +sacred, and her first feeling was of terror. But then she dropped her +arm and looked, and looked again at the glorious, awful sight which +was to furnish her with nightmares for months to come. + +The fire was roaring down one side of the road towards them, and away +to the right was eating its furious, sulphurous way into the heart of +the forest. They stopped a hundred feet short, but the blare of heat +struck on their faces like a blow. Through the dense masses of smoke, +terrifying glimpses of fierce, clean flame; a resinous dead stump +burning like a torch; a great tree standing helpless like a martyr at +the stake, suddenly transformed into a frenzied pillar of fire.... +Along the front of this whirlpool of flame toiled, with despairing +fury, four lean, powerful men. As they raised their blackened, +desperate faces and saw the car there, actually there, incredibly +there, black with its load of men, they gave a deep-throated shout of +relief, though they did not for an instant stop the frantic plying of +their picks and hoes. The nine men sprang out, their implements in +their hands, and dispersed along the fighting-line. + +Molly backed the car around, the rear wheels churning up the sand, and +plunged down the hill into the smoke. Through the choking fumes of +this, Sylvia shouted at her, "Molly! Molly! You're _great_!" She felt +that she would always hear ringing in her ears that thrilling, hoarse +shout of relief. + +Molly shouted in answer, "I could scream, I'm so happy!" And as they +plunged madly down the mountain road, she said: "Oh, Sylvia, you don't +know--I never was any use before--never once--never! I got the first +load of help there! How they shouted!" + +At the junction of the side-road with the highway, a car was +discharging a load of men with rakes and picks. "_I_ took my car up!" +screamed Molly, leaning from the steering wheel but not slackening +speed as she tore past them. + +The driver of the other car, a young man with the face of a fighting +Celt, flushed at the challenge and, motioning the men back into the +car, started up the sandy hill. Molly laughed aloud. "I never was so +happy in my life!" she said again. + +Both girls had forgotten the existence of Felix Morrison. + +They passed cars now, many of them, streaming south at breakneck +speed, full to overflowing with unsmiling men in working clothes, +bristling with long-handled implements. But as they fled down the +street to the factory they saw, waiting still, some twenty or more men +in overalls drawn up, ready, armed, resolute.... + +"How strong men are!" said Molly, gazing in ecstasy at this array of +factory hands. "I love them!" She added under her breath, "But _I_ +take them there!" + +While the men were swarming into the car, the gray-haired manager +came out to report, as though to an officer equal in command, "I've +telephoned to Ward and Howe's marble-works in Chitford," he said. +"They've sent down fifty men from there. About seventy-five have gone +from this village. I suppose all the farmers in that district are +there by this time." + +"Will they ever stop it!" asked Sylvia despairingly, seeing wherever +she looked nothing but that ravening, fiery leap of the flames, +feeling that terrible hot breath on her cheek. + +The question and accent brought the man for the first time to a +realization of the girls' youth and sex. He shifted to paternal +reassurance. "Oh yes, oh yes," he said, looking up the valley +appraisingly at the great volume of the smoke, "with a hundred and +fifty men there, almost at once, they'll have it under control before +long. Everything with a forest fire depends on getting help there +_quickly_. Ten men there almost at once do more than fifty men an hour +later. That's why your friend's promptness was so important. I guess +it might have been pretty bad if they'd had to wait for help till one +of them could have run to the village. A fire, a bad fire like that, +gets so in an hour that you can't stop it--can't stop it till it gets +out where you can plow a furrow around it. And that's a terrible place +for a fire up there. Lots of slash left." + +Molly called over her shoulder to the men climbing on the car, "All +ready there?" and was off, a Valkyr with her load of heroes. + +Once more the car toiled and agonized up the execrable sandy steepness +of the side-road; but in the twenty minutes since they had been there +the tide had turned. Sylvia was amazed at the total shifting of +values. Instead of four solitary workers, struggling wildly against +overwhelming odds, a long line of men, working with a disciplined, +orderly haste, stretched away into the woods. Imperious and savage, +the smoke and swift flames towered above them, leaping up into the +very sky, darkening the sun. Bent over their rakes, their eyes on the +ground, mere black specks against the raging glory of the fire, the +line of men, with an incessant monotonous haste, drew away the dry +leaves with their rakes, while others who followed them tore at the +earth with picks and hoes. It was impossible to believe that such +ant-labors could avail, but already, near the road, the fire had burnt +itself out, baffled by its microscopic assailants. As far as the girls +could see into the charred underbrush, a narrow, clean line of freshly +upturned earth marked where the fiercest of all the elements had +been vanquished by the humblest of all the tools of men. Bewildered, +Sylvia's eyes shifted from the toiling men to the distance, across the +blackened desolation near them, to where the fire still tossed its +wicked crest of flames defiantly into the forest. She heard, but +she did not believe the words of the men in the car, who cried out +expertly as they ran forward, "Oh, the worst's over. They're shutting +down on it." How could the worst be over, when there was still that +whirling horror of flame and smoke beyond them? + +Just after the men had gone, exultant, relieved, the girls turned +their heads to the other side of the road, and there, very silent, +very secret and venomous, leaped and glittered a little ring of +flames. An hour before, it would have looked a pretty, harmless sight +to the two who now sat, stricken by horror into a momentary frozen +stillness. The flames licked at the dry leaves and playfully sprang up +into a clump of tall dry grass. The fire was running swiftly towards a +bunch of dead alders standing at the edge of the forest. Before it had +spread an inch further, the girls were upon it, screaming for help, +screaming as people in civilization seldom scream, with all their +lungs. With uplifted skirts they stamped and trod out, under swift and +fearless feet, the sinister, silent, yellow tongues. They snatched +branches of green leaves and beat fiercely at the enemy. It had been +so small a spot compared to the great desolation across the road, they +stamped out the flames so easily, that the girls expected with every +breath to see the last of it. To see it escape them, to see it +suddenly flare up where it had been dead, to see it appear behind +them while they were still fighting it in front, was like being in a +nightmare when effort is impossible. The ring widened with appalling, +with unbelievable rapidity. Sylvia could not think it possible that +anything outside a dream could have such devouring swiftness. She trod +and snatched and stamped and screamed, and wondered if she were indeed +awake.... + +Yet in an instant their screams had been heard, three or four +smoke-blackened fire-fighters from beyond the road ran forward with +rakes, and in a twinkling the danger was past. Its disappearance was +as incredible as its presence. + +"Ain't that just like a fire in the woods?" said one of the men, an +elderly farmer. He drew a long, tremulous breath. "It's so tarnation +_quick_! It's either all over before you can ketch your breath, or +it's got beyond you for good." It evidently did not occur to him to +thank the girls for their part. They had only done what every one did +in an emergency, the best they could. He looked back at the burned +tract on the other side of the road and said: "They've got the best +of that all right, too. I jest heard 'em shoutin' that the men from +Chitford had worked round from the upper end. So they've got a ring +round it. Nothin' to do now but watch that it don't jump. My! 'Twas a +close call. I've been to a lot of fires in my day, but I d'know as I +ever see a _closeter_ call!" + +"It can't be _over_!" cried Sylvia, looking at the lurid light across +the road. "Why, it isn't an hour since we--" + +"Land! No, it ain't _over!_" he explained, scornful of her +inexperience. "They'll have to have a gang of men here watchin' it all +night--and maybe all tomorrow--'less we have some rain. But it won't +go no further than the fire-line, and as soon as there're men enough +to draw that all around, it's _got_ to stop!" He went on to his +companion, irritably, pressing his hand to his side: "There ain't no +use talkin', I got to quit fire-fightin'. My heart 'most gi'n out on +me in the hottest of that. And yit I'm only sixty!" + +"It ain't no job for old folks," said the other bitterly. "If it had +ha' gone a hundred feet further that way, 'twould ha' been in where +Ed Hewitt's been lumberin', and if it had got into them dry tops and +brush--well, I guess 'twould ha' gone from here to Chitford village +before it stopped. And 'twouldn't ha' stopped there, neither!" + +The old man said reflectively: "'Twas the first load of men did the +business. 'Twas nip and tuck down to the last foot if we could stop it +on that side. I tell you, ten minutes of that kind o' work takes about +ten years off'n a man's life. We'd just about gi'n up when we saw 'em +coming. I bet I won't be no gladder to see the pearly gates than I was +to see them men with hoes." + +Molly turned a glowing, quivering face of pride on Sylvia, and then +looked past her shoulder with a startled expression into the eyes of +one of the fire-fighters, a tall, lean, stooping man, blackened +and briar-torn like the rest. "Why, Cousin Austin!" she cried with +vehement surprise, "what in the world--" In spite of his grime, she +gave him a hearty, astonished, affectionate kiss. + +"I was just wondering," said the man, smiling indulgently down on her, +"how soon you'd recognize me, you little scatter-brain." + +"I thought you were going to stick in Colorado all summer," said +Molly. + +"Well, I heard they were short of help at Austin Farm and I came on +to help get in the hay," said the man. Both he and Molly seemed to +consider this a humorous speech. Then, remembering Sylvia, Molly went +through a casual introduction. "This is my cousin--Austin Page--my +_favorite_ cousin! He's really awfully nice, though so plain to look +at." She went on, still astonished, "But how'd you get _here?_" + +"Why, how does anybody in Vermont get to a forest fire?" he answered. +"We were out in the hayfield, saw the smoke, left the horses, grabbed +what tools we could find, and beat it through the woods. That's the +technique of the game up here." + +"I didn't know your farm ran anywhere near here," said Molly. + +"It isn't so terribly near. We came across lots tolerable fast. But +there's a little field, back up on the edge of the woods that isn't so +far. Grandfather used to raise potatoes there. I've got it into hay +now," he explained. + +As they talked, the fire beyond them gave definite signs of yielding. +It had evidently been stopped on the far side and now advanced +nowhere, showed no longer a malign yellow crest, but only rolling +sullenly heavenward a diminishing cloud of smoke. The fire-fighters +began to straggle back across the burned tract towards the road, their +eyeballs gleaming white in their dark faces. + +"Oh, they mustn't walk! I'll take them back--the darlings!" said +Molly, starting for her car. She was quite her usual brisk, +free-and-easy self now. "Cracky! I hope I've got gas enough. I've +certainly been going _some!_" + +"Why don't you leave me here?" suggested Sylvia. "I'll walk home. +That'll leave room for one more." + +"Oh, you can't do that!" protested Molly faintly, though she was +evidently at once struck with the plan. "How'd you find your way +home?" She turned to her cousin. "See here, Austin, why don't _you_ +take Sylvia home? You ought to go anyhow and see Grandfather. Hell be +awfully hurt to think you're here and haven't been to see him." She +threw instantly into this just conceived idea the force which always +carried through her plans. "Do go! I feel so grateful to these men I +don't want one of them to walk a step!" + +Sylvia had thought of a solitary walk, longing intensely for +isolation, and she did not at all welcome the suggestion of adapting +herself to a stranger. The stranger, on his part, looked a very +unchivalrous hesitation; but this proved to be only a doubt of +Sylvia's capacity as a walker. + +"If you don't mind climbing a bit, I can take you over the gap between +Hemlock and Windward Mountain and make a bee-line for Lydford. It's +not an hour from here, that way, but it's ten miles around by the +road--and hot and dusty too." + +"Can she _climb_!" ejaculated Molly scornfully, impatient to be off +with her men. "She went up to Prospect Rock in forty minutes." + +She high-handedly assumed that everything was settled as she wished +it, and running towards the car, called with an easy geniality to the +group of men, starting down the road on foot, "Here, wait a minute, +folks, I'll take you back!" + +She mounted the car, started the engine, waved her hand to the two +behind her, and was off. + +The lean, stooping man looked dubiously at Sylvia. "You're sure you +don't mind a little climb?" he said. + +"Oh no, I like it," she said listlessly. The moment for her was of +stale, wearied return to real life, to the actual world which she was +continually finding uglier than she hoped. The recollection of Felix +Morrison came back to her in a bitter tide. + +"All ready?" asked her companion, mopping his forehead with a very +dirty handkerchief. + +"All ready," she said and turned, with a hanging head, to follow him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +BETWEEN WINDWARD AND HEMLOCK MOUNTAINS + + +For a time as they plodded up the steep wood-road, overgrown with +ferns and rank grass, with dense green walls of beech and oak saplings +on either side, what few desultory remarks they exchanged related to +Molly, she being literally the only topic of common knowledge between +them. Sylvia, automatically responding to her deep-lying impulse to +give pleasure, to be pleasing, made an effort to overcome her somber +lassitude and spoke of Molly's miraculous competence in dealing with +the fire. Her companion said that of course Molly hadn't made all that +up out of her head on the spur of the moment. After spending every +summer of her life in Lydford, it would be surprising if so energetic +a child as Molly hadn't assimilated the Vermont formula for fighting +fire. "They always put for the nearest factory and get all hands out," +he explained, adding meditatively, as he chewed on a twig: "All the +same, the incident shows what I've always maintained about Molly: +that she is, like 'most everybody, lamentably miscast. Molly's spirit +oughtn't to have taken up its abiding place in that highly ornamental +blond shell, condemned after a fashionable girl's education to +pendulum swings between Paris and New York and Lydford. It doesn't fit +for a cent. It ought to have for habitation a big, gaunt, powerful +man's body, and for occupation the running of a big factory." He +seemed to be philosophizing more to himself than to Sylvia, and beyond +a surprised look into his extremely grimy face, she made no comment. +She had taken for granted from the talk between him and Molly that he +was one of the "forceful, impossible Montgomery cousins," and had +cast her own first remarks in a tone calculated to fit in with +the supposititious dialect of such a person. But his voice, his +intonations, and his whimsical idea about Molly fitted in with the +conception of an "impossible" as little as with the actual visible +facts of his ragged shirt-sleeves and faded, earth-stained overalls. +They toiled upwards in silence for some moments, the man still chewing +on his birch-twig. He noticed her sidelong half-satirical glance at +it. "Don't you want one?" he asked, and gravely cut a long, slim rod +from one of the saplings in the green wall shutting them into the +road. As he gave it to her he explained, "It's the kind they make +birch beer of. You nip off the bark with your teeth. You'll like it." + +Still more at sea as to what sort of person he might be, and now +fearing perhaps to wound him if he should turn out to be a very +unsophisticated one, Sylvia obediently set her teeth to the lustrous, +dark bark and tore off a bit, which gave out in her mouth a mild, +pleasant aromatic tang, woodsy and penetrating, unlike any other taste +she knew. "Good, isn't it?" said her companion simply. + +She nodded, slowly awakening to a tepid curiosity about the individual +who strode beside her, lanky and powerful in his blue jeans. What an +odd circumstance, her trudging off through the woods thus with a guide +of whom she knew nothing except that he was Molly Sommerville's cousin +and worked a Vermont farm--and had certainly the dirtiest face she had +ever seen, with the exception of the coal-blackened stokers in the +power-house of the University. He spoke again, as though in answer +to what might naturally be in her mind: "At the top of the road it +crosses a brook, and I think a wash would be possible. I've a bit +of soap in my pocket that'll help--though it takes quite a lot of +scrubbing to get off fire-fighting grime." He looked pointedly down at +her as he talked. + +Sylvia was so astonished that she dropped back through years of +carefully acquired self-consciousness into a moment of the stark +simplicity of childhood. "Why--is _my_ face dirty?" she cried out. + +The man beside her apparently found the contrast between her looks and +the heartfelt sincerity of her question too much for him. He burst +into helpless laughter, though he was adroit enough to thrust forward +as a pretext, "The picture of my _own_ grime that I get from your +accent is tremendous!" But it was evidently not at his own joke that +he was laughing. + +For an instant Sylvia hung poised very near to extreme annoyance. +Never since she had been grown up, had she appeared at such an absurd +disadvantage. But at once the mental picture of herself, making +inaudible carping strictures on her companion's sootiness and, all +unconscious, lifting to observe it a critical countenance as swart as +his own--the incongruity smote her deliciously, irresistibly! Sore +heart or not, black depression notwithstanding, she needs must laugh, +and having laughed, laugh again, laugh louder and longer, and finally, +like a child, laugh for the sake of laughing, till out through this +unexpected channel she discharged much of the stagnant bitterness +around her heart. + +Her companion laughed with her. The still, sultry summer woods echoed +with the sound. "How human, how lusciously _human_!" he exclaimed. +"Neither of us thought that _he_ might be the blackened one!" + +"Oh, mine _can't_ be as bad as yours!" gasped out Sylvia, but when +she rubbed a testing handkerchief on her cheek, she went off in fresh +peals at the sight of the resultant black smears. + +"Don't, for Heaven's sake, waste that handkerchief," cautioned her +companion. "It's the only towel between us. Mine's impossible!" He +showed her the murky rag which was his own; and as they spoke, they +reached the top of the road, heard the sound of water, and stood +beside the brook. + +He stepped across it, in one stride of his long legs, rolled up his +shirt-sleeves, took a book out of his pocket, laid it on a stone, and +knelt down. "I choose this for _my_ wash-basin," he said, indicating a +limpid pool paved with clean gray pebbles. + +Sylvia answered in the same note of play, "This'll be mine." It lay +at the foot of a tiny waterfall, plashing with a tinkling note into +transparent shallows. She cast an idle glance on the book he had laid +down and read its title, "A History of the Institution of Property," +and reflected that she had been right in thinking it had a +familiar-looking cover. She had dusted books with that sort of cover +all her life. + +Molly's cousin produced from his overalls a small piece of yellow +kitchen-soap, which he broke into scrupulously exact halves and +presented with a grave flourish to Sylvia. "Now, go to it," he +exhorted her; "I bet I get a better wash than you." + +Sylvia took off her hat, rolled up her sleeves, and began on vigorous +ablutions. She had laughed, yes, and heartily, but in her complicated +many-roomed heart a lively pique rubbed shoulders with her mirth, and +her merriment was tinctured with a liberal amount of the traditional +feminine horrified disgust at having been uncomely, at having +unconsciously been subjected to an indignity. She was determined that +no slightest stain should remain on her smooth, fine-textured skin. +She felt, as a pretty woman always feels, that her personality was +indissolubly connected with her looks, and it was a symbolic act which +she performed as she fiercely scrubbed her face with the yellow soap +till its acrid pungency blotted out for her the woodland aroma of +moist earth and green leaves. She dashed the cold water up on her +cheeks till the spattering drops gleamed like crystals on the crisp +waviness of her ruddy brown hair. She washed her hands and arms in the +icy mountain water till they were red with the cold, hot though the +day was. She was chilled, and raw with the crude astringency of the +soap, but she felt cleansed to the marrow of her bones, as though +there had been some mystic quality in this lustration in running +water, performed under the open sky. The racy, black-birch tang still +lingering on her tongue was a flavor quite in harmony with this +severely washed feeling. It was a taste notably clean. + +She looked across the brook at her companion, now sitting back on his +heels, and saw that there had emerged from his grime a thin, tanned, +high-nosed face, topped by drab-colored hair of no great abundance and +lighted by a pair of extraordinarily clear, gray eyes. She perceived +no more in the face at that moment, because the man, as he looked up +at her, became nothing but a dazzled mirror from which was reflected +back to her the most flattering image of her own appearance. Almost +actually she saw herself as she appeared to him, a wood-nymph, +kneeling by the flowing water, vital, exquisite, strong, radiant in a +cool flush, her uncovered hair gleaming in a thousand loosened waves. +Like most comely women of intelligence Sylvia was intimately familiar +with every phase of her own looks, and she knew down to the last +blood-corpuscle that she had never looked better. But almost at once +came the stab that Felix Morrison was not the man who was looking at +her, and the heartsick recollection that he would never again be there +to see her. Her moment of honest joy in being lovely passed. She stood +up with a clouded face, soberly pulled down her sleeves, and picked up +her hat. + +"Oh, why don't you leave it off?" said the man across the brook. +"You'd be so much more comfortable!" She knew that he meant her hair +was too pretty to cover, and did not care what he meant. "All right, +I'll carry it," she assented indifferently. + +He did not stir, gazing up at her frankly admiring. Sylvia made out, +from the impression he evidently now had of her, that her face had +really been very, very dirty; and at the recollection of that absurd +ascent of the mountain by those two black-faced, twig-chewing +individuals, a return of irrepressible laughter quivered on her lips. +Before his eyes, as swiftly, as unaccountably, as utterly as an April +day shifts its moods, she had changed from radiant, rosy wood-goddess +to saddened mortal and thence on into tricksy, laughing elf. He burst +out on her, "Who _are_ you, anyhow?" + +She remembered with a start. "Why, that's so, Molly didn't mention my +name--isn't that like Molly! Why, I'm Sylvia Marshall," + +"You may be _named_ Sylvia Marshall!" he said, leaving an inference in +the air like incense. + +"Well, yes, to be sure," rejoined Sylvia; "I heard somebody only the +other day say that an introduction was the quaintest of grotesques, +since people's names are the most--" + +He applied a label with precision. "Oh, you know Morrison?" + +She was startled at this abrupt emergence of the name which secretly +filled her mind and was aware with exasperation that she was blushing. +Her companion appeared not to notice this. He was attempting the +difficult feat of wiping his face on the upper part of his sleeve, +and said in the intervals of effort: "Well, you know _my_ name. Molly +didn't forget that." + +"But _I_ did," Sylvia confessed. "I was so excited by the fire I never +noticed at all. I've been racking my brains to remember, all the way +up here." + +For some reason the man seemed quite struck with this statement and +eyed her with keenness as he said: "Oh--really? Well, my name is +Austin Page." At the candid blankness of her face he showed a boyish +flash of white teeth in a tanned face. "Do you mean to say you've +never heard of me?" + +"_Should_ I?" said Sylvia, with a graceful pretense of alarm. "Do you +write, or something? Lay it to my ignorance. It's immense." + +He shook his head. He smiled down on her. She noticed now that his +eyes were very kind as well as clear and keen. "No, I don't write, or +anything. There's no reason why you should ever have heard of me. I +only thought--I thought possibly Molly or Uncle George might have +happened to mention me." + +"I'm only on from the West for a visit," explained Sylvia. "I never +was in Lydford before. I don't know the people there." + +"Well then, to avoid Morrison's strictures on introductions I'll add +to my name the information that I am thirty-two years old; a graduate +of Columbia University; that I have some property in Colorado which +gives me a great deal of trouble; and a farm with a wood lot in +Vermont which is the joy of my heart. I cannot endure politics; I +play the flute, like my eggs boiled three minutes, and admire George +Meredith." + +His manoeuvers with his sleeve were so preposterous that Sylvia now +cried to him: "Oh, don't twist around that way. You'll give yourself +a crick in the neck. Here's my handkerchief. We were going to share +that, anyhow." + +"And you," he went on gravely, wiping his face with the bit of +cambric, "are Sylvia Marshall, presumably Miss; you can laugh at a +joke on yourself; are not afraid to wash your face with kitchen soap; +and apparently are the only girl in the twentieth century who has not +a mirror and a powder-puff concealed about her person." + +All approbation was sweet to Sylvia. She basked in this. "Oh, I'm +a Hottentot, a savage from the West, as I told you," she said +complacently. + +"You've been in Lydford long enough to hear Morrison hold forth on the +idiocies of social convention, the while he neatly manipulates them to +his own advantage." + +Sylvia had dreaded having to speak of Morrison, but she was now +greatly encouraged by the entire success of her casual tone, as she +explained, "Oh, he's an old friend of my aunt's, and he's been at the +house a good deal." She ventured to try herself further, and inquired +with a bright look of interest, "What do you think of his engagement +to your cousin Molly?" + +He was petrified with astonishment. "_Molly_ engaged to _Morrison_!" +he cried. "We can't be talking about the same people. I mean _Felix_ +Morrison the critic." + +She felt vindicated by his stupefaction and liked him for it. "Why, +yes; hadn't you heard?" she asked, with an assumption of herself +seeing nothing surprising in the news. + +"No, I hadn't, and I can't believe it now!" he said, blinking his +eyes. "I never heard such an insane combination of names in my life." +He went on, "What under the _sun_ does Molly want of Morrison!" + +Sylvia was vexed with him for this unexpected view. He was not so +discerning as she had thought. She turned away and picked up her hat. +"We ought to be going on," she said, and as they walked she answered, +"You don't seem to have a very high opinion of Mr. Morrison." + +He protested with energy. "Oh yes, I have. Quite the contrary, I think +him one of the most remarkable men I know, and one of the finest. I +admire him immensely. I'd trust his taste sooner than I would my own." + +To this handsome tribute Sylvia returned, smiling, "The inference is +that you don't think much of Molly." + +"I _know_ Molly!" he said simply. "I've known her and loved her ever +since she was a hot-tempered, imperious little girl--which is all she +is now. Engaged ... and engaged to Morrison! It's a plain case of +schoolgirl infatuation!" He was lost in wonder, uneasy wonder it +seemed, for after a period of musing he brought out: "They'll cut each +other's throats inside six months. Or Molly'll cut her own. What under +the sun was her grandfather thinking of?" + +Sylvia said gravely, "Girls' grandfathers have such an influence in +their marriages." + +He smiled a rueful recognition of the justice of her thrust and then +fell into silence. + +The road did not climb up now, but led along the side of the mountain. +Through the dense woods the sky-line, first guessed at, then clearly +seen between the thick-standing tree-trunks, sank lower and lower. +"We are approaching," said Page, motioning in front of them, "the +jumping-off place." They passed from the tempered green light of the +wood and emerged upon a great windy plateau, carpeted thickly with +deep green moss, flanked right and left with two mountain peaks and +roofed over with an expanse of brilliant summer sky. Before them the +plateau stretched a mile or more, wind-swept, sun-drenched, with an +indescribable bold look of great altitude; but close to them at one +side ran a parapet-like line of tumbled rock and beyond this a sheer +descent. The eye leaped down abrupt slopes of forest to the valley +they had left, now a thousand feet below them, jewel-like with mystic +blues and greens, tremulous with heat. On the noble height where they +stood, the wind blew cool from the sea of mist-blue peaks beyond the +valley. + +Sylvia was greatly moved. "Oh, what a wonderful spot!" she said under +her breath. "I never dreamed that anything could be--" She burst out +suddenly, scarcely knowing what she said, "Oh, I wish my _mother_ +could be here!" She had not thought of her mother for days, and now +hardly knew that she had spoken her name. Standing there, poised above +the dark richness of the valley, her heart responding to those vast +airy spaces by an upward-soaring sweep, the quick tears of ecstasy +were in her eyes. She had entirely forgotten herself and her +companion. He did not speak. His eyes were on her face. + +She moved to the parapet of rock and leaned against it. The action +brought her to herself and she flashed around on Page a grateful +smile. "It's a very beautiful spot you've brought me to," she said. + +He came up beside her now. "It's a favorite of mine," he said quietly. +"If I come straight through the woods it's not more than a mile from +my farm. I come up here for the sunsets sometimes--or for dawn." + +Sylvia found the idea almost too much for her. "_Oh!_" she +cried--"dawn here!" + +"Yes," said the man, smiling faintly. "It's all of that!" + +In her life of plains and prairies Sylvia had never been upon a great +height, had never looked down and away upon such reaches of far +valley, such glorious masses of sunlit mountain; and beyond them, +giving wings to the imagination, were mountains, more mountains, +distant, incalculably distant, with unseen hollow valleys between; and +finally, mountains again, half cloud, melting indistinguishably into +the vaporous haze of the sky. Above her, sheer and vast, lay Hemlock +Mountain, all its huge bulk a sleeping, passionless calm. Beyond was +the solemnity of Windward Mountain's concave shell, full to the +brim with brooding blue shadows, a well of mystery in that day of +wind-blown sunshine. Beneath her, above her, before her, seemingly the +element in which she was poised, was space, illimitable space. She had +never been conscious of such vastness, she was abashed by it, she was +exalted by it, she knew a moment of acute shame for the pettiness of +her personal grievances. For a time her spirit was disembarrassed +of the sorry burden of egotism, and she drank deep from the cup of +healing which Nature holds up in such instants of beatitude. Her eyes +were shining pools of peace.... + +They went on in a profound silence across the plateau, the deep, soft +moss bearing them up with a tough elasticity, the sun hot and lusty +on their heads, the sweet, strong summer wind swift and loud in their +ears, the only sound in all that enchanted upland spot. Often Sylvia +lifted her face to the sky, so close above her, to the clouds moving +with a soundless rhythm across the sky; once or twice she turned her +head suddenly from one side to the other, to take in all the beauty at +one glance, and smiled on it all, a vague, sunny, tender smile. But +she did not speak. + +As she trod on the thick moss upspringing under her long, light step, +her advance seemed as buoyant as though she stepped from cloud to +cloud.... + +When they reached the other side, and were about to begin the descent +into Lydford valley, she lingered still. She looked down into the +valley before her, across to the mountains, and, smiling, with +half-shut eyes of supreme satisfaction, she said under her breath: +"It's Beethoven--just the blessedness of Beethoven! The valley is +a legato passage, quiet and flowing; those far, up-pricking hills, +staccato; and the mountains here, the solemn chords." + +Her companion did not answer. She looked up at him, inquiringly, +thinking that he had not heard her, and found him evidently too deeply +moved to speak. She was startled, almost frightened, almost shocked by +the profundity of his gaze upon her. Her heart stood still and gave +a great leap. Chiefly she was aware of an immense astonishment and +incredulity. An hour before he had never seen her, had never heard of +her--and during that hour she had been barely aware of him, absorbed +in herself, indifferent. How could he in that hour have ... + +He looked away and said steadily, "--and the river is the melody that +binds it all together." + +Sylvia drew a great breath of relief. She had been the victim of some +extraordinary hallucination: "--with the little brooks for variations +on the theme," she added hastily. + +He held aside an encroaching briar, stretching its thorny arm across +the path. "Here's the beginning of the trail down to Lydford," he +said. "We will be there in twenty minutes. It's almost a straight drop +down." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +SYLVIA ASKS HERSELF "WHY NOT?" + + +If Sylvia wondered, as she dropped down the heights to the valley, +what her reception might be at her aunt's ceremonious household when +she entered escorted by a strange hatless man in blue overalls, her +fancy fell immeasurably short of the actual ensuing sensation. Mrs. +Marshall-Smith, her stepson, Felix Morrison, and old Mr. Sommerville +were all sitting together on the wide north veranda, evidently waiting +to be called to luncheon when, at half-past one, the two pedestrians +emerged through a side wicket in the thick green hedge of spruce, and +advanced up the path, with the free, swinging step of people who have +walked far and well. The effect on the veranda was unimaginable. +Sheer, open-mouthed stupefaction blurred for an instant the composed, +carefully arranged masks of those four exponents of decorum. They +gaped and stared, unable to credit their eyes. + +And then, according to their natures, they acted. Mrs. Marshall-Smith +rose quickly, smiled brilliantly, and stepped forward with welcoming +outstretched hands. "Why, Sylvia dear, how delightful! What an +unexpected pleasure, Mr. Page!" + +Old Mr. Sommerville fairly bounded past Sylvia, caught the man's arm, +and said in an anxious, affectionate, startled voice, "Why, Austin! +Austin! Austin!" + +Morrison rose, but stood quietly by his chair, his face entirely +expressionless, palpably and correctly "at attention." He had not seen +Sylvia since the announcement of his engagement the day before. He +gave her now a graceful, silent, friendly salute from a distance as +she stood by her aunt, he called out to her companion a richly cordial +greeting of "Well, Page. This is luck indeed!" but he indicated by his +immobility that as a stranger he would not presume to go further until +the first interchange between blood-kin was over. + +As for Arnold, he neither stirred from his chair, nor opened his mouth +to speak. A slow smile widened on his lips: it expanded. He grinned +delightedly down at his cigarette, and up at the ceiling, and finally +broke into an open laugh of exquisite enjoyment of the scene before +him. + +Four people were talking at once; Mr. Sommerville, a dismayed old hand +still clutching at the new-comer, was protesting with extreme vigor, +and being entirely drowned out by the others. "Of course he can't +stay--as he _is!_ I'll go home with him at once! His room at my house +is always ready for him!--fresh clothes!--No, no--impossible to stay!" +Mrs. Marshall-Smith was holding firm with her loveliest manner of warm +friendliness concentrated on Page. "Oh, no ceremony, Mr. Page, not +between old friends. Luncheon is just ready--who cares how you look?" +She did not physically dispute with Mr. Sommerville the possession of +the new-comer, but she gave entirely that effect. + +Sylvia, unable to meet Morrison's eyes, absorbed in the difficulty of +the moment for her, unillumined by the byplay between her aunt and old +Mr. Sommerville, strove for an appearance of vivacious loquacity, and +cast into the conversation entirely disregarded bits of description +of the fire. "Oh, Tantine, such an excitement!--we took nine men +with hoes up such a steep--!" And finally Page, resisting old Mr. +Sommerville's pull on his arm, was saying: "If luncheon is ready, +and I'm invited, no more needs to be said. I've been haying and +fire-fighting since seven this morning. A wolf is nothing compared +with me." He looked across the heads of the three nearest him and +called to Arnold: "Smith, you'll lend me some flannels, won't you? We +must be much of the same build." + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith turned, taking no pains to hide her satisfaction. +She positively gloated over the crestfallen Mr. Sommerville. "Sylvia, +run quick and have Hélčne smooth your hair. And call to Tojiko to put +on an extra place for luncheon. Arnold, take Mr. Page up to your room, +won't you, so that he--" + +Sylvia, running up the stairs, heard her late companion protesting: +"Oh, just for a change of clothes, only a minute--you needn't expect +me to do any washing. I'm clean. I'm washed within an inch of my +life--yellow soap--kitchen soap!" + +"And our little scented toilet futilities," Morrison's cameo of +small-talk carried to the upper hall. "What could they add to such a +Spartan lustration?" + +"Hurry, Hélčne," said Sylvia. "It is late, and Mr. Page is dying of +hunger," + +In spite of the exhortation to haste, Hélčne stopped short, uplifted +brush in hand. "Mr. Page, the millionaire!" she exclaimed. + +Sylvia blinked at her in the glass, amazed conjectures racing through +her mind. But she had sufficient self-possession to say, carelessly as +though his identity was nothing to her: "I don't know. It is the first +time I have seen him. He certainly is not handsome." + +Hélčne thrust in the hairpins with impassioned haste and deftness, and +excitedly snatched a lace jacket from a drawer. To the maid's despair +Sylvia refused this adornment, refused the smallest touch of rouge, +refused an ornament in her hair. Hélčne wrung her hands. "But see, +Mademoiselle is not wise! For what good is it to be so savage! He is +more rich than all! They say he owns all the State of Colorado!" + +Sylvia, already in full retreat towards the dining-room, caught this +last geographic extravagance of Gallic fancy, and laughed, and with +this mirth still in her face made her re-entry on the veranda. She had +not been away three minutes from the group there, and she was to the +eye as merely flushed and gay when she came back as when she went +away; but a revolution had taken place. Closely shut in her hand, she +held, held fast, the key Hélčne had thrust there. Behind her smile, +her clear, bright look of valiant youth, a great many considerations +were being revolved with extreme rapidity by an extremely swift and +active brain. + +Swift and active as was the brain, it fairly staggered under the task +of instantly rearranging the world according to the new pattern: +for the first certainty to leap into sight was that the pattern was +utterly changed by the events of the morning. She had left the +house, betrayed, defenseless save for a barren dignity, and she had +re-entered it in triumph, or at least with a valid appearance of +triumph, an appearance which had already tided her over the aching +difficulty of the first meeting with Morrison and might carry her ... +she had no time now to think how far. + +Page and Arnold were still invisible when she emerged again on the +veranda, and Mrs. Marshall-Smith pounced on her with the frankest +curiosity. "Sylvia, do tell us--how in the world--" + +Sylvia was in the midst of a description of the race to the fire, as +vivid as she could make it, when Arnold sauntered back and after him, +in a moment, Page, astonishingly transformed by clothes. His height +meant distinction now. Sylvia noted again his long, strong hands, his +aquiline, tanned face and clear eyes, his thoughtful, observant eyes. +There was a whimsical quirk of his rather thin but gentle lips which +reminded her of the big bust of Emerson in her father's study. She +liked all this; but her suspiciousness, alert for affront, since the +experience with Morrison, took offense at his great ease of manner. It +had seemed quite natural and unaffected to her, in fact she had not at +all noticed it before; but now that she knew of his great wealth, she +instantly conceived a resentful idea that possibly it might come from +the self-assurance of a man who knows himself much courted. She held +her head high, gave to him as to Arnold a nod of careless recognition, +and continued talking: "Such a road--so steep--sand half-way to the +hubs, such water-bars!" She turned to Morrison with her first overt +recognition of the new status between them. "You ought to have seen +your fiancée! She was wonderful! I was proud of her!" + +Morrison nodded a thoughtful assent. "Yes, Molly's energy is +irresistible," he commented, casting his remark in the form of a +generalization the significance of which did not pass unnoticed by +Sylvia's sharp ears. They were the first words he had spoken to her +since his engagement. + +"Luncheon is ready," said Mrs. Marshall-Smith. "Do come in." Every one +by this time being genuinely hungry, and for various reasons extremely +curious about the happenings back of Sylvia's appearance, the meal was +dedicated frankly to eating, varied only by Sylvia's running account +of the fire. "And then Molly wanted to take the fire-fighters home, +and I offered to walk to have more room for them, and Mr. Page brought +me up the other side of Hemlock and over the pass between Hemlock and +Windward and down past Deer Cliff, home," she wound up, compressing +into tantalizing brevity what was patently for her listeners by far +the most important part of the expedition. + +"Well, whatever route he took, it is astonishing that he knew the way +to Lydford at all," commented Mrs. Marshall-Smith. "I don't believe +you've been here before for years!" she said to Page. + +"It's my confounded shyness," he explained, turning to Sylvia with a +twinkle. "The grand, sophisticated ways of Lydford are too much for +the nerves of a plain-living rustic like me. When I farm in Vermont +the spirit of the place takes hold of me. I'm quite apt to eat my pie +with my knife, and Lydford wouldn't like that." + +Sylvia was aware, through the laughter which followed this joking +remark, that there was an indefinable stir around the table. His +turning to her had been pronounced. She took a sore pleasure in +Morrison's eclipse. For the first time he was not the undisputed +center of that circle. He accepted it gravely, a little preoccupied, +a little absent, a wonderfully fine and dignified figure. Under her +misanthropic exultation, Sylvia felt again and again the stab of +her immense admiration for him, her deep affinity for his way of +conducting life. Whatever place he might take in the circle around the +luncheon table, she found him inevitably at the center of all her own +thoughts. However it might seem to those evidently greatly struck with +her extraordinary good luck, her triumph was in reality only the most +pitiful of pretenses. But such as it was, and it gleamed richly enough +on the eyes of the onlookers, she shook it out with a flourish and +gave no sign of heartsick qualms. She gave a brilliantly undivided +attention to the bit of local history Page was telling her, of a +regiment of Green Mountain Boys who had gone down to the Battle of +Bennington over the pass between Windward and Hemlock Mountain, and +she was able to stir Page to enthusiasm by an appreciative comparison +of their march with the splendid and affecting incident before +Marathon, when the thousand hoplites from the little town of Plataea +crossed the Cithaeron range and went down to the plain to join the +Athenians in their desperate stand. + +"How do you _happen_ to come East just now, anyhow?" inquired old Mr. +Sommerville, resolutely shouldering his way into the conversation. + +"My yellow streak!" affirmed his nephew. "Colorado got too much for +me. And besides, I was overcome by an atavistic longing to do chores." +He turned to Sylvia again, the gesture as unconscious and simple as a +boy's. "My great-grandfather was a native of these parts, and about +once in so often I revert to type." + +"All my mother's people came from this region too," Sylvia said. She +added meditatively, "And I think I must have reverted to type--up +there on the mountain, this morning." + +He looked at her silently, with softening eyes. + +"You'll be going back soon, I suppose, as usual!" said old Mr. +Sommerville with determination. + +"To Colorado?" inquired Page. "No, I think--I've a notion I'll stay on +this summer for some time. There is an experiment I want to try with +alfalfa in Vermont." + +Over his wineglass Arnold caught Sylvia's eye, and winked. + +"Still reading as much as ever, I suppose." Mr. Sommerville was not +to be put down. "When I last saw you, it was some fool socialistic +poppycock about the iniquity of private exploitation of natural +resources. How'd they ever have been exploited any other way I'd like +to know! What's socialism? Organized robbery! Nothing else! 'Down with +success! Down with initiative! Down with brains!' Stuff!" + +"It's not socialism this time: it's Professor Merritt's theories on +property," said Sylvia to the old gentleman, blandly ignoring his +ignoring of her. + +Page stared at her in astonishment. "Are you a clairvoyant?" he cried. + +"No, no," she explained, laughing. "You took it out of your pocket up +there by the brook." + +"But you saw only the title. Merritt's name isn't on the cover." + +"Oh, it's a pretty well-known book," said Sylvia easily. "And my +father's a professor of Economics. When I was little I used to have +books like that to build houses with, instead of blocks. And I've had +to keep them in order and dusted ever since. I'm not saying that I +know much about their insides." + +"Just look there!" broke in Arnold. "Did I ever see a young lady pass +up such a perfectly good chance to bluff!" + +As usual nobody paid the least attention to his remark. The +conversation shifted to a radical play which had been on the boards in +Paris, the winter before. + +After luncheon, they adjourned into the living-room. As the company +straggled across the wide, dimly shining, deeply shaded hall, Sylvia +felt her arm seized and held, and turning her head, looked into the +laughing face of Arnold. "What kind of flowers does Judy like the +best?" he inquired, the question evidently the merest pretext to +detain her, for as the others moved out of earshot he said in a +delighted whisper, his eyes gleaming in the dusk with amused malice: +"Go it, Sylvia! Hit 'em out! It's worth enduring oceans of Greek +history to see old Sommerville squirm. Molly gone--Morrison as poor as +a church mouse; and now Page going fast before his very eyes--" + +She shook off his hand with genuine annoyance. "I don't know what +you're talking about, Arnold. You're horrid! Judith doesn't like cut +flowers at all,--any kind. She likes them alive, on plants." + +"She _would!_" Arnold was rapt in his habitual certainty that every +peculiarity of Judith's was another reason for prostrate adoration. +"I'll send her a window-box for every window in the hospital." His +admiration overflowed to Judith's sister. He patted her on the +shoulder. "You're all right too, Sylvia. You're batting about +three-sixty, right now. I've always told the girls when they said Page +was offish that if they could only get in under his guard once--and +somehow you've done it. I bet on _you_--" He began to laugh at her +stern face of reproof. "Oh, yes, yes, I agree! You don't know what I'm +talking about! It's just alfalfa in Vermont! Only my low vulgarity to +think anything else!" He moved away down the hall. "Beat it! I slope!" + +"Where are you going?" she asked. + +"Away! Away!" he answered. "Anywhere that's away. The air is rank with +Oscar Wilde and the Renaissance. I feel them coming." Still laughing, +he bounded upstairs, three steps at a time. + +Sylvia stepped forward, crossed the threshold of the living-room, +and paused by the piano, penetrated by bitter-sweet associations. If +Morrison felt them also, he gave no sign. He had chosen a chair by a +distant window and was devoting himself to Molly's grandfather, who +accepted this delicate and entirely suitable attention with a rather +glum face. Mrs. Marshall-Smith and Page still stood in the center +of the room, and turned as Sylvia came in. "Do give us some music, +Sylvia," said her aunt, sinking into a chair while Page came forward +to sit near the piano. + +Sylvia's fingers rested on the keys for a moment, her face very grave, +almost somber, and then, as though taking a sudden determination, she +began to play a Liszt Liebes-Traum. It was the last music Morrison had +played to her before the beginning of the change. Into its fevered +cadences she poured the quivering, astonished hurt of her young heart. + +No one stirred during the music nor for the moment afterward, in which +she turned about to face the room. She looked squarely at Morrison, +who was rolling a cigarette with meticulous care, and as she looked, +he raised his eyes and gave her across the room one deep, flashing +glance of profound significance. That was all. That was enough. That +was everything. Sylvia turned back to the piano shivering, hot and +cold with secret joy. His look said, "Yes, of course, a thousand times +of course, you are the one in my heart." What the facts said for him +was, "But I am going to marry Molly because she has money." + +Sylvia was horrified that she did not despise him, that she did not +resent his entering her heart again with the intimacy of that +look. Her heart ran out to welcome him back; but from the sense of +furtiveness she shrank back with her lifetime habit and experience of +probity, with the instinctive distaste for stealth engendered only by +long and unbroken acquaintance with candor. With a mental action as +definite as the physical one of freeing her feet from a quicksand she +turned away from the alluring, dim possibility opened to her by that +look. No, no! No stains, no smears, no shufflings! She was conscious +of no moral impulse, in the usual sense of the word. Her imagination +took in no possibility of actual wrong. But when, with a fastidious +impulse of good taste, she turned her back on something ugly, she +turned her back unwittingly on something worse than ugly. + +But it was not easy! Oh, not at all easy! She quailed with a sense of +her own weakness, so unexpected, so frightening. Would she resist it +the next time? How pierced with helpless ecstasy she had been by that +interchange of glances! What was there, in that world, by which she +could steady herself? + +"How astonishingly well you play," said Page, rousing himself from the +dreamy silence of appreciation. + +"I ought to," she said with conscious bitterness. "I earn my living by +teaching music." + +She was aware from across the room of an electric message from Aunt +Victoria protesting against her perversity; and she reflected with +a morose amusement that however delicately phrased Aunt Victoria's +protests might be, its substance was the same as that of Hélčne, +crying out on her for not adding the soupçon of rouge. She took a +sudden resolution. Well, why not? Everything conspired to push her +in that direction. The few factors which did not were mere imbecile +idealism, or downright hypocrisy. She drew a long breath. She smiled +at Page, a smile of reference to something in common between them. +"Shan't I play you some Beethoven?" she asked, "something with a +legato passage and great solemn chords, and a silver melody binding +the whole together?" + +"Oh yes, do!" he said softly. And in a moment she was putting all of +her intelligence, her training, and her capacity to charm into the +tones of the E-flat Minuet. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +A HYPOTHETICAL LIVELIHOOD + + +The millionaire proprietor had asked them all over to the Austin Farm, +and as they drew near the end of the very expensive and delicately +served meal which Page had spoken of as a "picnic-lunch," various +plans for the disposition of the afternoon were suggested. These +suggestions were prefaced by the frank statement of the owner of the +place that whatever else the others did, it was his own intention to +take Miss Marshall through a part of his pine plantations and explain +his recent forestry operations to her. The assumption that Miss +Marshall would of course be interested in his pine plantations and +lumbering operations struck nobody but Miss Marshall as queer. With +the most hearty and simple unconsciousness, they unanimously felt that +of course Miss Marshall _would_ be interested in the pine plantations +and the lumbering operations of any man who was worth nobody knew how +many millions in coal, and who was so obviously interested in her. + +Sylvia had been for some weeks observing the life about her with very +much disillusioned eyes and she now labeled the feeling on the part of +her friends with great accuracy, saying to herself cynically, "If it +were prize guinea-pigs or collecting beer-steins, they would all be +just as sure that I would jump up and say, 'Oh yes, _do_ show me, Mr. +Page!'" Following this moody reflection she immediately jumped up +and said enthusiastically, "Oh yes, _do_ show me, Mr. Page!" The +brilliance in her eyes during these weeks came partly from a relieved +sense of escape from a humiliating position, and partly from an +amusement at the quality of human nature which was as dubiously +enjoyable as the grim amusement of biting on a sore tooth. + +She now took her place by the side of their host, and thought, looking +at his outdoor aspect, that her guess at what to wear had been better +than Aunt Victoria's or Molly's. For the question of what to wear had +been a burning one. Pressure had been put on her to don just a lacy, +garden-party toilette of lawn and net as now automatically barred both +Aunt Victoria and Molly from the proposed expedition to the woods. +Nobody had had the least idea what was to be the color of the +entertainment offered them, for the great significance of the affair +was that it was the first time that Page had ever invited any one to +the spot for which he evidently felt such an unaccountable affection. +Aunt Victoria had explained to Sylvia, "It's always at the big Page +estate in Lenox that he entertains, or rather that he gets his mother +to do the absolutely indispensable entertaining for him." Morrison +said laughingly: "Isn't it the very quintessence of quaintness to +visit him there! To watch his detached, whimsical air of not being +in the least a part of all the magnificence which bears his name. He +insists, you know, that he doesn't begin to know his way around that +huge house!" "It was his father who built the Lenox place," commented +Mrs. Marshall-Smith. "It suited _his_ taste to perfection. Austin +seems to have a sort of Marie-Antoinette reaction towards a somewhat +painfully achieved simplicity. He's not the man to take any sort of +pose. If he were, it would be impossible not to suspect him of +a little pose in his fondness for going back to his farmer +great-grandfather's setting." Guided by this conversation, and by +shrewd observations of her own, Sylvia had insisted, even to the point +of strenuousness, upon wearing to this first housewarming a cloth +skirt and coat, tempering the severity of this costume with a +sufficiently feminine and beruffled blouse of silk. As their car had +swung up before the plain, square, big-chimneyed old house, and Page +had come to meet them, dressed in khaki-colored forester's garb, +with puttees, Aunt Victoria had been generous enough to admit by an +eye-flash to Sylvia that the girl knew her business very well. There +was not, of course, Sylvia reflected, the slightest pretense of +obscurity between them as to what, under the circumstances, her +business was. + +All this lay back of the fact that, as Sylvia, her face bright with +spontaneous interest in pine plantations and lumbering operations, +stepped to the side of the man in puttees, her costume exactly suited +his own. + +From the midst of a daring and extremely becoming arrangement of black +and white striped chiffon and emerald-green velvet, Molly's beautiful +face smiled on them approvingly. For various reasons, the spectacle +afforded her as much pleasure as it did extreme discomfort to her +grandfather, and with her usual masterful grasp on a situation she +began to arrange matters so that the investigation of pine plantations +and lumber operations should be conducted _en tęte-ŕ-tęte_. "Mrs. +Marshall-Smith, you're going to stay here, of course, to look at +Austin's lovely view! Think of his having hidden that view away from +us all till now! I want to go through the house later on, and without +Austin, so I can linger and pry if I like! I want to look at every +single thing. It's lovely--the completest Yankee setting! It looks +as though we all ought to have on clean gingham aprons and wear +steel-rimmed spectacles. No, Austin, don't frown! I don't mean that +for a knock. I love it, honestly I do! I always thought I'd like to +wear clean gingham aprons myself. The only things that are out of +keeping are those shelves and shelves and shelves of solemn books with +such terrible titles!" + +"That's a fact, Page," said Morrison, laughing. "Molly's hit the +nail squarely. Your modern, economic spasms over the organization of +industrialism are out of place in that delightful, eighteenth century, +plain old interior. They threw _their_ fits over theology!" + +The owner of the house nodded. "Yes, you know your period! A +great-great-grandfather of mine, a ministerial person, had left a lot +of books on the nature of the Trinity and Free Will and such. They had +to be moved up to the attic to make room for mine. What books will be +on those shelves a hundred years from now, I wonder?" + +"Treatises on psychic analysis, on how to transfer thought without +words, unless I read the signs of the times wrong," Morrison hazarded +a guess. + +Molly was bored by this talk and anxious to get the walkers off. +"You'd better be starting if you're going far up on the mountain, +Austin. We have to be back for a tea at Mrs. Neville's, where Sylvia's +to pour. Mrs. Neville would have a thing or two to say to us, if we +made her lose her main drawing card." + +"Are you coming, Morrison?" asked Page. + +"No, he isn't," said Molly decidedly. "He's going to stay to play to +me on that delicious tin-panny old harpsichordy thing in your 'best +room.' You do call it the 'best room,' don't you? They always do in +New England dialect stories. Grandfather, you have your cards with +you, haven't you? You always have. If you'll get them out, Felix and +Arnold and I'll play whist with you." + +Only one of those thus laid hold of, slipped out from her strong +little fingers. Arnold raised himself, joint by joint, from his chair, +and announced that he was a perfect nut-head when it came to whist. +"And, anyhow," he went on insistently, raising his voice as Molly +began to order him back into the ranks--"And, anyhow, I don't want to +play whist! And I do want to see what Page has been up to all this +time he's kept so dark about his goings-on over here. No, Molly, you +needn't waste any more perfectly good language on me. You can boss +everybody else if you like, but I'm the original, hairy wild-man who +gets what he wants." + +He strolled off across the old-fashioned garden and out of the gate +with the other two, his attention given as usual to lighting a +cigarette. It was an undertaking of some difficulty on that day of +stiff September wind which blew Sylvia's hair about her ears in +bright, dancing flutters. + +They were no more than out of earshot of the group left on the porch, +than Sylvia, as so often happened in her growing acquaintanceship with +Page, found herself obliged entirely to reconstruct an impression of +him. It was with anything but a rich man's arrogant certainty of +her interest that he said, very simply as he said everything: "I +appreciate very much, Miss Marshall, your being willing to come along +and see all this. It's a part of your general kindness to everybody. +I hope it won't bore you to extremity. I'm so heart and soul in it +myself, I shan't know when to stop talking about it. In fact I shan't +want to stop, even if I know I should. I've never said much about it +to any one before, and I very much want your opinion on it." + +Sylvia felt a decent pinch of shame, and her eyes were not brilliant +with sardonic irony but rather dimmed with self-distrust as she +answered with a wholesome effort for honesty: "I really don't know a +single thing about forestry, Mr. Page. You'll have to start in at the +very beginning, and explain everything. I hope I've sense enough +to take an intelligent interest." Very different, this, from the +meretricious sparkle of her, "Oh yes, _do_ show me, Mr. Page." She +felt that to be rather cheap, as she remembered it. She wondered if he +had seen its significance, had seen through her. From a three weeks' +intensive acquaintance with him, she rather thought he had. His eyes +were clear, formidably so. He put her on her mettle. + +Arnold had lighted his cigarette by this time, offered one to Page +with his incurable incapacity to remember that not every sane man +smokes, and on being refused, put his hands deep in his pockets. The +three tall young people were making short work of the stretch of +sunny, windy, upland pasture, and were already almost in the edge of +the woods which covered the slope of the mountain above them up to the +very crest, jewel-green against the great, piled, cumulus clouds. + +"Well, I _will_ begin at the beginning, then," said Page. "I'll +begin back in 1762, when this valley was settled and my +ever-so-many-greats-grandfather took possession of a big slice of this +side of Hemlock Mountain, with the sole idea that trees were men's +enemies. The American colonists thought of forests, you know, as +places for Indians to lurk, spots that couldn't be used for corn, +growths to be exterminated as fast as possible." + +They entered the woods now, walking at a good pace up the steeply +rising, grass-grown wood-road. Sylvia quite consciously summoned all +her powers of attention and concentration for the hour before her, +determined to make a good impression to counteract whatever too great +insight her host might have shown in the matter of her first interest. +She bent her fine brows with the attention she had so often summoned +to face a difficult final examination, to read at the correct tempo a +complicated piece of music, to grasp the essentials of a new subject. +Her trained interest in understanding things, which of late had been +feeding on rather moldy scraps of cynical psychology, seized with +energy and delight on a change of diet. She not only tried to be +interested. Very shortly she was interested, absorbed, intent. What +Page had to say fascinated her. She even forgot who he was, and that +he was immensely rich. Though this forgetfulness was only momentary it +was an unspeakable relief and refreshment to her. + +She listened intently; at times she asked a pertinent question; as she +walked she gave the man an occasional direct survey, as impersonal as +though he were a book from which she was reading. And exactly as an +intelligent reader, in a first perusal of a new subject, snatches the +heart out of paragraph after paragraph, ignoring the details until +later, she took to herself only the gist of her host's recital. Yes, +yes, she saw perfectly the generations of Vermont farmers who had +hated trees because they meant the wilderness, and whose destruction +of forests was only limited by the puniness of the forces they matched +against the great wooded slopes of the mountains they pre-empted. And +she saw later, the long years of utter neglect of those hacked-at and +half-destroyed forests while Page's grandfather and father descended +on the city and on financial operations with the fierce, fresh energy +of frontiersmen. She was struck by the fact that those ruthless +victors of Wall Street had not sold the hundreds of worthless acres, +which they never took the trouble to visit; and by the still more +significant fact that as the older ones of the family died, the +Austins, the Pages, the Woolsons, the Hawkers, and as legacy after +legacy of more worthless mountain acres came by inheritance to the +financiers, those tracts too were never sold. They never thought of +them, Page told her, except grumblingly to pay the taxes on them; they +considered them of ridiculously minute proportions compared to their +own titanic manipulations, but they had never sold them. Sylvia saw +them vividly, those self-made exiles from the mountains, and felt in +them some unacknowledged loyalty to the soil, the barren soil which +had borne them, some inarticulate affection which had lived through +the heat and rage of their embattled lives. The taproot had been too +deep for them to break off, and now from it there was springing up +this unexpected stem, this sole survivor of their race who turned +away from what had been the flaming breath of life in their brazen +nostrils, back to the green fragrance of their mutilated and forgotten +forests. + +Not the least of the charm of this conception for Sylvia came from +the fact that she quarried it out for herself from the bare narration +presented to her, that she read it not at all in the words, but in the +voice, the face, the manner of the raconteur. She was amused, she was +touched, she was impressed by his studiously matter-of-fact version of +his enterprise. He put forward with the shy, prudish shamefacedness of +the New Englander the sound financial basis of his undertaking, as its +main claim on his interest, as its main value. "I heard so much about +forestry being nothing but a rich man's plaything," he said. "I just +got my back up, and wanted to see if it couldn't be made a paying +thing. And I've proved it can be. I've had the closest account kept of +income and outgo, and so far from being a drain on a man to reforest +his woodland and administer it as he should, there's an actual profit +in it, enough to make a business of it, enough to occupy a man for his +lifetime and his son after him, if he gives it his personal care." + +At this plain statement of a comprehensible fact, Arnold's inattention +gave place to a momentary interest. "Is there?" he asked with +surprise. "How much?" + +"Well," said Page, "my system, as I've gradually worked it out, is to +clear off a certain amount each year of our mediocre woodland, such as +for the most part grows up where the bad cutting was done a couple of +generations ago--maple and oak and beech it is, mostly, with little +stands of white birch, where fires have been. I work that up in my +own sawmill so as to sell as little of a raw product as possible; and +dispose of it to the wood-working factories in the region." (Sylvia +remembered the great "brush-back factory" whence Molly had recruited +her fire-fighters.) "Then I replant that area to white pine. That's +the best tree for this valley. I put about a thousand trees to the +acre. Or if there seems to be a good prospect of natural reproduction, +I try for that. There's a region over there, about a hundred acres," +he waved his hand to the north of them, "that's thick with seedling +ash. I'm leaving that alone. But for the most part, white pine's our +best lay. Pine thrives on soil that stunts oak and twists beech. Our +oak isn't good quality, and maple is such an interminably slow +grower. In about twenty years from planting, you can make your first, +box-board cutting of pine, and every ten years thereafter--" + +Arnold had received this avalanche of figures and species with an +astonished blink, and now protested energetically that he had had not +the slightest intention of precipitating any such flood. "Great Scott, +Page, catch your breath! If you're talking to me, you'll have to use +English, anyhow. I've no more idea what you're talking about! Who do +you take me for? _I_ don't know an ash-tree from an ash-cart. You +started in to tell me what the profit of the thing is." + +Page looked pained but patient, like a reasonable man who knows his +hobby is running away with him, but who cannot bring himself to use +the curb. "Oh yes," he said apologetically. "Why, we cleared last year +(exclusive of the farm, which yields a fair profit)--we cleared about +two thousand dollars." Arnold seemed to regard this statement as quite +the most ridiculous mouse which ever issued from a mountain. He burst +into an open laugh. "Almost enough to buy you a new car a year, isn't +it?" he commented. + +Page looked extremely nettled. An annoyed flush showed through the +tan of his clear skin. He was evidently very touchy about his pet +lumbering operations. "A great many American families consider that a +sufficient income," he said stiffly. + +Sylvia had another inspiration, such as had been the genesis of her +present walking-costume. "You're too silly, Arnold. The important +thing isn't what the proportion with Mr. Page's own income is! What he +was trying to do, and what he _has_ done, only you don't know +enough to see it, is to prove that sane forestry is possible for +forest-owners of small means. I know, if you don't, that two thousand +is plenty to live on. My father's salary is only twenty-four hundred +now, and we were all brought up when it was two thousand." + +She had had an intuitive certainty that this frank revelation would +please Page, and she was rewarded by an openly ardent flash from his +clear eyes. There was in his look at her an element of enchanted, +relieved recognition, as though he had nodded and said: "Oh, you _are_ +my kind of a woman after all! I was right about you." + +Arnold showed by a lifted eyebrow that he was conscious of being +put down, but he survived the process with his usual negligent +obliviousness of reproof. "Well, if two thousand a year produced +Judith, go ahead, Page, and my blessing on you!" He added in a +half-apology for his offensive laughter, "It just tickled me to hear +a man who owns most of several counties of coal-mines so set up over +finding a nickel on the street!" + +Page had regained his geniality. "Well, Smith, maybe I needn't have +jumped so when you stepped on my toe. But it's my pet toe, you see. +You're quite right--I'm everlastingly set up over my nickel. But it's +not because I found it. It's because I earned it. It happens to be the +only nickel I ever earned. It's natural I should want it treated with +respect." + +Arnold did not trouble to make any sense out of this remark, and +Sylvia was thinking bitterly to herself: "But that's pure bluff! I'm +_not_ his kind of a woman. I'm Felix Morrison's kind!" No comment, +therefore, was made on the quaintness of the rich man's interest in +earning capacity. + +They were now in one of the recent pine plantations, treading a +wood-road open to the sky, running between acres and acres of thrifty +young pines. Page's eyes glistened with affection as he looked at +them, and with the unwearied zest of the enthusiast he continued +expanding on his theme. Sylvia knew the main outline of her new +subject now, felt that she had walked all around it, and was agreeably +surprised at her sympathy with it. She continued with a genuine +curiosity to extract more details; and like any man who talks of a +process which he knows thoroughly, Page was wholly at the mercy of a +sympathetic listener. His tongue tripped itself in his readiness to +answer, to expound, to tell his experiences, to pour out a confidently +accurate and precise flood of information. Sylvia began to take a +playful interest in trying to find a weak place in his armor, to ask a +question he could not answer. But he knew all the answers. He knew the +relative weight per cubic foot of oak and pine and maple; he knew the +railroad rates per ton on carload lots; he knew why it is cheaper in +the long run to set transplants in sod-land instead of seeding it; he +knew what per cent to write off for damage done by the pine weevil, he +reveled in complicated statistics as to the actual cost per thousand +for chopping, skidding, drawing, sawing logs. He laughed at Sylvia's +attempts to best him, and in return beat about her ears with +statistics for timber cruising, explained the variations of the +Vermont and the scribner's decimal log rule, and recited log-scaling +tables as fluently as the multiplication table. They were in the midst +of this lively give-and-take, listened to with a mild amusement on +Arnold's part, when they emerged on a look-out ledge of gray slate, +and were struck into silence by the grave loveliness of the immense +prospect below them. + +"--and of course," murmured Page finally, on another note, "of course +it's rather a satisfaction to feel that you are making waste land of +use to the world, and helping to protect the living waters of all +that--" He waved his hand over the noble expanse of sunlit valley. "It +seems"--he drew a long breath--"it seems something quite worth doing." + +Sylvia was moved to a disinterested admiration for him; and it was a +not unworthy motive which kept her from looking up to meet his eyes +on her. She felt a petulant distaste for the calculating speculations +which filled the minds of all her world about his intentions towards +her. He was really too fine for that. At least, she owed it to her +own dignity not to abuse this moment of fine, impersonal emotion to +advance another step into intimacy with him. + +But as she stood, looking fixedly down at the valley, she was quite +aware that a sympathetic silence and a thoughtful pose might make, on +the whole, an impression quite as favorable as the most successfully +managed meeting of eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +ARNOLD CONTINUES TO DODGE THE RENAISSANCE + + +A gaunt roaming figure of ennui and restlessness, Arnold appeared at +the door of the pergola and with a petulant movement tore a brilliant +autumn leaf to pieces as he lingered for a moment, listening moodily +to the talk within. He refused with a grimace the chair to which +Sylvia motioned him. "Lord, no! Hear 'em go it!" he said quite audibly +and turned away to lounge back towards the house. Sylvia had had time +to notice, somewhat absently, that he looked ill, as though he had a +headache. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith glanced after him with misgiving, and, under cover +of a brilliantly resounding passage at arms between Morrison and +Page, murmured anxiously to Sylvia, "I wish Judith would give up her +nonsense and _marry_ Arnold!" + +"Oh, they've only been engaged a couple of months," said Sylvia. +"What's the hurry! She'll get her diploma in January. It'd be a pity +to have her miss!" + +Arnold's stepmother broke in rather impatiently, "If I were a girl +engaged to Arnold, I'd _marry_ him!" + +"--the trouble with all you connoisseurs, Morrison, is that you're +barking up the wrong tree. You take for granted, from your own tastes, +when people begin to buy jade Buddhas and Zuloaga bull-fighters that +they're wanting to surround themselves with beauty. Not much! It's the +consciousness of money they want to surround themselves with!" + +Morrison conceded part of this. "Oh, I grant you, there's a +disheartening deal of imitation in this matter. But America's new to +aesthetics. Don't despise beginnings because they're small!" + +"A nettle leaf is small. But that's not the reason why it won't ever +grow into an oak. Look here! A sheaf of winter grasses, rightly +arranged in clear glass, has as much of the essence of beauty as a +bronze vase of the Ming dynasty. I ask you just one question, How many +people do you know who are capable of--" + +The art-critic broke in: "Oh come! You're setting up an impossibly +high standard of aesthetic feeling." + +"I'm not presuming to do any such thing as setting up a standard! +I'm just insisting that people who can't extract joy from the shadow +pattern of a leafy branch on a gray wall, are liars if they claim to +enjoy a fine Japanese print. What they enjoy in the print is the sense +that they've paid a lot for it. In my opinion, there's no use trying +to advance a step towards any sound aesthetic feeling till _some_ step +is taken away from the idea of cost as the criterion of value about +anything." He drew a long breath and went on, rather more rapidly than +was his usual habit of speech: "I've a real conviction on that point. +It's come to me of late years that one reason we haven't any national +art is because we have too much magnificence. All our capacity for +admiration is used up on the splendor of palace-like railway stations +and hotels. Our national tympanum is so deafened by that blare of +sumptuousness that we have no ears for the still, small voice of +beauty. And perhaps," he paused, looking down absently at a crumb he +rolled between his thumb and finger on the table, "it's possible that +the time is ripening for a wider appreciation of another kind of +beauty ... that has little to do even with such miracles as the shadow +of a branch on a wall." + +Morrison showed no interest in this vaguely phrased hypothesis, and +returned to an earlier contention: "You underestimate," he said, +"the amount of education and taste and time it takes to arrange that +simple-looking vase of grasses, to appreciate your leaf-shadows." + +"All I'm saying is that your campaign of aesthetic education hasn't +made the matter vital enough to people, to any people, not even to +people who call themselves vastly aesthetic, so that they _give_ time +and effort and self-schooling to the acquisition of beauty. They not +only want their money to do their dirty work for them, they try to +make it do their fine living for them too, with a minimum of effort on +their part. They want to _buy_ beauty, outright, with cash, and have +it stay put, where they can get their fingers on it at any time, +without bothering about it in the meantime. That's the way a Turk +likes his women--same impulse exactly," + +"I've known a few Caucasians too ...," Mrs. Marshall-Smith contributed +a barbed point of malice to the talk. + +Page laughed, appreciating her hit. "Oh, I mean Turk as a generic +term." Sylvia, circling warily about the contestants, looking for a +chance to make her presence felt, without impairing the masculine +gusto with which they were monopolizing the center of the stage, +tossed in a suggestion, "Was it Hawthorne's--it's a queer fancy like +Hawthorne's--the idea of the miser, don't you remember, whose joy was +to roll naked in his gold pieces?" + +Page snatched up with a delighted laugh the metaphor she had laid in +his hand. "Capital! Precisely! There's the thing in a nutshell. We +twentieth century Midases have got beyond the simple taste of that +founder of the family for the shining yellow qualities of money, but +we love to wallow in it none the less. We like to put our feet on it, +in the shape of rugs valued according to their cost, we like to eat it +in insipid, out-of-season fruit and vegetables." + +"Doesn't it occur to you," broke in Morrison, "that you may be +attacking something that's a mere phase, an incident of transition?" + +"Is anything ever anything else!" Page broke in to say. + +Morrison continued, with a slight frown at the interruption, "America +is simply emerging from the frontier condition of bareness, and it is +only natural that one, or perhaps two generations must be sacrificed +in order to attain a smooth mastery of an existence charged and +enriched with possession." He gave the effect of quoting a paragraph +from one of his lectures. + +"Isn't the end of that 'transition,'" inquired Page, "usually simply +that after one or two generations people grow dulled to everything +_but_ possession and fancy themselves worthily occupied when they +spend their lives regulating and caring for their possessions. I +hate," he cried with sudden intensity, "I hate the very sound of the +word!" + +"Does you great credit, I'm sure," said Morrison, with a faint irony, +a hidden acrimony, pricking, for an instant, an ugly ear through his +genial manner. + +Ever since the day of the fire, since Page had become a more and more +frequent visitor in Lydford and had seen more and more of Sylvia, she +had derived a certain amount of decidedly bad-tasting amusement from +the fact of Morrison's animosity to the other man. But this was going +too far. She said instantly, "Do you know, I've just thought what it +is you all remind me of--I mean Lydford, and the beautiful clothes, +and nobody bothering about anything but tea and ideas and knowing the +right people. I knew it made me think of something else, and now I +know--it's a Henry James novel!" + +Page took up her lead instantly, and said gravely, putting himself +beside her as another outsider: "Well, of course, that's their ideal. +That's what they _try_ to be like--at least to talk like James people. +But it's not always easy. The vocabulary is so limited." + +"Limited!" cried Mrs. Marshall-Smith. "There are more words in a Henry +James novel than in any dictionary!" + +"Oh yes, _words_ enough!" admitted Page, "but all about the same sort +of thing. It reminds me of the seminarists in Rome, who have to use +Latin for everything. They can manage predestination and vicarious +atonement like a shot, but when it comes to ordering somebody to call +them for the six-twenty train to Naples they're lost. Now, you can +talk about your bric-ŕ-brac in Henry-Jamesese, you can take away your +neighbor's reputation by subtle suggestion, you can appreciate a fine +deed of self-abnegation, if it's not too definite! I suppose a man +could even make an attenuated sort of love in the lingo, but I'll be +hanged if I see how anybody could order a loaf of bread," + +"One might do without bread, possibly?" suggested Morrison, pressing +the tips of his beautiful fingers together. + +"By Jove," cried Page, in hearty assent, "I've a notion that lots of +times they do!" + +This was getting nowhere. Mrs. Marshall-Smith put her hand to the +helm, and addressed herself to Morrison with a plain reminder of the +reason for the grotesqueness of his irritability. "Where's _Molly_ +keeping herself nowadays?" she inquired. "She hasn't come over with +you, to tea, for ever so long. The pergola isn't itself without her +sunny head." + +"Molly is a grain of sand in a hurricane, nowadays," said Morrison +seriously. "It seems that the exigencies of divine convention decree +that a girl who is soon to be married belongs neither to herself, to +her family, to her fiancé--oh, least of all to her fiancé--but heart +and soul and body to a devouring horde of dressmakers and tailors and +milliners and hairdressers and corsetičres and petticoat specialists +and jewelers and hosiery experts and--" + +They were all laughing at the interminable defile of words proceeding +with a Spanish gravity, and Mrs. Marshall-Smith broke in, "I don't +hear anything about house-furnishers." + +"No," said Morrison, "the house-furnisher's name is F. Morrison, and +he has no show until after the wedding." + +"What _are_ your plans?" asked Mrs. Marshall-Smith. + +"Nothing very definite except the great Date. That's fixed for the +twenty-first." + +"Oh, so soon ... less than three weeks from now!" + +Morrison affected to feel a note of disapproval in her voice, and said +with his faint smile, "You can hardly blame me for not wishing to +delay." + +"Oh, no _blame!_" she denied his inference. "After all it's over a +month since the engagement was announced, and who knows how much +longer before that you and Molly knew about it. No. I'm not one who +believes in long engagements. The shorter the better." + +Sylvia saw an opportunity to emerge with an appearance of ease from a +silence that might seem ungracious. It was an enforced manoeuver with +which the past weeks had made her wearily familiar. "Aunt Victoria's +hitting at Arnold and Judith over your head," she said to Morrison. +"It's delicious, the way Tantine shows herself, for all her veneer of +modernity, entirely nineteen century in her impatience of Judith's +work. Now that there's a chance to escape from it into the blessed +haven of idle matrimony, she can't see why Judith doesn't give up her +lifetime dream and marry Arnold tomorrow." + +Somewhat to her surprise, her attempt at playfulness had no notable +success. The intent of her remarks received from her aunt and Morrison +the merest formal recognition of a hasty, dim smile, and with one +accord they looked at once in another direction. "And after the +wedding?" Mrs. Marshall-Smith inquired--"or is that a secret?" + +"Oh no, when one belongs to Molly's exalted class or is about to be +elevated into it, nothing is secret. I'm quite sure that the society +editor of the _Herald_ knows far better than I the names of the hotels +in Jamaica we're to frequent." + +"Oh! Jamaica! How ... how ... original!" Mrs. Marshall-Smith cast +about her rather desperately for a commendatory adjective. + +"Yes, quite so, isn't it?" agreed Morrison. "It's Molly's idea. She +_is_ original, you know. It's one of her greatest charms. She didn't +want to go to Europe because there is so much to see there, to do. She +said she wanted a honeymoon and not a personally conducted trip." + +They all laughed again, and Sylvia said: "How _like_ Molly! How +clever! Nobody does her thinking for her!" + +"The roads in Jamaica are excellent for motoring, too, I hear," added +Morrison. "That's another reason, of course." + +Page gave a great laugh. "Well, as Molly's cousin, let me warn you! +Molly driving a car in Jamaica will be like Pavlova doing a bacchante +on the point of a needle! You'll have to keep a close watch on her to +see that she doesn't absentmindedly dash across the island and jump +off the bank right on into the ocean." + +"Where does F. Morrison, house-furnishing-expert, come in?" asked Mrs. +Marshall-Smith. + +"After the wedding, after Jamaica," said Morrison. "We're to come back +to New York and for a few months impose on the good nature of Molly's +grandfather's household, while we struggle with workmen _et al_. +The Montgomery house on Fifth Avenue, that's shut up for so many +years,--ever since the death of Molly's parents,--is the one we've +settled on. It's very large, you know. It has possibilities. I have +a plan for remodeling it and enlarging it with a large inner court, +glass-roofed--something slightly Saracenic about the arches--and what +is now a suite of old-fashioned parlors on the north side is to +be made into a long gallery. There'll be an excellent light for +paintings. I've secured from Duveen a promise for some tapestries +I've admired for a long time--Beauvais, not very old, Louis XVII--but +excellent in color. Those for the staircase ..." + +He spoke with no more animation than was his custom, with no more +relish than was seemly; his carefully chosen words succeeded each +other in their usual exquisite precision, no complacency showed above +the surface; his attitude was, as always, composed of precisely +the right proportion of dignity and ease; but as he talked, some +untarnished instinct in Sylvia shrank away in momentary distaste, the +first she had ever felt for him. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith evidently did not at all share this feeling. "Oh, +what a house that will be!" she cried, lost in forecasting admiration. +"_You!_ with a free hand! A second house of Jacques Coeur!" Sylvia +stood up, rather abruptly. "I think I'll go for a walk beside the +river," she said, reaching for her parasol. + +"May I tag along?" said Page, strolling off beside her with the ease +of familiarity. + +Sylvia turned to wave a careless farewell to the two thus left +somewhat unceremoniously in the pergola. She was in brown corduroy +with suede leather sailor collar and broad belt, a costume which +brought out vividly the pure, clear coloring of her face. "Good-bye," +she called to them with a pointedly casual accent, nodding her +gleaming head. + +"She's a _very_ pretty girl, isn't she?" commented Mrs. +Marshall-Smith. Morrison, looking after the retreating figures, agreed +with her briefly. "Yes, very. Extraordinarily perfect specimen of her +type." His tone was dry. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith looked with annoyance across the stretch of lawn +to the house. "I think I would better go to see where Arnold is," she +said. Her tone seemed to signify more to the man than her colorless +words. He frowned and said, "Oh, is Arnold ...?" + +She gave a fatigued gesture. "No--not yet--but for the last two or +three days ..." + +He began impatiently, "Why can't you get him off this time before he...." + +"An excellent idea," she broke in, with some impatience of her own. +"But slightly difficult of execution." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +SYLVIA MEETS WITH PITY + + +Under the scarlet glory of frost-touched maples, beside the river +strolled Sylvia, conscious of looking very well and being admired; but +contrary to the age-old belief about her sex and age, the sensation +of looking very well and being admired by no means filled the entire +field of her consciousness. In fact, the corner occupied by the +sensation was so small that occasional efforts on her part to escape +to it from the less agreeable contents of her mind were lamentable +failures. Aloud, in terms as felicitous as she could make them, she +was commenting on the beauty of the glass-smooth river, with the +sumptuously colored autumn trees casting down into it the imperial +gold and crimson of their reflections. Silently she was struggling to +master and dominate and suppress a confusion of contradictory mental +processes. At almost regular intervals, like a hollow stroke on a +brazen gong, her brain resounded to the reverberations of "The wedding +is on the twenty-first." And each time that she thrust that away, +there sprang up with a faint hissing note of doubt and suspicion, "Why +does Aunt Victoria want Arnold married?" A murmur, always drowned out +but incessantly recurring, ran: "What about Father and Mother? +What about their absurd, impossible, cruel, unreal, and +beautiful standards?" Contemptible little echoes from the silly +self-consciousness of the adolescence so recently left behind her ... +"I must think of something clever to say. I must try to seem different +and original and independent and yet must attract," mingled with an +occasional fine sincerity of appreciation and respect for the humanity +of the man beside her. Like a perfume borne in gusts came reaction to +the glorious color about her. Quickly recurring and quickly gone, a +sharp cymbal-clap of alarm ... "What shall I do if Austin Page now +... today ... or tomorrow ... tells me ...!" And grotesquely, the +companion cymbal on which this smote, gave forth an antiphonal alarm +of, "What shall I do if he does not!" While, unheard of her conscious +ear, but coloring everything with its fundamental note of sincerity, +rose solemnly from the depths of her heart the old cry of desperate +youth, "What am I to do with my life?" + +No, the eminently successful brown corduroy, present though it was +to the mind of the handsome girl wearing it, was hardly the sure and +sufficient rock of refuge which tradition would have had it. + +With an effort she turned her attention from this confused tumult in +her ears, and put out her hand, rather at random, for an introduction +to talk. "You spoke, back there in the pergola, of another kind of +beauty--I didn't know what you meant." He answered at once, with his +usual direct simplicity, which continued to have for Sylvia at +this period something suspiciously like the calmness of a reigning +sovereign who is above being embarrassed, who may speak, without +shamefacedness, of anything, even of moral values, that subject tabu +in sophisticated conversation. "Ah, just a notion of mine that perhaps +all this modern ferment of what's known as 'social conscience' or +'civic responsibility,' isn't a result of the sense of duty, but of +the old, old craving for beauty." + +Sylvia looked at him, astonished. "Beauty?" + +"Why yes, beauty isn't only a matter of line and color, is it? There's +the desire for harmony, for true proportions, for grace and suavity, +for nobility of movement. Perhaps the lack of those qualities is felt +in human lives as much as on canvases ... at least perhaps it may be +felt in the future." + +"It's an interesting idea," murmured Sylvia, "but I don't quite see +what it means, concretely, as applied to our actual America." + +He meditated, looking, as was his habit when walking, up at the trees +above them. "Well, let's see. I think I mean that perhaps our race, +not especially inspired in its instinct for color and external form, +may possibly be fumbling toward an art of living. Why wouldn't it be +an art to keep your life in drawing as well as a mural decoration?" He +broke off to say, laughing, "I bet you the technique would be quite +as difficult to acquire," and went on again, thoughtfully: "In this +modern maze of terrible closeness of inter-relation, to achieve a life +that's happy and useful and causes no undeserved suffering to +the untold numbers of other lives which touch it--isn't there an +undertaking which needs the passion for harmony and proportion? Isn't +there a beauty as a possible ideal of aspiration for a race that +probably never could achieve a Florentine or Japanese beauty of line?" +He cast this out casually, as an idea which had by chance been brought +up to the top by the current of the talk, and showed no indication to +pursue it further when Sylvia only nodded her head. It was one of the +moments when she heard nothing but the brazen clangor of "the wedding +is on the twenty-first," and until the savage constriction around her +heart had relaxed she had not breath to speak. But that passed again, +and the two sauntered onward, in the peaceable silence which was one +of the great new pleasures which Page was able to give her. It now +seemed like a part of the mellow ripeness of the day. + +They had come to a bend in the slowly flowing river, where, instead +of torch-bright maples and poplars, rank upon rank of somber pines +marched away to the summit of a steeply ascending foothill. The river +was clouded dark with their melancholy reflections. On their edge, +overhanging the water, stood a single sumac, a standard-bearer with a +thousand little down-drooping flags of crimson. + +"Oh," said Sylvia, smitten with admiration. She sat down on a rock +partly because she wanted to admire at her leisure, partly because she +was the kind of a girl who looks well sitting on a rock; and as she +was aware of this latter motive, she felt a qualm of self-scorn. What +a cheap vein of commonness was revealed in her--in every one--by the +temptation of a great fortune! Morrison had succumbed entirely. She +was nowadays continually detecting in herself motives which made her +sick. + +Page stretched his great length on the dry leaves at her feet. Any +other man would have rolled a cigarette. It was one of his oddities +that he never smoked. Sylvia looked down at his thoughtful, clean face +and reflected wonderingly that he seemed the only person not warped +by money. Was it because he had it, or was it because he was a very +unusual person? + +He was looking partly at the river, at the pines, at the flaming tree, +and partly at the human embodiment of the richness and color of autumn +before him. After a time Sylvia said: "There's Cassandra. She's the +only one who knows of the impending doom. She's trying to warn the +pines." It had taken her some moments to think of this. + +Page accepted it with no sign that he considered it anything +remarkable, with the habit of a man for whom people produced their +best: "She's using some very fine language for her warning, but like +some other fine language it's a trifle misapplied. She forgets that +no doom hangs over the pines. _She's_ the fated one. They're safe +enough." + +Sylvia clasped her hands about her knees and looked across the dark +water at the somber trees. "And yet they don't seem to be very +cheerful about it." It was her opinion that they were talking very +cleverly. + +"Perhaps," suggested Page, rolling over to face the river--"perhaps +she's not prophesying doom at all, but blowing a trumpet-peal of +exultation over her own good fortune. The pines may be black with envy +of her." + +Sylvia enjoyed this rather macabre fancy with all the zest of +healthful youth, secure in the conviction of its own immortality. +"Yes, yes, life's ever so much harder than death." + +Page dissented with a grave irony from the romantic exaggeration +of this generalization. "I don't suppose the statistics as to the +relative difficulty of life and death are really very reliable." + +Sylvia perceived that she was being, ever so delicately, laughed at, +and tried to turn her remark so that she could carry it off. "Oh, I +don't mean for those who die, but those who are left know something +about it, I imagine. My mother always said that the encounter with +death is the great turning-point in the lives of those who live on. +She said you might miss everything else irrevocable and vital--falling +in love, having children, accomplishing anything--but that sooner or +later you have to reckon with losing somebody dear to you." She spoke +with an academic interest in the question. + +"I should think," meditated Page, taking the matter into serious +consideration, "that the vitalness of even that experience would +depend somewhat on the character undergoing it. I've known some +temperaments of a proved frivolity which seemed to have passed through +it without any great modifications. But then I know nothing about it +personally. I lost my father before I could remember him, and since +then I haven't happened to have any close encounter with such loss. My +mother, you know, is very much alive." + +"Well, I haven't any personal experience with death in my immediate +circle either," said Sylvia. "But I wasn't brought up with the usual +cult of the awfulness of it. Father was always anxious that we +children should feel it something as natural as breathing--you are +dipped up from the great river of consciousness, and death only pours +you back. If you've been worth living, there are more elements of +fineness in humanity." + +Page nodded. "Yes, that's what they all say nowadays. Personal +immortality is as out of fashion as big sleeves." + +"Do you believe it?" asked Sylvia, seeing the talk take an intimate +turn, "or are you like me, and don't know at all what you do believe?" +If she had under this pseudo-philosophical question a veiled purpose +analogous to that of the less subtle charmer whose avowed expedient +is to get "a man to talk about himself" the manoeuver was eminently +successful. + +"I've never had the least chance to think about it," he said, sitting +up, "because I've always been so damnably beset by the facts of +living. I know I am not the first of my race to feel convinced that +his own problems are the most complicated, but ..." + +"_Yours!_" cried Sylvia, genuinely astonished. + +"And one of the hardships of my position," he told her at once with +a playful bitterness, "is that everybody refuses to believe in the +seriousness of it. Because my father, after making a great many bad +guesses as to the possible value of mining stock in Nevada, happened +to make a series of good guesses about the value of mining stock in +Colorado, it is assumed that all questions are settled for me, that I +can joyously cultivate my garden, securely intrenched in the certainty +that this is the best possible of all possible worlds," + +"Oh yes--labor unions--socialism--I.W.W.," Sylvia murmured vaguely, +unable, in spite of her intelligence, to refrain from marking, by a +subsidence of interest, her instinctive feeling that those distant +questions could not in the nature of things be compared to present, +personal complications. + +"No--no--!" he protested. "That's no go! I've tried for five years now +to shove it out of sight on some one of those shelves. I've learned +all the arguments on both sides. I can discuss on both sides of those +names as glibly as any other modern quibbler. I can prove the rights +of all those labels or I can prove the wrongs of them, according to +the way my dinner is digesting. What stays right there, what I never +can digest (if you'll pardon an inelegant simile that's just occurred +to me), a lump I never can either swallow entirely down or get up +out of my throat, is the fact that there are men, hundreds of men, +thousands of men, working with picks underground all day, every day, +all their lives, and that part of their labor goes to provide me with +the wherewithal to cultivate my taste, to pose as a patron of the +arts, to endow promising pianists--to go through all the motions +suitable to that position to which it has pleased Providence to call +me. It sticks in my crop that my only connection with the entire +business was to give myself the trouble to be born my father's son." + +"But you _do_ work!" protested Sylvia. "You work on your farm here. +You run all sorts of lumbering operations in this region. The first +time I saw you, you certainly looked less like the traditional idea of +a predatory coal-operator." She laughed at the recollection. + +"Oh yes, I work. When my undigested lump gets too painful I try to +work it off--but what I do bears the same relation to real sure-enough +work that playing tennis does to laying brick. But such as it is, it's +real satisfaction I get out of my minute Vermont holdings. They come +down to me from my farmer great-grandfather who held the land by +working it himself. There's no sore spot there. But speak of Colorado +or coal--and you see me jump with the same shooting twinge you feel +when the dentist's probe reaches a nerve. An intelligent conscience +is a luxury a man in my position can't afford to have." He began with +great accuracy to toss small stones at a log showing above the surface +of the water. + +Sylvia, reverting to a chance remark, now said: "I never happened to +hear you speak of your mother before. Does she ever come to Lydford?" + +He shook his head. "No, she vibrates between the Madison Avenue house +and the Newport one. She's very happy in those two places. She's Mr. +Sommerville's sister, you know. She's one of Morrison's devotees too. +She collects under his guidance." + +"Collects?" asked Sylvia, a little vaguely. + +"Oh, it doesn't matter much what--the instinct, the resultant +satisfaction are the same. As a child, it's stamps, or buttons, +or corks, later on--As a matter of fact, it's lace that my mother +collects. She specializes in Venetian lace--the older the better, of +course. The connection with coal-mines is obvious. But after all, her +own fortune, coming mostly from the Sommerville side, is derived from +oil. The difference is great!" + +"Do you live with her?" asked Sylvia. + +"My washing is said to be done in New York," he said seriously. "I +believe that settles the question of residence for a man." + +"Oh, how quaint!" said Sylvia, laughing. Then with her trained +instinct for contriving a creditable exit before being driven to an +enforced one by flagging of masculine interest, she rose and looked at +her watch. + +"Oh, don't go!" he implored her. "It's so beautiful here--we never +were so--who knows when we'll ever again be in so ..." + +Sylvia divined with one of her cymbal-claps that he had meant, +perhaps, that very afternoon to--She felt a dissonant clashing of +triumph and misgiving. She thought she decided quite coolly, quite +dryly, that pursuit always lent luster to the object pursued; but in +reality she did not at all recognize the instinct which bade her say, +turning her watch around on her wrist: "It's quite late. I don't think +I'd better stay longer. Aunt Victoria likes dinner promptly." She +turned to go. + +He took his small defeat with his usual imperturbable good nature, in +which Sylvia not infrequently thought she detected a flavor of the +unconscious self-assurance of the very rich and much-courted man. +He scrambled to his feet now promptly, and fell into step with her +quick-treading advance. "You're right, of course. There's no need to +be grasping. There's tomorrow--and the day after--and the day after +that--and if it rains we can wear rubbers and carry umbrellas." + +"Oh, I don't carry an umbrella for a walk in the rain," she told him. +"It's one of our queer Marshall ways. We only own one umbrella for the +whole family at home, and that's to lend. I wear a rubber coat and put +on a sou'wester and _let_ it rain." + +"You would!" he said in an unconscious imitation of Arnold's accent. + +She laughed up at him. "Shall I confess why I do? Because my hair is +naturally curly." + +"Confession has to be prompter than that to save souls," he answered. +"I knew it was, five weeks ago, when you splashed the water up on it +so recklessly there by the brook." + +She was astonished by this revelation of depths behind that +well-remembered clear gaze of admiration, and dismayed by such +unnatural accuracy of observation. + +"How cynical of you to make such a mental comment!" + +He apologized. "It was automatic--unconscious. I've had a good deal of +opportunity to observe young ladies." And then, as though aware that +the ice was thin over an unpleasant subject, he shifted the talk. +"Upon my word, I wonder how Molly and Morrison _will_ manage?" + +"Oh, Molly's wonderful. She'd manage anything," said Sylvia with +conviction. + +"Morrison is rather wonderful himself," advanced Page. "And that's a +magnanimous concession for me to make when I'm now so deep in his +bad books. Do you know, by the way," he asked, looking with a quick +interrogation at the girl, "_why_ I'm so out of favor with him?" + +Sylvia's eyes opened wide. She gazed at him, startled, fascinated. +Could "it" be coming so suddenly, in this casual, abrupt manner? "No, +I don't know," she managed to say; and braced herself. + +"I don't blame him in the least. It was very vexing. I went back on +him--so to speak; dissolved an aesthetic partnership, in which he +furnished the brains, and my coal-mines the sinews of art. _I_ was one +of his devotees, you know. For some years after I got out of college I +collected under his guidance, as my mother does, as so many people do. +I even specialized. I don't like to boast, but I dare affirm that no +man knows more than I about sixteenth century mezza-majolica. It is +a branch of human knowledge which you must admit is singularly +appropriate for a dweller in the twentieth century. And of great value +to the world. My collection was one of Morrison's triumphs." + +Sylvia felt foolish and discomfited. With an effort she showed a +proper interest in his remarks. "Was?" she asked. "What happened to +it?" + +"I went back on it. In one of the first of those fits of moral +indigestion. One day, I'd been reading a report in one of the +newspapers on the status of the coal-miner, and the connection between +my bright-colored pots and platters, and my father's lucky guess, +became a little too dramatic for my taste. I gave the collection to +the Metropolitan, and I've never bought a piece since. Morrison was +immensely put out. He'd been to great trouble to find some fine +Fontana specimens for me. And then not to have me look at them--He +was right too. It was a silly, pettish thing to do. I didn't know any +better then. I don't know any better now." + +It began to dawn on Sylvia that, under his air of whimsical +self-mockery he was talking to her seriously. She tried to adjust +herself to this, to be sympathetic, earnest; though she was still +smarting with the sense of having appeared to herself as undignified +and ridiculous. + +"And besides that," he went on, looking away, down the dusty highroad +they were then crossing on their way back to the house--"besides that, +I went back on a great scheme of Morrison's for a National Academy of +Aesthetic Instruction, which I was to finance and he to organize. He +had gone into all the details. He had shown wonderful capacity. It's +really very magnanimous of him not to bear me more of a grudge. He +thought that giving it up was one of my half-baked ideas. And it was. +As far as anything I've accomplished since, I might as well have been +furthering the appreciation of Etruscan vases in the Middle West. But +then, I don't think he'll miss it now. If he still has a fancy for it, +he can do it with Molly's money. She has plenty. But I don't believe +he will. It has occurred to me lately (it's an idea that's been +growing on me about everybody) that Morrison, like most of us, has +been miscast. He doesn't really care a continental about the aesthetic +salvation of the country. It's only the contagion of the American +craze for connecting everything with social betterment, tagging +everything with that label, that ever made him think he did. He's far +too thoroughgoing an aesthete himself. What he was brought into +the world for, was to appreciate, as nobody else can, all sorts of +esoterically fine things. Now that he'll be able to gratify that +taste, he'll find his occupation in it. Why shouldn't he? It'd be a +hideously leveled world if everybody was, trying to be a reformer. +Besides, who'd be left to reform? I love to contemplate a genuine, +whole-souled appreciator like Morrison, without any qualms about the +way society is put together. And I envy him! I envy him as blackly as +your pines envied the sumac. He's got out of the wrong rôle into the +right one. I wish to the Lord I could!" + +They were close to the house now, in the avenue of poplars, yellow as +gold above them in the quick-falling autumn twilight. Sylvia spoke +with a quick, spirited sincerity, her momentary pique forgotten, her +feeling rushing out generously to meet the man's simple openness. "Oh, +that's the problem for all of us! To know what rôle to play! If you +think it hard for you who have only to choose--how about the rest of +us who must--?" She broke off. "What's that? What's that?" + +She had almost stumbled over a man's body, lying prone, half in the +driveway, half on the close-clipped grass on the side; a well-dressed +man, tall, thin, his limbs sprawled about broken-jointedly. He lay on +his back, his face glimmering white in the clear, dim dusk. Sylvia +recognized him with a cry. "Oh, it's Arnold! He's been struck by a +car! He's dead!" + +She sprang forward, and stopped short, at gaze, frozen. + +The man sat up, propping himself on his hands and looked at her, a +wavering smile on his lips. He began to speak, a thick, unmodulated +voice, as though his throat were stiff. "Comingtomeetyou," he +articulated very rapidly and quite unintelligibly, "an 'countered hill +in driveway ... no hill _in_ driveway, and climbed and climbed"--he +lost himself in repetition and brought up short to begin again, +"--labor so 'cessive had to rest--" + +Sylvia turned a paper-white face on her companion. "What's the matter +with him?" she tried to say, but Page only saw her lips move. He made +no answer. That she would know in an instant what was the matter +flickered from her eyes, from her trembling white lips; that she did +know, even as she spoke, was apparent from the scorn and indignation +which like sheet-lightning leaped out on him. "Arnold! For _shame_! +Arnold! Think of Judith!" + +At the name he frowned vaguely as though it suggested something +extremely distressing to him, though he evidently did not recognize +it. "Judish? Judish?" he repeated, drawing his brows together and +making a grimace of great pain. "What's Judish?" + +And then, quite suddenly the pain and distress were wiped from his +face by sodden vacuity. He had hitched himself to one of the poplars, +and now leaned against this, his head bent on his shoulder at the +sickening angle of a man hanged, his eyes glassy, his mouth open, +a trickle of saliva flowing from one corner. He breathed hard and +loudly. There was nothing there but a lump of uncomely flesh. + +Sylvia shrank back from the sight with such disgust that she felt her +flesh creep. She turned a hard, angry face on Page. "Oh, the beast! +The beast!" she cried, under her breath. She felt defiled. She hated +Arnold. She hated life. + +Page said quietly: "You'll excuse my not going with you to the house? +I'll have my car and chauffeur here in a moment." He stepped away +quickly and Sylvia turned to flee into the house. + +But something halted her flying feet. She hesitated, stopped, and +pressed her hands together hard. He could not be left alone there in +the driveway. A car might run over him in the dusk. She turned back. + +She stood there, alone with the horror under the tree. She turned her +back on it, but she could see nothing but the abject, strengthless +body, the dreadful ignominy of the face. They filled the world. + +And then quickly--everything came quickly to Sylvia--there stood +before her the little boy who had come to see them in La Chance so +long ago, the little honest-eyed boy who had so loved her mother and +Judith, who had loved Pauline the maid and suffered with her pain; and +then the bigger boy who out of his weakness had begged for a share +of her mother's strength and been refused; and then the man, still +honest-eyed, who, aimless, wavering, had cried out to her in misery +upon the emptiness of his life; and who later had wept those pure +tears of joy that he had found love. She had a moment of insight, of +vision, of terrible understanding. She did not know what was taking +place within her, something racking--spasmodic throes of sudden +growth, the emergence for the first time in all her life of the +capacity for pity ... + +When, only a moment or two later, Page's car came swiftly down the +driveway, and he sprang out, he found Sylvia sitting by the drunkard, +the quiet tears streaming down her face. She had wiped his mouth with +her handkerchief, she held his limp hand in hers, his foolish staring +face was hidden on her shoulder.... + +The two men lifted him bodily, an ignoble, sagging weight, into the +car. She stood beside him and, without a word, stooped and gently +disposed his slackly hanging arms beside him. + +Dark had quite fallen by this time. They were all silent, shadowy +forms. She felt that Page was at her side. He leaned to her. Her hand +was taken and kissed. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +MUCH ADO ... + + +The rest of October was a period never clear in Sylvia's head. +Everything that happened was confusing and almost everything was +painful; and a great deal happened. She had thought at the time that +nothing would ever blur in her mind the shock of finding Aunt Victoria +opposed to what seemed to her the first obvious necessity: writing +to Judith about Arnold. She had been trying for a long time now with +desperate sincerity to take the world as she found it, to see +people as they were with no fanatic intolerance, to realize her own +inexperience of life, to be broad, to take in without too much of a +wrench another point of view; but to Aunt Victoria's idea, held quite +simply and naturally by that lady, that Judith be kept in ignorance +of Arnold's habits until after marriage, Sylvia's mind closed as +automatically, as hermetically as an oyster-shell snaps shut. She +could not discuss it, she could not even attend with hearing ears to +Mrs. Marshall-Smith's very reasonable presentation of her case; the +long tradition as to the justifiability of such ignorance on a bride's +part; the impossibility that any woman should ever know all of any +man's character before marriage; the strong presumption that marriage +with a woman he adored would cure habits contracted only through +the inevitable aimlessness of too much wealth; the fact that, once +married, a woman like Judith would accept, and for the most part deal +competently with, facts which would frighten her in her raw girlish +state of ignorance and crudeness. Sylvia did not even hear these +arguments and many more like them, dignified with the sanction of +generations of women trying their best to deal with life. She had +never thought of the question before. It was the sort of thing from +which she had always averted her moral eyes with extreme distaste; but +now that it was forced on her, her reaction to it was instantaneous. +From the depths of her there rose up fresh in its original vigor, +never having been dulled by a single enforced compliance with a +convention running counter to a principle, the most irresistible +instinct against concealment. She did not argue; she could not. She +could only say with a breathless certainty against which there was no +holding out: "Judith must know! Judith must know!" + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith, alarmed by the prospect of a passage-at-arms, +decreed quietly that they should both sleep on the question and take +it up the next morning. Sylvia had not slept. She had lain in her +bed, wide-eyed; a series of pictures passing before her eyes with the +unnatural vividness of hallucinations. These pictures were not only of +Arnold, of Arnold again, of Arnold and Judith. There were all sorts of +odd bits of memories--a conversation overheard years before, between +her father and Lawrence, when Lawrence was a little, little boy. He +had asked--it was like Lawrence's eerie ways--apropos of nothing at +all, "What sort of a man was Aunt Victoria's husband?" + +His father had said, "A rich man, very rich." This prompt appearance +of readiness to answer had silenced the child for a moment: and then +(Sylvia could see his thin little hands patting down the sand-cake he +was making) he had persisted, "What kind of a rich man?" His father +had said, "Well, he was bald--quite bald--Lawrence, come run a race +with me to the woodshed." Sylvia now, ten years later, wondered why +her father had evaded. What kind of a man _had_ Arnold's father been? + +But chiefly she braced herself for the struggle with Aunt Victoria in +the morning. It came to her in fleeting glimpses that Aunt Victoria +would be only human if she resented with some heat this entire +disregard of her wishes; that the discussion might very well end in +a quarrel, and that a quarrel would mean the end of Lydford with all +that Lydford meant now and potentially. But this perception was +swept out of sight, like everything else, in the singleness of her +conviction: "Judith must know! Judith must know!" + +There was, however, no struggle with Aunt Victoria in the morning. +Mrs. Marshall-Smith, encountering the same passionate outcry, +recognized an irresistible force when she encountered it; recognized +it, in fact, soon enough to avoid the long-drawn-out acrimony of +discussion into which a less intelligent woman would inevitably have +plunged; recognized it almost, but not quite, in time to shut off from +Sylvia's later meditations certain startling vistas down which she +had now only fleeting glimpses. "Very well, my dear," said Mrs. +Marshall-Smith, her cherished clarity always unclouded by small +resentments,--"very well, we will trust in your judgment rather than +my own. I don't pretend to understand present-day girls, though I +manage to be very fond of one of them. Judith is your sister. You will +do, of course, what you think is right. It means, of course, Judith +being what she is, that she will instantly cast him off; and Arnold +being what he is, that means that he will drink himself into delirium +tremens in six months. His father ..." She stopped short, closing with +some haste the door to a vista, and poured herself another cup of +coffee. They were having breakfast in her room, both in négligée +and lacy caps, two singularly handsome representatives of differing +generations. Mrs. Marshall-Smith looked calm, Sylvia extremely +agitated. She had been awake at the early hour of deadly pale dawn +when a swift, long-barreled car had drawn up under the porte-cochčre +and Arnold had been taken away under the guard of a short, broad, +brawny man with disproportionately long arms. She was not able to +swallow a mouthful of breakfast. + +During the night, she had not looked an inch beyond her blind passion +of insistence. Now that Aunt Victoria yielded with so disconcerting +a suddenness, she faced with a pang what lay beyond. "Oh, Judith +wouldn't cast him off! She loves him so! She'll give him a chance. You +don't know Judith. She doesn't care about many things, but she gives +herself up absolutely to those that do matter to her. She adores +Arnold! It fairly frightened me to see how she was burning up when +he was near. She'll insist on his reforming, of course--she ought +to--but--" + +"Suppose he doesn't reform to suit her," suggested Mrs. +Marshall-Smith, stirring her coffee. "He's been reformed at intervals +ever since he was fifteen. He never could stay through a whole term +in any decent boys' school." Here was a vista, ruthlessly opened. +Sylvia's eyes looked down it and shuddered. "Poor Arnold!" she said +under her breath, pushing away her untasted cup. + +"I'm dull enough to find you take an odd way to show your sympathy for +him," murmured Mrs. Marshall-Smith, with none of the acidity the words +themselves seemed to indicate. She seemed indeed genuinely perplexed. +"It's not been exactly a hilarious element in _my_ life either. But +I've always tried to hold on to Arnold. I thought it my duty. And now, +since Felix Morrison has found this excellent specialist for me, it's +much easier. I telegraph to him and he comes at once and takes Arnold +back to his sanitarium, till he's himself again." For the first time +in weeks Morrison's name brought up between them no insistently +present, persistently ignored shadow. The deeper shadow now blotted +him out. + +"But Aunt Victoria, it's for Judith to decide. _She_'ll do the right +thing." + +"Sometimes people are thrown by circumstances into a situation where +they wouldn't have dreamed of putting themselves--and yet they rise to +it and conquer it," philosophized Aunt Victoria. "Life takes hold of +us with strong hands and makes us greater than we thought. Judith will +_mean_ to do the right thing. If she were married, she'd _have_ to do +it! It seems to me a great responsibility you take, Sylvia--you may, +with the best of intentions in the world, be ruining the happiness of +two lives." + +Sylvia got up, her eyes red with unshed tears. It was not the first +time that morning. "It's all too horrible," she murmured. "But I +haven't any right to conceal it from Judith." + +Her eyes were still red when, an hour later, she stepped into the room +again and said, "I've mailed it." + +Her aunt, still in lavender silk négligée, so far progressed towards +the day's toilet as to have her hair carefully dressed, looked up +from the _Revue Bleue_, and nodded. Her expression was one of quiet +self-possession. + +Sylvia came closer to her and sat down on a straight-backed chair. She +was dressed for the street, and hatted, as though she herself had +gone out to mail the letter. "And now, Tantine," she said, with the +resolute air of one broaching a difficult subject, "I think I ought to +be planning to go home very soon." It was a momentous speech, and a +momentous pause followed it. It had occurred to Sylvia, still shaken +with the struggle over the question of secrecy, that she could, +in decency, only offer to take herself away, after so violently +antagonizing her hostess. She realized with what crude intolerance she +had attacked the other woman's position, how absolutely with claw and +talon she had demolished it. She smarted with the sense that she +had seemed oblivious of an "obligation." She detested the sense of +obligation. And having become aware of a debt due her dignity, she had +paid it hastily, on the impulse of the moment. But as the words still +echoed in the air, she was struck to see how absolutely her immediate +future, all her future, perhaps, depended on the outcome of that +conversation she herself had begun. She looked fixedly at her aunt, +trying to prepare herself for anything. But she was not prepared for +what Mrs. Marshall-Smith did. + +She swept the magazine from her lap to the floor and held out her arms +to Sylvia. "I had hoped--I had hoped you were happy--with me," she +said, and in her voice was that change of quality, that tremor of +sincerity which Sylvia had always found profoundly moving. The girl +was overcome with astonishment and remorse--and immense relief. She +ran to her. "Oh, I am! I am! I was only thinking--I've gone against +your judgment." Her nerves, stretched with the sleepless night and the +strain of writing the dreadful letter to Judith, gave way. She broke +into sobs. She put her arms tightly around her aunt's beautiful neck +and laid her head on her shoulder, weeping, her heart swelling, her +mind in a whirling mass of disconnected impressions. Arnold--Judith +... how strange it was that Aunt Victoria really cared for her--did +she really care for Aunt Victoria or only admire her?--did she really +care for anybody, since she was agreeing to stay longer away from +her father and mother?--how good it would be not to have to give up +Hélčne's services--what a heartless, materialistic girl she was--she +cared for nothing but luxury and money--she would be going abroad now +to Paris--Austin Page--he had kissed her hand ... and yet she felt +that he saw through her, saw through her mean little devices and +stratagems--how astonishing that he should be so very, very rich--it +seemed that a very, very rich man ought to be different from other +men--his powers were so unnaturally great--girls could not feel +naturally about him ... And all the while that these varying +reflections passed at lightning speed through her mind, her nervous +sobs were continuing. + +Aunt Victoria taking them, naturally enough, as signs of continued +remorse, lifted her out of this supposed slough of despond with +affectionate peremptoriness. "Don't feel so badly about it, darling. +We won't have any more talk for the present about differing judgments, +or of going away, or of anything uncomfortable"; and in this way, +with nothing clearly understood, on a foundation indeed of +misunderstanding, the decision was made, in the haphazard fashion +which characterizes most human decisions. + +The rest of the month was no more consecutive or logical. Into the +midst of the going-away confusion of a household about to remove +itself half around the world, into a house distracted with packing, +cheerless with linen-covers, desolate with rolled-up rugs and cold +lunches and half-packed trunks, came, in a matter-of-fact manner +characteristic of its writer, Judith's answer to Sylvia's letter. +Sylvia opened it, shrinking and fearful of what she would read. She +had, in the days since hers had been sent, imagined Judith's answer in +every possible form; but never in any form remotely resembling what +Judith wrote. The letter stated in Judith's concise style that of +course she agreed with Sylvia that there should be no secrets between +betrothed lovers, nor, in this case, were there any. Arnold had told +her, the evening before she left Lydford, that he had inherited an +alcoholic tendency from his father. She had been in communication +with a great specialist in Wisconsin about the case. She knew of the +sanitarium to which Arnold had been taken and did not like it. The +medical treatment there was not serious. She hoped soon to have +him transferred to the care of Dr. Rivedal. If Arnold's general +constitution were still sound, there was every probability of a cure. +Doctors knew so much more about that sort of thing than they used +to. Had Sylvia heard that Madame La Rue was not a bit well, that old +trouble with her heart, only worse? They'd been obliged to hire a +maid--how in the world were the La Rues going to exist on American +cooking? Cousin Parnelia said she could cure Madame with some +Sanopractic nonsense, a new fad that Cousin Parnelia had taken up +lately. Professor Kennedy had been elected vice-president of the +American Mathematical Association, and it was funny to see him try to +pretend that he wasn't pleased. Mother's garden this autumn was ... + +"_Well_!" ejaculated Sylvia, stopping short. Mrs. Marshall-Smith had +stopped to listen in the midst of the exhausting toil of telling +Hélčne which dresses to pack and which to leave hanging in the Lydford +house. She now resumed her labors unflaggingly, waving away to +the closet a mauve satin, and beckoning into a trunk a favorite +black-and-white chiffon. To Sylvia she said, "Now I know exactly how a +balloon feels when it is pricked." + +Sylvia agreed ruefully. "I might have known Judith would manage to +make me feel flat if I got wrought up about it. She hates a fuss made +over anything, and she can always take you down if you make one." +She remembered with a singular feeling of discomfiture the throbbing +phrases of her letter, written under the high pressure of the quarrel +with Aunt Victoria. She could almost see the expression of austere +distaste in the stern young beauty of Judith's face. Judith was always +making her appear foolish! + +"We were both of us," commented Mrs. Marshall-Smith dryly, "somewhat +mistaken about the degree of seriousness with which Judith would take +the information." + +Sylvia forgot her vexation and sprang loyally to Judith's defense. +"Why, of course she takes it like a trained nurse, like a +doctor--feels it a purely medical affair--as I suppose it is. We might +have known she'd feel that way. But as to how she really feels inside, +personally, you can't tell anything by her letter! You probably +couldn't tell anything by her manner if she were here. You never can. +She may be simply wild about a thing inside, but you'd never guess." + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith ventured to express some skepticism as to the +existence of volcanic feelings always so sedulously concealed. "After +all, can you be so very sure that she is ever 'simply wild' if she +never shows anything?" + +"Oh, you're _sure_, all right, if you've lived with her--you feel it. +And then, after about so long a time of keeping it down, she breaks +loose and _does_ something awful, that I'd never have the nerve to do, +and tears into flinders anything she doesn't think is right. Why, when +we were little girls and went to the public schools together, two of +our little playmates, who turned out to have a little negro blood, +we ..." Sylvia stopped, suddenly warned by some instinct that Aunt +Victoria would not be a sympathetic listener to that unforgotten +episode of her childhood, that episode which had seemed to have no +consequences, no sequel, but which ever since that day had insensibly +affected the course of her growth, like a great rock fallen into the +Current of her life. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith, deliberating with bated breath between broadcloth +and blue panama, did not notice the pause. She did, however, add a +final comment on the matter, some moments later, when she observed, +"How any girl in her senses can go on studying, when she's engaged to +a man who needs her as much as Arnold needs Judith!" To which Sylvia +answered irrelevantly with a thought which had just struck her +thrillingly, "But how perfectly fine of Arnold to tell her himself!" + +"She must have hypnotized him," said Mrs. Marshall-Smith with +conviction, "but then I don't pretend to understand the ways of young +people nowadays." She was now forty-five, in the full bloom of a +rarely preserved beauty, and could afford to make remarks about the +younger generation. "At any rate," she went on, "it is a comfort to +know that Judith has set her hand to the wheel. I have not in years +crossed the ocean with so much peace of mind about Arnold as I shall +have this time," said his stepmother. "No, leave that blue voile, +Hélčne, the collar never fitted." + +"Oh, he doesn't spend the winters in Paris with you?" asked Sylvia. + +"He's been staying here in Lydford of late--crazy as it sounds. He was +simply so bored that he couldn't think of anything else to do. He has, +besides, an absurd theory that he enjoys it more in winter than in +summer. He says the natives are to be seen then. He's been here from +his childhood. He knows a good many of them, I suppose. Now, Hélčne, +let's see the gloves and hats." + +It came over Sylvia with a passing sense of great strangeness that she +had been in this spot for four months and, with the exception of the +men at the fire, she had not met, had not spoken to, had not even +consciously seen a single inhabitant of the place. + +And in the end, she went away in precisely the same state of +ignorance. On the day they drove to the station she did, indeed, give +one fleeting glimpse over the edge of her narrow prison-house of +self-centered interest. Surrounded by a great many strapped and +buckled pieces of baggage, with Hélčne, fascinatingly ugly in her +serf's uniform, holding the black leather bag containing Aunt +Victoria's jewels, they passed along the street for the last time, +under the great elms already almost wintry with their bare boughs. +Now that it was too late, Sylvia felt a momentary curiosity about the +unseen humanity which had been so near her all the summer. She looked +out curiously at the shabby vehicles (it seemed to her that there +were more of them than in the height of the season), at the +straight-standing, plainly dressed, briskly walking women and children +(there seemed to be a new air of life and animation about the street +now that most of the summer cottages were empty), and at the lounging, +indifferent, powerfully built men. She wondered, for a moment, what +they were like, with what fortitude their eager human hearts bore the +annual display of splendor they might never share. They looked, in +that last glimpse, somehow quite strong, as though they would care +less than she would in their places. Perhaps they were only hostile, +not envious. + +"I dare say," said Aunt Victoria, glancing out at a buck-board, very +muddy as to wheels, crowded with children, "that it's very forlorn for +the natives to have the life all go out of the village when the summer +people leave. They must feel desolate enough!" + +Sylvia wondered. + +The last thing she saw as the train left the valley was the upland +pass between Windward and Hemlock mountains. It brought up to her the +taste of black birch, the formidably clean smell of yellow soap, and +the rush of summer wind past her ears. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +"WHOM GOD HATH JOINED ..." + + +They were to sail on the 23d, and ever since the big square invitation +had come it had been a foregone conclusion, conceded with no need +for wounding words, that there was no way out of attending the +Sommerville-Morrison wedding on the 21st. They kept, of course, no +constrained silence about it. Aunt Victoria detested the awkwardness +of not mentioning difficult subjects as heartily as she did the +mention of them; and as the tree toad evolves a skin to answer his +needs, she had evolved a method all her own of turning her back +squarely on both horns of a dilemma. No, there was no silence about +the wedding, only about the possibility that it might be an ordeal, or +that the ordeal might be avoided. It could not be avoided. There was +nothing to be said on that point. But there was much talk, during the +few days of their stay in New York, about the elaborate preparations +for the ceremony. Morrison, who came to see them in their temporary +quarters, kept up a somewhat satirical report as to the magnificence +of the performance, and on the one occasion when they went to see +Molly they found her flushed, excited, utterly inconsecutive, +distracted by a million details, and accepting the situation as the +normal one for a bride-to-be. There were heart-searchings as to +toilets to match the grandeur of the occasion; and later satisfaction +with the moss-green chiffon for Sylvia and violet-colored velvet for +her aunt. There were consultations about the present Aunt Victoria +was to send from them both, a wonderfully expensive, newly patented, +leather traveling-case for a car, guaranteed to hold less to the +square inch and pound than any other similar, heavy, gold-mounted +contrivance. Mrs. Marshall-Smith told Morrison frankly, in this +connection, that she had tried to select a present which Molly herself +would enjoy. + +"Am I not to have a present myself?" asked Morrison. "Something that +you selected expressly for me?" + +"No," said Sylvia, dropping the sugar into his tea with deliberation. +"You are not to have any present for yourself." + +She was guiltily conscious that she was thinking of a certain scene in +"The Golden Bowl," a scene in which a wedding present figures largely; +and when, a moment later, he said, "I have a new volume of Henry James +I'd like to loan you," she knew that the same scene had been in his +head. She would not look at him lest she read in his eyes that he had +meant her to know. As she frequently did in those days, she rose, and +making an excuse of a walk in the park, took herself off. + +She was quite calm during this period, her mind full of trivial +things. She had the firm conviction that she was living in a dream, +that nothing of what was happening was irrevocable. And besides, as at +Lydford, for much of the day, she was absorbed in the material details +of her life, being rubbed and dressed and undressed, and adorned and +fed and catered to. They were spending the few days before sailing in +a very grand hotel, overlooking Central Park. Sylvia had almost every +day the thought that she herself was now in the center of exactly the +same picture in which, as a child, she had enviously watched Aunt +Victoria. She adored every detail of it. It was an opening-out, even +from the Lydford life. She felt herself expanding like a dried sponge +placed in water, to fill every crack and crevice of the luxurious +habits of life. The traveling along that road is always swift; and +Sylvia's feet were never slow. During the first days in Vermont, +it had seemed a magnificence to her that she need never think of +dish-washing or bed-making. By this time it seemed quite natural to +her that Hélčne drew and tempered the water for her bath, and put on +her stockings. Occasionally she noticed with a little surprise that +she seemed to have no more free time than in the laborious life of La +Chance; but for the most part she threw out, in all haste, innumerable +greedy root-tendrils into the surcharged richness of her new soil and +sent up a rank growth of easeful acquiescence in redundance. + +The wedding was quite as grand as the Sommervilles had tried to make +it. The street was crowded with staring, curious, uninvited people on +either side of the church, and when the carriage containing the bride +drove up, the surge forward to see her was as fierce as though she had +been a defaulting bank-president being taken to prison. The police +had to intervene. The interior, fern and orchid swathed, very dimly +lighted by rich purple stained glass and aristocratic dripping wax +candles instead of the more convenient electric imitations, was +murmurous with the wonderful throbbing notes of a great organ and with +the discreet low tones of the invited guests as they speculated about +the relative ages and fortunes of the bride and bridegroom. The +chancel was filled with a vested choir which, singing and carrying a +cross, advanced down the aisle to meet the bridal party. Molly, who +had not been in a church since her childhood, had needed to be coached +over and over again in the ins and outs of the complicated service. + +Sylvia, seated several guests away from the aisle, saw little of the +procession as it went up into the chancel. She caught a glimpse of a +misty mass of white and, beside it, old Mr. Sommerville's profile, +very white and nervous and determined. She did not at that time see +the bridegroom at all. The ceremony, which took place far within the +chancel, was long and interspersed with music from the choir. Sylvia, +feeling very queer and callous, as though, under an anaesthetic, she +were watching with entire unconcern the amputation of one of her +limbs, fell to observing the people about her. The woman in front of +her leaned against the pew and brought her broad, well-fed back close +under Sylvia's eyes. It was covered with as many layers as a worm in +a cocoon. There were beads on lace, the lace incrusted on other lace, +chiffon, fish-net, a dimly seen filmy satin, cut in points, and, lower +down, an invisible foundation of taffeta. Through the interstices +there gleamed a revelation of the back itself, fat, white, again like +a worm in a cocoon. + +Sylvia began to plan out a comparison of dress with architecture, +bringing out the insistent tendency in both to the rococo, to the +burying of structural lines in ornamentation. The cuff, for instance, +originally intended to protect the skin from contact with unwashable +fabrics, degenerated into a mere bit of "trimming," which has lost all +its meaning, which may be set anywhere on the sleeve. Like a strong +hand about her throat came the knowledge that she was planning to say +all this to please Felix Morrison, who was now within fifty feet of +her, being married to another woman. + +She flamed to fever and chilled again to her queer absence of +spirit.... There was a chorister at the end of the line near her, a +pale young man with a spiritual face who chanted his part with shining +rapt eyes. While he sang he slipped his hand under his white surplice +and took out his watch. Still singing "Glory be to the Father, the +Son, and the Holy Ghost," he cast a hasty eye on the watch and frowned +impatiently. He was evidently afraid the business in hand would drag +along and make him late to another appointment, "--is now and ever +shall be, world without end. Amen!" he sang fervently. Sylvia +repressed an hysterical desire to laugh. + +The ceremony was over; the air in the building beat wildly against the +walls, the stained-glass windows, and the ears of the worshipers in +the excited tumult of the wedding-march; the procession began to +leave the chancel. This time Sylvia caught one clear glimpse of the +principals, but it meant nothing to her. They looked like wax effigies +of themselves, self-conscious, posed, emptied of their personalities +by the noise, the crowds, the congestion of ceremony. The idea +occurred to Sylvia that they looked as though they had taken in as +little as she the significance of what had happened. The people about +her were moving in relieved restlessness after the long immobility of +the wedding. The woman next her went down on her knees for a devout +period, her face in her white gloves. When she rose, she said +earnestly to her companion, "Do you know if I had to choose one +hat-trimming for all the rest of my life, I should make it small pink +roses in clusters. It's perfectly miraculous how, with black chiffon, +they _never_ go out!" She settled in place the great cluster of costly +violets at her breast which she seemed to have exuded like some +natural secretion of her plump and expensive person. "Why don't they +let us out!" she said complainingly. + +A young man, one of those born to be a wedding usher, now came swiftly +up the aisle on patent leather feet and untied with pearl-gray fingers +the great white satin ribbon which restrained them in the pew. Sylvia +caught her aunt's eye on her, its anxiety rather less well hidden than +usual. With no effort at all the girl achieved a flashing smile. It +was not hard. She felt quite numb. She had been present only during +one or two painful, quickly passed moments. + +But the reception at the house, the big, old-fashioned, very rich +Sommerville house, was more of an ordeal. There was the sight of the +bride and groom in the receiving-line, now no longer badly executed +graven images, but quite themselves--Molly starry-eyed, triumphant, +astonishingly beautiful, her husband distinguished, ugly, +self-possessed, easily the most interesting personality in the room; +there was the difficult moment of the presentation, the handclasp with +Felix, the rapturous vague kiss from Molly, evidently too uplifted to +have any idea as to the individualities of the people defiling before +her; then the passing on into the throng, the eating and drinking and +talking with acquaintances from the Lydford summer colony, of whom +there were naturally a large assortment. Sylvia had a growing sense of +pain, which was becoming acute when across the room she saw Molly, +in a lull of arrivals, look up to her husband and receive from him a +smiling, intimate look of possession. Why, they were _married_! It was +done! + +The delicate food in Sylvia's mouth turned to ashes. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith's voice, almost fluttered, almost (for her) +excited, came to her ears: "Sylvia--here is Mr. Page! And he's just +told me the most delightful news, that he's decided to run over to +Paris for a time this fall." + +"I hope Miss Marshall will think that Paris will be big enough for all +of us?" asked Austin Page, fixing his remarkably clear eyes on the +girl. + +She made a great effort for self-possession. She turned her back on +the receiving-line. She held out her hand cordially. "I hope Paris +will be quite, quite small, so that we shall all see a great deal of +each other," she said warmly. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +SYLVIA TELLS THE TRUTH + + +They left Mrs. Marshall-Smith with a book, seated on a little +yellow-painted iron chair, the fifteen-centime kind, at the top of the +great flight of steps leading down to the wide green expanse of the +Tapis Vert. She was alternately reading Huysmans' highly imaginative +ideas on Gothic cathedrals, and letting her eyes stray up and down the +long façade of the great Louis. Her powers of aesthetic assimilation +seemed to be proof against this extraordinary mixture of impressions. +She had insisted that she would be entirely happy there in the sun, +for an hour at least, especially if she were left in solitude with her +book. On which intimation Sylvia and Page had strolled off to do some +exploring. It was a situation which a month of similar arrangements +had made very familiar to them. + +"No, I don't know Versailles very well," he said in answer to her +question, "but I believe the gardens back of the Grand and Petit +Trianon are more interesting than these near the Château itself. +The conscientiousness with which they're kept up is not quite so +formidable." + +So they walked down the side of the Grand Canal, admiring the rather +pensive beauty of the late November woods, and talking, as was the +proper thing, about the great Louis and his court, and how they both +detested his style of gilded, carved wall ornamentation, although his +chairs weren't as bad as some others. They turned off at the cross-arm +of the Canal towards the Great Trianon; they talked, again dutifully +in the spirit of the place, about Madame de Maintenon. They differed +on this subject just enough to enjoy discussing it. Page averred that +the whole affair had always passed his comprehension, "--what that +ease-loving, vain, indulgent, trivial-minded grandson of Henri Quatre +could ever have seen for all those years in that stiff, prim, cold old +school-ma'am--" + +But Sylvia shook her head. "I know how he felt. He _had_ to have her, +once he'd found her. She was the only person in all his world he could +depend on." + +"Why not depend on himself?" Page asked. + +"Oh, he couldn't! He couldn't! She had character and he hadn't." + +"What do you mean by character?" he challenged her. + +"It's what I haven't!" she said. + +He attempted a chivalrous exculpation. "Oh, if you mean by character +such hard, insensitive lack of imagination as Madame de Maintenon's--" + +"No, not that," said Sylvia. "_You_ know what I mean by character as +well as I." + +By the time they were back of the Little Trianon, this beginning had +led them naturally enough away from the frivolities of historical +conversation to serious considerations, namely themselves. The start +had been a reminiscence of Sylvia's, induced by the slow fall of +golden leaves from the last of the birches into the still water of the +lake in the midst of Marie Antoinette's hamlet. They stopped on an +outrageously rustic bridge, constructed quite in the artificially +rural style of the place, and, leaning on the railing, watched in a +fascinated silence the quiet, eddying descent of the leaves. There was +not a breath of wind. The leaves detached themselves from the tree +with no wrench. They loosened their hold gradually, gradually, and +finally out of sheer fullness of maturity floated down to their graves +with a dreamy content. + +"I never happened to see that effect before," said Page. "I supposed +leaves were detached only by wind. It's astonishingly peaceful, isn't +it?" + +"I saw it once before," said Sylvia, her eyes fixed on the noiseless +arabesques traced by the leaves in their fall--"at home in La Chance. +I'll never forget it." She spoke in a low tone as though not to break +the charmed silence about them, and, upon his asking her for the +incident, she went on, almost in a murmur: "It isn't a story you could +possibly understand. You've never been poor. But I'll tell you if you +like. I've talked to you such a lot about home and the queer people we +know--did I ever mention Cousin Parnelia? She's a distant cousin of my +mother's, a queer woman who lost her husband and three children in a +train-wreck years ago, and has been a little bit crazy ever since. She +has always worn, for instance, exactly the same kind of clothes, hat +and everything, that she had on, the day the news was brought to her. +The Spiritualists got hold of her then, and she's been one herself for +ever so long--table-rapping--planchette-writing--all the horrid rest +of it, and she makes a little money by being a "medium" for ignorant +people. But she hardly earns enough that way to keep her from +starving, and Mother has for ever so long helped her out. + +"Well, there was a chance to buy a tiny house and lot for her--two +hundred and twenty dollars. It was just a two-roomed cottage, but it +would be a roof over her head at least. She is getting old and ought +to have something to fall back on. Mother called us all together and +said this would be a way to help provide for Cousin Parnelia's +old age. Father never could bear her (he's so hard on ignorant, +superstitious people), but he always does what Mother thinks best, +so he said he'd give up the new typewriter he'd been hoping to buy. +Mother gave up her chicken money she'd been putting by for some new +rose-bushes, and she loves her roses too! Judith gave what she'd +earned picking raspberries, and I--oh, how I hated to do it! but I was +ashamed not to--I gave what I'd saved up for my autumn suit. Lawrence +just stuck it out that he hated Cousin Parnelia and he wouldn't give a +bit. But he was so little that he only had thirty cents or something +like that in a tin bank, so it didn't matter. When we put it all +together it wasn't nearly enough of course, and we took the rest out +of our own little family savings-bank rainy-day savings and bought the +tiny house and lot. Father wanted to 'surprise' Cousin Parnelia with +the deed. He wanted to lay it under some flowers in a basket, or slip +it into her pocket, or send it to her with some eggs or something. But +Mother--it was so like her!--the first time Cousin Parnelia happened +to come to the house, Mother picked up the deed from her desk and said +offhand, 'Oh, Parnelia, we bought the little Garens house for you,' +and handed her the paper, and went to talking about cutworms or +Bordeaux mixture." + +Page smiled, appreciative of the picture. "I see her. I see your +mother--Vermont to the core." + +"Well, it was only about two weeks after that, I was practising and +Mother was rubbing down a table she was fixing over. Nobody else +happened to be at home. Cousin Parnelia came in, her old battered +black straw hat on one ear as usual. She was all stirred up and +pleased about a new 'method' of using planchette. You know what +planchette is, don't you? The little heart-shaped piece of wood +spiritualists use, with a pencil fast to it, to take down their silly +'messages,' Some spiritualistic fake was visiting town conducting +séances and he claimed he'd discovered some sort of method for +inducing greater receptivity--or something like that. I don't know +anything about spiritualism but little tags I've picked up from +hearing Cousin Parnelia talk. Anyway, he was 'teaching' other mediums +for a big price. And it came out that Cousin Parnelia had mortgaged +the house for more than it was worth, and had used the money to take +those 'lessons.' I couldn't believe it for a minute. When I really +understood what she'd done, I was so angry I felt like smashing +both fists down on the piano keys and howling! I thought of my blue +corduroy I'd given up--I was only fourteen and just crazy about +clothes. Mother was sitting on the floor, scraping away at the +table-leg. She got up, laid down her sandpaper, and asked Cousin +Parnelia if she'd excuse us for a few minutes. Then she took me by +the hand, as though I was a little girl. I felt like one too, I felt +almost frightened by Mother's face, and we both marched out of the +house. She didn't say a word. She took me down to our swimming-hole +in the river. There is a big maple-tree leaning over that. It was a +perfectly breathless autumn day like this, and the tree was shedding +its leaves like that birch, just gently, slowly, steadily letting them +go down into the still water. We sat down on the bank and watched +them. The air was full of them, yet all so quiet, without any hurry. +The water was red with them, they floated down on our shoulders, on +our heads, in our laps--not a sound--so peaceful--so calm--so perfect. +It was like the andante of the Kreutzer. + +"I knew what Mother wanted, to get over being angry with Cousin +Parnelia. And she was. I could see it in her face, like somebody in +church. I felt it myself--all over, like an E string that's been +pulled too high, slipping down into tune when you turn the peg. But +I didn't _want_ to feel it. I _wanted_ to hate Cousin Parnelia. I +thought it was awfully hard in Mother not to want us to have even the +satisfaction of hating Cousin Parnelia! I tried to go on doing it. +I remember I cried a little. But Mother never said a word--just +sat there in that quiet autumn sunshine, watching the leaves +falling--falling--and I had to do as she did. And by and by I felt, +just as she did, that Cousin Parnelia was only a very small part of +something very big. + +"When we went in, Mother's face was just as it always was, and we got +Cousin Parnelia a cup of tea and gave her part of a boiled ham to +take home and a dozen eggs and a loaf of graham bread, just as though +nothing had happened." + +She stopped speaking. There was no sound at all but the delicate, +forlorn whisper of the leaves. + +"That is a very fine story!" said Page finally. He spoke with a +measured, emphatic, almost solemn accent. + +"Yes, it's a very fine story," murmured Sylvia a little wistfully. +"It's finer as a story than it was as real life. It was years before I +could look at blue corduroy without feeling stirred up. I really cared +more about my clothes than I did about that stupid, ignorant old +woman. If it's only a cheerful giver the Lord loves, He didn't feel +much affection for me." + +They began to retrace their steps. "You gave up the blue corduroy," +he commented as they walked on, "and you didn't scold your silly old +kinswoman." + +"That's only because Mother hypnotized me. _She_ has character. I did +it as Louis signed the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, because +Madame de Maintenon thought he ought to." + +"But she couldn't hypnotize your brother Lawrence, althought he was so +much younger. He didn't give up his thirty-seven cents. I think you're +bragging without cause if you claim any engaging and picturesque +absence of character." + +"Oh, Lawrence--he's different! He's extraordinary! Sometimes I think +he is a genius. And it's Judith who hypnotizes him. _She_ supplies his +character." + +They emerged into an opening and walked in silence for some moments +towards the Grand Trianon. + +"You're lucky, very lucky," commented Page, "to have such an ample +supply of character in the family. I'm an only child. There's nobody +to give me the necessary hypodermic supply of it at the crucial +moments." He went on, turning his head to look at the Great Trianon, +very mellow in the sunshine. "It's my belief, however, that at the +crucial moments you have plenty of it of your own." + +"That's a safe guess!" said Sylvia ironically, "since there never have +_been_ any crucial moments in a life so uninterestingly eventless as +mine. I wonder what I _would_ do," she mused. "My own conviction is +that--suppose I'd lived in the days of the Reformation--in the days of +Christ--in the early Abolition days--" She had an instant certainty: +"Oh, I have been entirely on the side of whatever was smooth, and +elegant, and had amenity--I'd have hated the righteous side!" + +Page did not look very deeply moved by this revelation of depravity. +Indeed, he smiled rather amusedly at her, and changed the subject. +"You said a moment ago that I couldn't understand, because I'd always +had money. Isn't it a bit paradoxical to say that the people who +haven't a thing are the only ones who know anything about it?" + +"But you couldn't realize what _losing_ the money meant to us. You +can't know what the absence of money can do to a life." + +"I can know," said Page, "what the presence of it cannot do for +a life." His accent implied rather sadly that the omissions were +considerable. + +"Oh, of course, of course," Sylvia agreed. "There's any amount it +can't do. After you have it, you must get the other things too." + +He brought his eyes down to her from a roving quest among the tops +of the trees. "It seems to me you want a great deal," he said +quizzically. + +"Yes, I do," she admitted. "But I don't see that you have any call +to object to my wanting it. You don't have to wish for everything at +once. You have it already." + +He received this into one of his thoughtful silences, but presently it +brought him to a standstill. They were within sight of the Grand Canal +again, looking down from the terrace of the Trianon. He leaned against +the marble balustrade and thrust his hands deep into his pockets. His +clear eyes were clouded. He looked profoundly grave. "I am thirty-two +years old," he said, "and never for a moment of that time have I +made any sense out of my position in life. If you call that 'having +everything'--" + +It occurred to Sylvia fleetingly that she had never made any sense out +of her position in life either, and had been obliged to do a great +many disagreeable things into the bargain, but she kept this thought +to herself, and looked conspicuously what she genuinely felt, a +sympathetic interest. The note of plain direct sincerity which was +Page's hallmark never failed to arrest her attention, a little to +arouse her wonder, and occasionally, for a reason that she did not +like to dwell upon, somewhat to abash her. The reason was that he +never spoke for effect, and she often did. He was not speaking for +effect now: he seemed scarcely even to be speaking to her, rather to +be musingly formulating something for his own enlightenment. He +went on. "The fact is that there _is_ no sense to be made out of my +situation in life. I am like a man with a fine voice, who has no ear." + +He showed surprise that Sylvia failed to follow this, and explained. +"I mean the voice is no good to that kind of a man, it's no good to +anybody. It's the craziest, accidental affair anyhow, haven't you ever +noticed it?--who draws the fine voices. Half the time--more than half +the time, _most_ of the time it seems to me when I've been recently to +a lot of concerts, the people who have the voices haven't any other +qualifications for being singers. And it's so with coal-mines, with +everything else that's inherited. For five years now I've given up +what I'd like to do, and I've tried, under the best _maestri_ I could +find, to make something out of my voice, so to speak. And it's no +go. It's in the nature of things that I can't make a go of it. +Over everything I do lies the taint that I'm the 'owner'! They are +suspicious of me, always will be--and rightly so. Anybody else not +connected with the mediaeval idea of 'possession' could do better than +I. The whole relation's artificial. I'm in it for the preposterous +reason that my father, operating on Wall Street, made a lucky +guess,--as though I should be called upon to run a locomotive because +my middle initial is L!" + +Sylvia still felt the same slight sense of flatness when this +recurring topic thrust itself into a personal talk; but during the +last month she had adjusted herself to Page so that this no longer +showed on the surface. She was indeed quite capable of taking an +interest in the subject, as soon as she could modulate herself into +the new key. "Yes, of course," she agreed, "it's like so many other +things that are perfectly necessary to go on with, perfectly absurd +when you look closely at them. My father nearly lost his position once +for saying that all inheritance was wrong. But even he never had +the slightest suggestion as to what to do about it, how to get an +inheritance into the hands of the people who might make the best use +of it." She was used from her childhood to this sort of academic doubt +of everything, conducted side by side with a practical acceptance of +everything. Professor and Madame La Rue, in actual life devotedly +faithful married lovers, staid, stout, habit-ridden elderly people, +professed a theoretical belief in the flexibility of relationships +sanctioned by the practice of free love. It was perhaps with this +recollection in her mind that she suggested, "Don't you suppose it +will be like the institution of marriage, very, very gradually altered +till it fits conditions better?" + +"In the meantime, how about the cases of those who are unhappily +married?" + +"I don't see anything for them but just to get along the best they +can," she told him. + +"You think I'd better give up trying to do anything with my +Colorado--?" he asked her, as though genuinely seeking advice. + +"I should certainly think that five years was plenty long enough for a +fair trial! You'd make a better ambassador than an active captain of +industry, anyhow," she said with conviction. Whereupon he bestowed on +her a long, thoughtful stare, as though he were profoundly pondering +her suggestion. + +They moved forward towards the Grand Canal in silence. Privately she +was considering his case hardly one of extreme hardship. Privately +also, as they advanced nearer and nearer the spot where they had left +Mrs. Marshall-Smith, she was a little dreading the return to the +perfect breeding with which Aunt Victoria did not ask, or intimate, or +look, the question which was in her mind after each of these strolling +tęte-ŕ-tętes which consistently led nowhere. There were instants when +Sylvia would positively have preferred the vulgar openness of a direct +question to which she might have answered, with the refreshing effect +to her of a little honest blood-letting: "Dear Aunt Victoria, I +haven't the least idea myself what's happening! I'm simply letting +myself go because I don't see anything else to do. I have even no very +clear idea as to what is going on inside my own head. I only know that +I like Austin Page so much (in spite of a certain quite unforgotten +episode) there would be nothing at all unpleasant about marrying him; +but I also know that I didn't feel the least interest in him until +Hélčne told me about his barrels of money: I also know that I feel the +strongest aversion to returning to the Spartan life of La Chance; and +it occurs to me that these two things may throw considerable light +on my 'liking' for Austin. As for what's in _his_ mind, there is +no subject on which I'm in blacker ignorance. And after being so +tremendously fooled, in the case of Felix, about the degree of +interest a man was feeling, I do not propose to take anything for +granted which is not on the surface. It is quite possible that this +singularly sincere and simple-mannered man may not have the slightest +intention of doing anything more than enjoy a pleasant vacation from +certain rather hair-splitting cares which seem to trouble him from +time to time." As they walked side by side along the stagnant waters, +she was sending inaudible messages of this sort towards her aunt; she +had even selected the particular mauve speck at the top of the steps +which might be Mrs. Marshall-Smith. + +In the glowing yellow gold of the sky, a faintly whirring dark-gray +spot appeared: an airman made his way above the Grand Canal, passed +above the Château, and disappeared. They had sat down on a bench, the +better to crane their heads to watch him out of sight. Sylvia was +penetrated with the strangeness of that apparition in that spot and +thrilled out: "Isn't it wonderful! Isn't it wonderful! _Here!_" + +"There's something _more_ wonderful!" he said, indicating with his +cane the canal before them, where a group of neat, poorly dressed, +lower middle-class people looked proudly out from their triumphal +progress in the ugly, gasping little motor-boat which operates at +twenty-five centimes a trip. + +She had not walked and talked a month with him for nothing. She knew +that he did not refer to motor-boats as against aëroplanes. "You +mean," she said appreciatively, "you mean those common people going +freely around the royal canal where two hundred years ago--" + +He nodded, pleased by her quickness. "Two hundred years from now," +he conjectured, "the stubs of my checkbook will be exhibited in an +historical museum along with the regalia of the last hereditary +monarch." + +Here she did not follow, and she was too intelligent to pretend she +did. + +He lifted his eyebrows. "Relic of a quaint old social structure +inexplicably tolerated so late as the beginning of the twentieth +century," + +"Oh, coal-mines forever!" she said, smiling, her eyes brilliant with +friendly mockery. + +"Aye! _Toujours perdrix!_" he admitted. He continued to look steadily +and seriously into her smiling, sparkling face, until, with a sudden +pulse of premonition, she was stricken into a frightened gravity. And +then, with no prelude, no approach, quite simply and directly, he +spoke. "I wonder how much you care for me?" he said musingly, as he +had said everything else that afternoon: and as she positively paled +at the eeriness of this echo from her own thought, he went on, his +voice vibrating in the deep organ note of a great moment, "You must +know, of course, by this time that I care everything possible for +you." + +Compressed into an instant of acute feeling Sylvia felt the pangs +which had racked her as a little girl when she had stood in the +schoolyard with Camilla Fingál before her, and the terrifying hostile +eyes about her. Her two selves rose up against each other fiercely, +murderously, as they had then. The little girl sprang forward to help +the woman who for an instant hesitated. The fever and the struggle +vanished as instantly as they had come. Sylvia felt very still, very +hushed. Page had told her that she always rose to crucial moments. She +rose to this one. "I don't know," she said as quietly as he, with as +utter a bravery of bare sincerity, "I don't know how much I care for +you--but I think it is a great deal." She rose upon a solemn wing of +courage to a greater height of honesty. Her eyes were on his, as clear +as his. The mere beauty of her face had gone like a lifted veil. For a +instant he saw her as Sylvia herself did not dream she could be. "It +is very hard," said Sylvia Marshall, with clear eyes and trembling +lips of honest humility, "for a girl with no money to know how much +she cares for a very rich man." + +She had never been able to imagine what she would say if the moment +should come. She had certainly not intended to say this. But an +unsuspected vein of granite in her rang an instant echo to his +truth. She was bewildered to see his ardent gaze upon her deepen to +reverence. He took her hand in his and kissed it. He tried to speak, +but his voice broke. + +She was immensely moved to see him so moved. She was also entirely at +a loss. How strangely different things always were from forecasts of +them! They had suddenly taken the long-expected stride away from their +former relation, but she did not know where they had arrived. What was +the new status between them? What did Austin think she meant? It came +to her with a shock that the new status between them was, on the +surface, exactly what it was in reality; that the avowed relation +between them was, as far as it went, precisely in accord with the +facts of the case. The utter strangeness of this in any human +relationship filled her with astonishment, with awe, almost with +uneasiness. It seemed unnatural not to have to pretend anything! + +Apparently it did not seem unnatural to the man beside her. "You are a +very wonderful woman," he now said, his voice still but partly under +his control. "I had not thought that you could exist." He took her +hand again and continued more steadily: "Will you let me, for a little +while longer, go on living near you? Perhaps things may seem clearer +to us both, later--" + +Sylvia was swept by a wave of gratitude as for some act of +magnanimity. "_You_ are the wonderful one!" she cried. Not since the +day Hélčne had told her who he was, had she felt so whole, so sound, +so clean, as now. The word came rushing on the heels of the thought: +"You make one feel so _clean_!" she said, unaware that he could +scarcely understand her, and then she smiled, passing with her free, +natural grace from the memorable pause, and the concentration of a +great moment forward into the even-stepping advance of life. "That +first day--even then you made me feel clean--that soap! that cold, +clean water--it is your aroma!" + +Their walk along the silent water, over the great lawn, and up the +steps was golden with the level rays of the sun setting back of them, +at the end of the canal, between the distant, sentinel poplars. Their +mood was as golden as the light. Sometimes they spoke, sometimes they +were silent. Truth walked between them. + +Sylvia's mind, released from the tension of that great moment, began +making its usual, sweeping, circling explorations of its own depths. +Not all that it found was of an equal good report. Once she thought +fleetingly: "This is only a very, very pretty way of saying that it +is all really settled. With his great wealth, he is like a reigning +monarch--let him be as delicate-minded as he pleases, when he +indicates a wish--" More than once--many, many times--Felix Morrison's +compelling dark eyes looked at her penetratingly, but she resolutely +turned away her head from them, and from the impulse to answer their +reproach even with an indignant, well-founded reproach of her own. +Again and again she felt a sweet strangeness in her new position. The +aroma of utter sincerity was like the scent of a wildflower growing in +the sun, spicy, free. She wondered at a heart like his that could be +at once ardent and subtle, that could desire so profoundly (the deep +vibrations of that voice of yearning were in her ears still) and yet +pause, and stand back, and wait, rather than force a hair's breadth +of pretense. How he had liberated her! And once she found herself +thinking, "I shall have sables myself, and diamonds, and a house as +great as Molly's, and I shall learn how to entertain ambassadors, +as she will never know." She was ashamed of this, she knew it to be +shockingly out of key with the grand passage behind them. But she had +thought it. + +And, as these thoughts, and many more, passed through her mind, as she +spoke with a quiet peace, or was silent, she was transfigured into a +beauty almost startling, by the accident of the level golden beams of +light back of her. Her aureole of bright hair glowed like a saint's +halo. The curiously placed lights and unexpected shadows brought +out new subtleties in the modeling of her face. Her lightened heart +gleamed through her eyes, like a lighted lamp. After a time, the man +fell into a complete silence, glancing at her frequently as though +storing away a priceless memory.... + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + +"A MILESTONE PASSED, THE ROAD SEEMS CLEAR" + + +As the "season" heightened, the beautiful paneled walls of Mrs. +Marshall-Smith's salon were frequently the background for chance +gatherings of extremely appropriate callers. They seemed a visible +emanation of the room, so entirely did they represent what that sort +of a room was meant to contain. They were not only beautifully but +severely dressed, with few ornaments, and those few a result of the +same concentrated search for the rare which had brought together the +few bibelots in the room, which had laid the single great dull Persian +rug on the unobtrusively polished oaken floor, which had set in the +high, south windows the boxes of feathery green plants with delicate +star-like flowers. + +And it was not only in externals that these carefully brushed and +combed people harmonized with the mellow beauty of their background. +They sat, or stood, moved about, took their tea, and talked with an +extraordinary perfection of manner. There was not a voice there, +save perhaps Austin Page's unstudied tones, which was not carefully +modulated in a variety of rhythm and pitch which made each sentence a +work of art. They used, for the most part, low tones and few gestures, +but those well chosen. There was an earnest effort apparent to achieve +true conversational give-and-take, and if one of the older men found +himself yielding to the national passion for lengthy monologues on a +favorite theme, or to the mediocre habit of anecdote, there was an +instant closing in on him of carefully casual team-work on the part of +the others which soon reduced him to the tasteful short comment +and answer which formed the framework of the afternoon's social +activities. + +The topics of the conversation were as explicitly in harmony with the +group-ideal as the perfectly fitting gloves of the men, or the smooth, +burnished waves of the women's hair. They talked of the last play at +the Français, of the exhibitions then on view at the Petit Palais, of +a new tenor in the choir of the Madeleine, of the condition of the +automobile roads in the Loire country, of the restoration of the +stained glass at Bourges. + +On such occasions, a good deal of Sylvia's attention being given to +modulating her voice and holding her hands and managing her skirts as +did the guests of the hour, she usually had an impression that the +conversation was clever. Once or twice, looking back, she had been +somewhat surprised to find that she could remember nothing of what had +been said. It occurred to her, fleetingly, that of so much talk, some +word ought to stick in her usually retentive memory; but she gave the +matter no more thought. She had also been aware, somewhat dimly, that +Austin Page was more or less out of drawing in the carefully composed +picture presented on those social afternoons. He had the inveterate +habit of being at his ease under all circumstances, but she had felt +that he took these great people with a really exaggerated lack of +seriousness, answering their chat at random, and showing no chagrin +when he was detected in the grossest ignorance about the latest move +of the French Royalist party, or the probabilities as to the winner +of the Grand Prix. She had seen in the corners of his mouth an +inexplicable hidden imp of laughter as he gravely listened, cup in +hand, to the remarks of the beautiful Mrs. William Winterton Perth +about the inevitable promiscuity of democracy, and he continually +displayed a tendency to gravitate into the background, away from the +center of the stage where their deference for his name, fortune, and +personality would have placed him. Sylvia's impression of him was far +from being one of social brilliance, but rather of an almost wilful +negligence. She quite grew used to seeing him, a tall, distinguished +figure, sitting at ease in a far corner, and giving to the scene a +pleasant though not remarkably respectful attention. + +On such an afternoon in January, the usual routine had been preserved. +The last of the callers, carrying off Mrs. Marshall-Smith with her, +had taken an urbane, fair-spoken departure. Sylvia turned back from +the door of the salon, feeling a fine glow of conscious amenity, and +found that Austin Page's mood differed notably from her own. He had +lingered for a tęte-ŕ-tęte, as was so frequently his habit, and now +stood before the fire, his face all one sparkle of fun. "Don't they +do it with true American fervor!" he remarked. "It would take a +microscope to tell the difference between them and a well-rehearsed +society scene on the stage of the Français! That's their model, +of course. It is positively touching to see old Colonel Patterson +subduing his twang and shutting the lid down on his box of comic +stories. I should think Mrs. Patterson might allow him at least that +one about the cowboy and the tenderfoot who wanted to take a bath!" + +The impression made on Sylvia had not in the least corresponded to +this one; but with a cat-like twist of her flexible mind, she fell +on her feet, took up his lead, and deftly produced the only suitable +material she had at command. "They _seem_ to talk well, about such +interesting things, and yet I can never remember anything they say. +It's odd," she sat down near the fireplace with a great air of +pondering the strange phenomenon. + +"No, it isn't odd," he explained, dropping into the chair opposite her +and stretching out his long legs to the blaze. "It's only people who +do something, who have anything to say. These folks don't do anything +except get up and sit down the right way, and run their voices up and +down the scale so that their great-aunts would faint away to hear +them! They haven't any energy left over. If some one would only write +out suitable parts for them to memorize, the performance would be +perfect!" He threw back his head and laughed aloud, the sound ringing +through the room. Sylvia had seldom seen him so light-heartedly +amused. He explained: "I haven't seen this sort of solemn, genteel +posturing for several years now, and I find it too delicious! To see +the sweet, invincible American naďveté welling up in their intense +satisfaction in being so sophisticated,--oh, the harmless dears!" He +cried out upon them gaily, with the indulgence of an adult who looks +on at children's play. + +Sylvia was a trifle breathless, seeing him disappear so rapidly down +this unexpected path, but she was for the moment spared the effort to +overtake him by the arrival of Tojiko with a tray of fresh mail. "Oh, +letters from home!" Sylvia rejoiced, taking a bulky one and a thin one +from the pile. "The fat one is from Father," she said, holding it up. +"He is like me, terribly given to loquaciousness. We always write each +other reams when we're apart. The little flat one is from Judith. She +never can think of anything to say except that she is still alive and +hopes I am, and that her esteem for me is undiminished. Dear Spartan +Judy!" + +"Do you know," said the man opposite her, "if I hadn't met you, I +should have been tempted to believe that the institution of the +family had disappeared. I never saw anything like you Marshalls! You +positively seem to have a real regard for each other in spite of +what Bernard Shaw says about the relations of blood-kin. You even, +incredible as it seems, appear to feel a mutual respect!" + +"That's a very pretty compliment indeed," said Sylvia, smiling at him +flashingly, "and I'm going to reward you by reading some of Judith's +letter aloud. Letters do paint personalities so, don't they?" + +He settled himself to listen. + +"Oh, it won't take long!" she reassured him laughingly. She read: + +"'DEAR SYLVIE: Your last letter about the palaces at Versailles was +very interesting. Mother looked you up on the plan of the grounds in +Father's old Baedeker. I'm glad to know you like Paris so much. Our +chief operating surgeon says he thinks the opportunities at the School +of Medicine in Paris are fully as good as in Vienna, and chances for +individual diagnoses greater. Have you visited that yet?'" Over +the letter Sylvia raised a humorous eyebrow at Page, who smiled, +appreciative of the point. + +She went on: "'Lawrence is making me a visit of a few days. Isn't he +a queer boy! I got Dr. Wilkinson to agree, as a great favor, to let +Lawrence see a very interesting operation. Right in the middle of it, +Lawrence fainted dead away and had to be carried out. But when he came +to, he said he wouldn't have missed it for anything, and before he +could really sit up he was beginning a poem about the "cruel mercy of +the shining knives."'" Sylvia shook her head. "Isn't that Lawrence! +Isn't that Judith!" + +Page agreed thoughtfully, their eyes meeting in a trustful intimacy. +They themselves might have been bound together by a family tie, so +wholly natural seemed their sociable sitting together over the fire. +Sylvia thought with an instant's surprise, "Isn't it odd how close he +has come to seem--as though I'd always, always known him; as though I +could speak to him of anything--nobody else ever seemed that way to +me, nobody!" + +She read on from the letter: "'All of us at St. Mary's are feeling +very sore about lawyers. Old Mr. Winthrop had left the hospital +fifteen thousand dollars in his will, and we'd been counting on that +to make some changes in the operating-room and the men's accident ward +that are awfully needed. And now comes along a miserable lawyer who +finds something the matter with the will, and everything goes to that +worthless Charlie Winthrop, who'll probably blow it all in on one +grand poker-playing spree. It makes me tired! We can't begin to keep +up with the latest X-ray developments without the new apparatus, and +only the other day we lost a case, a man hurt in a railroad wreck, +that I know we could have pulled through if we'd been better equipped! +Well, hard luck! But I try to remember Mother's old uncle's motto, +"Whatever else you do, _don't_ make a fuss!" Father has been off for a +few days, speaking before Alumni reunions. He looks very well. Mother +has got her new fruit cellar fixed up, and it certainly is great. +She's going to keep the carrots and parsnips there too. I've just +heard that I'm going to graduate first in my class--thought you might +like to know. Have a good time, Sylvia. And don't let your imagination +get away with you. + +"'Your loving sister, + +"'JUDITH,'" + +"Of all the perfect characterizations!" murmured Page, as Sylvia +finished. "I can actually see her and hear her!" + +"Oh, there's nobody like Judith!" agreed Sylvia, falling into a +reverie, her eyes on the fire. + +The peaceful silence which ensued spoke vividly of the intimacy +between them. + +After a time Sylvia glanced up, and finding her companion's eyes +abstractedly fixed on the floor, she continued to look into his face, +noting its fine, somewhat gaunt modeling, the level line of his brown +eyebrows, the humor and kindness of his mouth. The winter twilight +cast its first faint web of blue shadow into the room. The fire burned +with a steady blaze. + +As minute after minute of this hushed, wordless calm continued, Sylvia +was aware that something new was happening to her, that something in +her stirred which had never before made its presence known. She felt +very queer, a little startled, very much bewildered. What was that +half-thought fluttering a dusky wing in the back of her mind? It came +out into the twilight and she saw it for what it was. She had been +wondering what she would feel if that silent figure opposite her +should rise and take her in his arms. As she looked at that tender, +humorous mouth, she had been wondering what she would feel to press +her lips upon it? + +She was twenty-three years old, but so occupied with mental effort and +physical activity had been her life, that not till now had she known +one of those half-daring, half-frightened excursions of the fancy +which fill the hours of any full-blooded idle girl of eighteen. It was +a woman grown with a girl's freshness of impression, who knew that +ravished, scared, exquisite moment of the first dim awakening of the +senses. But because it was a woman grown with a woman's capacity for +emotion, the moment had a solemnity, a significance, which no girl +could have felt. This was no wandering, flitting, wingčd excursion. +It was a grave step upon a path from which there was no turning back. +Sylvia had passed a milestone. But she did not know this. She sat very +still in her chair as the twilight deepened, only knowing that she +could not take her eyes from those tender, humorous lips. That was the +moment when if the man had spoken, if he had but looked at her ... + +But he was following out some thought of his own, and now rose, went +to Mrs. Marshall-Smith's fine, small desk, snapped on an electric +light, and began to write. + +When he finished, he handed a bit of paper to Sylvia. "Do you suppose +your sister would be willing to let me make up for the objectionable +Charlie Winthrop's deficiences?" he asked with a deprecatory air as +though he feared a refusal. + +Sylvia looked at the piece of paper. It was a check for fifteen +thousand dollars. She held there in her hand seven years of her +father's life, as much money as they all had lived on from the years +she was sixteen until now. And this man had but to dip pen into ink to +produce it. There was something stupefying about the thought to her. +She no longer saw the humor and tenderness of his mouth. She looked up +at him and thought, "What an immensely rich man he is!" She said to +him wonderingly, "You can't imagine how strange it is--like magic--not +to be believed--to have money like that!" + +His face clouded. He looked down uncertainly at his feet and away at +the lighted electric bulb. "I thought it might please your sister," he +said and turned away. + +Sylvia was aghast to think that she had perhaps wounded him. He seemed +to fear that he had flaunted his fortune in her face. He looked +acutely uncomfortable. She found that, as she had thought, she could +say anything, anything to him, and say it easily. She went to him +quickly and laid her hand on his arm. "It's splendid," she said, +looking deeply and frankly into his eyes. "Judith will be too +rejoiced! It _is_ like magic. And nobody but you could have done it so +that the money seems the least part of the deed!" + +He looked down at her, touched, moved, his eyes very tender, but sad +as though with a divination of the barrier his fortune eternally +raised between them. + +The door opened suddenly and Mrs. Marshall-Smith came in quickly, +not looking at them at all. From the pale agitation of her face they +recoiled, startled and alarmed. She sat down abruptly as though her +knees had given way under her. Her gloved hands were perceptibly +trembling in her lap. She looked straight at Sylvia, and for an +instant did not speak. If she had rushed in screaming wildly, her +aspect to Sylvia's eyes would scarcely have been more eloquent of +portentous news to come. It was a fitting introduction to what she now +said to them in an unsteady voice: "I've just heard--a despatch +from Jamiaca--something terrible has happened. The news came to +the American Express office when I was there. It is awful. Molly +Sommerville driving her car alone--an appalling accident to the +steering-gear, they think. Molly found dead under the car." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + +THE ROAD IS NOT SO CLEAR + + +It shocked Sylvia that Molly's death should make so little difference. +After one sober evening with the stunning words fresh before their +eyes, the three friends quickly returned to their ordinary routine +of life. It was not that they did not care, she reflected--she _did_ +care. She had cried and cried at the thought of that quivering, vital +spirit broken by the inert crushing mass of steel--she could not bring +herself to think of the soft body, mangled, bloody. Austin cared too: +she was sure of it; but when they had expressed their pity, what more +could they do? The cabled statement was so bald, they hardly could +believe it--they failed altogether to realize what it meant--they +had no details on which to base any commentary. She who had lived so +intensely, was dead. They were sorry for her. That was all. + +As an apology for their seeming callousness they reiterated Aunt +Victoria's dictum: "We can know nothing about it until Felix comes. +Let us hold our minds in suspense until we know what to think." That +Morrison would be in Paris soon, none of them doubted. Indeed, +they united in insisting on the number of natural--oh, perfectly +natural--reasons for his coming. He had always spent a part of every +winter there, had in fact a tiny apartment on the Rue St. Honoré which +dated from his bachelor life; and now he had a double reason for +coming, since much of Molly's fortune chanced to be in French bonds. +Her father had been (among other things) American agent for the +Comptoir National des Escomptes, and he had taken advantage of his +unusual opportunities for acquiring solid French and remunerative +Algerian securities. Page had said at once that Morrison would need to +go through a good many formalities, under the French laws. So pending +fuller information, they did not discuss the tragedy. Their lives ran +on, and Molly, dead, was in their minds almost as little as Molly, +living but absent, had been. + +It was only two months before Felix Morrison arrived in Paris. They +had expected him. They had spoken of the chance of his arrival on +this or that day. Sylvia had rehearsed all the possible forms of +self-possession for their first meeting; but on the rainy February +afternoon when she came in from representing Aunt Victoria at a +reception and saw him sitting by the fire, her heart sank down and +stopped for an instant, and when it went on beating she could hear no +sound but the drumming of her pulse. The back of his chair was towards +her. All she could see as she stood for a moment in the doorway +was his head, the thick, graying dark hair, and one long-fingered, +sensitive, beautiful hand lying on the arm of the chair. At the +sight, she felt in her own palm the soft firmness of those fingers as +palpably as ever she had in reality. + +The instant's pause before Aunt Victoria saw her standing there, gave +her back her self-control. When Mrs. Marshall-Smith turned and gravely +held out her hand, Sylvia came forward with a sober self-possession. +The man turned too, sprang up with an exclamation apparently of +surprise, "Miss Marshall, you _here_!" and extended his hand. Sylvia, +searching his face earnestly, found it so worn, saw in it such dark +traces of suffering and sorrow, that the quick tears of sympathy stood +in her eyes. + +Her dread of the meeting, a morbid dread that had in it an +acknowledged element of horror, vanished. Before that moment she had +seen only Molly's face as it had looked the day of their desperate +talk, white and despairing, and resolutely bent over the +steering-wheel. She had not been able to imagine Felix' face at all, +had instinctively put it out of her mind; but as she looked into it +now, her fear of it disappeared. It was the fine, sensitive face of a +fine, sensitive man who has known a great shock. What had she feared +she would see there? He was still holding her hand, very much affected +at seeing her, evidently still in a super-sensitive condition when +everything affected him strongly. "She loved you--she admired you so!" +he said, his wonderful voice wavering and uncertain. Sylvia's tears +fell openly at this. She sat down on a low stool near her aunt's +knees. "I can't believe it--I haven't been able to believe it!" she +told him; "Molly was--she was more alive than anybody I ever saw!" + +"If you had seen her that morning," he told them both,--"like a flame +of vitality--almost frightening--so vivid. She waved good-bye, and +then that was not enough; she got out of the car and ran back up +the hotel-step to say good-bye for just those few moments--and was +off--such youth! such youth in all her--" + +Sylvia cried out, "Oh, no! no! it's too dreadful!" She felt the horror +sweep down on her again; but now it did not bear Felix' face among +its baneful images. He stood there, shocked, stricken, but utterly +bewildered, utterly ignorant--for the moment in her relief she had +called his ignorance utter innocence ... + +They did not see him again for many days, and when he came, very +briefly, speaking of business technicalities which absorbed him, he +was noticeably absent and careworn. He looked much older. The gray in +his thick hair had increased. He looked very beautiful and austere to +Sylvia. They exchanged no more than the salutations of arrival and +farewell. + +Then one day, as she and Aunt Victoria and Austin Page strolled down +the long gallery of the Louvre, they came upon him, looking at the +Ribera Entombment. He joined them, walking with them through the Salon +Carré and out to the Winged Victory, calling Sylvia's attention to the +Botticelli frescoes beyond on the landing. "It's the first time I've +been here," he told them, his only allusion to what lay back of him. +"It is like coming back to true friends. Blessed be all true friends." +He shook hands with them, and went away down the great stairway, a +splendid figure of dignity and grace. + +After this he came once and again to the apartment of the Rue de +Presbourg, generally it would appear to use the piano. He had none in +his own tiny _pied-ŕ-terre_ and he missed it. Sylvia immensely liked +his continuing to cling for a time to the simple arrangements of his +frugal bachelor days. He could now of course have bought a thousand +pianos. They understood how he would miss his music, and stole in +quietly when, upon opening the door, Tojiko told them that Mr. +Morrison had come in, and they heard from the salon his delicately +firm touch on the keys. Sometimes they listened from their rooms, +sometimes the two women took possession of the little octagonal room +off the salon, all white paneling and gilt chairs, and listened there; +sometimes, as the weeks went on and an especially early spring began +to envelop Paris in a haze of sunshine and budding leaves, they +stepped out to listen on the wrought-iron balcony which looked down +the long, shining vista of the tree-framed avenue. For the most part +he played Bach, grave, courageous, formal, great-hearted music. + +Sometimes he went away with no more than a nod and a smile to them, +but more and more, when he had finished, he came out where they were, +and stood or sat to exchange brief impressions on the enchanting +season, or on some social or aesthetic treat which "_ces dames_" had +been enjoying. Austin Page was frequently with them, as in the earlier +part of the winter, and it was finally he himself who one day took the +step of asking Morrison if he would not go with them to the Louvre. +"No one could appreciate more than Miss Marshall what has always been +such a delight to us all." + +They went, and not only once. That was the beginning of another phase; +a period when, as he began to take up life again, he turned to his old +friends to help him do it. He saw almost no one else, certainly no one +else there, for he was sure to disappear upon the arrival of a caller, +or the announcement of an expedition in which other people were +included. But he returned again and again to the Louvre with them, his +theory of galleries necessitating frequent visits. Nothing could be +more idiotic, he held, than to try to see on one occasion all, or even +half, or even a tenth part, of a great collection of works of art. "It +is exactly as reasonable," he contended, "as to read through on the +same day every poem in a great anthology. Who could have anything but +nausea for poetry after such a gorge? And they _must_ hate pictures or +else be literally blind to them, the people who look at five hundred +in a morning! If I had looked at every picture in the Long Gallery +in one walk through it, I should thrust my cane through the Titian +Francis-First itself when I came to the Salon Carré." + +So he took them to see only a few, five or six, carefully selected +things--there was one wonderful day when he showed them nothing +but the Da Vinci Saint Anne, and the Venus of Melos, comparing the +dissimilar beauty of those two divine faces so vitally, that Sylvia +for days afterwards, when she closed her eyes and saw them, felt that +she looked on two living women. She told them this and, "Which one do +you see most?" he asked her. "Oh, the Saint Anne," she told him. + +He seemed dissatisfied. But she did not venture to ask him why. They +lived in an atmosphere where omissions were vital. + +Sylvia often wondered in those days if there ever had been a situation +so precariously balanced which continued to hang poised and stable, +minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day. There were +moments when her head was swimming with moral dizziness. She wondered +if such moments ever came to the two quiet, self-controlled men who +came and went, with cordial, easy friendliness, in and out of the +appartement on the Rue de Presbourg. They gave no sign of it, they +gave no sign of anything beyond the most achieved appearance of a +natural desire to be obliging and indulgent to the niece of an old +friend. This appearance was kept up with such unflagging perseverance +that it almost seemed consciously concerted between them. They so +elaborately avoided the slightest appearance of rivalry that their +good taste, like a cloth thrown over an unknown object, inevitably +excited curiosity as to what was concealed beneath it. + +And Sylvia was not to be outdone. She turned her own eyes away from +it as sedulously as they. She never let a conscious thought dwell on +it--and like all other repressed and strangled currents of thought, it +grew swollen and restive, filling her subconsciousness with monstrous, +unformulated speculations. She was extremely absorbed in the luxury, +the amenity, the smooth-working perfection of the life about her. +She consciously concentrated all her faculties on her prodigious +opportunity for aesthetic growth, for appreciation of the fine and +marvelous things about her. She let go the last scruple which had held +her back from accepting from Aunt Victoria the shower of beautiful +things to wear which that connoisseur in wearing apparel delighted +to bestow upon an object so deserving. She gave a brilliant outward +effect of enjoying life as it came which was as impersonal as that of +the two men who looked at her so frequently, and this effect went as +deep as her will-power had command. But beneath--unacknowledged waves +beating on the shore of her life and roughly, irresistibly, rudely +fashioning it--rolled a ground-swell of imperious questionings.... + +Was Felix' perfect manner of impersonal interest solely due to the +delicacy of his situation? Did he feel now that he was as rich as +Austin ...? But, on the other hand, why did he come now and put +himself in a situation which required the utmost efforts for +unconsciousness on everybody's part if not because Austin's being +there had meant he dared not wait? And Austin's change of manner since +the arrival of the other man, the film of ceremony which had slid +imperceptibly over the tender friendliness of his manner, did that +mean that he would not take advantage of Morrison's temporarily tied +hands, but, with a scrupulousness all his own, would wait until the +race was even and they stood foot to foot on the same level? Or had he +noticed at once, with those formidably clear eyes of his, some shade +of her manner to Felix which she had not been able to command, and was +he waiting for some move from her? And how could she move until she +had some sign from Felix and how could he give a sign? There was +nothing to do but to wait, to hope that the thin ice which now bent +perilously under the pleasant ceremonies of their life in common, +would hold them until.... Even the wildest up-leaping wave of that +tossing tide never went beyond the blank wall which came after the +"until...." + +There were other moments when all that surge swung back and forth +to the rhythm of the poisoned recollection of her unacknowledged +humiliation in Lydford; when, inflamed with determination to avoid +another such blow in the face, Sylvia almost consciously asked +herself, self-contemptuously, "Who am I, an obscure, poverty-stricken +music-teacher out of the West, to fancy that I have but to choose +between two such men, two such fortunes?" but against this counted +strongly the constantly recurring revelations of the obscure pasts of +many of the women whom she met during those days, women who were now +shining, acknowledged firsts in the procession of success. The serene, +stately, much-admired Princesse de Chevrille had been a Miss Sommers +from Cleveland, Ohio, and she had come to Paris first as a governess. +The beautiful Mrs. William Winterton Perth, now Aunt Victoria's +favorite friend, who entertained lesser royalty and greater men of +letters with equal quiet dignity, had in her youth, so she chanced +casually one day to mention, known what it was to be thrifty about +car-fares. There was nothing intrinsically impossible in any of the +glittering vistas down which Sylvia's quick eye cast involuntary +glances. + +But inevitably, when the heaving dark tide rose as high as this, there +came a swift and deadly ebbing away of it all, and into Sylvia's +consciousness (always it seemed to her with the most entire +irrelevance) there flared up the picture of Molly as she had seen +her last, shimmering like a jewel in her white veil--then the other +picture, the over-turned car, the golden head bruised and bloody and +forever stilled--and always, always beyond that, the gaunt, monstrous +possibility, too awful ever to be put into words, too impossible for +credence ... + +From that shapeless, looming, black mass, Sylvia fled away actually +and physically, springing to her feet wherever she was, entering +another room, taking up some other occupation. + +Just once she had the faintest sign from beyond the wall that she was +not alone in her fear of this horror. She was sitting near Austin Page +at a tea, one of the frequent, small, richly chosen assemblages which +Mrs. Marshall-Smith gathered about her. Part of the ensuing chatter on +one of these occasions turned, as modern chatter frequently does, on +automobiles. The husband of Mrs. William Winterton Perth was an expert +on such matters, having for some years diverted by an interest +in mechanics the immense enforced leisure of a transplanted male +American. He was talking incessantly that day of the wonderful +improvement in steering mechanism the last few years had brought +about. "I tell you what, Miss Marshall!" he insisted, as though she +had disputed the point with him, "I tell you _what_, there used to +be some excuse for piling your car up by the side of the road, but +nowadays any one who doesn't keep in the road and right side up must +be just plain _looking_ for a chance to use his car like a dose of +cold poison." For a moment Sylvia could not conceive why she felt so +sickening a thrust at her heart. She turned her eyes from the speaker. +They fell on a man's hand, on the arm of the chair next hers. It was +Austin's hand and it was shaking uncontrollably. As she gazed at it, +fascinated, he thrust it deep into his pocket. She did not look at +him. In a moment he rose and crossed the room. The husband of Mrs. +William Winterton Perth asked for another _petit four_, confessing his +fondness for chocolate éclairs,--and embarked upon demountable rims. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + +"_... His wife and children perceiving it, began to cry after him to +return; but the man put his fingers in his ears and ran on, crying, +'Life! Life Eternal!_'" + + +They had been in the Louvre, had spent an hour with Felix in that +glowing embodiment of the pomp and majesty of human flesh known as the +Rubens Medici-Room, and now, for the sheer pleasure of it, had decided +to walk home. Mrs. Marshall-Smith, endowed with a figure which showed +as yet no need for exercise, and having passed youth's restless liking +for it, had vetoed the plan as far as she went, and entering her +waiting ear, had been borne smoothly off, an opulent Juno without her +peacocks. + +The three who were left, lingered for a moment in the quiet sunny +square of the Louvre, looking up at the statue of Lafayette, around at +the blossoming early shrubs. Sylvia was still under the spell of the +riotous, full-blown splendor of the paintings she had seen. Wherever +she looked, she saw again the rainbow brilliance of those glossy +satins, that rippling flooding golden hair, those ample, heaving +bosoms, those liquid gleaming eyes, the soft abundance of that white +and ruddy flesh, with the patina of time like a golden haze over it. +The spectacle had been magnificent and the scene they now entered was +a worthy successor to it. They walked down through the garden of the +Tuileries and emerged upon the Place de la Concorde at five o'clock of +a perfect April afternoon, when the great square hummed and sang with +the gleaming traffic of luxury. Countless automobiles, like glistening +beetles, darted about, each one with its load of carefully dressed and +coiffed women, looking out on the weaving glitter of the street with +the proprietary, complacent stare of those who feel themselves in the +midst of a civilization with which they are in perfect accord. Up the +avenue, beyond, streamed an incessant parade of more costly ears, more +carriages, shining, caparisoned horses, every outfit sumptuous to its +last detail, every one different from all the others, and hundreds and +hundreds and hundreds of them, till in the distance they dwindled to +a black stream dominated by the upward sweep of the Arc de Triomphe, +magnified to fabulous proportions by the filmy haze of the spring day. +To their left flowed the Seine, blue and flashing. A little breeze +stirred the new leaves on the innumerable trees. + +Sylvia stopped for an instant to take in the marvel of this pageant, +enacted every day of every season against that magnificent background. +She made a gesture to call her companions' attention to it--"Isn't it +in the key of Rubens--bloom, radiance, life expansive!" + +"And Chabrier should set it to music," said Morrison. + +"What does it make you think of?" she asked. "It makes me think of a +beautiful young Greek, in a purple chiton, with a wreath of roses in +his hair." + +"It makes me think of a beautiful young woman, all fire and spirit, +and fineness, who drinks life like a perfumed wine," said Morrison, +his eyes on hers. She felt a little shiver of frightened pleasure, and +turned to Page to carry it off, "What does it make you think of?" she +asked. + +"It makes me think," he answered her at once, his eyes on the haze +caught like a dream in the tender green of the budding trees,--"it +makes me think of a half-naked, sweating man, far underground in black +night, striking at a rock with a pick." + +If he had burst into loud profanity, the effect could not have been +more shocking. "_Oh!_" said Sylvia, vexed and put out. She began to +walk forward. Morrison in his turn gave an exclamation which seemed +the vent of long-stored exasperation, and said with heat: "Look here, +Page, you're getting to be a perfect monomaniac on the subject! What +earthly good does it do your man with a pick to ruin a fine moment by +lugging him in!" + +They were all advancing up the avenue now, Sylvia between the two men. +They talked at each other across her. She listened intently, with the +feeling that Morrison was voicing for her the question she had +been all her life wishing once for all to let fly at her parents' +standards: "What good _did_ it do anybody to go without things you +might have? Conditions were too vast for one person to influence." + +"No earthly good," said Page peaceably; "I didn't say it did him any +good. Miss Marshall asked me what all this made me think of, and I +told her." + +"It is simply becoming an obsession with you!" urged Morrison. Sylvia +remembered what Page had said about his irritation years ago when +Austin had withdrawn from the collector's field. + +"Yes, it's becoming an obsession with me," agreed Page thoughtfully. +He spoke as he always did, with the simplest manner of direct +sincerity. + +"You ought to make an effort against it, really, my dear fellow. It's +simply spoiling your life for you!" + +"Worse than that, it's making me bad company!" said Page whimsically. +"I either ought to reform or get out." + +Morrison set his enemy squarely before him and proceeded to do battle. +"I believe I know just what's in your mind, Page: I've been watching +it grow in you, ever since you gave up majolica." + +"I never claimed that was anything but the blindest of impulses!" +protested Page mildly. + +"But it wasn't. I knew! It was a sign you had been infected by the +spirit of the times and had 'caught it' so hard that it would be +likely to make an end of you. It's all right for the collective mind. +That's dense, obtuse; it resists enough to keep its balance. But it's +not all right for you. Now you just let me talk for a few minutes, +will you? I've an accumulated lot to say! We are all of us living +through the end of an epoch, just as much as the people of the old +régime lived through the last of an epoch in the years before the +French Revolution. I don't believe it's going to come with guillotines +or any of those picturesque trimmings. We don't do things that way any +more. In my opinion it will come gradually, and finally arrive about +two or three generations from now. And it oughtn't to come any sooner! +Sudden changes never save time. There's always the reaction to be +gotten over with, if they're sudden. Gradual growths are what last. +Now anybody who knows about the changes of society knows that there's +little enough any one person can do to hasten them or to put them +off. They're actuated by a law of their own, like the law which makes +typhoid fever come to a crisis in seven days. Now then, if you admit +that the process ought not to be hastened, and in the second place +that you couldn't hasten it if you tried, what earthly use _is_ there +in bothering your head about it! There are lots of people, countless +people, made expressly to do whatever is necessary, blunt chisels fit +for nothing but shaping grindstones. _Let them do it!_ You'll only get +in their way if you try to interfere. It's not your job. For the few +people capable of it, there is nothing more necessary to do for the +world than to show how splendid and orderly and harmonious a thing +life can be. While the blunt chisels hack out the redemption of the +overworked (and Heaven knows I don't deny their existence), let those +who can, preserve the almost-lost art of living, so that when the +millennium comes (you see I don't deny that this time it's on the +way!) it won't find humanity solely made up of newly freed serfs who +don't know what use to make of their liberty. How is beauty to be +preserved by those who know and love and serve her, and how can they +guard beauty if they insist on going down to help clean out the +sewers? Miss Marshall, don't you see how I am right? Don't you see how +no one can do more for the common weal than just to live, as finely, +as beautifully, as intelligently as possible? And people who are +capable of this noblest service to the world only waste themselves and +serve nobody if they try to do the work of dray-horses." + +Sylvia had found this wonderfully eloquent and convincing. She now +broke in. "When I was a young girl in college, I used to have a +pretentious, jejune sort of idea that what I wanted out of life was to +find Athens and live in it--and your idea sounds like that. The best +Athens, you know, not sensuous and selfish, but full of lovely and +leisurely sensations and fine thoughts and great emotions." + +"It wasn't pretentious and jejune at all!" said Morrison warmly, "but +simply the most perfect metaphor of what must have been--of course, +I can see it from here--the instinctive sane effort of a nature like +yours. Let's all try to live in Athens so that there will be some one +there to welcome in humanity." + +Page volunteered his first contribution to the talk. "Oh, I wouldn't +mind a bit if I thought we were really doing what Morrison thinks is +our excuse for living, creating fine and beautiful lives and keeping +alive the tradition of beauty and fineness. But our lives aren't +beautiful, they're only easeful. They're not fine, they're only +well-upholstered. You've got to have fitly squared and substantial +foundations before you can build enduring beauty. And all this," he +waved his hand around him at the resplendent, modern city, "this isn't +Athens; it's--it's Corinth, if you want to go on being classic. +As near as I can make out from what Sylvia lets fall, the nearest +approach to Athenian life that I ever heard of, was the life she left +behind her, her parents' life. That has all the elements of the best +Athenian color, except physical ease. And ease is no Athenian quality! +It's Persian! Socrates was a stone-cutter, you know. And even in the +real Athens, even that best Athens, the one in Plato's mind--there was +a whole class given over to doing the dirty work for the others. That +never seemed to bother Plato--happy Plato! but--I'm sure I don't +pretend to say if it ultimately means more or less greatness for the +human race--but somehow since Christianity, people find it harder and +harder to get back to Plato's serenity on that point. I'm not arguing +the case against men like you, Morrison--except that there's only one +of you. You've always seemed to me more like Plato than anybody alive, +and I've regarded you as the most enviable personality going. I'd +emulate you in a minute--if I could; but if mine is a case of mania, +it's a genuine case. I'm sane on everything else, but when it comes +to that--it's being money that I don't earn, but they, those men off +there underground, do earn and are forced to give to me--when it comes +to that, I'm as fixed in my opinion as the man who thought he was a +hard-boiled egg. I don't blame you for being out of patience with me. +As you say I only spoil fine minutes by thinking of it, and as you +charitably refrained from saying, I spoil other people's fine moments +by speaking of it." + +"What would you _have_ us do!" Morrison challenged him--"all turn in +and clean sewers for a living? And wouldn't it be a lovely world, if +we did!" + +Page did not answer for a moment. "I wonder," he finally suggested +mildly, "if it were all divided up, the dirty work, and each of us did +our share--" + +"Oh, impractical! impractical! Wholly a back-eddy in the +forward-moving current. You can't go back of a world-wide movement. +Things are too complicated now for everybody to do his share of +anything. It's as reasonable, as to suggest that everybody do his +share of watchmaking, or fancy juggling. Every man to his trade! +And if the man who makes watches, or cleans sewers, or even mines +coal--your especial sore spot--does his work well, and is suited to it +in temperament, who knows that he does not find it a satisfaction as +complete as mine in telling a bit of genuine Palissy ware from an +imitation. You, for instance, you'd make a _pretty_ coal-miner, +wouldn't you? You're about as suited to it as Miss Marshall here for +being a college settlement worker!" + +Sylvia broke out into an exclamation of wonder. "Oh, how you do put +your finger on the spot! If you knew how I've struggled to justify +myself for not going into 'social work' of some kind! Every girl +nowadays who doesn't marry at twenty, is slated for 'social +betterment' whether she has the least capacity for it or not. Public +opinion pushes us into it as mediaeval girls were shoved into +convents, because it doesn't know what else to do with us. It's all +right for Judith,--it's fine for her. She's made for it. I envy her. +I always have. But me--I never could bear the idea of interfering in +people's lives to tell them what to do about their children and their +husbands just because they were poor. It always seemed to me it was +bad enough to be poor without having other people with a little more +money messing around in your life. I'm different from that kind of +people. If I'm sincere I can't pretend I'm not different. And I'm not +a bit sure I know what's any better for them to do than what they're +doing!" She had spoken impetuously, hotly, addressing not the men +beside her but a specter of her past life. + +"How true that is--how unerring the instinct which feels it!" said +Morrison appreciatively. + +Page looked at Sylvia quickly, his clear eyes very tender. "Yes, +yes; it's her very own life that Sylvia needs to live," he said in +unexpected concurrence of opinion. Sylvia felt that the honors of the +discussion so far were certainly with Felix. And Austin seemed oddly +little concerned by this. He made no further effort to retrieve his +cause, but fell into a silence which seemed rather preoccupied than +defeated. + +They were close to the Arc de Triomphe now. A brilliant sunset was +firing a salvo of scarlet and gold behind it, and they stood for a +moment to admire. "Oh, Paris! Paris!" murmured Morrison. "Paris +in April! There's only one thing better, and that we have before +us--Paris in May!" + +They turned in past the loge of the concierge, and mounted in the +languidly moving elevator to the appartement. Felix went at once +to the piano and began playing something Sylvia did not recognize, +something brilliantly colored, vivid, resonant, sonorous, perhaps +Chabrier, she thought, remembering his remark on the avenue. Without +taking off her hat she stepped to her favorite post of observation, +the balcony, and sat down in the twilight with a sigh of exquisitely +complete satisfaction, facing the sunset, the great arch lifting +his huge, harmonious bulk up out of the dim, encircling trees, the +resplendent long stretch of the lighted boulevard. The music seemed to +rise up from the scene like its natural aroma. + +Austin Page came out after her and leaned silently on the railing, +looking over the city. Morrison finished the Chabrier and began on +something else before the two on the balcony spoke. Sylvia was asking +no questions of fate or the future, accepting the present with wilful +blindness to its impermanence. + +Austin said: "I have been trying to say good-bye all afternoon. I am +going back to America tomorrow." + +Sylvia was so startled and shocked that she could not believe her +ears. Her heart beat hard. To an incoherent, stammered inquiry of +hers, he answered, "It's my Colorado property--always that. It spoils +everything. I must go back, and make a decision that's needed there. +I've been trying to tell you. But I can't. Every time I have tried, I +have not dared. If I told you, and you should beckon me back, I should +not be strong enough to go on. I could not leave you, Sylvia, if you +lifted your hand. And that would be the end of the best of us both." +He had turned and faced her, his hands back of him, gripping the +railing. The deep vibrations of his voice transported her to that +never-forgotten moment at Versailles. He went on: "When it is--when +the decision is made, I'll write you. I'll write you, and then--I +shall wait to hear your answer!" From inside the room Felix poured a +dashing spray of diamond-like trills upon them. + +She murmured something, she did not know what; her breathing oppressed +by her emotion. "Won't you--shan't we see you--here--?" She put her +hand to her side, feeling an almost intolerable pain. + +He moved near her, and, to bring himself to her level, knelt down on +one knee, putting his elbows on the arm of her chair. The dusk had +fallen so thickly that she had not seen his face before. She now saw +that his lips were quivering, that he was shaking from head to foot. +"It will be for you to say, Sylvia," his voice was rough and harsh +with feeling, "whether you see me again." He took her hands in his and +covered them with kisses--no grave tokens of reverence these, as on +the day at Versailles, but human, hungry, yearning kisses that burned, +that burned-- + +And then he was gone. Sylvia was there alone in the enchanted +twilight, the Triumphal Arch before her, the swept and garnished and +spangled city beneath her. She lifted her hand and saw that he had +left on it not only kisses but tears. If he had been there then, she +would have thrown herself into his arms. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + +SYLVIA COMES TO THE WICKET-GATE + + +Three weeks passed before his letter came. The slow, thrilling +crescendo of May had lifted the heart up to a devout certainty of +June. The leaves were fully out, casting a light, new shadow on the +sprinkled streets. Every woman was in a bright-colored, thin summer +dress, and every young woman looked alluring. The young men wore their +hats tilted to one side, swung jaunty canes as they walked, and peered +hopefully under the brim of every flowered feminine headdress. +The days were like golden horns of plenty, spilling out sunshine, +wandering perfumed airs, and the heart-quickening aroma of the new +season. The nights were cool and starry. Every one in Paris spent as +much as possible of every hour out of doors. The pale-blue sky flecked +with creamy clouds seemed the dome, and the city the many-colored +pavement of some vast building, so grandly spacious that the +sauntering, leisurely crowds thronging the thoroughfares seemed no +crowds at all, but only denoted a delightful sociability. + +All the spring vegetables were at their crispest, most melting +perfection, and the cherries from Anjou were like miniature apples of +Hesperus. Up and down the smaller streets went white-capped little old +women, with baskets on their arms, covered with snowy linen, and they +chanted musically on the first three notes of the scale, so that the +sunny vault above them resounded to the cry, "De la crčme, fromage ŕ +la crčme!" The three Americans had enchanted expeditions to Chantilly, +to Versailles again, called back from the past and the dead by the +miracle of spring; to more distant formidable Coucy, grimly looking +out over the smiling country at its foot, to Fontainebleau, even a two +days' dash into Touraine, to Blois, Amboise, Loches, jewels set in the +green enamels of May ... and all the time Sylvia's attempt to take +the present and to let the future bring what it would, was pitched +perforce in a higher and higher key,--took a more violent effort to +achieve. + +She fell deeper than ever under Morrison's spell, and yet the lack of +Austin was like an ache to her. She had said to herself, "I will not +let myself think of him until his letter comes," and she woke up in +the night suddenly, seeing the fire and tenderness and yearning of his +eyes, and stretching out her arms to him before she was awake. And +yet she had never tried so hard to divine every shade of Morrison's +fastidiousness and had never felt so supreme a satisfaction in knowing +that she did. There were strange, brief moments in her life now, when +out of the warring complexity in her heart there rose the simple +longing of a little girl to go to her mother, to feel those strong, +unfailing arms about her. She began to guess dimly, without thinking +about it at all, that her mother knew some secret of life, of balance, +that she did not. And yet if her mother were at hand, she knew she +could never explain to her--how could she, when she did not know +herself?--what she was living through. How long she had waited the +moment when she _would_ know! + +One day towards the end of May, Morrison had come in for lunch, a +delicately chosen, deceptively simple meal for which Yoshida had +outdone himself. There had been a savory mixture of sweetbreads and +mushrooms in a smooth, rich, creamy sauce; green peas that had been on +the vines at three o'clock that morning, and which still had the aroma +of life in their delectable little balls; sparkling Saumur; butter +with the fragrance of dew and clover in it; crisp, crusty rolls; +artichokes in oil--such a meal as no money can buy anywhere but in +Paris in the spring, such a simple, simple meal as takes a great deal +of money to buy even in Paris. + +"It is an art to eat like this," said Morrison, more than half +seriously, after he had taken the first mouthful of the golden soufflé +which ended the meal. "What a May we have had! I have been thinking so +often of Talleyrand's saying that no one who had not lived before the +French Revolution, under the old régime, could know how sweet life +could be; and I've been thinking that we may live to say that about +the end of this régime. Such perfect, golden hours as it has for those +who are able to seize them. It is a debt we own the Spirit of Things +to be grateful and to appreciate our opportunity." + +"As far as the luncheon goes, it's rather a joke, isn't it," said his +hostess, "that it should be an Oriental cook who has so caught the +true Gallic accent? I'll tell Tojiko to tell Yoshido that his efforts +weren't lost on you. He adores cooking for you. No, you speak about it +yourself. Here comes Tojiko with the mail." + +She reached for the _Herald_ with one hand, and with the other gave +Sylvia a letter with the American postmark. "Oh, Tojiko," said +Morrison with the familiarity of an habitué of the house, "will you +tell your brother for me that I never tasted anything like his ..." + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith broke in with an exclamation of extreme +astonishment. "Oh--what _do_ you think--! Sylvia, did you know +anything about this? Of all the crazy--why, what under the sun--? +I always knew there was a vein of the fanatic--any man who won't +smoke--you may be sure there's something unbalanced--!" She now turned +the paper as she spoke and held it so that the headlines leaped out +across the table: + + MILLIONAIRE COAL OPERATOR TURNS VAST + HOLDINGS OVER TO THE STATE + + Son of Old Peter Page Converted to Socialism + +"_What_!" cried Morrison. Even in the blankness of her stupefaction, +Sylvia was aware of a rising note in his voice that was by no means +dismay. + +"Yes," continued Mrs. Marshall-Smith, reading rapidly and +disconnectedly from the paper, beginning an item and dropping it, as +she saw it was not the one she was searching for, "'Mr. Page is said +to have contemplated some such step for a long ...'--m-m-m, not that +... 'well-known collector of ceramics--Metropolitan Museum--member of +the Racquet, the Yacht, the Century, the Yale--thirty-two--Mother Miss +Allida Sommerville of Baltimore, formerly a great beauty'--_here_ it +is," she stopped skimming and read consecutively: "'Mr. Page's plan +has been worked out in all detail with experts. A highly paid, +self-perpetuating commission of labor experts, sociologists, and +men of practical experience in coal-operating has been appointed to +administer Mr. Page's extremely extensive holdings. The profits form +a fund which, under the stipulations of Mr. Page's agreement with +the State, is to be used to finance a program of advanced social +activities; to furnish money for mothers' pensions, even perhaps +for fathers' pensions in the case of families too numerous to be +adequately cared for on workingmen's wages; to change the public +school system of the locality into open-air schools with spacious +grounds for manual activities of all kinds; greatly to raise wages; to +lengthen the period of schooling before children go into remunerative +occupations ...'" Mrs. Marshall-Smith looked up, said, "Oh, _you_ +know, the kind of thing such people are always talking about," and +began to skip again, "'--extensive plans for garden cities--public +libraries--books of the business to be open to employés--educational +future--no philanthropy--and so forth and so forth.'" She glanced +hurriedly down the page, caught the beginning of another sentence, +and read: "'The news has created an immense sensation all over the +country. It is prophesied that Mr. Page's unexpected action will throw +the coal business into great confusion. Other operators will find it +extremely difficult to go on with the old conditions. Already it is +rumored that the Chilton Coal and Coke Company ...'" + +"Well, I should think so indeed!" cried Morrison emphatically, +breaking in. "With modern industrial conditions hung on a hair trigger +as they are, it's as though a boy had exploded a fire-cracker in the +works of a watch. That means his whole fortune gone. Old Peter put +everything into coal. Austin will not have a cent--nothing but those +Vermont scrub forests of his. What a mad thing to do! But it's been +growing on him for a long time. I've seen--I've felt it!" + +Sylvia gave a dazed, mechanical look at the letter she held and +recognized the handwriting. She turned very white. + +Aunt Victoria said instantly: "I see you have a letter to read, my +dear, and I want Felix to play that D'Indy Interlude for me and +explain it--Bauer is going to play it tonight for the Princess de +Chevrille. We'll bother you with our chatter. Don't you want to take +it to your room to read?" + +Sylvia stood up, holding the unopened letter in her hand. She looked +about her a little wildly and said: "Oh no, no! I think I'd rather be +out of doors. I'll go out on the balcony." + +"It's raining," said Mrs. Marshall-Smith. + +"No, not yet," said Morrison, making a great effort to speak in an +ordinary tone. "It's only going to." He sat down at the piano. Sylvia +passed him and went out to the balcony. She opened the letter and read +it through very carefully. It was a long one and this took some time. +She did not hear a note of the music which poured its plaintive, eerie +cadences around her. When she had finished the letter she instantly +started to read it again, with the sensation that she had not yet +begun to understand it. She was now deeply flushed. She continually +put back a floating strand of hair, which recurrently fell across her +forehead and cheek. + +After a time, Mrs. Marshall-Smith said from the open door: "Felix and +I are going to Madeleine Perth's. Would you rather stay here?" Sylvia +nodded without looking up. + +She sat motionless, looking at the letter long after she had finished +it. An hour passed thus. Then she was aware that it was beginning to +rain. The drops falling on the open letter dissolved the ink into +blurred smears. She sprang up hastily and went into the salon, where +she stood irresolute for a moment, and then, without calling Hélčne, +went to her room and dressed for the street. She moved very quickly as +though there were some need for extreme haste, and when she stepped +into the street she fell at once automatically into the swinging step +of the practised walker who sees long miles before him. + +Half an hour later she was looking up at the façade of Notre Dame +through the rain, and seeing there these words: "I shall be waiting at +Austin Farm to hear if you are at all able to sympathize with me in +what I have done. The memory of our last words together may help you +to imagine with what anxiety I shall be waiting." + +She pushed open the greasy, shining leather door, passed into the +interior, and stood for a moment in the incense-laden gloom of the +nave. A mass was being said. The rapidly murmured Latin words came +to her in a dim drone, in which she heard quite clearly, quite +distinctly: "There is another kind of beauty I faintly glimpse--that +isn't just sweet smells and lovely sights and harmonious lines--it's +the beauty that can't endure disharmony in conduct, the fine, true ear +for the loveliness of life lived at its best--Sylvia, finest, truest +Sylvia, it's what you could, if you would--you more than any other +woman in the world--if we were together to try--" + +Sylvia sank to her knees on a prie-Dieu and hid her face in her hands, +trying to shut out the words, and yet listening to them so intently +that her breath was suspended.... "What Morrison said is true--for +him, since he feels it to be true. No man can judge for another. But +other things are true too, things that concern me. It's true that an +honest man cannot accept an ease founded, even remotely, on the misery +of others. And my life has been just that. I don't know what success I +shall have with the life that's beginning, but I know at least it +will begin straight. There seems a chance for real shapeliness if the +foundations are all honest--doesn't there? Oh, Sylvia--oh, my dearest +love, if I could think you would begin it with me, Sylvia! Sylvia!" + +The girl sprang up and went hastily out of the church. The nun +kneeling at the door, holding out the silent prayer for alms for the +poor, looked up in her face as she passed and then after her with +calm, understanding eyes. Kneeling there, day after day, she had seen +many another young, troubled soul fleeing from its own thoughts. + +Sylvia crossed the parvis of Notre Dame, glistening wet, and passed +over the gray Seine, slate under the gray mist of the rain. Under her +feet the impalpable dust of a city turned to gray slime which clung to +her shoes. She walked on through a narrow, mean street of mediaeval +aspect where rag-pickers, drearily oblivious of the rain, quarreled +weakly over their filthy piles of trash. She looked at them in +astonishment, in dismay, in horror. Since leaving La Chance, save for +that one glimpse over the edge back in the Vermont mountains, she had +been so consistently surrounded by the padded satin of possessions +that she had forgotten how actual poverty looked. In fact, she had +never had more than the briefest fleeting glances at it. This was +so extravagant, so extreme, that it seemed impossible to her. And +yet--and yet--She looked fleetingly into those pale, dingy, underfed, +repulsive faces and wondered if coal-miners' families looked like +that. + +But she said aloud at once, almost as though she had crooked an arm to +shield herself: "But he _said_ he did not want me to answer at once! +He _said_ he wanted me to take time--to take time--to take time ..." +She hastened her steps to this refrain, until she was almost running; +and emerged upon the broad, well-kept expanse of the Boulevard St. +Germain with a long-drawn breath of relief. + +Ahead of her to the right, the Rue St. Jacques climbed the hill to the +Pantheon. She took it because it was broad and clean and differed from +the musty darkness from which she had come out; she fled up the steep +grade with a swift, light step as though she were on a country walk. +She might indeed have been upon some flat road near La Chance for all +she saw of the buildings, the people around her. + +How like Austin's fine courage that was, his saying that he did not +want her to decide in haste, but to take time to know what she was +doing! What other man would not have stayed to urge her, to hurry her, +to impose his will on hers, masterfully to use his personality to +confuse her, to carry her off? For an instant, through all her +wretched bewilderment, she thrilled to a high, impersonal appreciation +of his saying: "If I had stayed with you, I should have tried to take +you by force--but you are too fine for that, Sylvia! What you could be +to the man you loved if you went to him freely--that is too splendid +to risk losing. I want all of you--heart, soul, mind--or nothing!" +Sylvia looked up through this clear white light to Austin's yearning +eyes, and back through the ages with a wondering pity at the dark +figure of Jerry Fiske, emerging from his cave. She had come a long way +since then. + +And then all this, everything fine, everything generous, ebbed away +from her with deadly swiftness, and in a cold disgust with herself she +knew that she had been repeating over and over Morrison's "Austin will +not have a cent left ... nothing but those Vermont scrub forests." So +that was the kind of a woman she was. Well, if that was the kind of +woman she was, let her live her life accordingly. She was sick with +indecision as she fled onward through the rain. + +Few pedestrians were abroad in the rain, and those who were, sheltered +themselves slant-wise with their umbrellas against the wind, and +scudded with the storm. Sylvia had an umbrella, but she did not open +it. She held her face up once, to feel the rain fall on it, and this +reminded her of home, and long rainy walks with her father. She +winced at this, and put him hastily out of her mind. And she had been +unconsciously wishing to see her mother! At the very recollection of +her mother she lengthened her stride. There was another thought to run +away from! + +She swung around the corner near the Pantheon and rapidly approached +the door of the great Library of Ste. Genevičve. A thin, draggled, +middle-aged woman-student, entering hastily, slipped on the wet stones +and knocked from under his arm the leather portfolio of a thin, +draggled, middle-aged man who was just coming out. The woman did not +stop to help repair the damage she had done, but hastened desperately +on into the shelter of the building. Sylvia's eyes, absent as they +were, were caught and held by the strange, blank look of the man, who +stood motionless, his shabby hat knocked to one side of his thin, gray +hair, his curiously filmed eyes fixed stupidly on the litter of papers +scattered at his feet. The rain was beginning to convert them into +sodden pulp, but he did not stir. The idea occurred to Sylvia that he +might be ill, and she advanced to help him. As he saw her stoop +to pick them up, he said in French, in a toneless voice, very +indifferently: "Don't give yourself the trouble. They are of no +value. I carry them only to make the Library attendants think I am a +bona-fide reader. I go there to sleep because I have no other roof." + +His French was entirely fluent, but the accent was American. Sylvia +looked up at him surprised. He returned her gaze dully, and without +another look at the papers, scuffled off through the rain, across the +street towards the Pantheon. His boots were lamentable. + +Sylvia had an instantly vanishing memory of a pool of quiet sunshine, +of a ripely beautiful woman and a radiant young man. Before she knew +she was speaking, an impulsive cry had burst from her: "Why, Professor +Saunders! Professor Saunders! Don't you know me? I am Sylvia +Marshall!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + +SYLVIA DRIFTS WITH THE MAJORITY + + +"No, they don't let you sit down in here if you're as shabby as I am," +said the man, continuing his slow, feeble, shuffling progress. "They +know you're only a vagrant, here to get out of the rain. They won't +even let you stand still long." + +Sylvia had not been inside the Pantheon before, had never been inside +a building with so great a dome. They stood under it now. She sent her +glance up to its vast, dim, noble heights and brought it down to the +saturnine, unsavory wreck at her side. She was regretting the impulse +which had made her call out to him. What could she say to him now they +were together? What word, what breath could be gentle enough, light +enough not to be poison to that open sore? + +On his part he seemed entirely unconcerned about the impression he +made on her. His eyes, his sick, filmed eyes, looked at her with no +shrinking, with no bravado, with an entire indifference which gave, +through all the desolation of his appearance, the strangest, careless +dignity to the man. He did not care what she thought of him. He did +not care what any one thought of him. He gave the impression of a man +whose accounts are all reckoned and the balance struck, long ago. + +"So this is Sylvia," he said, with the slightest appearance of +interest, glancing at her casually. "I always said you would make a +beautiful woman. But since I knew Victoria, I've seen that you must be +quite what she was at your age." It might have been a voice speaking +from beyond the grave, so listless, so dragging was its rhythm. "How +do you happen to be in Paris?" he asked. "Are your parents still +alive?" + +"Oh _yes_!" said Sylvia, half startled by the preposterousness of the +idea that they might not be. "They're very well too. I had such a good +letter from Mother the other day. Do you remember Professor Kennedy? +He has just given up his position to be professor emeritus. I suppose +now he'll write that book on the idiocy of the human race he's been +planning so long. And old Mr. Reinhardt, he's still the same, they say +... wonderful, isn't it, at his age?" She was running on, not knowing +what to say, and chattering rather foolishly in her embarrassment. +"Judith is a trained nurse; isn't that just the right thing for her? +I'm visiting Aunt Victoria here for a while. Lawrence is a Freshman at...." + +He broke in, his hollow voice resounding in the immense, vault-like +spaces around them. "You'd better go home," he said. "I'd leave +tonight, if I were you." She looked at him startled, half-scared, +thinking that she had been right to fancy him out of his mind. She saw +with relief a burly attendant in a blue uniform lounging near a group +of statuary. She could call to him, if it became necessary. + +"You'd better go away from her at once," went on the man, advancing +aimlessly from one bay of the frescoes to another. + +Sylvia knew now of whom he was speaking, and as he continued talking +with a slow, dreary monotony, her mind raced back over the years, +picking up a scrap here, a half-forgotten phrase there, an intercepted +look between her father and mother, a recollection of her own, a +half-finished sentence of Arnold's ... + +"She can't be fatal for you in the same way she has been for the +others, of course," the man was saying. "What she'll do for you is to +turn you into a woman like herself. I remember now, I have thought +many times, that you _were_ like her ... of the same clay. But you +have something else too, you have something that she'll take away from +you if you stay. You can't keep her from doing it. No one can get the +better of her. She doesn't fight. But she always takes life. She has +taken mine. She must have taken her bogie-husband's, she took young +Gilbert's, she took Gilbert's wife's, she took Arnold's in another +way.... God! think of leaving a young, growing, weak soul in the care +of a woman like Victoria! She took that poet's, I forget his name; I +suppose by this time Felix Morrison is ..." + +At this name, a terrible contraction of the heart told Sylvia that she +was listening to what he said. "Felix Morrison!" she cried in stern, +angry protest. "I don't know what you're talking about--but if you +think that Aunt Victoria--if you think Felix Morrison--" She was +inarticulate in her indignation. "He was married last autumn to a +beautiful girl--and Aunt Victoria--what an idea!--_no_ one was more +pleased than she--why--you are _crazy_!" She flung out at him the +word, which two moments before she would not have been so cruel as to +think. + +It gave him no discomfort. "Oh no, I'm not," he said with a spectral +laugh, which had in it, to Sylvia's dismay, the very essence of +sanity. She did not know why she now shrank away from him, far more +frightened than before. "I'm about everything else you might mention, +but I'm not crazy. And you take my word for it and get out while you +still can ... _if_ you still can?" He faintly indicated an inquiry, +looking at her sideways, his dirty hand stroking the dishonoring gray +stubble of his unshaven face. "As for Morrison's wife ... let her get +out too. Gilbert tried marrying, tried it in all unconsciousness. It's +only when they try to get away from her that they know she's in the +marrow of their bones. She lets them try. She doesn't even care. She +knows they'll come back. Gilbert did. And his wife ... well, I'm sorry +for Morrison's wife." + +"She's dead," said Sylvia abruptly. + +He took this in with a nod of the head. "So much the better for her. +How did it happen that _you_ didn't fall for Morrison's ..." he looked +at her sharply at a change in her face she could not control. "Oh, +you did," he commented slackly. "Well, you'd better start home for La +Chance tonight," he said again. + +They were circling around and around the shadowy interior, making no +pretense of looking at the frescoed walls, to examine which had been +their ostensible purpose in entering. Sylvia was indeed aware of great +pictured spaces, crowded dimly with thronging figures, men, horses, +women--they reached no more than the outer retina of her eye. She +remembered fleetingly that they had something to do with the story of +Ste. Genevičve. She wanted intensely to escape from this phantom whom +she herself had called up from the void to stalk at her side. But she +felt she ought not to let pass, even coming from such a source, such +utterly frenzied imaginings against one to whom she owed loyalty. She +spoke coldly, with extreme distaste for the subject: "You're entirely +wrong about Aunt Victoria. She's not in the least that kind of a +woman." + +He shook his head slowly. "No, no; you misunderstand me. Your Aunt +Victoria is quite irreproachable, she always has been, she always will +be. She is always in the right. She always will be. She did nothing +to me but hire me to teach her stepson, and when my habits became too +bad, discharge me, as any one would have done. She did nothing to +Arnold except to leave him to the best schools and the best tutors +money could buy. What more could any one have done? She had not the +slightest idea that Horace Gilbert would try to poison his wife, +had not the slightest connection with their quarrel. The young +poet,--Adams was his name, now I remember--did not consult her before +he took to cocaine. Morphine is my own specialty. Victoria of course +deplored it as much as any one could. No, I'm not for a minute +intimating that Victoria is a Messalina. We'd all be better off if she +were. It's only our grossness that finds fault with her. Your aunt +is one of the most respectable women who ever lived, as 'chaste as +unsunned snow--the very ice of chastity is in her!' Indeed, I've often +wondered if the redoubtable Ephraim Smith himself, for all that he +succeeded in marrying her, fared any better than the rest of us. +Victoria would be quite capable of cheating him out of his pay. She +parches, yes, she dries up the blood--but it's not by her passion, not +even by ours. Honest passion never kills. It's the Sahara sands of her +egotism into which we've all emptied our veins." + +Sylvia was frozen to the spot by her outraged indignation that any one +should dare speak to her thus. She found herself facing a fresco of a +tall, austere figure in an enveloping white garment, an elderly woman +with a thin, worn, noble face, who laid one fine old hand on a stone +parapet and with divine compassion and tenderness looked out over a +sleeping city. The man followed the direction of her eyes. "It's Puvis +de Chavannes' Ste. Genevičve as an old woman, guarding and praying for +the city. Very good, isn't it? I especially admire the suggestion of +the plain bare cell she has stepped out from. I often come here to +look at it when I've nothing to eat." He seemed as flaccidly willing +to speak on this as on any other topic; to find it no more interesting +than the subject of his former speech. + +Sylvia was overcome with horror of him. She walked rapidly away, +towards the door, hoping he would not follow her. He did not. When she +glanced back fearfully over her shoulder, she saw him still standing +there, looking up at the gaunt gray figure of beneficent old age. His +dreadful broken felt hat was in his hand, the water dripped from his +frayed trousers over the rotting leather of his shoes. As she looked, +he began to cough, loudly, terribly, so that the echoing reaches of +the great nave resounded to the sound. Sylvia ran back to him and +thrust her purse into his hand. At first he could not speak, for +coughing, but in a moment he found breath to ask, "Is it Victoria's +money?" + +She did not answer. + +He held it for a moment, and then opening his hand let it drop. As she +turned away Sylvia heard it fall clinking on the stone floor. At the +door she turned for one last look, and saw him weakly stooping to pick +it up again. She fairly burst out of the door. + +It was almost dusk when she was on the street again, looking down the +steep incline to the Luxembourg Gardens. In the rainy twilight the +fierce tension of the Rodin "Thinker" in front of the Pantheon loomed +huge and tragic. She gave it a glance of startled sympathy. She had +never understood the statue before. Now she was a prey to those same +ravaging throes. There was for the moment no escaping them. She felt +none of her former wild impulse to run away. What she had been running +away from had overtaken her. She faced it now, looked at it squarely, +gave it her ear for the first time; the grinding, dissonant note under +the rich harmony of the life she had known for all these past months, +the obscure vaults underlying the shining temple in which she had been +living. + +What beauty could there be which was founded on such an action as +Felix' marriage to Molly--Molly, whose passionate directness had known +the only way out of the impasse into which Felix should never have let +her go?... An echo from what she had heard in the mass at Notre Dame +rang in her ears, and now the sound was louder--Austin's voice, +Austin's words: "A beauty that can't endure disharmony in conduct, the +fine true ear for the deeper values, the foundations--" It was Austin, +asking himself what beauty could be in any life founded, even remotely +as his was, on any one's misery? + +For a long time she stood there, silent, motionless, her hands +clenched at her sides, looking straight before her in the rain. Above +her on his pedestal, the great, bronze, naked, tortured man ground his +teeth as he glared out from under the inexorable limitations of his +ape-like forehead, and strove wildly against the barriers of his +flesh.... + +Wildly and vainly, against inexorable limitations! Sylvia was aware +that an insolent young man, with moist protuberant eyes, had come up +where she stood there, alone, motionless on the public street. He put +his arm in hers, clasped her hand in a fat, soft palm, and, "_Allons, +ma belle!_" he said with a revolting gayety. + +Sylvia pulled away from him, cried out fiercely in English, "Don't you +dare to touch me!" and darted away. + +He made no attempt at pursuit, acknowledging his mistake with an easy +shrug and turning off to roam, a dim, predatory figure, along the +dusky street. He had startled and frightened the girl so that she was +trembling when she ventured to slow down to a walk under the glaring +lights of the Boulevard St. Michel. She was also shivering with wet +and cold, and without knowing it, she was extremely hungry. As she +fled along the boulevard in the direction of her own quarter of the +city, her eye caught the lighted clock at the kiosk near Cluny. She +was astonished to see that it was after seven o'clock. How long could +she have stood there, under the shadow of that terrific Thinker, +consumed quite as much as he by the pain of trying to rise above mere +nature? An hour--more than an hour, she must have been there. The +Pantheon must have closed during that time, and the dreadful, sick +man must have passed close by her. Where was he now? What makeshift +shelter harbored that cough, those dirty, skeleton hands, those awful +eyes which had outlived endurance and come to know peace before death.... + +She shivered and tried to shrink away from her wet, clinging clothing. +She had never, in all her life before, been wet and cold and hungry +and frightened, she had never known from what she had been protected. +And now the absence of money meant that she must walk miles in the +rain before she could reach safety and food. For three cents she could +ride. But she had not three cents. How idiotic she had been not to +keep a few sous from her purse. What a sickening thing it had been to +see him stoop to pick it up after he had tried to have the pride not +to touch it. That was what morphine had done for him. And he would buy +more morphine with that money, that was the reason he had not been +able to let it lie ... the man who had been to her little girlhood the +radiant embodiment of strength and fineness! + +Her teeth were chattering, her feet soaked and cold. She tried to walk +faster to warm her blood, and discovered that she was exhausted, tired +to the marrow of her bones. Her feet dragged on the pavement, her arms +hung heavily by her side, but she dared not stop a moment lest some +other man with abhorrent eyes should approach her. + +She set her teeth and walked; walked across the Seine without a glance +at its misted lights blinking through the rain, walked on past the +prison of Marie Antoinette, without a thought of that other harmless +woman who had loved bright and lovely things while others suffered: +walked on upon the bridge across the Seine again. This bewildered her, +making her think that she was so dazed she had doubled on her tracks. +She saw, a long way off, a solitary hooded sergent de ville, and +dragged herself across an endless expanse of wet asphalt to ask him +her way. But just before she reached him, she remembered suddenly that +of course she was on the island and was obliged to cross the Seine +again before reaching the right bank. She returned weary and +disheartened to her path, crossed the bridge, and then endlessly, +endlessly, set one heavy foot before the other under the glare of +innumerable electric lights staring down on her and on the dismal, +wet, and deserted streets. The clocks she passed told her that it +was nearly eight o'clock. Then it was past eight. What must they be +thinking of her on the Rue de Presbourg? She tried again to hurry, but +could force her aching muscles to no more than the plod, plod, plod of +her dogged advance over those interminable miles of pavement. There +was little of her then that was not cold, weary, wet flesh, suffering +all the discomforts that an animal can know. She counted her steps for +a long time, and became so stupidly absorbed in this that she made a +wrong turning and was blocks out of her way before she noticed her +mistake. This mishap reduced her almost to tears, and it was when she +was choking them weakly back and setting herself again to the cruel +long vista of the Champs-Elysées that an automobile passed her at top +speed with a man's face pressed palely to the panes. Almost at once +the car stopped in answer to a shouted command; it whirled about +and bore down on her. Felix Morrison sprang out and ran to her with +outstretched arms, his rich voice ringing through the desolation of +the rain and the night--"Sylvia! Sylvia! Are you safe?" + +He almost carried her back to the car, lifted her in. There were +wraps there, great soft, furry, velvet wraps which he cast about her, +murmuring broken ejaculations of emotion, of pity, of relief--"Oh, +your hands, how cold! Sylvia, how _could_ you? Here, drink this! I've +been insane,--absolutely out of my mind! Let me take off your hat--Oh, +your poor feet--I was on my way to--I was afraid you might have--Oh, +Sylvia, Sylvia, to have you safe!" She tried to bring to mind +something she had intended to remember; she even repeated the phrase +over to herself, "It was an ugly, ugly thing to have married Molly," +but she knew only that he was tenderness and sheltering care and +warmth and food and safety. She drew long quivering breaths like a +child coming out of a sobbing fit. + +Then before there was time for more thought, the car had whirled them +back to the door, where Aunt Victoria, outwardly calm, but very pale, +stood between the concierge and his wife, looking out into the rainy +deserted street. + +At the touch of those warm embracing arms, at that radiant presence, +at the sound of that relieved, welcoming voice, the nightmare of the +Pantheon faded away to blackness.... + +Half an hour later, she sat, fresh from a hot bath, breathing out +delicately a reminiscence of recent violet water and perfumed powder; +fresh, fine under-linen next her glowing skin; shining and refreshed, +in a gown of chiffon and satin; eating her first mouthful of Yoshido's +ambrosial soup. + +"Why, I'm so sorry," she was saying. "I went out for a walk, and then +went further than I meant to. I've been over on the left bank part of +the time, in Notre Dame and the Pantheon. And then when I started to +come home it took longer than I thought. It's so apt to, you know." + +"Why in the world, my dear, did you _walk_ home?" cried Aunt Victoria, +still brooding over her in pitying sympathy. + +"I'd--I'd lost my purse. I didn't have any money." + +"But you don't pay for a cab till you come to the end of your journey! +You could have stepped into a taxi and borrowed the money of the +concierge here." + +Sylvia was immensely disconcerted by her rustic naďveté in not +thinking of this obvious device. "Oh, of course! How could I have been +so--but I was tired when I came to start home--I was very tired--too +tired to think clearly!" + +This brought them all back to the recollection of what had set her off +on her walk. There was for a time rather a strained silence; but they +were all very hungry--dinner was two hours late--and the discussion +of Yoshido's roast duckling was anything but favorable for the +consideration of painful topics. They had champagne to celebrate her +safe escape from the adventure. To the sensation of perfect ease +induced by the well-chosen dinner this added a little tingling through +all Sylvia's nerves, a pleasant, light, bright titillation. + +All might have gone well if, after the dinner, Felix had not stepped, +as was his wont, to the piano. Sylvia had been, up to that moment, +almost wholly young animal, given over to bodily ecstasy, of which not +the least was the agreeable warmth on her silk-clad ankle as she held +her slippered foot to the fire. + +But at the first chords something else in her, slowly, with extreme +pain, awoke to activity. All her life music had spoken a language to +which she could not shut her ears, and now--her face clouded, she +shifted her position, she held up a little painted screen to shield +her face from the fire, she finally rose and walked restlessly about +the room. Every grave and haunting cadence from the piano brought to +her mind, flickering and quick, like fire, a darting question, and +every one she stamped out midway, with an effort of the will. + +The intimacy between Felix and Aunt Victoria, it was strange she had +never before thought--of course not--what a hideous idea! That book, +back in Lydford, with Horace Gilbert's name on the fly-leaf, and Aunt +Victoria's cool, casual voice as she explained, "Oh, just a young +architect who used to--" Oh, the man in the Pantheon was simply +brutalized by drugs; he did not know what he was saying. His cool, +spectral laugh of sanity sounded faintly in her ears again. + +And then, out of a mounting foam of arpeggios, there bloomed for her +a new idea, solid enough, broad enough, high enough, for a refuge +against all these wolfish fangs. She sat down to think it out, hot on +the trail of an answer, the longed-for answer. + +It had just occurred to her that there was no possible logical +connection between any of those skulking phantoms and the golden +lovely things they tried to defile. Even if some people of wealth +and ease and leisure were not as careful about moral values as about +colors, and aesthetic harmonies--that meant nothing. The connection +was purely fortuitous. How silly she had been not to see that. Grant, +for purposes of argument, that Aunt Victoria was self-centered and +had lived her life with too little regard for its effect on other +people,--grant even that Felix had, under an almost overpowering +temptation, not kept in a matter of conduct the same rigid nicety of +fastidiousness which characterized his judgment of marbles--what of +it? That did not mean that one could only be fine and true in conduct +by giving up all lovely things and wearing hair-shirts. What an +outgrown, mediaeval idea! How could she have been for a moment under +its domination! It was just that old Puritanism, Spartanism of her +childhood, which was continually reaching up its bony hand from the +grave where she had interred it. + +The only danger came, she saw it now, read it plainly and +clear-headedly in the lives of the two people with her, the only +danger came from a lack of proportion. It certainly did seem to be +possible to allow the amenities and aesthetic pleasures to become so +important that moral fineness must stand aside till they were safe. +But anybody who had enough intelligence could keep his head, even +if the temptation was alluring. And simply because there was that +possible danger, why not enjoy delightful things as long as they did +not run counter to moral fineness! How absurd to think there was any +reason why they should; quite the contrary, as a thousand philosophers +attested. They would not in her case, at least! Of course, if +a decision had to be taken between the two, she would never +hesitate--never! As she phrased this conviction to herself, she turned +a ring on her white slim finger and had a throb of pleasure in the +color of the gem. What harmless, impersonal pleasures they were! How +little they hurt any one! And as to this business of morbidly probing +into healthy flesh, of insisting on going back of everything, farther +than any one could possibly go, and scrutinizing the origin of every +dollar that came into your hand ... why, that way lay madness! As +soon try to investigate all the past occupants of a seat in a railway +before using it for a journey. Modern life was not organized that way. +It was too complicated. + +Her mind rushed on excitedly, catching up more certainty, more and +more reinforcements to her argument as it advanced. There was, +therefore, nothing inherent in the manner of life she had known these +last months to account for what seemed ugly underneath. There was no +reason why some one more keenly on his guard could not live as they +did and escape sounding that dissonant note! + +The music stopped. Morrison turned on the stool and seeing her bent +head and moody stare at the fire, sent an imploring glance for help to +Mrs. Marshall-Smith. + +Just let her have the wealth and leisure and let her show how worthily +she could use it! There would be an achievement! Sylvia came around to +another phase of her new idea, there would be something worth doing, +to show that one could be as fine and true in a palace as in a +hut,--even as in a Vermont farmhouse! At this, suddenly all thought +left her. Austin Page stood before her, fixing on her his clear and +passionate and tender eyes. At that dear and well-remembered gaze, her +lip began to quiver like a child's, and her eyes filled. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith stirred herself with the effect of a splendid ship +going into action with all flags flying. "Sylvia dear," she said, +"this rain tonight makes me think of a new plan. It will very likely +rain for a week or more now. Paris is abominable in the rain. What do +you say to a change? Madeleine Perth was telling me this afternoon +that the White Star people are running a few ships from Portsmouth by +way of Cherbourg around by Gibraltar, through the Mediterranean to +Naples. That's one trip your rolling-stone of an aunt has never taken, +and I'd rather like to add it to my collection. We could be in Naples +in four days from Cherbourg and spend a month in Italy, going north as +the heat arrived. Felix--why don't you come along? You've been wanting +to see the new low reliefs in the Terme, in Rome?" + +Sylvia's heart, like all young hearts, was dazzled almost to blinking +by the radiance shed from the magic word Italy. She turned, looking +very much taken aback and bewildered, but with light in her eyes, +color in her face. + +Morrison burst out: "Oh, a dream realized! Something to live on all +one's days, the pines of the Borghese--the cypresses of the Villa +Medici--roses cascading over the walls in Rome, the view across the +Campagna from the terraces at Rocca di Papa--" + +Sylvia thought rapidly to herself: "Austin _said_ he did not want me +to answer at once. He _said_ he wanted me to take time--to take time! +I can decide better, make more sense out of everything, if I--after I +have thought more, have taken more time. No, I am not turning my back +on him. Only I must have more time to think--" + +Aloud she said, after a moment's silence, "Oh, nothing could be +lovelier!" + +She lay in her warm, clean white bed that night, sleeping the sound +sleep of the healthy young animal which has been wet and cold and +hungry, and is now dry and warmed and fed. + +Outside, across the city, on his bronze pedestal, the tortured +Thinker, loyal to his destiny, still strove terribly against the +limitations of his ape-like forehead. + + + + +BOOK IV; + +_THE STRAIT PATH_ + + + + +CHAPTER XL + +A CALL FROM HOME + + +It was quite dark when they arrived in the harbor at Naples; and +they were too late to go through the necessary formalities of harbor +entering. In company with several other in-and outward-bound steamers, +the _Carnatic_ lay to for the night. Some one pointed out a big liner +which would sail for New York the next morning, lying like a huge, +gaily lighted island, the blare of her band floating over the still +water. + +Sylvia slept little that night, missing the rolling swing of the ship, +and feeling breathless in the stifling immobility of the cabin. She +tossed about restlessly, dozing off at intervals and waking with a +start to get up on her knees and look out through the port-hole at the +lights of Naples blazing steadily in their semicircle. She tried to +think several times, about her relations to Felix, to Austin--but +nothing came to her mind except a series of scenes in which they had +figured, scenes quite disconnected, which brought no enlightenment to +her. + +As she lay awake thus, staring at the ceiling, feeling in the intense +silence and blackness that the fluttering of her eyelids was almost +audible, her heart beating irregularly, now slow, now fast, it +occurred to her that she was beginning to know something of the +intensity of real life--real grown-up life. She was astonished to +enjoy it so little. + +She fell at last, suddenly, fathoms deep into youthful slumber, and +at once passed out from tormented darkness into some strange, sunny, +wind-swept place on a height. And she was all one anguish of longing +for Austin. And he came swiftly to her and took her in his arms and +kissed her on the lips. And it was as it had been when she was a child +and heard music, she was carried away by a great swelling tide of joy +... But dusk began to fall again; Austin faded; through the darkness +something called and called to her, imperatively. With great pain she +struggled up through endless stages of half-consciousness, until she +was herself again, Sylvia Marshall, heavy-eyed, sitting up in her +berth and saying aloud, "Yes, what is it?" in answer to a knocking on +the door. + +The steward's voice answered, announcing that the first boat for shore +would leave in an hour. Sylvia sprang out of bed, the dream already +nothing more than confused brightness in her mind. By the time she was +dressed, it had altogether gone, and she only knew that she had had +a restless night. She went out on the deck, longing for the tonic of +pure air. The morning was misty--it had rained during the night--and +clouds hung heavy and low over the city. Out from this gray smother +the city gleamed like a veiled opal. Neither Felix nor her aunt was to +be seen. When she went down to breakfast, after a brisk tramp back and +forth across the deck, she was rosy and dewy, her triumphant youth +showing no sign of her vigils. She was saying to herself: "Now I've +come, it's too idiotic not to enjoy it. I _shall_ let myself go!" + +Hélčne attended to the ladies' packing and to the labeling and care +of the baggage. Empty-handed, care-free, feeling like a traveling +princess, Sylvia climbed down from the great steamer into a dirty, +small harbor-boat. Aunt Victoria sat down at once on the folding +camp-chair which Hélčne always carried for her. Sylvia and Felix stood +together at the blunt prow, watching the spectacle before them. The +clouds were lifting from the city and from Vesuvius, and from Sylvia's +mind. Her spirits rose as the boat went forward into the strange, +foreign, glowing scene. + +The oily water shimmered in smooth heavings as the clumsy boat +advanced upon it. The white houses on the hills gleamed out from their +palms. As the boat came closer to the wharf, the travelers could see +the crowds of foreign-looking people, with swarthy faces and cheap, +ungraceful clothes, looking out at the boat with alert, speculative, +unwelcoming eyes. The noise of the city streets, strange to their ears +after the days of sea silence, rose clattering, like a part of the +brilliance, the sparkle. The sun broke through the clouds, poured a +flood of glory on the refulgent city, and shone hotly on the pools of +dirty water caught in the sunken spots of the uneven stone pavement. + +Aunt Victoria made her way up the gang-plank to the landing dock, +achieving dignity even there. Felix sprang after her, to hand her her +chair, and Helene and Sylvia followed. Mrs. Marshall-Smith sat down +at once, opening her dark-purple parasol, the tense silk of which was +changed by the hot Southern sun into an iridescent bubble. "We will +wait here till the steward gets our trunks out," she announced." +It will be amusing to watch the people." The four made an oasis of +aristocracy in the seething, shouting, frowzy, gaudy, Southern +crowd, running about with the scrambling, undignified haste of ants, +sweating, gesticulating, their faces contorted with care over their +poor belongings. Sylvia was acutely conscious of her significance in +the scene. She was also fully aware that Felix missed none of the +contrast she made with the other women. She felt at once enhanced and +protected by the ignobly dressed crowd about her. Felix was right--in +America there could be no distinction, there was no background for it. + +The scene about them was theatrically magnificent. In the distance +Vesuvius towered, cloud-veiled and threatening, the harbor shone and +sparkled in the sun, the vivid, outreaching arms of Naples clasped +the jewel-like water. From it all Sylvia extracted the most perfect +distillation of traveler's joy. She felt the well-to-do tourist's +care-free detachment from the fundamentals of life, the tourist's +sense that everything exists for the purpose of being a sight for him +to see. She knew, and knew with delight, the wanderer's lightened, +emancipated sense of being at a distance from obligations, that +cheerful sense of an escape from the emprisoning solidarity of +humanity which furnishes the zest of life for the tourist and the +tramp, enabling the one light-heartedly to offend proprieties and +the other casually to commit murder. She was embarked upon a moral +vacation. She was out of the Bastile of right and wrong. She had a +vision of what freedom from entangling responsibilities is secured by +traveling. She understood her aunt's classing it as among the positive +goods of life. + +A man in a shabby blue uniform, with a bundle of letters in his hand, +walked past them towards the boat. + +"Oh, the mail," said Mrs. Marshall-Smith. "There may be some for us." +She beckoned the man to her, and said, "Marshall-Smith? Marshall? +Morrison?" + +The man sorted over his pile. "Cable for Miss Marshall," he said, +presenting it to the younger lady with a bold, familiar look +of admiration. "Letter for F. Morrison: two letters for Mrs. +Marshall-Smith." Sylvia opened her envelope, spread out the folded +sheet of paper, and read what was scrawled on it, with no realization +of the meaning. She knew only that the paper, Felix, her aunt, the +crowd, vanished in thick blackness, through which, much later, with a +great roaring in her ears, she read, as though by jagged flashes of +lightning: "Mother very ill. Come home at once. Judith." + +It seemed to her an incalculably long time between her first glance at +the words and her understanding of them, but when she emerged from the +blackness and void, into the flaunting sunlight, the roaring still +in her ears, the paper still in her hands, the scrawled words still +venomous upon it, she saw that not a moment could have passed, for +Felix and her aunt were unfolding letters of their own, their eyes +beginning to run quickly over the pages. + +Sylvia stood quite still, feeling immeasurably and bitterly alone. +She said to herself: "Mother is very sick. I must go home at once. +Judith." But she did not know what she said. She felt only an impulse +to run wildly away from something that gave her intolerable pain. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith turned over a page of her letter, smiling to +herself, and glanced up at her niece. Her smile was smitten from her +lips. Sylvia had a fantastic vision of her own aspect from the gaping +face of horror with which her aunt for an instant reflected it. She +had never before seen Aunt Victoria with an unprepared and discomposed +countenance. It was another feature of the nightmare. + +For suddenly everything resolved itself into a bad dream,--her aunt +crying out, Hélčne screaming and running to her, Felix snatching the +telegram from her and reading it aloud--it seemed to Sylvia that she +had heard nothing for years but those words, "Mother very sick. Come +home at once. Judith." She heard them over and over after his voice +was silent. Through their constant echoing roar in her ears she heard +but dimly the babel of talk that arose--Aunt Victoria saying that she +could not of course leave at once because no passage had been engaged, +Hélčne foolishly offering smelling-salts, Felix darting off to get a +carriage to take them to the hotel where she could be out of the crowd +and they could lay their plans--"Oh, my poor dear!--but you may have +more reassuring news tomorrow, you know," said Mrs. Marshall-Smith +soothingly. + +The girl faced her aunt outraged. She thought she cried out angrily, +"tomorrow!" but she did not break her silence. She was so torn by the +storm within her that she had no breath for recriminations. She turned +and ran rapidly some distance away to the edge of the wharf, where +some small rowboats hung bobbing, their owners sprawled on the seats, +smoking cigarettes and chattering. Sylvia addressed the one nearest +her in a strong, imperious voice. "I want you to take me out to that +steamer," she said, pointing out to the liner in the harbor. + +The man looked up at her blankly, his laughing, impertinent brown face +sobered at once by the sight of her own. He made a reply in Italian, +raising his shoulders. Some ill-dressed, loafing stragglers on the +wharf drew near Sylvia with an indolent curiosity. She turned to them +and asked, "Do any of you speak English?" although it was manifestly +inconceivable that any of those typical Neapolitans should. One of +them stepped forward, running his hand through greasy black curls. "I +kin, lady," he said with a fluent, vulgar New York accent. "What ye +want?" + +"Tell that man," said Sylvia, her lips moving stiffly, "to take me out +to the ship that is to leave for America this morning--and now--this +minute, I may be late now!" + +After a short impassioned colloquy, the loafer turned to her and +reported: "He says if he took you out, you couldn't git on board. Them +big ships ain't got no way for folks in little boats to git on. And +he'd ask you thirty lire, anyhow. That's a fierce price. Say, if +you'll wait a minute, I can get you a man that'll do it for--" Mrs. +Marshall-Smith and Hélčne had followed, and now broke through the line +of ill-smelling loungers. Mrs. Marshall-Smith took hold of her niece's +arm firmly, and began to draw her away with a dignified gesture. "You +don't know what you are doing, child," she said with a peremptory +accent of authority. "You are beside yourself. Come with me at once. +This is no--" + +Sylvia did not resist her. She ignored her. In fact, she did not +understand a word that her aunt said. She shook off the older woman's +hand with one thrust of her powerful young arm, and gathering her +skirts about her, leaped down into the boat. She took out her purse +and showed the man a fifty-lire bill. "Row fast! Fast!" she motioned +to him, sitting down in the stern and fixing her eyes on the huge bulk +of the liner, black upon the brilliance of the sunlit water. She heard +her name called from the wharf and turned her face backward, as the +light craft began to move jerkily away. + +Felix had come up and now stood between Mrs. Marshall-Smith and her +maid, both of whom were passionately appealing to him! He looked over +their heads, saw the girl already a boat-length from the wharf, and +gave a gesture of utter consternation. He ran headlong to the edge of +the dock and again called her name loudly, "Sylvia! _Sylvia!_" There +was no mistaking the quality of that cry. It was the voice of a man +who sees the woman he loves departing from him, and who wildly, +imperiously calls her back to him. But she did not return. The boat +was still so close that she could look deeply into his eyes. Through +all her tumult of horror, there struck cold to Sylvia's heart the +knowledge that they were the eyes of a stranger. The blow that had +pierced her had struck into a quivering center of life, so deep within +her, that only something as deep as its terrible suffering could seem +real. The man who stood there, so impotently calling to her, belonged +to another order of things--things which a moment ago had been +important to her, and which now no longer existed. He had become for +her as remote, as immaterial as the gaudy picturesqueness of the +scene in which he stood. She gave him a long strange look, and made a +strange gesture, a gesture of irrevocable leave-taking. She turned her +face again to the sea, and did not look back. + +They approached the liner, and Sylvia saw some dark heads looking over +the railing at her. Her boatman rowed around the stern to the other +side, where the slanting stairs used in boarding the harbor-boats +still hung over the side. The landing was far above their heads. +Sylvia stood up and cried loudly to the dull faces, staring down at +her from the steerage deck. "Send somebody down on the stairs to speak +to me." There was a stir; a man in a blue uniform came and looked over +the edge, and went away. After a moment, an officer in white ran down +the stairs to the hanging landing with the swift, sure footing of a +seaman. Sylvia stood up again, turning her white face up to him, her +eyes blazing in the shadow of her hat. "I've just heard that my mother +is very sick, and I must get back to America at once. If you will let +down the rope ladder, I can climb up. I must go! I have plenty of +money. I _must_!" + +The officer stared, shook his head, and ran back up the stairs, +disappearing into the black hole in the ship's side. The dark, heavy +faces continued to hang over the railing, staring fixedly down at the +boat with a steady, incurious gaze. Sylvia's boatman balanced his +oar-handles on his knees, rolled a cigarette and lighted it. The boat +swayed up and down on the shimmering, heaving roll of the water, +although the ponderous ship beside it loomed motionless as a rock. +The sun beat down on Sylvia's head and up in her face from the molten +water till she felt sick, but when another officer in white, an +elderly man with an impassive, bearded face, came down the stairs, she +rose up, instantly forgetful of everything but her demand. She called +out her message again, straining her voice until it broke, poised so +impatiently in the little boat, swinging under her feet, that she +seemed almost about to spring up towards the two men leaning over to +catch her words. When she finished, the older man nodded, the younger +one ran back up the stairs, and returned with a rope ladder. + +Sylvia's boatman stirred himself with an ugly face of misgiving. +He clutched at her arm, and made close before her face the hungry, +Mediterranean gesture of fingering money. She took out her purse, gave +him the fifty-lire note, and catching at the ladder as it was flung +down, disregarding the shouted commands of the men above her to +"wait!" she swung herself upon it, climbing strongly and surely in +spite of her hampering skirts. + +The two men helped her up, alarmed and vexed at the risk she had +taken. They said something about great crowds on the boat, and that +only in the second cabin was there a possibility for accommodations. +If she answered them, she did not know what she said. She followed the +younger man down a long corridor, at first dark and smelling of hemp, +later white, bright with electric light, smelling strongly of fresh +paint, stagnant air, and machine-oil. They emerged in a round hallway +at the foot of a staircase. The officer went to a window for a +conference with the official behind it, and returned to Sylvia to say +that there was no room, not even a single berth vacant. Some shabby +woman-passengers with untidy hair and crumpled clothes drew near, +looking at her with curiosity. Sylvia appealed to them, crying out +again, "My mother is very sick and I must go back to America at +once. Can't any of you--can't you--?" she stopped, catching at the +banisters. Her knees were giving way under her. A woman with a flabby +pale face and disordered gray hair sprang towards her and took her in +her arms with a divine charity. "You can have half my bed!" she cried, +drawing Sylvia's head down on her shoulder. "Poor girl! Poor girl! I +lost my only son last year!" + +Her accent, her look, the tones of her voice, some emanation of deep +humanity from her whole person, reached Sylvia's inner self, the +first message that had penetrated to that core of her being since the +deadly, echoing news of the telegram. Upon her icy tension poured a +flood of dissolving warmth. Her hideous isolation was an illusion. +This plain old woman, whom she had never seen before, was her sister, +her blood-kin,--they were both human beings. She gave a cry and flung +her arms about the other's neck, clinging to her like a person falling +from a great height, the tears at last streaming down her face. + + + + +CHAPTER XLI + +HOME AGAIN + + +The trip home passed like a long shuddering bad dream in which one +waits eternally, bound hand and foot, for a blow which does not fall. +Somehow, before the first day was over, an unoccupied berth was found +for Sylvia, in a tiny corner usually taken by one of the ship's +servants. Sylvia accepted this dully. She was but half alive, all her +vital forces suspended until the journey should be over. The throbbing +of the engines came to seem like the beating of her own heart, and +she lay tensely in her berth for hours at a time, feeling that it was +partly her energy which was driving the ship through the waters. She +only thought of accomplishing the journey, covering the miles which +lay before her. From what lay at the end she shrank back, returning +again to her hypnotic absorption in the throbbing of the engines. The +old woman who had offered to share her berth had disappeared at the +first rough water and had been invisible all the trip. Sylvia did not +think of her again. That was a recollection which with all its sacred +significance was to come back later to Sylvia's maturer mind. + +The ship reached New York late in the afternoon, and docked that +night. Sylvia stood alone, in her soiled wrinkled suit, shapeless from +constant wear, her empty hands clutching at the railing, and was the +first passenger to dart down the second-class gang-plank. She ran to +see if there were letters or a telegram for her. + +"Yes, there is a telegram for you," said the steward, holding out a +sealed envelope to her. "It came on with the pilot and ought to have +been given you before." + +She took the envelope, but was unable to open it. The arc lights +flared and winked above her in the high roof of the wharf; the crowds +of keen-faced, hard-eyed men and women in costly, neat-fitting +clothing were as oblivious of her and as ferociously intent on their +own affairs as the shabby, noisy crowd she had left in Naples, +brushing by her as though she were a part of the wharf as they bent +over their trunks anxiously, and locked them up with determination. It +seemed to Sylvia that she could never break the spell of fear which +bound her fast. Minute after minute dragged by, and she still stood, +very white, very sick. + +She was aware that some one stood in front of her, looking into her +face, and she recognized one of the ship's officials whom she had +noticed from a distance on the ship, an under-officer, somehow +connected with the engines, who had sat at table with the second-class +passengers. He was a burly, red-faced man, with huge strong hands and +a bald head. + +He looked at her now for a moment with an intent kindness, and taking +her arm led her a step to a packing-case on which he made her sit +down. At the break in her immobility, a faintness came over Sylvia. +The man bent over her and began to fan her with his cap. A strong +smell of stale and cheap tobacco reached Sylvia from all of his +obese person, but his vulgar, ugly face expressed a profoundly +self-forgetful concern. "There, feelin' better?" he asked, his eyes +anxiously on hers. The man looked at the envelope comprehendingly: +"Oh--bad news--" he murmured. Sylvia opened her hand and showed him +that it had not been opened. "I haven't looked at it yet," she said +pitifully. + +The man made an inarticulate murmur of pity--put out his thick red +fingers, took the message gently from her hand, and opened it. As he +read she searched his face with an impassioned scrutiny. + +When he raised his eyes from the paper, she saw in them, in that +grossly fleshy countenance, such infinite pity that even her swift +intuition of its meaning was not so swift as to reach her heart first. +The blow did not reach her naked and unprotected in the solitude of +her egotism, as it had at Naples. Confusedly, half-resentfully, but +irresistibly she knew that she did not--could not--stand alone, was +not the first thus to be struck down. This knowledge brought the tonic +summons to courage. She held out her hand unflinchingly, and stood +up as she read the message, "Mother died this morning at dawn." The +telegram was dated three days before. She was now two days from home. + +She looked up at the man before her and twice tried to speak before +she could command her voice. Then she said quite steadily: "I live in +the West. Can you tell me anything about trains to Chicago?" + +"I'm going with ye, to th' train," he said, taking her arm and moving +forward. Two hours later his vulgar, ugly, compassionate face was the +last she saw as the train moved out of the station. He did not seem a +stranger to Sylvia. She saw that he was more than middle-aged, he must +have lost _his_ mother, there must have been many deaths in his past. +He seemed more familiar to her than her dearest friends had seemed +before; but from now on she was to feel closer to every human being +than before to her most loved. A great breach had been made in the +wall of her life--the wall which had hidden her fellows from her. She +saw them face the enigma as uncomprehendingly, as helplessly as she, +and she felt the instinct of terror to huddle close to others, even +though they feel--_because_ they feel--a terror as unrelieved. It was +not that she loved her fellow-beings more from this hour, rather that +she felt, to the root of her being, her inevitable fellowship with +them. + +The journey home was almost as wholly a period of suspended animation +for Sylvia as the days on the ocean had been. She had read the +telegram at last; now she knew what had happened, but she did not yet +know what it meant. She felt that she would not know what it meant +until she reached home. How could her mother be dead? What did it mean +to have her mother dead? + +She said the grim words over and over, handling them with heartsick +recklessness as a desperate man might handle the black, ugly objects +with smoking fuses which he knows carry death. But for Sylvia no +explosion came. No ravaging perception of the meaning of the words +reached her strained inner ear. She said them over and over, the sound +of them was horrifying to her, but in her heart she did not believe +them. Her mother, _her_ mother could not die! + +There was no one, of course, at the La Chance station to meet her, +and she walked out through the crowd and took the street-car without +having seen a familiar face. It was five o'clock in the afternoon +then, and six when she walked up the dusty country road and turned in +through the gate in the hedge. There was home--intimately a part of +her in every detail of its unforgotten appearance. The pines stood up +strong in their immortal verdure, the thick golden hush of the summer +afternoon lay like an enchantment about the low brown house. And +something horrible, unspeakably horrible had happened there. Under the +forgotten dust and grime of her long railway journey, she was deadly +pale as she stepped up on the porch. Judith came to the door, saw her +sister, opened her arms with a noble gesture, and clasped Sylvia to +her in a strong and close embrace. Not a word was spoken. The two +clung to each other silently, Sylvia weeping incessantly, holding fast +to the dear human body in her arms, feeling herself dissolved in a +very anguish of love and pain. Her wet cheek was pressed against +Judith's lips, the tears rained down in a torrent. All the rich, +untapped strength of her invincible youth was in that healthful flood +of tears. + +There were none such in the eyes of Professor Marshall as he came down +the stairs to greet his daughter. Sylvia was immeasurably shocked by +his aspect. He did not look like her father. She sought in vain in +that gray countenance for any trace of her father's expression. He +came forward with a slow, dragging step, and kissed his daughter, +taking her hand--his, she noticed, felt like a sick man's, parched, +the skin like a dry husk. He spoke, in a voice which had no resonance, +the first words that had been uttered: "You must be very tired, +Sylvia. You would better go and lie down. Your sister will go with +you." He himself turned away and walked slowly towards the open door. +Sylvia noticed that he shuffled his feet as he walked. + +Judith drew Sylvia away up the stairs to her own slant-ceilinged room, +and the two sat down on the bed, side by side, with clasped hands. +Judith now told briefly the outline of what had happened. Sylvia +listened, straining her swollen eyes to see her sister's face, wiping +away the tears which ran incessantly down her pale, grimy cheeks, +repressing her sobs to listen, although they broke out in one burst +after another. Her mother had gone down very suddenly and they had +cabled at once--then she grew better--she had been unspeakably +brave--fighting the disease by sheer will-power--she had conquered +it--she was gaining--they were sorry they had cabled Sylvia--she had +not known she was going to die--none of them had dreamed she was going +to die--suddenly as the worst of her disease had spent itself and the +lungs were beginning to clear--suddenly her heart had given way, and +before the nurse could call her husband and children to her, she was +gone. They had been there under the same roof, and had not been with +her at the last. The last time they had seen her, she was alive and +smiling at them--such a brave, wan shadow of her usual smile--for a +few moments they went about their affairs, full of hope--and when they +entered the sick-room again-- + +Sylvia could bear no more, screaming out, motioning Judith imperiously +to stop;--she began to understand what had happened to her; the words +she had repeated so dully were like thunder in her ears. Her mother +was dead. + +Judith took her sister again in her arms, holding her close, as though +she were the older. Sylvia was weeping again, the furious, healing, +inexhaustible tears of youth. To both the sisters it seemed that they +were passing an hour of supreme bitterness; but their strong young +hearts, clinging with unconscious tenacity to their right to joy, +were at that moment painfully opening and expanding beyond the narrow +bounds of childhood. Henceforth they were to be great enough to harbor +joy--a greater joy--and sorrow, side by side. + +Moreover, as though their action-loving mother were still watching +over them, they found themselves confronted at once with an inexorable +demand for their strength and courage. + +Judith detached herself, and said in a firm voice: "Sylvia, you +mustn't cry any more. We must think what to do." + +As Sylvia looked at her blankly, she went on: "Somehow Lawrence must +be taken away for a while--until Father's--either you or I must +go with him and stay, and the other one be here with Father until +he's--he's more like himself." + +Sylvia, fresh from the desolation of solitude in sorrow, cried out: +"Oh, Judith, how can you! Now's the time for us all to stay together! +Why should we--?" + +Judith went to the door and closed it before answering, a precaution +so extraordinary in that house of frank openness that Sylvia was +struck into silence by it. Standing by the door, Judith said in a low +tone, "You didn't notice--anything--about Father?" + +"Oh yes, he looks ill. He is so pale--he frightened me!" + +Judith looked down at the floor and was silent a moment. Sylvia's +heart began to beat fast with a new foreboding. "Why, what _is_ the +matter with--" she began. + +Judith covered her face with her hands. "I don't know what to _do_!" +she said despairingly. + +No phrase coming from Judith could have struck a more piercing alarm +into her sister's heart. She ran to Judith, pulled her hands down, and +looked into her face anxiously. "What do you mean, Judy--what do you +mean?" + +"Why--it's five days now since Mother died, three days since the +funeral--and Father has hardly eaten a mouthful--and I don't think +he's slept at all. I know he hasn't taken his clothes off. And--and--" +she drew Sylvia again to the bed, and sat down beside her, "he says +such things ... the night after Mother died Lawrence had cried so I +was afraid he would be sick, and I got him to bed and gave him some +hot milk,"--the thought flashed from one to the other almost palpably, +"That is what Mother would have done"--"and he went to sleep--he was +perfectly worn out. I went downstairs to find Father. It was after +midnight. He was walking around the house into one room after another +and out on the porch and even out in the garden, as fast as he could +walk. He looked so--" She shuddered. "I went up to him and said, +'Father, Father, what are you doing?' He never stopped walking an +instant, but he said, as though I was a total stranger and we were in +a railway station or somewhere like that, 'I am looking for my wife. I +expect to come across her any moment, but I can't seem to remember +the exact place I was to meet her. She must be somewhere about, and +I suppose--' and then, Sylvia, before I could help it, he opened the +door to Mother's room quick--and the men were there, and the coffin--" +She stopped short, pressing her hand tightly over her mouth to stop +its quivering. Sylvia gazed at her in horrified silence. + +After a pause, Judith went on: "He turned around and ran as fast as +he could up the stairs to his study and locked the door. He locked +me out--the night after Mother died. I called and called to him--he +didn't answer. I was afraid to call very loud for fear of waking +Lawrence. I've had to think of Lawrence too." She stopped again to +draw a long breath. She stopped and suddenly reached out imploring +hands to hold fast to Sylvia. "I'm so _glad_ you have come!" she +murmured. + +This from Judith ran like a galvanic shock through Sylvia's +sorrow-sodden heart. She sat up, aroused as she had never been before +to a stern impulse to resist her emotion, to fight it down. She +clasped Judith's hand hard, and felt the tears dry in her eyes. Judith +went on: "If it hadn't been for Lawrence--he's sick as it is. I've +kept him in his room--twice when he's been asleep I've managed to get +Father to eat something and lie down--there seem to be times when he's +so worn out that he doesn't know what he's doing. But it comes back to +him. One night I had just persuaded him to lie down, when he sat up +again with that dreadful face and said very loud: 'Where is my wife? +Where is Barbara?' That was on the night after the funeral. And the +next day he came to me, out in the garden, and said,--he never seems +to know who I am: 'I don't mind the separation from my wife, you +understand--it's not that--I'm not a child, I can endure that--but I +_must_ know where she is. I _must_ know where she is!' He said it over +and over, until his voice got so loud he seemed to hear it himself and +looked around--and then he went back into the house and began walking +all around, opening and shutting all the doors. What I'm afraid of is +his meeting Lawrence and saying something like that. Lawrence would go +crazy. I thought, as soon as you came, you could take him away to the +Helman farm--the Helmans have been so good--and Mrs. Helman offered to +take Lawrence--only he oughtn't to be alone--he needs one of us--" + +Judith was quiet now, and though very pale, spoke with her usual +firmness. Sylvia too felt herself iron under the pressure of her +responsibilities. She said: "Yes, I see. All right--I'll go," and the +two went together into Lawrence's room. He was lying on the bed, his +face in the pillows. At the sound of their steps he turned over and +showed a pitiful white face. He got up and moved uncertainly towards +Sylvia, sinking into her arms and burying his face on her shoulder. + +But a little later when their plan was told him, he turned to +Judith with a cry: "No, _you_ go with me, Judy! I want _you_! You +'know'--about it." + +Over his head the sisters looked at each other with questioning eyes; +and Sylvia nodded her consent. Lawrence had always belonged to Judith. + + + + +CHAPTER XLII + + "_Strange that we creatures of the petty ways, + Poor prisoners behind these fleshly bars, + Can sometimes think us thoughts with God ablaze, + Touching the "fringes of the outer stars_."" + + +And so they went away, Lawrence very white, stooping with the weight +of his suitcase, his young eyes, blurred and red, turned upon Judith +with an infinite confidence in her strength. Judith herself was pale, +but her eyes were dry and her lips firm in her grave, steadfast face, +so like her mother's, except for the absence of the glint of humor. +Sylvia kissed her good-bye, feeling almost a little fear of her +resolute sister; but as she watched them go down the path, and noted +the appealing drooping of the boy towards Judith, Sylvia was swept +with a great wave of love and admiration--and courage. + +She turned to face the difficult days and nights before her and forced +herself to speak cheerfully to her father, who sat in a chair on the +porch, watching the departing travelers and not seeing them. "How +splendid Judith is!" she cried, and went on with a break in the voice +she tried to control: "She will take Mother's place for us all!" + +Her father frowned slightly, as though she had interrupted him in some +effort where concentration was necessary, but otherwise gave no sign +that he heard her. + +Sylvia watched him anxiously through the window. Presently she saw +him relax from his position of strained attention with a great sigh, +almost a groan, and lean back in his chair, covering his eyes with +his hands. When he took them down, his face had the aged, ravaged +expression of exhaustion which had so startled her on her arrival. Now +she felt none of her frightened revulsion, but only an aching pity +which sent her out to him in a rush, her arms outstretched, crying to +him brokenly that he still had his children who loved him more than +anything in the world. + +For the first time in her life, her father repelled her, shrinking +away from her with a brusque, involuntary recoil that shocked her, +thrusting her arms roughly to one side, and rising up hastily to +retreat into the house. He said in a bitter, recriminating tone, "You +don't know what you are talking about," and left her standing there, +the tears frozen in her eyes. He went heavily upstairs to his study on +the top floor and locked the door. Sylvia heard the key turn. It shut +her into an intolerable solitude. She had not thought before that +anything could seem worse than the desolation of her mother's absence. + +She felt a deathlike sinking of her heart. She was afraid of her +father, who no longer seemed her father, created to protect and +cherish her, but some maniac stranger. She felt an impulse like that +of a terrified child to run away, far away to some one who should +stand before her and bear the brunt. She started up from her chair +with panic haste, but the familiar room, saturated with recollections +of her mother's gallant spirit, stood about her like a wall, shutting +her in to the battle with her heart. Who was there to summon whom she +could endure as a spectator of her father's condition? Her mother's +empty chair stood opposite her, against the wall. She looked at it +fixedly; and drawing a long breath sat down quietly. + +This act of courage brought a reward in the shape of a relaxation +of the clutch on her throat and about her heart. Her mother's wise +materialism came to her mind now and she made a heartsick resolve that +she would lead as physically normal a life as possible, working out of +doors, forcing herself to eat, and that, above all things, she would +henceforth deny herself the weakening luxury of tears. And yet but an +hour later, as she bent over her mother's flower-beds blazing in the +sun, she found the tears again streaming from her eyes. + +She tried to wipe them away, but they continued to rain down on her +cheeks. Her tongue knew their saltness. She was profoundly alarmed and +cowed by this irresistible weakness, and stood helplessly at bay among +the languid roses. The sensation of her own utter weakness, prostrate +before her dire need for strength, was as bitter as the taste of her +tears. + +She stood there, among the sun-warmed flowers, looking like a symbolic +figure of youth triumphant ... and she felt herself to be in a black +and windowless prison, where the very earth under her feet was +treacherous, where everything betrayed her. + +Then, out of her need, her very great need, out of the wide and empty +spaces of her inculcated unbelief, something rose up and overwhelmed +her. The force stronger than herself which she had longed to feel, +blew upon her like a wind out of eternity. + +She found herself on her knees, her face hidden in her hands, sending +out a passionate cry which transcended words. The child of the +twentieth century, who had been taught not to pray, was praying. + +She did not know how long she knelt there before the world emerged +from the white glory which had whirled down upon it, and hidden it +from her. But when she came to herself, her eyes were dry, and the +weakening impulse to tears had gone. She stretched out her hands +before her, and they did not tremble. The force stronger than herself +was now in her own heart. From her mother's garden there rose a +strong, fragrant exhalation, as sweet as honey. + + * * * * * + +For more than an hour Sylvia worked steadily among the flowers, +consciously wrought upon by the healing emanations from the crushed, +spicy leaves, the warm earth, and the hot, pure breath of the summer +wind on her face. + +Once she had a passing fancy that her mother stood near her ... +smiling. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII + +"_Call now; is there any that will answer thee?_"--JOB. + + +When she went back to the silent, echoing house, she felt calmer than +at any time since she had read the telegram in Naples. She did not +stop to wash her earth-stained hands, but went directly up the stairs +to the locked door at the top. She did not knock this time. She stood +outside and said authoritatively in a clear, strong voice, the sound +of which surprised her, "Father dear, please open the door and let me +in." + +There was a pause, and then a shuffle of feet. The door opened and +Professor Marshall appeared, his face very white under the thick +stubble of his gray, unshaven beard, his shoulders bowed, his head +hanging. Sylvia went to his side, took his hand firmly in hers, and +said quietly: "Father, you must eat something. You haven't taken a bit +of food in two days. And then you must lie down and rest," She poured +all of her new strength into these quietly issued commands, and +permitted herself no moment's doubt of his obedience to them. He +lifted his head, looked at her, and allowed her to lead him down the +stairs and again into the dining-room. Here he sat, quite spent, +staring before him until Sylvia returned from the kitchen with a plate +of cold meat and some bread. She sat down beside him, putting out +again consciously all her strength, and set the knife and fork in his +nerveless hands. In the gentle monologue with which she accompanied +his meal she did not mention her mother, or anything but slight, +casual matters about the house and garden. She found herself speaking +in a hushed tone, as though not to awake a sleeping person. Although +she sat quite quietly, her hands loosely folded on the table, her +heart was thrilling and burning to a high resolve. "Now it is my turn +to help my father." + +After he had eaten a few mouthfuls and laid down the knife and fork, +she did not insist further, but rose to lead him to the couch in the +living-room. She dared not risk his own room, the bed on which her +mother had died. + +"Now you must lie down and rest, Father," she said, loosening his +clothes and unlacing his shoes as though he had been a sick child. +He let her do what she would, and as she pushed him gently back, he +yielded and lay down at full length. Sylvia sat down beside him, +feeling her strength ebbing. Her father lay on his back, his eyes wide +open. On the ceiling above him a circular flicker of light danced and +shimmered, reflected from a glass of water on the table. His eyes +fastened upon this, at first unwinkingly, with a fixed intensity, +and later with dropped lids and half-upturned eyeballs. He was quite +quiet, and finally seemed asleep, although the line of white between +his eyelids made Sylvia shudder. + +With the disappearance of the instant need for self-control and +firmness, she felt an immense fatigue. It had cost her dearly, this +victory, slight as it was. She drooped in her chair, exhausted and +undone. She looked down at the ash-gray, haggard face on the pillow, +trying to find in those ravaged features her splendidly life-loving +father. It was so quiet that she could hear the big clock in the +dining-room ticking loudly, and half-consciously she began to +count the swings of the pendulum: One--two--three--four--five--six-- +seven--eight--nine--ten--eleven--twelve--thirteen--fourteen-- + +She awoke to darkness and the sound of her mother's name loudly +screamed. She started up, not remembering where she was, astonished to +find herself sitting in a chair. As she stood bewildered in the +dark, the clock in the dining-room struck two. At once from a little +distance, outside the window apparently, she heard the same wild +cry ringing in her ears--"_Bar-ba-ra!_" All the blood in her body +congealed and the hair on her head seemed to stir itself, in the +instant before she recognized her father's voice. + +The great impulse of devotion which had entered her heart in the +garden still governed her. Now she was not afraid. She did not think +of running away. She only knew that she must find her father quickly +and take care of him. Outside on the porch, the glimmering light from +the stars showed her his figure, standing by one of the pillars, +leaning forward, one hand to his ear. As she came out of the door, he +dropped his hand, threw back his head, and again sent out an agonizing +cry--"_Bar-ba-ra!_ Where are you?" It was not the broken wail of +despair; it was the strong, searching cry of a lost child who thinks +trustingly that if he but screams loudly enough his mother must hear +him and come--and yet who is horribly frightened because she does not +answer. But this was a man in his full strength who called! It seemed +the sound must reach beyond the stars. Sylvia felt her very bones +ringing with it. She went along the porch to her father, and laid +her hand on his arm. Through his sleeve she could feel how tense and +knotted were the muscles. "Oh, Father, _don't!_" she said in a low +tone. He shook her off roughly, but did not turn his head or look at +her. Sylvia hesitated, not daring to leave him and not daring to try +to draw him away; and again was shaken by that terrible cry. + +The intensity of his listening attitude seemed to hush into +breathlessness the very night about him, as it did Sylvia. There was +not a sound from the trees. They stood motionless, as though carved in +wood; not a bird fluttered a wing; not a night-insect shrilled; the +brook, dried by the summer heat to a thread, crept by noiselessly. As +once more the frantic cry resounded, it seemed to pierce this opaque +silence like a palpable missile, and to wing its way without hindrance +up to the stars. Not the faintest murmur came in answer. The silence +shut down again, stifling. Sylvia and her father stood as though +in the vacuum of a great bell-glass which shut them away from the +rustling, breathing, living world. Sylvia said again, imploringly, +"Oh, _Father_!" He looked at her angrily, sprang from the porch, and +walked rapidly towards the road, stumbling and tripping over the laces +of his shoes, which Sylvia had loosened when she had persuaded him to +lie down. Sylvia ran after him, her long bounds bringing her up to +his side in a moment. The motion sent the blood racing through her +stiffened limbs again. She drew a long breath of liberation. As she +stepped along beside her father, peering in the starlight at his +dreadful face, half expecting him to turn and strike her at any +moment, she felt an immense relief. The noise of their feet on the +path was like a sane voice of reality. Anything was more endurable +than to stand silent and motionless and hear that screaming call lose +itself in the grimly unanswering distance. + +They were on the main road now, walking so swiftly that, in the hot +summer night, Sylvia felt her forehead beaded and her light dress +cling to her moist body. She took her father's hand. It was parched +like a sick man's, the skin like a dry husk. After this, they walked +hand-in-hand. Professor Marshall continued to walk rapidly, scuffling +in his loose, unlaced shoes. They passed barns and farmhouses, the +latter sleeping, black in the starlight, with darkened windows. In +one, a poor little shack of two rooms, there was a lighted pane, and +as they passed, Sylvia heard the sick wail of a little child. The +sound pierced her heart. She longed to go in and put her arms about +the mother. Now she understood. She tightened her hold on her father's +hand and lifted it to her lips. + +He suffered this with no appearance of his former anger, and soon +after Sylvia was aware that his gait was slackening. She looked at him +searchingly, and saw that he had swung from unnatural tension to spent +exhaustion. His head was hanging and as he walked he wavered. She put +her hand under his elbow and turned him about on the road. "Now we +will go home," she said, drawing his arm through hers. He made no +resistance, not seeming to know what she had done, and shuffled along +wearily, leaning all his weight on her arm. She braced herself against +this drag, and led him slowly back, wiping her face from time to time +with her sleeve. There were moments when she thought she must let him +sink on the road, but she fought through these, and as the sky was +turning faintly gray over their heads, and the implacably silent stars +were disappearing in this pale light, the two stumbled up the walk to +the porch. + +Professor Marshall let himself be lowered into the steamer chair. +Sylvia stood by him until she was sure he would not stir, and then +hurried into the kitchen. In a few moments she brought him a cup of +hot coffee and a piece of bread. He drank the one and ate the other +without protest She set the tray down and put a pillow under her +father's head, raising the foot-rest. He did not resist her. His head +fell back on the pillow, but his eyes did not close. They were fixed +on a distant point in the sky. + +Sylvia tiptoed away into the house and sank down shivering into a +chair. A great fit of trembling and nausea came over her. She rose, +walked into the kitchen, her footsteps sounding in her ears like her +mother's. There was some coffee left, which she drank resolutely, and +she cooked an egg and forced it down, her mother's precepts loud in +her ears. Whatever else happened, she must have her body in condition +to be of use. + +After this she went out to the porch again and lay down in the hammock +near her father. The dawn had brightened into gold, and the sun was +showing on the distant, level, green horizon-line. + + * * * * * + +It was almost the first moment of physical relaxation she had known, +and to her immense, her awed astonishment it was instantly filled with +a pure, clear brilliance, the knowledge that Austin Page lived and +loved her. It was the first, it was the only time she thought of +anything but her father, and this was not a thought, it was a vision. +In the chaos about her, a great sunlit rock had emerged. She laid hold +on it and knew that she would not sink. + + * * * * * + +But now, _now_ she must think of nothing but her father! There was no +one else who could help her father. Could she? Could any one? + +She herself, since her prayer among the roses, cherished in her +darkened heart a hope of dawn. But how could she tell her father of +that? Even if she had been able to force him to listen to her, she had +nothing that words could say, nothing but the recollection of that +burning hour in the garden to set against the teachings of a lifetime. +That had changed life for her ... but what could it mean to her +father? How could she tell him of what was only a wordless radiance? +Her father had taught her that death meant the return of the spirit to +the great, impersonal river of life. If the spirit had been superb and +splendid, like her mother's, the river of life was the brighter for +it, but that was all. Her mother had lived, and now lived no more. +That was what they had tried to teach her to believe. That was what +her father had taught her--without, it now appeared, believing it +himself. + +And yet she divined that it was not that he would not, but that he +could not now believe it. He was like a man set in a vacuum fighting +for the air without which life is impossible. And she knew no way +to break the imprisoning wall and let in air for him. _Was_ there, +indeed, any air outside? There must be, or the race could not live +from one generation to the next. Every one whose love had encountered +death must have found an air to breathe or have died. + +Constantly through all these thoughts, that day and for many days and +months to come, there rang the sound of her mother's name, screamed +aloud. She heard it as though she were again standing by her father +under the stars. And there had been no answer. + +She felt the tears stinging at her eyelids and sat up, terrified at +the idea that her weakness was about to overtake her. She would go +again out to the garden where she had found strength before. The +morning sun was now hot and glaring in the eastern sky. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIV + +"_A bruised reed will He not break, and a dimly burning wick will He +not quench_,"--ISAIAH. + + +As she stepped down the path, she saw a battered black straw hat on +the other side of the hedge. Cousin Parnelia's worn old face and +dim eyes looked at her through the gate. Under her arm she held +planchette. Sylvia stepped through the gate and drew it inhospitably +shut back of her. "What is it, Cousin Parnelia?" she said +challengingly, determined to protect her father. + +The older woman's face was all aglow. "Oh, my dear; I've had such a +wonderful message from your dear mother. Last night--" + +Sylvia recoiled from the mad old creature. She could not bear to have +her sane, calm, strong mother's name on those lips. Cousin Parnelia +went on, full of confidence: "I was sound asleep last night when I +was awakened by the clock's striking two. It sounded so loud that I +thought somebody had called to me. I sat up in bed and said, 'What is +it?' and then I felt a great longing to have planchette write. I got +out of bed in my nightgown and sat down in the dark at the table. +Planchette wrote so fast that I could hardly keep up with it. And when +it stopped, I lighted a match and see ... here ... in your mother's +very handwriting"--fervently she held the bit of paper up for Sylvia +to see. The girl cast a hostile look at the paper and saw that the +writing on it was the usual scrawl produced by Cousin Parnelia, hardly +legible, and resembling anything rather than her mother's handwriting. + +"Read it--read it--it is too beautiful!" quivered the other, "and then +let me show it to your father. It was meant for him--" + +Sylvia shook like a roughly plucked fiddle-string. She seized the +wrinkled old hand fiercely. "Cousin Parnelia, I forbid you going +anywhere near my father! You know as well as I do how intensely he +has always detested spiritualism. To see you might be the thing that +would--" + +The old woman broke in, protesting, her hat falling to one side, her +brown false front sliding with it and showing the thin, gray hairs +beneath. "But, Sylvia, this is the very thing that would save +him--such a beautiful, beautiful message from your mother,--_see_! In +her own handwriting!" + +Sylvia snatched the sheet of yellow paper. "_That's_ not my mother's +handwriting! Do you think I am as crazy as _you_ are!" She tore the +paper into shreds and scattered them from her, feeling a relief in the +violence of her action. The next moment she remembered how patient her +mother had always been with her daft kinswoman and seeing tears in the +blurred old eyes, went to put placating arms about the other's neck. +"Never mind, Cousin Parnelia," she said with a vague kindness, "I know +you mean to do what's right--only we don't believe as you do, and +Father _must_ not be excited!" She turned sick as she spoke and shrank +away from the hedge, carrying her small old cousin with her. Above the +hedge appeared her father's gray face and burning eyes. + +He was not looking at her, but at Cousin Parnelia, who now sprang +forward, crying that she had had a beautiful, beautiful message from +Cousin Barbara. "_It_ came last night at two o'clock ... just after +the clock struck two--" + +Professor Marshall looked quickly at his daughter, and she saw that he +too had heard the clock striking in the dreadful night, and that he +noted the coincidence. + +"Just after the clock struck two she wrote the loveliest message for +you with planchette. Sylvia tore it up. But I'm sure that if we try +with faith, she will repeat it ..." + +Professor Marshall's eyes were fixed on his wife's old cousin. "Come +in," he said in a hoarse voice. They were almost the first words +Sylvia had heard him say. + +Cousin Parnelia hastened up the path to the house. Sylvia followed +with her father, at the last extremity of agitation and perplexity. + +When Cousin Parnelia reached the dining-room table, she sat down by +it, pushed the cloth to one side, and produced a fresh sheet of yellow +paper from her shabby bag. "Put yourselves in a receptive frame of +mind," she said in a glib, professional manner. Sylvia stiffened and +tried to draw her father away, but he continued to stand by the table, +staring at the blank sheet of paper with a strange, wild expression on +his white face. He did not take his eyes from the paper. In a moment, +he sat down suddenly, as though his knees had failed him. + +There was a long silence, in which Sylvia could hear the roaring of +the blood in her arteries. Cousin Parnelia put one deeply veined, +shrunken old hand on planchette and the other over her eyes and +waited, her wrinkled, commonplace old face assuming a solemn +expression of importance. The clock ticked loudly. + +Planchette began to write--at first in meaningless flourishes, then +with occasional words, and finally Sylvia saw streaming away from the +pencil the usual loose, scrawling handwriting. Several lines were +written and then the pencil stopped abruptly. Sylvia standing near her +father heard his breathing grow loud and saw in a panic that the veins +on his temples were swollen. + +Cousin Parnelia took her hand off planchette, put on her spectacles, +read over what had been written, and gave it to Professor Marshall. +Sylvia was in such a state of bewilderment that nothing her father +could have done would have surprised her. She half expected to see him +dash the paper in the old woman's face, half thought that any moment +he would fall, choking with apoplexy. + +What he did was to take the paper and try to hold it steadily enough +to read. But his hand shook terribly. + +"I will read it to you," said Cousin Parnelia, and she read aloud +in her monotonous, illiterate voice: "'I am well and happy, dearest +Elliott, and never far from you. When you call to me, I hear you. +All is not yet clear, but I wish I could tell you more of the whole +meaning. I am near you this moment. I wish that--' The message stopped +there," explained Cousin Parnelia, laying down the paper. + +Professor Marshall leaned over it, straining his eyes to the rude +scrawls, passing his hand over his forehead as though to brush away a +web. He broke out in a loud, high voice. "That is her handwriting.... +Good God, her very handwriting--the way she writes Elliott--it is from +_her!_" He snatched the paper up and took it to the window, stumbling +over the chairs blindly as he went. As he held it up to the light, +poring over it again, he began to weep, crying out his wife's name +softly, the tears streaming down his unshaven cheeks. He came back to +the table, and sank down before it, still sobbing, still murmuring +incessantly, "Oh, Barbara--Barbara!" and laid his head on his +outstretched arms. + +"Let him cry!" whispered Cousin Parnelia sentimentally to Sylvia, +drawing her away into the hall. A few moments later when they looked +in, he had fallen asleep, his head turned to one side so that Sylvia +saw his face, tear-stained and exhausted, but utterly relaxed and at +peace, like that of a little child in sleep. Crushed in one hand was +the yellow sheet of paper covered with coarse, wavering marks. + + + + +CHAPTER XLV + + "_That our soul may swim + We sink our heart down, bubbling, under wave_" + + +The two sisters, their pale faces grave in the shadow of their wide +hats, were on their knees with trowels in a border of their mother's +garden. Judith had been giving a report of Lawrence's condition, and +Sylvia was just finishing an account of what had happened at home, +when the gate in the osage-orange hedge clicked, and a blue-uniformed +boy came whistling up the path. He made an inquiry as to names, and +handed Sylvia an envelope. She opened it, read silently, "Am starting +for America and you at once. Felix." She stood looking at the paper +for a moment, her face quite unmoved from its quiet sadness. The boy +asked, "Any answer?" + +"No," she said decisively, shaking her head. "No answer." + +As he lingered, lighting a cigarette, she put a question in her turn, +"Anything to pay?" + +"No," said the boy, putting the cigarette-box back in his pocket, +"Nothing to pay." He produced a worn and greasy book, "Sign on this +line," he said, and after she had signed, he went away down the path, +whistling. The transaction was complete. + +Sylvia looked after the retreating figure and then turned to Judith +as though there had been no interruption. "... and you can see for +yourself how little use I am to him now. Since he got Cousin Parnelia +in the house, there's nothing anybody else could do for him. Even you +couldn't, if you could leave Lawrence. Not for a while, anyhow. I +suppose he'll come slowly out of this to be himself again ... but I'm +not sure that he will. And for now, I actually believe that he'd be +easier in his mind if we were both away. I never breathe a word of +criticism about planchette, of course. But he knows. There's that much +left of his old self. He knows how I must feel. He's really ever so +much better too, you know. He's taken up his classes in the Summer +School again. He said he had 'a message' from Mother that he was to go +back to his work bravely; and the very next day he went over to the +campus, and taught all his classes as though nothing had happened. +Isn't it awfully, terribly touching to see how even such a poor, +incoherent make-believe of a 'message' from Mother has more power to +calm him than anything we could do with our whole hearts? But how +_can_ he! I can't understand it! I can't bear it, to come in on him +and Cousin Parnelia, in their evenings, and see them bent over that +grotesque planchette and have him look up at me so defiantly, as +though he were just setting his teeth and saying he wouldn't care what +I thought of him. He doesn't really care either. He doesn't think of +anything but of having evening come when he can get another 'message' +from Mother ... from Mother! Mother!" + +"Well, perhaps it would be as well for us not to be here for a while," +murmured Judith. There were deep dark rings under her eyes, as though +she had slept badly for a long time. "Perhaps it may be better later +on. I can take Lawrence back with me when I go to the hospital. I want +to keep him near me of course, dear little Lawrence. My little boy! +He'll be my life now. He'll be what I have to live for." + +Something in the quality of her quiet voice sent a chill to Sylvia's +heart. "Why, Judy dear, after you are married of course you and Arnold +can keep Lawrence with you. That'll be the best for him, a real home, +with you. Oh, Judy dear," she laid down her trowel, fighting hard +against a curious sickness which rose within her. She tried to speak +lightly. "Oh, Judy dear, when _are_ you going to be married? Or don't +you want to speak about it now, for a while? You never write long +letters, I know--but your late ones haven't had _any_ news in them! +You positively haven't so much as mentioned Arnold's name lately." + +As she spoke, she knew that she was voicing an uneasiness which had +been an unacknowledged occupant of her mind for a long time. But she +looked confidently to see one of Judith's concise, comprehensive +statements make her dim apprehensions seem fantastic and far-fetched, +as Judith always made any flight of the imagination appear. But +nothing which Sylvia's imagination might have been able to conceive +would have struck her such a blow as the fact which Judith now +produced, in a dry, curt phrase: "I'm not going to be married." + +Sylvia did not believe her ears. She looked up wildly as Judith rose +from the ground, and advanced upon her sister with a stern, white +face. Before she had finished speaking, she had said more than Sylvia +had ever heard her say about a matter personal to her; but even so, +her iron words were few. "Sylvia, I want to tell you about it, of +course. I've got to. But I won't say a word, unless you can keep +quiet, and not make a fuss. I couldn't stand that. I've got all I can +stand as it is." + +She stood by an apple-tree and now broke from it a small, leafy +branch, which she held as she spoke. There was something shocking in +the contrast between the steady rigor of her voice and the fury of her +fingers as they tore and stripped and shredded the leaves. "Arnold is +an incurable alcoholic," she said; "Dr. Rivedal has pronounced him +hopeless. Dr. Charton and Dr. Pansard (they're the best specialists in +that line) have had him under observation and they say the same thing. +He's had three dreadful attacks lately. We ... none of their treatment +does any good. It's been going on too long--from the time he was +first sent away to school, at fourteen, alone! There was an inherited +tendency, anyhow. Nobody took it seriously, that and--and the other +things boys with too much money do. Apparently everybody thought it +was just the way boys are--if anybody thought anything about it, +except that it was a bother. He never had anybody, you know--_never, +never_ anybody who ..." her voice rose, threatened to break. She +stopped, swallowed hard, and began again: "The trouble is he has +no constitution left--nothing for a doctor to work with. It's not +Arnold's fault. If he had come out to us, that time in Chicago when he +wanted to--we--he could--with Mother to--" Her steady voice gave way +abruptly. She cast the ravaged, leafless branch violently to the +ground and stood looking down at it. There was not a fleck of color in +her beautiful, stony face. + +Sylvia concentrated all her will-power on an effort to speak as Judith +would have her, quietly, without heroics; but when she broke her +silence she found that she had no control of her voice. She tried to +say, "But, Judith dear, if Arnold is like that--doesn't he need you +more than ever? You are a nurse. How can you abandon him now!" But +she could produce only a few, broken, inarticulate words in a choking +voice before she was obliged to stop short, lest she burst out in the +flood of horror which Judith had forbidden. + +Broken and inarticulate as they were, Judith knew what was the meaning +of those words. The corners of her mouth twitched uncontrollably. She +bit her marble lower lip repeatedly before she could bring out the few +short phrases which fell like clods on a coffin. "If I--if we--Arnold +and I are in love with each other." She stopped, drew a painful +breath, and said again: "Arnold and I are in love with each other. Do +you know what that means? He is the only man I could not take care +of--Arnold! If I should try, we would soon be married, or lovers. If +we were married or lovers, we would soon have--" She had overestimated +her strength. Even she was not strong enough to go on. + +She sat down on the ground, put her long arms around her knees, and +buried her face in them. She was not weeping. She sat as still as +though carved in stone. + +Sylvia herself was beyond tears. She sat looking down at the moist +earth on the trowel she held, drying visibly in the hot sun, turning +to dust, and falling away in a crumbling, impalpable powder. It was +like seeing a picture of her heart. She thought of Arnold with an +indignant, passionate pity--how could Judith--? But she was so close +to Judith's suffering that she felt the dreadful rigidity of her body. +The flat, dead tones of the man in the Pantheon were in her ears. It +seemed to her that Life was an adventure perilous and awful beyond +imagination. There was no force to cope with it, save absolute +integrity. Everything else was a vain and foolish delusion, a +two-edged sword which wounded the wielding hand. + +She did not move closer to Judith, she did not put out her hand. +Judith would not like that. She sat quite motionless, looking into +black abysses of pain, of responsibilities not met, feeling press upon +her the terrifying closeness of all human beings to all other +human beings--there in the sun of June a cold sweat stood on her +forehead.... + +But then she drew a long breath. Why, there was Austin! The anguished +contraction of her heart relaxed. The warm blood flowed again through +her veins. There was Austin! + +She was rewarded for her effort to bring herself to Judith's ways, +when presently her sister moved and reached out blindly for her hand. +At this she opened her arms and took Judith in. No word was spoken. +Their mother was there with them. + +Sylvia looked out over the proud, dark head, now heavy on her bosom, +and felt herself years older. She did not try to speak. She had +nothing to say. There was nothing she could do, except to hold Judith +and love her. + +There was nothing, _nothing_ left but love. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVI + +A LONG TALK WITH ARNOLD + + +The tall, lean young man, sitting his galloping horse very slackly, +riding fast with a recklessly loose rein, and staring with bloodshot +eyes down at the dust of the road, gave an exclamation, brought the +mare upon her haunches, and sprang down from the saddle. A woman, +young, tall, grave, set like a pearl in her black mourning dress, +stood up from the roadside brook and advanced to meet him. They looked +at each other as people do who meet after death has passed by. They +stammered vague words, their eyes brimming. + +"I--she was always so good to me," said Arnold, his voice breaking +and quavering as he wrung Sylvia's hand again and again. "I never +knew--saw much of her, I know--but when I was a little boy, I used--I +used to dream about her at night." His thin, sallow face flushed with +his earnestness. "I don't believe--honestly, Sylvia, I don't believe +her own children loved her any more than I did. I've thought so many +times how different everything would have been if I'd--I don't suppose +you remember, but years ago when you and she were in Chicago, I ran +away from school to go out there, and ask if--" + +Sylvia remembered, had thought of nothing else from the moment she had +seen far down the road the horseman vainly fleeing the black beast +on his crupper. She shook her head now, her hand at her throat, and +motioned him to silence. "Don't! Don't!" she said urgently. "Yes, I +remember. I remember." + +There was a moment's silence, filled by the murmur of the little brook +at their feet. The mare, which had been drinking deeply, now lifted +her head, the water running from the corners of her mouth. She gave a +deep breath of satisfaction, and began cropping the dense green grass +which grew between the water and the road. Her master tossed the reins +over the pommel and let her go. He began speaking again on a different +note. "But, Sylvia, what in the world--here, can't we go up under +those trees a few minutes and have a talk? I can keep my eye on the +mare." As they took the few steps he asked again, "How ever does it +happen that you're here at Lydford Junction of all awful holes?" + +Sylvia took an abrupt resolution, sat down on the pine-needles, and +said, very directly, "I am on my way to Austin Farm to see if Austin +Page still wants to marry me." Her manner had the austere simplicity +of one who has been moving in great and grave emotions. + +Arnold spoke with an involuntary quickness: "But you've heard, haven't +you, about his giving up all his Colorado ..." + +Sylvia flushed a deep crimson and paid with a moment of bitter, shamed +resentment for the other bygone moments of calculation. "Yes, yes, of +course." She spoke with a stern impatience. "Did you suppose it was +for his fortune that--" She paused and said humbly, "Of course, it's +natural that you should think that of me." + +Arnold attempted no self-exculpation. He sat down by her, his +riding-crop across his knees. "Could you--do you feel like telling me +about it?" he asked. + +She nodded. It came to her like an inspiration that only if she opened +her heart utterly to Arnold, could he open his sore heart to her. +"There's not much to tell. I don't know where to begin. Perhaps +there's too much to tell, after all, I didn't know what any of it +meant till now. It's the strangest thing, Arnold, how little people +know what is growing strong in their lives! I supposed all the time +I only liked him because he was so rich. I thought it must be so. +I thought that was the kind of girl I was. And then, besides, +I'd--perhaps you didn't know how much I'd liked Felix Morrison." + +Arnold nodded. "I sort of guessed so. You were awfully game, then, +Sylvia. You're game now--it's awfully white to fall in love with a man +because he's rich and then stick to him when he's--" + +Sylvia waved her hand impatiently. "Oh, you don't understand. It's not +because I think _I ought_ to--Heavens, no! Let me try to tell you. +Listen! When the news came, about this Colorado business--I was about +crazy for a while. I just went to pieces. I knew I ought to answer +his letter, but I couldn't. I see now, looking back, that I had just +crumpled up under the weight of my weakness. I didn't know it then. +I kept saying to myself that I was only putting off deciding till I +could think more about it, but I know now that I had decided to give +him up, never to see him again--Felix was there, you know--I'd decided +to give Austin up because he wasn't rich any more. Did you know I was +that base sort of a woman? Do you suppose he will ever be willing to +take me back?--now after this long time? It's a month since I got his +letter." + +Arnold bent his riding-crop between his thin, nervous hands. "Are you +sure now, Sylvia, are you sure now, dead sure?" he asked. "It would be +pretty hard on Austin if you--afterwards--he's such a square, straight +sort of a man, you ought to be awfully careful not to--" + +Sylvia said quickly, her quiet voice vibrant, her face luminous: +"Oh, Arnold, I could never tell you how sure I am. There just isn't +anything else. Over there in Paris, I tried so hard to think about +it--and I couldn't get anywhere at all. The more I tried, the baser I +grew; the more I loved the things I'd have to give up, the more I hung +on to them. Thinking didn't do a bit of good, though I almost killed +myself thinking--thinking--All I'd done was to think out an ingenious, +low, mean compromise to justify myself in giving him up. And then, +after Judith's cablegram came, I started home--Arnold, what a journey +that was!--and I found--I found Mother was gone, just gone away +forever--and I found Father out of his head with sorrow--and Judith +told me about--about her trouble. It was like going through a long +black corridor. It seemed as though I'd never come out on the other +side. But when I did--A door that I couldn't ever, ever break +down--somehow it's been just quietly opened, and I've gone through +it into the only place where it's worth living. It's the last thing +Mother did for me--what nobody but Mother could have done. I don't +want to go back. I couldn't if I wanted to. Those things don't matter +to me now. I don't think they're wrong, the ease, the luxury, if you +can have them without losing something finer. And I suppose some +people's lives are arranged so they don't lose the finer. But mine +wouldn't be. I see that now. And I don't care at all--it all seems so +unimportant to me, what I was caring about, before. Nothing matters +now but Austin. He is the only thing that has lived on for me. I'm +down on my knees with thankfulness that he just exists, even if he +can't forgive me--even if he doesn't care for me any more--even if I +shouldn't ever see him again--even if he should die--he would be +like Mother, he couldn't die, for me. He's there. I know what he is. +Somehow everything's all right--because there's Austin." + +She broke off, smiling palely and quietly at the man beside her. He +raised his eyes to hers for an instant and then dropped them. Sylvia +went on. "I don't pretend to know all the ins and outs of this +Colorado business. It may be that it was quixotic on Austin's part. +Maybe it _has_ upset business conditions out there a lot. It's too +complicated to be _sure_ about how anything, I suppose, is likely to +affect an industrial society. But I'm sure about how it has affected +the people who live in the world--it's a great golden deed that has +enriched everybody--not just Austin's coal-miners, but everybody who +had heard of it. The sky is higher because of it. Everybody has a new +conception of the good that's possible. And then for me, it means that +a man who sees an obligation nobody else sees and meets it--why, with +such a man to help, anybody, even a weak fumbling person like me, can +be sure of at least loyally _trying_ to meet the debts life brings. +It's awfully hard to know what they are, and to meet them--and it's +too horrible if you don't." + +She stopped, aware that the life of the man beside her was one of the +unpaid debts so luridly present to her mind. + +"Sylvia," said Arnold, hesitating, "Sylvia, all this sounds so--look +here, are you sure you're in _love_ with Austin?" + +She looked at him, her eyes steady as stars. "Aren't there as many +ways of being in love, as there are people?" she asked. "I don't +know--I don't know if it's what everybody would call being in +love--but--" She met his eyes, and unashamed, regally, opened her +heart to him with a look. "I can't live without Austin," she said +quickly, in a low tone. + +He looked at her long, and turned away. "Oh yes, you're in love with +him, all right!" he murmured finally, "and I don't believe that the +Colorado business or any of the rest of what you're saying has much to +do with anything. Austin's a live man and you're in love with him; +and that's all there is to it. You're lucky!" He took out his +handkerchief, and wiped his forehead and the back of his neck. Sylvia, +looking at him more closely, was shocked to see how thin and haggard +was his face. He asked now, "Did you ever think that maybe what Austin +was thinking about when he chucked the money was what you'd say, how +you'd take it? I should imagine," he added with a faint smile,' "that +he is hard to please if he's not pretty well satisfied." + +Sylvia was startled. "No. Why no," she said, "I thought I'd looked at +every single side of it, but I never dreamed of that." + +"Oh, I don't mean he did it _for_ that! Lord, no! I suppose it's been +in his mind for years. But afterwards, don't you suppose he thought +... he'd been run after for his money such a terrible lot, you know +... don't you suppose he thought he'd be sure of you one way or the +other, about a million times surer than he could have been any other +way; if you stuck by him, don't you see, with old Felix there with all +his fascinations, plus Molly's money." He turned on her with a sudden +confused wonder in his face. "God! What a time he took to do it! I +hadn't realized all his nerve till this minute. He must have known +what it meant, to leave you there with Felix ... to risk losing you as +well as--Any other man would have tried to marry you first and then--! +Well, what a dead-game sport he was! And all for a lot of dirty +Polacks who'd never laid eyes on him!" + +He took his riding-cap from his head and tossed it on the dried +pine-needles. Sylvia noticed that his dry, thin hair was already +receding from his parchment-like forehead. There were innumerable fine +lines about his eyes. One eyelid twitched spasmodically at intervals. +He looked ten years older than his age. He looked like a man who would +fall like a rotten tree at the first breath of sickness. + +He now faced around to her with a return to everyday matters. "See +here, Sylvia, I've just got it through my head. Are you waiting here +for that five-fifteen train to West Lydford and then are you planning +to walk out to the Austin Farm? Great Scott! don't do that, in this +heat. I'll just run back to the village and get a car and take you +there in half an hour." He rose to his feet, but Sylvia sprang up +quickly, catching at his arm in a panic. "No! no! Arnold, you don't +understand. I haven't written Austin a word--he doesn't know I'm +coming. At first in Paris I couldn't--I was so despicable--and then +afterwards I couldn't either,--though it was all right then. There +aren't any words. It's all too big, too deep to talk about. I didn't +want to, either. I wanted to _see_ him--to see if he still, if he +wants me now. He could _write_ anything. He'd feel he'd have to. How +would I ever know but that it was only because he thought he ought to? +I thought I would just go to him all by myself, without his knowing +I was coming. _I_ can tell--the first moment he looks at me I can +tell--for all my life, I'll be sure, one way or the other. That first +look, what's in him will show! He can't hide anything then, not even +to be kind. I'll know! I'll know!" + +Arnold sat down again with no comment. Evidently he understood. He +leaned his head back against the rough bark of the pine, and closed +his eyes. There was a painful look of excessive fatigue about his +whole person. He glanced up and caught Sylvia's compassionate gaze on +him. "I haven't been sleeping very well lately," he said very dryly. +"It breaks a fellow up to lose sleep." Sylvia nodded. Evidently he was +not minded to speak of his own troubles. He had not mentioned Judith. + +She looked up thoughtfully at the well-remembered high line of the +mountain against the sky. Her mother's girlhood eyes had looked at +that high line. She fell into a brooding meditation, and presently, +obeying one of her sure instincts, she sat down by Arnold, and began +to talk to him about what she divined for the moment would most touch +and move him; she began to talk about her mother. He was silent, his +worn, sallow face impassive, but she knew he was listening. + +She told one incident after another of her mother's life, incidents +which, she told him, she had not noted at the time, incidents which +were now windows in her own life, letting in the sunlight her mother +loved so well. "All the time I was growing up, I was blind, I didn't +see anything. I don't feel remorseful, I suppose that is the way +children have to be. But I didn't see her. There were so many minor +differences between us ... tastes, interests. I always said hatefully +to myself that Mother didn't understand me. And it was true too. As +if it matters! What if she didn't! She never talked morality to us, +anyhow. She never talked much at all. She didn't need to. She was +herself. No words would express that. She lived her life. And there +it is now, there it always will be for me, food for me to live on. I +thought she had died. But she has never been so living for me. She's +part of me now, for always. And just because I see the meaning of her +life, why, there's the meaning of mine as clear as morning. How can +poor Father crave those 'messages' from her! Everything is a message +from her. We've lived with her. We have her in our hearts. It's all +brightness when I think of her. And I see by that brightness what's in +my heart, and that's Austin ... Austin!" On the name, her voice rose, +expanded, soared, wonderfully rang in the ensuing silence.... + +Arnold said slowly, without opening his eyes: "Yes, yes, I see. I see +how it is all right with you and Austin. He's big enough for you, all +of you. And Felix--he's not so bad either--but he has, after all, a +yellow streak. Poor Felix!" + +This brought up to Sylvia the recollection of the day, so short a time +ago when she had sat on the ground thus, much as she now sat next to +Arnold, and had felt Judith's body rigid and tense. There was nothing +rigid about Arnold. He was relaxed in an exhausted passivity, a beaten +man. Let what would, befall. He seemed beyond feeling. She knew that +probably never again, so life goes, could they speak together thus, +like disembodied spirits, freed for once from the blinding, entangling +tragic web of self-consciousness. She wondered again if he would find +it in his heart to speak to her of Judith. She remembered something +else she had meant to ask him, if she could ever find words for her +question; and she found that, in that hour of high seriousness, +they came quite without effort. "Arnold, when I was in Paris, I met +Professor Saunders. I ran across him by accident. He told me +some dreadful things. I thought they couldn't all be true. But I +wondered--" + +Arnold opened his eyes and turned them on her. She saw again, as she +had so many times, the honesty of them. They were bloodshot, yellowed, +set deep in dark hollows; but it was a good gaze they gave. "Oh, don't +take poor old Saunders too seriously. He went all to pieces in the +end. He had a lot to say about Madrina, I suppose. I shouldn't pay +much attention to it. Madrina's not such a bad lot as he makes her +out. Madrina's all right if you don't want anything out of her. She's +the way she is, that's all. It's not fair to blame her. We're all like +that," he ended with a pregnant, explanatory phrase which fell with an +immense significance on Sylvia's ear. "Madrina's all right when she's +got what she wants." + +The girl pondered in silence on this characterization. After a time +Arnold roused himself to say again: "I mean she wouldn't go out of +her way to hurt anybody, for anything. She's not the kind that enjoys +seeing other folks squirm. Only she wants things the way she wants +them. Don't let anything old Saunders said worry you. I suppose he +laid all my worthlessness at Madrina's door too. He'd got into that +way of thinking, sort of dotty on the subject anyhow. He was terribly +hard hit, you know. I don't deny either that Madrina did keep him +strung on hot wire for several years. I don't suppose it occurred +to her that there was any reason why she shouldn't if he were fool +enough. I never could see that he wasn't some to blame too. All he had +to do--all they any of them ever had to do, was to get out and stay +out. Madrina'd never lift a finger to hinder. Even Saunders, I guess, +would have had to admit that Madrina always had plenty of dignity. And +as for me, great Scott! what could you expect a woman like Madrina to +do with a boy like me! She never liked me, for one thing; and then +I always bored her almost more than she could stand. But she never +showed her impatience, never once. She's really awfully good-natured +in her way. She wanted to make me into a salon sort of person, +somebody who'd talk at her teas--converse, don't you know. You see +_me_, don't you! It was hard on her. If she'd had you, now--I always +thought you were the only person in the world she ever really cared +for. She does, you know. All this year you've been with her, she's +seemed so different, more like a real woman. Maybe she's had her +troubles too. Maybe she's been deathly lonely. Don't you go back on +her too hard. Madrina's no vampire. That's just old Saunders' addled +wits. She's one of the nicest people in the world to live with, if you +don't need her for anything. And she really does care a lot for you, +Sylvia. That time out in Chicago, when we were all kids, when I wanted +to go to live with your mother, I remember that Madrina suggested to +her (and Madrina would have done it in a minute, too)--she suggested +that they change off, she take you to bring up and I go out to live +with your mother," He stopped to look at the woman beside him. "I +don't know about you, Sylvia, but I guess it would have made some +difference in my life!" + +Sylvia drew back, horrified that he was even in thought, even for a +moment robbing her of her mother. "Oh, what I would have been--I can't +bear to _think_ of what kind of woman I would have been without my +mother!" The idea was terrible to her. She shrank away from her +aunt as never before in her life. The reminiscence brought an idea, +evidently as deeply moving, into Arnold's mind. The words burst from +him, "I might now be married to Judith!" He put his hands over his +eyes and cast himself down among the pine-needles. + +Sylvia spoke quickly lest she lose courage. "Arnold! Arnold! What are +you going to do with yourself now? I'm so horribly anxious about you. +I haven't dared speak before--" + +He turned over and lay on his back, staring up into the dark green of +the pine. "I'm going to drink myself to death as soon as I can," he +said very quietly. "The doctors say it won't take long." + +She looked at his wasted face and gave a shocked, pitying exclamation, +thinking that it would be illness and not drink which was to come to +his rescue soon. + +He looked at her askance, with his bloodshot eyes. "Can you give me +any single reason why I shouldn't?" he challenged her. + +Sylvia, the modern, had no answer. She murmured weakly, "Why must any +of us try to be decent?" + +"That's for the rest of you," he said. "I'm counted out. The sooner +I get myself out of the way, the better for everybody. That's what +_Judith_ thinks." + +The bitterness of his last phrase was savage. Sylvia cried out against +it. "Arnold! That's cruel of you! It's killing Judith!" + +"She can't care for me," he said, with a deep, burning resentment. +"She can't ever have cared a rap, or she wouldn't be _able_ to--" + +Sylvia would not allow him to go on. "You must not say such a thing, +Arnold. You know Judith's only reason is--she feels if she--if she had +children and they were--" + +He interrupted her with an ugly hardness. "Oh, I know what her reason +is, all right. It's the latest fad. Any magazine article can tell you +all about it. And I don't take any stock in it, I tell you. It's just +insanity to try to guess at every last obligation you may possibly +have! You've got to live your life, and have some nerve about it! If +Judith and I love each other, what is it to anybody else if we get +married? Maybe we wouldn't have any children. Maybe they'd be all +right--how could they be anything else with Judith for their mother? +And anyhow, leave that to them! Let them take care of themselves! +We've had to do it for ourselves! What the devil did my father do for +me, I'd like to know, that I should die to keep my children unborn? My +mother was a country girl from up here in the mountains. Since I've +been staying here winters, I've met some of her people. Her aunt told +me that my father was as drunk as a lord on his wedding night--What +did he think of _his_ son? Why should I think of mine?" + +He was so evidently talking wildly, desperately, that Sylvia made no +attempt to stop him, divining with an aching pity what lay under his +dreadful words. But when he said again, "It's simply that Judith +doesn't care enough about me to stick by me, now I'm down and out. She +can't bear me in her narrow little good world!" Judith's sister could +keep her silence no more. + +"Look here, Arnold, I haven't meant to tell you, but I _can't_ +have you thinking that. Listen! You know Judith, how splendid and +self-controlled she is. She went all through the sorrow of Mother's +death without once breaking down, not once. But the night before I +started to come here, in the middle of the night, I heard such a sound +from Judith's room! It frightened me, so I could hardly get my breath! +It was Judith crying, crying terribly, so that she couldn't keep it +back any more. I never knew her to cry before. I didn't dare go into +her room--Mother would--but I didn't dare. And yet I couldn't leave +her there alone in such awful trouble. I stood by the door in the +dark--oh, Arnold, I don't know how long--and heard her--When it began +to be light she was quiet, and I went back to bed; and after a while +I tiptoed in. She had gone to sleep at last. Arnold, there under her +cheek was that old baseball cap of yours ... all wet, all wet with her +tears, Judith's tears." + +Before she had finished she was sorry she had spoken. Arnold's face +was suffused with purple. He put his hand up to his collar and +wrenched at it, clenched his fists, and finally, flinging his +riding-crop far from him, hid his face in his hands and burst +into tears. "Isn't it damnable!" he said over and over. "Isn't it +damnable!" + +Sylvia had nothing more to say. It seemed indeed damnable to her. She +wondered again at Judith's invincible force of will. That alone was +the obstacle--no, it was something back of Judith's will, something +which even Arnold recognized; for now, to her astonishment, he looked +up, his face smeared like a weeping child's, and said in a low tone, +"You know, of course, that Judith's right." + +The testimony was wrung out of him. But it came. The moment was one +never to be forgotten. + +Out of her passionate pity was born strength that was not to be +denied. She took his hand in hers, his dry, sick man's hand. "Arnold, +you asked me to give you a reason why you should get the best you can +out of yourself. I'll give you a reason. Judith is a reason. Austin is +a reason. I'm a reason. I am never going to let you go. Judith can't +be the one to help you get through the best you can, even though it +may not be so very well--poor, poor Judith, who would die to be able +to help you! Mother wasn't allowed to. She wanted to, I see that now. +But I can. I'm not a thousandth part as strong or as good as they; but +if we hang together! All my life is going to be settled for me in a +few hours. I don't know how it's going to be. But however it is, you +will always be in my life. For as long as you live," she caught her +breath at the realization of how little that phrase meant, "for as +long as you live, you are going to be what you wanted to be, what you +ought to have been, my brother--my mother's son." + +He clung to her hand, he clung to it with such a grip that her fingers +ached--and she blessed the pain for what it meant. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVII + +"... AND ALL THE TRUMPETS SOUNDED!" + + +They had told her at the farm, the old man and the old woman who had +looked so curiously at her, that Mr. Page had gone on up the wood-road +towards the upper pasture. He liked to go there sometimes, they said, +to look at the sunset from a big rock that stood in the edge of the +white birch woods. They added, in extenuation of this, that of course +somebody had to go up there anyhow, once in a while, to salt the +sheep. + +Sylvia had passed on, passed the great, square, many-chimneyed house, +passed the old-fashioned garden, and struck into the wood-road beyond +the bars. The sun was so low now, almost below the edge of the Notch, +that the rays were level and long behind her. So she had walked, +bathed in luminous gold at Versailles, on the day when Austin had +first told her that he loved her, on the day she had told him the +truth. From the first moment she had seen him how he had always +brought out from her the truest and best, finer and truer than +anything she had thought was in her, like a reflection from his own +integrity. His eyes that day, what clear wells of loyalty and honor +... how her mother would have loved him! And that other day, when he +said farewell and went away to his ordeal ... she closed her eyes for +an instant, pierced with the recollection of his gaze on her! What was +she, what poor thing transfigured to divinity, that such passion, such +tenderness had been hers ... even for a moment ... even if now ... + +She looked timidly up the green tunnel of the arching trees, fearing +to see him at any moment. And yet how she hastened her steps towards +where he was! The moments were too long till she should find her +heart's home! + +After a time, there came a moment of such terrible throbbing of the +heart, such trembling, that she could not go on. She sat down on a +rock beside the road and pressed her shaking hands on her cheeks. No, +it was too awful. She had been insane to think of putting everything, +her whole life, to the test of a moment's shock. She would go back. +She would write him.... + +She looked up and saw her mother's gallant figure standing there +before her. She smiled, and started on. Strange that she had thought +her mother could be dead. Her first instinct had been right. Her +mother, _her_ mother could not die. + +The road turned sharply to the left. She came out from the white +birches. She was in the edge of the pasture, sweet-fern at her feet, +a group of sheep raising startled heads to gaze at her, the sun's rim +red on the horizon below her. And up there, the sunlight on his face, +above her, stood Austin. + +The sight of him was like a great burst of music in her heart, like a +great flood of light. Her doubts, her uncertainties, they were gone +out, as utterly as night goes before the sun. Her ears rang to a sound +like singing voices. For a moment she did not feel the ground under +her feet.... + +Austin looked down and saw her. He stood like a man in a dream. + +And then he knew. He knew. And Sylvia knew. He gave a great cry +of welcome which was to ring in her ears for all her life, like a +benediction. He ran down to meet her, and took her in his arms. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Bent Twig, by Dorothy Canfield + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BENT TWIG *** + +***** This file should be named 11221-8.txt or 11221-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/2/2/11221/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Josephine Paolucci and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: + https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL + + diff --git a/old/11221-8.zip b/old/11221-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9fccd72 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/11221-8.zip diff --git a/old/11221.txt b/old/11221.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..133f31e --- /dev/null +++ b/old/11221.txt @@ -0,0 +1,17340 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Bent Twig, by Dorothy Canfield + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Bent Twig + +Author: Dorothy Canfield + +Release Date: February 22, 2004 [EBook #11221] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BENT TWIG *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Josephine Paolucci and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + +THE BENT TWIG + +BY + +DOROTHY CANFIELD + +1915 + + + + +CONTENTS + +BOOK I +_IN ARCADIA_ + +CHAPTER + +I SYLVIA'S HOME +II THE MARSHALLS' FRIENDS +III BROTHER AND SISTER +IV EVERY ONE'S OPINION OF EVERY ONE ELSE +V SOMETHING ABOUT HUSBANDS +VI THE SIGHTS OF LA CHANCE +VII "WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF-EVIDENT ..." +VIII SABOTAGE +IX THE END OF CHILDHOOD + + +BOOK II +_A FALSE START TO ATHENS_ + +X SYLVIA'S FIRST GLIMPSE OF MODERN CIVILIZATION +XI ARNOLD'S FUTURE Is CASUALLY DECIDED +XII ONE MAN'S MEAT +XIII AN INSTRUMENT IN TUNE +XIV HIGHER EDUCATION +XV MRS. DRAPER BLOWS THE COALS +XVI PLAYING WITH MATCHES +XVII MRS. MARSHALL STICKS TO HER PRINCIPLES +XVIII SYLVIA SKATES MERRILY ON THIN ICE +XIX AS A BIRD OUT OF A SNARE +XX "BLOW, WIND; SWELL, BILLOW; AND SWIM, BARK!" +XXI SOME YEARS DURING WHICH NOTHING HAPPENS + + +BOOK III +_IN CAPUA AT LAST_ + +XXII A GRATEFUL CARTHAGINIAN +XXIII MORE TALK BETWEEN YOUNG MODERNS +XXIV ANOTHER BRAND OF MODERN TALK +XXV NOTHING IN THE LEAST MODERN +XXVI MOLLY IN HER ELEMENT +XXVII BETWEEN WINDWARD AND HEMLOCK MOUNTAINS +XXVIII SYLVIA ASKS HERSELF "WHY NOT?" +XXIX A HYPOTHETICAL LIVELIHOOD +XXX ARNOLD CONTINUES TO DODGE THE RENAISSANCE +XXXI SYLVIA MEETS WITH PITY +XXXII MUCH ADO +XXXIII "WHOM GOD HATH JOINED..." +XXXIV SYLVIA TELLS THE TRUTH +XXXV "A MILESTONE PASSED, THE ROAD SEEMS CLEAR" +XXXVI THE ROAD IS NOT SO CLEAR +XXXVII "... _His wife and children perceiving it, began + to cry after him to return; but the man put his + fingers in his ears and ran on, crying, 'Life! + Life Eternal_!'" +XXXVIII SYLVIA COMES TO THE WICKET GATE +XXXIX SYLVIA DRIFTS WITH THE MAJORITY + + +BOOK IV +_THE STRAIT PATH_ + +XL A CALL FROM HOME +XLI HOME AGAIN +XLII "_Strange that we creatures of the petty ways, + Poor prisoners behind these fleshly bars, + Can sometimes think us thoughts with God ablaze, + Touching the fringes of the outer stars_" +XLIII "_Call now; is there any that will answer thee_?" +XLIV "_A bruised reed will He not break, and a dimly + burning wick will He not quench_" +XLV "_That our soul may swim + We sink our heart down, bubbling, under wave_" +XLVI A LONG TALK WITH ARNOLD +XLVII "...AND ALL THE TRUMPETS SOUNDED!" + + + + +THE BENT TWIG + + + + +BOOK I + +_IN ARCADIA_ + + + + +CHAPTER I + +SYLVIA'S HOME + + +Like most happy childhoods, Sylvia's early years lay back of her in a +long, cheerful procession of featureless days, the outlines of which +were blurred into one shimmering glow by the very radiance of their +sunshine. Here and there she remembered patches, sensations, pictures, +scents: Mother holding baby sister up for her to kiss, and the +fragrance of the baby powder--the pine-trees near the house chanting +loudly in an autumn wind--her father's alert face, intent on the +toy water-wheel he was setting for her in the little creek in their +field--the beautiful sheen of the pink silk dress Aunt Victoria had +sent her--the look of her mother's steady, grave eyes when she was so +sick--the leathery smell of the books in the University Library +one day when she followed her father there--the sound of the rain +pattering on the low, slanting roof of her bedroom--these were the +occasional clearly outlined, bright-colored illuminations wrought on +the burnished gold of her sunny little life. But from her seventh +birthday her memories began to have perspective, continuity. She +remembered an occasional whole scene, a whole afternoon, just as it +happened. + +The first of these must have marked the passing of some unrecognized +mental milestone, for there was nothing about it to set it apart from +any one of a hundred afternoons. It may have been the first time she +looked at what was about her, and saw it. + +Mother was putting the baby to bed for his nap--not the +baby-sister--she was a big girl of five by this time, but another +baby, a little year-old brother, with blue eyes and yellow hair, +instead of brown eyes and hair like his two sisters'. And when Mother +stooped over the little bed, her white fichu fell forward and Sylvia +leaned to hold it back from the baby's face, a bit of thoughtfulness +which had a rich reward in a smile of thanks from Mother. That was +what began the remembered afternoon. Mother's smiles were golden coin, +not squandered on every occasion. Then, she and Mother and Judith +tiptoed out of the bedroom into Mother's room and there stood Father, +with his University clothes on and yet his hair rather rumpled up, as +though he had been teaching very hard. He had a pile of papers in his +hand and he said, "Barbara, are you awfully busy just now?" + +Mother said, Oh no, she wasn't at all. (She never was busy when Father +asked her to do something, although Sylvia could not remember ever +once having seen her sit and do nothing, no, not even for a minute!) +Then Father said, "Well, if you _could_ run over these, I'd have time +to have some ball with the seminar after they're dismissed. These are +the papers the Freshmen handed in for that Economics quiz." Mother +said, "Sure she could," or the equivalent of that, and Father thanked +her, turned Judith upside-down and right-side-up again so quick that +she didn't know what had happened, and left them all laughing as they +usually were when Father ran down from the study for something. + +So Sylvia and Judith, quite used to this procedure, sat down on the +floor with a book to keep them quiet until Mother should be through. +Neither of them could read, although Sylvia was beginning to learn, +but they had been told the stories so many times that they knew them +from the pictures. The book they looked at that day had the story of +the people who had rowed a great boat across the water to get a gold +sheepskin, and Sylvia told it to Judith, word for word, as Father +always told it. She glanced up at Mother from time to time to make +sure she was getting it right; and ever afterwards the mention of the +Argonauts brought up before Sylvia's eyes the picture of her mother +that day, sitting very straight, her strong brown fingers making an +occasional mark on the papers, as she turned them over with a crisp +rustle, her quiet face bent, in a calm fixity of attention, over the +pages. + +Before they knew it, the work was done, Father had come for the +papers, and showed Sylvia one more twist in the acrobatic stunt they +were learning together. She could already take his hands and run up +to his shoulders in one squirrel-like dash; but she was to learn the +reverse and come down on the other side, and she still got tangled up +with which foot to put first. So they practised whenever they had, as +now, a minute or two to spare. + +Then Judith was set to play with her blocks like the baby she still +was, while Sylvia and Mother had a lesson in reading. Sylvia could +remember the very sound of Mother's clear voice as she corrected a +mistake. They were reading a story about what happened to a drop of +water that fell into the brook in their field; how, watering the +thirsty cornfields as it flowed, the brook ran down to the river +near La Chance, where it worked ever so many mills and factories and +things. Then on through bigger and bigger rivers until it reached +the Mississippi, where boats rode on its back; and so on down to the +ocean. And there, after resting a while, it was pumped up by the sun +and made into a cloud, and the wind blew it back over the land and +to their field again, where it fell into the brook and said, "Why, +how-de-do, Sylvia--you still here?" + +Father had written the story, and Mother had copied it out on the +typewriter so it would be easy for Sylvia to read. + +After they had finished she remembered looking out of the window and +watching the big white clouds drift across the pale bright April sky. +They were full of hundreds of drops of water, she thought, that were +going to fall into hundreds of other brooks, and then travel and work +till they reached the sea, and then rest for a while and begin all +over again. Her dark eyes grew very wide as she watched the endless +procession of white mountains move across the great arch of the sky. +Her imagination was stirred almost painfully, her mind expanding with +the effort to take in the new conception of size, of great numbers, of +the small place of her own brook, her own field in the hugeness of +the world. And yet it was an ordered hugeness full of comforting +similarity! Now, no matter where she might go, or what brooks she +might see, she would know that they were all of one family, that the +same things happened to them all, that every one ended in the ocean. +Something she had read on a piece of paper made her see the familiar +home field with the yellow water of the little creek, as a part of the +whole world. It was very strange. She tried to tell Mother something +of what was in her mind, but, though Mother listened in a sympathetic +silence, it was evident that she could make nothing out of the +incoherent account. Sylvia thought that she would try to tell Father, +the next chance she had. Even at seven, although she loved her mother +passionately and jealously, she was aware that her father's mind was +more like her own. He understood some things that Mother didn't, +although Mother was always, always right, and Father wasn't. She fell +into silence again, standing by her mother's knee, staring out of the +window and watching the clouds move steadily across the sky doing +their share of the world's work for all they looked so soft and lazy. +Her mother did not break in on this meditative contemplation. She took +up her sewing-basket and began busily to sew buttons on a small pair +of half-finished night-drawers. The sobered child beside her, gazing +up at the blue-and-white infinity of the sky, heard faintly and +distantly, for the first time in her life, the whirring reverberations +of the great mystic wheel of change and motion and life. + +Then, all at once, there was a scraping of chairs overhead in Father's +study, a clattering on the stairs, and the sound of a great many +voices. The Saturday seminar was over. The door below opened, and the +students came out, Father at the head, very tall, very straight, his +ruddy hair shining in the late afternoon sun, his shirt-sleeves rolled +up over his arms, and a baseball in his hand. "Come on, folks," Sylvia +heard him call, as he had so many times before. "Let's have a couple +of innings before you go!" Sylvia must have seen the picture a hundred +times before, but that was the first time it impressed itself on her, +the close-cut grass of their yard as lustrous as enamel, the big +pine-trees standing high, the scattered players, laughing and running +about, the young men casting off their coats and hats, the detached +fielders running long-legged to their places. At the first sound of +the voices, Judith, always alert, never wasting time in reveries, had +scampered down the stairs and out in the midst of the stir-about. +Judith was sure to be in the middle of whatever was going on. She had +attached herself to young Professor Saunders, a special favorite of +the children, and now was dragging him from the field to play horse +with her. Father looked up to the window where Sylvia and Mother sat, +and called: "Come on, Barbara! Come on and amuse Judith. She won't let +Saunders pitch." + +Mother nodded, ran downstairs, coaxed Judith over beyond first base to +play catch with a soft rubber ball; and Sylvia, carried away by the +cheerful excitement, hopped about everywhere at once, screaming +encouragement to the base runners, picking up foul balls, and sending +them with proud importance back to the pitcher. + +So they all played and shouted and ran and laughed, while the long, +pale-golden spring afternoon stood still, until Mother held up her +finger and stopped the game. "The baby's awake!" she said, and Father +went bounding off. When he came back with the downy pink morsel, +everybody gathered around to see it and exclaim over the tiny fat +hands and hungry little rosebud mouth. "He's starved!" said Mother. +"He wants his supper, poor little Buddy! He doesn't want a lot of +people staring at him, do you, Buddy-baby?" She snatched him out +of Father's arms and went off with him, holding him high over her +shoulders so that the sunshine shone on his yellow hair, and made a +circle of gold around his flushed, sleepy face. Then everybody picked +up books and wraps and note-books and said, "Good-by, 'Perfessor!'" +and went off. + +Father and Sylvia and Judith went out in the garden to the hotbed to +pick the lettuce for supper and then back in the kitchen to get things +ready. When Mother was through giving Buddy his supper and came +hurrying in to help, Sylvia was proud that they had nearly everything +done--all but the omelet. Father had made cocoa and creamed +potatoes--nobody in the world could make creamed potatoes as good as +his--and Sylvia and Judith had between them, somewhat wranglingly, +made the toast and set the table. Sylvia was sure that Judith was +really too little to be allowed to help, but Father insisted that she +should try, for he said, with a turn in his voice that made Sylvia +aware he was laughing at her, "You only learned through trying, all +those many years ago when you were Judith's age!" + +Mother put on one of her big gingham aprons and made the omelet, and +they sat down to the table out on the veranda as they always did in +warm weather. In La Chance it begins to be warm enough for outdoor +life in April. Although it was still bright daylight for ever so long +after the sun had set, the moon came and looked at them palely over +the tops of the trees. + +After supper they jumped up to "race through the dishes," as the +family catchword ran. They tried to beat their record every evening +and it was always a lively occasion, with Mother washing like +lightning, and Father hurrying to keep up, Sylvia running back and +forth to put things away, and Judith bothering 'round, handing out dry +dish-towels, and putting away the silver. She was allowed to handle +that because she couldn't break it. Mother and Judith worked in a +swift silence, but a great deal of talking and laughing went on +between Sylvia and her father, while Buddy, from his high-chair where +he was watching the others, occasionally broke out in a loud, high +crow of delight. They did it all, even to washing and hanging out +the dish-towels, in eleven and a half minutes that evening, Sylvia +remembered. + +Then she and Judith went to sit on the porch on the little bench +Mother had made them. They tried to see who could catch the first +glimpse of the evening star every evening. Mother was putting Buddy to +bed and Father was starting the breakfast cereal cooking on the stove. +After a while he went into the living-room and began to play something +on the piano, something full of deep, swaying chords that lifted +Sylvia's heart up and down as though she were floating on the water. +The air was full of the moist fragrance of spring. When the music held +its breath for a moment you could hear the bedtime note of sleepy +birds in the oaks. Judith, who did not care much for music, began +to get sleepy and leaned all her soft, warm weight against her big +sister. Sylvia for the first time in her life was consciously aware of +being very happy. When, some time later, the evening star shone out +through the trees, she drew a long breath. "See, Judith," she cried +softly and began to recite, + + "Star-light, star-bright, + First star I've seen tonight--" + +She stopped short--it was Aunt Victoria who had taught her that poem, +the last time she had come to see them, a year ago, the time when she +had brought Sylvia the pink silk dress, the only dress-up dress with +lace and ribbons on it Sylvia had had up to that time. As suddenly as +the evening star had shone out, another radiant vision flashed across +Sylvia's mind, Aunt Victoria, magnificent in her lacy dress, her +golden hair shining under the taut silk of her parasol, her white, +soft fingers gleaming with rings, her air of being a condescending +goddess, visiting mortals ... + +After a time Mother stepped out on the porch and said, "Oh, quick, +children, wish on the shooting star." + +Judith had dropped asleep like a little kitten tired of play, and +Sylvia looked at her mother blankly. "I didn't see any shooting star," +she said. + +Mother was surprised. "Why, your face was pointed right up at the +spot." + +"I didn't see it," repeated Sylvia. + +Mother fixed her keen dark eyes on Sylvia. "What's the matter?" she +asked in her voice that always required an answer. Sylvia wriggled +uncomfortably. Hers was a nature which suffers under the categorical +question; but her mother's was one which presses them home. + +"What's the matter with you?" she said again. + +Sylvia turned a clouded face to her mother. "I was wondering why it's +not nice to be idyllic." + +"_What_?" asked her mother, quite at a loss. Sylvia was having one of +her unaccountable notions. + +Sylvia went to lean on her mother's knee, looking with troubled eyes +up into the kind, attentive, uncomprehending face. "Why, the last time +Aunt Victoria was here--that long time ago--when they were all out +playing ball--she looked round and round at everything--at your dress +and mine and the furniture--_you_ know--the--the uncomfortable way she +does sometimes--and she said, 'Well, Sylvia--nobody can say that your +parents aren't leading you a very idyllic life.'" + +Mother laughed out. Her rare laugh was too sudden and loud to be very +musical, but it was immensely infectious, like a man's hearty mirth. +"I didn't hear her say it--but I can imagine that she did. Well, what +_of_ it? What if she did?" + +For once Sylvia did not respond to another's mood. She continued +anxiously, "Well, it means something perfectly horrid, doesn't it?" + +Mother was still laughing. "No, no, child, what in the world makes you +think that?" + +"Oh, if you'd heard Aunt Victoria _say_ it!" cried Sylvia with +conviction. Father came out on the veranda, saying to Mother, "Isn't +that crescendo superb?" To Sylvia he said, as though sure of her +comprehension, "Didn't you like the ending, dear--where it sounded +like the Argonauts all striking the oars into the water at once and +shouting?" + +Sylvia had been taught above everything to tell the truth. Moreover +(perhaps a stronger reason for frankness), Mother was there, who would +know whether she told the truth or not. "I didn't hear the end." + +Father looked quickly from Sylvia's face to her mother's. "What's the +matter?" he asked. + +"Sylvia was so concerned because her Aunt Victoria had called our life +idyllic that she couldn't think of anything else," explained Mother +briefly, still smiling. Father did not smile. He sat down by Sylvia +and had her repeat to him what she had said to her mother. When she +had finished he looked grave and said: "You mustn't mind what your +Aunt Victoria says, dear. Her ideas are very different from ours." + +Sylvia's mother cried out, "Why, a child of Sylvia's age couldn't have +taken in the significance of--" + +"I'm afraid," said Father, "that Sylvia's very quick to take in such a +significance." + +Sylvia remained silent, uncomfortable at being discussed, vaguely +ashamed of herself, but comforted that Father had not laughed, had +understood. As happened so frequently, it was Father who understood +and Mother who did the right thing. She suddenly made an enigmatic, +emphatic exclamation, "Goodness _gracious_!" and reaching out her long +arms, pulled Sylvia up on her lap, holding her close. The last thought +of that remembered time for Sylvia was that Mother's arms were very +strong, and her breast very soft. The little girl laid her head down +on it with a contented sigh, watching the slow, silent procession of +the stars. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE MARSHALLS' FRIENDS + + +Any one of the more sophisticated members of the faculty of the State +University at La Chance would have stated without hesitation that the +Marshalls had not the slightest part in the social activities of the +University; but no one could have called their life either isolated or +solitary. Sylvia, in her memories of childhood, always heard the low, +brown house ringing with music or echoing to the laughter and talk +of many voices. To begin with, a good many of Professor Marshall's +students came and went familiarly through the plainly furnished rooms, +although there was, of course, in each year's class, a little circle +of young people with a taste for social distinctions who held aloof +from the very unselect and heterogeneous gatherings at the Marshall +house. + +These young aristocrats were, for the most part, students from the +town itself, from La Chance's "best families," who through parental +tyranny or temporary financial depression were not allowed to go East +to a well-known college with a sizable matriculation fee, but were +forced to endure four years of the promiscuous, swarming, gratuitous +education of the State University. All these august victims of family +despotism associated as little as possible with the common rabble of +their fellow-students, and accepted invitations only from such faculty +families as were recognized by the inner circle of the town society. + +The Marshalls were not among this select circle. Indeed, no faculty +family was farther from it. Every detail of the Marshalls' life was in +contradiction not only to the standards and ideals of the exclusive +"town set," but to those of their own colleagues. They did not live +in the right part of town. They did not live in the right sort of a +house. They did not live in the right sort of a way. And consequently, +although no family had more visitors, they were not the right sort of +visitors. + +This was, of course, not apparent to the children for a good many +years. Home was home, as it is to children. It did not seem strange +to them that instead of living in a small rented house on a closely +built-up street near the campus in the section of the city occupied by +the other faculty families, they lived in a rambling, large-roomed old +farmhouse with five acres of land around it, on the edge of the West +Side. They did not know how heartily this land-owning stability was +condemned as folly by the rent-paying professors, perching on the +bough with calculated impermanence so that they might be free to +accept at any moment the always anticipated call to a larger salary. +They did not know, not even Sylvia, for many years, that the West Side +was the quite unfashionable part of town. It did not seem strange to +them to see their father sweeping his third-floor study with his own +hands, and they were quite used to a family routine which included +housework for every one of them. Indeed, a certain amount of this was +part of the family fun. "Come on, folks!" Professor Marshall would +call, rising up from the breakfast table, "Tuesday--day to clean the +living-room--all hands turn to!" In a gay helter-skelter all hands +turned to. The lighter furniture was put out on the porch. Professor +Marshall, joking and laughing, donned a loose linen overall suit to +protect his "University clothes," and cleaned the bare floor with a +big oiled mop; Mrs. Marshall, silent and swift, looked after mirrors, +windows, the tops of bookcases, things hard for children to reach; +Sylvia flourished a duster; and Judith and Lawrence out on the porch, +each armed with a whisk-broom, brushed and whacked at the chairs and +sofas. There were no rugs to shake, and it took but an instant to set +things back in their places in the clean-smelling, dustless room. + +This daily drill, coming as it did early in the morning, usually +escaped the observation of any but passing farmers, who saw nothing +amiss in it; but facetiously exaggerated reports of its humors reached +the campus, and a certain set considered it very clever to lay bets as +to whether the Professor of Political Economy would pull out of his +pocket a handkerchief, or a duster, or a child's shirt, for it was +notorious that the children never had nursemaids and that their father +took as much care of them as their mother. + +The question of clothes, usually such a sorely insoluble problem for +academic people of small means, was solved by the Marshalls in an +eccentric, easy-going manner which was considered by the other faculty +families as nothing less than treasonable to their caste. Professor +Marshall, it is true, having to make a public appearance on the +campus every day, was generally, like every other professor, +undistinguishable from a commercial traveler. But Mrs. Marshall, who +often let a good many days pass without a trip to town, had adopted +early in her married life a sort of home uniform, which year after +year she wore in one form or another. It varied according to the +season, and according to the occasion on which she wore it, but it had +certain unchanging characteristics. It was always very plain as to +line, and simple as to cut, having a skirt neither full nor scant, a +waist crossed in front with a white fichu, and sleeves reaching just +below the elbow with white turn-back cuffs. As Mrs. Marshall, though +not at all pretty, was a tall, upright, powerfully built woman, with +a dark, shapely head gallantly poised on her shoulders, this garb, +whether short-skirted, of blue serge in the morning, or trailing, of +ruby-colored cashmere in the evening, was very becoming to her. But +there is no denying that it was always startlingly and outrageously +unfashionable. At a time when every woman and female child in the +United States had more cloth in her sleeves than in all the rest of +her dress, the rounded muscles of Mrs. Marshall's arm, showing through +the fabric of her sleeves, smote shockingly upon the eye of the +ordinary observer, trained to the American habit of sheep-like +uniformity of appearance. And at the time when the front of every +woman's waist fell far below her belt in a copiously blousing sag, +Mrs. Marshall's trim tautness had in it something horrifying. It must +be said for her that she did not go out of her way to inflict these +concussions upon the brains of spectators, since she always had in +her closet one evening dress and one street dress, sufficiently +approximating the prevailing style to pass unnoticed. These costumes +lasted long, and they took in the long run but little from the +Marshall exchequer: for she wore them seldom, only assuming what her +husband called, with a laugh, her "disguise" when going into town. + +For a long time, until Sylvia's individuality began to assert itself, +the question of dress for the children was solved, with similar ease, +by the typical Marshall expedient, most heartily resented by their +faculty acquaintances, the mean-spirited expedient of getting along +comfortably on inadequate means by not attempting to associate with +people to whose society their brains and cultivation gave them the +right--that is to say, those families of La Chance whose incomes were +from three to five times that of college professors. The Marshall +children played, for the most part, with the children of their +neighbors, farmers, or small merchants, and continued this humble +connection after they went into the public schools, where their +parents sent them, instead of to "the" exclusive private school +of town. Consequently the plainest, simplest clothes made them +indistinguishable from their fellows. Sylvia and Judith also enjoyed +the unfair advantage of being quite unusually pretty little girls +(Judith being nothing less than a beauty), so that even on the few +occasions when they were invited to a children's party in the faculty +circle their burnished, abundant hair, bright eyes, and fresh, alert +faces made up for the plainness of their white dresses and thick +shoes. + +It was, moreover, not only in externals like clothes that the +childhood of Sylvia and Judith and Lawrence differed from that of the +other faculty children. Their lives were untouched by the ominous +black cloud familiar to academic households, the fear for the future, +the fear which comes of living from hand to mouth, the dread of "being +obliged to hand in one's resignation," a truly academic periphasis +which is as dismally familiar to most faculty children as its blunt +Anglo-Saxon equivalent of "losing your job" is to children of plainer +workpeople. Once, it is true, this possibility had loomed up large +before the Marshalls, when a high-protection legislature objected +loudly to the professor's unreverent attitude towards the tariff. But +although the Marshall children knew all about this crisis, as they +knew all about everything that happened to the family, they had had +no experience of the anxious talks and heartsick consultations which +would have gone on in any other faculty household. Their father had +been angry, and their mother resolute--but there was nothing new in +that. There had been, on Professor Marshall's part, belligerent, +vociferous talk about "freedom of speech," and on Mrs. Marshall's a +quiet estimate that, with her early training on a Vermont farm, and +with the high state of cultivation under which she had brought their +five acres, they could successfully go into the truck-farming +business like their neighbors. Besides this, they had the resource, +extraordinary among University families, of an account in the +savings-bank on which to fall back. They had always been able to pay +their debts and have a small surplus by the expedient of refusing to +acknowledge a tenth part of the social obligations under which +the rest of the faculty groaned and sweated with martyr's pride. +Perfidiously refusing to do their share in the heart-breaking struggle +to "keep up the dignity" of the academic profession, they were not +overwhelmed by the super-human difficulties of that undertaking. + +So it happened that the Marshall children heard no forebodings about +the future, but only heated statements of what seemed to their father +the right of a teacher to say what he believed. Professor Marshall had +gone of his own initiative to face the legislative committee which was +"investigating" him, had quite lost his temper (never very securely +held in leash), had told them his highly spiced opinion of their +strictures on his teaching and of the worth of any teacher they could +find who would submit to them. Then he had gone home and put on +his overalls. This last was rather a rhetorical flourish; for his +cosmopolitan, urban youth had left him ineradicably ignorant of the +processes of agriculture. But like all Professor Marshall's flourishes +it was a perfectly sincere one. He was quite cheerfully prepared to +submit himself to his wife's instruction in the new way of life. + +All these picturesque facts, as was inevitable in America, had +instantly reached the newspapers, which, lacking more exciting news +for the moment, took that matter up with headlined characterizations +of Professor Marshall as a "martyr of the cause of academic freedom," +and other rather cheap phrases about "persecution" and "America, the +land of free speech." The legislative committee, alarmed, retreated +from its position. Professor Marshall had not "been obliged to hand in +his resignation," but quite the contrary, had become the hero of the +hour and was warmly complimented by his colleagues, who hoped to +profit by an action which none of them would have dared to imitate. +It had been an exciting drama to the Marshall children as long as it +lasted. They had looked with pride at an abominable reproduction of +their father's photograph in the evening paper of La Chance, and they +had added an acquaintance with the manners of newspaper reporters to +their already very heterogeneous experience with callers of every +variety; but of real anxiety the episode had brought them nothing. + +As to that same extraordinary assortment of visitors at the Marshall +house, one of the University co-eds had said facetiously that you +met there every sort of person in the world, from spiritualists to +atheists--everybody except swells. The atheist of her dictum was the +distinguished and misanthropic old Professor Kennedy, head of +the Department of Mathematics, whose ample means and high social +connections with the leading family of La Chance made his misanthropy +a source of much chagrin to the faculty ladies, and who professed +for the Marshalls, for Mrs. Marshall in particular, a wrong-headed +admiration which was inexplicable to the wives of the other +professors. The faculty circle saw little to admire in the Marshalls. +The spiritualist of the co-ed's remark was, of course, poor foolish +Cousin Parnelia, the children's pet detestation, whose rusty clothes +and incoherent speech they were prevented from ridiculing only by +stern pressure from their mother. She always wore a black straw hat, +summer and winter, always carried a faded green shopping bag, with a +supply of yellow writing paper, and always had tucked under one arm +the curious, heart-shaped bit of wood, with the pencil attached, which +spiritualists call "planchette." The Marshall children thought this +the most laughable name imaginable, and were not always successful +in restraining the cruel giggles of childhood when she spoke of +planchette's writing such beautiful messages from her long-since-dead +husband and children. Although he had a dramatic sympathy for her +sorrow, Professor Marshall's greater vivacity of temperament made it +harder for him than for his wife to keep a straight face when Cousin +Parnelia proposed to be the medium whereby he might converse with +Milton or Homer. Indeed, his fatigued tolerance for her had been a +positive distaste ever since the day when he found her showing Sylvia, +aged ten, how to write with planchette. With an outbreak of temper, +for which he had afterwards apologized to his wife, he had forbidden +her ever to mention her damn unseemly nonsense to his children again. +He himself was a stout unbeliever in individual immortality, teaching +his children that the craving for it was one of the egotistic impulses +of the unregenerate human heart. + +Between the two extremes represented by shabby, crack-brained Cousin +Parnelia and elegant, sardonic old Professor Kennedy, there were many +other habitual visitors at the house--raw, earnest, graceless students +of both sexes, touchingly grateful for the home atmosphere they were +allowed to enter; a bushy-haired Single-tax fanatic named Hecht, who +worked in the iron-foundries by day, and wrote political pamphlets by +night; Miss Lindstroem, the elderly Swedish woman laboring among +the poor negroes of Flytown; a constant sprinkling from the +Scandinavian-Americans whose well-kept truck-farms filled the region +near the Marshall home; one-armed Mr. Howell, the editor of a luridly +radical Socialist weekly paper, whom Judith called in private the +"old puss-cat" on account of his soft, rather weak voice and mild, +ingratiating ways. Yes, the co-ed had been right, one met at the +Marshalls' every variety of person except the exclusive. + +These habitues of the house came and went with the greatest +familiarity. As they all knew there was no servant to answer the +doorbell, they seldom bothered to ring, but opened the door, stepped +into the hall, hung up their wraps on the long line of hooks, and went +into the big, low-ceilinged living-room. If nobody was there, they +usually took a book from one of the shelves lining the room and sat +down before the fire to wait. Sometimes they stayed to the next +meal and helped wash up the dishes afterwards. Sometimes they had a +satisfactory visit with each other, two or three callers happening to +meet together before the fire, and went away without having seen any +of the Marshalls. Informality could go no further. + +The only occurrence in the Marshall life remotely approaching the +regularity and formality of a real social event was the weekly meeting +of the string quartet which Professor Marshall had founded soon after +his arrival in La Chance. + +It was on Sunday evening that the quartet met regularly for their +seance. Old Reinhardt, the violin teacher, was first violin and +leader; Mr. Bauermeister (in everyday life a well-to-do wholesale +plumber) was second violin; Professor Marshall played the viola, and +old Professor Kennedy bent his fine, melancholy face over the 'cello. +Any one who chose might go to the Marshall house on Sunday evenings, +on condition that he should not talk during the music, and did not +expect any attention. + +The music began at seven promptly and ended at ten. A little before +that time, Mrs. Marshall, followed by any one who felt like helping, +went out into the kitchen and made hot coffee and sandwiches, and when +the last chord had stopped vibrating, the company adjourned into the +dining-room and partook of this simple fare. During the evening no +talk was allowed except the occasional wranglings of the musicians +over tempo and shading, but afterwards, every one's tongue, chastened +by the long silence, was loosened into loud and cheerful loquacity. +Professor Marshall, sitting at the head of the table, talked faster +and louder than any one else, throwing the ball to his especial +favorite, brilliant young Professor Saunders, who tossed it back with +a sureness and felicity of phrase which he had learned nowhere but in +this give-and-take. Mrs. Marshall poured the coffee, saw that every +one was served with sandwiches, and occasionally when the talk, +running over every known topic, grew too noisy, or the discussion too +hot, cast in one of the pregnant and occasionally caustic remarks of +which she held the secret. They were never brilliant, Mrs. Marshall's +remarks--but they were apt to have a dry humor, and almost always when +she had said her brief say? there loomed out of the rainbow mist of +her husband's flashing, controversial talk the outlines of the true +proportions of the case. + +After the homely feast was eaten, each guest rose and carried his own +cup and saucer and plate into the kitchen in a gay procession, and +since it was well known that, for the most part, the Marshalls "did +their own work," several of the younger ones helped wash the dishes, +while the musicians put away the music-racks and music, and the rest +put on their wraps. Then Professor Marshall stood at the door holding +up a lamp while the company trooped down the long front walk to +the gate in the hedge, and turned along the country road to the +cross-roads where the big Interurban cars whizzed by. + +All this happened with that unbroken continuity which was the +characteristic of the Marshall life, most marking them as different +from the other faculty families. Week after week, and month after +month, this program was followed with little variation, except for the +music which was played, and the slight picturesque uncertainty as +to whether old Reinhardt would or would not arrive mildly under the +influence of long Sunday imbibings. Not that this factor interfered at +all with the music. One of Sylvia's most vivid childhood recollections +was the dramatic contrast between old Reinhardt with, and without, his +violin. Partly from age, and partly from a too convivial life, the +old, heavily veined hands trembled so that he could scarcely unbutton +his overcoat, or handle his cup of hot coffee. His head shook too, and +his kind, rheumy eyes, in their endeavor to focus themselves, seemed +to flicker back and forth in their sockets. The child used to watch +him, fascinated, as he fumbled endlessly at the fastenings of his +violin-case, and put back the top with uncertain fingers. She was +waiting for the thrilling moment when he should tuck the instrument +away under his pendulous double chin and draw his bow across the +strings in the long sonorous singing chord, which ran up and down +Sylvia's back like forked lightning. + +This was while all the others were tuning and scraping and tugging at +their pegs, a pleasant bustle of discord which became so much a +part of Sylvia's brain that she could never in after years hear the +strumming and sawing of an orchestra preparing to play, without seeing +the big living-room of her father's house, with its low whitewashed +ceiling, its bare, dully shining floor, its walls lined with books, +its shabby, comfortable furniture, the whole quickened by the +Promethean glow from the blaze in the grate and glorified by the +chastened passion of the singing strings. + +The two Anglo-Saxon, professors were but able amateurs of their +instruments. Bauermeister, huge, red, and impassive, was by virtue of +his blood, a lifelong training, and a musical ancestry, considerably +more than an amateur; and old Reinhardt was the master of them all. +His was a history which would have been tragic if it had happened to +any but Reinhardt, who cared for nothing but an easy life, beer, and +the divine tones which he alone could draw from his violin. He had +offered, fifty years ago in Vienna, the most brilliant promise of a +most brilliant career, a promise which had come to naught because +of his monstrous lack of ambition, and his endless yielding to +circumstance, which had finally, by a series of inconceivable +migrations, landed him in the German colony of La Chance, impecunious +and obscure and invincibly convinced that he had everything worth +having in life. "Of vat use?" he would say, even now, when asked to +play in public--"de moosic ist all--and dat is eben so goodt here mit +friends." Or, "Dere goes a thousand peoples to a goncert--maybe fife +from dat thousand lofes de moosic--let dose fife gome to me--and +I play dem all day for noding!" or again, more iconoclastically +still,--when told of golden harvests to be reaped, "And for vat den? I +can't play on more dan von fioleen at a time--is it? I got a good one +now. And if I drink more beer dan now, I might make myself seeck!" +This with a prodigiously sly wink of one heavy eyelid. + +He gave enough music lessons to pay his small expenses, although after +one or two stormy passages in which he treated with outrageous and +unjustifiable violence the dawdling pupils coming from well-to-do +families, he made it a rule to take no pupils whose parents employed a +servant, and confined himself to children of the poorer classes, among +whom he kept up a small orchestra which played together twice a week +and never gave any concerts. And almost since the arrival of the +Marshalls in La Chance and his unceremonious entrance into the house +as, walking across the fields on a Sunday afternoon, he had heard +Professor Marshall playing the Doric Toccata on the newly installed +piano, he had spent his every Sunday evening in their big living-room. + +He had seen the children appear and grow older, and adored them +with Teutonic sentimentality, especially Sylvia, whom he called his +"Moonbeam brincess," his "little ellfen fairy," and whom, when she was +still tiny, he used to take up on his greasy old knees and, resting +his violin on her head, play his wildest fantasies, that she might +feel how it "talked to her bones." + +In early childhood Sylvia was so used to him that, like the others +of her circle, she accepted, indeed hardly noticed, his somewhat +startling eccentricities, his dirty linen, his face and hands to +match, his shapeless garments hanging loosely over the flabby +corpulence of his uncomely old body, his beery breath. To her, old +Reinhardt was but the queer external symbol of a never-failing +enchantment. Through the pleasant harmonious give-and-take of the +other instruments, the voice of his violin vibrated with the throbbing +passion of a living thing. His dirty old hand might shake and quaver, +but once the neck of the fiddle rested between thumb and forefinger, +the seraph who made his odd abiding-place in old Reinhardt's soul +sang out in swelling tones and spoke of heavenly things, and of the +Paradise where we might live, if we were but willing. + +Even when they were quite little children, Sylvia and Judith, and +later, Lawrence, were allowed to sit up on Sunday evenings to +listen to the music. Judith nearly always slept, steadily; and not +infrequently after a long day of outdoor fun, stupefied with fresh +air and exercise, Lawrence, and Sylvia too, could not keep their eyes +open, and dozed and woke and dozed again, coiled like so many little +kittens among the cushions of the big divan. In all the intensely +enjoyed personal pleasures of her later youth, and these were many for +Sylvia, she was never to know a more utter sweetness than thus to fall +asleep, the music a far-off murmur in her ears, and to wake again to +the restrained, clarified ecstasy of the four concerted voices. + +And yet it was in connection with this very quartet that she had her +first shocked vision of how her home-life appeared to other people. +She once chanced, when she was about eight years old, to go with her +father on a Saturday to his office at the University, where he had +forgotten some papers necessary for his seminar. There, sitting on +the front steps of the Main Building, waiting for her father, she had +encountered the wife of the professor of European History with her +beautiful young-lady sister from New York and her two daughters, +exquisite little girls in white serge, whose tailored, immaculate +perfection made Sylvia's heart heavy with a sense of the plebeian +inelegance of her own Saturday-morning play-clothes. Mrs. Hubert, +obeying an impulse of curiosity, stopped to speak to the little +Marshall girl, about whose queer upbringing there were so many stories +current, and was struck with the decorative possibilities of the +pretty child, apparent to her practised eye. As she made the kindly +intended, vague remarks customarily served out to unknown children, +she was thinking: "How _can_ any woman with a vestige of a woman's +instinct dress that lovely child in ready-made, commonplace, +dark-colored clothes? She would repay any amount of care and +"thought." So you take music-lessons too, besides your school?" she +asked mechanically. She explained to her sister, a stranger in La +Chance: "Music is one of the things I _starve_ for, out here! We never +hear it unless we go clear to Chicago--and such prices! Here, there is +simply _no_ musical feeling!" She glanced again at Sylvia, who was +now answering her questions, fluttered with pleasure at having the +beautiful lady speak to her. The beautiful lady had but an inattentive +ear for Sylvia's statement that, yes, lately Father had begun to give +her lessons on the piano. With the smoothly working imagination coming +from a lifetime of devotion to the subject, Mrs. Hubert was stripping +off Sylvia's trite little blue coat and uninteresting dark hat, and +was arraying her in scarlet serge with a green velvet collar--"with +those eyes and that coloring she could carry off striking 'color +combinations--and a big white felt hat with a soft pompon of silk +on one side--no, a long, stiff, scarlet quill would suit her style +better. Then, with white stockings and shoes and gloves--or perhaps +pearl-gray would be better. Yes, with low-cut suede shoes, fastening +with two big smoked-pearl buttons." She looked down with pitying eyes +at Sylvia's sturdy, heavy-soled shoes which could not conceal the +slender, shapely feet within them--"but, what on earth was the child +saying?--" + +"--every Sunday evening--it's beautiful, and now I'm getting so big I +can help some. I can turn over the pages for them in hard places, +and when old Mr. Reinhardt has had too much to drink and his hands +tremble, he lets me unfasten his violin-case and tighten up his bow +and--" + +Mrs. Hubert cried out, "Your parents don't let you have anything to do +with that old, drunken Reinhardt!" + +Sylvia was smitten into silence by the other's horrified tone and +hung her head miserably, only murmuring, after a pause, in damning +extenuation, "He's never so _very_ drunk!" + +"Well, upon my word!" exclaimed Mrs. Hubert, in a widely spaced, +emphatic phrase of condemnation. To her sister she added, "It's really +not exaggeration then, what one hears about their home life." One of +her daughters, a child about Sylvia's age, turned a candid, blank +little face up to hers, "Mother, what is a drunken reinhardt?" she +asked in a thin little pipe. + +Mrs. Hubert frowned, shook her head, and said in a tone of dark +mystery: "Never mind, darling, don't think about it. It's something +that nice little girls shouldn't know anything about. Come, Margery; +come, Eleanor." She took their hands and began to draw them away +without another look at Sylvia, who remained behind, drooping, +ostracised, pierced momentarily with her first blighting misgiving +about the order of things she had always known. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +BROTHER AND SISTER + + +A fuller initiation into the kaleidoscopic divergencies of adult +standards was given Sylvia during the visits of her Aunt Victoria. +These visits were angelic in their extreme rarity, and for Sylvia were +always a mixture of the beatific and the distressing. Only to look at +Aunt Victoria was a bright revelation of elegance and grace. And yet +the talk around table and hearth on the two or three occasions when +the beautiful young widow honored their roof with a sojourn was hard +on Sylvia's sensitive nerves. + +It was not merely that a good deal of what was said was +unintelligible. The Marshall children were quite accustomed to +incessant conversations between their elders of which they could +gather but the vaguest glimmering. They played about, busy in +their own absorbing occupations, lending an absent but not wholly +unattentive ear to the gabble of their elders, full of odd and +ridiculous-sounding words like Single-tax, and contrapuntal +development, and root-propagation, and Benthamism, and Byzantine, +and nitrogenous fertilizers, and Alexandrine, and chiaroscuro, and +surviving archaisms, and diminishing utility--for to keep up such a +flood-tide of talk as streamed through the Marshall house required +contributions from many diverging rivers. Sylvia was entirely used to +this phenomenon and, although it occasionally annoyed her that good +attention was wasted on projects so much less vital than those of the +children, she bore it no grudge. But on the rare occasions when Aunt +Victoria was with them, there was a different and ominous note to the +talk which made Sylvia acutely uneasy, although she was quite unable +to follow what was said. This uncomfortable note did not at all come +from mere difference of opinion, for that too was a familiar element +in Sylvia's world. Indeed, it seemed to her that everybody who came to +the Marshall house disagreed with everybody else about everything. +The young men, students or younger professors, engaged in perpetual +discussions, carried on in acrimonious tones which nevertheless seemed +not in the least to impair the good feeling between them. When there +was nobody else there for Father to disagree with, he disagreed with +Mother, occasionally, to his great delight, rousing her from her +customary self-contained economy of words to a heat as voluble as his +own. Often as the two moved briskly about, preparing a meal together, +they shouted out from the dining-room to the kitchen a discussion on +some unintelligible topic such as the "anachronism of the competitive +system," so loudly voiced and so energetically pursued that when +they came to sit down to table, they would be quite red-cheeked and +stirred-up, and ate their dinners with as vigorous an appetite as +though they had been pursuing each other on foot instead of verbally. + +The older habitues of the house were no more peaceable and were +equally given to what seemed to childish listeners endless disputes +about matters of no importance. Professor La Rue's white mustache and +pointed beard quivered with the intensity of his scorn for the modern +school of poetry, and Madame La Rue, who might be supposed to be +insulated by the vast bulk of her rosy flesh from the currents of +passionate conviction flashing through the Marshall house, had fixed +ideas on the Franco-Prussian War, on the relative values of American +and French bed-making, and the correct method of bringing up girls +(she was childless), which needed only to be remotely stirred to burst +into showers of fiery sparks. And old Professor Kennedy was nothing +less than abusive when started on an altercation about one of the +topics vital to him, such as the ignoble idiocy of the leisure-class +ideal, or the generally contemptible nature of modern society. No, it +was not mere difference of opinion which so charged the air during +Aunt Victoria's rare visits with menacing electricity. + +As a matter of fact, if she did differ in opinion from her brother and +his wife, the children would never have been able to guess it from the +invariably restrained tones of her fluent and agreeable speech, so +different from the outspoken virulence with which people in that house +were accustomed to defend their ideas. But, indefinable though it was +to Sylvia's undeveloped powers of analysis, she felt that the advent +of her father's beautiful and gracious sister was like a drop of +transparent but bitter medicine in a glass of clear water. There +was no outward sign of change, but everything was tinctured by +it. Especially was her father changed from his usual brilliantly +effervescent self. In answer to the most harmless remark of Aunt +Victoria, he might reply with a sudden grim sneering note in his voice +which made Sylvia look up at him half-afraid. If Aunt Victoria noticed +this sardonic accent, she never paid it the tribute of a break in the +smooth surface of her own consistent good-will, rebuking her brother's +prickly hostility only by the most indulgent tolerance of his +queer ways, a tolerance which never had on Professor Marshall's +sensibilities the soothing effect which might have seemed its natural +result. + +The visit which Aunt Victoria paid them when Sylvia was ten years old +was more peaceable than the one before it. Perhaps the interval of +five years between the two had mellowed the relationship; or more +probably the friction was diminished because Aunt Victoria arranged +matters so that she was less constantly in the house than usual. On +that occasion, in addition to the maid who always accompanied her, +she brought her little stepson and his tutor, and with characteristic +thoughtfulness refused to impose this considerable train of attendants +on a household so primitively organized as that of the Marshalls. They +all spent the fortnight of their stay at the main hotel of the town, a +large new edifice, the conspicuous costliness of which was one of the +most recent sources of civic pride in La Chance. Here in a suite of +four much-decorated rooms, which seemed unutterably elegant to Sylvia, +the travelers slept, and ate most of their meals, making their trips +out to the Marshall house in a small, neat, open carriage, which, +although engaged at a livery-stable by Mrs. Marshall-Smith for the +period of her stay, was not to be distinguished from a privately owned +equipage. + +It can be imagined what an event in the pre-eminently stationary life +of the Marshall children was this fortnight. To Judith and Lawrence, +eight and four respectively, Aunt Victoria's charms and amenities were +non-existent. She was for Judith as negligible as all other grown-ups, +save the few who had good sense enough to play games and go in +swimming. Judith's interest centered in the new boy, whom the +Marshalls now saw for the first time, and who was in every way a +specimen novel in their limited experience of children. During their +first encounter, the well-groomed, white-linen-clad boy with his +preternaturally clean face, his light-brown hair brushed till it shone +like lacquer, his polished nails and his adult appendage of a tutor, +aroused a contempt in Judith's mind which was only equaled by her +astonishment. On that occasion he sat upright in a chair between his +stepmother and his tutor, looking intently out of very bright blue +eyes at the two gipsy-brown little girls in their single-garment +linen play-clothes, swinging their tanned bare legs and feet from the +railing of the porch. They returned this inspection in silence--on +Sylvia's part with the keen and welcoming interest she always felt in +new people who were well-dressed and physically attractive, but as for +Judith with a frankly hostile curiosity, as at some strange and quite +unattractive new animal. + +The next morning, a still, oppressive day of brazen heat, it was +suggested that the children take their guest off to visit some of +their own favorite haunts to "get acquainted." This process began +somewhat violently by the instant halt of Arnold as soon as they were +out of sight of the house. "I'm going to take off these damn socks and +shoes," he announced, sitting down in the edge of a flower-bed. + +"Oh, don't! You'll get your clean suit all dirty!" cried Sylvia, +springing forward to lift him out of the well-tilled black loam. +Arnold thrust her hand away and made a visible effort to increase his +specific gravity. "I hope to the Lord I _do_ get it dirty!" he said +bitterly. + +"Isn't it your best?" asked Sylvia, aghast. "Have you another?" "I +haven't anything but!" said the boy savagely. "There's a whole trunk +full of them!" He was fumbling with a rough clumsiness at the lacing +of his shoes, but made no progress in loosening them, and now began +kicking at the grass. "I don't know how to get them off!" he cried, +his voice breaking nervously. Judith was down on her knees, inspecting +with a competent curiosity the fastenings, which were of a new +variety. + +"It's _easy_!" she said. "You just lift this little catch up and turn +it back, and that lets you get at the knot." As she spoke, she acted, +her rough brown little fingers tugging at the silken laces. "How'd +you ever _get_ it fastened," she inquired, "if you don't know how to +unfasten it?" + +"Oh, Pauline puts my shoes on for me," explained Arnold. "She dresses +and undresses me." + +Judith stopped and looked up at him. "Who's Pauline?" she asked, +disapproving astonishment in her accent. + +"Madrina's maid." + +Judith pursued him further with her little black look of scorn. "Who's +Madrina?" + +"Why--you know--your Aunt Victoria--my stepmother--she married my +father when I was a little baby--she doesn't want me to call her +'mother' so I call her Madrina.' That's Italian for--" + +Judith had no interest in this phenomenon and no opinion about it. +She recalled the conversation to the point at issue with her usual +ruthless directness. "And you wouldn't know how to undress yourself +if somebody didn't help you!" She went on loosening the laces in a +contemptuous silence, during which the boy glowered resentfully at the +back of her shining black hair. Sylvia essayed a soothing remark +about what pretty shoes he had, but with small success. Already the +excursion was beginning to take on the color of its ending,--an +encounter between the personalities of Judith and Arnold, with Sylvia +and Lawrence left out. When the shoes finally came off, they revealed +white silk half-hose, which, discarded in their turn, showed a pair of +startlingly pale feet, on which the new boy now essayed wincingly to +walk. "Ouch! Ouch! OUCH!" he cried, holding up first one and then the +other from contact with the hot sharp-edged pebbles of the path, "How +do you _do it_?" + +"Oh, it always hurts when you begin in the spring," said Judith +carelessly. "You have to get used to it. How old are you?" + +"Ten, last May." + +"Buddy here began going barefoot last summer and he's only four," she +stated briefly, proceeding towards the barn and chicken-house. + +After that remark the new boy walked forward with no more articulate +complaints, though his face was drawn and he bit his lips. He was +shown the chicken-yard--full of gawky, half-grown chickens shedding +their down and growing their feathers--and forgot his feet in the +fascination of scattering grain to them and watching their fluttering +scrambles. He was shown the rabbit-house and allowed to take one of +the limp, unresponsive little bunches of fur in his arms, and feed +a lettuce-leaf into its twitching pink mouth. He was shown the +house-in-the-maple-tree, a rough floor fixed between two large +branches, with a canvas roof over it, ensconced in which retreat his +eyes shone with happy excitement. He was evidently about to make some +comment on it, but glanced at Judith's dark handsome little face, +unsmiling and suspicious, and remained silent. He tried the same +policy when being shown the children's own garden, but Judith tracked +him out of this attempt at self-protection with some direct and +searching questions, discovering in him such ignorance of the broadest +division-lines of the vegetable kingdom that she gave herself up +to open scorn, vainly frowned down by the more naturally civilized +Sylvia, who was by no means enjoying herself. The new boy was not +in the least what he had looked. She longed to return to the +contemplation of Aunt Victoria's perfections. Lawrence was, as usual, +deep in an unreal world of his own, where he carried forth some +enterprise which had nothing to do with any one about him. He was +frowning and waving his arms, and making stabbing gestures with his +fingers, and paid no attention to the conversation between Judith and +the new boy. + +"What _can_ you do? What _do_ you know?" asked the former at last. + +"I can ride horseback," said Arnold defiantly. + +Judith put him to the test at once, leading the way to the stall which +was the abode of the little pinto broncho, left them, she explained, +as a trust by one of Father's students from the Far West, who was now +graduated and a civil engineer in Chicago, where it cost too much to +keep a horse. Arnold emerged from this encounter with the pony with +but little more credit than he had earned in the garden, showing an +ineptness about equine ways which led Judith through an unsparing +cross-examination to the information that the boy's experience of +handling a horse consisted in being ready in a riding-costume at a +certain hour every afternoon, and mounting a well-broken little +pony, all saddled and bridled, which was "brought round" to the +porte-cochere. + +"What's a porte-cochere?" she asked, with her inimitable air of +despising it, whatever it might turn out to be. + +Arnold stared with an attempt to copy her own frank scorn for +another's ignorance. "Huh! Don't you even know that much? It's the big +porch without any floor to it, where carriages drive up so you can get +in and out without getting wet if it rains. Every house that's good +for anything has one." + +So far from being impressed or put down, Judith took her stand as +usual on the offensive. "'Fore I'd be afraid of a little rain!" she +said severely, an answer which caused Arnold to seem disconcerted, and +again to look at her hard with the startled expression of arrested +attention which from the first her remarks and strictures seemed to +cause in him. + +They took the pinto out. Judith rode him bareback at a gallop down +to the swimming pool and dived from his back into the yellow water +shimmering hotly in the sun. This feat stung Arnold into a final fury. +Without an instant's pause he sprang in after her. As he came to the +top, swimming strongly with a lusty, regular stroke, and rapidly +overhauled the puffing Judith, his face shone brilliantly with relief. +He was another child. The petulant boy of a few moments before had +vanished. "Beat you to the springboard!" he sputtered joyously, +swimming low and spitting water as he slid easily through it at twice +Judith's speed. She set her teeth and drove her tough little body with +a fierce concentration of all her forces, but Arnold was sitting on +the springboard, dangling his red and swollen feet when she arrived. + +She clambered out and sat down beside him, silent for an instant. Then +she said with a detached air, "You can swim better than any boy I ever +saw." + +Arnold's open, blond face flushed scarlet at this statement. He looked +at the dripping little brown rat beside him, and returned impulsively, +"I'd rather play with you than any girl I ever saw." + +They were immediately reduced to an awkward silence by these two +unpremeditated superlatives. Judith found nothing to say beyond a +"huh" in an uncertain accent, and they turned with relief to alarums +and excursions from the forgotten and abandoned Sylvia and Lawrence. +Sylvia was forcibly restraining her little brother from following +Judith into the water. "You _mustn't_, Buddy! You _know_ we aren't +allowed to go in till an hour after eating and you only had your +breakfast a little while ago!" She led him away bellowing. + +Arnold, surprised, asked Judith, "'Cept for that, are you allowed to +go in whenever you want?" + +"Sure! We're not to stay in more than ten minutes at a time, and then +get out and run around for half an hour in the sun. There's a clock +under a little roof-thing, nailed up to a tree over there, so's we can +tell." + +"And don't you get what-for, if you go in with all your clothes on +this way?" + +"I haven't any clothes _on_ but my rompers," said Judith. "They're +just the same as a bathing suit." She snatched back her prerogative of +asking questions. "Where _did_ you learn to swim so?" + +"At the seashore! I get taken there a month every summer. It's the +most fun of any of the places I get taken. I've had lessons there from +the professor of swimming ever since I was six. Madrina doesn't know +what to do with me but have me take lessons. I like the swimming ones +the best. I hate dancing--and going to museums." + +"What else can you do?" asked Judith with a noticeable abatement of +her previous disesteem. + +Arnold hesitated, his own self-confidence as evidently dashed. +"Well--I can fence a little--and talk French; we are in Paris winters, +you know. We don't stay in Lydford for the winter. Nobody does." + +"_Everybody_ goes away?" queried Judith. "What a funny town!" + +"Oh, except the people who _live_ there--the Vermonters." + +Judith was more and more at a loss. "Don't _you_ live there?" + +"No, we don't _live_ anywhere. We just stay places for a while. Nobody +that we know lives anywhere." He interrupted a further question from +the astonished Judith to ask, "How'd you happen to have such a dandy +swimming-pool out of such a little brook?" + +Judith, switched off upon a topic of recent and absorbing interest, +was diverted from investigation into the odd ways of people who +lived nowhere. "Isn't it great!" she said ardently. "It's new this +summer--that's why I don't swim so very well yet. Why, it was this +way. The creek ran through a corner of our land, and a lot of Father's +students that are engineers or something, wanted to do something +for Father when they graduated--lots of students do, you know--and +everybody said the creek didn't have water enough and they bet each +other it did, and after Commencement we had a kind of camp for +a week--tents and things all round here--and Mother cooked for +them--camp fires--oh, lots of fun!--and they let us children tag +around as much as we pleased--and they and Father dug, and fixed +concrete--say, did you ever get let to stir up concrete? It's great!" + +Seeing in the boy's face a blankness as great as her own during his +chance revelations of life on another planet, she exclaimed, "Here, +come on, down to the other end, and I'll _show_ you how they made the +dam and all--they began over there with--" The two pattered along the +edge hand-in-hand, talking incessantly on a common topic at last, +interrupting each other, squatting down, peering into the water, +pointing, discussing, arguing, squeezing the deliciously soft mud up +and down between their toes, their heads close together--they might +for the moment have been brother and sister who had grown up together. + +They were interrupted by voices, and turning flushed and candid faces +of animation towards the path, beheld Aunt Victoria, wonderful and +queen-like in a white dress, a parasol, like a great rose, over her +stately blond head, attended by Sylvia adoring; Mrs. Marshall quiet +and observant; Mr. Rollins, the tutor, thin, agitated, and unhappily +responsible; and Professor Marshall smiling delightedly at the +children. + +"Why, Arnold _Smith_!" cried his tutor, too much overcome by the +situation to express himself more forcibly than by a repetition of the +boy's name. "Why, _Arnold_! Come here!" + +The cloud descended upon the boy's face. "I _will_ not!" he said +insolently. + +"But we were just _looking_ for you to start back to the hotel," +argued Mr. Rollins. + +"I don't care if you were!" said the boy in a sullen accent. + +Sylvia and Judith looked on in amazement at this scene of +insubordination, as new to them as all the rest of the boy's actions. +He was standing still now, submitting in a gloomy silence to the +various comments on his appearance, which was incredibly different +from that with which he had started on his travels. The starch +remaining in a few places in his suit, now partly dried in the +hot sun, caused the linen to stand out grotesquely in peaks and +mud-streaked humps, his hair, still wet, hung in wisps about his very +dirty face, his bare, red feet and legs protruded from shapeless +knickerbockers. His stepmother looked at him with her usual +good-natured amused gaze. "It is customary, before going in swimming, +isn't it, Arnold, to take your watch out of your pocket and put your +cuff-links in a safe-place?" she suggested casually. + +"Good Heavens! His watch!" cried Mr. Rollins, clutching at his own +sandy hair. + +Professor Marshall clapped the boy encouragingly on the shoulder. +"Well, sir, you look more like a human being," he said heartily, +addressing himself, with defiance in his tone, to his sister. + +She replied with a smile, "That rather depends, doesn't it, Elliott, +upon one's idea of what constitutes a human being?" + +Something in her sweet voice roused Judith to an ugly wrath. She came +forward and took her place protectingly beside her new playmate, +scowling at her aunt. "We were having a _lovely_ time!" she said +challengingly. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith looked down at the grotesque little figure and +touched the brown cheek indulgently with her forefinger. "That too +rather depends upon one's definition of a lovely time," she replied, +turning away, leaving with the indifference of long practice the +unfortunate Mr. Rollins to the task of converting Arnold into a +product possible to transport through the streets of a civilized town. + +Before they went away that day, Arnold managed to seek Judith out +alone, and with shamefaced clumsiness to slip his knife, quite new and +three-bladed, into her hand. She looked at it uncomprehendingly. "For +you--to keep," he said, flushing again, and looking hard into her +dark eyes, which in return lightened suddenly from their usual rather +somber seriousness into a smile, a real smile. Judith's smiles were +far from frequent, but the recipient of one did not forget it. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +EVERY ONE'S OPINION OF EVERY ONE ELSE + + +In this way, almost from the first, several distinct lines of cleavage +were established in the family party during the next fortnight. Arnold +imperiously demanded a complete vacation from "lessons," and when, it +was indolently granted, he spent it incessantly with Judith, the two +being always out of doors and usually joyously concocting what in any +but the easy-going, rustic plainness of the Marshall mode of life +would have been called mischief. Mrs. Marshall, aided by the others +in turn, toiled vigorously between the long rows of vegetables and +a little open shack near by, where, on a superannuated but still +serviceable cook-stove, she "put up," for winter use, an endless +supply of the golden abundance which, Ceres-like, she poured out every +year from the Horn of Plenty of her garden. Sylvia, in a state of +hypnotized enchantment, dogged her Aunt Victoria's graceful footsteps +and still more graceful, leisurely halts; Lawrence bustled about on +his own mysterious business in a solitary and apparently exciting +world of his own which was anywhere but in La Chance; and Professor +Marshall, in the intervals of committee work at the University, now +about to open, alternated between helping his wife, playing a great +deal of very noisy and very brilliant music on the piano, and +conversing in an unpleasant voice with his sister. + +Mr. Rollins, for whom, naturally, Arnold's revolt meant unwonted +freedom, was for the most part invisible, "seeing the sights of La +Chance, I suppose," conjectured Aunt Victoria indifferently, in +her deliciously modulated voice, when asked what had become of the +sandy-haired tutor. And because, in the intense retirement and +rustication of this period, Mrs. Marshall-Smith needed little +attention paid to her toilets, Pauline also was apparently enjoying an +unusual vacation. A short time after making the conjecture about her +stepson's tutor, Aunt Victoria had added the suggestion, level-browed, +and serene as always, "Perhaps he and Pauline are seeing the sights +together." + +Sylvia, curled on a little stool at her aunt's feet, turned an +artless, inquiring face up to her. "What _are_ the 'sights' of La +Chance, Auntie?" she asked. + +Her father, who was sitting at the piano, his long fingers raised +as though about to play, whirled about and cut in quickly with an +unintelligible answer, "Your Aunt Victoria refers to non-existent +phenomena, my dear, in order to bring home to us the uncouth +provinciality in which we live." + +Aunt Victoria, leaning back, exquisitely passive, in one of the big, +shabby arm-chairs, raised a protesting hand. "My dear Elliott, +you don't do your chosen abiding-place justice. There is the new +Court-House. Nobody can deny that that is a sight. I spent a long time +the other day contemplating it. That and the Masonic Building are a +_pair_ of sights. I conceive Rollins, who professes to be interested +in architecture, as constantly vibrating between the two." + +To which handsome tribute to La Chance's high-lights, Professor +Marshall returned with bitterness, "Good Lord, Vic, why do you come, +then?" + +She answered pleasantly, "I might ask in my turn why you stay." She +went on, "I might also remind you that you and your children are the +only human ties I have." She slipped a soft arm about Sylvia as she +spoke, and turned the vivid, flower-like little face to be kissed. +When Aunt Victoria kissed her, Sylvia always felt that she had, like +Diana in the story-book, stooped radiant from a shining cloud. + +There was a pause in the conversation. Professor Marshall faced the +piano again and precipitated himself headlong into the diabolic +accelerandos of "The Hall of the Mountain-King." His sister listened +with extreme and admiring appreciation of his talent. "Upon my word, +Elliott," she said heartily, "under the circumstances it's incredible, +but it's true--your touch positively improves." + +He stopped short, and addressed the air above the piano with +passionate conviction. "I stay because, thanks to my wife, I've +savored here fourteen years of more complete reconciliation with +life--I've been vouchsafed more usefulness--I've discovered more +substantial reasons for existing than I ever dreamed possible in the +old life--than any one in that world can conceive!" + +Aunt Victoria looked down at her beautiful hands clasped in her lap. +"Yes, quite so," she breathed. "Any one who knows you well must agree +that whatever you are, or do, or find, nowadays, is certainly 'thanks +to your wife.'" + +Her brother flashed a furious look at her, and was about to speak, +but catching sight of Sylvia's troubled little face turned to him +anxiously, gave only an impatient shake to his ruddy head--now graying +slightly. A little later he said: "Oh, we don't speak the same +language any more, Victoria. I couldn't make you understand--you don't +know--how should you? You can't conceive how, when one is really +_living_, nothing of all that matters. What does architecture matter, +for instance?" + +"Some of it matters very little indeed," concurred his sister blandly. + +This stirred him to an ungracious laugh. "As for keeping up only human +ties, isn't a fortnight once every five years rather slim rations?" + +"Ah, there are difficulties--the Masonic Building--" murmured Aunt +Victoria, apparently at random. But then, it seemed to Sylvia that +they were always speaking at random. For all she could see, neither of +them ever answered what the other had said. + +The best times were when she and Aunt Victoria were all alone +together--or with only the silent, swift-fingered, Pauline in +attendance during the wonderful processes of dressing or undressing +her mistress. These occasions seemed to please Aunt Victoria best +also. She showed herself then so winning and gracious and altogether +magical to the little girl that Sylvia forgot the uncomfortableness +which always happened when her aunt and her father were together. As +they came to be on more intimate terms, Sylvia was told a great many +details about Aunt Victoria's present and past life, in the form of +stories, especially about that early part of it which had been spent +with her brother. Mrs. Marshall-Smith took pains to talk to Sylvia +about her father as he had been when he was a brilliant dashing youth +in Paris at school, or as the acknowledged social leader of his class +in the famous Eastern college. "You see, Sylvia," she explained, +"having no father or mother or any near relatives, we saw more of +each other than a good many brothers and sisters do. We had nobody +else--except old Cousin Ellen, who kept house for us in the summers +in Lydford and traveled around with us," Lydford was another topic on +which, although it was already very familiar to her from her mother's +reminiscences of her childhood in Vermont, Aunt Victoria shed much +light for Sylvia. Aunt Victoria's Lydford was so different from +Mother's, it seemed scarcely possible they could be the same place. +Mother's talk was all about the mountains, the sunny upland pastures, +rocky and steep, such a contrast to the rich, level stretches of +country about La Chance; about the excursions through these slopes +of the mountains every afternoon, accompanied by a marvelously +intelligent collie dog, who helped find the cows; about the orchard +full of old trees more climbable than any others which have grown +since the world began; about the attic full of drying popcorn and +old hair-trunks and dusty files of the New York _Tribune_; about the +pantry with its cookie-jar, and the "back room" with its churn and +cheese-press. + +Nothing of all this existed in the Lydford of which Aunt Victoria +spoke, although some of her recollections were also of childhood +hours. Once Sylvia asked her, "But if you were a little girl there, +and Mother was too,--then you and Father and she must have played +together sometimes?" + +Aunt Victoria had replied with decision, "No, I never saw your mother, +and neither did your father--until a few months before they were +married." + +"Well, wasn't that _queer_?" exclaimed Sylvia--"she _always_ lived in +Lydford except when she went away to college." + +Aunt Victoria seemed to hesitate for words, something unusual with +her, and finally brought out, "Your mother lived on a farm, and we +lived in our summer house in the village." She added after a moment's +deliberation: "Her uncle, who kept the farm, furnished us with our +butter. Sometimes your mother used to deliver it at the kitchen door." +She looked hard at Sylvia as she spoke. + +"Well, I should have thought you'd have seen her _there_!" said Sylvia +in surprise. Nothing came to the Marshalls' kitchen door which was not +in the children's field of consciousness. + +"It was, in fact, there that your father met her," stated Aunt +Victoria briefly. + +"Oh yes, I remember," said Sylvia, quoting fluently from an often +heard tale. "I've heard them tell about it lots of times. She was +earning money to pay for her last year in college, and dropped a +history book out of her basket as she started to get back in the +wagon, and Father picked it up and said, 'Why, good Lord! who in +Lydford reads Gibbon?' And Mother said it was hers, and they talked a +while, and then he got in and rode off with her." + +"Yes," said Aunt Victoria, "that was how it happened.... Pauline, get +out the massage cream and do my face, will you?" + +She did not talk any more for a time, but when she began, it was again +of Lydford that she spoke, running along in a murmured stream of +reminiscences breathed faintly between motionless lips that Pauline's +reverent ministrations might not be disturbed. Through the veil of +these half-understood recollections, Sylvia saw highly inaccurate +pictures of great magnificent rooms filled with heavy old mahogany +furniture, of riotously colored rose-gardens, terraced and +box-edged, inhabited by beautiful ladies always, like Aunt Victoria, +"dressed-up," who took tea under brightly striped, pagoda-shaped +tents, waited upon by slant-eyed Japanese (it seemed Aunt Victoria had +nothing but Japanese servants). The whole picture shimmered in the +confused imagination of the listening little girl, till it blended +indistinguishably with the enchantment of her fairy-stories. It all +seemed a background natural enough for Aunt Victoria, but Sylvia could +not fit her father into it. + +"Ah, he's changed greatly--he's transformed--he is not the same +creature," Aunt Victoria told her gravely, speaking according to her +seductive habit with Sylvia, as though to an equal. "The year when +we lost our money and he married, altered all the world for us." +She linked the two events together, and was rewarded by seeing the +reference slide over Sylvia's head. + +"Did you lose _your_ money, too?" asked Sylvia, astounded. It had +never occurred to her that Aunt Victoria might have been affected by +that event in her father's life, with which she was quite familiar +through his careless references to what he seemed to regard as an +interesting but negligible incident. + +"All but the slightest portion of it, my dear--when I was twenty years +old. Your father was twenty-five." + +Sylvia looked about her at the cut-glass and silver utensils on +the lace-covered dressing-table, at Aunt Victoria's pale lilac +crepe-de-chine negligee, at the neat, pretty young maid deft-handedly +rubbing the perfumed cream into the other woman's well-preserved face, +impassive as an idol's. "Why--why, I thought--" she began and stopped, +a native delicacy making her hesitate as Judith never did. + +Aunt Victoria understood. "Mr. Smith had money," she explained +briefly. "I married when I was twenty-one." + +"Oh," said Sylvia. It seemed an easy way out of difficulties. She +had never before chanced to hear Aunt Victoria mention her long-dead +husband. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +SOMETHING ABOUT HUSBANDS + + +She did not by any means always sit in the hotel and watch +Pauline care for different portions of Aunt Victoria's body. Mrs. +Marshall-Smith took, on principle, a drive every day, and Sylvia was +her favorite companion. At first they went generally over the asphalt +and in front of the costly and incredibly differing "mansions" of +the "residential portion" of town, but later their drives took them +principally along the winding roads and under the thrifty young trees +of the State University campus. They often made an excuse of fetching +Professor Marshall home from a committee meeting, and as the faculty +committees at that time of year were, for the most part, feverishly +occupied with the classification of the annual flood-tide of Freshmen, +he was nearly always late, and they were obliged to wait long +half-hours in front of the Main Building. + +Sylvia's cup of satisfaction ran over as, dressed in her simple best, +which her mother without comment allowed her to put on every day now, +she sat in the well-appointed carriage beside her beautiful aunt, at +whom every one looked so hard and so admiringly. The University work +had not begun, but unresigned and harassed professors and assistants, +recalled from their vacations for various executive tasks, were +present in sufficient numbers to animate the front steps of the Main +Building with constantly gathering and dissolving little groups. These +called out greetings to each other, and exchanged dolorous mutual +condolences on their hard fate; all showing, with a helpless masculine +naivete, their consciousness of the lovely, observant figure in the +carriage below them. Of a different sort were the professors' wives, +who occasionally drifted past on the path. Aunt Victoria might have +been a blue-uniformed messenger-boy for all that was betrayed by their +skilfully casual glance at her and then away, and the subsequent +directness of their forward gaze across the campus. Mrs. +Marshall-Smith had for both these manifestations of consciousness of +her presence the same imperturbable smile of amusement. "They are +delightful, these colleagues of your father's!" she told Sylvia. +Sylvia had hoped fervently that the stylish Mrs. Hubert might see +her in this brief apotheosis, and one day her prayer was answered. +Straight down the steps of the Main Building they came, Mrs. Hubert +glistening in shiny blue silk, extremely unaware of Aunt Victoria, +the two little girls looking to Sylvia like fairy princesses, with +pink-and-white, lace-trimmed dresses, and big pink hats with rose +wreaths. Even the silk laces in their low, white kid shoes were of +pink to match the ribbons, which gleamed at waist and throat and +elbow. Sylvia watched them in an utter admiration, and was beyond +measure shocked when Aunt Victoria said, after they had stepped +daintily past, "Heavens! What a horridly over-dressed family! Those +poor children look too absurd, tricked out like that. The one nearest +me had a sweet, appealing little face, too." + +"That is Eleanor," said Sylvia, with a keen, painful recollection of +the scene a year ago. She added doubtfully, "Didn't you think their +dresses pretty, Aunt Victoria?" + +"I thought they looked like pin-cushions on a kitchen-maid's +dressing-table," returned Aunt Victoria more forcibly than she usually +expressed herself. "You look vastly better with the straight lines +of your plain white dresses. You have a great deal of style, Sylvia. +Judith is handsomer than you, but she will never have any style." This +verdict, upon both the Huberts and herself, delivered with a serious +accent of mature deliberation, impressed Sylvia. It was one of the +speeches she was to ponder. + +Although Professor Marshall showed himself noticeably negligent in the +matter of introducing his colleagues to his sister, it was only two +or three days before Aunt Victoria's half-hours of waiting before the +Main Building had other companionship than Sylvia's. This was due to +the decisive action of young Professor Saunders, just back from the +British Museum, where, at Professor Marshall's suggestion, he had been +digging up facts about the economic history of the twelfth century in +England. Without waiting for an invitation he walked straight up to +the carriage with the ostensible purpose of greeting Sylvia, who was a +great favorite of his, and who in her turn had a romantic admiration +for the tall young assistant. Of all the faculty people who frequented +the Marshall house, he and old Professor Kennedy were the only people +whom Sylvia considered "stylish," and Professor Kennedy, in spite of +his very high connection with the aristocracy of La Chance, was so +cross and depressed that really his "style" did not count. She was +now greatly pleased by the younger professor's public and cordial +recognition of her, and, with her precocious instinct for social ease, +managed to introduce him to her aunt, even adding quaintly a phrase +which she had heard her mother use in speaking of him, "My father +thinks Professor Saunders has a brilliant future before him." + +This very complimentary reference had not the effect she hoped for, +since both the young man and Aunt Victoria laughed, exchanging glances +of understanding, and said to each other, "Isn't she delicious?" But +at least it effectually broke any ice of constraint, so that the +new-comer felt at once upon the most familiarly friendly terms with +the sister of his chief. Thereafter he came frequently to lean an arm +on the side of the carriage and talk with the "ladies-in-waiting," +as he called the pretty woman and child. Once or twice Sylvia was +transferred to the front seat beside Peter, the negro driver, on the +ground that she could watch the horses better, and they took Professor +Saunders for a drive through the flat, fertile country, now beginning +to gleam ruddy with autumnal tints of bronze and scarlet and gold. +Although she greatly enjoyed the social brilliance of these occasions, +on which Aunt Victoria showed herself unexpectedly sprightly and +altogether enchanting, Sylvia felt a little guilty that they did not +return to pick up Professor Marshall, and she was relieved, when they +met at supper, that he made no reference to their defection. + +He did not, in fact, mention his assistant's name at all, and yet he +did not seem surprised when Professor Saunders, coming to the Sunday +evening rehearsal of the quartet, needed no introduction to his +sister, but drew a chair up with the evident intention of devoting +all his conversation to her. For a time this overt intention was +frustrated by old Reinhardt, smitten with an admiration as unconcealed +for the beautiful stranger. In the interval before the arrival of the +later members of the quartet, he fluttered around her like an ungainly +old moth, racking his scant English for complimentary speeches. These +were received by Aunt Victoria with her best calm smile, and by +Professor Saunders with open impatience. His equanimity was not +restored by the fact that there chanced to be rather more general talk +than usual that evening, leaving him but small opportunity for his +tete-a-tete. + +It began by the arrival of Professor Kennedy, a little late, delayed +at a reunion of the Kennedy family. He was always reduced to bilious +gloom by any close contact with that distinguished, wealthy, and much +looked-up-to group of citizens of La Chance, and this evening he +walked into the front door obviously even more depressed than usual. +The weather had turned cool, and his imposingly tall old person was +wrapped in a cape-overcoat. Sylvia had no fondness for Professor +Kennedy, but she greatly admired his looks and his clothes, and his +handsome, high-nosed old face. She watched him wrestle himself out of +his coat as though it were a grappling enemy, and was not surprised at +the irritability which sat visibly upon his arching white eyebrows. +He entered the room trailing his 'cello-bag beside him and plucking +peevishly at its drawstrings, and although Aunt Victoria quite roused +herself at the sight of him, he received his introduction to her with +reprehensible indifference. He sank into a chair and looked sadly at +the fire, taking the point of his white beard in his long, tapering +fingers. Professor Marshall turned from the piano, where he sat, +striking A for the conscientious Bauermeister to tune, and said +laughingly, "Hey there, Knight of the Dolorous Countenance, what +vulture is doing business at the old stand on your liver?" + +Professor Kennedy crossed one long, elegantly slim leg over the other, +"I've been dining with the Kennedy family," he said, with a neat and +significant conciseness. + +"Anything specially the matter with the predatory rich?" queried +Marshall, reaching for his viola-case. + +Professor Kennedy shook his head. "Alas! there's never anything the +matter with them. _Comme le diable, ils se portent toujours bien_." + +At the purity of accent with which this embittered remark was made, +Mrs. Marshall-Smith opened her eyes, and paid more attention as the +old professor went on. + +"The last of my unmarried nieces has shown herself a true Kennedy by +providing herself with a dolichocephalic blond of a husband, like all +the others. The dinner was given in honor of the engagement." + +Sylvia was accustomed to finding Professor Kennedy's remarks quite +unintelligible, and this one seemed no odder to her than the rest, so +that she was astonished that Aunt Victoria was not ashamed to confess +as blank an ignorance as the little girl's. The beautiful woman leaned +toward the morose old man with the suave self-confidence of one who +has never failed to charm, and drew his attention to her by a laugh +of amused perplexity. "May I ask," she inquired, "_what_ kind of a +husband is that? It is a new variety to me." + +Professor Kennedy looked at her appraisingly. "It's the kind most +women aspire to," he answered enigmatically. He imparted to this +obscure remark the air of passing a sentence of condemnation. + +Sylvia's mother stirred uneasily in her chair and looked at her +husband. He had begun to take his viola from the case, but now +returned it and stood looking quizzically from his sister to his +guest. "Professor Kennedy talks a special language, Vic," he said +lightly. "Some day he'll make a book of it and be famous. He divides +us all into two kinds: the ones that get what they want by taking it +away from other people--those are the dolichocephalic blonds--though +I believe it doesn't refer to the color of their hair. The other kind +are the white folks, the unpredatory ones who have scruples, and get +pushed to the wall for their pains." + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith turned to the young man beside her. "It makes one +wonder, doesn't it," she conjectured pleasantly, "to which type one +belongs oneself?" + +In this welcome shifting from the abstract to the understandably +personal, old Reinhardt saw his opportunity. "Ach, womens, beautifool +and goot womens!" he cried in his thick, kindly voice. "Dey are abofe +being types. To every good man, dey can be only wie eine blume, so +hold and schoen--" + +Professor Kennedy's acid voice broke in--"So you're still in the 1830 +Romantische Schule period, are you, Reinhardt?" He went on to Mrs. +Marshall-Smith: "But there _is_ something in that sort of talk. Women, +especially those who consider themselves beautiful and good, escape +being _either_ kind of type, by the legerdemain with which they get +what they want, and yet don't soil their fingers with predatory acts." + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith was, perhaps, a shade tardy in asking the question +which he had evidently cast his speech to extract from her, but after +an instant's pause she brought it out bravely. "How in the world do +you mean?" she asked, smiling, and received, with a quick flicker of +her eyelids, the old man's response of, "They buy a dolichocephalic +blond to do their dirty work for them and pay for him with their +persons." + +"_Oh!_" cried Mrs. Marshall, checking herself in a sudden deprecatory +gesture of apology towards her sister-in-law. She looked at her +husband and gave him a silent, urgent message to break the awkward +pause, a message which he disregarded, continuing coolly to inspect +his fingernails with an abstracted air, contradicted by the half-smile +on his lips. Sylvia, listening to the talk, could make nothing out of +it, but miserably felt her little heart grow leaden as she looked from +one face to another. Judith and Lawrence, tired of waiting for the +music to begin, had dropped asleep among the pillows of the divan. Mr. +Bauermeister yawned, looked at the clock, and plucked at the strings +of his violin. He hated all talk as a waste of time. Old Reinhardt's +simple face looked as puzzled and uneasy as Sylvia's own. Young Mr. +Saunders seemed to have no idea that there was anything particularly +unsettling in the situation, but, disliking the caustic vehemence of +his old colleague's speech, inter-posed to turn it from the lady by +his side. "And you're the man who's opposed on principle to sweeping +generalizations!" he said in cheerful rebuke. + +"Ah, I've just come from a gathering of the Clan Kennedy," repeated +the older man. "I defy anybody to produce a more successfully +predatory family than mine. The fortunes of the present generation of +Kennedys don't come from any white-livered subterfuge, like the rise +in the value of real estate, as my own ill-owned money does. No, sir; +the good, old, well-recognized, red-blooded method of going out and +taking it away from people not so smart as they are, is good enough +for them, if you please. And my woman relatives--" He swept them away +with a gesture. "When I--" + +Mrs. Marshall cut him short resolutely. "Are you going to have any +music tonight, or aren't you?" she said. + +He looked at her with a sudden, unexpected softening of his somber +eyes. "Do you know, Barbara Marshall, that there are times when you +keep one unhappy old misanthrope from despairing of his kind?" + +She had at this unlooked-for speech only the most honest astonishment. +"I don't know what you're talking about," she said bluntly. + +Judith stirred in her sleep and woke up blinking. When she saw that +Professor Kennedy had come in, she did what Sylvia would never have +dared do; she ran to him and climbed up on his knee, laying her +shining, dark head against his shoulder. The old man's arms closed +around her. "Well, spitfire," he said, "_comment ca roule_, eh?" + +Judith did not trouble herself to answer. With a gesture of +tenderness, as unexpected as his speech to her mother, her old friend +laid his cheek against hers. "You're another, Judy, _You'll_ never +marry a dolichocephalic blond and make him pull the chestnuts out of +the fire for you, will you?" he said confidently. + +Mrs. Marshall rose with the exasperated air of one whose patience is +gone. She made a step as though to shield her husband's sister from +the cantankerous old man. "If I hear another word of argument in this +house tonight--" she threatened. "Mr. Reinhardt, what are these people +_here for_?" + +The musician awoke, with a sigh, from his dazzled contemplation of +his host's sister, and looked about him. "Ach, yes! Ach, yes!" +he admitted. With a glance of adoration at the visitor, he added +impressively what to his mind evidently signified some profoundly +significant tribute, "Dis night we shall blay only Schubert!" + +Sylvia heaved a sigh of relief as the four gathered in front of the +music-racks at the other end of the room, tuning and scraping. Young +Mr. Saunders, evidently elated that his opportunity had come, leaned +toward Aunt Victoria and began talking in low tones. Once or twice +they laughed a little, looking towards Professor Kennedy. + +Then old Reinhardt, gravely pontifical, rapped with his bow on his +rack, lifted his violin to his chin, and--an obliterating sponge was +passed over Sylvia's memory. All the queer, uncomfortable talk, the +unpleasant voices, the angry or malicious or uneasy eyes, the unkindly +smiling lips, all were washed away out of her mind. The smooth, +swelling current of the music was like oil on a wound. As she listened +and felt herself growing drowsy, it seemed to her that she was +being floated away, safely away from the low-ceilinged room where +personalities clashed, out to cool, star-lit spaces. + +All that night in her dreams she heard only old Reinhardt's angel +voice proclaiming, amid the rich murmur of assent from the other +strings: + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE SIGHTS OF LA CHANCE + + +One day at the end of a fortnight, Aunt Victoria and Arnold were late +in their daily arrival at the Marshall house, and when the neat surrey +at last drove up, they both showed signs of discomposure. Discomposure +was no unusual condition for Arnold, who not infrequently made his +appearance red-faced and sullen, evidently fresh from angry revolt +against his tutor, but on that morning he was anything but red-faced, +and looked a little scared. His stepmother's fine complexion, on +the contrary, had more pink than usual in its pearly tones, and her +carriage had less than usual of sinuous grace. Sylvia and Judith ran +down the porch steps to meet them, but stopped, startled by their +aspect. Aunt Victoria descended, very straight, her head high-held, +and without giving Sylvia the kiss with which she usually marked her +preference for her older niece, walked at once into the house. + +Although the impressionable Sylvia was so struck by these phenomena, +that, even after her aunt's disappearance, she remained daunted and +silent, Judith needed only the removal of the overpowering presence +to restore her coolness. She pounced on Arnold with questions. "What +_you_ been doing that's so awful bad? I bet _you_ caught it all +right!" + +"'Tisn't me," said Arnold in a subdued voice. "It's Pauline and old +Rollins that caught it. They're the ones that ha' been bad." + +Judith was at a loss, never having conceived that grown-ups might do +naughty things. Arnold went on, "If you'd ha' heard Madrina talking to +Pauline--say! Do you know what I did? I crawled under the bed--honest +I did. It didn't last but a minute, but it scared the liver out o' +me." This vigorous expression was a favorite of his. + +Judith was somewhat impressed by his face and manner, but still +inclined to mock at a confession of fear. "Under the _bed_!" she +sneered. + +Arnold evidently felt the horror of the recently enacted scene so +vividly that there was no room for shame in his mind. "You bet I did! +And so would you too, if you'd ha' been there. _Gee_!" + +In spite of herself Judith looked somewhat startled by the vibration +of sincerity in his voice, and Sylvia, with her quick sympathy of +divination, had turned almost as pale as the little boy, who, all his +braggart turbulence gone, stood looking at them with a sick expression +in his eyes. + +"Was it in your room?" asked Judith. "I thought Pauline's room was on +the top floor. What was she doing down there?" + +"No, it was in old Rollins' room--next to mine. I don't know what +Pauline was doing there." + +"What did Pauline do when Aunt Victoria scolded her?" asked Sylvia. +She had come to be fond of the pretty young maid with her fat, quick +hands and her bright, warm-hearted smile for her mistress' little +niece. One day, when Mrs. Marshall-Smith had, for a moment, chanced to +leave them alone, Pauline had given her a sudden embrace, and had told +her: "At 'ome zere are four leetle brozers and sisters. America is a +place mos' solitary!" "What did Pauline do?" asked Sylvia again as +Arnold did not answer. + +The boy looked down. "Pauline just cried and cried," he said in a low +tone. "I _liked_ Pauline! She was awful good to me. I--I heard her +crying afterwards as she went away. Seemed to me I could hear her +crying all the way out here." + +"Did she go away?" asked Judith, trying to make something coherent out +of the story. Arnold nodded. + +"You bet she did. Madrina turned her right out--and old Rollins too." + +"Was _he_ there? What was the matter anyhow?" Judith persisted. + +Arnold twisted uncomfortably, loath to continue bringing up the scene. +"I d'n know what was the matter. Yes, old Rollins was there, all +right. He's gone away too, the doggoned old thing--for good. That's +_something_!" He added, "Aw, quit talkin' about it, can't you! Let's +play!" + +"It's my turn to help Mother with the tomatoes," said Judith. "She's +doing the last of the canning this morning. Maybe she'd let you help." + +Arnold brightened. "Maybe she would!" he said, adding eagerly, "Maybe +she'd tell us another of the stories about her grandmother." + +Judith snatched at his hand and began racing down the path to the +garden. "Maybe she would!" she cried. They both called as they ran, +"Mother, _oh_, Mother!" and as they ran, they leaped and bounded into +the bright autumn air like a couple of puppies. + +Sylvia's mental resiliency was not of such sturdily elastic stuff. She +stood still, thinking of Pauline crying, and crying--and started aside +when her aunt came out again on the porch. + +"I don't find any one in the house, Sylvia dear," said Mrs. +Marshall-Smith quietly. Sylvia looked up into the clear, blue eyes, so +like her father's, and felt the usual magic spell lay hold on her. The +horrid impression made by Arnold's story dimmed and faded. Arnold was +always getting things twisted. She came up closer to her aunt's +side and took the soft, smooth fingers between her two little hard, +muscular hands. In her relief, she had forgotten to answer. Mrs. +Marshall-Smith said again, "Where are your parents, dear?" + +"Oh," said Sylvia. "Oh yes--why, Father's at the University at a +committee meeting and Mother's out by the garden putting up tomatoes. +Judy and Arnold are helping her." + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith hesitated, looked about her restlessly, and +finally raised her parasol, of a gold-colored silk, a lighter tone, +but the same shade as her rich plain broadcloth costume of tan. "Shall +we take a little walk, my dear?" she suggested. "I don't feel like +sitting still just now--nor"--she looked down into Sylvia's eyes--"nor +yet like canning tomatoes," + +That walk, the last one taken with Aunt Victoria, became one of +Sylvia's memories, although she never had a vivid recollection of what +they saw during their slow ramble. It was only Aunt Victoria whom the +little girl remembered--Aunt Victoria moving like a goddess over their +rough paths and under the changing glory of the autumn leaves. She +herself was a brighter glory, with her shining blond hair crowned by +a halo of feathery, gold-colored plumes, the soft, fine, supple +broadcloth of her garments gleaming in the sunshine with a sheen like +that of a well-kept animal's coat. There breathed from all her person +a faint odor of grace and violets and unhurried leisure. + +Sylvia clung close to her side, taking in through all her pores this +lovely emanation, not noticing whether they were talking or not, not +heeding the direction of their steps. She was quite astonished to find +herself on the University campus, in front of the Main Building. Aunt +Victoria had never walked so far before. "Oh, did you want to see +Father?" she asked, coming a little to herself. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith said, as if in answer, "Just sit down here and +wait for me a minute, will you, Sylvia?" moving thereupon up the steps +and disappearing through the wide front door. Sylvia relapsed into +her day-dreams and, motionless in a pool of sunlight, waited, quite +unconscious of the passage of time. + +This long reverie was at last broken by the return of Mrs. +Marshall-Smith. She was not alone, but the radiant young man who +walked beside her was not her brother, and nothing could have +differed more from the brilliantly hard gaze which Professor Marshall +habitually bent on his sister, than the soft intentness with which +young Mr. Saunders regarded the ripely beautiful woman. The dazzled +expression of his eyes was one of the remembered factors of the day +for Sylvia. + +The two walked down the shaded steps, Sylvia watching them admiringly, +the scene forever printed on her memory, and emerged into the pool of +sunshine where she sat, swinging her legs from the bench. They stood +there for some minutes, talking together in low tones. Sylvia, +absorbed in watching the play of light on Aunt Victoria's smooth +cheek, heard but a few words of what passed between them. She had a +vague impression that Professor Saunders continually began sentences +starting firmly with "But" and ending somehow on quite another note. +She felt dimly that Aunt Victoria was less calmly passive than usual +in a conversation, that it was not only the enchanting rising and +falling inflections of her voice which talked, but her eyes, her arms, +her whole self. Once she laid her hand for an instant on Professor +Saunders' arm. + +More than that Sylvia could not remember, even when she was asked +later to repeat as much as she could of what she had heard. She was +resolving when she was grown-up to have a ruffle of creamy lace +falling away from her neck and wrists as Aunt Victoria did. She had +not only forgotten Arnold's story, she had forgotten that such a boy +existed. She was living in a world all made up of radiance and bloom, +lace and sunshine and velvet, and bright hair and gleaming cloth and +smooth voices and the smell of violets. + +After a time she was aware that Professor Saunders shook hands and +turned back up the steps. Aunt Victoria began to move with her slow +grace along the road towards home, and Sylvia to follow, soaking +herself in an impression of supreme suavity. + +When, after the walk through the beech-woods, they reached the edge of +the Marshall field, they saw a stiff plume of blue smoke stand up over +the shack by the garden and, as they approached, heard a murmur of +voices. Mrs. Marshall-Smith stopped, furled her parasol, and surveyed +the scene within. Her sister-in-law, enveloped in a large blue apron, +by no means fresh, sat beside a roughly built table, peeling +tomatoes, her brown stained fingers moving with the rapidity of a +prestidigitator's. Judith stood beside her, also attacking the pile of +crimson fruit, endeavoring in vain to emulate her mother's speed. Over +the hot, rusty stove hung Arnold, red-faced and bright-eyed, armed +with a long, wooden spatula which he continually dug into the steaming +contents of an enormous white-lined kettle. As, at the arrival of +the new-comers, Mrs. Marshall's voice stopped, he looked around and +frowned impatiently at his stepmother. "She's just got to the excitin' +part," he said severely, and to the raconteur eagerly, "'N'_en_ what?" + +Mrs. Marshall looked up at her husband's sister, smiled, and went +on,--Sylvia recognized the story as one of her own old favorites. +"Well, it was very early dawn when she had to go over to the +neighbor's to borrow some medicine for her father, who kept getting +sicker all the time. As she hurried along across the meadow towards +the stile, she kept wondering, in spite of herself, if there was any +truth in what Nat had said about having seen bear tracks near the +house the day before. When she got to the stile she ran up the +steps--and on the top one she stood still, for there--" She made +a dramatic pause and reached for another tray of tomatoes. Arnold +stopped stirring the pot and stood motionless, his eyes fixed on +the narrator, the spatula dripping tomato-juice all along his white +trousers. "There on the other side, looking up at her, was a bear--a +big black bear." + +Arnold's mouth dropped open and his eyes widened. + +"My grandmother was dreadfully frightened. She was only seventeen, and +she hadn't any kind of a weapon, not so much as a little stick with +her. Her first idea was to turn and run as fast as she could, back +home. But she remembered how sick her father was, and how much he +needed the medicine; and then besides, she used to say, all of a +sudden it made her angry, all over, to have that great stupid animal +get in her way. She always said that nothing 'got her mad up' like +feeling afraid. So what do you suppose she did?" + +Arnold could only shake his head silently in an ecstasy of impatience +for the story to continue. Judith and Sylvia smiled at each other with +the insufferable complacence of auditors who know the end by heart. + +"She just pointed her finger at the bear, and she said in a loud, +harsh voice: 'Shame! Shame! Shame on you! For sha-a-ame!' She'd taught +district school, you know, and had had lots of practice saying that +to children who had been bad. The bear looked up at her hard for +a minute, then dropped his head and began to walk slowly away. +Grandmother always said, 'The great lummox lumbered off into the +bushes like a gawk of a boy who's been caught in mischief,' She waited +just a minute and then ran like lightning along the path through the +woods to the neighbors and got the medicine." + +The story was evidently over, the last tomato was peeled. Mrs. +Marshall rose, wiping her stained and dripping hands on her apron, +and went to the stove. Arnold started as if coming out of a dream +and looked about him with wondering eyes. "Well, +what-d'you-think-o'-_that?_" he commented, all in one breath. "Say, +Mother," he went on, looking up at her with trusting eyes, searching +the quiet face, "what do you suppose _made_ the bear go away? You +wouldn't think a little thing like that would scare a _bear_!" + +Mrs. Marshall began dipping the hot, stewed tomatoes into the glass +jars ready in a big pan of boiling water on the back of the stove. The +steam rose up, like a cloud, into her face, which began to turn red +and to glisten with perspiration. "Oh, I don't suppose it really +frightened the bear," she said moderately, refraining from the +dramatic note of completeness which her husband, in spite of himself, +gave to everything he touched, and adding instead the pungent, homely +savor of reality, which none relished more than Sylvia and her father, +incapable themselves of achieving it. "'Most likely the bear would +have gone away of his own accord anyhow. They don't attack people +unless they're stirred up." Arnold bit deeply into the solidity of +this unexaggerated presentation, and was silent for a moment, saying +then: "Well, anyhow, she didn't _know_ he'd go away! She was a sport, +all right!" + +"Oh yes, indeed," said Mrs. Marshall, dipping and steaming, and wiping +away the perspiration, which ran down in drops to the end of her +large, shapely nose. "Yes, my grandmother was a sport, all right." The +acrid smell of hot, cooking tomatoes filled the shed and spread to the +edge where Sylvia and her aunt stood, still a little aloof. Although +it bore no resemblance to the odor of violets, it could not be called +a disgusting smell: it was the sort of smell which is quite agreeable +when one is very hungry. But Sylvia was not hungry at all. She stepped +back involuntarily. Mrs. Marshall-Smith, on the contrary, advanced a +step or so, until she stood close to her sister-in-law. "Barbara, I'd +like to see you a few minutes without the children," she remarked in +the neutral tone she always had for her brother's wife. "A rather +unpleasant occurrence--I'm in something of a quandary." + +Mrs. Marshall nodded. "All right," she agreed. "Scatter out of here, +you children! Go and let out the hens, and give them some water!" + +Arnold needed no second bidding, reminded by his stepmother's words +of his experiences of the morning. He and Judith scampered away in +a suddenly improvised race to see who would reach the chicken-house +first. Sylvia went more slowly, looking back once or twice at the +picture made by the two women, so dramatically contrasted--her mother, +active, very upright, wrapped in a crumpled and stained apron, her +dark hair bound closely about her round head, her moist, red face and +steady eyes turned attentively upon the radiant creature beside her, +cool and detached, leaning willow-like on the slender wand of the +gold-colored parasol. + +Professor Marshall chanced to be late that day in coming home for +luncheon, and Aunt Victoria and Arnold had returned to the hotel +without seeing him. His wife remarked that Victoria had asked her +to tell him something, but, acting on her inviolable principle that +nothing must interfere with the cheerful peace of mealtime, said +nothing more to him until after they had finished the big plate of +purple grapes from her garden, with which the meal ended. + +Then Judith vanished out to the shop, where she was constructing a +rabbit-house for the latest family. Sylvia took Lawrence, yawning and +rubbing his eyes, but fighting desperately against his sleepiness, +upstairs for his nap. When this task fell to Judith's lot it was +despatched with business-like promptness, but Lawrence had early +discovered a temperamental difference between his two sisters, and +Sylvia was seldom allowed to leave the small bed until she had paid +tribute to her ever-present desire to please, in the shape of a story +or a song. On that day Buddy was more exacting than usual. Sylvia told +the story of Cinderella and sang, "A Frog He Would a-Wooing Go," twice +through, before the little boy's eyes began to droop. Even then, the +clutch of his warm, moist fingers about her hand did not relax. When +she tried to slip her fingers out of his, his eyelids fluttered open +and he tightened his grasp with a wilful frown. So she sat still on +the edge of his bed, waiting till he should be really asleep. + +From the dining-room below her rose the sound of voices, or rather of +one voice--her father's. She wondered why it sounded so angry, and +then, mixed with some unintelligible phrases--"turned out on the +street, in trouble--in a foreign land--Good God!" she caught Pauline's +name. Oh yes, that must be the trouble. Mother was telling Father +about Pauline--whatever it was she had done--and he was as mad about +it as Aunt Victoria had been. If Aunt Victoria's voice had sounded +like that, she didn't wonder that Arnold had hidden under the bed. If +she could have moved, she, too, would have run away, although the +idea that she ought to do so did not occur to her. There had been no +secrets in that house. The talk had always been for all to hear who +would. + +But when she tried again to slip her hand away from Buddy's the little +boy pulled at it hard, and half opening his eyes, said sleepily, +"Sylvie stay with Buddy--Sylvie stay--" Sylvia yielded weakly, said: +"Yes--sh! sh! Sister'll stay. Go to sleep, Buddy." + +From below came the angry voice, quite loud now, so that she caught +every queer-sounding word--"righteous indignation indeed! What else +did _she_ do, I'd like to know, when she wanted money. The only +difference was that she was cold-blooded enough to extract a legal +status from the old reprobate she accosted." + +Sylvia heard her mother's voice saying coldly, "You ought to be +ashamed to use such a word!" and her father retort, "It's the _only_ +word that expresses it! You know as well as I do that she cared no +more for Ephraim Smith than for the first man she might have solicited +on the street--nor so much! God! It makes me sick to look at her and +think of the price she paid for her present damn Olympian serenity." + +Sylvia heard her mother begin to clear off the table. There was a +rattle of dishes through which her voice rose impatiently. "Oh, +Elliott, why be so melodramatic always, and spoil so much good +language! She did only what every girl brought up as she was, would +have done. And, anyhow, are you so very sure that in your heart +you're not so awfully hard on her because you're envious of that very +prosperity?" + +He admitted, with acrimony, the justice of this thrust. "Very likely. +Very likely!--everything base and mean in me, that you keep down, +springs to life in me at her touch. I dare say I do envy her--I'm +quite capable of that--am I not her brother, with the same--" + +Mrs. Marshall said hastily: "Hush! Hush! Here's Judith. For Heaven's +sake don't let the child hear you!" + +For the first time the idea penetrated Sylvia's head that she ought +not to have listened. Buddy was now soundly asleep: she detached her +hand from his, and went soberly along the hall into her own room. She +did not want to see her father just then. + +A long time after, Mother called up to say that Aunt Victoria had come +for her afternoon drive, and to leave Arnold. Sylvia opened the door a +crack and asked, "Where's Father?" + +"Oh, gone back to the University this long time," answered her mother +in her usual tone. Sylvia came down the stairs slowly and took her +seat in the carriage beside Aunt Victoria with none of her usual +demonstrative show of pleasure. + +"Don't you like my dress?" asked Aunt Victoria, as they drove away. +"You don't even notice it, and I put it on 'specially to please +you--you're the one discriminating critic in this town!" As Sylvia +made no answer to this sally, she went on: "It's hard to get into +alone, too. I had to ask the hotel chambermaid to hook it up on the +shoulders." + +Thus reminded of Pauline, Sylvia could have but inattentive eyes for +the creation of amber silk and lace, and brown fur, which seductively +clad the handsome body beside her. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith gave her favorite a penetrating look. "What's the +matter with you, Sylvia?" she asked in the peremptory note which her +sweet voice of many modulations could startlingly assume on occasion. +Sylvia had none of Judith's instant pugnacious antagonism to any +peremptory note. She answered in one imploring rush of a question, +"Aunt Victoria, why should _Father_ be so very mad at Pauline?" + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith looked a little startled at this direct reference +to the veiled storm-center of the day, but not at all displeased. "Oh, +your mother told him? Was he so very angry?" she asked with a slight +smile. + +"Oh, dreadfully!" returned Sylvia. "I didn't _mean_ to listen, but I +couldn't help it. Buddy wouldn't go to sleep and Father's voice was so +loud--and he got madder and madder at her." She went on with another +question, "Auntie, who was Ephraim Smith?" + +Aunt Victoria turned upon her in astonishment, and did not, for a +moment, answer; then: "Why, that was the name of my husband, Sylvia. +What has that to do with anything?" + +"Why didn't Pauline like him?" asked Sylvia. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith replied with a vivacity of surprise which carried +her out of her usual delicate leisure in speech. "_Pauline?_ Why, she +never saw him in her life! _What_ are you talking about, child?" + +"But, Father said--I thought--he seemed to mean--" Sylvia halted, not +able to remember in her bewilderment what it had been that Father had +said. In a blur of doubt and clouded perceptions she lost all definite +impression of what she had heard. Evidently, as so often happened, she +had grown-ups' affairs all twisted up in her mind. Aunt Victoria was +touched with kindly amusement at the little girl's face of perplexity, +and told her, dismissing the subject: "Never mind, dear, you evidently +misunderstood something. But I wonder what your father could have said +to give you such a funny idea." + +Sylvia gave it up, shaking her head. They turned into the main street +of La Chance, and Aunt Victoria directed the coachman to drive them to +"the" drug store of town, and offered Sylvia her choice of any soda +water confection she might select. This completed the "about-face" of +the mobile little mind. After several moments of blissful anguish of +indecision, Sylvia decided on a peach ice-cream soda, and thereafter +was nothing but sense of taste as she ecstatically drew through a +straw the syrupy, foamy draught of nectar. She took small sips at a +time and held them in the back of her mouth till every minute bubble +of gas had rendered up its delicious prickle to her tongue. Her +consciousness was filled to its uttermost limits with a voluptuous +sense of present physical delight. + +And yet it was precisely at this moment that from her subconscious +mind, retracing with unaided travail a half-forgotten clue, there +sprang into her memory a complete phrase of what her father had said. +She gave one more suck to the straw and laid it aside for a moment +to say in quite a comfortable accent to her aunt: "Oh yes, now I +remember. He said she didn't care for him any more than for the first +man she might have solicited in the street." For an instant the words +came back as clearly as though they had just been uttered, and she +repeated them fluently, returning thereupon at once to the charms of +the tall, foam-filled frosted glass. + +Evidently Aunt Victoria did not follow this sudden change of subject, +for she asked blankly, "_Who_? Who didn't care for who?" + +"Why, I supposed, Pauline for Ephraim Smith. It was that that made +Father so mad," explained Sylvia, sucking dreamily, her eyes on +the little maelstrom created in the foaming liquid by the straw, +forgetting everything else. The luxurious leisure in which she +consumed her potation made it last a long time, and it was not until +her suction made only a sterile rattling in the straw that she looked +up at her aunt to thank her. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith's face was averted and she did not turn it back +as she said, "Just run along into the shop and leave your glass, +Sylvia--here is the money." + +After Sylvia took her seat again in the carriage, the coachman turned +the horse's head back up the Main Street. "Aren't you going to the +campus?" asked Sylvia in surprise. + +"No, we are going to the hotel," said Aunt Victoria. She spoke +quietly, and seemed to look as usual, but Sylvia's inner barometer +fell fast with a conviction of a change in the emotional atmosphere. +She sat as still as possible, and only once glanced up timidly at +her aunt's face. There was no answering glance. Aunt Victoria gazed +straight in front of her. Her face looked as it did when it was being +massaged--all smooth and empty. There was, however, one change. For +the first time that day, she looked a little pale. + +As the carriage stopped in front of the onyx-lined, palm-decorated, +plate-glass-mirrored "entrance hall" of the expensive hotel, Aunt +Victoria descended, motioning to Sylvia not to follow her. "I haven't +time to drive any more this afternoon," she said. "Peter will take you +home. And have him bring Arnold back at once." She turned away and, as +Sylvia sat watching her, entered the squirrel-cage revolving door of +glass, which a little boy in livery spun about for her. + +But after she was inside the entrance hall, she signified to him that +she had forgotten something, and came immediately out again. What +she had forgotten surprised Sylvia as much as it touched her. Aunt +Victoria came rapidly to the side of the carriage and put out her +arms. "Come here, dear," she said in a voice Sylvia had never +heard her use. It trembled a little, and broke. With her quick +responsiveness, Sylvia sprang into the outstretched arms, overcome by +the other's emotion. She hid her face against the soft, perfumed laces +and silk, and heard from beneath them the painful throb of a quickly +beating heart. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith held her niece for a long moment and then turned +the quivering little face up to her own grave eyes, in which Sylvia, +for all her inexperience, read a real suffering. Aunt Victoria looked +as though somebody were hurting her--hurting her awfully--Sylvia +pressed her cheek hard against her aunt's, and Mrs. Marshall-Smith +felt, soft and Warm and ardent on her lips, the indescribably fresh +kiss of a child's mouth. "Oh, little Sylvia!" she cried, in that +new, strange, uncertain voice which trembled and broke, "Oh, little +Sylvia!" She seemed to be about to say something more, said in fact in +a half-whisper, + +"I hope--I hope--" but then shook her head, kissed Sylvia gently, put +her back in the carriage, and again disappeared through the revolving +door. + +This time she did not turn back. She did not even look back. After a +moment's wait, Peter gathered up the reins and Sylvia, vaguely uneasy, +and much moved, drove home in a solitary state, which she forgot to +enjoy. + +The next morning there was no arrival, even tardy, of the visitors +from the hotel. Instead came a letter, breaking the startling news +that Aunt Victoria had been called unexpectedly to the East, and had +left on the midnight train, taking Arnold with her, of course. Judith +burst into angry expressions of wrath over the incompleteness of the +cave which she and Arnold had been excavating together. The next day +was the beginning of school, she reminded her auditors, and she'd have +no time to get it done! Never! She characterized Aunt Victoria as a +mean old thing, an epithet for which she was not reproved, her mother +sitting quite absent and absorbed in the letter. She read it over +twice, with a very puzzled air, which gave an odd look to her usually +crystal-clear countenance. She asked her husband one question as he +went out of the door. "You didn't see Victoria yesterday--or say +anything to her?" to which he answered, with apparently uncalled-for +heat, "I did _not_! I thought it rather more to the purpose to try to +look up Pauline." + +Mrs. Marshall sprang up and approached him with an anxious face. He +shook his head: "Too late. Disappeared. No trace." + +She sat down again, looking sad and stern. + +Professor Marshall put on his hat with violence, and went away. + +When he came home to luncheon there was a fresh sensation, and again +a disagreeable one. He brought the astounding news that, at the very +beginning of the semester's work, he had been deserted by his most +valuable assistant, and abandoned, apparently forever, by his +most-loved disciple. Saunders had left word, a mere laconic note, that +he had accepted the position left vacant by the dismissal of Arnold's +tutor, and had entered at once upon the duties of his new position. + +Professor Marshall detailed this information in a hard, level voice, +and without further comment handed his wife Saunders' note. She read +it rapidly, this time with no perplexity, and laid it down, saying to +her husband, briefly, "Will you kindly remember that the children are +here?" + +Judith looked at Sylvia in astonishment, this being the first time +that that well-worn phrase, so familiar to most children, had ever +been heard in the Marshall house. Why shouldn't Father remember they +were there? Couldn't he _see_ them? Judith almost found the idea funny +enough to laugh at, although she had not at all in general Sylvia's +helpless response to the ridiculous. Sylvia did not laugh now. She +looked anxiously at her father's face, and was relieved when he only +answered her mother's exhortation by saying in a low tone: "Oh, I have +nothing to say. It's beyond words!" + +Luncheon went on as usual, with much chatter among the children. Some +time later--in the midst of a long story from Lawrence, Mrs. Marshall +herself brought up the subject again. Buddy was beginning to struggle +with the narrative form of self-expression, and to trip his tongue +desperately over the tenses. He had just said, "And the rabbit _was_ +naughty, didn't he was?" when his mother exclaimed, addressing her +husband's grim face, "Good Heavens, don't take it so hard, Elliott." + +He raised an eyebrow, but did not look up from the pear he was +eating. "To be responsible, as I feel I am, for the pitching into a +_cul-de-sac_ of the most promising young--" + +His wife broke in, "_Responsible_! How in the world are _you_ +responsible!" she added quickly, as if at random, to prevent the reply +which her husband was evidently about to cast at her. "Besides, how do +_you_ know?--one never knows how things will turn out--she may--she +may marry him, and he may have a life which will give him more leisure +for investigation than if--" + +Professor Marshall wiped his lips violently on his napkin and stood +up. "Nothing would induce her to marry him--or any one else. She's +extracted from marriage all she wants of it. No, she'll just keep him +trailing along, in an ambiguous position, sickened and tantalized and +fevered, till all the temper is drawn out of him--and then hell be +dropped," + +He turned away with an impatient fling of his head. His wife stood up +now and looked at him anxiously. "Go play us something on the piano," +she urged. This was not a common exhortation from her. She cared very +little for music, and with her usual honesty she showed, as a rule, a +very passive attitude towards it. + +Professor Marshall glanced at her with a flash of anger. "Sometimes +you count too much on my childishness, Barbara," he said resentfully, +and went out of the door without further words. + +Decidedly the discomposing effect of Aunt Victoria's visit lasted even +after she had gone away. But the next day was the beginning of the +school term, the busy, regular routine was taken up, Sylvia was +promoted to the 5A grade, and at home Father let her begin to learn +the Pilgrim's Chorus, from Tannhauser. + +Life for the eager little girl moved quickly forward at its usual +brisk pace, through several years to come. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +"WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF-EVIDENT ..." + + +The public school to which the Marshall children went as soon as they +were old enough was like any one of ten thousand public schools--a +large, square, many-windowed, extravagantly ugly building, once red +brick, but long ago darkened almost to black by soft-coal smoke. About +it, shaded by three or four big cottonwood-trees, was an inclosed +space of perhaps two acres of ground, beaten perfectly smooth by +hundreds of trampling little feet, a hard, bare earthen floor, so +entirely subdued to its fate that even in the long summer vacation no +spear of grass could penetrate its crust to remind it that it was made +of common stuff with fields and meadows. + +School began at nine o'clock in the morning and, as a rule, +three-fourths of the children had passed through the front gate twenty +or thirty minutes earlier. Nobody knew why it should be considered +such a hideous crime to be "tardy," but the fact was that not the most +reckless and insubordinate of the older boys cared to risk it. Any +one of the four hundred children in any public school in the city +preferred infinitely to be absent a day than to have the ghastly +experience of walking through deserted streets (that is, with no +children on them), across the empty playground frighteningly unlike +itself, into the long, desolate halls which, walk as cat-like as one +might, resounded to the guilty footsteps with accusing echoes. And +then the narrow cloakroom, haunted with limp, hanging coats and caps +and hats, and finally the entry into the schoolroom, seated rank on +rank with priggishly complacent schoolmates, looking up from their +books with unfriendly eyes of blame at the figure of the late-comer. + +AH over that section of La Chance, during the hour between half-past +seven and half-past eight in the morning, the families of school +children were undergoing a most rigorous discipline in regularity +and promptness. No child was too small or too timid to refrain from +embittering his mother's life with clamorous upbraidings if breakfast +were late, or his school-outfit of clothes were not ready to the last +button, so that he could join the procession of schoolward-bound +children, already streaming past his door at a quarter past eight. The +most easy-going and self-indulgent mother learned to have at least one +meal a day on time; and the children themselves during those eight +years of their lives had imbedded in the tissue of their brains and +the marrow of their bones that unrebelling habit of bending +their backs daily to a regular burden of work not selected by +themselves--which, according to one's point of view, is either the +bane or the salvation of our modern industrial society. + +The region where the school stood was inhabited, for the most part, by +American families or German and Irish ones so long established as to +be virtually American; a condition which was then not infrequent in +moderate-sized towns of the Middle West and which is still by no means +unknown there. The class-rolls were full of Taylors and Aliens and +Robinsons and Jacksons and Websters and Rawsons and Putnams, with +a scattering of Morrisseys and Crimminses and O'Hearns, and some +Schultzes and Brubackers and Helmeyers. There was not a Jew in the +school, because there were almost none in that quarter of town, and, +for quite another reason, not a single negro child. There were plenty +of them in the immediate neighborhood, swarming around the collection +of huts and shanties near the railroad tracks given over to negroes, +and known as Flytown. But they had their own school, which looked +externally quite like all the others in town, and their playground, +beaten bare like that of the Washington Street School, was filled +with laughing, shouting children, ranging from shoe-black through +coffee-color to those occasional tragic ones with white skin and blue +eyes, but with the telltale kink in the fair hair and the bluish +half-moon at the base of the finger-nails. + +The four hundred children in the Washington Street School were, +therefore, a mass more homogeneous than alarmists would have us +believe it possible to find in this country. They were, for all +practical purposes, all American, and they were all roughly of one +class. Their families were neither rich nor poor (at least so far as +the children's standards went). Their fathers were grocers, small +clerks, merchants, two or three were truck-farmers, plumbers, +carpenters, accountants, employees of various big businesses in town. + +It was into this undistinguished and plebeian mediocrity that the +Marshall children were introduced when they began going to school. + +The interior of the school-building resembled the outside in being +precisely like that of ten thousand other graded schools in this +country. The halls were long and dark and dusty, and because the +building had been put up under contract at a period when public +contract-work was not so scrupulously honest as it notably is in our +present cleanly muck-raked era, the steps of the badly built staircase +creaked and groaned and sagged and gave forth clouds of dust under the +weight of the myriads of little feet which climbed up and clown those +steep ascents every day. Everything was of wood. The interior looked +like the realized dream of a professional incendiary. + +The classrooms were high and well-lighted, with many large windows, +never either very clean or very dirty, which let in a flood of our +uncompromisingly brilliant American daylight upon the rows of little +seats and desks screwed, like those of an ocean liner, immovably to +the floor, as though at any moment the building was likely to embark +upon a cruise in stormy waters. + +Outwardly the rows of clean-faced, comfortably dressed, well-shod +American children, sitting in chairs, bore no resemblance to +shaven-headed, barefooted little Arabian students, squatting on the +floor, gabbling loud uncomprehended texts from the Koran; but the +sight of Sylvia's companions bending over their school-books with +glazed, vacant eyes, rocking back and forth as a rhythmical aid to +memorizing, their lips moving silently as they repeated over and over, +gabblingly, the phrases of the printed page, might have inclined a +hypothetical visitor from Mars to share the bewildered amusement of +the American visitors to Moslem schools. Sylvia rocked and twisted a +favorite button, gabbled silently, and recited fluently with the rest, +being what was known as an apt and satisfactory pupil. In company with +the other children she thus learned to say, in answer to questions, +that seven times seven is forty-nine; that the climate of Brazil is +hot and moist; that the capital of Arkansas is Little Rock; and that +"through" is spelled with three misleading and superfluous letters. + +What she really learned was, as with her mates, another matter--for, +of course, those devouringly active little minds did not spend six +hours a day in school without learning something incessantly. The few +rags and tatters of book-information they acquired were but the +merest fringes on the great garment of learning acquired by these +public-school children, which was to wrap them about all their lives. +What they learned during those eight years of sitting still and not +whispering had nothing to do with the books in their desks or the lore +in their teachers' brains. The great impression stamped upon the wax +of their minds, which became iron in after years, was democracy--a +crude, distorted, wavering image of democracy, like every image an +ideal in this imperfect world, but in its essence a reflection of the +ideal of their country. No European could have conceived how literally +it was true that the birth or wealth or social position of a child +made no difference in the estimation of his mates. There were no +exceptions to the custom of considering the individual on his own +merits. These merits were often queerly enough imagined, a faculty for +standing on his head redounding as much, or more, to a boy's credit as +the utmost brilliance in recitation, or generosity of temperament, but +at least he was valued for something he himself could do, and not for +any fortuitous incidents of birth and fortune. + +Furthermore there lay back of these four hundred children, who shaped +their world to this rough-and-ready imitation of democracy, their +families, not so intimately known to each other, of course, as the +children themselves, but still by no means unknown in their general +characteristics; four hundred American families who were, on the +whole, industrious, law-abiding, who loved their children, who were +quite tasteless in matters of art, and quite sound though narrow in +matters of morals, utterly mediocre in intelligence and information, +with no breadth of outlook in any direction; but who somehow lived +their lives and faced and conquered all the incredible vicissitudes of +that Great Adventure, with an unconscious, cheerful fortitude which +many an acuter mind might have envied them. + +It is possible that the personal knowledge of these four hundred +enduring family lives was, perhaps, the most important mental ballast +taken on by the children of the community during their eight years' +cruise at school. Certainly it was the most important for the +sensitive, complicated, impressionable little Sylvia Marshall, with +her latent distaste for whatever lacked distinction and external +grace, and her passion for sophistication and elegance, which was to +spring into such fierce life with the beginning of her adolescence. +She might renounce, as utterly as she pleased, the associates of her +early youth, but the knowledge of their existence, the acquaintance +with their deep humanity, the knowledge that they found life sweet and +worth living, all this was to be a part of the tissue of her brain +forever, and was to add one to the conflicting elements which battled +within her for the mastery during all the clouded, stormy radiance of +her youth. + +The families which supplied the Washington Street School being quite +stationary in their self-owned houses, few new pupils entered during +the school-year. There was, consequently, quite a sensation on the day +in the middle of March when the two Fingal girls entered, Camilla in +the "Fifth A" grade, where Sylvia was, and Cecile in the third grade, +in the next seat to Judith's. The girls themselves were so different +from other children in school that their arrival would have excited +interest even at the beginning of the school-year. Coming, as they +did, at a time when everybody knew by heart every detail of every +one else's appearance from hair-ribbon to shoes, these two beautiful +exotics, in their rich, plain, mourning dresses were vastly stared at. +Sylvia's impressionable eyes were especially struck by the air of race +and breeding of the new-comer in her class. Everything about the other +child, from her heavy black hair, patrician nose, and large dark eyes +to her exquisitely formed hands, white and well-cared-for, seemed to +Sylvia perfection itself. + +During recess she advanced to the new-comer, saying, with a bright +smile: "Aren't you thirsty? Don't you want me to show you where the +pump is?" She put out her hand as she spoke and took the slim white +fingers in her own rough little hand, leading her new schoolmate along +in silence, looking at her with an open interest. + +She had confidently expected amicable responsiveness in the other +little girl, because her experience had been that her own frank +friendliness nearly always was reflected back to her from others; but +she had not expected, or indeed ever seen, such an ardent look of +gratitude as burned in the other's eyes. She stopped, startled, +uncomprehending, as though her companion had said something +unintelligible, and felt the slim fingers in her hand close about her +own in a tight clasp. "You are so very kind to show me this pump," +breathed Camilla shyly. The faint flavor of a foreign accent which, +to Sylvia's ear, hung about these words, was the final touch of +fascination for her. That instant she decided in her impetuous, +enthusiastic heart that Camilla was the most beautiful, sweetest, +best-dressed, loveliest creature she had ever seen, or would ever see +in her life; and she bent her back joyfully in the service of her +ideal. She would not allow Camilla to pump for herself, but flew to +the handle with such energy that the white water gushed out in a +flood, overflowing Camilla's cup, spattering over on her fingers, and +sparkling on the sheer white of her hemstitched cuffs. This made them +both laugh, the delicious silly laugh of childhood. + +Already they seemed like friends. "How do you pronounce your name?" +Sylvia asked familiarly. + +"Cam-eela Fingal," said the other, looking up from her cup, her upper +lip red and moist. She accented the surname on the last syllable. + +"What a perfectly lovely name!" cried Sylvia. "Mine is Sylvia +Marshall." + +"That's a pretty name too," said Camilla, smiling. She spoke less +timidly now, but her fawn-like eyes still kept their curious +expression, half apprehension, half hope. + +"How old are you?" asked Sylvia. + +"Eleven, last November." + +"Why, my birthday is in November, and I was eleven too!" cried Sylvia. +"I thought you must be older--you're so tall." + +Camilla looked down and said nothing. + +Sylvia went on: "I'm crazy about the way you do your hair, in those +twists over your ears. When I was studying my spelling lesson, I was +trying to figure out how you do it." + +"Oh, I don't do it. Mattice does it for us--for Cecile and +me--Cecile's my sister. She's in the third grade." + +"Why, I have a sister in the third grade too!" exclaimed Sylvia, much +struck by this second propitious coincidence. "Her name is Judith and +she's a darling. Wouldn't it be nice if she and Cecile should be +good friends _too_!" She put her arm about her new comrade's waist, +convinced that they were now intimates of long standing. They ran +together to take their places at the sound of the bell; all during +the rest of the morning session she smiled radiantly at the new-comer +whenever their eyes met. + +She planned to walk part way home with her at noon, but she was +detained for a moment by the teacher, and when she reached the front +gate, where Judith was waiting for her, Camilla was nowhere in sight. +Judith explained with some disfavor that a surrey had been waiting for +the Fingal girls and they had been driven away. + +Sylvia fell into a rhapsody over her new acquaintance and found to her +surprise (it was always a surprise to Sylvia that Judith's tastes and +judgments so frequently differed from hers) that Judith by no means +shared her enthusiasm. She admitted, but as if it were a matter of no +importance, that both Camilla and Cecile were pretty enough, but she +declared roundly that Cecile was a little sneak who had set out from +the first to be "Teacher's pet." This title, in the sturdy democracy +of the public schools, means about what "sycophantic lickspittle" +means in the vocabulary of adults, and carries with it a crushing +weight of odium which can hardly ever be lived down. + +"_Judith_, what makes you think so?" cried Sylvia, horrified at the +epithet. + +"The way she looks at Teacher--she never takes her eyes off her, +and just jumps to do whatever Teacher says. And then she looks at +everybody so kind o' scared--'s'if she thought she was goin' to be hit +over the head every minute and was so thankful to everybody for not +doing it. Makes me feel just _like_ doin' it!" declared Judith, the +Anglo-Saxon. + +Sylvia recognized a scornful version of the appealing expression which +she had found so touching in Camilla. + +"Why, I think it's sweet of them to look so! When they're so awfully +pretty, and have such good clothes--and a carriage--and everything! +They might be as stuck-up as anything! I think it's just _nice_ for +them to be so sweet!" persisted Sylvia. + +"I don't call it bein' sweet," said Judith, "to watch Teacher every +minute and smile all over your face if she looks at you and hold on to +her hand when she's talkin' to you! It's silly!" + +They argued all the way home, and the lunch hour was filled with +appeals to their parents to take sides. Professor and Mrs. Marshall, +always ready, although occasionally somewhat absent, listeners to +school news, professed themselves really interested in these new +scholars and quite perplexed by the phenomenon of two beautiful +dark-eyed children, called Camilla and Cecile Fingal. Judith refused +to twist her tongue to pronounce the last syllable accented, and her +version of the name made it sound Celtic. "Perhaps their father +is Irish and the mother Italian or Spanish," suggested Professor +Marshall. + +Sylvia was delighted with this hypothesis, and cried out +enthusiastically, "Oh yes--Camilla _looks_ Italian--like an Italian +princess!" + +Judith assumed an incredulous and derisive expression and remained +silent, an achievement of self-control which Sylvia was never able to +emulate. + +The Fingal girls continued to occupy a large space in Sylvia's +thoughts and hours, and before long they held a unique position in +the opinion of the school, which was divided about evenly between the +extremes represented by Sylvia and Judith. The various accomplishments +of the new-comers were ground both for uneasy admiration and +suspicion. They could sing like birds, and, what seemed like +witchcraft to the unmusical little Americans about them, they could +sing in harmony as easily as they could carry an air. And they recited +with fire, ease, and evident enjoyment, instead of with the show of +groaning, unwilling submission to authority which it was etiquette +in the Washington Street School to show before beginning to "speak a +piece." + +They were good at their books too, and altogether, with their quick +docility, picturesqueness, and eagerness to please, were the delight +of their teachers. In the fifth grade, Sylvia's example of intimate, +admiring friendship definitely threw popular favor on the side of +Camilla, who made every effort to disarm the hostility aroused by her +too-numerous gifts of nature. She was ready to be friends with the +poorest and dullest of the girls, never asked the important roles in +any games, hid rather than put forward the high marks she received in +her studies, and was lavish with her invitations to her schoolmates to +visit her at home. + +The outside of this house, which Mr. Fingal had rented a month or so +before when they first moved to La Chance, was like any one of many in +the region; but the interior differed notably from those to which the +other children were accustomed. For one thing there was no "lady of +the house," Mrs. Fingal having died a short time before. Camilla and +Cecile could do exactly as they pleased, and they gave the freedom of +the house and its contents lavishly to their little friends. In the +kitchen was an enormous old negro woman, always good-natured, always +smelling of whiskey. She kept on hand a supply of the most meltingly +delicious cakes and cookies, and her liberal motto, "Heah, chile, +put yo' han' in the cookie-jah and draw out what you lights on!" was +always flourished in the faces of the schoolmates of the two daughters +of the house. + +In the rest of the house, filled with dark, heavy, dimly shining +furniture, reigned Mattice, another old negro woman, but, unlike the +jolly, fat cook, yellow and shriveled and silent. She it was who +arrayed Camille and Cecile with such unerring taste, and her skilful +old hands brushed and dressed their long black hair in artful twists +and coils. + +Here, against their own background, the two girls seemed more at their +ease and showed more spontaneity than at school. They were fond of +"dressing up" and of organizing impromptu dramatizations of the +stories of familiar books, and showed a native ability for acting +which explained their success in recitations. Once when the fun was +very rollicking, Camilla brought out from a closet a banjo and, +thrumming on its strings with skilful fingers, played a tingling +accompaniment to one of her songs. The other little girls were +delighted and clamored for more, but she put it away quickly with +almost a frown on her sweet face, and for once in her life did not +yield to their demands. + +"Well, I think more of her for that!" remarked Judith, when this +incident was repeated to her by Sylvia, who cried out, "Why, Judy, how +_hateful_ you are about poor Camilla!" + +Nothing was learned about the past history of the Fingals beyond the +fact, dropped once by the cook, that they had lived in Louisiana +before coming to La Chance, but there were rumors, based on nothing +at all, and everywhere credited, that their mother had been a +Spanish-American heiress, disinherited by her family for marrying a +Protestant. Such a romantic and picturesque element had never before +entered the lives of the Washington Street school-children. Once +a bold and insensitive little girl, itching to know more of this +story-book history, had broken the silence about Mrs. Fingal and had +asked Camilla bluntly, "Say, who _was_ your mother, anyway?" The +question had been received by Camilla with whitening lips and a +desperate silence--ended by a sudden loud burst of sobs, which tore +Sylvia's heart. "You mean, horrid thing!" she cried to the inquisitor. +"Her mother isn't dead a year yet! Camilla can't bear to talk about +her!" + +Once in a great while Mr. Fingal was visible,--a bald, middle-aged man +with a white, sad face, and eyes that never smiled, although his lips +often did when he saw the clusters of admiring children hanging about +his daughters. + +Judith held aloof from these gatherings at the Fingal house, her +prejudice against the girls never weakening, although Cecile as well +as Camilla had won over almost all the other girls of her grade. +Judith showed the self-contained indifference which it was her habit +to feel about matters which did not deeply stir her, and made no +further attempts to analyze or even to voice her animosity beyond +saying once, when asked to go with them on a drive, that she didn't +like their "meechin' ways,"--a vigorous New England phrase which she +had picked up from her mother. + + * * * * * + +About a month after the Fingal girls entered school, the project of a +picnic took form among the girls of the Fifth A grade. One of them had +an uncle who lived three or four miles from town on a farm which was +passed by the inter-urban trolley line, and he had sent word that +the children could, if they liked, picnic in his maple woods, which +overhung the brown waters of the Piquota river. There was to be no +recess that day in Five A, and the grade was to be dismissed half an +hour earlier than usual, so that the girls could go out on the trolley +in time to get the supper ready. The farmer was to bring them back by +moonlight in his hay-wagon. + +The prospect seemed ideal. Five A hummed with excitement and +importance as the various provisions were allotted to the different +girls and the plans talked over. Sylvia was to bring bananas enough +for the crowd; one of the German-American girls, whose father kept a +grocery-store, promised pickles and olives; three or four together +were to make the sandwiches, and Camilla Fingal was to bring along a +big bag of the famous rich and be-raisined cookies that lived in +the "cookie-jah." Sylvia, who always enjoyed prodigiously both in +anticipation and in reality any social event, could scarcely contain +herself as the time drew near with every prospect of fair weather. + +The morning of the day was clear and fine, a perfect example of early +spring, with silvery pearls showing on the tips of the red-twig +osiers, and pussy-willows gleaming gray along the margins of swampy +places. Sylvia and Judith felt themselves one with this upward surge +of new life. They ran to school together, laughing aloud for no +reason, racing and skipping like a couple of spring lambs, their minds +and hearts as crystal-clear of any shadow as the pale-blue, smiling +sky above them. The rising sap beat in their young bodies as well +as in the beech-trees through which they scampered, whirling their +school-books at the end of their straps, and shouting aloud to hear +the squirrel's petulant, chattering answer. + +When they came within sight and hearing of the schoolhouse, their +practised ears detected (although with no hint of foreboding) that +something unusual had happened. The children were not running about +and screaming, but standing with their heads close together, talking, +and talking, and talking. As Judith and Sylvia came near, several ran +to meet them, hurling out at them like a hard-flung stone: "Say--what +d'ye think? Those Fingal girls are niggers!" + +To the end of her life, Sylvia would never forget the rending shock +of disillusion brought her by these blunt words. She did not dream +of disbelieving them, or of underestimating their significance. A +thousand confirmatory details leaped into her mind: the rich, sweet +voices--the dramatic ability--the banjo--the deprecatory air of +timidity--the self-conscious unwillingness to take the leading +position to which their talents and beauty gave them a right. Yes, +of course it was true! In the space of a heartbeat, all her +romantic Italian imaginings vanished. She continued to walk forward +mechanically, in an utter confusion of mind. + +She heard Judith asking in an astonished voice, "Why, what makes you +think so?" and she listened with a tortured attention to the statement +vouchsafed in an excited chorus by a great many shrill little voices +that the Fingals' old cook had taken a little too much whiskey for +once and had fallen to babbling at the grocery-store before a highly +entertained audience of neighbors, about the endless peregrinations +of the Fingal family in search of a locality where the blood of the +children would not be suspected--"an' theah motheh, fo' all heh +good looks, second cousin to Mattice!" she had tittered foolishly, +gathering up her basket and rolling tipsily out of the store. + +"_Well_--" said Judith, "did you ever!" She was evidently as much +amazed as her sister, but Sylvia felt with a sinking of the heart +that what seemed to her the real significance of the news had escaped +Judith. + +The Five A girls came trooping up to Sylvia.--"Of course we can't +have Camilla at the picnic."--"My uncle wouldn't want a _nigger_ +there."--"We'll have to tell her she can't come." + +Sylvia heard from the other groups of children about them snatches +of similar talk.--"Anybody might ha' known it--singin' the way they +do--just like niggers' voices."--"They'll have to go to the _nigger_ +school now."--"Huh! puttin' on airs with their carriage and their +black dresses--nothin' but niggers!" The air seemed full of that word. +Sylvia sickened and quailed. + +Not so Judith! It had taken her a moment to understand the way in +which the news was being received. When she did, she turned very +pale, and broke out into a storm of anger. She stuttered and halted +as she always did when overmastered by feeling, but her words were +molten. She ignored the tacit separation between children of different +grades and, though but a third-grader, threw herself passionately +among the girls who were talking of the picnic, clawing at their arms, +forcing her way to the center, a raging, white-faced, hot-eyed little +thunderbolt. "You're the meanest low-down things I ever heard of!" she +told the astonished older girls, fairly spitting at them in her fury. +"You--you go and s-sponge off the Fingals for c-c-cakes and rides and +s-s-soda water--and you think they're too l-l-lovely for w-words--and +you t-t-try to do your hair just the way C-C-Camilla does. They aren't +any different today f-f-from what they were yesterday--are they? You +make me sick--you m-m-make m-m-me--" + +The big bell rang out its single deep brazen note for the formation of +lines, and the habit of unquestioning, instant obedience to its voice +sent the children all scurrying to their places, from which they +marched forward to their respective classrooms in their usual convict +silence. Just as the line ahead was disappearing into the open door, +the well-kept, shining surrey drove up in haste and Camilla and +Cecile, dazzling in fresh white dresses and white hair ribbons, ran +to their places. Evidently they had heard nothing. Camilla turned and +smiled brightly at her friend as she stepped along in front of her. + +Sylvia experienced another giddy reaction of feeling. Up to that +moment, she had felt nothing but shocked and intensely self-centered +horror at the disagreeableness of what had happened, and a wild desire +to run away to some quiet spot where she would not have to think about +it, where it could not make her unhappy, where her heart would stop +beating so furiously. What had she ever done to have such a horrid +thing happen in her world! She had been as much repelled by Judith's +foaming violence as by any other element of the situation. If she +could only get away! Every sensitive nerve in her, tuned to a graceful +and comely order of life, was rasped to anguish by the ugliness of it +all. Up to the moment Camilla came running to her place--this had been +the dominant impulse in the extreme confusion of Sylvia's mind. + +But at the sight of Camilla she felt bursting up through this +confusion of mind, and fiercely attacking her instinct of +self-preservation, a new force, unsuspected, terribly alive--sympathy +with Camilla--Camilla, with her dog-like, timid, loving eyes--Camilla, +who had done nothing to deserve unhappiness except to be +born--Camilla, always uneasy with tragic consciousness of the sword +over her head, and now smiling brightly with tragic unconsciousness +that it was about to fall. Sylvia's heart swelled almost unendurably. +She was feeling, for the first time in her life consciously, the two +natures under her skin, and this, their first open struggle for the +mastery of her, was like a knife in her side. + +She sat during the morning session, her eyes on the clock, fearing +miserably the moment of dismissal at noon, when she must take some +action--she who only longed to run away from discord and dwell in +peace. Her mind swung, pendulum-like, from one extreme of feeling to +another. Every time that Camilla smiled at her across the heads of the +other children, sullenly oblivious of their former favorite, Sylvia +turned sick with shame and pity. But when her eyes rested on the hard, +hostile faces which made up her world, the world she had to live in, +the world which had been so full of sweet and innocent happiness for +her, the world which would now be ranged with her or against her +according to her decision at noon, she was overcome by a panic at the +very idea of throwing her single self against this many-headed tyrant. +With an unspeakable terror she longed to feel the safe walls of +conformity about her. There was a battle with drawn swords in the +heart of the little girl trying blindly to see where the _n_ came in +"pneumonia." + +The clock crept on, past eleven, towards twelve. Sylvia had come to no +decision. She could come to no decision! She felt herself consciously +to be unable to cope with the crisis. She was too small, too weak, too +shrinking, to make herself iron, and resist an overwhelming force. + +It was five minutes of twelve. The order was given to put away books +and pencils in the desks. Sylvia's hands trembled so that she could +hardly close the lid. + +"Turn!" said the teacher, in her tired, mechanical voice. The children +turned their stubbed-toed shoes out into the aisle, their eyes +menacingly on Camilla. + +"Rise!" Like a covey of partridge, they all stood up, stretching, +twisting their bodies, stiff and torpid after the long hours of +immobility. + +"Pass!" Clattering feet all over the building began moving along the +aisles and out towards the cloakrooms. Every one seized his own wraps +with a practised snatch, and passed on, still in line, over the dusty +wooden floors of the hall, down the ill-built, resounding stairs, out +to the playground--out to Sylvia's ordeal. + +As she came out blinkingly into the strong spring sunlight, she still +had reached no decision. Her impulse was to run, as fast as she could, +out to the gate and down the street--home! But another impulse held +her back. The lines were breaking up. Camilla was turning about with +a smile to speak to her. Malevolent eyes were fixed on them from all +sides. Sylvia felt her indecision mount in a cloud about her, like +blinding, scalding steam. + +And then, there before her, stood Judith, her proud dark little face +set in an angry scowl, her arm about Cecile Fingal's neck. + +Sylvia never could think what she would have done if Judith had not +been there; but then, Judith was one of the formative elements of her +life--as much as was the food she ate or the thoughts she had. What +she did was to turn as quickly and unhesitatingly as though she had +always meant to do it, put her arm through Camilla's and draw her +rapidly towards the gate where the surrey waited. Judith and Cecile +followed. The crowds of astonished, and for the moment silenced, +children fell back before them. + +Once she had taken her action, Sylvia saw that it was the only one +possible. But she was upheld by none of the traditional pride in a +righteous action, nor by a raging single-mindedness like Judith's, who +stalked along, her little fists clenched, frowning blackly to right +and left on the other children, evidently far more angry with them +than sympathetic for Cecile. Sylvia did not feel angry with any one. +She was simply more acutely miserable than she had ever dreamed +possible. The distance to the surrey seemed endless to her. + +Her sudden rush had taken Camilla so completely by surprise that +not until they were at the gate did she catch her breath to ask +laughingly: "What in the world's the _matter_ with you, Sylvia? You +act so queer!" + +Sylvia did not answer, every nerve bent on getting Camilla into +safety, but a little red-headed boy from the second grade, who could +scarcely talk plainly, burst out chantingly, pointing his dirty +forefinger at Camilla: + + "Nigger, nigger, never die, + Black face and shiny eye, + Curly hair and curly toes-- + _That's_ the way the nigger goes!" + +There was a loud laugh from the assembled children. + +Camilla wavered as though she had been struck. Her lovely face turned +ashy-gray, and she looked at Sylvia with the eyes of one dying. + +From the deepest of her nature, Sylvia responded to that look. She +forgot the crowd,--boldly, unafraid, beside herself with pity, she +flung her arms about her friend's neck, hiding the white face on her +shoulder. Judith ran up, blazing with rage, and pulled at Camilla's +arm. "Don't give in! Don't give in!" she screamed. "Don't cry! Don't +let 'em see you care! Sass 'em back, why don't you? Hit that little +boy over the head! Sass them back, why don't you?" + +But Camilla only shook her head vehemently and shrank away into the +carriage, little Cecile stumbling after, the silent tears streaming +down her face. The two clasped each other, and the surrey drove +quickly away, leaving the Marshall girls standing on the curb. + +Judith turned around and faced the crowds of enemies back of them. +"Nasty old things!" she cried, sticking out her tongue at them. She +was answered by a yell, at which she made another face and walked +away, pulling Sylvia with her. For a few steps they were followed by +some small boys who yelled in chorus: + + "Judith's mad and I'm glad, + And I know what'll please her: + A bottle of wine to make her shine, + And two little niggers to squeeze her!" + +They were beginning this immemorially old chant over again when Judith +turned and ran back towards them with a white, terrible face of wrath. +At the sight they scattered like scared chickens. + +Judith was so angry that she was shivering all over her small body, +and she kept repeating at intervals, in a suffocated voice: "Nasty old +things! Just wait till I tell my father and mother!" + +As they passed under the beech-trees, it seemed to Sylvia a physical +impossibility that only that morning they had raced and scampered +along, whirling their school-books and laughing. + +They ran into the house, calling for their parents in excited voices, +and pouring out incoherent exclamations. Sylvia cried a little at +the comforting sight of her mother's face and was taken up on Mrs. +Marshall's lap and closely held. Judith never cried; she had not cried +even when she ran the sewing-machine needle through her thumb; +but when infuriated she could not talk, her stammering growing so +pronounced that she could not get out a word, and it was Sylvia who +told the facts. She was astonished to find them so few and so quickly +stated, having been under the impression that something of intense and +painful excitement had been happening every moment of the morning. + +But the experience of her parents supplied the tragic background of +strange, passionate prejudice which Sylvia could not phrase, and which +gave its sinister meaning to her briefly told story: "--and so Judith +and I walked with them out to the gate, and then that little Jimmy +Cohalan yelled out, 'nigger--nigger'--_you_ know--" + +Judith broke in, her nostrils distended, "And they never sassed back, +or hit anybody or anything--just crumpled up and cried!" + +Sylvia was aghast with bewilderment. "Why, I thought you were on their +side!" + +"Well, I _am_!" asserted Judith, beginning to stammer again. "But I +don't have to _like_ 'em any better, do I--because I get mad when +a l-l-lot of mean, n-nasty girls that have b-b-b-been s-s-spongin' +off--" She stopped, balked by her infirmity, and appealed to her +parents with a silent look of fury. + +"What _shall_ we do, Mother?" asked Sylvia despairingly, looking up +into her mother's face from the comfortable shelter of her long, +strong arms. Mrs. Marshall looked down at her without speaking. It +occurred to Sylvia disquietingly that her mother's expression was a +little like Judith's. But when Mrs. Marshall spoke it was only to say +in her usual voice: "Well, the first thing to do is to have something +to eat. Whatever else you do, don't let a bad condition of your +body interfere with what's going on in your mind. Lunch is getting +cold--and don't talk about trouble while you're eating. After you're +through, Father'll tell you what to do." + +Professor Marshall made a gesture of dismay. "Good Lord, Barbara, +don't put it off on me!" + +His wife looked at him with smoldering eyes. "I certainly have nothing +to say that would be fit for children to hear!" she said in an +energetic tone, beginning to serve the baked beans, which were the +main dish for the day. + +After the meal, always rather hasty because of the children's short +noon-hour, Sylvia and Judith went to sit on their father's knees, +while he put an arm about each and, looking from one serious expectant +face to the other, began his explanation. He cleared his throat, and +hesitated before beginning, and had none of his usual fluency as he +went on. What he finally said was: "Well, children, you've stumbled +into about the hardest problem there is in this country, and the +honest truth is that we don't any of us know what's right to do about +it. The sort of thing that's just happened in the Washington Street +School is likely to happen 'most anywhere, and it's no harder on these +poor little playmates of yours than on all colored people. But it's +awfully hard on them all. The best we can do is to hope that after a +great many people have lived and died, all trying to do their best, +maybe folks will have learned how to manage better. Of course, if +grown men and women don't know how to help matters, you little girls +can't expect to fix things either. All you can do is to go on being +nice to Camilla and--" + +Judith broke in here hotly, "You don't mean we oughtn't to _do_ +something about the girls being so mean to them--not letting Camilla +go to the picnic and--" + +"What _could_ you do?" asked her father quietly, "that would make +things any better for Camilla? If you were forty times as strong as +you are, you couldn't make the other girls _want_ Camilla at the +picnic. It would only spoil the picnic and wouldn't help Camilla a +bit." Professor Marshall meditated a moment, and went on, "Of course +I'm proud of my little daughters for being kind to friends who are +unhappy through no fault of theirs" (Sylvia winced at this, and +thought of confessing that she was very near running away and leaving +Camilla to her fate), "and I hope you'll go on being as nice to your +unfortunate friends as ever--" + +Judith said: "They aren't friends of mine! I don't like them!" + +As not infrequently happened, something about Judith's attitude had +been irritating her father, and he now said with some severity, "Then +it's a case where Sylvia's loving heart can do more good than your +anger, though you evidently think it very fine of you to feel that!" + +Judith looked down in a stubborn silence, and Sylvia drooped miserably +in the consciousness of receiving undeserved praise. She opened her +mouth to explain her vacillations of the morning, but her moral fiber +was not equal to the effort. She felt very unhappy to have Judith +blamed and herself praised when things ought to have been reversed, +but she could not bring herself to renounce her father's good opinion. + +Professor Marshall gave them both a kiss and set them down. "It's +twenty minutes to one. You'd better run along, dears," he said. + +After the children had gone out, his wife, who had preserved an +unbroken silence, remarked dryly, "So that's the stone we give them +when they ask for bread." + +Professor Marshall made no attempt to defend himself. "My dim +generalities are pretty poor provender for honest children's minds, I +admit," he said humbly, "but what else have we to give them that isn't +directly contradicted by our lives? There's no use telling children +something that they never see put into practice." + +"It's not impossible, I suppose, to change our lives," suggested his +wife uncompromisingly. + +Professor Marshall drew a great breath of disheartenment. "As long as +I can live without thinking of that element in American life--it's all +right. But when anything brings it home--like this today--I feel that +the mean compromise we all make must be a disintegrating moral force +in the national character. I feel like gathering up all of you, and +going away--away from the intolerable question--to Europe--and earning +the family living by giving English lessons!" + +Mrs. Marshall cried out, "It makes _me_ feel like going out right here +in La Chance with a bomb in one hand and a rifle in the other!" + +From which difference of impression it may perhaps be seen that the +two disputants were respectively the father and mother of Sylvia and +Judith. + +Mrs. Marshall rose and began clearing away the luncheon dishes. As she +disappeared into the kitchen, she paused a moment behind the door, a +grim, invisible voice, remarking, "And what we shall do is, of course, +simply nothing at all!" + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +SABOTAGE + + +Sylvia and Judith walked to school in a profound silence. Sylvia was +shrinking with every nerve from the ordeal of facing again those four +hundred hostile faces; from the new and painful relations with her +playmates which lay before her. She was now committed irrevocably to +the cause of the Fingals, and she felt a terrified doubt of having +enough moral strength to stick to that position. + +For the moment the problem was settled by their arriving at the +schoolhouse almost too late. The lines were just marching into the +building, and both girls barely slipped into their places in time. +Sylvia noticed with relief that Camilla was absent. + +All the Five A girls had paper bags or pasteboard boxes, and in the +air of the Five A cloakroom was a strong smell of vinegar. Gretchen +Schmidt's pickles had begun to soak through the bag, and she borrowed +the cover of a box to set them in. These sounds and smells recalled +the picnic to Sylvia's mind, the picnic to which she had been looking +forward with such inexpressible pleasure. For an instant she was +aghast to think that she had forgotten her bananas, tied up all ready +at home on the sideboard. But the next instant she thought sadly that +she probably would not be welcome at the picnic. She went to her seat +and sat forlorn through the changing lessons of the afternoon. + +The teacher ground out the half-hour lessons wearily, her eyes on the +clock, as unaware of the crisis in her class as though she were in +another planet. At four o'clock Sylvia filed out with the other +children to the cloakroom, but there was not the usual quick, +practised grab, each for his own belongings. The girls remained +behind, exclaiming and lamenting. Such a clamor arose that the teacher +came hurrying in, anxious for the reputation for good behavior of +her class. Good behavior in the Washington Street School, as in a +penitentiary, was gauged by the degree of silence and immobility +achieved by the inmates. + +The girls ran to Miss Miller, crying out, "Somebody's stolen our +lunches,--we left them here--all our boxes and things--and they're all +gone--!" + +Sylvia hung back in the door to the schoolroom, apart from the others, +half relieved by the unexpected event which diverted attention from +her. + +One of the boys who had gone ahead in the line now came back, a large +cucumber stuck in the corner of his mouth like a fat, green cigar. He +announced with evident satisfaction in the girls' misfortune that the +steps were strewn with pickles. The bag must have burst entirely +as they were being carried downstairs. Gretchen Schmidt began to +weep,--"all them good pickles--!" One of the girls flew at the boy who +brought the bad news. "I just bet you did it yourself, Jimmy Weaver, +you an' Frank Kennedy. You boys were mad anyhow because we didn't ask +you to come to the picnic." + +Jimmy's face assumed the most unmistakably genuine expression of +astonishment and aggrieved innocence. "Aw, you're off yer base! I +wouldn't ha' gone to your darned old picnic--an' wasn't I in the room +every minute this afternoon?" + +"No, you weren't--you weren't!" More of the girls had come to the +attack, and now danced about the boy, hurling accusations at him. "You +got excused to get a drink of water! And so did Pete Roberts! You did +it then! You did it then! You did--" + +"Hush, children! Not so loud!" said Miss Miller. "_You'll have the +Principal down here_!" + +At this terrible threat the children, in spite of their heat, lowered +their voices. Jimmy was beginning an angry, half-alarmed protest--"Aw, +'twas a tramp must ha' got in an' saw--" when he was pushed out of the +way by a small, vigorous hand. Judith Marshall walked in, her face +very pale. She was breathing hard, and through her parted lips, as +though she had been running fast, her small white teeth showed like +those of an enraged squirrel. "I threw your picnic things in the +river," she said. + +The older children recoiled from this announcement, and from the +small, tense figure. Even the teacher kept her distance, as though +Judith were some dangerous little animal, + +"What in the world did you do that for?" she asked in a tone of +stupefaction. + +"Because they are n-n-nasty, mean things," said Judith, "and if they +weren't going to let C-C-Camilla go to the picnic, I wasn't going to +let them _have_ any picnic!" + +The teacher turned around to Sylvia, now almost as white as her +sister, and said helplessly, "Sylvia, do you know what she's talking +about?" + +Sylvia went forward and took Judith's hand. She was horrified beyond +words by what Judith had done, but Judith was her little sister. "Yes, +ma'am," she said, to Miss Miller's question, speaking, for all her +agitation, quickly and fluently as was her habit, though not very +coherently. "Yes, ma'am, I know. Everybody was saying this morning +that the Fingals' mother was a negro, and so the girls weren't going +to invite Camilla to the picnic, and it made Judith mad." + +"Why, _she_ didn't know Camilla very well, did she?" asked the +teacher, astonished. + +"No, ma'am," said Sylvia, still speaking quickly, although the tears +of fright were beginning to stand in her eyes. "It just made her mad +because the girls weren't going to invite her because she didn't think +it was anyhow her fault." + +"_Whose_ fault!" cried the teacher, completely lost. + +"Camilla's," quavered Sylvia, the tears beginning to fall. + +There was a pause. "_Well_--I _never_!" exclaimed the teacher, whose +parents had come from New England. She was entirely at a loss to know +how to treat this unprecedented situation, and like other potentates +with a long habit of arbitrary authority, she covered her perplexity +with a smart show of decision. "You children go right straight home, +along out of the building this minute," she commanded. "You know +you're not allowed to loiter around after school-hours. Sylvia and +Judith, stay here. _I'm going to take you up to the Principal's +office_." + +The girls and Jimmy Weaver ran clattering down the stairs, in an +agreeably breathless state of excitement. In their opinion the +awfulness of the situation had been adequately recognized by the +teacher and signaled by the equally awful expedient of a visit to +the Principal's office, the last resort in the case of the rarely +occurring insubordinate boy. + +Because Miss Miller had not the least idea what to say in an event so +far out of the usual routine, she talked a great deal during the trip +through the empty halls and staircases up to the Principal's office +on the top floor; chiefly to the effect that as many years as she had +taught, never had she encountered such a bad little girl as Judith. +Judith received this in stony silence, but Sylvia's tears fell fast. +All the years of her docile school existence had trained her in the +habit of horror at insubordination above every other crime. She felt +as disgraced as though Judith had been caught stealing,--perhaps more +so. + +Miss Miller knocked at the door; the Principal, stooping and +hollow-chested, opened it and stood confronting with tired, kind eyes +the trio before him--the severe woman, with her pathetic, prematurely +old face and starved flat body, the pretty little girl hanging down +her head and weeping, the smaller child who gave him one black defiant +look and then gazed past him out of the window. + +"Well, Miss Miller--?" he asked. + +"I've brought you a case that I don't know what to do with," she +began. "This is Judith Marshall, in the third grade, and she has just +done one of the naughtiest things I ever heard of--" + +When she had finished her recital, "How do you know this child did +it?" asked Mr. Bristol, always his first question in cases between +teachers and pupils. + +"She was so brazen as to come right back and tell us so," said Miss +Miller, her tone growing more and more condemnatory. + +Judith's face, capable of such rare and positive beauty, had now shut +down into a hard, repellent little mask of hate. Mr. Bristol looked +at her for a moment in silence, and then at Sylvia, sobbing, her arm +crooked over her face, hiding everything but her shining curls. "And +what has this little girl to do with anything?" he asked. + +"This is Sylvia Marshall, Judith's sister, and of course she feels +dreadfully about Judith's doing such a dreadful thing," explained Miss +Miller inelegantly. + +Mr. Bristol walked back to his desk and sat down. "Well, I think I +needn't keep you any longer, Miss Miller," he said. "If you will just +leave the little girls here for a while perhaps I can decide what to +do about it." + +Thus mildly but unmistakably dismissed, the teacher took her +departure, pushing Sylvia and Judith inside the door and shutting it +audibly after her. She was so tired as she walked down the stairs that +she ached, and she thought to herself, "As if things weren't hard +enough without their going and being naughty--!" + +Inside the room there was a moment's silence, filled almost palpably +by Sylvia's quivering alarm, and by Judith's bitter mental resistance. +Mr. Bristol drew out a big book from the shelf over his desk and held +it out to Sylvia. "I guess you all got pretty excited about this, +didn't you?" he said, smiling wisely at the child. "You and your +sister sit down and look at the pictures in this for a while, till you +get cooled off, and then I'll hear all about it." + +Sylvia took the book obediently, and drew Judith to a chair, opening +the pages, brushing away her tears, and trying to go through the form +of looking at the illustrations, which were of the birds native to the +region. In spite of her emotion, the large, brightly colored pictures +did force their way through her eye to her brain, instinct in every +fiber with the modern habit of taking in impressions from the printed +page; and for years afterwards she could have told the names of the +birds they saw during that long, still half-hour, broken by no sound +but the tap-tap-tap of Mr. Bristol's typewriter. He did not once look +towards them. This was partly a matter of policy, and partly because +he was trying desperately to get a paper written for the next +Convention of Public School Principals, which he was to address on +the "Study of Arithmetic in the Seventh Grade." He had very fixed and +burning ideas about the teaching of arithmetic in the seventh grade, +which he longed with a true believer's fervor to see adopted by all +the schools in the country. He often said that if they would only do +so, the study of arithmetic would be revolutionized in a decade. + +Judith sat beside her sister, not pretending to look at the book, +although the rigidity of her face insensibly softened somewhat in the +contagious quiet of the room. + +When they had turned over the last page and shut the book, Mr. Bristol +faced them again, leaning back in his swivel-chair, and said: "Now, +children--all quiet? One of you begin at the beginning and tell me how +it happened." Judith's lips shut together in a hard line, so Sylvia +began, surprised to find her nerves steadied and calmed by the silent +half-hour of inaction back of her. She told how they were met that +morning by the news, how the children shouted after Camilla as she got +into the carriage, how the Five A girls had decided to exclude her +from the picnic, how angry Judith had been, and then--then--she knew +no more to tell beyond the bare fact of Judith's passionate misdeed. + +Mr. Bristol began to cross-examine Judith in short, quiet sentences. +"What made you think of throwing the things into the river?" + +"I was afraid they'd get them back somehow if I didn't," said Judith, +as if stating a self-evident argument. + +"Where did you go to throw them in? To the Monroe Street bridge?" + +"No, I didn't have time to go so far. I just went down through +Randolph Street to the bank and there was a boat there tied to a tree, +and I got in and pushed it out as far as the rope would go and dropped +the things in from the other end." + +Sylvia caught her breath in terror at this recital. The Piquota river +ran swift and turbid and deep between high banks at that point. +"Weren't you afraid to venture out in a boat all by yourself?" asked +the man, looking at Judith's diminutive person. + +"Yes, I was," said Judith unexpectedly. + +Mr. Bristol said "Oh--" and stood in thought for a moment. Some one +knocked on the door, and he turned to open it. At the sight of the +tall figure standing there in his pepper-and-salt suit, Sylvia's +heart gave a great bound of incredulous rapture. The appearance of +a merciful mediator on the Day of Judgment could not have given her +keener or more poignant relief. She and Judith both ran headlong to +their father, catching his hands in theirs, clinging to his arms and +pressing their little bodies against his. The comfort Sylvia felt in +his mere physical presence was inexpressible. It is one of the pure +golden emotions of childhood, which no adult can ever recover, save +perhaps a mystic in a moment of ecstatic contemplation of the power +and loving-kindness of his God. + +Professor Marshall put out his hand to the Principal, introducing +himself, and explained that he and his wife had been a little uneasy +when the children had not returned from school. Mr. Bristol shook the +other's hand, saying that he knew of him through mutual acquaintances +and assuring him that he could not have come at a more opportune +moment. "Your little daughter has given me a hard nut to crack. I need +advice." + +Both men sat down, Sylvia and Judith still close to their father's +side, and Mr. Bristol told what had happened in a concise, colorless +narration, ending with Judith's exploit with the boat. "Now what would +_you_ do in _my_ place?" he said, like one proposing an insoluble +riddle. + +Sylvia, seeing the discussion going on in such a quiet, conversational +tone, ventured in a small voice the suggestion that Judith had done +well to confess, since that had saved others from suspicion. "The +girls were sure that Jimmy Weaver had done it." + +"Was that why you came back and told?" asked Professor Marshall. + +"No," said Judith bluntly, "I never thought of that. I wanted to be +sure they knew why it happened." + +The two men exchanged glances. Professor Marshall said: "Didn't you +understand me when I told you at noon that even if you could make the +girls let Camilla go to the picnic, she wouldn't have a good time? You +couldn't make them like to have her?" + +"Yes, I understood all right," said Judith, looking straight at her +father, "but if she couldn't have a good time--and no fault of hers--I +wasn't going to let _them_ have a good time either. I wasn't trying to +make them want her. I was trying to get even with them!" + +Professor Marshall looked stern. "That is just what I feared, Judith, +and that hateful spirit is the bad thing about the whole business." He +turned to the Principal: "How many girls were going to the picnic?" + +The other, with a wide gesture, disavowed any knowledge of the matter. +"Good Heavens! how should I know?" + +Sylvia counted rapidly. "Fourteen," she said. + +"Well, Mr. Bristol, how would this do for a punishment? Judith has +worked in various ways, digging up dandelions from the lawn, weeding +flower-beds, running errands--you know--all the things children +do--and she has a little more than five dollars in her iron +savings-bank, that she has been saving for more than a year to buy a +collie puppy. Would you be satisfied if she took that money, divided +it into fourteen parts, and took it herself in person to each of the +girls?" + +During this proposal Judith's face had taken on an expression of utter +dismay. She looked more childlike, more like her years than at any +moment during the interview. "Oh, _Father_!" she implored him, with a +deep note of entreaty. + +He did not look at her, but over her head at the Principal, who was +rising from his chair with every indication of relief on his face." +Nothing could be better," he said. "That will be just right--every one +will be satisfied. And I'll just say for the sake of discipline +that little Judith shan't come back to school till she has done her +penance. Of course she can get it all done before supper-time tonight. +All our families live in the vicinity of the school." He was shaking +Professor Marshall's hand again and edging him towards the door, his +mind once more on his paper, hoping that he might really finish it +before night--if only there were no more interruptions! + +His achievement in divining the mental processes of two children +hysterical with excitement, his magnetic taming of those fluttering +little hearts, his inspired avoidance of a fatal false step at +a critical point in the moral life of two human beings in the +making--all this seemed as nothing to him--an incident of the day's +routine already forgotten. He conceived that his real usefulness to +society lay in the reform of arithmetic-teaching in the seventh grade, +and he turned back to his arguments with the ardor of the great +landscape painter who aspires to be a champion at billiards. + +Professor Marshall walked home in silence with his two daughters, +explained the matter to his wife, and said that he and Sylvia would +go with Judith on her uncomfortable errand. Mrs. Marshall listened +in silence and went herself to get the little bank stuffed full of +painfully earned pennies and nickels. Then she bade them into the +kitchen and gave Judith and Sylvia each a cookie and a glass of milk. + +She made no comment whatever on the story, or on her husband's +sentence for the culprit, but just as the three, were going out of the +door, she ran after them, caught Judith in her arms, and gave her a +passionate kiss. + + * * * * * + +The next day was Saturday, and it was suggested that Judith and Sylvia +carry on their campaign by going to see the Fingals and spending the +morning playing with them as though nothing had happened. + +As they approached the house, somewhat perturbed by the prospect, they +saw with surprise that the windows were bare of the heavy yellow lace +curtains which had hung in the parlor, darkening that handsomely +furnished room to a rich twilight. They went up on the porch, and +Judith rang the bell resolutely, while Sylvia hung a little back of +her. From this position she could see into the parlor, and exclaimed, +"Why, Judy, this isn't the right house--nobody lives here!" The big +room was quite empty, the floors bare of the large soft rugs, and as +the children pressed their faces to the pane, they could see through +an open door into a bedroom also dismantled and deserted. + +They ran around the house to the back door and knocked on it. There +was no answer. Judith turned the knob, the door opened, and they stood +in what had been unmistakably the Fingals' kitchen. Evidence of wild +haste and confusion was everywhere about them--the floor was littered +with excelsior, the shelves half cleared and half occupied still with +cooking supplies, a packing-box partly filled with kitchenware which +at the last moment the fugitives had evidently decided to abandon. + +The little girls stood in this silent desolation, looking about them +with startled eyes. A lean mother-cat came and rubbed her thin, +pendent flanks against their legs, purring and whining. Three kittens +skirmished joyfully in the excelsior, waylaying one another in ambush +and springing out with bits of the yellow fibers clinging to their +woolly soft fur. + +"They've _gone_!" breathed Sylvia. "They've gone away for good!" + +Judith nodded, even her bold and unimaginative spirit somewhat +daunted by the ghostly silence of the house. Sylvia tiptoed to the +swinging-door and pushed it open. Yes, there was the pantry, like the +kitchen, in chaotic disorder, tissue paper and excelsior thick on the +floor, and entangled with it the indescribable jumble of worthless, +disconnected objects always tumbled together by a domestic crisis +like a fire or a removal--old gloves, whisk-brooms, hat-forms, lamps, +magazines, tarnished desk-fittings. The sight was so eloquent of panic +haste that Sylvia let the door swing shut, and ran back into the +kitchen. + +Judith was pointing silently to a big paper bag on the shelf. It had +been tossed there with some violence evidently, for the paper had +burst and the contents had cascaded out on the shelf and on the +floor--the rich, be-raisined cookies which Camilla was to have taken +to the picnic. Sylvia felt the tears stinging her eyelids, and pulled +Judith out of the tragic house. They stood for a moment in the yard, +beside a bed of flowering crocuses, brilliant in the sun. The forsaken +house looked down severely at them from its blank windows. Judith was +almost instantly relieved of mental tension by the outdoor air, and +stooped down unconcernedly to tie her shoe. She broke the lacing and +had to sit down, take it out of the shoe, tie it, and put it back +again. The operation took some time, during which Sylvia stood still, +her mind whirling. + +For the first time in her steadily forward-going life there was a +sharp, irrevocable break. Something which had been yesterday was now +no more. She would never see Camilla again, she who recalled Camilla's +look of anguish as though they still stood side by side. Her heart +filled with unspeakable thankfulness that she had put her arms around +Camilla's neck at that supreme last moment. That had not been Judith's +doing. That had come from her own heart. Unconsciously she had laid +the first stone in the wall of self-respect which might in the future +fortify her against her weaknesses. + +She stood looking up blindly at the house, shivering again at the +recollection of its echoing, empty silence. The moment was one she +never forgot. Standing there in that commonplace backyard, staring up +at a house like any one of forty near her, she felt her heart grow +larger. In that moment, tragedy, mystery, awe, and pity laid their +shadowy fingers on her shining head. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE END OF CHILDHOOD + + +That afternoon a couple of children who came to play in the Marshall +orchard brought news that public opinion, after the fashion of that +unstable weathercock, was veering rapidly, and blowing from a wholly +unexpected quarter. "My papa says," reported Gretchen Schmidt, who +never could keep anything to herself, even though it might be by no +means to her advantage to proclaim it--"my papa says that he thinks +the way American people treats colored peoples is just fierce; and he +says if he'd ha' known about our not letting Camilla go to the picnic, +he'd ha' taken the trouble to me '_mit der flachen Hand schlagen._' +That means he'd have spanked me good and plenty." + +Maria Perkins, from the limb where she hung by her knees, responded, +"Yup, my Uncle Eben says he likes Judy's spunk." + +"I guess he wouldn't have, if it'd ha' been his pickles!" Gretchen +made a last stand against the notorious injustice of fickle adult +prejudices. + +But the tide had begun to turn. On Monday morning Sylvia and Judith +found themselves far from ostracized, rather the center of much +respectful finger-pointing on the part of children from the other +grades who had never paid the least attention to them before. And +finally when the Principal, passing majestically from room to room in +his daily tour of inspection, paused in his awful progress and spoke +to Judith by name, asking her quite familiarly and condescendingly +what cities you would pass through if you went from Chicago to New +Orleans, the current set once and for all in the other direction. No +mention was ever made of the disappearance of the Fingals, and the +Marshall children found their old places waiting for them. + +It was not long before Judith had all but forgotten the episode; but +Sylvia, older and infinitely more impressionable, found it burned +irrevocably into her memory. For many and many a week, she did not +fall asleep without seeing Camilla's ashy face of wretchedness. And it +was years before she could walk past the house where the Fingals had +lived, without feeling sick. + +Her life was, however, brimming with active interests which occupied +her, mind and body. There was rarely a day when a troop of children +did not swarm over the Marshall house and barn, playing and playing +and playing with that indomitable zest in life which is the birthright +of humanity before the fevers and chills of adolescence begin. Sylvia +and Judith, moreover, were required to assume more and more of the +responsibility of the housework, while their mother extracted from the +Marshall five acres an ever increasing largesse of succulent food. +Sylvia's seances with old Reinhardt and the piano were becoming +serious affairs: for it was now tentatively decided that she was to +earn her living by teaching music. There were many expeditions on foot +with their mother, for Mrs. Marshall had become, little by little, +chief nurse and adviser to all the families of the neighborhood; and +on her errands of service one of her daughters was needed to carry +supplies and act as assistant. And finally, as the children grew +older, and the family tradition of bookishness took hold of +them, there were shelves and shelves to be devoured, a strange +mixture--Thackeray, Maeterlinck, Fielding, Hakluyt, Ibsen, Dickens, +Ruskin, Shaw, Austen, Moliere, Defoe, Cervantes, Shakespeare,--the +children dipped, or tasted or swallowed whole, according to their +temperaments and the books they happened on. + +When Sylvia was thirteen, almost fourteen years old, she "graduated" +from the eighth grade of the public schools and was ready to enter the +High School. But after a good many family councils, in most of which, +after the unreticent Marshall manner, she herself was allowed to be +present, it was decided not to send her to the huge new Central High +School, which had cost La Chance such a big slice of its taxes, but to +prepare her at home for her course at the State University. She had +been growing very fast, was a little thin and white, and had been +outgrowing her strength. This at least was the reason given out to +inquirers. In reality her father's prejudice against High School +life for adolescents was the determining cause. In the course of his +University work he was obliged to visit a good many High Schools, and +had acquired a violent prejudice against the stirring social life +characteristic of those institutions. + +Sylvia's feelings about this step aside from the beaten track were, +like many of Sylvia's feelings, decidedly mixed. She was drawn towards +the High School by the suction of the customary. A large number of her +classmates expected as a matter of course to pass on in the usual way; +but, with an uneasy qualm, half pride and half apprehension, Sylvia +was beginning to feel her difference from ordinary children. She was +not altogether sorry to say good-bye to her playmates, with whom she +no longer had much in common. She would miss the fun of class-life, of +course; but there was a certain distinction involved in being educated +"differently." She might be queer, but since she was apparently fated +to be queer, she might as well not be "common" as well. Finally, +because she was still, at fourteen, very much of a child, the scale +was tipped by her thinking what fun it would be to go down-town on +errands in school hours. Charles Lamb, lost in painful wonder at his +own leisure after thirty-six years of incessant office-hours, could +savor no more acutely than an American school-child the exquisite +flavor of freedom at an hour formerly dedicated to imprisonment. + +As a matter of fact, during the next three years Sylvia's time was +more constantly occupied than when there was a fixed time-limit to her +studies. Her teachers were always about her, and lightly as the new +yoke pressed, she wore it practically without intermission. Her +immersion in the ideals, the standards, the concepts of her parents +was complete, engulfing. Somebody was nearly always teaching her +something. She studied history and Latin with her father; mathematics +with her mother. She learned to swim, to play tennis, to ride in the +summer-time, and to skate on the frozen swimming-pool in winter, all +without stirring from home. Old Reinhardt was supposed to come twice +a week to give her a piano-lesson, but actually he dropped in almost +every day to smoke meditatively and keep a watchful ear on her +practising. + +Although during those years she was almost literally rooted to the +Marshall soil, watered by Marshall convictions, and fed by Marshall +information, the usual miracle of irresistibly individual growth went +silently and unconsciously forward in her. She was growing up to be +herself, and not her mother or her father, little as any one in her +world suspected the presence of this unceasingly recurrent phenomenon +of growth. She was alive to all the impressions reflected so +insistently upon her, but she transmuted them into products which +would immensely have surprised her parents, they being under the +usual parental delusion that they knew every corner of her heart. Her +budding aversions, convictions, ambitions were not in the least the +aversions, convictions, and ambitions so loudly voiced about her; and +a good deal of her energy was taken up in a more or less conscious +reaction from the family catchwords, with especial emphasis laid on an +objection to the family habit of taking their convictions with great +seriousness. + +Her father would have been aghast if he could have felt the slightest +reflection from the heat of her detestation of his favorite, +Emersonian motto, which, now that he had reached five and forty, he +was apt to repeat with the iteration natural to his age, rousing in +Sylvia the rebellious exasperation felt by _her_ age for over-emphatic +moralizings. + +On the occasion of one of the annual gatherings at the Marshall house +of the Seniors in her father's classes, she remarked fiercely to +Judith, "If Father gets off that old Emerson, 'What will you have, +quoth God. Take it and pay for it,' again tonight in his speech, I'm +going to get right up and scream." + +Judith stared. The girls were in the kitchen, large aprons over their +best dresses, setting out rows of plates for the chicken salad which +was to come after the music. "I don't see anything to scream about in +that!" said Judith with a wondering contempt for Sylvia's notions. + +"I'm so _sick_ of it!" cried Sylvia, tearing the lettuce-leaves apart +with venom. "Father never gets through any sort of a speech that he +doesn't work it in--and I hate it, anyhow! It makes me feel as though +somebody had banged a big door in my face and shut me up in prison." + +"Well, for goodness' sakes!" cried Judith, who, at this period of +their lives, had remained rather more than her three years behind +Sylvia's intelligence. "How do you get all that out of _that_!" + +"You haven't sense enough to know what it means, that's all!" retorted +Sylvia. "It means something perfectly hateful, the way Father uses it. +It means you've got to pay for every single thing you do or get in +this world! It's somebody tagging you round with an account-book, +seeing how big a bill you're running up. It's the perfectly horrid way +Father and Mother make us do, of _always_ washing up the dishes we +dirty, and _always_ picking up the things we drop. Seems as though I'd +die happy, if I could just step out of my nightgown in the morning and +_leave_ it there, and know that it would get hung up without my doing +it." + +"Well, if that's all you want, to die happy," said Judith, the +literal-minded, "I will do that much for you!" + +"Oh gracious, no! That wouldn't do any good! You know I couldn't take +any satisfaction letting _you_ do that!" objected Sylvia, peevishly, +fuming and fumbling helplessly before the baffling quality of her +desires. "I don't want just somebody to pick it up for me. I want it +picked up by somebody that I don't care about, that I don't see, that +I'd just as soon have do the tiresome things as not. I want somebody +to do it, and me to feel all right about _having_ them do it!" + +"Well, for goodness' sakes!" Judith was reduced again to mere wonder. + +Professor and Mrs. Marshall stepped into the kitchen for a moment to +see that everything was progressing smoothly. The professor had his +viola in his hand and was plucking softly at the strings, a pleasant, +tranquil anticipation of harmony on his face. He looked affectionately +at his daughters and thought what dear good children they were. Judith +appealed to her parents: "Sylvia's as crazy as a loon. She says she +wants somebody to do her work for her, and yet she wants to feel all +right about shirking it!" + +Mrs. Marshall did not follow, and did not care. "What?" she said +indifferently, tasting the chicken-salad in the big yellow bowl, and, +with an expression of serious consideration, adding a little more salt +to it. + +But Sylvia's father understood, "What you want to remember, daughter," +he said, addressing himself to his oldest child with a fond certainty +of her quick apprehension, "is that fine saying of Emerson, 'What will +you have, quoth--'" A raw-boned assistant appeared in the doorway. +"Everybody here, I guess, Perfesser," he said. + +When the girls were alone again, Sylvia stole a look at Judith and +broke into noiseless giggles. She laughed till the tears ran down her +cheeks and she had to stop work and go to the kitchen sink to wash +her face and take a drink of water. "You never do what you say you're +going to," said Judith, as gravely alien to this mood as to the other. +"I thought you said you'd scream." + +"I _am_ screaming," said Sylvia, wiping her eyes again. + +They were very familiar with the work of preparing the simple +"refreshments" for University gatherings. Their mother always +provided exactly the same viands, and long practice had made them +letter-perfect in the moves to be made. When they had finished +portioning off the lettuce-leaves and salad on the plates, they +swiftly set each one on a fresh crepe-paper napkin. Sylvia professed +an undying hatred for paper napkins. "I don't see why," said Judith. +"They're so much less bother than the other kind when you're only +going to use them once, this way." "That's it," asserted Sylvia; +"that's the very stingy, economical thing about them I hate, their +_not_ being a bother! I'd like to use big, fine-damask ones, all +shiny, that somebody had ironed twenty minutes, every one, like those +we had at Eleanor Hubert's birthday party. And then I'd scrunch them +up and throw them in the laundry if there was the least speck on +them." + +"I wouldn't like the job of doing them up," said Judith. + +"Neither would I. I'd hate it! And I wouldn't," continued Sylvia, +roaming at will in her enchanted garden; "I'd hire somebody to take +all the bother of buying them and hemming them and doing them up and +putting them on the table. All I'd do, would be to shake them out and +lay them across my lap," she went through a dainty-fingered pantomime, +"and never think a thing about how they got there. That's all _I_ want +to do with napkins. But I do love 'em big and glossy. I could _kiss_ +them!" + +Judith was almost alarmed at the wildness of Sylvia's imaginings. +"Why, you talk as though you didn't have good sense tonight, Sylvie. +It's the party. You always get so excited over parties." Judith +considered it a "come-down" to get excited over anything. + +"Great Scotland! I guess I don't get excited over one of these +_student_ parties!" Sylvia repudiated the idea. "All Father's +'favorite students' are such rough-necks. And it makes me tired to +have all our freaks come out of their holes when we have company--Miss +Lindstroem and Mr. Hecht and Cousin Parnelia and all." + +"The President comes," advanced Judith. + +Sylvia was sweeping in her iconoclasm. "What if he does--old +fish-mouth! _He's_ nobody--he's a rough-neck himself. He used to be a +Baptist minister. He's only President because he can talk the hayseeds +in the Legislature into giving the University big appropriations. And +anyhow, he only comes here because he _has_ to--part of his job. He +doesn't like the freaks any better than I do. The last time he +was here, I heard Cousin Parnelia trying to persuade him to have +planchette write him a message from Abraham Lincoln. Isn't she the +limit, anyhow!" + +The girls put off their aprons and slipped into the big, low-ceilinged +living-room, singing like a great sea-shell with thrilling +violin-tones. Old Reinhardt was playing the Kreutzer, with Professor +Marshall at the piano. Judith went quietly to sit near Professor +Kennedy, and Sylvia sat down near a window, leaning her head against +the pane as she listened, her eyes fixed on the blackness outside. +Her face cleared and brightened, like a cloudy liquor settling to +limpidity in a crystal vase. Her lips parted a little, her eyes were +fixed on a point incalculably distant. Her mind emptied itself of +everything but her joy in the glorious cadences.... + +If she had been asked what she and Judith had been talking of, she +could not have told; but when, after the second movement was finished, +old Reinhardt put down his violin and began to loosen his bow (he +never played the presto finale), it all came back to the girl as she +looked around her at her father's guests. She hated the way the young +men's Adam's apples showed through their too-widely opened collars, +and she loathed the way the thin brown hair of one of the co-eds +was strained back from her temples. She received the President's +condescending, oleaginous hand-shake with a qualm at his loud +oratorical voice and plebeian accent, and she headed Cousin Parnelia +off from a second mediumistic attack, hating her badly adjusted +false-front of hair as intensely as ever Loyola hated a heretic. And +this, although uncontrollably driven by her desire to please, to +please even a roomful of such mediocrities, she bore to the outward +eyes the most gracious aspect of friendly, smiling courtesy. Professor +Marshall looked at her several times, as she moved with her slim young +grace among his students and friends, and thought how fortunate he was +in his children. + +After the chicken-salad and coffee had been successfully served and +eaten, one of the Seniors stepped forward with an awkward crudeness +and presented Professor Marshall with a silver-mounted blotting-pad. +The house was littered with such testimonials to the influence of the +Professor on the young minds under his care, testimonials which his +children took as absolutely for granted as they did everything else in +the home life. On this occasion Sylvia was so afflicted because the +young rustic appointed to make the presentation speech, forgot most of +what he had planned to say, that she felt nothing but the liveliest +impatience with the whole proceeding. But her father's quick heart was +touched, and more than half of his usual little speech of farewell +to his Seniors was an expression of thanks to them. Before he had +finished the last part, which consisted of eloquent exhortations +to the higher life, none the less sincerely heartfelt for being +remarkably like similar speeches he had made during the last twenty +years, he had quoted his favorite saying from Emerson. Judith looked +apprehensively at Sylvia; but she was not laughing. She evidently was +not hearing a word her father said, being lost in the contemplation +of the perfect evening costume of the newest assistant in Professor +Marshall's department. He was a young man from Massachusetts, fresh +from Harvard, who had come West to begin his teaching that year. His +was certainly the most modern dress-suit in the University faculty; +and he wore it with a supercilious disregard for its perfections which +greatly impressed Sylvia. + +After these usual formalities were thus safely past, some one +suggested a game of charades to end the evening. Amid great laughter +and joking from the few professors present and delighted response +from the students who found it immensely entertaining to be on such +familiar terms with their instructors, two leaders began to "choose +sides." The young assistant from Harvard said in a low tone to his +friend, not noticing Professor Marshall's young daughter near them: +"They won't really go on and _do_ this fool, undignified, backwoods +stunt, will they? They don't expect us to join _in_!" + +"Oh yes, they will," answered his friend, catching up his tone of +sophisticated scorn. He too was from Harvard, from an earlier class. +"You'll be lucky if they don't have a spelling-down match, later on." + +"Good Lord!" groaned the first young man. + +"Oh, you mustn't think all of the University society is like _this_!" +protested the second. "And anyhow, we can slope now, without being +noticed," + +Sylvia understood the accent and tone of this passage more than the +exact words, but it summed up and brought home to her in a cruelly +clarified form her own groping impressions. The moment was a terribly +painful one for her. Her heart swelled, the tears came to her eyes, +she clenched her fists. Her fine, lovely, and sensitive face darkened +to a tragic intensity of resolve. She might have been the young +Hannibal, vowing to avenge Carthage. What she was saying to herself +passionately was, "When _I_ get into the University, I will _not_ be a +jay!" + +It was under these conditions that Sylvia passed from childhood, +and emerged into the pains and delights and responsibilities of +self-consciousness. + + + + +BOOK II + +_A FALSE START TO ATHENS_ + + + + +CHAPTER X + +SYLVIA'S FIRST GLIMPSE OF MODERN CIVILIZATION + + +Although there was not the slightest actual connection between +the two, the trip to Chicago was always in Sylvia's mind like the +beginning of her University course. It is true that the journey, +practically the first in Sylvia's life, was undertaken shortly before +her matriculation as a Freshman, but this fortuitous chronological +connection could not account for Sylvia's sense of a deeper unity +between the two experiences. The days in Chicago, few as they were, +were as charged with significance for her as the successive acts in a +drama, and that significance was of the substance and marrow of the +following and longer passage in her life. + +The fact that her father and her mother disagreed about the +advisability of the trip was one of the salient points in the +beginning. When Aunt Victoria, breaking a long silence with one of her +infrequent letters, wrote to say that she was to be in Chicago "on +business" during the last week of September, and would be very glad +to have her sister-in-law bring her two nieces to see her there, +Professor Marshall said, with his usual snort: "Business nothing! She +never has any business. She won't come to see them _here_, that's all. +The idea's preposterous." But Mrs. Marshall, breaking a long silence +of her own, said vigorously: "She is your sister, and you and your +family are the only blood-kin she has in the world. I've a notion--I +have had for some time--that she was somehow terribly hurt on that +last visit here. It would be ungenerous not to go half-way to meet her +now." + +Sylvia, anxiously hanging on her father's response, was surprised +when he made no protest beyond, "Well, do as you please. I can keep +Lawrence all right. She only speaks of seeing you and the girls." It +did not occur to Sylvia, astonished at this sudden capitulation, that +there might be a discrepancy between her father's habit of vehement +speech and his real feeling in this instance. + +It was enough for her, however, that they were going to take a long +journey on the train overnight, that they were going to see a great +city, that they were going to see Aunt Victoria, about whom her +imagination had always hovered with a constancy enhanced by the odd +silence concerning her which was the rule in the Marshall house. + +She was immensely stirred by the prospect. She made herself, in the +brief interval between the decision and the beginning of the journey, +a new shirt-waist of handkerchief linen. It took the last cent of +her allowance to buy the material, and she was obliged, by a secret +arrangement with her father, to discount the future, in order to have +some spending-money in the city. + +Mrs. Marshall was quite disappointed by the dullness of Sylvia's +perceptions during that momentous first trip, which she had looked +forward to as an occasion for widening the girls' horizon to new +interests. Oddly enough it was Judith, usually so much less quick than +Sylvia, who asked the intelligent questions and listened attentively +to her mother's explanations about the working of the air-brakes, and +the switching systems in railroad yards, and the harvesting of the +crops in the flat, rich country gliding past the windows. It was +quite evident that not a word of this highly instructive talk +reached Sylvia, sitting motionless, absorbing every detail of her +fellow-passengers' aspect, in a sort of trance of receptivity. She +scarcely glanced out of the windows, except when the train stopped at +the station in a large town, when she transferred her steady gaze to +the people coming and going from the train. "Just look, Sylvia, at +those blast-furnaces!" cried her mother as they passed through the +outskirts of an industrial town. "They have to keep them going, you +know, night and day." + +"Oh, do they? What for?" asked Judith, craning her neck to watch the +splendid leap of the flames into the darkness. + +"Because they can't allow the ore to become--" Mrs. Marshall wondered +why, during her conscientious explanation of blast-furnaces, Sylvia +kept her eyes dully fixed on her hands on her lap. Sylvia was, as a +matter of fact, trying imaginary bracelets on her slim, smooth, white +wrists. The woman opposite her wore bracelets. + +"Isn't it fine," remarked the civic-minded Mrs. Marshall, "to see all +these little prairie towns so splendidly lighted?" + +"I hadn't noticed them," said Sylvia, her gaze turned on the elegant +nonchalance of a handsome, elderly woman ahead of her. Her mother +looked at her askance, and thought that children are unaccountable. + +There were four of the Chicago days, and such important events marked +them that each one had for all time a physiognomy of its own. Years +afterwards when their travels had far outrun that first journey, +Sylvia and Judith could have told exactly what occurred on any given +day of that sojourn, as "on the third day we were in Chicago." + +The event of the first day was, of course, the meeting with Aunt +Victoria. They went to see her in a wonderful hotel, entering through +a classic court, with a silver-plashing fountain in the middle, and +slim Ionic pillars standing up white and glorious out of masses of +palms. This dreamlike spot of beauty was occupied by an incessantly +restless throng of lean, sallow-faced men in sack-coats, with hats on +the backs of their heads and cigars in the corners of their mouths. +The air was full of tobacco smoke and the click of heels on the marble +pavement. At one side was a great onyx-and-marble desk, looking like +a soda-water fountain without the silver faucets, and it was the +thin-cheeked, elegant young-old man behind this structure who gave +instructions whereby Mrs. Marshall and her two daughters found their +way to Aunt Victoria's immense and luxurious room. She was very glad +to see them, shaking hands with her sister-in-law in the respectful +manner which that lady always seemed to inspire in her, and embracing +her two tall young nieces with a fervor which melted Sylvia's heart +back to her old childish adoration. + +"What _beautiful_ children you have, Barbara!" cried Mrs. +Marshall-Smith, holding Judith off at arm's length and looking from +her to Sylvia; "although I suppose I ought not to tell them that!" She +looked at Sylvia with an affectionate laugh. "Will you be spoiled if I +tell you you are very pretty?" she asked. + +"I can't think of anything but how pretty _you_ are!" said Sylvia, +voicing honestly what was in her mind. + +This answer caused her aunt to cry out: "Oh! Oh! And tact too! She's +meant for social success!" She left this note to vibrate in Sylvia's +ears and turned again to her sister-in-law with hospitable remarks +about the removing of wraps. As this was being done, she took +advantage of the little bustle to remark from the other side of the +room, "I rather hoped Elliott would come with you." She spoke lightly, +but there was the tremor of feeling in her sweet voice which Sylvia +found she remembered as though it had been but yesterday she had heard +it last. + +"You didn't ask him," said Mrs. Marshall, with her usual directness. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith arched her eyebrows, dropped her eyelids, and +shook her head. "No, I didn't ask him," she admitted, and then with a +little wry twist of her lips, "But I rather hoped he might feel like +coming." She looked down at her hands. + +Mrs. Marshall surprised her daughters very much by going across the +room and kissing her husband's sister. Mrs. Marshall-Smith took the +other's strong, hard hand between her soft fingers. "That's generous +in you, Barbara," she said, looking intently into the pitying dark +eyes, "I'm human, you know," + +"Yes, I know you're human," said Mrs. Marshall, looking down at her +gravely. "So are we all of us. So's Elliott. Don't forget that." With +which obscure reference, entirely unintelligible to the two girls, the +matter was forever dropped. + +The two ladies thereupon embarked upon the difficult business of +laying out to the best advantage the few days before them so that +every hour might be utilized for the twofold purpose of seeing each +other and having the girls see the sights. Judith went to the window +during this conversation, and looked down into the crowded street, the +first city street she had ever seen. Sylvia sat quietly and imprinted +upon her memory every item in the appearance of the two women before +her, not the first time she had compared them. Mrs. Marshall was +dressed in a dark-blue, well-preserved, ready-made suit, dating from +the year before. It was in perfect condition and quite near enough +the style of the moment to pass unnoticed. Sylvia saw nothing to be +ashamed of in her mother's unaccented and neutral costume, but there +was no denying that she looked exactly like any one else. What was +most apparent to the discerning eye was that her garb had been +organized in every detail so as to consume as little thought and +effort as possible. Whereas Aunt Victoria--Sylvia's earnest and +thoughtful efforts at home-dressmaking had fitted her, if for nothing +else, for a full appreciation of Mrs. Marshall-Smith's costume. She +had struggled with cloth enough to bow her head in respect and awe +before the masterly tailoring of the rich, smooth broadcloth dress. +She knew from her own experience that the perfection of those welted +seams could not be accomplished by even the most intense temporary +concentration of amateur forces. No such trifling fire of twigs +lighted the way to that pinnacle. The workman who had achieved that +skill had cut down the whole tree of his life and thrown it into the +flame. + +Like a self-taught fiddler at the concert of a master, Sylvia's +failures had taught her the meaning of success. Although her +inexperience kept her from making at all a close estimate of the +literal cost of the toilet, her shrewdness made her divine the truth, +which was that Mrs. Marshall-Smith, in spite of the plainness of her +attire, could have clad herself in cloth-of-gold at a scarcely greater +expenditure of the efforts and lives of others. Sylvia felt that her +aunt was the most entirely enviable person in the world, and would +gladly have changed places with her in a moment. + +That was, on the whole, the note of the Chicago trip, all the dazzling +lights and reflections of which focused, for Sylvia, upon Aunt +Victoria's radiant person. At times, the resultant beam was almost too +much for the young eyes; as, for example, on the next day when the +two made a momentous shopping expedition to the largest and finest +department store in the city. "I've a curiosity to see," Aunt Victoria +had declared carelessly, "what sort of things are sold in a big +Western shop, and besides I've some purchases to make for the Lydford +house. Things needs freshening up there. I've thought of wicker and +chintz for the living-room. It would be a change from what I've had. +Perhaps it would amuse the children to go along?" + +At this, Judith, who had a boy's detestation of shopping, looked so +miserable that Aunt Victoria had laughed out, her frank, amused laugh, +and said, "Well, Sylvia and I alone, then!" + +"Judith and I'll go to Lincoln Park to take a walk by the lake," said +Mrs. Marshall. "Our inland young folks have never seen so much water +all at once." + +Sylvia had been, of course, in the two substantial and well-run +department stores of La Chance, when she went with her mother to make +their carefully considered purchases. They always went directly to +the department in question, where Mrs. Marshall's concise formula ran +usually along such lines as, "I would like to look at misses' coats, +size 16, blue or brown serge, moderate style, price somewhere between +ten and fifteen dollars." And then they looked at misses' coats, size +16, blue or brown serge, of the specified price; and picked out +one. Sylvia's mother was under the impression that she allowed her +daughters to select their own clothes because, after all these +defining and limiting preliminaries, she always, with a very genuine +indifference, abandoned them to their own choice between the four or +five garments offered. + +Even when Sylvia, as she grew older, went by herself to make a small +purchase or two, she was so deeply under the influence of her mother's +example that she felt it unbecoming to loiter, or to examine anything +she knew she could not buy. Besides, nearly all the salespeople, who, +for the most part, had been at their posts for many years, knew her +from childhood, and if she stopped to look at a show-case of new +collars, or jabots, they always came pleasantly to pass the time of +day, and ask how her little brother was, and how she liked studying at +home. She was ashamed to show in their presence anything but a casual, +dignified interest in the goods they handled. + +After these feeble and diluted tipplings, her day with Aunt Victoria +was like a huge draught of raw spirits. That much-experienced shopper +led her a leisurely course up one dazzling aisle and down another, +pausing ruthlessly to look and to handle and to comment, even if she +had not the least intention of buying. With an inimitable ease +of manner she examined whatever took her fancy, and the languid, +fashionably dressed salesladies, all in aristocratic black, showed to +these whims a smiling deference, which Sylvia knew could come +from nothing but the exquisite tailoring of Aunt Victoria's blue +broadcloth. This perception did not in the least lower her opinion of +the value of the deference. It heightened her opinion of the value of +tailoring. + +They stood by glass tables piled high with filmy and costly underwear, +such underwear as Sylvia had never dreamed could exist, and Aunt +Victoria looked casually at the cobweb tissues which the saleswoman +held up, herself hankering in a hungry adoration of the luxury she +would never touch in any other way. Without apology or explanation, +other than Aunt Victoria's gracious nod of dismissal, they moved on +to the enchanted cave where, under the stare of innumerable electric +lights, evening wraps were exhibited. The young woman who served them +held the expensive, fragile chiffon of the garments up in front of her +black uniform, her eyes wistful and unsatisfied. Her instant of glory +was over when Aunt Victoria bought one of these, exclaiming humorously +about the quaintness of going from Paris to Chicago to shop. It was of +silver tissue over white brocade, with a collar of fur, and the price +was a hundred and thirty-seven dollars. Sylvia's allowance for all her +personal expenses for a whole year was a hundred and twenty. To +reach the furniture, they passed by, with an ignoring contempt, huge +counters heaped with hundreds and hundreds of shirt-waists, any one of +which was better than the one Sylvia had made with so much care and +interest before leaving home. + +Among the furniture they made a long stay. Aunt Victoria was +unexpectedly pleased by the design of the wicker pieces, and +bought and bought and bought; till Sylvia turned her head away in +bewilderment. She looked down a long perspective of glittering +show-cases filled with the minor luxuries of the toilet, the ruffs, +the collars, the slipper-rosettes, the embroidered belts, the hair +ornaments, the chiffon scarves, all objects diverse, innumerable, +perishable as mist in tree-branches, all costly in exact ratio to +their fragility. Back of her were the children's dresses, fairy-like, +simple with an extravagantly costly simplicity. It occurred to Sylvia +as little as to many others of the crowd of half-hypnotized women, +wandering about with burning eyes and watering mouths through the +shrewdly designed shop, that the great closets back of these adroitly +displayed fineries might be full of wearable, firm-textured little +dresses, such as she herself had always worn. It required an effort of +the will to remember that, and wills weak, or not yet formed, wavered +and bent before the lust of the eye, so cunningly inflamed. Any sense +of values, of proportion, in Sylvia was dumfounded by the lavishness, +the enormous quantities, the immense varieties of the goods displayed. +She ached with covetousness.... + +When they joined the others at the hotel her mother, after commenting +that she looked rather flushed and tired, happened to ask, "Oh, by the +way, Sylvia, did you happen to come across anything in serge suits +that would be suitable for school-wear?" + +Sylvia quivered, cried out explosively, "_No!_" and turned away, +feeling a hot pulse beating through her body. But Aunt Victoria +happened to divert attention at that moment. She had been reading, +with a very serious and somewhat annoyed expression, a long telegram +just handed her, and now in answer to Mrs. Marshall's expression of +concern, said hastily, "Oh, it's Arnold again.... It's always Arnold!" +She moved to a desk and wrote a brief telegram which she handed to +the waiting man-servant. Sylvia noticed it was addressed to Mr. A.H. +Saunders, a name which set dimly ringing in her head recollections now +muffled and obscured. + +Aunt Victoria went on to Mrs. Marshall: "Arnold hates this school so. +He always hates his schools." + +"Oh, he is at school now?" asked Mrs. Marshall. "You haven't a tutor +for him?" + +"Oh yes, Mr. Saunders is still with him--in the summers and during +holidays." Mrs. Marshall-Smith explained further: "To keep him up in +his _studies_. He doesn't learn anything in his school, you know. They +never do. It's only for the atmosphere--the sports; you know, they +play cricket where he is now--and the desirable class of boys he +meets.... _All_ the boys have tutors in vacation times to coach them +for the college-entrance examinations." + +The face of the college professor's wife continued immovably grave +during this brief summary of an educational system. She inquired, "How +old is Arnold now?" learned that he was seventeen, remembered that, oh +yes, he was a year older than Sylvia, and allowed the subject to drop +into one of the abysmal silences for which she alone had the courage. +Her husband's sister was as little proof against it as her husband. As +it continued, Mrs. Marshall-Smith went through the manoeuvers which in +a less perfectly bred person would have been fidgeting.... + +No one paid any attention to Sylvia, who sat confronting herself in a +long mirror and despising every garment she wore. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +ARNOLD'S FUTURE IS CASUALLY DECIDED + + +The next day was to have been given up to really improving pursuits. +The morning in the Art Institute came off as planned. The girls were +marshaled through the sculpture and paintings and various art objects +with about the result which might have been expected. As blankly +inexperienced of painting and sculpture as any Bushmen, they +received this sudden enormous dose of those arts with an instant, +self-preservatory incapacity to swallow even a small amount of them. +It is true that the very first exhibits they saw, the lions outside +the building, the first paintings they encountered, made an +appreciable impression on them; but after this they followed their +elders through the interminable crowded halls of the museum, their +legs aching with the effort to keep their balance on the polished +floors, their eyes increasingly glazed and dull. For a time a few +eccentric faces or dresses among the other sightseers penetrated +through this merciful insensibility, but by noon the capacity for even +so much observation as this had left them. They set one foot before +the other, they directed their eyes upon the multitudinous objects +exhibited, they nodded their heads to comments made by the others, but +if asked suddenly what they had just seen in the room last visited, +neither of them could have made the faintest guess. + +At half-past twelve, their aunt and mother, highly self-congratulatory +over the educational morning, voted that enough was as good as a +feast, and led their stunned and stupefied charges away to Aunt +Victoria's hotel for lunch. + +It was while they were consuming this exceedingly appetizing meal that +Sylvia saw, threading his way towards them between the other tables, a +tall, weedy, expensively dressed young man, with a pale freckled face +and light-brown hair. When he saw her eyes on him he waved his hand, +a largely knuckled hand, and grinned. Then she saw that it was not a +young man, but a tall boy, and that the boy was Arnold. The quality of +the grin reminded her that she had always liked Arnold. + +His arrival, though obviously unexpected to the last degree, caused +less of a commotion than might have seemed natural. It was as if +this were for Aunt Victoria only an unexpected incident in a general +development, quite resignedly anticipated. After he had shaken hands +with everybody, and had sat down and ordered his own luncheon very +capably, his stepmother remarked in a tolerant tone, "You didn't get +my telegram, then?" He shook his head: "I started an hour or so after +I wired you. We'd gone down to the town with one of the masters for a +game with Concord. There was a train just pulling out as we went by +the station, and I ran and jumped on." + +"How'd you know where it was going?" challenged Judith. + +"I didn't," he explained lightly. He looked at her with the teasing, +provocative look of masculine seventeen for feminine thirteen. "Same +old spitfire, I see, Miss Judy," he said, his command of unhackneyed +phrases by no means commensurate with his desire to be facetious. + +Judith frowned and went on eating her eclair in silence. It was the +first eclair she had ever eaten, and she was more concerned with it +than with the new arrival. + +Nobody made any comment on Arnold's method of beginning journeys until +Mrs. Marshall asked, "What did you do it for?" She put the question +with an evident seriousness of inquiry, not at all with the rhetorical +reproach usually conveyed in the formula she used. + +Arnold looked up from the huge, costly, bloody beefsteak he was eating +and, after an instant's survey of the grave, kind, face opposite him, +answered with a seriousness like her own, "Because I wanted to get +away." He added after a moment, laughing and looking again at the +younger girl, "I wanted to come out and pull Judy's hair again!" He +spoke with his mouth full, and this made him entirely a boy and not at +all the young man his well-cut clothes made him appear. + +Without speaking, Judith pulled her long, smooth braid around over her +shoulder where she could protect the end of it. Her mouth was also +full, bulgingly, of the last of her eclair. They might have been +brother and sister in a common nursery. + +"My! Aren't you pretty, Sylvia!" was Arnold's next remark. "You're a +regular peach; do you know it?" He turned to the others: "Say, let's +go to a show this afternoon," he proposed. "Tling-Tling's in town. I +saw it in the papers as I came in. The original company's singing. +Did you ever hear them?" he asked Sylvia. "They beat the other road +companies all hollow." + +Sylvia shook her head. She had never heard the name before, the +Broadway brand of comic opera being outside her experience to a degree +which would have been inconceivable to Arnold. + +There was some discussion over the matter, but in the end, apparently +because there was nothing else to do with Arnold, they all did go +to the "show," Arnold engineering the expedition with a trained +expertness in the matter of ticket-sellers, cabs, and ushers which was +in odd contrast to his gawky physical immaturity. At all the stages +of the process where it was possible, he smoked cigarettes, producing +them in rapid succession out of a case studded with little pearls. His +stepmother looked on at this, her beautiful manner of wise tolerance +tightening up a little, and after dinner, as they sat in a glittering +corridor of the hotel to talk, she addressed him suddenly in a quite +different tone. "I don't want you to do that so much, Arnold," she +said. His hand was fumbling for his case again. "You're too young to +smoke at all," she said definitely. He went on with his automatic +movements, opening the case, taking out a cigarette and tapping it on +the cover. "Oh, all the fellows do," he said rebelliously, and struck +a match. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith aroused herself to a sudden, low-toned, iron +masterfulness of voice and manner which, for all its quietness, had +the quality of a pistol shot in the family group. She said only, "Put +away that cigarette"; but by one effort of her will she massed against +the rebellion of his disorganized adolescence her mature, well-ripened +capacity to get her own way. She held him with her eyes as an +animal-trainer is supposed to cow his snarling, yellow-fanged +captives, and in a moment Arnold, with a pettish gesture, blew out the +match and shut the cigarette case with a snap. Mrs. Marshall-Smith +forbore to over-emphasize her victory by a feather-weight of gloating, +and turned to her sister-in-law with a whimsical remark about the +preposterousness of one of the costumes passing. Arnold sulked +in silence until Judith, emerging from her usual self-contained +reticence, made her first advance to him. "Let's us all go there +by the railing where we can look down into the central court," she +suggested, and having a nodded permission from their elders, the three +children walked away. + +They looked down into the great marble court, far below them, now +fairy-like with carefully arranged electric lights, gleaming through +the palms. The busily trampling cohorts in sack-coats and derby hats +were, from here, subdued by distance to an aesthetic inoffensiveness +of mere ant-like comings and goings. + +"Not so bad," said Arnold, with a kindly willingness to be pleased, +looking about him discriminatingly at one detail after another of +the interior, the heavy velvet and gold bullion of the curtains, the +polished marble of the paneling, the silk brocade of the upholstery, +the heavy gilding of the chairs.... Everything in sight exhaled an +intense consciousness of high cost, which was heavy on the air like a +musky odor, suggesting to a sensitive nose, as does the odor of musk, +another smell, obscured but rancidly perceptible--the unwashed smell, +floating up from the paupers' cellars which support Aladdin's palaces +of luxury. + +But the three adolescents, hanging over the well-designed solid +mahogany railing, had not noses sensitive to this peculiar, very +common blending of odors. Judith, in fact, was entirely unconscious +even of the more obvious of the two. She was as insensitive to all +about her as to the too-abundant pictures of the morning. She might +have been leaning over a picket fence. "I wouldn't give in to Her!" +she said to Arnold, staring squarely at him. + +Arnold looked nettled. "Oh, I don't! I don't pay any attention to what +she says, except when she's around where I am, and that's not so often +you could notice it much! _Saunders_ isn't that kind! Saunders is a +gay old bird, I tell you! We have some times together when we get +going!" + +It dawned on Sylvia that he was speaking of the man who, five years +before, had been their young Professor Saunders. She found that she +remembered vividly his keen, handsome face, softened by music to quiet +peace. She wondered what Arnold meant by saying he was a gay old bird. + +Arnold went on, shaking his head sagely: "But it's my belief that +Saunders is beginning to take to dope ... bad business! Bad business! +He's in love with Madrina, you know, and has to drown his sorrows some +way." + +Even Judith, for all her Sioux desire to avoid seeming surprised or +impressed, could not restrain a rather startled look at this lordly +knowledge of the world. Sylvia, although she had scarcely taken in the +significance of Arnold's words, dropped her eyes and blushed. Arnold +surveyed them with the indulgent look of a rakish but good-hearted man +of the world patting two pretty children on the head. + +Judith upset his pose by bringing the talk abruptly back to where she +had begun it. "But you _did_ give in to her! You pretend you didn't +because you are ashamed. She just looked you down. I wouldn't let +_any_body look me down; I wouldn't give in to anybody!" + +Under this attack, the man of the world collapsed into an awkward +overgrown boy, ill at ease, with red lids to his eyes and premature +yellow stains on two fingers of his left hand. He shifted his feet and +said defensively: "Aw, she's a woman. A fellow can't knock her down. I +wouldn't let a man do it." He retreated still further, through another +phase, and became a little boy, heated and recriminatory: "I'd like +to know who _you_ are to talk! You give in to _your_ mother all the +time!" + +"I don't give in to my mother; I _mind_ her," said Judith, drawing a +distinction which Arnold could not follow but which he was not acute +enough to attack other than by a jeering, "Oh, what a crawl! What's +the diff?" + +"And I mind her whether she's there or not! _I_ do!" continued Judith, +pressing what she seemed, inexplicably to Arnold, to consider her +advantage. + +Sylvia was vexed with them for talking so loudly and getting so +red-faced and being so generally out of key with the booming note of +luxury resounding about them. "Hush! hush!" she said; "don't be so +silly. We ought to be going back." + +Arnold took her rebuke without protest. Either something in this +passage-at-arms had perversely brought a sudden impulse to his mind, +or he had all along a purpose in his fantastic trip West. As they +reached the two ladies, he burst out, "Say, Madrina, why couldn't I go +on to La Chance and go to school there, and live with the Marshalls?" + +Four amazed faces were turned on him. His stepmother evidently thought +him stricken with sudden insanity and strove distractedly to select, +from the heaped pile of her reasons for so thinking, some few which +might be cited without too great offense to her brother's mode of +life: "Why, what a strange idea, Arnold! What ever made you think of +such a thing? _You_ wouldn't like it!" She was going on, as in decency +bound, to add that it would be also rather a large order for the +Marshalls to adopt a notably "difficult" boy, when Judith broke in +with a blunt divination of what was in her aunt's mind. "You'd have +to wash dishes if you came to our house," she said, "and help peel +potatoes, and weed the celery bed." + +"I'd like it!" declared Arnold. "We'd have lots of fun." + +"I _bet_ we would!" said Judith, with an unexpected assent. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith laughed gently. "You don't know what you're +talking about, you silly boy. You never did an hour's work in your +life!" + +Arnold sat down by Mrs. Marshall. "I wouldn't be in the way, _would_ +I?" he said, with a clumsy pleading. He hesitated obviously over the +"Mother" which had risen to his lips, the name he had had for her +during the momentous visit of five years before, and finally, +blushing, could not bring it out. "I'd like it like anything! _I_ +wouldn't be ... I'd be _different_! Sylvie and Judy seem like little +sisters to me." The red on his face deepened. "It's--it's good for a +fellow to have sisters, and a home," he said in a low tone not audible +to his stepmother's ears. + +Mrs. Marshall put out a large, strong hand and took his slack, +big-knuckled fingers into a tight clasp. Mrs. Marshall-Smith evidently +thought a light tone best now, as always, to take. "I tell you, +Barbara"--she suggested laughingly, "we'll exchange. You give me +Sylvia, and take Arnold." + +Mrs. Marshall ignored this as pure facetiousness, and said seriously: +"Why really, Victoria, it might not be a bad thing for Arnold to come +to us. I know Elliott would be glad to have him, and so would I." + +For an instant Arnold's life hung in the balance. Mrs. Marshall-Smith, +gleaming gold and ivory in her evening-dress of amber satin, sat +silent, startled by the suddenness with which the whole astonishing +question had come up. There was in her face more than one hint that +the proposition opened a welcome door of escape to her.... + +And then Arnold himself, with the tragic haste of youth, sent one +end of the scales down, weighted so heavily that the sight of his +stepmother's eyes and mouth told him it could never rise again. In the +little, pregnant pause, he cried out joyfully, "Oh, Mother! Mother!" +and flung his arms around Mrs. Marshall's neck. It was the only time +he had shown the slightest emotion over anything. It burst from him +with surprising effect. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith was, as she had said, only human, and at this +she rose, her delicate face quiet and impassive, and shook out the +shimmering folds of her beautiful dress. She said casually, picking +up her fan and evidently preparing for some sort of adjournment: "Oh, +Arnold, don't be so absurd. Of course you can't foist yourself off +on a family that's no relation to you, that way. And in any case, +it wouldn't do for you to graduate from a co-educational State +University. Not a person you know would have heard of it. You know +you're due at Harvard next fall." With adroit fingers, she plucked the +string sure to vibrate in Arnold's nature. "Do go and order a table +for us in the Rose-Room, there's a good boy. And be sure to have the +waiter give you one where we can see the dancing." + +The matter was settled. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +ONE MAN'S MEAT ... + + +That night after the Marshalls had gone back to their somewhat shabby +boarding-house, "things" happened to the two people they had left in +the great hotel. Sylvia and Judith never knew the details, but it was +apparent that something portentous had occurred, from the number of +telegrams Aunt Victoria had managed to receive and send between the +hour when they left her in the evening, and eleven o'clock the next +morning, when they found her, hatted and veiled, with an array of +strapped baggage around her. + +"It's Arnold again!" she told them, with a resigned gesture. She laid +down the time-table she had been consulting and drew Mrs. Marshall to +the window for a low-voiced explanation. When she came back, "I'm so +sorry, dears, to cut short even by a single day this charming time +together," she told the girls. "But the news I've been getting from +Arnold's school--there's nothing for me to do but to stop everything +and take him back there to see what can be done to patch things +up." She spoke with the patient air of one inured to the sacrifices +involved in the upbringing of children. "We leave on the +eleven-forty--oh, I _am_ so sorry! But it would have been only one day +more. I meant to get you both a dress--I've 'phoned to have them sent +to you." + +The rest was only the dreary, bustling futility of the last moments +before train-time--kisses, remarks about writing more often; a promise +from Aunt Victoria to send Sylvia from time to time a box of old +dresses and fineries as material for her niece's dressmaking +skill;--from Arnold, appearing at the last minute, a good deal of +rather flat, well-meant chaffing, proffered with the most entire +unconcern as to the expressed purpose of their journey; and then the +descent through long, mirrored, softly carpeted corridors to the +classic beauty of the Grecian temple where the busy men, with tired +eyes, came and went hurriedly, treading heavily on their heels. +Outside was the cab, Arnold extremely efficient in browbeating the +driver as to the stowing away of bags, more kisses, in the general +cloud of which Arnold pecked shyly at Sylvia's ear and Judith's chin; +then the retreating vehicle with Arnold standing up, a tall, ungainly +figure, waving a much-jointed hand. + +After it was out of sight the three watchers looked at each other in a +stale moment of anticlimax. + +"Arnold's horrid, isn't he?" said Judith thoughtfully. + +"Why, I _like_ him!" opposed Sylvia. + +"Oh, I _like_ him, all right," said Judith. + +Then both girls looked at their mother. What next ...? They were not +to have gone back to La Chance until the next night. Would this change +of plans alter their schedule? Mrs. Marshall saw no reason why it +should. She proposed a sightseeing expedition to a hospital. Miss +Lindstroem, the elderly Swedish woman who worked among the destitute +negroes of La Chance, had a sister who was head-nurse in the biggest +and newest hospital in Chicago, and she had written very cordially +that if her sister's friends cared to inspect such an institution, she +was at their service. Neither of the girls having the slightest idea +of what a hospital was like, nor of any other of the sights in the +city which they might see instead, no objection was made to this plan. + +They made inquiries of a near-by policeman and found that they could +reach it by the elevated. Their encounter with this metropolitan +facility for transportation turned out to be among the most memorable +bits of sightseeing of their trip. Neither of the girls had ever +imagined anything so lurid as the Saturday noon jam, the dense, packed +throngs waiting on the platforms and bursting out through the opened +doors like beans from a split bag, their places instantly taken by +an even greater crowd, perspiring, fighting grimly for foot-room and +expecting and receiving no other kind. Judith was fired contagiously +with the spirit about her, set her teeth, thrust out her elbows, +shoved, pushed, grunted, fought, all with a fresh zest in the +performance which gave her an immense advantage over the fatigued +city-dwellers, who assaulted their fellow-citizens with only a +preoccupied desire for an approach to a breathing space, and, that +attained, subsided into lurching, strap-hanging quiescence. Judith +secured with ease, on all the public vehicles they utilized that day, +a place on the outside edge of a platform, where she had fresh air +in abundance and could hang over the grating to watch with extreme +interest the intimate bits of tenement-house life which flashed +jerkily by. + +But Sylvia, a shuddering chip on the torrent, always found herself +in the exact middle of the most crowded spot, feeling her body +horrifyingly pressed upon by various invisible ones behind her and +several only too visible ones in front, breathing down the back of +somebody's neck, often a dirty and sweaty one, with somebody breathing +hotly down the back of her own. Once as a very fat and perspiring +German-American began to fight the crowd in the endeavor to turn +around and leave the car, his slowly revolving bulbous bulk pushed her +so smotheringly into the broad back of a negro ahead of her that she +felt faint. As they left the car, she said vehemently: "Oh, Mother, +this makes me sick! Why couldn't we have taken a cab? Aunt Victoria +always does!" + +Her mother laughed. "You little country girl! A cab for as far as this +would cost almost as much as the ticket back to La Chance." + +"I don't see why we came, then!" cried Sylvia. "It's simply awful! And +this is a _horrid_ part of town!" She suddenly observed that they were +walking through a very poor, thickly inhabited street, such as she +had never seen before. As she looked about her, her mother stopped +laughing and watched her face with a painful attention. Sylvia looked +at the tall, dingy houses, the frowzy little shops, the swarms of +dirty-nosed children, shrill-voiced, with matted hair, running and +whooping in the street, at the slatternly women yelling unobeyed +orders to them out of half-glimpsed, cheerless interiors, smelling of +cabbage and dishwater. It was Sylvia's first sight of the life of city +poor, and upon her face of disgust and revulsion her mother bent a +stern and anxious eye. + +"See here, Sylvia!" she said abruptly, "do you know what _I_ was +thinking about back there in the crowd on the elevated? I was thinking +that lots of girls, no older than _my_ girl, have to stand that twice +a day, going to earn their livings." + +Sylvia chafed under the obviously admonitory tone of this. "I don't +see that that makes it any easier for us if they _do!_" she said in a +recalcitrant voice. She stepped wide to avoid a pile of filth on the +sidewalk, and clutched at her skirt. She had a sudden vision of the +white-tiled, velvet-carpeted florist's shop in a corner of Aunt +Victoria's hotel where, behind spotless panes of shining plate-glass, +the great clusters of cut-flowers dreamed away an enchanted +life--roses, violets, lilies of the valley, orchids.... + +"Here we are at the hospital," said Mrs. Marshall, a perplexed line +of worry between her brows. But at once she was swept out of herself, +forgot her seriously taken responsibility of being the mother of a +girl like Sylvia. She was only Barbara Marshall, thrilled by a noble +spectacle. She looked up at the great, clean, many-windowed facade +above them, towering, even above the huge bulk of the gas-tanks across +the street, and her dark eyes kindled. "A hospital is one of the most +wonderful places in the world!" she cried, in a voice of emotion. "All +this--to help people get well!" + +They passed into a wide, bare hall, where a busy young woman at a desk +nodded on hearing their names, and spoke into a telephone. There +was an odd smell in the air, not exactly disagreeable, yet rather +uncomfortably pungent. "Oh, iodoform," remarked the young woman at the +desk, hearing them comment on it. "Do you get it? We don't notice it +_here_ at all." + +Then came Miss Lindstroem's sister, powerfully built, gaunt, gray, with +a professional, impersonal cheerfulness. The expedition began. "I'll +take you to the children's ward first," said Miss Lindstroem; "that +always interests visitors so much...." + +Rows on rows of little white beds and white, bloodless faces with an +awful patience on them, and little white hands lying in unchildlike +quiet on the white spreads; rows on rows of hollow eyes turned in +listless interest on the visitors; nurses in white, stepping briskly +about, bending over the beds, lifting a little emaciated form, deftly +unrolling a bandage; heat; a stifling smell of iodoform; a sharp +sudden cry of pain from a distant corner; somewhere a dully beating +pulse of low, suppressed sobs.... + +They were out of the children's ward now, walking along a clean bare +corridor. Sylvia swallowed hard. Her eyes felt burning. Judith held +her mother's hand tightly. Miss Lindstroem was explaining to Mrs. +Marshall a new system of ventilation. + +"This is one of the women's wards," said their leader, opening another +swinging door, from which rushed forth a fresh blast of iodoform. More +rows of white beds, each with its mound of suffering, each with its +haggard face of pain. More nurses, bearing basins of curious shape, +bandages, hot-water bottles, rubber tubes. There was more restlessness +here than in the children's ward, less helpless prostration before the +Juggernaut of disease ... fretfulness, moans, tossing heads, wretched +eyes which stared at the visitors in a hostile indifference. + +"Oh, they are just putting the dressing on such an _interesting_ +case!" said Miss Lindstroem's voice coming to Sylvia from a great +distance. She spoke with the glow of professional enthusiasm, with +that certainty, peculiar to sincere doctors and nurses, that a +complicated wound is a fascinating object. + +In spite of herself Sylvia had one glimpse of horribly lacerated red +tissues.... She gripped her hands together after this and looked +fixedly at a button on her glove, until Miss Lindstroem's voice +announced: "It's the Embury stitch that makes that possible: we've +just worked out the application of it to skin-graft cases. Two years +ago she'd have lost her leg. Isn't it simply splendid!" + +She said cordially as they moved forward: "Sister Selma said to treat +you as though you were the Queen of Sweden, and I am! You're seeing +things that visitors are _never_ allowed to see." + +They walked on and on interminably, past innumerable sick souls, +each whirling alone in a self-centered storm of suffering; and then, +somehow, they were in a laboratory, where an immensely stout and +immensely jovial doctor in white linen got down from a high stool to +shake hands with them and profess an immense willingness to entertain +them. "... but I haven't got anything much today," he said, with a +disparaging wave of his hand towards his test-tubes. "Not a single +death-warrant. Oh yes, I have too, one brought in yesterday." He +brought them a test-tube, stoppered with cotton, and bade them note +a tiny bluish patch on the clear gelatine at the bottom. "That means +he's a dead one, as much as if he faced the electric chair," he +explained. To the nurse he added, "A fellow in the men's ward, +Pavilion G. Very interesting culture ... first of that kind I've had +since I've been here." As he spoke he was looking at Sylvia with an +open admiration, bold, intrusive, flippant. + +They were passing along another corridor, hot, silent, their footsteps +falling dully on a long runner of corrugated rubber, with red borders +which drew together in the distance like the rails streaming away from +a train. Behind a closed door there suddenly rose, and as quickly died +away, a scream of pain. With an effort Sylvia resisted the impulse to +clap her hands over her ears. + +"Here we are, at the minor operating-room," said Miss Lindstroem, +pausing. "It's against the rules, but if you want to look from across +the room--just to say you've been there--" She held the door open a +little, a suffocating odor of anaesthetics blew out in their faces, +like a breath from a dragon's cave. Mrs. Marshall and Judith stepped +forward. But Sylvia clutched at her mother's arm and whispered: +"Mother! Mother! I don't think I'll go on. I feel--I feel--I'll go +back down to the entrance hall to wait." + +Mrs. Marshall nodded a preoccupied assent, and Sylvia fled away down +the endless corridor, looking neither to the right nor the left, down +repeated flights of scrubbed and sterilized marble stairs, into the +entrance hall, and, like a bolt from a bow, out of it on the other +side, out into the street, into the sunshine, the heat, the clatter, +the blessed, blessed smell of cabbage and dish-water.... + +After a time she went to sit down on the top step of the hospital +entrance to wait. She contemplated with exquisite enjoyment the +vigorous, profane, hair-pulling quarrel between two dirty little +savages across the street. She could have kissed her hand to the +loud-voiced woman who came scuffling to the window to scold them, +clutching a dirty kimono together over a Hogarth-like expanse of +bosom. They were well, these people, blood ran in their veins, their +skin was whole, they breathed air, not iodoform! Her mother had pulled +the string too tight, and Sylvia's ears were full of the ugly twang of +its snapping. + +When, at last, Judith and Mrs. Marshall came out, hand-in-hand, Sylvia +sprang up to say: "What an _awful_ place! I hope I'll never have to +set foot in one again!" But quick as was her impulse to speech, her +perceptions were quicker, and before the pale exaltation of the other +two, she fell silent, irritated, rebellious, thoroughly alien. They +walked along in silence. Then Judith said, stammering a little with +emotion, "M-M-Mother, I want to b-b-b-be a trained n-n-nurse when I +grow up." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +AN INSTRUMENT IN TUNE + + +As they drew near to their boarding-house late that afternoon, very +hot, very crumpled, very solemn, and very much out of tune with one +another, they were astonished to see a little eager-faced boy dash out +of the house and run wildly to meet them, shouting as he came. + +"Why, Lawrence _Marshall_!" cried his mother, picking him up in strong +arms; "how ever in the world did you get here!" + +"Father brungded me," cried the child, clasping her tightly around the +neck. "We got so lonesome for Mother we couldn't wait." + +And then Sylvia had stamped on her mind a picture which was to come +back later--her father's face and eyes as he ran down the steps to +meet his wife. For he looked at his daughters only afterwards, as they +were all walking along together, much excited, everybody talking at +once, and hanging on everybody's arm."... Yes, Buddy's right! We +found we missed you so, we decided life wasn't worth it. You don't +know, Barbara, what it's like without you--you don't _know_!" + +Her father's voice sounded to Sylvia so loud, so gay, so vital, so +inexpressibly welcome.... She leaped up at his face like a young +dog, for another kiss. "Oh, I'm _awfully_ glad you came!" she cried, +wondering a little herself at the immensity of her relief. She thought +that she must get him by himself quickly and tell him her side of that +hospital story, before her mother and Judith began on any virtuous +raptures over it. + +But there was no consecutive talk about anything after they all were +joyfully gathered in their ugly, commonplace boarding-house bedroom. +They loosened collars and belts, washed their perspiring and dusty +faces, and brushed hair, to the tune of a magpie chatter. Sylvia did +not realize that she and her father were the main sources of this +volubility, she did not realize how she had missed his exuberance, she +only knew that she felt a weight lifted from her heart. She had been +telling him with great enjoyment of the comic opera they had seen, as +she finished putting the hairpins into her freshly smoothed hair, and +turned, a pin still in her mouth, in time to be almost abashed by the +expression in his eyes as he suddenly drew his wife to him. + +"Jove! Barbara!" he cried, half laughing, but with a quiver in his +voice, "it's hell to be happily married! A separation is--well, never +mind about it. I came along anyhow! And now I'm here I'll go to see +Vic of course." + +"No, you won't," said Judith promptly. "She's gone back. To get Arnold +out of a scrape." + +Mrs. Marshall explained further, and incidentally touched upon her +sister-in-law's views of the relation between expensive boys' schools +and private tutors. Her dryly humorous version of this set her husband +off in a great mirthful roar, to which Sylvia, after a moment of +blankness, suddenly joined a burst of her own clear laughter. At the +time she had seen nothing funny in Aunt Victoria's statement, but +she was now immensely tickled to remember Aunt Victoria's Olympian +certainty of herself and her mother's grave mask of serious +consideration of the idea. Long after her father had stopped laughing, +she still went on, breaking out into delighted giggles. Her new +understanding of the satire back of her mother's quiet eyes, lent to +Aunt Victoria's golden calm the quaint touch of caricature which made +it self-deceived complacency. At the recollection she sent up rocket +after rocket of schoolgirl laughter. + +Her mother, absorbed in conscientious anxiety about Sylvia's +development, and deeply disappointed by the result of the visit to the +hospital, ignored this laughter, nor did Sylvia at all guess that she +was laughing away half the spell which Aunt Victoria had cast about +her. When they went down to their supper of watery creamed potatoes, +and stewed apricots in thick saucers, she was in such good humor that +she ate this unappetizing fare with no protest. + +"Now, folks," said Professor Marshall, after supper, "we have to go +home tomorrow early, so we ought to have one more fling tonight. While +I was waiting for you to come back this afternoon, I looked up what +Chicago has to offer in the way of flings, and this is what I found. +Here, Barbara," he took a tiny envelope out of his upper waistcoat +pocket, "are two tickets for the symphony orchestra. By the greatest +of luck they're giving a special concert for some charity or other, a +beautiful program; a sort of musical requiem. Sylvia mustn't miss it; +you take her. And here," he spun round to face Judith and Lawrence, +producing another slim, tiny envelope from the other upper waistcoat +pocket, "since symphony concerts are rather solid meat for milk teeth, +and since they last till way after bedtime, I have provided another +sort of entertainment; to wit: three seats for moving pictures of +the only real and authentic Cheyenne Bill's Congress of the World's +Frontiersmen. All in favor of going there with me, say 'Aye.'" + +"Aye!" screamed Judith and Lawrence. Everybody laughed in pleased +excitement and everybody seemed satisfied except Mrs. Marshall, who +insisted that she should go to the moving pictures while the Professor +took Sylvia to the concert. + +Then followed the most amiable, generous wrangle as to which of the +parents should enjoy the adult form of amusement. But while the +Professor grew more and more half-hearted in his protestations that +he really didn't care where he went, Mrs. Marshall grew more and +more positive that he must not be allowed to miss the music, finally +silencing his last weak proffer of self-abnegation by saying +peremptorily: "No, no, Elliott; go on in to your debauch of emotion. +I'll take the children. Don't miss your chance. You know it means ten +times as much to you as to me. You haven't heard a good orchestra in +years." + +Sylvia had never been in such a huge hall as the one where they +presently sat, high, giddily high in the eyrie of a top gallery. They +looked down into yawning space. The vast size of the auditorium so +dwarfed the people now taking their innumerable seats, that even after +the immense audience was assembled the great semicircular enclosure +seemed empty and blank. It received those thousands of souls into its +maw, and made no sign; awaiting some visitation worthy of its bulk. + +The orchestra, an army of ants, straggled out on the stage. Sylvia was +astonished at their numbers--sixteen first violins, she saw by the +program! She commented to her father on the difficulty of keeping +them all in tune. He smiled at her absently, bade her, with an air +of suppressed excitement, wait until she had heard them, and fell +to biting his nails nervously. She re-read the program and all the +advertisements, hypnotized, like every one else in the audience, by +the sight of printed matter. She noticed that the first number of this +memorial concert was the funeral march from the Goetterdaemmerung, which +she knew very well from having heard a good many times a rather thin +version of it for four strings and a piano. + +The conductor, a solitary ant, made his toilsome way across the great +front of the stage, evoking a burst of applause, which resounded +hollowly in the inhuman spaces of the building. He mounted a step, +waved his antennae, there was a great indrawn breath of silence, +and then Sylvia, waiting with agreeable curiosity to hear how a big +orchestra would really sound, gasped and held her breath. The cup of +that vast building suddenly brimmed with a magical flood of pure tone, +coming from everywhere, from nowhere, from her own heart as well as +from outside her body. The immense hall rang to the glorious quality +of this sound as a violin-back vibrates to the drawn bow. It rained +down on her, it surged up to her, she could not believe that she +really heard it. + +She looked quickly at her father. His arms were folded tightly across +his chest. He was looking frowningly at the back of the chair in front +of him. It was evident that Sylvia did not exist for him. She was +detached from her wonder at his pale sternness by the assault on her +nerves made by the first of those barbaric outcries of woe, that +sudden, brief clamor of grief, the shouts of despair, the beating upon +shields. Her heart stood still--There rose, singing like an archangel, +the mystic call of the Volsung, then the yearning melody of love; such +glory, such longing for beauty, for life--and then brusquely, again +and again, the screaming, sobbing recollection of the fact of +death.... + +When it was over, Sylvia's breath was still coming pantingly. "Oh, +Father! How--how wonderful--how--" she murmured. + +He looked at her, as though he were angry with her, and yet scarcely +seeming to know her, and spoke in a hard, bitter tone: "And it is +_years_ since I have heard one!" He seemed to cry out upon her for the +conditions of his life. + +She had no key for these words, could not imagine a meaning for them, +and, chilled and repelled, wondered if she had heard him rightly. + +The funeral march from the Eroica began, and her father's face +softened. The swelling volume of tone rose like a flood-tide. The +great hall, the thousands of human hearts, all beat solemnly in the +grave and hopeless pulsations of the measured chords. The air +was thick with sorrow, with quiet despair. No outcries here, no +screams--the modern soul advancing somberly with a pale composure to +the grave of its love, aware that during all the centuries since the +dead Siegfried was lifted high on the shoulders of his warriors not a +word of explanation, of consolation has been found; that the modern, +barren self-control means only what the barbarian yells out in his +open abandonment to sorrow--and yet such beauty, such beauty in that +singing thread of melody--"_durch Leiden, Freude!_" + +Not even the shadow of death had ever fallen across Sylvia's life, or +that of her father, to explain the premonitory emotion which now drew +them together like two frightened children. Sylvia felt the inexorable +music beating in her own veins, and when she took her father's hand +it seemed to her that its strong pulses throbbed to the same rhythm; +beauty, and despair ... hope ... life ... death. + +At the end, "Oh, Father--oh, Father!" she said under her breath, +imploringly, struggling to free herself from the muffling, enveloping +sense of imminent disaster. He pressed her hand hard and smiled at +her. It was his own old smile, the father-look which had been her +heart's home all her life--but it was infinitely sweeter to her now +than ever before. She had never felt closer to him. There was a pause +during which they did not speak, and then there burst upon them the +splendid tumult of "Death and Transfiguration," which, like a great +wind, swept Sylvia out of herself. She could not follow the music--she +had never heard of it before. She was beaten down, overwhelmed, freed, +as though the transfiguration were her own, from the pitiful barriers +of consciousness.... + +"Was the concert good?" asked Mrs. Marshall, yawning, and reaching out +of bed to kiss Sylvia sleepily. She laughed a little at their faces. +"Oh, music _is_ a madness! To spend a cheerful evening listening to +death-music, and then come back looking like Moses before the Burning +Bush!" + +"Say, you ought to have seen the stunt they did with their lassos," +cried Judith, waking in the bed on the other side of the room, and +sitting up with her black hair tousled about her face. "I'm going to +try it with the pinto when we get home." + +"I _bet_ you'll do it, too," came from Lawrence the loyal, always sure +of Judith's strength, Judith's skill. + +Sylvia looked at her father over their heads and smiled faintly. It +was a good smile, from a full heart. + +"Aunt Victoria sent our dresses," said Judith, dropping back on the +pillow. "That big box over there. Mine has pink ribbons, and yours are +blue." + +Mrs. Marshall looked at the big box with disfavor, and then at Sylvia, +now sunk in a chair, her hands clasped behind her head, her eyes +dreamy and half closed. Across the room the long pasteboard box +displayed a frothy mass of white lace and pale shining ribbons. Sylvia +looked at it absently and made no move to examine it. She closed her +eyes again and beat an inaudible rhythm with her raised fingers. All +through her was ringing the upward-surging tide of sound at the end of +"Death and Transfiguration." + +"Oh, go to bed, Sylvia; don't sit there maundering over the concert," +said her mother, with a good-natured asperity. But there was relief in +her voice. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +HIGHER EDUCATION + + +To any one who is familiar with State University life, the color +of Sylvia's Freshman year will be vividly conveyed by the simple +statement that she was not invited to join a fraternity. To any one +who does not know State University life, no description can convey +anything approaching an adequate notion of the terribly determinative +significance of that fact. + +The statement that she was invited to join no sorority is not +literally true, for in the second semester when it was apparent that +none of the three leading fraternities intended to take her in, there +came a late "bid" from one of the third-rate sororities, of recent +date, composed of girls like Sylvia who had not been included in the +membership of the older, socially distinguished organizations. Cut to +the quick by her exclusion from the others, Sylvia refused this tardy +invitation with remorseless ingratitude. If she were not to form one +of the "swell" set of college, at least she would not proclaim herself +one of the "jays," the "grinds," the queer girls, who wore their hair +straight back from their foreheads, who invariably carried off Phi +Beta Kappa, whose skirts hung badly, whose shoe-heels turned over as +they walked, who stood first in their classes, whose belts behind made +a practice of revealing large white safety-pins; and whose hats, even +disassociated from their dowdy wearers, and hanging in the cloakroom, +were of an almost British eccentricity. + +Nothing of this sort could be alleged against Sylvia's appearance, +which she felt, as she arrayed herself every morning, to be all that +the most swagger frat could ask of a member. Aunt Victoria's boxes +of clothing, her own nimble fingers and passionate attention to the +subject, combined to turn her out a copy, not to be distinguished from +the original, of the daughter of a man with an income five times that +of her father. As she consulted her mirror, it occurred to her also, +as but an honest recognition of a conspicuous fact, that her suitable +and harmonious toilets adorned a person as pleasing to the eye as any +of her classmates. + +During the last year of her life at home she had shot up very fast, +and she was now a tall, slender presence, preserved from even the +usual touching and delightful awkwardness of seventeen by the trained +dexterity and strength with which she handled her body, as muscular, +for all its rounded slimness, as a boy's. Her hair was beautiful, a +bright chestnut brown with a good deal of red, its brilliant gloss +broken into innumerable high-lights by the ripple of its waviness; and +she had one other positive beauty, the clearly penciled line of her +long, dark eyebrows, which ran up a trifle at the outer ends with a +little quirk, giving an indescribable air of alertness and vivacity to +her expression. Otherwise she was not at that age, nor did she ever +become, so explicitly handsome as her sister Judith, who had at every +period of her life a head as beautiful as that on a Greek coin. +But when the two were together, although the perfectly adjusted +proportions of Judith's proud, dark face brought out the +irregularities of Sylvia's, disclosed the tilt of her small nose, made +more apparent the disproportionate width between her eyes, and showed +her chin to be of no mold in particular, yet a modern eye rested with +far more pleasure on the older sister's face. A bright, quivering +mobility like sunshine on water, gave it a charm which was not +dependent on the more obvious prettinesses of a fine-grained, white +skin, extremely clear brown eyes, and a mouth quick to laugh and +quiver, with pure, sharply cut outline and deeply sunk corners. Even +in repose, Sylvia's face made Judith's seem unresponsive, and when +it lighted up in talk and laughter, it seemed to give out a visible +light. In contrast Judith's beautiful countenance seemed carved out of +some very hard and indestructible stone. + +And yet, in spite of this undeniably satisfactory physical outfit, and +pre-eminent ability in athletics, Sylvia was not invited to join any +of the best fraternities. It is not surprising that there was +mingled with her bitterness on the subject a justifiable amount of +bewilderment. What _did_ they want? They recruited, from her very side +in classes, girls without half her looks or cleverness. What _was_ the +matter with her? She would not for her life have given a sign to her +family of her mental sufferings as, during that first autumn, day +after day went by with no sign of welcome from the social leaders of +her new world; but a mark was left on her character by her affronted +recognition of her total lack of success in this, her first appearance +outside the sheltering walls of her home; her first trial by the real +standards of the actual world of real people. + +The fact, which would have been balm to Sylvia's vanity, had she ever +had the least knowledge of it, was that upon her appearance in the +Freshman class she had been the occasion of violent discussion and +almost of dissension in the councils of the two "best" fraternities. +Her beauty, her charm, and the rumors of her excellence in tennis had +made a flutter in the first fraternity meetings after the opening of +the autumn term. The younger members of both Sigma Beta and Alpha +Kappa counseled early and enthusiastic "rushing" of the new prize, but +the Juniors and Seniors, wise in their day and generation, brought +out a number of damning facts which would need to be taken into +consideration if Sylvia wore their pin. + +There were, in both fraternities, daughters of other faculty families, +who were naturally called upon to furnish inside information. They +had been brought up from childhood on the tradition of the Marshalls' +hopeless queerness, and their collective statement of the Marshalls' +position ran somewhat as follows: "The only professors who have +anything to do with them are some of the jay young profs from the +West, with no families; the funny old La Rues--you know what a +hopeless dowd Madame La Rue is--and Professor Kennedy, and though he +comes from a swell family he's an awful freak himself. They live on a +farm, like farmers, at the ends of the earth from anybody that anybody +knows. They are never asked to be patrons of any swell college +functions. None of the faculty ladies with any social position ever +call on Mrs. Marshall--and no wonder. She doesn't keep any help, and +when the doorbell rings she's as apt to come running in from the +chicken house with rubber boots on, and a basket of eggs--and the +_queerest_ clothes! Like a costume out of a book; and they never have +anybody to wait on the table, just jump up and down themselves--you +can imagine what kind of a frat tea or banquet Sylvia would give in +such a home--and of course if we took her in, we couldn't very +well _tell_ her her family's so impossible we wouldn't want their +connection with the frat known--and the students who go there are a +perfect collection of all the jays and grinds and freaks in college. +It's enough to mark you one to be seen there--you meet all the crazy +guys you see in classes and never anywhere else--and of course that +wouldn't stop when Sylvia's frat sisters began going there. And their +house wouldn't do at _all_ to entertain in--it's queer--no rugs--dingy +old furniture--nothing but books everywhere, even in their substitute +for a parlor--and you're likely to meet not only college freaks, but +worse ones from goodness knows where. There's a beer-drinking old +monster who goes there every Sunday to play the fiddle that you +wouldn't have speak to you on the street for anything in the world. +And the way they entertain! My, in such a countrified way! Some of the +company go out into the kitchen to help Mrs. Marshall serve up the +refreshments--and everything homemade--and they play charades, and +nobody knows what else--bean-bag, or spelling-down maybe--" + +This appalling picture, which in justice to the young delineators must +be conceded to be not in the least overdrawn, was quite enough to give +pause to those impetuous and immature young Sophomores who had lacked +the philosophical breadth of vision to see that Sylvia was not an +isolated phenomenon, but (since her family live in La Chance) an +inseparable part of her background. After all, the sororities made no +claim to be anything but social organizations. Their standing in the +college world depended upon their social background, and of course +this could only be made up of a composite mingling of those of their +individual members. + +Fraternities did not wish to number more than sixteen or eighteen +undergraduates. That meant only four or five to be chosen from each +Freshman class, and that number of "nice" girls was not hard to find, +girls who were not only well dressed, and lively and agreeable in +themselves, but who came from large, well-kept, well-furnished houses +on the right streets of La Chance; with presentable, card-playing, +call-paying, reception-giving mothers, who hired caterers for their +entertainments; and respectably absentee fathers with sizable +pocketbooks and a habit of cash liberality. The social standing of the +co-eds in State Universities was already precarious enough, without +running the risk of acquiring dubious social connections. + +If Sylvia had been a boy, it is almost certain that the deficiencies +of her family would have been overlooked in consideration of her +potentialities in the athletic world. Success in athletics was to the +men's fraternities what social standing was to the girls'. It must be +remarked parenthetically that neither class of these organizations +had the slightest prejudice against high scholastic standing. On the +contrary it was regarded very kindly by fraternity members, as a +desirable though not indispensable addition to social standing and +physical prowess. + +But Sylvia was not a boy, and her fine, promising game of tennis, her +excellence in the swimming-pool, and her success on the gymnasium +floor and on the flying rings, served no purpose but to bring to her +the admiration of the duffers among the girls, whom she despised, +and the unspoken envy of the fraternity girls, whose overtures at +superficial friendliness she constantly rebuffed with stern, wounded +pride. + +The sharpest stab to her pride came from the inevitable publicity of +her ordeal. For, though her family knew nothing of what that first +year out in the world meant to her, she had not the consolation of +hoping that her condition was not perfectly apparent to every one else +in the college world. At the first of the year, all gatherings of +undergraduates not in fraternities hummed and buzzed with speculations +about who would or would not be "taken" by the leading fraternities. +For every girl who was at all possible, each day was a long suspense, +beginning in hope and ending in listlessness; and for Sylvia in an +added shrinking from the eyes of her mates, which were, she knew, +fixed on her with a relentless curiosity which was torture to one +of her temperament. She had been considered almost sure to be early +invited to join Alpha Kappa, the frat to which most of the faculty +daughters belonged, and all during the autumn she was aware that when +she took off her jacket in the cloakroom, a hundred glances swept her +to see if she wore at last the coveted emblem of the "pledged" girl; +and when an Alpha Kappa girl chanced to come near her with a casual +remark, she seemed to hear a significant hush among the other girls, +followed by an equally significant buzz of whispered comment when the +fraternity member moved away again. This atmosphere would have made +no impression on a nature either more sturdily philosophic, or more +unimaginative than Sylvia's (Judith, for instance, was not in the +least affected by the experience), but it came to be a morbid +obsession of this strong, healthy, active-minded young creature. +It tinged with bitterness and blackness what should have been the +crystal-clear cup holding her youth and intelligence and health. She +fancied that every one despised her. She imagined that people who were +in reality quite unaware of her existence were looking at her and +whispering together a wondering discussion as to why she was not "in +the swim" as such a girl ought to be--all girls worth their salt were. + +Above all she was stung into a sort of speechless rage by her +impotence to do anything to regain the decent minimum of personal +dignity which she felt was stripped from her by this constant play of +bald speculation about whether she would or would not be considered +"good enough" to be invited into a sorority. If only something +definite would happen! If there were only an occasion on which +she might in some way proudly proclaim her utter indifference to +fraternities and their actions! If only the miserable business were +not so endlessly drawn out! She threw herself with a passionate +absorption into her studies, her music, and her gymnasium work, +cut off both from the "elect" and from the multitude, a proudly +self-acknowledged maverick. She never lacked admiring followers among +less brilliant girls who would have been adorers if she had not held +them off at arm's length, but her vanity, far from being omnivorous, +required more delicate food. She wished to be able to cry aloud to her +world that she thought nothing and cared nothing about fraternities, +and by incessant inner absorption in this conception she did to +a considerable extent impose it upon the collective mind of her +contemporaries. She, the yearningly friendly, sympathetic, sensitive, +praise-craving Sylvia, came to be known, half respected and half +disliked, as proud and clever, and "high-brow," and offish, and +conceited, and so "queer" that she cared nothing for the ordinary +pleasures of ordinary girls. + +This reputation for a high-browed indifference to commonplace mortals +was naturally not a recommendation to the masculine undergraduates of +the University. These young men, under the influence of reports +of what was done at Cornell and other more eastern co-educational +institutions, were already strongly inclined to ignore the co-eds as +much as possible. The tradition was growing rapidly that the proper +thing was to invite the "town-girls" to the college proms and dances, +and to sit beside them in the grandstand during football games. As +yet, however, this tendency had not gone so far but that those +co-eds who were members of a socially recognized fraternity were +automatically saved from the neglect which enveloped all other but +exceptionally flirtatious and undiscriminating girls. Each girls' +fraternity, like the masculine organizations, gave one big hop in +the course of the season and several smaller dances, as well as +lawn-parties and teas and stage-coach parties to the football games. +The young men naturally wished to be invited to these functions, +the increasing elaborateness of which kept pace with the increasing +sophistication of life in La Chance and the increasing cost of which +made the parents of the girls groan. Consequently each masculine +fraternity took care that it did not incur the enmity of the organized +and socially powerful sororities. But Sylvia was not protected by this +aegis. She was not invited during her Freshman year to the dances +given by either the sororities or the fraternities; and the large +scattering crowd of masculine undergraduates were frightened away from +the handsome girl by her supposed haughty intellectual tastes. + +Here again her isolation was partly the result of her own wish. The +raw-boned, badly dressed farmers' lads, with red hands and rough hair, +she quite as snobbishly ignored as she was ignored in her turn by the +well-set-up, fashionably dressed young swells of the University, with +their white hands, with their thin, gaudy socks tautly pulled over +their ankle-bones, and their shining hair glistening like lacquer on +their skulls (that being the desideratum in youthful masculine society +of the place and time). Sylvia snubbed the masculine jays of college +partly because it was a breath of life to her battered vanity to be +able to snub some one, and partly because they seemed to her, in +comparison with the smart set, seen from afar, quite and utterly +undesirable. She would rather have no masculine attentions at all than +such poor provender for her feminine desire to conquer. + +Thus she trod the leafy walks of the beautiful campus alone, ignoring +and ignored, keenly alive under her shell of indifference to the +brilliant young men and their chosen few feminine companions. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +MRS. DRAPER BLOWS THE COALS + + +The most brilliant of these couples were Jermain Fiske, Jr., +and Eleanor Hubert. The first was the son of the well-known and +distinguished Colonel Jermain Fiske, one of the trustees of the +University, ex-Senator from the State. He belonged to the old, +free-handed, speech-making type of American statesmen, and, with his +florid good looks, his great stature, his loud, resonant, challenging +voice, and his picturesque reputation for highly successful +double-dealing, he was one of the most talked-of men in the State, +despite his advanced years. His enemies, who were not few, said that +the shrewdest action of his surpassingly shrewd life had been his +voluntary retirement from the Senate and from political activities at +the first low murmur heralding the muck-raking cyclone which was to +devastate public life as men of his type understood it. But every +inhabitant of the State, including his enemies, took an odd pride in +his fiercely debonair defiance to old age, in his grandiloquent, too +fluent public addresses, and in the manner in which, despite his +dubious private reputation, he held open to him, by sheer will-power, +sanctimonious doors which were closed to other less robust bad +examples to youth. + +This typical specimen of an American class now passing away, had sent +his son to the State University instead of to an expensive Eastern +college because of his carefully avowed attitude of bluff acceptance +of a place among the plain people of the region. The presence of +Jermain, Jr., in the classrooms of the State University had been +capital for many a swelling phrase on his father's part--"What's good +enough for the farmers' boys of my State is good enough for my boy," +etc., etc. + +As far as the young man in question was concerned, he certainly showed +no signs whatever of feeling himself sacrificed for his father's +advantage, and apparently considered that a leisurely sojourn for +seven years (he took both the B.A. and the three-year Law course) in a +city the size of La Chance was by no means a hardship for a young man +in the best of health, provided with ample funds, and never questioned +as to the disposition of his time. He had had at first a reputation +for dissipation which, together with his prowess on the football +field, had made him as much talked of on the campus as his father in +the State; but during his later years, those spent in the Law School, +he had, as the college phrase ran, "taken it out in being swagger," +had discarded his former shady associates, had two rooms in the finest +frat house on the campus, and was the only student of the University +to drive two horses tandem to a high, red-wheeled dog-cart. His fine +physique and reputation for quick assertion of his rights saved him +from the occasional taunt of dandyism which would have been flung at +any other student indulging in so unusual a freak of fashion. + +During Sylvia's Freshman year there usually sat beside him, on the +lofty seat of this equipage, a sweet-faced, gentle-browed young +lady, the lovely flower blooming out of the little girl who had so +innocently asked her mother some ten years ago what was a drunken +reinhardt. The oldest daughter of the professor of European History +was almost precisely Sylvia's age, but now, when Sylvia was laboring +over her books in the very beginning of her college life, Eleanor +Hubert was a finished product, a graduate of an exclusive, expensive +girls' boarding-school in New York, and a that-year's debutante in La +Chance society. Her name was constantly in the items of the society +columns, she wore the most profusely varied costumes, and she +drove about the campus swaying like a lily beside the wealthiest +undergraduate. Sylvia's mind was naturally too alert and vigorous, and +now too thoroughly awakened to intellectual interests, not to seize +with interest on the subjects she studied that year; but enjoy as much +as she tried to do, and did, this tonic mental discipline, there were +many moments when the sight of Eleanor Hubert made her wonder if after +all higher mathematics and history were of any real value. + +During this wretched year of stifled unhappiness, she not only studied +with extreme concentration, but, with a healthy instinct, spent a +great deal of time in the gymnasium. It was a delight to her to be +able to swim in the winter-time, she organized the first water-polo +team among the co-eds, and she began to learn fencing from the +Commandant of the University Battalion. He had been a crack with the +foils at West Point, and never ceased trying to arouse an interest in +what seemed to him the only rational form of exercise; but fencing at +that time had no intercollegiate vogue, and of all the young men and +women at the State University, Sylvia alone took up his standing offer +of free instruction to any one who cared to give the time to learn; +and even Sylvia took up fencing primarily because it promised to give +her one more occupation, left her less time for loneliness. As it +turned out, however, these lessons proved far more to her than a +temporary anodyne: they brought her a positive pleasure. She delighted +the dumpy little captain with her aptness, and he took the greatest +pains in his instruction. Before the end of her Freshman year she +twice succeeded in getting through his guard and landing a thrust on +his well-rounded figure; and though to keep down her conceit he told +her that he must be losing, along with his slenderness, some of his +youthful agility, he confessed to his wife that teaching Miss Marshall +was the best fun he had had in years. The girl was as quick as a cat, +and had a natural-born fencer's wrist. + +During the summer vacation she kept up her practice with her father, +who remembered enough of his early training in Paris to be more than a +match for her, and in the autumn of her Sophomore year, at the annual +Gymnasium exhibition, she gave with the Commandant a public bout with +the foils in which she notably distinguished herself. The astonished +and long-continued applause for this new feature of the exhibition +was a draught of nectar to her embittered young heart, but she +acknowledged it with not the smallest sign of pleasure, showing an +impassive face as she stood by the portly captain, slim and tall and +young and haughty, joining him in a sweeping, ceremonious salute with +her foil to the enthusiastic audience, and turning on her heel with +a brusqueness as military as his own, to march firmly with high-held +head beside him back to the ranks of blue-bloomered girls who stood +watching her. + +The younger girls in Alpha Kappa and Sigma Beta were seizing this +opportunity to renew an old quarrel with their elders in the +fraternities and were acrimoniously hoping that the older ones +were quite satisfied with their loss of a brilliant member. These +accusations met with no ready answer from the somewhat crestfallen +elders, whose only defense was the entire unexpectedness of the way in +which Sylvia was distinguishing herself. Who ever heard before of a +girl doing anything remarkable in athletics? And anyhow, now in her +Sophomore year it was too late to do anything. A girl so notoriously +proud would certainly not consider a tardy invitation, and it would +not do to run the risk of being refused. It is not too much to say +that to have overheard a conversation like this would have changed the +course of Sylvia's development, but of such colloquies she could know +nothing, attributing to the fraternities, with all an outsider's +resentful overestimation of their importance, an arrogant solidarity +of opinion and firmness of purpose which they were very far from +possessing. + +Professor and Mrs. Marshall and Lawrence and Judith, up in the front +row of chairs set for the audience about the running track, followed +this exploit of Sylvia's with naively open pride and sympathy, +applauding even more heartily than did their neighbors. Lawrence, as +usual, began to compose a poem, the first line of which ran, + + "Splendid, she wields her gleaming sword--" + +The most immediate result of this first public success of Sylvia's was +the call paid to Mrs. Marshall on the day following by Mrs. Draper, +the wife of the professor of Greek. Although there had never been any +formal social intercourse between the two ladies, they had for a good +many years met each other casually on the campus, and Mrs. Draper, +with the extremely graceful manner of assurance which was her especial +accomplishment, made it seem quite natural that she should call to +congratulate Sylvia's mother on the girl's skill and beauty as shown +in her prowess on the evening before. Mrs. Marshall prided herself on +her undeceived view of life, but she was as ready to hear praise of +her spirited and talented daughter as any other mother, and quite +melted to Mrs. Draper, although her observations from afar of the +other woman's career in La Chance had never before inclined her to +tolerance. So that when Mrs. Draper rose to go and asked casually if +Sylvia couldn't run in at five that afternoon to have a cup of tea at +her house with a very few of her favorites among the young people, +Mrs. Marshall, rather inflexible by nature and quite unused to the +subtleties of social intercourse, found herself unable to retreat +quickly enough from her reflected tone of cordiality to refuse the +invitation for her daughter. + +When Sylvia came back to lunch she was vastly fluttered and pleased +by the invitation, and as she ate, her mind leaped from one possible +sartorial combination to another. Whatever she wore must be exactly +right to be worthy of such a hostess: for Mrs. Draper was a +conspicuous figure in faculty society. She had acquired, through +years of extremely intelligent manoeuvering, a reputation for choice +exclusiveness which was accepted even in the most venerable of the old +families of La Chance, those whose founders had built their log huts +there as long as fifty years before. In faculty circles she occupied +a unique position, envied and feared and admired and distrusted and +copiously gossiped about by the faculty ladies, who accepted with +eagerness any invitations to entertainments in her small, aesthetic, +and perfectly appointed house. She was envied even by women with +much more than her income:--for of course Professor Draper had an +independent income; it was hardly possible to be anybody unless one +belonged to that minority of the faculty families with resources +beyond the salary granted by the State. + +Faculty ladies were, however, not favored with a great number of +invitations to Mrs. Draper's select and amusing teas and dinners, +as that lady had a great fancy for surrounding herself with youth, +meaning, for the most part, naturally enough, masculine youth. With +an unerring and practised eye she picked out from each class the few +young men who were to her purpose, and proclaiming with the most +express lack of reticence the forty-three years which she by no means +looked, she took these chosen few under a wing frankly maternal, +giving them, in the course of an intimate acquaintance with her and +the dim and twilight ways of her house and life, an enlightening +experience of a civilization which she herself said, with a humorous +appreciation of her own value, quite made over the young, unlicked +cubs. This statement of her influence on most of the young men drawn +into her circle was perhaps not much exaggerated. + +From time to time she also admitted into this charmed circle a young +girl or two, though almost never one of the University girls, of whom +she made the jolliest possible fun. Her favorites were the daughters +of good La Chance families who at seventeen had "finished" at Miss +Home's Select School for Young Ladies, and who came out in society not +later than eighteen. She seemed able, as long as she cared to do it, +to exercise as irresistible a fascination over these youthful members +of her own sex as over the older masculine undergraduates of the +University. They copied their friend's hats and neckwear and shoes and +her mannerisms of speech, were miserable if she neglected them for a +day, furiously jealous of each other, and raised to the seventh +heaven by attention from her. Just at present the only girl admitted +frequently to Mrs. Draper's intimacy was Eleanor Hubert. + +On the day following the Gymnasium exhibition, when Sylvia, promptly +at five, entered the picturesque vine-covered Draper house, she +found it occupied by none of the usual habitues of the place. The +white-capped, black-garbed maid who opened the door to the girl held +aside for her a pair of heavy brown-velvet portieres which veiled +the entrance to the drawing-room. The utter silence of this servitor +seemed portentous and inhuman to the young guest, unused to the polite +convention that servants cast no shadow and do not exist save when +serving their superiors. + +She found herself in a room as unlike any she had ever seen as though +she had stepped into a new planet. The light here was as yellow +as gold, and came from a great many candles which, in sconces and +candelabra, stood about the room, their oblong yellow flame as steady +in the breathless quiet of the air as though they burned in a vault +underground. There was not a book in the room, except one in a yellow +cover lying beside a box of candy on the mantelpiece, but every ledge, +table, projection, or shelf was covered with small, queerly fashioned, +dully gleaming objects of ivory, or silver, or brass, or carved wood, +or porcelain. + +The mistress of the room now came in. She was in a loose garment of +smoke-brown chiffon, held in place occasionally about her luxuriously +rounded figure by a heavy cord of brown silk. She advanced to Sylvia +with both hands outstretched, and took the girl's slim, rather hard +young fingers in the softest of melting palms. "Aren't you a _dear_, +to be so exactly on time!" she exclaimed. + +Sylvia was a little surprised. She had thought it axiomatic that +people kept their appointments promptly. "Oh, I'm always on time," she +answered simply. + +Mrs. Draper laughed and pulled her down on the sofa. "You clear-eyed +young Diana, you won't allow me even an instant's illusion that you +were eager to come to see _me_!" + +"Oh yes, I _was_!" said Sylvia hastily, fearing that she might have +said something rude. + +Mrs. Draper laughed again and gave the hand she still held a squeeze. +"You're adorable, that's what _you_ are!" She exploded this pointblank +charge in Sylvia's face with nonchalant ease, and went on with +another. "Jerry Fiske is quite right about you. I suppose you know +that you're here today so that Jerry can meet you." + +As there was obviously not the faintest possibility of Sylvia's having +heard this save through her present informant, she could only +look what she felt, very much at a loss, and rather blank, with a +heightened color. Mrs. Draper eyed her with an intentness at variance +with the lightness of her tone, as she continued: "I do think Jerry'd +have burned up in one flare, like a torch, if he couldn't have seen +you at once! After you'd fenced and disappeared again into that stupid +crowd of graceless girls, he kept track of you every minute with his +opera-glasses, and kept saying: 'She's a goddess! Good Lord! how she +carries herself!' It was rather hard on poor Eleanor right there +beside him, but I don't blame him. Eleanor's a sweet thing, but she'd +be sugar and water compared to champagne if she stood up by you." + +For a good many months Sylvia had been craving praise with a starved +appetite, and although she found this downpour of it rather drenching, +she could not sufficiently collect herself to make the conventional +decent pretense that it was unwelcome. She flushed deeply and looked +at her hostess with dazzled eyes. Mrs. Draper affected to see in her +silence a blankness as to the subject of the talk, and interrupted +the flow of personalities to cry out, with a pretense of horror, "You +don't mean to say you don't know who Jerry Fiske _is_!" + +Sylvia, as unused as her mother to conversational traps, fell into +this one with an eager promptness. "Oh yes, indeed; I know him +by sight very well," she said and stopped, flushing again at a +significant laugh from Mrs. Draper. "I mean," she went on +with dignity, "that Mr. Fiske has always been so prominent in +college--football and all, you know--and his father being one of our +State Senators so long--I suppose everybody on the campus knows him by +sight." Mrs. Draper patted the girl's shoulder propitiatingly. "Yes, +yes, of course," she assented. She added, "He's ever so good-looking, +don't you think--like a great Viking with his yellow hair and bright +blue eyes?" + +"I never noticed his eyes," said Sylvia stiffly, suspicious of +ridicule in the air. + +"Well, you'll have a chance to this afternoon," answered her hostess, +"for he's the only other person who's to be admitted to the house. I +had a great time excusing myself to Eleanor--she was coming to take me +out driving--but of course it wouldn't do--for her own sake--the poor +darling--to have her here today!" + +Sylvia thought she could not have rightly understood the significance +of this speech, and looked uncomfortable. Mrs. Draper said: "Oh, you +needn't mind cutting Eleanor out--she's only a dear baby who can't +feel anything very deeply. It's Mamma Hubert who's so mad about +catching Jerry. Since she's heard he's to have the Fiske estate at +Mercerton as soon as he graduates from Law School, she's like a wild +creature! If Eleanor weren't the most unconscious little bait that +ever hung on a hook Jerry'd have turned away in disgust long ago. He +may not be so very acute, but Mamma Hubert and her manoeuvers are not +millstones for seeing through!" + +The doorbell rang, one long and one short tap. "That's Jerry's ring," +said Mrs. Draper composedly, as though she had been speaking of her +husband. In an instant the heavy portieres were flung back by a +vigorous arm, and a very tall, broad-shouldered, clean-shaven young +man, in a well-tailored brown suit, stepped in. He accosted his +hostess with easy assurance, but went through his introduction to +Sylvia in a rather awkward silence. + +"Now we'll have tea," said Mrs. Draper at once, pressing a button. In +a moment a maid brought in a tray shining with silver and porcelain, +set it down on the table in front of Mrs. Draper, and then wheeled in +a little circular table with shelves, a glorified edition in gleaming +mahogany of the homely, white-painted wheeled-tray of Sylvia's home. +On the shelves was a large assortment of delicate, small cakes and +paper-thin sandwiches. While she poured out the amber-colored tea into +the translucent cups, Mrs. Draper kept up with the new-comer a lively +monologue of personalities, in which Sylvia, for very ignorance of the +people involved, could take no part. She sat silent, watching with +concentration the two people before her, the singularly handsome man, +certainly the handsomest man she had ever seen, and the far from +handsome but singularly alluring woman who faced him, making such a +display of her two good points, her rich figure and her fine dark +eyes, that for an instant the rest of her person seemed non-existent. + +"How do you like your tea, dear?" The mistress of the house brought +her stranded guest back into the current of talk with this well-worn +hook. + +"Oh, it doesn't make any difference," said Sylvia, who, as it +happened, did not like the taste of tea. + +"You really ought to have it nectar; with whipped ambrosia on top." +Mrs. Draper troweled this statement on with a dashing smear, saving +Sylvia from being forced to answer, by adding lightly to the man, "Is +ambrosia anything that will whip, do you suppose?" + +"Never heard of it before," he answered, breaking his silence with a +carefree absence of shame at his confession of ignorance. "Sounds +like one of those labels on a soda-water fountain that nobody ever +samples." + +Mrs. Draper made a humorously exaggerated gesture of despair and +turned to Sylvia. "Well, it's just as well, my dear, that you should +know at the very beginning what a perfect monster of illiteracy he is! +You needn't expect anything from him but his stupid good-looks, and +money and fascination. Otherwise he's a Cave-Man for ignorance. You +must take him in hand!" She turned back to the man. "Sylvia, you know, +is as clever as she is beautiful. She had the highest rank but three +in her class last year." + +Sylvia was overcome with astonishment by this knowledge of a fact +which had seemed to make no impression on the world of the year +before. "Why, how could you know that!" she cried. + +Mrs. Draper laughed. "Just hear her!" she appealed to the young man. +Her method of promoting the acquaintance of the two young people +seemed to consist in talking to each of the other. "Just hear her! She +converses as she fences--one bright flash, and you're skewered against +the wall--no parryings possible!" She faced Sylvia again: "Why, my +dear, in answer to your rapier-like question, I must simply confess +that this morning, being much struck with Jerry's being struck with +you, I went over to the registrar's office and looked you up. I know +that you passed supremely well in mathematics and French (what a +quaint combination!), very well indeed in history and chemistry, and +moderately in botany. What's the matter with botany? I have always +found Professor Cross a very obliging little man." + +"He doesn't make me see any sense to botany," explained Sylvia, taking +the question seriously. "I don't seem to get hold of any real reason +for studying it at all. What difference does it make if a bush is a +hawthorn or not?--and anyhow, I know it's a hawthorn without studying +botany." + +The young man spoke for himself now, with a keen relish for Sylvia's +words. He faced her for the first time. "Now you're _shouting_, Miss +Marshall!" he said. "That's the most sensible thing I ever heard said. +That's just what I always felt about the whole B.A. course, anyhow! +What's the diff? Who cares whether Charlemagne lived in six hundred or +sixteen hundred? It all happened before we were born. What's it all +_to_ us?" + +Sylvia looked squarely at him, a little startled at his directly +addressing her, not hearing a word of what he said in the vividness of +her first-hand impression of his personality, his brilliant blue eyes, +his full, very red lips, his boldly handsome face and carriage, his +air of confidence. In spite of his verbal agreement with her opinion, +his look crossed hers dashingly, like a challenge, a novelty in the +amicable harmony which had been the tradition of her life. She felt +that tradition to be not without its monotony, and her young blood +warmed. She gazed back at him silently, wonderingly, frankly. + +With her radiantly sensuous youth in the first splendor of its +opening, with this frank, direct look, she had a moment of brilliance +to make the eyes of age shade themselves as against a dazzling +brightness. The eyes of the man opposite her were not those of age. +They rested on her, roused, kindling to heat. His head went up like a +stag's. She felt a momentary hot throb of excitement, as though +her body were one great fiddle-string, twanging under a vigorously +plucking thumb. It was thrilling, it was startling, it was not +altogether pleasant. The corners of her sensitive mouth twitched +uncertainly. + +Mrs. Draper, observing from under her down-drooped lids this silent +passage between the two, murmured amusedly to herself, "Ah, now you're +shouting, my children!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +PLAYING WITH MATCHES + + +There was much that was acrid about the sweetness of triumph which the +next months brought Sylvia. The sudden change in her life had not come +until there was an accumulation of bitterness in her heart the venting +of which was the strongest emotion of that period of strong emotions. +As she drove about the campus, perched on the high seat of the +red-wheeled dog-cart, her lovely face looked down with none of Eleanor +Hubert's gentleness into the envying eyes of the other girls. A high +color burned in her cheeks, and her bright eyes were not soft. She +looked continually excited. + +At home she was hard to live with, quick to take offense at the +least breath of the adverse criticism which she felt, unspoken and +forbearing but thick in the air about her. She neglected her music, +she neglected her studies; she spent long hours of feverish toil over +Aunt Victoria's chiffons and silks. There was need for many toilets +now, for the incessantly recurring social events to which she went +with young Fiske, chaperoned by Mrs. Draper, who had for her old rival +and enemy, Mrs. Hubert, the most mocking of friendly smiles, as she +entered a ballroom, the acknowledged sponsor of the brilliant young +sensation of the college season. + +At these dances Sylvia had the grim satisfaction, not infrequently the +experience of intelligent young ladies, of being surrounded by crowds +of admiring young men, for whom she had no admiration, the barren +sterility of whose conversation filled her with astonishment, even +in her fever of exultation. She knew the delights of frequently +"splitting" her dances so that there might be enough to go around. She +was plunged headlong into the torrent of excitement which is the life +of a social favorite at a large State University, that breathless +whirl of one engagement after another for every evening and for most +of the days, which is one of the oddest developments of the academic +life as planned and provided for by the pioneer fathers of those great +Western commonwealths; and she savored every moment of it, for during +every moment she drank deep at the bitter fountain of personal +vindication. She went to all the affairs which had ignored her +the year before, to all the dances given by the "swell men's +fraternities," to the Sophomore hop, to the "Football Dance," at the +end of the season, to the big reception given to the Freshman class by +the Seniors. And in addition to these evening affairs, she appeared +beside Jerry Fiske at every football game, at the first Glee Club +Concert, at the outdoor play given by the Literary Societies, and very +frequently at the weekly receptions to the students tendered by the +ladies of the faculty. + +These affairs were always spoken of by the faculty as an attempt to +create a homogeneous social atmosphere on the campus; but this attempt +had ended, as such efforts usually do, in adding to the bewildering +plethora of social life of those students who already had too much, +and in being an added sting to the solitude and ostracism of those who +had none. Naturally enough, the ladies of the faculty who took most +interest in these afternoon functions were the ones who cared most for +society life, and there was only too obvious a contrast between their +manner of kindly, vague, condescending interest shown to one of the +"rough-neck" students, and the easy familiarity shown to one of those +socially "possible." The "rough-necks" seldom sought out more than +once the prettily decorated tables spread every Friday afternoon +in the Faculty Room, off the reading-room of the Library. Sylvia +especially had, on the only occasion when she had ventured into +this charming scene, suffered too intensely from the difference of +treatment accorded her and that given Eleanor Hubert to feel anything +but angry resentment. After that experience, she had passed along the +halls with the other outsiders, books in hand, her head held proudly +high, and never turned even to glance in at the gleaming tables, +the lighted candles, and the little groups of easily self-confident +fraternity men and girls laughing and talking over their teacups, and +revenging vicariously the rest of the ignored student-body by the +calm young insolence with which they in their turn ignored their +presumptive hostesses, the faculty ladies. + +Mrs. Draper changed all this for Sylvia with a wave of her wand. She +took the greatest pains to introduce her protegee into this phase of +the social life of the University. On these occasions, as beautiful +and as over-dressed as any girl in the room, with Jermain Fiske in +obvious attendance; with the exclusive Mrs. Draper setting in a rich +frame of commentary any remark she happened to make (Sylvia was +acquiring a reputation for great wit); with Eleanor Hubert, eclipsed, +sitting in a corner, quite deserted save for a funny countrified freak +assistant in chemistry; with all the "swellest frat men" in college +rushing to get her tea and sandwiches; with Mrs. Hubert plunged +obviously into acute unhappiness, Sylvia knew as ugly moments of mean +satisfaction as often fall to the lot even of very pretty young women. + +At home she knew no moments of satisfaction of any variety, although +there was no disapprobation expressed by any one, except in one or two +characteristically recondite comments by Professor Kennedy, who was +taking a rather uneasy triumph in the proof of an old theory of his as +to Sylvia's character. One afternoon, at a football game, he came up +to her on the grandstand, shook hands with Jermain Fiske, whom he had +flunked innumerable times in algebra, and remarked in his most acid +voice that he wished to congratulate the young man on being the +perfect specimen of the dolichocephalic blond whose arrival in +Sylvia's life he had predicted years before. Sylvia, belligerently +aware of the attitude of her home world, and ready to resent +criticism, took the liveliest offense at this obscure comment, which +she perfectly understood. She flushed indignantly and glared in +silence with the eyes of an angry young goddess. + +Young Fiske, who found the remark, or any other made by a college +prof, quite as unintelligible as it was unimportant, laughed with +careless impudence in the old man's face; and Mrs. Draper, for all her +keenness, could make nothing of it. It sounded, however, so quite +like a dictum which she herself would have liked to make, that she +cross-questioned Sylvia afterwards as to its meaning; but Sylvia lied +fluently, asserting that it was just some of Professor Kennedy's +mathematical gibberish which had no meaning. + +In the growing acquaintance of Sylvia and Jermain, Mrs. Draper acted +assiduously as chaperon, a refinement of sophisticated society which +was, as a rule, but vaguely observed in the chaotic flux of State +University social life, and she so managed affairs that they were +seldom together alone. For obvious reasons Sylvia preferred to see the +young man elsewhere than in her own home, where indeed he made almost +no appearance, beyond standing at the door of an evening, very +handsome and distinguished in his evening dress, waiting for Sylvia to +put on her wraps and go out with him to the carriage where Mrs. Draper +sat expectant, furred and velvet-wrapped. This discreet manager made +no objection to Sylvia's driving about the campus in the daytime +alone with Jermain, but to his proposal to drive the girl out to the +country-club for dinner one evening she added blandly the imperious +proviso that she be of the party; and she discouraged with firmness +any projects for solitary walks together through the woods near +the campus, although this was a recognized form of co-educational +amusement at that institution of learning. + +For all her air of free-and-easy equality with the young man, she had +at times a certain blighting glance which, turned on him suddenly, +always brought him to an agreement with her opinion, an agreement +which might obviously ring but verbal on his tongue, but which was +nevertheless the acknowledged basis of action. As for Sylvia, she +acquiesced, with an eagerness which she did not try to understand, in +any arrangement which precluded tete-a-tetes with Jerry. + +She did not, as a matter of fact, try to understand anything of what +was happening to her. She was by no means sure that she liked it, but +was stiffened into a stubborn resistance to any doubts by the unvoiced +objection to it all at home. With an instinct against disproportion, +perverse perhaps in this case, but with a germ of soundness in it, +she felt confusedly and resentfully that since her home circle was so +patently narrow and exaggerated in its standard of personality, she +would just have to even things up by being a little less fastidious +than was her instinct; and on the one or two occasions when a sudden +sight of Jerry sent through her a strange, unpleasant stir of all her +flesh, she crushed the feeling out of sight under her determination to +assert her own judgment and standards against those which had (she now +felt) so tyrannically influenced her childhood. But for the most +part she did little thinking, shaking as loudly as possible the +reverberating rattle of physical excitement. + +Thus everything progressed smoothly under Mrs. Draper's management. +The young couple met each other usually in the rather close air of her +candle-lighted living-room, drinking a great deal of tea, consuming +large numbers of delicate, strangely compounded sandwiches, +and listening to an endless flow of somewhat startlingly frank +personalities from the magnetic mistress of the house. Sylvia and +Jermain did not talk much on these occasions. They listened with +edification to the racy remarks of their hostess, voicing that +theoretical "broadness" of opinion as to the conduct of life which, +quite as much as the perfume which she always used, was a specialty of +her provocative personality; they spoke now and then, to be sure, as +she drew them into conversation, but their real intercourse was almost +altogether silent. They eyed each other across the table, breathing +quickly, and flushing or paling if their hands chanced to touch in the +services of the tea-table. Once the young man came in earlier than +usual and found Sylvia alone for a moment in the silent, glowing, +perfumed room. He took her hand, apparently for the ordinary handclasp +of greeting, but with a surge of his blood retained it, pressing it +so fiercely that his ring cut into her finger, causing a tiny drop of +bright red to show on the youthful smoothness of her skin. At this +living ruby they both stared fixedly for an instant; then Mrs. Draper +came hastily into the room, saying chidingly, "Come, come, children!" +and looking with displeasure at the man's darkly flushed face. Sylvia +was paler than usual for the rest of the afternoon, and could not +swallow a mouthful of the appetizing food, which as a rule she +devoured with the frank satisfaction of a hungry child. She sat, +rather white, not talking much, avoiding Jerry's eyes for no reason +that she could analyze, and, in the pauses of the conversation, could +hear the blood singing loudly in her ears. + +Yet, although she felt the oddest relief, as after one more escape, +at the end of each of these afternoons with her new acquaintances, +afternoons in which the three seemed perpetually gliding down a +steep incline and as perpetually being arrested on the brink of some +unexplained plunge, she found that their atmosphere had spoiled +entirely her relish for the atmosphere of her home. The home +supper-table seemed to her singularly flat and distasteful with its +commonplace fare--hot chocolate and creamed potatoes and apple sauce, +and its brisk, impersonal talk of socialism, and politics, and small +home events, and music. As it happened, the quartet had the lack of +intuition to play a great deal of Haydn that autumn, and to Sylvia +the cheerful, obvious tap-tap-tap of the hearty old master seemed to +typify the bald, unsubtle obtuseness of the home attitude towards +life. She herself took to playing the less difficult of the Chopin +nocturnes with a languorous over-accentuation of their softness which +she was careful to keep from the ears of old Reinhardt. But one +evening he came in, unheard, listened to her performance of the B-flat +minor nocturne with a frown, and pulled her away from the piano before +she had finished. "Not true music, not true love, not true anydings!" +he said, speaking however with an unexpected gentleness, and patting +her on the shoulder with a dirty old hand. "Listen!" He clapped his +fiddle under his chin and played the air of the andante from the +Kreutzer Sonata with so singing and heavenly a tone that Sylvia, as +helpless an instrument in his skilful hands as the violin itself, felt +the nervous tears stinging her eyelids. + +This did not prevent her making a long detour the next day to avoid +meeting the uncomely old musician on the street and being obliged to +recognize him publicly. She lived in perpetual dread of being thus +forced, when in the company of Mrs. Draper or Jermain, to acknowledge +her connection with him, or with Cousin Parnelia, or with any of +the eccentrics who frequented her parents' home, and whom it was +physically impossible to imagine drinking tea at Mrs. Draper's table. + +It was beside this same table that she met, one day in early December, +Jermain Fiske's distinguished father. He explained that he was in La +Chance for a day on his way from Washington to Mercerton, where the +Fiske family was collecting for its annual Christmas house-party, and +had dropped in on Mrs. Draper quite unexpectedly. He was, he added, +delighted that it happened to be a day when he could meet the lovely +Miss Marshall of whom (with a heavy accent of jocose significance) +he had heard so much. Sylvia was a little confused by the pointed +attentions of this gallant old warrior, oddly in contrast with the +manner of other elderly men she knew; but she thought him very +handsome, with his sweeping white mustache, his bright blue eyes, +so like his son's, and she was much impressed with his frock-coat, +fitting snugly around his well-knit, erect figure, and with the +silk hat which she noticed on the table in the hall as she went in. +Frock-coats and silk hats were objects seldom encountered in La +Chance, except in illustrations to magazine-stories, or in photographs +of life in New York or Washington. But of course, she reflected, +Colonel Fiske lived most of his life in Washington, about the +cosmopolitan delights of which he talked most eloquently to the two +ladies. + +As was inevitable, Sylvia also met Eleanor Hubert more or less at Mrs. +Draper's. Sylvia had been rendered acutely self-conscious in that +direction by Mrs. Draper's very open comments on her role in the life +of the other girl, and at first had been so smitten by embarrassment +as positively to be awkward, a rare event in her life: but she was +soon set at ease by the other girl's gentle friendliness, so simple +and sincere that even Sylvia's suspicious vanity could not feel it +to be condescension. Eleanor's sweet eyes shone so kindly on her +successful rival, and she showed so frank and unenvious an +admiration of Sylvia's wit and learning, displayed perhaps a trifle +ostentatiously by that young lady in the ensuing conversation with +Mrs. Draper, that Sylvia had a fresh, healing impulse of shame for her +own recently acquired attitude of triumphing hostility towards the +world. + +At the same time she felt a surprised contempt for the other girl's +ignorance and almost illiteracy. Whatever else Eleanor had learned in +the exclusive and expensive girls' school in New York, she had not +learned to hold her own in a conversation on the most ordinary topics; +and as for Mrs. Draper's highly spiced comments on life and folk, her +young friend made not the slightest attempt to cope with them or even +to understand them. The alluring mistress of the house might talk of +sex-antagonism and the hatefulness of the puritanical elements of +American life as much as she pleased. It all passed over the head of +the lovely, fair girl, sipping her tea and raising her candid eyes +to meet with a trustful smile, perhaps a little blank, the glance of +whomever chanced to be looking at her. It was significant that she had +the same smile for each of the three very dissimilar persons who sat +about the tea-table. Of all the circle into which Sylvia's changed +life had plunged her, Eleanor, the type of the conventional society +bud, was, oddly enough, the only one she cared to talk about in her +own extremely unconventional home. But even on this topic she felt +herself bruised and jarred by the severity, the unpicturesque +austerity of the home standards. As she was trying to give her mother +some idea of Eleanor's character, she quoted one day a remark of Mrs. +Draper's, to the effect that "Eleanor no more knows the meaning of her +beauty than a rose the meaning of its perfume." Mrs. Marshall kept +a forbidding silence for a moment and then said: "I don't take much +stock in that sort of unconsciousness. Eleanor isn't a rose, she isn't +even a child. She's a woman. The sooner girls learn that distinction, +the better off they'll be, and the fewer chances they'll run of being +horribly misunderstood." + +Sylvia felt very angry with her mother for this unsympathetic +treatment of a pretty phrase, and thought with resentment that it was +not _her_ fault if she were becoming more and more alienated from her +family. + +This was a feeling adroitly fostered by Mrs. Draper, who, in her +endless talks with Sylvia and Jermain about themselves, had hit upon +an expression and a turn of phrase which was to have more influence on +Sylvia's development than its brevity seemed to warrant. She had, one +day, called Sylvia a little Athenian, growing up, by the oddest of +mistakes, in Sparta. Sylvia, who was in the Pater-reading stage of +development, caught at her friend's phrase as at the longed-for key to +her situation. It explained everything. It made everything appear in +the light she wished for. Above all it enabled her to clarify her +attitude towards her home. Now she understood. One did not scorn +Sparta. One respected it, it was a noble influence in life; but for an +Athenian, for whom amenity and beauty and suavity were as essential as +food, Sparta was death. As was natural to her age and temperament, she +sucked a vast amount of pleasure out of this pitying analysis of her +subtle, complicated needs and the bare crudity of her surroundings. +She now read Pater more assiduously than ever, always carrying a +volume about with her text-books, and feeding on this delicate fare +in such unlikely and dissimilar places as on the trolley-cars, in the +kitchen, in the intervals of preparing a meal, or in Mrs. Draper's +living-room, waiting for the problematical entrance of that erratic +luminary. + +There was none of Mrs. Draper's habits of life which made more of an +impression on Sylvia's imagination than her custom of disregarding +engagements and appointments, of coming and going, appearing and +disappearing quite as she pleased. To the daughter of a scrupulously +exact family, which regarded tardiness as a fault, and breaking an +appointment as a crime, this high-handed flexibility in dealing with +time and bonds and promises had an exciting quality of freedom. + +On a good many occasions these periods of waiting chanced to be shared +by Eleanor Hubert, for whom, after the first two or three encounters, +Sylvia came to have a rather condescending sympathy, singularly in +contrast to the uneasy envy with which she had regarded her only a +few months before. However, as regards dress, Eleanor was still a +phenomenon of the greatest interest, and Sylvia never saw her without +getting an idea or two, although it was plain to any one who knew +Eleanor that this mastery of the technique of modern American costume +was no achievement of her own, that she was merely the lovely and +plastic material molded, perhaps to slightly over-complicated effects, +by her mother's hands. + +From that absent but pervasive personality Sylvia took one suggestion +after another. For instance, a very brief association with Eleanor +caused her to relegate to the scrapheap of the "common" the ready-made +white ruching for neck and sleeves which she had always before taken +for granted. Eleanor's slim neck and smooth wrists were always set +off by a few folds of the finest white chiffon, laid with dexterous +carelessness, and always so exquisitely fresh that they were obviously +renewed by a skilful hand after only a few hours' wearing. The first +time she saw Eleanor, Sylvia noticed this detail with appreciation, +and immediately struggled to reproduce it in her own costume. Like +other feats of the lesser arts this perfect trifle turned out to +depend upon the use of the lightest and most adroit touch. None of the +chiffon which came in Aunt Victoria's boxes would do. It must be fresh +from the shop-counter, ruinous as this was to Sylvia's very modest +allowance for dress. Even then she spoiled many a yard of the filmy, +unmanageable stuff before she could catch the spirit of those +apparently careless folds, so loosely disposed and yet never +displaced. It was a phenomenon over which a philosopher might +well have pondered, this spectacle of Sylvia's keen brain and +well-developed will-power equally concerned with the problems of +chemistry and philosophy and history, and with the problem of +chiffon folds. She herself was aware of no incongruity, indeed of no +difference, between the two sorts of efforts. + +Many other matters of Eleanor's attire proved as fruitful of +suggestion as this, although Aunt Victoria's well-remembered dictum +about the "kitchen-maid's pin-cushion" was a guiding finger-board +which warned Sylvia against the multiplication of detail, even +desirable detail. + +Mrs. Hubert had evidently studied deeply the sources of distinction +in modern dress, and had grasped with philosophic thoroughness the +underlying principle of the art, which is to show effects obviously +costly, but the cost of which is due less to mere brute cash than to +prodigally expended effort. Eleanor never wore a costume which did not +show the copious exercise by some alert-minded human being, presumably +with an immortal soul, of the priceless qualities of invention, +creative thought, trained attention, and prodigious industry. Mrs. +Hubert's unchallengeable slogan was that dress should be an expression +of individuality, and by dint of utilizing all the details of the +attire of herself and of her two daughters, down to the last ruffle +and buttonhole, she found this medium quite sufficient to express the +whole of her own individuality, the conspicuous force of which was +readily conceded by any observer of the lady's life. + +As for Eleanor's own individuality, any one in search of that very +unobtrusive quality would have found it more in the expression of her +eyes and in the childlike lines of her lips than in her toilets. It +is possible that Mrs. Hubert might have regarded it as an unkind +visitation of Providence that the results of her lifetime of effort +in an important art should have been of such slight interest to +her daughter, and should have served, during the autumn under +consideration, chiefly as hints and suggestions for her daughter's +successful rival. + +That she was Eleanor's successful rival, Sylvia had Mrs. Draper's more +than outspoken word. That lady openly gloried in the impending defeat +of Mrs. Hubert's machinations to secure the Fiske money and position +for Eleanor; although she admitted that a man like Jerry had his two +opposing sides, and that he was quite capable of being attracted by +two such contrasting types as Sylvia and Eleanor. She informed Sylvia +indeed that the present wife of Colonel Fiske--his third, by the +way--had evidently been in her youth a girl of Eleanor's temperament. +It was more than apparent, however, that in the case of the son, +Sylvia's "type" was in the ascendent; but it must be set down to +Sylvia's credit that the circumstance of successful competition gave +her no satisfaction. She often heartily wished Eleanor out of it. She +could never meet the candid sweetness of the other's eyes without a +qualm of discomfort, and she suffered acutely under Eleanor's gentle +amiability. + +Once or twice when Mrs. Draper was too outrageously late at an +appointment for tea, the two girls gave her up, and leaving the house, +walked side by side back across the campus, Sylvia quite aware of the +wondering surmise which followed their appearance together. On these +occasions, Eleanor talked with more freedom than in Mrs. Draper's +presence, always in the quietest, simplest way, of small events and +quite uninteresting minor matters in her life, or the life of the +various household pets, of which she seemed extremely fond. Sylvia +could not understand why, when she bade her good-bye at the driveway +leading into the Hubert house, she should feel anything but a rather +contemptuous amusement for the other's insignificance, but the odd +fact was that her heart swelled with inexplicable warmth. Once she +yielded to this foolish impulse, and felt a quivering sense of +pleasure at the sudden startled responsiveness with which Eleanor +returned a kiss, clinging to her as though she were an older, stronger +sister. + +One dark late afternoon in early December, Sylvia waited alone in the +candle-lighted shrine, neither Eleanor nor her hostess appearing. +After five o'clock she started home alone along the heavily shaded +paths of the campus, as dim as caves in the interval before the big, +winking sputtering arc-lights were flashed on. She walked swiftly and +lightly as was her well-trained habit, and before she knew it, was +close upon a couple sauntering in very close proximity. With the +surety of long practice Sylvia instantly diagnosed them as a college +couple indulging in what was known euphemistically as "campus work," +and prepared to pass them with the slight effect of scorn for +philanderings which she always managed to throw into her high-held +head and squarely swinging shoulders. But as she came up closer, +walking noiselessly in the dusk, she recognized an eccentric, +flame-colored plume just visible in the dim light, hanging down +from the girl's hat--and stopped short, filled with a rush of very +complicated feelings. The only flame-colored plume in La Chance was +owned and worn by Eleanor Hubert, and if she were out sauntering +amorously in the twilight, with whom could she be but Jerry +Fiske,--and that meant--Sylvia's pangs of conscience about supplanting +Eleanor were swept away by a flood of anger as at a defeat. She could +not make out the girl's companion, beyond the fact that he was tall +and wore a long, loose overcoat. Jerry was tall and wore a long, loose +overcoat. Sylvia walked on, slowly now, thoroughly aroused, quite +unaware of the inconsistency of her mental attitude. She felt a rising +tide of heat. She had, she told herself, half a notion to step forward +and announce her presence to the couple, whose pace as the Hubert +house was approached became slower and slower. + +But then, as they stood for a moment at the entrance of the Hubert +driveway, the arc-lights blazed up all over the campus at once and she +saw two things: one was that Eleanor was walking very close to her +companion, with her arm through his, and her little gloved fingers +covered by his hand, and next that he was not Jerry Fiske at all, +but the queer, countrified "freak" assistant in chemistry with +whom Eleanor, since Jerry's defection, had more or less masked her +abandonment. + +At the same moment the two started guiltily apart, and Sylvia halted, +thinking they had discovered her. But it was Mrs. Hubert whom they had +seen, advancing from the other direction, and making no pretense that +she was not in search of an absent daughter. She bore down upon the +couple, murmured a very brief greeting to the man, accompanied by a +faint inclination of her well-hatted head, drew Eleanor's unresisting +hand inside her arm, and walked her briskly into the house. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +MRS. MARSHALL STICKS TO HER PRINCIPLES + + +During the autumn and early winter it not only happened unfortunately +that the quartet played altogether too much Haydn, but that Sylvia's +father, contrary to his usual custom, was away from home a great deal. +The State University had arrived at that stage of its career when, if +its rapidly increasing needs and demands for State money were to be +recognized by the Legislature, it must knit itself more closely to +the rest of the State system of education, have a more intimate +affiliation with the widely scattered public high schools, and weld +into some sort of homegeneity their extremely various standards of +scholarship. This was a delicate undertaking, calling for much tact +and an accurate knowledge of conditions in the State, especially in +the rural districts. Professor Marshall's twenty years of popularity +with the more serious element of the State University students (that +popularity which meant so little to Sylvia, and which she so ignored) +had given him a large acquaintance among the class which it was +necessary to reach. He knew the men who at the University had been the +digs, and jays, and grinds, and who were now the prosperous +farmers, the bankers, the school-trustees, the leading men in their +communities; and his geniality, vivacity, and knack for informal +public speaking made him eminently fitted to represent the University +in the somewhat thankless task of coaxing and coercing backward +communities to expend the necessary money and effort to bring their +schools up to the State University standard. + +If all this had happened a few years sooner, he undoubtedly would have +taken Sylvia with him on many of these journeys into remote corners +of the State, but Sylvia had her class-work to attend to, and the +Professor shared to the fullest extent the academic prejudice against +parents who broke in upon the course of their children's regular +instruction by lawless and casual junketings. Instead, it was Judith +who frequently accompanied him, Judith who was now undergoing that +home-preparation for the University through which Sylvia had passed, +and who, since her father was her principal instructor, could carry +on her studies wherever he happened to be; as well as have the +stimulating experience of coming in contact with a wide variety of +people and conditions. It is possible that Professor Marshall's +sociable nature not only shrank from the solitude which his wife +would have endured with cheerfulness, but that he also wished to take +advantage of this opportunity to come in closer touch with his second +daughter, for whose self-contained and occasionally insensitive nature +he had never felt the instinctive understanding he had for Sylvia's +moods. It is certain that the result was a better feeling between the +two than had existed before. During the long hours of jolting over +branch railroads back to remote settlements, or waiting at cheerless +junctions for delayed trains, or gaily eating impossible meals at +extraordinary country hotels, the ruddy, vigorous father, now growing +both gray and stout, and the tall, slender, darkly handsome girl of +fifteen, were cultivating more things than history and mathematics and +English literature. The most genuine feeling of comradeship sprang up +between the two dissimilar natures, a feeling so strong and so warm +that Sylvia, in addition to her other emotional complications, felt +occasionally a faint pricking of jealousy at seeing her primacy with +her father usurped. + +A further factor in her temporary feeling of alienation from him was +the mere physical fact that she saw him much less frequently and that +he had nothing like his usual intimate knowledge of her comings and +goings. And finally, Lawrence, now a too rapidly growing and delicate +lad of eleven, had a series of bronchial colds which kept his mother +much occupied with his care. As far as her family was concerned, +Sylvia was thus left more alone than ever before, and although she had +been trained to too delicate and high a personal pride to attempt the +least concealment of her doings, it was not without relief that she +felt that her parents had but a very superficial knowledge of the +extent and depth to which she was becoming involved in her new +relations. She herself shut her eyes as much as possible to the rate +at which she was progressing towards a destination rapidly becoming +more and more imperiously visible; and consciously intoxicated herself +with the excitements and fatigues of her curiously double life of +intellectual effort in classes and her not very skilful handling of +the shining and very sharp-edged tools of flirtation. + +But this ambiguous situation was suddenly clarified by the unexpected +call upon Mrs. Marshall, one day about the middle of December, of no +less a person than Mrs. Jermain Fiske, Sr., wife of the Colonel, and +Jerry's stepmother. Sylvia happened to be in her room when the shining +car drove up the country road before the Marshall house, stopped at +the gate in the osage-orange hedge, and discharged the tall, stooping, +handsomely dressed lady in rich furs, who came with a halting step up +the long path to the front door. Although Sylvia had never seen Mrs. +Fiske, Mrs. Draper's gift for satiric word-painting had made her +familiar with some items of her appearance, and it was with a rapidly +beating heart that she surmised the identity of the distinguished +caller. But although her quick intelligence perceived the probable +significance of the appearance, and although she felt a distinct shock +at the seriousness of having Jerry's stepmother call upon her, she was +diverted from these capital considerations of such vital importance to +her life by the trivial consideration which had, so frequently during +the progress of this affair, absorbed her mind to the exclusion of +everything else--the necessity for keeping up appearances. If the +Marshall tradition had made it easier for her to achieve this not very +elevated goal, she might have perceived more clearly where her rapid +feet were taking her. Just now, for example, there was nothing in her +consciousness but the embittered knowledge that there was no maid to +open the door when Mrs. Fiske should ring. + +She was a keen-witted modern young woman of eighteen, with a +well-trained mind stored with innumerable facts of science, but it +must be admitted that at this moment she reverted with passionate +completeness to quite another type. She would have given--she would +have given a year of her life--one of her fingers--all her knowledge +of history--anything! if the Marshalls had possessed what she felt any +decently prosperous grocer's family ought to possess--a well-appointed +maid in the hall to open the door, take Mrs. Fiske's card, show her +into the living-room, and go decently and in order to summon the +mistress of the house. Instead she saw with envenomed foresight what +would happen. At the unusual sound of the bell, her mother, who was +playing dominoes with Lawrence in one of his convalescences, would +open the door with her apron still on, and her spectacles probably +pushed up, rustic fashion, on top of her head. And then their +illustrious visitor, used as of course she was to ceremony in social +matters, would not know whether this was the maid, or her hostess; +and Mrs. Marshall would frankly show her surprise at seeing a richly +dressed stranger on the doorstep, and would perhaps think she had made +a mistake in the house; and Mrs. Fiske would not know whether to hand +over the cards she held ready in her whitely gloved fingers--in the +interval between the clanging shut of the gate and the tinkle of the +doorbell Sylvia endured a sick reaction against life, as an altogether +hateful and horrid affair. + +As a matter of fact, nothing of all this took place. When the bell +rang, her mother called out a tranquil request to her to go and open +the door, and so it was Sylvia herself who confronted the unexpected +visitor,--Sylvia a little flurried and breathless, but ushering the +guest into the house with her usual graceful charm of manner. + +She had none of this as a moment later she went rather slowly upstairs +to summon her mother. It occurred to her that Mrs. Marshall might very +reasonably be at a loss as to the reason of this call. Indeed, she +herself felt a sinking alarm at the definiteness of the demonstration. +What could Mrs. Fiske have to say to Mrs. Marshall that would not lead +to some agitating crystallization of the dangerous solution which +during the past months Mrs. Marshall's daughter had been so +industriously stirring up? Mrs. Marshall showed the most open surprise +at the announcement, "Mrs. Colonel Fiske to see me? What in the +world--" she began, but after a glance at Sylvia's down-hung head and +twisting fingers, she stopped short, looking very grave, and rose to +go, with no more comments. + +They went down the stairs in silence, tall mother and tall daughter, +both sobered, both frightened at what might be in the other's mind, +and at what might be before them, and entered the low-ceilinged +living-room together. A pale woman, apparently as apprehensive as +they, rose in a haste that had almost some element of apology in it, +and offered her hand to Mrs. Marshall. "I'm Mrs. Fiske," she said +hurriedly, in a low voice, "Jerry's stepmother, you know. I hope you +won't mind my coming to see you. What a perfectly lovely home you +have! I was wishing I could just stay and _stay_ in this room." +She spoke rapidly with the slightly incoherent haste of shy people +overcoming their weakness, and glanced alternately, with faded blue +eyes, at Sylvia and at her mother. In the end she remained standing, +looking earnestly into Mrs. Marshall's face. That lady now made a step +forward and again put out her hand with an impulsive gesture at which +Sylvia wondered. She herself had felt no attraction towards the thin, +sickly woman who had so little grace or security of manner. It was +constantly surprising Sylvia to discover how often people high in +social rank seemed to possess no qualifications for their position. +She always felt that she could have filled their places with vastly +more aplomb. + +"I'm very glad to see you," said Mrs. Marshall in a friendly tone. "Do +sit down again. Sylvia, go and make us some tea, won't you? Mrs. Fiske +must be cold after driving out here from town." + +When Sylvia came back ten minutes later, she found the guest saying, +"My youngest is only nine months old, and he is having _such_ a time +with his teeth." + +"Oh!" thought Sylvia scornfully, pouring out the tea. "She's _that_ +kind of a woman, is she?" With the astonishingly quick shifting of +viewpoint of the young, she no longer felt the least anxiety that her +home, or even that she herself should make a good impression on this +evidently quite negligible person. Her anguish about the ceremony of +opening the door seemed years behind her. She examined with care all +the minutiae of the handsome, unindividualized costume of black velvet +worn by their visitor, but turned an absent ear to her talk, which +brought out various facts relating to a numerous family of young +children. "I have six living," said Mrs. Fiske, not meeting Mrs. +Marshall's eyes as she spoke, and stirring her tea slowly, "I lost +four at birth." + +Sylvia was indeed slightly interested to learn through another turn of +the conversation that the caller, who looked to her unsympathetic eyes +any age at all, had been married at eighteen, and that that was only +thirteen years ago. Sylvia thought she certainly looked older than +thirty-one, advanced though that age was. + +The call passed with no noteworthy incidents beyond a growing wonder +in Sylvia's mind that the brilliant and dashing old Colonel, after +his other matrimonial experiences, should have picked out so dull and +colorless a wife. She was not even pretty, not at all pretty, in spite +of her delicate, regular features and tall figure. Her hair was dry +and thin, her eyes lusterless, her complexion thick, with brown +patches on it, and her conversation was of a domesticity unparalleled +in Sylvia's experience. She seemed oddly drawn to Mrs. Marshall, +although that lady was now looking rather graver than was her wont, +and talked to her of the overflowing Fiske nursery with a loquacity +which was evidently not her usual habit. Indeed, she said naively, as +she went away, that she had been much relieved to find Mrs. Marshall +so approachable. "One always thinks of University families as so +terribly learned, you know," she said, imputing to her hostess, with a +child's tactlessness, an absence of learning like her own. "I really +dreaded to come--I go out so little, you know--but Jerry and the +Colonel thought I ought, you know--and now I've really enjoyed it--and +if Miss Marshall will come, Jerry and the Colonel will be quite +satisfied. And so, of course, will I." With which rather jerky +valedictory she finally got herself out of the house. + +Sylvia looked at her mother inquiringly. "If I go where?" she asked. +Something must have taken place while she was out of the room getting +the tea. + +"She called to invite you formally to a Christmas house-party at the +Fiskes' place in Mercerton," said Mrs. Marshall, noting smilelessly +Sylvia's quick delight at the news. "Oh, what have I got to wear!" +cried the girl. Mrs. Marshall said merely, "We'll see, we'll see," +and without discussing the matter further, went back to finish the +interrupted game with Lawrence. + +But the next evening, when Professor Marshall returned from his latest +trip, the subject was taken up in a talk between Sylvia and her +parents which was more agitating to them all than any other incident +in their common life, although it was conducted with a great effort +for self-control on all sides. Judith and Lawrence had gone upstairs +to do their lessons, and Professor Marshall at once broached the +subject by saying with considerable hesitation, "Sylvia--well--how +about this house-party at the Fiskes'?" + +Sylvia was on the defense in a moment. "Well, how about it?" she +repeated. + +"I hope you don't feel like going." + +"But I do, very much!" returned Sylvia, tingling at the first clear +striking of the note of disapproval she had felt for so many weeks +like an undertone in her life. As her father said nothing more, biting +his nails and looking at her uncertainly, she added in the accent +which fitted the words, "Why shouldn't I?" + +He took a turn about the room and glanced at his wife, who was hemming +a napkin very rapidly, her hands trembling a little. She looked up at +him warningly, and he waited an instant before speaking. Finally he +brought out with the guarded tone of one forcing himself to moderation +of speech, "Well, the Colonel is an abominable old black-guard in +public life, and his private reputation is no better." + +Sylvia flushed. "I don't see what that has to do with his son. It's +not fair to judge a young man by his father--or by anything but what +he is himself--you yourself are always saying that, if the trouble is +that the father is poor or ignorant or something else tiresome." + +Professor Marshall said cautiously, "From what I hear, I gather that +the son in this case is a good deal like his father." + +"No, he _isn't!_" cried Sylvia quickly. "He may have been wild when he +first came up to the University, but he's all right now!" She spoke as +with authoritative and intimate knowledge of all the details of Fiske, +Jr.'s, life. "And anyhow, I don't see what difference it makes, _what_ +the Colonel's reputation is. I'm just going up there with a lot of +other young people to have a good time. Eleanor Hubert's invited, and +three or four other society girls. I don't see why we need to be such +a lot more particular than other people. We never are when it's a +question of people being dirty, or horrid, other ways! How about +Cousin Parnelia and Mr. Reinhardt? I guess the Fiskes would laugh +at the idea of people who have as many queer folks around as we do, +thinking _they_ aren't good enough." + +Professor Marshall sat down across the table from his daughter and +looked at her. His face was rather ruddier than usual and he swallowed +hard. "Why, Sylvia, the point is this. It's evident, from what your +mother tells me of Mrs. Fiske's visit, that going to this house party +means more in your case than with the other girls. Mrs. Fiske came all +the way to La Chance to invite you, and from what she said about +you and her stepson, it was evident that she and the Colonel--" He +stopped, opening his hands nervously. + +"I don't know how they think they know anything about it," returned +Sylvia with dignity, though she felt an inward qualm at this news. +"Jerry's been ever so nice to me and given me a splendid time, but +that's all there is to it. Lots of fellows do that for lots of girls, +and nobody makes such a fuss about it." + +Mrs. Marshall laid down her work and went to the heart of the matter. +"Sylvia, you don't _like_ Mr. Fiske?" + +"Yes, I do!" said Sylvia defiantly, qualifying this statement an +instant later by, "Quite well, anyhow. Why _shouldn't_ I?" + +Her mother assumed this rhetorical question to be a genuine one and +answered it accordingly. "Why, he doesn't seem at all like the type of +young man who would be liked by a girl with your tastes and training. +I shouldn't think you'd find him interesting or--" + +Sylvia broke out: "Oh, you don't know how sick I get of being so +everlastingly high-brow! What's the _use_ of it? People don't think +any more of you! They think less! You don't have any better time--nor +so good! And why should you and Father always be so down on anybody +that's rich, or dresses decently? _Jerry's_ all right--if his clothes +_do_ fit!" + +"Do you really _know_ him at all?" asked her father pointedly. + +"Of course I do--I know he's very handsome, and awfully good-natured, +and he's given me the only good time I've had at the University. You +just don't know how ghastly last year was to me! I'm awfully grateful +to Jerry, and that's all there is to it!" + +Before this second disclaimer, her parents were silent again, Sylvia +looking down at her lap, picking at her fingers. Her expression was +that of a naughty child--that is, with a considerable admixture of +unhappiness in her wilfulness. + +By this time Professor Marshall's expression was clearly one of +downright anger, controlled by violent effort. Mrs. Marshall was the +first one to speak. She went over to Sylvia and laid her hand on her +shoulder. "Well, Sylvia dear, I'm sorry about--" She stopped and +began again. "You know, dear, that we always believed in letting our +children, as far as possible, make their own decisions, and we won't +go back on that now. But I want you to understand that that puts a +bigger responsibility on you than on most girls to make the _right_ +decisions. We trust you--your good sense and right feeling--to keep +you from being carried away by unworthy motives into a false position. +And, what's just as important, we trust to your being clear-headed +enough to see what your motives really are." + +"I don't see," began Sylvia, half crying, "why something horrid should +come up just because I want a good time--other girls don't have to be +all the time so solemn, and thinking about things!" + +"There'd be more happy women if they did," remarked Mrs. Marshall, +adding: "I don't believe we'd better talk any more about this now. You +know how we feel, and you must take that into consideration. You think +it over." + +She spoke apparently with her usual calmness, but as she finished she +put her arms about the girl's neck and kissed the flushed cheeks. +Caresses from Mrs. Marshall were unusual, and, even through her tense +effort to resist, Sylvia was touched. "You're just worrying about +nothing at all, Mother," she said, trying to speak lightly, but +escaped from a possible rejoinder by hurriedly gathering up her +text-books and following Judith and Lawrence upstairs. + +Her father and mother confronted each other. "_Well!_" said Professor +Marshall hotly, "of all the weak, inconclusive, modern parents--is +_this_ what we've come to?" + +Mrs. Marshall took up her sewing and said in the tone which always +quelled her husband, "Yes, this is what we've come to." + +His heat abated at once, though he went on combatively, "Oh, I know +what you mean, reasonable authority and not tyranny and all that--yes, +I believe in it--of course--but this goes beyond--" he ended. "Is +there or is there not such a thing as parental authority?" + +Mrs. Marshall answered with apparent irrelevance, "You remember what +Cavour said?" + +"Good Heaven! No, I don't remember!" cried Professor Marshall, with an +impatience which might have been Sylvia's. + +"He said, 'Any idiot can rule by martial law.'" + +"Yes, of course, that theory is all right, but--" + +"If a theory is all right, it ought to be acted upon." + +Professor Marshall cried out in exasperation, "But see here, +Barbara--here is a concrete fact--our daughter--our precious +Sylvia--is making a horrible mistake--and because of a theory we +mustn't reach out a hand to pull her back." + +"We _can't_ pull her back by force," said his wife. "She's eighteen +years old, and she has the habit of independent thought. We can't go +back on that now." + +"We don't seem to be pulling her back by force or in any other way! We +seem to be just weakly sitting back and letting her do exactly as she +pleases." + +"If during all these years we've had her under our influence we +haven't given her standards that--" began the mother. + +"You heard how utterly she repudiated our influence and our standards +and--" + +"Oh, what she _says_--it's what she's made of that'll count--that's +the _only_ thing that'll count when a crisis comes--" + +Professor Marshall interrupted hastily: "When a crisis! What do you +call _this_ but a crisis--she's like a child about to put her hand +into the fire." + +"I trust in the training she's had to give her firm enough nerves to +pull it out again when she feels the heat," said her mother steadily. + +Professor Marshall sprang up, with clenched hands, tall, powerful, +helpless. "It's outrageous, Barbara, for all your talk! We're +responsible! We ought to shut her up under lock and key--" + +"So _many_ girls have been deterred from a mistake by being shut up +under lock and key!" commented Mrs. Marshall, with an ironical accent. + +"But, good Heavens! Think of her going to that old scoundrel's--how +can I look people in the face, when they all know my opinion of +him--how I've opposed his being a Trustee and--" + +"_Ah_,--!" remarked his wife significantly, "that's the trouble, is +it?" + +Professor Marshall flushed, and for a moment made no rejoinder. Then, +shifting his ground, he said bitterly: "I think you're forgetting that +I've had a disillusionizing experience in this sort of thing which you +were spared. You forget that Sylvia is closely related to my sister." + +"I don't forget that--but I don't forget either that Sylvia has had +a very different sort of early life from poor Victoria's. She has +breathed pure air always--I trust her to recognize its opposite." + +He made an impatient gesture of exasperation. "But she'll be _in_ +it--it'll be too late--" + +"It's never too late." She spoke quickly, but her unwavering +opposition began to have in it a note of tension. + +"She'll be caught--she'll have to go on because it'll be too hard to +get out--" + +"The same vigor that makes her resist us now will give her strength +then--she's not Eleanor Hubert." + +Her husband burst out upon her in a frightened, angry rush of +reproach: "Barbara--how _can_ you! You make me turn cold! This isn't a +matter of talk--of theories--we're confronted with--" + +She faced him down with unflinching, unhappy eyes. "Oh, of course +if we are to believe in liberty only so long as everything goes +smoothly--" She tried to add something to this, but her voice broke +and she was silent. Her husband looked at her, startled at her pallor +and her trembling lips, immensely moved by the rare discomposure of +that countenance. She said in a whisper, her voice shaking, "Our +little Sylvia--my first baby--" + +He flung himself down in the chair beside her and took her hand. "It's +damnable!" he said. + +His wife answered slowly, with long pauses. "No--it's all right--it's +part of the whole thing--of life. When you bring children into the +world--when you live at all--you must accept the whole. It's not fair +to rebel--to rebel at the pain--when--" + +"Good God, it's not _our_ pain I'm shrinking from--!" he broke out. + +"No--oh no--that would be easy--" + +With an impulse of yearning, and protection, and need, he leaned to +put his arms around her, his graying beard against her pale cheek. +They sat silent for a long time. + +In the room above them, Sylvia bent over a problem in trigonometry, +and rapidly planned a new evening-dress. After a time she got up and +opened her box of treasures from Aunt Victoria. The yellow chiffon +would do--Jerry had said he liked yellow--she could imagine how Mrs. +Hubert would expend herself on Eleanor's toilets for this great +occasion--if she could only hit on a design which wouldn't look +as though it came out of a woman's magazine--something really +sophisticated--she could cover her old white slippers with that bit +of gold-tissue off Aunt Victoria's hat--she shook out the chiffon and +laid it over the bed, looking intently at its gleaming, shimmering +folds and thinking, "How horrid of Father and Mother to go and try to +spoil everything so!" She went back to the problem in trigonometry and +covered a page with figures, at which she gazed unseeingly. She was by +no means happy. She went as far as the door, meaning to go down and +kiss her parents good-night, but turned back. They were not a family +for surface demonstrations. If she could not yield her point--She +began to undress rapidly, turned out the light, opened the windows, +and sprang into bed. "If they only wouldn't take things so awfully +_solemnly_!" she said to herself petulantly. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +SYLVIA SKATES MERRILY ON THIN ICE + + +The design for the yellow chiffon dropped almost literally at Sylvia's +feet the next day, on the frontispiece of a theatrical magazine left +by another passenger in the streetcar in which she chanced to be +riding. Sylvia pounced on it with instant recognition of its value. +It was "different" and yet not "queer," it was artistic and yet +fashionable, and with its flowing lines it would not be hard to +construct. It was the creation of a Parisian boulevard actress, known +widely for her costumes, for the extraordinary manner in which she +dressed her hair, and for the rapidity of her succeeding emotional +entanglements. Her name meant nothing to Sylvia. She tore out the +page, folded it, and put it for safe-keeping between the pages of her +text-book on Logic. + +That afternoon she began work on it, running the long seams up on the +machine with whirring rapidity, acutely aware of her mother's silent, +uncommenting passage back and forth through the sewing-room. With an +impulse of secrecy which she did not analyze, she did the trying-on in +her own room, craning and turning about before her own small mirror. +She knew that her mother would think the dress was cut too low, +although, as she told herself, looking with complacency at the smooth, +white, exquisitely fine-grained skin thus disclosed, it wasn't nearly +as low cut as the dresses Eleanor Hubert wore to any little dance. She +had long felt it to be countrified in the extreme to wear the mild +compromises towards evening-dress which she and most of the State +University girls adopted, as compared with the frankly disclosing +gowns of the "town girls" whose clothes came from Chicago and New +York. She knew from several outspoken comments that Jerry admired +Eleanor's shoulders, and as she looked at her own, she was not sorry +that he was to compare them to those of the other girl. + +After this brief disposal of the question, she gave it no more +thought, working with desperate speed to complete all her +preparations. She had but a week for these, a week filled with +incessant hurry, since she was naturally unwilling to ask help of her +mother. Judith was off again with her father. + +This absence greatly facilitated the moment of Sylvia's departure, +which she had dreaded. But, as it happened, there was only her mother +to whom to say the rather difficult good-bye, her mother who could be +counted on never to make a scene. + +About the middle of the morning of the twenty-third of December, +she came down the stairs, her hand-bag in her hand, well-hatted, +well-gloved, freshly veiled, having achieved her usual purpose of +looking to the casual eye like the daughter of a wealthy man. She had +put all of her autumn allowance for dress into a set of furs, those +being something which no ingenuity could evolve at home. The rest +of her outfit, even to the odd little scarlet velvet hat, with its +successful and modish touch of the ugly, was the achievement of her +own hands. Under its absurd and fashionable brim, her fresh face shone +out, excessively pretty and very young. + +Mrs. Marshall kissed her good-bye gently, not smiling at Sylvia's +attempt to lighten the moment's seriousness by saying playfully, +"Now, Mother, don't you be such an old worrier!" But she said nothing +"uncomfortable," for which Sylvia was very grateful. + +She had no sooner embarked upon the big Interurban trolley-car which +was to take her to Mercerton than her attention was wholly diverted +from uneasy reflections by the unexpected appearance of two of the +house-party guests. Eleanor Hubert, every detail of her Complicated +costume exquisitely finished as a Meissonier painting, sat looking out +of the window rather soberly, and so intently that she saw neither +Sylvia's entrance, nor, close upon her heels, that of a florid-faced, +rather heavily built young man with a large, closely shaven jaw, who +exclaimed joyfully at seeing Miss Marshall, and appropriated with +ready assurance the other half of her seat. + +"Now, this is surely dandy! You're going to the house-party too, +of course!" he cried, unbuttoning and throwing back his bright tan +overcoat. "Here's where I cut Jerry out all right, all right! Wait +a minute! _How_ much time have we?" He appealed to the conductor +as though a matter of life and death depended on the answer. "Four +minutes?--here goes--" He sprang to his feet, dashed out of the car +and disappeared, leaving his coat beside Sylvia. It was evidently +quite new, of the finest material, with various cunningly stitched +seams and straps disposed upon its surface in a very knowing way. +Sylvia noted out of the corner of her eye that the address of the +maker, woven into the neckband, was on Fifth Avenue, New York. + +The four minutes passed--and the conductor approached Sylvia. "Your +friend's coming back, ain't he?" he asked, with the tolerant, +good-natured respect natural for the vagaries of expensively dressed +young men who wore overcoats made on Fifth Avenue. Sylvia, who had met +the young man but once before, when Jerry had introduced him as an +old friend, was a little startled at having a casual acquaintance so +publicly affixed to her; but after an instant's hesitation, in which +she was reflecting that she positively did not even remember her +"friend's" name, she answered, "Oh yes, yes, I suppose so--here he is +now." + +The young man bounded up on the back platform panting, holding his hat +on with one hand, a large box of candy in the other. Sylvia glanced at +the name on the cover. "You didn't go all the way to _Button's!_" she +cried. + +He nodded, breathless, evidently proud of his feat, and when he caught +his breath enough to speak, explained, "Yepp,--it's the only place in +this bum town where you can get Alligretti's, and they're the only +kind that're fit to eat" He tore open the box as he spoke, demolishing +with ruthless and practised hands the various layers of fine paper +and gold cord which wrapped it about, and presented the rich layer of +black chocolates to Sylvia. "Get a move on and take one," he urged +cordially; "I pretend I buy 'em for the girls, but I'm crazy about 'em +myself," He bit into one with an air of prodigious gusto, took off his +hat, wiped his forehead, and looked at Sylvia with a relish as frank +as his enjoyment of the bonbon. "That's a corking hat you got on," +he commented. "Most girls would look like the old Harry with that +dangling thing in their eyes, but _you_ can carry it off all right." + +Sylvia's face assumed a provocative expression. "Did you ever make +that remark to any other girl, I wonder?" she said reflectively. + +He laughed aloud, eyeing her with appreciation, and clapping another +large black chocolate into his mouth. "You're the prompt article, +aren't you?" he said. He hitched himself over and leaned towards her. +"Something tells me I'm goin' to have a good time at this house-party, +what?" + +Sylvia stiffened. She did not like his sitting so close to her, she +detected now on his breath a faint odor of alcohol, and she was afraid +that Eleanor Hubert would think her lacking in dignity. She regretted +having succumbed to the temptation to answer him in his own tone; but, +under her bravado, she was really somewhat apprehensive about this +expedition, and she welcomed a diversion. Besides, the voluble young +man showed not the slightest sign of noting her attempt to rebuff him, +and she found quite unavailing all her efforts to change the current +of the talk, the loud, free-and-easy, personally admiring note of +which had the effect on her nerves of a draught of raw spirits. She +did not enjoy the taste while it was being administered, but the +effect was certainly stimulating, not to say exciting, and absorbed +her attention so entirely that uncomfortable self-questionings were +impossible. She was also relieved to note that, although the young +man flung himself about in the public conveyance with the same +unceremonious self-assurance that he would have shown in a lady's +drawing-room, Eleanor Hubert, at the other end of the car, was +apparently unaware of his presence. Perhaps she too had some grounds +for uncomfortable thought, for throughout the hour's journey she +continued to stare unseeingly out of the window, or to look down +fixedly and rather sadly at her gloved hands. + +Even through the confusion of her own ideas and plans, and the need +for constant verbal self-defense against the encroaching familiarity +of her companion, the notion flitted across Sylvia's mind that +probably Eleanor was thinking of the young assistant in chemistry. How +queer and topsy-turvy everything was, she reflected, as she bandied +lively words with the lively young man at her side, continuing to eat +his candies, although their rich, cloying taste had already palled on +her palate--here was Mrs. Hubert throwing Eleanor at Jerry's head, +when what Eleanor wanted was that queer, rough-neck freak of an +assistant prof; and here were Jerry's parents making such overtures +to Sylvia, when what _she_ wanted--she didn't know what she did want. +Yes, she did, she wanted a good time, which was somehow paradoxically +hard to attain. Something always kept spoiling it,--half the time +something intangible inside her own mind. She gave the candy-box a +petulant push. "Oh, take it away!" she said impatiently; "I've eaten +so many now, it makes me sick to look at them!" + +The donor showed no resentment at this ingratitude, holding the box on +his knees, continuing to help himself to its contents with unabated +zest, and to keep the conversation up to concert pitch: "--the only +girl I ever saw who'd stop eating Alligretti's while there was one +left--another proof that there's only one of you--I said right off, +that any co-ed that Jerry Fiske would take to must be a unique +specimen--" He did not further specify the period to which he +referred by his "right off," but the phrase gave Sylvia a tingling, +uncomfortable sense of having been for some time the subject of +speculation in circles of which she knew nothing. + +They were near Mercerton now, and as she gathered her wraps together +she found that she was bracing herself as for an ordeal of some sort. +The big car stopped, a little way out of town, in front of a long +driveway bordered with maple-trees; she and the young man descended +from one end-platform and Eleanor Hubert from the other, into the +midst of loud and facetious greetings from the young people who had +come down to meet them. Jerry was there, very stalwart, his white +sweater stretched over his broad chest. All the party carried skates, +which flashed like silver in the keen winter sun. They explained with +many exclamations that they had been out on the ice, which was, so the +three new-comers were assured many times, "perfectly grand, perfectly +dandy, simply elegant!" + +A big, many-seated sled came jingling down the driveway now, driven by +no less a personage than Colonel Fiske himself, wrapped in a fur-lined +coat, his big mustache white against the red of his strongly marked +old face. With many screams and shouts the young people got themselves +into this vehicle, the Colonel calling out in a masterful roar above +the din, "Miss Marshall's to come up here with me!" + +He held in his pawing, excited horses with one hand and helped Sylvia +with the other. In the seat behind them sat Jerry and Eleanor Hubert +and the young man of the trolley trip. Sylvia strained her ears to +catch Jerry's introduction of him to Eleanor, so that she might +know his name. It was too absurd not even to know his name! But the +high-pitched giggles and deeper shouts of mirth from the rest of the +party drowned out the words. As a matter of fact, although he played +for an instant a rather important role in Sylvia's drama, she was +destined never to know his name. + +The Colonel looked back over the sleighload, shouted out "All aboard!" +loosened the reins, and snapped his whip over the horses' heads. They +leaped forward with so violent a spring that the front runners of the +long sled were for an instant lifted into the air. Immediately all the +joyful shrieking and screaming which had gone on before, became as +essential silence compared to the delighted uproar which now rose from +the sleigh. The jerk had thrown most of the young people over backward +into each other's arms and laps, where, in a writhing, promiscuous +mass, they roared and squealed out their joy in the joke, and made +ineffectual and not very determined efforts to extricate themselves. +Sylvia had seen the jerk coming and saved herself by a clutch forward +at the dashboard. Glancing back, she saw that Jerry and Eleanor Hubert +still sat upright; although the gay young man beside them had let +himself go backward into the waving arms and legs, and, in a frenzy of +high spirits, was shouting and kicking and squirming with the others. +It was a joke after his own heart. + +Colonel Fiske, so far from slackening his pace to help his young +guests out of their predicament, laughed loudly and cracked his whip +over the horses' ears. They went up the long, curving driveway like +a whirlwind, and drew up under the porte-cochere of a very large +brick-and-stone house with another abrupt jerk which upset those in +the sleigh who had succeeded in regaining their seats. Pandemonium +broke out again, in the midst of which Sylvia saw that Mrs. Fiske had +come to the doorway and stood in it with a timid smile. The Colonel +did not look at her, Jerry nodded carelessly to her as he passed in, +and of all the disheveled, flushed, and laughing young people who +crowded past her into the house, only Sylvia and Eleanor recognized +her existence. The others went past her without a glance, exclaimed at +the lateness of the hour, cried out that they must go and "fix up" for +lunch, and ran upstairs, filling the house with their voices. Sylvia +heard one girl cry to another, "_Oh_, I've had such a good time! I've +hollered till I'm hoarse!" + +After luncheon, a meal at which more costly food was served than +Sylvia had ever before seen, Jerry suggested between puffs of the +cigarette he was lighting that they have a game of billiards. Most of +the young people trooped off after him into the billiard-room, but +Sylvia, after a moment's hesitation, lingered near the big wood-fire +in the hall, unwilling to admit that she had never seen a billiard +table. She made a pretext of staying to talk to Mrs. Fiske, who sat +stooping her tall figure forward in a chair too small for her. Sylvia +looked at this ungraceful attitude with strong disapproval. What she +thought was that such inattention to looks was perfectly inexcusable. +What she said was, in a very gracious voice: "What a beautiful home +you have, Mrs. Fiske! How wonderfully happy you must be in it." + +The other woman started a little at being addressed, and looked around +vaguely at the conventional luxury of the room, with its highly +polished floors, its huge rich rugs, its antlers on the wall, and its +deeply upholstered leather chairs. When Sylvia signified her intention +of continuing the talk by taking a seat beside the fire, Mrs. Fiske +roused herself to the responsibility of entertaining the young guest. +After some futile attempts at conversation in the abstract, she +discharged this responsibility through the familiar expedient of the +family photograph album. With this between them, the two women were +able to go through the required form of avoiding silences. Sylvia was +fearfully bored by the succession of unknown faces, and utterly unable +to distinguish, in her hostess' somewhat disconnected talk, between +the different sets of the Colonel's children. "This one is Stanley, +Jermain's brother, who died when he was a baby," the dull voice droned +on; "and this is Mattie in her wedding dress." + +"Oh, I didn't know Jerry had a married sister," murmured Sylvia +indifferently, glad of any comment to make. + +"She's only his half-sister, a great deal older." + +"But _you_ haven't a daughter old enough to be married?" queried +Sylvia, astonished. + +"Oh--no--no. Mattie is the daughter of the Colonel's first wife." + +"Oh," said Sylvia awkwardly, remembering now that Mrs. Draper had +spoken of the Colonel's several marriages. She added to explain her +question, "I'd forgotten that Jerry's mother was the Colonel's second +wife and not his first." + +"She was his third," breathed Mrs. Fiske, looking down at the pages of +the album. + +Sylvia repressed a "Good gracious!" of startled repugnance to the +topic, and said, to turn the conversation, "Oh, who is that beautiful +little girl with the fur cap?" + +"That is my picture," said Mrs. Fiske, "when I was eighteen. I was +married soon after. I've changed very much since my marriage." +Decidedly it was not Sylvia's lucky day for finding topics of talk. +She was wondering how the billiard game was progressing, and was sorry +she had not risked going with the others. She was recalled by Mrs. +Fiske's saying with a soft earnestness, "I want you to know, Miss +Marshall, how I _appreciate_ your kindness to me!" + +Sylvia looked at her in astonishment, half fearing that she was being +made fun of. + +The other went on: "It was _very_ nice of you--your staying here to +talk with me instead of going off with the young people--the others +don't often--" She played nervously with a gleaming pendant on a +platinum chain which hung over her flat chest, and went on: "I--you +have _always_ seemed to me the very nicest of Jerry's friends--and I +shall never forget your mother's kindness. I hope--I hope so much I +shall see more of her. The Colonel thinks so too--we've liked so much +having him like you." The incoherence of this did not prevent Sylvia's +having a chillingly accurate grasp on its meaning. "It is the +Colonel's hope," she went on painfully, "to have Jerry marry as soon +as he graduates from the Law School. The Colonel thinks that nothing +is so good for a young man as an early marriage--though of course +Jerry isn't so very, very young any more. He--the--Colonel is a great +believer in marriage--" Her voice died away into murmurs. Her long, +thin throat contracted in a visible swallow. + +At this point only Sylvia's perception of the other's anguished +embarrassment prevented her from literally running away. As it was, +they sat silent, fingering over the pages of the album and gazing +unseeingly at the various set countenances which looked out at them +with the unnatural glare of the photographed. Sylvia was canvassing +desperately one possibility of escape after another when the door +opened, and the lively young man of the trolley-car stepped in. +He tiptoed to the fireplace with exaggerated caution, looking +theatrically over his shoulder for a pursuer. Sylvia positively +welcomed his appearance and turned to him with a cordiality quite +unlike the cool dignity with which she had planned to treat him. He +sat down on the rug before the fire, very close to her feet, and +looked up at her, grinning. "Here's where I get another one on +Jerry--what?" he said, ignoring Mrs. Fiske. "Old Jerry thinks he's +playing such a wonderful game in there he can't tear himself away--but +there'll be something doing, I guess, when he does come and finds +where I am!" He had partaken freely of the excellent white wine served +at luncheon (the first Sylvia had ever seen), and though entirely +master of his speech, was evidently even more uplifted than was his +usual hilarious wont. Sylvia looked down at him, and across at the +weak-faced woman opposite her, and had a moment of wishing heartily +she had never come. She stood up impatiently, a movement which the +young man took to mean a threat of withdrawal. "Aw, _don't_ go!" he +pleaded, sprawling across the rug towards her. As she turned away, he +snatched laughingly at her skirts, crying out, "Tag! You're caught! +You're It!" + +At this moment Jerry Fiske appeared in the doorway. He looked darkly +at his friend's cheerful face and said shortly: "Here, Stub--quit it! +Get up out of that!" He added to Sylvia, holding out his hand: "Come +on, go skating with me. The ice is great." + +"Are the others going?" asked Sylvia. + +"Oh yes, I suppose so," said Jerry, a trifle impatiently. + +The young man on the floor scrambled up. "Here's one that's going, +whoever else don't," he announced. + +"Get yourself a girl, then," commanded Jerry, "and tell the rest to +come along. There's to be eats at four o'clock." + + * * * * * + +The ice was even as fine as it had been so redundantly represented to +Sylvia. Out of doors, leaning her supple, exquisitely poised body to +the wind as she veered like a bird on her flying skates, Sylvia's +spirits rebounded with an instant reaction into enjoyment. She adored +skating, and she had in it, as in all active exercise, the half-wild +pleasure of one whose childhood is but a short time behind her. +Furthermore, her costume prepared for this event (Mrs. Draper had told +her of the little lake on the Fiske estate) was one of her successes. +It had been a pale cream broadcloth of the finest texture, one of Aunt +Victoria's reception gowns, which had evidently been spoiled by having +coffee spilled down the front breadth. Sylvia had had the bold notion +of dyeing it scarlet and making it over with bands of black plush +(the best bits from an outworn coat of her mother's). On her gleaming +red-brown hair she had perched a little red cap with a small black +wing on either side (one of Lawrence's pet chickens furnished this), +and she carried the muff which belonged with her best set of furs. +Thus equipped, she looked like some impish, slender young Brunhilde, +with her two upspringing wings. The young men gazed at her with the +most unconcealed delight. As she skated very well, better than any +of the other girls, she felt, sweeping about the pond in long, swift +curves, that she was repaid for her ignorance of billiards. + +Jerry and the young man he called Stub were openly in competition +for her attention, highly jocose on Stub's part and not at all so on +Jerry's, whose brow did not clear at the constant crackling of the +other's witticisms. On the shore burned a big fire, tended by a +man-servant in livery, who was occupied in setting out on a long table +a variety of sandwiches and cups of steaming bouillon. Sylvia had +never encountered before a real man-servant in livery. She looked at +him with the curiosity she might have shown at seeing a mediaeval +knight in full armor. Jerry brought her a cup of the bouillon, which +was deliciously hot and strong. Experienced as she was in the prudent +provisioning of the Marshall kitchen she was staggered to think how +many chickens had gone into filling with that clear liquor the big +silver tureen which steamed over the glittering alcohol lamp. The +table was set, for that casual outdoor picnic lunch, as she could +hardly have imagined a royal board. + +"What beautiful things your people have!" she exclaimed to Jerry, +looking at a pile of small silver forks with delicately carved ivory +handles. "The rugs in the house are superb." + +Jerry waved them aside as phenomena of no importance. "All of 'em +tributes from Dad's loving constituents," he said, repeating what was +evidently an old joke in the family. "You'd better believe Dad doesn't +vote to get the tariff raised on anything unless he sees to it that +the manufacturers know who they have to thank. It works something +fine! Talk about the presents a doctor gets from his grateful +patients! Nothing to it!" + +This picturesque statement of practical politics meant so little to +Sylvia's mind that she dismissed it unheard, admiring, in spite of her +effort to take things for granted, the fabulous fineness of the +little fringed napkin set under the bouillon cup. Jerry followed +the direction of her eyes. "Yep--tariff on linen," he commented +pregnantly. + +The young man called Stub now sped up to them, skating very fast, and +swept Sylvia off. "_Here's_ where we show 'em how to do it!" he cried +cheerfully, skating backward with crazy rapidity, and pulling Sylvia +after him. There was a clang of swift steel on ice, and Jerry bore +down upon them, the muscles of his jaw showing prominently. Without a +word he thrust his friend aside, caught at Sylvia's hands, and bore +her in a swooping flight to the other end of the pond, now deserted by +the other skaters. + +As they sped along he bent over Sylvia fiercely and said in a low, +angry tone, "You don't like that bounder, do you? You _don't_!" + +Sylvia was astonished at the heat of his suspicion. She had known that +Jerry was not notably acute, but it had seemed to her that her dislike +for his friend must be more than apparent to any one. They had reached +the edge of the ice now, and Sylvia's hands were still in Jerry's, +although they were not skating, but stood facing each other. A bush +of osier, frozen into the ice, lifted its red twigs near them. Sylvia +looked down at it, hesitating how to express her utter denial of any +liking for the hilarious young man. Jerry misunderstood her pause and +cried out: "Good God! Sylvia! Don't say you _do._" + +Sylvia's heart gave a frightened leap. "Oh no--no--not a bit!" she +said hastily, looking longingly across the pond at the group around +the fire. Jerry caught his breath with a gasp and gripped her hands +hard. "It makes me crazy to see you look at another fellow," he said. +He forced her eyes to meet his. "Sylvia--you know--you know what I +mean." + +Yes, Sylvia knew what he meant. Her very white face showed that. The +young man went on, pressing, masterful, confident, towering over her: +"It's idiotic to speak of it now, out here--with all these people +around--but it just _got_ me to see you with that--I wasn't sure how I +felt about you till I saw how I felt when you seemed so friendly +with him, when you got off the car together. Then I knew. It made me +crazy--I _wanted_ you!" + +Sylvia had not been able once to look away from him since he began to +speak. Her mouth was a little open in her white face, her eyes fixed +with a painful intensity on his. He moistened his lips with his +tongue. "Sylvia--_it's all right_--isn't it?" + +With no change of expression in her strained face, Sylvia nodded. As +suddenly and apparently as automatically she took a backward step. + +The young man made a great stride towards her--there was a sound of +quick strokes on the ice and--"BOO!" shouted the hilarious young man, +bursting between them at railroad speed. He executed a marvelous +pirouette and returned instantly, calling out, "Less spooning in +the corners if you please--or if it's got to be, let me in!" He +was followed closely by a string of young men and girls, playing +snap-the-whip. They "snapped" just as they reached Jerry. The end girl +flew off and bumped, screaming with joy, into Jerry's arms. He looked +furiously over her head towards Sylvia, but she had been enveloped in +a ring and was being conveyed away to the accompaniment of the usual +squeals and shouts. The Colonel had come down to take them all back, +she was informed, and was waiting for them with the sleigh. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +AS A BIRD OUT OF A SNARE + + +Sylvia dressed for dinner literally like one in a dream. Outwardly she +was so calm that she thought she was so inwardly. It was nothing like +so exciting as people said, to get engaged, she thought as she brushed +out her hair and put it up in a big, gleaming knot. Here she had been +engaged for a whole hour and a half, and was getting calmer every +minute, instead of the reverse. She astonished herself by the lucidity +of her brain, although it only worked by snatches--there being lacunae +when she could not have told what she was doing. And yet, as she had +approached the house, sitting again beside the Colonel, she had looked +with a new thrill of interest at its imposing battlemented facade. The +great hall had seemed familiar to her already as she stepped across +it on her way to the stairs, her feet had pressed the rugs with +assurance, she had been able to be quite nonchalant about refusing the +services of the maid who offered to help her dress. + +It was true that from time to time she suddenly flushed or paled; it +was true that her mind seemed incapable of the slightest consecutive +thought; it was true that she seemed to be in a dream, peopled by +crazily inconsequent images--she had again and again a vision, +startlingly vivid, of the red-twigged osier beside which she had +stood; it was true that she had a slight feeling of vertigo when she +tried to think ahead of the next moment--but still she was going ahead +with her unpacking and dressing so steadily that she marveled. She +decided again from the depth of her experience that getting engaged +was nothing like so upsetting an event as people made out. She thrust +the last pin into her hair and tipped her head preeningly before the +big triplicate mirror--the first time she had ever encountered this +luxury outside of a ready-made clothes shop. The yellow chiffon +came out from the trunk in perfect condition, looking like a big, +silk-petaled flower as she slipped it on over her bare shoulders, and +emerged above, triumphant and yet half afraid to look at herself in +the mirror lest she should see that her home-made toilet had not "the +right look." One glance satisfied even her jealous eagerness. It had +exactly the right look--that is, it looked precisely like the picture +from which she had copied it. She gazed with naive satisfaction at the +faithfulness with which her reflected appearance resembled that of the +Parisian demi-mondaine whose photograph she had seen, and settled +on her slim, delicately modeled shoulders the straps of shirred and +beaded chiffon which apparently performed the office of keeping her +dress from sliding to the floor. In reality, under its fluid, gauzy +draperies, it was constructed on a firm, well-fitting, well-fastened +foundation of opaque cloth which quite adequately clothed the young +body, but its appearance was of a transparent cloud, only kept from +floating entirely away by those gleaming straps on the shoulders, an +effect carefully calculated in the original model, and inimitably +caught by Sylvia's innocent fingers. + +She turned herself about, artlessly surprised to see that her neck and +shoulders looked quite like those of the women in the fashion-plates +and the magazine illustrations. She looked at the clock. It was early +yet. She reflected that she never _could_ take the time other girls +did in dressing. She wondered what they did. What could one do, after +one's bath was taken, one's hair done, and one's gown donned--oh, of +course, powder! She applied it liberally, and then wiped away every +grain, that being what she had seen older girls do in the Gymnasium +dressing-room. Then with a last survey of her face, unaltered by the +ceremonial with the powder-puff, she stepped to the door. + +But there, with her hand on the knob, she was halted by an +inexplicable hesitation about opening the door and showing herself. +She looked down at her bare shoulders and bosom, and faintly blushed. +It was really very, very low, far lower than any dress she had ever +worn! And the fact that Eleanor Hubert, that all the "swell" girls +wore theirs low, did not for the moment suffice her--it was somehow +different--their showing their shoulders and her showing her own. +She could not turn the knob and stood, irresolute, frowning vaguely, +though not very deeply disquieted. Finally she compromised by taking +up a pretty spangled scarf Aunt Victoria had sent her, wrapping it +about her like a shawl, in which quaint garb she went out in more +confidence, and walked down the hall to the stairway. Half-way down +she met Colonel Fiske just coming up to dress. Seeing one of his young +guests arrayed for the evening he made her his compliments, the first +words rather absent and perfunctory. But when he was aware which guest +she was, he warmed into a pressing and personal note, as his practised +eyes took in the beauty, tonight startlingly enhanced by excitement, +of the girl's dark, shining eyes, flushed cheeks, and white neck and +arms. He ended by lifting her hand, in his florid way, and pressing +it to his white mustache for a very fervent kiss. Sylvia blushed +prettily, meeting his hot old eyes with a dewy unconsciousness, +and smiling frankly up into the deeply lined carnal face with the +simple-hearted pleasure she would have felt at the kind word of any +elderly man. The Colonel seemed quite old to her--much older than her +father--like Professor Kennedy. + +"Jerry's in the library, waiting," his father announced with a sly +laugh. "I wondered at the young rascal's being dressed so far ahead of +time." He turned reluctantly and went on up the stairs, leaving Sylvia +to go forward to her first meeting alone with the man she had promised +to marry. As she descended the long flight of stairs, her scarf, +loosened by her movement, slipped unobserved in her excitement and +hung lightly about her shoulders. + +The door to the library was shut. She opened it with a rapidly beating +heart and stood on the threshold, shyly hesitating to advance further, +looking with agitation at the stalwart, handsome, well-groomed figure +which stood in an attitude of impatient expectation by the window. +Except for the light which came in from the electric bulb on the porch +outside, the big room was in twilight. In the brilliantly lighted +door-opening, she stood revealed as by a searchlight. + +At the sound of the opening door, and his name spoken in a quavering +voice, the young man turned, paused an instant as if blinded by the +vision, and sprang forward. The door behind Sylvia swung shut, and her +eyes, widening in the dusk, saw only the headlong, overwhelming rush +upon her of her lover. She was enfolded strongly in muscular arms, +she was pressed closer and yet closer to a powerful body, whose heat +burned through the thin broadcloth, she was breathless, stunned, +choked. As the man bent forward over her, clasping her to him, her +flexible spine bent and her head drooped backward, her face with its +flush all gone, gleaming white in the dusk. At this he rained kisses +on it, on her eyes, hair, cheeks, mouth, the burning softness of his +full lips seeming to leave a smear on her skin where they pressed it. +Still holding her with one arm, pressed to him as though the two young +bodies were gripped together by a vice, he loosened the other arm and +thrust it at the back of her dress, through the flimsy gauze of her +scarf, down next her body. His stiff cuff caught on the edge of her +dress, and his sleeve slid up--it was his bare arm against her naked +flesh. He gave a savage, smothered, gasping exclamation, pressed his +fingers deeply into her side, still kissing her passionately, her +neck, her shoulders, burying his hot face in her bosom. + +It was the girl's body which acted, since at the first instant of the +whirlwind which had broken over her, her mind had been shocked into +a swooning paralysis. Only her strong, sound body, hardened by work, +fortified by outdoor exercise, was ready in its every fiber for this +moment. Her body bent suddenly like a spring of fine steel, its +strength momentarily more than a match for his, and thrust the man +from her with staggering violence. Her reaction from him was as +physical a sensation as though she had bitten into a tempting fruit +and found it not sweet--not even bitter--but nasty. She sickened at +the sight of him. + +As he caught his balance, laughing a little but not at all +good-naturedly, and started back towards her with a dangerous dark +face of excited anger and desire, his headlong rush was checked an +instant by the fierce eyes which flamed at him from her crimson face. +Even her neck and shoulders were now scarlet. She held him off for the +space of a breath, giving one deep exclamation, "_Oh_!" short, sharply +exhaled, almost like a blow in his face. + +But his blood was up as well as hers, and after his momentary pause, +he rushed forward again, his handsome, blond face black with passion. + +Sylvia stooped, gathered up her skirts, turned, burst open the door, +and fled out of the room, running in her high-heeled satin slippers as +she did on the track in the Gymnasium, with long, deer-like bounds. In +a flash she had crossed the wide hall--which was as it happened empty, +although she would not have slackened her pace for all the assembled +company--and was darting arrow-like up the stairs, her torn scarf +flying behind her like a banner. Her flight had been so unexpected +and so swift that young Fiske did not attempt to follow her; but she +reached her room, flung the door shut, and locked it with as much +precipitancy as though he were on her heels, instead of standing quite +still, open-mouthed, where she had left him. + +The sharp crack of her slamming door, loud in the quiet house, broke +the spell which held him. His mouth shut, and his clenched hands +loosened from their fierce tension. He took an aimless step and drew a +long breath. A moment later, quite automatically, he fumbled for his +cigarette-case, and finding it, took out a cigarette and lighted it +with fingers that were not steady. The familiar action and the first +puff of smoke affected him like emerging from a turmoil of darkness +into the quiet and order of a well-lighted room. "Well, may I be +damned!" he said to himself with the beginning of a return of his +usual assurance--"the damn little spitfire!" + +He walked about the room, puffing vigorously, feeling with relief his +blood resume its usual rate of circulation. His head seemed to clear +of a thick vapor. The startling recollection of the anger in his +fiancee's eyes was fading rapidly from his mind. Now he only saw her, +blushing, recoiling, fleeing--he laughed out a little, this time not +angrily, but with relish. "Ain't she the firebrand!" he said aloud. He +found his desire for her a hundredfold enhanced and stood still, his +eyes very lustrous, feeling again in imagination the warm softness of +her bosom under his lips. "Gee!" he exclaimed, turning restlessly in +his pacing walk. + +He was aware that some one in the room moved. "Jermain," said his +stepmother's faint voice. He looked at her smiling. "Hello, Momma," he +said good-naturedly, "when did _you_ gum-shoe in?" + +"Oh, just now," she told him, giving him an assurance which he +doubted, and which he would not have valued had he known it to +be true. He was perfectly indifferent as to the chance that this +negligible person might have been a spectator to the scene between the +son of the house and a guest. If she said anything about it, he meant +to give the all-sufficing explanation that he and Miss Marshall had +just become engaged. This would of course, it seemed self-evident to +him, make it all right. + +But Mrs. Fiske did not make any remark calling forth that information. +She only said, in her usual listless manner, "Your sleeve is shoved +up." + +He glanced down in surprise, realizing how excited he must be not to +have noticed that before, and remained for a moment silent, looking at +the splendidly muscular white arm, and the large well-manicured +hand. He was feeling in every nerve the reminiscence of the yielding +firmness of Sylvia's flesh, bare against his own. The color came up +flamingly into his face again. He moistened his lips with his tongue. +"Jesus _Christ_!" he exclaimed, contemptuously careless of his +listener, "I'm wild in love with that girl!" He pulled his sleeve down +with a quick, vigorous gesture, deftly shot the cuff out beyond the +black broadcloth, and, the picture of handsome, well-groomed youth in +easy circumstances, turned again to his father's wife. "What you in +here _for_, anyhow?" he asked still with his light absence of concern +about anything she did or did not do. + +She hesitated, looking about the room. "I thought Miss Marshall would +be here. She promised to come down early to write the names on the +place-cards. I thought I heard her voice." + +"You did," he told her. "She came down early all right--but she went +back again." He laughed, tossed his cigarette-end in the fireplace, +and vouchsafing no more explanation, strolled into the billiard-room, +and began to knock the balls about, whistling a recent dance tune with +great precision and vivacity. He was anticipating with quickened blood +the next meeting with Sylvia. As he thrust at the gleaming balls, his +mouth smiled and his eyes burned. + +Mrs. Fiske went upstairs and knocked at Sylvia's door. There was a +rush of quick footsteps and the girl asked from the other side in a +muffled voice, "Who is it?" Mrs. Fiske gave her name, and added, in +answer to another question, that she was alone. The door opened enough +for her to enter, and closed quickly after her. She looked about the +disordered room, saw the open trunk, the filmy cascade of yellow +chiffon half on and half off the bed, the torn and crumpled spangled +scarf, and Sylvia herself, her hastily donned kimono clutched about +her with tense hands. + +The mistress of the house made no comment on this scene, looking at +Sylvia with dull, faded eyes in which there was no life, not even the +flicker of an inquiry. But Sylvia began in a nervous voice to attempt +an explanation: "Oh, Mrs. Fiske--I--you'll have to excuse me--I must +go home at once--I--I was just packing. I thought--if I hurried I +could make the eight-o'clock trolley back to La Chance, and you could +send my trunk after me." Her every faculty was so concentrated on the +single idea of flight--flight back to the safety of home, that she did +not think of the necessity of making an excuse, giving a reason for +her action. It seemed that it must be self-evident to the universe +that she could not stay another hour in that house. + +Mrs. Fiske nodded. "Yes, I'll send your trunk after you," she said. +She drew a long breath, almost audible, and looked down at the fire on +the hearth. Sylvia came up close to her, looking into her lusterless +eyes with deep entreaty. "And, Mrs. Fiske, _would_ you mind not +telling any one I'm going, until I'm gone--_nobody_ at all! It's +because--I--you could say I didn't feel well enough to come down to +dinner. I--if you--and say I don't want any dinner up here either!" + +"Won't you be afraid to go down through the grounds to the trolley +alone, at night?" asked Mrs. Fiske, without looking at her. + +"Everybody will be at dinner, won't they?" asked Sylvia. + +Mrs. Fiske nodded, her eyes on the floor. + +Upon which, "Oh no, I won't be afraid!" cried Sylvia. + +Her hostess turned to the door. "Well, I won't tell them if you don't +want me to," she said. She went out, without another word, closing the +door behind her. Sylvia locked it, and went on with her wild packing. +When she came to the yellow chiffon she rolled it up tightly and +jammed it into a corner of her trunk; but the instant afterward she +snatched it out and thrust it fiercely into the fire. The light fabric +caught at once, the flames leaped up, filling the room with a roaring +heat and flare, which almost as quickly died down to blackened +silence. + +Sylvia faced that instant of red glare with a grimly set jaw and a +deeply flushed face. It did not look at all like her own face. + +At a quarter of eight the room was cleared, the trunk strapped and +locked, and Sylvia stood dressed for the street, gloved, veiled, and +furred. Under her veil her face showed still very flushed. She took up +her small handbag and her umbrella and opened the door with caution. +A faint clatter of dishes and a hum of laughing talk came up to her +ears. Dinner was evidently in full swing. She stepped out and went +noiselessly down the stairs. On the bottom step, close to the +dining-room door, her umbrella-tip caught in the balustrade and fell +with a loud clatter on the bare polished floor of the hall. Sylvia +shrank into herself and waited an instant with suspended breath for +the pause in the chatter and laughter which it seemed must follow. The +moment was forever connected in her mind with the smell of delicate +food, and fading flowers, and human beings well-washed and perfumed, +which floated out to her from the dining-room. She looked about her at +the luxuriously furnished great hall, and hated every inch of it. + +If the noise was heard, it evidently passed for something dropped by a +servant, for Colonel Fiske, who was telling a humorous story, went on, +his recital punctuated by bass and treble anticipatory laughter from +his auditors: "--and when he called her upon the 'phone the next day +to ask her about it, she said _she_ didn't know he'd been there at +all!" A roar of appreciation greeted this recondite climax, under +cover of which Sylvia opened the front door and shut it behind her. + +The pure coldness of the winter night struck sharply and gratefully on +her senses after the warmth and indoor odors of the house. She sprang +forward along the porch and down the steps, distending her nostrils +and filling her lungs again and again. These long deep breaths seemed +to her like the renewal of life. + +As her foot grated on the gravel of the driveway she heard a stealthy +sound back of her, at which her heart leaped up and stood still. The +front door of the house had opened very quietly and shut again. She +looked over her shoulder fearfully, preparing to race down the road, +but seeing only Mrs. Fiske's tall, stooping figure, stopped and turned +expectantly. The older woman came down the steps towards the fugitive, +apparently unaware of the biting winter wind on her bared shoulders. +Quite at a loss, and suspiciously on her guard, Sylvia waited for her, +searching the blurred pale face with impatient inquiry. + +"I--I thought I'd walk with you a little ways," said the other, +looking down at her guest. + +"Oh no! _Don't_!" pleaded Sylvia in despair lest some one notice her +hostess' absence. "You'll take a dreadful cold! With no wraps on--_do_ +go back! I'm not a bit afraid!" + +The other looked at her with a smoldering flush rising through the +ashes of her gray face. "It wasn't that--I didn't suppose you'd +be afraid--I--I just thought I'd like to go a ways with you," +she repeated, bringing out the words confusedly and with obvious +difficulty. "_I_ won't make you late," she added, as if guessing the +girl's thoughts. She put a thin hand on Sylvia's arm and drew her +rapidly along the driveway. For a moment they walked in silence. Then, +"How soon will you reach home?" she asked. + +"Oh, about a quarter to ten--the Interurban gets into La Chance +at nine-fifteen, and it's about half an hour across town on the +Washington Street trolley." + +"In less than two hours!" cried Mrs. Fiske wildly. "In less than two +hours!" + +Seeing no cause for wonder in her statement, and not welcoming at +all this unsought escort, Sylvia made no answer. There was another +silence, and then, looking in the starlight at her companion, the girl +saw with consternation that the quiet tears were running down her +cheeks. She stopped short, "Oh ... _oh_!" she cried. She caught up the +other's hand in a bewildered surprise. She had not the faintest idea +what could cause her hostess' emotion. She was horribly afraid she +would lose the trolley. Her face painted vividly her agitation and her +impatience. + +Mrs. Fiske drew back her hand and wiped her eyes with her palm. "Well, +I must be going back," she said. She looked dimly at the girl's face, +and suddenly threw her arms about Sylvia's neck, clinging to her. She +murmured incoherent words, the only ones which Sylvia could make out +being, "I can't--I can't--I _can't!_" + +What it was she could not do, remained an impenetrable mystery to +Sylvia, for at that moment she turned away quickly, and went back up +the driveway, her face in her hands. Sylvia hesitated, penetrated, +in spite of her absorption in her own affairs, by a vague pity, but +hearing in the distance the clang of the trolley-car's bell, she +herself turned and ran desperately down the driveway. She reached the +public road just in time to stop the heavy car, and to swing herself +lightly on, to all appearances merely a rather unusually well-set-up, +fashionably dressed young lady, presenting to the heterogeneous +indifference of the other passengers in the car even a more +ostentatiously abstracted air than is the accepted attitude for young +ladies traveling alone. One or two of her fellow voyagers wondered at +the deep flush on her face, but forgot it the next moment. It was a +stain which was not entirely to fade from Sylvia's face and body for +many days to come. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +"BLOW, WIND; SWELL, BILLOW; AND SWIM, BARK!" + + +She reached home, as she had thought, before ten o'clock, her +unexpected arrival occasioning the usual flurry of exclamation and +question not to be suppressed even by the most self-contained family +with a fixed desire to let its members alone, and a firm tradition of +not interfering in their private affairs. Judith had come home before +her father and now looked up from her game of checkers with wondering +eyes. Sylvia explained that she was not sick, and that nothing had +happened to break up or disturb the house-party. "I just _felt_ like +coming home, that's all!" she said irritably, touched on the raw by +the friendly loving eyes and voices about her. She was glad at least +that her father was not at home. That was one less to look at her. + +"Well, get along to bed with you!" said her mother, in answer to her +impatient explanation. "And, you children--keep still! Don't bother +her!" + +Sylvia crept upstairs into the whiteness of her own slant-ceilinged +room, and without lighting a lamp sat down on the bed. Her knees shook +under her. She made no move to take off her furs or hat. She felt no +emotion, only a leaden fatigue and lameness as though she had been +beaten. Her mother, coming in five minutes later with a lighted lamp +and a cup of hot chocolate, made no comment at finding her still +sitting, fully dressed in the dark. She set the lamp down, and with +swift deftness slipped out hatpins, unhooked furs, unbuttoned and +unlaced and loosened, until Sylvia woke from her lethargy and quickly +completed the process, slipping on her nightgown and getting into bed. +Not a word had been exchanged. Mrs. Marshall brought the cup of hot +chocolate and Sylvia drank it as though she were a little girl again. +Her mother kissed her good-night, drew the blankets a little more +snugly over her, opened two windows wide, took away the lamp, and shut +the door. + +Sylvia, warmed and fed by the chocolate, lay stretched at full length +in the bed, breathing in the fresh air which rushed across her face +from the windows, feeling herself in a white beatitude of safety and +peace. Especially did she feel grateful to her mother. "Isn't Mother +_great_!" she said to herself. Everything that had passed seemed like +a confusing dream to her, so dreadful, so terrifying that she was +amazed to feel herself, in spite of it, overcome with drowsiness. Now +the roles were reversed. It was her brain that was active, racing and +shuddering from one frightening mental picture to another, while her +body, young, sound, healthful, fell deeper and deeper into torpor, +dragging the quivering mind down to healing depths of oblivion. The +cold, pure air blew so strongly in her face that she closed her eyes. +When she opened them again the sun was shining. + +She started up nervously, still under the influence of a vivid +dream--strange.... Then as she blinked and rubbed her eyes she saw her +mother standing by the bed, with a pale, composed face. + +"It's nine o'clock, Sylvia," she said, "and Mr. Fiske is downstairs, +asking to see you. He tells me that you and he are engaged to be +married." + +Sylvia was instantly wide awake. "Oh no! Oh no!" she said +passionately. "No, we're not! I won't be! I won't see him!" She +looked about her wildly, and added, "I'll write him that--just wait a +minute." She sprang out of bed, caught up a pad of paper, and wrote +hastily: "It was all a mistake--I don't care for you at all--not a +bit! I hope I shall never have to speak to you again." "There," she +said, thrusting it into her mother's hands. She stood for a moment, +shivering in her thin nightgown in the icy draught, and then jumped +back into bed again. + +Her mother came back in a few moments, closed the windows, and opened +the register. There was not in her silence or in a line of her quiet +presence the faintest hint of curiosity about Sylvia's actions. +She had always maintained in theory, and now at this crisis with +characteristic firmness of purpose acted upon her theory, that +absolutely unforced confidence was the only kind worth having, and +that moreover, unless some help was necessary, it might be as well for +the younger generation early to acquire the strengthening capacity to +keep its own intimate experiences to the privacy of its own soul, +and learn to digest them and feed upon them without the dubiously +peptonizing aid of blundering adult counsel. Sylvia watched her mother +with wondering gratitude. She wasn't going to ask! She was going to +let Sylvia shut that ghastly recollection into the dark once for +all. She wasn't going by a look or a gesture to force her helplessly +responsive child to give, by words, weight and substance to a black, +shapeless horror from which Sylvia with a vivid impulse of sanity +averted her eyes. + +She got out of bed and put her arms around her mother's neck. "Say, +Mother, you are _great_!" she said in an unsteady voice. Mrs. Marshall +patted her on the back. + +"You'd better go and take your bath, and have your breakfast," she +said calmly. "Judith and Lawrence have gone skating." + +When Sylvia, tingling with the tonic shock of cold water and rough +toweling, and rosy in her old blue sailor-suit, came downstairs, she +found her mother frying pancakes for her in the kitchen blue with +smoke from the hot fat. She was touched, almost shocked by this +strange lapse from the tradition of self-help of the house, and said +with rough self-accusation: "My goodness! The idea of _your_ waiting +on _me_!" She snatched away the handle of the frying-pan and turned +the cakes deftly. Then, on a sudden impulse, she spoke to her mother, +standing by the sink. "I came back because I found I didn't like Jerry +Fiske as much as I thought I did. I found I didn't like him at all," +she said, her eyes on the frying-pan. + +At this announcement her mother's face showed pale, and for an instant +tremulous through the smoke. She did not speak until Sylvia lifted +the cakes from the pan and piled them on a plate. At this signal of +departure into the dining-room she commented, "Well, I won't pretend +that I'm not very glad." + +Sylvia flushed a little and looked towards her silently. She had a +partial, momentary vision of what the past two months must have been +to her mother. The tears stood in her eyes. "Say, Mother dear," she +said in a quavering voice that tried to be light, "why don't you eat +some of these cakes to keep me company? It's 'most ten. You must have +had breakfast three hours ago. It'd be fun! I can't begin to eat all +these." + +"Well, I don't care if I do," answered Mrs. Marshall. Sylvia laughed +at the turn of her phrase and went into the dining-room. Mrs. Marshall +followed in a moment with a cup of hot chocolate and buttered toast. +Sylvia pulled her down and kissed her. "You'd prescribe hot chocolate +for anything from getting religion to a broken leg!" she said, +laughing. Her voice shook and her laugh ended in a half-sob. + +"No--oh no!" returned her mother quaintly. "Sometimes hot milk is +better. Here, where is my share of those cakes?" She helped herself, +went around the table, and sat down. "Cousin Parnelia was here +this morning," she went on. "Poor old idiot, she was certain that +planchette would tell who it was that stole our chickens. I told her +to go ahead--but planchette wouldn't write. Cousin Parnelia laid it to +the blighting atmosphere of skepticism of this house." + +Sylvia laughed again. Alone in the quiet house with her mother, +refreshed by sleep, aroused by her bath, safe, sheltered, secure, she +tried desperately not to think of the events of the day before. But in +spite of herself they came back to her in jagged flashes--above all, +the handsome blond face darkened by passion. She shivered repeatedly, +her voice was quite beyond her control, and once or twice her hands +trembled so that she laid down her knife and fork. She was silent +and talkative by turns--a phenomenon of which Mrs. Marshall took no +outward notice, although when the meal was finished she sent her +daughter out into the piercing December air with the command to +walk six miles before coming in. Sylvia recoiled at the prospect of +solitude. "Oh, I'd rather go and skate with Judy and Larry!" she +cried. + +"Well, if you skate hard enough," her mother conceded. + + * * * * * + +The day after her return Sylvia had a long letter from Jermain Fiske, +a letter half apologetic, half aggrieved, passionately incredulous of +the seriousness of the break between them, and wholly unreconciled to +it. The upshot of his missive was that he was sorry if he had done +anything to offend her, but might he be everlastingly confounded if +he thought she had the slightest ground for complaint! Everything had +been going on so swimmingly--his father had taken the greatest notion +to her--had said (the very evening she'd cut and run that queer way) +that if he married that rippingly pretty Marshall girl he could have +the house and estate at Mercerton and enough to run it on, and could +practise as much or as little law as he pleased and go at once into +politics--and now she had gone and acted so--what in the world was +the matter with her--weren't they engaged to be married--couldn't an +engaged man kiss his girl--had he ever been anything but too polite +for words to her before she had promised to marry him--and what +_about_ that promise anyhow? His father had picked out the prettiest +little mare in the stables to give her when the engagement should be +announced--the Colonel was as much at a loss as he to make her out--if +the trouble was that she didn't want to live in Mercerton, he was sure +the Colonel would fix it up for them to go direct to Washington, where +with his father's connection she could imagine what an opening they'd +have! And above all he was crazy about her--he really was! He'd never +had any idea what it was to be in love before--he hadn't slept a wink +the night she'd gone away--just tossed on his bed and thought of her +and longed to have her in his arms again--Sylvia suddenly tore the +letter in two and cast it into the fire, breathing hard. In answer she +wrote, "It makes me sick to think of you!" + +She could not endure the idea of "talking over" the experience with +any one, and struggled to keep it out of her mind, but her resolution +to keep silence was broken by Mrs. Draper, who was informed, +presumably by Jermain himself, of the circumstances, and encountering +Sylvia in the street waited for no invitation to confidence by the +girl, but pounced upon her with laughing reproach and insidiously +friendly ridicule. Sylvia, helpless before the graceful assurance of +her friend, heard that she was a silly little unawakened schoolgirl +who was throwing away a brilliantly happy and successful life for the +queerest and funniest of ignorant notions. "What did you suppose, you +baby? You wouldn't have him marry you unless he was in love with you, +would you? Why do you suppose a man _wants_ to marry a woman? Did you +suppose that men in love carry their sweethearts around wrapped in +cotton-wool? You're a woman now, you ought to welcome life--rich, +full-blooded life--not take this chilly, suspicious attitude toward +it! Why, Sylvia, I thought you were a big, splendid, vital, fearless +modern girl--and here you are acting like a little, thin-blooded New +England old maid. How can you blame Jerry? He was engaged to you. What +do you think marriage _is_? Oh, Sylvia, just think what your life +would be in Washington with your beauty and charm!" + +This dexterously aimed attack penetrated Sylvia's armor at a dozen +joints. She winced visibly, and hung her head, considering profoundly. +She found that she had nothing to oppose to the other's arguments. +Mrs. Draper walked beside her in a silence as dexterous as her +exhortation, her hand affectionately thrust through Sylvia's arm. +Finally, Sylvia's ponderings continuing so long that they were +approaching the Marshall house, in sight of which she had no mind to +appear, she gave Sylvia's arm a little pat, and stood still. She said +cheerfully, in a tone which seemed to minimize the whole affair into +the smallest of passing incidents: "Now, you queer darling, don't +stand so in your own light! A word would bring Jerry back to you +now--but I won't say it will always. I don't suppose you've ever +considered, in your young selfishness, how cruelly you have hurt his +feelings! He was awfully sore when I saw him. And Eleanor Hubert is +right on the spot with Mamma Hubert in the background to push." + +Sylvia broke her silence to say in a low tone, blushing scarlet, "He +was--_horrid_!" + +Mrs. Draper dropped her light tone and said earnestly: "Dear little +ignorant Sylvia--you don't recognize life when you see it. That's the +way men are--all men--and there's no use thinking it horrid unless +you're going into a convent. It's not so bad either,--once you get the +hang of managing it--it's a hold on them. It's a force, like any other +force of nature that you can either rebel against, or turn to your +account and make serviceable, if you'll only accept it and not try to +quarrel with water for running downhill. As long as she herself isn't +carried away by it, it's a weapon in the hand of a clever woman. Only +the stupid women get hurt by it--the silly ones who can't keep their +heads. And after all, my dear, it _is_ a force of nature--and you're +too intelligent not to know that there's no use fighting against that. +It's just idiotic and puritanic to revolt from it--and doesn't do any +good besides!" She looked keenly into Sylvia's downcast, troubled +face, and judged it a propitious moment for leaving her. "_Good_-bye, +darling," she said, with a final pat on the shoulder. + +Sylvia walked slowly into the house, her heart like lead. Her food had +no savor to her. She did not know what she was eating, nor what her +mother, the only one at home for lunch, was saying to her. As a matter +of fact Mrs. Marshall said very little, even less than was her custom. +Her face had the look of terrible, patient endurance it had worn +during the time when Lawrence had had pneumonia, and his life had hung +in the balance for two days; but she went quietly about her usual +household tasks. + +After the meal was over, Sylvia continued to sit alone at the table, +staring palely down at the tablecloth, her mind full of Mrs. Draper's +illuminating comments on life, which had gone through her entire +system like a dexterously administered drug. And yet that ingenious +lady would have been surprised to know how entirely her attack had +failed in the one point which seemed to her important, the possibility +of a reconciliation between Sylvia and Jermain. The girl was deeply +under the impression made by the philosophy of the older woman; she +did not for the moment dream of denying its truth; but she stood +granite in a perfectly illogical denial of its implications in her own +case. She did not consciously revolt against the suggestion that she +renew her relations to Jerry Fiske, because with a united action of +all her faculties she refused utterly to consider it for an instant. +She would no more have been persuaded to see Jerry again, by a +consideration of the material advantages to be gained, than she could +have been persuaded to throw herself down from the housetop. That +much was settled, not by any coherent effort of her brain, but by a +co-ordination of every instinct in her, by the action of her whole +being, by what her life had made her. + +But that certainty brought her small comfort in the blackness of the +hour. What hideous world was this in which she had walked unawares +until now! Mrs. Draper's jaunty, bright acceptance of it affected her +to moral nausea. All the well-chosen words of her sophisticated friend +were imbedded in the tissue of her brain like grains of sand in an +eyeball. She could not see for very pain. And yet her inward vision +was lurid with the beginning of understanding of the meaning of those +words, lighted up as they were by her experience of the day before, +now swollen in her distraught mind to the proportions of a nightmare: +"It's a weapon in the hand of a clever woman--it's not so bad once +you get the hang of managing it--it's a hold on men--" Sylvia turned +whiter and whiter at the glimpse she had had of what was meant by +Mrs. Draper's lightly evasive "it"; a comprehension of which all her +"advanced" reading and study had left her mind as blankly ignorant as +a little child's. Now it was vain to try to shut her thoughts away +from Jermain. She lived over and over the scene with him, she endured +with desperate passivity the recollection of his burning lips on her +bosom, his fingers pressing into her side. Why not, if every man was +like that as soon as he dared? Why not, if that was all that men +wanted of women? Why not, if that was the sole ghastly reality which +underlay the pretty-smooth surface of life? + +And beyond this bleak prospect, which filled her with dreary horror, +there rose glimpsed vistas which sent the shamed blood up to her face +in a flood--if every man was like that, why, so were the men she had +known and loved and trusted; old Reinhardt, who seemed so simple, +what had been his thoughts when he used years ago to take her on his +knee--what were his thoughts now when he bent over her to correct her +mistakes on the piano? + +The expression of Colonel Fiske's eyes, as he had complimented her, +brought her to her feet with a shudder--but Colonel Fiske was an old, +old man--as old as Professor Kennedy-- + +Why, perhaps Professor Kennedy--perhaps--she flung out her +arms--perhaps her father-- + +She ran to the piano as to a refuge, meaning to drown out these +maddening speculations, which were by this time tinctured with +insanity; but the first chords she struck jarred on her ear like a +discordant scream. She turned away and stood looking at the floor with +a darkening face, one hand at her temple. + + * * * * * + +Her mother, darning stockings by the window, suddenly laid down her +work and said: "Sylvia, how would you like to walk with me over to the +Martins' to see if they have any eggs? Our hens have absolutely gone +back on us." + +Sylvia did not welcome this idea at all, feeling as overwhelming an +aversion to companionship as to solitude, but she could think of no +excuse, and in an ungracious silence put on her wraps and joined her +mother, ready on the porch, the basket in her mittened hand. + +Mrs. Marshall's pace was always swift, and on that crisp, cold, sunny +day, with the wind sweeping free over the great open spaces of the +plain about them, she walked even more rapidly than usual. Not a word +was spoken. Sylvia, quite as tall as her mother now, and as vigorous, +stepped beside her, not noticing their pace, nor the tingling of the +swift blood in her feet and hands. Her fresh young face was set in +desolate bitterness. + +The Martins' house was about six miles from the Marshalls'. It was +reached, the eggs procured, and the return begun. Still not a word had +been exchanged between the two women. Mrs. Marshall would have been +easily capable, under the most ordinary circumstances, of this long +self-contained silence, but it had worked upon Sylvia like a sojourn +in the dim recesses of a church. She felt moved, stirred, shaken. But +it was not until the brief winter sun was beginning to set red +across the open reaches of field and meadow that her poisoned heart +overflowed. "Oh, Mother--!" she exclaimed in an unhappy tone, and said +no more. She knew no words to phrase what was in her mind. + +"Yes, dear," said her mother gently. She looked at her daughter +anxiously, expectantly, with a passion of yearning in her eyes, but +she said no more than those two words. + +There was a silence. Sylvia was struggling for expression. They +continued to walk swiftly through the cold, ruddy, sunset air, the +hard-frozen road ringing beneath their rapid advance. Sylvia clasped +her hands together hard in her muff. She felt that something in her +heart was dying, was suffocating for lack of air, and yet that it +would die if she brought it to light. She could find no words at all +to ask for help, agonizing in a shy reticence impossible for an adult +to conceive. Finally, beginning at random, very hurriedly, looking +away, she brought out, faltering, "Mother, _is_ it true that all men +are--that when a girl marries she must expect to--aren't there _any_ +men who--" She stopped, burying her burning face in her muff. + +Her words, her tone, the quaver of desperate sincerity in her accent, +brought her mother up short. She stopped abruptly and faced the girl. +"Sylvia, look at me!" she said in a commanding voice which rang loud +in the frosty silences about them. Sylvia started and looked into her +mother's face. It was moved so darkly and so deeply from its usual +serene composure that she would have recoiled in fear, had she not +been seized upon and held motionless by the other's compelling eyes. + +"Sylvia," said her mother, in a strong, clear voice, acutely +contrasted to Sylvia's muffled tones, "Sylvia, it's a lie that men +are nothing but sensual! There's nothing in marriage that a good girl +honestly in love with a good man need fear." + +"But--but--" began Sylvia, startled out of her shyness. + +Her mother cut her short. "Anything that's felt by decent men in love +is felt just as truly, though maybe not always so strongly, by women +in love. And if a woman doesn't feel that answer in her heart to what +he feels--why, he's no mate for her. Anything's better for her than +going on. And, Sylvia, you mustn't get the wrong idea. Sensual feeling +isn't bad in itself. It's in the world because we have bodies as well +as minds--it's like the root of a plant. But it oughtn't to be a very +big part of the plant. And it must be the root of the woman's feeling +as well as the man's, or everything's all wrong." + +"But how can you _tell_!" burst out Sylvia. + +"You can tell by the way you feel, if you don't lie to yourself, or +let things like money or social position count. If an honest +girl shrinks from a man instinctively, there's something not +right--sensuality is too big a part of what the man feels for her--and +look here, Sylvia, that's not always the man's fault. Women don't +realize as they ought how base it is to try to attract men by their +bodies," she made her position clear with relentless precision, "when +they wear very low-necked dresses, for instance--" At this chance +thrust, a wave of scarlet burst up suddenly over Sylvia's face, but +she could not withdraw her eyes from her mother's searching, honest +gaze, which, even more than her words, spoke to the girl's soul. The +strong, grave voice went on unhesitatingly. For once in her life +Mrs. Marshall was speaking out. She was like one who welcomes the +opportunity to make a confession of faith. "There's no healthy life +possible without some sensual feeling between the husband and wife, +but there's nothing in the world more awful than married life when +it's the only common ground." + +Sylvia gazed with wide eyes at the older woman's face, ardent, +compelling, inspired, feeling too deeply, to realize it wholly, +the vital and momentous character of the moment. She seemed to see +nothing, to be aware of nothing but her mother's heroic eyes of truth; +but the whole scene was printed on her mind for all her life--the +hard, brown road they stood on, the grayed old rail-fence back of Mrs. +Marshall, a field of brown stubble, a distant grove of beech-trees, +and beyond and around them the immense sweeping circle of the horizon. +The very breath of the pure, scentless winter air was to come back to +her nostrils in after years. + +"Sylvia," her mother went on, "it is one of the responsibilities of +men and women to help each other to meet on a high plane and not on +a low one. And on the whole--health's the rule of the world--on +the whole, that's the way the larger number of husbands and wives, +imperfect as they are, do live together. Family life wouldn't be +possible a day if they didn't." + +Like a strong and beneficent magician, she built up again and +illuminated Sylvia's black and shattered world. "Your father is just +as pure a man as I am a woman, and I would be ashamed to look any +child of mine in the face if he were not. You know no men who are not +decent--except two--and those you did not meet in your parents' home." + +For the first time she moved from her commanding attitude of prophetic +dignity. She came closer to Sylvia, but although she looked at her +with a sudden sweetness which affected Sylvia like a caress, she but +made one more impersonal statement: "Sylvia dear, don't let anything +make you believe that there are not as many decent men in the world as +women, and they're just as decent. Life isn't worth living unless you +know that--and it's true." Apparently she had said all she had to say, +for she now kissed Sylvia gently and began again to walk forward. + +The sun had completely set, and the piled-up clouds on the horizon +flamed and blazed. Sylvia stood still, looking at them fixedly. The +great shining glory seemed reflected from her heart, and cast its +light upon a regenerated world--a world which she seemed to see for +the first time. Strange, in that moment of intensely personal life, +how her memory was suddenly flooded with impersonal impressions of +childhood, little regarded at the time and long since forgotten, +but now recurring to her with the authentic and uncontrovertible +brilliance which only firsthand experiences in life can bring with +them--all those families of her public-school mates, the plain, ugly +homes in and out of which she had come and gone, with eyes apparently +oblivious of all but childish interests, but really recording +life-facts which now in her hour of need stretched under her feet like +a solid pathway across an oozing marsh. All those men and women whom +she had seen in a thousand unpremeditated acts, those tired-faced, +kind-eyed, unlettered fathers and mothers were not breathing poisoned +air, were not harboring in their simple lives a ghastly devouring +wild-beast. She recalled with a great indrawn breath all the +farmer-neighbors, parents working together for the children, the +people she knew so well from long observation of their lives, whose +mediocre, struggling existence had filled her with scornful pity, but +whom now she recalled with a great gratitude for the explicitness of +the revelations made by their untutored plainness. For all she could +ever know, the Drapers and the Fiskes and the others of their +world might be anything, under the discreet reticence of their +sophistication; but they did not make up all the world. She knew, from +having breathed it herself, the wind of health which blew about those +other lives, bare and open to the view, as less artless lives were +not. There was some other answer to the riddle, beside Mrs. Draper's. + +Sylvia was only eighteen years old and had the childish immaturity of +her age, but her life had been so ordered that she was not, even at +eighteen, entirely in the helpless position of a child who must depend +on the word of others. She had accumulated, unknown to herself, quite +apart from polished pebbles of book-information, a small treasury +of living seeds of real knowledge of life, taken in at first-hand, +knowledge of which no one could deprive her. The realization of this +was a steadying ballast which righted the wildly rolling keel under +her feet. She held up her head bravely against the first onslaught of +the storm. She set her hand to the rudder! + +Perceiving that her mother had passed on ahead of her she sprang +forward in a run. She ran like a schoolboy, like a deer, like a man +from whose limbs heavy shackles have been struck off. She felt so +suddenly lightened of a great heaviness that she could have clapped +her hands over her head and bounded into the air. She was, after all, +but eighteen years old, and three years before had been a child. + +She came up to her mother with a rush, radiating life. Mrs. Marshall +looked at the glowing face and her own eyes, dry till then, filled +with the tears so rare in her self-controlled life. She put out her +hand, took Sylvia's, and they sped along through the quick-gathering +dusk, hand-in-hand like sisters. + +Judith and Lawrence had reached home before them, and the low brown +house gleamed a cheerful welcome to them from shining windows. For the +first time in her life, Sylvia did not take for granted her home, with +all that it meant. For an instant it looked strangely sweet to her. +She had a passing glimpse, soon afterwards lost in other impressions, +of how in after years she would look back on the roof which had +sheltered and guarded her youth. + +She lay awake that night a long time, staring up into the cold +blackness, her mind very active and restless in the intense stillness +about her. She thought confusedly but intensely of many things--the +months behind her, of Jerry, of Mrs. Draper, of her yellow dress, +of her mother--of herself. In the lucidity of those silent hours of +wakefulness she experienced for a time the piercing, regenerating +thrust of self-knowledge. For a moment the full-beating pulses of her +youth slackened, and between their throbs there penetrated to her +perplexed young heart the rarest of human emotions, a sincere +humility. If she had not burned the yellow dress at Mercerton, she +would have arisen and burned it that night.... + +During the rest of the Christmas vacation she avoided being alone. She +and Judith and Lawrence skated a great deal, and Sylvia learned at +last to cut the grapevine pattern on the ice. She also mastered the +first movement of the Sonata Pathetique, so that old Reinhardt was +almost satisfied. + +The day after the University opened for the winter term the Huberts +announced the engagement of their daughter Eleanor to Jermain Fiske, +Jr., the brilliant son of that distinguished warrior and statesman, +Colonel Jermain Fiske. Sylvia read this announcement in the Society +Column of the La Chance _Morning Herald_, with an enigmatic expression +on her face, and betaking herself to the skating-pond, cut grapevines +with greater assiduity than ever, and with a degree of taciturnity +surprising in a person usually so talkative. That she had taken the +first step away from the devouring egotism of childhood was proved by +the fact that at least part of the time, this vigorous young creature, +swooping about the icy pond like a swallow, was thinking pityingly of +Eleanor Hubert's sweet face. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +SOME YEARS DURING WHICH NOTHING HAPPENS + + +Judith had said to the family, taking no especial pains that her +sister should not hear her, "Well, folks, now that Sylvia's got +through with that horrid Fiske fellow, I do hope we'll all have some +peace!" a remark which proved to be a prophecy. They all, including +Sylvia herself, knew the tranquillity of an extended period of peace. + +It began abruptly, like opening a door into a new room. Sylvia had +dreaded the beginning of the winter term and the inevitable sight of +Jerry, the enforced crossings of their paths. But Jerry never returned +to his classes at all. The common talk was to the effect that the +Colonel had "worked his pull" to have Jerry admitted to the bar +without further preliminaries. After some weeks of relief, it occurred +to Sylvia that perhaps Jerry had dreaded meeting her as much as she +had seeing him. For whatever reason, the campus saw young Fiske no +more, except on the day in May when he passed swiftly across it on his +way to the Hubert house where Eleanor, very small and white-faced, +waited for him under a crown of orange blossoms. + +Sylvia did not go to the wedding, although an invitation had come, +addressed economically and compendiously to "Professor and Mrs. +Marshall and family." It was a glorious spring day and in her Greek +history course they had just reached the battle of Salamis, at the +magnificent recital of which Sylvia's sympathetic imagination leaped +up rejoicing, as all sympathetic imaginations have for all these many +centuries. She was thrilling to a remembered bit of "The Persians" as +she passed by the Hubert house late that afternoon. She was chanting +to herself, "The right wing, well marshaled, led on foremost in good +order, and we heard a mighty shout--'Sons of the Greeks! On! Free your +country!'" She did not notice that she trod swiftly across a trail of +soiled rice in the Hubert driveway. + +She was like a person recovered from a fever who finds mere health a +condition of joy. She went back to her music, to her neglected books, +with a singing heart. And in accordance with the curious ways of +Providence, noted in the proverb relating the different fates of him +who hath and him who hath not, there was at once added to her pleasure +in the old elements of her life the very elements she had longed for +unavailingly. Seeing her friendly and shining of face, friendliness +went out to her. She had made many new acquaintances during her brief +glittering flight and had innumerable more points of contact with the +University life than before. She was invited to a quite sufficient +number of hops and proms, had quite the normal number of masculine +"callers," and was naively astonished and disillusioned to find that +those factors in life were by no means as entirely desirable and +amusing as her anguished yearning had fancied them. She joined one of +the literary societies and took a leading part in their annual outdoor +play. At the beginning of her Junior year, Judith entered as a +Freshman and thereafter became a close companion. Sylvia devoured +certain of her studies, history, and English, and Greek, with +insatiable zest and cast aside certain others like political economy +and physics, which bored her, mastering just enough of their elements +to pass an examination and promptly forgetting them thereafter. She +grew rapidly in intellectual agility and keenness, not at all in +philosophical grasp, and emotionally remained as dormant as a potato +in a cellar. + +She continually looked forward with a bright, vague interest to +"growing up," to the mastery of life which adolescents so trustfully +associate with the arrival of adult years. She spent three more years +in college, taking a Master's degree after her B.A., and during those +three years, through the many-colored, shifting, kaleidoscopic, +disorganized life of an immensely populous institution of learning, +she fled with rapid feet, searching restlessly everywhere for that +entity, as yet non-existent, her own soul. + +She had, in short, a thoroughly usual experience of modern American +education, emerging at the end with a vast amount of information, with +very little notion of what it was all about, with Phi Beta Kappa and a +great wonder what she was to do with herself. + +Up to that moment almost every step of her life had been ordered and +systematized, that she might the more quickly and surely arrive at the +goal of her diploma. Rushing forward with the accumulated impetus of +years of training in swiftly speeding effort, she flashed by the goal +... and stopped short, finding herself in company with a majority of +her feminine classmates in a blind alley. "_Now_ what?" they asked +each other with sinking hearts. Judith looked over their heads with +steady eyes which saw but one straight and narrow path in life, and +passed on by them into the hospital where she began her nurse's +training. Sylvia began to teach music to a few children, to take on +some of Reinhardt's work as he grew older. She practised assiduously, +advanced greatly in skill in music, read much, thought acutely, +rebelliously and not deeply, helped Lawrence with his studies ... and +watched the clock. + +For there was no denying that the clock stood still. She was not going +forward to any settled goal now, she was not going forward at all. She +was as far from suspecting any ordered pattern in the facts of life as +when she had been in college, surrounded by the conspiracy of +silence about a pattern in facts which university professors so +conscientiously keep up before their students. She was slowly +revolving in an eddy. Sometimes she looked at the deep, glowing +content of her father and mother with a fierce resentment. "How _can_ +they!" she cried to herself. At other times she tried to chide herself +for not being as contented herself, "... but it's their life they're +living," she said moodily, "and I haven't any to live. I can't live on +their happiness any more than the beefsteaks somebody else has eaten +can keep me from starving to death." + +The tradition of her life was that work and plenty of it would keep +off all uneasiness, that it was a foolishness, not to say a downright +crime, to feel uneasiness. So she practised many hours a day, and took +a post-graduate course in early Latin. But the clock stood still. + +One of the assistants in her father's department proposed to her. +She refused him automatically, with a wondering astonishment at his +trembling hands and white lips. Decidedly the wheels of the clock +would never begin to revolve. + +And then it struck an hour, loudly. Aunt Victoria wrote inviting +Sylvia to spend a few weeks with her during the summer at Lydford. + +Sylvia read this letter aloud to her mother on the vine-covered porch +where she had sat so many years before, and repeated "star-light, +star-bright" until she had remembered Aunt Victoria. Mrs. Marshall +watched her daughter's face as she read, and through the tones of the +clear eager voice she heard the clock striking. It sounded to her +remarkably like a tolling bell, but she gave no sign beyond a slight +paling. She told herself instantly that the slowly ticking clock +had counted her out several years of grace beyond what a mother +may expect. When Sylvia finished and looked up, the dulled look of +resignation swept from her face by the light of adventurous change, +her mother achieved the final feat of nodding her head in prompt, +cheerful assent. + +But when Sylvia went away, light-hearted, fleeting forward to new +scenes, there was in her mother's farewell kiss a solemnity which she +could not hide. "Oh, Mother dear!" protested Sylvia, preferring +as always to skim over the depths which her mother so dauntlessly +plumbed. "Oh, Mother darling! How can you be so--when it's only for a +few weeks!" + + + + +BOOK III + +_IN CAPUA AT LAST_ + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +A GRATEFUL CARTHAGINIAN + + +Arnold Smith put another lump of sugar on his saucer, poured out +a very liberal allowance of rum into his tea, and reached for a +sandwich, balancing the cup and saucer with a deftness out of keeping +with his long, ungraceful loose-jointedness. He remarked in an +indifferent tone to Sylvia, back of the exquisitely appointed +tea-tray: "I don't say anything because I haven't the least idea what +you are talking about. Who _was_ Capua, anyhow?" + +Sylvia broke into a peal of laughter which rang like a silver +chime through the vine-shaded, airy spaces of the pergola. Old Mr. +Sommerville, nosing about in his usual five-o'clock quest, heard +her and came across the stretch of sunny lawn to investigate. +"Oh, _here's_ tea!" he remarked on seeing Arnold, lounging, +white-flanneled, over his cup. He spoke earnestly, as was his custom +when eating was in question, and Sylvia served him earnestly and +carefully, with an instant harmonious response to his mood, putting +in exactly the right amount of rum and sugar to suit his taste, and +turning the slim-legged "curate's assistant" so that his favorite +sandwiches were nearest him. + +"You spoil the old gentlemen, Sylvia," commented Arnold, evidently +caring very little whether she did or not. + +"She spoils everybody," returned Mr. Sommerville, tasting his tea +complacently; "'_c'est son metier._' She has an uncanny instinct for +suiting everybody's taste." + +Sylvia smiled brightly at him, exactly the brilliant smile which +suited her brilliant, frank face and clear, wide-open eyes. Under her +smile she was saying to herself, "If that's so, I wonder--not that I +care at all--but I really wonder why you don't like me." + +Sylvia was encountering for the first time this summer a society +guided by tradition and formula, but she was not without excellent +preparation for almost any contact with her fellow-beings, a +preparation which in some ways served her better than that more +conscious preparation of young ladies bred up from childhood to +sit behind tea-tables and say the right things to tea-drinkers. +Association with the crude, outspoken youth at the State University +had been an education in human nature, especially masculine nature, +for her acute mind. Her unvarnished association with the other sex in +classroom and campus had taught her, by means of certain rough knocks +which more sheltered boarding-school girls never get, an accuracy +of estimate as to the actual feeling of men towards the women they +profess to admire unreservedly which (had he been able to conceive of +it) old Mr. Sommerville would have thought nothing less than cynical. + +But he did not conceive of it, and now sat, mellowed by the +rightness of his tea, white-haired, smooth-shaven, pink-gilled, +white-waistcoated, the picture of old age at its best, as he smiled +gallantly at the extremely pretty girl behind the table. Unlike Sylvia +he knew exactly why he did not like her and he wasted no time in +thinking about it. "What were you laughing about, so delightfully, as +I came in, eh?" he asked, after the irretrievable first moment of joy +in gratified appetite had gone. + +Sylvia had not the slightest backwardness about explaining. In fact +she always took the greatest pains to be explicit with old Mr. +Sommerville about the pit from which she had been digged. "Why, this +visit to Aunt Victoria is like stepping into another world for me. +Everything is so different from my home-life. I was just thinking, as +I sat there behind all this glorious clutter," she waved a slim hand +over the silver and porcelain of the tea-table, "what a change it +was from setting the table one's self and washing up the dishes +afterwards. That's what we always do at home. I hated it and I said +to Arnold, 'I've reached Capua at last!' and he said," she stopped to +laugh again, heartily, full-throated, the not-to-be-imitated laugh of +genuine amusement, "he said, 'Who is Capua, anyhow?'" + +Mr. Sommerville laughed, but grudgingly, with an impatient shake of +his white head and an uneasy look in his eyes. For several reasons he +did not like to hear Sylvia laugh at Arnold. He distrusted a young +lady with too keen a sense of humor, especially when it was directed +towards the cultural deficiencies of a perfectly eligible young man. +To an old inhabitant of the world, with Mr. Sommerville's views as to +the ambitions of a moneyless young person, enjoying a single, brief +fling in the world of young men with fortunes, it seemed certain that +Sylvia's lack of tactful reticence about Arnold's ignorance could only +be based on a feeling that Arnold's fortune was not big enough. She +was simply, he thought with dismay, reserving her tact and reticence +for a not-impossible bigger. His apprehensions about the fate of a +bigger of his acquaintance if its owner ever fell into the hands of +this altogether too well-informed young person rose to a degree which +almost induced him to cry out, "Really, you rapacious young creature, +Arnold's is all any girl need ask, ample, well-invested, solid...." +But instead he said, "Humph! Rather a derogatory remark about your +surroundings, eh?" + +Arnold did not understand, did not even hear, leaning back, long, +relaxed, apathetic, in his great wicker-chair and rolling a cigarette +with a detached air, as though his hands were not a part of him. +But Sylvia heard, and understood, even to the hostility in the old +gentleman's well-bred voice. "Being in Capua usually referring to the +fact that the Carthaginians went to pieces that winter?" she asked. +"Oh yes, of course I know that. Good gracious! I was brought up on the +idea of the dangers of being in Capua. Perhaps that's why I always +thought it would be such fun to get there." She spoke rebelliously. + +"They got everlastingly beaten by the Romans," advanced Mr. +Sommerville. + +"Yes, but they had had one grand good time before! The Romans couldn't +take _that_ away from them! I think the Carthaginians got the best of +it!" Provocative, light-hearted malice was in her sparkling face. She +was thinking to herself with the reckless bravado of youth, "Well, +since he insists, I'll _give_ him some ground for distrusting my +character!" + +Arnold suddenly emitted a great puff of smoke and a great shout of +"Help! help! Molly to the rescue!" and when a little white-clad +creature flitting past the door turned and brought into that quiet +spot of leafy shadow the dazzling quickness of her smile, her eyes, +her golden hair, he said to her nonchalantly: "Just in time to head +them off. Sylvia and your grandfather were being so high-brow I was +beginning to feel faint," + +Molly laughed flashingly. "Did Grandfather keep his end up? I bet he +couldn't!" + +Arnold professed an entire ignorance of the relative status. "Oh, I +fell off so far back I don't know who got in first. Who _was_ this man +Capua, anyhow? I'm a graduate of Harvard University and I never heard +of him." + +"I'm a graduate of Miss Braddon's Mountain School for Girls," said +Molly, "and _I_ think it's a river." + +Mr. Sommerville groaned out, exaggerating a real qualm, "What my +mother would have said to such ignorance, prefaced by 'I bet!' from +the lips of a young lady!" + +"Your mother," said Molly, "would be my great-grandmother!" She +disposed of him conclusively by this statement and went on: "And I'm +not a young lady. Nobody is nowadays." + +"What _are_ you, if a mere grandfather may venture to inquire?" asked +Mr. Sommerville deferentially. + +"I'm a _femme watt-man"_ said Molly, biting a large piece from a +sandwich. + +Arnold explained to the others: "That's Parisian for a lady +motor-driver; some name!" + +"Well, you won't be that, or anything else alive, if you go on driving +your car at the rate I saw it going past the house this morning," +said her grandfather. He spoke with an assumption of grandfatherly +severity, but his eyes rested on her with a grandfather's adoration. + +"Oh, I'd die if I went under thirty-five," observed Miss Sommerville +negligently. + +"Why, Mr. Sommerville," Arnold backed up his generation. "You can't +call thirty-five per hour dangerous, not for a girl who can drive like +Molly." + +"Oh, I'm as safe as if I were in a church," continued Molly. "I keep +my mind on it. If I ever climb a telegraph-pole you can be sure it'll +be because I wanted to. I never take my eye off the road, never once." + +"How you must enjoy the landscape," commented her grandfather. + +"Heavens! I don't drive a car to look at the landscape!" cried Molly, +highly amused at the idea, apparently quite new to her. + +"Will you gratify the curiosity of the older generation once more, and +tell me what you _do_ drive a car for?" inquired old Mr. Sommerville, +looking fondly at the girl's lovely face, like a pink-flushed pearl. + +"Why, I drive to see how fast I can go, of course," explained Molly. +"The fun of it is to watch the road eaten up." + +"It _is_ fascinating," Sylvia gave the other girl an unexpected +reinforcement. "I've driven with Molly, and I've been actually +hypnotized seeing the road vanish under the wheels." + +"Oh, children, children! When you reach my age," groaned Arnold, "and +have eaten up as many thousand miles as I, you'll stay at home." + +"I've driven for three years now," asserted Molly, "and every time I +buy a new car I get the craze all over again. This one I have now is +a peach of an eight. I never want to drive a six again,--never! I can +bring it up from a creep to--to fast enough to scare Grandfather into +a fit, without changing gears at all--just on the throttle--" She +broke off to ask, as at a sudden recollection, "What was it about +Capua, anyhow?" She went to sit beside Sylvia, and put her arm around +her shoulder in a caressing gesture, evidently familiar to her. + +"It wasn't about Capua at all," explained Sylvia indulgently, patting +the lovely cheek, as though the other girl had been a child. "It was +your grandfather finding out what a bad character I am, and how I +wallow in luxury, now I have the chance." + +"Luxury?" inquired Molly, looking about her rather blankly. + +Sylvia laughed, this time with a little veiled, pensive note of +melancholy, lost on the others but which she herself found very +touching. "There, you see you're so used to it, you don't even know +what I'm talking about!" + +"Never mind, Molly," Arnold reassured her. "Neither do I! Don't try to +follow; let it float by, the way I do!" + +Miss Sommerville did not smile. She thrust out her red lips in a +wistful pout, and looking down into the sugar-bowl intently, she +remarked, her voice as pensive as Sylvia's own: "I wish I _did_! I +wish I understood! I wish I were as clever as Sylvia!" + +As if in answer to this remark, another searcher after tea announced +himself from the door--a tall, distinguished, ugly, graceful man, +who took a very fine Panama hat from a very fine head of brown hair, +slightly graying, and said in a rich, cultivated voice: "Am I too late +for tea? I don't mind at all if it's strong." + +"Oh!" said Molly Sommerville, flushing and drawing away from Sylvia; +"_Lord_!" muttered Arnold under his breath; and "Not at all. I'll make +some fresh. I haven't had mine yet," said Sylvia, busying herself with +the alcohol flame. + +"How're you, Morrison?" said Mr. Sommerville with no enthusiasm, +holding out a well-kept old hand for the other to shake. + +Arnold stood up, reached under his chair, and pulled out a tennis +racquet. "Excuse me, Morrison, won't you, if I run along?" he said. +"It's not because you've come. I want a set of tennis before dinner +if I can find somebody to play with me. Here, Molly, you've got your +tennis shoes on already. Come along." + +The little beauty shook her head violently. "No ... goodness no! It's +too hot. And anyhow, I don't ever want to play again, since I've seen +Sylvia's game." She turned to the other girl, breathing quickly. +"_You_ go, Sylvia dear. _I'll_ make Mr. Morrison's tea for him." + +Sylvia hesitated a barely perceptible instant, until she saw old Mr. +Sommerville's eyes fixed speculatively on her. Then she stood up with +an instant, cheerful alacrity. "That's _awfully_ good of you, Molly +darling! _You_ won't mind, will you, Mr. Morrison!" She nodded +brightly to the old gentleman, to the girl who had slipped into her +place, to the other man, and was off. + +The man she had left looked after her, as she trod with her long, +light step beside the young man, and murmured, "_Et vera incessu +patuit dea._" + +Molly moved a plate on the table with some vehemence. "I suppose +Sylvia would understand that language." + +"She would, my dear Molly, and what's more, she would scorn me for +using such a hackneyed quotation." To Mr. Sommerville he added, +laughing, "Isn't it the quaintest combination--such radiant girlhood +and her absurd book-learning!" + +Mr. Sommerville gave his assent to the quaintness by silence, as he +rose and prepared to retreat. + +"_Good_-bye, Grandfather," said Molly with enthusiasm. + + * * * * * + +As they walked along, Arnold was saying to Sylvia with a listless +appreciation: "You certainly know the last word of the game, don't +you, Sylvia? I bet Morrison hasn't had a jolt like that for years." + +"What are you _talking_ about?" asked Sylvia, perhaps slightly +overdoing her ignorance of his meaning. + +"Why, it's a new thing for _him_, let me tell you, to have a girl jump +up as soon as he comes in and delightedly leave him to another girl. +And then to thank the other girl for being willing to take him off +your hands,--that's more than knowing the rules,--that's art!" He +laughed faintly at the recollection. "It's a new one for Morrison to +meet a girl who doesn't kowtow. He's a very great personage in +his line, and he can't help knowing it. The very last word on +Lord-knows-what-all in the art business is what one Felix Morrison +says about it. He's an eight-cylinder fascinator too, into the +bargain. Mostly he makes me sore, but when I think about him straight, +I wonder how he manages to keep on being as decent as he is--he's +really a good enough sort!--with all the high-powered petticoats in +New York burning incense. It's enough to turn the head of a hydrant. +That's the hold Madrina has on him. She doesn't burn any incense. She +wants all the incense there is being burned, for herself; and it keeps +old Felix down in his place--keeps him hanging around too. You stick +to the same method if you want to make a go of it." + +"I thought he wrote. I thought he did aesthetic criticisms and +essays," said Sylvia, laughing aloud at Arnold's quaint advice. + +"Oh, he does. I guess he's chief medicine-man in his tribe all right. +It's not only women who kowtow; when old man Merriman wants to know +for sure whether to pay a million for a cracked Chinese vase, he +always calls in Felix Morrison. Chief adviser to the predatory rich, +that's one of his jobs! So you see," he came back to his first point, +"it must be some jolt for the sacred F.M. to have a young lady, _just +a young lady_, refuse to bow at the shrine. You couldn't have done a +smarter trick, by heck! I've been watching you all those weeks, just +too tickled for words. And I've been watching Morrison. It's been as +good as a play! He can't stick it out much longer, unless I miss my +guess, and I've known him ever since I was a kid. He's just waiting +for a good chance to turn on the faucet and hand you a full cup of his +irresistible fascination." He added carelessly, bouncing a ball up and +down on the tense catgut of his racquet: "What all you girls see in +that old wolf-hound, to lose your heads over! It gets me!" + +"Why in the world 'wolf-hound'?" asked Sylvia. + +"Oh, just as to his looks. He has that sort of tired, dignified, +deep-eyed look a big dog has. I bet his eyes would be phosphorescent +at night too. They are that kind; don't you know, when you strike a +match in the evening, how a dog's eyes glow? It's what makes 'em look +so soft and deep in the daytime. But as to his innards--no, Lord +no! Whatever else Morrison is he's not a bit like any dog that ever +lived--first cousin to a fish, I should say." + +Sylvia laughed. "Why not make it grizzly bear, to take in the rest of +the animal kingdom?" + +"No," persisted Arnold. "Now I've thought of it, I _mean_ fish, a +great big, wise old fellow, who lives in a deep pool and won't rise to +any ordinary fly." He made a brain-jolting change of metaphor and went +on: "The plain truth, and it's not so low-down as it seems, is that a +big fat check-book is admission to the grandstand with Felix. It _has_ +to be that way! He hasn't got much of his own, and his tastes are +some--" + +"Molly must be sitting in the front row, then," commented Sylvia +indifferently, as though tired of the subject. They were now at the +tennis-court. "Run over to the summer-house and get my racquet, will +you? It's on the bench." + +"Yes, Molly's got plenty of _money_," Arnold admitted as he came +back, his accent implying some other lack which he forgot to mention, +absorbed as he at once became in coping with his adversary's strong, +swift serve. + +The change in him, as he began seriously to play, was startling, +miraculous. His slack loose-jointedness stiffened into quick, +flexible accuracy, his lounging, flaccid air disappeared in a glow +of concentrated vigorous effort. The bored good-nature in his eyes +vanished, burned out by a stern, purposeful intensity. He was +literally and visibly another person. Sylvia played her best, which +was excellent, far better than that of any other girl in the summer +colony. She had been well trained by her father and her gymnasium +instructor, and played with an economy of effort delightful to see; +but she was soon driven by her opponent's tiger-like quickness into +putting out at once her every resource. There, in the slowly fading +light of the long mountain afternoon, the two young Anglo-Saxons +poured out their souls in a game with the immemorial instinct of their +race, fierce, grim, intent, every capacity of body and will-power +brought into play, everything else in the world forgotten.... + +For some time they were on almost equal terms, and then Sylvia became +aware that her adversary was getting the upper hand of her. She had, +however, no idea what the effort was costing him, until after a +blazing fire of impossibly rapid volleys under which she went down +to defeat, she stopped, called out, "Game _and_ set!" and added in a +generous tribute, "Say, you can _play_!" Then she saw that his face +was almost purple, his eyes bloodshot, and his breath came in short, +gasping pants. "Good gracious, what's the matter!" she cried, running +towards him in alarm. She was deeply flushed herself, but her eyes +were as clear as clear water, and she ran with her usual fawn-like +swiftness. Arnold dropped on the bench, waving her a speechless +reassurance. With his first breath he said, "Gee! but you can hit it +up, for a girl!" + +"What's the _matter_ with you?" Sylvia asked again, sitting down +beside him. + +"Nothing! Nothing!" he panted. "My wind! It's confoundedly short." +He added a moment later, "It's tobacco--this is the sort of time the +cigarettes get back at you, you know!" The twilight dropped slowly +about them like a thin, clear veil. He thrust out his feet, shapely in +their well-made white shoes, surveyed them with dissatisfaction, and +added with moody indifference: "And cocktails too. They play the +dickens with a fellow's wind." + +Sylvia said nothing for a moment, looking at him by no means +admiringly. Her life in the State University had brought her into such +incessant contact with young men that the mere fact of sitting +beside one in the twilight left her unmoved to a degree which Mr. +Sommerville's mother would have found impossible to imagine. When she +spoke, it was with an impatient scorn of his weakness, which might +have been felt by a fellow-athlete: "What in the world makes you do +it, then?" + +"Why not?" he said challengingly. + +"You've just said why not--it spoils your tennis. It must spoil your +polo. Was that what spoiled your baseball in college? You'd be twice +the man if you wouldn't." + +"Oh, what's the use?" he said, an immense weariness in his voice. + +"What's the use of anything, if you are going to use _that_ argument?" +said Sylvia, putting him down conclusively. + +He spoke with a sudden heartfelt simplicity, "Damn 'f I _know_, +Sylvia." For the first time in all the afternoon, his voice lost its +tonelessness, and rang out with the resonance of sincerity. + +She showed an unflattering surprise. "Why, I didn't know you ever +thought about such things." + +He looked at her askance, dimly amused. "High opinion you have of me!" + +She looked annoyed at herself and said with a genuine good-will in her +voice, "Why, Arnold, you _know_ I've always liked you." + +"You like me, but you don't think much of me," he diagnosed her, "and +you show your good sense." He looked up at the picturesque white +house, spreading its well-proportioned bulk on the top of the terraced +hillside before them. "I hope Madrina is looking out of a window and +sees us here, our heads together in the twilight. You've guessed, I +suppose, that she had you come on here for my benefit. She thinks +she's tried everything else,--now it's her idea to get me safely +married. She'd have one surprise, wouldn't she, if she could hear what +we're saying!" + +"Well, it _would_ be a good thing for you," remarked Sylvia, as +entirely without self-consciousness as though they were discussing the +tennis game. + +He was tickled by her coolness. "Well, Madrina sure made a mistake +when she figured on _you_!" he commented ironically. And then, not +having been subjected to the cool, hardy conditions which caused +Sylvia's present clear-headedness, he felt his blood stirred to feel +her there, so close, so alive, so young, so beautiful in the twilight. +He leaned towards her and spoke in a husky voice, "See here, Sylvia, +why _don't_ you try it!" + +"Oh, nonsense!" said the girl, not raising her voice at all, not +stirring. "You don't care a bit for me." + +"Yes, I do! I've _always_ liked you!" he said, not perceiving till +after the words were out of his mouth that he had repeated her own +phrase. + +She laughed to hear it, and he drew back, his faint stirring of warmth +dashed, extinguished. "The fact is, Sylvia," he said, "you're too nice +a girl to fall in love with." + +"What a horrid thing to say!" she exclaimed. + +"About _you_?" he defended himself. "I mean it as a compliment." + +"About falling in love," she said. + +"Oh!" he said blankly, evidently not at all following her meaning. + +"What time is it?" she now inquired, and on hearing the hour, "Oh, +we'll be late to dress for dinner," she said in concern, rising and +ascending the marble steps to the terrace next above them. + +He came after her, long, loose-jointed, ungraceful. He was laughing. +"Do you realize that I've proposed marriage to you and you've turned +me down?" he said. + +"No such a thing!" she said, as lightly as he. + +"It's the nearest _I_ ever came to it!" he averred. + +She continued to flit up the terraces before him, her voice rippling +with amusement dropping down on him through the dusk. "Well, you'll +have to come nearer than that, if you ever want to make a go of +it!" she called over her shoulder. Upon which note this very modern +conversation ended. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +MORE TALK BETWEEN YOUNG MODERNS + + +When they met at dinner, they laughed outright at the sight of one +another, a merry and shadowless laugh. For an instant they looked like +light-hearted children. The change of Arnold's long sallow face was +indeed so noticeable that Mrs. Marshall-Smith glanced sharply at him, +and then looked again with great satisfaction. She leaned to Sylvia +and laid her charming white hand affectionately over the girl's slim, +strong, tanned fingers. "It's just a joy to have you here, my dear. +You're brightening us stupid, bored people like fresh west wind!" She +went on addressing herself to the usual guest of the evening: "Isn't +it always the most beautiful sight, Felix, how the mere presence of +radiant youth can transform the whole atmosphere of life!" + +"I hadn't noticed that my radiant youth had transformed much," +commented Arnold dryly; "and Sylvia's only a year younger than I." + +He was, as usual, disregarded by the course of the conversation. "Yes, +sunshine in a shady place ..." quoted Morrison, in his fine mellow +tenor, looking at Sylvia. It was a wonderful voice, used with +discretion, with a fine instinct for moderation which would have kept +the haunting beauty of its intonations from seeming objectionable or +florid to any but American ears. In spite of the invariable good taste +with which it was used, American men, accustomed to the toneless +speech of the race, and jealously suspicious of anything approaching +art in everyday life, distrusted Morrison at the first sound of his +voice. Men who were his friends (and they were many) were in the habit +of rather apologizing for those rich and harmonious accents. The first +time she had heard it, Sylvia had thought of the G string of old +Reinhardt's violin. + +"I never in my life saw anything that looked less like a shady place," +observed Sylvia, indicating with an admiring gesture the table before +them, gleaming and flashing its glass and silver and close-textured, +glossy damask up into the light. + +"It's _morally_ that we're so shady!" said Arnold, admiring his own +wit so much that he could not refrain from adding, "Not so bad, what?" +The usual conversation at his stepmother's table was, as he would have +said, so pestilentially high-brow that he seldom troubled himself +to follow it enough to join in. Arnold was in the habit of dubbing +"high-brow" anything bearing on aesthetics; and Mrs. Marshall-Smith's +conversational range hardly extending at all outside of aesthetics of +one kind or another, communication between these two house-mates +of years' standing was for the most part reduced to a primitive +simplicity for which a sign-language would have sufficed. Arnold's +phrase for the situation was, "I let Madrina alone, and she don't +bother me." But now, seeing that neither the facade of Rouen, nor the +influence of Chardin on Whistler, had been mentioned, his unusual +loquacity continued. "Well, if one west wind (I don't mean that as a +slam on Sylvia for coming from west of the Mississippi) has done us so +much good, why not have another?" he inquired. "Why couldn't Judith +come on and make us a visit too? It would be fun to have a scrap with +her again." He explained to Morrison: "She's Sylvia's younger sister, +and we always quarreled so, as kids, that after we'd been together +half an hour the referee had to shoulder in between and tell us, 'Nix +on biting in clinches.' She was great, all right, Judith was! How _is_ +she now?" he asked Sylvia. "I've been meaning ever so many times to +ask you about her, and something else has seemed to come up. I can't +imagine Judy grown up. She hasn't pinned up that great long braid, has +she, that used to be so handy to pull?" + +Sylvia took the last of her soup, put the spoon on the plate, and +launched into a description of Judith, one of her favorite topics. +"Oh, Judith's just _fine_! You ought to see her! She's worth ten +of me: she has such lots of character! And handsome! You never saw +anything like Judith's looks. Yes, she's put her hair up! She's twenty +years old now, what do you _suppose_ she does with her hair? She wears +it in a great smooth braid all around her head. And she has _such_ +hair, Aunt Victoria!" She turned from Arnold to another woman, as from +some one who would know nothing of the fine shades of the subject. "No +short hairs at all, you know, like everybody else, that _will_ hang +down and look untidy!" She pulled with an explanatory petulance at the +soft curls which framed her own face in an aureole of light. "Hers is +all long and smooth, and the color like a fresh chestnut, just out +of the burr; and her nose is like a Greek statue--she _is_ a Greek +statue!" + +She had been carried by her affectionate enthusiasm out of her usual +self-possession, her quick divination of how she was affecting +everybody, and now, suddenly finding Morrison's eyes on her with an +expression she did not recognize, she was brought up short. What had +she said to make him look at her so oddly? + +He answered her unspoken question at once, his voice making his every +casual word of gold: "I am thinking that I am being present at a +spectacle which cynics say is impossible, the spectacle of a woman +delighting--and with the most obvious sincerity--in the beauty of +another." + +"Oh!" said Sylvia, relieved to know that the odd look concealed no +criticism, "I didn't know that anybody nowadays made such silly +Victorian generalizations about woman's cattiness,--anybody under old +Mr. Sommerville's age, that is. And anyhow, Judith's my _sister_." + +"Cases of sisters, jealous of each other's good looks, have not been +entirely unknown to history," said Morrison, smiling and beginning to +eat his fish with a delicate relish. + +"Well, if Judy's so all-fired good-looking, let's _have_ her come +on, Madrina," said Arnold. "With her and Sylvia together, we'd crush +Lydford into a pulp." He attacked his plate with a straggling fork, +eating negligently, as he did everything else. + +"She has a standing invitation, of course," said Mrs. Marshall-Smith. +"Indeed, I wrote the other day, asking her if she could come here +instead of to La Chance for her vacation. It's far nearer for her." + +"Oh, Judith couldn't waste time to go visiting," said Sylvia. "I've +told you she is worth ten of me. She's on the home-stretch of her +trained-nurse's course now. She has only two weeks' vacation." + +"She's going to be a trained nurse?" asked Arnold in surprise, washing +down a large mouthful of fish with a large mouthful of wine. "What the +dickens does she do that for?" + +"Why, she's crazy about it,--ever since she was a little girl, +fifteen years old and first saw the inside of a hospital. That's just +Judith,--so splendid and purposeful, and single-minded. I wish to +goodness _I_ knew what I want to do with myself half so clearly as she +always has." + +If she had, deep under her consciousness, a purpose to win more +applause from Morrison, by more disinterested admiration of Judith's +good points, she was quite rewarded by the quickness with which he +championed her against her own depreciation. "I've always noticed," +he said meditatively, slowly taking a sip from his wine-glass, "that +nobody can be single-minded who isn't narrow-minded; and I think it +likely that people who aren't so cocksure what they want to do with +themselves, hesitate because they have a great deal more to do _with_. +A nature rich in fine and complex possibilities takes more time +to dispose of itself, but when it does, the world's beauty is the +gainer." He pointed the reference frankly by a smile at Sylvia, who +flushed with pleasure and looked down at her plate. She was surprised +at the delight which his leisurely, whimsically philosophical little +speech gave her. She forgot to make any answer, absorbed as she was +in poring over it and making out new meanings in it. How he had +understood at less than a word the secret uncertainty of herself which +so troubled her; and with what astonishing sureness he had known what +to say to reassure her, to make her see clear! And then, her quick +mind leaped to another significance.... All during these past weeks +when she had been falling more and more under the fascination of his +personality, when she had been piqued at his disregard of her, when +she had thought he found her "young," and had bracketed her carelessly +with Arnold, he had been in reality watching her, he had found her +interesting enough to observe her, to study her, to have a theory +about her character; and having done all that, to admire her as she +admired him. Never in her life had she been the recipient of flattery +so precisely to her taste. Her glow of pleasure was so warm that she +suddenly distrusted her own judgment, she looked up at him quickly to +see if she had not mistaken his meaning, had not absurdly exaggerated +the degree to which he ... she found his eyes on hers, deep-set, +shadowy eyes which did not, as she looked up, either smile or look +away. Under cover of a rather wrangling discussion between Arnold +and his stepmother as to having some champagne served, the older man +continued to look steadily into Sylvia's eyes, with the effect of +saying to her, gravely, kindly, intimately: "Yes, I am here. You did +not know how closely you have drawn me to you, but here I am." Across +the table, across the lights, the service, the idle talk of the other +two, she felt him quietly, ever so gently but quite irresistibly, open +an inner door of her nature ... and she welcomed him in. + + * * * * * + +After dinner, when Mrs. Marshall-Smith lifted her eyebrows at Sylvia +and rose to go, Arnold made no bones of his horror at the prospect of +a tete-a-tete with the distinguished critic. "Oh, I'm going in with +you girls!" he said, jumping up with his usual sprawling uncertainty +of action. He reserved for athletic sports all his capacity for +physical accuracy. "Morrison and I bore each other more than's legal!" + +"I may bore _you_, my dear Arnold," said the other, rising, "but you +never bored me in your life, and I've known you from childhood." + +To which entirely benevolent speech, Arnold returned nothing but +the uneasy shrug and resentful look of one baffled by a hostile +demonstration too subtle for his powers of self-defense. He picked up +the chair he had thrown over, and waited sulkily till the others were +in the high-ceilinged living-room before he joined them. Then when +Morrison, in answer to a request from his hostess and old friend, sat +down to the piano and began to play a piece of modern, plaintive, very +wandering and chromatic music, the younger man drew Sylvia out on the +wide, moon-lighted veranda. + +"Morrison is the very devil for making you want to punch his head, and +yet not giving you a decent excuse. I declare, Sylvia, I don't know +but that what I like best of all about you is the way you steer clear +of him. He's opening up on you too. Maybe you didn't happen to notice +... at the dinner-table? It wasn't much, but I spotted it for a +beginning. I know old Felix, a few." Sylvia felt uneasy at the +recurrence of this topic, and cast about for something to turn the +conversation. "Oh, Arnold," she began, rather at random, "whatever +became of Professor Saunders? I've thought about him several times +since I've been here, but I've forgotten to ask you or Tantine. He was +my little-girl admiration, you know." + +Arnold smoked for a moment before answering. Then, "Well, I wouldn't +ask Madrina about him, if I were you. He's not one of her successes. +He wouldn't stay put." + +Sylvia scented something uncomfortable, and regretted having +introduced the subject. + +Arnold added thoughtfully, looking hard at the ash of his cigarette, +"I guess Madrina was pretty bad medicine for Saunders, all right." + +Sylvia shivered a little and drew back, but she instantly put the +matter out of her mind with a trained and definite action of her will. +It was probably "horrid"; nothing could be done about it now; what +else could they talk about that would be cheerful? This was a +thought-sequence very familiar to Sylvia, through which she passed +with rapid ease. + +Arnold made a fresh start by offering her his cigarette-box. "Have +one," he invited her, sociably. + +She shook her head. + +"Oh, all the girls do," he urged her. + +Sylvia laughed. "I may be a fresh breeze from beyond the Mississippi, +but I'm not so fresh as to think it's wicked for a girl to smoke. In +fact I like to, myself, but I can't stand the dirty taste in my mouth +the next morning. Smoking's not worth it." + +"_Well_ ..." commented Arnold. Apparently he found something very +surprising in this speech. His surprise spread visibly from the +particular to the general, like the rings widening from a thrown +pebble, and he finally broke out: "You certainly do beat the band, +Sylvia. You get _me_! You're a sample off a piece of goods that I +never saw before!" + +"What now?" asked Sylvia, amused. + +"Why, for instance,--that reason for your not smoking. That's not a +girl's reason. That's a man's ... a man who's tried it!" + +"No, it isn't!" she said, the flicker of amusement still on her lips. +"A man wouldn't have sense enough to know that smoking isn't worth +waking up with your mouth full of rancid fur." + +"Oh gosh!" cried Arnold, tickled by the metaphor: "rancid fur!" + +"The point about me, why I seem so queer to you," explained Sylvia, +brightening, "is that I'm a State University girl. I'm used to you. +I've seen hundreds of you! The fact that you wear trousers and have +to shave and wear your hair cut short, and smell of tobacco, doesn't +thrill me for a cent. I know that I could run circles around you if it +came to a problem in calculus, not that I want to brag." + +Arnold did not seem as much amused as she thought he would be. He +smoked in a long, meditative silence, and when he spoke again it was +with an unusual seriousness. "It's not what _you_ feel or don't feel +about me ... it's what _I_ feel and don't feel about you, that gets +me," he explained, not very lucidly. "I mean liking you so, without +... I never felt so about a girl. I like it.... I don't make it +out...." He looked at her with sincerely puzzled eyes. + +She answered him as seriously. "I think," she said, speaking a little +slowly, "I think the two go together, don't they?" + +"How do you mean?" he asked. + +"Why--it's hard to say--" she hesitated, but evidently not at all in +embarrassment, looking at him with serious eyes, limpid and unafraid. +"I've been with boys and men a lot, of course, in my classes and in +the laboratories and everywhere, and I've found out that in most cases +if the men and the girls really, really in their own hearts don't want +to hurt each other, don't want to get something out of the other, but +just want to be friends--why, they _can_ be! Psychologists and all +the big-wigs say they can't be, I know--but, believe me!--I've tried +it--and it's awfully nice, and it's a shame that everybody shouldn't +know that lots of the time you _can_ do it--in spite of the folks who +write the books! Maybe it wasn't so when the books were written, maybe +it's only going to be so, later, if we all are as square as we can be +now. But as a plain matter of fact, in one girl's experience, it's +so, _now_! Of course," she modified by a sweeping qualification the +audacity of her naively phrased, rashly innocent guess at a new +possibility for humanity, "of course if the man's a _decent_ man." + +Arnold had not taken his gaze for an instant from her gravely +thoughtful eyes. He was quite pale. He looked astonishingly moved, +startled, arrested. When she stopped, he said, almost at once, in +a very queer voice as though it were forced out of him, "I'm not a +decent man." + +And then, quite as though he could endure no longer her clear, steady +gaze, he covered his eyes with his hand. An instant later he had +sprung up and walked rapidly away out to the low marble parapet which +topped the terrace. His gesture, his action had been so eloquent of +surprised, intolerable pain, that Sylvia ran after him, all one quick +impulse to console. "Yes, you are, Arnold; yes, you are!" she said in +a low, energetic tone, "you _are_!" + +He made a quavering attempt to be whimsical. "I'd like to know what +_you_ know about it!" he said. + +"I know! I _know_!" she simply repeated. + +He faced her in an exasperated shame. "Why, a girl like you can no +more know what's done by a man like me ..." his lips twitched in a +moral nausea. + +"Oh ... what you've _done_ ..." said Sylvia ... "it's what you are!" + +"What I _am_," repeated Arnold bitterly. "If I were worth my salt I'd +hang myself before morning!" The heartsick excitement of a man on the +crest of some moral crisis looked out luridly from his eyes. + +Sylvia rose desperately to meet that crisis. "Look here, Arnold. I'm +going to tell you something I've never spoken of to anybody ... not +even Mother ... and I'm going to do it, so you'll _believe_ me when I +say you're worth living. When I was eighteen years old I was a horrid, +selfish, self-willed child. I suppose everybody's so at eighteen. I +was just crazy for money and fine dresses and things like that, that +we'd never had at home; and a man with a lot of money fell in love +with me. It was my fault. I made him, though I didn't know then what I +was doing, or at least I wouldn't let myself think what I was doing. +And I got engaged to him. I got engaged at half-past four in the +afternoon, and at seven o'clock that evening I was running away from +him, and I've never seen him since." Her voice went on steadily, but +a quick hot wave of scarlet flamed up over her face. "He was not a +decent man," she said briefly, and went on: "It frightened me almost +to death before I got my bearings: I was just a little girl and I +hadn't understood anything--and I don't _understand_ much now. But I +did learn one thing from all that--I learned to know when a man isn't +decent. I can't tell you how I know--it's all over him--it's all over +me--it's his eyes, the way he stands, the expression of his mouth--I +don't only see it--I feel it--I feel it the way a thermometer feels +it when you put a match under the bulb ... I _know_!" She brought her +extravagant, her preposterous, her ignorant, her incredibly convincing +claims to an abrupt end. + +"And you 'feel' that I ..." began Arnold, and could not go on. + +"I'd like you for my brother," she said gently. + +He tried to laugh at her, but the honest tears were in his eyes. +"You don't know what you're talking about, you silly dear," he said +unsteadily, "but I'm awfully glad you came to Lydford." + +With her instinct for avoiding breaks, rough places, Sylvia quickly +glided into a transition from this speech back into less personal +talk. "Another queer thing about that experience I've never +understood:--it cured me of being so crazy about clothes. You wouldn't +think it would have anything to do with _that_, would you? And I don't +see how it did. Oh, I don't mean I don't dearly love pretty dresses +now. I _do_. And I spend altogether too much time thinking about +them--but it's not the same. Somehow the poison is out. I used to be +like a drunkard who can't get a drink, when I saw girls have things +I didn't. I suppose," she speculated philosophically, "I suppose any +great jolt that shakes you up a lot, shakes things into different +proportions." + +"Say, that fellow must have been just about the limit!" Arnold's +rather torpid imagination suddenly opened to the story he had heard. + +"No, no!" said Sylvia. "As I look back on it, I make a lot more sense +out of it" (she might have been, by her accent, fifty instead of +twenty-three), "and I can see that he wasn't nearly as bad as I +thought him. When I said he wasn't decent, I meant that he belonged in +the Stone Age, and I'm twentieth-century. We didn't fit together. I +suppose that's what we all mean when we say somebody isn't decent ... +that he's stayed behind in the procession. I don't mean that man was +a degenerate or anything like that ... if he could have found a Stone +Age woman he'd have ... they'd have made a good Stone Age marriage of +it. But he _didn't_, the girl he...." + +"Do you know, Sylvia," Arnold broke in wonderingly, "I never before in +all my life had anybody speak to me of anything that really mattered. +And I never spoke this way myself. I've wanted to, lots of times; but +I didn't know people ever did. And to think of its being a girl who +does it for me, a girl who...." His astonishment was immense. + +"Look here, Arnold," said Sylvia, with a good-natured peremptoriness. +"Let a girl be something besides a girl, can't you!" + +But her attempt to change the tone to a light one failed. Apparently, +now that Arnold had broken his long silence, he could not stop +himself. He turned towards her with a passionate gesture of +bewilderment and cried: "Do you remember, before dinner, you asked +me as a joke what was the use of anything, and I said I didn't know? +Well, I _don't!_ I've been getting sicker and sicker over everything. +What the devil _am_ I here for, anyhow!" + +As he spoke, a girl's figure stepped from the house to the veranda, +from the veranda to the turf of the terrace, and walked towards them. +She was tall, and strongly, beautifully built; around her small head +was bound a smooth braid of dark hair. She walked with a long, free +step and held her head high. As she came towards them, the moonlight +full on her dark, proud, perfect face, she might have been the +youthful Diana. + +But it was no antique spirit which looked out of those frank, fearless +eyes, and it was a very modern and colloquially American greeting +which she now gave to the astonished young people. "Well, Sylvia, +don't you know your own sister?" and "Hello there, Arnold." + +"Why, Judith _Marshall_!" cried Sylvia, falling upon her breathlessly. +"However in the world did you get _here_!" + +Arnold said nothing. He had fallen back a step and now looked at the +new-comer with a fixed, dazzled gaze. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +ANOTHER BRAND OF MODERN TALK + + +"Where's Judith?" said Arnold for sole greeting, as he saw Morrison at +the piano and Sylvia sitting near it, cool and clear in a lacy white +dress. Morrison lifted long fingers from the keys and said gravely, +"She came through a moment ago, saying, '_Where's_ Arnold?' and went +out through that door." His fingers dropped and Chopin's voice once +more rose plaintively. + +The sound of Arnold's precipitate rush across the room and out of the +door was followed by a tinkle of laughter from Sylvia. Morrison looked +around at her over his shoulder, with a flashing smile of mutual +understanding, but he finished the prelude before he spoke. Then, +without turning around, as he pulled out another sheet from the music +heaped on the piano, he remarked: "If that French philosopher was +right when he said no disease is as contagious as love-making, we may +expect soon to find the very chairs and tables in this house clasped +in each other's arms. Old as I am, I feel it going to my head, like a +bed of full-blooming valerian." + +Sylvia made no answer. She felt herself flushing, and could not trust +her voice to be casual. He continued for a moment to thumb over the +music aimlessly, as though waiting for her to speak. + +The beautiful room, darkened against the midsummer heat, shimmered +dimly in a transparent half-light, the vivid life of its bright +chintz, its occasional brass, its clean, daring spots of crimson and +purple flowers, subdued into a fabulous, half-seen richness. There was +not a sound. The splendid heat of the early August afternoon flamed, +and paused, and held its breath. + +Into this silence, like a bird murmuring a drowsy note over a still +pool, there floated the beginning of _Am Meer_. Sylvia sat, passive +to her finger-tips, a vase filled to the brim with melody. She stared +with unseeing eyes at the back of the man at the piano. She was not +thinking of him, she was not aware that she was conscious of him at +all; but hours afterward wherever she looked, she saw for an instant +again in miniature the slender, vigorous, swaying figure; the thick +brown hair, streaked with white and curling slightly at the ends; the +brooding head.... + +When the last note was still, the man stood up and moved away from the +piano. He dropped into an arm-chair near Sylvia, and leaning his +fine, ugly head back against the brilliant chintz, he looked at her +meditatively. His great bodily suavity gave his every action a curious +significance and grace. Sylvia, still under the spell of his singing, +did not stir, returning his look out of wide, dreaming eyes. + +When he spoke, his voice blended with the silence almost as +harmoniously as the music.... "Do you know what I wish you would +do, Miss Sylvia Marshall? I wish you would tell me something about +yourself. Now that I'm no longer forbidden to look at you, or think +about you...." + +"Forbidden?" asked Sylvia, very much astonished. + +"There!" he said, wilfully mistaking her meaning, and smiling faintly, +"I am such an old gentleman that I'm perfectly negligible to a young +lady. She doesn't even notice or not whether I look at her, and think +about her." + +A few years before this Sylvia would have burst out impetuously, "Oh +yes, I have! I've wondered awfully what made you so indifferent," but +now she kept this reflection to herself and merely said, "What in the +world did you fancy was 'forbidding' you?" + +"Honor!" said Morrison, with a note of mock solemnity. "_Honor!_ +Victoria was so evidently snatching at you as a last hope for Arnold. +She gave me to understand that everybody else but Arnold was to be +strictly non-existent. But now that Arnold has found a character +beautifully and archaically simple to match his own primitive needs, I +don't see why I shouldn't enjoy a little civilized talk with you. In +any case, it was absurd to think of _you_ for Arnold. It merely shows +how driven poor Victoria was!" + +Sylvia tried to speak lightly, although she was penetrated with +pleasure at this explanation of his holding aloof. "Oh, _I_ like +Arnold very much. I always have. There's something ... something sort +of _touching_ about Arnold, don't you think? Though I must say that +I've heard enough about the difference between training quail dogs +and partridge dogs to last me the rest of my life. But that's rather +touching too, his not knowing what to do with himself but fiddle +around with his guns and tennis-racquets. They're all he has to keep +him from being bored to death, and they don't go nearly far enough. +Some day he will just drop dead from ennui, poor Arnold! Wouldn't he +have enjoyed being a civil engineer, and laying out railroads in wild +country! He'd have been a good one too! The same amount of energy +he puts into his polo playing would make him fight his way through +darkest Thibet." She meditated over this hypothesis for a moment and +then added with a nod of her head, "Oh yes, I like Arnold ever so much +... one kind of 'liking.'" + +"Of course you like him," assented the older man, who had been +watching her as she talked, and whose manner now, as he took up the +word himself, resembled that of an exquisitely adroit angler, casting +out the lightest, the most feathery, the most perfectly controlled of +dry-flies. "You're too intelligent not to like everybody who's not +base--and Arnold's not base. And he 'likes' you. If you had cared to +waste one of your red-brown tresses on him, you could have drawn him +by a single hair. But then, everybody 'likes' you." + +"Old Mr. Sommerville doesn't!" said Sylvia, on an impulse. + +Morrison looked at her admiringly, and put the tips of his fingers +together with exquisite precision. "So you add second sight to your +other accomplishments! How in the world could a girl of your age have +the experience and intuition to feel that? Old Sommerville passes for +a great admirer of yours. You won't, I hope, go so uncannily far in +your omniscience as to pretend to know _why_ he doesn't like you?" + +"No, I won't," said Sylvia, "because I haven't the very faintest idea. +Have you?" + +"I know exactly why. It's connected with one of the old gentleman's +eccentricities. He's afraid of you on account of his precious nephew." + +"I didn't know he _had_ a nephew." Sylvia was immensely astonished. + +"Well, he has, and he bows down and worships him, as he does his +granddaughter. You see how he adores Molly. It's nice of the old +fellow, the cult he has for his descendants, but occasionally +inconvenient for innocent bystanders. He thinks everybody wants to +make off with his young folks. You and I are fellow-suspects. Haven't +you felt him wish he could strike me dead, when Molly makes tea for +me, or turns over music as I play?" He laughed a little, a gentle, +kind, indulgent laugh. "_Molly!_" he said, as if his point were more +than elucidated by the mere mention of her name. + +Sylvia intimated with a laugh that her point was clearer yet in that +she had no name to mention. "But I never saw his nephew. I never even +heard of him until this minute." + +"No, and very probably never will see him. He's very seldom here. And +if you did see him, you wouldn't like him--he's an eccentric of the +worst brand," said Morrison tranquilly. "But monomanias need no +foundation in fact--" He broke off abruptly to say: "Is this all +another proof of your diabolical cleverness? I started in to hear +something about yourself, and here I find myself talking about +everything else in the world." + +"I'm not clever," said Sylvia, hoping to be contradicted. + +"Well, you're a great deal too nice to be _consciously_ so," admitted +Morrison. "See here," he went on, "it's evident that you're more +than a match for me at this game. Suppose we strike a bargain. You +introduce yourself to me and I'll do the same by you. Isn't it quite +the most fantastic of all the bizarreries of human intercourse that +an 'introduction' to a fellow-being consists in being informed of his +name,--quite the most unimportant, fortuitous thing about him?" + +Sylvia considered. "What do you want to know?" she asked finally. + +"Well, I'd _like_ to know everything," said the man gaily. "My +curiosity has been aroused to an almost unappeasable pitch. But of +course I'll take any information you feel like doling out. In the +first place, _how_, coming from such a ..." He checked himself and +changed the form of his question: "I overheard you speaking to +Victoria's maid, and I've been lying awake nights ever since, +wondering how it happened that you speak French with so pure an +accent." + +"Oh, that's simple! Professor and Madame La Rue are old friends of the +family and I've spent a lot of time with them. And then, of course, +French is another mother-language for Father. He and Aunt Victoria +were brought up in Paris, you know." + +Morrison sighed. "Isn't it strange how all the miracles evaporate into +mere chemical reactions when you once investigate! All the white-clad, +ghostly spirits turn out to be clothes on the line. I suppose there's +some equally natural explanation about your way on the piano--the +clear, limpid phrasing of that Bach the other day, and then the color +of the Bizet afterwards. It's astonishing to hear anybody of your +crude youth playing Bach at all--and then to hear it played right--and +afterwards to hear a modern given _his_ right note...." + +Sylvia was perfectly aware that she was being flattered, and she was +immensely enjoying it. She became more animated, and the peculiar +sparkle of her face more spirited. "Oh, that's old Reinhardt, my music +teacher. He would take all the skin off my knuckles if I played a Bach +gigue the least bit like that Arlesienne Minuet. He doesn't approve of +Bizet very much, anyhow. He's a tremendous classicist." + +"Isn't it," inquired Morrison, phrasing his question carefully, +"isn't it, with no disrespect to La Chance intended, isn't it rather +unusually good fortune for a smallish Western city to own a real +musician?" + +"Well, La Chance bears up bravely under its good fortune," said Sylvia +dryly. "Old Mr. Reinhardt isn't exactly a prime favorite there. He's a +terribly beery old man, and he wipes his nose on his sleeve. Our house +was the only respectable one in town that he could go into. But then, +our house isn't so very respectable. It has its advantages, not being +so very respectable, though it 'most killed me as a young girl to feel +us so. But I certainly have a choice gallery of queer folks in my +acquaintance, and I have the queerest hodge-podge of scraps of things +learned from them. I know a little Swedish from Miss Lindstroem. She's +a Swedish old maid who does uplift work among the negroes--isn't that +a weird combination? You just ought to hear what she makes of negro +dialect! And I know all the socialist arguments from hearing a +socialist editor get them off every Sunday afternoon. And I even +know how to manage planchette and write mediumistically--save the +mark!--from Cousin Parnelia, a crazy old cousin of Mother's who hangs +round the house more or less." + +"I begin to gather," surmised Morrison, "that you must have a +remarkable father and mother. What are _they_ like?" + +"Well," said Sylvia thoughtfully, "Mother's the bravest thing you +ever saw. She's not afraid of _anything_! I don't mean cows, or the +house-afire, or mice, or such foolishness. I mean life and death, and +sickness and poverty and fear...." + +Morrison nodded his head understandingly, a fine light of appreciation +in his eyes, "Not to be afraid of fear--that's splendid." + +Sylvia went on to particularize. "When any of us are sick--it's +my little brother Lawrence who is mostly--Judith and I are always +well--Father just goes all to pieces, he gets so frightened. But +Mother stiffens her back and _makes_ everything in the house go on +just as usual, very quiet, very calm. She holds everything together +_tight_. She says it's sneaking and cowardly if you're going to accept +life at all, not to accept _all_ of it--the sour with the sweet--and +not whimper." + +"Very fine,--very fine! Possibly a very small bit ... grim?" commented +Morrison, with a rising inflection. + +"Oh, perhaps, a little!" agreed Sylvia, as if it did not matter; "but +I can't give you any idea of Mother. She's--she's just _great_! And +yet I couldn't live like her, without wanting to smash everything up. +She's somebody that Seneca would have liked." + +"And your father?" queried Morrison. + +"Oh, he's great too--dear Father--but so different! He and Mother +between them have just about all the varieties of human nature that +are worth while! Father's red-headed (though it's mostly gray now), +and quick, and blustering, and awfully clever, and just adored by +his students, and talks every minute, and apparently does all the +deciding, and yet ... he couldn't draw the breath of life without +Mother; and when it comes right down to _doing_ anything, what he +always does is what he knows will come up to her standard." + +Morrison raised delightedly amused hands to heaven. "The Recording +Angel domiciled in the house!" he cried. "It had never occurred to me +before how appallingly discerning the eye of the modern offspring must +be. Go on, go on!" + +Elated by the sensation of appearing clever, Sylvia continued with +a fresh flow of eloquence. "And there never was such a highly moral +bringing-up as we children have had. It's no fault of my family's if +I've turned out a grasping materialist! I was brought up"--she flamed +out suddenly as at some long-hoarded grievance--"I was brought up in a +moral hot-house, and I haven't yet recovered from the shock of being +transplanted into real earth in the real world." + +Morrison paid instant tribute to her aroused and serious feeling by a +grave look of attention. "Won't you explain?" he asked. "I'm so dull I +don't follow you. But I haven't been so interested in years." + +"Why, I mean," said Sylvia, trying hard to reduce to articulateness +a complicated conception, "I mean that Father and Mother just +deliberately represented values to me as different from what they +really are, with real folks! And now I find that _I'm_ real folks! I +can't help it. You are as you _are_, you know. They kept representing +to me always that the _best_ pleasures are the ones that are the most +important to folks--music, I mean, and Milton's poetry, and a fine +novel--and, in Mother's case, a fine sunset, or a perfect rose, or +things growing in the garden." + +No old associate of Morrison's would have recognized the man's face, +shocked as it was by surprise and interest out of his usual habit +of conscious, acute, self-possessed observation. The angler had +inadvertently stepped off a ledge into deep water, and a very swift +current was tugging at him. He leaned forward, his eyes as eager with +curiosity as a boy's. "Do I understand you to say that you repudiate +those 'best pleasures'?" + +"Of course you don't understand anything of the sort," said Sylvia +very earnestly. "They've soaked me so in music that I'm a regular +bond-slave to it. And a perfect rose is associated with so many lovely +recollections of Mother's wonderful silent joy in it, that I could +weep for pleasure. What I'm talking about--what I'm trying to tell +you, is the shock it was to me, when I got out of that artificially +unworldly atmosphere of home--for there's no use talking, it _is_ +artificial!--to find that _those_ pleasures aren't the ones that are +considered important and essential. How did I find things in the real +world? Why, I find that people don't give a thought to those 'best +pleasures' until they have a lot of other things first. Everything +_I_'d been trained to value and treasure was negligible, not +worth bothering about. But money--position--not having to +work--elegance--_those_ are _vital_--prime! Real people can't enjoy +hearing a concert if they know they've got to wash up a lot of dishes +afterwards. Hiring a girl to do that work is the _first_ thing to do! +There isn't another woman in the world, except my mother, who'd take +any pleasure in a perfect rose if she thought her sleeves were so +old-fashioned that people would stare at her. Folks _talk_ about +liking to look at a fine sunset, but what they give their blood and +bones for, is a fine house on the best street in town!" + +"Well, but you're not 'people' in that vulgar sense!" protested +Morrison. He spoke now without the slightest _arriere-pensee_ of +flattering her, and Sylvia in her sudden burst for self-expression was +unconscious of him, save as an opponent in an argument. + +"You just _say_ that, in that superior way," she flashed at him, +"because _you_ don't have to bother your head about such matters, +because you don't have to associate with people who are fighting for +those essentials. For they _are_ what everybody except Father and +Mother--_every_ body feels to be the essentials--a pretty house, +handsome clothes, servants to do the unpleasant things, social +life--oh, plenty of money sums it all up, 'vulgar' as it sounds. And I +don't believe you are different. I don't believe anybody you know is +really a bit different! Let Aunt Victoria, let old Mr. Sommerville, +lose their money, and you'd see how unimportant Debussy and Masaccio +would be to them, compared to having to black their own shoes!" + +"Well, upon my word!" exclaimed Morrison. "Are you at eighteen +presuming to a greater knowledge of life than I at forty?" + +"I'm not eighteen, I'm twenty-three," said Sylvia. "The difference +is enormous. And if I don't know more about plain unvarnished human +nature than you, I miss my guess! _You_ haven't gone through five +years at a State University, rubbing shoulders with folks who haven't +enough sophistication to pretend to be different from what they +are. _You_ haven't taught music for three years in the middle-class +families of a small Western city!" She broke off to laugh an +apologetic depreciation of her own heat. "You'd think I was addressing +a meeting," she said in her usual tone. "I got rather carried away +because this is the first time I ever really spoke out about it. There +are so few who could understand. If I ever tried to explain it to +Father and Mother, I'd be sure to find them so deep in a discussion of +the relation between Socrates and Christ that they couldn't pay any +attention! Professor Kennedy could understand--but he's such a fanatic +on the other side." + +Morrison looked a quick suspicion. "Who is Professor Kennedy?" he +inquired; and was frankly relieved when Sylvia explained: "He's the +head of the Mathematics Department, about seventy years old, and the +crossest, cantankerousest old misanthrope you ever saw. And thinks +himself immensely clever for being so! He just loathes people--the way +they really are--and he dotes on Mother and Judith because they're not +like anybody else. And he hates me because they couldn't all hypnotize +me into looking through their eyes. He thinks it low of me to realize +that if you're going to live at all, you've got to live _with people_, +and you can't just calmly brush their values on one side. He said +once that any sane person in this world was like a civilized man with +plenty of gold coin, cast away on a desert island with a tribe of +savages who only valued beads and calico, and buttons and junk. And +I said (I knew perfectly well he was hitting at me) that if he was +really cast away and couldn't get to another island, I thought the +civilized man would be an idiot to starve to death, when he could buy +food of the savages by selling them junk. And I thought he just wasted +his breath by swearing at the savages for not knowing about the value +of gold. There I was hitting at _him!_ He's spoiled his digestion, +hating the way people are made. And Professor Kennedy said something +nasty and neat (he's awfully clever) about that being rather a low +occupation for a civilized being--taking advantage of the idiocies +of savages--he meant me, of course--and he's right, it _is_ a mean +business; I hate it. And that's why I've always wanted to get on +another island--not an uninhabited island, like the one Father and +Mother have--but one where--well, _this_ is one!" she waved her +hand about the lovely room, "this _is_ just one! Where everything's +beautiful--costly too--but not just costly; where all the horrid, +necessary consequences of things are taken care of without one's +bothering--where flowers are taken out of the vases when they wilt +and fresh ones put in; and dishes get themselves washed invisibly, +inaudibly--and litter just vanishes without our lifting a hand. Of +course the people who live so always, can rejoice with a clear mind in +sunsets and bright talk. That's what I meant the other day--the day +Judith came--when I said I'd arrived in Capua at last; when old Mr. +Sommerville thought me so materialistic and cynical. If _he_ did that, +on just that phrase--what must _you_ think, after all this _confession +intime d'un enfant du siecle?_" She stopped with a graceful pretense +of dreading his judgment, although she knew that she had been talking +well, and read nothing but admiration in his very expressive face. + +"But all this means, you extraordinary young person, that you're not +in the least an _enfant du siecle!_" he cried. "It means that you're +dropped down in this groaning, heavy-spirited twentieth century, +troubled about many things, from the exact year that was the golden +climax of the Renaissance; that you're a perfect specimen of the +high-hearted, glorious ..." he qualified on a second thought, "unless +your astonishing capacity to analyze it all, comes from the nineteenth +century?" + +"No, that comes from Father," explained Sylvia, laughing. "Isn't it +funny, using the tool Father taught me to handle, against his ideas! +He's just great on analysis. As soon as we were old enough to think at +all, he was always practising us on analysis--especially of what made +us want things, or not like them. It's one of his sayings--he's always +getting it off to his University classes--that if you have once really +called an emotion or an ambition by its right name, you have it by +the tail, so to speak--that if you know, for instance, that it's your +vanity and not your love that's wounded by something, you'll stop +caring. But I never noticed that it really worked if you cared _hard_ +enough. Diagnosing a disease doesn't help you any, if you keep right +on being sick with it." + +"My dear! My dear!" cried the man, leaning towards her again, and +looking--dazzled--into the beauty and intelligence of her eyes, "the +idea that you are afflicted with any disease could only occur to the +morbid mind of the bluest-nosed Puritan who ever cut down a May-pole! +You're wonderfully, you're terrifyingly, you are superbly sound and +vigorous!" + +Breaking in upon this speech, there came the quick, smooth purr of an +automobile with all its parts functioning perfectly, a streak of dark +gray past the shutters, the sigh of an engine stopped suddenly--Molly +Sommerville sprang from behind the steering wheel and ran into the +house. She was exquisitely flushed and eager when she came in, but +when she saw the two alone in the great, cool, dusky room, filled to +its remotest corners with the ineffable aroma of long, intimate, +and interrupted talk, she was brought up short. She faltered for an +instant and then continued to advance, her eyes on Sylvia. "It's so +hot," she said, at random, "and I thought I'd run over for tea--" + +"Oh, of course," said Sylvia, jumping up in haste, "it's late! I'd +forgotten it was time for tea! Blame _me!_ Since I've been here, Aunt +Victoria has left it to me--where shall I say to have it set?" + +"The pergola's lovely," suggested Molly. She took her close motor-hat +from the pure gold of her hair with a rather listless air. + +"All right--the pergola!" agreed Sylvia, perhaps a little too +anxiously. In spite of herself, she gave, and she knew she was giving, +the effect of needing somehow to make something up to Molly.... + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +NOTHING IN THE LEAST MODERN + + +Sylvia was sitting in the garden, an unread book on her knees, +dreaming among red and yellow and orange gladioli. She looked with a +fixed, bright, beatific stare at the flame-colored flowers and did not +see them. She saw only Felix Morrison, she heard only his voice, she +was brimming with the sense of him. In a few moments she would go into +the house and find him in the darkened living-room, as he had been +every afternoon for the last fortnight, ostensibly come in to lounge +away the afternoon over a book, really waiting for her to join +him. And when she came in, he would look up at her, that wonderful +penetrating deep look of his ... and she would welcome him with her +eyes. + +And then they would talk! Judith and Arnold would be playing tennis, +oblivious of the heat, and Aunt Victoria would be annihilating the +tedious center of the day by sleep. Nobody would interrupt them for +hours. How they would talk! How they had talked! As she thought of it +the golden fortnight hummed and sang about Sylvia's ears like a Liszt +Liebes-Traum. + +They had talked of everything in the world, and it all meant but one +thing, that they had discovered each other, a discovery visibly as +wonderful for Morrison as for the girl. They had discovered each +other, and they had been intelligent enough to know at once what it +meant. They knew! And in a moment she would go into the house to him. +She half closed her eyes as before a too-great brilliance.... + +Arnold appeared at the other end of the long row of gladioli. He +was obviously looking for some one. Sylvia called to him, with the +friendly tone she always had for him: "Here I am! I don't know where +Judith is. Will I do?" + +From a distance Arnold nodded, and continued to advance, the +irregularity of his wavering gait more pronounced than usual. As soon +as she could see the expression of his face, Sylvia's heart began +to beat fast, with a divination of something momentous. He sat down +beside her, took off his hat, and laid it on the bench. "Do you +remember," he asked in a strange, high voice, "that you said you would +like me for your brother?" + +She nodded. + +"Well, I'm going to be," he said, and covering his face with his +hands, burst into sobs. + +Sylvia was so touched by his emotion, so sympathetically moved by his +news, that even through her happy ejaculations the tears rained down +her own cheeks. She tried to wipe them away and discovered, absurdly +enough, that she had lost her handkerchief. "Aren't we idiots!" she +cried in a voice of joyful quavers. "I never understood before +why everybody cries at a wedding. See here, Arnold, I've lost my +handkerchief. Loan me yours." She pulled his handkerchief out of his +pocket, she wiped her eyes, she put a sisterly kiss on his thin, +sallow cheek, she cried: "You dears! Isn't it too good to be true! +Arnold! So soon! Inside two weeks! How ever could you have the +courage? Judith! My Judith! Why, she never looked at a man before. How +did you dare?" + +His overmastering fit of emotion was passed now. His look was of +white, incredulous exaltation. "We saw each other and ran into +each other's arms," he said; "I didn't have to 'dare.' It was like +breathing." + +"Oh, how perfect!" she cried, "how simply, simply perfect!" and now +there was for an instant a note of wistful envy in her voice. "It's +_all_ perfect! She never so much as looked at a man before, and you +said the other night you'd never been in love before." + +Arnold looked at her wildly. "I said that!" he cried. + +"Why, yes, don't you remember, after that funny, joking talk with me, +you said that was the nearest you'd ever come to proposing to any +girl?" + +"God Almighty!" cried the man, and did not apologize for the +blasphemy. He looked at her fixedly, as though unguessed-at horizons +of innocence widened inimitably before his horrified eyes. And then, +following some line of association which escaped Sylvia, "I'm not fit +to _look_ at Judith!" he cried. The idea seemed to burst upon him like +a thunder-clap. + +Sylvia patted him on the shoulder reassuringly. "That's the proper +thing for a lover to think!" she said with cheerful, commonplace +inanity. She did not notice that he shrank from her hand, because she +now sprang up, crying, "But where's Judy? Where _is_ Judy?" + +He nodded towards the house. "She sent me out to get you. She's in her +room--she wants to tell you--but when I saw you, I couldn't keep it +to myself." His exaltation swept back like a wave, from the crest of +which he murmured palely, "Judith! Judith!" and Sylvia laughed at him, +with the tears of sympathy in her eyes, and leaving him there on the +bench staring before him at the living fire of the flame-colored +flowers, she ran with all her speed into the house. + +Morrison, lounging in a chair with a book, looked up, startled at her +whirlwind entrance. "What's up?" he inquired. + +At the sound of his voice, she checked herself and pirouetted with a +thistle-down lightness to face him. Her face, always like a clear, +transparent vase lighted from within, now gave out, deeply moved as +she was, an almost visible brightness. "Judith!" she cried, her voice +ringing like a silver trumpet, "Judith and Arnold!" She was poised +like a butterfly, and as she spoke she burst into flight again, and +was gone. + +She had not been near him, but the man had the distinct impression +that she had thrown herself on his neck and kissed him violently, in +a transport of delight. In the silent room, still fragrant, still +echoing with her passage, he closed his book, and later his eyes, and +sat with the expression of a connoisseur savoring an exquisite, a +perfect impression.... + + * * * * * + +Tea that afternoon was that strangest of phenomena, a formal ceremony +of civilized life performed in the abashing and disconcerting presence +of naked emotion. Arnold and Judith sat on opposite sides of the +pergola, Judith shining and radiant as the dawn, her usually firmly +set lips soft and tremulous; Arnold rather pale, impatient, oblivious +to what was going on around him, his spirit prostrated before the +miracle; and when their starry eyes met, there flowed from them and +towards them from every one in the pergola, a thousand unseen waves of +excitement. + +The mistress of the house herself poured tea in honor of the great +occasion, and she was very humorous and amusing about the mistakes +caused by her sympathetic agitation. "There! I've put three lumps in +yours, Mr. Sommerville. How _could_ I! But I really don't know what +I'm doing. This business of having love-at-first-sight in one's very +family--! Give your cup to Molly; I'll make you a fresh one. Oh, +Arnold! How _could_ you look at Judith just then! You made me fill +this cup so full I can't pass it!" + +Mr. Sommerville, very gallant and full of compliments and whimsical +allusions, did his best to help their hostess strike the decent note +of easy pleasantry; but they were both battling with something too +strong for them. Unseconded as they were by any of the others, they +gave a little the effect of people bowing and smirking to each other +at the foot of a volcano in full eruption. Morrison, picking up +the finest and sharpest of his conversational tools, ventured +the hazardous enterprise of expressing this idea to them. Mrs. +Marshall-Smith, trying one topic after another, expressed an +impatience with the slow progress of a Henry James novel she was +reading, and Mr. Sommerville, remarking with a laugh, "Oh, you cannot +hurry Henry," looked to see his mild witticism rewarded by a smile +from the critic. But Morrison shook his head, "No, my dear old friend. +_Il faut hurler avec les loups_--especially if you are so wrought +up by their hurlements that you can't hear yourself think. I'm just +giving myself up to the rareness, the richness of the impression." + +The new fiancee herself talked rather more than usual, though this +meant by no means loquacity, and presented more the appearance of +composure than any one else there; although this was amusingly broken +by a sudden shortness of breath whenever she met Arnold's eyes. +She said in answer to a question that she would be going on to her +hospital the day after tomorrow--her two weeks' vacation over--oh yes, +she would finish her course at the hospital; she had only a few more +months. And in answer to another question, Arnold replied, obviously +impatient at having to speak to any one but Judith, that of course he +didn't mind if she went on and got her nurse's diploma--didn't she +_want_ to? Anything she wanted.... + +No--decidedly the thing was too big to make a successful fete of. +Morrison was silent and appreciatively observant, his eyes sometimes +on Sylvia, sometimes on Judith; Mr. Sommerville, continuing doggedly +to make talk, descended to unheard-of trivialities in reporting the +iniquities of his chauffeur; Molly stirred an untasted cup, did not +raise her eyes at all, and spoke only once or twice, addressing to +Sylvia a disconnected question or two, in the answers to which she had +obviously no interest. Judith and Arnold had never been very malleable +social material, and in their present formidable condition they were +as little assistance in the manufacture of geniality as a couple of +African lions. + +The professional fete-makers were consequently enormously relieved +when it was over and their unavailing efforts could be decently +discontinued. Professing different reasons for escape, they moved in +disjointed groups across the smooth perfection of the lawn towards +the house, where Molly's car stood, gleaming in the sun. Sylvia found +herself, as she expected, manoeuvered to a place beside Morrison. He +arranged it with his unobtrusive deftness in getting what he wanted +out of a group of his fellow-beings, and she admired his skill, and +leaned on it confidently. They had had no opportunity that day for the +long talk which had been a part of every afternoon for the last week; +and she now looked with a buoyant certainty to have him arrange an +hour together before dinner. Her anticipation of it on that burning +day of reflected heat sent thrills of eager disquietude over her. It +was not only for Judith and Arnold that the last week had been one of +meeting eyes, long twilight evenings of breathless, quick-ripening +intimacy.... + +As they slackened their pace to drop behind Mr. Sommerville, who +walked hand-in-hand with his granddaughter in front of them, Morrison +said, looking at her with burning eyes, "... an instrument so finely +strung that it vibrates at the mere sound of another wakened to +melody--what mortal man lives who would not dream of its response if +he could set his own hand to the bow?" + +The afternoon had been saturated with emotional excitement and the +moment had come for its inevitable crystallization into fateful words. +The man spoke as though he were not wholly conscious of what he was +saying. He stepped beside her like one in a dream. He could not take +his eyes from her, from her flushed, grave, receptive face, from her +downcast, listening eyes, her slow, trance-like step as she waited for +him to go on. He went on: "It becomes, my dear, I assure you--the idea +of that possibility becomes absolutely an obsession--even to a man +usually quite his own master--" + +They were almost at a standstill now, and the two in front of them +had reached the house. Sylvia had a moment of what seemed to her the +purest happiness she had ever known.... + +From across the lawn they saw a violent gesture--Molly had thrown her +grandfather's clinging hand from her, and flashed back upon the two, +lingering there in the sunlight. She cast herself on Sylvia, panting +and trying to laugh. Her little white teeth showed in what was almost +a grimace. "Why in the world are you two poking along so?" she cried, +passing her arm through Sylvia's. Her beautiful sunny head came no +more than to Sylvia's shoulder. Without waiting for an answer she went +on hurriedly, speaking in the tones of suppressed excitement which +thrilled in every one's voice that day: "Come on, Sylvia--let's work +it off together! Let me take you somewhere--let's go to Rutland and +back." + +"That's thirty miles away!" said Sylvia, "and it's past five now." + +"I'll have you there and back long before seven," asserted Molly. +"Come on ... come on ..." She pulled impatiently, petulantly at the +other girl's arm. + +"I'm not invited, I suppose," said Morrison, lighting a cigarette with +care. + +Molly looked at him a little wildly. "No, Felix, you're not invited!" +she said, and laughed unsteadily. + +She had hurried them along to the car, and now they stood by the swift +gray machine, Molly's own, the one she claimed to love more than +anything else in the world. She sprang in and motioned Sylvia to the +seat beside her. + +"Hats?" suggested Morrison, looking at their bare, shining heads. He +was evidently fighting for time, manoeuvering for an opening. His +success was that of a man gesticulating against a gale. Molly's baldly +unscrupulous determination beat down the beginnings of his carefully +composed opposition before he could frame one of his well-balanced +sentences. "No--no--it takes too long to go and get hats!" she cried +peremptorily. "If you can't have what you want when you want it, it's +no use having it at all!" + +"I'm not sure," remarked Morrison, "that Miss Marshall wants this at +all." + +"Yes, she does; yes, she does!" Molly contradicted him heatedly. +Sylvia, hanging undecided at the step, felt herself pulled into the +car; the door banged, the engine started with a smooth sound of +powerful machinery, the car leaped forward. Sylvia cast one backward +glance at Morrison, an annoyed, distinguished, futile presence, +standing motionless, and almost instantly disappearing in the distance +in which first he, and then the house and tall poplars over it, shrank +to nothingness. + +Their speed was dizzying. The blazing summer air blew hot and vital in +their faces; their hair tugged at the pins and flew back in fluttering +strands; their thin garments clung to their limbs, molded as closely +by the compressing wind as by water. Molly did not turn her eyes from +the road ahead, leaping up to meet them, and vanishing under the car. +She tried to make a little casual talk: "Don't you love to let it out, +give it all the gas there is?" "There's nothing like a quick spin for +driving the nightmares out of your mind, is there?" But as Sylvia made +no answer to these overtures (the plain fact was that Sylvia had no +breath for speech,--for anything but a horrified fascinated glare at +the road), she said suddenly, somberly, "If I were you, I certainly +should despise me!" She took the car around a sharp curve on two +wheels. + +Sylvia clutched at the side and asked wonderingly, "_Why_ in the +world?" in a tone so permeated with sincerity that even Molly felt it. + +"Don't you _know_?" she cried. "Do you mean to say you don't _know_?" + +"Know _what_?" asked Sylvia. Hypnotized by the driver's intent and +unwavering gaze on the road, she kept her own eyes as fiercely +concentrated, her attention leaping from one quickly seen, instantly +disappearing detail to another,--a pile of gravel here,--a half-buried +rock there.--They both raised their voices to be heard above the sound +of the engine and the rush of the car. "Know what?" repeated Sylvia +loudly. + +"Why do you _suppose_ I made myself ridiculous by pulling you away +from Felix that idiotic, humiliating way!" Molly threw this inquiry +out, straight before her, angrily. The wind caught at her words and +hurled them behind. + +In a flash Sylvia understood something to which she had been +resolutely closing her perceptions. She felt sick and scared. She +clutched the side, watched a hill rise up steep before them and +flatten out under the forward leap of the car. She thought hard. +Something of her little-girl, overmastering horror of things, rough, +outspoken, disagreeable, swept over her. She violently wished that she +could escape from the conversation before her. She would have paid +almost any price to escape. + +But Molly's nerves were not so sensitive. She evidently had no +desire to escape or to let Sylvia. The grim little figure at the +steering-wheel controlled with her small hands the fate of the two. +She broke out now, impatient at Sylvia's silence: "Any fool could see +that it was because I couldn't bear to see you with Felix another +minute, and because I hadn't any other way to get you apart. Everybody +else there knew why. I knew they knew. But I couldn't help it. I +couldn't bear it another instant!" + +She broke the glass of decent reticence with a great clattering blow. +It shivered into fragments. There was nothing now between them but the +real issue in all its uncomely bareness. This real issue, the +maenad at the wheel now held up before them in a single brutal +statement--"Are you in love with Felix? I am." + +There was something eerie, terrifying, in her casting these words +out, straight before her. Sylvia looked in awe at the pale, pinched +profile, almost unrecognizable in its stern misery. "Because if you're +not," Molly went on, her white lower lip twitching, "I wish you'd keep +out. It was all right before you came with your horrible cleverness. +It was all right. It was all right." + +Through the iteration of this statement, through the tumult of her own +thoughts, through the mad rush of the wind past her ears, Sylvia heard +as clearly as though she sat again in the great, dim, quiet room, a +melodious voice saying gently, indulgently, laughingly, "_Molly!_" +Secure in her own safe place of favor she felt a great wave of +generous pity for the helpless self-deception of her sister-woman. +Fired by this and by the sudden perception of an opening for an act of +spectacular magnanimity--would it be any the less magnanimous because +it would cost her nothing in the end?--she reached for the mantle of +the _beau role_ and cast it about her shoulders. "Why, Molly dear!" +she cried, and her quick sympathies had never been more genuinely +aroused, "Molly dear, of course I'll keep out, if you want me to. I'll +leave the coast clear to you as long as you please." + +She was almost thrown from the seat by the jarring grind of the car +brought to a sudden standstill. Molly caught her hands, looked into +her face, the first time their eyes had met. "Do you mean it ... +Sylvia?" + +Sylvia nodded, much agitated, touched by the other's pain, half +ashamed of her own apparent generosity which was to mean no loss to +her, no gain to Molly. In the sudden becalmed stillness of the hot +afternoon their bright, blown hair fell about their faces in shining +clouds. + +"I didn't understand before," said Sylvia; and she was speaking the +truth. + +"And you'll let him alone? You won't talk to him--play his +accompaniments--oh, those long talks of yours!" + +"We've been talking, you silly dear, of the Renaissance compared to +the Twentieth Century, and of the passing of the leisure class, and +all the beauty they always create," said Sylvia. Again she spoke +the literal truth. But the true truth, burning on Molly's tongue, +shriveled this to ashes. "You've been making him admire you, be +interested in you, see how little _I_ amount to!" she cried. "But +if you _don't_ care about him yourself--if you'll--_two weeks_, +Sylvia--just keep out for two weeks...." As if it were part of the +leaping forward of her imagination, she suddenly started the car +again, and with a whirling, reckless wrench at the steering-wheel she +had turned the car about and was racing back over the road they had +come. + +"Where are you going?" cried Sylvia to her, above the noise of their +progress. + +"Back!" she answered, laughing out. "What's the use of going on now?" +She opened the throttle to its widest and pressing her lips together +tightly, gave herself up to the intoxication of speed. + +Once she said earnestly: "You're _fine_, Sylvia! I never knew a girl +could be like you!" And once more she threw out casually: "Do you know +what I was going to do if I found out you and Felix--if you hadn't...? +I was going to jump the car over the turn there on Prospect +Hill." + +Remembering the terrible young face of pain and wrath which she had +watched on the way out, Sylvia believed her; or at least believed that +she believed her. In reality, her immortal youth was incapable of +believing in the fact of death in any form. But the words put a stamp +of tragic sincerity on their wild expedition, and on her companion's +suffering. She thought of the two weeks which lay before Molly, and +turned away her eyes in sympathy.... + + * * * * * + +Ten days after this, an announcement was made of the engagement of +Mary Montgomery Sommerville, sole heiress of the great Montgomery +fortune, to Felix Morrison, the well-known critic of aesthetics. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +MOLLY IN HER ELEMENT + + +Sylvia faced her aunt's dictum with heartsick shrinking from its +rigor; but she recognized it as an unexaggerated statement of the +facts. "You can't go home now, Sylvia--everybody would say you +couldn't stand seeing Molly's snatch at Felix successful. You really +must stay on to let people see that you are another kind of girl from +Molly, capable of impersonal interest in a man of Felix's brains." + +Sylvia thought of making the obviously suitable remark that she +cared nothing about what people thought, but such a claim was so +preposterously untrue to her character that she could not bring the +words past her lips. As a matter of fact, she did care what people +thought. She always had! She always would! She remained silent, +looking fixedly out of the great, plate-glass window, across the +glorious sweep of blue mountain-slope and green valley commanded by +Mrs. Marshall-Smith's bedroom. She did not resemble the romantic +conception of a girl crossed in love. She looked very quiet, no paler +than usual, quite self-possessed. The only change a keen eye could +have noted was that now there was about her an atmosphere of slightly +rigid dignity, which had not been there before. She seemed less +girlish. + +No eyes could have been more keenly analytical than those of Mrs. +Marshall-Smith. She saw perfectly the new attribute, and realized +perfectly what a resolute stiffening of the will it signified. She +had never admired and loved Sylvia more, and being a person adept in +self-expression, she saturated her next speech with her admiration and +affection. "Of course, you know, my dear, that _I'm_ not one of the +herd. I know entirely that your feeling for Felix was just what mine +is--immense admiration for his taste and accomplishments. As a matter +of fact it was apparent to every one that, even in spite of all +Molly's money, if you'd really cared to ..." + +Sylvia winced, actually and physically, at this speech, which brought +back to her with a sharp flick the egregiousness of her absurd +self-deception. What a simpleton she had been--what a little naive, +provincial simpleton! In spite of her high opinion of her own +cleverness and knowledge of people, how stupidly steeped she had +been in the childish, idiotic American tradition of entire +disinterestedness in the relations of men and women. It was another +instance of how betrayed she constantly was, in any manoeuver in +the actual world, by the fatuous idealism which had so colored her +youth--she vented her emotion in despising that idealism and thinking +of hard names to call it. + +"... though of course you showed your intelligence by _not_ really +caring to," went on Mrs. Marshall-Smith; "it would have meant a +crippled life for both of you. Felix hasn't a cent more than he needs +for himself. If he was going to marry at all, he was forced to marry +carefully. Indeed, it has occurred to me that he may have thrown +himself into this, because he was in danger of losing his head over +you, and knew how fatal it would be. For you, you lovely thing of +great possibilities, you need a rich soil for _your_ roots, too, if +you're to bloom out as you ought to." + +Sylvia, receiving this into a sore and raw consciousness, said to +herself with an embittered instinct for cynicism that she had never +heard more euphonious periphrases for selling yourself for money. For +that was what it came down to, she had told herself fiercely a great +many times during the night. Felix had sold himself for money as +outright as ever a woman of the streets had done. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith, continuing steadily to talk (on the theory that +talking prevents too great concentration of thought), and making the +round of all the possible things to say, chanced at this moment upon +a qualification to this theory of Morrison's conduct which for an +instant caught Sylvia's attention, "--and then there's always the +possibility that even if you _had_ cared to--Molly might have been +too much for you, for both of you. She always has had just what she +wanted--and people who have, get the habit. I don't know if you've +noticed it, in the little you've seen of her, but it's very apparent +to me, knowing her from childhood up as I have, that there's a slight +coarseness of grain in Molly, when it's a question of getting what she +wants. I don't mean she's exactly horrid. Molly's a dear in her way, +and I'm very fond of her, of course. If she can get what she wants +_without_ walking over anybody's prostrate body, she'll go round. +But there's a directness, a brilliant lack of fine shades in Molly's +grab.... It makes one remember that her Montgomery grandfather had +firmness of purpose enough to raise himself from an ordinary Illinois +farmer to arbiter of the wheat pit. Such impossible old aunts--such +cousins--occasionally crop up still from the Montgomery connection. +But all with the same crude force. It's almost impossible for a +temperament like Felix's to contend with a nature like that." + +Sylvia was struck by the reflection, but on turning it over she saw +in it only another reason for anger at Morrison. "You make your old +friend out as a very weak character," she said. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith's tolerant, clear view of the infirmities of +humanity was grieved by this fling of youthful severity. "Oh, my dear! +my dear! A young, beautiful, enormendously rich, tremendously enamored +girl? That's a combination! I don't think we need consider Felix +exactly weak for not having resisted!" + +Sylvia thought she knew reasons for his not yielding, but she did not +care to discuss them, and said nothing. + +"But whether," continued Mrs. Marshall-Smith, attempting delicately +to convey the only reflection supposed to be of comfort to a girl in +Sylvia's situation, "whether or not Molly will find after marriage +that even a very masterful and ruthless temperament may fail entirely +to possess and hold the things it has grabbed and carried off ..." + +Sylvia repudiated the tacit conception that this would be a balm to +her. "Oh, I'm sure I hope they'll manage!" she said earnestly. + +"Of course! Of course!" agreed Mrs. Marshall-Smith. "Who doesn't hope +so?" She paused, her loquacity run desperately thin. There was +the sound of a car, driving up to the front door. Sylvia rose in +apprehension. Her aunt motioned a reassurance. "I told Tojiko to tell +every one that we are not in--to anybody." + +Helene came to the door on silent, felt-shod feet, a black-and-white +picture of well-trained servility. "Pardon, Madame, Tojiko says that +Mlle. Sommerville wishes to see Mlle. Sylvie." + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith looked with considerable apprehension at her +niece. "You must get it over with some time, Sylvia. It'll be easier +here than with a lot of people staring at you both, and making nasty +speculations." Neither she nor Sylvia noticed that for an instant, in +her haste, she had quite dropped her careful pretension that Sylvia +could, of course, if she had really cared to.... + +Sylvia set her jaw, an action curiously visible under the smooth, +subtle modeling of her young cheeks. She said to Helene in a quiet +voice: "_Mais bien sur!_ Tell her we're not yet dressed, but if she +will give herself the trouble to come up...." + +Helene nodded and retreated. Sylvia looked rather pale. + +"You don't know what a joy your perfect French is to me, dear," said +Mrs. Marshall-Smith, still rapidly turning every peg in sight in an +endeavor to loosen tension; but no noticeable relaxation took place in +Sylvia. It did not seem to her at just that moment of great importance +that she could speak good French. + +With desperate haste she was saying to herself, "At least Molly +doesn't know about anything. I told her I didn't care. She believed +me. I must go on pretending that I don't. But can I! But can I!" + +Light, rapid steps came flying up the stairs and down the long hall. +"Sylvia! Sylvia!" Molly was evidently hesitating between doors. + +"Here--this way--last door--Aunt Victoria's room!" called Sylvia, and +felt like a terror-stricken actor making a first public appearance, +enormously surprised, relieved, and heartened to find her usual voice +still with her. As Molly came flying into the room, she ran to meet +her. They fell into each other's arms with incoherent ejaculations +and, under the extremely appreciative eye of Mrs. Marshall-Smith, +kissed each other repeatedly. + +"Oh, isn't she the dear!" cried Molly, shaking out amply to the breeze +a victor's easy generosity. "Isn't she the darlingest girl in the +world! She _understands_ so! When I saw how perfectly _sweet_ she was +the day Arnold and Judith announced their engagement, I said to myself +I wanted her to be the first person I spoke to about mine." + +The approach of the inexorable necessity for her first words roused +Sylvia to an inspiration which struck out an almost visible spark +of admiration from her aunt. "You just count too much on my being +'queer,' Molly," she said playfully, pulling the other girl down +beside her, with an affectionate gesture. "How do _you_ know that I'm +not fearfully jealous of you? _Such_ a charmer as your fiance is!" + +Molly laughed delightedly. "Isn't she wonderful--not to care a +bit--really!" she appealed to Sylvia's aunt. "How anybody _could_ +resist Felix--but then she's so clever. She's wonderful!" + +Sylvia, smiling, cordial, clear-eyed and bitter-hearted, thought that +she really was. + +"But I can't talk about it here!" cried Molly restlessly. "I came to +carry Sylvia off. I can't sit still at home. I want to go ninety miles +an hour! I can't think straight unless I'm behind the steering-wheel. +Come along, Sylvia!" + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith thereupon showed herself, for all her amenity and +grace, more of a match of Molly's force and energy than either Sylvia +or Morrison had been on a certain rather memorable occasion ten +days before. She opposed the simple irresistible obstacle of a flat +command. "Sylvia's _not_ going out in a car dressed in a lace-trimmed +negligee, with a boudoir cap on, whether you get what you want the +minute you want it or not, Molly Sommerville," she said with the +authoritative accent which had always quelled Arnold in his boyhood +(as long as he was within earshot). The method was effective now. +Molly laughed. Sylvia even made shift to laugh; and Helene was +summoned to put on the trim shirt-waist, the short cloth skirt and +close hat which Mrs. Marshall-Smith selected with care and the history +of which she detailed at length, so copiously that there was no +opportunity to speak of anything less innocuous. Her unusual interest +in the matter even caused her to accompany the girls to the head of +the stairs, still talking, and she called down to them finally as they +went out of the front door, "... it's the only way with Briggs--he's +simply incorrigible about delays--and yet nobody does skirts as he +does! You just have to tell him you _will not take it_, if he doesn't +get it done on time!" + +Sylvia cast an understanding, grateful upward look at her aunt and +stepped into the car. So far it had gone better than she feared. But a +tete-a-tete with Molly, overflowing with the confidences of the newly +betrothed--she was not sure that she could get through with that with +credit. + +Molly, however, seemed as little inclined to overflow as Sylvia to +have her. She talked of everything in the world except of Felix +Morrison; and it was not long before Sylvia's acuteness discovered +that she was not thinking of what she was saying. There passed through +her mind a wild, wretched notion that Molly might after all know--that +Felix might have been base enough to talk about her to Molly, that +Molly might be trying to "spare her." But this idea was instantly +rejected: Molly was not subtle enough to conceive of such a course, +and too headlong not to make a hundred blunders in carrying it out; +and besides, it would not explain her manner. She was abstracted +obviously for the simple reason that she had something on her mind, +something not altogether to her liking, judging from the uneasy color +which came and went in her face, by her rattling, senseless flow of +chatter, by her fidgeting, unnecessary adjustments of the mechanism of +the car. + +Sylvia herself, in spite of her greater self-control, looked out upon +the world with nothing of her usual eager welcome. The personality of +the man they did not name hung between and around the two women like a +cloud. As they swept along rapidly, young, fair, well-fed, beautifully +dressed, in the costly, shining car, their clouded faces might to a +country eye have been visible proofs of the country dictum that "rich +city folks don't seem to get no good out'n their money and their +automobiles: always layin' their ears back and lookin' 'bout as +cheerful as a balky horse." + +But the country eyes which at this moment fell on them were anything +but conscious of class differences. It was a desperate need which +reached out a gaunt claw and plucked at them when, high on the flank +of the mountain, as they swung around the corner of a densely wooded +road, they saw a wild-eyed man in overalls leap down from the bushes +and yell at them. + +Sylvia was startled and her first impression was the natural feminine +one of fear--a lonely road, a strange man, excited, perhaps drunk--But +Molly, without an instant's hesitation, ground the car to a stop in a +cloud of dust. "What's the matter?" she shouted as the man sprang up +on the running-board. He was gasping, purple, utterly spent, and for +an instant could only beat the air with his hands. Then he broke out +in a hoarse shout--the sound in that quiet sylvan spot was like a +tocsin: "Fire! An awful fire! Hewitt's pine woods--up that road!" He +waved a wild, bare arm--his shirt-sleeve was torn to the shoulder. "Go +and git help. They need all the men they can git!" + +He dropped from the running-board and ran back up the hill through the +bushes. They saw him lurch from one side to the other; he was still +exhausted from his dash down the mountain to the road; they heard the +bushes crash, saw them close behind him. He was gone. + +Sylvia's eyes were still on the spot where he had disappeared when she +was thrown violently back against the seat in a great leap forward of +the car. She caught at the side, at her hat, and saw Molly's face. It +was transfigured. The brooding restlessness was gone as acrid smoke +goes when the clear flame leaps up. + +"What are you doing?" shouted Sylvia. + +"To get help," answered Molly, opening the throttle another notch. +The first staggering plunge over, the car settled down to a terrific +speed, purring softly its puissant vibrant song of illimitable +strength. "Hear her sing! Hear her sing!" cried Molly. In three +minutes from the time the man had left them, they tore into the +nearest village, two miles from the woods. It seemed that in those +three minutes Molly had not only run the car like a demon, but had +formed a plan. Slackening speed only long enough to waltz with the car +on a street-corner while she shouted an inquiry to a passer-by, she +followed the wave of his hand and flashed down a side-street to a +big brick building which proclaimed itself in a great sign, "Peabody +Brush-back Factory." + +The car stopped. Molly sprang out and ran as though the car were a +rifle and she the bullet emerging from it. She ran into a large, ugly, +comfortable office, where several white-faced girls were lifting their +thin little fingers from typewriter keys to stare at the young woman +who burst through and in at a door marked "Manager." + +"There's a fire on the mountain--a great fire in Hewitt's pine woods," +she cried in a clear, peremptory voice that sounded like a young +captain leading a charge. "I can take nine men on my car. Will you +come with me and tell which men to go?" + +A dignified, elderly man, with smooth, gray hair and a black alpaca +office coat, sat perfectly motionless behind his desk and stared at +her in a petrified silence. Molly stamped her foot. "There's not an +instant to lose," she said; "they need every man they can get." + +"Who's the fire-warden of this township?" said the elderly man +foolishly, trying to assemble his wits. + +Molly appeared visibly to propel him from his chair by her fury. "Oh, +they need help _NOW_!" she cried. "Come on! Come on!" + +Then they stood together on the steps of the office. "Those men +unloading lumber over there could go," said the manager, "and I'll get +three more from the packing-rooms." + +"Don't go yourself! Send somebody to get them!" commanded Molly. "You +go and telephone anybody in town who has a car. There'll be sure to be +one or two at the garage." + +Sylvia gasped at the prodigy taking place before her eyes, the +masterful, keen-witted captain of men who emerged like a thunderbolt +from their Molly--Molly, the pretty little beauty of the summer +colony! + +She had galvanized the elderly New Englander beside her out of his +first momentary apathy of stupefaction. He now put his own competent +hand to the helm and took command. + +"Yes," he said, and with the word it was evident that he was aroused. +Over his shoulder, in a quiet voice that carried like the crack of a +gun: "Henderson, go get three men from the packing-room to go to a +forest-fire. Shut down the machinery. Get all the able-bodied men +ready in gangs of seven. Perkins, you 'phone Tim O'Keefe to bring my +car here at once. And get Pat's and Tom's and the two at the hotel." + +"Tools?" said Molly. + +He nodded and called out to the men advancing with a rush on the car: +"There are hoes and shovels inside the power-house door. Better take +some axes too." + +In four minutes from the time they had entered the village (Sylvia had +her watch in her hand) they were flying back, the car packed with men +in overalls and clustered thick with others on the running-board. Back +of them the whistle of the factory shrieked a strident announcement of +disaster. Women and children ran to the doors to stare up and down, +to cry out, to look and with dismayed faces to see the great cloud of +gray smoke pouring up from the side of the mountain. There was no soul +in that village who did not know what a forest-fire meant. + +Then in a flash the car had left the village and was rushing along the +dusty highroad, the huge, ominous pillar of smoke growing nearer. The +men stared up at it with sober faces. "Pretty hot fire!" said one +uneasily. + +They reached the place where the man had yelled to them--ten minutes +exactly since they had left it. Molly turned the car into the steep +sandy side-road which led up the mountain. The men shouted out in +remonstrance, "Hey, lady! You can't git a car up there. We'll have to +walk the rest of the way. They don't never take cars there." + +"This one is going up," sang out Molly gallantly, almost gaily, +opening the throttle to its fullest and going into second speed. + +The sound of the laboring engine jarred loudly through all the still, +hot woods; the car shook and trembled under the strain on it. Molly +dropped into low. A cloud of evil-smelling blue gasoline smoke rose +up from the exhaust behind, but the car continued to advance. Rising +steadily, coughing and choking, up the cruelly steep grades, +bumping heavily down over the great water-bars, smoking, rattling, +quivering--the car continued to advance. A trickle of perspiration ran +down Molly's cheeks. The floor was hot under their feet, the smell of +hot oil pungent in their nostrils. + +They were eight minutes from the main road now, and near the fire. +Over the trail hung a cloud of smoke, and, as they turned a corner and +came through this, they saw that they had arrived. Sylvia drew back +and crooked her arm over her eyes. She had never seen a forest fire +before. She came from the plain-country, where trees are almost +sacred, and her first feeling was of terror. But then she dropped her +arm and looked, and looked again at the glorious, awful sight which +was to furnish her with nightmares for months to come. + +The fire was roaring down one side of the road towards them, and away +to the right was eating its furious, sulphurous way into the heart of +the forest. They stopped a hundred feet short, but the blare of heat +struck on their faces like a blow. Through the dense masses of smoke, +terrifying glimpses of fierce, clean flame; a resinous dead stump +burning like a torch; a great tree standing helpless like a martyr at +the stake, suddenly transformed into a frenzied pillar of fire.... +Along the front of this whirlpool of flame toiled, with despairing +fury, four lean, powerful men. As they raised their blackened, +desperate faces and saw the car there, actually there, incredibly +there, black with its load of men, they gave a deep-throated shout of +relief, though they did not for an instant stop the frantic plying of +their picks and hoes. The nine men sprang out, their implements in +their hands, and dispersed along the fighting-line. + +Molly backed the car around, the rear wheels churning up the sand, and +plunged down the hill into the smoke. Through the choking fumes of +this, Sylvia shouted at her, "Molly! Molly! You're _great_!" She felt +that she would always hear ringing in her ears that thrilling, hoarse +shout of relief. + +Molly shouted in answer, "I could scream, I'm so happy!" And as they +plunged madly down the mountain road, she said: "Oh, Sylvia, you don't +know--I never was any use before--never once--never! I got the first +load of help there! How they shouted!" + +At the junction of the side-road with the highway, a car was +discharging a load of men with rakes and picks. "_I_ took my car up!" +screamed Molly, leaning from the steering wheel but not slackening +speed as she tore past them. + +The driver of the other car, a young man with the face of a fighting +Celt, flushed at the challenge and, motioning the men back into the +car, started up the sandy hill. Molly laughed aloud. "I never was so +happy in my life!" she said again. + +Both girls had forgotten the existence of Felix Morrison. + +They passed cars now, many of them, streaming south at breakneck +speed, full to overflowing with unsmiling men in working clothes, +bristling with long-handled implements. But as they fled down the +street to the factory they saw, waiting still, some twenty or more men +in overalls drawn up, ready, armed, resolute.... + +"How strong men are!" said Molly, gazing in ecstasy at this array of +factory hands. "I love them!" She added under her breath, "But _I_ +take them there!" + +While the men were swarming into the car, the gray-haired manager +came out to report, as though to an officer equal in command, "I've +telephoned to Ward and Howe's marble-works in Chitford," he said. +"They've sent down fifty men from there. About seventy-five have gone +from this village. I suppose all the farmers in that district are +there by this time." + +"Will they ever stop it!" asked Sylvia despairingly, seeing wherever +she looked nothing but that ravening, fiery leap of the flames, +feeling that terrible hot breath on her cheek. + +The question and accent brought the man for the first time to a +realization of the girls' youth and sex. He shifted to paternal +reassurance. "Oh yes, oh yes," he said, looking up the valley +appraisingly at the great volume of the smoke, "with a hundred and +fifty men there, almost at once, they'll have it under control before +long. Everything with a forest fire depends on getting help there +_quickly_. Ten men there almost at once do more than fifty men an hour +later. That's why your friend's promptness was so important. I guess +it might have been pretty bad if they'd had to wait for help till one +of them could have run to the village. A fire, a bad fire like that, +gets so in an hour that you can't stop it--can't stop it till it gets +out where you can plow a furrow around it. And that's a terrible place +for a fire up there. Lots of slash left." + +Molly called over her shoulder to the men climbing on the car, "All +ready there?" and was off, a Valkyr with her load of heroes. + +Once more the car toiled and agonized up the execrable sandy steepness +of the side-road; but in the twenty minutes since they had been there +the tide had turned. Sylvia was amazed at the total shifting of +values. Instead of four solitary workers, struggling wildly against +overwhelming odds, a long line of men, working with a disciplined, +orderly haste, stretched away into the woods. Imperious and savage, +the smoke and swift flames towered above them, leaping up into the +very sky, darkening the sun. Bent over their rakes, their eyes on the +ground, mere black specks against the raging glory of the fire, the +line of men, with an incessant monotonous haste, drew away the dry +leaves with their rakes, while others who followed them tore at the +earth with picks and hoes. It was impossible to believe that such +ant-labors could avail, but already, near the road, the fire had burnt +itself out, baffled by its microscopic assailants. As far as the girls +could see into the charred underbrush, a narrow, clean line of freshly +upturned earth marked where the fiercest of all the elements had +been vanquished by the humblest of all the tools of men. Bewildered, +Sylvia's eyes shifted from the toiling men to the distance, across the +blackened desolation near them, to where the fire still tossed its +wicked crest of flames defiantly into the forest. She heard, but +she did not believe the words of the men in the car, who cried out +expertly as they ran forward, "Oh, the worst's over. They're shutting +down on it." How could the worst be over, when there was still that +whirling horror of flame and smoke beyond them? + +Just after the men had gone, exultant, relieved, the girls turned +their heads to the other side of the road, and there, very silent, +very secret and venomous, leaped and glittered a little ring of +flames. An hour before, it would have looked a pretty, harmless sight +to the two who now sat, stricken by horror into a momentary frozen +stillness. The flames licked at the dry leaves and playfully sprang up +into a clump of tall dry grass. The fire was running swiftly towards a +bunch of dead alders standing at the edge of the forest. Before it had +spread an inch further, the girls were upon it, screaming for help, +screaming as people in civilization seldom scream, with all their +lungs. With uplifted skirts they stamped and trod out, under swift and +fearless feet, the sinister, silent, yellow tongues. They snatched +branches of green leaves and beat fiercely at the enemy. It had been +so small a spot compared to the great desolation across the road, they +stamped out the flames so easily, that the girls expected with every +breath to see the last of it. To see it escape them, to see it +suddenly flare up where it had been dead, to see it appear behind +them while they were still fighting it in front, was like being in a +nightmare when effort is impossible. The ring widened with appalling, +with unbelievable rapidity. Sylvia could not think it possible that +anything outside a dream could have such devouring swiftness. She trod +and snatched and stamped and screamed, and wondered if she were indeed +awake.... + +Yet in an instant their screams had been heard, three or four +smoke-blackened fire-fighters from beyond the road ran forward with +rakes, and in a twinkling the danger was past. Its disappearance was +as incredible as its presence. + +"Ain't that just like a fire in the woods?" said one of the men, an +elderly farmer. He drew a long, tremulous breath. "It's so tarnation +_quick_! It's either all over before you can ketch your breath, or +it's got beyond you for good." It evidently did not occur to him to +thank the girls for their part. They had only done what every one did +in an emergency, the best they could. He looked back at the burned +tract on the other side of the road and said: "They've got the best +of that all right, too. I jest heard 'em shoutin' that the men from +Chitford had worked round from the upper end. So they've got a ring +round it. Nothin' to do now but watch that it don't jump. My! 'Twas a +close call. I've been to a lot of fires in my day, but I d'know as I +ever see a _closeter_ call!" + +"It can't be _over_!" cried Sylvia, looking at the lurid light across +the road. "Why, it isn't an hour since we--" + +"Land! No, it ain't _over!_" he explained, scornful of her +inexperience. "They'll have to have a gang of men here watchin' it all +night--and maybe all tomorrow--'less we have some rain. But it won't +go no further than the fire-line, and as soon as there're men enough +to draw that all around, it's _got_ to stop!" He went on to his +companion, irritably, pressing his hand to his side: "There ain't no +use talkin', I got to quit fire-fightin'. My heart 'most gi'n out on +me in the hottest of that. And yit I'm only sixty!" + +"It ain't no job for old folks," said the other bitterly. "If it had +ha' gone a hundred feet further that way, 'twould ha' been in where +Ed Hewitt's been lumberin', and if it had got into them dry tops and +brush--well, I guess 'twould ha' gone from here to Chitford village +before it stopped. And 'twouldn't ha' stopped there, neither!" + +The old man said reflectively: "'Twas the first load of men did the +business. 'Twas nip and tuck down to the last foot if we could stop it +on that side. I tell you, ten minutes of that kind o' work takes about +ten years off'n a man's life. We'd just about gi'n up when we saw 'em +coming. I bet I won't be no gladder to see the pearly gates than I was +to see them men with hoes." + +Molly turned a glowing, quivering face of pride on Sylvia, and then +looked past her shoulder with a startled expression into the eyes of +one of the fire-fighters, a tall, lean, stooping man, blackened +and briar-torn like the rest. "Why, Cousin Austin!" she cried with +vehement surprise, "what in the world--" In spite of his grime, she +gave him a hearty, astonished, affectionate kiss. + +"I was just wondering," said the man, smiling indulgently down on her, +"how soon you'd recognize me, you little scatter-brain." + +"I thought you were going to stick in Colorado all summer," said +Molly. + +"Well, I heard they were short of help at Austin Farm and I came on +to help get in the hay," said the man. Both he and Molly seemed to +consider this a humorous speech. Then, remembering Sylvia, Molly went +through a casual introduction. "This is my cousin--Austin Page--my +_favorite_ cousin! He's really awfully nice, though so plain to look +at." She went on, still astonished, "But how'd you get _here?_" + +"Why, how does anybody in Vermont get to a forest fire?" he answered. +"We were out in the hayfield, saw the smoke, left the horses, grabbed +what tools we could find, and beat it through the woods. That's the +technique of the game up here." + +"I didn't know your farm ran anywhere near here," said Molly. + +"It isn't so terribly near. We came across lots tolerable fast. But +there's a little field, back up on the edge of the woods that isn't so +far. Grandfather used to raise potatoes there. I've got it into hay +now," he explained. + +As they talked, the fire beyond them gave definite signs of yielding. +It had evidently been stopped on the far side and now advanced +nowhere, showed no longer a malign yellow crest, but only rolling +sullenly heavenward a diminishing cloud of smoke. The fire-fighters +began to straggle back across the burned tract towards the road, their +eyeballs gleaming white in their dark faces. + +"Oh, they mustn't walk! I'll take them back--the darlings!" said +Molly, starting for her car. She was quite her usual brisk, +free-and-easy self now. "Cracky! I hope I've got gas enough. I've +certainly been going _some!_" + +"Why don't you leave me here?" suggested Sylvia. "I'll walk home. +That'll leave room for one more." + +"Oh, you can't do that!" protested Molly faintly, though she was +evidently at once struck with the plan. "How'd you find your way +home?" She turned to her cousin. "See here, Austin, why don't _you_ +take Sylvia home? You ought to go anyhow and see Grandfather. Hell be +awfully hurt to think you're here and haven't been to see him." She +threw instantly into this just conceived idea the force which always +carried through her plans. "Do go! I feel so grateful to these men I +don't want one of them to walk a step!" + +Sylvia had thought of a solitary walk, longing intensely for +isolation, and she did not at all welcome the suggestion of adapting +herself to a stranger. The stranger, on his part, looked a very +unchivalrous hesitation; but this proved to be only a doubt of +Sylvia's capacity as a walker. + +"If you don't mind climbing a bit, I can take you over the gap between +Hemlock and Windward Mountain and make a bee-line for Lydford. It's +not an hour from here, that way, but it's ten miles around by the +road--and hot and dusty too." + +"Can she _climb_!" ejaculated Molly scornfully, impatient to be off +with her men. "She went up to Prospect Rock in forty minutes." + +She high-handedly assumed that everything was settled as she wished +it, and running towards the car, called with an easy geniality to the +group of men, starting down the road on foot, "Here, wait a minute, +folks, I'll take you back!" + +She mounted the car, started the engine, waved her hand to the two +behind her, and was off. + +The lean, stooping man looked dubiously at Sylvia. "You're sure you +don't mind a little climb?" he said. + +"Oh no, I like it," she said listlessly. The moment for her was of +stale, wearied return to real life, to the actual world which she was +continually finding uglier than she hoped. The recollection of Felix +Morrison came back to her in a bitter tide. + +"All ready?" asked her companion, mopping his forehead with a very +dirty handkerchief. + +"All ready," she said and turned, with a hanging head, to follow him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +BETWEEN WINDWARD AND HEMLOCK MOUNTAINS + + +For a time as they plodded up the steep wood-road, overgrown with +ferns and rank grass, with dense green walls of beech and oak saplings +on either side, what few desultory remarks they exchanged related to +Molly, she being literally the only topic of common knowledge between +them. Sylvia, automatically responding to her deep-lying impulse to +give pleasure, to be pleasing, made an effort to overcome her somber +lassitude and spoke of Molly's miraculous competence in dealing with +the fire. Her companion said that of course Molly hadn't made all that +up out of her head on the spur of the moment. After spending every +summer of her life in Lydford, it would be surprising if so energetic +a child as Molly hadn't assimilated the Vermont formula for fighting +fire. "They always put for the nearest factory and get all hands out," +he explained, adding meditatively, as he chewed on a twig: "All the +same, the incident shows what I've always maintained about Molly: +that she is, like 'most everybody, lamentably miscast. Molly's spirit +oughtn't to have taken up its abiding place in that highly ornamental +blond shell, condemned after a fashionable girl's education to +pendulum swings between Paris and New York and Lydford. It doesn't fit +for a cent. It ought to have for habitation a big, gaunt, powerful +man's body, and for occupation the running of a big factory." He +seemed to be philosophizing more to himself than to Sylvia, and beyond +a surprised look into his extremely grimy face, she made no comment. +She had taken for granted from the talk between him and Molly that he +was one of the "forceful, impossible Montgomery cousins," and had +cast her own first remarks in a tone calculated to fit in with +the supposititious dialect of such a person. But his voice, his +intonations, and his whimsical idea about Molly fitted in with the +conception of an "impossible" as little as with the actual visible +facts of his ragged shirt-sleeves and faded, earth-stained overalls. +They toiled upwards in silence for some moments, the man still chewing +on his birch-twig. He noticed her sidelong half-satirical glance at +it. "Don't you want one?" he asked, and gravely cut a long, slim rod +from one of the saplings in the green wall shutting them into the +road. As he gave it to her he explained, "It's the kind they make +birch beer of. You nip off the bark with your teeth. You'll like it." + +Still more at sea as to what sort of person he might be, and now +fearing perhaps to wound him if he should turn out to be a very +unsophisticated one, Sylvia obediently set her teeth to the lustrous, +dark bark and tore off a bit, which gave out in her mouth a mild, +pleasant aromatic tang, woodsy and penetrating, unlike any other taste +she knew. "Good, isn't it?" said her companion simply. + +She nodded, slowly awakening to a tepid curiosity about the individual +who strode beside her, lanky and powerful in his blue jeans. What an +odd circumstance, her trudging off through the woods thus with a guide +of whom she knew nothing except that he was Molly Sommerville's cousin +and worked a Vermont farm--and had certainly the dirtiest face she had +ever seen, with the exception of the coal-blackened stokers in the +power-house of the University. He spoke again, as though in answer +to what might naturally be in her mind: "At the top of the road it +crosses a brook, and I think a wash would be possible. I've a bit +of soap in my pocket that'll help--though it takes quite a lot of +scrubbing to get off fire-fighting grime." He looked pointedly down at +her as he talked. + +Sylvia was so astonished that she dropped back through years of +carefully acquired self-consciousness into a moment of the stark +simplicity of childhood. "Why--is _my_ face dirty?" she cried out. + +The man beside her apparently found the contrast between her looks and +the heartfelt sincerity of her question too much for him. He burst +into helpless laughter, though he was adroit enough to thrust forward +as a pretext, "The picture of my _own_ grime that I get from your +accent is tremendous!" But it was evidently not at his own joke that +he was laughing. + +For an instant Sylvia hung poised very near to extreme annoyance. +Never since she had been grown up, had she appeared at such an absurd +disadvantage. But at once the mental picture of herself, making +inaudible carping strictures on her companion's sootiness and, all +unconscious, lifting to observe it a critical countenance as swart as +his own--the incongruity smote her deliciously, irresistibly! Sore +heart or not, black depression notwithstanding, she needs must laugh, +and having laughed, laugh again, laugh louder and longer, and finally, +like a child, laugh for the sake of laughing, till out through this +unexpected channel she discharged much of the stagnant bitterness +around her heart. + +Her companion laughed with her. The still, sultry summer woods echoed +with the sound. "How human, how lusciously _human_!" he exclaimed. +"Neither of us thought that _he_ might be the blackened one!" + +"Oh, mine _can't_ be as bad as yours!" gasped out Sylvia, but when +she rubbed a testing handkerchief on her cheek, she went off in fresh +peals at the sight of the resultant black smears. + +"Don't, for Heaven's sake, waste that handkerchief," cautioned her +companion. "It's the only towel between us. Mine's impossible!" He +showed her the murky rag which was his own; and as they spoke, they +reached the top of the road, heard the sound of water, and stood +beside the brook. + +He stepped across it, in one stride of his long legs, rolled up his +shirt-sleeves, took a book out of his pocket, laid it on a stone, and +knelt down. "I choose this for _my_ wash-basin," he said, indicating a +limpid pool paved with clean gray pebbles. + +Sylvia answered in the same note of play, "This'll be mine." It lay +at the foot of a tiny waterfall, plashing with a tinkling note into +transparent shallows. She cast an idle glance on the book he had laid +down and read its title, "A History of the Institution of Property," +and reflected that she had been right in thinking it had a +familiar-looking cover. She had dusted books with that sort of cover +all her life. + +Molly's cousin produced from his overalls a small piece of yellow +kitchen-soap, which he broke into scrupulously exact halves and +presented with a grave flourish to Sylvia. "Now, go to it," he +exhorted her; "I bet I get a better wash than you." + +Sylvia took off her hat, rolled up her sleeves, and began on vigorous +ablutions. She had laughed, yes, and heartily, but in her complicated +many-roomed heart a lively pique rubbed shoulders with her mirth, and +her merriment was tinctured with a liberal amount of the traditional +feminine horrified disgust at having been uncomely, at having +unconsciously been subjected to an indignity. She was determined that +no slightest stain should remain on her smooth, fine-textured skin. +She felt, as a pretty woman always feels, that her personality was +indissolubly connected with her looks, and it was a symbolic act which +she performed as she fiercely scrubbed her face with the yellow soap +till its acrid pungency blotted out for her the woodland aroma of +moist earth and green leaves. She dashed the cold water up on her +cheeks till the spattering drops gleamed like crystals on the crisp +waviness of her ruddy brown hair. She washed her hands and arms in the +icy mountain water till they were red with the cold, hot though the +day was. She was chilled, and raw with the crude astringency of the +soap, but she felt cleansed to the marrow of her bones, as though +there had been some mystic quality in this lustration in running +water, performed under the open sky. The racy, black-birch tang still +lingering on her tongue was a flavor quite in harmony with this +severely washed feeling. It was a taste notably clean. + +She looked across the brook at her companion, now sitting back on his +heels, and saw that there had emerged from his grime a thin, tanned, +high-nosed face, topped by drab-colored hair of no great abundance and +lighted by a pair of extraordinarily clear, gray eyes. She perceived +no more in the face at that moment, because the man, as he looked up +at her, became nothing but a dazzled mirror from which was reflected +back to her the most flattering image of her own appearance. Almost +actually she saw herself as she appeared to him, a wood-nymph, +kneeling by the flowing water, vital, exquisite, strong, radiant in a +cool flush, her uncovered hair gleaming in a thousand loosened waves. +Like most comely women of intelligence Sylvia was intimately familiar +with every phase of her own looks, and she knew down to the last +blood-corpuscle that she had never looked better. But almost at once +came the stab that Felix Morrison was not the man who was looking at +her, and the heartsick recollection that he would never again be there +to see her. Her moment of honest joy in being lovely passed. She stood +up with a clouded face, soberly pulled down her sleeves, and picked up +her hat. + +"Oh, why don't you leave it off?" said the man across the brook. +"You'd be so much more comfortable!" She knew that he meant her hair +was too pretty to cover, and did not care what he meant. "All right, +I'll carry it," she assented indifferently. + +He did not stir, gazing up at her frankly admiring. Sylvia made out, +from the impression he evidently now had of her, that her face had +really been very, very dirty; and at the recollection of that absurd +ascent of the mountain by those two black-faced, twig-chewing +individuals, a return of irrepressible laughter quivered on her lips. +Before his eyes, as swiftly, as unaccountably, as utterly as an April +day shifts its moods, she had changed from radiant, rosy wood-goddess +to saddened mortal and thence on into tricksy, laughing elf. He burst +out on her, "Who _are_ you, anyhow?" + +She remembered with a start. "Why, that's so, Molly didn't mention my +name--isn't that like Molly! Why, I'm Sylvia Marshall," + +"You may be _named_ Sylvia Marshall!" he said, leaving an inference in +the air like incense. + +"Well, yes, to be sure," rejoined Sylvia; "I heard somebody only the +other day say that an introduction was the quaintest of grotesques, +since people's names are the most--" + +He applied a label with precision. "Oh, you know Morrison?" + +She was startled at this abrupt emergence of the name which secretly +filled her mind and was aware with exasperation that she was blushing. +Her companion appeared not to notice this. He was attempting the +difficult feat of wiping his face on the upper part of his sleeve, +and said in the intervals of effort: "Well, you know _my_ name. Molly +didn't forget that." + +"But _I_ did," Sylvia confessed. "I was so excited by the fire I never +noticed at all. I've been racking my brains to remember, all the way +up here." + +For some reason the man seemed quite struck with this statement and +eyed her with keenness as he said: "Oh--really? Well, my name is +Austin Page." At the candid blankness of her face he showed a boyish +flash of white teeth in a tanned face. "Do you mean to say you've +never heard of me?" + +"_Should_ I?" said Sylvia, with a graceful pretense of alarm. "Do you +write, or something? Lay it to my ignorance. It's immense." + +He shook his head. He smiled down on her. She noticed now that his +eyes were very kind as well as clear and keen. "No, I don't write, or +anything. There's no reason why you should ever have heard of me. I +only thought--I thought possibly Molly or Uncle George might have +happened to mention me." + +"I'm only on from the West for a visit," explained Sylvia. "I never +was in Lydford before. I don't know the people there." + +"Well then, to avoid Morrison's strictures on introductions I'll add +to my name the information that I am thirty-two years old; a graduate +of Columbia University; that I have some property in Colorado which +gives me a great deal of trouble; and a farm with a wood lot in +Vermont which is the joy of my heart. I cannot endure politics; I +play the flute, like my eggs boiled three minutes, and admire George +Meredith." + +His manoeuvers with his sleeve were so preposterous that Sylvia now +cried to him: "Oh, don't twist around that way. You'll give yourself +a crick in the neck. Here's my handkerchief. We were going to share +that, anyhow." + +"And you," he went on gravely, wiping his face with the bit of +cambric, "are Sylvia Marshall, presumably Miss; you can laugh at a +joke on yourself; are not afraid to wash your face with kitchen soap; +and apparently are the only girl in the twentieth century who has not +a mirror and a powder-puff concealed about her person." + +All approbation was sweet to Sylvia. She basked in this. "Oh, I'm +a Hottentot, a savage from the West, as I told you," she said +complacently. + +"You've been in Lydford long enough to hear Morrison hold forth on the +idiocies of social convention, the while he neatly manipulates them to +his own advantage." + +Sylvia had dreaded having to speak of Morrison, but she was now +greatly encouraged by the entire success of her casual tone, as she +explained, "Oh, he's an old friend of my aunt's, and he's been at the +house a good deal." She ventured to try herself further, and inquired +with a bright look of interest, "What do you think of his engagement +to your cousin Molly?" + +He was petrified with astonishment. "_Molly_ engaged to _Morrison_!" +he cried. "We can't be talking about the same people. I mean _Felix_ +Morrison the critic." + +She felt vindicated by his stupefaction and liked him for it. "Why, +yes; hadn't you heard?" she asked, with an assumption of herself +seeing nothing surprising in the news. + +"No, I hadn't, and I can't believe it now!" he said, blinking his +eyes. "I never heard such an insane combination of names in my life." +He went on, "What under the _sun_ does Molly want of Morrison!" + +Sylvia was vexed with him for this unexpected view. He was not so +discerning as she had thought. She turned away and picked up her hat. +"We ought to be going on," she said, and as they walked she answered, +"You don't seem to have a very high opinion of Mr. Morrison." + +He protested with energy. "Oh yes, I have. Quite the contrary, I think +him one of the most remarkable men I know, and one of the finest. I +admire him immensely. I'd trust his taste sooner than I would my own." + +To this handsome tribute Sylvia returned, smiling, "The inference is +that you don't think much of Molly." + +"I _know_ Molly!" he said simply. "I've known her and loved her ever +since she was a hot-tempered, imperious little girl--which is all she +is now. Engaged ... and engaged to Morrison! It's a plain case of +schoolgirl infatuation!" He was lost in wonder, uneasy wonder it +seemed, for after a period of musing he brought out: "They'll cut each +other's throats inside six months. Or Molly'll cut her own. What under +the sun was her grandfather thinking of?" + +Sylvia said gravely, "Girls' grandfathers have such an influence in +their marriages." + +He smiled a rueful recognition of the justice of her thrust and then +fell into silence. + +The road did not climb up now, but led along the side of the mountain. +Through the dense woods the sky-line, first guessed at, then clearly +seen between the thick-standing tree-trunks, sank lower and lower. +"We are approaching," said Page, motioning in front of them, "the +jumping-off place." They passed from the tempered green light of the +wood and emerged upon a great windy plateau, carpeted thickly with +deep green moss, flanked right and left with two mountain peaks and +roofed over with an expanse of brilliant summer sky. Before them the +plateau stretched a mile or more, wind-swept, sun-drenched, with an +indescribable bold look of great altitude; but close to them at one +side ran a parapet-like line of tumbled rock and beyond this a sheer +descent. The eye leaped down abrupt slopes of forest to the valley +they had left, now a thousand feet below them, jewel-like with mystic +blues and greens, tremulous with heat. On the noble height where they +stood, the wind blew cool from the sea of mist-blue peaks beyond the +valley. + +Sylvia was greatly moved. "Oh, what a wonderful spot!" she said under +her breath. "I never dreamed that anything could be--" She burst out +suddenly, scarcely knowing what she said, "Oh, I wish my _mother_ +could be here!" She had not thought of her mother for days, and now +hardly knew that she had spoken her name. Standing there, poised above +the dark richness of the valley, her heart responding to those vast +airy spaces by an upward-soaring sweep, the quick tears of ecstasy +were in her eyes. She had entirely forgotten herself and her +companion. He did not speak. His eyes were on her face. + +She moved to the parapet of rock and leaned against it. The action +brought her to herself and she flashed around on Page a grateful +smile. "It's a very beautiful spot you've brought me to," she said. + +He came up beside her now. "It's a favorite of mine," he said quietly. +"If I come straight through the woods it's not more than a mile from +my farm. I come up here for the sunsets sometimes--or for dawn." + +Sylvia found the idea almost too much for her. "_Oh!_" she +cried--"dawn here!" + +"Yes," said the man, smiling faintly. "It's all of that!" + +In her life of plains and prairies Sylvia had never been upon a great +height, had never looked down and away upon such reaches of far +valley, such glorious masses of sunlit mountain; and beyond them, +giving wings to the imagination, were mountains, more mountains, +distant, incalculably distant, with unseen hollow valleys between; and +finally, mountains again, half cloud, melting indistinguishably into +the vaporous haze of the sky. Above her, sheer and vast, lay Hemlock +Mountain, all its huge bulk a sleeping, passionless calm. Beyond was +the solemnity of Windward Mountain's concave shell, full to the +brim with brooding blue shadows, a well of mystery in that day of +wind-blown sunshine. Beneath her, above her, before her, seemingly the +element in which she was poised, was space, illimitable space. She had +never been conscious of such vastness, she was abashed by it, she was +exalted by it, she knew a moment of acute shame for the pettiness of +her personal grievances. For a time her spirit was disembarrassed +of the sorry burden of egotism, and she drank deep from the cup of +healing which Nature holds up in such instants of beatitude. Her eyes +were shining pools of peace.... + +They went on in a profound silence across the plateau, the deep, soft +moss bearing them up with a tough elasticity, the sun hot and lusty +on their heads, the sweet, strong summer wind swift and loud in their +ears, the only sound in all that enchanted upland spot. Often Sylvia +lifted her face to the sky, so close above her, to the clouds moving +with a soundless rhythm across the sky; once or twice she turned her +head suddenly from one side to the other, to take in all the beauty at +one glance, and smiled on it all, a vague, sunny, tender smile. But +she did not speak. + +As she trod on the thick moss upspringing under her long, light step, +her advance seemed as buoyant as though she stepped from cloud to +cloud.... + +When they reached the other side, and were about to begin the descent +into Lydford valley, she lingered still. She looked down into the +valley before her, across to the mountains, and, smiling, with +half-shut eyes of supreme satisfaction, she said under her breath: +"It's Beethoven--just the blessedness of Beethoven! The valley is +a legato passage, quiet and flowing; those far, up-pricking hills, +staccato; and the mountains here, the solemn chords." + +Her companion did not answer. She looked up at him, inquiringly, +thinking that he had not heard her, and found him evidently too deeply +moved to speak. She was startled, almost frightened, almost shocked by +the profundity of his gaze upon her. Her heart stood still and gave +a great leap. Chiefly she was aware of an immense astonishment and +incredulity. An hour before he had never seen her, had never heard of +her--and during that hour she had been barely aware of him, absorbed +in herself, indifferent. How could he in that hour have ... + +He looked away and said steadily, "--and the river is the melody that +binds it all together." + +Sylvia drew a great breath of relief. She had been the victim of some +extraordinary hallucination: "--with the little brooks for variations +on the theme," she added hastily. + +He held aside an encroaching briar, stretching its thorny arm across +the path. "Here's the beginning of the trail down to Lydford," he +said. "We will be there in twenty minutes. It's almost a straight drop +down." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +SYLVIA ASKS HERSELF "WHY NOT?" + + +If Sylvia wondered, as she dropped down the heights to the valley, +what her reception might be at her aunt's ceremonious household when +she entered escorted by a strange hatless man in blue overalls, her +fancy fell immeasurably short of the actual ensuing sensation. Mrs. +Marshall-Smith, her stepson, Felix Morrison, and old Mr. Sommerville +were all sitting together on the wide north veranda, evidently waiting +to be called to luncheon when, at half-past one, the two pedestrians +emerged through a side wicket in the thick green hedge of spruce, and +advanced up the path, with the free, swinging step of people who have +walked far and well. The effect on the veranda was unimaginable. +Sheer, open-mouthed stupefaction blurred for an instant the composed, +carefully arranged masks of those four exponents of decorum. They +gaped and stared, unable to credit their eyes. + +And then, according to their natures, they acted. Mrs. Marshall-Smith +rose quickly, smiled brilliantly, and stepped forward with welcoming +outstretched hands. "Why, Sylvia dear, how delightful! What an +unexpected pleasure, Mr. Page!" + +Old Mr. Sommerville fairly bounded past Sylvia, caught the man's arm, +and said in an anxious, affectionate, startled voice, "Why, Austin! +Austin! Austin!" + +Morrison rose, but stood quietly by his chair, his face entirely +expressionless, palpably and correctly "at attention." He had not seen +Sylvia since the announcement of his engagement the day before. He +gave her now a graceful, silent, friendly salute from a distance as +she stood by her aunt, he called out to her companion a richly cordial +greeting of "Well, Page. This is luck indeed!" but he indicated by his +immobility that as a stranger he would not presume to go further until +the first interchange between blood-kin was over. + +As for Arnold, he neither stirred from his chair, nor opened his mouth +to speak. A slow smile widened on his lips: it expanded. He grinned +delightedly down at his cigarette, and up at the ceiling, and finally +broke into an open laugh of exquisite enjoyment of the scene before +him. + +Four people were talking at once; Mr. Sommerville, a dismayed old hand +still clutching at the new-comer, was protesting with extreme vigor, +and being entirely drowned out by the others. "Of course he can't +stay--as he _is!_ I'll go home with him at once! His room at my house +is always ready for him!--fresh clothes!--No, no--impossible to stay!" +Mrs. Marshall-Smith was holding firm with her loveliest manner of warm +friendliness concentrated on Page. "Oh, no ceremony, Mr. Page, not +between old friends. Luncheon is just ready--who cares how you look?" +She did not physically dispute with Mr. Sommerville the possession of +the new-comer, but she gave entirely that effect. + +Sylvia, unable to meet Morrison's eyes, absorbed in the difficulty of +the moment for her, unillumined by the byplay between her aunt and old +Mr. Sommerville, strove for an appearance of vivacious loquacity, and +cast into the conversation entirely disregarded bits of description +of the fire. "Oh, Tantine, such an excitement!--we took nine men +with hoes up such a steep--!" And finally Page, resisting old Mr. +Sommerville's pull on his arm, was saying: "If luncheon is ready, +and I'm invited, no more needs to be said. I've been haying and +fire-fighting since seven this morning. A wolf is nothing compared +with me." He looked across the heads of the three nearest him and +called to Arnold: "Smith, you'll lend me some flannels, won't you? We +must be much of the same build." + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith turned, taking no pains to hide her satisfaction. +She positively gloated over the crestfallen Mr. Sommerville. "Sylvia, +run quick and have Helene smooth your hair. And call to Tojiko to put +on an extra place for luncheon. Arnold, take Mr. Page up to your room, +won't you, so that he--" + +Sylvia, running up the stairs, heard her late companion protesting: +"Oh, just for a change of clothes, only a minute--you needn't expect +me to do any washing. I'm clean. I'm washed within an inch of my +life--yellow soap--kitchen soap!" + +"And our little scented toilet futilities," Morrison's cameo of +small-talk carried to the upper hall. "What could they add to such a +Spartan lustration?" + +"Hurry, Helene," said Sylvia. "It is late, and Mr. Page is dying of +hunger," + +In spite of the exhortation to haste, Helene stopped short, uplifted +brush in hand. "Mr. Page, the millionaire!" she exclaimed. + +Sylvia blinked at her in the glass, amazed conjectures racing through +her mind. But she had sufficient self-possession to say, carelessly as +though his identity was nothing to her: "I don't know. It is the first +time I have seen him. He certainly is not handsome." + +Helene thrust in the hairpins with impassioned haste and deftness, and +excitedly snatched a lace jacket from a drawer. To the maid's despair +Sylvia refused this adornment, refused the smallest touch of rouge, +refused an ornament in her hair. Helene wrung her hands. "But see, +Mademoiselle is not wise! For what good is it to be so savage! He is +more rich than all! They say he owns all the State of Colorado!" + +Sylvia, already in full retreat towards the dining-room, caught this +last geographic extravagance of Gallic fancy, and laughed, and with +this mirth still in her face made her re-entry on the veranda. She had +not been away three minutes from the group there, and she was to the +eye as merely flushed and gay when she came back as when she went +away; but a revolution had taken place. Closely shut in her hand, she +held, held fast, the key Helene had thrust there. Behind her smile, +her clear, bright look of valiant youth, a great many considerations +were being revolved with extreme rapidity by an extremely swift and +active brain. + +Swift and active as was the brain, it fairly staggered under the task +of instantly rearranging the world according to the new pattern: +for the first certainty to leap into sight was that the pattern was +utterly changed by the events of the morning. She had left the +house, betrayed, defenseless save for a barren dignity, and she had +re-entered it in triumph, or at least with a valid appearance of +triumph, an appearance which had already tided her over the aching +difficulty of the first meeting with Morrison and might carry her ... +she had no time now to think how far. + +Page and Arnold were still invisible when she emerged again on the +veranda, and Mrs. Marshall-Smith pounced on her with the frankest +curiosity. "Sylvia, do tell us--how in the world--" + +Sylvia was in the midst of a description of the race to the fire, as +vivid as she could make it, when Arnold sauntered back and after him, +in a moment, Page, astonishingly transformed by clothes. His height +meant distinction now. Sylvia noted again his long, strong hands, his +aquiline, tanned face and clear eyes, his thoughtful, observant eyes. +There was a whimsical quirk of his rather thin but gentle lips which +reminded her of the big bust of Emerson in her father's study. She +liked all this; but her suspiciousness, alert for affront, since the +experience with Morrison, took offense at his great ease of manner. It +had seemed quite natural and unaffected to her, in fact she had not at +all noticed it before; but now that she knew of his great wealth, she +instantly conceived a resentful idea that possibly it might come from +the self-assurance of a man who knows himself much courted. She held +her head high, gave to him as to Arnold a nod of careless recognition, +and continued talking: "Such a road--so steep--sand half-way to the +hubs, such water-bars!" She turned to Morrison with her first overt +recognition of the new status between them. "You ought to have seen +your fiancee! She was wonderful! I was proud of her!" + +Morrison nodded a thoughtful assent. "Yes, Molly's energy is +irresistible," he commented, casting his remark in the form of a +generalization the significance of which did not pass unnoticed by +Sylvia's sharp ears. They were the first words he had spoken to her +since his engagement. + +"Luncheon is ready," said Mrs. Marshall-Smith. "Do come in." Every one +by this time being genuinely hungry, and for various reasons extremely +curious about the happenings back of Sylvia's appearance, the meal was +dedicated frankly to eating, varied only by Sylvia's running account +of the fire. "And then Molly wanted to take the fire-fighters home, +and I offered to walk to have more room for them, and Mr. Page brought +me up the other side of Hemlock and over the pass between Hemlock and +Windward and down past Deer Cliff, home," she wound up, compressing +into tantalizing brevity what was patently for her listeners by far +the most important part of the expedition. + +"Well, whatever route he took, it is astonishing that he knew the way +to Lydford at all," commented Mrs. Marshall-Smith. "I don't believe +you've been here before for years!" she said to Page. + +"It's my confounded shyness," he explained, turning to Sylvia with a +twinkle. "The grand, sophisticated ways of Lydford are too much for +the nerves of a plain-living rustic like me. When I farm in Vermont +the spirit of the place takes hold of me. I'm quite apt to eat my pie +with my knife, and Lydford wouldn't like that." + +Sylvia was aware, through the laughter which followed this joking +remark, that there was an indefinable stir around the table. His +turning to her had been pronounced. She took a sore pleasure in +Morrison's eclipse. For the first time he was not the undisputed +center of that circle. He accepted it gravely, a little preoccupied, +a little absent, a wonderfully fine and dignified figure. Under her +misanthropic exultation, Sylvia felt again and again the stab of +her immense admiration for him, her deep affinity for his way of +conducting life. Whatever place he might take in the circle around the +luncheon table, she found him inevitably at the center of all her own +thoughts. However it might seem to those evidently greatly struck with +her extraordinary good luck, her triumph was in reality only the most +pitiful of pretenses. But such as it was, and it gleamed richly enough +on the eyes of the onlookers, she shook it out with a flourish and +gave no sign of heartsick qualms. She gave a brilliantly undivided +attention to the bit of local history Page was telling her, of a +regiment of Green Mountain Boys who had gone down to the Battle of +Bennington over the pass between Windward and Hemlock Mountain, and +she was able to stir Page to enthusiasm by an appreciative comparison +of their march with the splendid and affecting incident before +Marathon, when the thousand hoplites from the little town of Plataea +crossed the Cithaeron range and went down to the plain to join the +Athenians in their desperate stand. + +"How do you _happen_ to come East just now, anyhow?" inquired old Mr. +Sommerville, resolutely shouldering his way into the conversation. + +"My yellow streak!" affirmed his nephew. "Colorado got too much for +me. And besides, I was overcome by an atavistic longing to do chores." +He turned to Sylvia again, the gesture as unconscious and simple as a +boy's. "My great-grandfather was a native of these parts, and about +once in so often I revert to type." + +"All my mother's people came from this region too," Sylvia said. She +added meditatively, "And I think I must have reverted to type--up +there on the mountain, this morning." + +He looked at her silently, with softening eyes. + +"You'll be going back soon, I suppose, as usual!" said old Mr. +Sommerville with determination. + +"To Colorado?" inquired Page. "No, I think--I've a notion I'll stay on +this summer for some time. There is an experiment I want to try with +alfalfa in Vermont." + +Over his wineglass Arnold caught Sylvia's eye, and winked. + +"Still reading as much as ever, I suppose." Mr. Sommerville was not +to be put down. "When I last saw you, it was some fool socialistic +poppycock about the iniquity of private exploitation of natural +resources. How'd they ever have been exploited any other way I'd like +to know! What's socialism? Organized robbery! Nothing else! 'Down with +success! Down with initiative! Down with brains!' Stuff!" + +"It's not socialism this time: it's Professor Merritt's theories on +property," said Sylvia to the old gentleman, blandly ignoring his +ignoring of her. + +Page stared at her in astonishment. "Are you a clairvoyant?" he cried. + +"No, no," she explained, laughing. "You took it out of your pocket up +there by the brook." + +"But you saw only the title. Merritt's name isn't on the cover." + +"Oh, it's a pretty well-known book," said Sylvia easily. "And my +father's a professor of Economics. When I was little I used to have +books like that to build houses with, instead of blocks. And I've had +to keep them in order and dusted ever since. I'm not saying that I +know much about their insides." + +"Just look there!" broke in Arnold. "Did I ever see a young lady pass +up such a perfectly good chance to bluff!" + +As usual nobody paid the least attention to his remark. The +conversation shifted to a radical play which had been on the boards in +Paris, the winter before. + +After luncheon, they adjourned into the living-room. As the company +straggled across the wide, dimly shining, deeply shaded hall, Sylvia +felt her arm seized and held, and turning her head, looked into the +laughing face of Arnold. "What kind of flowers does Judy like the +best?" he inquired, the question evidently the merest pretext to +detain her, for as the others moved out of earshot he said in a +delighted whisper, his eyes gleaming in the dusk with amused malice: +"Go it, Sylvia! Hit 'em out! It's worth enduring oceans of Greek +history to see old Sommerville squirm. Molly gone--Morrison as poor as +a church mouse; and now Page going fast before his very eyes--" + +She shook off his hand with genuine annoyance. "I don't know what +you're talking about, Arnold. You're horrid! Judith doesn't like cut +flowers at all,--any kind. She likes them alive, on plants." + +"She _would!_" Arnold was rapt in his habitual certainty that every +peculiarity of Judith's was another reason for prostrate adoration. +"I'll send her a window-box for every window in the hospital." His +admiration overflowed to Judith's sister. He patted her on the +shoulder. "You're all right too, Sylvia. You're batting about +three-sixty, right now. I've always told the girls when they said Page +was offish that if they could only get in under his guard once--and +somehow you've done it. I bet on _you_--" He began to laugh at her +stern face of reproof. "Oh, yes, yes, I agree! You don't know what I'm +talking about! It's just alfalfa in Vermont! Only my low vulgarity to +think anything else!" He moved away down the hall. "Beat it! I slope!" + +"Where are you going?" she asked. + +"Away! Away!" he answered. "Anywhere that's away. The air is rank with +Oscar Wilde and the Renaissance. I feel them coming." Still laughing, +he bounded upstairs, three steps at a time. + +Sylvia stepped forward, crossed the threshold of the living-room, +and paused by the piano, penetrated by bitter-sweet associations. If +Morrison felt them also, he gave no sign. He had chosen a chair by a +distant window and was devoting himself to Molly's grandfather, who +accepted this delicate and entirely suitable attention with a rather +glum face. Mrs. Marshall-Smith and Page still stood in the center +of the room, and turned as Sylvia came in. "Do give us some music, +Sylvia," said her aunt, sinking into a chair while Page came forward +to sit near the piano. + +Sylvia's fingers rested on the keys for a moment, her face very grave, +almost somber, and then, as though taking a sudden determination, she +began to play a Liszt Liebes-Traum. It was the last music Morrison had +played to her before the beginning of the change. Into its fevered +cadences she poured the quivering, astonished hurt of her young heart. + +No one stirred during the music nor for the moment afterward, in which +she turned about to face the room. She looked squarely at Morrison, +who was rolling a cigarette with meticulous care, and as she looked, +he raised his eyes and gave her across the room one deep, flashing +glance of profound significance. That was all. That was enough. That +was everything. Sylvia turned back to the piano shivering, hot and +cold with secret joy. His look said, "Yes, of course, a thousand times +of course, you are the one in my heart." What the facts said for him +was, "But I am going to marry Molly because she has money." + +Sylvia was horrified that she did not despise him, that she did not +resent his entering her heart again with the intimacy of that +look. Her heart ran out to welcome him back; but from the sense of +furtiveness she shrank back with her lifetime habit and experience of +probity, with the instinctive distaste for stealth engendered only by +long and unbroken acquaintance with candor. With a mental action as +definite as the physical one of freeing her feet from a quicksand she +turned away from the alluring, dim possibility opened to her by that +look. No, no! No stains, no smears, no shufflings! She was conscious +of no moral impulse, in the usual sense of the word. Her imagination +took in no possibility of actual wrong. But when, with a fastidious +impulse of good taste, she turned her back on something ugly, she +turned her back unwittingly on something worse than ugly. + +But it was not easy! Oh, not at all easy! She quailed with a sense of +her own weakness, so unexpected, so frightening. Would she resist it +the next time? How pierced with helpless ecstasy she had been by that +interchange of glances! What was there, in that world, by which she +could steady herself? + +"How astonishingly well you play," said Page, rousing himself from the +dreamy silence of appreciation. + +"I ought to," she said with conscious bitterness. "I earn my living by +teaching music." + +She was aware from across the room of an electric message from Aunt +Victoria protesting against her perversity; and she reflected with +a morose amusement that however delicately phrased Aunt Victoria's +protests might be, its substance was the same as that of Helene, +crying out on her for not adding the soupcon of rouge. She took a +sudden resolution. Well, why not? Everything conspired to push her +in that direction. The few factors which did not were mere imbecile +idealism, or downright hypocrisy. She drew a long breath. She smiled +at Page, a smile of reference to something in common between them. +"Shan't I play you some Beethoven?" she asked, "something with a +legato passage and great solemn chords, and a silver melody binding +the whole together?" + +"Oh yes, do!" he said softly. And in a moment she was putting all of +her intelligence, her training, and her capacity to charm into the +tones of the E-flat Minuet. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +A HYPOTHETICAL LIVELIHOOD + + +The millionaire proprietor had asked them all over to the Austin Farm, +and as they drew near the end of the very expensive and delicately +served meal which Page had spoken of as a "picnic-lunch," various +plans for the disposition of the afternoon were suggested. These +suggestions were prefaced by the frank statement of the owner of the +place that whatever else the others did, it was his own intention to +take Miss Marshall through a part of his pine plantations and explain +his recent forestry operations to her. The assumption that Miss +Marshall would of course be interested in his pine plantations and +lumbering operations struck nobody but Miss Marshall as queer. With +the most hearty and simple unconsciousness, they unanimously felt that +of course Miss Marshall _would_ be interested in the pine plantations +and the lumbering operations of any man who was worth nobody knew how +many millions in coal, and who was so obviously interested in her. + +Sylvia had been for some weeks observing the life about her with very +much disillusioned eyes and she now labeled the feeling on the part of +her friends with great accuracy, saying to herself cynically, "If it +were prize guinea-pigs or collecting beer-steins, they would all be +just as sure that I would jump up and say, 'Oh yes, _do_ show me, Mr. +Page!'" Following this moody reflection she immediately jumped up +and said enthusiastically, "Oh yes, _do_ show me, Mr. Page!" The +brilliance in her eyes during these weeks came partly from a relieved +sense of escape from a humiliating position, and partly from an +amusement at the quality of human nature which was as dubiously +enjoyable as the grim amusement of biting on a sore tooth. + +She now took her place by the side of their host, and thought, looking +at his outdoor aspect, that her guess at what to wear had been better +than Aunt Victoria's or Molly's. For the question of what to wear had +been a burning one. Pressure had been put on her to don just a lacy, +garden-party toilette of lawn and net as now automatically barred both +Aunt Victoria and Molly from the proposed expedition to the woods. +Nobody had had the least idea what was to be the color of the +entertainment offered them, for the great significance of the affair +was that it was the first time that Page had ever invited any one to +the spot for which he evidently felt such an unaccountable affection. +Aunt Victoria had explained to Sylvia, "It's always at the big Page +estate in Lenox that he entertains, or rather that he gets his mother +to do the absolutely indispensable entertaining for him." Morrison +said laughingly: "Isn't it the very quintessence of quaintness to +visit him there! To watch his detached, whimsical air of not being +in the least a part of all the magnificence which bears his name. He +insists, you know, that he doesn't begin to know his way around that +huge house!" "It was his father who built the Lenox place," commented +Mrs. Marshall-Smith. "It suited _his_ taste to perfection. Austin +seems to have a sort of Marie-Antoinette reaction towards a somewhat +painfully achieved simplicity. He's not the man to take any sort of +pose. If he were, it would be impossible not to suspect him of +a little pose in his fondness for going back to his farmer +great-grandfather's setting." Guided by this conversation, and by +shrewd observations of her own, Sylvia had insisted, even to the point +of strenuousness, upon wearing to this first housewarming a cloth +skirt and coat, tempering the severity of this costume with a +sufficiently feminine and beruffled blouse of silk. As their car had +swung up before the plain, square, big-chimneyed old house, and Page +had come to meet them, dressed in khaki-colored forester's garb, +with puttees, Aunt Victoria had been generous enough to admit by an +eye-flash to Sylvia that the girl knew her business very well. There +was not, of course, Sylvia reflected, the slightest pretense of +obscurity between them as to what, under the circumstances, her +business was. + +All this lay back of the fact that, as Sylvia, her face bright with +spontaneous interest in pine plantations and lumbering operations, +stepped to the side of the man in puttees, her costume exactly suited +his own. + +From the midst of a daring and extremely becoming arrangement of black +and white striped chiffon and emerald-green velvet, Molly's beautiful +face smiled on them approvingly. For various reasons, the spectacle +afforded her as much pleasure as it did extreme discomfort to her +grandfather, and with her usual masterful grasp on a situation she +began to arrange matters so that the investigation of pine plantations +and lumber operations should be conducted _en tete-a-tete_. "Mrs. +Marshall-Smith, you're going to stay here, of course, to look at +Austin's lovely view! Think of his having hidden that view away from +us all till now! I want to go through the house later on, and without +Austin, so I can linger and pry if I like! I want to look at every +single thing. It's lovely--the completest Yankee setting! It looks +as though we all ought to have on clean gingham aprons and wear +steel-rimmed spectacles. No, Austin, don't frown! I don't mean that +for a knock. I love it, honestly I do! I always thought I'd like to +wear clean gingham aprons myself. The only things that are out of +keeping are those shelves and shelves and shelves of solemn books with +such terrible titles!" + +"That's a fact, Page," said Morrison, laughing. "Molly's hit the +nail squarely. Your modern, economic spasms over the organization of +industrialism are out of place in that delightful, eighteenth century, +plain old interior. They threw _their_ fits over theology!" + +The owner of the house nodded. "Yes, you know your period! A +great-great-grandfather of mine, a ministerial person, had left a lot +of books on the nature of the Trinity and Free Will and such. They had +to be moved up to the attic to make room for mine. What books will be +on those shelves a hundred years from now, I wonder?" + +"Treatises on psychic analysis, on how to transfer thought without +words, unless I read the signs of the times wrong," Morrison hazarded +a guess. + +Molly was bored by this talk and anxious to get the walkers off. +"You'd better be starting if you're going far up on the mountain, +Austin. We have to be back for a tea at Mrs. Neville's, where Sylvia's +to pour. Mrs. Neville would have a thing or two to say to us, if we +made her lose her main drawing card." + +"Are you coming, Morrison?" asked Page. + +"No, he isn't," said Molly decidedly. "He's going to stay to play to +me on that delicious tin-panny old harpsichordy thing in your 'best +room.' You do call it the 'best room,' don't you? They always do in +New England dialect stories. Grandfather, you have your cards with +you, haven't you? You always have. If you'll get them out, Felix and +Arnold and I'll play whist with you." + +Only one of those thus laid hold of, slipped out from her strong +little fingers. Arnold raised himself, joint by joint, from his chair, +and announced that he was a perfect nut-head when it came to whist. +"And, anyhow," he went on insistently, raising his voice as Molly +began to order him back into the ranks--"And, anyhow, I don't want to +play whist! And I do want to see what Page has been up to all this +time he's kept so dark about his goings-on over here. No, Molly, you +needn't waste any more perfectly good language on me. You can boss +everybody else if you like, but I'm the original, hairy wild-man who +gets what he wants." + +He strolled off across the old-fashioned garden and out of the gate +with the other two, his attention given as usual to lighting a +cigarette. It was an undertaking of some difficulty on that day of +stiff September wind which blew Sylvia's hair about her ears in +bright, dancing flutters. + +They were no more than out of earshot of the group left on the porch, +than Sylvia, as so often happened in her growing acquaintanceship with +Page, found herself obliged entirely to reconstruct an impression of +him. It was with anything but a rich man's arrogant certainty of +her interest that he said, very simply as he said everything: "I +appreciate very much, Miss Marshall, your being willing to come along +and see all this. It's a part of your general kindness to everybody. +I hope it won't bore you to extremity. I'm so heart and soul in it +myself, I shan't know when to stop talking about it. In fact I shan't +want to stop, even if I know I should. I've never said much about it +to any one before, and I very much want your opinion on it." + +Sylvia felt a decent pinch of shame, and her eyes were not brilliant +with sardonic irony but rather dimmed with self-distrust as she +answered with a wholesome effort for honesty: "I really don't know a +single thing about forestry, Mr. Page. You'll have to start in at the +very beginning, and explain everything. I hope I've sense enough +to take an intelligent interest." Very different, this, from the +meretricious sparkle of her, "Oh yes, _do_ show me, Mr. Page." She +felt that to be rather cheap, as she remembered it. She wondered if he +had seen its significance, had seen through her. From a three weeks' +intensive acquaintance with him, she rather thought he had. His eyes +were clear, formidably so. He put her on her mettle. + +Arnold had lighted his cigarette by this time, offered one to Page +with his incurable incapacity to remember that not every sane man +smokes, and on being refused, put his hands deep in his pockets. The +three tall young people were making short work of the stretch of +sunny, windy, upland pasture, and were already almost in the edge of +the woods which covered the slope of the mountain above them up to the +very crest, jewel-green against the great, piled, cumulus clouds. + +"Well, I _will_ begin at the beginning, then," said Page. "I'll +begin back in 1762, when this valley was settled and my +ever-so-many-greats-grandfather took possession of a big slice of this +side of Hemlock Mountain, with the sole idea that trees were men's +enemies. The American colonists thought of forests, you know, as +places for Indians to lurk, spots that couldn't be used for corn, +growths to be exterminated as fast as possible." + +They entered the woods now, walking at a good pace up the steeply +rising, grass-grown wood-road. Sylvia quite consciously summoned all +her powers of attention and concentration for the hour before her, +determined to make a good impression to counteract whatever too great +insight her host might have shown in the matter of her first interest. +She bent her fine brows with the attention she had so often summoned +to face a difficult final examination, to read at the correct tempo a +complicated piece of music, to grasp the essentials of a new subject. +Her trained interest in understanding things, which of late had been +feeding on rather moldy scraps of cynical psychology, seized with +energy and delight on a change of diet. She not only tried to be +interested. Very shortly she was interested, absorbed, intent. What +Page had to say fascinated her. She even forgot who he was, and that +he was immensely rich. Though this forgetfulness was only momentary it +was an unspeakable relief and refreshment to her. + +She listened intently; at times she asked a pertinent question; as she +walked she gave the man an occasional direct survey, as impersonal as +though he were a book from which she was reading. And exactly as an +intelligent reader, in a first perusal of a new subject, snatches the +heart out of paragraph after paragraph, ignoring the details until +later, she took to herself only the gist of her host's recital. Yes, +yes, she saw perfectly the generations of Vermont farmers who had +hated trees because they meant the wilderness, and whose destruction +of forests was only limited by the puniness of the forces they matched +against the great wooded slopes of the mountains they pre-empted. And +she saw later, the long years of utter neglect of those hacked-at and +half-destroyed forests while Page's grandfather and father descended +on the city and on financial operations with the fierce, fresh energy +of frontiersmen. She was struck by the fact that those ruthless +victors of Wall Street had not sold the hundreds of worthless acres, +which they never took the trouble to visit; and by the still more +significant fact that as the older ones of the family died, the +Austins, the Pages, the Woolsons, the Hawkers, and as legacy after +legacy of more worthless mountain acres came by inheritance to the +financiers, those tracts too were never sold. They never thought of +them, Page told her, except grumblingly to pay the taxes on them; they +considered them of ridiculously minute proportions compared to their +own titanic manipulations, but they had never sold them. Sylvia saw +them vividly, those self-made exiles from the mountains, and felt in +them some unacknowledged loyalty to the soil, the barren soil which +had borne them, some inarticulate affection which had lived through +the heat and rage of their embattled lives. The taproot had been too +deep for them to break off, and now from it there was springing up +this unexpected stem, this sole survivor of their race who turned +away from what had been the flaming breath of life in their brazen +nostrils, back to the green fragrance of their mutilated and forgotten +forests. + +Not the least of the charm of this conception for Sylvia came from +the fact that she quarried it out for herself from the bare narration +presented to her, that she read it not at all in the words, but in the +voice, the face, the manner of the raconteur. She was amused, she was +touched, she was impressed by his studiously matter-of-fact version of +his enterprise. He put forward with the shy, prudish shamefacedness of +the New Englander the sound financial basis of his undertaking, as its +main claim on his interest, as its main value. "I heard so much about +forestry being nothing but a rich man's plaything," he said. "I just +got my back up, and wanted to see if it couldn't be made a paying +thing. And I've proved it can be. I've had the closest account kept of +income and outgo, and so far from being a drain on a man to reforest +his woodland and administer it as he should, there's an actual profit +in it, enough to make a business of it, enough to occupy a man for his +lifetime and his son after him, if he gives it his personal care." + +At this plain statement of a comprehensible fact, Arnold's inattention +gave place to a momentary interest. "Is there?" he asked with +surprise. "How much?" + +"Well," said Page, "my system, as I've gradually worked it out, is to +clear off a certain amount each year of our mediocre woodland, such as +for the most part grows up where the bad cutting was done a couple of +generations ago--maple and oak and beech it is, mostly, with little +stands of white birch, where fires have been. I work that up in my +own sawmill so as to sell as little of a raw product as possible; and +dispose of it to the wood-working factories in the region." (Sylvia +remembered the great "brush-back factory" whence Molly had recruited +her fire-fighters.) "Then I replant that area to white pine. That's +the best tree for this valley. I put about a thousand trees to the +acre. Or if there seems to be a good prospect of natural reproduction, +I try for that. There's a region over there, about a hundred acres," +he waved his hand to the north of them, "that's thick with seedling +ash. I'm leaving that alone. But for the most part, white pine's our +best lay. Pine thrives on soil that stunts oak and twists beech. Our +oak isn't good quality, and maple is such an interminably slow +grower. In about twenty years from planting, you can make your first, +box-board cutting of pine, and every ten years thereafter--" + +Arnold had received this avalanche of figures and species with an +astonished blink, and now protested energetically that he had had not +the slightest intention of precipitating any such flood. "Great Scott, +Page, catch your breath! If you're talking to me, you'll have to use +English, anyhow. I've no more idea what you're talking about! Who do +you take me for? _I_ don't know an ash-tree from an ash-cart. You +started in to tell me what the profit of the thing is." + +Page looked pained but patient, like a reasonable man who knows his +hobby is running away with him, but who cannot bring himself to use +the curb. "Oh yes," he said apologetically. "Why, we cleared last year +(exclusive of the farm, which yields a fair profit)--we cleared about +two thousand dollars." Arnold seemed to regard this statement as quite +the most ridiculous mouse which ever issued from a mountain. He burst +into an open laugh. "Almost enough to buy you a new car a year, isn't +it?" he commented. + +Page looked extremely nettled. An annoyed flush showed through the +tan of his clear skin. He was evidently very touchy about his pet +lumbering operations. "A great many American families consider that a +sufficient income," he said stiffly. + +Sylvia had another inspiration, such as had been the genesis of her +present walking-costume. "You're too silly, Arnold. The important +thing isn't what the proportion with Mr. Page's own income is! What he +was trying to do, and what he _has_ done, only you don't know +enough to see it, is to prove that sane forestry is possible for +forest-owners of small means. I know, if you don't, that two thousand +is plenty to live on. My father's salary is only twenty-four hundred +now, and we were all brought up when it was two thousand." + +She had had an intuitive certainty that this frank revelation would +please Page, and she was rewarded by an openly ardent flash from his +clear eyes. There was in his look at her an element of enchanted, +relieved recognition, as though he had nodded and said: "Oh, you _are_ +my kind of a woman after all! I was right about you." + +Arnold showed by a lifted eyebrow that he was conscious of being +put down, but he survived the process with his usual negligent +obliviousness of reproof. "Well, if two thousand a year produced +Judith, go ahead, Page, and my blessing on you!" He added in a +half-apology for his offensive laughter, "It just tickled me to hear +a man who owns most of several counties of coal-mines so set up over +finding a nickel on the street!" + +Page had regained his geniality. "Well, Smith, maybe I needn't have +jumped so when you stepped on my toe. But it's my pet toe, you see. +You're quite right--I'm everlastingly set up over my nickel. But it's +not because I found it. It's because I earned it. It happens to be the +only nickel I ever earned. It's natural I should want it treated with +respect." + +Arnold did not trouble to make any sense out of this remark, and +Sylvia was thinking bitterly to herself: "But that's pure bluff! I'm +_not_ his kind of a woman. I'm Felix Morrison's kind!" No comment, +therefore, was made on the quaintness of the rich man's interest in +earning capacity. + +They were now in one of the recent pine plantations, treading a +wood-road open to the sky, running between acres and acres of thrifty +young pines. Page's eyes glistened with affection as he looked at +them, and with the unwearied zest of the enthusiast he continued +expanding on his theme. Sylvia knew the main outline of her new +subject now, felt that she had walked all around it, and was agreeably +surprised at her sympathy with it. She continued with a genuine +curiosity to extract more details; and like any man who talks of a +process which he knows thoroughly, Page was wholly at the mercy of a +sympathetic listener. His tongue tripped itself in his readiness to +answer, to expound, to tell his experiences, to pour out a confidently +accurate and precise flood of information. Sylvia began to take a +playful interest in trying to find a weak place in his armor, to ask a +question he could not answer. But he knew all the answers. He knew the +relative weight per cubic foot of oak and pine and maple; he knew the +railroad rates per ton on carload lots; he knew why it is cheaper in +the long run to set transplants in sod-land instead of seeding it; he +knew what per cent to write off for damage done by the pine weevil, he +reveled in complicated statistics as to the actual cost per thousand +for chopping, skidding, drawing, sawing logs. He laughed at Sylvia's +attempts to best him, and in return beat about her ears with +statistics for timber cruising, explained the variations of the +Vermont and the scribner's decimal log rule, and recited log-scaling +tables as fluently as the multiplication table. They were in the midst +of this lively give-and-take, listened to with a mild amusement on +Arnold's part, when they emerged on a look-out ledge of gray slate, +and were struck into silence by the grave loveliness of the immense +prospect below them. + +"--and of course," murmured Page finally, on another note, "of course +it's rather a satisfaction to feel that you are making waste land of +use to the world, and helping to protect the living waters of all +that--" He waved his hand over the noble expanse of sunlit valley. "It +seems"--he drew a long breath--"it seems something quite worth doing." + +Sylvia was moved to a disinterested admiration for him; and it was a +not unworthy motive which kept her from looking up to meet his eyes +on her. She felt a petulant distaste for the calculating speculations +which filled the minds of all her world about his intentions towards +her. He was really too fine for that. At least, she owed it to her +own dignity not to abuse this moment of fine, impersonal emotion to +advance another step into intimacy with him. + +But as she stood, looking fixedly down at the valley, she was quite +aware that a sympathetic silence and a thoughtful pose might make, on +the whole, an impression quite as favorable as the most successfully +managed meeting of eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +ARNOLD CONTINUES TO DODGE THE RENAISSANCE + + +A gaunt roaming figure of ennui and restlessness, Arnold appeared at +the door of the pergola and with a petulant movement tore a brilliant +autumn leaf to pieces as he lingered for a moment, listening moodily +to the talk within. He refused with a grimace the chair to which +Sylvia motioned him. "Lord, no! Hear 'em go it!" he said quite audibly +and turned away to lounge back towards the house. Sylvia had had time +to notice, somewhat absently, that he looked ill, as though he had a +headache. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith glanced after him with misgiving, and, under cover +of a brilliantly resounding passage at arms between Morrison and +Page, murmured anxiously to Sylvia, "I wish Judith would give up her +nonsense and _marry_ Arnold!" + +"Oh, they've only been engaged a couple of months," said Sylvia. +"What's the hurry! She'll get her diploma in January. It'd be a pity +to have her miss!" + +Arnold's stepmother broke in rather impatiently, "If I were a girl +engaged to Arnold, I'd _marry_ him!" + +"--the trouble with all you connoisseurs, Morrison, is that you're +barking up the wrong tree. You take for granted, from your own tastes, +when people begin to buy jade Buddhas and Zuloaga bull-fighters that +they're wanting to surround themselves with beauty. Not much! It's the +consciousness of money they want to surround themselves with!" + +Morrison conceded part of this. "Oh, I grant you, there's a +disheartening deal of imitation in this matter. But America's new to +aesthetics. Don't despise beginnings because they're small!" + +"A nettle leaf is small. But that's not the reason why it won't ever +grow into an oak. Look here! A sheaf of winter grasses, rightly +arranged in clear glass, has as much of the essence of beauty as a +bronze vase of the Ming dynasty. I ask you just one question, How many +people do you know who are capable of--" + +The art-critic broke in: "Oh come! You're setting up an impossibly +high standard of aesthetic feeling." + +"I'm not presuming to do any such thing as setting up a standard! +I'm just insisting that people who can't extract joy from the shadow +pattern of a leafy branch on a gray wall, are liars if they claim to +enjoy a fine Japanese print. What they enjoy in the print is the sense +that they've paid a lot for it. In my opinion, there's no use trying +to advance a step towards any sound aesthetic feeling till _some_ step +is taken away from the idea of cost as the criterion of value about +anything." He drew a long breath and went on, rather more rapidly than +was his usual habit of speech: "I've a real conviction on that point. +It's come to me of late years that one reason we haven't any national +art is because we have too much magnificence. All our capacity for +admiration is used up on the splendor of palace-like railway stations +and hotels. Our national tympanum is so deafened by that blare of +sumptuousness that we have no ears for the still, small voice of +beauty. And perhaps," he paused, looking down absently at a crumb he +rolled between his thumb and finger on the table, "it's possible that +the time is ripening for a wider appreciation of another kind of +beauty ... that has little to do even with such miracles as the shadow +of a branch on a wall." + +Morrison showed no interest in this vaguely phrased hypothesis, and +returned to an earlier contention: "You underestimate," he said, +"the amount of education and taste and time it takes to arrange that +simple-looking vase of grasses, to appreciate your leaf-shadows." + +"All I'm saying is that your campaign of aesthetic education hasn't +made the matter vital enough to people, to any people, not even to +people who call themselves vastly aesthetic, so that they _give_ time +and effort and self-schooling to the acquisition of beauty. They not +only want their money to do their dirty work for them, they try to +make it do their fine living for them too, with a minimum of effort on +their part. They want to _buy_ beauty, outright, with cash, and have +it stay put, where they can get their fingers on it at any time, +without bothering about it in the meantime. That's the way a Turk +likes his women--same impulse exactly," + +"I've known a few Caucasians too ...," Mrs. Marshall-Smith contributed +a barbed point of malice to the talk. + +Page laughed, appreciating her hit. "Oh, I mean Turk as a generic +term." Sylvia, circling warily about the contestants, looking for a +chance to make her presence felt, without impairing the masculine +gusto with which they were monopolizing the center of the stage, +tossed in a suggestion, "Was it Hawthorne's--it's a queer fancy like +Hawthorne's--the idea of the miser, don't you remember, whose joy was +to roll naked in his gold pieces?" + +Page snatched up with a delighted laugh the metaphor she had laid in +his hand. "Capital! Precisely! There's the thing in a nutshell. We +twentieth century Midases have got beyond the simple taste of that +founder of the family for the shining yellow qualities of money, but +we love to wallow in it none the less. We like to put our feet on it, +in the shape of rugs valued according to their cost, we like to eat it +in insipid, out-of-season fruit and vegetables." + +"Doesn't it occur to you," broke in Morrison, "that you may be +attacking something that's a mere phase, an incident of transition?" + +"Is anything ever anything else!" Page broke in to say. + +Morrison continued, with a slight frown at the interruption, "America +is simply emerging from the frontier condition of bareness, and it is +only natural that one, or perhaps two generations must be sacrificed +in order to attain a smooth mastery of an existence charged and +enriched with possession." He gave the effect of quoting a paragraph +from one of his lectures. + +"Isn't the end of that 'transition,'" inquired Page, "usually simply +that after one or two generations people grow dulled to everything +_but_ possession and fancy themselves worthily occupied when they +spend their lives regulating and caring for their possessions. I +hate," he cried with sudden intensity, "I hate the very sound of the +word!" + +"Does you great credit, I'm sure," said Morrison, with a faint irony, +a hidden acrimony, pricking, for an instant, an ugly ear through his +genial manner. + +Ever since the day of the fire, since Page had become a more and more +frequent visitor in Lydford and had seen more and more of Sylvia, she +had derived a certain amount of decidedly bad-tasting amusement from +the fact of Morrison's animosity to the other man. But this was going +too far. She said instantly, "Do you know, I've just thought what it +is you all remind me of--I mean Lydford, and the beautiful clothes, +and nobody bothering about anything but tea and ideas and knowing the +right people. I knew it made me think of something else, and now I +know--it's a Henry James novel!" + +Page took up her lead instantly, and said gravely, putting himself +beside her as another outsider: "Well, of course, that's their ideal. +That's what they _try_ to be like--at least to talk like James people. +But it's not always easy. The vocabulary is so limited." + +"Limited!" cried Mrs. Marshall-Smith. "There are more words in a Henry +James novel than in any dictionary!" + +"Oh yes, _words_ enough!" admitted Page, "but all about the same sort +of thing. It reminds me of the seminarists in Rome, who have to use +Latin for everything. They can manage predestination and vicarious +atonement like a shot, but when it comes to ordering somebody to call +them for the six-twenty train to Naples they're lost. Now, you can +talk about your bric-a-brac in Henry-Jamesese, you can take away your +neighbor's reputation by subtle suggestion, you can appreciate a fine +deed of self-abnegation, if it's not too definite! I suppose a man +could even make an attenuated sort of love in the lingo, but I'll be +hanged if I see how anybody could order a loaf of bread," + +"One might do without bread, possibly?" suggested Morrison, pressing +the tips of his beautiful fingers together. + +"By Jove," cried Page, in hearty assent, "I've a notion that lots of +times they do!" + +This was getting nowhere. Mrs. Marshall-Smith put her hand to the +helm, and addressed herself to Morrison with a plain reminder of the +reason for the grotesqueness of his irritability. "Where's _Molly_ +keeping herself nowadays?" she inquired. "She hasn't come over with +you, to tea, for ever so long. The pergola isn't itself without her +sunny head." + +"Molly is a grain of sand in a hurricane, nowadays," said Morrison +seriously. "It seems that the exigencies of divine convention decree +that a girl who is soon to be married belongs neither to herself, to +her family, to her fiance--oh, least of all to her fiance--but heart +and soul and body to a devouring horde of dressmakers and tailors and +milliners and hairdressers and corsetieres and petticoat specialists +and jewelers and hosiery experts and--" + +They were all laughing at the interminable defile of words proceeding +with a Spanish gravity, and Mrs. Marshall-Smith broke in, "I don't +hear anything about house-furnishers." + +"No," said Morrison, "the house-furnisher's name is F. Morrison, and +he has no show until after the wedding." + +"What _are_ your plans?" asked Mrs. Marshall-Smith. + +"Nothing very definite except the great Date. That's fixed for the +twenty-first." + +"Oh, so soon ... less than three weeks from now!" + +Morrison affected to feel a note of disapproval in her voice, and said +with his faint smile, "You can hardly blame me for not wishing to +delay." + +"Oh, no _blame!_" she denied his inference. "After all it's over a +month since the engagement was announced, and who knows how much +longer before that you and Molly knew about it. No. I'm not one who +believes in long engagements. The shorter the better." + +Sylvia saw an opportunity to emerge with an appearance of ease from a +silence that might seem ungracious. It was an enforced manoeuver with +which the past weeks had made her wearily familiar. "Aunt Victoria's +hitting at Arnold and Judith over your head," she said to Morrison. +"It's delicious, the way Tantine shows herself, for all her veneer of +modernity, entirely nineteen century in her impatience of Judith's +work. Now that there's a chance to escape from it into the blessed +haven of idle matrimony, she can't see why Judith doesn't give up her +lifetime dream and marry Arnold tomorrow." + +Somewhat to her surprise, her attempt at playfulness had no notable +success. The intent of her remarks received from her aunt and Morrison +the merest formal recognition of a hasty, dim smile, and with one +accord they looked at once in another direction. "And after the +wedding?" Mrs. Marshall-Smith inquired--"or is that a secret?" + +"Oh no, when one belongs to Molly's exalted class or is about to be +elevated into it, nothing is secret. I'm quite sure that the society +editor of the _Herald_ knows far better than I the names of the hotels +in Jamaica we're to frequent." + +"Oh! Jamaica! How ... how ... original!" Mrs. Marshall-Smith cast +about her rather desperately for a commendatory adjective. + +"Yes, quite so, isn't it?" agreed Morrison. "It's Molly's idea. She +_is_ original, you know. It's one of her greatest charms. She didn't +want to go to Europe because there is so much to see there, to do. She +said she wanted a honeymoon and not a personally conducted trip." + +They all laughed again, and Sylvia said: "How _like_ Molly! How +clever! Nobody does her thinking for her!" + +"The roads in Jamaica are excellent for motoring, too, I hear," added +Morrison. "That's another reason, of course." + +Page gave a great laugh. "Well, as Molly's cousin, let me warn you! +Molly driving a car in Jamaica will be like Pavlova doing a bacchante +on the point of a needle! You'll have to keep a close watch on her to +see that she doesn't absentmindedly dash across the island and jump +off the bank right on into the ocean." + +"Where does F. Morrison, house-furnishing-expert, come in?" asked Mrs. +Marshall-Smith. + +"After the wedding, after Jamaica," said Morrison. "We're to come back +to New York and for a few months impose on the good nature of Molly's +grandfather's household, while we struggle with workmen _et al_. +The Montgomery house on Fifth Avenue, that's shut up for so many +years,--ever since the death of Molly's parents,--is the one we've +settled on. It's very large, you know. It has possibilities. I have +a plan for remodeling it and enlarging it with a large inner court, +glass-roofed--something slightly Saracenic about the arches--and what +is now a suite of old-fashioned parlors on the north side is to +be made into a long gallery. There'll be an excellent light for +paintings. I've secured from Duveen a promise for some tapestries +I've admired for a long time--Beauvais, not very old, Louis XVII--but +excellent in color. Those for the staircase ..." + +He spoke with no more animation than was his custom, with no more +relish than was seemly; his carefully chosen words succeeded each +other in their usual exquisite precision, no complacency showed above +the surface; his attitude was, as always, composed of precisely +the right proportion of dignity and ease; but as he talked, some +untarnished instinct in Sylvia shrank away in momentary distaste, the +first she had ever felt for him. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith evidently did not at all share this feeling. "Oh, +what a house that will be!" she cried, lost in forecasting admiration. +"_You!_ with a free hand! A second house of Jacques Coeur!" Sylvia +stood up, rather abruptly. "I think I'll go for a walk beside the +river," she said, reaching for her parasol. + +"May I tag along?" said Page, strolling off beside her with the ease +of familiarity. + +Sylvia turned to wave a careless farewell to the two thus left +somewhat unceremoniously in the pergola. She was in brown corduroy +with suede leather sailor collar and broad belt, a costume which +brought out vividly the pure, clear coloring of her face. "Good-bye," +she called to them with a pointedly casual accent, nodding her +gleaming head. + +"She's a _very_ pretty girl, isn't she?" commented Mrs. +Marshall-Smith. Morrison, looking after the retreating figures, agreed +with her briefly. "Yes, very. Extraordinarily perfect specimen of her +type." His tone was dry. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith looked with annoyance across the stretch of lawn +to the house. "I think I would better go to see where Arnold is," she +said. Her tone seemed to signify more to the man than her colorless +words. He frowned and said, "Oh, is Arnold ...?" + +She gave a fatigued gesture. "No--not yet--but for the last two or +three days ..." + +He began impatiently, "Why can't you get him off this time before he...." + +"An excellent idea," she broke in, with some impatience of her own. +"But slightly difficult of execution." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +SYLVIA MEETS WITH PITY + + +Under the scarlet glory of frost-touched maples, beside the river +strolled Sylvia, conscious of looking very well and being admired; but +contrary to the age-old belief about her sex and age, the sensation +of looking very well and being admired by no means filled the entire +field of her consciousness. In fact, the corner occupied by the +sensation was so small that occasional efforts on her part to escape +to it from the less agreeable contents of her mind were lamentable +failures. Aloud, in terms as felicitous as she could make them, she +was commenting on the beauty of the glass-smooth river, with the +sumptuously colored autumn trees casting down into it the imperial +gold and crimson of their reflections. Silently she was struggling to +master and dominate and suppress a confusion of contradictory mental +processes. At almost regular intervals, like a hollow stroke on a +brazen gong, her brain resounded to the reverberations of "The wedding +is on the twenty-first." And each time that she thrust that away, +there sprang up with a faint hissing note of doubt and suspicion, "Why +does Aunt Victoria want Arnold married?" A murmur, always drowned out +but incessantly recurring, ran: "What about Father and Mother? +What about their absurd, impossible, cruel, unreal, and +beautiful standards?" Contemptible little echoes from the silly +self-consciousness of the adolescence so recently left behind her ... +"I must think of something clever to say. I must try to seem different +and original and independent and yet must attract," mingled with an +occasional fine sincerity of appreciation and respect for the humanity +of the man beside her. Like a perfume borne in gusts came reaction to +the glorious color about her. Quickly recurring and quickly gone, a +sharp cymbal-clap of alarm ... "What shall I do if Austin Page now +... today ... or tomorrow ... tells me ...!" And grotesquely, the +companion cymbal on which this smote, gave forth an antiphonal alarm +of, "What shall I do if he does not!" While, unheard of her conscious +ear, but coloring everything with its fundamental note of sincerity, +rose solemnly from the depths of her heart the old cry of desperate +youth, "What am I to do with my life?" + +No, the eminently successful brown corduroy, present though it was +to the mind of the handsome girl wearing it, was hardly the sure and +sufficient rock of refuge which tradition would have had it. + +With an effort she turned her attention from this confused tumult in +her ears, and put out her hand, rather at random, for an introduction +to talk. "You spoke, back there in the pergola, of another kind of +beauty--I didn't know what you meant." He answered at once, with his +usual direct simplicity, which continued to have for Sylvia at +this period something suspiciously like the calmness of a reigning +sovereign who is above being embarrassed, who may speak, without +shamefacedness, of anything, even of moral values, that subject tabu +in sophisticated conversation. "Ah, just a notion of mine that perhaps +all this modern ferment of what's known as 'social conscience' or +'civic responsibility,' isn't a result of the sense of duty, but of +the old, old craving for beauty." + +Sylvia looked at him, astonished. "Beauty?" + +"Why yes, beauty isn't only a matter of line and color, is it? There's +the desire for harmony, for true proportions, for grace and suavity, +for nobility of movement. Perhaps the lack of those qualities is felt +in human lives as much as on canvases ... at least perhaps it may be +felt in the future." + +"It's an interesting idea," murmured Sylvia, "but I don't quite see +what it means, concretely, as applied to our actual America." + +He meditated, looking, as was his habit when walking, up at the trees +above them. "Well, let's see. I think I mean that perhaps our race, +not especially inspired in its instinct for color and external form, +may possibly be fumbling toward an art of living. Why wouldn't it be +an art to keep your life in drawing as well as a mural decoration?" He +broke off to say, laughing, "I bet you the technique would be quite +as difficult to acquire," and went on again, thoughtfully: "In this +modern maze of terrible closeness of inter-relation, to achieve a life +that's happy and useful and causes no undeserved suffering to +the untold numbers of other lives which touch it--isn't there an +undertaking which needs the passion for harmony and proportion? Isn't +there a beauty as a possible ideal of aspiration for a race that +probably never could achieve a Florentine or Japanese beauty of line?" +He cast this out casually, as an idea which had by chance been brought +up to the top by the current of the talk, and showed no indication to +pursue it further when Sylvia only nodded her head. It was one of the +moments when she heard nothing but the brazen clangor of "the wedding +is on the twenty-first," and until the savage constriction around her +heart had relaxed she had not breath to speak. But that passed again, +and the two sauntered onward, in the peaceable silence which was one +of the great new pleasures which Page was able to give her. It now +seemed like a part of the mellow ripeness of the day. + +They had come to a bend in the slowly flowing river, where, instead +of torch-bright maples and poplars, rank upon rank of somber pines +marched away to the summit of a steeply ascending foothill. The river +was clouded dark with their melancholy reflections. On their edge, +overhanging the water, stood a single sumac, a standard-bearer with a +thousand little down-drooping flags of crimson. + +"Oh," said Sylvia, smitten with admiration. She sat down on a rock +partly because she wanted to admire at her leisure, partly because she +was the kind of a girl who looks well sitting on a rock; and as she +was aware of this latter motive, she felt a qualm of self-scorn. What +a cheap vein of commonness was revealed in her--in every one--by the +temptation of a great fortune! Morrison had succumbed entirely. She +was nowadays continually detecting in herself motives which made her +sick. + +Page stretched his great length on the dry leaves at her feet. Any +other man would have rolled a cigarette. It was one of his oddities +that he never smoked. Sylvia looked down at his thoughtful, clean face +and reflected wonderingly that he seemed the only person not warped +by money. Was it because he had it, or was it because he was a very +unusual person? + +He was looking partly at the river, at the pines, at the flaming tree, +and partly at the human embodiment of the richness and color of autumn +before him. After a time Sylvia said: "There's Cassandra. She's the +only one who knows of the impending doom. She's trying to warn the +pines." It had taken her some moments to think of this. + +Page accepted it with no sign that he considered it anything +remarkable, with the habit of a man for whom people produced their +best: "She's using some very fine language for her warning, but like +some other fine language it's a trifle misapplied. She forgets that +no doom hangs over the pines. _She's_ the fated one. They're safe +enough." + +Sylvia clasped her hands about her knees and looked across the dark +water at the somber trees. "And yet they don't seem to be very +cheerful about it." It was her opinion that they were talking very +cleverly. + +"Perhaps," suggested Page, rolling over to face the river--"perhaps +she's not prophesying doom at all, but blowing a trumpet-peal of +exultation over her own good fortune. The pines may be black with envy +of her." + +Sylvia enjoyed this rather macabre fancy with all the zest of +healthful youth, secure in the conviction of its own immortality. +"Yes, yes, life's ever so much harder than death." + +Page dissented with a grave irony from the romantic exaggeration +of this generalization. "I don't suppose the statistics as to the +relative difficulty of life and death are really very reliable." + +Sylvia perceived that she was being, ever so delicately, laughed at, +and tried to turn her remark so that she could carry it off. "Oh, I +don't mean for those who die, but those who are left know something +about it, I imagine. My mother always said that the encounter with +death is the great turning-point in the lives of those who live on. +She said you might miss everything else irrevocable and vital--falling +in love, having children, accomplishing anything--but that sooner or +later you have to reckon with losing somebody dear to you." She spoke +with an academic interest in the question. + +"I should think," meditated Page, taking the matter into serious +consideration, "that the vitalness of even that experience would +depend somewhat on the character undergoing it. I've known some +temperaments of a proved frivolity which seemed to have passed through +it without any great modifications. But then I know nothing about it +personally. I lost my father before I could remember him, and since +then I haven't happened to have any close encounter with such loss. My +mother, you know, is very much alive." + +"Well, I haven't any personal experience with death in my immediate +circle either," said Sylvia. "But I wasn't brought up with the usual +cult of the awfulness of it. Father was always anxious that we +children should feel it something as natural as breathing--you are +dipped up from the great river of consciousness, and death only pours +you back. If you've been worth living, there are more elements of +fineness in humanity." + +Page nodded. "Yes, that's what they all say nowadays. Personal +immortality is as out of fashion as big sleeves." + +"Do you believe it?" asked Sylvia, seeing the talk take an intimate +turn, "or are you like me, and don't know at all what you do believe?" +If she had under this pseudo-philosophical question a veiled purpose +analogous to that of the less subtle charmer whose avowed expedient +is to get "a man to talk about himself" the manoeuver was eminently +successful. + +"I've never had the least chance to think about it," he said, sitting +up, "because I've always been so damnably beset by the facts of +living. I know I am not the first of my race to feel convinced that +his own problems are the most complicated, but ..." + +"_Yours!_" cried Sylvia, genuinely astonished. + +"And one of the hardships of my position," he told her at once with +a playful bitterness, "is that everybody refuses to believe in the +seriousness of it. Because my father, after making a great many bad +guesses as to the possible value of mining stock in Nevada, happened +to make a series of good guesses about the value of mining stock in +Colorado, it is assumed that all questions are settled for me, that I +can joyously cultivate my garden, securely intrenched in the certainty +that this is the best possible of all possible worlds," + +"Oh yes--labor unions--socialism--I.W.W.," Sylvia murmured vaguely, +unable, in spite of her intelligence, to refrain from marking, by a +subsidence of interest, her instinctive feeling that those distant +questions could not in the nature of things be compared to present, +personal complications. + +"No--no--!" he protested. "That's no go! I've tried for five years now +to shove it out of sight on some one of those shelves. I've learned +all the arguments on both sides. I can discuss on both sides of those +names as glibly as any other modern quibbler. I can prove the rights +of all those labels or I can prove the wrongs of them, according to +the way my dinner is digesting. What stays right there, what I never +can digest (if you'll pardon an inelegant simile that's just occurred +to me), a lump I never can either swallow entirely down or get up +out of my throat, is the fact that there are men, hundreds of men, +thousands of men, working with picks underground all day, every day, +all their lives, and that part of their labor goes to provide me with +the wherewithal to cultivate my taste, to pose as a patron of the +arts, to endow promising pianists--to go through all the motions +suitable to that position to which it has pleased Providence to call +me. It sticks in my crop that my only connection with the entire +business was to give myself the trouble to be born my father's son." + +"But you _do_ work!" protested Sylvia. "You work on your farm here. +You run all sorts of lumbering operations in this region. The first +time I saw you, you certainly looked less like the traditional idea of +a predatory coal-operator." She laughed at the recollection. + +"Oh yes, I work. When my undigested lump gets too painful I try to +work it off--but what I do bears the same relation to real sure-enough +work that playing tennis does to laying brick. But such as it is, it's +real satisfaction I get out of my minute Vermont holdings. They come +down to me from my farmer great-grandfather who held the land by +working it himself. There's no sore spot there. But speak of Colorado +or coal--and you see me jump with the same shooting twinge you feel +when the dentist's probe reaches a nerve. An intelligent conscience +is a luxury a man in my position can't afford to have." He began with +great accuracy to toss small stones at a log showing above the surface +of the water. + +Sylvia, reverting to a chance remark, now said: "I never happened to +hear you speak of your mother before. Does she ever come to Lydford?" + +He shook his head. "No, she vibrates between the Madison Avenue house +and the Newport one. She's very happy in those two places. She's Mr. +Sommerville's sister, you know. She's one of Morrison's devotees too. +She collects under his guidance." + +"Collects?" asked Sylvia, a little vaguely. + +"Oh, it doesn't matter much what--the instinct, the resultant +satisfaction are the same. As a child, it's stamps, or buttons, +or corks, later on--As a matter of fact, it's lace that my mother +collects. She specializes in Venetian lace--the older the better, of +course. The connection with coal-mines is obvious. But after all, her +own fortune, coming mostly from the Sommerville side, is derived from +oil. The difference is great!" + +"Do you live with her?" asked Sylvia. + +"My washing is said to be done in New York," he said seriously. "I +believe that settles the question of residence for a man." + +"Oh, how quaint!" said Sylvia, laughing. Then with her trained +instinct for contriving a creditable exit before being driven to an +enforced one by flagging of masculine interest, she rose and looked at +her watch. + +"Oh, don't go!" he implored her. "It's so beautiful here--we never +were so--who knows when we'll ever again be in so ..." + +Sylvia divined with one of her cymbal-claps that he had meant, +perhaps, that very afternoon to--She felt a dissonant clashing of +triumph and misgiving. She thought she decided quite coolly, quite +dryly, that pursuit always lent luster to the object pursued; but in +reality she did not at all recognize the instinct which bade her say, +turning her watch around on her wrist: "It's quite late. I don't think +I'd better stay longer. Aunt Victoria likes dinner promptly." She +turned to go. + +He took his small defeat with his usual imperturbable good nature, in +which Sylvia not infrequently thought she detected a flavor of the +unconscious self-assurance of the very rich and much-courted man. +He scrambled to his feet now promptly, and fell into step with her +quick-treading advance. "You're right, of course. There's no need to +be grasping. There's tomorrow--and the day after--and the day after +that--and if it rains we can wear rubbers and carry umbrellas." + +"Oh, I don't carry an umbrella for a walk in the rain," she told him. +"It's one of our queer Marshall ways. We only own one umbrella for the +whole family at home, and that's to lend. I wear a rubber coat and put +on a sou'wester and _let_ it rain." + +"You would!" he said in an unconscious imitation of Arnold's accent. + +She laughed up at him. "Shall I confess why I do? Because my hair is +naturally curly." + +"Confession has to be prompter than that to save souls," he answered. +"I knew it was, five weeks ago, when you splashed the water up on it +so recklessly there by the brook." + +She was astonished by this revelation of depths behind that +well-remembered clear gaze of admiration, and dismayed by such +unnatural accuracy of observation. + +"How cynical of you to make such a mental comment!" + +He apologized. "It was automatic--unconscious. I've had a good deal of +opportunity to observe young ladies." And then, as though aware that +the ice was thin over an unpleasant subject, he shifted the talk. +"Upon my word, I wonder how Molly and Morrison _will_ manage?" + +"Oh, Molly's wonderful. She'd manage anything," said Sylvia with +conviction. + +"Morrison is rather wonderful himself," advanced Page. "And that's a +magnanimous concession for me to make when I'm now so deep in his +bad books. Do you know, by the way," he asked, looking with a quick +interrogation at the girl, "_why_ I'm so out of favor with him?" + +Sylvia's eyes opened wide. She gazed at him, startled, fascinated. +Could "it" be coming so suddenly, in this casual, abrupt manner? "No, +I don't know," she managed to say; and braced herself. + +"I don't blame him in the least. It was very vexing. I went back on +him--so to speak; dissolved an aesthetic partnership, in which he +furnished the brains, and my coal-mines the sinews of art. _I_ was one +of his devotees, you know. For some years after I got out of college I +collected under his guidance, as my mother does, as so many people do. +I even specialized. I don't like to boast, but I dare affirm that no +man knows more than I about sixteenth century mezza-majolica. It is +a branch of human knowledge which you must admit is singularly +appropriate for a dweller in the twentieth century. And of great value +to the world. My collection was one of Morrison's triumphs." + +Sylvia felt foolish and discomfited. With an effort she showed a +proper interest in his remarks. "Was?" she asked. "What happened to +it?" + +"I went back on it. In one of the first of those fits of moral +indigestion. One day, I'd been reading a report in one of the +newspapers on the status of the coal-miner, and the connection between +my bright-colored pots and platters, and my father's lucky guess, +became a little too dramatic for my taste. I gave the collection to +the Metropolitan, and I've never bought a piece since. Morrison was +immensely put out. He'd been to great trouble to find some fine +Fontana specimens for me. And then not to have me look at them--He +was right too. It was a silly, pettish thing to do. I didn't know any +better then. I don't know any better now." + +It began to dawn on Sylvia that, under his air of whimsical +self-mockery he was talking to her seriously. She tried to adjust +herself to this, to be sympathetic, earnest; though she was still +smarting with the sense of having appeared to herself as undignified +and ridiculous. + +"And besides that," he went on, looking away, down the dusty highroad +they were then crossing on their way back to the house--"besides that, +I went back on a great scheme of Morrison's for a National Academy of +Aesthetic Instruction, which I was to finance and he to organize. He +had gone into all the details. He had shown wonderful capacity. It's +really very magnanimous of him not to bear me more of a grudge. He +thought that giving it up was one of my half-baked ideas. And it was. +As far as anything I've accomplished since, I might as well have been +furthering the appreciation of Etruscan vases in the Middle West. But +then, I don't think he'll miss it now. If he still has a fancy for it, +he can do it with Molly's money. She has plenty. But I don't believe +he will. It has occurred to me lately (it's an idea that's been +growing on me about everybody) that Morrison, like most of us, has +been miscast. He doesn't really care a continental about the aesthetic +salvation of the country. It's only the contagion of the American +craze for connecting everything with social betterment, tagging +everything with that label, that ever made him think he did. He's far +too thoroughgoing an aesthete himself. What he was brought into +the world for, was to appreciate, as nobody else can, all sorts of +esoterically fine things. Now that he'll be able to gratify that +taste, he'll find his occupation in it. Why shouldn't he? It'd be a +hideously leveled world if everybody was, trying to be a reformer. +Besides, who'd be left to reform? I love to contemplate a genuine, +whole-souled appreciator like Morrison, without any qualms about the +way society is put together. And I envy him! I envy him as blackly as +your pines envied the sumac. He's got out of the wrong role into the +right one. I wish to the Lord I could!" + +They were close to the house now, in the avenue of poplars, yellow as +gold above them in the quick-falling autumn twilight. Sylvia spoke +with a quick, spirited sincerity, her momentary pique forgotten, her +feeling rushing out generously to meet the man's simple openness. "Oh, +that's the problem for all of us! To know what role to play! If you +think it hard for you who have only to choose--how about the rest of +us who must--?" She broke off. "What's that? What's that?" + +She had almost stumbled over a man's body, lying prone, half in the +driveway, half on the close-clipped grass on the side; a well-dressed +man, tall, thin, his limbs sprawled about broken-jointedly. He lay on +his back, his face glimmering white in the clear, dim dusk. Sylvia +recognized him with a cry. "Oh, it's Arnold! He's been struck by a +car! He's dead!" + +She sprang forward, and stopped short, at gaze, frozen. + +The man sat up, propping himself on his hands and looked at her, a +wavering smile on his lips. He began to speak, a thick, unmodulated +voice, as though his throat were stiff. "Comingtomeetyou," he +articulated very rapidly and quite unintelligibly, "an 'countered hill +in driveway ... no hill _in_ driveway, and climbed and climbed"--he +lost himself in repetition and brought up short to begin again, +"--labor so 'cessive had to rest--" + +Sylvia turned a paper-white face on her companion. "What's the matter +with him?" she tried to say, but Page only saw her lips move. He made +no answer. That she would know in an instant what was the matter +flickered from her eyes, from her trembling white lips; that she did +know, even as she spoke, was apparent from the scorn and indignation +which like sheet-lightning leaped out on him. "Arnold! For _shame_! +Arnold! Think of Judith!" + +At the name he frowned vaguely as though it suggested something +extremely distressing to him, though he evidently did not recognize +it. "Judish? Judish?" he repeated, drawing his brows together and +making a grimace of great pain. "What's Judish?" + +And then, quite suddenly the pain and distress were wiped from his +face by sodden vacuity. He had hitched himself to one of the poplars, +and now leaned against this, his head bent on his shoulder at the +sickening angle of a man hanged, his eyes glassy, his mouth open, +a trickle of saliva flowing from one corner. He breathed hard and +loudly. There was nothing there but a lump of uncomely flesh. + +Sylvia shrank back from the sight with such disgust that she felt her +flesh creep. She turned a hard, angry face on Page. "Oh, the beast! +The beast!" she cried, under her breath. She felt defiled. She hated +Arnold. She hated life. + +Page said quietly: "You'll excuse my not going with you to the house? +I'll have my car and chauffeur here in a moment." He stepped away +quickly and Sylvia turned to flee into the house. + +But something halted her flying feet. She hesitated, stopped, and +pressed her hands together hard. He could not be left alone there in +the driveway. A car might run over him in the dusk. She turned back. + +She stood there, alone with the horror under the tree. She turned her +back on it, but she could see nothing but the abject, strengthless +body, the dreadful ignominy of the face. They filled the world. + +And then quickly--everything came quickly to Sylvia--there stood +before her the little boy who had come to see them in La Chance so +long ago, the little honest-eyed boy who had so loved her mother and +Judith, who had loved Pauline the maid and suffered with her pain; and +then the bigger boy who out of his weakness had begged for a share +of her mother's strength and been refused; and then the man, still +honest-eyed, who, aimless, wavering, had cried out to her in misery +upon the emptiness of his life; and who later had wept those pure +tears of joy that he had found love. She had a moment of insight, of +vision, of terrible understanding. She did not know what was taking +place within her, something racking--spasmodic throes of sudden +growth, the emergence for the first time in all her life of the +capacity for pity ... + +When, only a moment or two later, Page's car came swiftly down the +driveway, and he sprang out, he found Sylvia sitting by the drunkard, +the quiet tears streaming down her face. She had wiped his mouth with +her handkerchief, she held his limp hand in hers, his foolish staring +face was hidden on her shoulder.... + +The two men lifted him bodily, an ignoble, sagging weight, into the +car. She stood beside him and, without a word, stooped and gently +disposed his slackly hanging arms beside him. + +Dark had quite fallen by this time. They were all silent, shadowy +forms. She felt that Page was at her side. He leaned to her. Her hand +was taken and kissed. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +MUCH ADO ... + + +The rest of October was a period never clear in Sylvia's head. +Everything that happened was confusing and almost everything was +painful; and a great deal happened. She had thought at the time that +nothing would ever blur in her mind the shock of finding Aunt Victoria +opposed to what seemed to her the first obvious necessity: writing +to Judith about Arnold. She had been trying for a long time now with +desperate sincerity to take the world as she found it, to see +people as they were with no fanatic intolerance, to realize her own +inexperience of life, to be broad, to take in without too much of a +wrench another point of view; but to Aunt Victoria's idea, held quite +simply and naturally by that lady, that Judith be kept in ignorance +of Arnold's habits until after marriage, Sylvia's mind closed as +automatically, as hermetically as an oyster-shell snaps shut. She +could not discuss it, she could not even attend with hearing ears to +Mrs. Marshall-Smith's very reasonable presentation of her case; the +long tradition as to the justifiability of such ignorance on a bride's +part; the impossibility that any woman should ever know all of any +man's character before marriage; the strong presumption that marriage +with a woman he adored would cure habits contracted only through +the inevitable aimlessness of too much wealth; the fact that, once +married, a woman like Judith would accept, and for the most part deal +competently with, facts which would frighten her in her raw girlish +state of ignorance and crudeness. Sylvia did not even hear these +arguments and many more like them, dignified with the sanction of +generations of women trying their best to deal with life. She had +never thought of the question before. It was the sort of thing from +which she had always averted her moral eyes with extreme distaste; but +now that it was forced on her, her reaction to it was instantaneous. +From the depths of her there rose up fresh in its original vigor, +never having been dulled by a single enforced compliance with a +convention running counter to a principle, the most irresistible +instinct against concealment. She did not argue; she could not. She +could only say with a breathless certainty against which there was no +holding out: "Judith must know! Judith must know!" + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith, alarmed by the prospect of a passage-at-arms, +decreed quietly that they should both sleep on the question and take +it up the next morning. Sylvia had not slept. She had lain in her +bed, wide-eyed; a series of pictures passing before her eyes with the +unnatural vividness of hallucinations. These pictures were not only of +Arnold, of Arnold again, of Arnold and Judith. There were all sorts of +odd bits of memories--a conversation overheard years before, between +her father and Lawrence, when Lawrence was a little, little boy. He +had asked--it was like Lawrence's eerie ways--apropos of nothing at +all, "What sort of a man was Aunt Victoria's husband?" + +His father had said, "A rich man, very rich." This prompt appearance +of readiness to answer had silenced the child for a moment: and then +(Sylvia could see his thin little hands patting down the sand-cake he +was making) he had persisted, "What kind of a rich man?" His father +had said, "Well, he was bald--quite bald--Lawrence, come run a race +with me to the woodshed." Sylvia now, ten years later, wondered why +her father had evaded. What kind of a man _had_ Arnold's father been? + +But chiefly she braced herself for the struggle with Aunt Victoria in +the morning. It came to her in fleeting glimpses that Aunt Victoria +would be only human if she resented with some heat this entire +disregard of her wishes; that the discussion might very well end in +a quarrel, and that a quarrel would mean the end of Lydford with all +that Lydford meant now and potentially. But this perception was +swept out of sight, like everything else, in the singleness of her +conviction: "Judith must know! Judith must know!" + +There was, however, no struggle with Aunt Victoria in the morning. +Mrs. Marshall-Smith, encountering the same passionate outcry, +recognized an irresistible force when she encountered it; recognized +it, in fact, soon enough to avoid the long-drawn-out acrimony of +discussion into which a less intelligent woman would inevitably have +plunged; recognized it almost, but not quite, in time to shut off from +Sylvia's later meditations certain startling vistas down which she +had now only fleeting glimpses. "Very well, my dear," said Mrs. +Marshall-Smith, her cherished clarity always unclouded by small +resentments,--"very well, we will trust in your judgment rather than +my own. I don't pretend to understand present-day girls, though I +manage to be very fond of one of them. Judith is your sister. You will +do, of course, what you think is right. It means, of course, Judith +being what she is, that she will instantly cast him off; and Arnold +being what he is, that means that he will drink himself into delirium +tremens in six months. His father ..." She stopped short, closing with +some haste the door to a vista, and poured herself another cup of +coffee. They were having breakfast in her room, both in negligee +and lacy caps, two singularly handsome representatives of differing +generations. Mrs. Marshall-Smith looked calm, Sylvia extremely +agitated. She had been awake at the early hour of deadly pale dawn +when a swift, long-barreled car had drawn up under the porte-cochere +and Arnold had been taken away under the guard of a short, broad, +brawny man with disproportionately long arms. She was not able to +swallow a mouthful of breakfast. + +During the night, she had not looked an inch beyond her blind passion +of insistence. Now that Aunt Victoria yielded with so disconcerting +a suddenness, she faced with a pang what lay beyond. "Oh, Judith +wouldn't cast him off! She loves him so! She'll give him a chance. You +don't know Judith. She doesn't care about many things, but she gives +herself up absolutely to those that do matter to her. She adores +Arnold! It fairly frightened me to see how she was burning up when +he was near. She'll insist on his reforming, of course--she ought +to--but--" + +"Suppose he doesn't reform to suit her," suggested Mrs. +Marshall-Smith, stirring her coffee. "He's been reformed at intervals +ever since he was fifteen. He never could stay through a whole term +in any decent boys' school." Here was a vista, ruthlessly opened. +Sylvia's eyes looked down it and shuddered. "Poor Arnold!" she said +under her breath, pushing away her untasted cup. + +"I'm dull enough to find you take an odd way to show your sympathy for +him," murmured Mrs. Marshall-Smith, with none of the acidity the words +themselves seemed to indicate. She seemed indeed genuinely perplexed. +"It's not been exactly a hilarious element in _my_ life either. But +I've always tried to hold on to Arnold. I thought it my duty. And now, +since Felix Morrison has found this excellent specialist for me, it's +much easier. I telegraph to him and he comes at once and takes Arnold +back to his sanitarium, till he's himself again." For the first time +in weeks Morrison's name brought up between them no insistently +present, persistently ignored shadow. The deeper shadow now blotted +him out. + +"But Aunt Victoria, it's for Judith to decide. _She_'ll do the right +thing." + +"Sometimes people are thrown by circumstances into a situation where +they wouldn't have dreamed of putting themselves--and yet they rise to +it and conquer it," philosophized Aunt Victoria. "Life takes hold of +us with strong hands and makes us greater than we thought. Judith will +_mean_ to do the right thing. If she were married, she'd _have_ to do +it! It seems to me a great responsibility you take, Sylvia--you may, +with the best of intentions in the world, be ruining the happiness of +two lives." + +Sylvia got up, her eyes red with unshed tears. It was not the first +time that morning. "It's all too horrible," she murmured. "But I +haven't any right to conceal it from Judith." + +Her eyes were still red when, an hour later, she stepped into the room +again and said, "I've mailed it." + +Her aunt, still in lavender silk negligee, so far progressed towards +the day's toilet as to have her hair carefully dressed, looked up +from the _Revue Bleue_, and nodded. Her expression was one of quiet +self-possession. + +Sylvia came closer to her and sat down on a straight-backed chair. She +was dressed for the street, and hatted, as though she herself had +gone out to mail the letter. "And now, Tantine," she said, with the +resolute air of one broaching a difficult subject, "I think I ought to +be planning to go home very soon." It was a momentous speech, and a +momentous pause followed it. It had occurred to Sylvia, still shaken +with the struggle over the question of secrecy, that she could, +in decency, only offer to take herself away, after so violently +antagonizing her hostess. She realized with what crude intolerance she +had attacked the other woman's position, how absolutely with claw and +talon she had demolished it. She smarted with the sense that she +had seemed oblivious of an "obligation." She detested the sense of +obligation. And having become aware of a debt due her dignity, she had +paid it hastily, on the impulse of the moment. But as the words still +echoed in the air, she was struck to see how absolutely her immediate +future, all her future, perhaps, depended on the outcome of that +conversation she herself had begun. She looked fixedly at her aunt, +trying to prepare herself for anything. But she was not prepared for +what Mrs. Marshall-Smith did. + +She swept the magazine from her lap to the floor and held out her arms +to Sylvia. "I had hoped--I had hoped you were happy--with me," she +said, and in her voice was that change of quality, that tremor of +sincerity which Sylvia had always found profoundly moving. The girl +was overcome with astonishment and remorse--and immense relief. She +ran to her. "Oh, I am! I am! I was only thinking--I've gone against +your judgment." Her nerves, stretched with the sleepless night and the +strain of writing the dreadful letter to Judith, gave way. She broke +into sobs. She put her arms tightly around her aunt's beautiful neck +and laid her head on her shoulder, weeping, her heart swelling, her +mind in a whirling mass of disconnected impressions. Arnold--Judith +... how strange it was that Aunt Victoria really cared for her--did +she really care for Aunt Victoria or only admire her?--did she really +care for anybody, since she was agreeing to stay longer away from +her father and mother?--how good it would be not to have to give up +Helene's services--what a heartless, materialistic girl she was--she +cared for nothing but luxury and money--she would be going abroad now +to Paris--Austin Page--he had kissed her hand ... and yet she felt +that he saw through her, saw through her mean little devices and +stratagems--how astonishing that he should be so very, very rich--it +seemed that a very, very rich man ought to be different from other +men--his powers were so unnaturally great--girls could not feel +naturally about him ... And all the while that these varying +reflections passed at lightning speed through her mind, her nervous +sobs were continuing. + +Aunt Victoria taking them, naturally enough, as signs of continued +remorse, lifted her out of this supposed slough of despond with +affectionate peremptoriness. "Don't feel so badly about it, darling. +We won't have any more talk for the present about differing judgments, +or of going away, or of anything uncomfortable"; and in this way, +with nothing clearly understood, on a foundation indeed of +misunderstanding, the decision was made, in the haphazard fashion +which characterizes most human decisions. + +The rest of the month was no more consecutive or logical. Into the +midst of the going-away confusion of a household about to remove +itself half around the world, into a house distracted with packing, +cheerless with linen-covers, desolate with rolled-up rugs and cold +lunches and half-packed trunks, came, in a matter-of-fact manner +characteristic of its writer, Judith's answer to Sylvia's letter. +Sylvia opened it, shrinking and fearful of what she would read. She +had, in the days since hers had been sent, imagined Judith's answer in +every possible form; but never in any form remotely resembling what +Judith wrote. The letter stated in Judith's concise style that of +course she agreed with Sylvia that there should be no secrets between +betrothed lovers, nor, in this case, were there any. Arnold had told +her, the evening before she left Lydford, that he had inherited an +alcoholic tendency from his father. She had been in communication +with a great specialist in Wisconsin about the case. She knew of the +sanitarium to which Arnold had been taken and did not like it. The +medical treatment there was not serious. She hoped soon to have +him transferred to the care of Dr. Rivedal. If Arnold's general +constitution were still sound, there was every probability of a cure. +Doctors knew so much more about that sort of thing than they used +to. Had Sylvia heard that Madame La Rue was not a bit well, that old +trouble with her heart, only worse? They'd been obliged to hire a +maid--how in the world were the La Rues going to exist on American +cooking? Cousin Parnelia said she could cure Madame with some +Sanopractic nonsense, a new fad that Cousin Parnelia had taken up +lately. Professor Kennedy had been elected vice-president of the +American Mathematical Association, and it was funny to see him try to +pretend that he wasn't pleased. Mother's garden this autumn was ... + +"_Well_!" ejaculated Sylvia, stopping short. Mrs. Marshall-Smith had +stopped to listen in the midst of the exhausting toil of telling +Helene which dresses to pack and which to leave hanging in the Lydford +house. She now resumed her labors unflaggingly, waving away to +the closet a mauve satin, and beckoning into a trunk a favorite +black-and-white chiffon. To Sylvia she said, "Now I know exactly how a +balloon feels when it is pricked." + +Sylvia agreed ruefully. "I might have known Judith would manage to +make me feel flat if I got wrought up about it. She hates a fuss made +over anything, and she can always take you down if you make one." +She remembered with a singular feeling of discomfiture the throbbing +phrases of her letter, written under the high pressure of the quarrel +with Aunt Victoria. She could almost see the expression of austere +distaste in the stern young beauty of Judith's face. Judith was always +making her appear foolish! + +"We were both of us," commented Mrs. Marshall-Smith dryly, "somewhat +mistaken about the degree of seriousness with which Judith would take +the information." + +Sylvia forgot her vexation and sprang loyally to Judith's defense. +"Why, of course she takes it like a trained nurse, like a +doctor--feels it a purely medical affair--as I suppose it is. We might +have known she'd feel that way. But as to how she really feels inside, +personally, you can't tell anything by her letter! You probably +couldn't tell anything by her manner if she were here. You never can. +She may be simply wild about a thing inside, but you'd never guess." + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith ventured to express some skepticism as to the +existence of volcanic feelings always so sedulously concealed. "After +all, can you be so very sure that she is ever 'simply wild' if she +never shows anything?" + +"Oh, you're _sure_, all right, if you've lived with her--you feel it. +And then, after about so long a time of keeping it down, she breaks +loose and _does_ something awful, that I'd never have the nerve to do, +and tears into flinders anything she doesn't think is right. Why, when +we were little girls and went to the public schools together, two of +our little playmates, who turned out to have a little negro blood, +we ..." Sylvia stopped, suddenly warned by some instinct that Aunt +Victoria would not be a sympathetic listener to that unforgotten +episode of her childhood, that episode which had seemed to have no +consequences, no sequel, but which ever since that day had insensibly +affected the course of her growth, like a great rock fallen into the +Current of her life. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith, deliberating with bated breath between broadcloth +and blue panama, did not notice the pause. She did, however, add a +final comment on the matter, some moments later, when she observed, +"How any girl in her senses can go on studying, when she's engaged to +a man who needs her as much as Arnold needs Judith!" To which Sylvia +answered irrelevantly with a thought which had just struck her +thrillingly, "But how perfectly fine of Arnold to tell her himself!" + +"She must have hypnotized him," said Mrs. Marshall-Smith with +conviction, "but then I don't pretend to understand the ways of young +people nowadays." She was now forty-five, in the full bloom of a +rarely preserved beauty, and could afford to make remarks about the +younger generation. "At any rate," she went on, "it is a comfort to +know that Judith has set her hand to the wheel. I have not in years +crossed the ocean with so much peace of mind about Arnold as I shall +have this time," said his stepmother. "No, leave that blue voile, +Helene, the collar never fitted." + +"Oh, he doesn't spend the winters in Paris with you?" asked Sylvia. + +"He's been staying here in Lydford of late--crazy as it sounds. He was +simply so bored that he couldn't think of anything else to do. He has, +besides, an absurd theory that he enjoys it more in winter than in +summer. He says the natives are to be seen then. He's been here from +his childhood. He knows a good many of them, I suppose. Now, Helene, +let's see the gloves and hats." + +It came over Sylvia with a passing sense of great strangeness that she +had been in this spot for four months and, with the exception of the +men at the fire, she had not met, had not spoken to, had not even +consciously seen a single inhabitant of the place. + +And in the end, she went away in precisely the same state of +ignorance. On the day they drove to the station she did, indeed, give +one fleeting glimpse over the edge of her narrow prison-house of +self-centered interest. Surrounded by a great many strapped and +buckled pieces of baggage, with Helene, fascinatingly ugly in her +serf's uniform, holding the black leather bag containing Aunt +Victoria's jewels, they passed along the street for the last time, +under the great elms already almost wintry with their bare boughs. +Now that it was too late, Sylvia felt a momentary curiosity about the +unseen humanity which had been so near her all the summer. She looked +out curiously at the shabby vehicles (it seemed to her that there +were more of them than in the height of the season), at the +straight-standing, plainly dressed, briskly walking women and children +(there seemed to be a new air of life and animation about the street +now that most of the summer cottages were empty), and at the lounging, +indifferent, powerfully built men. She wondered, for a moment, what +they were like, with what fortitude their eager human hearts bore the +annual display of splendor they might never share. They looked, in +that last glimpse, somehow quite strong, as though they would care +less than she would in their places. Perhaps they were only hostile, +not envious. + +"I dare say," said Aunt Victoria, glancing out at a buck-board, very +muddy as to wheels, crowded with children, "that it's very forlorn for +the natives to have the life all go out of the village when the summer +people leave. They must feel desolate enough!" + +Sylvia wondered. + +The last thing she saw as the train left the valley was the upland +pass between Windward and Hemlock mountains. It brought up to her the +taste of black birch, the formidably clean smell of yellow soap, and +the rush of summer wind past her ears. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +"WHOM GOD HATH JOINED ..." + + +They were to sail on the 23d, and ever since the big square invitation +had come it had been a foregone conclusion, conceded with no need +for wounding words, that there was no way out of attending the +Sommerville-Morrison wedding on the 21st. They kept, of course, no +constrained silence about it. Aunt Victoria detested the awkwardness +of not mentioning difficult subjects as heartily as she did the +mention of them; and as the tree toad evolves a skin to answer his +needs, she had evolved a method all her own of turning her back +squarely on both horns of a dilemma. No, there was no silence about +the wedding, only about the possibility that it might be an ordeal, or +that the ordeal might be avoided. It could not be avoided. There was +nothing to be said on that point. But there was much talk, during the +few days of their stay in New York, about the elaborate preparations +for the ceremony. Morrison, who came to see them in their temporary +quarters, kept up a somewhat satirical report as to the magnificence +of the performance, and on the one occasion when they went to see +Molly they found her flushed, excited, utterly inconsecutive, +distracted by a million details, and accepting the situation as the +normal one for a bride-to-be. There were heart-searchings as to +toilets to match the grandeur of the occasion; and later satisfaction +with the moss-green chiffon for Sylvia and violet-colored velvet for +her aunt. There were consultations about the present Aunt Victoria +was to send from them both, a wonderfully expensive, newly patented, +leather traveling-case for a car, guaranteed to hold less to the +square inch and pound than any other similar, heavy, gold-mounted +contrivance. Mrs. Marshall-Smith told Morrison frankly, in this +connection, that she had tried to select a present which Molly herself +would enjoy. + +"Am I not to have a present myself?" asked Morrison. "Something that +you selected expressly for me?" + +"No," said Sylvia, dropping the sugar into his tea with deliberation. +"You are not to have any present for yourself." + +She was guiltily conscious that she was thinking of a certain scene in +"The Golden Bowl," a scene in which a wedding present figures largely; +and when, a moment later, he said, "I have a new volume of Henry James +I'd like to loan you," she knew that the same scene had been in his +head. She would not look at him lest she read in his eyes that he had +meant her to know. As she frequently did in those days, she rose, and +making an excuse of a walk in the park, took herself off. + +She was quite calm during this period, her mind full of trivial +things. She had the firm conviction that she was living in a dream, +that nothing of what was happening was irrevocable. And besides, as at +Lydford, for much of the day, she was absorbed in the material details +of her life, being rubbed and dressed and undressed, and adorned and +fed and catered to. They were spending the few days before sailing in +a very grand hotel, overlooking Central Park. Sylvia had almost every +day the thought that she herself was now in the center of exactly the +same picture in which, as a child, she had enviously watched Aunt +Victoria. She adored every detail of it. It was an opening-out, even +from the Lydford life. She felt herself expanding like a dried sponge +placed in water, to fill every crack and crevice of the luxurious +habits of life. The traveling along that road is always swift; and +Sylvia's feet were never slow. During the first days in Vermont, +it had seemed a magnificence to her that she need never think of +dish-washing or bed-making. By this time it seemed quite natural to +her that Helene drew and tempered the water for her bath, and put on +her stockings. Occasionally she noticed with a little surprise that +she seemed to have no more free time than in the laborious life of La +Chance; but for the most part she threw out, in all haste, innumerable +greedy root-tendrils into the surcharged richness of her new soil and +sent up a rank growth of easeful acquiescence in redundance. + +The wedding was quite as grand as the Sommervilles had tried to make +it. The street was crowded with staring, curious, uninvited people on +either side of the church, and when the carriage containing the bride +drove up, the surge forward to see her was as fierce as though she had +been a defaulting bank-president being taken to prison. The police +had to intervene. The interior, fern and orchid swathed, very dimly +lighted by rich purple stained glass and aristocratic dripping wax +candles instead of the more convenient electric imitations, was +murmurous with the wonderful throbbing notes of a great organ and with +the discreet low tones of the invited guests as they speculated about +the relative ages and fortunes of the bride and bridegroom. The +chancel was filled with a vested choir which, singing and carrying a +cross, advanced down the aisle to meet the bridal party. Molly, who +had not been in a church since her childhood, had needed to be coached +over and over again in the ins and outs of the complicated service. + +Sylvia, seated several guests away from the aisle, saw little of the +procession as it went up into the chancel. She caught a glimpse of a +misty mass of white and, beside it, old Mr. Sommerville's profile, +very white and nervous and determined. She did not at that time see +the bridegroom at all. The ceremony, which took place far within the +chancel, was long and interspersed with music from the choir. Sylvia, +feeling very queer and callous, as though, under an anaesthetic, she +were watching with entire unconcern the amputation of one of her +limbs, fell to observing the people about her. The woman in front of +her leaned against the pew and brought her broad, well-fed back close +under Sylvia's eyes. It was covered with as many layers as a worm in +a cocoon. There were beads on lace, the lace incrusted on other lace, +chiffon, fish-net, a dimly seen filmy satin, cut in points, and, lower +down, an invisible foundation of taffeta. Through the interstices +there gleamed a revelation of the back itself, fat, white, again like +a worm in a cocoon. + +Sylvia began to plan out a comparison of dress with architecture, +bringing out the insistent tendency in both to the rococo, to the +burying of structural lines in ornamentation. The cuff, for instance, +originally intended to protect the skin from contact with unwashable +fabrics, degenerated into a mere bit of "trimming," which has lost all +its meaning, which may be set anywhere on the sleeve. Like a strong +hand about her throat came the knowledge that she was planning to say +all this to please Felix Morrison, who was now within fifty feet of +her, being married to another woman. + +She flamed to fever and chilled again to her queer absence of +spirit.... There was a chorister at the end of the line near her, a +pale young man with a spiritual face who chanted his part with shining +rapt eyes. While he sang he slipped his hand under his white surplice +and took out his watch. Still singing "Glory be to the Father, the +Son, and the Holy Ghost," he cast a hasty eye on the watch and frowned +impatiently. He was evidently afraid the business in hand would drag +along and make him late to another appointment, "--is now and ever +shall be, world without end. Amen!" he sang fervently. Sylvia +repressed an hysterical desire to laugh. + +The ceremony was over; the air in the building beat wildly against the +walls, the stained-glass windows, and the ears of the worshipers in +the excited tumult of the wedding-march; the procession began to +leave the chancel. This time Sylvia caught one clear glimpse of the +principals, but it meant nothing to her. They looked like wax effigies +of themselves, self-conscious, posed, emptied of their personalities +by the noise, the crowds, the congestion of ceremony. The idea +occurred to Sylvia that they looked as though they had taken in as +little as she the significance of what had happened. The people about +her were moving in relieved restlessness after the long immobility of +the wedding. The woman next her went down on her knees for a devout +period, her face in her white gloves. When she rose, she said +earnestly to her companion, "Do you know if I had to choose one +hat-trimming for all the rest of my life, I should make it small pink +roses in clusters. It's perfectly miraculous how, with black chiffon, +they _never_ go out!" She settled in place the great cluster of costly +violets at her breast which she seemed to have exuded like some +natural secretion of her plump and expensive person. "Why don't they +let us out!" she said complainingly. + +A young man, one of those born to be a wedding usher, now came swiftly +up the aisle on patent leather feet and untied with pearl-gray fingers +the great white satin ribbon which restrained them in the pew. Sylvia +caught her aunt's eye on her, its anxiety rather less well hidden than +usual. With no effort at all the girl achieved a flashing smile. It +was not hard. She felt quite numb. She had been present only during +one or two painful, quickly passed moments. + +But the reception at the house, the big, old-fashioned, very rich +Sommerville house, was more of an ordeal. There was the sight of the +bride and groom in the receiving-line, now no longer badly executed +graven images, but quite themselves--Molly starry-eyed, triumphant, +astonishingly beautiful, her husband distinguished, ugly, +self-possessed, easily the most interesting personality in the room; +there was the difficult moment of the presentation, the handclasp with +Felix, the rapturous vague kiss from Molly, evidently too uplifted to +have any idea as to the individualities of the people defiling before +her; then the passing on into the throng, the eating and drinking and +talking with acquaintances from the Lydford summer colony, of whom +there were naturally a large assortment. Sylvia had a growing sense of +pain, which was becoming acute when across the room she saw Molly, +in a lull of arrivals, look up to her husband and receive from him a +smiling, intimate look of possession. Why, they were _married_! It was +done! + +The delicate food in Sylvia's mouth turned to ashes. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith's voice, almost fluttered, almost (for her) +excited, came to her ears: "Sylvia--here is Mr. Page! And he's just +told me the most delightful news, that he's decided to run over to +Paris for a time this fall." + +"I hope Miss Marshall will think that Paris will be big enough for all +of us?" asked Austin Page, fixing his remarkably clear eyes on the +girl. + +She made a great effort for self-possession. She turned her back on +the receiving-line. She held out her hand cordially. "I hope Paris +will be quite, quite small, so that we shall all see a great deal of +each other," she said warmly. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +SYLVIA TELLS THE TRUTH + + +They left Mrs. Marshall-Smith with a book, seated on a little +yellow-painted iron chair, the fifteen-centime kind, at the top of the +great flight of steps leading down to the wide green expanse of the +Tapis Vert. She was alternately reading Huysmans' highly imaginative +ideas on Gothic cathedrals, and letting her eyes stray up and down the +long facade of the great Louis. Her powers of aesthetic assimilation +seemed to be proof against this extraordinary mixture of impressions. +She had insisted that she would be entirely happy there in the sun, +for an hour at least, especially if she were left in solitude with her +book. On which intimation Sylvia and Page had strolled off to do some +exploring. It was a situation which a month of similar arrangements +had made very familiar to them. + +"No, I don't know Versailles very well," he said in answer to her +question, "but I believe the gardens back of the Grand and Petit +Trianon are more interesting than these near the Chateau itself. +The conscientiousness with which they're kept up is not quite so +formidable." + +So they walked down the side of the Grand Canal, admiring the rather +pensive beauty of the late November woods, and talking, as was the +proper thing, about the great Louis and his court, and how they both +detested his style of gilded, carved wall ornamentation, although his +chairs weren't as bad as some others. They turned off at the cross-arm +of the Canal towards the Great Trianon; they talked, again dutifully +in the spirit of the place, about Madame de Maintenon. They differed +on this subject just enough to enjoy discussing it. Page averred that +the whole affair had always passed his comprehension, "--what that +ease-loving, vain, indulgent, trivial-minded grandson of Henri Quatre +could ever have seen for all those years in that stiff, prim, cold old +school-ma'am--" + +But Sylvia shook her head. "I know how he felt. He _had_ to have her, +once he'd found her. She was the only person in all his world he could +depend on." + +"Why not depend on himself?" Page asked. + +"Oh, he couldn't! He couldn't! She had character and he hadn't." + +"What do you mean by character?" he challenged her. + +"It's what I haven't!" she said. + +He attempted a chivalrous exculpation. "Oh, if you mean by character +such hard, insensitive lack of imagination as Madame de Maintenon's--" + +"No, not that," said Sylvia. "_You_ know what I mean by character as +well as I." + +By the time they were back of the Little Trianon, this beginning had +led them naturally enough away from the frivolities of historical +conversation to serious considerations, namely themselves. The start +had been a reminiscence of Sylvia's, induced by the slow fall of +golden leaves from the last of the birches into the still water of the +lake in the midst of Marie Antoinette's hamlet. They stopped on an +outrageously rustic bridge, constructed quite in the artificially +rural style of the place, and, leaning on the railing, watched in a +fascinated silence the quiet, eddying descent of the leaves. There was +not a breath of wind. The leaves detached themselves from the tree +with no wrench. They loosened their hold gradually, gradually, and +finally out of sheer fullness of maturity floated down to their graves +with a dreamy content. + +"I never happened to see that effect before," said Page. "I supposed +leaves were detached only by wind. It's astonishingly peaceful, isn't +it?" + +"I saw it once before," said Sylvia, her eyes fixed on the noiseless +arabesques traced by the leaves in their fall--"at home in La Chance. +I'll never forget it." She spoke in a low tone as though not to break +the charmed silence about them, and, upon his asking her for the +incident, she went on, almost in a murmur: "It isn't a story you could +possibly understand. You've never been poor. But I'll tell you if you +like. I've talked to you such a lot about home and the queer people we +know--did I ever mention Cousin Parnelia? She's a distant cousin of my +mother's, a queer woman who lost her husband and three children in a +train-wreck years ago, and has been a little bit crazy ever since. She +has always worn, for instance, exactly the same kind of clothes, hat +and everything, that she had on, the day the news was brought to her. +The Spiritualists got hold of her then, and she's been one herself for +ever so long--table-rapping--planchette-writing--all the horrid rest +of it, and she makes a little money by being a "medium" for ignorant +people. But she hardly earns enough that way to keep her from +starving, and Mother has for ever so long helped her out. + +"Well, there was a chance to buy a tiny house and lot for her--two +hundred and twenty dollars. It was just a two-roomed cottage, but it +would be a roof over her head at least. She is getting old and ought +to have something to fall back on. Mother called us all together and +said this would be a way to help provide for Cousin Parnelia's +old age. Father never could bear her (he's so hard on ignorant, +superstitious people), but he always does what Mother thinks best, +so he said he'd give up the new typewriter he'd been hoping to buy. +Mother gave up her chicken money she'd been putting by for some new +rose-bushes, and she loves her roses too! Judith gave what she'd +earned picking raspberries, and I--oh, how I hated to do it! but I was +ashamed not to--I gave what I'd saved up for my autumn suit. Lawrence +just stuck it out that he hated Cousin Parnelia and he wouldn't give a +bit. But he was so little that he only had thirty cents or something +like that in a tin bank, so it didn't matter. When we put it all +together it wasn't nearly enough of course, and we took the rest out +of our own little family savings-bank rainy-day savings and bought the +tiny house and lot. Father wanted to 'surprise' Cousin Parnelia with +the deed. He wanted to lay it under some flowers in a basket, or slip +it into her pocket, or send it to her with some eggs or something. But +Mother--it was so like her!--the first time Cousin Parnelia happened +to come to the house, Mother picked up the deed from her desk and said +offhand, 'Oh, Parnelia, we bought the little Garens house for you,' +and handed her the paper, and went to talking about cutworms or +Bordeaux mixture." + +Page smiled, appreciative of the picture. "I see her. I see your +mother--Vermont to the core." + +"Well, it was only about two weeks after that, I was practising and +Mother was rubbing down a table she was fixing over. Nobody else +happened to be at home. Cousin Parnelia came in, her old battered +black straw hat on one ear as usual. She was all stirred up and +pleased about a new 'method' of using planchette. You know what +planchette is, don't you? The little heart-shaped piece of wood +spiritualists use, with a pencil fast to it, to take down their silly +'messages,' Some spiritualistic fake was visiting town conducting +seances and he claimed he'd discovered some sort of method for +inducing greater receptivity--or something like that. I don't know +anything about spiritualism but little tags I've picked up from +hearing Cousin Parnelia talk. Anyway, he was 'teaching' other mediums +for a big price. And it came out that Cousin Parnelia had mortgaged +the house for more than it was worth, and had used the money to take +those 'lessons.' I couldn't believe it for a minute. When I really +understood what she'd done, I was so angry I felt like smashing +both fists down on the piano keys and howling! I thought of my blue +corduroy I'd given up--I was only fourteen and just crazy about +clothes. Mother was sitting on the floor, scraping away at the +table-leg. She got up, laid down her sandpaper, and asked Cousin +Parnelia if she'd excuse us for a few minutes. Then she took me by +the hand, as though I was a little girl. I felt like one too, I felt +almost frightened by Mother's face, and we both marched out of the +house. She didn't say a word. She took me down to our swimming-hole +in the river. There is a big maple-tree leaning over that. It was a +perfectly breathless autumn day like this, and the tree was shedding +its leaves like that birch, just gently, slowly, steadily letting them +go down into the still water. We sat down on the bank and watched +them. The air was full of them, yet all so quiet, without any hurry. +The water was red with them, they floated down on our shoulders, on +our heads, in our laps--not a sound--so peaceful--so calm--so perfect. +It was like the andante of the Kreutzer. + +"I knew what Mother wanted, to get over being angry with Cousin +Parnelia. And she was. I could see it in her face, like somebody in +church. I felt it myself--all over, like an E string that's been +pulled too high, slipping down into tune when you turn the peg. But +I didn't _want_ to feel it. I _wanted_ to hate Cousin Parnelia. I +thought it was awfully hard in Mother not to want us to have even the +satisfaction of hating Cousin Parnelia! I tried to go on doing it. +I remember I cried a little. But Mother never said a word--just +sat there in that quiet autumn sunshine, watching the leaves +falling--falling--and I had to do as she did. And by and by I felt, +just as she did, that Cousin Parnelia was only a very small part of +something very big. + +"When we went in, Mother's face was just as it always was, and we got +Cousin Parnelia a cup of tea and gave her part of a boiled ham to +take home and a dozen eggs and a loaf of graham bread, just as though +nothing had happened." + +She stopped speaking. There was no sound at all but the delicate, +forlorn whisper of the leaves. + +"That is a very fine story!" said Page finally. He spoke with a +measured, emphatic, almost solemn accent. + +"Yes, it's a very fine story," murmured Sylvia a little wistfully. +"It's finer as a story than it was as real life. It was years before I +could look at blue corduroy without feeling stirred up. I really cared +more about my clothes than I did about that stupid, ignorant old +woman. If it's only a cheerful giver the Lord loves, He didn't feel +much affection for me." + +They began to retrace their steps. "You gave up the blue corduroy," +he commented as they walked on, "and you didn't scold your silly old +kinswoman." + +"That's only because Mother hypnotized me. _She_ has character. I did +it as Louis signed the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, because +Madame de Maintenon thought he ought to." + +"But she couldn't hypnotize your brother Lawrence, althought he was so +much younger. He didn't give up his thirty-seven cents. I think you're +bragging without cause if you claim any engaging and picturesque +absence of character." + +"Oh, Lawrence--he's different! He's extraordinary! Sometimes I think +he is a genius. And it's Judith who hypnotizes him. _She_ supplies his +character." + +They emerged into an opening and walked in silence for some moments +towards the Grand Trianon. + +"You're lucky, very lucky," commented Page, "to have such an ample +supply of character in the family. I'm an only child. There's nobody +to give me the necessary hypodermic supply of it at the crucial +moments." He went on, turning his head to look at the Great Trianon, +very mellow in the sunshine. "It's my belief, however, that at the +crucial moments you have plenty of it of your own." + +"That's a safe guess!" said Sylvia ironically, "since there never have +_been_ any crucial moments in a life so uninterestingly eventless as +mine. I wonder what I _would_ do," she mused. "My own conviction is +that--suppose I'd lived in the days of the Reformation--in the days of +Christ--in the early Abolition days--" She had an instant certainty: +"Oh, I have been entirely on the side of whatever was smooth, and +elegant, and had amenity--I'd have hated the righteous side!" + +Page did not look very deeply moved by this revelation of depravity. +Indeed, he smiled rather amusedly at her, and changed the subject. +"You said a moment ago that I couldn't understand, because I'd always +had money. Isn't it a bit paradoxical to say that the people who +haven't a thing are the only ones who know anything about it?" + +"But you couldn't realize what _losing_ the money meant to us. You +can't know what the absence of money can do to a life." + +"I can know," said Page, "what the presence of it cannot do for +a life." His accent implied rather sadly that the omissions were +considerable. + +"Oh, of course, of course," Sylvia agreed. "There's any amount it +can't do. After you have it, you must get the other things too." + +He brought his eyes down to her from a roving quest among the tops +of the trees. "It seems to me you want a great deal," he said +quizzically. + +"Yes, I do," she admitted. "But I don't see that you have any call +to object to my wanting it. You don't have to wish for everything at +once. You have it already." + +He received this into one of his thoughtful silences, but presently it +brought him to a standstill. They were within sight of the Grand Canal +again, looking down from the terrace of the Trianon. He leaned against +the marble balustrade and thrust his hands deep into his pockets. His +clear eyes were clouded. He looked profoundly grave. "I am thirty-two +years old," he said, "and never for a moment of that time have I +made any sense out of my position in life. If you call that 'having +everything'--" + +It occurred to Sylvia fleetingly that she had never made any sense out +of her position in life either, and had been obliged to do a great +many disagreeable things into the bargain, but she kept this thought +to herself, and looked conspicuously what she genuinely felt, a +sympathetic interest. The note of plain direct sincerity which was +Page's hallmark never failed to arrest her attention, a little to +arouse her wonder, and occasionally, for a reason that she did not +like to dwell upon, somewhat to abash her. The reason was that he +never spoke for effect, and she often did. He was not speaking for +effect now: he seemed scarcely even to be speaking to her, rather to +be musingly formulating something for his own enlightenment. He +went on. "The fact is that there _is_ no sense to be made out of my +situation in life. I am like a man with a fine voice, who has no ear." + +He showed surprise that Sylvia failed to follow this, and explained. +"I mean the voice is no good to that kind of a man, it's no good to +anybody. It's the craziest, accidental affair anyhow, haven't you ever +noticed it?--who draws the fine voices. Half the time--more than half +the time, _most_ of the time it seems to me when I've been recently to +a lot of concerts, the people who have the voices haven't any other +qualifications for being singers. And it's so with coal-mines, with +everything else that's inherited. For five years now I've given up +what I'd like to do, and I've tried, under the best _maestri_ I could +find, to make something out of my voice, so to speak. And it's no +go. It's in the nature of things that I can't make a go of it. +Over everything I do lies the taint that I'm the 'owner'! They are +suspicious of me, always will be--and rightly so. Anybody else not +connected with the mediaeval idea of 'possession' could do better than +I. The whole relation's artificial. I'm in it for the preposterous +reason that my father, operating on Wall Street, made a lucky +guess,--as though I should be called upon to run a locomotive because +my middle initial is L!" + +Sylvia still felt the same slight sense of flatness when this +recurring topic thrust itself into a personal talk; but during the +last month she had adjusted herself to Page so that this no longer +showed on the surface. She was indeed quite capable of taking an +interest in the subject, as soon as she could modulate herself into +the new key. "Yes, of course," she agreed, "it's like so many other +things that are perfectly necessary to go on with, perfectly absurd +when you look closely at them. My father nearly lost his position once +for saying that all inheritance was wrong. But even he never had +the slightest suggestion as to what to do about it, how to get an +inheritance into the hands of the people who might make the best use +of it." She was used from her childhood to this sort of academic doubt +of everything, conducted side by side with a practical acceptance of +everything. Professor and Madame La Rue, in actual life devotedly +faithful married lovers, staid, stout, habit-ridden elderly people, +professed a theoretical belief in the flexibility of relationships +sanctioned by the practice of free love. It was perhaps with this +recollection in her mind that she suggested, "Don't you suppose it +will be like the institution of marriage, very, very gradually altered +till it fits conditions better?" + +"In the meantime, how about the cases of those who are unhappily +married?" + +"I don't see anything for them but just to get along the best they +can," she told him. + +"You think I'd better give up trying to do anything with my +Colorado--?" he asked her, as though genuinely seeking advice. + +"I should certainly think that five years was plenty long enough for a +fair trial! You'd make a better ambassador than an active captain of +industry, anyhow," she said with conviction. Whereupon he bestowed on +her a long, thoughtful stare, as though he were profoundly pondering +her suggestion. + +They moved forward towards the Grand Canal in silence. Privately she +was considering his case hardly one of extreme hardship. Privately +also, as they advanced nearer and nearer the spot where they had left +Mrs. Marshall-Smith, she was a little dreading the return to the +perfect breeding with which Aunt Victoria did not ask, or intimate, or +look, the question which was in her mind after each of these strolling +tete-a-tetes which consistently led nowhere. There were instants when +Sylvia would positively have preferred the vulgar openness of a direct +question to which she might have answered, with the refreshing effect +to her of a little honest blood-letting: "Dear Aunt Victoria, I +haven't the least idea myself what's happening! I'm simply letting +myself go because I don't see anything else to do. I have even no very +clear idea as to what is going on inside my own head. I only know that +I like Austin Page so much (in spite of a certain quite unforgotten +episode) there would be nothing at all unpleasant about marrying him; +but I also know that I didn't feel the least interest in him until +Helene told me about his barrels of money: I also know that I feel the +strongest aversion to returning to the Spartan life of La Chance; and +it occurs to me that these two things may throw considerable light +on my 'liking' for Austin. As for what's in _his_ mind, there is +no subject on which I'm in blacker ignorance. And after being so +tremendously fooled, in the case of Felix, about the degree of +interest a man was feeling, I do not propose to take anything for +granted which is not on the surface. It is quite possible that this +singularly sincere and simple-mannered man may not have the slightest +intention of doing anything more than enjoy a pleasant vacation from +certain rather hair-splitting cares which seem to trouble him from +time to time." As they walked side by side along the stagnant waters, +she was sending inaudible messages of this sort towards her aunt; she +had even selected the particular mauve speck at the top of the steps +which might be Mrs. Marshall-Smith. + +In the glowing yellow gold of the sky, a faintly whirring dark-gray +spot appeared: an airman made his way above the Grand Canal, passed +above the Chateau, and disappeared. They had sat down on a bench, the +better to crane their heads to watch him out of sight. Sylvia was +penetrated with the strangeness of that apparition in that spot and +thrilled out: "Isn't it wonderful! Isn't it wonderful! _Here!_" + +"There's something _more_ wonderful!" he said, indicating with his +cane the canal before them, where a group of neat, poorly dressed, +lower middle-class people looked proudly out from their triumphal +progress in the ugly, gasping little motor-boat which operates at +twenty-five centimes a trip. + +She had not walked and talked a month with him for nothing. She knew +that he did not refer to motor-boats as against aeroplanes. "You +mean," she said appreciatively, "you mean those common people going +freely around the royal canal where two hundred years ago--" + +He nodded, pleased by her quickness. "Two hundred years from now," +he conjectured, "the stubs of my checkbook will be exhibited in an +historical museum along with the regalia of the last hereditary +monarch." + +Here she did not follow, and she was too intelligent to pretend she +did. + +He lifted his eyebrows. "Relic of a quaint old social structure +inexplicably tolerated so late as the beginning of the twentieth +century," + +"Oh, coal-mines forever!" she said, smiling, her eyes brilliant with +friendly mockery. + +"Aye! _Toujours perdrix!_" he admitted. He continued to look steadily +and seriously into her smiling, sparkling face, until, with a sudden +pulse of premonition, she was stricken into a frightened gravity. And +then, with no prelude, no approach, quite simply and directly, he +spoke. "I wonder how much you care for me?" he said musingly, as he +had said everything else that afternoon: and as she positively paled +at the eeriness of this echo from her own thought, he went on, his +voice vibrating in the deep organ note of a great moment, "You must +know, of course, by this time that I care everything possible for +you." + +Compressed into an instant of acute feeling Sylvia felt the pangs +which had racked her as a little girl when she had stood in the +schoolyard with Camilla Fingal before her, and the terrifying hostile +eyes about her. Her two selves rose up against each other fiercely, +murderously, as they had then. The little girl sprang forward to help +the woman who for an instant hesitated. The fever and the struggle +vanished as instantly as they had come. Sylvia felt very still, very +hushed. Page had told her that she always rose to crucial moments. She +rose to this one. "I don't know," she said as quietly as he, with as +utter a bravery of bare sincerity, "I don't know how much I care for +you--but I think it is a great deal." She rose upon a solemn wing of +courage to a greater height of honesty. Her eyes were on his, as clear +as his. The mere beauty of her face had gone like a lifted veil. For a +instant he saw her as Sylvia herself did not dream she could be. "It +is very hard," said Sylvia Marshall, with clear eyes and trembling +lips of honest humility, "for a girl with no money to know how much +she cares for a very rich man." + +She had never been able to imagine what she would say if the moment +should come. She had certainly not intended to say this. But an +unsuspected vein of granite in her rang an instant echo to his +truth. She was bewildered to see his ardent gaze upon her deepen to +reverence. He took her hand in his and kissed it. He tried to speak, +but his voice broke. + +She was immensely moved to see him so moved. She was also entirely at +a loss. How strangely different things always were from forecasts of +them! They had suddenly taken the long-expected stride away from their +former relation, but she did not know where they had arrived. What was +the new status between them? What did Austin think she meant? It came +to her with a shock that the new status between them was, on the +surface, exactly what it was in reality; that the avowed relation +between them was, as far as it went, precisely in accord with the +facts of the case. The utter strangeness of this in any human +relationship filled her with astonishment, with awe, almost with +uneasiness. It seemed unnatural not to have to pretend anything! + +Apparently it did not seem unnatural to the man beside her. "You are a +very wonderful woman," he now said, his voice still but partly under +his control. "I had not thought that you could exist." He took her +hand again and continued more steadily: "Will you let me, for a little +while longer, go on living near you? Perhaps things may seem clearer +to us both, later--" + +Sylvia was swept by a wave of gratitude as for some act of +magnanimity. "_You_ are the wonderful one!" she cried. Not since the +day Helene had told her who he was, had she felt so whole, so sound, +so clean, as now. The word came rushing on the heels of the thought: +"You make one feel so _clean_!" she said, unaware that he could +scarcely understand her, and then she smiled, passing with her free, +natural grace from the memorable pause, and the concentration of a +great moment forward into the even-stepping advance of life. "That +first day--even then you made me feel clean--that soap! that cold, +clean water--it is your aroma!" + +Their walk along the silent water, over the great lawn, and up the +steps was golden with the level rays of the sun setting back of them, +at the end of the canal, between the distant, sentinel poplars. Their +mood was as golden as the light. Sometimes they spoke, sometimes they +were silent. Truth walked between them. + +Sylvia's mind, released from the tension of that great moment, began +making its usual, sweeping, circling explorations of its own depths. +Not all that it found was of an equal good report. Once she thought +fleetingly: "This is only a very, very pretty way of saying that it +is all really settled. With his great wealth, he is like a reigning +monarch--let him be as delicate-minded as he pleases, when he +indicates a wish--" More than once--many, many times--Felix Morrison's +compelling dark eyes looked at her penetratingly, but she resolutely +turned away her head from them, and from the impulse to answer their +reproach even with an indignant, well-founded reproach of her own. +Again and again she felt a sweet strangeness in her new position. The +aroma of utter sincerity was like the scent of a wildflower growing in +the sun, spicy, free. She wondered at a heart like his that could be +at once ardent and subtle, that could desire so profoundly (the deep +vibrations of that voice of yearning were in her ears still) and yet +pause, and stand back, and wait, rather than force a hair's breadth +of pretense. How he had liberated her! And once she found herself +thinking, "I shall have sables myself, and diamonds, and a house as +great as Molly's, and I shall learn how to entertain ambassadors, +as she will never know." She was ashamed of this, she knew it to be +shockingly out of key with the grand passage behind them. But she had +thought it. + +And, as these thoughts, and many more, passed through her mind, as she +spoke with a quiet peace, or was silent, she was transfigured into a +beauty almost startling, by the accident of the level golden beams of +light back of her. Her aureole of bright hair glowed like a saint's +halo. The curiously placed lights and unexpected shadows brought +out new subtleties in the modeling of her face. Her lightened heart +gleamed through her eyes, like a lighted lamp. After a time, the man +fell into a complete silence, glancing at her frequently as though +storing away a priceless memory.... + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + +"A MILESTONE PASSED, THE ROAD SEEMS CLEAR" + + +As the "season" heightened, the beautiful paneled walls of Mrs. +Marshall-Smith's salon were frequently the background for chance +gatherings of extremely appropriate callers. They seemed a visible +emanation of the room, so entirely did they represent what that sort +of a room was meant to contain. They were not only beautifully but +severely dressed, with few ornaments, and those few a result of the +same concentrated search for the rare which had brought together the +few bibelots in the room, which had laid the single great dull Persian +rug on the unobtrusively polished oaken floor, which had set in the +high, south windows the boxes of feathery green plants with delicate +star-like flowers. + +And it was not only in externals that these carefully brushed and +combed people harmonized with the mellow beauty of their background. +They sat, or stood, moved about, took their tea, and talked with an +extraordinary perfection of manner. There was not a voice there, +save perhaps Austin Page's unstudied tones, which was not carefully +modulated in a variety of rhythm and pitch which made each sentence a +work of art. They used, for the most part, low tones and few gestures, +but those well chosen. There was an earnest effort apparent to achieve +true conversational give-and-take, and if one of the older men found +himself yielding to the national passion for lengthy monologues on a +favorite theme, or to the mediocre habit of anecdote, there was an +instant closing in on him of carefully casual team-work on the part of +the others which soon reduced him to the tasteful short comment +and answer which formed the framework of the afternoon's social +activities. + +The topics of the conversation were as explicitly in harmony with the +group-ideal as the perfectly fitting gloves of the men, or the smooth, +burnished waves of the women's hair. They talked of the last play at +the Francais, of the exhibitions then on view at the Petit Palais, of +a new tenor in the choir of the Madeleine, of the condition of the +automobile roads in the Loire country, of the restoration of the +stained glass at Bourges. + +On such occasions, a good deal of Sylvia's attention being given to +modulating her voice and holding her hands and managing her skirts as +did the guests of the hour, she usually had an impression that the +conversation was clever. Once or twice, looking back, she had been +somewhat surprised to find that she could remember nothing of what had +been said. It occurred to her, fleetingly, that of so much talk, some +word ought to stick in her usually retentive memory; but she gave the +matter no more thought. She had also been aware, somewhat dimly, that +Austin Page was more or less out of drawing in the carefully composed +picture presented on those social afternoons. He had the inveterate +habit of being at his ease under all circumstances, but she had felt +that he took these great people with a really exaggerated lack of +seriousness, answering their chat at random, and showing no chagrin +when he was detected in the grossest ignorance about the latest move +of the French Royalist party, or the probabilities as to the winner +of the Grand Prix. She had seen in the corners of his mouth an +inexplicable hidden imp of laughter as he gravely listened, cup in +hand, to the remarks of the beautiful Mrs. William Winterton Perth +about the inevitable promiscuity of democracy, and he continually +displayed a tendency to gravitate into the background, away from the +center of the stage where their deference for his name, fortune, and +personality would have placed him. Sylvia's impression of him was far +from being one of social brilliance, but rather of an almost wilful +negligence. She quite grew used to seeing him, a tall, distinguished +figure, sitting at ease in a far corner, and giving to the scene a +pleasant though not remarkably respectful attention. + +On such an afternoon in January, the usual routine had been preserved. +The last of the callers, carrying off Mrs. Marshall-Smith with her, +had taken an urbane, fair-spoken departure. Sylvia turned back from +the door of the salon, feeling a fine glow of conscious amenity, and +found that Austin Page's mood differed notably from her own. He had +lingered for a tete-a-tete, as was so frequently his habit, and now +stood before the fire, his face all one sparkle of fun. "Don't they +do it with true American fervor!" he remarked. "It would take a +microscope to tell the difference between them and a well-rehearsed +society scene on the stage of the Francais! That's their model, +of course. It is positively touching to see old Colonel Patterson +subduing his twang and shutting the lid down on his box of comic +stories. I should think Mrs. Patterson might allow him at least that +one about the cowboy and the tenderfoot who wanted to take a bath!" + +The impression made on Sylvia had not in the least corresponded to +this one; but with a cat-like twist of her flexible mind, she fell +on her feet, took up his lead, and deftly produced the only suitable +material she had at command. "They _seem_ to talk well, about such +interesting things, and yet I can never remember anything they say. +It's odd," she sat down near the fireplace with a great air of +pondering the strange phenomenon. + +"No, it isn't odd," he explained, dropping into the chair opposite her +and stretching out his long legs to the blaze. "It's only people who +do something, who have anything to say. These folks don't do anything +except get up and sit down the right way, and run their voices up and +down the scale so that their great-aunts would faint away to hear +them! They haven't any energy left over. If some one would only write +out suitable parts for them to memorize, the performance would be +perfect!" He threw back his head and laughed aloud, the sound ringing +through the room. Sylvia had seldom seen him so light-heartedly +amused. He explained: "I haven't seen this sort of solemn, genteel +posturing for several years now, and I find it too delicious! To see +the sweet, invincible American naivete welling up in their intense +satisfaction in being so sophisticated,--oh, the harmless dears!" He +cried out upon them gaily, with the indulgence of an adult who looks +on at children's play. + +Sylvia was a trifle breathless, seeing him disappear so rapidly down +this unexpected path, but she was for the moment spared the effort to +overtake him by the arrival of Tojiko with a tray of fresh mail. "Oh, +letters from home!" Sylvia rejoiced, taking a bulky one and a thin one +from the pile. "The fat one is from Father," she said, holding it up. +"He is like me, terribly given to loquaciousness. We always write each +other reams when we're apart. The little flat one is from Judith. She +never can think of anything to say except that she is still alive and +hopes I am, and that her esteem for me is undiminished. Dear Spartan +Judy!" + +"Do you know," said the man opposite her, "if I hadn't met you, I +should have been tempted to believe that the institution of the +family had disappeared. I never saw anything like you Marshalls! You +positively seem to have a real regard for each other in spite of +what Bernard Shaw says about the relations of blood-kin. You even, +incredible as it seems, appear to feel a mutual respect!" + +"That's a very pretty compliment indeed," said Sylvia, smiling at him +flashingly, "and I'm going to reward you by reading some of Judith's +letter aloud. Letters do paint personalities so, don't they?" + +He settled himself to listen. + +"Oh, it won't take long!" she reassured him laughingly. She read: + +"'DEAR SYLVIE: Your last letter about the palaces at Versailles was +very interesting. Mother looked you up on the plan of the grounds in +Father's old Baedeker. I'm glad to know you like Paris so much. Our +chief operating surgeon says he thinks the opportunities at the School +of Medicine in Paris are fully as good as in Vienna, and chances for +individual diagnoses greater. Have you visited that yet?'" Over +the letter Sylvia raised a humorous eyebrow at Page, who smiled, +appreciative of the point. + +She went on: "'Lawrence is making me a visit of a few days. Isn't he +a queer boy! I got Dr. Wilkinson to agree, as a great favor, to let +Lawrence see a very interesting operation. Right in the middle of it, +Lawrence fainted dead away and had to be carried out. But when he came +to, he said he wouldn't have missed it for anything, and before he +could really sit up he was beginning a poem about the "cruel mercy of +the shining knives."'" Sylvia shook her head. "Isn't that Lawrence! +Isn't that Judith!" + +Page agreed thoughtfully, their eyes meeting in a trustful intimacy. +They themselves might have been bound together by a family tie, so +wholly natural seemed their sociable sitting together over the fire. +Sylvia thought with an instant's surprise, "Isn't it odd how close he +has come to seem--as though I'd always, always known him; as though I +could speak to him of anything--nobody else ever seemed that way to +me, nobody!" + +She read on from the letter: "'All of us at St. Mary's are feeling +very sore about lawyers. Old Mr. Winthrop had left the hospital +fifteen thousand dollars in his will, and we'd been counting on that +to make some changes in the operating-room and the men's accident ward +that are awfully needed. And now comes along a miserable lawyer who +finds something the matter with the will, and everything goes to that +worthless Charlie Winthrop, who'll probably blow it all in on one +grand poker-playing spree. It makes me tired! We can't begin to keep +up with the latest X-ray developments without the new apparatus, and +only the other day we lost a case, a man hurt in a railroad wreck, +that I know we could have pulled through if we'd been better equipped! +Well, hard luck! But I try to remember Mother's old uncle's motto, +"Whatever else you do, _don't_ make a fuss!" Father has been off for a +few days, speaking before Alumni reunions. He looks very well. Mother +has got her new fruit cellar fixed up, and it certainly is great. +She's going to keep the carrots and parsnips there too. I've just +heard that I'm going to graduate first in my class--thought you might +like to know. Have a good time, Sylvia. And don't let your imagination +get away with you. + +"'Your loving sister, + +"'JUDITH,'" + +"Of all the perfect characterizations!" murmured Page, as Sylvia +finished. "I can actually see her and hear her!" + +"Oh, there's nobody like Judith!" agreed Sylvia, falling into a +reverie, her eyes on the fire. + +The peaceful silence which ensued spoke vividly of the intimacy +between them. + +After a time Sylvia glanced up, and finding her companion's eyes +abstractedly fixed on the floor, she continued to look into his face, +noting its fine, somewhat gaunt modeling, the level line of his brown +eyebrows, the humor and kindness of his mouth. The winter twilight +cast its first faint web of blue shadow into the room. The fire burned +with a steady blaze. + +As minute after minute of this hushed, wordless calm continued, Sylvia +was aware that something new was happening to her, that something in +her stirred which had never before made its presence known. She felt +very queer, a little startled, very much bewildered. What was that +half-thought fluttering a dusky wing in the back of her mind? It came +out into the twilight and she saw it for what it was. She had been +wondering what she would feel if that silent figure opposite her +should rise and take her in his arms. As she looked at that tender, +humorous mouth, she had been wondering what she would feel to press +her lips upon it? + +She was twenty-three years old, but so occupied with mental effort and +physical activity had been her life, that not till now had she known +one of those half-daring, half-frightened excursions of the fancy +which fill the hours of any full-blooded idle girl of eighteen. It was +a woman grown with a girl's freshness of impression, who knew that +ravished, scared, exquisite moment of the first dim awakening of the +senses. But because it was a woman grown with a woman's capacity for +emotion, the moment had a solemnity, a significance, which no girl +could have felt. This was no wandering, flitting, winged excursion. +It was a grave step upon a path from which there was no turning back. +Sylvia had passed a milestone. But she did not know this. She sat very +still in her chair as the twilight deepened, only knowing that she +could not take her eyes from those tender, humorous lips. That was the +moment when if the man had spoken, if he had but looked at her ... + +But he was following out some thought of his own, and now rose, went +to Mrs. Marshall-Smith's fine, small desk, snapped on an electric +light, and began to write. + +When he finished, he handed a bit of paper to Sylvia. "Do you suppose +your sister would be willing to let me make up for the objectionable +Charlie Winthrop's deficiences?" he asked with a deprecatory air as +though he feared a refusal. + +Sylvia looked at the piece of paper. It was a check for fifteen +thousand dollars. She held there in her hand seven years of her +father's life, as much money as they all had lived on from the years +she was sixteen until now. And this man had but to dip pen into ink to +produce it. There was something stupefying about the thought to her. +She no longer saw the humor and tenderness of his mouth. She looked up +at him and thought, "What an immensely rich man he is!" She said to +him wonderingly, "You can't imagine how strange it is--like magic--not +to be believed--to have money like that!" + +His face clouded. He looked down uncertainly at his feet and away at +the lighted electric bulb. "I thought it might please your sister," he +said and turned away. + +Sylvia was aghast to think that she had perhaps wounded him. He seemed +to fear that he had flaunted his fortune in her face. He looked +acutely uncomfortable. She found that, as she had thought, she could +say anything, anything to him, and say it easily. She went to him +quickly and laid her hand on his arm. "It's splendid," she said, +looking deeply and frankly into his eyes. "Judith will be too +rejoiced! It _is_ like magic. And nobody but you could have done it so +that the money seems the least part of the deed!" + +He looked down at her, touched, moved, his eyes very tender, but sad +as though with a divination of the barrier his fortune eternally +raised between them. + +The door opened suddenly and Mrs. Marshall-Smith came in quickly, +not looking at them at all. From the pale agitation of her face they +recoiled, startled and alarmed. She sat down abruptly as though her +knees had given way under her. Her gloved hands were perceptibly +trembling in her lap. She looked straight at Sylvia, and for an +instant did not speak. If she had rushed in screaming wildly, her +aspect to Sylvia's eyes would scarcely have been more eloquent of +portentous news to come. It was a fitting introduction to what she now +said to them in an unsteady voice: "I've just heard--a despatch +from Jamiaca--something terrible has happened. The news came to +the American Express office when I was there. It is awful. Molly +Sommerville driving her car alone--an appalling accident to the +steering-gear, they think. Molly found dead under the car." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + +THE ROAD IS NOT SO CLEAR + + +It shocked Sylvia that Molly's death should make so little difference. +After one sober evening with the stunning words fresh before their +eyes, the three friends quickly returned to their ordinary routine +of life. It was not that they did not care, she reflected--she _did_ +care. She had cried and cried at the thought of that quivering, vital +spirit broken by the inert crushing mass of steel--she could not bring +herself to think of the soft body, mangled, bloody. Austin cared too: +she was sure of it; but when they had expressed their pity, what more +could they do? The cabled statement was so bald, they hardly could +believe it--they failed altogether to realize what it meant--they +had no details on which to base any commentary. She who had lived so +intensely, was dead. They were sorry for her. That was all. + +As an apology for their seeming callousness they reiterated Aunt +Victoria's dictum: "We can know nothing about it until Felix comes. +Let us hold our minds in suspense until we know what to think." That +Morrison would be in Paris soon, none of them doubted. Indeed, +they united in insisting on the number of natural--oh, perfectly +natural--reasons for his coming. He had always spent a part of every +winter there, had in fact a tiny apartment on the Rue St. Honore which +dated from his bachelor life; and now he had a double reason for +coming, since much of Molly's fortune chanced to be in French bonds. +Her father had been (among other things) American agent for the +Comptoir National des Escomptes, and he had taken advantage of his +unusual opportunities for acquiring solid French and remunerative +Algerian securities. Page had said at once that Morrison would need to +go through a good many formalities, under the French laws. So pending +fuller information, they did not discuss the tragedy. Their lives ran +on, and Molly, dead, was in their minds almost as little as Molly, +living but absent, had been. + +It was only two months before Felix Morrison arrived in Paris. They +had expected him. They had spoken of the chance of his arrival on +this or that day. Sylvia had rehearsed all the possible forms of +self-possession for their first meeting; but on the rainy February +afternoon when she came in from representing Aunt Victoria at a +reception and saw him sitting by the fire, her heart sank down and +stopped for an instant, and when it went on beating she could hear no +sound but the drumming of her pulse. The back of his chair was towards +her. All she could see as she stood for a moment in the doorway +was his head, the thick, graying dark hair, and one long-fingered, +sensitive, beautiful hand lying on the arm of the chair. At the +sight, she felt in her own palm the soft firmness of those fingers as +palpably as ever she had in reality. + +The instant's pause before Aunt Victoria saw her standing there, gave +her back her self-control. When Mrs. Marshall-Smith turned and gravely +held out her hand, Sylvia came forward with a sober self-possession. +The man turned too, sprang up with an exclamation apparently of +surprise, "Miss Marshall, you _here_!" and extended his hand. Sylvia, +searching his face earnestly, found it so worn, saw in it such dark +traces of suffering and sorrow, that the quick tears of sympathy stood +in her eyes. + +Her dread of the meeting, a morbid dread that had in it an +acknowledged element of horror, vanished. Before that moment she had +seen only Molly's face as it had looked the day of their desperate +talk, white and despairing, and resolutely bent over the +steering-wheel. She had not been able to imagine Felix' face at all, +had instinctively put it out of her mind; but as she looked into it +now, her fear of it disappeared. It was the fine, sensitive face of a +fine, sensitive man who has known a great shock. What had she feared +she would see there? He was still holding her hand, very much affected +at seeing her, evidently still in a super-sensitive condition when +everything affected him strongly. "She loved you--she admired you so!" +he said, his wonderful voice wavering and uncertain. Sylvia's tears +fell openly at this. She sat down on a low stool near her aunt's +knees. "I can't believe it--I haven't been able to believe it!" she +told him; "Molly was--she was more alive than anybody I ever saw!" + +"If you had seen her that morning," he told them both,--"like a flame +of vitality--almost frightening--so vivid. She waved good-bye, and +then that was not enough; she got out of the car and ran back up +the hotel-step to say good-bye for just those few moments--and was +off--such youth! such youth in all her--" + +Sylvia cried out, "Oh, no! no! it's too dreadful!" She felt the horror +sweep down on her again; but now it did not bear Felix' face among +its baneful images. He stood there, shocked, stricken, but utterly +bewildered, utterly ignorant--for the moment in her relief she had +called his ignorance utter innocence ... + +They did not see him again for many days, and when he came, very +briefly, speaking of business technicalities which absorbed him, he +was noticeably absent and careworn. He looked much older. The gray in +his thick hair had increased. He looked very beautiful and austere to +Sylvia. They exchanged no more than the salutations of arrival and +farewell. + +Then one day, as she and Aunt Victoria and Austin Page strolled down +the long gallery of the Louvre, they came upon him, looking at the +Ribera Entombment. He joined them, walking with them through the Salon +Carre and out to the Winged Victory, calling Sylvia's attention to the +Botticelli frescoes beyond on the landing. "It's the first time I've +been here," he told them, his only allusion to what lay back of him. +"It is like coming back to true friends. Blessed be all true friends." +He shook hands with them, and went away down the great stairway, a +splendid figure of dignity and grace. + +After this he came once and again to the apartment of the Rue de +Presbourg, generally it would appear to use the piano. He had none in +his own tiny _pied-a-terre_ and he missed it. Sylvia immensely liked +his continuing to cling for a time to the simple arrangements of his +frugal bachelor days. He could now of course have bought a thousand +pianos. They understood how he would miss his music, and stole in +quietly when, upon opening the door, Tojiko told them that Mr. +Morrison had come in, and they heard from the salon his delicately +firm touch on the keys. Sometimes they listened from their rooms, +sometimes the two women took possession of the little octagonal room +off the salon, all white paneling and gilt chairs, and listened there; +sometimes, as the weeks went on and an especially early spring began +to envelop Paris in a haze of sunshine and budding leaves, they +stepped out to listen on the wrought-iron balcony which looked down +the long, shining vista of the tree-framed avenue. For the most part +he played Bach, grave, courageous, formal, great-hearted music. + +Sometimes he went away with no more than a nod and a smile to them, +but more and more, when he had finished, he came out where they were, +and stood or sat to exchange brief impressions on the enchanting +season, or on some social or aesthetic treat which "_ces dames_" had +been enjoying. Austin Page was frequently with them, as in the earlier +part of the winter, and it was finally he himself who one day took the +step of asking Morrison if he would not go with them to the Louvre. +"No one could appreciate more than Miss Marshall what has always been +such a delight to us all." + +They went, and not only once. That was the beginning of another phase; +a period when, as he began to take up life again, he turned to his old +friends to help him do it. He saw almost no one else, certainly no one +else there, for he was sure to disappear upon the arrival of a caller, +or the announcement of an expedition in which other people were +included. But he returned again and again to the Louvre with them, his +theory of galleries necessitating frequent visits. Nothing could be +more idiotic, he held, than to try to see on one occasion all, or even +half, or even a tenth part, of a great collection of works of art. "It +is exactly as reasonable," he contended, "as to read through on the +same day every poem in a great anthology. Who could have anything but +nausea for poetry after such a gorge? And they _must_ hate pictures or +else be literally blind to them, the people who look at five hundred +in a morning! If I had looked at every picture in the Long Gallery +in one walk through it, I should thrust my cane through the Titian +Francis-First itself when I came to the Salon Carre." + +So he took them to see only a few, five or six, carefully selected +things--there was one wonderful day when he showed them nothing +but the Da Vinci Saint Anne, and the Venus of Melos, comparing the +dissimilar beauty of those two divine faces so vitally, that Sylvia +for days afterwards, when she closed her eyes and saw them, felt that +she looked on two living women. She told them this and, "Which one do +you see most?" he asked her. "Oh, the Saint Anne," she told him. + +He seemed dissatisfied. But she did not venture to ask him why. They +lived in an atmosphere where omissions were vital. + +Sylvia often wondered in those days if there ever had been a situation +so precariously balanced which continued to hang poised and stable, +minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day. There were +moments when her head was swimming with moral dizziness. She wondered +if such moments ever came to the two quiet, self-controlled men who +came and went, with cordial, easy friendliness, in and out of the +appartement on the Rue de Presbourg. They gave no sign of it, they +gave no sign of anything beyond the most achieved appearance of a +natural desire to be obliging and indulgent to the niece of an old +friend. This appearance was kept up with such unflagging perseverance +that it almost seemed consciously concerted between them. They so +elaborately avoided the slightest appearance of rivalry that their +good taste, like a cloth thrown over an unknown object, inevitably +excited curiosity as to what was concealed beneath it. + +And Sylvia was not to be outdone. She turned her own eyes away from +it as sedulously as they. She never let a conscious thought dwell on +it--and like all other repressed and strangled currents of thought, it +grew swollen and restive, filling her subconsciousness with monstrous, +unformulated speculations. She was extremely absorbed in the luxury, +the amenity, the smooth-working perfection of the life about her. +She consciously concentrated all her faculties on her prodigious +opportunity for aesthetic growth, for appreciation of the fine and +marvelous things about her. She let go the last scruple which had held +her back from accepting from Aunt Victoria the shower of beautiful +things to wear which that connoisseur in wearing apparel delighted +to bestow upon an object so deserving. She gave a brilliant outward +effect of enjoying life as it came which was as impersonal as that of +the two men who looked at her so frequently, and this effect went as +deep as her will-power had command. But beneath--unacknowledged waves +beating on the shore of her life and roughly, irresistibly, rudely +fashioning it--rolled a ground-swell of imperious questionings.... + +Was Felix' perfect manner of impersonal interest solely due to the +delicacy of his situation? Did he feel now that he was as rich as +Austin ...? But, on the other hand, why did he come now and put +himself in a situation which required the utmost efforts for +unconsciousness on everybody's part if not because Austin's being +there had meant he dared not wait? And Austin's change of manner since +the arrival of the other man, the film of ceremony which had slid +imperceptibly over the tender friendliness of his manner, did that +mean that he would not take advantage of Morrison's temporarily tied +hands, but, with a scrupulousness all his own, would wait until the +race was even and they stood foot to foot on the same level? Or had he +noticed at once, with those formidably clear eyes of his, some shade +of her manner to Felix which she had not been able to command, and was +he waiting for some move from her? And how could she move until she +had some sign from Felix and how could he give a sign? There was +nothing to do but to wait, to hope that the thin ice which now bent +perilously under the pleasant ceremonies of their life in common, +would hold them until.... Even the wildest up-leaping wave of that +tossing tide never went beyond the blank wall which came after the +"until...." + +There were other moments when all that surge swung back and forth +to the rhythm of the poisoned recollection of her unacknowledged +humiliation in Lydford; when, inflamed with determination to avoid +another such blow in the face, Sylvia almost consciously asked +herself, self-contemptuously, "Who am I, an obscure, poverty-stricken +music-teacher out of the West, to fancy that I have but to choose +between two such men, two such fortunes?" but against this counted +strongly the constantly recurring revelations of the obscure pasts of +many of the women whom she met during those days, women who were now +shining, acknowledged firsts in the procession of success. The serene, +stately, much-admired Princesse de Chevrille had been a Miss Sommers +from Cleveland, Ohio, and she had come to Paris first as a governess. +The beautiful Mrs. William Winterton Perth, now Aunt Victoria's +favorite friend, who entertained lesser royalty and greater men of +letters with equal quiet dignity, had in her youth, so she chanced +casually one day to mention, known what it was to be thrifty about +car-fares. There was nothing intrinsically impossible in any of the +glittering vistas down which Sylvia's quick eye cast involuntary +glances. + +But inevitably, when the heaving dark tide rose as high as this, there +came a swift and deadly ebbing away of it all, and into Sylvia's +consciousness (always it seemed to her with the most entire +irrelevance) there flared up the picture of Molly as she had seen +her last, shimmering like a jewel in her white veil--then the other +picture, the over-turned car, the golden head bruised and bloody and +forever stilled--and always, always beyond that, the gaunt, monstrous +possibility, too awful ever to be put into words, too impossible for +credence ... + +From that shapeless, looming, black mass, Sylvia fled away actually +and physically, springing to her feet wherever she was, entering +another room, taking up some other occupation. + +Just once she had the faintest sign from beyond the wall that she was +not alone in her fear of this horror. She was sitting near Austin Page +at a tea, one of the frequent, small, richly chosen assemblages which +Mrs. Marshall-Smith gathered about her. Part of the ensuing chatter on +one of these occasions turned, as modern chatter frequently does, on +automobiles. The husband of Mrs. William Winterton Perth was an expert +on such matters, having for some years diverted by an interest +in mechanics the immense enforced leisure of a transplanted male +American. He was talking incessantly that day of the wonderful +improvement in steering mechanism the last few years had brought +about. "I tell you what, Miss Marshall!" he insisted, as though she +had disputed the point with him, "I tell you _what_, there used to +be some excuse for piling your car up by the side of the road, but +nowadays any one who doesn't keep in the road and right side up must +be just plain _looking_ for a chance to use his car like a dose of +cold poison." For a moment Sylvia could not conceive why she felt so +sickening a thrust at her heart. She turned her eyes from the speaker. +They fell on a man's hand, on the arm of the chair next hers. It was +Austin's hand and it was shaking uncontrollably. As she gazed at it, +fascinated, he thrust it deep into his pocket. She did not look at +him. In a moment he rose and crossed the room. The husband of Mrs. +William Winterton Perth asked for another _petit four_, confessing his +fondness for chocolate eclairs,--and embarked upon demountable rims. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + +"_... His wife and children perceiving it, began to cry after him to +return; but the man put his fingers in his ears and ran on, crying, +'Life! Life Eternal!_'" + + +They had been in the Louvre, had spent an hour with Felix in that +glowing embodiment of the pomp and majesty of human flesh known as the +Rubens Medici-Room, and now, for the sheer pleasure of it, had decided +to walk home. Mrs. Marshall-Smith, endowed with a figure which showed +as yet no need for exercise, and having passed youth's restless liking +for it, had vetoed the plan as far as she went, and entering her +waiting ear, had been borne smoothly off, an opulent Juno without her +peacocks. + +The three who were left, lingered for a moment in the quiet sunny +square of the Louvre, looking up at the statue of Lafayette, around at +the blossoming early shrubs. Sylvia was still under the spell of the +riotous, full-blown splendor of the paintings she had seen. Wherever +she looked, she saw again the rainbow brilliance of those glossy +satins, that rippling flooding golden hair, those ample, heaving +bosoms, those liquid gleaming eyes, the soft abundance of that white +and ruddy flesh, with the patina of time like a golden haze over it. +The spectacle had been magnificent and the scene they now entered was +a worthy successor to it. They walked down through the garden of the +Tuileries and emerged upon the Place de la Concorde at five o'clock of +a perfect April afternoon, when the great square hummed and sang with +the gleaming traffic of luxury. Countless automobiles, like glistening +beetles, darted about, each one with its load of carefully dressed and +coiffed women, looking out on the weaving glitter of the street with +the proprietary, complacent stare of those who feel themselves in the +midst of a civilization with which they are in perfect accord. Up the +avenue, beyond, streamed an incessant parade of more costly ears, more +carriages, shining, caparisoned horses, every outfit sumptuous to its +last detail, every one different from all the others, and hundreds and +hundreds and hundreds of them, till in the distance they dwindled to +a black stream dominated by the upward sweep of the Arc de Triomphe, +magnified to fabulous proportions by the filmy haze of the spring day. +To their left flowed the Seine, blue and flashing. A little breeze +stirred the new leaves on the innumerable trees. + +Sylvia stopped for an instant to take in the marvel of this pageant, +enacted every day of every season against that magnificent background. +She made a gesture to call her companions' attention to it--"Isn't it +in the key of Rubens--bloom, radiance, life expansive!" + +"And Chabrier should set it to music," said Morrison. + +"What does it make you think of?" she asked. "It makes me think of a +beautiful young Greek, in a purple chiton, with a wreath of roses in +his hair." + +"It makes me think of a beautiful young woman, all fire and spirit, +and fineness, who drinks life like a perfumed wine," said Morrison, +his eyes on hers. She felt a little shiver of frightened pleasure, and +turned to Page to carry it off, "What does it make you think of?" she +asked. + +"It makes me think," he answered her at once, his eyes on the haze +caught like a dream in the tender green of the budding trees,--"it +makes me think of a half-naked, sweating man, far underground in black +night, striking at a rock with a pick." + +If he had burst into loud profanity, the effect could not have been +more shocking. "_Oh!_" said Sylvia, vexed and put out. She began to +walk forward. Morrison in his turn gave an exclamation which seemed +the vent of long-stored exasperation, and said with heat: "Look here, +Page, you're getting to be a perfect monomaniac on the subject! What +earthly good does it do your man with a pick to ruin a fine moment by +lugging him in!" + +They were all advancing up the avenue now, Sylvia between the two men. +They talked at each other across her. She listened intently, with the +feeling that Morrison was voicing for her the question she had +been all her life wishing once for all to let fly at her parents' +standards: "What good _did_ it do anybody to go without things you +might have? Conditions were too vast for one person to influence." + +"No earthly good," said Page peaceably; "I didn't say it did him any +good. Miss Marshall asked me what all this made me think of, and I +told her." + +"It is simply becoming an obsession with you!" urged Morrison. Sylvia +remembered what Page had said about his irritation years ago when +Austin had withdrawn from the collector's field. + +"Yes, it's becoming an obsession with me," agreed Page thoughtfully. +He spoke as he always did, with the simplest manner of direct +sincerity. + +"You ought to make an effort against it, really, my dear fellow. It's +simply spoiling your life for you!" + +"Worse than that, it's making me bad company!" said Page whimsically. +"I either ought to reform or get out." + +Morrison set his enemy squarely before him and proceeded to do battle. +"I believe I know just what's in your mind, Page: I've been watching +it grow in you, ever since you gave up majolica." + +"I never claimed that was anything but the blindest of impulses!" +protested Page mildly. + +"But it wasn't. I knew! It was a sign you had been infected by the +spirit of the times and had 'caught it' so hard that it would be +likely to make an end of you. It's all right for the collective mind. +That's dense, obtuse; it resists enough to keep its balance. But it's +not all right for you. Now you just let me talk for a few minutes, +will you? I've an accumulated lot to say! We are all of us living +through the end of an epoch, just as much as the people of the old +regime lived through the last of an epoch in the years before the +French Revolution. I don't believe it's going to come with guillotines +or any of those picturesque trimmings. We don't do things that way any +more. In my opinion it will come gradually, and finally arrive about +two or three generations from now. And it oughtn't to come any sooner! +Sudden changes never save time. There's always the reaction to be +gotten over with, if they're sudden. Gradual growths are what last. +Now anybody who knows about the changes of society knows that there's +little enough any one person can do to hasten them or to put them +off. They're actuated by a law of their own, like the law which makes +typhoid fever come to a crisis in seven days. Now then, if you admit +that the process ought not to be hastened, and in the second place +that you couldn't hasten it if you tried, what earthly use _is_ there +in bothering your head about it! There are lots of people, countless +people, made expressly to do whatever is necessary, blunt chisels fit +for nothing but shaping grindstones. _Let them do it!_ You'll only get +in their way if you try to interfere. It's not your job. For the few +people capable of it, there is nothing more necessary to do for the +world than to show how splendid and orderly and harmonious a thing +life can be. While the blunt chisels hack out the redemption of the +overworked (and Heaven knows I don't deny their existence), let those +who can, preserve the almost-lost art of living, so that when the +millennium comes (you see I don't deny that this time it's on the +way!) it won't find humanity solely made up of newly freed serfs who +don't know what use to make of their liberty. How is beauty to be +preserved by those who know and love and serve her, and how can they +guard beauty if they insist on going down to help clean out the +sewers? Miss Marshall, don't you see how I am right? Don't you see how +no one can do more for the common weal than just to live, as finely, +as beautifully, as intelligently as possible? And people who are +capable of this noblest service to the world only waste themselves and +serve nobody if they try to do the work of dray-horses." + +Sylvia had found this wonderfully eloquent and convincing. She now +broke in. "When I was a young girl in college, I used to have a +pretentious, jejune sort of idea that what I wanted out of life was to +find Athens and live in it--and your idea sounds like that. The best +Athens, you know, not sensuous and selfish, but full of lovely and +leisurely sensations and fine thoughts and great emotions." + +"It wasn't pretentious and jejune at all!" said Morrison warmly, "but +simply the most perfect metaphor of what must have been--of course, +I can see it from here--the instinctive sane effort of a nature like +yours. Let's all try to live in Athens so that there will be some one +there to welcome in humanity." + +Page volunteered his first contribution to the talk. "Oh, I wouldn't +mind a bit if I thought we were really doing what Morrison thinks is +our excuse for living, creating fine and beautiful lives and keeping +alive the tradition of beauty and fineness. But our lives aren't +beautiful, they're only easeful. They're not fine, they're only +well-upholstered. You've got to have fitly squared and substantial +foundations before you can build enduring beauty. And all this," he +waved his hand around him at the resplendent, modern city, "this isn't +Athens; it's--it's Corinth, if you want to go on being classic. +As near as I can make out from what Sylvia lets fall, the nearest +approach to Athenian life that I ever heard of, was the life she left +behind her, her parents' life. That has all the elements of the best +Athenian color, except physical ease. And ease is no Athenian quality! +It's Persian! Socrates was a stone-cutter, you know. And even in the +real Athens, even that best Athens, the one in Plato's mind--there was +a whole class given over to doing the dirty work for the others. That +never seemed to bother Plato--happy Plato! but--I'm sure I don't +pretend to say if it ultimately means more or less greatness for the +human race--but somehow since Christianity, people find it harder and +harder to get back to Plato's serenity on that point. I'm not arguing +the case against men like you, Morrison--except that there's only one +of you. You've always seemed to me more like Plato than anybody alive, +and I've regarded you as the most enviable personality going. I'd +emulate you in a minute--if I could; but if mine is a case of mania, +it's a genuine case. I'm sane on everything else, but when it comes +to that--it's being money that I don't earn, but they, those men off +there underground, do earn and are forced to give to me--when it comes +to that, I'm as fixed in my opinion as the man who thought he was a +hard-boiled egg. I don't blame you for being out of patience with me. +As you say I only spoil fine minutes by thinking of it, and as you +charitably refrained from saying, I spoil other people's fine moments +by speaking of it." + +"What would you _have_ us do!" Morrison challenged him--"all turn in +and clean sewers for a living? And wouldn't it be a lovely world, if +we did!" + +Page did not answer for a moment. "I wonder," he finally suggested +mildly, "if it were all divided up, the dirty work, and each of us did +our share--" + +"Oh, impractical! impractical! Wholly a back-eddy in the +forward-moving current. You can't go back of a world-wide movement. +Things are too complicated now for everybody to do his share of +anything. It's as reasonable, as to suggest that everybody do his +share of watchmaking, or fancy juggling. Every man to his trade! +And if the man who makes watches, or cleans sewers, or even mines +coal--your especial sore spot--does his work well, and is suited to it +in temperament, who knows that he does not find it a satisfaction as +complete as mine in telling a bit of genuine Palissy ware from an +imitation. You, for instance, you'd make a _pretty_ coal-miner, +wouldn't you? You're about as suited to it as Miss Marshall here for +being a college settlement worker!" + +Sylvia broke out into an exclamation of wonder. "Oh, how you do put +your finger on the spot! If you knew how I've struggled to justify +myself for not going into 'social work' of some kind! Every girl +nowadays who doesn't marry at twenty, is slated for 'social +betterment' whether she has the least capacity for it or not. Public +opinion pushes us into it as mediaeval girls were shoved into +convents, because it doesn't know what else to do with us. It's all +right for Judith,--it's fine for her. She's made for it. I envy her. +I always have. But me--I never could bear the idea of interfering in +people's lives to tell them what to do about their children and their +husbands just because they were poor. It always seemed to me it was +bad enough to be poor without having other people with a little more +money messing around in your life. I'm different from that kind of +people. If I'm sincere I can't pretend I'm not different. And I'm not +a bit sure I know what's any better for them to do than what they're +doing!" She had spoken impetuously, hotly, addressing not the men +beside her but a specter of her past life. + +"How true that is--how unerring the instinct which feels it!" said +Morrison appreciatively. + +Page looked at Sylvia quickly, his clear eyes very tender. "Yes, +yes; it's her very own life that Sylvia needs to live," he said in +unexpected concurrence of opinion. Sylvia felt that the honors of the +discussion so far were certainly with Felix. And Austin seemed oddly +little concerned by this. He made no further effort to retrieve his +cause, but fell into a silence which seemed rather preoccupied than +defeated. + +They were close to the Arc de Triomphe now. A brilliant sunset was +firing a salvo of scarlet and gold behind it, and they stood for a +moment to admire. "Oh, Paris! Paris!" murmured Morrison. "Paris +in April! There's only one thing better, and that we have before +us--Paris in May!" + +They turned in past the loge of the concierge, and mounted in the +languidly moving elevator to the appartement. Felix went at once +to the piano and began playing something Sylvia did not recognize, +something brilliantly colored, vivid, resonant, sonorous, perhaps +Chabrier, she thought, remembering his remark on the avenue. Without +taking off her hat she stepped to her favorite post of observation, +the balcony, and sat down in the twilight with a sigh of exquisitely +complete satisfaction, facing the sunset, the great arch lifting +his huge, harmonious bulk up out of the dim, encircling trees, the +resplendent long stretch of the lighted boulevard. The music seemed to +rise up from the scene like its natural aroma. + +Austin Page came out after her and leaned silently on the railing, +looking over the city. Morrison finished the Chabrier and began on +something else before the two on the balcony spoke. Sylvia was asking +no questions of fate or the future, accepting the present with wilful +blindness to its impermanence. + +Austin said: "I have been trying to say good-bye all afternoon. I am +going back to America tomorrow." + +Sylvia was so startled and shocked that she could not believe her +ears. Her heart beat hard. To an incoherent, stammered inquiry of +hers, he answered, "It's my Colorado property--always that. It spoils +everything. I must go back, and make a decision that's needed there. +I've been trying to tell you. But I can't. Every time I have tried, I +have not dared. If I told you, and you should beckon me back, I should +not be strong enough to go on. I could not leave you, Sylvia, if you +lifted your hand. And that would be the end of the best of us both." +He had turned and faced her, his hands back of him, gripping the +railing. The deep vibrations of his voice transported her to that +never-forgotten moment at Versailles. He went on: "When it is--when +the decision is made, I'll write you. I'll write you, and then--I +shall wait to hear your answer!" From inside the room Felix poured a +dashing spray of diamond-like trills upon them. + +She murmured something, she did not know what; her breathing oppressed +by her emotion. "Won't you--shan't we see you--here--?" She put her +hand to her side, feeling an almost intolerable pain. + +He moved near her, and, to bring himself to her level, knelt down on +one knee, putting his elbows on the arm of her chair. The dusk had +fallen so thickly that she had not seen his face before. She now saw +that his lips were quivering, that he was shaking from head to foot. +"It will be for you to say, Sylvia," his voice was rough and harsh +with feeling, "whether you see me again." He took her hands in his and +covered them with kisses--no grave tokens of reverence these, as on +the day at Versailles, but human, hungry, yearning kisses that burned, +that burned-- + +And then he was gone. Sylvia was there alone in the enchanted +twilight, the Triumphal Arch before her, the swept and garnished and +spangled city beneath her. She lifted her hand and saw that he had +left on it not only kisses but tears. If he had been there then, she +would have thrown herself into his arms. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + +SYLVIA COMES TO THE WICKET-GATE + + +Three weeks passed before his letter came. The slow, thrilling +crescendo of May had lifted the heart up to a devout certainty of +June. The leaves were fully out, casting a light, new shadow on the +sprinkled streets. Every woman was in a bright-colored, thin summer +dress, and every young woman looked alluring. The young men wore their +hats tilted to one side, swung jaunty canes as they walked, and peered +hopefully under the brim of every flowered feminine headdress. +The days were like golden horns of plenty, spilling out sunshine, +wandering perfumed airs, and the heart-quickening aroma of the new +season. The nights were cool and starry. Every one in Paris spent as +much as possible of every hour out of doors. The pale-blue sky flecked +with creamy clouds seemed the dome, and the city the many-colored +pavement of some vast building, so grandly spacious that the +sauntering, leisurely crowds thronging the thoroughfares seemed no +crowds at all, but only denoted a delightful sociability. + +All the spring vegetables were at their crispest, most melting +perfection, and the cherries from Anjou were like miniature apples of +Hesperus. Up and down the smaller streets went white-capped little old +women, with baskets on their arms, covered with snowy linen, and they +chanted musically on the first three notes of the scale, so that the +sunny vault above them resounded to the cry, "De la creme, fromage a +la creme!" The three Americans had enchanted expeditions to Chantilly, +to Versailles again, called back from the past and the dead by the +miracle of spring; to more distant formidable Coucy, grimly looking +out over the smiling country at its foot, to Fontainebleau, even a two +days' dash into Touraine, to Blois, Amboise, Loches, jewels set in the +green enamels of May ... and all the time Sylvia's attempt to take +the present and to let the future bring what it would, was pitched +perforce in a higher and higher key,--took a more violent effort to +achieve. + +She fell deeper than ever under Morrison's spell, and yet the lack of +Austin was like an ache to her. She had said to herself, "I will not +let myself think of him until his letter comes," and she woke up in +the night suddenly, seeing the fire and tenderness and yearning of his +eyes, and stretching out her arms to him before she was awake. And +yet she had never tried so hard to divine every shade of Morrison's +fastidiousness and had never felt so supreme a satisfaction in knowing +that she did. There were strange, brief moments in her life now, when +out of the warring complexity in her heart there rose the simple +longing of a little girl to go to her mother, to feel those strong, +unfailing arms about her. She began to guess dimly, without thinking +about it at all, that her mother knew some secret of life, of balance, +that she did not. And yet if her mother were at hand, she knew she +could never explain to her--how could she, when she did not know +herself?--what she was living through. How long she had waited the +moment when she _would_ know! + +One day towards the end of May, Morrison had come in for lunch, a +delicately chosen, deceptively simple meal for which Yoshida had +outdone himself. There had been a savory mixture of sweetbreads and +mushrooms in a smooth, rich, creamy sauce; green peas that had been on +the vines at three o'clock that morning, and which still had the aroma +of life in their delectable little balls; sparkling Saumur; butter +with the fragrance of dew and clover in it; crisp, crusty rolls; +artichokes in oil--such a meal as no money can buy anywhere but in +Paris in the spring, such a simple, simple meal as takes a great deal +of money to buy even in Paris. + +"It is an art to eat like this," said Morrison, more than half +seriously, after he had taken the first mouthful of the golden souffle +which ended the meal. "What a May we have had! I have been thinking so +often of Talleyrand's saying that no one who had not lived before the +French Revolution, under the old regime, could know how sweet life +could be; and I've been thinking that we may live to say that about +the end of this regime. Such perfect, golden hours as it has for those +who are able to seize them. It is a debt we own the Spirit of Things +to be grateful and to appreciate our opportunity." + +"As far as the luncheon goes, it's rather a joke, isn't it," said his +hostess, "that it should be an Oriental cook who has so caught the +true Gallic accent? I'll tell Tojiko to tell Yoshido that his efforts +weren't lost on you. He adores cooking for you. No, you speak about it +yourself. Here comes Tojiko with the mail." + +She reached for the _Herald_ with one hand, and with the other gave +Sylvia a letter with the American postmark. "Oh, Tojiko," said +Morrison with the familiarity of an habitue of the house, "will you +tell your brother for me that I never tasted anything like his ..." + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith broke in with an exclamation of extreme +astonishment. "Oh--what _do_ you think--! Sylvia, did you know +anything about this? Of all the crazy--why, what under the sun--? +I always knew there was a vein of the fanatic--any man who won't +smoke--you may be sure there's something unbalanced--!" She now turned +the paper as she spoke and held it so that the headlines leaped out +across the table: + + MILLIONAIRE COAL OPERATOR TURNS VAST + HOLDINGS OVER TO THE STATE + + Son of Old Peter Page Converted to Socialism + +"_What_!" cried Morrison. Even in the blankness of her stupefaction, +Sylvia was aware of a rising note in his voice that was by no means +dismay. + +"Yes," continued Mrs. Marshall-Smith, reading rapidly and +disconnectedly from the paper, beginning an item and dropping it, as +she saw it was not the one she was searching for, "'Mr. Page is said +to have contemplated some such step for a long ...'--m-m-m, not that +... 'well-known collector of ceramics--Metropolitan Museum--member of +the Racquet, the Yacht, the Century, the Yale--thirty-two--Mother Miss +Allida Sommerville of Baltimore, formerly a great beauty'--_here_ it +is," she stopped skimming and read consecutively: "'Mr. Page's plan +has been worked out in all detail with experts. A highly paid, +self-perpetuating commission of labor experts, sociologists, and +men of practical experience in coal-operating has been appointed to +administer Mr. Page's extremely extensive holdings. The profits form +a fund which, under the stipulations of Mr. Page's agreement with +the State, is to be used to finance a program of advanced social +activities; to furnish money for mothers' pensions, even perhaps +for fathers' pensions in the case of families too numerous to be +adequately cared for on workingmen's wages; to change the public +school system of the locality into open-air schools with spacious +grounds for manual activities of all kinds; greatly to raise wages; to +lengthen the period of schooling before children go into remunerative +occupations ...'" Mrs. Marshall-Smith looked up, said, "Oh, _you_ +know, the kind of thing such people are always talking about," and +began to skip again, "'--extensive plans for garden cities--public +libraries--books of the business to be open to employes--educational +future--no philanthropy--and so forth and so forth.'" She glanced +hurriedly down the page, caught the beginning of another sentence, +and read: "'The news has created an immense sensation all over the +country. It is prophesied that Mr. Page's unexpected action will throw +the coal business into great confusion. Other operators will find it +extremely difficult to go on with the old conditions. Already it is +rumored that the Chilton Coal and Coke Company ...'" + +"Well, I should think so indeed!" cried Morrison emphatically, +breaking in. "With modern industrial conditions hung on a hair trigger +as they are, it's as though a boy had exploded a fire-cracker in the +works of a watch. That means his whole fortune gone. Old Peter put +everything into coal. Austin will not have a cent--nothing but those +Vermont scrub forests of his. What a mad thing to do! But it's been +growing on him for a long time. I've seen--I've felt it!" + +Sylvia gave a dazed, mechanical look at the letter she held and +recognized the handwriting. She turned very white. + +Aunt Victoria said instantly: "I see you have a letter to read, my +dear, and I want Felix to play that D'Indy Interlude for me and +explain it--Bauer is going to play it tonight for the Princess de +Chevrille. We'll bother you with our chatter. Don't you want to take +it to your room to read?" + +Sylvia stood up, holding the unopened letter in her hand. She looked +about her a little wildly and said: "Oh no, no! I think I'd rather be +out of doors. I'll go out on the balcony." + +"It's raining," said Mrs. Marshall-Smith. + +"No, not yet," said Morrison, making a great effort to speak in an +ordinary tone. "It's only going to." He sat down at the piano. Sylvia +passed him and went out to the balcony. She opened the letter and read +it through very carefully. It was a long one and this took some time. +She did not hear a note of the music which poured its plaintive, eerie +cadences around her. When she had finished the letter she instantly +started to read it again, with the sensation that she had not yet +begun to understand it. She was now deeply flushed. She continually +put back a floating strand of hair, which recurrently fell across her +forehead and cheek. + +After a time, Mrs. Marshall-Smith said from the open door: "Felix and +I are going to Madeleine Perth's. Would you rather stay here?" Sylvia +nodded without looking up. + +She sat motionless, looking at the letter long after she had finished +it. An hour passed thus. Then she was aware that it was beginning to +rain. The drops falling on the open letter dissolved the ink into +blurred smears. She sprang up hastily and went into the salon, where +she stood irresolute for a moment, and then, without calling Helene, +went to her room and dressed for the street. She moved very quickly as +though there were some need for extreme haste, and when she stepped +into the street she fell at once automatically into the swinging step +of the practised walker who sees long miles before him. + +Half an hour later she was looking up at the facade of Notre Dame +through the rain, and seeing there these words: "I shall be waiting at +Austin Farm to hear if you are at all able to sympathize with me in +what I have done. The memory of our last words together may help you +to imagine with what anxiety I shall be waiting." + +She pushed open the greasy, shining leather door, passed into the +interior, and stood for a moment in the incense-laden gloom of the +nave. A mass was being said. The rapidly murmured Latin words came +to her in a dim drone, in which she heard quite clearly, quite +distinctly: "There is another kind of beauty I faintly glimpse--that +isn't just sweet smells and lovely sights and harmonious lines--it's +the beauty that can't endure disharmony in conduct, the fine, true ear +for the loveliness of life lived at its best--Sylvia, finest, truest +Sylvia, it's what you could, if you would--you more than any other +woman in the world--if we were together to try--" + +Sylvia sank to her knees on a prie-Dieu and hid her face in her hands, +trying to shut out the words, and yet listening to them so intently +that her breath was suspended.... "What Morrison said is true--for +him, since he feels it to be true. No man can judge for another. But +other things are true too, things that concern me. It's true that an +honest man cannot accept an ease founded, even remotely, on the misery +of others. And my life has been just that. I don't know what success I +shall have with the life that's beginning, but I know at least it +will begin straight. There seems a chance for real shapeliness if the +foundations are all honest--doesn't there? Oh, Sylvia--oh, my dearest +love, if I could think you would begin it with me, Sylvia! Sylvia!" + +The girl sprang up and went hastily out of the church. The nun +kneeling at the door, holding out the silent prayer for alms for the +poor, looked up in her face as she passed and then after her with +calm, understanding eyes. Kneeling there, day after day, she had seen +many another young, troubled soul fleeing from its own thoughts. + +Sylvia crossed the parvis of Notre Dame, glistening wet, and passed +over the gray Seine, slate under the gray mist of the rain. Under her +feet the impalpable dust of a city turned to gray slime which clung to +her shoes. She walked on through a narrow, mean street of mediaeval +aspect where rag-pickers, drearily oblivious of the rain, quarreled +weakly over their filthy piles of trash. She looked at them in +astonishment, in dismay, in horror. Since leaving La Chance, save for +that one glimpse over the edge back in the Vermont mountains, she had +been so consistently surrounded by the padded satin of possessions +that she had forgotten how actual poverty looked. In fact, she had +never had more than the briefest fleeting glances at it. This was +so extravagant, so extreme, that it seemed impossible to her. And +yet--and yet--She looked fleetingly into those pale, dingy, underfed, +repulsive faces and wondered if coal-miners' families looked like +that. + +But she said aloud at once, almost as though she had crooked an arm to +shield herself: "But he _said_ he did not want me to answer at once! +He _said_ he wanted me to take time--to take time--to take time ..." +She hastened her steps to this refrain, until she was almost running; +and emerged upon the broad, well-kept expanse of the Boulevard St. +Germain with a long-drawn breath of relief. + +Ahead of her to the right, the Rue St. Jacques climbed the hill to the +Pantheon. She took it because it was broad and clean and differed from +the musty darkness from which she had come out; she fled up the steep +grade with a swift, light step as though she were on a country walk. +She might indeed have been upon some flat road near La Chance for all +she saw of the buildings, the people around her. + +How like Austin's fine courage that was, his saying that he did not +want her to decide in haste, but to take time to know what she was +doing! What other man would not have stayed to urge her, to hurry her, +to impose his will on hers, masterfully to use his personality to +confuse her, to carry her off? For an instant, through all her +wretched bewilderment, she thrilled to a high, impersonal appreciation +of his saying: "If I had stayed with you, I should have tried to take +you by force--but you are too fine for that, Sylvia! What you could be +to the man you loved if you went to him freely--that is too splendid +to risk losing. I want all of you--heart, soul, mind--or nothing!" +Sylvia looked up through this clear white light to Austin's yearning +eyes, and back through the ages with a wondering pity at the dark +figure of Jerry Fiske, emerging from his cave. She had come a long way +since then. + +And then all this, everything fine, everything generous, ebbed away +from her with deadly swiftness, and in a cold disgust with herself she +knew that she had been repeating over and over Morrison's "Austin will +not have a cent left ... nothing but those Vermont scrub forests." So +that was the kind of a woman she was. Well, if that was the kind of +woman she was, let her live her life accordingly. She was sick with +indecision as she fled onward through the rain. + +Few pedestrians were abroad in the rain, and those who were, sheltered +themselves slant-wise with their umbrellas against the wind, and +scudded with the storm. Sylvia had an umbrella, but she did not open +it. She held her face up once, to feel the rain fall on it, and this +reminded her of home, and long rainy walks with her father. She +winced at this, and put him hastily out of her mind. And she had been +unconsciously wishing to see her mother! At the very recollection of +her mother she lengthened her stride. There was another thought to run +away from! + +She swung around the corner near the Pantheon and rapidly approached +the door of the great Library of Ste. Genevieve. A thin, draggled, +middle-aged woman-student, entering hastily, slipped on the wet stones +and knocked from under his arm the leather portfolio of a thin, +draggled, middle-aged man who was just coming out. The woman did not +stop to help repair the damage she had done, but hastened desperately +on into the shelter of the building. Sylvia's eyes, absent as they +were, were caught and held by the strange, blank look of the man, who +stood motionless, his shabby hat knocked to one side of his thin, gray +hair, his curiously filmed eyes fixed stupidly on the litter of papers +scattered at his feet. The rain was beginning to convert them into +sodden pulp, but he did not stir. The idea occurred to Sylvia that he +might be ill, and she advanced to help him. As he saw her stoop +to pick them up, he said in French, in a toneless voice, very +indifferently: "Don't give yourself the trouble. They are of no +value. I carry them only to make the Library attendants think I am a +bona-fide reader. I go there to sleep because I have no other roof." + +His French was entirely fluent, but the accent was American. Sylvia +looked up at him surprised. He returned her gaze dully, and without +another look at the papers, scuffled off through the rain, across the +street towards the Pantheon. His boots were lamentable. + +Sylvia had an instantly vanishing memory of a pool of quiet sunshine, +of a ripely beautiful woman and a radiant young man. Before she knew +she was speaking, an impulsive cry had burst from her: "Why, Professor +Saunders! Professor Saunders! Don't you know me? I am Sylvia +Marshall!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + +SYLVIA DRIFTS WITH THE MAJORITY + + +"No, they don't let you sit down in here if you're as shabby as I am," +said the man, continuing his slow, feeble, shuffling progress. "They +know you're only a vagrant, here to get out of the rain. They won't +even let you stand still long." + +Sylvia had not been inside the Pantheon before, had never been inside +a building with so great a dome. They stood under it now. She sent her +glance up to its vast, dim, noble heights and brought it down to the +saturnine, unsavory wreck at her side. She was regretting the impulse +which had made her call out to him. What could she say to him now they +were together? What word, what breath could be gentle enough, light +enough not to be poison to that open sore? + +On his part he seemed entirely unconcerned about the impression he +made on her. His eyes, his sick, filmed eyes, looked at her with no +shrinking, with no bravado, with an entire indifference which gave, +through all the desolation of his appearance, the strangest, careless +dignity to the man. He did not care what she thought of him. He did +not care what any one thought of him. He gave the impression of a man +whose accounts are all reckoned and the balance struck, long ago. + +"So this is Sylvia," he said, with the slightest appearance of +interest, glancing at her casually. "I always said you would make a +beautiful woman. But since I knew Victoria, I've seen that you must be +quite what she was at your age." It might have been a voice speaking +from beyond the grave, so listless, so dragging was its rhythm. "How +do you happen to be in Paris?" he asked. "Are your parents still +alive?" + +"Oh _yes_!" said Sylvia, half startled by the preposterousness of the +idea that they might not be. "They're very well too. I had such a good +letter from Mother the other day. Do you remember Professor Kennedy? +He has just given up his position to be professor emeritus. I suppose +now he'll write that book on the idiocy of the human race he's been +planning so long. And old Mr. Reinhardt, he's still the same, they say +... wonderful, isn't it, at his age?" She was running on, not knowing +what to say, and chattering rather foolishly in her embarrassment. +"Judith is a trained nurse; isn't that just the right thing for her? +I'm visiting Aunt Victoria here for a while. Lawrence is a Freshman at...." + +He broke in, his hollow voice resounding in the immense, vault-like +spaces around them. "You'd better go home," he said. "I'd leave +tonight, if I were you." She looked at him startled, half-scared, +thinking that she had been right to fancy him out of his mind. She saw +with relief a burly attendant in a blue uniform lounging near a group +of statuary. She could call to him, if it became necessary. + +"You'd better go away from her at once," went on the man, advancing +aimlessly from one bay of the frescoes to another. + +Sylvia knew now of whom he was speaking, and as he continued talking +with a slow, dreary monotony, her mind raced back over the years, +picking up a scrap here, a half-forgotten phrase there, an intercepted +look between her father and mother, a recollection of her own, a +half-finished sentence of Arnold's ... + +"She can't be fatal for you in the same way she has been for the +others, of course," the man was saying. "What she'll do for you is to +turn you into a woman like herself. I remember now, I have thought +many times, that you _were_ like her ... of the same clay. But you +have something else too, you have something that she'll take away from +you if you stay. You can't keep her from doing it. No one can get the +better of her. She doesn't fight. But she always takes life. She has +taken mine. She must have taken her bogie-husband's, she took young +Gilbert's, she took Gilbert's wife's, she took Arnold's in another +way.... God! think of leaving a young, growing, weak soul in the care +of a woman like Victoria! She took that poet's, I forget his name; I +suppose by this time Felix Morrison is ..." + +At this name, a terrible contraction of the heart told Sylvia that she +was listening to what he said. "Felix Morrison!" she cried in stern, +angry protest. "I don't know what you're talking about--but if you +think that Aunt Victoria--if you think Felix Morrison--" She was +inarticulate in her indignation. "He was married last autumn to a +beautiful girl--and Aunt Victoria--what an idea!--_no_ one was more +pleased than she--why--you are _crazy_!" She flung out at him the +word, which two moments before she would not have been so cruel as to +think. + +It gave him no discomfort. "Oh no, I'm not," he said with a spectral +laugh, which had in it, to Sylvia's dismay, the very essence of +sanity. She did not know why she now shrank away from him, far more +frightened than before. "I'm about everything else you might mention, +but I'm not crazy. And you take my word for it and get out while you +still can ... _if_ you still can?" He faintly indicated an inquiry, +looking at her sideways, his dirty hand stroking the dishonoring gray +stubble of his unshaven face. "As for Morrison's wife ... let her get +out too. Gilbert tried marrying, tried it in all unconsciousness. It's +only when they try to get away from her that they know she's in the +marrow of their bones. She lets them try. She doesn't even care. She +knows they'll come back. Gilbert did. And his wife ... well, I'm sorry +for Morrison's wife." + +"She's dead," said Sylvia abruptly. + +He took this in with a nod of the head. "So much the better for her. +How did it happen that _you_ didn't fall for Morrison's ..." he looked +at her sharply at a change in her face she could not control. "Oh, +you did," he commented slackly. "Well, you'd better start home for La +Chance tonight," he said again. + +They were circling around and around the shadowy interior, making no +pretense of looking at the frescoed walls, to examine which had been +their ostensible purpose in entering. Sylvia was indeed aware of great +pictured spaces, crowded dimly with thronging figures, men, horses, +women--they reached no more than the outer retina of her eye. She +remembered fleetingly that they had something to do with the story of +Ste. Genevieve. She wanted intensely to escape from this phantom whom +she herself had called up from the void to stalk at her side. But she +felt she ought not to let pass, even coming from such a source, such +utterly frenzied imaginings against one to whom she owed loyalty. She +spoke coldly, with extreme distaste for the subject: "You're entirely +wrong about Aunt Victoria. She's not in the least that kind of a +woman." + +He shook his head slowly. "No, no; you misunderstand me. Your Aunt +Victoria is quite irreproachable, she always has been, she always will +be. She is always in the right. She always will be. She did nothing +to me but hire me to teach her stepson, and when my habits became too +bad, discharge me, as any one would have done. She did nothing to +Arnold except to leave him to the best schools and the best tutors +money could buy. What more could any one have done? She had not the +slightest idea that Horace Gilbert would try to poison his wife, +had not the slightest connection with their quarrel. The young +poet,--Adams was his name, now I remember--did not consult her before +he took to cocaine. Morphine is my own specialty. Victoria of course +deplored it as much as any one could. No, I'm not for a minute +intimating that Victoria is a Messalina. We'd all be better off if she +were. It's only our grossness that finds fault with her. Your aunt +is one of the most respectable women who ever lived, as 'chaste as +unsunned snow--the very ice of chastity is in her!' Indeed, I've often +wondered if the redoubtable Ephraim Smith himself, for all that he +succeeded in marrying her, fared any better than the rest of us. +Victoria would be quite capable of cheating him out of his pay. She +parches, yes, she dries up the blood--but it's not by her passion, not +even by ours. Honest passion never kills. It's the Sahara sands of her +egotism into which we've all emptied our veins." + +Sylvia was frozen to the spot by her outraged indignation that any one +should dare speak to her thus. She found herself facing a fresco of a +tall, austere figure in an enveloping white garment, an elderly woman +with a thin, worn, noble face, who laid one fine old hand on a stone +parapet and with divine compassion and tenderness looked out over a +sleeping city. The man followed the direction of her eyes. "It's Puvis +de Chavannes' Ste. Genevieve as an old woman, guarding and praying for +the city. Very good, isn't it? I especially admire the suggestion of +the plain bare cell she has stepped out from. I often come here to +look at it when I've nothing to eat." He seemed as flaccidly willing +to speak on this as on any other topic; to find it no more interesting +than the subject of his former speech. + +Sylvia was overcome with horror of him. She walked rapidly away, +towards the door, hoping he would not follow her. He did not. When she +glanced back fearfully over her shoulder, she saw him still standing +there, looking up at the gaunt gray figure of beneficent old age. His +dreadful broken felt hat was in his hand, the water dripped from his +frayed trousers over the rotting leather of his shoes. As she looked, +he began to cough, loudly, terribly, so that the echoing reaches of +the great nave resounded to the sound. Sylvia ran back to him and +thrust her purse into his hand. At first he could not speak, for +coughing, but in a moment he found breath to ask, "Is it Victoria's +money?" + +She did not answer. + +He held it for a moment, and then opening his hand let it drop. As she +turned away Sylvia heard it fall clinking on the stone floor. At the +door she turned for one last look, and saw him weakly stooping to pick +it up again. She fairly burst out of the door. + +It was almost dusk when she was on the street again, looking down the +steep incline to the Luxembourg Gardens. In the rainy twilight the +fierce tension of the Rodin "Thinker" in front of the Pantheon loomed +huge and tragic. She gave it a glance of startled sympathy. She had +never understood the statue before. Now she was a prey to those same +ravaging throes. There was for the moment no escaping them. She felt +none of her former wild impulse to run away. What she had been running +away from had overtaken her. She faced it now, looked at it squarely, +gave it her ear for the first time; the grinding, dissonant note under +the rich harmony of the life she had known for all these past months, +the obscure vaults underlying the shining temple in which she had been +living. + +What beauty could there be which was founded on such an action as +Felix' marriage to Molly--Molly, whose passionate directness had known +the only way out of the impasse into which Felix should never have let +her go?... An echo from what she had heard in the mass at Notre Dame +rang in her ears, and now the sound was louder--Austin's voice, +Austin's words: "A beauty that can't endure disharmony in conduct, the +fine true ear for the deeper values, the foundations--" It was Austin, +asking himself what beauty could be in any life founded, even remotely +as his was, on any one's misery? + +For a long time she stood there, silent, motionless, her hands +clenched at her sides, looking straight before her in the rain. Above +her on his pedestal, the great, bronze, naked, tortured man ground his +teeth as he glared out from under the inexorable limitations of his +ape-like forehead, and strove wildly against the barriers of his +flesh.... + +Wildly and vainly, against inexorable limitations! Sylvia was aware +that an insolent young man, with moist protuberant eyes, had come up +where she stood there, alone, motionless on the public street. He put +his arm in hers, clasped her hand in a fat, soft palm, and, "_Allons, +ma belle!_" he said with a revolting gayety. + +Sylvia pulled away from him, cried out fiercely in English, "Don't you +dare to touch me!" and darted away. + +He made no attempt at pursuit, acknowledging his mistake with an easy +shrug and turning off to roam, a dim, predatory figure, along the +dusky street. He had startled and frightened the girl so that she was +trembling when she ventured to slow down to a walk under the glaring +lights of the Boulevard St. Michel. She was also shivering with wet +and cold, and without knowing it, she was extremely hungry. As she +fled along the boulevard in the direction of her own quarter of the +city, her eye caught the lighted clock at the kiosk near Cluny. She +was astonished to see that it was after seven o'clock. How long could +she have stood there, under the shadow of that terrific Thinker, +consumed quite as much as he by the pain of trying to rise above mere +nature? An hour--more than an hour, she must have been there. The +Pantheon must have closed during that time, and the dreadful, sick +man must have passed close by her. Where was he now? What makeshift +shelter harbored that cough, those dirty, skeleton hands, those awful +eyes which had outlived endurance and come to know peace before death.... + +She shivered and tried to shrink away from her wet, clinging clothing. +She had never, in all her life before, been wet and cold and hungry +and frightened, she had never known from what she had been protected. +And now the absence of money meant that she must walk miles in the +rain before she could reach safety and food. For three cents she could +ride. But she had not three cents. How idiotic she had been not to +keep a few sous from her purse. What a sickening thing it had been to +see him stoop to pick it up after he had tried to have the pride not +to touch it. That was what morphine had done for him. And he would buy +more morphine with that money, that was the reason he had not been +able to let it lie ... the man who had been to her little girlhood the +radiant embodiment of strength and fineness! + +Her teeth were chattering, her feet soaked and cold. She tried to walk +faster to warm her blood, and discovered that she was exhausted, tired +to the marrow of her bones. Her feet dragged on the pavement, her arms +hung heavily by her side, but she dared not stop a moment lest some +other man with abhorrent eyes should approach her. + +She set her teeth and walked; walked across the Seine without a glance +at its misted lights blinking through the rain, walked on past the +prison of Marie Antoinette, without a thought of that other harmless +woman who had loved bright and lovely things while others suffered: +walked on upon the bridge across the Seine again. This bewildered her, +making her think that she was so dazed she had doubled on her tracks. +She saw, a long way off, a solitary hooded sergent de ville, and +dragged herself across an endless expanse of wet asphalt to ask him +her way. But just before she reached him, she remembered suddenly that +of course she was on the island and was obliged to cross the Seine +again before reaching the right bank. She returned weary and +disheartened to her path, crossed the bridge, and then endlessly, +endlessly, set one heavy foot before the other under the glare of +innumerable electric lights staring down on her and on the dismal, +wet, and deserted streets. The clocks she passed told her that it +was nearly eight o'clock. Then it was past eight. What must they be +thinking of her on the Rue de Presbourg? She tried again to hurry, but +could force her aching muscles to no more than the plod, plod, plod of +her dogged advance over those interminable miles of pavement. There +was little of her then that was not cold, weary, wet flesh, suffering +all the discomforts that an animal can know. She counted her steps for +a long time, and became so stupidly absorbed in this that she made a +wrong turning and was blocks out of her way before she noticed her +mistake. This mishap reduced her almost to tears, and it was when she +was choking them weakly back and setting herself again to the cruel +long vista of the Champs-Elysees that an automobile passed her at top +speed with a man's face pressed palely to the panes. Almost at once +the car stopped in answer to a shouted command; it whirled about +and bore down on her. Felix Morrison sprang out and ran to her with +outstretched arms, his rich voice ringing through the desolation of +the rain and the night--"Sylvia! Sylvia! Are you safe?" + +He almost carried her back to the car, lifted her in. There were +wraps there, great soft, furry, velvet wraps which he cast about her, +murmuring broken ejaculations of emotion, of pity, of relief--"Oh, +your hands, how cold! Sylvia, how _could_ you? Here, drink this! I've +been insane,--absolutely out of my mind! Let me take off your hat--Oh, +your poor feet--I was on my way to--I was afraid you might have--Oh, +Sylvia, Sylvia, to have you safe!" She tried to bring to mind +something she had intended to remember; she even repeated the phrase +over to herself, "It was an ugly, ugly thing to have married Molly," +but she knew only that he was tenderness and sheltering care and +warmth and food and safety. She drew long quivering breaths like a +child coming out of a sobbing fit. + +Then before there was time for more thought, the car had whirled them +back to the door, where Aunt Victoria, outwardly calm, but very pale, +stood between the concierge and his wife, looking out into the rainy +deserted street. + +At the touch of those warm embracing arms, at that radiant presence, +at the sound of that relieved, welcoming voice, the nightmare of the +Pantheon faded away to blackness.... + +Half an hour later, she sat, fresh from a hot bath, breathing out +delicately a reminiscence of recent violet water and perfumed powder; +fresh, fine under-linen next her glowing skin; shining and refreshed, +in a gown of chiffon and satin; eating her first mouthful of Yoshido's +ambrosial soup. + +"Why, I'm so sorry," she was saying. "I went out for a walk, and then +went further than I meant to. I've been over on the left bank part of +the time, in Notre Dame and the Pantheon. And then when I started to +come home it took longer than I thought. It's so apt to, you know." + +"Why in the world, my dear, did you _walk_ home?" cried Aunt Victoria, +still brooding over her in pitying sympathy. + +"I'd--I'd lost my purse. I didn't have any money." + +"But you don't pay for a cab till you come to the end of your journey! +You could have stepped into a taxi and borrowed the money of the +concierge here." + +Sylvia was immensely disconcerted by her rustic naivete in not +thinking of this obvious device. "Oh, of course! How could I have been +so--but I was tired when I came to start home--I was very tired--too +tired to think clearly!" + +This brought them all back to the recollection of what had set her off +on her walk. There was for a time rather a strained silence; but they +were all very hungry--dinner was two hours late--and the discussion +of Yoshido's roast duckling was anything but favorable for the +consideration of painful topics. They had champagne to celebrate her +safe escape from the adventure. To the sensation of perfect ease +induced by the well-chosen dinner this added a little tingling through +all Sylvia's nerves, a pleasant, light, bright titillation. + +All might have gone well if, after the dinner, Felix had not stepped, +as was his wont, to the piano. Sylvia had been, up to that moment, +almost wholly young animal, given over to bodily ecstasy, of which not +the least was the agreeable warmth on her silk-clad ankle as she held +her slippered foot to the fire. + +But at the first chords something else in her, slowly, with extreme +pain, awoke to activity. All her life music had spoken a language to +which she could not shut her ears, and now--her face clouded, she +shifted her position, she held up a little painted screen to shield +her face from the fire, she finally rose and walked restlessly about +the room. Every grave and haunting cadence from the piano brought to +her mind, flickering and quick, like fire, a darting question, and +every one she stamped out midway, with an effort of the will. + +The intimacy between Felix and Aunt Victoria, it was strange she had +never before thought--of course not--what a hideous idea! That book, +back in Lydford, with Horace Gilbert's name on the fly-leaf, and Aunt +Victoria's cool, casual voice as she explained, "Oh, just a young +architect who used to--" Oh, the man in the Pantheon was simply +brutalized by drugs; he did not know what he was saying. His cool, +spectral laugh of sanity sounded faintly in her ears again. + +And then, out of a mounting foam of arpeggios, there bloomed for her +a new idea, solid enough, broad enough, high enough, for a refuge +against all these wolfish fangs. She sat down to think it out, hot on +the trail of an answer, the longed-for answer. + +It had just occurred to her that there was no possible logical +connection between any of those skulking phantoms and the golden +lovely things they tried to defile. Even if some people of wealth +and ease and leisure were not as careful about moral values as about +colors, and aesthetic harmonies--that meant nothing. The connection +was purely fortuitous. How silly she had been not to see that. Grant, +for purposes of argument, that Aunt Victoria was self-centered and +had lived her life with too little regard for its effect on other +people,--grant even that Felix had, under an almost overpowering +temptation, not kept in a matter of conduct the same rigid nicety of +fastidiousness which characterized his judgment of marbles--what of +it? That did not mean that one could only be fine and true in conduct +by giving up all lovely things and wearing hair-shirts. What an +outgrown, mediaeval idea! How could she have been for a moment under +its domination! It was just that old Puritanism, Spartanism of her +childhood, which was continually reaching up its bony hand from the +grave where she had interred it. + +The only danger came, she saw it now, read it plainly and +clear-headedly in the lives of the two people with her, the only +danger came from a lack of proportion. It certainly did seem to be +possible to allow the amenities and aesthetic pleasures to become so +important that moral fineness must stand aside till they were safe. +But anybody who had enough intelligence could keep his head, even +if the temptation was alluring. And simply because there was that +possible danger, why not enjoy delightful things as long as they did +not run counter to moral fineness! How absurd to think there was any +reason why they should; quite the contrary, as a thousand philosophers +attested. They would not in her case, at least! Of course, if +a decision had to be taken between the two, she would never +hesitate--never! As she phrased this conviction to herself, she turned +a ring on her white slim finger and had a throb of pleasure in the +color of the gem. What harmless, impersonal pleasures they were! How +little they hurt any one! And as to this business of morbidly probing +into healthy flesh, of insisting on going back of everything, farther +than any one could possibly go, and scrutinizing the origin of every +dollar that came into your hand ... why, that way lay madness! As +soon try to investigate all the past occupants of a seat in a railway +before using it for a journey. Modern life was not organized that way. +It was too complicated. + +Her mind rushed on excitedly, catching up more certainty, more and +more reinforcements to her argument as it advanced. There was, +therefore, nothing inherent in the manner of life she had known these +last months to account for what seemed ugly underneath. There was no +reason why some one more keenly on his guard could not live as they +did and escape sounding that dissonant note! + +The music stopped. Morrison turned on the stool and seeing her bent +head and moody stare at the fire, sent an imploring glance for help to +Mrs. Marshall-Smith. + +Just let her have the wealth and leisure and let her show how worthily +she could use it! There would be an achievement! Sylvia came around to +another phase of her new idea, there would be something worth doing, +to show that one could be as fine and true in a palace as in a +hut,--even as in a Vermont farmhouse! At this, suddenly all thought +left her. Austin Page stood before her, fixing on her his clear and +passionate and tender eyes. At that dear and well-remembered gaze, her +lip began to quiver like a child's, and her eyes filled. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith stirred herself with the effect of a splendid ship +going into action with all flags flying. "Sylvia dear," she said, +"this rain tonight makes me think of a new plan. It will very likely +rain for a week or more now. Paris is abominable in the rain. What do +you say to a change? Madeleine Perth was telling me this afternoon +that the White Star people are running a few ships from Portsmouth by +way of Cherbourg around by Gibraltar, through the Mediterranean to +Naples. That's one trip your rolling-stone of an aunt has never taken, +and I'd rather like to add it to my collection. We could be in Naples +in four days from Cherbourg and spend a month in Italy, going north as +the heat arrived. Felix--why don't you come along? You've been wanting +to see the new low reliefs in the Terme, in Rome?" + +Sylvia's heart, like all young hearts, was dazzled almost to blinking +by the radiance shed from the magic word Italy. She turned, looking +very much taken aback and bewildered, but with light in her eyes, +color in her face. + +Morrison burst out: "Oh, a dream realized! Something to live on all +one's days, the pines of the Borghese--the cypresses of the Villa +Medici--roses cascading over the walls in Rome, the view across the +Campagna from the terraces at Rocca di Papa--" + +Sylvia thought rapidly to herself: "Austin _said_ he did not want me +to answer at once. He _said_ he wanted me to take time--to take time! +I can decide better, make more sense out of everything, if I--after I +have thought more, have taken more time. No, I am not turning my back +on him. Only I must have more time to think--" + +Aloud she said, after a moment's silence, "Oh, nothing could be +lovelier!" + +She lay in her warm, clean white bed that night, sleeping the sound +sleep of the healthy young animal which has been wet and cold and +hungry, and is now dry and warmed and fed. + +Outside, across the city, on his bronze pedestal, the tortured +Thinker, loyal to his destiny, still strove terribly against the +limitations of his ape-like forehead. + + + + +BOOK IV; + +_THE STRAIT PATH_ + + + + +CHAPTER XL + +A CALL FROM HOME + + +It was quite dark when they arrived in the harbor at Naples; and +they were too late to go through the necessary formalities of harbor +entering. In company with several other in-and outward-bound steamers, +the _Carnatic_ lay to for the night. Some one pointed out a big liner +which would sail for New York the next morning, lying like a huge, +gaily lighted island, the blare of her band floating over the still +water. + +Sylvia slept little that night, missing the rolling swing of the ship, +and feeling breathless in the stifling immobility of the cabin. She +tossed about restlessly, dozing off at intervals and waking with a +start to get up on her knees and look out through the port-hole at the +lights of Naples blazing steadily in their semicircle. She tried to +think several times, about her relations to Felix, to Austin--but +nothing came to her mind except a series of scenes in which they had +figured, scenes quite disconnected, which brought no enlightenment to +her. + +As she lay awake thus, staring at the ceiling, feeling in the intense +silence and blackness that the fluttering of her eyelids was almost +audible, her heart beating irregularly, now slow, now fast, it +occurred to her that she was beginning to know something of the +intensity of real life--real grown-up life. She was astonished to +enjoy it so little. + +She fell at last, suddenly, fathoms deep into youthful slumber, and +at once passed out from tormented darkness into some strange, sunny, +wind-swept place on a height. And she was all one anguish of longing +for Austin. And he came swiftly to her and took her in his arms and +kissed her on the lips. And it was as it had been when she was a child +and heard music, she was carried away by a great swelling tide of joy +... But dusk began to fall again; Austin faded; through the darkness +something called and called to her, imperatively. With great pain she +struggled up through endless stages of half-consciousness, until she +was herself again, Sylvia Marshall, heavy-eyed, sitting up in her +berth and saying aloud, "Yes, what is it?" in answer to a knocking on +the door. + +The steward's voice answered, announcing that the first boat for shore +would leave in an hour. Sylvia sprang out of bed, the dream already +nothing more than confused brightness in her mind. By the time she was +dressed, it had altogether gone, and she only knew that she had had +a restless night. She went out on the deck, longing for the tonic of +pure air. The morning was misty--it had rained during the night--and +clouds hung heavy and low over the city. Out from this gray smother +the city gleamed like a veiled opal. Neither Felix nor her aunt was to +be seen. When she went down to breakfast, after a brisk tramp back and +forth across the deck, she was rosy and dewy, her triumphant youth +showing no sign of her vigils. She was saying to herself: "Now I've +come, it's too idiotic not to enjoy it. I _shall_ let myself go!" + +Helene attended to the ladies' packing and to the labeling and care +of the baggage. Empty-handed, care-free, feeling like a traveling +princess, Sylvia climbed down from the great steamer into a dirty, +small harbor-boat. Aunt Victoria sat down at once on the folding +camp-chair which Helene always carried for her. Sylvia and Felix stood +together at the blunt prow, watching the spectacle before them. The +clouds were lifting from the city and from Vesuvius, and from Sylvia's +mind. Her spirits rose as the boat went forward into the strange, +foreign, glowing scene. + +The oily water shimmered in smooth heavings as the clumsy boat +advanced upon it. The white houses on the hills gleamed out from their +palms. As the boat came closer to the wharf, the travelers could see +the crowds of foreign-looking people, with swarthy faces and cheap, +ungraceful clothes, looking out at the boat with alert, speculative, +unwelcoming eyes. The noise of the city streets, strange to their ears +after the days of sea silence, rose clattering, like a part of the +brilliance, the sparkle. The sun broke through the clouds, poured a +flood of glory on the refulgent city, and shone hotly on the pools of +dirty water caught in the sunken spots of the uneven stone pavement. + +Aunt Victoria made her way up the gang-plank to the landing dock, +achieving dignity even there. Felix sprang after her, to hand her her +chair, and Helene and Sylvia followed. Mrs. Marshall-Smith sat down +at once, opening her dark-purple parasol, the tense silk of which was +changed by the hot Southern sun into an iridescent bubble. "We will +wait here till the steward gets our trunks out," she announced." +It will be amusing to watch the people." The four made an oasis of +aristocracy in the seething, shouting, frowzy, gaudy, Southern +crowd, running about with the scrambling, undignified haste of ants, +sweating, gesticulating, their faces contorted with care over their +poor belongings. Sylvia was acutely conscious of her significance in +the scene. She was also fully aware that Felix missed none of the +contrast she made with the other women. She felt at once enhanced and +protected by the ignobly dressed crowd about her. Felix was right--in +America there could be no distinction, there was no background for it. + +The scene about them was theatrically magnificent. In the distance +Vesuvius towered, cloud-veiled and threatening, the harbor shone and +sparkled in the sun, the vivid, outreaching arms of Naples clasped +the jewel-like water. From it all Sylvia extracted the most perfect +distillation of traveler's joy. She felt the well-to-do tourist's +care-free detachment from the fundamentals of life, the tourist's +sense that everything exists for the purpose of being a sight for him +to see. She knew, and knew with delight, the wanderer's lightened, +emancipated sense of being at a distance from obligations, that +cheerful sense of an escape from the emprisoning solidarity of +humanity which furnishes the zest of life for the tourist and the +tramp, enabling the one light-heartedly to offend proprieties and +the other casually to commit murder. She was embarked upon a moral +vacation. She was out of the Bastile of right and wrong. She had a +vision of what freedom from entangling responsibilities is secured by +traveling. She understood her aunt's classing it as among the positive +goods of life. + +A man in a shabby blue uniform, with a bundle of letters in his hand, +walked past them towards the boat. + +"Oh, the mail," said Mrs. Marshall-Smith. "There may be some for us." +She beckoned the man to her, and said, "Marshall-Smith? Marshall? +Morrison?" + +The man sorted over his pile. "Cable for Miss Marshall," he said, +presenting it to the younger lady with a bold, familiar look +of admiration. "Letter for F. Morrison: two letters for Mrs. +Marshall-Smith." Sylvia opened her envelope, spread out the folded +sheet of paper, and read what was scrawled on it, with no realization +of the meaning. She knew only that the paper, Felix, her aunt, the +crowd, vanished in thick blackness, through which, much later, with a +great roaring in her ears, she read, as though by jagged flashes of +lightning: "Mother very ill. Come home at once. Judith." + +It seemed to her an incalculably long time between her first glance at +the words and her understanding of them, but when she emerged from the +blackness and void, into the flaunting sunlight, the roaring still +in her ears, the paper still in her hands, the scrawled words still +venomous upon it, she saw that not a moment could have passed, for +Felix and her aunt were unfolding letters of their own, their eyes +beginning to run quickly over the pages. + +Sylvia stood quite still, feeling immeasurably and bitterly alone. +She said to herself: "Mother is very sick. I must go home at once. +Judith." But she did not know what she said. She felt only an impulse +to run wildly away from something that gave her intolerable pain. + +Mrs. Marshall-Smith turned over a page of her letter, smiling to +herself, and glanced up at her niece. Her smile was smitten from her +lips. Sylvia had a fantastic vision of her own aspect from the gaping +face of horror with which her aunt for an instant reflected it. She +had never before seen Aunt Victoria with an unprepared and discomposed +countenance. It was another feature of the nightmare. + +For suddenly everything resolved itself into a bad dream,--her aunt +crying out, Helene screaming and running to her, Felix snatching the +telegram from her and reading it aloud--it seemed to Sylvia that she +had heard nothing for years but those words, "Mother very sick. Come +home at once. Judith." She heard them over and over after his voice +was silent. Through their constant echoing roar in her ears she heard +but dimly the babel of talk that arose--Aunt Victoria saying that she +could not of course leave at once because no passage had been engaged, +Helene foolishly offering smelling-salts, Felix darting off to get a +carriage to take them to the hotel where she could be out of the crowd +and they could lay their plans--"Oh, my poor dear!--but you may have +more reassuring news tomorrow, you know," said Mrs. Marshall-Smith +soothingly. + +The girl faced her aunt outraged. She thought she cried out angrily, +"tomorrow!" but she did not break her silence. She was so torn by the +storm within her that she had no breath for recriminations. She turned +and ran rapidly some distance away to the edge of the wharf, where +some small rowboats hung bobbing, their owners sprawled on the seats, +smoking cigarettes and chattering. Sylvia addressed the one nearest +her in a strong, imperious voice. "I want you to take me out to that +steamer," she said, pointing out to the liner in the harbor. + +The man looked up at her blankly, his laughing, impertinent brown face +sobered at once by the sight of her own. He made a reply in Italian, +raising his shoulders. Some ill-dressed, loafing stragglers on the +wharf drew near Sylvia with an indolent curiosity. She turned to them +and asked, "Do any of you speak English?" although it was manifestly +inconceivable that any of those typical Neapolitans should. One of +them stepped forward, running his hand through greasy black curls. "I +kin, lady," he said with a fluent, vulgar New York accent. "What ye +want?" + +"Tell that man," said Sylvia, her lips moving stiffly, "to take me out +to the ship that is to leave for America this morning--and now--this +minute, I may be late now!" + +After a short impassioned colloquy, the loafer turned to her and +reported: "He says if he took you out, you couldn't git on board. Them +big ships ain't got no way for folks in little boats to git on. And +he'd ask you thirty lire, anyhow. That's a fierce price. Say, if +you'll wait a minute, I can get you a man that'll do it for--" Mrs. +Marshall-Smith and Helene had followed, and now broke through the line +of ill-smelling loungers. Mrs. Marshall-Smith took hold of her niece's +arm firmly, and began to draw her away with a dignified gesture. "You +don't know what you are doing, child," she said with a peremptory +accent of authority. "You are beside yourself. Come with me at once. +This is no--" + +Sylvia did not resist her. She ignored her. In fact, she did not +understand a word that her aunt said. She shook off the older woman's +hand with one thrust of her powerful young arm, and gathering her +skirts about her, leaped down into the boat. She took out her purse +and showed the man a fifty-lire bill. "Row fast! Fast!" she motioned +to him, sitting down in the stern and fixing her eyes on the huge bulk +of the liner, black upon the brilliance of the sunlit water. She heard +her name called from the wharf and turned her face backward, as the +light craft began to move jerkily away. + +Felix had come up and now stood between Mrs. Marshall-Smith and her +maid, both of whom were passionately appealing to him! He looked over +their heads, saw the girl already a boat-length from the wharf, and +gave a gesture of utter consternation. He ran headlong to the edge of +the dock and again called her name loudly, "Sylvia! _Sylvia!_" There +was no mistaking the quality of that cry. It was the voice of a man +who sees the woman he loves departing from him, and who wildly, +imperiously calls her back to him. But she did not return. The boat +was still so close that she could look deeply into his eyes. Through +all her tumult of horror, there struck cold to Sylvia's heart the +knowledge that they were the eyes of a stranger. The blow that had +pierced her had struck into a quivering center of life, so deep within +her, that only something as deep as its terrible suffering could seem +real. The man who stood there, so impotently calling to her, belonged +to another order of things--things which a moment ago had been +important to her, and which now no longer existed. He had become for +her as remote, as immaterial as the gaudy picturesqueness of the +scene in which he stood. She gave him a long strange look, and made a +strange gesture, a gesture of irrevocable leave-taking. She turned her +face again to the sea, and did not look back. + +They approached the liner, and Sylvia saw some dark heads looking over +the railing at her. Her boatman rowed around the stern to the other +side, where the slanting stairs used in boarding the harbor-boats +still hung over the side. The landing was far above their heads. +Sylvia stood up and cried loudly to the dull faces, staring down at +her from the steerage deck. "Send somebody down on the stairs to speak +to me." There was a stir; a man in a blue uniform came and looked over +the edge, and went away. After a moment, an officer in white ran down +the stairs to the hanging landing with the swift, sure footing of a +seaman. Sylvia stood up again, turning her white face up to him, her +eyes blazing in the shadow of her hat. "I've just heard that my mother +is very sick, and I must get back to America at once. If you will let +down the rope ladder, I can climb up. I must go! I have plenty of +money. I _must_!" + +The officer stared, shook his head, and ran back up the stairs, +disappearing into the black hole in the ship's side. The dark, heavy +faces continued to hang over the railing, staring fixedly down at the +boat with a steady, incurious gaze. Sylvia's boatman balanced his +oar-handles on his knees, rolled a cigarette and lighted it. The boat +swayed up and down on the shimmering, heaving roll of the water, +although the ponderous ship beside it loomed motionless as a rock. +The sun beat down on Sylvia's head and up in her face from the molten +water till she felt sick, but when another officer in white, an +elderly man with an impassive, bearded face, came down the stairs, she +rose up, instantly forgetful of everything but her demand. She called +out her message again, straining her voice until it broke, poised so +impatiently in the little boat, swinging under her feet, that she +seemed almost about to spring up towards the two men leaning over to +catch her words. When she finished, the older man nodded, the younger +one ran back up the stairs, and returned with a rope ladder. + +Sylvia's boatman stirred himself with an ugly face of misgiving. +He clutched at her arm, and made close before her face the hungry, +Mediterranean gesture of fingering money. She took out her purse, gave +him the fifty-lire note, and catching at the ladder as it was flung +down, disregarding the shouted commands of the men above her to +"wait!" she swung herself upon it, climbing strongly and surely in +spite of her hampering skirts. + +The two men helped her up, alarmed and vexed at the risk she had +taken. They said something about great crowds on the boat, and that +only in the second cabin was there a possibility for accommodations. +If she answered them, she did not know what she said. She followed the +younger man down a long corridor, at first dark and smelling of hemp, +later white, bright with electric light, smelling strongly of fresh +paint, stagnant air, and machine-oil. They emerged in a round hallway +at the foot of a staircase. The officer went to a window for a +conference with the official behind it, and returned to Sylvia to say +that there was no room, not even a single berth vacant. Some shabby +woman-passengers with untidy hair and crumpled clothes drew near, +looking at her with curiosity. Sylvia appealed to them, crying out +again, "My mother is very sick and I must go back to America at +once. Can't any of you--can't you--?" she stopped, catching at the +banisters. Her knees were giving way under her. A woman with a flabby +pale face and disordered gray hair sprang towards her and took her in +her arms with a divine charity. "You can have half my bed!" she cried, +drawing Sylvia's head down on her shoulder. "Poor girl! Poor girl! I +lost my only son last year!" + +Her accent, her look, the tones of her voice, some emanation of deep +humanity from her whole person, reached Sylvia's inner self, the +first message that had penetrated to that core of her being since the +deadly, echoing news of the telegram. Upon her icy tension poured a +flood of dissolving warmth. Her hideous isolation was an illusion. +This plain old woman, whom she had never seen before, was her sister, +her blood-kin,--they were both human beings. She gave a cry and flung +her arms about the other's neck, clinging to her like a person falling +from a great height, the tears at last streaming down her face. + + + + +CHAPTER XLI + +HOME AGAIN + + +The trip home passed like a long shuddering bad dream in which one +waits eternally, bound hand and foot, for a blow which does not fall. +Somehow, before the first day was over, an unoccupied berth was found +for Sylvia, in a tiny corner usually taken by one of the ship's +servants. Sylvia accepted this dully. She was but half alive, all her +vital forces suspended until the journey should be over. The throbbing +of the engines came to seem like the beating of her own heart, and +she lay tensely in her berth for hours at a time, feeling that it was +partly her energy which was driving the ship through the waters. She +only thought of accomplishing the journey, covering the miles which +lay before her. From what lay at the end she shrank back, returning +again to her hypnotic absorption in the throbbing of the engines. The +old woman who had offered to share her berth had disappeared at the +first rough water and had been invisible all the trip. Sylvia did not +think of her again. That was a recollection which with all its sacred +significance was to come back later to Sylvia's maturer mind. + +The ship reached New York late in the afternoon, and docked that +night. Sylvia stood alone, in her soiled wrinkled suit, shapeless from +constant wear, her empty hands clutching at the railing, and was the +first passenger to dart down the second-class gang-plank. She ran to +see if there were letters or a telegram for her. + +"Yes, there is a telegram for you," said the steward, holding out a +sealed envelope to her. "It came on with the pilot and ought to have +been given you before." + +She took the envelope, but was unable to open it. The arc lights +flared and winked above her in the high roof of the wharf; the crowds +of keen-faced, hard-eyed men and women in costly, neat-fitting +clothing were as oblivious of her and as ferociously intent on their +own affairs as the shabby, noisy crowd she had left in Naples, +brushing by her as though she were a part of the wharf as they bent +over their trunks anxiously, and locked them up with determination. It +seemed to Sylvia that she could never break the spell of fear which +bound her fast. Minute after minute dragged by, and she still stood, +very white, very sick. + +She was aware that some one stood in front of her, looking into her +face, and she recognized one of the ship's officials whom she had +noticed from a distance on the ship, an under-officer, somehow +connected with the engines, who had sat at table with the second-class +passengers. He was a burly, red-faced man, with huge strong hands and +a bald head. + +He looked at her now for a moment with an intent kindness, and taking +her arm led her a step to a packing-case on which he made her sit +down. At the break in her immobility, a faintness came over Sylvia. +The man bent over her and began to fan her with his cap. A strong +smell of stale and cheap tobacco reached Sylvia from all of his +obese person, but his vulgar, ugly face expressed a profoundly +self-forgetful concern. "There, feelin' better?" he asked, his eyes +anxiously on hers. The man looked at the envelope comprehendingly: +"Oh--bad news--" he murmured. Sylvia opened her hand and showed him +that it had not been opened. "I haven't looked at it yet," she said +pitifully. + +The man made an inarticulate murmur of pity--put out his thick red +fingers, took the message gently from her hand, and opened it. As he +read she searched his face with an impassioned scrutiny. + +When he raised his eyes from the paper, she saw in them, in that +grossly fleshy countenance, such infinite pity that even her swift +intuition of its meaning was not so swift as to reach her heart first. +The blow did not reach her naked and unprotected in the solitude of +her egotism, as it had at Naples. Confusedly, half-resentfully, but +irresistibly she knew that she did not--could not--stand alone, was +not the first thus to be struck down. This knowledge brought the tonic +summons to courage. She held out her hand unflinchingly, and stood +up as she read the message, "Mother died this morning at dawn." The +telegram was dated three days before. She was now two days from home. + +She looked up at the man before her and twice tried to speak before +she could command her voice. Then she said quite steadily: "I live in +the West. Can you tell me anything about trains to Chicago?" + +"I'm going with ye, to th' train," he said, taking her arm and moving +forward. Two hours later his vulgar, ugly, compassionate face was the +last she saw as the train moved out of the station. He did not seem a +stranger to Sylvia. She saw that he was more than middle-aged, he must +have lost _his_ mother, there must have been many deaths in his past. +He seemed more familiar to her than her dearest friends had seemed +before; but from now on she was to feel closer to every human being +than before to her most loved. A great breach had been made in the +wall of her life--the wall which had hidden her fellows from her. She +saw them face the enigma as uncomprehendingly, as helplessly as she, +and she felt the instinct of terror to huddle close to others, even +though they feel--_because_ they feel--a terror as unrelieved. It was +not that she loved her fellow-beings more from this hour, rather that +she felt, to the root of her being, her inevitable fellowship with +them. + +The journey home was almost as wholly a period of suspended animation +for Sylvia as the days on the ocean had been. She had read the +telegram at last; now she knew what had happened, but she did not yet +know what it meant. She felt that she would not know what it meant +until she reached home. How could her mother be dead? What did it mean +to have her mother dead? + +She said the grim words over and over, handling them with heartsick +recklessness as a desperate man might handle the black, ugly objects +with smoking fuses which he knows carry death. But for Sylvia no +explosion came. No ravaging perception of the meaning of the words +reached her strained inner ear. She said them over and over, the sound +of them was horrifying to her, but in her heart she did not believe +them. Her mother, _her_ mother could not die! + +There was no one, of course, at the La Chance station to meet her, +and she walked out through the crowd and took the street-car without +having seen a familiar face. It was five o'clock in the afternoon +then, and six when she walked up the dusty country road and turned in +through the gate in the hedge. There was home--intimately a part of +her in every detail of its unforgotten appearance. The pines stood up +strong in their immortal verdure, the thick golden hush of the summer +afternoon lay like an enchantment about the low brown house. And +something horrible, unspeakably horrible had happened there. Under the +forgotten dust and grime of her long railway journey, she was deadly +pale as she stepped up on the porch. Judith came to the door, saw her +sister, opened her arms with a noble gesture, and clasped Sylvia to +her in a strong and close embrace. Not a word was spoken. The two +clung to each other silently, Sylvia weeping incessantly, holding fast +to the dear human body in her arms, feeling herself dissolved in a +very anguish of love and pain. Her wet cheek was pressed against +Judith's lips, the tears rained down in a torrent. All the rich, +untapped strength of her invincible youth was in that healthful flood +of tears. + +There were none such in the eyes of Professor Marshall as he came down +the stairs to greet his daughter. Sylvia was immeasurably shocked by +his aspect. He did not look like her father. She sought in vain in +that gray countenance for any trace of her father's expression. He +came forward with a slow, dragging step, and kissed his daughter, +taking her hand--his, she noticed, felt like a sick man's, parched, +the skin like a dry husk. He spoke, in a voice which had no resonance, +the first words that had been uttered: "You must be very tired, +Sylvia. You would better go and lie down. Your sister will go with +you." He himself turned away and walked slowly towards the open door. +Sylvia noticed that he shuffled his feet as he walked. + +Judith drew Sylvia away up the stairs to her own slant-ceilinged room, +and the two sat down on the bed, side by side, with clasped hands. +Judith now told briefly the outline of what had happened. Sylvia +listened, straining her swollen eyes to see her sister's face, wiping +away the tears which ran incessantly down her pale, grimy cheeks, +repressing her sobs to listen, although they broke out in one burst +after another. Her mother had gone down very suddenly and they had +cabled at once--then she grew better--she had been unspeakably +brave--fighting the disease by sheer will-power--she had conquered +it--she was gaining--they were sorry they had cabled Sylvia--she had +not known she was going to die--none of them had dreamed she was going +to die--suddenly as the worst of her disease had spent itself and the +lungs were beginning to clear--suddenly her heart had given way, and +before the nurse could call her husband and children to her, she was +gone. They had been there under the same roof, and had not been with +her at the last. The last time they had seen her, she was alive and +smiling at them--such a brave, wan shadow of her usual smile--for a +few moments they went about their affairs, full of hope--and when they +entered the sick-room again-- + +Sylvia could bear no more, screaming out, motioning Judith imperiously +to stop;--she began to understand what had happened to her; the words +she had repeated so dully were like thunder in her ears. Her mother +was dead. + +Judith took her sister again in her arms, holding her close, as though +she were the older. Sylvia was weeping again, the furious, healing, +inexhaustible tears of youth. To both the sisters it seemed that they +were passing an hour of supreme bitterness; but their strong young +hearts, clinging with unconscious tenacity to their right to joy, +were at that moment painfully opening and expanding beyond the narrow +bounds of childhood. Henceforth they were to be great enough to harbor +joy--a greater joy--and sorrow, side by side. + +Moreover, as though their action-loving mother were still watching +over them, they found themselves confronted at once with an inexorable +demand for their strength and courage. + +Judith detached herself, and said in a firm voice: "Sylvia, you +mustn't cry any more. We must think what to do." + +As Sylvia looked at her blankly, she went on: "Somehow Lawrence must +be taken away for a while--until Father's--either you or I must +go with him and stay, and the other one be here with Father until +he's--he's more like himself." + +Sylvia, fresh from the desolation of solitude in sorrow, cried out: +"Oh, Judith, how can you! Now's the time for us all to stay together! +Why should we--?" + +Judith went to the door and closed it before answering, a precaution +so extraordinary in that house of frank openness that Sylvia was +struck into silence by it. Standing by the door, Judith said in a low +tone, "You didn't notice--anything--about Father?" + +"Oh yes, he looks ill. He is so pale--he frightened me!" + +Judith looked down at the floor and was silent a moment. Sylvia's +heart began to beat fast with a new foreboding. "Why, what _is_ the +matter with--" she began. + +Judith covered her face with her hands. "I don't know what to _do_!" +she said despairingly. + +No phrase coming from Judith could have struck a more piercing alarm +into her sister's heart. She ran to Judith, pulled her hands down, and +looked into her face anxiously. "What do you mean, Judy--what do you +mean?" + +"Why--it's five days now since Mother died, three days since the +funeral--and Father has hardly eaten a mouthful--and I don't think +he's slept at all. I know he hasn't taken his clothes off. And--and--" +she drew Sylvia again to the bed, and sat down beside her, "he says +such things ... the night after Mother died Lawrence had cried so I +was afraid he would be sick, and I got him to bed and gave him some +hot milk,"--the thought flashed from one to the other almost palpably, +"That is what Mother would have done"--"and he went to sleep--he was +perfectly worn out. I went downstairs to find Father. It was after +midnight. He was walking around the house into one room after another +and out on the porch and even out in the garden, as fast as he could +walk. He looked so--" She shuddered. "I went up to him and said, +'Father, Father, what are you doing?' He never stopped walking an +instant, but he said, as though I was a total stranger and we were in +a railway station or somewhere like that, 'I am looking for my wife. I +expect to come across her any moment, but I can't seem to remember +the exact place I was to meet her. She must be somewhere about, and +I suppose--' and then, Sylvia, before I could help it, he opened the +door to Mother's room quick--and the men were there, and the coffin--" +She stopped short, pressing her hand tightly over her mouth to stop +its quivering. Sylvia gazed at her in horrified silence. + +After a pause, Judith went on: "He turned around and ran as fast as +he could up the stairs to his study and locked the door. He locked +me out--the night after Mother died. I called and called to him--he +didn't answer. I was afraid to call very loud for fear of waking +Lawrence. I've had to think of Lawrence too." She stopped again to +draw a long breath. She stopped and suddenly reached out imploring +hands to hold fast to Sylvia. "I'm so _glad_ you have come!" she +murmured. + +This from Judith ran like a galvanic shock through Sylvia's +sorrow-sodden heart. She sat up, aroused as she had never been before +to a stern impulse to resist her emotion, to fight it down. She +clasped Judith's hand hard, and felt the tears dry in her eyes. Judith +went on: "If it hadn't been for Lawrence--he's sick as it is. I've +kept him in his room--twice when he's been asleep I've managed to get +Father to eat something and lie down--there seem to be times when he's +so worn out that he doesn't know what he's doing. But it comes back to +him. One night I had just persuaded him to lie down, when he sat up +again with that dreadful face and said very loud: 'Where is my wife? +Where is Barbara?' That was on the night after the funeral. And the +next day he came to me, out in the garden, and said,--he never seems +to know who I am: 'I don't mind the separation from my wife, you +understand--it's not that--I'm not a child, I can endure that--but I +_must_ know where she is. I _must_ know where she is!' He said it over +and over, until his voice got so loud he seemed to hear it himself and +looked around--and then he went back into the house and began walking +all around, opening and shutting all the doors. What I'm afraid of is +his meeting Lawrence and saying something like that. Lawrence would go +crazy. I thought, as soon as you came, you could take him away to the +Helman farm--the Helmans have been so good--and Mrs. Helman offered to +take Lawrence--only he oughtn't to be alone--he needs one of us--" + +Judith was quiet now, and though very pale, spoke with her usual +firmness. Sylvia too felt herself iron under the pressure of her +responsibilities. She said: "Yes, I see. All right--I'll go," and the +two went together into Lawrence's room. He was lying on the bed, his +face in the pillows. At the sound of their steps he turned over and +showed a pitiful white face. He got up and moved uncertainly towards +Sylvia, sinking into her arms and burying his face on her shoulder. + +But a little later when their plan was told him, he turned to +Judith with a cry: "No, _you_ go with me, Judy! I want _you_! You +'know'--about it." + +Over his head the sisters looked at each other with questioning eyes; +and Sylvia nodded her consent. Lawrence had always belonged to Judith. + + + + +CHAPTER XLII + + "_Strange that we creatures of the petty ways, + Poor prisoners behind these fleshly bars, + Can sometimes think us thoughts with God ablaze, + Touching the "fringes of the outer stars_."" + + +And so they went away, Lawrence very white, stooping with the weight +of his suitcase, his young eyes, blurred and red, turned upon Judith +with an infinite confidence in her strength. Judith herself was pale, +but her eyes were dry and her lips firm in her grave, steadfast face, +so like her mother's, except for the absence of the glint of humor. +Sylvia kissed her good-bye, feeling almost a little fear of her +resolute sister; but as she watched them go down the path, and noted +the appealing drooping of the boy towards Judith, Sylvia was swept +with a great wave of love and admiration--and courage. + +She turned to face the difficult days and nights before her and forced +herself to speak cheerfully to her father, who sat in a chair on the +porch, watching the departing travelers and not seeing them. "How +splendid Judith is!" she cried, and went on with a break in the voice +she tried to control: "She will take Mother's place for us all!" + +Her father frowned slightly, as though she had interrupted him in some +effort where concentration was necessary, but otherwise gave no sign +that he heard her. + +Sylvia watched him anxiously through the window. Presently she saw +him relax from his position of strained attention with a great sigh, +almost a groan, and lean back in his chair, covering his eyes with +his hands. When he took them down, his face had the aged, ravaged +expression of exhaustion which had so startled her on her arrival. Now +she felt none of her frightened revulsion, but only an aching pity +which sent her out to him in a rush, her arms outstretched, crying to +him brokenly that he still had his children who loved him more than +anything in the world. + +For the first time in her life, her father repelled her, shrinking +away from her with a brusque, involuntary recoil that shocked her, +thrusting her arms roughly to one side, and rising up hastily to +retreat into the house. He said in a bitter, recriminating tone, "You +don't know what you are talking about," and left her standing there, +the tears frozen in her eyes. He went heavily upstairs to his study on +the top floor and locked the door. Sylvia heard the key turn. It shut +her into an intolerable solitude. She had not thought before that +anything could seem worse than the desolation of her mother's absence. + +She felt a deathlike sinking of her heart. She was afraid of her +father, who no longer seemed her father, created to protect and +cherish her, but some maniac stranger. She felt an impulse like that +of a terrified child to run away, far away to some one who should +stand before her and bear the brunt. She started up from her chair +with panic haste, but the familiar room, saturated with recollections +of her mother's gallant spirit, stood about her like a wall, shutting +her in to the battle with her heart. Who was there to summon whom she +could endure as a spectator of her father's condition? Her mother's +empty chair stood opposite her, against the wall. She looked at it +fixedly; and drawing a long breath sat down quietly. + +This act of courage brought a reward in the shape of a relaxation +of the clutch on her throat and about her heart. Her mother's wise +materialism came to her mind now and she made a heartsick resolve that +she would lead as physically normal a life as possible, working out of +doors, forcing herself to eat, and that, above all things, she would +henceforth deny herself the weakening luxury of tears. And yet but an +hour later, as she bent over her mother's flower-beds blazing in the +sun, she found the tears again streaming from her eyes. + +She tried to wipe them away, but they continued to rain down on her +cheeks. Her tongue knew their saltness. She was profoundly alarmed and +cowed by this irresistible weakness, and stood helplessly at bay among +the languid roses. The sensation of her own utter weakness, prostrate +before her dire need for strength, was as bitter as the taste of her +tears. + +She stood there, among the sun-warmed flowers, looking like a symbolic +figure of youth triumphant ... and she felt herself to be in a black +and windowless prison, where the very earth under her feet was +treacherous, where everything betrayed her. + +Then, out of her need, her very great need, out of the wide and empty +spaces of her inculcated unbelief, something rose up and overwhelmed +her. The force stronger than herself which she had longed to feel, +blew upon her like a wind out of eternity. + +She found herself on her knees, her face hidden in her hands, sending +out a passionate cry which transcended words. The child of the +twentieth century, who had been taught not to pray, was praying. + +She did not know how long she knelt there before the world emerged +from the white glory which had whirled down upon it, and hidden it +from her. But when she came to herself, her eyes were dry, and the +weakening impulse to tears had gone. She stretched out her hands +before her, and they did not tremble. The force stronger than herself +was now in her own heart. From her mother's garden there rose a +strong, fragrant exhalation, as sweet as honey. + + * * * * * + +For more than an hour Sylvia worked steadily among the flowers, +consciously wrought upon by the healing emanations from the crushed, +spicy leaves, the warm earth, and the hot, pure breath of the summer +wind on her face. + +Once she had a passing fancy that her mother stood near her ... +smiling. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII + +"_Call now; is there any that will answer thee?_"--JOB. + + +When she went back to the silent, echoing house, she felt calmer than +at any time since she had read the telegram in Naples. She did not +stop to wash her earth-stained hands, but went directly up the stairs +to the locked door at the top. She did not knock this time. She stood +outside and said authoritatively in a clear, strong voice, the sound +of which surprised her, "Father dear, please open the door and let me +in." + +There was a pause, and then a shuffle of feet. The door opened and +Professor Marshall appeared, his face very white under the thick +stubble of his gray, unshaven beard, his shoulders bowed, his head +hanging. Sylvia went to his side, took his hand firmly in hers, and +said quietly: "Father, you must eat something. You haven't taken a bit +of food in two days. And then you must lie down and rest," She poured +all of her new strength into these quietly issued commands, and +permitted herself no moment's doubt of his obedience to them. He +lifted his head, looked at her, and allowed her to lead him down the +stairs and again into the dining-room. Here he sat, quite spent, +staring before him until Sylvia returned from the kitchen with a plate +of cold meat and some bread. She sat down beside him, putting out +again consciously all her strength, and set the knife and fork in his +nerveless hands. In the gentle monologue with which she accompanied +his meal she did not mention her mother, or anything but slight, +casual matters about the house and garden. She found herself speaking +in a hushed tone, as though not to awake a sleeping person. Although +she sat quite quietly, her hands loosely folded on the table, her +heart was thrilling and burning to a high resolve. "Now it is my turn +to help my father." + +After he had eaten a few mouthfuls and laid down the knife and fork, +she did not insist further, but rose to lead him to the couch in the +living-room. She dared not risk his own room, the bed on which her +mother had died. + +"Now you must lie down and rest, Father," she said, loosening his +clothes and unlacing his shoes as though he had been a sick child. +He let her do what she would, and as she pushed him gently back, he +yielded and lay down at full length. Sylvia sat down beside him, +feeling her strength ebbing. Her father lay on his back, his eyes wide +open. On the ceiling above him a circular flicker of light danced and +shimmered, reflected from a glass of water on the table. His eyes +fastened upon this, at first unwinkingly, with a fixed intensity, +and later with dropped lids and half-upturned eyeballs. He was quite +quiet, and finally seemed asleep, although the line of white between +his eyelids made Sylvia shudder. + +With the disappearance of the instant need for self-control and +firmness, she felt an immense fatigue. It had cost her dearly, this +victory, slight as it was. She drooped in her chair, exhausted and +undone. She looked down at the ash-gray, haggard face on the pillow, +trying to find in those ravaged features her splendidly life-loving +father. It was so quiet that she could hear the big clock in the +dining-room ticking loudly, and half-consciously she began to +count the swings of the pendulum: One--two--three--four--five--six-- +seven--eight--nine--ten--eleven--twelve--thirteen--fourteen-- + +She awoke to darkness and the sound of her mother's name loudly +screamed. She started up, not remembering where she was, astonished to +find herself sitting in a chair. As she stood bewildered in the +dark, the clock in the dining-room struck two. At once from a little +distance, outside the window apparently, she heard the same wild +cry ringing in her ears--"_Bar-ba-ra!_" All the blood in her body +congealed and the hair on her head seemed to stir itself, in the +instant before she recognized her father's voice. + +The great impulse of devotion which had entered her heart in the +garden still governed her. Now she was not afraid. She did not think +of running away. She only knew that she must find her father quickly +and take care of him. Outside on the porch, the glimmering light from +the stars showed her his figure, standing by one of the pillars, +leaning forward, one hand to his ear. As she came out of the door, he +dropped his hand, threw back his head, and again sent out an agonizing +cry--"_Bar-ba-ra!_ Where are you?" It was not the broken wail of +despair; it was the strong, searching cry of a lost child who thinks +trustingly that if he but screams loudly enough his mother must hear +him and come--and yet who is horribly frightened because she does not +answer. But this was a man in his full strength who called! It seemed +the sound must reach beyond the stars. Sylvia felt her very bones +ringing with it. She went along the porch to her father, and laid +her hand on his arm. Through his sleeve she could feel how tense and +knotted were the muscles. "Oh, Father, _don't!_" she said in a low +tone. He shook her off roughly, but did not turn his head or look at +her. Sylvia hesitated, not daring to leave him and not daring to try +to draw him away; and again was shaken by that terrible cry. + +The intensity of his listening attitude seemed to hush into +breathlessness the very night about him, as it did Sylvia. There was +not a sound from the trees. They stood motionless, as though carved in +wood; not a bird fluttered a wing; not a night-insect shrilled; the +brook, dried by the summer heat to a thread, crept by noiselessly. As +once more the frantic cry resounded, it seemed to pierce this opaque +silence like a palpable missile, and to wing its way without hindrance +up to the stars. Not the faintest murmur came in answer. The silence +shut down again, stifling. Sylvia and her father stood as though +in the vacuum of a great bell-glass which shut them away from the +rustling, breathing, living world. Sylvia said again, imploringly, +"Oh, _Father_!" He looked at her angrily, sprang from the porch, and +walked rapidly towards the road, stumbling and tripping over the laces +of his shoes, which Sylvia had loosened when she had persuaded him to +lie down. Sylvia ran after him, her long bounds bringing her up to +his side in a moment. The motion sent the blood racing through her +stiffened limbs again. She drew a long breath of liberation. As she +stepped along beside her father, peering in the starlight at his +dreadful face, half expecting him to turn and strike her at any +moment, she felt an immense relief. The noise of their feet on the +path was like a sane voice of reality. Anything was more endurable +than to stand silent and motionless and hear that screaming call lose +itself in the grimly unanswering distance. + +They were on the main road now, walking so swiftly that, in the hot +summer night, Sylvia felt her forehead beaded and her light dress +cling to her moist body. She took her father's hand. It was parched +like a sick man's, the skin like a dry husk. After this, they walked +hand-in-hand. Professor Marshall continued to walk rapidly, scuffling +in his loose, unlaced shoes. They passed barns and farmhouses, the +latter sleeping, black in the starlight, with darkened windows. In +one, a poor little shack of two rooms, there was a lighted pane, and +as they passed, Sylvia heard the sick wail of a little child. The +sound pierced her heart. She longed to go in and put her arms about +the mother. Now she understood. She tightened her hold on her father's +hand and lifted it to her lips. + +He suffered this with no appearance of his former anger, and soon +after Sylvia was aware that his gait was slackening. She looked at him +searchingly, and saw that he had swung from unnatural tension to spent +exhaustion. His head was hanging and as he walked he wavered. She put +her hand under his elbow and turned him about on the road. "Now we +will go home," she said, drawing his arm through hers. He made no +resistance, not seeming to know what she had done, and shuffled along +wearily, leaning all his weight on her arm. She braced herself against +this drag, and led him slowly back, wiping her face from time to time +with her sleeve. There were moments when she thought she must let him +sink on the road, but she fought through these, and as the sky was +turning faintly gray over their heads, and the implacably silent stars +were disappearing in this pale light, the two stumbled up the walk to +the porch. + +Professor Marshall let himself be lowered into the steamer chair. +Sylvia stood by him until she was sure he would not stir, and then +hurried into the kitchen. In a few moments she brought him a cup of +hot coffee and a piece of bread. He drank the one and ate the other +without protest She set the tray down and put a pillow under her +father's head, raising the foot-rest. He did not resist her. His head +fell back on the pillow, but his eyes did not close. They were fixed +on a distant point in the sky. + +Sylvia tiptoed away into the house and sank down shivering into a +chair. A great fit of trembling and nausea came over her. She rose, +walked into the kitchen, her footsteps sounding in her ears like her +mother's. There was some coffee left, which she drank resolutely, and +she cooked an egg and forced it down, her mother's precepts loud in +her ears. Whatever else happened, she must have her body in condition +to be of use. + +After this she went out to the porch again and lay down in the hammock +near her father. The dawn had brightened into gold, and the sun was +showing on the distant, level, green horizon-line. + + * * * * * + +It was almost the first moment of physical relaxation she had known, +and to her immense, her awed astonishment it was instantly filled with +a pure, clear brilliance, the knowledge that Austin Page lived and +loved her. It was the first, it was the only time she thought of +anything but her father, and this was not a thought, it was a vision. +In the chaos about her, a great sunlit rock had emerged. She laid hold +on it and knew that she would not sink. + + * * * * * + +But now, _now_ she must think of nothing but her father! There was no +one else who could help her father. Could she? Could any one? + +She herself, since her prayer among the roses, cherished in her +darkened heart a hope of dawn. But how could she tell her father of +that? Even if she had been able to force him to listen to her, she had +nothing that words could say, nothing but the recollection of that +burning hour in the garden to set against the teachings of a lifetime. +That had changed life for her ... but what could it mean to her +father? How could she tell him of what was only a wordless radiance? +Her father had taught her that death meant the return of the spirit to +the great, impersonal river of life. If the spirit had been superb and +splendid, like her mother's, the river of life was the brighter for +it, but that was all. Her mother had lived, and now lived no more. +That was what they had tried to teach her to believe. That was what +her father had taught her--without, it now appeared, believing it +himself. + +And yet she divined that it was not that he would not, but that he +could not now believe it. He was like a man set in a vacuum fighting +for the air without which life is impossible. And she knew no way +to break the imprisoning wall and let in air for him. _Was_ there, +indeed, any air outside? There must be, or the race could not live +from one generation to the next. Every one whose love had encountered +death must have found an air to breathe or have died. + +Constantly through all these thoughts, that day and for many days and +months to come, there rang the sound of her mother's name, screamed +aloud. She heard it as though she were again standing by her father +under the stars. And there had been no answer. + +She felt the tears stinging at her eyelids and sat up, terrified at +the idea that her weakness was about to overtake her. She would go +again out to the garden where she had found strength before. The +morning sun was now hot and glaring in the eastern sky. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIV + +"_A bruised reed will He not break, and a dimly burning wick will He +not quench_,"--ISAIAH. + + +As she stepped down the path, she saw a battered black straw hat on +the other side of the hedge. Cousin Parnelia's worn old face and +dim eyes looked at her through the gate. Under her arm she held +planchette. Sylvia stepped through the gate and drew it inhospitably +shut back of her. "What is it, Cousin Parnelia?" she said +challengingly, determined to protect her father. + +The older woman's face was all aglow. "Oh, my dear; I've had such a +wonderful message from your dear mother. Last night--" + +Sylvia recoiled from the mad old creature. She could not bear to have +her sane, calm, strong mother's name on those lips. Cousin Parnelia +went on, full of confidence: "I was sound asleep last night when I +was awakened by the clock's striking two. It sounded so loud that I +thought somebody had called to me. I sat up in bed and said, 'What is +it?' and then I felt a great longing to have planchette write. I got +out of bed in my nightgown and sat down in the dark at the table. +Planchette wrote so fast that I could hardly keep up with it. And when +it stopped, I lighted a match and see ... here ... in your mother's +very handwriting"--fervently she held the bit of paper up for Sylvia +to see. The girl cast a hostile look at the paper and saw that the +writing on it was the usual scrawl produced by Cousin Parnelia, hardly +legible, and resembling anything rather than her mother's handwriting. + +"Read it--read it--it is too beautiful!" quivered the other, "and then +let me show it to your father. It was meant for him--" + +Sylvia shook like a roughly plucked fiddle-string. She seized the +wrinkled old hand fiercely. "Cousin Parnelia, I forbid you going +anywhere near my father! You know as well as I do how intensely he +has always detested spiritualism. To see you might be the thing that +would--" + +The old woman broke in, protesting, her hat falling to one side, her +brown false front sliding with it and showing the thin, gray hairs +beneath. "But, Sylvia, this is the very thing that would save +him--such a beautiful, beautiful message from your mother,--_see_! In +her own handwriting!" + +Sylvia snatched the sheet of yellow paper. "_That's_ not my mother's +handwriting! Do you think I am as crazy as _you_ are!" She tore the +paper into shreds and scattered them from her, feeling a relief in the +violence of her action. The next moment she remembered how patient her +mother had always been with her daft kinswoman and seeing tears in the +blurred old eyes, went to put placating arms about the other's neck. +"Never mind, Cousin Parnelia," she said with a vague kindness, "I know +you mean to do what's right--only we don't believe as you do, and +Father _must_ not be excited!" She turned sick as she spoke and shrank +away from the hedge, carrying her small old cousin with her. Above the +hedge appeared her father's gray face and burning eyes. + +He was not looking at her, but at Cousin Parnelia, who now sprang +forward, crying that she had had a beautiful, beautiful message from +Cousin Barbara. "_It_ came last night at two o'clock ... just after +the clock struck two--" + +Professor Marshall looked quickly at his daughter, and she saw that he +too had heard the clock striking in the dreadful night, and that he +noted the coincidence. + +"Just after the clock struck two she wrote the loveliest message for +you with planchette. Sylvia tore it up. But I'm sure that if we try +with faith, she will repeat it ..." + +Professor Marshall's eyes were fixed on his wife's old cousin. "Come +in," he said in a hoarse voice. They were almost the first words +Sylvia had heard him say. + +Cousin Parnelia hastened up the path to the house. Sylvia followed +with her father, at the last extremity of agitation and perplexity. + +When Cousin Parnelia reached the dining-room table, she sat down by +it, pushed the cloth to one side, and produced a fresh sheet of yellow +paper from her shabby bag. "Put yourselves in a receptive frame of +mind," she said in a glib, professional manner. Sylvia stiffened and +tried to draw her father away, but he continued to stand by the table, +staring at the blank sheet of paper with a strange, wild expression on +his white face. He did not take his eyes from the paper. In a moment, +he sat down suddenly, as though his knees had failed him. + +There was a long silence, in which Sylvia could hear the roaring of +the blood in her arteries. Cousin Parnelia put one deeply veined, +shrunken old hand on planchette and the other over her eyes and +waited, her wrinkled, commonplace old face assuming a solemn +expression of importance. The clock ticked loudly. + +Planchette began to write--at first in meaningless flourishes, then +with occasional words, and finally Sylvia saw streaming away from the +pencil the usual loose, scrawling handwriting. Several lines were +written and then the pencil stopped abruptly. Sylvia standing near her +father heard his breathing grow loud and saw in a panic that the veins +on his temples were swollen. + +Cousin Parnelia took her hand off planchette, put on her spectacles, +read over what had been written, and gave it to Professor Marshall. +Sylvia was in such a state of bewilderment that nothing her father +could have done would have surprised her. She half expected to see him +dash the paper in the old woman's face, half thought that any moment +he would fall, choking with apoplexy. + +What he did was to take the paper and try to hold it steadily enough +to read. But his hand shook terribly. + +"I will read it to you," said Cousin Parnelia, and she read aloud +in her monotonous, illiterate voice: "'I am well and happy, dearest +Elliott, and never far from you. When you call to me, I hear you. +All is not yet clear, but I wish I could tell you more of the whole +meaning. I am near you this moment. I wish that--' The message stopped +there," explained Cousin Parnelia, laying down the paper. + +Professor Marshall leaned over it, straining his eyes to the rude +scrawls, passing his hand over his forehead as though to brush away a +web. He broke out in a loud, high voice. "That is her handwriting.... +Good God, her very handwriting--the way she writes Elliott--it is from +_her!_" He snatched the paper up and took it to the window, stumbling +over the chairs blindly as he went. As he held it up to the light, +poring over it again, he began to weep, crying out his wife's name +softly, the tears streaming down his unshaven cheeks. He came back to +the table, and sank down before it, still sobbing, still murmuring +incessantly, "Oh, Barbara--Barbara!" and laid his head on his +outstretched arms. + +"Let him cry!" whispered Cousin Parnelia sentimentally to Sylvia, +drawing her away into the hall. A few moments later when they looked +in, he had fallen asleep, his head turned to one side so that Sylvia +saw his face, tear-stained and exhausted, but utterly relaxed and at +peace, like that of a little child in sleep. Crushed in one hand was +the yellow sheet of paper covered with coarse, wavering marks. + + + + +CHAPTER XLV + + "_That our soul may swim + We sink our heart down, bubbling, under wave_" + + +The two sisters, their pale faces grave in the shadow of their wide +hats, were on their knees with trowels in a border of their mother's +garden. Judith had been giving a report of Lawrence's condition, and +Sylvia was just finishing an account of what had happened at home, +when the gate in the osage-orange hedge clicked, and a blue-uniformed +boy came whistling up the path. He made an inquiry as to names, and +handed Sylvia an envelope. She opened it, read silently, "Am starting +for America and you at once. Felix." She stood looking at the paper +for a moment, her face quite unmoved from its quiet sadness. The boy +asked, "Any answer?" + +"No," she said decisively, shaking her head. "No answer." + +As he lingered, lighting a cigarette, she put a question in her turn, +"Anything to pay?" + +"No," said the boy, putting the cigarette-box back in his pocket, +"Nothing to pay." He produced a worn and greasy book, "Sign on this +line," he said, and after she had signed, he went away down the path, +whistling. The transaction was complete. + +Sylvia looked after the retreating figure and then turned to Judith +as though there had been no interruption. "... and you can see for +yourself how little use I am to him now. Since he got Cousin Parnelia +in the house, there's nothing anybody else could do for him. Even you +couldn't, if you could leave Lawrence. Not for a while, anyhow. I +suppose he'll come slowly out of this to be himself again ... but I'm +not sure that he will. And for now, I actually believe that he'd be +easier in his mind if we were both away. I never breathe a word of +criticism about planchette, of course. But he knows. There's that much +left of his old self. He knows how I must feel. He's really ever so +much better too, you know. He's taken up his classes in the Summer +School again. He said he had 'a message' from Mother that he was to go +back to his work bravely; and the very next day he went over to the +campus, and taught all his classes as though nothing had happened. +Isn't it awfully, terribly touching to see how even such a poor, +incoherent make-believe of a 'message' from Mother has more power to +calm him than anything we could do with our whole hearts? But how +_can_ he! I can't understand it! I can't bear it, to come in on him +and Cousin Parnelia, in their evenings, and see them bent over that +grotesque planchette and have him look up at me so defiantly, as +though he were just setting his teeth and saying he wouldn't care what +I thought of him. He doesn't really care either. He doesn't think of +anything but of having evening come when he can get another 'message' +from Mother ... from Mother! Mother!" + +"Well, perhaps it would be as well for us not to be here for a while," +murmured Judith. There were deep dark rings under her eyes, as though +she had slept badly for a long time. "Perhaps it may be better later +on. I can take Lawrence back with me when I go to the hospital. I want +to keep him near me of course, dear little Lawrence. My little boy! +He'll be my life now. He'll be what I have to live for." + +Something in the quality of her quiet voice sent a chill to Sylvia's +heart. "Why, Judy dear, after you are married of course you and Arnold +can keep Lawrence with you. That'll be the best for him, a real home, +with you. Oh, Judy dear," she laid down her trowel, fighting hard +against a curious sickness which rose within her. She tried to speak +lightly. "Oh, Judy dear, when _are_ you going to be married? Or don't +you want to speak about it now, for a while? You never write long +letters, I know--but your late ones haven't had _any_ news in them! +You positively haven't so much as mentioned Arnold's name lately." + +As she spoke, she knew that she was voicing an uneasiness which had +been an unacknowledged occupant of her mind for a long time. But she +looked confidently to see one of Judith's concise, comprehensive +statements make her dim apprehensions seem fantastic and far-fetched, +as Judith always made any flight of the imagination appear. But +nothing which Sylvia's imagination might have been able to conceive +would have struck her such a blow as the fact which Judith now +produced, in a dry, curt phrase: "I'm not going to be married." + +Sylvia did not believe her ears. She looked up wildly as Judith rose +from the ground, and advanced upon her sister with a stern, white +face. Before she had finished speaking, she had said more than Sylvia +had ever heard her say about a matter personal to her; but even so, +her iron words were few. "Sylvia, I want to tell you about it, of +course. I've got to. But I won't say a word, unless you can keep +quiet, and not make a fuss. I couldn't stand that. I've got all I can +stand as it is." + +She stood by an apple-tree and now broke from it a small, leafy +branch, which she held as she spoke. There was something shocking in +the contrast between the steady rigor of her voice and the fury of her +fingers as they tore and stripped and shredded the leaves. "Arnold is +an incurable alcoholic," she said; "Dr. Rivedal has pronounced him +hopeless. Dr. Charton and Dr. Pansard (they're the best specialists in +that line) have had him under observation and they say the same thing. +He's had three dreadful attacks lately. We ... none of their treatment +does any good. It's been going on too long--from the time he was +first sent away to school, at fourteen, alone! There was an inherited +tendency, anyhow. Nobody took it seriously, that and--and the other +things boys with too much money do. Apparently everybody thought it +was just the way boys are--if anybody thought anything about it, +except that it was a bother. He never had anybody, you know--_never, +never_ anybody who ..." her voice rose, threatened to break. She +stopped, swallowed hard, and began again: "The trouble is he has +no constitution left--nothing for a doctor to work with. It's not +Arnold's fault. If he had come out to us, that time in Chicago when he +wanted to--we--he could--with Mother to--" Her steady voice gave way +abruptly. She cast the ravaged, leafless branch violently to the +ground and stood looking down at it. There was not a fleck of color in +her beautiful, stony face. + +Sylvia concentrated all her will-power on an effort to speak as Judith +would have her, quietly, without heroics; but when she broke her +silence she found that she had no control of her voice. She tried to +say, "But, Judith dear, if Arnold is like that--doesn't he need you +more than ever? You are a nurse. How can you abandon him now!" But +she could produce only a few, broken, inarticulate words in a choking +voice before she was obliged to stop short, lest she burst out in the +flood of horror which Judith had forbidden. + +Broken and inarticulate as they were, Judith knew what was the meaning +of those words. The corners of her mouth twitched uncontrollably. She +bit her marble lower lip repeatedly before she could bring out the few +short phrases which fell like clods on a coffin. "If I--if we--Arnold +and I are in love with each other." She stopped, drew a painful +breath, and said again: "Arnold and I are in love with each other. Do +you know what that means? He is the only man I could not take care +of--Arnold! If I should try, we would soon be married, or lovers. If +we were married or lovers, we would soon have--" She had overestimated +her strength. Even she was not strong enough to go on. + +She sat down on the ground, put her long arms around her knees, and +buried her face in them. She was not weeping. She sat as still as +though carved in stone. + +Sylvia herself was beyond tears. She sat looking down at the moist +earth on the trowel she held, drying visibly in the hot sun, turning +to dust, and falling away in a crumbling, impalpable powder. It was +like seeing a picture of her heart. She thought of Arnold with an +indignant, passionate pity--how could Judith--? But she was so close +to Judith's suffering that she felt the dreadful rigidity of her body. +The flat, dead tones of the man in the Pantheon were in her ears. It +seemed to her that Life was an adventure perilous and awful beyond +imagination. There was no force to cope with it, save absolute +integrity. Everything else was a vain and foolish delusion, a +two-edged sword which wounded the wielding hand. + +She did not move closer to Judith, she did not put out her hand. +Judith would not like that. She sat quite motionless, looking into +black abysses of pain, of responsibilities not met, feeling press upon +her the terrifying closeness of all human beings to all other +human beings--there in the sun of June a cold sweat stood on her +forehead.... + +But then she drew a long breath. Why, there was Austin! The anguished +contraction of her heart relaxed. The warm blood flowed again through +her veins. There was Austin! + +She was rewarded for her effort to bring herself to Judith's ways, +when presently her sister moved and reached out blindly for her hand. +At this she opened her arms and took Judith in. No word was spoken. +Their mother was there with them. + +Sylvia looked out over the proud, dark head, now heavy on her bosom, +and felt herself years older. She did not try to speak. She had +nothing to say. There was nothing she could do, except to hold Judith +and love her. + +There was nothing, _nothing_ left but love. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVI + +A LONG TALK WITH ARNOLD + + +The tall, lean young man, sitting his galloping horse very slackly, +riding fast with a recklessly loose rein, and staring with bloodshot +eyes down at the dust of the road, gave an exclamation, brought the +mare upon her haunches, and sprang down from the saddle. A woman, +young, tall, grave, set like a pearl in her black mourning dress, +stood up from the roadside brook and advanced to meet him. They looked +at each other as people do who meet after death has passed by. They +stammered vague words, their eyes brimming. + +"I--she was always so good to me," said Arnold, his voice breaking +and quavering as he wrung Sylvia's hand again and again. "I never +knew--saw much of her, I know--but when I was a little boy, I used--I +used to dream about her at night." His thin, sallow face flushed with +his earnestness. "I don't believe--honestly, Sylvia, I don't believe +her own children loved her any more than I did. I've thought so many +times how different everything would have been if I'd--I don't suppose +you remember, but years ago when you and she were in Chicago, I ran +away from school to go out there, and ask if--" + +Sylvia remembered, had thought of nothing else from the moment she had +seen far down the road the horseman vainly fleeing the black beast +on his crupper. She shook her head now, her hand at her throat, and +motioned him to silence. "Don't! Don't!" she said urgently. "Yes, I +remember. I remember." + +There was a moment's silence, filled by the murmur of the little brook +at their feet. The mare, which had been drinking deeply, now lifted +her head, the water running from the corners of her mouth. She gave a +deep breath of satisfaction, and began cropping the dense green grass +which grew between the water and the road. Her master tossed the reins +over the pommel and let her go. He began speaking again on a different +note. "But, Sylvia, what in the world--here, can't we go up under +those trees a few minutes and have a talk? I can keep my eye on the +mare." As they took the few steps he asked again, "How ever does it +happen that you're here at Lydford Junction of all awful holes?" + +Sylvia took an abrupt resolution, sat down on the pine-needles, and +said, very directly, "I am on my way to Austin Farm to see if Austin +Page still wants to marry me." Her manner had the austere simplicity +of one who has been moving in great and grave emotions. + +Arnold spoke with an involuntary quickness: "But you've heard, haven't +you, about his giving up all his Colorado ..." + +Sylvia flushed a deep crimson and paid with a moment of bitter, shamed +resentment for the other bygone moments of calculation. "Yes, yes, of +course." She spoke with a stern impatience. "Did you suppose it was +for his fortune that--" She paused and said humbly, "Of course, it's +natural that you should think that of me." + +Arnold attempted no self-exculpation. He sat down by her, his +riding-crop across his knees. "Could you--do you feel like telling me +about it?" he asked. + +She nodded. It came to her like an inspiration that only if she opened +her heart utterly to Arnold, could he open his sore heart to her. +"There's not much to tell. I don't know where to begin. Perhaps +there's too much to tell, after all, I didn't know what any of it +meant till now. It's the strangest thing, Arnold, how little people +know what is growing strong in their lives! I supposed all the time +I only liked him because he was so rich. I thought it must be so. +I thought that was the kind of girl I was. And then, besides, +I'd--perhaps you didn't know how much I'd liked Felix Morrison." + +Arnold nodded. "I sort of guessed so. You were awfully game, then, +Sylvia. You're game now--it's awfully white to fall in love with a man +because he's rich and then stick to him when he's--" + +Sylvia waved her hand impatiently. "Oh, you don't understand. It's not +because I think _I ought_ to--Heavens, no! Let me try to tell you. +Listen! When the news came, about this Colorado business--I was about +crazy for a while. I just went to pieces. I knew I ought to answer +his letter, but I couldn't. I see now, looking back, that I had just +crumpled up under the weight of my weakness. I didn't know it then. +I kept saying to myself that I was only putting off deciding till I +could think more about it, but I know now that I had decided to give +him up, never to see him again--Felix was there, you know--I'd decided +to give Austin up because he wasn't rich any more. Did you know I was +that base sort of a woman? Do you suppose he will ever be willing to +take me back?--now after this long time? It's a month since I got his +letter." + +Arnold bent his riding-crop between his thin, nervous hands. "Are you +sure now, Sylvia, are you sure now, dead sure?" he asked. "It would be +pretty hard on Austin if you--afterwards--he's such a square, straight +sort of a man, you ought to be awfully careful not to--" + +Sylvia said quickly, her quiet voice vibrant, her face luminous: +"Oh, Arnold, I could never tell you how sure I am. There just isn't +anything else. Over there in Paris, I tried so hard to think about +it--and I couldn't get anywhere at all. The more I tried, the baser I +grew; the more I loved the things I'd have to give up, the more I hung +on to them. Thinking didn't do a bit of good, though I almost killed +myself thinking--thinking--All I'd done was to think out an ingenious, +low, mean compromise to justify myself in giving him up. And then, +after Judith's cablegram came, I started home--Arnold, what a journey +that was!--and I found--I found Mother was gone, just gone away +forever--and I found Father out of his head with sorrow--and Judith +told me about--about her trouble. It was like going through a long +black corridor. It seemed as though I'd never come out on the other +side. But when I did--A door that I couldn't ever, ever break +down--somehow it's been just quietly opened, and I've gone through +it into the only place where it's worth living. It's the last thing +Mother did for me--what nobody but Mother could have done. I don't +want to go back. I couldn't if I wanted to. Those things don't matter +to me now. I don't think they're wrong, the ease, the luxury, if you +can have them without losing something finer. And I suppose some +people's lives are arranged so they don't lose the finer. But mine +wouldn't be. I see that now. And I don't care at all--it all seems so +unimportant to me, what I was caring about, before. Nothing matters +now but Austin. He is the only thing that has lived on for me. I'm +down on my knees with thankfulness that he just exists, even if he +can't forgive me--even if he doesn't care for me any more--even if I +shouldn't ever see him again--even if he should die--he would be +like Mother, he couldn't die, for me. He's there. I know what he is. +Somehow everything's all right--because there's Austin." + +She broke off, smiling palely and quietly at the man beside her. He +raised his eyes to hers for an instant and then dropped them. Sylvia +went on. "I don't pretend to know all the ins and outs of this +Colorado business. It may be that it was quixotic on Austin's part. +Maybe it _has_ upset business conditions out there a lot. It's too +complicated to be _sure_ about how anything, I suppose, is likely to +affect an industrial society. But I'm sure about how it has affected +the people who live in the world--it's a great golden deed that has +enriched everybody--not just Austin's coal-miners, but everybody who +had heard of it. The sky is higher because of it. Everybody has a new +conception of the good that's possible. And then for me, it means that +a man who sees an obligation nobody else sees and meets it--why, with +such a man to help, anybody, even a weak fumbling person like me, can +be sure of at least loyally _trying_ to meet the debts life brings. +It's awfully hard to know what they are, and to meet them--and it's +too horrible if you don't." + +She stopped, aware that the life of the man beside her was one of the +unpaid debts so luridly present to her mind. + +"Sylvia," said Arnold, hesitating, "Sylvia, all this sounds so--look +here, are you sure you're in _love_ with Austin?" + +She looked at him, her eyes steady as stars. "Aren't there as many +ways of being in love, as there are people?" she asked. "I don't +know--I don't know if it's what everybody would call being in +love--but--" She met his eyes, and unashamed, regally, opened her +heart to him with a look. "I can't live without Austin," she said +quickly, in a low tone. + +He looked at her long, and turned away. "Oh yes, you're in love with +him, all right!" he murmured finally, "and I don't believe that the +Colorado business or any of the rest of what you're saying has much to +do with anything. Austin's a live man and you're in love with him; +and that's all there is to it. You're lucky!" He took out his +handkerchief, and wiped his forehead and the back of his neck. Sylvia, +looking at him more closely, was shocked to see how thin and haggard +was his face. He asked now, "Did you ever think that maybe what Austin +was thinking about when he chucked the money was what you'd say, how +you'd take it? I should imagine," he added with a faint smile,' "that +he is hard to please if he's not pretty well satisfied." + +Sylvia was startled. "No. Why no," she said, "I thought I'd looked at +every single side of it, but I never dreamed of that." + +"Oh, I don't mean he did it _for_ that! Lord, no! I suppose it's been +in his mind for years. But afterwards, don't you suppose he thought +... he'd been run after for his money such a terrible lot, you know +... don't you suppose he thought he'd be sure of you one way or the +other, about a million times surer than he could have been any other +way; if you stuck by him, don't you see, with old Felix there with all +his fascinations, plus Molly's money." He turned on her with a sudden +confused wonder in his face. "God! What a time he took to do it! I +hadn't realized all his nerve till this minute. He must have known +what it meant, to leave you there with Felix ... to risk losing you as +well as--Any other man would have tried to marry you first and then--! +Well, what a dead-game sport he was! And all for a lot of dirty +Polacks who'd never laid eyes on him!" + +He took his riding-cap from his head and tossed it on the dried +pine-needles. Sylvia noticed that his dry, thin hair was already +receding from his parchment-like forehead. There were innumerable fine +lines about his eyes. One eyelid twitched spasmodically at intervals. +He looked ten years older than his age. He looked like a man who would +fall like a rotten tree at the first breath of sickness. + +He now faced around to her with a return to everyday matters. "See +here, Sylvia, I've just got it through my head. Are you waiting here +for that five-fifteen train to West Lydford and then are you planning +to walk out to the Austin Farm? Great Scott! don't do that, in this +heat. I'll just run back to the village and get a car and take you +there in half an hour." He rose to his feet, but Sylvia sprang up +quickly, catching at his arm in a panic. "No! no! Arnold, you don't +understand. I haven't written Austin a word--he doesn't know I'm +coming. At first in Paris I couldn't--I was so despicable--and then +afterwards I couldn't either,--though it was all right then. There +aren't any words. It's all too big, too deep to talk about. I didn't +want to, either. I wanted to _see_ him--to see if he still, if he +wants me now. He could _write_ anything. He'd feel he'd have to. How +would I ever know but that it was only because he thought he ought to? +I thought I would just go to him all by myself, without his knowing +I was coming. _I_ can tell--the first moment he looks at me I can +tell--for all my life, I'll be sure, one way or the other. That first +look, what's in him will show! He can't hide anything then, not even +to be kind. I'll know! I'll know!" + +Arnold sat down again with no comment. Evidently he understood. He +leaned his head back against the rough bark of the pine, and closed +his eyes. There was a painful look of excessive fatigue about his +whole person. He glanced up and caught Sylvia's compassionate gaze on +him. "I haven't been sleeping very well lately," he said very dryly. +"It breaks a fellow up to lose sleep." Sylvia nodded. Evidently he was +not minded to speak of his own troubles. He had not mentioned Judith. + +She looked up thoughtfully at the well-remembered high line of the +mountain against the sky. Her mother's girlhood eyes had looked at +that high line. She fell into a brooding meditation, and presently, +obeying one of her sure instincts, she sat down by Arnold, and began +to talk to him about what she divined for the moment would most touch +and move him; she began to talk about her mother. He was silent, his +worn, sallow face impassive, but she knew he was listening. + +She told one incident after another of her mother's life, incidents +which, she told him, she had not noted at the time, incidents which +were now windows in her own life, letting in the sunlight her mother +loved so well. "All the time I was growing up, I was blind, I didn't +see anything. I don't feel remorseful, I suppose that is the way +children have to be. But I didn't see her. There were so many minor +differences between us ... tastes, interests. I always said hatefully +to myself that Mother didn't understand me. And it was true too. As +if it matters! What if she didn't! She never talked morality to us, +anyhow. She never talked much at all. She didn't need to. She was +herself. No words would express that. She lived her life. And there +it is now, there it always will be for me, food for me to live on. I +thought she had died. But she has never been so living for me. She's +part of me now, for always. And just because I see the meaning of her +life, why, there's the meaning of mine as clear as morning. How can +poor Father crave those 'messages' from her! Everything is a message +from her. We've lived with her. We have her in our hearts. It's all +brightness when I think of her. And I see by that brightness what's in +my heart, and that's Austin ... Austin!" On the name, her voice rose, +expanded, soared, wonderfully rang in the ensuing silence.... + +Arnold said slowly, without opening his eyes: "Yes, yes, I see. I see +how it is all right with you and Austin. He's big enough for you, all +of you. And Felix--he's not so bad either--but he has, after all, a +yellow streak. Poor Felix!" + +This brought up to Sylvia the recollection of the day, so short a time +ago when she had sat on the ground thus, much as she now sat next to +Arnold, and had felt Judith's body rigid and tense. There was nothing +rigid about Arnold. He was relaxed in an exhausted passivity, a beaten +man. Let what would, befall. He seemed beyond feeling. She knew that +probably never again, so life goes, could they speak together thus, +like disembodied spirits, freed for once from the blinding, entangling +tragic web of self-consciousness. She wondered again if he would find +it in his heart to speak to her of Judith. She remembered something +else she had meant to ask him, if she could ever find words for her +question; and she found that, in that hour of high seriousness, +they came quite without effort. "Arnold, when I was in Paris, I met +Professor Saunders. I ran across him by accident. He told me +some dreadful things. I thought they couldn't all be true. But I +wondered--" + +Arnold opened his eyes and turned them on her. She saw again, as she +had so many times, the honesty of them. They were bloodshot, yellowed, +set deep in dark hollows; but it was a good gaze they gave. "Oh, don't +take poor old Saunders too seriously. He went all to pieces in the +end. He had a lot to say about Madrina, I suppose. I shouldn't pay +much attention to it. Madrina's not such a bad lot as he makes her +out. Madrina's all right if you don't want anything out of her. She's +the way she is, that's all. It's not fair to blame her. We're all like +that," he ended with a pregnant, explanatory phrase which fell with an +immense significance on Sylvia's ear. "Madrina's all right when she's +got what she wants." + +The girl pondered in silence on this characterization. After a time +Arnold roused himself to say again: "I mean she wouldn't go out of +her way to hurt anybody, for anything. She's not the kind that enjoys +seeing other folks squirm. Only she wants things the way she wants +them. Don't let anything old Saunders said worry you. I suppose he +laid all my worthlessness at Madrina's door too. He'd got into that +way of thinking, sort of dotty on the subject anyhow. He was terribly +hard hit, you know. I don't deny either that Madrina did keep him +strung on hot wire for several years. I don't suppose it occurred +to her that there was any reason why she shouldn't if he were fool +enough. I never could see that he wasn't some to blame too. All he had +to do--all they any of them ever had to do, was to get out and stay +out. Madrina'd never lift a finger to hinder. Even Saunders, I guess, +would have had to admit that Madrina always had plenty of dignity. And +as for me, great Scott! what could you expect a woman like Madrina to +do with a boy like me! She never liked me, for one thing; and then +I always bored her almost more than she could stand. But she never +showed her impatience, never once. She's really awfully good-natured +in her way. She wanted to make me into a salon sort of person, +somebody who'd talk at her teas--converse, don't you know. You see +_me_, don't you! It was hard on her. If she'd had you, now--I always +thought you were the only person in the world she ever really cared +for. She does, you know. All this year you've been with her, she's +seemed so different, more like a real woman. Maybe she's had her +troubles too. Maybe she's been deathly lonely. Don't you go back on +her too hard. Madrina's no vampire. That's just old Saunders' addled +wits. She's one of the nicest people in the world to live with, if you +don't need her for anything. And she really does care a lot for you, +Sylvia. That time out in Chicago, when we were all kids, when I wanted +to go to live with your mother, I remember that Madrina suggested to +her (and Madrina would have done it in a minute, too)--she suggested +that they change off, she take you to bring up and I go out to live +with your mother," He stopped to look at the woman beside him. "I +don't know about you, Sylvia, but I guess it would have made some +difference in my life!" + +Sylvia drew back, horrified that he was even in thought, even for a +moment robbing her of her mother. "Oh, what I would have been--I can't +bear to _think_ of what kind of woman I would have been without my +mother!" The idea was terrible to her. She shrank away from her +aunt as never before in her life. The reminiscence brought an idea, +evidently as deeply moving, into Arnold's mind. The words burst from +him, "I might now be married to Judith!" He put his hands over his +eyes and cast himself down among the pine-needles. + +Sylvia spoke quickly lest she lose courage. "Arnold! Arnold! What are +you going to do with yourself now? I'm so horribly anxious about you. +I haven't dared speak before--" + +He turned over and lay on his back, staring up into the dark green of +the pine. "I'm going to drink myself to death as soon as I can," he +said very quietly. "The doctors say it won't take long." + +She looked at his wasted face and gave a shocked, pitying exclamation, +thinking that it would be illness and not drink which was to come to +his rescue soon. + +He looked at her askance, with his bloodshot eyes. "Can you give me +any single reason why I shouldn't?" he challenged her. + +Sylvia, the modern, had no answer. She murmured weakly, "Why must any +of us try to be decent?" + +"That's for the rest of you," he said. "I'm counted out. The sooner +I get myself out of the way, the better for everybody. That's what +_Judith_ thinks." + +The bitterness of his last phrase was savage. Sylvia cried out against +it. "Arnold! That's cruel of you! It's killing Judith!" + +"She can't care for me," he said, with a deep, burning resentment. +"She can't ever have cared a rap, or she wouldn't be _able_ to--" + +Sylvia would not allow him to go on. "You must not say such a thing, +Arnold. You know Judith's only reason is--she feels if she--if she had +children and they were--" + +He interrupted her with an ugly hardness. "Oh, I know what her reason +is, all right. It's the latest fad. Any magazine article can tell you +all about it. And I don't take any stock in it, I tell you. It's just +insanity to try to guess at every last obligation you may possibly +have! You've got to live your life, and have some nerve about it! If +Judith and I love each other, what is it to anybody else if we get +married? Maybe we wouldn't have any children. Maybe they'd be all +right--how could they be anything else with Judith for their mother? +And anyhow, leave that to them! Let them take care of themselves! +We've had to do it for ourselves! What the devil did my father do for +me, I'd like to know, that I should die to keep my children unborn? My +mother was a country girl from up here in the mountains. Since I've +been staying here winters, I've met some of her people. Her aunt told +me that my father was as drunk as a lord on his wedding night--What +did he think of _his_ son? Why should I think of mine?" + +He was so evidently talking wildly, desperately, that Sylvia made no +attempt to stop him, divining with an aching pity what lay under his +dreadful words. But when he said again, "It's simply that Judith +doesn't care enough about me to stick by me, now I'm down and out. She +can't bear me in her narrow little good world!" Judith's sister could +keep her silence no more. + +"Look here, Arnold, I haven't meant to tell you, but I _can't_ +have you thinking that. Listen! You know Judith, how splendid and +self-controlled she is. She went all through the sorrow of Mother's +death without once breaking down, not once. But the night before I +started to come here, in the middle of the night, I heard such a sound +from Judith's room! It frightened me, so I could hardly get my breath! +It was Judith crying, crying terribly, so that she couldn't keep it +back any more. I never knew her to cry before. I didn't dare go into +her room--Mother would--but I didn't dare. And yet I couldn't leave +her there alone in such awful trouble. I stood by the door in the +dark--oh, Arnold, I don't know how long--and heard her--When it began +to be light she was quiet, and I went back to bed; and after a while +I tiptoed in. She had gone to sleep at last. Arnold, there under her +cheek was that old baseball cap of yours ... all wet, all wet with her +tears, Judith's tears." + +Before she had finished she was sorry she had spoken. Arnold's face +was suffused with purple. He put his hand up to his collar and +wrenched at it, clenched his fists, and finally, flinging his +riding-crop far from him, hid his face in his hands and burst +into tears. "Isn't it damnable!" he said over and over. "Isn't it +damnable!" + +Sylvia had nothing more to say. It seemed indeed damnable to her. She +wondered again at Judith's invincible force of will. That alone was +the obstacle--no, it was something back of Judith's will, something +which even Arnold recognized; for now, to her astonishment, he looked +up, his face smeared like a weeping child's, and said in a low tone, +"You know, of course, that Judith's right." + +The testimony was wrung out of him. But it came. The moment was one +never to be forgotten. + +Out of her passionate pity was born strength that was not to be +denied. She took his hand in hers, his dry, sick man's hand. "Arnold, +you asked me to give you a reason why you should get the best you can +out of yourself. I'll give you a reason. Judith is a reason. Austin is +a reason. I'm a reason. I am never going to let you go. Judith can't +be the one to help you get through the best you can, even though it +may not be so very well--poor, poor Judith, who would die to be able +to help you! Mother wasn't allowed to. She wanted to, I see that now. +But I can. I'm not a thousandth part as strong or as good as they; but +if we hang together! All my life is going to be settled for me in a +few hours. I don't know how it's going to be. But however it is, you +will always be in my life. For as long as you live," she caught her +breath at the realization of how little that phrase meant, "for as +long as you live, you are going to be what you wanted to be, what you +ought to have been, my brother--my mother's son." + +He clung to her hand, he clung to it with such a grip that her fingers +ached--and she blessed the pain for what it meant. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVII + +"... AND ALL THE TRUMPETS SOUNDED!" + + +They had told her at the farm, the old man and the old woman who had +looked so curiously at her, that Mr. Page had gone on up the wood-road +towards the upper pasture. He liked to go there sometimes, they said, +to look at the sunset from a big rock that stood in the edge of the +white birch woods. They added, in extenuation of this, that of course +somebody had to go up there anyhow, once in a while, to salt the +sheep. + +Sylvia had passed on, passed the great, square, many-chimneyed house, +passed the old-fashioned garden, and struck into the wood-road beyond +the bars. The sun was so low now, almost below the edge of the Notch, +that the rays were level and long behind her. So she had walked, +bathed in luminous gold at Versailles, on the day when Austin had +first told her that he loved her, on the day she had told him the +truth. From the first moment she had seen him how he had always +brought out from her the truest and best, finer and truer than +anything she had thought was in her, like a reflection from his own +integrity. His eyes that day, what clear wells of loyalty and honor +... how her mother would have loved him! And that other day, when he +said farewell and went away to his ordeal ... she closed her eyes for +an instant, pierced with the recollection of his gaze on her! What was +she, what poor thing transfigured to divinity, that such passion, such +tenderness had been hers ... even for a moment ... even if now ... + +She looked timidly up the green tunnel of the arching trees, fearing +to see him at any moment. And yet how she hastened her steps towards +where he was! The moments were too long till she should find her +heart's home! + +After a time, there came a moment of such terrible throbbing of the +heart, such trembling, that she could not go on. She sat down on a +rock beside the road and pressed her shaking hands on her cheeks. No, +it was too awful. She had been insane to think of putting everything, +her whole life, to the test of a moment's shock. She would go back. +She would write him.... + +She looked up and saw her mother's gallant figure standing there +before her. She smiled, and started on. Strange that she had thought +her mother could be dead. Her first instinct had been right. Her +mother, _her_ mother could not die. + +The road turned sharply to the left. She came out from the white +birches. She was in the edge of the pasture, sweet-fern at her feet, +a group of sheep raising startled heads to gaze at her, the sun's rim +red on the horizon below her. And up there, the sunlight on his face, +above her, stood Austin. + +The sight of him was like a great burst of music in her heart, like a +great flood of light. Her doubts, her uncertainties, they were gone +out, as utterly as night goes before the sun. Her ears rang to a sound +like singing voices. For a moment she did not feel the ground under +her feet.... + +Austin looked down and saw her. He stood like a man in a dream. + +And then he knew. He knew. And Sylvia knew. He gave a great cry +of welcome which was to ring in her ears for all her life, like a +benediction. He ran down to meet her, and took her in his arms. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Bent Twig, by Dorothy Canfield + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BENT TWIG *** + +***** This file should be named 11221.txt or 11221.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/2/2/11221/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Josephine Paolucci and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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