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diff --git a/14571-h/14571-h.htm b/14571-h/14571-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..de0aa66 --- /dev/null +++ b/14571-h/14571-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,14664 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> +<head> +<meta name="generator" content= +"HTML Tidy for Windows (vers 1st February 2004), see www.w3.org" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Life And, by Ellen +Glasgow.</title> + +<style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + .linenum {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */ + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;} /* page numbers */ + .sidenote {width: 20%; padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em; margin-left: 1em; + float: right; clear: right; margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; background: #eeeeee; border: dashed 1px;} + + .bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + .bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + .bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + .br {border-right: solid 2px;} + .bbox {border: solid 2px;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .figleft {float: left; clear: left; margin-left: 0; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: + 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .figright {float: right; clear: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span {display: block; margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ +</style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14571 ***</div> + +<div class="figcenter"><a href="images/001.jpg"><img src= +"images/001.jpg" width="50%" alt="" title="" /></a></div> +<div> +<h1>LIFE AND<br /> +GABRIELLA</h1> +</div> +<h4>THE STORY OF A WOMAN'S COURAGE</h4> +<h3>BY</h3> +<h2>ELLEN GLASGOW</h2> +<div class="figcenter"><br /> +<img src="images/002.png" width="15%" alt="" title="" /></div> +<div> +<h4>FRONTISPIECE<br /> +BY<br /> +C. ALLAN GILBERT</h4> +</div> +<h5>GARDEN CITY -- NEW YORK</h5> +<h4>DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY</h4> +<h4>1916</h4> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> +<div class="center"> +<h3><a href="#BOOK_FIRST">BOOK FIRST—THE AGE OF +FAITH</a></h3> +<br /> +<table summary=""> +<tr> +<td>CHAPTER</td> +<td> </td> +<td>PAGE</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">I.</a></td> +<td><a href="#CHAPTER_I">Presents a Shameless Heroine</a></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">3</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">II.</a></td> +<td><a href="#CHAPTER_II">Poor Jane</a></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">30</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">III.</a></td> +<td><a href="#CHAPTER_III">A Start in Life</a></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">61</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV.</a></td> +<td><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">Mirage</a></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">90</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">V.</a></td> +<td><a href="#CHAPTER_V">The New World</a></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">122</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VI.</a></td> +<td><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">The Old Serpent</a></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">148</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">VII.</a></td> +<td><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">Motherhood</a></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">176</a></td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /> +<h3><a href="#BOOK_SECOND">BOOK SECOND—THE AGE OF +KNOWLEDGE</a></h3> +<br /> +<table summary=""> +<tr> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_Ia">I.</a></td> +<td><a href="#CHAPTER_Ia">Disenchantment.</a></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_Ia">211</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IIa">II.</a></td> +<td><a href="#CHAPTER_IIa">A Second Start in Life</a></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IIa">241</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IIIa">III.</a></td> +<td><a href="#CHAPTER_III">Work</a></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">274</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IVa">IV.</a></td> +<td><a href="#CHAPTER_IVa">The Dream and the Years</a></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IVa">300</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_Va">V.</a></td> +<td><a href="#CHAPTER_Va">Success</a></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_Va">331</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIa">VI.</a></td> +<td><a href="#CHAPTER_VIa">Discoveries</a></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIa">368</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIIa">VII.</a></td> +<td><a href="#CHAPTER_VIIa">Readjustments</a></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIIa">406</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIIIa">VIII.</a></td> +<td><a href="#CHAPTER_VIIIa">The Test</a></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIIIa">444</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IXa">IX.</a></td> +<td><a href="#CHAPTER_IXa">The Past</a></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IXa">476</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_Xa">X.</a></td> +<td><a href="#CHAPTER_Xa">Dream and the Reality</a></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_Xa">501</a></td> +</tr> +</table> +<br /></div> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="BOOK_FIRST" id="BOOK_FIRST"></a>BOOK FIRST</h2> +<h3>THE AGE OF FAITH</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> +<h3>PRESENTS A SHAMELESS HEROINE</h3> +<p>After a day of rain the sun came out suddenly at five o'clock +and threw a golden bar into the deep Victorian gloom of the front +parlour. On the window-sill, midway between the white curtains, a +pot of blue hyacinths stood in a cracked china plate, and as the +sunlight shone into the room, the scent of the blossoms floated to +the corner where Gabriella was patiently pulling basting threads +out of the hem of a skirt. For a minute her capable hands stopped +at their work, and raising her smooth dark head she looked +compassionately at her sister Jane, who was sitting, like a frozen +image of martyrdom, in the middle of the long horsehair sofa. Three +times within the last twelve months Jane had fled from her +husband's roof to the protection of her widowed mother, a weak +person of excellent ancestry, who could hardly have protected a +sparrow had one taken refuge beneath her skirt. Twice before Mrs. +Carr had wept over her daughter's woes and returned her, a sullen +saint, to the arms of the discreetly repentant Charley; but to-day, +while the four older children were bribed to good behaviour with +bread and damson preserves in the pantry, and the baby was +contentedly playing with his rubber ring in his mother's arms, +Gabriella had passionately declared that "Jane must never, never go +back!" Nothing so dreadful as this had ever happened before, for +the repentant Charley had been discovered making love to his wife's +dressmaker, a pretty French girl whom Jane had engaged for her +spring sewing because she had more "style" than had fallen to the +austerely virtuous lot of the Carr's regular seamstress, Miss Folly +Hatch. "I might have known she was too pretty to be good," moaned +Jane, while Mrs. Carr, in her willow rocking-chair by the window, +wiped her reddened eyelids on the strip of cambric ruffling she was +hemming.</p> +<p>Unmoved among them the baby beat methodically on his mother's +breast with his rubber ring, as indifferent to her sobs as to the +intermittent tearful "coos" of his grandmother. He had a smooth +bald head, fringed, like the head of a very old man, with pale +silken hair that was almost white in the sunshine, and his eyes, as +expressionless as marbles, stared over the pot of hyacinths at a +sparrow perched against the deep blue sky on the red brick wall of +the opposite house. From beneath his starched little skirt his +feet, in pink crocheted shoes, protruded with a forlorn and +helpless air as if they hardly belonged to him.</p> +<p>"Oh, my poor child, what are we going to do?" asked Mrs. Carr in +a resigned voice as she returned to her hemming.</p> +<p>"There's nothing to do, mother," answered Jane, without lifting +her eyes from the baby's head, without moving an inch out of the +position she had dropped into when she entered the room. Then, +after a sobbing pause, she defined in a classic formula her whole +philosophy of life: "It wasn't my fault," she said.</p> +<p>"But one can always do something if it's only to scream," +rejoined Gabriella with spirit.</p> +<p>"I wouldn't scream," replied Jane, while the pale cast of +resolution hardened her small flat features, "not—not if he +killed me. My one comfort," she added pathetically, "is that only +you and mother know how he treats me."</p> +<p>Her pretty vacant face with its faded bloom resembled a pastel +portrait in which the artist had forgotten to paint an expression. +"Poor Jane Gracey," as she was generally called, had wasted the +last ten years in a futile effort to hide the fact of an +unfortunate marriage beneath an excessively cheerful manner. She +talked continually because talking seemed to her the most +successful way of "keeping up an appearance." Though everybody who +knew her knew also that Charley Gracey neglected her shamefully, +she spent twelve hours of the twenty-four pretending that she was +perfectly happy. At nineteen she had been a belle and beauty of the +willowy sort; but at thirty she had relapsed into one of the women +whom men admire in theory and despise in reality. She had started +with a natural tendency to clinging sweetness; as the years went on +the sweetness, instead of growing fainter, had become almost +cloying, while the clinging had hysterically tightened into a +clutch. Charley Gracey, who had married her under the mistaken +impression that her type was restful for a reforming rake, (not +realizing that there is nothing so mentally disturbing as a fool) +had been changed by marriage from a gay bird of the barnyard into a +veritable hawk of the air. His behaviour was the scandal of the +town, yet the greater his sins, the intenser grew Jane's sweetness, +the more twining her hold. "Nobody will ever think of blaming you, +darling," said Mrs. Carr consolingly. "You have behaved beautifully +from the beginning. We all know what a perfect wife you have +been."</p> +<p>"I've tried to do my duty even if Charley failed in his," +replied the perfect wife, unfastening the hooks of her small +heliotrope wrap trimmed with tarnished silver passementerie. Above +her short flaxen "bang" she wore a crumpled purple hat ornamented +with bunches of velvet pansies; and though it was two years old, +and out of fashion at a period when fashions changed less rapidly, +it lent an air of indecent festivity to her tearful face. Her youth +was already gone, for her beauty had been of the fragile kind that +breaks early, and her wan, aristocratic features had settled into +the downward droop which comes to the faces of people who +habitually "expect the worst."</p> +<p>"I know, Jane, I know," murmured Mrs. Carr, dropping her thimble +as she nervously tried to hasten her sewing. "But don't you think +it would be a comfort, dear, to have the advice of a man about +Charley? Won't you let me send Marthy for your Cousin Jimmy +Wrenn?"</p> +<p>"Oh, mother, I couldn't. It would kill me to have everybody know +I'm unhappy!" wailed Jane, breaking down.</p> +<p>"But everybody knows anyway, Jane," said Gabriella, sticking the +point of her scissors into a strip of buckram, for she was +stiffening the bottom of the skirt after the fashion of the middle +'nineties.</p> +<p>"Of course I'm foolishly sensitive," returned Jane, while she +lifted the baby from her lap and placed him in a pile of cushions +by the deep arm of the sofa, where he sat imperturbably gazing at +the blue sky and the red wall from which the sparrow had flown. +"You can never understand my feelings because you are so +different."</p> +<p>"Gabriella is not married," observed Mrs. Carr, with sentimental +finality. "But I'm sure, Jane—I'm just as sure as I can be of +anything that it wouldn't do a bit of harm to speak to Cousin Jimmy +Wrenn. Men know so much more than women about such matters."</p> +<p>In her effort to recover her thimble she dropped her spool of +thread, which rolled under the sofa on which Jane was sitting, and +while she waited for Gabriella to find it, she gazed pensively into +the almost deserted street where the slender shadows of poplar +trees slanted over the wet cobblestones. Though Mrs. Carr worked +every instant of her time, except the few hours when she lay in bed +trying to sleep, and the few minutes when she sat at the table +trying to eat, nothing that she began was ever finished until +Gabriella took it out of her hands. She did her best, for she was +as conscientious in her way as poor Jane, yet through some tragic +perversity of fate her best seemed always to fall short of the +simplest requirements of life. Her face, like Jane's, was long and +thin, with a pathetic droop at the corners of the mouth, a small +bony nose, always slightly reddened at the tip, and faded blue eyes +beneath an even row of little flat round curls which looked as if +they were plastered on her forehead.</p> +<p>Thirty-three years before, in the romantic and fiery 'sixties, +she had married dashing young Gabriel Carr for no better reason +apparently than that she was falling vaguely in love with love; and +the marriage, which had been one of reckless passion on his side, +had been for her scarcely more than the dreamer's hesitating +compromise with reality. Passion, which she had been taught to +regard as an unholy attribute implanted by the Creator, with +inscrutable wisdom, in the nature of man, and left out of the +nature of woman, had never troubled her gentle and affectionate +soul; and not until the sudden death of her husband did she begin +even remotely to fall in love with the man. But when he was once +safely dead she worshipped his memory with an ardour which would +have seemed to her indelicate had he been still alive. For sixteen +years she had worn a crape veil on her bonnet, and she still went +occasionally, after the morning service was over on Sunday, to +place fresh flowers on his grave. Now that his "earthly nature," +against which she had struggled so earnestly while he was living, +was no longer in need of the pious exorcisms with which she had +treated its frequent manifestations, she remembered only the dark +beauty of his face, his robust and vigorous youth, the tenderness +and gallantry of his passion. For her daughters she had drawn an +imaginary portrait of him which combined the pagan beauty of +Antinous with the militant purity of Saint Paul; and this romantic +blending of the heathen and the Presbyterian virtues had passed +through her young imagination into the awakening soul of +Gabriella.</p> +<p>By the town at large Mrs. Carr's sorrow was alluded to as "a +beautiful grief," yet so deeply rooted in her being was the +instinct to twine, that for the first few years of her bereavement +she had simply sat in her widow's weeds, with her rent paid by +Cousin Jimmy Wrenn and her market bills settled monthly by Uncle +Beverly Blair, and waited patiently for some man to come and +support her.</p> +<p>When no man came, and Uncle Beverly died of a stroke of apoplexy +with his will unsigned, she had turned, with the wasted energy of +the unfit and the incompetent, to solve the inexplicable problem of +indigent ladyhood. And it was at this crucial instant that Becky +Bollingbroke had put her awful question: "Have you made up your +mind, Fanny, what you are going to do?" That was twelve years ago, +but deep down in some secret cave of Fanny's being the ghastly echo +of the words still reverberated through the emptiness and the +silence.</p> +<p>"Don't you think, darling," she pleaded now, as she had pleaded +to Becky on that other dreadful occasion, "that we had better send +immediately for Cousin Jimmy Wrenn?"</p> +<p>"I—I can't think," gasped Jane, "but you may if you want +to, mother."</p> +<p>"Send, Gabriella," said Mrs. Carr quickly, and she added +tenderly, while Gabriella dropped her work and ran to the outside +kitchen for Marthy, the coloured drudge, "you will feel so much +better, Jane, after you have had his advice."</p> +<p>Then at the sight of Jane's stricken face, which had turned blue +as if from a sudden chill, she hurriedly opened the drawer of her +sewing machine, and taking out a bottle of camphor she kept there, +began tremulously rubbing her daughter's forehead. As she did so, +she remembered, with the startling irrelevance of the +intellectually untrained, the way Jane had looked in her veil and +orange blossoms on the day of her wedding.</p> +<p>"I wonder what on earth we have done to deserve our troubles?" +she found herself thinking while she put the stopper back into the +bottle and returned to her sewing.</p> +<p>"Marthy has gone, mother," said Gabriella, with her cheerful air +as she came back into the room, "and I shut the children in the +laundry with Dolly who is doing the washing."</p> +<p>"I hope they won't make themselves sick with preserves," +remarked Jane, with the first dart of energy she had shown. +"Perhaps I'd better go and see. If Fanny eats too much we'll be up +all night with her."</p> +<p>"I told Dolly not to let them stuff," answered Gabriella, as she +sat down by the window and threaded her needle. She was a tall, +dark girl, slender and straight as a young poplar, with a face that +was frank and pleasant rather than pretty, and sparkling brown eyes +which turned golden and grew bright as swords when she was angry. +Seen by the strong light of the window, her face showed sallow in +tone, with a certain nobility about the bony structure beneath the +soft girlish flesh, and a look of almost stern decision in the +square chin and in the full rich curve of the mouth. Her hair, +which was too fine and soft to show its thickness, drooped from its +parting at the side in a dark wing over her forehead, where it +shadowed her arched black eyebrows and the clear sweet gravity of +her eyes. As she bent over her sewing the thin pure lines of her +body had a look of arrested energy, of relaxed but exuberant +vitality.</p> +<p>"You won't go to the dance to-night, will you, Gabriella?" +inquired Mrs. Carr nervously.</p> +<p>"No, I'm not going," answered the girl regretfully, for she +loved dancing, and her white organdie dress, trimmed with quillings +of blue ribbon, lay upstairs on the bed. "I'll never dance again if +only Jane won't go back to Charley. I'll work my fingers to the +bone to help her take care of the children."</p> +<p>"I'll never, never go back," chanted Jane with feverish +passion.</p> +<p>"But I thought Arthur Peyton was coming for you," said Mrs. +Carr. "He will be so disappointed."</p> +<p>"Oh, he'll understand—he'll have to," replied Gabriella +carelessly.</p> +<p>The sunshine faded slowly from the hyacinths on the window-sill, +and drawing her crocheted cape of purple wool closer about her, +Mrs. Carr moved a little nearer the fireplace. Outside the March +wind was blowing with a melancholy sound up the long straight +street, and rocking the glossy boughs of an old magnolia tree in +the yard From the shining leaves of the tree a few drops of water +fell on the brick pavement, where several joyous sparrows were +drinking, and farther off, as bright as silver in the clear wind, a +solitary church spire rose above the huddled roofs of the town. +When the wind lulled, as it did now and then, a warm breath seemed +to stir in the sunshine, which grew suddenly brighter, while a +promise of spring floated like a faint provocative scent on the +air. And this scent, so vague, so roving, that it was like the +ghostly perfume of flowers, stole at last into the memory, and made +the old dream of youth and the young grow restless at the call of +Life, which sang to the music of flutes in the brain. But the wind, +rising afresh, drove the spirit of spring from the street, and +swept the broken leaves of the magnolia tree over the drenched +grass to the green-painted iron urns on either side of the +steps.</p> +<p>The house, a small brick dwelling, set midway of an +expressionless row and wearing on its front a look of desiccated +gentility, stood in one of those forgotten streets where needy +gentlewomen do "light housekeeping" in an obscure hinterland of +respectability. Hill Street, which had once known fashion, and that +only yesterday, as old ladies count, had sunk at last into a humble +state of decay. Here and there the edges of porches had crumbled; +grass was beginning to sprout by the curbstone; and the once +comfortable homes had opened their doors to boarders or let their +large, high-ceiled rooms to the impoverished relicts of Confederate +soldiers. Only a few blocks away the stream of modern progress, +sweeping along Broad Street, was rapidly changing the old Southern +city into one of those bustling centres of activity which the press +of the community agreed to describe as "a metropolis"; but this +river of industrialism was spanned by no social bridge connecting +Hill Street and its wistful relicts with the statelier dignities +and the more ephemeral gaieties of the opposite side. To be really +"in society" one must cross over, either for good and all, or in +the dilapidated "hack" which carried Gabriella to the parties of +her schoolmates in West Franklin Street.</p> +<p>For in the middle 'nineties, before social life in Richmond had +become both complicated and expensive, it was still possible for a +girl in Gabriella's position—provided, of course, she came of +a "good family"—to sew all day over the plain sewing of her +relatives, and in the evening to reign as the acknowledged belle of +a ball. "Society," it is true, did not reach any longer, except in +the historic sense, to Hill Street; but the inhabitants of Hill +Street, if they were young and energetic, not infrequently made +triumphant excursions into "society." Though Gabriella was poor and +sewed for her living, she had been, from the moment she left +school, one of the most popular girls in town. To be sure, she was +neither so pretty as Florrie Spencer nor so clever as Julia +Caperton, but in the words of Julia's brother Algernon, she was +"the sort you could count on." Even in her childhood it had become +the habit of those about her to count on Gabriella. Without +Gabriella, her mother was fond of saying, it would have been +impossible to keep a roof over their heads.</p> +<p>Twelve years before, when they had moved into the house in Hill +Street, Mrs. Carr had accepted from Jimmy Wrenn the rent of the +first floor and the outside kitchen, which was connected with the +back porch by a winding brick walk, overgrown with wild violets, +while the upper story was let to two elderly spinsters, bearing the +lordly, though fallen, name of Peterborough. These spinsters, like +Mrs. Carr, spent their lives in a beautiful and futile +pretence—the pretence of keeping up an appearance. They also +took in the plain sewing of their richer relatives, who lived in +Franklin Street, and sent them little trays of sweet things as soon +as the midday dinner was over on Sunday. Sometimes they would drop +in to see Mrs. Carr just before supper was ready, and then they +would pretend that they lived on tea and toast because they were +naturally "light eaters," and that they sewed all day, not for the +money, but because they liked to have "something to do with their +hands" They were tall thin women in organdie caps and black alpaca +dresses made with long basques which showed a greenish cast in the +daylight. The walls of their rooms were covered with family +portraits of the colonial period, and Mrs. Carr, who had parted +with most of her treasures, often wondered how they had preserved +so many proofs of a distinguished descent. Even her silver had +gone—first the quaint old service with the Bolton crest, +which had belonged to her mother; then, one by one, the forks and +spoons; and, last of all, Gabriella's silver mug, which was +carried, wrapped in a shawl, to the shop of old Mr. Camberwell. She +was a woman who loved inanimate things with the passion which other +women give only to children, and a thousand delicate fibres of +sentiment knit her soul to the portraits on the wall, to the +furniture with which she lived, to the silver and glass that had +once belonged to her mother. When one after one these things went +from her, she felt as if the very roots of her being were torn up +from the warm familiar earth in which they had grown. "There's +nothing left in the parlour that I shouldn't be ashamed to have +your grandmother look at," she had once confessed to her +daughters.</p> +<p>Seen by the light of history, this parlour, in which so much of +Gabriella's childhood was spent, was not without interest as an +archaic survival of the fundamental errors of the mid-Victorian +mind. The walls were covered with bottle-green paper on which +endless processions of dwarfed blue peacocks marched relentlessly +toward an embossed border—the result of an artistic frenzy of +the early 'eighties. Neither Mrs. Carr nor Jimmy Wrenn, who paid +the rent, had chosen this paper, but having been left on the +dealer's hands, it had come under the eye of the landlord, who, +since he did not have to live with it had secured it at a bargain. +Too unused to remonstrance to make it effective, Mrs. Carr had +suffered the offending decoration in meekness, while Jimmy, having +a taste for embossment, honestly regarded the peacocks as +"handsome." From the centre of the ceiling a massive gilt +chandelier, elaborately festooned with damaged garlands, shed, when +it was lighted, a dim and troubled gloom down on the threadbare +Axminster carpet. Above the white marble mantelpiece, the old +French mirror, one of the few good things left over from a public +sale of Mrs. Carr's possessions, reflected a pair of bronze +candelabra with crystal pendants, and a mahogany clock, which had +kept excellent time for half a century and then had stopped +suddenly one day while Marthy was cleaning. In the corner, between +the door and the window, there was a rosewood bookcase, with the +bare shelves hidden behind plaited magenta silk, and directly above +it hung an engraving of a group of amiable children feeding fish in +a pond. Across the room, over the walnut whatnot, a companion +picture represented the same group of children scattering crumbs +before a polite brood of chickens in a barnyard. Between the +windows a third engraving immortalized the "Burial of +Latané" in the presence of several sad and resigned ladies +in crinolines, while the sofa on which Jane sat was presided over +by a Sully portrait of the beautiful Angelica Carr, wearing a white +scarf on her head and holding a single rose in her hand. This +portrait and a Saint Memin drawing of Mrs. Carr's grandfather, the +Reverend Bartholomew Berkeley as a young man in a high stock, were +the solitary existing relics of that consecrated past when Fanny +Berkeley was "not brought up to do anything."</p> +<p>To Mrs. Carr, whose mind was so constituted that any change in +her surroundings produced a sensation of shock, the room was +hallowed by the simple fact that she had lived in it for a number +of years. That an object or a custom had existed in the past +appeared to her to be an incontestible reason why it should +continue to exist in the present. It was distressing to her to be +obliged to move a picture or to alter the position of a piece of +furniture, and she had worn one shape of bonnet and one style of +hairdressing, slightly modified to suit the changing fashions, for +almost twenty years. Her long pale face, her pensive blue eyes, and +her look of anxious sweetness, made a touching picture of feminine +incompetence; and yet it was from this pallid warmth, this gentle +inefficiency of soul, that the buoyant spirit of Gabriella had +sprung.</p> +<p>For Gabriella was the incarnation of energy. From the moment of +her birth when, in the words of her negro "mammy" she had looked +"as peart as life," she had begun her battle against the enveloping +twin powers of decay and inertia. To the intense secret +mortification of her mother, who had prayed for a second waxlike +infant after the fashion of poor Jane, she had been a notoriously +ugly baby (almost as ugly as her Aunt Becky Bollingbroke who had +never married), and as she grew up, this ugliness was barely +redeemed by what Jane, in her vague way, described as "the +something else in her face." According to Cousin Jimmy, who never +recognized charm unless its manifestations were soft and purring, +this "something else" was merely "a sunny temper"; and one of the +constant afflictions of Gabriella's childhood was overhearing her +mother remark to visitors: "No, she isn't so pretty as poor Jane, +but, as Cousin Jimmy tells us, she is blessed with a sunny +temper."</p> +<p>"Give me that ruffle, mother, and I'll whip the lace on while +we're waiting," she said now, laying aside the skirt of her Easter +dress, and stretching out her hand for the strip of cambric in her +mother's lap. But Mrs. Carr did not hear, for she was gazing, with +the concentrated stare of Jane's baby, at a beautiful old lady who +was walking slowly through the faint sunshine on the opposite +pavement.</p> +<p>"I wonder where Mrs. Peyton can be coming from in her best +dress?" she remarked, forgetting Jane for an instant while her +sense of tragedy yielded to the keener impulse of curiosity.</p> +<p>"She never goes anywhere but to church or to the Old Ladies' +home," replied Gabriella. "Arthur says she hasn't paid a call since +her husband's death."</p> +<p>"Well, I haven't made one, except of course to my relatives, for +fifteen years," rejoined Mrs. Carr a trifle tartly. Then her manner +lost its unusual asperity, and she added excitedly, "They're coming +now, Jane. There's Cousin Jimmy and he's bringing Cousin Pussy and +Uncle Meriweather!"</p> +<p>"Oh, mother, I can't possibly see them! I feel as if it would +kill me!" cried Jane in desperation.</p> +<p>"Give her the camphor, mother," said Gabriella with grim humour +as she went to open the door.</p> +<p>"Brace yourself, my darling. They are coming," pleaded Mrs. +Carr, as she slipped her arm under Jane's head. At the first hint +of any excitement she invariably lost her presence of mind and +became distracted; and Jane's hysterical outbursts never failed to +convince her, though they usually left the more skeptical Gabriella +unmoved. "Don't you think you would feel better if you lay back on +the pillows?" she urged.</p> +<p>Then the bell rang, and before Jane could swallow her sobs, her +sister ushered in Jimmy and Pussy Wrenn, who were closely followed +by the ponderous figure of Uncle Meriweather, a gouty but benign +old gentleman, whose jet-black eyebrows and white imperial gave him +a misleading military air.</p> +<p>"Well, well, my dear, what's this I hear about Charley?" +demanded Cousin Jimmy, whose sprightly manner was never sprightlier +than in the hour of tragedy or the house of mourning. "What does he +mean by letting you run away from him?"</p> +<p>"I've done my duty by Charley. I've never, never failed in my +duty!" wept Jane, breaking down on Pussy's tender bosom, and waking +the sleeping baby.</p> +<p>"We know, darling, we know," said Pussy, patting Jane's +shoulder, while Jimmy drew a white silk handkerchief from his +pocket, and hid his face under the pretence of blowing his +nose.</p> +<p>To see a woman cry never failed to wring a sympathetic tear from +Jimmy. Though he was a man of hard common sense, possessed of an +inflexible determination to make money, there was a soft spot +inside of him which was reached only by the distress of one of the +opposite sex. The suffering—particularly the financial +suffering—of men left him unmoved. He could foreclose a +mortgage or press a debt (as long as the debtor's wife or daughter +did not appeal to him) as well as another; but the instant a skirt +fluttered on the horizon that soft something inside of him +appeared, as he expressed it, "to give way." Apart from their +afflictions, he had an eye, he used to boast, for but one woman in +the world, and she, thank God, was his wife. Handsome, portly, +full-blooded, and slightly overfed, he had let Pussy twine him +about her little finger ever since the afternoon when he had first +seen her, small, trim, and with "a way with her," at the age of +six.</p> +<p>"Poor, poor child," said Pussy, cuddling Jane and the baby +together against her sympathetic bosom. "Something must be done, +Cousin Fanny. Something must be done, as Mr. Wrenn said on the way +down, if it's only for the satisfaction of letting Charley know +what we think of him."</p> +<p>"We've got to put down our pride and take some step," declared +Jimmy, wondering vaguely how he could have forgotten the spirited +utterance his wife attributed to him. "I'm all for the authority of +the husband, of course, and the sanctity of the home, and +everything according to the Bible and all that—but, bless my +soul, there's got to be a limit to what a woman is expected to +stand. There're some things, and I know Uncle Meriweather will +agree with me, that it isn't in human nature to put up with."</p> +<p>"If I were forty years younger I'd call him out and give him a +whipping he wouldn't forget in a jiffy," blustered Uncle +Meriweather, feebly violent. "There's no way of defending a lady in +these Godforsaken days. Why, I remember when I was a boy, my poor +father—God bless him!—you recollect him, don't you +Fanny?—never used a walking stick in his life and could read +print without glasses at ninety—"</p> +<p>"Making love to the dressmaker," pursued Jimmy, whose righteous +anger refused to be turned aside from its end.</p> +<p>"Don't you think, Cousin Fanny," whispered Pussy, "that +Gabriella had better leave the room?"</p> +<p>"Gabriella? Why, how on earth can we spare her?" Mrs. Carr +whispered back rather nervously. Then, beneath Pussy's compelling +glance, she added timidly: "Hadn't you better go, darling, and see +what the children are doing?"</p> +<p>"They are playing in the laundry," replied Gabriella +reassuringly. "I told Dolly not to let them go out of her +sight."</p> +<p>"She knows so much already for her age," murmured Mrs. Carr +apologetically to Pussy.</p> +<p>"I don't know what Mr. Wrenn will think of your staying, dear," +said Pussy, smiling archly at the girl. "Mr. Wrenn, I was just +saying that I didn't know what you would think of Gabriella's +staying in the room."</p> +<p>Jimmy's large handsome face, with its look of perpetual +innocence—the incorruptible innocence of a man who has never +imagined anything—turned helplessly in the direction of his +wife. All things relating to propriety came, he felt instinctively, +within the natural sphere of woman, and to be forced, on the spur +of the moment, to decide a delicate question of manners, awoke in +him the dismay of one who sees his accustomed prop of authority +beginning to crumble. Surely Pussy knew best about things like +that! He would as soon have thought of interfering with her +housekeeping as of instructing her in the details of ladylike +conduct. And, indeed, he had not observed that Gabriella was in the +room until his wife, for her own purpose, had adroitly presented +the fact to his notice.</p> +<p>"Gabriella in the room?" he repeated in perplexity. "Why, you'd +better go, hadn't you, Gabriella? Oughtn't she to go, Pussy?"</p> +<p>"Just as you think best, dear, but it seems to me—"</p> +<p>"Certainly she ought to go," said Uncle Meriweather decisively. +"The less women and girls know about such matters, the better. I +don't understand, Fanny, how you could possibly have consented to +Gabriella's being present."</p> +<p>"I didn't consent, Uncle Meriweather," protested poor Mrs. Carr, +who could not bear the mildest rebuke without tears; "I only said +to Pussy that Gabriella knew a great deal more already than she +ought to, and I'm sure I'm not to blame for it. If I'd had my way +she would have been just as sheltered as other girls."</p> +<p>"Don't cry, mother, it isn't your fault," said Gabriella. "Uncle +Meriweather, if you make mother cry I'll never forgive you. How can +she help all these dreadful things going on?"</p> +<p>She was sensible, she was composed, she was perfectly sweet +about it; but, and this fact made Pussy gasp with dismay, she did +not budge an inch from her position. With her clear grave eyes, +which lost their sparkle when she grew serious, and her manner of +eager sympathy, she appeared, indeed, to be the only one in the +room who was capable of facing the situation with frankness. That +she meant to face it to the end, Pussy could not doubt while she +looked at her.</p> +<p>"Oh, it doesn't matter about Gabriella. She knows everything," +said Jane, with the prickly sweetness of suffering virtue.</p> +<p>"But she's a young girl—young girls oughtn't to hear such +things," argued Uncle Meriweather, feeling helplessly that +something was wrong with the universe, and that, since it was +different from anything he had ever known in the past, he was +unable to cope with it. Into his eyes, gentle and bloodshot above +his fierce white moustache—the eyes of one who has never +suffered the painful process of thinking things out, but has +accepted his opinions as unquestioningly as he has accepted his +religion or the cut of his clothes—there came the troubled +look of one who is struggling against forces that he does not +understand. For Gabriella was serious. There was not the slightest +hope in the disturbed mind of Uncle Meriweather that she was +anything but perfectly serious. Caprice, being a womanly quality, +was not without a certain charm for him. He was quite used to it; +he knew how to take it; he had been taught to recognize it from his +childhood up. It was pretty, it was playful; and his mind, if so +ponderous a vehicle could indulge in such activity, was fond of +play. But after the first perplexed minute or two he had +relinquished forever the hope that Gabriella was merely capricious. +Clearly the girl knew what she was talking about; and this +knowledge, so surprising in one of her age and sex, gave him a +strange dreamy sense of having just awakened from sleep.</p> +<p>"I must say I like girls to be girls, Fanny," he pursued +testily; "I reckon I'm only an old fogy, but I like girls to be +girls. When a woman loses her innocence, she loses her greatest +charm in the eyes of a man—of the right sort of a man. Pluck +the peach with the bloom on it, my poor father used to say. He +didn't believe in all this new-fangled nonsense about the higher +education of women—none of his daughters could do more I than +read and write and spell after a fashion, and yet look what wives +and mothers they made! Pokey married three times, and was the +mother of fourteen children, nine of them sons. And are we any +better off now than then, I ask? Whoever heard of a woman running +away from her husband before the war, and now here is poor +Jane—"</p> +<p>"But it isn't my fault, Uncle Meriweather!" cried Jane, in +desperation at his obtuseness. "I've tried to be the best wife I +could—ask Charley if I haven't. He neglected me long before I +let any one know—even mother. I forgave him again and again, +and I'd go on forgiving him forever if he would let me. I've told +him over and over that I was going to be a faithful wife to him if +he killed me."</p> +<p>"Of course, my dear, I'm not meaning to reproach you," said +Uncle Meriweather, overcome by the effect of his words. "We all +know that you've stood as much as any woman could and keep her +self-respect. It isn't possible, I suppose, for you to go on living +with Charley?"</p> +<p>"Oh, I couldn't bear a separation, not a legal one at any rate," +groaned Mrs. Carr. "Of course she must come away for a time, but +nobody must hear of it or it would kill me. They are one in the +sight of God, and my dear old father had such a horror of +separations."</p> +<p>"Well, I'd kick him out—I'd kick him out so quickly he +wouldn't know it," declared Jimmy. "If a daughter of mine were +married to that scamp, she'd never lay eyes on him except over my +dead body. I reckon God would enjoy the sight of his getting his +deserts."</p> +<p>Deep down in Cousin Jimmy, deeper than sentiment, deeper than +tradition, deeper even than the solid bedrock of common sense, +there was the romantic essence of his soul, which hated baseness +with a fiery hatred. His ruddy face, still boyish in spite of his +fifty years, blanched slowly, and there came into his soft dark +eyes the look he had worn at Malvern Hill under the fire of the +enemy.</p> +<p>At the sight Gabriella thrilled as she did when drums were +beating and armies were marching. "Oh, Cousin Jimmy, don't let her +go back!" she cried.</p> +<p>"I can't go back to him now! I can never, never go back to him +again!" intoned Jane with passionate energy.</p> +<p>"No, God bless her, she shan't go back," declared Jimmy, as +profoundly stirred as Gabriella.</p> +<p>"But the children? What will become of the children?" demanded +Mrs. Carr, not of Jimmy, but of the universe. Her helpless gaze, +roving wildly from face to face, and resting nowhere, was like the +gaze of a small animal caught in a trap. "If Jane separates the +children from their father what will people think of her?" she +asked, still vainly addressing Heaven.</p> +<p>"As long as she is right it doesn't matter what people think," +retorted Gabriella; but her protest, unlike her mother's, was +directed to the visible rather than to the invisible powers. The +thought of Jane's children—of the innocent souls so unaware +of the awful predicament in which they were placed that their +bodies could be devouring bread and damson preserves in the +laundry. The poignant thought of these children moved her more +deeply than she had ever been moved before in her twenty years. A +passion for self-sacrifice rushed through her with the piercing +sweetness of religious ecstasy. Nothing like this had ever happened +to her before—not when she was confirmed, not when she had +stood at the head of her class, not when she had engaged herself to +Arthur Peyton two years before. It was the pure flame of experience +at its highest point that burned in her.</p> +<p>"I will take care of the children," she said breathlessly. "I +will give up my whole life to them. I will get a place in a store +and work my fingers to the bone, if only Jane will never go +back."</p> +<p>For a moment there was silence; but while Gabriella waited for +somebody to answer, she felt that it was a silence which had become +vocal with inexpressible things. The traditions of Uncle +Meriweather, the conventions of Mrs. Carr, the prejudices of Jimmy, +and the weak impulses of Jane, all these filled the dusk through +which the blank faces of her family stared back at her. Then, while +she stood white and trembling with her resolve—with the +passionate desire to give herself, body and soul, to Jane and to +Jane's children—the voice of Experience spoke pleasantly, but +firmly, through Cousin Pussy's lips, and it dealt with Gabriella's +outburst as Experience usually deals with Youth.</p> +<p>"You are a dear child, Gabriella," it said; "but how in the +world could you help Jane by going into a store?"</p> +<p>In the midst of the emotional scene, Cousin Pussy alone remained +sweetly matter-of-fact. Though she was not without orderly +sentiments, her character had long ago been swept of heroics, and +from her arched gray hair, worn à la Pompadour, to her +pretty foot in its small neat boot, she was a practical soul who +had as little use for religious ecstasy as she had for downright +infidelity. There seemed to her something positively unnatural in +Gabriella's manner—a hint of that "sudden conversion" she +associated with the lower classes or with the negroes.</p> +<p>"You are a dear child," she repeated, biting her fresh lips; +"but how will you help Jane by going into a store?"</p> +<p>"I can trim hats," returned Gabriella stubbornly. "Mr. +Brandywine will take me into his new millinery department, I know, +for I said something to him about it the other day."</p> +<p>"Oh, Gabriella, not in a store! It would kill mother!" cried +Jane, with the prophetic wail of Cassandra.</p> +<p>"Not in a store!" echoed Mrs. Carr; "you couldn't work in a +store. If you want to work," she concluded feebly, "why can't you +work just as well in your home?"</p> +<p>"But it isn't the same thing, mother," explained Gabriella, with +angelic patience. "Nobody will get me to make hats at home, and, +besides, I've got to learn how to do it. I've got to learn business +methods."</p> +<p>"But not in a shop, my dear," protested Uncle Meriweather in the +precise English of his youth.</p> +<p>"Bless my heart!" chuckled Cousin Jimmy. "Business methods! +You're as good as a show, Gabriella, and, by George! you've plenty +of pluck. I like pluck in man or woman."</p> +<p>"I shouldn't encourage her if I were you, Mr. Wrenn," said +Cousin Pussy, almost forgetting to be indirect.</p> +<p>"Well, of course, I don't approve of that store business," +replied Jimmy, deprecatingly, "but I can't help liking pluck when I +see it. Look here, Gabriella, if you're bent on working, why don't +you turn in and teach?"</p> +<p>"Yes, let her teach by all means," agreed Uncle Meriweather, +with genuine enthusiasm for the idea. "I've always regarded +teaching as an occupation that ought to be restricted by law to +needy ladies."</p> +<p>"But I can't teach, I don't know enough, and, besides, I'd hate +it," protested Gabriella.</p> +<p>"I'm sure you might start a school for very little children," +said Mrs. Carr. "You don't have to know much, to teach them, and +you write a very good hand."</p> +<p>"What about plain sewing?" asked Pussy in her ready way. +"Couldn't you learn to make those new waists all the girls are +wearing?"</p> +<p>"I haven't the patience to sew well. Look how hard mother works, +making buttonholes with stitches so fine you can hardly see them, +and yet she doesn't get enough to put bread into her mouth, and but +for her relatives she'd have been in the poorhouse long ago. I'm +tired of being on charity just because we are women. Now that Jane +has come home for good I am simply obliged to find something to +do."</p> +<p>"I don't mind your wanting to work, dear, I think it's splendid +of you," returned Pussy, "but I do feel that you ought to work in a +ladylike way—a way that wouldn't interfere with your social +position and your going to germans and having attention from young +men and all that."</p> +<p>"Why don't you make lampshades, Gabriella?" demanded Jane in an +emphatic burst of inspiration. "Sophy Madison earns enough from +lampshades to send her sister and herself to the White Sulphur +Springs every summer."</p> +<p>"Sophy makes all the lampshades that anybody wants, and, +besides, she gets orders from the North—she told me so +yesterday."</p> +<p>"Gabriella crochets beautifully," remarked Mrs. Carr a little +nervously because of the failure of her first suggestion. "The last +time I went to see Miss Matoaca Chambers in the Old Ladies' Home, +she told me she made quite a nice little sum for her church by +crocheting mats."</p> +<p>"And Gabriella can cook, too," rejoined Pussy, with exaggerated +sprightliness, for she felt that Mrs. Carr's solution of the +problem had not been entirely felicitous. "Why doesn't she try +sending some of her angel food to the Woman's Exchange?"</p> +<p>Jimmy, who had listened to this advice with the expression of +tolerant amusement he always wore when women began to talk about +the more serious affairs of life in his presence, made an honest, +if vulgar, attempt to lighten the solemnity of the situation with a +joke.</p> +<p>"Gabriella isn't trying to earn church money. You're out gunning +for a living, aren't you, Ella?" he inquired.</p> +<p>"I'm sick of being dependent," repeated Gabriella, while her +face grew stern. "Do you think if Jane had had enough money to live +on that she would ever have stood Charley so long?"</p> +<p>"Oh, yes, I should, Gabriella. Marriage is sacred to me!" +exclaimed Jane, whose perfect wifeliness atoned, even in the +opinion of Jimmy, for any discrepancies in logic. "Nothing on earth +could have induced me to leave him until—until this +happened."</p> +<p>The conviction that she had never at any moment since her +marriage "failed in her duty to Charley" lent a touching sanctity +to her expression, while the bitter lines around her mouth faded in +the wan glow that flooded her face. Whatever her affliction, +however intense her humiliation, Jane was supported always by the +most comforting of beliefs—the belief that she had been +absolutely right and Charley absolutely wrong through the ten +disillusioning years of their married life. Never for an +instant—never even in a nightmare—had she been visited +by the disquieting suspicion that she was not entirely +blameless.</p> +<p>"Well, you've left him now anyway," said Gabriella, with the +disarming candour which delighted Jimmy and perplexed Uncle +Meriweather, "so somebody has got to help you take care of the +children."</p> +<p>"She shall never come to want as long as Pussy and I have a cent +left," declared Cousin Jimmy, and his voice expressed what Mrs. +Carr described afterward as "proper feeling."</p> +<p>"And we'd really rather that you'd earn less and keep in your +own station of life," said Pussy decisively.</p> +<p>"If you mean that you'd rather I'd work buttonholes or crochet +mats than go into a store and earn a salary, then I can't do it," +answered Gabriella, as resolute, though not so right-minded, as +poor Jane. "I'd rather die than be dependent all my life, and I'm +going to earn my living if I have to break rocks to do it."</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> +<h3>POOR JANE</h3> +<p>Supper was over, and Gabriella, still in the dress she had worn +all day, was picking up the children's clothes from the floor of +her room. According to Mrs. Carr's hereditary habit in sorrow or +sickness, Jane had been served in bed with tea and toast, while +several small hard cots had been brought down from the attic and +arranged in the available space in the two bedrooms. As Gabriella +looked at the sleeping children, who had kicked the covering away, +and lay with round rosy limbs gleaming in the lamplight, she +remembered that Arthur Peyton was coming at nine o'clock to take +her to Florrie's party, and she told herself with grim +determination that she would never go to a party again. The +Berkeley conscience, that vein of iron which lay beneath the +outward softness and incompetence of her mother and sister, held +her, in spite of her tempting youth, to the resolution she had +made. She had told Jimmy that she meant to earn her living if she +had to break rocks to do it, and Gabriella, like Pussy, came of a +race that "did not easily change its mind."</p> +<p>Turning to the bureau, she smoothed out the children's hair +ribbons and pinned them, in two tight little blue and pink rolls, +to the pincushion. Then taking up a broken comb, she ran it through +the soft lock of hair that fell like a brown wing over her +forehead. Her bright dark eyes, fringed in short thick lashes and +set wide apart under arched eyebrows, gazed questioningly back at +her from a row of german favours with which she had decorated the +glass; and it was as if the face of youth, flickering with a +flamelike glow and intensity, swam there for an instant in the dim +greenish pool of the mirror. Beneath the charm of the face there +was the character which one associates, not with youth, but with +age and experience. Beneath the fine, clear lines of her head and +limbs, the tall slenderness of her figure, the look of swiftness +and of energy, which was almost birdlike in its grace and poise, +there was a strength and vigour which suggested a gallant boy +rather than the slighter and softer frame of a girl.</p> +<p>While she stood there, Gabriella thought regretfully of all that +it would mean to give up her half-dependent and wholly ladylike +existence and go to work in a shop. Necessity not choice was +driving her; and in spirit she looked back almost wistfully to the +securely circumscribed lot of her grandmother. For there was little +of the rebel in her temperament; and had she been free to choose, +she would have instinctively selected, guided by generations of +gregarious ancestors, the festive girlhood which Cousin Pussy had +so ardently described. She wanted passionately all the things that +other girls had, and her only quarrel, indeed, with the sheltered +life was that she couldn't afford it. In the expressive phrase of +Cousin Jimmy, the sheltered life "cost money," and to cost money +was to be beyond the eager grasp of Gabriella.</p> +<p>The door opened as if yielding under protest, and Marthy +entered, still hurriedly tying the strings of the clean apron she +had slipped on over her soiled one before answering the +door-bell.</p> +<p>"Yo' beau done come, Miss Ella. Ain't you gwine?"</p> +<p>"No, I'm not going to the party, Marthy, but ask him to wait +just a minute."</p> +<p>"He's settin' over yonder in de parlour wid his overcoat +on."</p> +<p>"Well, ask him to take it off; I'll be there in a moment." She +spoke as gravely as Marthy had done, yet in her face there was a +light play of humour.</p> +<p>Two years ago she would have thrilled with joy at the thought +that Arthur was waiting for her; but in those two years since her +engagement she had grown to look upon her first love as the +gossamer, fairylike romance of a child. For months she had known +that the engagement must be broken sooner or later; and she knew +now, while she listened to Marthy's shuffling feet hastening to +deliver her message, that she must break it to-night. In the dim +pool of her mirror a face looked back at her that was not the face +of Arthur Peyton; she saw it take form there as one sees a face +grow gradually into life from the dimness of dreams. It was, she +told herself to-night, the very face of her dream that she saw.</p> +<p>"Well, I must get it over," she said with a sternness which gave +her a passing resemblance to the Saint Memin portrait of the +Reverend Bartholomew Berkeley; "I've got to get it over to-night, +and whatever happens I've got to be honest." Then, with a last +glance at the sleeping children, she lowered the gas, and went +across the darkened hail, which smelt of pickles and bacon because +one end of it was used as a storeroom.</p> +<p>The parlour had been swept since the family council had +deliberated there over Jane's destiny. The scraps of cambric had +been gathered up from the threadbare arabesques in the carpet; the +chairs had been placed at respectable distances apart; the gas-jets +in the chandelier were flaming extravagantly under the damaged +garlands; and the sewing machine had been wheeled into the +obscurity of the hail, for it would have humiliated Gabriella's +mother to think that her daughter received young men in a room +which looked as if somebody had worked there.</p> +<p>When Gabriella entered, Arthur Peyton was standing in front of +the fireplace, gazing abstractedly at his reflection in the French +mirror. Though his chestnut hair was carefully brushed, he had +instinctively lifted his hand to smooth down an imaginary lock, and +while he did this, he frowned slightly as if at a recollection that +had ruffled his temper. His features were straight and very narrow, +with the look of sensitiveness one associates with the +thoroughbred, and the delicate texture of his skin emphasized this +quality of high-breeding, which was the only thing that one +remembered about him. In his light-gray eyes there was a +sympathetic expression which invariably won the hearts of old +ladies, and these old ladies were certain to say of him afterward, +"such a gentleman, my dear—almost of the old school, you +know, and we haven't many of them left in this hurrying age."</p> +<p>He had done well, though not brilliantly, at college, for his +mind, if unoriginal, had never given anybody, not even his mother, +the least bit of trouble. For three years he had worked with +admirable regularity in the office of his uncle, Carter Peyton, one +of the most distinguished lawyers in the Virginia of his period, +and it was generally felt that young Arthur Peyton would have "a +brilliant future." For the present, however, he lived an uneventful +life with his widowed mother in a charming old house, surrounded by +a walled garden, in Franklin Street. Like the house, he was always +in perfect order; and everything about him, from his loosely +fitting clothes and his immaculate linen to his inherited +conceptions of life, was arranged with such exquisite precision +that it was impossible to improve it in any way. He knew exactly +what he thought, and he knew also his reason, which was usually a +precedent in law or custom, for thinking as he did. His opinions, +which were both active and abundant, were all perfectly legitimate +descendants of tradition, and the phrase "nobody ever heard of such +a thing," was quite as convincing to him as to Mrs. Carr or to +Cousin Jimmy Wrenn.</p> +<p>"Gabriella, aren't you going?" he asked reproachfully as the +girl entered.</p> +<p>"Oh, Arthur, we've had such a dreadful day! Poor Jane has left +Charley for good and has come home, with all the children. We've +been busy dividing them among us, and we're going to turn the +dining-room into a nursery.</p> +<p>"Left Charley? That's bad, isn't it?" asked Arthur +doubtfully.</p> +<p>"I feel so sorry for her, Arthur. It must be terrible to have +love end like that."</p> +<p>"But she isn't to blame. Everybody knows that she has forgiven +him again and again."</p> +<p>"Yes, everybody knows it," repeated Gabriella, as if she drew +bitter comfort from the knowledge, "and she says now that she will +never, never go back to him."</p> +<p>For the first time a shadow appeared in Arthur's clear eyes.</p> +<p>"Do you think she ought to make up her mind, darling, until she +sees whether or not he will reform? After all, she is his +wife."</p> +<p>"That's what mother says, and yet I believe Charley is the only +person on earth mother really hates. Now Cousin Jimmy and I will do +everything we can to keep her away from him."</p> +<p>"I think I shouldn't meddle if I were you, dearest. She'll +probably go back to him in the end because of the children.</p> +<p>"But I am going to help her take care of the children," replied +Gabriella stanchly. "Of course, my life will be entirely different +now, Arthur," she added gently. "Everything is altered for me, too, +since yesterday. I have thought it all over for hours, and I am +going to try to get a place in Brandywine's store."</p> +<p>"In a store?" repeated Arthur slowly, and she saw the muscles of +his mouth tighten and grow rigid.</p> +<p>"Mother doesn't like the idea any more than you do, but what are +we to come to if we go on in the old aimless way? One can't make a +living out of plain sewing, and though, of course, Charley will be +supposed to provide for his children, he isn't exactly the sort one +can count on. Brandywine's, you see, is only a beginning. What I +mean is that I am obliged to learn how to support myself."</p> +<p>"But couldn't you work just as well in your home, darling?</p> +<p>"People don't pay anything for home work. You must see what I +mean, Arthur."</p> +<p>"Yes, I see," he replied tenderly; but after a moment's thought, +he went on again with the gentle obstinacy of a man whose thinking +had all been done for him before he was born. "I wish, though, that +you would try to hold out a little longer, working at home with +your mother. In a year or two we shall be able to marry."</p> +<p>"I couldn't," said Gabriella, shaking her head. "Don't urge me, +Arthur."</p> +<p>"If you would only consent to live with mother, we might marry +now," he pursued, after a minute, as if he had not heard her.</p> +<p>"But it wouldn't be fair to her, and how could I ask her to take +mother and Jane and the children? No, I've thought it all out, +dear, and I must go to work."</p> +<p>"But I'll work for them, Gabriella. I'll do anything on earth +rather than see you ordered about by old Brandywine."</p> +<p>"He won't order me about," answered Gabriella cheerfully; "but +mother feels just as you do. She says I am going out of my class +because I won't stay at home and work buttonholes."</p> +<p>"You couldn't go out of your class," replied Arthur, with an +instinctive gallantry which even his distress could not overcome; +"but I can't get used to the thought of it, darling—I simply +can't. You're so sacred to me. There's something about the woman a +man loves that's different from every other woman, and the bare +idea of your working in a shop sickens me. I always think of you as +apart from the workaday world. I always think of you as a star +shining serenely above the sordid struggle—" Overwhelmed by +the glowing train of his rhetoric, he broke down suddenly and +caught passionately at the cool hand of Gabriella.</p> +<p>As he looked at her slender finger, on which he had placed her +engagement ring two years before, it seemed to him that the +situation was becoming intolerable—that it was an affront not +only to his ideal of Gabriella, as something essentially starlike +and remote, but to that peculiar veneration for women which he +always spoke and thought of as "Southern." His ideal woman was +gentle, clinging, so perfectly a "lady" that she would have +perished had she been put into a shop; and, though he was aware +that Gabriella was a girl of much character and determination, his +mind was so constructed that he was able, without difficulty, to +think of her as corresponding to this exalted type of her sex. By +the simple act of falling in love with her he had endowed her with +every virtue except the ones that she actually possessed.</p> +<p>"I know, I know," said Gabriella tenderly, for she saw that he +suffered. Her training had been a hard one, though she had got it +at home, and in a violent reaction from the sentimentality of her +mother and Jane she had become suspicious of any language that +sounded "flowery" to her sensitive ears. With her clear-sighted +judgment, she knew perfectly well that by no stretch of mind or +metaphor could she be supposed to resemble a star—that she +was not shining, not remote, not even "ideal" in Arthur's delicate +sense of the word. She had known the horrors of poverty, of that +bitter genteel poverty which must keep up an appearance at any +cost; and she could never forget the grim days, after the death of +Uncle Beverly Blair, when they had shivered in fireless rooms and +gone for weeks without butter on their bread. For the one strong +quality in Mrs. Carr's character was the feeling she spoke of +complacently, though modestly, as "proper pride"; and this proper +pride, which was now resisting Gabriella's struggle for +independence, had in the past resisted quite as stubbornly the +thought of an appeal to the ready charity of her masculine +relatives. To seek a man's advice had been from her girlhood the +primal impulse of Mrs. Carr's nature; but, until Fate had starved +her into sincerity, she had kept alive the ladylike fiction that +she was in need of moral, not material, assistance.</p> +<p>"Of course, if there were any other way, Arthur," said +Gabriella, remembering the earlier battles with her mother, and +eager to compromise when she could do so with dignity; "but how can +I go on being dependent on Cousin Jimmy and Uncle Meriweather. +Neither of them is rich, and Cousin Jimmy has a large family."</p> +<p>Of course she was reasonable. The most disagreeable thing about +Gabriella, Jane had once said, was her inveterate habit of being +reasonable. But then Jane, who was of an exquisite sensibility, +felt that Gabriella's reasonableness belonged to a distinctly lower +order of intelligence. When all was said, Gabriella saw clearly +because she had a practical mind, and a practical mind is usually +engrossed with material matters.</p> +<p>"I understand exactly how you feel, dear, but if only you could +go on just as you are for a few years longer," said Arthur, +sticking to his original idea with a tenacity which made it +possible for him to argue for hours and yet remain exactly where he +had started. Though they talked all night, though she convinced him +according to all the laws and principles of logic, she knew that he +would still think precisely what he had thought in the beginning, +for his conviction was rooted, deeper than reason, in the +unconquerable prejudices which had passed from the brain into the +very blood of his race. He would probably say at the end: "I admit +all that you tell me, Gabriella, but my sentiment is against it;" +and this sentiment, overruling sense, would insist, with sublime +obstinacy, that Gabriella must not work in a shop. It would ignore, +after the exalted habit of sentiment, such merely sordid facts as +poverty and starvation (who ever heard of a woman of good family +starving in Virginia?), and, at last, if Gabriella were really in +love with Arthur, it would triumph over her finer judgment and +reduce her to submission. But while she watched him, in the very +minute when, failing for words, he caught her in his arms, she said +to herself, suddenly chilled and determined: "I must get it over +to-night, and I've got to be honest." The scent of the hyacinths +floated to her again, but it seemed to bring a cold wind, as if a +draught had blown in through the closed slats of the shutters.</p> +<p>"Everything has changed, Arthur," she said, "and I don't think I +ought to go on being engaged." Then because her words sounded +insincere, she added sternly: "Even if we could be +married—and of course we can't be—I—I don't feel +that I should want to marry. I am not sure that I love you enough +to marry you."</p> +<p>It was all so unromantic, so unemotional, so utterly different +from the scene she had pictured when she imagined what "breaking +her engagement" would be like. Then she had always thought of +herself as dissolving in tears on the horsehair sofa, which had +become sacred to the tragedy of poor Jane; but, to her surprise, +she did not feel now the faintest inclination to cry. It ought to +have been theatrical, but it wasn't—not even when she took +off her engagement ring, as she had read in novels that girls did +at the decisive instant, and laid it down on the table. When she +remembered this afterwards, it appeared rather foolish, but Arthur +seemed not to notice it, and when Marthy came in to light the fire +in the morning, she found the ring lying on a copy of Gray's Elegy +and brought it back to Gabriella.</p> +<p>"I'll never give you up," said Arthur stubbornly, and knowing +his character, she felt that he had spoken the truth. He could not +give her up even had he wished it, for, like a belief, she had +passed from his brain into the fibre of his being. She had become a +habit to him, and not love, but the inability to change, to cease +thinking what he had always thought, to break a fixed manner of +life, would keep him faithful to her in his heart.</p> +<p>"I'm sorry—oh, I'm sorry," she murmured, longing to have +it over and to return to Jane and the children. It occurred to her +almost resentfully that love was not always an unmixed delight.</p> +<p>"Is there any one else, Gabriella?" he asked with a sudden +choking sound in his voice. "I have sometimes thought—in the +last four or five months—that there might be—that you +had changed—that—" He stopped abruptly, and she +answered him with a beautiful frankness which would have horrified +the imperishable, if desiccated, coquetry of her mother.</p> +<p>"There is some one else and there isn't," she replied simply. "I +mean I think of some one else very often—of some one who +isn't in my life at all—from whom I never hear—"</p> +<p>"Is it George Fowler?"</p> +<p>She bowed her head, and, though she did not blush, her eyes grew +radiant.</p> +<p>"And you have known him less than a year?"</p> +<p>Again she bowed her head without speaking. What was there, after +all, that she could say in justification of her behaviour?</p> +<p>A groan escaped him, smothered into a gentle murmur of protest. +"And I thought women were more constant than men!" he exclaimed +with something of the baffled and helpless feeling which had +overtaken Uncle Meriweather while he regarded Gabriella.</p> +<p>The generalization was not without interest for Gabriella.</p> +<p>"I thought so, too," she observed dispassionately. "I thought +so, too, and that is why it was such a dreadful surprise to me when +it happened. You yourself aren't more shocked and surprised than I +was in the beginning," she added.</p> +<p>"But you've got used to the thought, I suppose?"</p> +<p>"Well, one has to, you see. What else is there to do? I always +understood from mother"—she went on with the same eager +interest, as if she were stumbling upon new and important +intellectual discoveries—"I always understood that women +never fell in love with men first—I mean until they had had +positive proof that their love would be returned. But in this case +that didn't seem to matter at all. Nothing mattered, and the more I +fought against it and tried to be true to my engagement, the more I +found myself being false. It's all very strange," she concluded, +"but that is just how it happened."</p> +<p>"And he knows nothing about it?"</p> +<p>"Oh, no. I told him I was engaged to you, and then he went +away."</p> +<p>For an instant he was silent, and watching his face, so +carefully guarded and controlled by habit that it had the curious +blank look of a statue's, Gabriella could form no idea of the +suppressed inarticulate suffering in his heart.</p> +<p>"And if he came back would you marry him?" he asked.</p> +<p>Before replying she sat for a minute gazing down on her folded +hands and weighing each separate word of her answer.</p> +<p>"I should try not to, Arthur," she said at last, "but—but +I am not sure that I should be able to help it."</p> +<p>When at last he had said "good-bye" rather grimly, and gone out +of the door without looking back, she was conscious of an immense +relief, of a feeling that she could breathe freely again after an +age of oppression. There was a curious sense of unreality about the +hour she had just passed through, as if it belonged not to actual +life, but to a play she had been rehearsing. She had felt nothing. +The breaking of her engagement had failed utterly to move her.</p> +<p>After bolting the front door, she turned out the gas in the +parlour, pushed back the lump of coal in the grate in the hope of +saving it for the morrow, and went cautiously down the hall to her +room. As she passed her mother's door, a glimmer of light along the +threshold made her pause for a minute, and while she hesitated, an +anxious voice floated out to her:</p> +<p>"Gabriella, is that you?"</p> +<p>"Yes, Mother, do you want anything?"</p> +<p>"Jane has one of her heart attacks. I put her to bed in my room +because it is more comfortable than the dining-room. Don't you +think you had better go back and wake Marthy?"</p> +<p>"Is she ill? Let me come in," answered Gabriella, pushing open +the door and brushing by Mrs. Carr, who stood, shrunken and +shivering, in a gray flannel wrapper and felt slippers.</p> +<p>Though Jane's attacks were familiar occurrences, they never +failed to produce an immediate panic in the household. As a child +of nine, Gabriella remembered being aroused in the middle of a +bitter night, hastily wrapped in her mother's shawl and a blanket, +and hurried up the staircase to Jane, who had broken her engagement +to Charley the evening before. Jane, pale, angelic, palpitating, +appeared to draw her last breath as they entered, while the old +doctor supported her in his arms, and Marthy, in a frenzy of +service, rattled the dead embers in the grate. It had all been +horribly vivid, and when Jane had murmured Charley's name in a +dying voice, they had stood, trembling and blue with cold, around +her bed, waiting for the end. But the end had not come, and three +months later Jane was married to Charley Gracey.</p> +<p>After that scene, Gabriella had associated Jane's attacks with a +freezing January night and a fireless grate (though the last but +one had occurred in mid-August), and she was relieved now to find a +fire burning in her mother's room and a kettle singing merrily on +the fender. The elder children, with their flannel petticoats +pinned over their thin little shoulders, were sitting straight and +stiff on a box couch which had been turned into a bed, and their +strange little faces looked wan and peaked in the firelight.</p> +<p>Jane was really ill, Gabriella decided, after a glance at her +sister. Nothing except acute suffering could have given her that +ghastly pallor or made her eyes sink so far back in her head. She +lay quite motionless on the far side of the big tester bed, staring +straight up at the ceiling with an expression which terrified +Gabriella, though she had seen it on her sister's face at least a +dozen times before to-night.</p> +<p>"Has Arthur gone?" asked Mrs. Carr in a voice that sounded as if +she were running.</p> +<p>"Yes. Did you want him, mother?"</p> +<p>"I thought we might send him for the doctor and for Charley. +Don't you think Charley ought to be told of her condition? She has +asked for the children."</p> +<p>"Have you given her the digitalis?"</p> +<p>"I can't make her swallow it. There are the drops on the table +by the bed. My hands tremble so I had to measure them three +times."</p> +<p>Taking the glass from the table, Gabriella bent over her sister +and implored her to swallow the drops, but, without appearing to +hear her voice, Jane still stared blankly upward, with the rigid, +convulsed look of a woman who has been stricken with dumbness. Her +flaxen hair, damp with camphor, which Mrs. Carr had wildly splashed +on her forehead, clung flat and close to her head, while the only +pulse in her body seemed to beat in irregular, spasmodic throbs in +her throat.</p> +<p>"Don't go, mother. I'll wake Marthy," cried Gabriella, for Mrs. +Carr, inspired by the spirit of panic, was darting out of the door +in her felt slippers. Then, while the children, crying +distractedly, rushed to Jane's bedside, the girl ran out of the +house and along the brick walk to the kitchen and the room above it +where Marthy lived the little life she had apart from her work. In +answer to Gabriella's call she emerged entirely dressed from the +darkness; and at the news of Jane's illness she was seized with the +spurious energy which visits her race in the moment of tragedy. She +offered at once to run for the doctor, and suggested, without a +hint from Gabriella, that she had better leave word, on her way +home, for Marse Charley.</p> +<p>"I knowed 'twuz comin' jez ez soon ez I lay eyes on 'er," she +muttered, for she was an old family servant. "Dar ain' no use 'n +tryin' ter come betweenst dem de good Lawd is done jine tergedder +fur worse. A baid husban'! Hi! Dar ain't un 'oman erlive, I reckon, +dat 'ouldn't ruther own a baid husban' den no husban' at all. You +all is got to teck 'em de way dey's made, en dar's moughty few un +um dat is made right."</p> +<p>Still muttering, she stumbled down the walk and out of the gate, +while Gabriella returned to her mother's room and hurried the +weeping children into their shoes and stockings. Mrs. Carr, still +in her flannel wrapper, with her little flat gray curls screwed up +on pins for the night, and her thin ankles showing pathetically +above her felt slippers, ran nervously to and fro with mustard +plasters and bottles of hot water which she continually refilled +from the kettle on the fender. Occasionally she paused long enough +to hold the camphor to Jane's nose or to lift the quilt from the +bottom of the bed and then put it carefully back in the very spot +where it had lain before she had touched it. And because she was +born to take two steps to every one that was necessary, because she +could not accomplish the simplest act without a prodigious waste of +energy and emotion, because she died twenty deaths over the +slightest anxiety, and, most of all, because she was the last +person on earth who ought to have been burdened with poverty and +hard work and an unhappily married daughter—because of all +these things Mrs. Carr wore herself to a shadow in the quarter of +an hour they spent waiting for the doctor and Charley Gracey.</p> +<p>Though she had brought Jane through at least a dozen "attacks," +she still lost her presence of mind as completely as on that +January night when, utterly distraught, she had hurried Gabriella +to the first death-bed scene of her sister; she still grew as +forgetful of herself and her own feelings, and, in obedience to +some profound law of her nature, she still as confidently "expected +the worst." For Mrs. Carr's philosophy, like Jane's, was of that +active but dreary sort that thrives best upon misery. Just as Jane, +who had lost every illusion about Charley, went on loving him in +spite of it, so Mrs. Carr, having lost her illusions about life, +retained a kind of wistful fondness for the thing that had wounded +her.</p> +<p>The door-bell rang sharply, and Gabriella went to let in the +doctor, a brisk, authoritative young man of the new school, who had +learned everything there was to be known about medicine except the +way to behave in a sickroom, and who abhorred a bedside manner as +heartily as if it were calomel or castor oil. His name was Darrow, +and he was the assistant of old Dr. Walker, Mrs. Carr's family +physician, who never went out at night since he had passed his +seventieth birthday. Gabriella, who liked him because he was not +anecdotal and gave small doses of medicine, hastily led the way to +her mother's room before she ran back to meet Charley Gracey at the +door of the dark parlour.</p> +<p>"You can't see her now. The doctor is with her," she whispered. +"I'll make a light in here and you can wait."</p> +<p>"Let me," said Charley, quite as pleasantly as if he were not a +bad husband, while he found a match and struck it on the sole of +his foot. Then, as the gas flared up, he exclaimed, with a low +whistle, "By Jove, you're a sight, Gabriella!"</p> +<p>"Well, it's your fault," replied Gabriella sharply, letting him +see, as she told herself, exactly what she thought of him. "You've +made Jane so ill we thought she was dying."</p> +<p>"I'm sorry for that," he said, suddenly smitten with gravity. +"Is she really so bad?"</p> +<p>His charming freckled face, with its irrepressible humour, grew +almost grotesquely solemn, while the habitual merriment faded +slowly from his light-gray eyes, leaving them empty of expression. +He was a short, rather thick-set man, not particularly +good-looking, not particularly clever, but possessing a singular, +if unaccountable, charm. Everybody liked Charley, though nobody +respected him. He was a scamp, but a lovable scamp, while Jane, +with the best intentions in the world, had managed to make every +virtue unattractive. When people condemned him, they said that he +was "utterly unprincipled"; when they softened in their judgment, +they admitted that he had "the best heart in the world."</p> +<p>"I suppose it isn't any worse than other attacks," answered +Gabriella, "but you know what they are like."</p> +<p>"Yes, I know," replied Charley. "Oh, Lord, don't I?"</p> +<p>"She asked mother to send for you," continued Gabriella. "She +wants you to know that she has forgiven you."</p> +<p>"Has she?" said Charley, without elation. Turning away, he +stared for a minute or two at the engraving of the children feeding +fish in a pond; then, with his eyes still glued to the picture, he +burst out passionately: "Gabriella, I'd hoped she wouldn't this +time!"</p> +<p>"If I were she," retorted Gabriella crushingly, "I would never +speak to you again until the day of my death."</p> +<p>"If she were you," rejoined Charley, with barefaced audacity, +"I'd have been a good husband. Why, I was simply starving to be a +good husband when I married Jane. It's my ideal in life. I'm all +for the domestic thing by nature. I was tired—positively +dog-tired of the other kind. I wanted a wife. I adored—I've +always adored babies—"</p> +<p>"If that is true," returned Gabriella sternly, for she was not +disposed to soften to Charley, and in her heart she deeply resented +what she called Jane's "weakness," "if that is true why do you +behave so outrageously to Jane and the children? Why can't you be +decent?"</p> +<p>"I could," answered Charley, with engaging lucidity, "if she +were less so. It's her infernal virtue I can't stand, Gabriella. No +man could stand it without taking to drink."</p> +<p>"But you knew she was that way. She was always trying to make +people better. It is her mission. Why, I remember one winter night +before you were married mother got me out of bed in the cold to +come and hear Jane forgive you beautifully about something."</p> +<p>"That was the first time, and it was very touching. I suppose +the first time always is touching. Of course, I didn't know she +meant to keep it up. No man could possibly have kept it up," said +Charley, with bitterness, "but she married me to reform me, and it +is the only thing she has really enjoyed about her marriage. She's +a born reformer. I haven't eaten a thing I cared about, nor drank a +drop I wanted, nor used a bad word I was fond of, since I married, +without being nagged at about it. She loved me for my vices, and +yet she hasn't let me keep a single one—not even the +smallest—not even cigarettes. Nag! Good God! She's nagged me +to perfection ever since the day of our wedding when she made me +sign the pledge before she let me kiss her!"</p> +<p>"Well, that doesn't make it any easier for us or for the +children," replied Gabriella, without sympathy; "and if you don't +think of Jane, you might at least think of your children."</p> +<p>"Of course it's hard on the kids," admitted Charley ruefully. +"But as for Jane—now, will you tell me what would become of +Jane after she had reformed me? Why, she'd be bored to death. She'd +be a martyr without any martyrdom. When she made me give up +tobacco, she lost interest in everything for a week. She was like +your Uncle Meriweather after the surrender. There wasn't anything +left to fight about, and fighting was all he could do—"</p> +<p>"I believe—I really believe you have been drinking," +interrupted Gabriella with cold disgust. "Suppose Jane were to +die?"</p> +<p>"She won't die. She'll be all right as soon as she has forgiven +me."</p> +<p>He was not only bad, she told herself, he was perfectly +shameless. He appeared to have been born without the faintest sense +of responsibility. And yet, while Gabriella listened to him, she +realized that, in some ways, he might be a less trying companion +than poor Jane. His candour was as simple, as unaffected, as the +serene artlessness of a child. It was impossible not to believe in +his sincerity. Though she "despised him," as she told herself, +still she was obliged to admit that there was something to be said +on his side. The harsh judgment of youth—of youth that never +tries to understand, that never makes allowances—softened +under the influence of Charley's reprehensible charm. Even badness, +Gabriella conceded grudgingly, might be easier to live with in some +circumstances than a too exalted self-righteousness.</p> +<p>"If you'll bring Jane to that way of thinking," retorted +Charley, with vulgar frankness, "I'll give you five hundred dollars +down. If you'll thoroughly corrupt her mind and persuade her to +neglect her duty to me, I'll make it a thousand."</p> +<p>He was jesting! It was monstrous, with Jane lying ill in her +mother's room; it was indecent; it was grossly immoral; but he was +actually jesting! Not even scandal, not even the doctor's presence +in the house, could suppress his incorrigible spirit of levity. "If +I were Jane, I'd never speak to him," thought Gabriella, and the +question flashed through her mind, "how in the world could she ever +have loved him?" It was impossible for her to conceive of any +situation when Charley could have made a girl fall in love with +him. Though she had heard stories of his early conquests, she had +never believed them. There were times when she almost liked him, +but it was the kind of liking one gave to an inferior, not to an +equal. She admitted his charm, but it was the charm of an +irresponsible creature—the capricious attraction of a child +or an animal. Her common sense, she told herself, would keep her +from making a mistake such as Jane had made with her life; and, +besides, she was utterly devoid of the missionary instinct which +had lured Jane to destruction. "If I ever marry, it will be +different from that," she thought passionately. "It will be utterly +different!"</p> +<p>The door of Mrs. Carr's room opened suddenly, Marthy's name was +called in a high voice, and the doctor was heard saying +reassuringly: "She is over the worst. There is no need to +worry."</p> +<p>"Don't send me in there alone, Gabriella," begged Charley +piteously. "I'd rather face bullets than Jane in an attack." His +bravado had deserted him, and he appeared positively craven. The +stiffness seemed to have gone not only out of his character, but +out of his clothes also. Even his collar had become limp with +emotion.</p> +<p>"Well, I don't care," answered Gabriella, "you've got to stand +it. There's no use squirming when you've only yourself to blame." +With a malicious pleasure, she watched the consternation in +Charley's face, while the doctor's footsteps came rapidly down the +hall and stopped at the threshold of the parlour.</p> +<p>"You may go in, Mr. Gracey—your wife is asking for you; +but be very careful not to say anything that might disturb her. +Just keep her as quiet as you can for a few hours."</p> +<p>Then the door in the distance opened again, and Mrs. Carr, in +the hollow tones of destiny, called: "Gabriella, Jane is waiting to +speak to her husband."</p> +<p>"Come, Charley," ordered Gabriella, grimly, and a moment later +she pushed him across her mother's threshold and turned back into +the hall. "I hope she'll make him squirm," she said to herself, +with relish. Nothing, she felt, except the certainty of Charley's +squirming, could make up to her for the half-hour she had just +spent with him.</p> +<p>She was still standing there when Jane's medicine came from the +druggist at the corner, and for a while she waited outside the +door, fearing to lighten Charley's punishment by her entrance. The +medicine had to be measured in drops, and she went into the +dining-room, where the children were huddled together in an +improvised bed, and diluted the mixture with water before she could +persuade herself to go into her mother's room. Even then she +hesitated until she remembered that the doctor had said Jane must +take the first dose immediately. Not by her, if she could help it, +should the divine wrath of the furies be appeased.</p> +<p>But with the first touch of her hand on the knob, Charley's +flippant voice greeted her with, "Won't you come in, Gabriella?" +and swallowing her angry retort, she entered stiffly, with the +glass held out straight before her. Charley, on his knees beside +the bed, with his arm under his wife's pillow, stared up at his +sister-in-law with the guilty look of a whipped terrier, while +Jane, pallid, suffering, saintly, rested one thin blue-veined hand +on his shoulder. Her face was the colour of the sheet, her eyes +were unnaturally large and surrounded by violet circles; and her +hair, drenched with camphor, spread over the pillow like the hair +of a drowned woman. Never had she appeared so broken, so resigned, +so ineffably spiritual; and Gabriella's solitary comfort was the +thought that Jane's attack had conquered Charley as completely as +it had conquered the rest of them.</p> +<p>"Gabriella, I've forgiven him," said Jane, with fainting +sweetness, "and he wants you and mother to do so. He has promised +to be good in the future."</p> +<p>"Well, I shan't forgive him for keeping me up all night," +answered Gabriella resentfully, and she felt that even if it killed +Jane, she could not keep back her reply. "I can't answer for +mother, but I haven't forgiven him and I never shall." She felt her +anger hardened to a rock inside of her, and it hurt her so that she +put the glass hurriedly down on the table and ran out of the room. +As she closed the door behind her she heard Jane saying gently: +"Yes, I forgive you, Charley, but I can't help feeling that you +don't love me as you ought to."</p> +<p>An old cape of her mother's was lying on a chair in the hall, +and, throwing it over her shoulders, Gabriella went out on the +porch and stood breathing quickly in the cold air, with her hand +pressed on her bosom, which rose and fell as if she had been +running. She was not only furious, she was grossly affronted, +though she had known from the beginning, she said to herself, +exactly how it would end. She had never trusted Jane—no, not +a minute; she had never really trusted her mother. Something had +told her that Jane had never meant in her heart to leave Charley, +that she was only making a scene, after the immemorial habit of +women, before going back to him. And yet, though she had suspected +this all along, she was as indignant as if she had been deceived by +a conspiracy of the three of them. Her sense of decency was +outraged. She despised Jane because she had no strength of +character; but even while this thought was still in her mind, she +admitted that Jane had had sufficient strength of character to +upset the household, bring Charley to repentance, and emerge, faint +but victorious, from the wreck of their peace. Yes, she despised +Jane, though it was impossible to deny that Jane's methods were +successful, since she had got what she wanted.</p> +<p>The street was very quiet, for it was in the small gray hours +between midnight and dawn, and a solitary policeman, strolling by +on his beat, appeared as wan and spectral as the bare boughs of the +poplar trees beneath which he moved. The wind was still blowing +over the brow of the hill, and now and then it tossed a wisp of +straw or a handful of dust on the porch where Gabriella was +standing. As it swept onward it drove a flock of shadows, like +black birds, up the open street into the clear space under the +old-fashioned gas lamp at the corner. All the lights were out in +the neighbouring houses, but from a boarding-house down the block +there floated suddenly the gay snatch of a waltz played on a banjo +with a broken string. Then the music stopped, the policeman passed, +and Gabriella and the wind were alone in the street. Overhead the +stars shone dimly through a web of mist; and it seemed to her that +the sadness of the sky and the sadness of the earth had mingled +there in the long straight street where the wind blew with a +melancholy sound between rows of silent and darkened houses.</p> +<p>A noise in the hall made her turn, and, looking up, she saw the +gaunt figure of Miss Amelia Peterborough standing in the bend of +the staircase. In her hand the old maid held a twisted candlestick +of greenish brass, and the yellow flame of the candle cast a +trembling, fantastic shadow on the wall at her back. Her head, +shorn of the false "front" she wore in the day, appeared to have +become all forehead and beaked nose; her eyes had dwindled to mere +points of blackness; her mouth, sunken and drawn over toothless +gums, was like the mouth of a witch. The wind, blowing in gusts +through the open door, inflated her gray shawl and the skirt of her +dressing-gown, while, with each flutter of her garments, the +grotesque shadow on the white wall danced and gibbered behind her. +And, as she gazed down on the girl, it was as if the end of life, +with its pathos, its cruelties, its bitterness and its +disillusionment, had stopped for a fleeting instant to look back at +life in the pride and ignorance of its beginning.</p> +<p>"There was so much moving about, I thought something might have +happened," said Miss Amelia apologetically, while Gabriella, +closing the door, shut the draught from the staircase.</p> +<p>"Jane had one of her heart attacks," answered the girl. "I'm so +sorry we waked you."</p> +<p>But she was thinking while she spoke, "So that is old +age—so that is what it means to be old?" There is a vague +compassion in the thought, but it held no terror, for the decay of +Miss Amelia seemed as utterly remote and detached from her own life +as one of the past ages in history. The youth in her brain created +a radiant illusion of immortality. By no stretch of imagination +could she picture herself like the infirm and loveless creature +before her. Yet she knew, without realizing it, that Miss Amelia +had once been young, that she had once even been beautiful. There +was a legend, fading now into tradition, that her lover had been +killed in a duel, fought for her while she was still a girl, and +that she had worn only white or black since that day—she who +was now well over eighty. She had known love; a man had died for +her; it was said that she had been a famous coquette in the +'thirties; and now she stood there, grotesque and sexless, with her +eyes empty of dreams and of memories, and her face as gray and +sinister as the face of her shadow.</p> +<p>"I hope she is better, poor child," she said, for, like the rest +of Richmond, she believed Jane to be all saint and Charley all +sinner. "If I can be of any help, be sure to let me know."</p> +<p>"Yes, I'll let you know, thank you. I hope we didn't disturb +Miss Jemima."</p> +<p>The younger Miss Peterborough—called "the happy one" by +Gabriella and Mrs. Carr because she was always cheerful, though, as +far as any one could tell, she had nothing and had never had +anything to be cheerful about—was named Jemima. A chronic +invalid, from some obscure trouble which had not left her for +twenty years, she was seldom free from pain, and yet Gabriella had +never seen her (except at funerals, for which she entertained a +perfectly healthy fondness as diversions free to the poor) without +a smile on her face.</p> +<p>"Sister Jemima doesn't wake easily. She is a sound sleeper and +she's getting a little hard of hearing"; and lifting the +candlestick to light her way, Miss Amelia turned back up the +stairs, while the flame flitted like a golden moth into the +dimness.</p> +<p>"Poor old thing," thought Gabriella, imagining in her ignorance +that she could understand the tragedy of Miss Amelia's life; "poor +old thing, she must have had a terrible time."</p> +<p>As she approached her mother's door, Charley came out, glanced +at her sheepishly, and hurried to where his hat hung on the walnut +hatrack in the front hall. Then, as if overcoming his first impulse +to avoid her, he beckoned to her furtively, and said in a +sepulchral whisper: "Gabriella, be very careful what you say to +her."</p> +<p>The audacity of it! This from Charley, the abandoned, the +depraved, the unutterably abhorrent in her sight. Without replying, +she turned indignantly away and opened her mother's door.</p> +<p>Lying in the middle of the bed now, and slightly propped with +pillows, Jane was sipping a second dose of medicine from a glass +Mrs. Carr held to her lips.</p> +<p>"I know you don't understand my forgiving him, Gabriella," she +said very gently, "but some day, after you are married, you will +realize that I do it from a sacred duty—from a sacred duty," +she repeated firmly, while the shining light of martyrdom illumined +her features.</p> +<p>"Well, it's none of my business," answered Gabriella crossly, +"but the sooner you do it, I suppose the sooner you will have to do +it again." If only for once Jane would be direct, if only she would +be natural, if only she would speak the truth and not fiction.</p> +<p>"Oh, no, dear, you don't understand him any better than you do +me," said Jane as sweetly as ever in spite of Gabriella's +deplorable loss of temper. "He is really dreadfully penitent, and +he sees that he hasn't always treated me as he ought to have done. +But you'll know what I mean when you marry, Gabriella. She'll +understand me then, won't she, mother?"</p> +<p>"I'm sometimes tempted to hope that Gabriella will never marry," +replied Mrs. Carr with the uncompromising bitterness of abject +despair; "the Carrs all seem to marry so badly."</p> +<p>In her normal mood she would never have uttered this heresy, for +she belonged to a generation that regarded even a bad marriage as +better for a woman than no marriage at all; but the night had worn +her out, and one of her spells of neuralgia, which followed +fatigue, was already beginning in her face. The purple crocheted +"fascinator" she had caught up at the doctor's entrance was still +on her head, and her long pale face, beneath the airy scallops, +appeared frozen in an expression of incurable melancholy. For the +rest she had been too frightened, too forgetful of herself and her +own comfort even to put on her stockings, though Gabriella had +begged her to do so. "Don't think about me. Attend to poor Jane," +she had repeated over and over.</p> +<p>"Mother, go into my room and get into bed," commanded Gabriella, +whose patience, never abundant, was ebbing low. "If you don't get +some sleep your neuralgia won't be any better."</p> +<p>"It isn't any better. I don't expect it to be any better."</p> +<p>"Well, you must go to bed or it will get worse. I'll heat you a +cup of milk and wrap you up in warm blankets."</p> +<p>"Don't worry about me, dear. Think of poor Jane."</p> +<p>"We've been thinking of Jane all night, and you need it now more +than she does. I can tell by your eyes how you are suffering."</p> +<p>In the first streak of dawn, which was beginning to glimmer +faintly on the window-panes, Mrs. Carr looked as if she had +withered overnight.</p> +<p>"It's only my left temple," she said dully, "otherwise I am +quite well. No, dear, I must rub Jane's forehead until she falls +asleep. The doctor said it was important that we should keep her +soothed."</p> +<p>But it was a law of Gabriella's nature that she never knew when +she was beaten. Failure aroused the sleeping forces within her, and +when these forces were once liberated, the spasmodic efforts of +Mrs. Carr and the indirect methods of Jane were alike powerless to +oppose them. At such times a faint flush rose to her pale cheeks, +her eyes shone with a burning darkness, while her mouth lost its +fresh young red and grew hard in outline.</p> +<p>"You must go to bed, mother," she repeated in a voice which Mrs. +Carr would have obeyed had it issued from the wall or a piece of +furniture.</p> +<p>Fifteen minutes later Gabriella stood authoritatively beside the +bed, while her mother, with a mustard plaster at the back of her +neck, obediently sipped hot milk from a teacup. Mrs. Carr had +surrendered to the conquering spirit of her daughter, but her +surrender, which was unwilling and weakly defiant, gave out +presently a last feeble flicker of resistance.</p> +<p>"Don't you think, Gabriella, we might arrange to live with +Jane?" she asked. "It would be a saving of expense for us both, and +we might be so helpful about the children."</p> +<p>"And about Charley, too, I suppose," suggested Gabriella +maliciously.</p> +<p>Mrs. Carr, having been born without a sense of humour, never +understood the broadest joke unless it was illustrated; but even to +her it became evident, after a moment's anxious thought, that +Gabriella was teasing her.</p> +<p>"You seem to forget that he is her husband," she replied, with a +pathetic clutch at her dignity, which, owing perhaps to the purple +"fascinator" and the mustard plaster, she failed completely to +recapture. Then, as she finished the milk and handed back the empty +cup to her daughter, she added wearily, for life, as she often said +to herself of late, was becoming almost too much for her, and she +was feeling worn out and old:</p> +<p>"My one comfort, Gabriella, is the thought that Arthur Peyton +loves you. There couldn't be anybody more unlike Charley."</p> +<p>"There couldn't be," agreed Gabriella mildly, for she felt that +another blow would prostrate her mother.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> +<h3>A START IN LIFE</h3> +<p>In the late 'seventies and early 'eighties the most important +shop in the town of Gabriella's birth was known to its patrons +(chiefly ladies in long basques, tightly tied back skirts, and +small eccentric bonnets) as Brandywine & Plummer's drygoods +store. At that period, when old Mrs. Carr, just completing her +ninetieth year with a mind fixed upon heaven, would have dropped +dead at the idea that her granddaughter should ever step out of her +class, Gabriella's mother bought her dresses (grosgrain of the very +best quality) from Major Brandywine. To be sure, even in those +days, there were other shops in the city—for was not Broad +Street already alluded to in the newspapers as "the shopping +thoroughfare of the South?"—but, though they were as numerous +as dandelions in June, these places were by no means patronized so +widely by "the best people." Small shops, of course, carrying a +single line of goods and supplying their particular products to an +exacting and discriminating class, held their own even against the +established reputation of Brandywine & Plummer's. O'Connell's +linen store, Twitlow's china store, Mrs. Tonk's doll store, and +Green & Brady's store for notions—all these were situated +in Broad Street hardly a stone's throw from the Second Market. But +none of these, excellent as they were, could bear comparison with +the refined atmosphere, so different from the vulgar bustle of a +modern department store, which enveloped one in the quiet gloom of +Brandywine & Plummer's. In the first place, one could be +perfectly sure that one would be waited on by a lady—for +Brandywine & Plummer's, with a distinguished Confederate +soldier at its head and front, provided an almost conventual +shelter for distressed feminine gentility. There was, for instance, +Miss Marye of the black silk counter, whose father had belonged to +Stuart's cavalry and had fallen at Yellow Tavern; there was Miss +Meason of the glove counter, and there was Mrs. Burwell Smith of +the ribbon counter—for, though she had married beneath her, +it was impossible to forget that she was a direct descendant of +Colonel Micajah Burwell, of Crow's Nest Plantation.</p> +<p>Then, if one happened to be in search of cotton goods, one would +be almost certain to remark on the way home: "Miss Peters, who +waited on me in Brandywine's this morning, has unmistakably the +manner of a lady," or "that Mrs. Jones in Brandywine's must be +related to the real Joneses, she has such a refined appearance." +And, at last, in the middle 'nineties, after the opening of the new +millinery department, which was reached by a short flight of steps, +decorated at discreet intervals with baskets of pink paper roses, +customers were beginning to ask: "May I speak to Miss Gabriella for +a minute? I wish to speak to Miss Gabriella about the hat she is +having trimmed for me."</p> +<p>For here, also, because of what poor Jane called her "practical +mind," the patrons of Brandywine & Plummer's were learning that +Gabriella was "the sort you could count on." As far as the actual +work went, she could not, of course, hold a candle (this was Mr. +Plummer's way of putting it) to Miss Kemp or Miss Treadway, who had +a decided talent for trimming; but no customer in balloon sleeves +and bell-shaped skirt was ever heard to remark of these young women +as they remarked of Gabriella, "No, I don't want anybody else, +please. She takes such an interest." To take an interest in other +people might become quite as marketable an asset, Mr. Plummer was +discovering, after fifty years of adherence to strictly business +methods, as a gift for the needle; and, added to her engaging +interest, Gabriella appeared to know by instinct exactly what a +customer wanted.</p> +<p>"I declare Miss Kemp had almost persuaded me to take that brown +straw with the green velvet bandeau before I thought of asking +Gabriella's advice," Mrs. Spencer was overheard saying to her +daughter, as she paused, panting and breathless, at the head of the +short flight of steps.</p> +<p>"Oh, Gabriella always had taste; I'll ask her about mine," +Florrie tossed back gaily in the high fluting notes which expressed +so perfectly the brilliant, if slightly metallic, quality of her +personality.</p> +<p>Beside her mother, a plump, bouncing person, with a noisy though +imperfectly articulate habit of speech, and the prominent hips and +bust which composed the "fine figure" of the period, Florrie seemed +to float with all the elusive, magic loveliness of a sunbeam. From +the shining nimbus of her hair to her small tripping feet she was +the incarnation of girlhood—of that white and gold girlhood +which has intoxicated the imagination of man. She shed the +allurement of sex as unconsciously as a flower sheds its perfume. +Though her eyes were softly veiled by her lashes, every male clerk +in Brandywine & Plummer's was dazzled by the deep blue light of +her glances. In her red mouth, with its parted lips, in the pure +rose and white of her flesh, in the rich curve of her bosom, which +promised already the "fine figure" of her mother, youth and summer +were calling as they called in the velvet softness of the June +breeze. Innocent though she was, the powers of Life had selected +her as a vehicle for their inscrutable ends.</p> +<p>"Where is Miss Carr? I must speak to Miss Carr, please," she +said to one of the shop girls who came up, eager to serve her. +"Will you tell her that Miss Spencer is waiting to speak to +her?"</p> +<p>Responding to the girl's artless stare of admiration, she threw +a friendly glance at her before she turned away to try on a +monstrous white Leghorn hat decorated around the crown with a +trellis of pink roses. Unless she happened to be in a particularly +bad humour—and this was not often the case—Florrie was +imperturbably amiable. She enjoyed flattery as a cat enjoys the +firelight on its back, and while she purred happily in the pleasant +warmth, she had something of the sleek and glossy look of a pretty +kitten.</p> +<p>"How does this look on me, mother?" she asked over her shoulder +of Mrs. Spencer, who was babbling cheerfully in her loud tones to +Miss Lancaster, the forewoman.</p> +<p>Though some of the best blood in Virginia, profusely diluted +with some of the worst, flowed comfortably in Mrs. Spencer's veins, +it was impossible even for her relatives to deny that she could be +at times decidedly vulgar. Having been a conspicuous belle and +beauty of a bold and dashing type in her youth, she now devoted her +middle-age to the enjoyment of those pleasures which she had +formerly sacrificed to the preservation of her figure and her +complexion. Though she still dyed her somewhat damaged hair, and +strenuously pinched in her widening waist, she had ceased, since +her fiftieth birthday, to forego the lesser comforts of the body. +As she was a person of small imagination, and of no sentiment, it +is probable that she was happier now than she had been in the days +when she suffered the deprivations and enjoyed the triumphs of +beauty.</p> +<p>"What's that, Florrie?" she inquired shrilly. "No, I shouldn't +get that if I were you. It doesn't flare enough. I'm crazy about a +flare."</p> +<p>"But I want a pink bandeau, mother," replied Florrie a little +pettishly, as she patted her golden-red fringe. "I wonder where +Gabriella is? Isn't she ever coming, Miss Lancaster?"</p> +<p>"I thought I saw her when I came in," observed Mrs. Spencer, +craning her handsome neck, which was running to fat, in the +direction of the trimming room. "Florrie, just turn your head after +a minute and look at the hat Patty Carrington is buying—pea +green, and it makes her face look like a walnut. She hasn't the +faintest idea how to dress. Do you think I ought to speak to her +about it?"</p> +<p>"No, let her alone," replied Florrie impatiently. "Is this any +better than the Leghorn?"</p> +<p>"Well, I must say I don't think there is much style about it, +though, of course, with your hair, you can carry off anything. +Isn't it odd how exactly she inherited my hair, Miss Lancaster? I +remember her father used to say that he would have fallen in love +with a gatepost if it had had golden-red hair."</p> +<p>Miss Lancaster, a thin, erect woman of fifty, with impassive +features, and iron-gray hair that looked as if it were rolled over +wood, glanced resignedly from Mrs. Spencer's orange-coloured crimps +to the imprisoned sunlight in Florrie's hair.</p> +<p>"I'd know you were mother and daughter anywhere," she remarked +in the noncommittal manner she had acquired in thirty years of +independence; "and she is going to have your beautiful figure, too, +Mrs. Spencer."</p> +<p>"Well, I reckon I'll lose my figure now that I've stopped +dieting," remarked the lively lady, casting an appreciative glance +in the mirror. "Florrie tells me I wear my sleeves too large, but I +think they make me look smaller."</p> +<p>"They are wearing them very large in Paris," replied Miss +Lancaster, as if she were reciting a verse out of a catalogue. She +had, as she sometimes found occasion to remark, been "born tired," +and this temperamental weariness showed now in her handsome face, +so wrinkled and dark around her bravely smiling eyes. Where she +came from, or how she spent her time between the hour she left the +shop and the hour she returned to it, the two women knew as little +as they knew the intimate personal history of the Leghorn hat on +the peg by the mirror. Beyond the fact that she played the part of +a sympathetic chorus, they were without curiosity about her life. +Their own personalities absorbed them, and for the time at least +appeared to absorb Miss Lancaster.</p> +<p>"I like the Leghorn hat," said Florrie decisively, as she tried +it on for the third time, "but I'll wait till I ask Gabriella's +opinion."</p> +<p>"I hope she's getting on well here," said Mrs. Spencer, who +found it impossible to concentrate on Florrie's hat. "Don't you +think it was very brave of her to go to work, Miss Lancaster?"</p> +<p>"I understood that she was obliged to," rejoined Miss Lancaster, +with the weary amiability of her professional manner.</p> +<p>"She might have married, I happen to know that," returned Mrs. +Spencer. "Arthur Peyton has been in love with her ever since she +was a child, and there was a young man from New York last winter +who seemed crazy about her. Florrie, don't you think George Fowler +was just crazy about Gabriella?"</p> +<p>"I'm sure I don't know, mother. He paid her a great deal of +attention, but you never can tell about men."</p> +<p>"Julia Caperton told me, and, of course, she's very intimate +with George's sister, that he went back to New York because he +heard that Gabriella was engaged to Arthur. Florrie, do you suppose +she is really engaged to Arthur?"</p> +<p>Thus appealed to, Florrie removed the Leghorn hat from her head, +and answered abstractedly: "Jane thought so, but if she is engaged, +I don't see why she should have started to work. I know Arthur +would hate it."</p> +<p>"But isn't he too poor to marry?" inquired Mrs. Spencer, whose +curiosity was as robust as her constitution. "Haven't you always +understood that the Peytons were poor, Miss Lancaster, in spite of +the lovely house they live in?"</p> +<p>Her large, good-humoured face, which had once been as delicate +as a flower, but was now growing puffed and mottled under a +plentiful layer of rice powder, became almost violently animated, +while she adjusted her belt with a single effective jerk of her +waist. Though Bessie Spencer was admitted to have one of the +kindest hearts in the world, she was chiefly remarkable for her +unhappy faculty of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. An +inveterate, though benevolent, gossip, she would babble on for +hours, reciting the private affairs of her relatives, her friends, +and her neighbours. Everybody feared her, and yet everybody was +assured that "she never meant any harm." The secrets of the town +flowed through her mind as grist flows through a mill, and though +she was entirely without malice, she contrived, in the most +innocent manner, to do an incalculable amount of injury. Possessing +a singularly active intelligence, and having reached middle-age +without acquiring sufficient concentration to enjoy books, she +directed a vigorous, if casual, understanding toward the human +beings among whom she lived. She knew everything that it was +possible to know about the people who lived in Franklin Street, and +yet her mind was so constituted that she never by any chance knew +it correctly. Though she was not old, she had already passed into a +proverb. To receive any statement with the remark, "You have heard +that from Bessie Spencer," was to cast doubt upon it.</p> +<p>"You don't think I'm getting any stouter, do you, Miss +Lancaster?" she inquired dubiously, with her hands on her hips and +her eyes measuring the dimensions of her waist. "I'm making up my +mind to try one of those B. and T. corsets that Mrs. Murray is +wearing. She told me it reduced her waist at least three +inches."</p> +<p>"Oh, you aren't like Mrs. Murray—she didn't measure a +fraction under thirty inches," replied Miss Lancaster, with her +patient politeness. Then, after a pause, which Mrs. Spencer's +nimble wit filled with a story about the amazing number of mint +juleps Mrs. Murray was seen to drink at the White Sulphur Springs +last summer, Florrie exclaimed eagerly:</p> +<p>"Why, there is Gabriella! Won't you get her for us, Miss +Lancaster?"</p> +<p>Near one of the long windows, beyond which large greenish flies +were buzzing around the branch of a mulberry tree in the alley, +Gabriella was trying a purple hat on a prim-looking lady who +regarded herself in the mirror with a furtive and deprecating air +as if she were afraid of being unjustly blamed for her appearance. +"I'm not sure—but I don't think it suits me exactly," she +appeared to murmur in a strangled whisper, while she twisted her +mouth, which held a jet-headed hatpin, into a quivering +grimace.</p> +<p>"She's waiting on Matty French," said Mrs. Spencer, and she +added impulsively, "I wonder what it is that men see in Gabriella. +You wouldn't call her really pretty, would you, Miss +Lancaster?"</p> +<p>"Well, not exactly pretty, but she has an interesting face. It +is so full of life."</p> +<p>"Can't you get her, mother?" asked Florrie; and Mrs. Spencer, +always eager to oblige, rustled across the room and pounced +vivaciously upon the prim lady and Gabriella.</p> +<p>"We've been looking for you everywhere, Gabriella," she began, +nodding agreeably to Miss French. "Florrie has tried on all the +hats in the room, and she wants you to tell her if that white +Leghorn is becoming. Good morning, Matty! That blue wing is so +stylish. I think you are very sensible to wear colours and not to +stick to black as Susie Chamberlain does. It makes her look as old +as the hills, and I believe she does it just to depress people. +Life is too short, as I said when I left off mourning, to be an ink +blot wherever you go. And it doesn't mean that she grieves a bit +more for her husband than anybody else does. Everybody knows they +led a cat and dog's life together, and I've even heard, though I +can't remember who told me, that she was on the point of getting a +divorce when he died. Are you going? Well, I'm glad you decided on +that blue hat. I don't believe you'll ever regret it. Good-bye. Be +sure and come to see me soon. Gabriella, will you help Florrie +about her hat now? I declare, I thought Matty would never get +through with you. And, of course, we didn't want anybody but you to +wait on us. We were just saying that you had the most beautiful +taste, and it is so wise of you to go out to work and not sit down +and sew at home in order to support your position. A position that +can't support itself isn't much of a prop, my husband used to say. +But I don't believe you'll stay here long, you sly piece. You'll be +married before the year is up, mark my word. The men are all crazy +about you, everybody knows that. Why, Florrie met George Fowler in +the street this morning, and when he asked after you, his face +turned as hot as fire, she said—"</p> +<p>Gabriella's face, above her starched collar with its neat red +tie, was slowly flooded with colour. Her brown eyes shone golden +under her dark lashes, and Mrs. Spencer told herself that the girl +looked almost pretty for a minute. "If she wasn't so sallow, she'd +be really good looking."</p> +<p>Happily unaware that her face had betrayed her, Gabriella slid +back a glass door, took a hat out of the case, and answered +indifferently, while she adjusted the ribbon bow on one side of the +crown:</p> +<p>"I didn't know Mr. Fowler had come back. I haven't seen him for +ages."</p> +<p>From her small, smooth head to her slender feet she had acquired +in three months the composed efficiency of Miss Lancaster; and one +might have imagined, as Mrs. Spencer remarked to Florrie +afterwards, that "she had been born in a hat shop."</p> +<p>But instead of the weary patience of Miss Lancaster, she brought +to her work the brimming energy and the joyous self-confidence of +youth. It was impossible to watch her and not realize that she had +given both ability and the finer gift of personality to the selling +of hats. Had she started life as a funeral director instead of a +milliner, it is probable that she would have infused into the +dreary business something of the living quality of genius.</p> +<p>"Oh, Florrie hadn't seen him for ages either," chirped Mrs. +Spencer, with her restless eyes on the hat in Gabriella's hand. "I +don't know whether I ought to tell you or not, but you and Florrie +are so intimate I suppose I might as well—Julia Caperton told +Florrie that George came back because he heard in some way that you +had broken your engagement to Arthur. Of course, as I told Julia +afterwards, you hadn't mentioned a word of it to me, but I've got +eyes and I can't help using them. I was obliged to see that George +was simply out of his mind about you. It would be a splendid match, +too, for they say his father has made quite a large fortune since +he went to New York—"</p> +<p>"Mother!" interrupted Florrie sternly, over her shoulder, "you +know Julia told you not to breathe a single word as coming from +her. She is the bosom friend of George's sister."</p> +<p>"But, Florrie, I haven't told a soul except Gabriella, and I +know she wouldn't repeat a thing that I said to her."</p> +<p>"Now, isn't that exactly like mother?" observed Florrie, with +the casual disapprobation of youth. "She was on the point of +telling Miss Lancaster all about it when I stopped her."</p> +<p>"Why, Florrie, I didn't say a word except that men were crazy +about Gabriella—you know I didn't. Of course, I talk a great +deal," she pursued in an aggrieved, explanatory tone to Gabriella, +"but I never repeat a word—not a single word that is told me +in confidence. If Julia had asked me not to tell Gabriella what she +said, I shouldn't have dreamed of doing so."</p> +<p>"Oh, it doesn't matter in the least, Mrs. Spencer," said +Gabriella hastily, "only there isn't a word of truth in it."</p> +<p>The becoming flush was still in her cheeks, and she poised a hat +over Florrie's head with a swift, flying grace which Mrs. Spencer +had never noticed in her before. "I wonder if Gabriella can really +care about George?" she thought quickly. "But if it is George she +is in love with, why on earth did she start to work in a shop?" +Then suddenly, following a flash of light, she reasoned it out to +her complete satisfaction. "It must have been that she didn't know +that George cared—that is why she is blushing so at this +minute."</p> +<p>An hour or so later, when Florrie and her mother had fluttered +volubly downstairs, and the exhausted assistants were putting the +hats away before closing the cases, Gabriella went into the +dressing-room, where Miss Nash, a stout, pleasant-looking girl, was +sitting in a broken chair, with her shoes off, her blue serge skirt +rolled back from her knees, and her head bowed, over her crossed +arms, on the window-sill.</p> +<p>At Gabriella's entrance she glanced up, and remarked cheerfully: +"My feet were killing me. I just had to take off my shoes."</p> +<p>"They do get dreadfully tired," assented Gabriella in the tone +of sympathetic intimacy she had caught from the other girls.</p> +<p>Her naturally friendly spirit had refused to "hold aloof" from +her companions, as her mother had begged her to do, and at the end +of three months she had learned things about most of them which +interested her profoundly. One supported an invalid father, another +had a family of six little brothers and sisters to care for, and +still another had lost her lover through a railroad accident only +two days before her marriage. Several of them were extravagantly +loud, one or two were inclined to be vulgar; but the others were +quite as refined and gentle as the girls with whom she had grown +up, and what impressed her about them all was their courageous and +yet essentially light-hearted Southern spirit. To her surprise, she +found an utter absence of jealousy among them. The elder women were +invariably kind and helpful, and though she liked the girls, she +soon discovered in herself a growing feeling of respect for these +older women. They represented a different type, for the hardness +she noticed in some of the younger girls was entirely lacking in +the women of Miss Lancaster's generation. Many of them even her +mother would have called well born, and one and all, they were +almost painfully ladylike. With their thin, erect figures, their +wan, colourless faces, their graying hair, and their sweet Southern +voices, they imparted a delicate social air to the shop.</p> +<p>Usually Gabriella stopped to talk to the girls who crowded in +from the workroom, brushing shreds of silk or ribbon from their +skirts, but to-day her mind wandered while she answered Miss Nash, +and when, a minute later, Miss Lancaster spoke to her on her way +out, and asked her to match the flowers for Florrie's hat, she was +obliged to make an effort before she could recall her roving +attention. She was thinking not of Florrie's hat, but of Mrs. +Spencer's words, "He has come back because he heard that your +engagement was broken." And at the first insurgent rise of emotion, +she ceased to be the business woman and became merely an +imaginative girl, dreaming of love.</p> +<p>"They aren't quite the right shade, are they?" she asked with an +uncertainty which was tactful rather than sincere, "or, perhaps, +the ribbon might be darker?"</p> +<p>Her eyes questioned Miss Lancaster, who moved a step nearer the +window as she held the bolt of ribbon toward the daylight.</p> +<p>"Well, we'd better look at it again in the morning. You are in a +hurry, Miss Carr?"</p> +<p>"Oh, no, I've all the time in the world," answered Gabriella, +though she longed to be out with the June scents and her dreams, +"but I am sure the ribbon ought to be a deeper blue to tone with +the ragged robins."</p> +<p>"You've a wonderful eye for colour, that's why I ask your +advice," said the other, and a sudden friendliness shone in her +tired eyes, for she had liked Gabriella from the beginning. That +the girl possessed a genuine gift of taste, the elder woman had +already discovered. For herself, Miss Lancaster had always hated +the sight of hats, and had taken up the work merely because a place +in Brandywine & Plummer's had been offered her shortly after +her father, a gallant fighter but a poor worker, had gone to end +his kindly anecdotal days in the Home for Confederate Soldiers. She +was a repressed, conscientious woman, who had never been younger +than she was now at fifty, and who regarded youth, not with envy, +but with admiring awe. For she, also, patient and uncomplaining +creature, belonged to that world of decay and inertia from which +Gabriella had revolted. It was a world where things happened to-day +just as they happened yesterday, where no miracles had occurred +since the miracles of Scripture, where people hated change, not +because they were satisfied, but because they were incapable of +imagination. Miss Lancaster, who had never wanted anything with +passion, except to be a perfect lady, was proud of the fact that +she had been twenty years in business without losing her "shrinking +manner."</p> +<p>"Yes, you have an eye for colour," she repeated gently; "if you +could only learn to sew, you might command a most desirable +position."</p> +<p>"I despise sewing," replied Gabriella, with serene good-humour, +"and I could never learn, even at school, anything that I despised. +But I suppose I can always tell somebody else how it ought to be +done."</p> +<p>Then, because her work always interested her, she forgot the +disturbing words Mrs. Spencer had spoken—she forgot even her +impatience to feel the June air in her face. Her best gift, the +power of mental control, enabled her to bring the needed discipline +to her emotion; and when the moment of her release came, she found +that the brief restlessness had passed from her mind. "There's no +use letting myself get impatient," she thought; "I've got to stick +to it, so it won't do a bit of good to begin wriggling."</p> +<p>All the other girls had gone home before her, and on the +sidewalk Miss Meason, of the glove counter, stood talking about the +spring sales to Mr. Brandywine. As Gabriella passed them, in her +white shirtwaist and dark belted skirt, they looked thoughtfully +after her until her sailor hat, with the scarlet band, crossed +Broad Street and disappeared on the opposite side.</p> +<p>"She's a remarkable girl," observed Mr. Brandywine, with his +paternal manner. "I hope she is beginning to feel at home with +us."</p> +<p>"I believe she'd feel at home anywhere," replied Miss Meason, +"and she's obliged to get on. There's no doubt of it."</p> +<p>"A pleasant face, too. Not exactly pretty, I suppose, but you +would call it a pleasant face."</p> +<p>"Oh, well, I'd call her pretty in her way," answered Miss +Meason. "Her eyes are lovely, and she has a singularly bright +expression. I always say that a bright expression makes up for +anything."</p> +<p>"Her mother was a beauty in her day," said Mr. Brandywine +reminiscently; "she was the snow and roses sort, and her eldest +daughter took after her, though she is a wreck now, poor lady."</p> +<p>"That's Charley Gracey," remarked Miss Meason tartly, for she +had the self-supporting woman's contempt for the rake. "Yes, she +was lovely as a girl. I remember as well as if it were yesterday +how happy she looked when I sold her her wedding gloves. She is a +beautiful character, too, they say, but somehow Gabriella, even as +a child, appealed to me more. She has three times the sense of her +sister."</p> +<p>Then they shook hands and parted, while Gabriella, tripping +through the Second Market, was saying to herself: "There's not the +least bit of sense in your thinking about him, Gabriella."</p> +<p>In Hill Street, maple and poplar trees were in full leaf, and +little flakes of sunshine, as soft as flowers, were scattered over +the brick pavement. Beyond the housetops the sky was golden, and at +the corner the rusty ironwork of an old balcony had turned to the +colour of bronze. The burning light of the sunset blinded her eyes, +while an intense sweetness came to her from the honeysuckle +clambering over a low white porch; and this light and this +sweetness possessed an ineffable quality. Life, which had been +merely placid a few hours before, had become suddenly +poignant—every instant was pregnant with happiness, every +detail was piercingly vivid. Her whole being was flooded with a +sensation of richness and wonder, as if she had awakened with +surprise to a different world from the one she had closed her eyes +on a minute before.</p> +<p>As she crossed the street she saw her mother's head above a box +of clove pinks in the window; and a little later the front door +opened and Miss Polly Hatch, a small, indomitable spinster who +sewed out by the day, walked rapidly between the iron urns and +stopped under the creamy blossoms of the old magnolia tree in the +yard.</p> +<p>"It's too late for your ma to be workin', Gabriella. You'd +better stop her."</p> +<p>Pausing in the middle of the walk, she comfortably tucked under +her arm an unwieldy bundle she carried, and added, with the +shrewdness which was the result of a long and painful experience +with human nature: "It's funny—ain't it?—how downright +mulish your ma can be when she wants to?"</p> +<p>"I can't do a thing on earth with her," answered Gabriella in +distress. "You have more influence over her than I have, Miss +Polly."</p> +<p>Miss Polly, who had the composed and efficient bearing of a +machine, shook her head discouragingly as she opened the gate and +passed out.</p> +<p>"I reckon she's set for good and all," she remarked +emphatically, and went on her way.</p> +<p>"Mother, it's time to stop sewing and think about supper," +called Gabriella gaily, as she ran into the room and bent to kiss +her mother, who turned a flat, soft cheek in her direction, and +remarked gloomily: "Gabriella, you've had a visitor."</p> +<p>Not for worlds would Mrs. Carr have surrendered to the disarming +cheerfulness of her daughter's manner; for since Gabriella had gone +to work in a shop, her mother's countenance implied that she was +piously resigned to disgrace as well as to poverty. It was +inconceivable to her that any girl with Berkeley blood in her veins +could be so utterly devoid of proper pride as Gabriella had proved +herself to be; and the shock of this discovery had left a hurt look +in her face. There were days when she hardly spoke to the girl, +when refusing food, she opened her lips only to moisten her thread, +when the slow tears seemed forever welling between her reddened +eyelids. As they had just passed through one of these painful +periods, Gabriella was surprised to find that, for the moment at +least, her mother appeared to have forgotten her righteous +resentment. Though it could hardly be said that Mrs. Carr spoke +cheerfully—since cheerfulness was foreign to her +nature—at least she had spoken. Of her own accord, +unquestioned and unurged, she had volunteered a remark to her +daughter; and Gabriella felt that, for a brief respite, the +universe had ceased to be menacing.</p> +<p>"Gabriella, you have had a visitor," repeated Mrs. Carr, and it +was clear that her sorrow (she never yielded to passion) had been +overcome by a natural human eagerness to tell her news.</p> +<p>"Not Cousin Jimmy?" asked the girl lightly.</p> +<p>"No, you could never guess, if you guessed all night."</p> +<p>"Not Charley Gracey surely? I wouldn't speak to him for the +world."</p> +<p>Though Jane had returned to Charley, and even Mrs. Carr, feeling +in her heart that her younger daughter had dealt her the hardest +blow, had been heard to say that she "pitied her son-in-law more +than she censured him," Gabriella had not softened in her +implacable judgment.</p> +<p>"Of course it wasn't Charley. I shouldn't have mentioned it if +it had been, because you are so bitter against him. But it was +somebody you haven't seen for months. Do you remember Evelyn +Randolph's son who paid you so much attention last winter?"</p> +<p>"George Fowler! Has he been here?" asked Gabriella, and her +voice quivered like a harp.</p> +<p>"I told Marthy to say you were out. Of course I wasn't fit to +see company, but he caught sight of me on his way to the gate and +came back on the porch to speak to me. He remembered all about my +having gone to school with his mother, and it seems she had told +him about the time she was Queen of May and I maid of honour. I +asked him how Evelyn stood living in New York, but he said she +likes it better than his father does. Archie Fowler insists that he +is coming back to Virginia to end his days. They seem to have +plenty of money. I expect Archie has made a fortune up there or he +wouldn't be satisfied to live out of Virginia."</p> +<p>"Did George ask when I'd be at home?" inquired Gabriella.</p> +<p>Though she knew that it was unwise to divert her mother's +attention from the main narrative, her whole body ached with the +longing to hear what George had said of her, and she felt that it +was impossible to resist the temptation to question.</p> +<p>"He said something about you as he was going away, but I can't +remember whether he asked when you would be in or not." In spite of +the fact that Mrs. Carr had the most tenacious memory for useless +detail, she was never able to recall the significant points of an +interview.</p> +<p>"He didn't ask where I was?"</p> +<p>The question was indiscreet, for it jerked Mrs. Carr's mind back +with violence from its innocent ramble into the past, while it +reminded her of Gabriella's present unladylike occupation. She shut +her lips with soft but obstinate determination, and Gabriella, +watching her closely, told herself that "wild horses couldn't drag +another word out of her mother to-night." The girl longed to talk +it over; but she might have tried as successfully to gossip with +the angel on a marble tombstone. She wanted to hear what George had +said, to ask how he was looking, and to wonder aloud why he had +come back. She wanted to throw herself into her mother's arms and +listen to all the little important things that filled the world for +her. If only the aloof virtue in Mrs. Carr's face would relax into +a human expression!</p> +<p>Taking off her hat, Gabriella went into the bedroom, and then, +coming back again after a short absence, remarked with forced +gaiety: "I suppose he didn't have anything interesting to tell you, +did he?"</p> +<p>"No." Though the light had almost waned, Mrs. Carr broke off a +fresh piece of thread and leaned nearer the window, while she tried +to find the eye of the needle.</p> +<p>"Let me thread your needle, mother. It is too late to work, +anyway. You will ruin your eyesight."</p> +<p>"I have never considered my eyesight, Gabriella."</p> +<p>"I know you haven't, and that's why you ought to begin."</p> +<p>As it was really growing too dark to see, Mrs. Carr rolled the +thread back on the spool, stuck the needle into the last +buttonhole, and folding the infant's dress on which she was +working, laid it away in her straw work-basket.</p> +<p>"Will you light the gas, Gabriella?"</p> +<p>"Don't work any more to-night, mother. It is almost supper +time."</p> +<p>Without replying, Mrs. Carr moved with her basket to a chair +under the chandelier. Once seated there, she unfolded the dress, +took the needle from the unfinished buttonhole, and tried again +unsuccessfully to run the thread through the eye. Then, while +Gabriella rushed to her aid, she removed her glasses and patiently +polished them on a bit of chamois skin she kept in her basket.</p> +<p>"Don't you feel as if you could eat a chop to-night, +mother?"</p> +<p>"I haven't been able to swallow a morsel all day, +Gabriella."</p> +<p>"I've saved you a little cream. Shall I make you a toddy?"</p> +<p>"I don't want it. Drink it yourself, dear."</p> +<p>After this there followed one of those pauses which fill not +only the room, but the universe with a fury of sound. There were +times when Gabriella felt that she could stand anything if only her +mother would fly into a rage—when she positively envied +Florrie Spencer because her plebeian parent scolded her at the top +of her voice instead of maintaining a calm and ladylike reticence. +But Mrs. Carr was one of those women who never, even in the most +trying circumstances, cease to be patient, who never lose for an +instant so much as the palest or the thinnest of the Christian +virtues.</p> +<p>Going into the bedroom, Gabriella changed from her shirtwaist +into a gown of flowered muslin, with sleeves that looked small +beside the balloon ones of the season, and a skirt which was +shrunken and pale from many washings the summer before. She had +worn the frock when she met George, and though it was old, she knew +it was becoming, and she told herself joyfully that if she put it +on to-night, "something must come of it." As she smoothed her hair +by the dim gas-jet over the mirror, she saw again the face of +George as it had first smiled down on her beneath the boughs of a +mimosa tree in Mrs. Spencer's front garden. At the time, a year +ago, she was engaged to Arthur—she had even called the placid +preference she felt for him "being in love"—but while she +talked to George she had found herself thinking, "I wonder how it +would feel to be engaged to a man like this instead of to Arthur?" +Then, since all Southern engagements of the period were secret, she +had seen a good deal of George during the summer; and in the +autumn, while she was still trying to make believe that it was +merely a friendship, he had gone back to New York without saying +good-bye. She had tried her best to stop thinking of him, and until +this evening, she had never really let herself confess that she +cared. But if she didn't care why was she so happy to-night? If she +didn't care why was there such intoxicating sweetness in the +thought of his return? If she didn't care why had she dressed +herself so carefully in the flowered muslin he had once said that +he liked? Her face, smiling back at her from the mirror, was +suffused with a delicate glow—not pink, not white, but softly +luminous as if a lamp, shining behind it, enkindled its expression. +She had never seen herself so nearly pretty, and with this thought +in her mind, she went back to her mother, who was still working +buttonholes under the chandelier.</p> +<p>"Marthy has brought the lamp, mother. Why don't you move over to +the table?"</p> +<p>"I can see perfectly, thank you, Gabriella."</p> +<p>"I hate to see you working. Let me finish those +buttonholes."</p> +<p>"I'd rather get through them myself, dear."</p> +<p>"Have you seen Jane to-day?"</p> +<p>"No."</p> +<p>"Has Cousin Pussy been here?"</p> +<p>"No."</p> +<p>"Did you get out for a walk?"</p> +<p>"No."</p> +<p>The appalling silence again filled the room like a fog, and +Gabriella, moving cautiously about in it, began straightening +chairs and picking up shreds of cambric from the carpet. She felt +suddenly that she could not endure the strain for another minute, +and glancing at Mrs. Carr's bent head, where the thin hair was +wound into a tight knot and held in place by a tortoise-shell comb +with a carved top, she wondered how her mother could possibly keep +it up day after day as she did? But, if she had only known it, this +silence, which tried her nerves to the breaking point, was +positively soothing to her mother. Mrs. Carr could keep it up not +only for days and weeks, but, had it been necessary, she could have +kept it up with equal success for half a lifetime. While she sat +there, working buttonholes in a bad light, she thought quite as +passionately as Gabriella, though her mental processes were +different. She thought sadly, but firmly, with a pensive melancholy +not untinged with pleasure, that "life was becoming almost too much +for her." It seemed incredible to her that after all her struggles +to keep up an appearance things should have turned out as they had; +it seemed incredible that after all her sacrifices her children +should not consider her more. "They have no consideration for me," +she reflected, while she took the finest stitch possible to the +needle she held. "If Jane had considered me she would never have +married Charley. If Gabriella had considered me, or anybody but +herself, she would not have gone to work in a store." No, they had +never considered her, they had never asked her advice before +acting, though she had brought them into the world and had worked +like a slave in order to keep them in that respected station of +life in which they had been born. Then, her sorrow getting the +better of her resolution, she turned her head and spoke:</p> +<p>"I know you never tell me anything on purpose, Gabriella, but I +think I have a right to know whether or not you have discarded +Arthur for good."</p> +<p>"I told you all about it, mother. I told you I found I was +mistaken."</p> +<p>"I suppose you never thought for a moment how much it would +distress me? Though Lydia Peyton is so much older than I am, she +was always my best friend—we often stayed in the room +together when we were girls. I had set my heart on your marrying +her son."</p> +<p>"I know that, mother, and I am very sorry, but when it came to +the point I couldn't marry him. You can't make yourself +care—"</p> +<p>"I should have thought that my wishes might influence you. I +should never wish you to do anything that wasn't for your good, +Gabriella."</p> +<p>"Of course, mother, you've given up your life to us. I know +that, and Jane knows it as well as I do. That's why I want to earn +money enough to let you rest. I want you to stop work for good and +be happy."</p> +<p>"There are worse things than work," replied Mrs. Carr in a tone +which implied that Gabriella had brought them upon her.</p> +<p>After a pause, in which her needle flew mournfully, she added: +"I hope for your own sake that you will marry some good man before +you lose your attractions. Poor Becky Bollingbroke proved to me how +unfortunate it is for a woman to remain unmarried."</p> +<p>For an instant Gabriella looked at her mother without replying. +She felt tempted—strongly tempted, she told herself—to +say something cross. Then the sight of the bent gray head, of the +bowed shoulders, of the knotted needle-pricked fingers, pierced her +heart. Though she could not always agree with her mother, she loved +her devotedly, and the thought that she must lose her some day had +been the most terrible nightmare of her childhood.</p> +<p>"Don't worry about me, mother, dear," she answered tenderly. "I +can always take care of myself. I can manage my life, you know +that, don't you?" Then she stopped quickly while her heart gave a +single bound and lay quiet. She had heard the click of the gate, +and a minute later, as Mrs. Carr gathered up her sewing, there was +a ring at the bell.</p> +<p>"It can't be a visitor before supper, can it, Gabriella?"</p> +<p>"I think not, mother, but I shouldn't run away if I were +you."</p> +<p>"I'd better go. I don't feel dressed. Wait a minute, Marthy, and +let me get out of the room before you open the door." She fled, +clutching her work-basket, while Gabriella, turning to lower the +flaming wick of the lamp, heard George's voice at the door and his +footsteps crossing the hall.</p> +<p>"I knew something would happen," she thought wildly, as she went +forward to meet him.</p> +<p>"I saw you pull down the shade as I was going by," he began +rather lamely; and she hardly heard his words because of the divine +tumult in her brain. Her heart sang; her pulses throbbed; every +drop of her blood seemed to become suddenly alive with ecstasy. +Under the tarnished garlands of the chandelier his face looked +younger, gayer, more intensely vivid than it had looked in her +dreams. It was the face of her dreams made real; but with what a +difference! She saw his crisp brown hair brushed smoothly back from +its parting, his blue eyes, with their gay and conquering look, the +firm red brown of his cheek, and even the bluish shadow encircling +his shaven mouth. In his eyes, which said enchanting things, she +could not read the trivial and commonplace quality of his +soul—for he was not only a man, he was romance, he was +adventure, he was the radiant miracle of youth!</p> +<p>"Florrie told me this morning that you had come back," she +answered coldly, as she held out her hand.</p> +<p>Her words seemed to come to her from a distance—from the +next room, from the street outside, from the farthest +star—but while she uttered them, she knew that her words +meant nothing. She shed her joy as if it were fragrance; and her +softness was like the magnolia-scented softness of the June night. +Even her mother would not have known her, so greatly had she +changed in a minute. Of the businesslike figure in the sailor hat +and trim shirtwaist—of the Gabriella who had said, "I can +manage my life"—there remained only an outline. The very feet +of the capable woman had changed into the shrinking and timid feet +of a lovesick girl. She was afraid to go forward, afraid to move, +afraid to breathe lest she break the wonderful spell of the magic. +Not only her basic common sense, but the very soul that shaped her +body had become as light, as sweet, as formless as liquid +honey.</p> +<p>But of course, she knew nothing of this. She was innocent of +deception; she was innocent even of any definite purpose to allure. +The thought in her mind, if there were any thought, which is +doubtful, was that she must be composed, she must be indifferent if +it killed her.</p> +<p>"I know I've come at an awkward hour, but I simply couldn't go +by after I saw you."</p> +<p>"Won't you stay?" she asked, trying in vain to shut out the +ominous sound of Marthy bringing their scant supper. She +remembered, with horror, that she had ordered only two chops, and a +wave of rebellion swept over her because life always spoiled its +divine instants.</p> +<p>"No, I can't stay. I've an engagement for supper. I merely +wanted to see you. You've no idea how I've wanted to see you."</p> +<p>"Have you?" said Gabriella in so low a voice that he hardly +heard her. Then, lifting her glowing eyes, she added softly, "I am +glad that you wanted to."</p> +<p>"There were times when I simply couldn't get you out of my +mind," he responded, and went on almost joyously, with the romantic +look which had first enchanted her imagination. "You see I believed +that you were going to marry Arthur Peyton. Julia told me that your +engagement was broken. That was why I came back. Didn't you guess +it?"</p> +<p>"Yes, I guessed it," she answered simply, and all the softness, +the sweetness, the beauty of her feeling passed into her voice.</p> +<p>Then, in the very midst of her happiness, there occurred one of +those sordid facts which appear to spring, like vultures, upon the +ineffable moments. She heard the bell—the awful supper bell +which her mother insisted upon having rung because her parents had +had it rung for generations before her. As the horrible sound +reverberated through the house, Gabriella felt that the noise +passed through her ears, not into her brain, but into the very +depths of her suffering soul.</p> +<p>"There, I must go," said George, without embarrassment, for +which she blessed him. From his manner, the supper bell might have +made a delightful harmony instead of a hideous discord. "I'll see +you to-morrow, if I may. May I, Gabriella?"</p> +<p>He smiled charmingly as he went, and looking after him, a minute +later, over the clove pinks in the window-box, she saw him turn and +gaze back at her from the opposite pavement.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> +<h3>MIRAGE</h3> +<p>On a bright Sunday in October Mrs. Carr stopped on her way from +church to tell Mrs. Peyton of Gabriella's engagement. A crape veil, +slightly scented with camphor, hung from her bonnet, and in her +gloved hands she carried a bunch of yellow chrysanthemums, for she +intended to go on to Hollywood, where her husband was buried. The +sermon had been unusually inspiring, and there was a pensive +exaltation in her look as she laid her hand on the gate of the +walled garden.</p> +<p>"If it couldn't be Arthur—and of course my heart was set +on her marrying Arthur—I suppose George is the one I should +have chosen," she said to Mrs. Peyton with tender melancholy as she +turned her soft, clammy cheek, which was never warm even in summer, +to be kissed.</p> +<p>There was nothing against George that she could advance even to +Gabriella. He was well born, for his mother had been a Randolph; he +was comfortably rich (at least his father was); he was +good-looking; he was almost arrogantly healthy—yet because +she was obliged to regret something, she found herself clinging +fondly to the memory of Arthur. "If it could only have been +Arthur," she repeated sadly, gazing through the French window of +the drawing-room to the garden where beds of scarlet sage flaunted +brilliantly in the sunshine.</p> +<p>"I hope and pray that dear Gabriella will be happy," replied +Mrs. Peyton, a beautiful old lady, with wonderful white hair under +the widow's ruching in her bonnet. The exquisite simplicity of her +soul was reflected in the rose-leaf delicacy of her skin, in her +benignant and innocent smile, in the serene and joyous glance of +her eyes. Never in her life had she thought evil of any one, and +she did not mean to begin on the verge of the grave, with the hope +of a peaceful eternity before her. If dear Gabriella had +"discarded" dear Arthur, then she could only hope and pray that +dear Gabriella would not live to regret it.</p> +<p>"She will be married at once, I suppose?" she said, and beamed +as happily as if Gabriella had not disappointed the dearest hope of +her heart. "There is no need to wait, is there?"</p> +<p>"They have decided on the 17th of November. I wanted you to know +it first of all, Lydia, so I haven't mentioned it to a soul except +to Cousin Jimmy Wrenn."</p> +<p>"You will live with dear Jane, will you not? Poor child, what a +blessing you will be to her."</p> +<p>"No, I shall be with Jane only for a month or two until +Gabriella and George have taken a house in New York. She wouldn't +consent to be married so soon until I promised to live with them. +But how on earth shall I ever manage to go so far away, Lydia? To +think of being so far from Hollywood almost breaks my heart, and +yet what can I do?"</p> +<p>Mrs. Peyton's loving gaze enfolded not only her visitor, but the +house and the dreamy garden where frost was already blighting the +flowers.</p> +<p>"I understand your feeling, of course, Fanny," she said, "but +you must think of Gabriella. How different it will be for her if +her mother is with her. I shall miss you every minute, but for the +sake of that splendid child of yours, I must not allow myself to be +sorry."</p> +<p>If Mrs. Carr's features could have lost the fixed impression of +a lifetime, they would have appeared almost cheerful while her old +friend held her hand and gazed benignly upon her; but so relaxed +had the muscles of her face become that, even when her spirits +rose, her countenance did not alter, and the flicker of light in +her smile only served to illumine its profound melancholy.</p> +<p>"I try to think of Gabriella," she answered, "but I oughtn't to +forget poor Jane. Whenever I remember her, I begin to reproach +myself."</p> +<p>"Don't reproach yourself, Fanny. There is nothing on earth for +which you can justly be blamed. I am sure you have never considered +your own wishes for a minute in your life. If ever a mother gave up +everything for her children, you have done so, Fanny, and you +needn't deny it. But tell me about Gabriella. How thankful you +ought to be that she has given up that work in a store!"</p> +<p>"If it had been God's will, I suppose I must have borne it, +Lydia, but I felt as if it was killing me."</p> +<p>"The dear child has a strong character," observed Mrs. Peyton, +and it seemed to her, while she thought of Gabriella, that a strong +character was a beautiful and wonderful thing.</p> +<p>"You would hardly know Gabriella, she is so changed," replied +Mrs. Carr. "I declare I sometimes think that I never saw a girl so +wildly in love as she is. She positively worships George, and when +I look at her, I remember Becky Bollingbroke's saying that a smart +woman in love is worse than a silly one. She has that much more to +get foolish with, poor Becky used to say.</p> +<p>"How happy it must make you," murmured the other. "There is +nothing in life I'd rather see than my Arthur happily married."</p> +<p>"I always thought that he and Gabriella were made for each +other, but one never can tell—"</p> +<p>"That must be Gabriella now," said Mrs. Peyton as the bell rang. +"Is she coming for you?"</p> +<p>"Yes, Cousin Jimmy was to bring her, and then drive me out to +Hollywood. Isn't that Arthur's voice talking to her?"</p> +<p>"Poor boy," whispered Mrs. Peyton, and then she rustled forward +and enveloped Gabriella in a warm embrace. "My darling girl, your +mother has just told me," she said.</p> +<p>"And Gabriella has just told me," added Arthur at her elbow. +Though there was a hurt look in his eyes, his manner was perfect. +Years afterwards, whenever Gabriella thought of him, she remembered +how perfect his manner was on that morning.</p> +<p>"I wanted you to know first of all," said Gabriella.</p> +<p>As the old lady looked at her with loving eyes, it seemed to her +that the girl was softly glowing with happiness. She accepted joy +as she accepted sorrow, with quietness, but there was a look in her +face which made her appear, for the moment, transfigured. A +radiance like that of a veiled flame shone in her eyes; the cool +tones of her voice had grown richer and gentler; and at last, as +Mrs. Peyton said to herself, Gabriella, the sensible and practical +Gabriella, was sweet with the honeysuckle sweetness of Jane.</p> +<p>"She must be over head and ears in love," she thought; and the +next minute, "I wonder how it will end?"</p> +<p>The question brought a pang to her kind old heart, which longed +to make everybody, and particularly her boy Arthur, happy. Then, +because her eyes were filling, she stroked the girl's arm gently, +and said:</p> +<p>"That's a pretty dress, my dear. I never saw you look +better."</p> +<p>"She's really getting pretty," remarked Mrs. Carr. "Cousin Jimmy +was saying only yesterday that if Gabriella keeps it up, she'll be +a better looking old lady than Jane."</p> +<p>"Well, I think her a very pretty young one," replied Mrs. +Peyton. "She hasn't such small features as Jane has, but there is +more in her face. Now, I'm willing to wager that George thinks her +a beauty."</p> +<p>Gabriella laughed happily. "He hasn't the faintest idea what I +look like, but he declares he won't be a bit disappointed if he +finds out some day that I am ugly."</p> +<p>The glow of youth, of hope, of love, gave to her expressive face +an almost unearthly brightness. She seemed to draw to her all that +was vital and alive in the dim old house, so filled with memories, +and in the October pageantry of the garden. It was the day of her +miracle, and against the splendour of the scarlet sage, she shone +with an unforgettable radiance.</p> +<p>When, a little later, Mrs. Carr, in Cousin Jimmy's buggy, with +her bunch of chrysanthemums held rigidly in her lap, drove off at +an amble to Hollywood, and Gabriella, turning to wave her hand, had +vanished behind the corner of the gray wall, Mrs. Peyton said +gently:</p> +<p>"She looked very happy, dear boy. You and I must pray for her +happiness."</p> +<p>The beauty which all her life she had created through faith +awoke in Arthur's suffering heart while she spoke to him. She +demanded nobility of being, and it existed; she exacted generosity +of nature, and it was there. By her mere presence, by the +overflowing love in her heart, she not only banished jealousy and +envy, but made the very idea of them unthinkable.</p> +<p>"She is obliged to be happy. It is her nature," answered Arthur, +for his disposition was hardly less perfect than his manner.</p> +<p>Crossing Broad Street, which wore its look of Sabbath +sleepiness, Gabriella hurried on to Hill Street, and saw George +waiting for her between the two green-painted urns filled with the +summer's fading bloom of portulaca.</p> +<p>He was staring straight upward at one of the poplar trees, where +a gray squirrel was playing among the branches, and for several +minutes before he was aware of her presence, she watched him with +her impassioned, yet not wholly uncritical, gaze. The sunlight +sparkled in his eyes, which shone brightly blue against the red +brown of his flesh; and between his smiling lips, which were thick +and somewhat loosely moulded, she saw the gleaming whiteness of his +teeth. She could not explain—she had never even tried to +understand—why this face, which was not in the least a +remarkable one, should so profoundly appeal to her. When George was +absent, his look haunted her with the intensity of an +hallucination; when at last she saw it again, she felt that nothing +else in the world mattered to her, so supreme was the contentment +that swept over her. Though she was more intelligent than Jane, not +even Jane herself had surrendered so unconditionally to the primal +force. At least Jane had made exactions, but so complete was the +subjugation of Gabriella that she exacted nothing, not even a +return of her love. To give was all she asked, and in the giving +she bloomed into a beauty and fullness of nature which Jane's +small, closed soul could never attain.</p> +<p>"George!" she called, and went swiftly toward him.</p> +<p>He turned, threw away the cigar in his hand, and held open the +gate while she entered.</p> +<p>"There's a jolly little beggar up in the poplar," he said; "I've +been watching him for ten minutes."</p> +<p>Then, as she passed before him into the parlour, he shut the +door, and catching her in his arms, kissed the back of her +neck.</p> +<p>"Oh, George!" she murmured, and her voice was like music. Even +to his short-sighted vision there was pathos at the heart of her +happiness—the pathos of ignorance, Of innocence, of the +reckless generosity of soul that spends its best for the pure joy +of spending. With the instinctive miserliness of the man who +realizes that passion to last must be hoarded, not scattered, he +had drawn back almost unconsciously from the simple abandonment of +her love. He wanted her because the deep discomfort of his nature +could not be satisfied without her; but in possessing her he did +not mean to give up anything else. Never for an instant had he +deluded himself with the mystic ecstasies of Gabriella. The passion +which had changed her whole being as if by a miracle, had altered +neither his fundamental egoism nor his superficial philosophy. He +loved her, he knew, as much as it was possible for him to love any +woman; but he was still able to take a profound and healthy +interest in his physical comfort. In one thing, however, they were +passionately agreed, and that was that the aim and end of their +marriage was to make George perfectly happy.</p> +<p>"You are sweet enough to eat this morning," he said as he kissed +her.</p> +<p>"I told Mrs. Peyton that you didn't know whether I was pretty or +ugly," she answered merrily.</p> +<p>"It isn't beauty that takes a man, though women think so," he +rejoined lightly, and yet as if he were imparting one of the basic +facts of experience. "I don't know what it is—but it's +something else, and you've got it, Gabriella."</p> +<p>She looked at him with luminous eyes.</p> +<p>"I've got you," she answered in a whisper; "that's +all—nothing else on earth matters. I want nothing but +love."</p> +<p>"But you let me go away for six months. I could never understand +that."</p> +<p>"I had to, George. I couldn't be mean even for you, could +I?"</p> +<p>"Well, I don't know." His gaze dwelt on her moodily. "Sometimes +I wonder if you haven't too much conscience in your body?"</p> +<p>Careless as were his words, they brought stinging tears to her +eyes. Her throat ached with the longing to pour out her love; but +it seemed to her suddenly that a wall of personality had risen +between them, and that she could only beat blindly against the +impenetrable mass that divided them. She knew now that he could +never understand, and yet the knowledge of this intensified rather +than diminished her love. The mere physical attraction, which she +had glorified into passion, was invested with the beauty and the +mystery of an unattainable ideal.</p> +<p>"I believe you are going to cry, darling. Don't be so serious," +he said, laughing.</p> +<p>"But you know—tell me you know that I love you."</p> +<p>"Of course I know it. Am I blind or a fool?"</p> +<p>Then before the glowing worship in her face, he caught her in +his arms, while he said over and over, "I love you! I love +you!"</p> +<p>He held her close, thrilling at her touch, seeking her warm lips +with an eagerness which comforted her because she was too +inexperienced to understand how ephemeral was its nature and its +sweetness.</p> +<p>"Promise to love me always, George, as you do now," she said, +passionately trying to make the fugitive joy immortal.</p> +<p>"If you'll tell me how to help it, I shall be grateful," he +retorted as gaily as if her eyes had not filled with tears.</p> +<p>"Swear it!"</p> +<p>"I swear it. Now, are you satisfied?"</p> +<p>"I don't believe it. I'll never believe that you love me as much +as I love you. Nobody could."</p> +<p>In his heart he agreed with her. That Gabriella loved him more +than he loved her was a fact to which he was easily reconciled. He +loved her quite as much as he could love anybody except himself and +be comfortable, and if she demanded more, she merely proved herself +to be an unreasonable person. Women did love more than men, he +supposed, but what else were they here for? During the six months +when he had thought that she belonged to another, she had, he told +himself, almost driven him out of his mind; but possession once +assured, he had speedily recovered his health and his sanity. Her +worship flattered him, and in this flattery she had, perhaps, her +strongest hold on his heart. Nothing in his engagement had pleased +him more than the readiness with which she had given up her work at +his request. He abhorred independence in a wife; and Gabriella's +immediate and unresisting acquiescence in his desire appeared to +him to establish the fact of her essential and inherent femininity. +Had not all laws, as well as all religions, proclaimed that woman +should be content to lay down not only her life but her very +identity for love; and that Gabriella was womanly to the core of +her nature, in spite of her work in Brandywine's millinery +department, it was impossible to doubt while he kissed her. There +were times, indeed, when the exaltation of Gabriella's womanliness +seemed to have left her without a will of her own; when, in a +divine submission to love, she appeared to exist only for the +laudable purpose of making her lover happy.</p> +<p>"I'd do anything on earth for you, Gabriella," said George +suddenly. "I wonder if you would make a sacrifice for me if I asked +it?" From his face as he looked down on her it was evident that he +was not speaking from impulse, but that he had seized an opportune +moment.</p> +<p>"You know I would, George. I'd give up the whole world for you. +I'd beg my bread with you by the roadside."</p> +<p>"Well, it isn't so bad as that, darling—it's only about +your mother coming to us so soon. I've had a letter from home, and +it seems that father has had losses and can't help me out as he +intended to do. He's always either losing or making piles of money, +so don't bother your precious head about that. In six months he'll +probably be making piles again, but, in the meantime, mother +suggests that we should postpone taking a house, and come and live +with her for a few months."</p> +<p>"I'd rather live on your income, George, no matter how small it +is. I'm an awfully good manager, and you'd be surprised to see how +far I can make a little money go. Why can't we take an apartment +somewhere in an inexpensive neighbourhood—one just big enough +for mother and you and me?"</p> +<p>"We couldn't live half so well in the first place, and, besides, +I'd hate like the devil to see you working yourself to death and +losing your looks. That's just exactly what Patty is doing. She was +the family's greatest investment, you know. Everything we had for +years was spent on her because she was such a ripping beauty, and +mother set her heart on her marrying nothing less than a duke. So +we sent her abroad to be educated and squandered a fortune on her +clothes, and then, just as mother was gloating over her triumphs, +the very day after the Duke of Toxbridge proposed to her, Patty +walked out one morning and married Billy King at the Little Church +Around the Corner. Billy, of course, hasn't a cent to his name +except what he makes painting blue pictures, and that's precious +little. They're up on the West Side now, living in four rooms with +neighbours who fry onions at nine o'clock in the morning next door +to them, and half the time Patty hasn't even a maid, I believe, and +has to do her work with the help of a charwoman."</p> +<p>"And is she happy?" There was eagerness in Gabriella's voice, +for she was sure that she should love Patty.</p> +<p>"Oh, yes, Patty is happy, but mother isn't. It's rough on +mother."</p> +<p>"I think she ought to have told your mother before she +married."</p> +<p>"Well, Patty thought she could stand the fuss better after she'd +done it than she could before. She said she needed the support of +knowing they couldn't stop it. Cheeky, wasn't it?"</p> +<p>"And is she really so beautiful?"</p> +<p>"Ripping," said George; "simply ripping."</p> +<p>"I know I shall love her. Is she dark or fair?"</p> +<p>"I never thought about it, but she's a towering +beauty—something between dark and fair, I suppose. She has +golden hair, you know."</p> +<p>His arm was around her, and lifting her earnest face to his, +Gabriella began in her softest voice: "I shouldn't mind a bit +living like that, George—honestly I shouldn't."</p> +<p>"Yes, you would. It would be rotten."</p> +<p>"I wish you would tell me just how much we shall have to live +on, dear. Even if it is very, very little, it would be so much +better not to expect anything from your father. If the worst comes +to the worst, I can always go back to work, you know, and I feel as +if I ought to help because you are so generous about wanting mother +to live with us."</p> +<p>He frowned slightly, while a dark flush rose to his forehead. +Already Gabriella was learning how dangerously easy it was to +irritate George. Serious discussions always appeared to disturb +him, and at the first allusion to the responsibilities he had +assumed, she could see the look of bored restlessness creep into +his face. It was evidently abhorrent to him to hear her talk about +business; but with her practical nature and her fundamental common +sense it was impossible that she should be content to remain in a +fool's paradise of financial mysteries. She had only the vaguest +idea how he earned a living, and a still vaguer one of what that +living represented. There was an impression in her mind that he +worked in his father's office somewhere in Wall Street—he had +once given her the number—and that he went "downtown" every +morning after breakfast and did not get home to luncheon. Cousin +Jimmy had once told her that George's father was a stockbroker, but +this information conveyed little to her mind. The men she knew in +Richmond were lawyers, doctors, clergymen, or engaged, like Cousin +Jimmy, in the "tobacco business," and she supposed that "a +stockbroker" must necessarily belong to a profession which was +restricted to New York. The whole matter was hazy in her thoughts, +but she hoped in time, by intelligent and tactful application, to +overcome her ignorance as well as George's deeply rooted objection +to her enlightenment.</p> +<p>"Well, you see, my income is uncertain, Gabriella. It depends a +good deal upon the stock market and the sort of stuff we've been +buying. Look here, darling, don't, for heaven sake, get the +business bee in your bonnet. A mannish woman is worse than poison, +and the less you know about stocks the more attractive you will be. +Mother has lived for thirty years with father, and she doesn't know +any more how he makes his money than you do at this minute."</p> +<p>This was as lucid, she suspected, as George was ever likely to +be on the subject, and, since he was becoming visibly annoyed, she +abandoned her fruitless search for information. After she was +married there would be time and opportunity to find out all that +she wanted to know; and even if he never told her anything +more—well, she was quite accustomed to the masculine habit of +never telling women anything more. Her mother and Jane were as +ignorant of finance as they had been in their cradles; Cousin Pussy +spoke of the "tobacco business" as if it were a sacred mystery +superior to the delicate feminine faculties; and while Gabriella +was engaged to Arthur, he had fallen into the habit of gently +reminding her that she "knew nothing of law."</p> +<p>"Very well, dearest, I shan't bother you," she said cheerfully, +"only, of course, I couldn't possibly leave mother with Jane and +Charley. She doesn't realize it, but she would be perfectly +miserable."</p> +<p>"She told me that leaving Richmond was like death to her."</p> +<p>"That's only because she knows she's going," answered Gabriella, +but her endeavour to explain her mother's habit of mind appeared to +her to be so hopeless that she added unconvincingly: "You can't +imagine how dependent she is on me. Jane doesn't know how to manage +her at all, though they are so much alike."</p> +<p>"Well, of course, if we live at home—"</p> +<p>"But you promised me we'd be to ourselves, George; you can't +have forgotten it. We talked it over, every bit of it, and I told +you in the beginning I couldn't leave mother."</p> +<p>"If you loved me enough to marry me, I should think you'd be +willing to give up your family for me." He spoke doggedly; it was +his way to speak doggedly when he was driving a point.</p> +<p>"It isn't that, dear, you know it isn't that."</p> +<p>Taking a letter from his pocket, he drew a sheet of blue note +paper, closely interlined, from the envelope, and handed it to +her.</p> +<p>"You can see for yourself how it is," he said in an aggrieved +voice. By his tone he had managed to put her in the wrong as +utterly as if she, not he, were trying to break her word. Yet she +had told him in the very beginning that she could not leave her +mother; she had refused to engage herself to him until he had +offered Mrs. Carr a home with them. It had all been carefully +arranged at the start, and now, within a month of their marriage, +he had apparently forgotten that the matter was settled.</p> +<p>Leaning forward until the light fell on the paper, she read with +trembling lips:</p> +<div class="blockquot">My Dear Son:<br /> +<br /> +Your letter was a blow to me because you had said nothing of +Gabriella's plan to bring her mother to New York to live with her, +and, of course, this makes it out of the question that you should +come straight to us. Now that Patty has gone—poor child, I am +afraid she will live to repent her rashness—your father and I +had quite looked forward to having you young people in the house; +but we haven't room, even if I could bring myself to face the +prospect of a rival mother-in-law under the same roof with +me—and frankly I can't. And your father has simply put his +foot down on the idea. As you know he hasn't been very well of +late—the doctor says he is threatened with diabetes—so +my one thought is to spare him every useless anxiety. He sleeps +very badly and doesn't seem able, even at night, to detach his mind +from his business worries. If he hadn't had such a bad summer, he +might have been able to help you start housekeeping, but there have +been a great many failures in the last few months, and he says he +is obliged to cut down all his expenses in order to tide over the +depression in the market. We are trying to retrench in every +possible way, and, for this reason, I fear we shall hardly be able +to go down to your wedding. This is a terrible disappointment to us +both, and your father is particularly distressed because he will +not be able to add to your income this year. Of course, if you +should change your mind and decide to come to us, we can get +Patty's old room ready for you at once, and turn yours into a +sitting-room. Think this over and let me know as soon as you +possibly can.<br /> +<br /> +I see Patty occasionally. She is in high spirits, but looking a +little thinner, I think. Billy has painted a portrait of Mrs. +Pletheridge, but it isn't a bit flattering, and he wouldn't let her +wear her pearls, so I'm afraid she won't buy it. I don't believe he +will ever make anything of himself. What a waste when Patty might +have been Duchess of Toxbridge. Though I am not a bit worldly, I +can't help regretting all that she has lost.<br /> +<br /> +Your loving mother,<br /> +<br /> +EVELYN FOWLER.</div> +<p>When she had folded the letter and given it back to him, +Gabriella dropped her hands in her lap and sat gazing thoughtfully +at the square of sunlight by the window.</p> +<p>"If you cared as much as I do, you'd be willing to give up your +family," he said suddenly, encouraged not only by her manner, which +appeared yielding, but by his secret ineradicable conviction that +her love was greater than his. Across the romantic screen of his +features there flashed a swift change of expression, like the +flicker of light on a coloured mask. If she could only have looked +through the charming vacancy of his face, she would have been +surprised to discover the directness and simplicity of his mental +processes. He wanted his way, and he meant, provided it was humanly +possible, to have whatever he wanted.</p> +<p>"It isn't that, George. Love has nothing to do with it. It is a +question of right."</p> +<p>For a minute he surveyed her moodily; then, rising from her side +on the sofa, he took two steps to the window and looked up at the +boughs of the poplar tree. The gray squirrel was still there, and +he watched it attentively while he pondered his answer. Yes, the +whole trouble with Gabriella was too much conscience. This +conscience of hers had got in his way before now, and he had +suddenly an uneasy feeling, as if he had struck against the vein of +iron which lay beneath the rich bloom of her passion. The thought +of her opposition, of her secret hardness, bitterly angered him. He +wanted her—no other woman could satisfy him—but he +wanted her utterly different from what she was. He was seized with +an indomitable desire to make her over, to change her entirely from +that Gabriella with whom he had fallen in love. Of course, she was +right as far as the mere facts of the case were concerned. He had +promised that her mother should live with them; but he felt +indignantly that it was an act of disloyalty for her to be right at +his expense. She ought to have given in, and she ought to have +given in gracefully, there was no question of that. When a woman +loved a man as much as she loved him, it was unreasonable of her to +let these innumerable little points of fact come between them; it +was ungenerous of her to cling so stubbornly to her advantage. Her +very quietness—that look of gentle obstinacy which refused +either to fight back or to surrender—irritated him almost to +desperation. His temper, always inflammable, suddenly burst out, +and he felt that he wanted to shake her. He wanted, indeed, to do +anything in the world except the sensible thing of walking out of +the house and leaving her to reflection.</p> +<p>"I should think your first duty would be to your husband," he +said, while the streak of cruelty which was at the heart of his +love showed like a livid mark on the surface of his nature. His +mind was conscious of but a single thought while he stood there in +the wind which fluttered the curtains and filled the room with the +roving scents of October, and this was the bitter longing to make +Gabriella over into the girl that he wanted her to become. Though +it cost him her love, he felt that he must punish her for being +herself.</p> +<p>"Do you mean always to put your mother before me?" he asked +passionately, after a minute.</p> +<p>Still she did not answer, and in the deep, earnest eyes that she +turned on him he saw not anger, not sorrow even, but wonder. As he +stretched out his hand, it fell on Mrs. Carr's window box, where a +rose geranium remained bright green in the midst of the withered +stems of the clove pinks, and the scent of the leaves, as he +crushed them between his fingers, evoked a swift memory of +Gabriella in one of her soft moods, saying over and over, "I love +you! Oh, I do love you!" At the image his temper changed as if by +magic, and crossing the room, he bent down and kissed her with a +fierceness that bruised her lips.</p> +<p>"I adore you, Gabriella," he said.</p> +<p>Though she had seen these sudden changes in him before, she had +never grown wholly used to them. Her deeper nature, with its +tranquil brightness, untroubled by passing storms, was unprepared +for the shallow violence which swept over him, leaving no visible +trace of its passage. No, she could not understand him—she +could only hope that after they were married the blindness would +pass from her love, and she would attain that completer knowledge +for which she was striving so patiently. The transforming miracle +of marriage, she trusted, would reveal this mystery, with so many +others.</p> +<p>"How can you hurt me so, George?" she asked with reproachful +tenderness.</p> +<p>"It's because you are so stubborn, darling. If you weren't so +stubborn I shouldn't do it. Do you know you get almost mulish at +times," he added, laughing, while she moved nearer and rubbed her +cheek softly against his sleeve.</p> +<p>"You frighten me," she whispered. "I was just beginning to +believe that you really meant it."</p> +<p>"Oh, lovers always quarrel. There's nothing in that."</p> +<p>"But I hate to see you angry. It would almost kill me if it +lasted longer than a minute. Never let it last, will you, +George?"</p> +<p>"Of course not, Goosey. It never has lasted, has it?"</p> +<p>"Goosey" was one of his favourite names for her. He liked it +because it gave him a merry feeling of superiority when he said it, +and Gabriella liked it for perhaps the same reason. In the first +ardour of her self-surrender she caught eagerly at any straw that +she might cast on the flame of her passion.</p> +<p>"And I'm not really stubborn, dear. Tell me that I'm not really +stubborn."</p> +<p>"You darling! I was only teasing you."</p> +<p>"I'll do anything on earth for you that I can, George."</p> +<p>"I know you will, dearest, and you don't honestly care more for +your family, do you?"</p> +<p>"I love you better than all the rest of the world put together. +There are times when I think it must be wrong to love any man as +much as I love you. My grandmother used to say that when you loved +like that you 'tempted Providence.' Isn't it dreadful to believe +that you could tempt Providence by loving?"</p> +<p>He kissed her throat where a loosened strand of dark hair had +fallen against the whiteness.</p> +<p>"Will you do what I ask, Gabriella?"</p> +<p>So it was all to begin over again! He had not really given in, +he had not really yielded even while he was kissing her. She closed +her eyes, leaning her head on his shoulder. For a moment she felt +as if a physical pain were pressing into her forehead.</p> +<p>"Will you do it, Gabriella?" It was as if he put his soul into +his voice, wooing her tenderly away from her better judgment. He +was testing his power to dominate her; and never had she felt it so +vividly, never had her will been so incapable of resisting him as +at that instant. Moving slightly in his arms she looked at the +clear red brown of his throat, at his sensitive mouth, with the +faint dent in the lower lip, at his bright blue eyes, which had +grown soft while he pleaded. His physical power over her was +complete, and he knew it. Her flesh had become as soft as flowers +in his arms, while her eyes, like dark flames, trembled and fell +away from his look.</p> +<p>"It isn't only the thing itself, darling, but I don't like you +to refuse me. It hurts me that you won't do what I ask of you."</p> +<p>"If it were anything else, George."</p> +<p>"But it isn't anything else. It is just that I want you to +myself—all to myself, after we are married."</p> +<p>"Don't ask me, dearest. If you only knew how it makes me +suffer."</p> +<p>Her voice was a caress when she answered, but, as he told +himself passionately, she had not yielded an inch. Once again he +had run against the iron hidden under the bloom.</p> +<p>"Then you refuse absolutely?" he asked, and though his voice +quivered still, it was no longer from tenderness. He hated +stubbornness, and, most of all, he hated it in the woman who was +going to be his wife. A life of continual contradiction, he felt, +would be intolerable. A strong will, which he had always admired in +himself, became a positive failing in Gabriella. A woman's strength +lay, after all, not in force of character, but in sweetness of +nature. And yet how lovely she was! How soft, how sweet she looked +as she gazed up at him with her radiant eyes. There was a +fascination for him in her tall slenderness, in the graceful curve +of her head, which drooped slightly like a dark flower on its stem. +Everything about her charmed him, and yet he had never called her +beautiful in his thoughts.</p> +<p>"I told you how it was, dear, when you first asked me to marry +you," she said, with infinite patience. "I told you that it wasn't +fair to ask you to take mother, but that I couldn't possibly leave +her alone in her old age. Jane's home is wretchedly +unhappy—she can never tell when Charley is to be counted +on—and it would kill mother to be dependent on Charley even +if he were willing. I see your side, George, indeed, indeed, I do, +but I can't—I simply can't act differently. I have always +known it was my duty to look after mother—nothing can change +that, not even love. She worked for us while we were little, and it +is trouble that has made her what she is to-day. You must see that +I am right, George; you can't possibly help it."</p> +<p>But he couldn't see it. If the truth had been twice as evident, +if Gabriella had been twice as reasonable, he could still have seen +only his wishes.</p> +<p>"I am only asking you to do what is best for us both, +Gabriella."</p> +<p>"But how can it be best for me to become an ungrateful child, +George?"</p> +<p>Neither of them wanted to quarrel, yet in a minute the barbed +words were flying between them; in a minute they faced each other +as coldly as if they had been strangers instead of adoring lovers. +At the last, he looked at her an instant in silence while she sat +perfectly motionless with her deep eyes changing to gold in the +sunlight; then, turning on his heel, without a word, he left the +house, and walked rapidly over the coloured leaves on the pavement. +As he passed under the poplar tree the gray squirrel darted gaily +along a bough over his head, but he did not look up, and a minute +later Gabriella saw him cross the street and vanish beyond the +pointed yew tree in the yard at the corner.</p> +<p>"I wonder if this is the end?" she thought bitterly, and she +knew that even if it were the end, that even if she died of it, she +could never give way. Something stronger than herself—that +vein of iron in her soul—would not bend, would not break +though every fibre of her being struggled against it. All the +happiness of her life vanished with George as he passed beyond the +yew tree at the corner, yet she sat there with her hands still +folded, her lips still firm, watching the tree long after its +pointed dusk had hidden her lover's figure. Had she followed her +desire as lightly as George followed his, she would have run after +him as he disappeared, and bringing him back to the room he had +left, dissolved in tears on his breast. She longed to do this, but +the vein of iron held her firm in spite of herself. She could not +move toward him, she could not even have put out her hand had he +entered.</p> +<p>The bell rang, and her blood drummed in her ears; but it was +only Cousin Jimmy bringing Mrs. Carr back from the cemetery. +Hearty, deep-chested, meticulously brushed and groomed, he wore his +Sunday frock with an unnatural stiffness, as if he were still +hearing Pussy's parting warning to be "careful about his clothes." +His dark hair, trained for twenty years from a side parting, shone +with the lustre of satin, and his shining eyes, so like the eyes of +adventurous youth, wore their accustomed Sabbath look of veiled and +ashamed sleepiness.</p> +<p>"So you're going to take the old lady to New York with you, +Gabriella?"</p> +<p>"I can't bear to think of it, Cousin Jimmy," remarked Mrs. Carr, +while she adjusted her crape veil over the back of her chair. "I +don't see how I can stand living in the North."</p> +<p>"Well, what about our friend Charley? Do you think you could get +on any better with Charley for a son-in-law?"</p> +<p>"You oughtn't to joke about it, Cousin Jimmy. It is too serious +for joking."</p> +<p>"I beg your pardon, Cousin Fanny—but where is George, +Gabriella? I thought he was to meet you here."</p> +<p>"He had to go just before you came. Don't you think mother is +looking well?"</p> +<p>"As well as I ever saw her. I was telling her so as we drove +back from Hollywood. All she needs is to leave off moping for a +while and she'd lose ten years of her age. Why, I tell you if it +were I, I'd jump at the chance to go to New York for a few years. +If there wasn't a single thing there except the theatres, I'd jump +at it. You can go to a different show every night of your life, +Cousin Fanny."</p> +<p>"I have never been inside of a theatre in my life. You ought to +know me better than to think it," replied Mrs. Carr, while the +corners of her mouth drooped. She had laid her bag of grosgrain +silk on the table at her elbow, and untying the strings of her +bonnet, she neatly rolled them into two tight little wads which she +fastened with jet-headed pins.</p> +<p>"You make her go, honey, when you get hold of her," said Jimmy +to Gabriella in a sympathetic aside "What she needs is bracing +up—I was saying so to Pussy only this morning. 'If you could +just brace up Cousin Fanny, she'd be as well as you or I,' was what +I said to her Now I don't believe there's a better place on earth +to brace a body up than old New York. I remember I took my poor old +father there just a month or two before his last illness, when he +was getting over a spell of lumbago, and it worked on him like +magic. We stayed at the Fifth Avenue Hotel—you must be sure +to get a dinner at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, Cousin Fanny—and +went to a show every blessed night for a week. It made the old man +young again, upon my word it did, and he was still talking about it +when he came down with his last illness. Well, I must be going home +to Pussy now. The boys and I went out squirrel hunting yesterday, +and Pussy promised me Brunswick stew for dinner. Now, don't you +forget to brace up, Cousin Fanny. That's all on earth you need. The +world ain't such a bad place, after all, when you sit down and +think right hard about it."</p> +<p>He went out gaily, followed by Mrs. Carr's accusing eyes to the +hatrack, where he stopped to take his glossy silk hat from a peg. +Turning in the buggy as he drove off, he waved merrily back at them +with the whip before he touched the fat flanks of his gray.</p> +<p>"Cousin Jimmy means well, but he has a most unfortunate manner +at times," observed Mrs. Carr.</p> +<p>"What is the matter, Gabriella? Have you a headache?"</p> +<p>"Oh, no, but the sunshine is so strong."</p> +<p>"Then you'd better lower the shade. Why, what in the world has +happened to my rose geranium? I was just going to pot it for the +winter."</p> +<p>"I'm sure it isn't hurt, mother. George broke the leaves when he +was looking out of the window."</p> +<p>"I thought he was going to stay for dinner. Did you make the +jelly and syllabub?"</p> +<p>"I made it, but he wouldn't stay."</p> +<p>"Well, we'll send some upstairs to Miss Jemima. Do you know she +had to have the doctor this morning? I met him as I was going out, +and he said he was sorry to hear I was going to leave Richmond. I +can't imagine where on earth he could have heard it, for I haven't +mentioned it to a soul except Lydia Peyton. Yes, I believe I did +speak of it to Bessie Spencer at the meeting of the Ladies' Aid +Society the other day. Where are you going, Gabriella? Would you +mind putting my bonnet in the bandbox?"</p> +<p>No, Gabriella wouldn't mind, and taking the folds of crape in +her arms, she went to get the green paper bandbox out of the +closet. Though she had sacrificed her happiness for her mother, she +felt that it would be impossible for her to listen with a smiling +face to her innocent prattle.</p> +<p>In the afternoon, when Mrs. Carr, with a small and inconspicuous +basket in her hand, had set out on her Sunday visit to the Old +Ladies' Home, and Marthy, attired in an apron with an embroidered +bib, had taken the jelly and syllabub upstairs to Miss Jemima, +Gabriella sat down in her mother's rocking-chair by the window, and +tried desperately to be philosophical. The sound of the old maids +from the floor above descending on their way to a funeral disturbed +her for a minute, and she thought with an extraordinary clearness, +"That is what my life will be if George never comes back. That is +what it means to be old." And there was a morbid pleasure in +pressing this thought, like a pointed weapon, into her heart. "That +is all there will be for me—that will be my life," she went +on after an instant of throbbing anguish. "I had no right to think +of marriage with mother dependent on me, and the best thing for me +to do is to start again with Mr. Brandywine. George was right in a +way. Yes, it is hard on him, and I was wrong ever to think of +it—ever to let him fall in love with me." The mere thought +that George was right in a way gave her singular comfort, and while +she dwelt on it, the discovery seemed to throw a vivid light on the +cause of the quarrel. Of course, she had expected too much of him. +It was natural that he should not want to be burdened with her +family. What she had looked upon as selfishness was only the +natural instinct of a man in love with a woman. He had said that he +wanted her to himself, and to want her to himself appeared now to +be the most reasonable desire in the world.</p> +<p>Yes, she had acquitted George; but, in acquitting him, it was +characteristic of her that she should not have yielded an inch of +her ground. She drew comfort from declaring him innocent, but it +was the tragic comfort of one who blesses while she renounces. +George's blamelessness did not alter in the least her determination +to cling to her mother.</p> +<p>The afternoon wore on; the soft golden light on the pavement was +dappled with shadows; and the wind, blowing over the iron urns in +the yard, scattered the withered leaves of portulaca over the +grass. Though the summer still lingered, and flowers were blooming +behind the fences along the street, the faint violet haze of autumn +was creeping slowly over the sunshine. Now and then an +acquaintance, returning from afternoon service, looked up to bow to +her, and while the daylight was still strong, Marthy, resplendent +in Sunday raiment, came out of the little green gate at the side of +the yard and passed, mincing, in the direction of the negro church. +Then the door opened slowly, and the two old maids came in and +stopped for a minute at the parlour door to see if Gabriella "had +company."</p> +<p>"Such a lovely evening, my dear"—they never used the word +afternoon—"we went all the way to the cemetery. She was +buried in her grandfather's lot, you know, in the old part up on +the hill. It was a beautiful drive, but Amelia and I couldn't help +thinking of the poor young thing all the time."</p> +<p>It was Miss Jemima who had spoken, and her kind, plain face, all +puffs and pleasant wrinkles, had not yet relaxed from the unnatural +solemnity it had worn at the funeral. She was seldom grave, and +never despondent, though to Gabriella she appeared to lead an +unendurable life. Unlike Miss Amelia, she had not even a happy +youth and a lover to look back upon; she had nothing, indeed, +except her unfailing goodness and patience to support her.</p> +<p>"I don't like to see you alone, honey," she said, untying the +strings of her black silk bonnet, which fitted her cheerful +features like a frame. "If the doctor hadn't told me to go to bed +as soon as I came in, we'd sit a while with you for company."</p> +<p>She felt that it was morbid and unnatural in Gabriella to sit +alone in a dim room when there were so many young people out in the +streets. "You mark my words, there's some reason back of +Gabriella's moping all by herself," she remarked to Miss Amelia as +she took off her "things" a few minutes later. "It wouldn't +surprise me a bit to hear that she'd had a fuss with her +sweetheart."</p> +<p>"I declare, sister Jemima, you are too sentimental to live," +observed Miss Amelia as she filled the tea kettle on the fender +"Anybody would think to hear you talk that there was nothing in +life except making love."</p> +<p>"Well, there isn't anything else so interesting when you're +young. You used to think so yourself, sister Amelia."</p> +<p>Standing gaunt and black, with the tea kettle held out stiffly +before her, Miss Amelia turned her tragic face on her sister.</p> +<p>"Well, I reckon you don't know much about it," she responded +with the unconscious cruelty of age. Having been once the victim of +a great passion, she had developed at last into an uncompromising +realist, wholly devoid of sentimentality, while Miss Jemima, +lacking experience, had enveloped the unknown in a rosy veil of +illusion.</p> +<p>"You don't have to know a thing to think about it, sister +Amelia," replied the invalid timidly as she put on her flannel +wrapper and fastened it with a safety pin at the throat.</p> +<p>"Well, I reckon it's all right for a girl like Gabriella," said +Miss Amelia crushingly, "but when you look back on it from my age, +you'll know it isn't worth a row of pins in a life."</p> +<p>And beside the window downstairs Gabriella was thinking +passionately: "Shall I ever grow old? Is it possible that I shall +ever grow old like that?"</p> +<p>With the bare question, terror seized her—the terror of +growing old without George, the terror of dying before she had +known the full beauty of life. Looking ahead of her at the years +empty of love, she saw them like a gray road, leaf strewn, wind +swept, deserted, and herself creeping through them, as bent, as +wrinkled, as disillusioned, as Miss Amelia. The very image of a +life without love was intolerable to her since she had known +George—for love meant George, and only George, in her +thoughts. That she could ever be happy again, ever take a natural +pleasure in life if she lost him, was unimaginable to her at the +instant. She loved him, she had loved him from the first moment she +saw him, she would never, though she lived a million years, love +any one else. It was as absurd to think that she could love again +as that a flower could bloom afresh when its petals were withered. +No, without George there was only loveless old age—there was +only the future of Miss Amelia before her. And she clung to this +idea with a horror which Miss Amelia, who seldom reflected that she +was loveless and by no means considered herself an object of pity, +would have despised.</p> +<p>"I have no right to marry George, and yet if I don't marry him I +shall be miserable all my life," she told herself with a sensation +of panic. It would be so long, the rest of her life, and without +George it was as desolate as the gray road of her vision. All the +beauties of the universe, all the miracles of hope, of youth, of +spring; her health, her intellect, her capacity for work and for +taking pleasure in little things—all these were as nothing to +her if she lost George out of her life. "I oughtn't to marry him," +she repeated, "but if I don't marry him I shall be miserable every +minute until I die."</p> +<p>Then a terror more awful than any she had yet suffered clutched +at her heart. Suppose he should never come back! Suppose he had +really meant to leave her for good! Suppose he had ceased to love +her since he went out of the house! The possibility was so +agonizing that she rose blindly from her chair and turned from the +window as if the quiet street, filled with the dreamy sunshine of +October, had offered an appalling, an unbelievable sight to her +eyes. If he had ceased to love her, she was helpless; and this +sense of helplessness awoke a feeling of rage in her heart. If he +did not come back, she could never go after him. She could only sit +and wait until she grew as old and as ugly as Miss Amelia. While +the minutes, which seemed hours, dragged away, she wept the +bitterest tears of her life—tears not of wounded love, but of +anger because she could do nothing but wait.</p> +<p>While she wept the bell rang. When she did not answer it, it +rang again, and after an interminable pause the footsteps of Miss +Amelia were heard descending the stairs. Then the door opened and +shut, the footsteps began their slow ascent of the stairs, and +after an eternity of silence, she knew that George had entered the +room.</p> +<p>Wiping her eyes on the ruffle of the sofa pillow, she sat up and +faced him, while her pride hardened again.</p> +<p>"Gabriella, I have come back."</p> +<p>"I see you have," she answered coldly, and choked over a +sob.</p> +<p>"What are you crying about, Gabriella?"</p> +<p>"I—I have a headache."</p> +<p>"Have you thought about me at all to-day?"</p> +<p>"A little."</p> +<p>He laughed softly, the laugh of a conqueror.</p> +<p>"I'm glad at least that I didn't give you the headache."</p> +<p>"You didn't. I had it anyway."</p> +<p>He was radiant, he was as fresh as the wind. Never in his life +had he looked so gay, so handsome, so kind. His blue eyes were +brimming with light. The mere fact of being alive appeared to fill +him with ecstasy. And she loved him for his gaiety, for his +lightness, for the ease with which he took for granted her +unchangeable love. She longed with all her soul and body to prove +this love by a surrender more complete than any she had made in the +past. She longed to say: "I am yours to do with as you please, and +nothing in the universe matters but you and my love for you." The +very core of her nature longed to say this to him; but her +indomitable pride, which even passion could not overcome, kept her +sitting there in silence while she felt that her heart was bursting +with happiness.</p> +<p>"Have you thought it over, Gabriella?"</p> +<p>She nodded. To save her life, she felt, she could not utter a +word without sobbing.</p> +<p>"And you have absolutely and finally decided to have your +way?"</p> +<p>This time she shook her head, but the tears fell on her cheeks +and she did not brush them away. From his voice she knew that she +had triumphed, but there was no delight in the knowledge. She did +not want to triumph; she wanted only to yield to him and to make +him happy by yielding.</p> +<p>"O George!" she cried suddenly, and held out her arms to +him.</p> +<p>As he looked down at her his expression changed suddenly to one +of intense sadness. From his face, which had grown pale, he might +have been contemplating the Eternal Verities, though, in reality, +he was considering nothing more exalted than the dreary prospect of +a lifetime spent in the society of Mrs. Carr.</p> +<p>Then, as Gabriella enfolded him, he laughed softly. He had given +in, but he knew in the very instant of his defeat that he should +some day turn it to victory.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> +<h3>THE NEW WORLD</h3> +<p>Gabriella stood in front of the station, ecstatically watching +George while he struggled for a cab. In the pale beams of the early +sunshine her face looked young, flushed, and expectant, as if she +had just awakened from sleep, and her eyes, following her husband, +were the happy eyes of a bride. She wore a new dress of blue +broadcloth, passionately overtrimmed by Miss Polly Hatch; on her +head a blue velvet toque from Brandywine's millinery department +rested as lightly as a benediction; and her hands clasped Arthur's +wedding present, a bag of alligator skin bearing her initials in +gold. One blissful month ago she and George had been married, and +now, on the reluctant return from a camp in the Adirondacks, they +were confronting the disillusioning actuality of the New York +streets at eight o'clock in the morning. While Gabriella waited, +shivering a a little, for the air was sharp and her broadcloth +dress was not warm, she amused herself planning a future which +appeared to consist of inexhaustible happiness. And mingling with +her dreams there were divine memories of the last month and of her +marriage. After that one quarrel George, she told herself, had been +"simply perfect." His manner to her mother had been beautiful; he +had been as eager as Gabriella to obliterate all memory of the +difference between them, though, of course, after his yielding that +supreme point she had felt that she must give up everything +else—and the giving up had been rapture. He had shown not the +faintest disposition to crow over her when at last, after +consulting Mrs. Carr, she had told him that her mother really +preferred to stay with Jane until summer, though he had remarked +with evident relief: "Then we'll put off looking for an apartment. +It's easier to find one in the summer anyway, and in the meantime +you can talk it over with mother."</p> +<p>After this everything had gone so smoothly, so exquisitely, that +it was more like a dream than like actual life when she looked back +on it. She saw herself in the floating lace veil of her +grandmother, holding white roses in her hand, and she saw George's +face—the face of her dreams come true—looking at her +out of a starry mist, while in the shining wilderness that +surrounded them she heard an organ playing softly "The Voice That +Breathed O'er Eden." Then the going away! The good-byes at the +station in Richmond; her mother's face, pathetic and drawn against +the folds of her crape veil; Cousin Jimmy, crimson and jovial; +Florrie's violent waving as the train moved away; Miss Jemima, with +her smiling, pain-tortured eyes, flinging a handful of rice; the +last glimpse of them; the slowly vanishing streets, where the few +pedestrians stopped to look after the cars; the park where she had +played as a child; the brilliant flower-beds filled with an +autumnal bloom of scarlet cannas; the white-aproned negro nurses +and the gaily decorated perambulators; the clustering church spires +against a sky of pure azure; the negro hovels, with frost-blighted +sunflowers dropping brown seeds over the paling fences; the rosy +haze of it all; and her heart saying over and over, "There is +nothing but love in the world! There is nothing but love in the +world!"</p> +<p>"I've got a cab—the last one," said George, pushing his +way through the crowd, and laying his hand on her arm with a +possessive and authoritative touch. "Let me put you in, and then +I'll speak to the driver."</p> +<p>As he gave the address she watched him, still fascinated with +the delicious strangeness of it all. It was like an adventure to +have George whisk her so peremptorily into a cab, and then stand +with his foot on the step while he curtly directed the driver. +Nothing could surpass the romance—the supreme exciting +romance of life. Every minute was an event; every act of George's +was as thrilling as a moment in melodrama. And as they drove +through the streets, over the pale bands of sunshine, she had a +sense of lightness and wonder, as if she were driving in a world of +magic toward ineffable happiness.</p> +<p>"Isn't it strange to be here together, George?" she said. "I can +hardly believe it." But in her heart she was thinking: "I shall +never want anything but love in my life. If I have George I shall +never want anything else." The bedraggled, slatternly figures of +the women sweeping the pavements in the cross-street through which +they were driving filled her with a fugitive sadness, so faint, so +pale that it hardly dimmed the serene brightness of her mood. "I +wish they were all as happy as I am," she thought; "and they might +be if they only knew the secret of happiness. If they only knew +that nothing in the world matters when one has love in one's +heart."</p> +<p>"You'll believe it soon enough when we turn into Fifth Avenue," +replied George, glancing with disgust out of the window. A month of +intimacy had increased the power of his smile over her senses, and +when he turned to her again after a minute, she felt something of +the faint delicious tremor of their first meeting. Already she was +beginning to discover that beyond his expressive eyes he had really +very little of importance to express, that his prolonged silences +covered poverty of ideas rather than abundance of feeling, that his +limited vocabulary was due less to reticence than to the simple +inarticulateness of the primitive mind. Through the golden glamour +of her honeymoon there had loomed suddenly the discovery that +George was not clever—but cleverness mattered so little, she +told herself, as long as he loved her.</p> +<p>"I hope your mother will like me," she said nervously after a +minute.</p> +<p>"I'll be sorry for her if she doesn't."</p> +<p>"Do I look nice?"</p> +<p>"Of course you do. I never saw you when you didn't."</p> +<p>"I feel so dreadfully untidy. I never tried to dress in a +sleeping-car before."</p> +<p>"It did rock, didn't it?"</p> +<p>"I'll never travel again at night if I can help it. There's a +cinder in your eye; let me get it out for you." It thrilled her +pleasantly to remove the cinder with the corner of her +handkerchief, and to order him to sit still whenever the cab +jolted. It was incredibly young, incredibly foolish, but it was all +a part of the wonderful enchantment in which she moved. The cinder +had made an agreeable episode, but when it had been removed there +was nothing more for them to talk about. In four weeks of daily and +hourly companionship they had said very easily, Gabriella had +found, everything they had longed so passionately to say to each +other. It was strange—it was positively astounding how soon +they had talked themselves empty of ideas and fallen back upon +repetition and ejaculation. Before her marriage she had thought +that a lifetime would be too short to hold the full richness of +their confidences; and yet now, after a month, though they still +made love, they had ceased, almost with relief, to make +conversation.</p> +<p>After turning into Fifth Avenue they drove for ages between +depressing examples in brownstone of an architecture which, like +George, was trying rather vaguely to express nothing; and then +rolling heavily into Fifty-seventh Street stopped presently before +one of the solemn houses which stood, in the dignity of utter +ugliness, midway of a long block. "They are all so alike I don't +see how I shall ever know where I live," thought Gabriella. Then, +as George helped her out of the cab, the door opened as if by +magic, and beyond the solemn manservant she saw the short, stout +figure of a lady in a tightly fitting morning gown of black silk. +Hurrying up the steps, she was pressed against a large smooth bosom +which yielded as little as if it had been upholstered in +leather.</p> +<p>"My dear daughter! my dear Gabriella!" exclaimed the lady in a +charming voice; and looking down after the first kiss, Gabriella +saw a handsome, slightly florid face, with the vivacious smile of a +girl and a beautiful forehead under a stiffly crimped arch of gray +hair which looked as hard and bright as silver.</p> +<p>"I've been up since seven o'clock waiting for you. You must be +famished. Come straight in to breakfast. Your father is already at +the table, George. Poor man, he has to start downtown so dreadfully +early."</p> +<p>Bright, effusive, vivacious, and as emphatically Southern as if +she had never left Franklin Street, Mrs. Fowler took off +Gabriella's hat and coat, kissed her several times while she was +doing so, and at last, still talking animatedly, led them into the +dining-room.</p> +<p>"Archibald, here they are," she said in a tone of unaffected +delight, while a thin, serious-looking man, with anxious eyes, +pale, aristocratic features, and skin that had a curious +parchment-like texture, put down the <i>Times</i>, and came forward +to meet them. Though he did not speak as he kissed her, Gabriella +felt that there was sincere, if detached, friendliness in his +little pat on her shoulder. He led her almost tenderly to her +chair; and as soon as she was comfortably seated and supplied with +rolls and bacon, resigned her contentedly to his wife and the +butler. His manner of gentle abstraction, which Gabriella +attributed first to something he had just read in the newspaper, +she presently discovered to be his habitual attitude toward all the +world except Wall Street. He ate his breakfast as if his attention +were somewhere else; he spoke to his son and his daughter-in-law +kindly, but as if he were not thinking about them; he treated his +wife, whom he adored, as if he had not clearly perceived her. In +the profound abstraction in which he lived every impression +appeared to have become blurred except the tremendous impression of +whirling forces; every detail seemed to have been obscured except +the gigantic details of "Business." His manner was perfectly +well-bred, but it was the manner of a man who moves through life +rehearsing a part of which he barely remembers the words. From the +first minute it was evident to Gabriella that her father-in-law +adored his wife as an ideal, though he seemed scarcely aware of her +as a person. He had given her his love, but his interests, his +energies, his attention were elsewhere.</p> +<p>"Is that the way George will treat me—as if I were only a +dream woman?" thought Gabriella while she watched her father-in-law +over the open sheet of the <i>Times</i>. Then, with her eyes on her +husband, she realized that he was of his mother's blood, not his +father's. Business could never absorb him. His restlessness, his +instability, his love of pleasure, would prevent the sapping of his +nature by one supreme interest.</p> +<p>The table, like everything else in the room, was solid, heavy, +and expensive. On the floor a heavy and expensive carpet, with a +pattern in squares, stretched to the heavy and expensive moulding +which bordered a heavy and expensive paper. Mrs. Fowler's taste, +like Jimmy's (he was her third cousin), leaned apparently toward +embossment, for behind a massive repoussé silver service she +sat, as handsome and substantial as the room, with her face +flushing in splotches from the heat of her coffee.</p> +<p>Some twenty-odd years before the house had been furnished at +great cost, according to the opulent taste of the early 'seventies, +and, unchanged by severer and more frugal fashions, it remained a +solid monument to the first great financial deal of Archibald +Fowler. It was at the golden age, when, still young and energetic, +luck had come to him in a day, that he had bought the brownstone +house in Fifty-seventh Street, and his wife, also young and +energetic, had gone out "to get whatever she liked." Trained in a +simple school during the war, and brought up in the formal purity +of high-ceiled rooms furnished in Chippendale and Sheraton, her +natural tastes were, nevertheless, as ornate as the interiors of +the New York shops. Though the blood of colonial heroes ran in her +veins, she was still the child of her age, and her age prided +itself upon being entirely modern in all things from religion to +furniture.</p> +<p>As she sat there behind the mammoth coffee urn, from which a +spiral of steam floated, her handsome face irradiated the spirit of +kindness. Because of her rather short figure, she appeared at her +best when she was sitting, and now, with her large, tightly laced +hips hidden beneath the table and her firm, jet-plastered bosom +appearing above it, she presented a picture of calm and matronly +beauty. Not once did she seem to think of herself or her own +breakfast. Even while she buttered her toast and drank her steaming +coffee, her bright blue eyes travelled unceasingly over the table, +first to her husband's plate, then to Gabriella's, then to her +son's. It was easy to see that she was the dominant and vital force +in the household. She ruled Archibald, less indirectly perhaps, but +quite as consistently as Cousin Pussy ruled Cousin Jimmy.</p> +<p>"My dear, you must eat your breakfast," she said urgently to her +daughter-in-law. "Archibald, let me give you your second cup of +coffee. Remember what a trying day you have before you, and make a +good breakfast. It is so hard to get him to eat," she explained to +Gabriella; "I have to coax him to drink his two cups of coffee, for +if he doesn't he is sure to come home with a headache."</p> +<p>"Well, give me a cup, Evelyn," replied Mr. Fowler, in his gentle +voice, yielding apparently to please her. In his youth he must have +been very handsome, Gabriella thought; but now, though he still +retained a certain distinction, he had the look of a man who has +been drained of his vitality. What surprised her—for she had +heard him described as "a hard man in business"—was the +suggestion of the scholar in his appearance. With his narrow, +carefully brushed head, his dreamy and rather wistful blue eyes +behind gold-rimmed glasses, his stooping, slender shoulders, and +his long, delicate hands covered with prominent veins, he ought to +have been either a poet or a philosopher.</p> +<p>"You must be happy with us, my dear," he had said to Gabriella, +showing a minute later such gentle eagerness to return to a part of +the newspaper which Gabriella had never read and did not +understand, that his wife remarked pityingly: "Read your paper, +Archibald, and don't let our chatter disturb you. There are a +thousand things I want to say to the children."</p> +<p>"Well, it's time for me to be going, Evelyn," Mr. Fowler +responded, reluctantly folding the pages; "I'll look into this on +the way down."</p> +<p>"Remember, dear, that Judge Crowborough is coming to +dinner."</p> +<p>"I'll remember. Is there any one else?"</p> +<p>"Mrs. Crowborough, of course, and Colonel Buffington, and one or +two others. Nobody that you will care for except the judge and +Patty and Billy."</p> +<p>"I shan't forget, but I may be a little late getting home. +Good-bye, my dear, until evening."</p> +<p>Bending over her chair, he kissed her flushed cheek, while +George remarked carelessly: "I'll see you later, father, when I've +had a bath and a shave."</p> +<p>After the gentle tones of Mr. Fowler, the vitality of George's +voice sounded almost brutal, and he added just as carelessly when +the front door had shut softly: "The old man looks seedy, doesn't +he, mother?"</p> +<p>A worried look brought out three startling lines in Mrs. +Fowler's forehead, and Gabriella observed suddenly that there were +tiny crow's feet around her blue eyes where the whites were flecked +ever so faintly with yellow. Though she was well into the +mid-fifties, her carefully preserved skin had kept the firmness and +the texture of youth, and she still flushed easily and unbecomingly +as she had done as a girl.</p> +<p>"He hasn't been a bit well, George. I am very anxious about him. +You know when he worries over his business, he doesn't eat his +meals, and as soon as he stops eating he begins to have nervous +dyspepsia. He has just had a bad attack; that's why he looks so run +down and haggard."</p> +<p>"Can't the doctor do anything for him?"</p> +<p>"He gave him some drops, but it is so hard to get your father to +take medicine. Rest is what he needs, and, of course, that is out +of the question while things are so unsettled. You must help him +all you can, my boy, and Gabriella and I will manage with each +other's company."</p> +<p>Her bright smile was still on her lips, but Gabriella noticed +that she pushed her buttered roll away as if she were choking.</p> +<p>In the early afternoon, when George had gone to join his father +in the office, and Gabriella, seated at a little white and gold +desk in the room which had been Patty's, was just finishing a +letter to her mother, Mrs. Fowler came in, and pushing a +chintz-covered chair close to the desk, sank into it and laid her +small nervous hand on the arm of her daughter-in-law. She was +wearing a velvet bonnet, with strings, and a street gown of black +broadcloth, which fitted her like a glove and accentuated, after +the fashion of the 'nineties, her small, compact waist and the deep +substantial curves of her bosom and hips. Her eyes, behind the +little veil of spotted tulle which reached to the tip of her nose, +were bright and wistful, and though her colour was too high, a +smile of troubled sweetness lent it a peculiar charm of +expression.</p> +<p>"How nice you look, my dear," she said, with her pleasant +manner, which no anxiety, hardly any grief, could dispel. "Are you +very busy, or may I talk to you a little while?"</p> +<p>Drawing closer to her, Gabriella raised the plump little hand to +her lips. Beneath the surface pleasantness of Mrs. Fowler's +life—that pleasantness which wrapped her like a +religion—she was beginning to discern a deep disquietude.</p> +<p>"I want to talk to you, mamma," she said, and her manner was a +caress.</p> +<p>"You love George very much, dear?" asked Mrs. Fowler so suddenly +that Gabriella looked at her startled.</p> +<p>For a minute the girl could not speak. "Oh, yes; oh, yes," she +answered presently, and choked over the words.</p> +<p>"We wanted so much to go to your wedding—we were afraid +you would think it strange that we stayed away, but Archibald had +his attack just then, and on top of it he was terribly worried +about his affairs. We have had a very hard year, and we feel so +sorry, both of us, that we can't do more for your pleasure. As it +is, we are cutting down our expenses in every way, and I have even +decided to give up my carriage the first of next year.</p> +<p>"I know, I know," said Gabriella, who had never had a carriage, +and to whom the giving up of one seemed the smallest imaginable +sacrifice. "We mustn't add to your cares," she went on after a +minute. "Wouldn't it be better, really better, if we were to take +an apartment at once instead of waiting until June?"</p> +<p>"Until June?" repeated Mrs. Fowler vaguely, and she added +quickly: "It is the greatest pleasure to have you here. Since Patty +went I get so terribly lonely, and I don't think it would be at all +wise for you to go to yourselves. George has hardly anything except +what his father is able to give him, you know. The poor boy hasn't +the least head for business."</p> +<p>"But we shouldn't need much. I am sure I could manage just with +what George makes—no matter how little it is."</p> +<p>For an instant Mrs. Fowler looked at her thoughtfully.</p> +<p>"You could, but George couldn't," she answered.</p> +<p>"You mean he is extravagant?"</p> +<p>"He has never had the slightest idea of the value of +money—that is one of the things you must teach him. He is a +dear boy, but he has never made a success of anything he has +undertaken, and his father thinks he is too unpractical ever to do +so. But you must try to get him to live within your means, my dear, +or you will both be miserable. Try to keep him from borrowing."</p> +<p>"But he refuses to talk to me about his work. It bores him," +said Gabriella; and her simple soul, trained to regard debt as a +deeper disgrace than poverty, grew suddenly troubled. In her +childhood they had gone without food rather than borrow, she +remembered.</p> +<p>"The matter with dear George," pursued Mrs. Fowler—and +from the sweetness of her manner she might have been paying him a +compliment—"is that he has never been steady. He doesn't +stick at anything long enough to make it a success. If he were left +to himself he would speculate wildly, and this is why his father is +obliged to overlook all that he does in the office. It is just here +that you can be of such wonderful help to him, Gabriella, by your +influence. This is why I am telling you."</p> +<p>But had she any influence over him? In spite of his passion for +her had she ever turned him by so much as a hair's breadth from the +direction of his impetuous desires? Once only she had withstood +him—once only she had triumphed, and for that triumph she had +paid by a complete surrender! She had been too glad to yield, too +fearful of bringing a cloud over the sunny blue of his eyes.</p> +<p>"I want to help him—I want you to tell me how I can help +him," she said earnestly. "While we are with you this winter, you +must teach me how to do it. Before we begin housekeeping in the +summer, I want to learn all I possibly can about George's affairs. +He won't talk to me about practical matters, so you must do +it."</p> +<p>"But where are you going, Gabriella? I thought you had decided +to live with us?"</p> +<p>"But didn't George tell you? Surely he must have told you. We +are to take an apartment in June so my mother can come to us. I +felt, of course, that I couldn't leave mother, and George +understands. He was perfectly lovely about it."</p> +<p>"I see, I see," murmured Mrs. Fowler, as if she were thinking of +something else. "Well, that will all come right, dear, I hope."</p> +<p>Rising abruptly, she began to draw on her gloves. "If you only +knew how I long to make you happy," she said softly; "as happy as I +have been with George's father."</p> +<p>"They are so unlike," answered Gabriella, and the next day when +she remembered the admission, she wondered how it had slipped from +her.</p> +<p>"Yes, they are unlike," agreed Mrs. Fowler. "George takes after +me, and I am a frivolous person. But there doesn't live a better +man than my husband," she added, glowing. "I've been his wife for +thirty years, and in all that time I don't believe he has ever +thought first of himself. Yes, it was thirty years ago that I drove +through the streets with my bridal veil on, and felt so sorry for +all the girls I saw who were not going to be married. To-day I feel +exactly the same way—sorry for all the women who couldn't +have Archibald for a husband. I've lived with him thirty years, +I've borne him children, and I'm still sorry for all the other +women—even for you, Gabriella."</p> +<p>"He seems so kind," said Gabriella; "I felt that about him, and +it's the best thing, after all, isn't it?" It was the best thing, +and yet she knew that George was not kind—that he was not +even good-tempered.</p> +<p>"Yes, it's the best thing, after all, in marriage," answered the +older woman; "it's the thing that wears."</p> +<p>"I have always wanted the best of life," rejoined Gabriella +thoughtfully; and she went on gravely after a moment: "I couldn't +love George any more than I do, but I wish that in some ways he +would grow like his father."</p> +<p>"The boy has a very sweet nature," replied George's mother, "and +I hope marriage will steady him." It was a warning, Gabriella knew, +and she wondered afterwards if her silent acquiescence in Mrs. +Fowler's judgment had not been furtive disloyalty to George.</p> +<p>"A great deal will depend on you, dear, for he is very much in +love," resumed Mrs. Fowler when Gabriella did not speak, and she +repeated very solemnly, "I hope marriage will steady him."</p> +<p>In her heart Gabriella was hoping so, too, but all she said was, +"I promise you that I will do all I can." She had given her word, +and, looking into her eyes, Mrs. Fowler understood that her +daughter-in-law was not one to give her word lightly. Gabriella +would keep her promise. She would do her best, whatever +happened.</p> +<p>The older woman, with her life's history behind her, watched the +girl for a minute in silence. There was so much that she longed to +say, so much that could never be spoken even between women. She +herself was an optimist, but her optimism had been wrung from the +bitter core of experience. Her faith was firm, though it held few +illusions, for, if she was an optimist, she was also a realist. She +believed in life, not because it had satisfied her, but because she +had had the wisdom to understand that the supreme failure had been, +not life's, but her own. If she could only have lived it again and +lived it differently from the beginning! If she could only have +used her deeper wisdom not to regret the past, but to create the +future! Much as she had loved her husband, she knew now that she +had sacrificed him to the world. Much as she had loved her +children, she would have sacrificed them, also, had it been +possible. To the tin gods she had offered her soul—to the +things that did not matter she had yielded up the only things that +mattered at all. And she knew now that, in spite of her clearness +of vision, the worldliness which had ruined her life was still +bound up in all that was essential and endurable in her nature. She +still wanted the illusions as passionately as if she believed in +their reality; she still winced as sharply at the thought of +Patty's marriage and of all that Patty had given up. In the case of +George, she admitted that it was her fault—that she had +spoiled him—but how could she have helped it? She remembered +how he had looked as a child, with his round flushed face, his +chestnut curls, and his eager, questioning eyes. He had been a +beautiful child, more beautiful even than Patty, and because of his +beauty she had been able to refuse him nothing. Then she thought of +his boyhood, of his reckless extravagance at college; of the tales +of his wildness to which she had shut her ears; of his debts, and +still of his debts, which she had paid out of the housekeeping +money because she was afraid to let his father know of them. Yes, +George, in spite of his sweet nature, had given them a great deal +of trouble, so much trouble that she had been quite reconciled to +his marriage with any respectable girl. The memory of a chorus girl +with whom he had once entangled himself still gave her a shiver at +the heart when she recalled it. Money, always more money, had gone +into that; and at last, just as she had grown hopeless of saving +him, he had met this fine, sensible Gabriella, who looked so +strong, so competent, and there had come an end to the disturbing +stories which reached her at intervals. Surely it was proof of her +son's inborn fineness that from the pink perfection of girlhood he +should have chosen the capable Gabriella! At first she had +regretted his choice, hoping, as the worldly and the unworldly +alike hope for their sons, that the object of George's +disinterested affection would prove to be wealthy. Then at the +sight of Gabriella she had surrendered completely. The girl was +fine all through, this she could see as soon as she looked at her. +She liked her noble though not beautiful face, with the broad clear +forehead from which the soft dark hair was brushed back so simply, +and, most of all, she liked the charm and sympathy in her voice. +George had chosen well, and if she could trust his choice, why +could she not trust him to be true to it?</p> +<p>"I wonder if you would like to put on your hat and come with +me?" she asked, obeying an impulse. "I'm going to drive up to +Patty's with some curtains for her bedroom."</p> +<p>"Oh, I'd love to," replied Gabriella with eagerness, for she +hated inaction, and it was impossible to spend a whole afternoon +merely thinking about one's happiness. "It won't take me a minute +to get ready."</p> +<p>While she put on her hat and coat, Mrs. Fowler watched her +thoughtfully, saying once: "It is quite cool, you'd better bring +your furs, dear."</p> +<p>When Gabriella answered frankly, "I haven't any, I never had any +furs in my life," a tender expression crept into the rather hard +blue eyes of her mother-in-law, and she said quickly: "Well, I've a +set of white fox that I am too old to wear, and you shall have +it."</p> +<p>"But what of Patty?" asked Gabriella, for she had grown up +thinking of other people and she couldn't break the habit of twenty +years in a minute.</p> +<p>"Oh, Patty has all the furs she'll need for years. We spent +every penny we had on Patty before she married," answered Mrs. +Fowler, but she was saying to herself: "Yes, the girl is the right +wife for him. I am sure she is the right wife for him."</p> +<p>The Park was brilliant with falling leaves, and as they drove +beneath a perfect sky beside a lake which sparkled like sapphire, +Gabriella, lifting her chin above the white furs, said rapturously, +"Oh, I am so happy! Life is so beautiful!"</p> +<p>A shadow stole into the eyes with which Mrs. Fowler was watching +the passing carriages, and the fixed sweetness about her mouth +melted into an expression of yearning. Tears veiled the faces of +the women who spoke to her in passing, for she was thinking of her +first drive in the Park with her husband, and though her marriage +had been a happy one, she felt a strange longing as if she wanted +to weep.</p> +<p>"I never saw such wonderful horses," said Gabriella. "Cousin +Jimmy would be wild about them;" and she added impetuously, "But +the hats aren't in the least like the one I am wearing." A +misgiving seized her as she realized that her dresses, copied by +Miss Polly with ardent fidelity from a Paris fashion book, were all +hopelessly wrong. She wondered if her green silk gown with the +black velvet sleeves was different in style from the gowns the +other women were wearing under their furs? Had sleeves of a +different colour from the bodice, which Miss Polly considered the +last touch of elegance, really gone out of fashion?</p> +<p>The carriage passed out of the Park, and turning into one of the +streets on the upper West Side stopped presently before a small +dingy apartment house, where a dozen ragged children were playing +leapfrog on the pavement.</p> +<p>"Patty has the top floor—there's a studio." Drawing her +skirts away from the children, for her generation feared contact +with the lower classes, Mrs. Fowler walked briskly to the low brown +steps, on which an ash can stood waiting for removal. Inside, where +the hall smelled uninvitingly of stale cooking, they rang for the +elevator under a dim yellow light which revealed a hundred secret +lines in their faces.</p> +<p>"I can't imagine how Patty puts up with the place," remarked +Patty's mother dejectedly. "You wouldn't believe the trouble we +went to to start her well. She was the acknowledged beauty of her +winter—everybody was crazy about her looks—and the very +week before she ran off with Billy she had a proposal from the Duke +of Toxbridge. Of course, if I'd ever dreamed she had a fancy for +Billy, I'd have kept him out of her sight instead of allowing him +to paint her portrait whenever she had any time she could spare. +But who on earth would have suspected it? Billy King, whom she had +known all her life, as poor as a church mouse, and the kind of +painter whose work will never 'take' if he lives to be a thousand! +His portraits may be good art—I don't pretend to know +anything about that—but I do know pictures of pretty women +when I see them, and his women are frights, every last one of them. +If you're thin, he paints your skeleton, and if you're fat, he +makes you as square as a house, and, thin or fat, he always gives +you a blue and yellow complexion. He wouldn't even make Patty +white, though I implored him to do it—and he made her look +exactly ten years older than her age."</p> +<p>"I've never seen any portraits of living people—only of +ancestors," said Gabriella, "and I am so much interested."</p> +<p>"Well, you mustn't judge them by Billy's, my dear, even if he +did get all those prizes in Paris. But I always said the French +were queer, and if they hadn't been, they would never have raved so +over the things Billy painted. Now, Augustus Featherfield's are +really charming. One can tell to look at his portraits that he +paints only ladies, and he gives them all the most perfectly lovely +hair, whether they have it or not. Some day I'll take you to his +studio and let you see for yourself."</p> +<p>The elevator descended, creaking beneath the weight of a negro +youth who seemed half asleep, and a little later, creaking more +loudly, it bore them slowly upward to the top of the house.</p> +<p>"I feel as if I were taking my life in my hands whenever I come +here," observed Mrs. Fowler, in the tone of dispassionate +resignation with which she always discussed Patty and the +surroundings amid which Patty lived. Marching resolutely, though +disapprovingly, down a long hall, she pressed a small bell at the +side of a door, and stood, holding tightly to the bundle of +curtains, while her expression of unnatural pleasantness grew +almost painful in its determination. Here, also, they waited some +time, and when at last the door was opened by an agitated maid, +without an apron, and they were led into a long, queerly furnished +studio, with a balcony from which they had a distant cloudless view +of the river, Gabriella felt for a minute that she must have fallen +into a dream. Long afterwards she learned that Billy's studio was +charming, with its blurred Italian tapestries, which had faded to +an exquisite tone, with its broken torsos of old marble, warming to +deep ivory in the sunlight, with its ecstatic haloed saints praying +against dim Tuscan landscapes, with its odd and unexpected seats of +carved stone on which the cushions made strange splotches and pools +of colour. At the time, seen through provincial eyes, it seemed +merely "queer" to her; and queerer still appeared the undraped +figures of women, all lean lines and violet shadows, which, +unframed and unhung, filled the dusty corners.</p> +<p>"The river is lovely, but it is so far away," she said, turning +her abashed eyes from the nude figures, and thinking how terribly +they would have shocked the innocence of Cousin Jimmy.</p> +<p>"I always look at the river when I come here," responded Mrs. +Fowler, and her tone implied that the river at least was perfectly +proper. "A month ago the colours were wonderful."</p> +<p>In the drive, which they could see from a corner view, a few old +men, forgotten by time, warmed themselves in the sunlight. Far +below, the river reflected the changeable blue of the sky, while +the autumnal pageantry on the horizon was fading slowly, like a +burned-out fire, to the colour of ashes.</p> +<p>"Mother, dear, I'm so glad," said a gay voice in the doorway, +and turning quickly, Gabriella stared with wide eyes at the vision +of Patty—of Patty in some soft tea-gown, which borrowed its +tone from the old tapestries on the wall, with her honey-coloured +hair hanging over her shoulders, and her eyes as fresh as blue +flowers in the ivory pallor of her face.</p> +<p>"And this is Gabriella," she added, holding out her arms. "What +a darling you are to come so soon, Gabriella."</p> +<p>She was a tall girl, so tall that she stooped to kiss Gabriella, +whose height measured exactly five feet and seven inches, and she +was beautiful with the faultless beauty which is seen only once or +twice in a generation, but which, seen once, is never forgotten. +For Patty's beauty, as a poet once wrote of a dead woman, was the +beauty of destiny, the beauty that changes history and turns men +into angels or into beasts. Though Gabriella had seen lovely skins +on Southern women—rose-leaf skins, magnolia skins, +peach-blossom skins—she had seen nothing that resembled the +exquisite colour and texture of Patty's face.</p> +<p>"The curtains were finished, so I brought them," said Mrs. +Fowler, pointing to the bundle. "I wanted Gabriella to see the +Park. You are coming to-night without fail, aren't you, Patty?"</p> +<p>"Without fail, even if we have to walk," answered Patty. "You +can't imagine how much it costs to get about when one lives so far +uptown. That's one reason we are anxious to move. Billy has been +looking for a studio for weeks, and, do you know, he has really +found one at last. Harry Allen is moving out of the Rubens +Building, and we are going to take his studio on the top floor. +We're awfully lucky, too, to get it, for it is the first vacancy +there for years."</p> +<p>"But it's over a stable, isn't it?" asked Mrs. Fowler. "How +could you possibly live there? And the East Side way down there is +just as bad as up here"</p> +<p>"I believe there is a stable, but it won't bother us—we're +too high," replied Patty.</p> +<p>"Well, we can't stop; Gabriella hasn't unpacked her trunks," +returned Mrs. Fowler; "but be sure to come early, Patty. I want +your father to see you."</p> +<p>"I wish there wasn't going to be anybody else. I want to talk to +my sister. Isn't it lovely to have a sister, and mamma was too +selfish to give me one. Do you call her 'mamma,' too, +Gabriella?"</p> +<p>"Of course she calls me 'mamma,'" answered Mrs. Fowler before +Gabriella could speak, "and she is a much better daughter already +than you ever were."</p> +<p>"And a much better son, too, than George ever was?" asked Patty +slyly.</p> +<p>"We aren't talking about George. George has settled down," said +Mrs. Fowler quickly, too quickly it occurred to Gabriella, who was +eager to hear all that the daring Patty would say. "Don't you think +those white furs look well on Gabriella?"</p> +<p>"She looks like the snow queen in them. Does it matter what I +wear to-night? Who is coming?"</p> +<p>"Nobody you will care about—only Judge and Mrs. +Crowborough and Colonel Buffington."</p> +<p>"That old bore of a colonel! And why do you have to ask the +judge again so soon? He looks like a turkey gobbler, Gabriella, and +he has so much money that it is impossible to judge him by the +standards of other people, everybody says that—even +Billy."</p> +<p>"Hush, Patty. You mustn't corrupt Gabriella."</p> +<p>"If the judge doesn't, I shan't, mamma."</p> +<p>"Well, your father has the greatest respect for him, and as for +asking him often to dinner, it isn't by any means so easy to get +him as you think. I don't suppose there's another man in New York +who is invited out so often and goes out so little."</p> +<p>"Papa is a sweet innocent," observed Patty maliciously, "but if +you can stand the judge, mamma, dear, I am sure I can, especially +as I shan't have to sit by him. That honour will be reserved for +poor Gabriella. I wish you didn't have to go, but you really must, +I suppose?"</p> +<p>"Yes, we must go. Come, Gabriella, or you won't have time to get +into your trunks before dinner."</p> +<p>On the drive home Mrs. Fowler was grimly silent, while the +sweetness about her mouth ebbed slowly away, leaving the faintest +quiver of the muscles. For the first time Gabriella saw George's +mother look as she must look in her sleep, when the artificial +cheerfulness of her expression faded into the profound +unconsciousness which drowns not only happiness, but the very +pretence of happiness. So here, also, was insincerity, here, also, +was the striving, not for realities, but for appearances! In a +different form she saw her mother's struggle again—that +struggle, without beginning and without end, which moved always in +a circle and led nowhere. Was there no sincerity, no reality even +in love? Was George, too, only a shadow? And the visible sadness of +the November afternoon, with its faint haze like the haze of a +dream landscape, seemed a part of this invisible sadness which had +sprung from nothing and which would change and pass away in a +breath. "If things would only last," she thought, looking with +wistful eyes on the gold and purple around her. "If things would +only last, how wonderful life would be!"</p> +<p>"To think that all Patty's beauty should have been thrown away," +said Mrs. Fowler suddenly.</p> +<p>Though Gabriella had never seen Billy, she was inclined at the +moment, in her mood of dissatisfaction with the universe, to +sympathize with Mrs. Fowler's view of the matter. To her frugal +mind, trained to economy of material, it seemed that Patty was +altogether too much for a poor man—even though he could paint +her in lean lines and violet shadows.</p> +<p>Upstairs she found her trunks in her bedroom, and after she had +unpacked her wedding-gown of white satin, removed the tissue paper +stuffing from the sleeves, and shaken out the creases with gentle +hands, she sat down and pondered deeply the problem of dressing for +dinner. By removing the lace yoke, she might make the gown +sufficiently indecorous for the fashion of the period, and her only +evening dress, the white muslin she had worn to dances in Richmond, +she reflected gloomily, would appear absurd in New York.</p> +<p>"I wish I didn't look such a fright," she said aloud, as she +ripped and sewed. Then, in a flash, her mind wandered from herself, +and she thought: "I wonder why George didn't tell his mother that +we are going to take an apartment? I wonder why he didn't tell her +that mother is coming in June? When he comes I must ask him."</p> +<p>Looking at the clock, she saw that it was after seven, and +hurriedly taking the last few stitches, she laid the gown on the +bed, bathed her face in cold water, and then, sitting down before +her dressing-table, drew the pins from her hair. In some obscure +way she felt herself a different person from the bride who had +watched George so ecstatically at the station that morning. She +could not tell how she had altered, and yet she felt perfectly +conscious that an alteration had taken place in her soul—that +she was not the same Gabriella—that life could never be again +exactly as it had been before. Nothing and yet everything seemed to +have happened to her in a day. Her face, gazing gravely back at her +from the mirror, looked young and wistful, the face of one who, +like a bird flying suddenly out of darkness against a lamp, is +bewildered by the first shock of the light.</p> +<p>When her hair was arranged in the simple way she had always worn +it, she slipped her dress over her bare shoulders, and fastened it +slowly—for Miss Polly had no patience with "back +fastenings"—while she told herself again that George would +not be satisfied. She knew that her gown was provincial, knew that +she lacked the "dash" he admired in women; and from the first she +had been mystified by a love which could, while still passionately +desiring her, wish her different in so many ways. "I'd like him to +be proud of me, but I suppose he never will be," she thought +dejectedly, "and yet he fell in love with me just as I was, and he +did not fall in love with any of the dashing women he knows," she +added quickly, consoled by the reflection. "And of course in a few +things I wish him different, too. I wish he wasn't so careless. He +is so careless that I shall have to be twice as careful, I shall +have to look after him all the time. Even to-night he has forgotten +about the dinner, and he'll be obliged to dress in a hurry, which +he hates."</p> +<p>Glancing at the clock again, she saw that it was a quarter of +eight, and still George had not come.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> +<h3>THE OLD SERPENT</h3> +<p>At five minutes of eight o'clock he came in, with a lighted +cigar in his mouth. For the first few days after her marriage there +had been a pleasant excitement in the scent of George's cigars in +her bedroom. Now, however, habit had dulled the excitement, and the +smell of tobacco gave her a headache.</p> +<p>"Oh, George, you are late!" she exclaimed, sinking the lesser +into the greater offence after the habit of wives. As if he had all +night instead of five minutes before him in which to dress, he +stood in the centre of the room, blandly looking her over.</p> +<p>"You're all right," he said after a pause. "I met a fellow at +the club I hadn't seen for a year. He had been hunting big game in +Africa, and he was telling me about it. By Jove, that is life!"</p> +<p>They had been married but a month; it was their first day at +home, and he could linger at the club to talk of big game while she +waited for him. Flushed, excited, he stood there on the white +bearskin rug midway between the bed and the wood-fire, while she +felt his charm stealing like a drug over her senses. Though she had +begun to realize the thinness of his mental qualities, she was +still as completely in the power of his physical charm as she had +been on the day of her wedding. In the flickering light of the fire +he appeared to diffuse the glamour of romance, of adventure; and +she felt that this single day in New York had left a vital +impression upon him. It was as if he had become suddenly more +alive, more inexplicable in his simplicity; and, though she had +grasped vaguely the fact that his personality was composed of +innumerable reactions, she had never really understood before how +entirely he was the creature of his environment. It was as if the +very essence of his soul floated there, a variable and fluid +quantity, forever changing form and colour beneath the shallow +ripples of his personality. She had seen him in many moods, but +never in this one. Did he possess a deeper subtlety than she had +imagined or was it the sincerity of his nature that defied +analysis?</p> +<p>"Did you enjoy yourself?" she asked cheerfully. Tell me about +it."</p> +<p>"Oh, it was rather jolly," he replied, and she knew that this +was as much as she should ever get out of him. Beyond a few stock +phrases, words hardly existed for him at all, or existed only in +foreign languages, for, having been educated abroad, he spoke +French and German fluently, if without felicity. Already his +inarticulateness was like an encumbering veil between them—a +veil in which she struggled as helplessly as a moth in a net. And +only a month ago she had believed that the very immensity of his +nature rendered him dumb.</p> +<p>"Then you had better hurry, dear. Dinner is at eight, and you +have only a minute."</p> +<p>"You go down and tell them not to wait. I was detained downtown, +but it won't take me a second to dress."</p> +<p>As he passed under the electric light by the mirror, she saw his +face with exaggerated distinctness, as if it were held under a +microscope, and a heaviness, which she had never noticed before, +marred the edge of his profile. If he hadn't been George, would she +have said that he looked stupid at the moment? For a flashing +instant of illumination she saw him with a vision that was not her +own, but a stranger's, with a pitiless clearness unsoftened by any +passion. Then the clearness faded rapidly before an impulse of +tenderness, and she told herself that he was merely handsome, gay, +and careless, as he had been on their honeymoon. If he would only +talk to her, she felt that he would be perfect.</p> +<p>"Yes, I'm going. Come as soon as you can," she said; and +catching up her satin train, she descended the oak staircase to the +drawing-room, where a fire was burning and the lights were shaded +in crimson.</p> +<p>Twenty minutes later, seated at the round table, which was +bright with chrysanthemums in tall silver vases, she looked with a +feeling of resentment at George's empty place. Why was he so +careless? Time had for him, she realized, as little meaning as +words had. Then, in the midst of her disquietude, she caught the +serene blue eyes of George's mother fixed upon her. With her young +face, her red lips, and her superb shoulders rising out of the rich +black lace of her gown, Mrs. Fowler looked almost beautiful. Had +Patty not been present, with her loveliness like a summer's day, +her mother would have seemed hardly more than a girl; but who could +shine while Patty, beside that long, lean man with the gray +imperial, smiled with lips that were like a scarlet flower in her +face?</p> +<p>There were only four guests, but these four, as Mrs. Fowler had +said, "counted for something." The long, lean man beside Patty was +one Colonel Buffington, a Virginia lawyer, who had wandered North +in search of food in the barren years after the war. As his mind +was active in a patient accumulative fashion, he had become in time +a musty storehouse of war anecdotes, and achieving but moderate +success in his law practice, his chief distinction, perhaps, was as +a professional Southerner. Combining a genial charm of manner with +as sterile an intellect as it is possible to attain, he was +generally regarded as a perfect example of "the old school," and +this picturesque reputation made him desirable as a guest at club +dinners as well as at the larger gatherings of the various Southern +societies. His conversation, which was entirely anecdotal, +consisted of an elaborate endless chain of more or less historical +"stories." Social movements and the development of civilization +interested him as little as did art or science—for which he +entertained a chronic suspicion due to the indiscretions of Darwin. +Change of any kind was repugnant to his deeper instincts, and of +all changes the ones relating to the habits of women appeared to +him to interfere most unwarrantably with the Creator's original +plan. For the rest he had the heart of a child, would strip the +clothes from his back to give to a friend, or even to an enemy, and +possessed an infallible gift for making a dinner successful.</p> +<p>On Colonel Buffington's right sat Mrs. Hamilton, a very pretty, +very sprightly widow, with her hair coiled into the fashionable +Psyche knot, and the short puffs of her sleeves emphasizing the +hour-glass perfection of her figure. Next to Mrs. Hamilton there +was Billy King, who wore a white flower in his buttonhole and +looked like a soldier out of uniform, and beyond Billy sat Mrs. +Crowborough, whom he was trying despairingly to entertain. She, +renowned and estimable woman, was planning in her mind what she +should say at a board meeting of one of her pet charities on the +morrow, a charity which, like all of her favourite ones, concerned +itself with the management and spiritual elevation of girl orphans. +Tall, raw-boned, strung with jet, Mrs. Crowborough, who had been +married for her money, looked as sympathetic as a moral principle +or an organized charity. Unfortunately, for she was rather heavy in +company, Judge Crowborough was obliged by custom to bring her to +dinner; and she came willingly, inspired less by sociability than +by the virtuous instinct which animated her being. Mr. Fowler had +taken her in to dinner, and while she lent an inert attention to +Billy's jests, he talked across Gabriella to Judge Crowborough, who +was eating his soup with the complete absorption of a man to whom +the smallest of his appetities is sacred. It was a grievance of +Mrs. Fowler's that her husband would never, as she said, "pay any +attention to women," and in order to feel assured of even so much +as a cheerful noise at his end of the table, she was obliged to +place within hearing distance of him somebody who could talk +fluently, if not eloquently, of the stock market.</p> +<p>To Gabriella's surprise, her father-in-law, who had appeared +inert and listless at breakfast, became, in the stimulating +presence of the judge, not only awake, but mildly animated. She had +felt before the charm in his scholarly face, with its look of +detached spirituality so strangely out of keeping with the calling +he pursued; and she recognized now the quality of controlled force +which had enabled him to hold his own in the financial whirlpool of +his country. Had the girl known more of life, she would have +understood that in the American business world there were hundreds +of such men winning their way and leaving their mark at that moment +of history—men whose natures were redeemed from grossness by +the peculiar idealism they infused into their material battles. Of +Scotch-Irish inheritance, the direct descendant of one Gregory +Truesdale, who had died a martyr for Presbyterianism, Archibald +Fowler was inspired by something of the austere devotion which had +fortified his religious ancestor. Since his college days his +private life had been irreproachable. Though he was a stronger +character than his wife, he regarded her with almost superstitious +reverence, and made no decision above Wall Street without +consulting her. His heart, and as much of his time as he could +spare from business, were hers, and she made the most of them. +Women, as women, did not attract him, and he avoided them except at +his own table, where custom constrained him to be polite. After a +few courteous words to Mrs. Crowborough, he had turned with relief +to her husband.</p> +<p>"You've got a bright chap in your office, Stanley," he said; +"that fellow Latham. I was talking to him this morning. He's from +Colorado, isn't he?"</p> +<p>"Oh, yes, they're all from the West now," responded the +judge—he had sat on the bench in his youth. "Ten years ago +the bright ones were from the South, but you Southerners are +outstripped to-day, and it's the men from the West who are doing +it. There's a fundamental reason there, I suppose, if you go deep +enough," he added, fingering the ends of his short gray moustache +while he kept an eye on his champagne glass. "We've done with mere +classifying and imitation, and we're waiting for a fresh explosion +of raw energy. Now for pure constructive imagination the North and +South don't hold a candle—they simply don't hold a +candle—to the West. Mark my words, in twenty-five years +there'll hardly be a big railroad man in the country who wasn't +born in sight of the Rockies." Unlike Mr. Fowler, whose mind ran in +a groove leading directly to business, the judge had a natural bent +toward generalization, and when dining, preferred to discuss +impersonal topics. He was a tall, florid man with an immense paunch +flattened by artificial devices, and a vitality so excessive that +it overflowed in numberless directions—in his hearty animal +appetites, in his love of sports, in his delight in the theatre and +literature, particularly in novels of the sentimental and romantic +school, in his fondness for the lighter operas, and in his +irrepressible admiration for pretty women. His face, large, ruddy, +with a hooked nose, where the red was thickly veined with purple, +and protruding lips over square yellow teeth that gripped like the +teeth of a bulldog, aroused in Gabriella a quick repulsion which +only the genial humour of his smile overcame. That he should have +married his wife for her money was less amazing to the girl than +that his wife should have married him for any reason whatsoever. +Only a moral principle or a charitable institution, she felt, could +have endured him and survived. But in spite of his repulsiveness he +had evidently experienced the natural activities of humanity. He +had taken a wife; he had begotten children; he had judged other +men; he had dug into the bowels of the earth for mines, and had +built railroads on its surface; he had made grass grow in deserts +and had turned waste places into populous cities; he had read +romances and heard music; he had attained a social position +securely founded upon millions of dollars—and all these +things he had achieved through his unconquerable colossal vitality. +"I wonder why they put him by me," thought Gabriella. "I shall +never get on with him."</p> +<p>Then he turned to her and said bluntly, between two mouthfuls of +lobster: "So you're George's wife! Handsome chap George, but he +hasn't much head for business. He lacks the grip of the old man. +Where's he to-night?"</p> +<p>"He got home so late that he wasn't ready for dinner. He'll be +down in a minute."</p> +<p>"It's a bad habit. He oughtn't to be late. Now, I haven't been +late for dinner for twenty years."</p> +<p>"I'm afraid he doesn't pay much attention to time. I'll try to +change him."</p> +<p>"You won't. No woman alive ever changed a man's habits. All you +can do is to hide them."</p> +<p>That his blunt manner was an affectation, she was quick to +discern. While he talked to her, he looked at her knowingly with +his light fishy eyes, and by his look and his tone he seemed to +establish an immediate intimacy between them—as if he and she +were speaking a language which was foreign to the rest of the +table. He appeared to be kind, she thought, and on his side he was +thinking that she was a nice girl, with an attractive face and +remarkable eyes. On the whole, he preferred brown eyes, though his +wife's were the colour of slate. "Why the deuce did she marry that +fool?" he questioned impatiently.</p> +<p>Across the table Billy King was working hopelessly but valiantly +to engage Mrs. Crowborough's attention. What a splendid figure he +had, and how clean and fine was the modelling of his features! He +was just the man a girl like Patty would fall in love with, and +Gabriella no longer felt that. Patty's beauty was wasted. Once or +twice she caught fleeting glances passing between them, and these +glances, so winged with happiness, spoke unutterable and ecstatic +things.</p> +<p>A hush dropped suddenly on the table, and in this hush she heard +the voice of Colonel Buffington telling a story in dialect. It was +an immemorial anecdote of Cousin Jimmy's—she had heard him +tell it a dozen times—and while she listened, it made her +feel comfortably at home.</p> +<p>"'Uncle Amos,' I said to him, 'we've been together thirty years, +but we've got to part. You're a drunkard and a thief and a +worthless darky all round, and you've lived on my place ever since +the war without doing a lick of work for your keep. I've stood it +as long as I can, but there's an end to human endurance. Yes, Amos, +the time has come for us to part.'</p> +<p>"Hi! Marse Beverly,' said the old rascal, 'whar you gwine?"</p> +<p>"Capital!" ejaculated the judge softly. "Capital!" And he added +for Gabriella's ear: "Buffington tells the best negro stories of +any man I know. Ought to have heard him at the club the other +night."</p> +<p>Gabriella did not answer; Cousin Jimmy's story had made her +think of Cousin Jimmy, with his soft heart and his dark shining +eyes like the eyes of a good and gentle dog. Then she thought of +her mother, and reminded herself that she must ask George when they +were to begin the hunt for an apartment. He had said they were very +hard to find when you wanted them.</p> +<p>Another hush fell, and Colonel Buffington was just beginning a +second story—one of Uncle Meriweather's this time—when +George came in from the drawing-room, and after a murmured apology, +took his seat between Patty and Mrs. Hamilton.</p> +<p>"That's a handsome boy," said the judge in a husky whisper to +Gabriella, "but he hasn't much to say for himself, has he?"</p> +<p>His manner of playful intimacy conveyed the impression that the +secret understanding between them did not include Gabriella's +husband. George was an outsider, but this hideous old man, with his +curious repelling suggestion of over-ripeness, as of fruit that is +beginning to rot at the core, was the dominant personality in her +mind at the moment. She wondered if he knew how repulsive he was, +and while she wondered, the judge, unaware of his tragic plight, +went on eating lobster with unimpaired relish. His importance, +founded upon a more substantial basis than mere personal +attraction, had risen superior not only to morality, but to the +outward failings of the flesh. Had he been twice as repulsive, she +realized that his millions would have commanded a respect denied to +both beauty and virtue.</p> +<p>"I wonder how any woman can stand him," mused Gabriella. Then, +glancing across the table at Mrs. Crowborough, she realized +something of the amazing insensibility of the more ethereal sex. No +man, not even in the last extremity, could have loved a woman as +ugly as Judge Crowborough was. The roughest man would have had +sufficient esthetic sense to have been shocked into revolt; yet a +woman, a refined and intelligent woman, had married the judge and +survived it. She appeared now, not only expressionless and +unrevolted, but filled with a healthy zest for social reforms and +the spiritual welfare of girl orphans.</p> +<p>"Well, I've learned something of life to-night," thought +Gabriella while she watched her.</p> +<p>Later in the evening, when she passed into the drawing-room, +with Mrs. Crowborough, bleak, unbending, and trailing her chains of +jet, she comforted herself again with the reflection that what she +was "seeing" might not be particularly exciting, "but it was +life."</p> +<p>On a short, hard sofa near the fire, beside Fatty, who bloomed +like a white rose under the red-shaded light, she listened to Mrs. +Fowler's unflagging efforts to "get on" with the judge's wife. +Never had the dauntless little woman revealed more surprising +resourcefulness, never had she talked so vivaciously, never had she +appeared so relentlessly pleasant. It was as if she said in the +face of Mrs. Crowborough's insensibility, which was the +insensibility not of mind, but of inanimate matter, "Whatever you +do, you can't keep me from being sweet." And in this strained +sweetness there was something touching, something wistful, a hint +of inner weariness which showed now and then beneath the restless +vivacity.</p> +<p>"Isn't it funny," said Patty suddenly, "how much mamma cares +about things that don't matter at all? You wouldn't believe it to +look at her, but she is in her heart the most worldly one of the +family. Father wouldn't give a tallow candle for anything that +isn't real."</p> +<p>A log broke in the centre, and fell, scattering a shower of +golden embers over the hearth. Rising quickly, with one of her +sprightly movements, Mrs. Fowler reached for a pair of small brass +tongs and pushed the broken log back on the andirons. Then she +threw some fresh wood on the flames, and resumed her seat with an +animated gesture as if the incident had enlivened her.</p> +<p>"Now they are talking about the everlasting Pletheridges," +whispered Patty. "I never understand how mother can take so much +interest in those people just because they are rich."</p> +<p>But to Gabriella it was more inconceivable still that her +mother-in-law, with the bluest blood of Virginia in her veins, +should regard with such artless reverence the social activities of +the granddaughter of a tavern-keeper. In her native State an +impoverished branch of Mrs. Fowler's family still lived on land +which, tradition said, had been granted one of her ancestors by +Charles the Second in recognition of distinguished services to that +dubious monarch; yet she could long enviously for a closer +acquaintance with the plutocratic descendant of an Irish +tavern-keeper—an honest man, doubtless, who had laid the +foundations of his fortune in a string of halfway houses stretching +from New York to Chicago.</p> +<p>"Yes, I dined with Mrs. Pletheridge once," she was saying in the +tone in which her royalist ancestor might have acknowledged a +command from his King.</p> +<p>"It always makes me angry, I can't help it," pursued Patty. "If +dear mamma had only some other weakness—cards or wine or +clothes or anything else. It's queer, with all her pride, how +little social backbone she has. Now to hear her talk, you would +imagine that that vulgar snob, whose father kept hotels and married +one of his chambermaids, had conferred an honour by inviting her to +dinner. And the funniest part is that, for all her good breeding, +and her family portraits, and her titled ancestors, mother hasn't +half so much respect for the genuine New Yorkers—I mean the +New Yorkers whose names really mean something—as she has for +these mushroom plutocrats. She had set her heart on George marrying +one of them, you know, but it's a jolly good thing he didn't."</p> +<p>"That's the girl he told me about," said Gabriella. "Was he ever +interested in her?"</p> +<p>"Not for a minute. We're awfully contrary about our love +affairs. We will marry for love—even mother did though she +may have forgotten it. We never marry the people—" She +clipped off the sentence, but Gabriella caught it up with a +laugh:</p> +<p>"I know," she said gaily, "you never marry the people your +family pick out for you."</p> +<p>"Well, of course, Billy went dreadfully hard with them—at +least with mother. She wanted the Duke of Somewhere so very badly. +But it was Billy or nobody for me. I'd have married Billy," she +added while her beautiful face grew stern, "if I'd had to walk all +the way across the world to him."</p> +<p>"He looks as if he were worth it," admitted Gabriella.</p> +<p>"He is, but that probably wasn't my reason for marrying him. One +never knows why one marries, I suppose, unless one marries for +money and then it is so beautifully simple. Now, you and George +don't seem a bit alike, but it all happened on the spur of the +moment, didn't it?"</p> +<p>"It always seems that way when one looks back, doesn't it?" +asked Gabriella. "But what I can't understand"—she brought it +out with a frown—"is why marriage doesn't change one. I used +to think I'd be different, but I'm not. And even love seems to +leave people wanting everything else just as badly. Your mother has +had a perfect love—she told me so—and yet it hasn't +kept her from wanting all the other things in life, has it? I wish +I could work it out," she finished, a little sadly, for she was +thinking of her mother's cry on the night of Jane's attack: "I am +tempted to hope Gabriella will never marry. The Carrs all marry so +badly!" Why had those words come back to her to-night? She had not +remembered them for months, she had even forgotten that she had +heard them, and now they floated to her as clearly as if they had +been spoken aloud.</p> +<p>In a little while Billy came in, and when, after a few moments +of spasmodic affability, Mrs. Crowborough rose and pleaded an early +board meeting on the morrow, Gabriella watched Patty wrap her +honey-coloured head in a white scarf and then stand, waiting for a +cab, in the doorway. Happiness, with so many people an invisible +attribute, encircled Patty like a garment of light. It crowned her +white brow under the glory of her hair; it shone in her eyes; it +rippled in her smile; it lingered in a beam of sunshine on her +lips. With her arm in Billy's she looked back laughing from the +steps, and it seemed to Gabriella that all the brightness of life +was going with them into the darkness. Beside the curbstone an old +cab horse, dazzled by the light from the door, turned his head +slowly toward them; and the look in his eyes, wistful, questioning, +expectant, seemed to say, "This is not life, but a miracle." And +from his box the red-cheeked, wheezy Irish driver gazed down on +Patty with the same wistfulness, the same questioning, the same +expectancy.</p> +<p>"I never see Patty go off in a cab that I don't feel she has +thrown herself away," observed Mrs. Fowler, yawning, while she +turned to the staircase. "Archibald, I hope you had a really good +time with the judge. I must say it is like ploughing to talk to his +wife."</p> +<p>Upstairs in her room a little later Gabriella said to George: +"Patty was telling me about the girl your mother wanted you to +marry."</p> +<p>He was pouring out a glass of water, and, absorbed in the act, +he merely grunted for answer. It was his disagreeable habit to +grunt when grunting saved effort.</p> +<p>"I wish you'd talk to me, George. It is so annoying to be +grunted at."</p> +<p>"Well, what do you want?" he replied amiably enough. "Patty is a +regular sieve, you know. Never tell her a secret."</p> +<p>"Did you ever like that girl—really?"</p> +<p>"The girl mother had in mind?" Having emptied the glass, he +returned it to the tray and came over to her. "Yes, but if you want +the truth, I preferred the girl in the chorus—the one the old +lady got in a blue funk about, you know. She's still there, the +last but one from the end, in the Golden Slipper. I'll take you to +see it some night."</p> +<p>"Men are strange," observed Gabriella, with philosophic +detachment. "Now I couldn't feel the slightest interest in a man in +comic opera. Did she really attract you?"</p> +<p>"Um—humph," he was grunting again.</p> +<p>"Wasn't she terribly common?"</p> +<p>"Um—humph."</p> +<p>"Wasn't she vulgar?"</p> +<p>"Rather. They all are."</p> +<p>"And fast?"</p> +<p>"Regular streak of lightning."</p> +<p>Then it was that Gabriella arrived at an understanding of +masculine nature. "You never can tell what men will like," she +concluded.</p> +<p>While she spoke he winked at her from the mirror into which he +was looking—mirrors always fascinated George and he could +never keep away from them—and there was in his face the +whimsical and appealing naughtiness of a child. Suddenly Gabriella +felt that as far as character and experience counted, she was +immeasurably older than George. Her superior common sense made her +feel almost middle-aged when he was in one of his boyish moods. At +the age of nine she had not been so utterly irresponsible as George +was at twenty-six; as an infant in arms she had probably regarded +the universe with a profounder philosophy. Though of course George +was charming, he was without any sense of the deeper purpose of +life. Like a child he must have what he wanted, and like a child he +sulked when he was thwarted and grew angelic when his wishes were +gratified. A single day had taught her that his father could not +depend on him in business, that his mother could not trust him even +to remember a dinner engagement. Gabriella loved him, she had +chosen him, she told herself now, and she meant to abide by her +choice; but she was not blind, she was not a fool, and she was +deficient in the kind of loyalty which obliges one to lie even in +the sanctity of one's own mind. She would be true to him, but she +would be true with her eyes open, not shut.</p> +<p>"George," she said presently, while she loosened her hair, "your +father told me you didn't stay more than an hour in the office." +The question, "What were you doing?" rose to her lips, but she +strangled the words before they escaped her. Her mind was quick to +grasp facts, and she had learned already something of a man's +instinctive dislike to being made to give an account of +himself.</p> +<p>"You've been hearing too much gossip to-night," he rejoined +gaily. "Take care what you listen to."</p> +<p>"Don't joke, dear. I wish you would tell me things."</p> +<p>"There isn't anything to tell, is there?"</p> +<p>"Is your father very rich?"</p> +<p>"Not very. Did you think you were marrying a millionaire?"</p> +<p>"I never thought about it, but everybody at home thinks he has a +great deal of money, and yet your mother talks as if she were +poor."</p> +<p>"Well, he made a pile of money in a big deal about ten years +ago, and the papers had a lot about it. After that he lost it, or +most of it, and the papers didn't tell. The fact is, he's always +either making or losing, and now he's losing. That's why they +wanted me to put off our marriage."</p> +<p>"They wanted you to put it off?"</p> +<p>"Mother did—the old man never interferes. She had got into +her head, you see, that the only way for me to make a living was to +marry one, so it was a little while before she could get used to +the idea that I was going to marry because I wanted to, not because +my family wanted me to. She was a brick though when she found out I +was in earnest. Mother is true blue when you know how to take +her."</p> +<p>"But you never told me."</p> +<p>"You bet I didn't. If I had, as likely as not, you would be +Gabriella Mary Carr at this minute."</p> +<p>Drawing gently out of his grasp, which had grown possessive, she +stood looking at him with a smile in which tenderness and irony +mingled; and the tenderness was her own, while the irony seemed to +belong to the vision of an impersonal spectator of life. The smile +fascinated him. He could not withdraw his gaze from it, and yet it +had the disturbing effect of placing her at an emotional +distance.</p> +<p>"Your mother is very good to me," she said, "but I feel somehow +as if I had taken an unfair advantage of her. And you hadn't even +told her," she added, "that we are going to take an apartment in +June."</p> +<p>"Oh, that's all right—there's plenty of time," he +responded irritably. "Only you mustn't make mountains out of +molehills."</p> +<p>Then, because she dreaded his anger, she gave up her point as +she had given up many before. He was irresponsible, but he was hers +and she loved him.</p> +<p>"I am so sleepy," she said, stifling a yawn, "that I feel as if +I could cry."</p> +<p>Marriage, at the end of a month, had already disciplined the +fearless directness of Gabriella. She had learned not to answer +back when she knew she was right; she had learned to appear sweet +when her inner spirit demanded a severe exterior; she had learned +to hold her tongue when a veritable torrent of words rose to her +lips. And these lessons, which George's temper and her own reason +had taught her, remained with her in the future, long after she had +forgotten George and the severity of her schooling.</p> +<p>There were many things for her to learn, and the lessons of that +first day and night stretched through the winter and well into the +beginning of spring. Accompanying Mrs. Fowler on her busy rounds, +she discovered that here also, as in the house in Hill Street, the +chief end of life was to keep up an appearance; here also the +supreme effort, the best energies, were devoted to a sham—to +a thing which had no actual existence. Though Mrs. Fowler was rich +beside Mrs. Carr, Gabriella soon found out that she was not nearly +so rich as her neighbours were, not nearly so rich as her position +in society exacted that she should be. She was still not rich +enough to be spared the sordid, nerve-racking effort to make two +ends meet without a visible break. Her small economies, to +Gabriella's surprise, were as rigid as Mrs. Carr's; and though she +lived in surroundings which appeared luxurious to the girl, there +was almost as little ready money to spend as there had been in Mrs. +Carr's household. Bills were made recklessly, and dinner parties +were given at regular intervals; for Mrs. Fowler, who denied +herself a hundred small comforts of living, who gave up cream in +her coffee and bought her butter from a grocer below Washington +Square, took quite as a matter of course the fact that she must, as +she put it, "pay off social scores." Though they ate the simplest +food in the market for six days of the week, on the seventh, +hothouse flowers bloomed profusely in the lower rooms and champagne +flowed abundantly into the delicate Venetian glasses on the round +table. To be sure, Mrs. Fowler's gown may have been two seasons +old, but it was covered with rare laces, which she had picked up +during her summers abroad; and her pearls—the string was +short, but really good, for she had matched it in +Paris—shone, rich and costly, around her still beautiful +neck. After one of these dinners the family lived on scraps and +looked at fading flowers for days, while Mrs. Fowler, with the air +of one who has done her duty, sat upstairs before the little French +writing-desk in her room, and patiently added accounts from morning +till night. A strained look would come into her plump, firm face, +three little wrinkles would appear between her eyebrows, and her +blue eyes, circled by faint shadows, would grow dark and anxious. +Then, when at last the accounts were finished and the unpaid bills +laid away in a pigeonhole, she would remark with animation:</p> +<p>"I don't see how on earth I am ever to pay all these bills," +and, after changing her dress, set out to bring her butcher or her +grocer to reason. On one of these days she took Gabriella (they +went in the stage because she had given up her carriage) on a hunt +for bargains in underwear, and, to the girl's astonishment, her +mother-in-law, who presented so opulent an appearance on the +surface, purchased for herself a supply of cheap and badly made +chemises and nightgowns. As she grew to know Mrs. Fowler better, +she found that the expenditures of that redoubtable woman, in spite +of her naturally delicate tastes, were governed by one of the most +elementary principles of economy. Through long habit she had +acquired a perception as unerring as instinct, and this perception +enabled her to tell exactly where extravagance was useful and where +it failed in its effect. She had learned to perfection never to +spend money on things that did not show a result. An appearance was +what she strove for, and one's chemises and nightgowns, however +exquisite in themselves, could not very well contribute to one's +external appearance. "Of course I like good underclothes," she +remarked cheerfully to her daughter-in-law, "but, after all, nobody +sees them."</p> +<p>This was so different from the poverty-stricken point of view of +Gabriella's childhood, that the girl puzzled over it afterwards +when she sat in her corner of the stage. Mrs. Carr had kept up an +appearance, too, she reflected, but, like the old maids on the +floor above, she had kept it up even to herself. Perhaps the +difference lay in the immense gulf which divided the appearance of +Hill Street from the appearance of the East Fifties. Mrs. Fowler +was obliged by the public opinion she obeyed to appear affluent, +while Mrs. Carr was merely constrained not to appear destitute. On +the whole Gabriella felt that she preferred the safe middle +distance between the two exacting standards of living.</p> +<p>But, though she might disapprove of her mother-in-law's +philosophy, there was no question about her fervent admiration for +her disposition. It was Mrs. Fowler's habit to appear "sweet," and +never once did Gabriella see her lose her temper, never once, no +matter how hard the day or how exasperating the accounts, did she +show so much as a passing hint of irritability. Her temper was so +angelic that it was the more surprising George should not have +inherited a trace of it.</p> +<p>If George had not inherited his mother's nature, he revealed, as +time went on, even less resemblance to the perfect reasonableness +of his father's temperament. Ever since her first day in the house, +Gabriella had been drawn to her father-in-law with an affection +which his wife, for all her preoccupied kindness, had not inspired. +She respected him for his calm strength, against which the +boisterous moods of George reacted as harmlessly as the whims of a +child, and she liked him for his unfailing courtesy, for his +patience, for his gentleness, which made her feel that he was, in +spite of the material nature of his occupation, the only member of +the household who possessed even a glimmer of spirituality. All day +long, and the greater part of the night, he thought about money, +and yet he had escaped the spiritual corruption which the ceaseless +pursuit of wealth had produced in the other rich men whom Gabriella +met in his house. It was as if some subtle alchemy in his soul had +transmuted the baser qualities into the pure gold of character; and +sometimes the girl wondered if the fact that he worked not for +himself but for others had preserved him from the grosser +contamination of money. For he seemed to think of himself so +little, that after three months in his house, Gabriella was still +ignorant of his interests apart from his work, except, of course, +his absorbing interest in the morning papers. From the time he got +up at seven o'clock until he went to bed punctually on the stroke +of ten, he appeared to order his life with the single purpose of +giving as little trouble as was compatible with living at all. His +tastes were the simplest; he drank only boiled water; he ate two +eggs and a roll with his coffee at breakfast; he spent hardly a +third as much on his clothes as George spent; and beyond an +occasional visit to his club in the evening, he seemed to have +absolutely no recreation. His life was in the stock market, and it +was a life of almost monastic simplicity and self-sacrifice. If he +had any pleasure, except the pleasure of providing his wife with +the money for her dinner parties, which bored him excruciatingly, +Gabriella had never discovered it. "He asks so little for himself +that it is pathetic," she remarked to George one night, when Mr. +Fowler had gone upstairs, carrying the evening papers to bed with +him.</p> +<p>"Oh, well, he gets what he asks for," retorted George +indifferently, "and that's more than the rest of us can say."</p> +<p>George was in a bad humour; he had been in a bad humour for +weeks; and for this reason Gabriella had put off from day to day +telling him that she expected a child in the autumn. All her +efforts to soothe had merely exasperated him; and there were days +when her presence worked him into a fit of nervous irritability. +After four months of marriage prolonged boredom had replaced the +passionate tenderness of their honeymoon. Why this should be so she +was too well-balanced emotionally to understand. She saw only the +outward evidences of change, of gradual disillusionment; and though +at first she wept a little while she wondered, she ended by drying +her tears and attributing his casual indifference and his explosive +violence alike to some obscure disturbing condition of health. +Every evening, except when there were guests, he spent at his club; +he came to bed late, and his waking hour was filled with complaint +about the number and the size of his bills. He treated these bills +as if they had been gratuitous insults, as if they had leaped, +without reason for being, out of a malign world to assail him. As +yet Gabriella had bought nothing; and she dreaded the time when her +clothes would wear out beyond the hope of repairing, and she should +be obliged to add another bill to the growing pile under the silver +paper weight on the little white and gold desk.</p> +<p>But in the last few weeks even this anxiety had faded from her +mind, for the miracle of life which stirred in her body had +diffused its golden halo around every trivial incident of her +existence. After days of physical wretchedness, which she had +hidden from George, she sat one evening, utterly at peace, in front +of the fire in the room which had been Patty's before her marriage. +It was past midnight, and she was waiting for George to come home +because she felt that she could not sleep until she had told him. +In the morning he had been unusually gentle, and as he left the +house, she had said to herself a little sternly that he must know +about the child before the day was over. A secret consultation with +her mother-in-law had strengthened her resolution. "Don't keep it +from him another day, Gabriella," Mrs. Fowler had urged. "It will +make such a difference. I shall never forget Archibald's joy when I +told him George was coming. Men are like that about children, you +know."</p> +<p>"Yes, I'll tell him to-night," Gabriella had answered; and +sitting now in the rocking-chair by the fire, she began to wonder +if George would be exactly like other men about children.</p> +<p>The house was very still, but even in its stillness it exhaled +the nervous apprehension which she felt to be its living +character—as if George's parents, sleeping two doors away, +had dropped their guard for the night, and allowed their anxious +thoughts the freedom of the halls until daybreak. And these +thoughts, which had become like invisible presences to the girl, +wandered up and down the dim staircase, where the lowered lights +awaited George's return, invaded the drawing-room, filled with +stuffy red velvet chairs, so like crouching human beings in the +darkness, and even thronged about her threshold, ready to spring +inside at the instant when George should open the door. While her +fire burned brightly on the andirons, and rosy shadows danced on +the white rug beside her bed, on the lace coverlet turned back for +the night, on the deep pillows with their azure lining showing +through the delicate linen of the slips, on her simple nightdress, +in which the buttonholes were so beautifully worked by her +mother,—while she looked at these things it was easy for her +to shut out the apprehensions of yesterday. But these apprehensions +would come with George and they would not go until George left her +again. The house with its heavy late-Victorian furniture, its +velvet carpets which muffled footsteps, its thick curtains which +hid doorways, its red walls, its bevelled mirrors, its substantial +and costly ornaments, its solid paintings in solid frames—the +house and all that it contained diffused for Gabriella an +inescapable atmosphere, and this atmosphere was like the one in +which she had waited expectantly in her childhood for the roof to +be sold over her head. Now, as then, she waited for something to +happen, and this something was a fact of dread, a shape of terror, +which must be ignored as long as its impending presence was not +directly before one's eyes. But with the look she was familiar, for +she had seen it in her mother's face as far back as she could +remember. It was associated in her mind with the need of money, +with scant food, with scant fires, with a brooding and sinister +hush in the house. With the knowledge of these things in her mind +how could she hope that George would be glad of the child that was +coming to them in the autumn?</p> +<p>And yet to Mrs. Fowler the news had appeared to bring no +additional anxiety. She had seemed pleased rather than otherwise, +mildly interested, animatedly sympathetic.</p> +<p>"I am afraid it will be very expensive," Gabriella had reminded +her a little timidly, feeling frankly apologetic when she thought +of all the trouble she must bring to the harassed and over-burdened +little woman.</p> +<p>But into Mrs. Fowler's face there had come the look with which +she was accustomed to receive the suggestion that her dinner +parties were an extravagance. That economy which she practised so +rigidly, which was so elastic to cover little pleasures and the +minor comforts of life, broke like a cobweb when she tried to +stretch it over larger needs and desires. The severity of her +self-denial was directed entirely against the trivial and the +unessential. With regard to the indispensable materials for +happiness, she seemed to feel that she possessed an unquestionable +right to enjoy them at any cost; and she had reassured Gabriella +with an optimism which appeared perfectly genuine. After talking to +her the girl had felt that she might allow herself to be happy if +only George would change back into his old way.</p> +<p>Four months ago, at the beginning of her marriage, she had told +herself that she needed only the daily intimacy of life to make her +understand him. Now, after living with him, she felt that she was +growing to understand him less every hour—that the relation +which ought to have brought them spiritually closer, had ended by +thrusting them to an incalculable distance from each other. Of the +nervous reactions which he had suffered she knew nothing. All she +saw clearly was that the widening breach between them would soon +become impassable unless it could be filled by their new love for +the child. The power to hold him must slip from her hands to the +child's, and she was more than ready, she was even eager, to +relinquish it. In the last few months her feeling for George had +altered, and, though she was hardly conscious of the change in +herself, her love for him had become less passionate and more +maternal. The tenderness was there, but the yearning, the delight +in his mere physical presence was gone. Like every other emotion +that she had felt in the past, her love for her husband had become +absorbed in the passion, the longing, the delight with which she +enfolded the thought of her child.</p> +<p>"I wonder if mother felt like this about me," she would say to +herself, and the wonder was like a cord drawing her back to her +mother and to her own babyhood. Then George would become strangely +vague, strangely remote in her thoughts; and her mother would seem +nearer to her than everything except the child under her heart.</p> +<p>But since her talk with Mrs. Fowler, who had shown her +photographs of George as a baby, some in long clothes, some in his +first short frock, with a woolly lamb in his hands, some in a +velvet suit, with his lustrous curls falling over a lace collar, +Gabriella had felt that she possessed a new understanding of her +husband and of the imperative needs of his nature. The child +quality in him, the eternal boy that he betrayed sometimes by +accident, appeared to her now to be the salient attribute of his +character. After all, because of this quality, which was at once +his charm and his weakness, she could not judge him as harshly as +she might judge another man, she could not demand of him the +gravity and the restraint of his father, who had never been +young.</p> +<p>"I ought not to have kept it from him. His mother is right. She +understands him better than I do," she thought, as she looked at +the clock. "If I had told him sooner he might be with me now."</p> +<p>Through the muffled stillness of the house the sound of the +opening front door stole up to her, and she heard George come in +and stop for a minute to take off his hat and coat in the lower +hail. Then she heard his footsteps move to the staircase; and while +she listened she had a curious intuitive sense that it was not +George at all, but a stranger who was coming to her, and that this +stranger walked like a very old man. She heard him reach the bend +in the stairs, and without stopping to put out the light, pass on +to her door, which was the first on the landing. As he reached the +top of the stairs, he stumbled once; then she heard his hand on the +knob and a fumbling sound as if the knob would not turn. The door +seemed to take an eternity to open, and while she sprang up with +the clutch of terror at her heart, she felt again the sharp, +agonizing premonition that a stranger was approaching her.</p> +<p>"George!" she called in a strangled voice, and waited, standing, +for him to enter.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> +<h3>MOTHERHOOD</h3> +<p>At noon the next day Mrs. Fowler came into Gabriella's room and +found her sewing beside the window which looked on a gray expanse +of sky and street, where a few snowflakes were falling.</p> +<p>"Did you tell him, dear?" she asked, arranging a handful of red +roses in a little alabaster vase on the desk.</p> +<p>No, Gabriella had not told him. She felt now that she should +never be able to tell him, but all she said was:</p> +<p>"I didn't get a chance. How lovely those roses are."</p> +<p>Mrs. Fowler set the vase where the gray light fell on it, and +then turning with empty hands from the desk, asked gently:</p> +<p>"Aren't you making a mistake, dear?" Her movements were like +those of a character in a play who is made to fill in an awkward +pause with some mechanical action.</p> +<p>"I couldn't tell him last night," replied Gabriella; "he was +sick all night."</p> +<p>She was very pale, even her lips had lost their rich colour, and +her eyes had a drawn and heavy look as if she had not slept. +Without looking at her mother-in-law, she went on with her sewing, +working buttonholes of exquisite fineness in a small white garment. +In her lap there was a little wicker basket filled with spools of +thread and odd bits of lace and cambric; and every now and then she +stopped her work and gazed thoughtfully down on it as if she were +trying to decide how she might use the jumble of scraps that it +contained.</p> +<p>"Gabriella," said Mrs. Fowler suddenly, after she had watched +her a moment, "did anything happen last night?"</p> +<p>"Happen? No, what could have happened?"</p> +<p>"At what time did George come in?"</p> +<p>"About one o'clock. I sat up for him."</p> +<p>"Was—was anything the matter with him? Was he in any way +different?"</p> +<p>"He was sick. He was sick all night." A look of disgust crossed +her face while she stopped to wipe away a drop of blood from her +finger. "I don't remember pricking my finger since I was a child," +she remarked.</p> +<p>"You are keeping something from me," said Mrs. Fowler; and +sitting down in the small chair by the desk, she leaned her elbow, +in her full sleeve of violet cashmere, on the edge of the +blotting-pad. She was wearing a morning gown made, as all her house +gowns were made, after the princess style, and Gabriella could see +the tight expanse of her bosom rising and falling under a garniture +of purple and silver passementerie. Her hair, fresh from the +crimping pins, rose in stiff ridges from her forehead, and her +bright red lips were so badly chapped from cold that they cracked a +little when she smiled. She looked as hard as granite though in +reality her heart was breaking with pity.</p> +<p>"I want to help you," she said, "and I can't if you keep things +back."</p> +<p>"I told you George was sick. I was up all night with him." Again +a look of disgust, which she could not control, flickered and died +in her face.</p> +<p>"But you oughtn't to have let him keep you awake. You need all +the sleep you can get. When he comes in late he must sleep in the +spare room across the hall."</p> +<p>"His things are all in here and he would come in to get them; +that would wake me."</p> +<p>For a moment Mrs. Fowler hesitated while the struggling breath +grew more irregular under the passementerie on her bosom. The ripe +colour faded from her cheeks and her lips looked blue in the harsh +light from the window.</p> +<p>"I think I'd better speak to George," she said. "He is spoiled +and he always thinks first of his own comfort. I suppose it's the +way we brought him up—but when he understands, he will be +more considerate."</p> +<p>For the first time Gabriella laid down her sewing and, leaning +forward in her chair, fixed her eyes, with their look of deep +stillness, of wistful expectancy, on the face of her +mother-in-law.</p> +<p>"Would you mind telling me if George was ever—ever wild +about women?" she asked, and though her voice was very low and +quiet, her words seemed to echo loudly through the hushed suspense +in her brain. It was as if every piece of furniture, every vacant +wall, every picture, and every pane of glass, repeated the +sound.</p> +<p>The pleasant smile on Mrs. Fowler's lips became suddenly +painful. As if she were suffering a physical hurt, she put her +handkerchief to her mouth while she answered:</p> +<p>"He was once—but that was before he fell in love with you. +We hoped that you would be able to steady him—that marriage +would make him settle down."</p> +<p>"Did he drink then?"</p> +<p>"A little—not enough to make him show it. I never saw him +really show it but once, and then he was dreadfully sick. +Was—was he like that last night?"</p> +<p>For a long minute, while she looked out of the window at the +falling snowflakes, Gabriella did not reply. Then she spoke in a +voice that was sternly accusing.</p> +<p>"You ought to have told me. I ought to have known." Her own wild +passion for George was forgotten. She felt only a sense of outrage, +of wounded and stunned resentment, They had treated her as if she +were a child or a fool. That she had been a fool she was not +prepared to admit at the instant—and yet it was less than a +year ago, that June night when she had watched George over the +clove pinks while her heart melted with happiness. She had had her +way, and she was already regretting her madness. "Is this what love +comes to?" she asked herself bitterly as she watched the white +flakes whirling out of the gray sky. "Is this what it all comes to +in the end, or am I different from other women?"</p> +<p>Moistening her dry lips with the tip of her tongue, Mrs. Fowler +smiled bravely, though there were tears in her eyes. "Archibald +wanted to, but I wouldn't let him," she replied; "I hoped that you +would make everything different. He was so much in love with you. I +thought you could do anything with him."</p> +<p>Though her reasoning failed to convince Gabriella, it was +sufficiently forcible to justify her in her own judgment, and with +an easier conscience, she settled comfortably behind the +impregnable defences of the maternal instinct. After all, she had +only done what she believed to be best for her boy. She had not +been selfish, she had not even been thoughtless, she had been +merely a mother.</p> +<p>"I wish you would tell me what really happened last night, +Gabriella," she said, and her tone showed that she had recovered +her shaken confidence in the righteousness of her cause.</p> +<p>"I can't tell you," answered Gabriella. "What good would it do? +George was disgusting, that was all." She spoke sternly, for no +lingering tenderness softened the judgment of her youth and her +injured pride. How could she possibly have tenderness for a man who +had tired of her in four months, who had become so lost to common +decency that he could let her see him revoltingly drunk? And she +had held her head so high, she had so despised Jane for her +weakness and folly! At the moment she knew that she was helpless, +but deep down within her she felt that this helplessness would not +last—that the wings of her soul were still strong, still +free, still untouched by the shame her body had suffered. With a +single effort she could break the net of passion, and escape into +the wonderful world which surrounded her. Like Jane, she had been a +fool, but, unlike Jane, she would not stay a fool always.</p> +<p>"You seem so hard, Gabriella," said Mrs. Fowler. "Is it because +you are young? Young people never make allowances."</p> +<p>The taste of bitterness rose to Gabriella's lips.</p> +<p>"I suppose I am hard," she answered, "and I am going to stay so. +There is safety in hardness."</p> +<p>Remembering Jane, remembering the hereditary weakness of the +Carrs, who had all married badly, she told herself that in hardness +lay her solitary refuge from despair. After all, it was better to +be hard than to break.</p> +<p>"You can't judge George quite as you would other men," began +George's mother, and she was aware after a minute that the maternal +instinct had in this instance led her to defeat.</p> +<p>"I am not judging other men," replied George's wife coldly; "I +am judging George." Against men as men she had never even thought +of cherishing a grievance. All her life she had looked to some man +as to the saviour of the family fortunes, and her vision was still +true enough to perceive that, as a human being, Archibald Fowler +was finer and bigger than his wife, that Billy was finer and bigger +than Patty. She had found men less the servants of mere instinct +than she had found women, less the passive and unresisting vehicles +of the elemental impulses. Then, too, they were so seldom the +victims of life, and there was in her nature a fierce contempt for +a victim. She despised people who submitted to circumstances, who +resigned themselves to necessity, as if resignation were a virtue +instead of a vice.</p> +<p>"Well, you must try not to worry, dear; worry is so bad for you. +I am so sorry it happened. You won't mind my speaking to George, +will you?"</p> +<p>Gabriella shook her head. "I don't care what you say to +him."</p> +<p>"Do you feel able to come down to lunch?"</p> +<p>"Oh, yes, perfectly. I am simply dying for a cup of tea, and +afterwards I think I'll go out for a walk. One gets so stuffy and +dull when one stays in the house."</p> +<p>Her manner had changed as if by magic. In putting the thought of +George out of her mind she seemed to have put aside her resentment +and despondency.</p> +<p>In the evening George came home, looking a little yellow, with a +box of gardenias in his hand; but the scent of the flowers sickened +Gabriella, and she put them out of the room while she dressed for +dinner. The attention, instead of pleasing her, brought an ironic +twist to her lips, though she thanked George quite as courteously +as if he had been a stranger to her. At dinner when Mr. Fowler +abruptly asked his son why he had not been to the office, she kept +her eyes fixed on her plate, in which she seemed to see palely +reflected the anxious pleasantness of her mother-in-law's smile. It +hardly occurred to her to wonder where George had spent his day, +though, when she met Mr. Fowler's kind and tired look, a pang shot +through her heart. She was sorrier for George's father than she was +for herself. He looked so lonely, yet so patient. He so obviously +needed help, and no one appeared to notice it, not even his wife, +who began planning a dinner party in the futile effort to come to +George's assistance. It was by coming to George's assistance in +every difficulty, Gabriella surmised, that his mother had made +George what he was; and the girl saw in imagination an endless line +of subterfuges, of pitiful excuses and feeble justifications, all +hidden in the tortuous labyrinthine windings of the maternal +instinct. She saw, with the relentless vision of a Hebrew prophet, +the inevitable ruin of the love that does not submit to wisdom as +its law.</p> +<p>More than seven months afterwards, when she lay in her room with +her child in the crook of her arm, she prayed passionately that +some supreme Power would grant her the strength not of emotion, but +of reason. All her life she had suffered from an unrestrained +indulgence of the virtues—from love running to waste through +excess, from the self-sacrifice that is capable of everything but +self-discipline, from the intemperate devotion to duty that is as +morbid as sin. Balance, moderation, restraint—these seemed to +her, lying there with her child on her arm, to be the things most +worth striving for. She saw her mother, worn to a shadow by the +unnecessary deaths she had died, by the useless crucifixions she +had endured; she saw Jane, haggard, wan, with her sweetness turning +to bitterness because it was wasted; and again she found herself +asking for balance, moderation, restraint. The child, a little +girl, with George's eyes and hair like gauze, had liberated +Gabriella from the last illusions of her girlhood.</p> +<p>And yet, though Gabriella prayed for moderation, she found after +a few months that motherhood was absorbing the full strength of her +nature. George hardly existed for her; he came and went like the +passing of a shadow, and she began gradually to sink her life into +the life of her child. Not until the winter was she brought back to +a sharp realization of her neglected duty to her mother; and this +came with a letter from Mrs. Carr during the last week in January. +Mrs. Carr was still living with Jane, and though she had accepted +mildly Gabriella's reasons for postponing her coming to New York, +she was beginning somewhat plaintively to question. She had made +little effort to hide her disappointment at not being with her +daughter when her grandchild was born, for, in spite of the fact +that she had tragically assisted at the entrance of Jane's six +children into the world, she still possessed an insatiable appetite +for the perpetually recurring scenes of birth and death. Then only +did her natural bent of mind appear to be justified by universal +phenomena.</p> +<p>And now on this morning in January, when Frances Evelyn, the +baby, lay good and quiet in her crib, Gabriella read over again the +disturbing letter she had just received from her mother.</p> +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>MY DEAR DAUGHTER:</p> +<p>Jane wrote you that I had had a slight attack of pneumonia, so +you understood why I was obliged to let so long a time go by +without sending you a letter. Though I have been out of bed now for +more than a fortnight, I still feel so weak and good for nothing +that I am hardly equal to the exertion of writing. Then, too, I +have had some trouble with my wrist—the right one—and +this has made it really painful for me to hold a pen or even a +fork. The doctor thinks it is a nervous affection and that it will +pass away as soon as I get back my strength, and I am sure I hope +and pray that it will. But sometimes I feel as if I should never +get any stronger, and of course while my wrist is crippled I am +unable to do any sewing. This has depressed me very much, for poor +Jane has so many worries of her own that I dread being dependent on +her, and Charley has not been at all well this winter, though +kinder and more considerate than I have ever known him to be. He +has his faults, but I have always felt that he was not entirely +responsible and that we ought to pity rather than blame him. Women +can never be too thankful that they are spared by a merciful +Providence the temptations which seem to beset men. When we +consider how much more sheltered our lives are, we ought to be +lenient in our judgment, and I cannot help feeling that God meant +us to be so when he gave us more spiritual natures than those of +men. Dr. Preston gave a very instructive and impressive talk on +that subject before the Ladies' Aid Society of our church the week +before I was taken sick. Indeed, I am afraid I caught the cold that +led to pneumonia sitting in Charley's pew, which gets a bad draught +from the door of the Sunday-school room.</p> +<p>I must apologize for this dull letter, as I haven't been able to +get out even to market. Before I was taken ill I used to do all of +Jane's marketing, and you know what a place the market is for +meeting people and hearing all the latest news. There are, however, +two things to tell you, and you'll never be able to guess them. +First, poor Miss Amelia Peterborough is dead. She was stricken with +paralysis a week ago when she was all alone in the house—Miss +Jemima was at a funeral—and she never regained consciousness +until the end, which came at three o'clock Sunday night. Poor Miss +Jemima, I feel so sorry for her. She keeps up beautifully and is +very pious and resigned. They say she will go into the Old Ladies' +Home as soon as the arrangements can be made.</p> +<p>The other piece of news is more cheerful, though, for my part, +life seems so short and so uncertain that I can't see much +cheerfulness anywhere. So many people are dying that you can't help +wondering who will be next, and as Dr. Preston said when he called +on me during my illness, our only substantial hope is in a blessed +hereafter. My one regret will be leaving my children and +grandchildren, and especially my precious little Frances Evelyn, +whom I have never seen. I have no doubt that Mrs. Fowler was far +more useful than I could have been at the time of your trial, but +it was a great disappointment to me not to be able to receive the +little darling into the world.</p> +<p>But I had entirely forgotten that I started to tell you about +Florrie Spencer's marriage to Algernon Caperton. Of course I +couldn't go, but Jane says the wedding was lovely and that Florrie +looked really beautiful. Bessie had on rose-coloured brocade. Did +you ever hear of such a thing at her age? She was just as gay and +flirtatious as a girl, Charley said, and she sent me some of the +cake and a bottle of champagne, which, of course, I didn't touch. +It is a pity she is so loud, for there isn't a kinder heart in the +world. Florrie and Algernon are going to New York on their wedding +trip. Isn't it exactly like Florrie to want to go to all the +theatres? They send you word, by the way, that they are certainly +coming to see you and the baby.</p> +<p>And now that I have told all my news, I must write a little +about myself, though I am afraid you will be upset by what I am +obliged to tell you. I put it off as long as I could—for I do +hate to worry you—but the doctor has just been to see me and +he says I must go to Florida immediately to stay until the bad +weather is over. I told him I couldn't possibly afford it—the +trip would take a great deal of money—but he insisted that I +should write and tell you exactly what he said. He said my lungs +were very weak and that he ordered the change—you know they +never seem to consider expense—and when he was leaving, he +stopped in the hall to speak to Jane about it. Poor Jane, she is so +worried that she has almost gone deranged over my health, but as +far as I am concerned I feel that I would rather pass away than +cause so much trouble and upset everybody. Jane, as you know, +hasn't a cent to her name, and it is out of the question her asking +Charley, because he has had a very bad winter financially. Even +Cousin Jimmy stopped sending me the rent of the house since I moved +to Jane's, and as for Uncle Meriweather, he has been obliged to +give up his business and go to live with his niece in the country. +So, much as I hate to ask you, my dear child, I feel that you would +rather I did so—and that I ought to be perfectly frank about +the situation, particularly since poor Jane feels so deeply her +inability to help me. I am afraid I should need about four hundred +dollars, as I have bought nothing to wear for years. Bessie Spencer +has told me of a very reasonable place where I could board, and it +is just possible that she will be going herself by the time I am +ready. If for any reason you are unable to let me have the money, +just destroy this letter and don't think about it again. I wouldn't +cause you a moment's worry for anything in the world.</p> +<p>With love to George and a dozen kisses for my precious little +grandchild,</p> +<p>Your devoted mother,<br /> +FANNY CARR.</p> +<p>Did I remember to tell you that Miss Polly Hatch has gone to New +York to look after her nephew's children? He lost his wife a few +months ago, and was left with four little children, the youngest +only a year old.</p> +</div> +<p>So her punishment had come! As Gabriella dropped the letter into +her lap, and looked at little Frances, so good and happy in her +crib, she felt that she was punished not only for her reckless +marriage, but for all the subterfuge, all the deceit which had +followed it. She had not told her mother the truth, for she, also, +had been chiefly concerned with "keeping up an appearance." For the +purpose of shielding George, who was blandly indifferent to her +shielding, she had lied to her mother, if not in words, yet in an +evasion of the truth, and the result was that her lies and her +evasions had recoiled not on George's head, but on her own. For +George wouldn't care. So little value did he place upon Mrs. Carr's +good opinion, that he would not care even if Gabriella were to tell +her the truth. And if she had only been honest! If she had only +refused to lie because custom exacted that a wife should be willing +to lie in defense of her husband. Some obscure strain of dogmatic +piety struggled in the convulsed depths of her being, as if she had +been suddenly brought up against the vein of iron in her +soul—against the moral law, stripped bare of clustering +delusions, which her ancestors had known and fought for as "the +Berkeley conscience." The Berkeley conscience, bred for centuries +on a militant faith, told her now that she was punished because she +had lied to her mother.</p> +<p>Then, as if this reversion to primitive theology had been merely +an automatic reaction of certain nerve cells, she saw and condemned +the childlike superstition. No, she was not punished so quickly; +but she had been a fool, and she was paying the price of her +incredible folly. How little, how pitifully little she knew of the +world, after all! A year ago, on that horrible night, she had +thought that her lesson was finished, but it was only beginning. +Her immense, confiding ignorance would lead her into other abysses. +And again, as on the morning after that night of revelation, she +resolved passionately that she would not stay a fool +always—that she would not become a victim of life.</p> +<p>The empty bottle had slipped to one side of the crib, and little +Frances lay smiling at the friendly universe, with her wet mouth +wide open and her blue eyes, so like George's, sparkling with +laughter. The down on her head, as fine and soft as spun silk, made +tiny rings over her pink skull, which was as clear and delicate as +an eggshell; and these golden rings filled Gabriella with a +tenderness so poignant that it brought tears to her eyes. Whatever +her mother may have thought about the world, it was perfectly +obvious that Frances Evelyn considered her part in it remarkably +jolly. To be a well baby in an amiable universe was her ideal of +felicity.</p> +<p>When George came up to luncheon, which he did sometimes now, he +went straight to the nursery for a glimpse of his daughter. Ever +since little Frances had lost her first hair and gained her golden +down, he had taken an interest in the rapid stages of her +development; and, though he never "wasted time," as he said, in the +nursery, he liked to look in once a day and see whether or not she +had changed in the night. On her side the baby treated her father +as if he were an inexhaustible family joke, to be enjoyed not too +seriously, but with a polite recognition of its humorous points. If +she were sucking her bottle when he entered, she immediately +stopped and laughed at him while the rubber nipple dropped from her +toothless gums; if she awoke and discovered him at the side of her +crib, she greeted him with subdued but inappeasable merriment; if +he lifted her in his arms, her crocheted shoes could barely contain +the kicks of her ecstatic feet. And because she was a jolly little +beggar, George grew, after a time, to cherish a certain fondness +for her. There was some use in a laughing baby, but he hated +anything, child, woman, or animal, that cried.</p> +<p>On this particular day the baby happened to be asleep when he +entered, so, without stopping, he went into Gabriella's bedroom, +where the perfume of roses mingled with the scent of the burning +logs on the andirons.</p> +<p>"That's a good fire," he observed, stopping on the hearth-rug. +"I don't wonder you hate to go out."</p> +<p>"Yes, the room was a little chilly, so I lit the fire for the +baby's bath. I don't usually have one," replied Gabriella, +explaining her apparent extravagance.</p> +<p>"Has she been well?"</p> +<p>"She is always well. I haven't had a day's anxiety about her +since she was born."</p> +<p>"But she isn't very old yet." Already little Frances was +supplying conversational material to her parents.</p> +<p>"I wish you would sit down, George," said Gabriella, with a +change of tone. "I want to read you a part of a letter from +mother."</p> +<p>"Can't you tell me instead?"</p> +<p>"If you'd rather. You know I never told mother why we couldn't +have her to live with us. I never told her anything. I simply made +excuses."</p> +<p>"That was all right, wasn't it?" He was plainly nervous.</p> +<p>"At the time I thought I couldn't do differently, but +now—"</p> +<p>She gave him the letter, and while he unfolded it awkwardly, she +watched him anxiously and yet without interrupting his reading. +Beyond the simple facts, she had told him nothing, and it was +characteristic of her that she did not embellish these facts with +picturesque phrases. She herself was so insensible to the appeal of +rhetoric that she hardly thought of it as likely to influence +anybody. Then, too, in moments of intense feeling she had always a +sensation of dumbness.</p> +<p>"I'm awfully sorry about her illness," he said, "but when you +think of it, the best thing that could have happened to her was not +to come to New York. This climate would have been the end of +her."</p> +<p>"Will you let me have the money, George? I will try to save in +every way that I can. I've made all the baby's clothes, as it is, +and I can easily make the few things I need, also. Since the baby +came I have stopped calling with your mother."</p> +<p>A flush rose to his face. "I know you've been a regular brick +about money, Gabriella. I never saw a woman buy as little as you +do, and you always manage to look well dressed."</p> +<p>She smiled with faint irony. Her clothes were dowdy, for she had +turned the broadcloth dress she had had at her marriage and was +wearing it in the street; but if he thought her well dressed, it +seemed hardly fair to undeceive him. Had she been any other woman, +she reflected, he would probably have looked at her long enough to +discover that she had grown decidedly shabby.</p> +<p>Since the baby's birth, as she told him, she had stopped calling +with her mother-in-law, and a black net dress, given her by Mrs. +Fowler because it had grown too small in the waist, was still +presentable enough for the family dinners. But she never worried +about her appearance, and it was a relief to find that George was +quite as indifferent on the subject as she was. In the days of +their honeymoon he had been so particular that she had spent hours +each day before the mirror.</p> +<p>"Will you let me have the money, George?" she asked again. The +form of the request had not changed, but there was a deeper note in +her voice: the irony, which had been at first only a glancing edge +to her smile, a subdued flash in her eyes, had passed now into her +speech. George, looking sideways at the slightly austere charm of +her profile, thought suddenly, "Gabriella is growing hard." He +noticed, too, for the first time, that she looked older since the +birth of the baby, that her bosom was fuller and that her figure, +which had always been good, was now lovely in its long flowing +lines. She was handsomer than she had been before her marriage, for +her complexion had become clearer since she had lived in the North, +and though she was still pale, her skin was losing its sallow +tone.</p> +<p>Yet, though he thought her more attractive than she had been as +a girl, she had ceased to make the faintest appeal to his senses. +There were times even when he wondered how she had ever appealed to +him, for she had not been beautiful, and beauty had always seemed +to him to be essential in the women with whom one fell in love. +But, however it had happened, still it had happened, and she was +now his wife and the mother of the adorable Frances Evelyn.</p> +<p>"I'm awfully cut up about it, Gabriella," he said, "but honestly +I am out of the money. I couldn't lay my hands on it just now to +save my life."</p> +<p>His excuses convinced him while he uttered them, but he had +barely paused before Gabriella demolished them with a single blow +of her merciless logic.</p> +<p>"You were talking last night about buying a horse," she +replied.</p> +<p>He frowned resentfully, and she immediately regretted her words. +By speaking the truth she had defeated her purpose.</p> +<p>"It isn't as if I were buying a horse for pleasure," he answered +doggedly; "I am dependent on exercise—you can see for +yourself how I've gone off in the last two or three months. Of +course if the horse were simply for enjoyment, like a carriage, it +would be different. But mother has given up her carriage," he +concluded triumphantly.</p> +<p>He was a spendthrift, she realized, but he was a spendthrift +with a streak of stinginess in his nature. Though he enjoyed +gratifying his own desires, which were many, it pained him +inexpressibly to witness extravagance on the part of others, and by +a curious twist of the imagination, all money spent by Gabriella +appeared to him to be an extravagance. To be sure, he had just told +her that she was a brick about money, but that had been intended as +a warning to virtue rather than as an encouragement to weakness. +There was, to be sure, a vague understanding that she might make +bills when they were unavoidable; but so in want of spending money +had she been since her marriage, that several times she had been +obliged to borrow car fare from her mother-in-law. When she had +asked George for an allowance, however small, he had put her off +with the permission to charge whatever she bought in the shops. As +the bills apparently never lessened, and her conscience revolted +from debt, she had gone without things she needed rather than +accept the barren generosity of his promises. At Christmas her +father-in-law had given her fifty dollars in gold, and with this +she had bought presents for her mother and Jane and the +servants.</p> +<p>In the old days in Hill Street she had had little enough, but at +least that little had really belonged to her; and since her +marriage she had learned that when one is poor, it is better to +live surrounded by want. To be poor in the midst of wealth—to +be obliged to support a fictitious affluence on one's secret +poverty—this was after all to know the supreme mortification +of spirit. There were days when she almost prayed that the brooding +suspense would assume a definite shape, that the blow would fall, +the crash come, and ruin envelop them all. Any visible fact would +be better than this impending horror of the imagination—this +silent dread so much worse than any reality of failure—which +encompassed them with the impalpable thickness and darkness of a +cloud.</p> +<p>"Then I can't help my mother even if it's a matter of life and +death?" she asked.</p> +<p>"I don't believe it's as bad as that, Gabriella. Ten chances to +one the rest of the winter will be mild, and she would find Florida +too depressing. You never can tell about doctors, you know. It's +their business to make trouble. Now you mustn't let yourself +worry—there's anxiety enough without that, heaven knows. Why, +just look at father! He has lost almost all he ever had—he is +simply staving off failure for I don't know how long, and yet from +mother's manner who on earth would suspect that there is anything +wrong? Now that's what I call pluck. By Jove—"</p> +<p>Again her impetuous spirit—dangerous gift!—flashed +out recklessly in defence of the truth.</p> +<p>"Then why don't you try to help your father, George?" she asked. +"He tells me that you rarely go down to the office." Her voice +vibrated, but the stern lines of her mouth, which had lost its rich +softness under the stress of her anger, hardly quivered.</p> +<p>His frown darkened to a scowl. The calm disdain in her manner +made him feel that he hated her, and he told himself stubbornly +that if she had been gentler, if she had been more womanly, he +would have done what she asked of him, forgetting in his rage that, +if she had been these things, he would have found even less +difficulty in refusing her.</p> +<p>"You know as well as I do that I can't stand office work when +I'm not fit," he returned sullenly. "It plays the devil with my +nerves."</p> +<p>Her case was hopeless. If it had not been so in the beginning, +she had ruined it by her irrefutable arguments, and while he +rambled on moodily, making excuses for his neglect of business, she +sat silently planning ways by which she might get the money for her +mother. To ask her father-in-law was, of course, out of the +question; and Mrs. Fowler, beyond a miraculously extended credit, +due probably to the shining bubble of her husband's financial +security, was as penniless as Gabriella. Unless she could find +something to sell there seemed little likelihood of securing four +hundred dollars in a day. It was imperative, then, that she should +find something to sell; and remembering her mother's tragic visits +to old Mr. Camberwell, she ran hastily over her few personal +possessions. As her wedding gifts had been entirely in the form of +clothes—the donors doubtless surmising that the wife of a +rich man's son would have other gifts in abundance—there +remained only the trinkets George and George's parents had given +her. All through luncheon, while Mrs. Fowler, with an assumed +frivolity which Gabriella found more than usually depressing, +rippled on over the warmed-over salmon, the girl mentally arranged +and sorted in their cases a diamond brooch, an amethyst necklace, a +bracelet set with pearls, and a topaz heart she occasionally wore +on a gold chain, which she valued because it had belonged to her +grandmother. Once she stopped, and lifting her hand, looked +appraisingly at her engagement ring for an instant, while Mrs. +Fowler, observing her long gaze, remarked caressingly:</p> +<p>"I always thought it an unusually pretty stone, my dear. George +knows a good deal about stones." Then, as if inspired by an +impulse, she added quickly:</p> +<p>"Wasn't George upstairs before lunch? I thought I heard his +voice."</p> +<p>"Yes, but he said he had an engagement at the club."</p> +<p>"I wonder if he knows I have asked the Capertons to dinner +to-night? You know I got Florrie's card the other day. She is here +on her wedding journey, but even then she doesn't like to be quiet, +for she is her mother all over again. I used to know Bessie very +well. Kind hearted, but a little vulgar."</p> +<p>"I didn't tell George. Perhaps you had better telephone +him."</p> +<p>"Oh, well, he usually comes up to dinner because of the baby. +I've asked one or two people to meet Florrie, for I remember that +Bessie's one idea of enjoyment was to be in a crowd. The +Crowboroughs are coming and the Thorntons and the Blantons."</p> +<p>"I'll be dressed in time," responded Gabriella, but she was +thinking rapidly, "I can sell the diamond brooch and the bracelet +and, if it is necessary, the amethyst necklace. The brooch must +have cost at least three hundred dollars."</p> +<p>The meal was finished in silence, for even Mrs. Fowler's +cheerfulness would flag now and then without a spur; and Gabriella +made no effort to keep up the strained conversation. As soon as +they had risen from the table, she ran upstairs to dress for the +street, and then, before going out, she sat down at her desk, and +wrapped up the brooch and the bracelet in tissue paper. For a +minute she gazed, undecided, at the amethyst necklace. Mr. Fowler +had given it to her, and she hated to part with it. George's gifts +meant nothing to her now, but she felt a singular fondness for the +amethyst necklace.</p> +<p>"I'd better take it with me," she thought; and wrapping it with +the others, she put the package into her little bag, and went out +of the room. It was her habit to stop for a last look at little +Frances before she left the house, but to-day she hurried past the +nursery, and ran downstairs and out of doors, where Mrs. Fowler was +getting into a hansom with the assistance of Burrows, the English +butler.</p> +<p>"May I drop you somewhere, Gabriella?" inquired Mrs. Fowler, +while Burrows arranged the parcels on the seat of the hansom. In +the strong sunshine all the little lines which were imperceptible +in the shadow of the house—lines of sleeplessness, of +anxiety, of prolonged aching suspense—appeared to start out +as if by magic in her face. And over this underlying network of +anxious thoughts there dropped suddenly, like a veil, that look of +artificial pleasantness. She would have died sooner than lift it +before one of the servants.</p> +<p>"No, thank you. I need the walk," answered Gabriella, stopping +beside the hansom. "You will be tired if you do all those errands. +May I help you?"</p> +<p>"No, no, dear, take your walk. I am so glad the storm is over. +It will be a lovely afternoon."</p> +<p>Then the hansom drove off; Burrows, after a longing glance at +the blue sky, slowly ascended the brownstone steps; and Gabriella, +closing her furs at the throat, for the wind was high, hurried in +the direction of Fifth Avenue.</p> +<p>The streets were still white after the storm; piles of +new-fallen snow lay in the gutters; and when Gabriella crossed +Madison Avenue, the wind was so strong that it almost lifted her +from the ground. Above the shining whiteness of the streets there +was a sky of spring; and spring was blossoming in the little cart +of a flower vendor, which had stopped to let the traffic pass at +the corner. There were few people out of doors, and these few +appeared remote and strangely unreal between the wintry earth and +the April sky. Beside the gutters, where the street cleaners were +already at work, wagons drawn by large, heavy horses moved slowly +from crossing to crossing. At Forty-second Street the traffic was +blocked by one of these wagons; and from the windows of the stage, +which had stopped by the sidewalk, the eyes of the passengers +stared with moody resignation at the hurrying pedestrians. And it +seemed to Gabriella that these faces wore, one and all, the look of +secret anxiety, the faint network of lines which she had seen in +the face of her mother-in-law. "I wonder if I have it, too," she +thought, pausing before a shop window. But her reflection flashed +back at her from the glass, smooth, stern, unsmiling, as if her +features had been sculptured in marble.</p> +<p>Below Fortieth Street there was the shop of a jeweller she +sometimes went to with Mrs. Fowler in that lady's despairing quest +for suitable wedding presents at moderate prices; and something in +the kindly, sympathetic face of the clerk who waited on them made +Gabriella decide suddenly to trust him. As she unwrapped the tissue +paper rather nervously, and keeping back the necklace, laid the +brooch and the bracelet on the square of purple velvet he spread +out on the counter, she raised her eyes to his with a look that was +childlike in its appeal. Again she thought of the morning on which +they had surreptitiously taken her silver mug, hidden in Mrs. +Carr's gray and black shawl, to the shop of old Mr. Camberwell.</p> +<p>"How much might I get for these? I have worn them only a few +times. They do not suit me," she said.</p> +<p>For a minute the clerk looked at her reflectively, but without +curiosity; then lifting the trinkets from the square of velvet, he +passed behind a green curtain into an adjoining room. After a short +absence, in which she nervously examined an assortment of +travelling clocks, he came back and told her that they would give +her four hundred and fifty dollars for the two pieces.</p> +<p>"The stones alone are worth that," he added, "and, of course, +they will have to be reset before we can sell them."</p> +<p>"May I have the check now?"</p> +<p>"Shall we send it to you by mail?"</p> +<p>"No, I must have it now. I want it this +afternoon—immediately."</p> +<p>He yielded, still with his reflective but incurious manner; and +when she left the shop a quarter of an hour later the check was in +her little bag beside the amethyst necklace. "I am glad I didn't +have to sell the necklace," she thought. "Now I'll find a hotel and +write to mother, and it will all be settled. It will all be +settled," she repeated in a joyous tone; and this joyousness, +overflowing her breast, showed in her eyes, in the little quivering +smile on her lips, and in her light and buoyant step over the snow. +A weight had been lifted from her heart, and she felt at peace with +the world, at peace with the shivering passers-by, at peace even +with George. The wind, hastening her walk, stung her face till it +flushed through its pallor, and sent the warm blood bounding with +happiness through her veins. Under the stainless blue of the sky, +it seemed to her that the winter's earth was suddenly quickening +with the seeds of the spring.</p> +<p>In the Waldorf she found a corner which was deserted, except for +an elderly man with a dried face and a girl in a green hat, who +appeared to be writing to her lover; and sitting down at a little +desk behind a lamp, she wrote to her mother without mentioning +George, without explaining anything, without even making excuses +for her failure to keep her promise. She knew now that George had +never meant that her mother should live with them, that he had +never meant that they should take an apartment, that he had lied to +her, without compunction, from the beginning. She knew this as +surely as she knew that he was faithless and selfish, as surely as +she knew that he had ceased to love her and would never love her +again. And this knowledge, which had once caused her such poignant +agony, seemed now as detached and remote as any tragedy in ancient +history. She was barely twenty-two, and her love story had already +dwindled to an impersonal biographical interest in her mind.</p> +<p>When she had finished her letter, she placed the check inside of +it, and then sat for a minute pensively watching the girl in the +green hat, whose face paled and reddened while she wrote to her +lover.</p> +<p>"It seems a hundred years ago since I felt like that," she +thought, "and now it is all over." Then because melancholy had no +part in her nature, and she was too practical to waste time in +useless regrets, she rose quickly from the desk, and went out, +while the exhilaration of her mood was still proof against the +dangerous weakness of self-pity. "It's life I'm living, not a fairy +tale," she told herself sternly as she posted the letter and left +the hotel. "It's life I'm living, and life is hard, however you +take it." For a few blocks she walked on briskly, thinking of the +shop windows and of the brightness and gaiety of the crowd in Fifth +Avenue; but in spite of her efforts, her thoughts fluttered back +presently to herself and her own problems. "After all, you can't +become a victim unless you give in," she said grimly; "and I'll die +rather than become a victim."</p> +<p>Her walk kept her out until five o'clock, and when she entered +the house at that hour she found her mother-in-law in the front +hall giving directions to Burrows. At sight of Gabriella she paused +breathlessly, and said with undisguised nervousness:</p> +<p>"A very queer-looking person who says she was sent by your +mother has just come to see you, dear—a seamstress of some +kind, I fancy. As she looked quite clean, I let her go upstairs to +the nursery to wait for you. I hope you don't mind. She was so +eager to see the baby."</p> +<p>"Oh, it's Miss Polly!" cried Gabriella; and without stopping to +explain, she ran upstairs and into the nursery, where little +Frances was cooing with delight in Miss Polly's arms.</p> +<p>The seamstress' small birdlike face, framed by the silk quilling +of her old lady's bonnet, broke into a hundred cheerful wrinkles at +the sight of Gabriella. Even the grotesqueness of her +appearance—of her fantastic mantle trimmed with bugles, made +from her best wrap in the 'seventies, of her full alpaca skirt, +with its wide hem stiffened by buckram, of her black cotton gloves, +and her enormous black broadcloth bag—even these things could +not extinguish the pleasure Gabriella felt in the meeting. If Miss +Polly was ridiculous at home, she was twice as ridiculous in New +York, but somehow it did not seem to matter. The sight of her +brought happy tears to the girl's eyes, and in the attempt to hide +them, she buried her face in the warm, flower-scented neck of +little Frances.</p> +<p>"She's the peartest baby I ever saw," remarked Miss Polly with +pride. "Wouldn't yo' ma dote on her?"</p> +<p>"Wouldn't she? But how did you leave mother and Jane and the +children? The baby must be a big boy now."</p> +<p>"He's runnin' around all the time, and never out of mischief. I +never saw such a child for mischief. I was tellin' yo' ma so last +week. There's another baby on the way with Jane, you know."</p> +<p>"How in the world will she take care of it? I suppose Charley is +just the same?"</p> +<p>"Well, if you ask me, Gabriella, I never was so dead set against +Mr. Charley as the rest of you. I helped raise Jane from the time +she was no higher than that—and I ain't sayin' nothin' +against her except that Mr. Charley ain't half as bad to my mind as +she makes him out. Some men respond to naggin' and some +don't—that's what I said to her one day when she broke down +and cried on my shoulder—and you've got to be mighty +particular when you begin to nag that you're naggin' the right +sort. But she won't listen, not she. 'If I don't tell Charley of +his faults, who's goin' to?' she asks. You know Jane always did +talk pretty free to me ever since she was a little girl. Well, +there are some people that simply can't stand bein' told of their +faults, and Mr. Charley is one of 'em. It ain't the kind of +treatment that agrees with him, and if I'd been in Jane's place, I +reckon I'd have found it out long ago. But it ain't her way to +learn anything—you know that as well as I do. She's obliged +to make the world over even if it drops to pieces in her +hands."</p> +<p>"She doesn't seem to have done much with Charley."</p> +<p>"Well, you mark my words, Mr. Charley ain't bad, but he's full +of natur', and Jane, is the kind of woman that's never happy unless +she's gettin' the better of natur'. Whatever's natural is plum +wrong, that's the way she looks at it; but mind you, I ain't sayin' +she's all in the right. Naggin' ain't a virtue to my mind any mo' +than drink is, but Jane, she can't see it that way, and there ain't +a bit of use tryin' to make her. She's soft, but she's mulish, and +the hardest thing on earth to push is a mule that looks soft."</p> +<p>"It's such a pity, but I suppose nothing will change her. Tell +me about mother."</p> +<p>"Yo' ma looks downright po'ly. What with her sickness and her +bother about Jane and the bad weather, she ain't managin' to keep +as spry as I'd like to see her. From the stitch in her back she has +most of the time it wouldn't surprise me any day to hear that she'd +come down with kidney trouble, and she breathes so short that +consumption has crossed my mind mo' than once when I was talkin' to +her."</p> +<p>Miss Polly, having, as she expressed it, "an eye for symptoms," +possessed an artistic rather than a scientific interest in disease; +and the vivid realism of her descriptions had often, on her "sewing +days" at home, reduced Gabriella to faintness, though Mrs. Carr, +with her more delicate sensibilities, was able to listen with +apparent enjoyment to the ghastly recitals. Not only had Miss Polly +achieved in her youth a local fame as a "sick nurse," but, in the +days when nursing was neither sanitary nor professional, she was +often summoned hastily from her sewing machine to assist at a birth +or a burial in one of the families for whom she worked. And happy +always, as befits one whose life, stripped bare of ephemeral +blessings, is centred upon the basic realities, she was never +happier than when she put down her sewing, took off her spectacles, +exchanged her apron for a mantle, and after carefully tying her +bonnet strings, departed for a triumphant encounter with the +Eternal Issues.</p> +<p>"I am so anxious about mother," said Gabriella. "Did she tell +you she was going to Florida?"</p> +<p>"She cert'ny did. She was real full of it, and she talked a lot +about you all up here—the baby and you and Mr. George. You +know I ain't laid my eyes on Mr. George mo' than three times in my +life. Well, I reckon I'd better be gettin' along back, or the +children will miss me. I've got four children to do for now, and +one of 'em ain't any bigger than Frances. It does seem +funny—don't it, for an old maid to have her hands full of +children? But, you know, I always did dote on children. There +wouldn't be half so much fun in this world if it wan't for children +and men, and there ain't a mite of difference between them under +their skins. Yes, I can find my way back real easy. I always was +good at finding my way about, and all I've got to do is to set out +and walk in that direction till I come to a car over yonder by that +high building, and as soon as I get on I'll ask the conductor to +put me off right at my do'."</p> +<p>When she had gone, Gabriella went back into the nursery, and +stood looking down at little Frances, who had fallen asleep, with +the smile of an angel on her face. "I wonder if I can be the least +bit like Jane?" she said aloud while she watched the sleeping +child.</p> +<p>George did not come home to dinner; and the wonder was still in +Gabriella's mind when she dressed herself in her black net gown, +and went downstairs to meet Florrie, who looked younger and more +brilliant than ever in a dress of white and silver brocade. +Florrie's husband, a dreamy, quiet man,—the safe kind of man, +Gabriella reflected, who inevitably marries a dangerous +woman—regarded his noisy wife with a guileless admiration +which was triumphantly surviving a complete submergence in the +sparkling shallows of Florrie's personality. He was a man of sense +and of breeding. He possessed the ordinary culture of a gentleman +as well as the trained mind of a lawyer, yet he appeared impervious +alike to the cheapness of Florrie's wit and the vulgarity of her +taste. Her beauty had not only blinded him to her mental +deficiencies; it had actually deluded him into a belief in her +intelligence. He treated her slangy sallies as if they were an +original species of humour; he accepted the sweeping comment of her +ignorance as if it had been an inspired criticism of life. While +she chattered, parrotlike, to the judge, who was obviously +impressed by her appearance, Algernon listened to her ejaculatory +conversation with a mixture of admiration and awe.</p> +<p>"How do you think Florrie is looking?" he asked in a low tone of +Gabriella, while his wife's laugh, high, shrill, penetrating in its +dry soprano quality, fluted loudly on the opposite side of the +table. Beside Patty's patrician loveliness, as serene and flawless +as that of a marble goddess, Florrie appeared cheap, common, and +merely pretty to Gabriella. The hard brilliancy of her surface was +like a shining polish which would wear off with sleep and have to +be replenished each morning; and while she watched her, Gabriella +saw, in imagination, a vaguely ominous outline surrounding her +which might have been the uncertain edge of her mother's shadow. In +twenty-five years Florrie would be the image of her +mother—protuberant hips, pinched waist, mottled complexion, +and hopelessly tarnished hair; yet, with this awful prospect before +him, Algernon could appear not only tolerant, but positively +adoring. He had seen Bessie—he had known her for +years—and he could marry her daughter!</p> +<p>"I never saw her look handsomer," said Gabriella, "that white +and silver gown is very becoming."</p> +<p>"That's what I told her, but she wouldn't believe me. She +thought it was too plain for her style. Your sister-in-law is +something of Florrie's type, isn't she? Not quite so striking a +figure, perhaps, but the same sort of colouring."</p> +<p>Was it possible that for the first time in his life the simple +Algernon was speaking in irony? Turning in her chair, she looked +questioningly into his kind, grave face, so empty of humour, into +his serious gray eyes, which followed each movement of his wife's +with admiring attention. No, he was not ironic; he was perfectly +solemn. It was a miracle—a miracle not of piety, but of +passion—that she was witnessing.</p> +<p>"Yes, Patty is lovely," she answered, thinking, as she reflected +upon the eccentricities of love, how much too good he was for his +wife.</p> +<p>Across the table Florrie's voice was heard exclaiming: "Now, you +don't mean it! Well, I'm just as flattered as I can be!" and +Gabriella surmised that she was completing her conquest of the +judge.</p> +<p>"It's wonderful how well she gets on with everybody," observed +Algernon. "She's never at a loss for a word, and I tell her if I +had her ready wit, I'd be the greatest lawyer in Virginia to-day. +Have you noticed the way she is managing Judge Crowborough?"</p> +<p>"She always gets on well with men," acquiesced Gabriella, though +without the enthusiasm of Algernon. "Do you remember what a belle +she always was at the germans?" Though she was willing to admit +that love was the ruling principle of life, it occurred to her that +Algernon would be more amusing if he were less abundantly supplied +with that virtue.</p> +<p>They talked of nothing but Florrie until the women went into the +drawing-room; and there, from the safe haven of a window, Gabriella +listened to Florrie's ceaseless prattle about herself. She was as +egotistical, as effervescent, as she had been as a schoolgirl; and +it seemed to Gabriella that she was hardly a day older. Her eyes, +of a grayish blue, like pale periwinkles, were as bold, as +careless, as conquering in their glances; her hair was still as +dazzling; her face, with its curious resemblance in shape to the +face of a pretty cat, was still as frank, as naïve, as +confiding in its innocence. If she had changed at all, it was that, +since her marriage to the silent Algernon, she had become even more +talkative than she had been in her girlhood. Her vivacity was as +disturbing as the incessant buzzing of a June beetle.</p> +<p>"Well, you need never tell me again that you wouldn't rather +live in New York, Gabriella," she fluted at parting, "because I +shan't believe a single word of it. Why, we've been to the theatre +every night for a fortnight, and we haven't seen half the good +plays that are going on. Algy wanted to stay at Niagara +Falls—you know we went to Niagara Falls first—but it +was so deadly quiet I couldn't stand it. 'I don't care if I am +married,' I said to Algy, 'what I want is the theatre.'"</p> +<p>After she had gone, adoringly wrapped up by Algernon, Patty +turned to her mother with a little malicious grimace:</p> +<p>"I know it's horrid to say she's dreadful, mamma, but she really +is."</p> +<p>"Don't, Patty, it isn't kind, and, besides, she's a friend of +Gabriella's. What I can't understand," she added, "is how Bessie +ever came out of Virginia, yet there were always a few like her. +You don't remember Pussy Prime, do you? Of course you don't, she +died long before your day, but she was just that loud, boisterous +kind, and all the men were in love with her."</p> +<p>"Well, if I'm ever born again," remarked Gabriella, as she +kissed Patty good-night, "I hope I'll be born a fat blonde. They +always get taken care of."</p> +<p>She ascended the stairs wearily to her room. Yes, she was barely +twenty-two and love was over forever. "I couldn't hold a man six +months," she thought dejectedly, "and yet Florrie, who is a fool +and vulgar, will be adored all her life."</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="BOOK_SECOND" id="BOOK_SECOND"></a>BOOK SECOND</h2> +<p>THE AGE OF KNOWLEDGE</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_Ia" id="CHAPTER_Ia"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> +<h3>DISENCHANTMENT</h3> +<p>In July Gabriella joined her mother in the mountains of +Virginia, and when she returned in the autumn, she found that the +character of her home had changed perceptibly during her absence. +Brightness had followed gloom; the fog of suspense had dissolved, +and the hazy sunshine of an ambiguous optimism flooded the house. +What the change implied she could not immediately discover; but +before the first day was over she surmised that the financial +prospects of her father-in-law had improved since the spring. If +she had had any doubt of his rising fortunes, the sight of the +diminished pile of bills on Mrs. Fowler's desk would have quickly +dispelled it.</p> +<p>And even George had apparently altered for the better. His +improved finances had sweetened his temper and cast the shining +gloss of prosperity over his appearance; and, in a measure at +least, time had revived in him the ardent, if fluctuating, emotions +of the lover. For three months after her return, he evinced a +fervent sentiment for Gabriella, which she, who was staunchly +paying the price of her folly, received with an inner shrinking but +an outward complaisance. Her feeling for George was quite +dead—so dead that it was impossible for any artificial +stimulus to revive it—but she had learned that marriage is +founded upon a more substantial basis than the romantic emotions of +either a wife or a husband. Though she had ceased to love George, +she could still be amiable to him; and it occurred to her at times +that if one had to choose between the two not necessarily +inseparable qualities of love and amiability, George was not losing +greatly by the exchange. When, however, at the end of three months, +George's capricious symptoms disappeared as suddenly as they had +come, and his attentions lapsed into casual expressions of a +nonchalant kindness, she drew a breath of relief, and devoted her +happiest days to the nursery. There at least she had found a stable +refuge amid the turmoil of selfish human desires.</p> +<p>In the house, which like George, began presently to show the +gloss of prosperity, the winter brought a continuous flashing +stream of gaiety, in which Mrs. Fowler darted joyously about like +some bright hungry minnow beneath the iridescent ripples of a +brook. There were new rugs, new curtains, new gowns, new bonnets; +and Gabriella was led compliantly from dressmaker to milliner, +until she lost in the process her look of shabbiness and developed +into the fashionable curving figure of the period. She had always +liked clothes; her taste was naturally good; and as she followed +eagerly from shop to shop, she recalled the three months she had +spent in Brandywine's millinery department, and the rudiments of a +trade she had learned there. "I'd rather design my next gown +myself," she said one day to Mrs. Fowler, while they were looking +at French models in the establishment of Madame Dinard, who had +been born an O'Grady. "I know I can do better than these, and +besides I shan't meet duplicates of myself every time I go out." +That night she dreamed of hats and gowns, and the next morning she +drew pictures of them in coloured chalk. "It's the only talent I +ever had," she remarked gaily to her mother-in-law, "and it is +running to waste."</p> +<p>Madame, who regarded the sketches with uncompromising disdain, +showed great interest in the practical application of Gabriella's +ideas to the dressing of Mrs. Fowler.</p> +<p>"Yes, you have undoubtedly ideas," she said, discarding in her +enthusiasm the accent she had spent twenty years in acquiring, "and +there is nothing so rare in any department—in any walk of +life—as ideas. You have style, too," she pursued admiringly, +turning her eyes on Gabriella's figure in one of her Parisian +models. "It is very rare—such chic. You wear your clothes +with a grace."</p> +<p>"That, also, is a marketable asset in a dressmaker," laughed +Gabriella. "Do you know I ought to have been a dressmaker, Madame. +Only I hate the very sight of a needle."</p> +<p>"But I never sew! I haven't had a needle in my hand for twenty +years—no, not for thirty," protested Madame.</p> +<p>"Then I mustn't give up hope. If I ever have to earn my living, +I'll come to you, Madame."</p> +<p>Then Madame bowed and smiled and shrugged as if at a gracious +jest, and Mrs. Fowler observed in her crisp, matter-of-fact manner: +"Yes, my daughter has a genuine instinct for dress, and, as you +say, that is very rare. She carries her clothes well, doesn't she? +It's such a blessing to be tall—though my husband insists +that the women who have ruled the world have always been small +ones. But I do love a fine figure, and she looks so distinguished +in that cherry-coloured cloth, doesn't she?"</p> +<p>To all of which Madame agreed, as she bowed them out, with her +ingratiating professional manner.</p> +<p>"It's so lovely to have clothes," said Gabriella, sinking back +in the victoria, "money is one of the best gifts of the gods, isn't +it?"</p> +<p>"It's hard to do without it," replied Mrs. Fowler, brisk and +perfectly businesslike even in her generalizations. "I expect the +worst suffering in the world comes from poverty."</p> +<p>Then, after a thoughtful pause, she added with the practical air +of one who scorns to be abstract: "But do you know I sometimes +think Archibald and I'd both be happier if we had never made any +money at all—I mean, of course, except just enough to live +simply somewhere in the South. When once you begin, you can't stop, +and I wish sometimes we had never begun." Above the narrow black +velvet strings of her bonnet, her round florid face, from which the +fine tracery of lines had vanished, assumed the intent and +preoccupied expression which Gabriella associated with the pile of +unpaid bills on the little French desk. "I believe Archibald feels +that way, too," she concluded after a minute, while her firm and +unemotional lips closed together over the words.</p> +<p>"But you enjoy it so much when you have it."</p> +<p>"That's just the trouble. You have to enjoy it as quickly as you +can because you never know when you are going to lose every bit of +it without warning. It's been that way ever since I +married—rich one year, poor the next, or poor for two years +and then rich for three. Life has been a seesaw with prosperity at +one end of the plank and poverty at the other. Of course I know," +she pursued, with characteristic lucidity, "that you think me +dreadfully extravagant, but we'd just as well spend it as lose it, +and it's sure to be one thing or the other."</p> +<p>"But couldn't you save something? Couldn't you put by something +for the future?" Saving for the future was one of the habits of +Gabriella's frugal past which still clung to her.</p> +<p>"That would go, too. If we ever come to ruin—and heaven +knows we've been on the brink of it before this—Archibald +would not keep back a penny. That's his way, and that's one of the +reasons I spend all we have—up to the very margin of his +income."</p> +<p>The logic of this was so confusing that Gabriella was obliged to +stop and puzzle it out. At the end she could only admit that Mrs. +Fowler's reasoning processes, which were by nature singularly lucid +and exact, showed at times a remarkable subtlety—as if some +extraneous hybrid faculty had been grafted on the simple parent +stock of her mind.</p> +<p>"I can't help feeling, though," resumed the practical little +lady before Gabriella had reached the end of her analysis, "that +I'd be a great deal happier at this minute if we'd been poor all +our lives."</p> +<p>"It wouldn't have suited George," observed George's wife with an +inflection of irony.</p> +<p>"He mightn't have liked it, but I believe it would have been a +great deal better for him," replied Mrs. Fowler, while she bowed +gravely to a woman in a passing victoria. "There are many things +George can't be blamed for, and the way he was brought up is one of +them. Of course, he's no good whatever as a business man—his +father hardly ever sees him in the office—but it's useless to +scold him about it, for it only exasperates him. But he might have +been a sensible, steady boy, if he had been brought up in some +small place in the South where there was nothing to tempt him."</p> +<p>That there was any place in the South small enough not to afford +temptation to George seemed improbable to Gabriella; but she felt +that Mrs. Fowler's earnest belief, supported as it was by the +unshakable prop of maternal feeling, hardly justified the effort +she must make to dispel it; and she had still no answer ready when +the carriage turned into Fifty-seventh Street, and stopped beside +the pavement where little Frances—they had already begun to +call her Fanny—sat in a perambulator. Flushed and smiling, +with her red mouth gurgling delightedly, and a white wool lamb +clasped in her arms, the adorable child was certainly worth any +seesaw of destiny, any disillusioning experience of marriage.</p> +<p>Before the beginning of the next winter Gabriella's second child +was born—a brown, sturdy boy, who came into the world with a +frowning forehead and crying lustily from rage (so the nurse said) +not from fright. He was named Archibald after his grandfather, who +developed immediately a passionate fondness for him. His eyes were +brown like the eyes of the Carrs, though by the time he was two +years old, he was discovered to be painfully near-sighted, a +weakness which Mrs. Carr, when she heard of it, insisted he must +have inherited from his father's side of the family. He was not +nearly so beautiful a baby as little Fanny had been; but he was +from the very beginning a child of much character, strong, +mutinous, utterly uncompromising in his attitude toward life. When +he was first put into shoes he fought with desperation, and +surrendered at last, neither to persuasion nor to punishment, but +to an exhaustion so profound that he slept for hours with his small +protesting feet doubled under him and sobs of fury still bursting +from his swollen lips. The next day the struggle began again, and +Mrs. Fowler remarked sympathetically:</p> +<p>"You'll never be able to break his will, Gabriella. He is +unmanageable."</p> +<p>"I don't want to break his will, mamma," replied Gabriella, for +she belonged to a less Scriptural generation, "but he must be +disciplined, if it kills me." Pale, gentle, resolute, she waited +for Archibald to surrender. In the end she carried her point and +won the adoring obedience of Archibald. There was a magnanimous +strain in him even at that age, Gabriella used to say, and though +he fought to the bitter end, he bore no malice after he was once +soundly defeated.</p> +<p>Long afterwards, when Gabriella looked back on the next few +years of her life, she could remember nothing of them except the +tremendous difference that the children had made. All the rest was +blotted out, a drab blur of what Mrs. Fowler described with dignity +as "social duties," moving always against the variable atmosphere +of the house, which was gay or sombre, light or gloomy, according +to the fluctuating financial conditions in Wall Street. There were +extravagant winters and frugal winters; winters of large +entertainments and winters of "women's luncheons"; but always the +summers shimmered green and peaceful against the blue background of +the Virginia mountains. The summers she loved even in memory; but +of the winters she could recall but one glowing vision, and that +was of Patty. Though she had lost George, she had gained Patty, and +it was impossible to deny that Patty might be compensation for +almost any lack.</p> +<p>For the rest she made few friends, partly from reserve, partly +from the shyness she always felt in the presence of strangers. It +was difficult to establish fundamental relations at dinners or even +at women's luncheons; social reforms were scarcely beginning to be +fashionable; and apart from the reading which she did in order, as +she said, "to keep her mind open," her life narrowed down gradually +to a single vivid centre of activity. She lived in her children and +in the few books she obtained from the library—(since the +purchase of books, even in extravagant years, represented gross +prodigality to Mrs. Fowler)—in Patty's friendship, and in the +weekly gossiping letters she received from her mother.</p> +<p>Mrs. Carr had long ago given up her plan to live with Gabriella +and George; and a failure of circumstances, which fitted so +perfectly into the general scheme of her philosophy, had done much +to fortify the natural melancholy of her soul. Since even so gentle +a pessimist was not devoid of a saving trace of spiritual +arrogance, she found consoling balm in the thought that she had +refrained from reminding Gabriella how very badly the Carrs had all +married. There was, for example, poor Gabriel's brother Tom, whose +wife had "gone deranged" six months after her wedding, and poor +Gabriel's sister Johanna, who had died (it was common gossip) of a +broken heart; and besides these instances, nobody could possibly +maintain that Jane had not made a disastrous choice when she had +persisted, against the urgent advice of her mother, in marrying +Charley. Yes, the Carrs had all married badly, reflected Mrs. Carr, +with the grief of a mother and the pride of a philosopher whose +favourite theory has been substantially verified—every one of +them, with, of course, the solitary exception of poor Gabriel +himself.</p> +<p>Her weekly letters, pious, gossipy, flowing, reached Gabriella +regularly every Monday morning, and were read at breakfast while +Mr. Fowler studied the financial columns of the newspaper, and his +wife opened her invitations in the intervals between pouring out +cups of coffee and inquiring solicitously if any one wanted cream +and sugar.</p> +<p>"What's the news?" George would sometimes ask carelessly; and +Gabriella would glance down the pages covered with the formless +characters of Mrs. Carr's fine Italian handwriting (the ladylike +hand of the 'sixties), and read out carefully selected bits of +provincial gossip, to which a cosmopolitan dash was usually +contributed by the adventures, matrimonial or merely amorous, of +Florrie Caperton. Hard, dashing, brilliant on the surface at least, +a frank hedonist by inclination, if not by philosophy, Florrie had +triumphantly smashed her way through the conventions and the +traditions of centuries.</p> +<p>"It's really dreadfully sad about Florrie," wrote Mrs. Carr. "I +am so sorry for poor Bessie, who must feel it more than she lets +any one see. While Algernon was alive we always hoped he would keep +Florrie straight (you remember how everybody used to talk about her +when she was a girl), but now he has been, dead only a year and a +half, and she has already married again and gotten a divorce from +her second husband. You know she ran away with a man named Tom +Westcott—nobody ever heard of him, but she met him at the +White Sulphur Springs, where he had something to do with the +horses, I believe—and the marriage turned out very badly, +though for my part I don't believe he was the least bit to blame. +Florrie is so reckless that she would make any man unhappy, and two +weeks after the wedding she was separated from him and was back +here with Bessie, looking as well and pretty as I ever saw her. You +know black was so becoming to her that she didn't take it off even +when she eloped, and now after her divorce she always wears it, +just as if she were still in mourning for poor Algernon. Nobody +would believe, unless they had seen her in it, how very loud black +can be. I used to think widows ought to wear it because it kept +them from being noticed, but on Florrie it is the most conspicuous +thing you ever imagined—as Cousin Jimmy says it simply makes +her blaze, and you know how striking she always was anyway. I am +sure I should think it would be embarrassing for her to go in the +street in New York where nobody knows that she is really a +lady—or at least that she was born a lady on her father's +side—and this reminds me—(I declare I ramble on so I +can never remember what I started to say)—but this reminds me +that she has just been in to tell Jane that she is going to New +York to take an apartment somewhere downtown; she told me the +street and the number, but I have forgotten both of them. Jane says +she looks more beautiful than ever after her last tragic experience +(though she doesn't seem to think it tragic at all), but I was +brought up to believe that a divorced woman, even if she is in the +right, ought to live in a retired way and show that she feels her +position. Now, I saw Florrie for a minute as she was going out and +she ran on like a girl of sixteen—you would think from her +talk that she is not a bit sensitive about the unfortunate +situation she is in. She had on a huge bunch of violets, and Cousin +Pussy tells me another man is paying her the most devoted +attention. Please don't mention this to a soul—I hate so to +spread gossip—but I felt that you ought to be prepared, for +Florrie will certainly come to see you, and you must be kind and +polite to her, though I do not think you ought ever to be intimate +again. It is not as if she were merely unfortunate—many +divorced women are that, and we sympathize with them because they +show that they realize their position—but I cannot believe +that Florrie is unfortunate if she allows another man to pay her +such marked attention, and even accepts handsome presents from him. +So do be careful, my child, and if you find yourself in an +embarrassing situation, consult Mrs. Fowler and be guided by her +advice."</p> +<p>"Florrie Spencer is coming to New York," said Gabriella on the +morning she received Mrs. Carr's letter. "You know she has just +been divorced from her second husband—somebody she met at the +White Sulphur Springs."</p> +<p>George looked up interested, from his breakfast.</p> +<p>"Florrie coming, is she?" he remarked. "Well, she's great fun. I +wonder if she has her eye on anybody now?"</p> +<p>"Not on you, I hope," observed his father, who joked mildly on +the mornings when the news was good; "but she's a beautiful woman, +and she'll doubtless be able to get whatever she has set either her +heart or her eye on."</p> +<p>"She'll marry again within six months," prophesied Mrs. Fowler, +with an anxious glance in the direction of her husband's coffee +cup. "Poor Algy, I always thought he was a hundred times too good +for her," she added, while she abstractedly buttered her toast. It +was one of their extravagant years, and the butter was +delicious.</p> +<p>"He adored her," said Gabriella. "I shall never forget the +evening they spent here. He couldn't keep his eyes away from her. +If she had been the most admirable character on earth he couldn't +have loved her better."</p> +<p>"As if a man ever loved a woman because of her character!" +remarked Mrs. Fowler, from the security of her experience.</p> +<p>Several months later Florrie arrived, gay, brilliant, and +beautiful, with her waxlike complexion as unlined by care as if it +had been on the face of a doll. Though she had lightened her +mourning since Mrs. Carr had described her to Gabriella, she still +wore black, and her flaring skirt, her inflexible collar, and her +lace sleeves, narrow at the shoulder and full at the wrists, +resembled a fashion plate. Perched at a daring angle above her +wheaten-red pompadour, with its exaggerated Marcel wave, she wore a +curiously distorted hat of black velvet, lavishly overtrimmed with +ostrich feathers; and before this miracle of style, Gabriella +became at once oppressively aware of her own lack of the quality +which Florrie would have described as "dash." Already Florrie's +figure was becoming slightly too protuberant for the style of the +new century, and after kissing Gabriella effusively, she stood for +a minute struggling for breath, in the attitude of her mother, with +her hands pressed to the palpitating sides of her waist.</p> +<p>"I told mother I was certainly coming to see you right +straight," began Florrie, while, with her recovered breath, her +figure curved as suddenly as if it were moved by a spring into the +fashionable bend of the period. "I've been perfectly crazy to come, +but between dressmakers and theatres and I don't know what else, I +simply haven't had a minute in which I could sit down and breathe. +Mother says I ought to be downright ashamed of myself for being so +frivolous when I've just got out of such a scrape—did you +ever hear before of anybody getting married for two weeks, +Gabriella? But I know you never did—you needn't trouble to +tell me so. Well, mother says I oughtn't to look so pleased, and I +tell her there might be some sense in that if I'd stayed in the +scrape, but if I haven't a right to look pleased at getting out, +I'd like to know who has. It was all too funny for words, now, +wasn't it? Of course, I shouldn't dream of talking to everybody +like this—even if I am a big talker, I reckon I know when to +hold my tongue and when not to—but I've always told you +everything, Gabriella, and I don't mind the least bit in the world +telling you about this. It always relieves my mind to talk to +somebody I can trust, and I know I can trust you. Don't you +remember the way I used to run in on rainy afternoons when you +lived way over in Hill Street, and tell you all about Fred Dudley +and Barbour Willis? And then I used to come and talk about poor +Algy by the hour. Wasn't it too distressing about poor Algy? I +don't believe I'll ever get over it if I live to be a hundred, and +even if I do run on like this, it doesn't mean that my heart isn't +broken—simply broken—because it is. Mother used to say, +after father died, that you couldn't measure a widow's grief by the +length of her veil; and that's just exactly the way I feel about +Algy. I know you'll understand, Gabriella, because you always +understand everything—"</p> +<p>"He was so deeply in love with you," observed Gabriella +sympathetically, while Florrie, diving amid the foam of her laces, +brought out a tiny handkerchief, and delicately pecked at the +corner of her eye, not near enough to redden the lid and not far +enough away to disturb the rice powder on the side of her nose.</p> +<p>"He was crazy about me to the very last, you never saw anything +like it. Of course we weren't a bit alike, I don't mind telling you +so, Gabriella, because I know you'll never repeat it. We weren't +really congenial, for Algy was just wrapped up in his law books, +and there were whole days together when he wouldn't open his mouth, +but that didn't seem to make any difference because, as he used to +say, one of us had to listen sometimes. But, you know, mother says +a pair of opposites makes the happiest marriage, and after being +married to Algy, I feel how true that is. I got into the habit of +talking so much when I used to run on about nothing to cheer him +up—he was always so grave and glum even as a boy, you +remember—and during his last illness—you know he died +of Bright's disease, poor darling, and it came on just like +that!—he used to make me talk to him for hours and hours just +to keep him from thinking. Well, well, that's all over now, and I +don't care what anybody says, my heart's buried with Algy. I don't +believe you were ever in love but once either, were you, +Gabriella?" she inquired cheerfully.</p> +<p>"Well, what about Mr. Westcott? Is that his name?" asked +Gabriella, without malice. As a study Florrie had always interested +her, for she regarded her less as an individual than as an awful +example of the utter futility of moral maxims. Florrie was without +intelligence, without feeling, without imagination, virtue, +breeding, or good taste, yet possessing none of these qualities, +she had by sheer beauty and "dash" achieved all the ends for which +these qualities usually strive. Good humour she had as long as one +did not get in her way; but, beyond this single redeeming grace, +she was as empty of substance as a tinted shell filled with sea +foam. If power and efficiency are the two supreme attributes of +success, then by all the laws and principles of logic, Florrie +ought to have been a failure. But she was not a failure. She was a +fool whose incomparable foolishness had conferred not only +prosperity, but happiness upon her. She shone, she scintillated, +she diffused the glow of success. Though she was undeserving of +admiration, she had been surfeited on it from her childhood; though +she was devoid of the moral excellence which should command love, +by a flashing glance or a waving curl, she could bring the most +exalted love down from the heavens. There was no question that +Algernon had really loved her to distraction, and Algernon was a +man of sense, of breeding, of distinction. As for Florrie, she had, +of course, as little capacity for loving as she had for +thinking.</p> +<p>"Tom Westcott! I declare, Gabriella, I am almost ashamed to tell +you about him. You've never been to a Virginia summer resort, so +you couldn't understand that there is something about a Virginia +summer resort that just seems to make any man better than none at +all. You get so bored, you know, that you'd flirt with a lamp-post +if there wasn't anything human around; and when you haven't laid +eyes on a real sure enough man for several months, it's surprising +how easy it is to take up with the imitation ones. Of course, I +don't mean that Tom wasn't all right as far as family and all that +goes; but he was simply no earthly account—he was just mean +all through, and as soon as I found it out, I packed right straight +up and left him. After Algy I couldn't have stood one of that sort, +and there was no sense in my trying to. Life is too short, I always +say, for experiments. There's no use sticking to a bad job when you +can get away from it. That's the trouble with so many women, you +know; they try and try to stand the wrong man when they know all +the time that it isn't a particle of use, and that they are just +bringing wrinkles into their faces; and then by the time they give +up, they're all worn out and it's too late to look about for +another chance. Now, I've seen too much of that kind of thing, and +so I thought two weeks weren't long enough to bring wrinkles in my +face, but they were plenty long for me to find out whether or not I +could stand any man on earth. So here I am in little old New York +instead of being stuck away in some God-forsaken Virginia town, +where there isn't even a theatre, darning stockings for a family of +children. But there's no use talking about that—" And +Florrie, who had been born a lady on her father's side, adjusted +her pompadour under the high bandeau of her hat, and rose with a +dashing air from the sofa.</p> +<p>"I'd love to see the babies, darling," she said; "I'm just crazy +about babies."</p> +<p>"They are out in the Park. I'm so sorry. Perhaps they are coming +in now, I hear the door-bell."</p> +<p>But it was George instead of the children; and he entered +presently with a moody look, which vanished quickly before the +brilliant vision of Florrie.</p> +<p>"I thought I heard you," he observed with the casual intimacy of +an old playmate, "so I came in. Have you got fixed yet? What about +the apartment? You'd better let me help you hunt for it?"</p> +<p>"Oh, I'm not sure about the apartment. I may take a +house—a teeny weeny one, you know," said Florrie, as she bent +softly toward him, scented and blooming. If one didn't know there +wasn't really a bit of harm in her, one would be puzzled just what +to think of her, Gabriella reflected. Amid the perfect order of +Gabriella's inner life, the controlled emotion, the serene +efficiency, the balanced power, Florrie's noisy beauty produced a +disturbing effect. She liked her because she had known her from +childhood, and it was impossible to think any harm of a girl one +had played with at school; but she could not deny that Florrie was +vulgar. As a matter of fact, Florrie's mother had been vulgar +before her, and the thin strain of refinement inherited from her +father's stock had obviously been overborne by the torrential +vulgarity of the maternal blood.</p> +<p>"A house? Well, that's even better," replied George. "I've no +use for apartments, have I, Gabriella?"</p> +<p>His effrontery was incredible! That he should joke about his +broken promise before Florrie amazed Gabriella even after her +disillusioning experience with him.</p> +<p>"Then I'll get you to help me. Will you lend him to me, +darling?" trilled Florrie piercingly from the door, where she stood +in a striking pose which revealed her "fine figure" to the best +advantage. The request was directed to Gabriella, but her blue eyes +mocked a challenge to George while she spoke.</p> +<p>"Oh, I'll give him," answered Gabriella pleasantly. There was no +harm in it, she told herself innocently again; but it was a pity +that Florrie, with her remarkable beauty, should be quite so ill +bred.</p> +<p>Five minutes later when George came back from putting Florrie +into her hansom, he remarked carelessly:</p> +<p>"She's got a figure all right."</p> +<p>"Yes, she looks beautiful in black. No wonder she won't leave it +off."</p> +<p>"By Jove, to think it's little Florrie! Why, I don't believe +there's a finer figure in New York. When she passed by the club +yesterday the men were breaking their necks to look out of the +window." Then, as if struck by a sudden suspicion, he added +quickly: "Where did she get her money from? I thought Algy died +rather hard up."</p> +<p>"I never heard much about it. Mrs. Spencer must give her +something."</p> +<p>"I don't believe the old lady has a penny over three thousand a +year, and that won't do in New York. This Westcott didn't have +anything, did he?"</p> +<p>"It never occurred to me to ask," replied Gabriella +indifferently. What did it matter to George where Florrie got her +money? But, then, George was always like that, and though he never +made a penny himself, he was possessed of an insatiable curiosity +about the amount and the sources of other people's incomes.</p> +<p>"Well, it looks queer," he observed with intense interest after +a prolonged pause. "That short pearl necklace she had on couldn't +have cost a cent under ten thousand dollars."</p> +<p>"It was lovely. I noticed how well the pearls matched," replied +his wife. She was not in the least excited about the methods by +which Florrie had obtained the necklace—all that was a part +of the miraculous way she got everything she wanted in +life—but she liked the pearls and she had envied Florrie +while she looked at them.</p> +<p>A deep furrow had appeared between George's eyebrows, and his +mouth sagged suddenly at the corners, giving his face the ugly look +Gabriella distrusted and dreaded. While she watched him she +recalled vaguely that she had once thought the latent brutality in +his face an expression of power. How young she had been when she +married him! How inconceivably ignorant! Yet at twenty years she +had imagined herself wise enough to judge a man. She had deluded +herself with the sanctified fallacy that mere instinct would guide +her aright—that her marriage would be protected from disaster +by the infallible impulse which she had mistaken for love.</p> +<p>"I wonder," said George with a suddenness that startled her out +of her musing—"I wonder if it can be Winston Camp!"</p> +<p>And Gabriella, who had forgotten Florrie, looked up to remark +absentmindedly: "Winston Camp? You mean the man who dined here last +winter and couldn't eat anything but nuts?"</p> +<p>In the months that followed George did not mention Florrie +again, and if he pursued his investigations into the obscure +sources of her livelihood, his researches did not lead him back in +the direction of Gabriella. But, from the day of Florrie's visit, +it seemed to Gabriella, when she thought of it afterwards, his +casual indifference began to develop into brutal neglect. Not that +she regretted his affection, or even his politeness, not that she +cared in the least what his manner was—this she made quite +plain to herself—but her passion to see life clearly, to test +experience, to weigh events, brought her almost breathlessly round +again to the question, "What does it mean? Is there something +hidden? Am I still the poor abject fool that Jane was or am I +beginning really to be myself?"</p> +<p>"You aren't looking well, Gabriella," said Mrs. Fowler at +breakfast one morning when George, as she confided afterwards to +Patty, had behaved unspeakably to his wife before his father came +down. "I want you to go about with me more, as you used to do +before the children took up all your time."</p> +<p>Gabriella had just crossed George's will about something—a +mere trifle, something about calling on Florrie—and he had +turned to her with a look of hatred in his eyes, a kind of nervous, +excitable hatred which she had never seen until then. "Why does he +look at me like that?" she had thought quite coldly; "and why +should he have begun all of a sudden to hate me? Why should my +words, my voice, my gestures even, exasperate him so profoundly? Of +course he has stopped loving me, but why should that make him hate +me? I stopped loving him, too, long ago, yet there is only +indifference, not hate, in my heart."</p> +<p>"You must go about with me more, dear," repeated Mrs. Fowler, in +obedience to a vague but amiable instinct, which prompted her to +shield George, to deceive Gabriella, to deny the truth of facts, to +do anything on earth except acknowledge the actual situation in +which she found herself. "Don't you think she ought to go about +more, George?"</p> +<p>"I don't care what she does," returned George brutally, while +his blue eyes squinted in the old charming way from which all charm +had departed. "I don't care—I don't care—" He checked +himself, snapping his words in two with a virulent outburst of +temper, and then, rising hurriedly, as his father entered the room, +he left the table with his breakfast uneaten.</p> +<p>"He's so nervous. I can't imagine what's the matter. I hope +Burrows wasn't in the pantry. Did you say anything to hurt his +feelings before you came down, Gabriella?" asked Mrs. Fowler, +distractedly, with one eye on her daughter-in-law and the other on +the pantry door, through which the discreet Burrows had disappeared +at the opportune instant.</p> +<p>"No, I haven't said anything that I can remember," answered +Gabriella with calmness. It occurred to her that George's behaviour +was hardly that of a man whose "feelings" had been wounded, but she +made no audible record of her reflection; "and of course I'll go +out with you if you want me to," she added, for she felt sincerely +sorry for her mother-in-law, even though she had ruined George in +his infancy. "I am going to the library to return a book, and we +might pay some calls afterwards."</p> +<p>"That's just what I was thinking," responded Mrs. Fowler, +embarrassed, bewildered. Was it possible, she asked herself, that +Gabriella had not noticed George's outrageous behaviour?</p> +<p>But Gabriella did not "go about" with her mother-in-law that +season, for a higher will than Mrs. Fowler's frustrated that lady's +benevolent intentions. To a casual glance it would have seemed the +merest accident which disturbed these felicitous plans, but such +accidents, when Gabriella looked back on them afterwards, appeared +to her to be woven into the very web and pattern of life. It was +plainly incredible that her whole existence should be changed +merely because Archibald was naughty, as incredible as the idea +that Destiny should have used so small a medium for the +accomplishment of its tragic designs.</p> +<p>But Archibald had hardly reached the Park before he was brought +home, resisting with all his strength, because he had given his +shoes and stockings away; and the next ten minutes, while Gabriella +gently reasoned with him on the pavement, were pregnant with +consequences.</p> +<p>"He's fierce, that's what he is," declared the nurse, who was +Irish and militant. "He kicked me so I'm black and blue, ma'am, all +over the shins, and every bit because I wouldn't let him pull off +his shoes and socks and give 'em to a barefooted boy in the Park. +You tell her, darlin'"—to Frances, who stood, bright-eyed and +indignant, in her white fur coat and little fur cap which she wore +drawn down tight over her curls—"you tell your mamma, +darlin', you tell her how fierce and bold he was, and how he kicked +me about the shins because I wouldn't let him take off his shoes +and socks."</p> +<p>"The poor boy wanted 'em! I won't wear 'em! I will give 'em to +the poor boy!" screamed Archibald, furious, scowling, struggling in +the restraining hold of his nurse. He was a robust, thick-set child +of four years, with a thatch of dark-brown hair, and strange +near-sighted brown eyes, behind spectacles which he had worn from +the time he could walk.</p> +<p>"What is it, Archibald? Tell me about it. Tell mother," pleaded +Gabriella while he struggled desperately to escape from her tender +grasp. "Who was the poor boy and where did you see him?"</p> +<p>"He oughtn't to have been in the Park, ought he, mamma?" +inquired Frances, who was guiltless of democratic tendencies. +"Ragged people have no right to be in the Park, have they?"</p> +<p>"Hush, darling, I want to hear what Archibald has to say. Tell +me about him, Archibald. Shall you and I go out to look for +him?"</p> +<p>"If you do, he'll pull his shoes and socks right off again," +insisted Frances emphatically. "He had got one quite off and had +given it to the boy before we saw him, and Nanny was obliged to go +and take it back, and I had to hold Archibald while she put it on +him. He screamed very loud and everybody stopped to ask what was +the matter, and one old gentleman with a long beard, like Moses in +the Bible, gave Archibald a little box of candy—he took it +out of his pocket—but Archibald threw it away, and kept on +hollerin' louder than ever—"</p> +<p>"That's right, darlin', you tell her," urged nurse, a stout +woman with a red face and three gold teeth in the front of her +mouth.</p> +<p>"I understand now. Don't tell any more, Fanny," said Gabriella. +"Now, Archibald dear, will you stop crying and be good?"</p> +<p>"Am," replied Archibald sullenly, twisting out of her hands.</p> +<p>"Am what, darling?"</p> +<p>"Am good."</p> +<p>"Well, will you stop crying?"</p> +<p>"Have."</p> +<p>"Then what do you want? Shall we go back and look for the poor +boy?"</p> +<p>"Hadn't any shoes. Feet were red. Wanted to give him shoes, +'cause I had plenty more at home. Nanny jerked him back. Hated +Nanny. Hoped she would die. Hoped bears would eat her. Hoped tigers +would eat her. Hoped lions would eat her. Hoped robins would cover +her with leaves in the Park—"</p> +<p>While he sobbed out his accusations against nurse, Gabriella, +holding his hand tightly in hers, turned toward Fifth Avenue, and +by the time he was pacified, they had walked several blocks +together, with nurse and Fanny sedately bringing up the rear. Then, +at last, having reasoned him alike out of his temper and his +generosity, Gabriella retraced her steps, and entering the house +with her latchkey, ran quickly up the stairs to the closed door of +Mrs. Fowler's room. As she raised her hand to knock the sound of +her own name reached her, and almost involuntarily she hesitated +for an instant.</p> +<p>"Yes, Gabriella is out. I saw her a minute ago on her way to the +Park with the children."</p> +<p>"Well, somebody ought to tell her, mother. I think it is +perfectly outrageous to keep her in ignorance. Everybody is talking +about it."</p> +<p>"Oh, Patty, you couldn't! How on earth could you tell her a +thing like that?" wailed George's mother, and she went on with a +plaintive sigh as Gabriella opened the door: "George was always so +mad about beauty, and though Gabriella has a fine face, she isn't +exactly—"</p> +<p>Then, at the startling apparition of Gabriella, with her face +paling slowly above her black furs and her large indignant eyes +fixed on them both, Mrs. Fowler wavered and broke off with a +pathetic clutch at the pleasantness which had entirely departed +from her manner. "Why, Gabriella, I didn't know you had come in! I +was just saying to Patty—" It was, as she said afterwards to +her husband, exactly as if her mind had become suddenly blank. She +couldn't to save her life think of a single word to add to her +sentence, and all the time Gabriella was standing there, as white +as a ghost, with her accusing eyes turning slowly from one to the +other of them. "Somehow I just couldn't lie to her when she looked +like that, and the truth seemed too dreadful," Mrs. Fowler added +that night to Archibald. "Damn George!" was Mr. Fowler's fervent +retort. "And it took me so by surprise I almost fainted, for I'd +never in my life heard him swear before," his wife had commented +later. "But aren't men strange? To think he knew how all the time +and kept it to himself! I declare they are entirely too secretive +for anything!"</p> +<p>"I heard what you were saying when I knocked," began Gabriella, +with perfect composure. "I don't quite know what it was about, but +I think—I think—"</p> +<p>"It was nothing, dear; Patty and I were gossiping," replied Mrs. +Fowler, with an eagerness that was almost violent. "Oh, Patty, you +wouldn't!"—for Patty had broken in, conquering and merciless, +with the declaration: "If you don't tell Gabriella, mamma, I'm +going to. It's outrageous, anyhow, I've always said so, the way +people keep things from women. Gabriella has a right to know what +everybody is saying."</p> +<p>"Of course I've a right to know," rejoined Gabriella, with a +firmness before which Mrs. Fowler felt herself gradually +dissolving—"melting away" was the description she gave of her +feeling. "If anybody has a right to know, I suppose I have. Of +course, it's about George. I know that much, anyhow," she added +quietly.</p> +<p>"I don't believe it's half so bad as they say," protested Mrs. +Fowler feverishly. "I don't believe he really keeps her. His father +says he couldn't possibly do it on the allowance he gives him, and, +you know, George doesn't make a cent himself—not a cent. He +never supported himself in his life—"</p> +<p>She paused breathlessly, with a bright and confident glance as +if she had made a point—a minor one perhaps, but still a +point—in George's favour. The jet fringe on her bosom, which +had rattled furiously with her excited palpitations, became +gradually quiet, and as she pressed her lips firmly with her +handkerchief, which she had rolled into a ball, she appeared to be +pressing her customary smile back into place.</p> +<p>"It won't last, Gabriella," she began again very suddenly with +renewed assurance. "These things never last, and I think Patty is +quite wrong to insist upon telling you. Of course it is humiliating +for a time, but—but"—she hesitated, and then brought +out triumphantly—"he married very young, you know, and men +aren't like women—there's no use pretending they are. Now +when a woman loves a man—"</p> +<p>"But, you see, I don't love George," answered Gabriella, and her +awful words seemed to reverberate through the horrified silence +that surrounded her.</p> +<p>"Not love him? O Gabriella! Of course, it's natural that you +should feel angry and wounded, and that your pride should resent +what looks like an affront to you; but you can't mean in your heart +that you've got over caring. Women don't change so easily. Why, +you're his wife—poor foolish boy that he is—and +Florrie—"</p> +<p>"So it's Florrie?" observed Gabriella, with a strangely +dispassionate interest. It was queer, she reflected afterwards, +that she had not felt the faintest curiosity about the woman.</p> +<p>"I always suspected that there was something wrong about her," +pursued Mrs. Fowler, reassured by the knowledge that she was +placing the blame where it belonged according to all the laws of +custom and tradition. "I must say I never liked her manner and her +way of dressing, and she made eyes at every man she was introduced +to—even at Archibald—"</p> +<p>"Well, I didn't believe there was any real harm in her," said +Gabriella, in a tone she might have used at one of her +mother-in-law's luncheons. She was still standing near the door, in +the very spot where she had paused at her entrance, with her head +held high above the black fur at her throat, and one gloved hand +playing with a bit of cord on the end of her muff. She could not +possibly have taken it better. Bad as the situation was, it might +have been a hundred times worse except for Gabriella's composure, +thought Mrs. Fowler discreetly, adding with an inexplicable regret, +that in her youth women were different. Yes, they had shown more +feeling then, though they had behaved perhaps less well in a +crisis. In spite of her gratitude—and she was sincerely +grateful to her daughter-in-law for not making a scene—she +became conscious presently that she was beginning to cherish an +emotion not unlike resentment on George's account. That the +discovery of George's faithlessness should be received so coolly by +George's wife appeared almost an affront to him. Mrs. Fowler liked +Gabriella, she was fond of her—and nobody could look in the +girl's face and not see that she was a fine woman—but there +were times, and this was one of them, when she thought her a little +hard. Had Gabriella wept, had she raged, had she threatened +Florrie's life or happiness, it might have been painful, but at +least it would have been human; and above all things Mrs. Fowler +felt that she liked women to be human.</p> +<p>"Nothing that anybody says or does can excuse George," said +Patty sternly. "He has behaved abominably, and if I were Gabriella, +I'd simply wash my hands of him. I don't care if he is my brother, +that doesn't make me blind, does it? If he were my husband," she +concluded passionately, "I'd feel just the same way about it."</p> +<p>"Oh, you mustn't! Oh, Patty, hush, it's wicked! It's sinful!" +moaned Mrs. Fowler, shutting her eyes, as if the sight of Patty's +indignant loveliness gave her a headache. "Don't try to harden +Gabriella's heart against him. Don't try to make her think she's +really stopped loving him."</p> +<p>Gabriella's answer to this outburst was a look which, as poor +Mrs. Fowler said afterwards, "cut her to the heart." Backing weakly +to a chair, the valiant little lady sat down suddenly, because she +felt that her legs were giving way beneath the weight of her body. +And, though she was unaware of its significance, her action was +deeply symbolical of the failure of the old order to withstand the +devastating advance of the new spirit. She felt vaguely that she +wished women and things were both what they used to be; but this, +since she had little imagination, was as far as she penetrated into +the psychology of Gabriella's behaviour.</p> +<p>"But, you see, you're making the mistake of thinking that I love +George," said Gabriella, with a reasonableness which made Mrs. +Fowler feel that she wanted to scream, "and I don't love +him—I don't love him at all. I haven't loved him for a long +time—not since the night I saw him drunk. How could I love a +man I've seen drunk—disgustingly drunk—a man I couldn't +respect? I'm not made that way, and I can't help it. Some women may +be like that, but I'm not. I couldn't, even if I wanted to, love a +man who has treated me as George has done. I don't see how any +woman could—any woman with a particle of pride and +self-respect. Of course I had to live with him after I married +him," she finished abruptly. "Marriage isn't made for love. I used +to think it was—but it isn't—"</p> +<p>"But, Gabriella, you don't mean—you can't—" Mrs. +Fowler was really pitiable, for, after all, George was her son, and +the ties of blood would not break so easily as the ties of +marriage. In the depths of her humiliation she had almost convinced +herself that she had never respected George, that she had never +believed in him, forgetting the pride and adoration of her young +motherhood. Whatever George did she could not change his relation +to her—she could not shatter the one indissoluble bond that +holds mankind together.</p> +<p>"Gabriella, you don't—you can't—" she repeated +wildly.</p> +<p>Then, as Gabriella turned quickly and left the room, a +scene—she became conscious presently that she was beginning +to cherish an emotion not unlike resentment on George's account. +That the discovery of George's faithlessness should be received so +coolly by George's wife appeared almost an affront to him. Mrs. +Fowler liked Gabriella, she was fond of her—and nobody could +look in the girl's face and not see that she was a fine +woman—but there were times, and this was one of them, when +she thought her a little hard. Had Gabriella wept, had she raged, +had she threatened Florrie's life or happiness, it might have been +painful, but at least it would have been human; and above all +things Mrs. Fowler felt that she liked women to be human.</p> +<p>"Nothing that anybody says or does can excuse George," said +Patty sternly. "He has behaved abominably, and if I were Gabriella, +I'd simply wash my hands of him. I don't care if he is my brother, +that doesn't make me blind, does it? If he were my husband," she +concluded passionately, "I'd feel just the same way about it."</p> +<p>"Oh, you mustn't! Oh, Patty, hush, it's wicked! It's sinful!" +moaned Mrs. Fowler, shutting her eyes, as if the sight of Patty's +indignant loveliness gave her a headache. "Don't try to harden +Gabriella's heart against him. Don't try to make her think she's +really stopped loving him."</p> +<p>Gabriella's answer to this outburst was a look which, as poor +Mrs. Fowler said afterwards, "cut her to the heart." Backing weakly +to a chair, the valiant little lady sat down suddenly, because she +felt that her legs were giving way beneath the weight of her body. +And, though she was unaware of its significance, her action was +deeply symbolical of the failure of the old order to withstand the +devastating advance of the new spirit. She felt vaguely that she +wished women and things were both what they used to be; but this, +since she had little imagination, was as far as she penetrated into +the psychology of Gabriella's behaviour.</p> +<p>"But, you see, you're making the mistake of thinking that I love +George," said Gabriella, with a reasonableness which made Mrs. +Fowler feel that she wanted to scream, "and I don't love +him—I don't love him at all. I haven't loved him for a long +time—not since the night I saw him drunk. How could I love a +man I've seen drunk—disgustingly drunk—a man I couldn't +respect? I'm not made that way, and I can't help it. Some women may +be like that, but I'm not. I couldn't, even if I wanted to, love a +man who has treated me as George has done. I don't see how any +woman could—any woman with a particle of pride and +self-respect. Of course I had to live with him after I married +him," she finished abruptly. "Marriage isn't made for love. I used +to think it was—but it isn't—"</p> +<p>"But, Gabriella, you don't mean—you can't—" Mrs. +Fowler was really pitiable, for, after all, George was her son, and +the ties of blood would not break so easily as the ties of +marriage. In the depths of her humiliation she had almost convinced +herself that she had never respected George, that she had never +believed in him, forgetting the pride and adoration of her young +motherhood. Whatever George did she could not change his relation +to her—she could not shatter the one indissoluble bond that +holds mankind together.</p> +<p>"Gabriella, you don't—you can't—" she repeated +wildly.</p> +<p>Then, as Gabriella turned quickly and left the room, Mrs. Fowler +rose stoically to her feet, adjusted her belt with a tremulous +movement of her hands, and smiled bravely as she went to the mirror +to put on her hat. Heartbroken and distraught of mind though she +was, she submitted instinctively to the lifelong tyranny of +appearances.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IIa" id="CHAPTER_IIa"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> +<h3>A SECOND START IN LIFE</h3> +<p>With deliberation Gabriella walked the length of the hall to her +room, turned and locked the door after she had entered, and took +off her hat and wraps and put them away in the closet. Her head was +still carried high and her eyes were defiant and dark in the +marble-like pallor of her face. Except for her burning eyes and the +scarlet line of her tightly closed lips, she looked as still and as +cold as a statue.</p> +<p>"I'd rather die than have them know that it made any +difference," she thought. "I'd rather die than have them know that +I cared." Then sinking into a chair by the dressing-table, she laid +her head on her arm and wept tears, not of wounded love, but of +deep and passionate anger.</p> +<p>She had spoiled her life! Because of her mad and headstrong +folly, she had spoiled her life, and she was barely twenty-seven! +Had she been the veriest fool she couldn't have done +worse—she who had thought herself so sensible, so strong, so +efficient! Jane couldn't have done worse, and yet she had always +despised Jane for her weakness. But she had been as weak as Jane, +she had been as unreasonable, she had been as incredibly +sentimental and silly. And even in her folly she had irretrievably +failed. She had made her choice, and yet she had not been able to +keep the thing she had chosen. George had tired of her—here +was the sharpest sting—a man had tired of her after a few +months—had tired of her while she was still deeply in love +with him. Her humiliation, while she sat there strangling her sobs, +was so intense that it ran in little flames over her body. At the +moment she was not angry with George, she was not even angry with +Florrie. It was as if all the slumbering violence of her nature was +aroused to a burning and relentless hatred of her own weakness. +This emotion, which was so profound, so torrential, in its force +that it seemed to shake the depths of her being, left room for no +other feeling—for no other thought in her consciousness. She +had but one life to live, and by her own fault, she had ruined it +in its beginning.</p> +<p>Then her mood changed, and she sat up, straight and stern, while +she wiped her reddened eyelids with an impetuous and resolute +gesture. No, she was not crushed; she would not allow herself even +to be hurt. Her lot might be as sordid as Jane's, but she would +make it different by the strength and the effectiveness of her +resistance. She would never submit as Jane submitted; she would +never become, through sheer inertia, a part of the ugliness that +enveloped her. Thanks to the vein of iron in her soul she would +never—no, not if she died fighting—become one of the +victims of life.</p> +<p>Going into the dressing-room, she bathed her eyes with cold +water; and she was still drying them before the mirror when the +children came in, flushed and blooming, with their hands in Miss +Polly Hatch's. What splendid children they were, she thought, +looking wistfully at their eager faces. Any father, any mother in +the world, might be proud of them. Fanny, the elder, was like an +angel in her white fur coat and pert little cap, with her short +golden curls like bunches of yellow silk on her shoulders, and her +blue eyes, as grave as a philosopher's, beaming softly under her +thick jet-black lashes. She was not particularly bright; she was, +for her age, an unconscionable snob; but no one could deny that she +was as beautiful as an angel to look at.</p> +<p>"Miss Polly wanted to kiss me, mamma, but I wouldn't," she said +coolly as she examined a little bundle of sewing the seamstress had +put down on the table. "I needn't kiss people if I don't want to, +need I? Archibald doesn't like to kiss either. He's naughty about +it sometimes when ladies ask him to. He doesn't like scratchin'. +Isn't it funny to call kissing, 'scratchin'? He told me Miss Polly +scratched him and he didn't like it. He is afraid of her because +she is so ugly. Why are you ugly, Miss Polly? Couldn't you help it? +Did God make you ugly just for fun? Why doesn't he make everybody +pretty? I would if I were God. What is God's last name? Archibald +says it is Walker. Is it Walker, mamma, and how does Archibald +know? Who told him—"</p> +<p>When at last she was suppressed and sent out of the room with +the nurse, she went at a dancing step, turning to make faces at +Archibald, who stood stolidly at his mother's knee, biting deep +bites into a red apple Miss Polly had given him. He was not a +handsome child, even Gabriella admitted that his spectacles spoiled +his appearance; but he was remarkably intelligent for his four +years, and he was so strong and sturdy that he had never had a +day's illness in his life. His face was unusually thoughtful and +expressive, and his eyes, in spite of the disfiguring glasses, were +large, brown, and beautiful, with something of the luminous +softness of Cousin Jimmy's. Though she could not remember her +father, it pleased Gabriella to think that Archibald was like him, +and Miss Polly declared, with conviction, that he was "already his +living image." Of the two children, for some obscure reason which +she could not define and which was probably rooted in instinct, +Gabriella had the greater tenderness for her son; and though she +denied this preference to herself, Mrs. Fowler and Miss Polly had +both commented upon it. Even his temper, which was uncontrollable +at times, endeared him to her, and the streak of savage in his +nature seemed to awaken some dim ancestral memories in her +brain.</p> +<p>"Thank Miss Polly for the apple and run away to Fanny," said his +mother, after she had held him pressed closely to her breast for a +minute. While she did so, she felt, with profound sadness, that her +whole universe had dwindled down to her children. Of all her +happiness only her children remained to her.</p> +<p>"Don't want to run," replied Archibald with beaming good humour. +In his passion for brevity he eliminated pronouns whenever it was +possible.</p> +<p>"But Fanny is waiting for you."</p> +<p>"Would rather stay with mother than go with Fanny and Mutton." +That was another of his eccentricities. Just as he had insisted +that God's "last name was Walker," so he had begun of his own +accord, and for no visible reason, to call nurse "Mutton." He was +always fitting names of his own invention to persons; and in his +selection he was guided by a principle so obscure that Gabriella +had never been able to discover its origin. Thus his grandmother +from the first had been "Budd," and he had immediately started to +call Miss Polly "Pang."</p> +<p>"Don't you want to go back to the Park, Archibald? You must +finish your walk."</p> +<p>"Will the poor boy be there?" He never forgot anything. It was +quite probable that he would inquire for "the poor boy" a year +hence.</p> +<p>"Perhaps. You might take him an apple and a penny."</p> +<p>He stood gravely considering the plan, with one hand in his +mother's and one on Miss Polly's knee.</p> +<p>"I'll take Pang to nurse him," he said when he had decided +against the suggestion of the apple and the penny. "He hasn't any +nurse, and Fanny wouldn't like him to have hers. I'll take +Pang."</p> +<p>"But Pang isn't a nurse, dear. There, now, run to Fanny. Miss +Polly lives so far away she can't stay very long."</p> +<p>He went obediently, for he was usually amenable to his mother's +commands, stopping only once at the door to ask if "Pang lived as +far away as God and could she manage to get a message to Him about +the poor boy needing shoes?"</p> +<p>"I declare I can't make out that child to save my soul," +remarked Miss Polly as he shut the door carefully and ran down the +hall to the nursery. "The more I study him the curiouser he seems +to me. If he wan't so quick about some things you might think his +wits were sort of addled—but they ain't, are they? Now, +whatever do you reckon put the notion in his head to call me +'Pang?"</p> +<p>All the smiling, circular wrinkles in her face were working with +amusement while her little black eyes twinkled like jet beads above +the ruddy creases in her cheeks.</p> +<p>"I can't imagine, for he must have made up the word for himself. +But don't you think he is like father, Miss Polly? I love to hear +you say so."</p> +<p>"That child? Why, he's the very spit of yo' pa, Gabriella, and +there ain't any two ideas about it. I thought so the very first +time I ever saw him, and now that I come to think of it, it is +exactly like yo' pa to be makin' up all kinds of foolish names out +of nothin'. Yo' pa used to call me Poll Parrot, that he did."</p> +<p>"Mother thinks Archibald is going to be very much like him. She +saw him in the mountains last summer."</p> +<p>"So she told me when I was down home. You ain't looking a bit +well, Gabriella. You've got exactly the look Miss Letty Marshall +had before she came down with heart complaint. The doctors were +fussin' over her for weeks before they could find out what the +trouble was, but I said all along it wan't nothin' in the world but +a bruised heart, and sure enough that was just what they found out +was the matter. You ain't had a feelin' of heart burn after you +eat, have you? Sometimes it don't take you that way, though; you +just begin to have palpitations when you go up and down stairs and +then you start to wakin' up in the night with shortness of breath. +That's the way my Aunt Lydy had it. You know I nursed her till she +died, and I've seen her get right black in the face when she +stooped to pick up a pin. It's her daughter Lydy that's waiting on +old Mrs. Peyton now. You know Mrs. Peyton was feelin' kind of run +down so her son Arthur—I call him Arthur to his face because +I used to sew there when he wan't more'n knee high—well, +Arthur said she'd have to have somebody to wait on her every minute +and she thought she'd rather have Lydy than anybody else because +Lydy was always so handy in a sickroom. That was six months ago, +and Lydy's been stayin' on there ever since. She says there ain't +anybody on earth like Mr. Arthur, and she never could make out why +you didn't marry him. He ain't ever had an eye for anybody but you, +and he's got yo' picture—the one in the white dress—on +his bureau and he keeps a rose in a vase before it all the time. +That ain't much like a man, but then there always was a heap of a +girl in Arthur in little ways, wan't there?"</p> +<p>"I wonder why I didn't marry him?" said Gabriella softly; and +not until Miss Polly answered her, was she aware that she had +spoken aloud. In her spiritual reaction from the grosser reality of +passion, the delicacy and remoteness of Arthur's love borrowed the +pious and mystic qualities of religious worship. She had seen the +sordid and ugly sides of sex; and she felt now a profound disgust +for the emotion which drew men and women together—for the +light in the eyes, the touch of the lips, the clinging of the +hands. Once she had idealized these things into love itself; now +the very memory of them filled her with repulsion. She still wanted +love, but a love so pure, so disembodied, so ethereal that it was +liberated from the dominion of flesh. In the beginning, as a girl, +she had accepted love as the supreme good, as the essential +reality; now, utterly disillusioned, she asked herself: "What is +there left in life? What is the thing that really counts, after +all? What is the possession that makes all the striving worth while +in the end? At twenty-seven love is over for me, and if love is +over, what remains to fill the rest of my life? There must be +something else—there must be a reality somewhere which is +truer, which is profounder, than love." This, she knew, was the +question which neither tradition nor custom could answer. Religion, +perhaps, might have helped her; but it was characteristic of her +generation that she should give religion hardly a thought as a +possible solution of the problem of life. She wanted substance, +facts, experience; she wanted to examine, to analyze, to discover; +and it was just here that religion hopelessly failed her as a +guide. Faith she had had in her cradle—faith in life, faith +in love, faith in herself; and it was faith that had brought her to +this bleak disenchantment of spirit. No, she wanted knowledge now, +not faith; she wanted truth, not illusion.</p> +<p>"Well, you never can tell about a thing like that," Miss Polly +was saying in her sprightly way, quite as if she were discussing +the pattern of a dress or the stitching of a seam. "It was feelin', +I reckon, and feelin' is one of the things nobody can count on. But +you did mighty well, even if you didn't marry Arthur. I saw Mr. +George downtown yesterday, when I went around to Stern's to match +the edging for a baby dress, and I thought to myself I'd seldom +seen a handsomer piece of flesh than he was. He was walkin' along +up Fifth Avenue with Florrie Spencer—I'll always call her +Florrie Spencer I don't care how many times she marries—and +everybody in the street turned right plumb round to look at 'em. +She's prettier than she ever was, ain't she? And such a fit as her +dress was! One of them trailin' black things that fit as tight as +wax over the hips and flares out all round the feet. She was +holdin' up her skirts to show her feet, I reckon, and her collar +was so high behind her ears, she could hardly turn her head to look +at Mr. George. But I never saw anybody with more style—no, +not if it was that Mrs. Pletheridge who is everlastingly in the +Sunday papers. I declare Florrie's waist didn't look much bigger +round than the leg of that table—honestly it didn't—and +her hat was perched on a bandeau so high that you could see the new +sort of way she'd gone and had her hair crimped—they call it +Marcellin' up here, don't they?"</p> +<p>"Was she with George?" asked Gabriella indifferently.</p> +<p>"They were goin' to some restaurant or another for tea, I +reckon, and they certainly were a fine-lookin' pair. I wish you +could have seen 'em. Not that you wouldn't have been a match for +'em," she added consolingly. "You and Mr. George look mighty well +when you're together. You're just on a level, and if you could +manage to tighten yo' corset a little mite at the waist, and hold +yo'self with that bend out at the back the way Florrie does, you'd +have pretty near as fine a figure as she has. Ain't it funny," she +added irrelevantly, "but I was just studyin' last night about the +way yo' ma used to say that all yo' folks married badly. I reckon +she got that idea along of yo' pa's kin. You don't recollect much +about 'em, but one of yo' pa's brothers married a woman who went +clean deranged inside of a year and tried to kill him. Then there +was yo' Cousin Nelly Harrison—she married badly, or only +middlin' well anyway. There certainly was a lot of 'em when you +come to think—not countin' Jane and Mr. Charley, and I can't +help what happens," she concluded sentimentally, "I ain't ever +goin' back on Mr. Charley—not after the way he sent me two +loads of coal the winter I was laid up with rheumatism and couldn't +work. Well, it's about time for me to be goin', Gabriella. If you +want me for anything, you just drop me a line to say so. William's +children are gettin' so big, I can come out for the day 'most any +time now, and if William's courtin' goes on all right, I reckon he +won't be wantin' me much longer. He's been waitin' on a young woman +right steady for more'n six months, and it wouldn't surprise me a +bit if something was to come of it befo' summer."</p> +<p>"Then you'd go South again, wouldn't you?" There was a wistful +sound in Gabriella's voice as she put the question. Miss Polly was +a tiresome person, but at least she was faithful, and long habit +had established a bond of tolerance, if not of affection, between +them. In the last few months Gabriella had grown to look upon her +as the one living association with her childhood, and she was so +lonely that she dreaded to sever the single tie with the past that +still remained to her. "I believe she'd work her fingers to the +bone for me, and, of course, she can't help being so garrulous," +she thought.</p> +<p>"I reckon I will, if it comes to that, but I'd hate like +anything to leave you and the children," answered Miss Polly. "I +feel somehow as if I belonged up here with you all, and I've grown +real fond of Archibald."</p> +<p>"Yes, I'd hate to give you up," said Gabriella, as she let her +go and turned back again into the room. Her brain had worked +quickly while Miss Polly was talking, and the undercurrent of +gossip had helped, rather than retarded, the clearness and rapidity +of her thoughts. All her weakness, all her anger had passed. She +saw the situation without exaggeration and without illusion, for +she had made her decision in the few minutes between the entrance +and the departure of the seamstress. The embittering memories of +her life with George were submerged in the invigorating waves of +energy that flooded her being. Her inert body responded to the +miraculous restoration of her spirit; and, while she walked swiftly +from the door to the window, she had a sensation of lightness and +ease as if she had just awakened from a refreshing sleep. For seven +years all the strength of her character had been drained by the +supreme function of motherhood; but now her children had ceased to +need the whole of her life, and she was free to belong at least in +part to herself—free to enter unrestricted into the broader +human activities. And, above all, she was free from George. She had +escaped from the humiliating bondage of her marriage; for, since he +had broken the tie between them, she realized with a strange, an +almost unnatural, exhilaration, how little except duty—how +little except the bare legal husk of the marriage +contract—still held her to him. She had loved him once, but +she loved him no longer, and she resolved passionately that she +would not allow her life to be spoiled because of a single mistake. +Seven years were lost out of her youth, it was true, but those +years had given her her children, and so they were not wasted in +spite of the mistakes she had made, of the shame she had suffered. +Judged simply as a machine she was of greater value at twenty-seven +than she had been at twenty, and a part of this value lay in her +deeper knowledge of life. She had had her adventure, and she was +cured forever of adventurous desires. Her imagination, as well as +her body, was firmer, harder, more disciplined than it had been in +her girlhood; and if her vision of the universe was less +sympathetic, it was also less sentimental. The bluest eyes in the +world, she told herself sternly, could not trouble her fancy +to-day, nor could the wildest romance quicken her pulses.</p> +<p>A wagon, filled with blue and white hyacinths, passed by in the +street, and while she watched it, there flashed into her mind, with +the swiftness of light, a memory of the evening when she had broken +her engagement to Arthur. All her life he had loved her, and, but +for an accident, she might have married him. If she had not seen +George at Florrie's party—if she had not seen him under a +yellow lantern, with the glow in his eyes, and a dreamy waltz +floating from the arbour of roses at the end of the garden—if +this had not happened, she would have married Arthur instead of +George, and her whole life would have been different. Because of a +single instant, because of a chance meeting, she had wrecked the +happiness of three lives. Now, when the bloom had dropped from her +love, it was impossible for her to gather the withered leaves and +bare stems in her hands and find any fragrance about them; it was +impossible for her to understand how or why she had followed so +fleeting an impulse. People had told her that love lasted forever, +yet she knew that her emotion for George was so utterly dead that +there was no warmth left in the ashes. It had all been so vivid +once, and now it was as dull and colourless as the dust drifting +after the blue and white hyacinths.</p> +<p>From the trail of dust and the fragrance of the hyacinths, +Arthur's face floated up to her, grave, gentle, and thin-featured, +with its look of detached culture, of nameless distinction. She +recalled the colour of his eyes, as clear and cool as running +water, his sensitive lips under the thin, brown moustache, and his +slender, aristocratic hands, with their touch as soft and as tender +as a woman's. "He had intellect—he had culture—I +suppose these are the things that really matter," she thought, for +George, she knew, possessed neither of these qualities. And, as she +remembered Arthur, she was stirred, not by tenderness, but by a +passionate gratitude. He had loved her, and by loving her, he had +saved her pride from defeat. In the hour of her deepest +humiliation, she found comfort in the knowledge of his bleeding +heart, of his tragic and beautiful loyalty; for though she was +strong enough to live without love, she was not strong enough to +live with the thought that no man had ever loved her.</p> +<p>For a few minutes she allowed her fancy to play with the +comforting memory of Arthur's devotion—with the image of her +photograph on his bureau and the single rose in the vase he kept +always before it. "But for an accident I might have loved him," she +said, and the thought of this love which might have been sent a +wave of sweetness to her heart. "I might have loved him and been +happy." The vision was so dangerously beautiful that she put it +resolutely away from her, and told herself, with an effort to be +philosophical, that there was no use whatever in regretting the +past, and since love was over for her, she must set her mind to +solve the problem of work. "I've got my life to live," she said +with stoical calmness, "and however bad it is I've nobody to blame +for it but myself."</p> +<p>Then, because she had only one talent, however small, she +changed her dress, and went out to ask for a position as designer, +saleswoman, or milliner in the house of Dinard.</p> +<p>The Irish woman, voluble, painted, powdered, bewigged, and with +the remains of her handsome figure laced into a black satin gown, +nodded her false golden locks and smiled an ambiguous smile when +she heard the explanation of young Mrs. Fowler's afternoon +call.</p> +<p>"But, no, it ees impossible," she protested, forgetting her +foreign shrug and preserving with difficulty the trace of an +accent. Then, becoming suddenly natural as she realized that no +immediate profit was to be derived from affectation, she added +decisively, "you have no training, and I have quite as many +salesladies as I need at this season. Not that you are not chic," +she hastened to conclude, "not that you would not in appearance be +an adornment to any establishment."</p> +<p>"I am willing to do anything," said Gabriella, pressing her +point with characteristic tenacity. "I want to learn, you know, I +want to learn everything I possibly can. You yourself told me that +I had a natural gift for designing, and I am anxious to turn it to +some account. I believe I can make a very good milliner, and I want +to try."</p> +<p>"But what would Madame Fowler, your mother-in-law, say to this? +Surely no one would want to earn her living unless she was obliged +to."</p> +<p>For Madame had known life, as she often remarked, and the +knowledge so patiently acquired had gone far to confirm her natural +suspicion of human nature. She had got on, as she observed in +confidential moments, by believing in nobody; and this skepticism, +which was fundamental and rooted in principle, had inspired her +behaviour not only to her patrons, but to her husband, her +children, her domestic servants, her tradespeople, and the +policeman at the corner. Thirty years ago she had suspected the +entire masculine world of amorous designs upon her person; to-day, +secretly numbering her years at sixty-two, and publicly +acknowledging forty-five of them, she suspected the same world of +equally active, if less romantic, intentions regarding her purse. +And if she distrusted men, she both distrusted and despised women. +She distrusted and despised them because they were poor workers, +because they were idlers by nature, because they allowed themselves +to be cheated, slighted, underpaid, underfed, and oppressed, and, +most of all, she despised them because they were the victims of +their own emotions. Love was all very well, she was accustomed to +observe, as a pleasurable pursuit, but, as with any other pursuit, +when it began to impair the appetite and to affect the quality and +the quantity of one's work, then a serious person would at once +contrive to get rid of the passion. And Madame prided herself with +reason upon being a strictly serious person. She had been through +the experience of love innumerable times; she had lost four +husbands, and, as she pointed out with complacency, she was still +living.</p> +<p>In the dubious splendour of her showrooms, which were curtained +and carpeted in velvet, and decorated with artificial rose-bushes +flowering magnificently from white and gold jardinières, six +arrogant young women, in marvellously fitting gowns of black satin, +strolled back and forth all day long, or stood gracefully, with the +exaggerated curve of the period, awaiting possible customers. +Though they were as human within as Madame Dinard—and beneath +her make-up she was very human indeed—nothing so variable as +an expression ever crossed the waxlike immobility of their faces; +and while they trailed their black satin trains over the rich +carpets, amid the lustrous piles of silks and velvets which covered +the white and gold tables, they appeared to float through an +atmosphere of eternal enchantment. Watching them, Gabriella +wondered idly if they could ever unbend at the waist, if they could +ever let down those elaborate and intricate piles of hair. Then she +overheard the tallest and most arrogant of them remark, "I'm just +crazy about him, but he's dead broke," and she realized that they +also belonged to the unsatisfied world of humanity.</p> +<p>Madame, who had slipped away to answer the telephone, came +rustling back, and sank, wheezing, into a white and gilt chair, +which was too small to contain the whole of her ample person. +Though she had spoken quite sharply at the telephone, her voice was +mellifluous when she attuned it to Gabriella.</p> +<p>"That gown is perfect on you," she remarked in honied accents. +"It was one of my best models last season, and as I said before, +Madame, you are so fortunate as to wear your clothes with a grace." +She was urbane, but she was anxious to be rid of her, this young +Mrs. Fowler could see at a glance. "Your head is well set on your +shoulders, and that is rare—very rare! It would surprise you +to know how few women have heads that are well set on their +shoulders. Yes, I understand. You wish to learn, but not to make a +living. That is very good, for the only comfortable way for a woman +to make her living is to marry one—a man is the only +perfectly satisfactory means of livelihood. I tell this to my +daughter, who wishes to go on the stage. If you are looking for +pleasure, that is different, but when you talk of a +living—well, there is but one way to insure it, and that is +to marry a man who is able to provide it—either as allowance +or as alimony. The best that a woman can do gives her only bread +and meat—an existence, not a living. Only a man can provide +one with the essential things—with clothes and jewels and +carriages and trips to Europe. These are the important things in +life, and what woman was ever able to procure these except from a +man?"</p> +<p>Her face, so thickly covered with rouge and liquid powder that +it was as expressionless as a mask, turned its hollow eyes on a +funeral which was slowly passing in the street; and though her +creed was hardly the kind to fortify one's spiritual part against +the contemplation of death, she surveyed the solemn procession as +tranquilly as any devoted adherent of either religion or philosophy +could have done. Not a shadow passed over her fantastic mockery of +youth as she glanced back at her visitor.</p> +<p>"But you have worked—you have supported yourself," +insisted Gabriella with firmness.</p> +<p>"Myself and six children, to say nothing of three husbands. Yes, +I supported three of my four husbands, but what did I get out of +it?" replied Madame, shrugging her ample shoulders. "What was there +in it for me? Since we are talking freely, I may say that I have +worked hard all my life, and I got nothing out of it that I +couldn't have got with much less trouble by a suitable marriage. Of +course this is not for my girls to hear. I don't tell them this, +but it is true nevertheless. Men should do the work of the world, +and they should support women; that is how God intended it, that is +according to both nature and religion; any priest will say as much +to you." And she, who had defied both God and Nature, wagged her +false golden head toward the funeral procession.</p> +<p>"Yet you have been successful. You have built up a good +business. The work has repaid you."</p> +<p>"A woman's work!" She snapped her gouty fingers with a playful +gesture. "Does a woman's work ever repay her? Think of the +pleasures I have missed in my life—the excursions, the +theatres, the shows. All these I might have had if I hadn't shut +myself up every day until dark. And now you wish to do this! You +with your youth, with your style, with your husband!"</p> +<p>She protested, she pleaded, she reasoned, but in the end +Gabriella won her point by the stubborn force of her will. Madame +would take her for a few weeks, a few months, a few years, as long +as she cared to stay and gave satisfaction. Madame would have her +taught what she could learn, would discover by degrees the natural +gifts and the amount of training already possessed by young Mrs. +Fowler. Young Mrs. Fowler, on the other hand, must "stand around" +when required in the showrooms (it was just here that Gabriella won +her victory); she must assist at the ordering of gowns, at the +selections, and while Madame's patrons were fitted, young Mrs. +Fowler must be prepared to assume graceful attitudes in the +background and to offer her suggestions with a persuasive air. +Suggestions, even futile ones, offered in a charming voice from a +distinguished figure in black satin had borne wonderful results in +Madame's experience.</p> +<p>"I began that way myself, Mrs. Fowler. You may not believe it, +but I was once slenderer than you are—my waist measured only +nineteen inches and my bust thirty-six—just the figure a man +most admires. The result was, you see, that I have had four +husbands, though it is true that I supported three of them, and it +is always easy to marry if one provides the support. Men are like +that. It is their nature. Yes, I began that way with little +training, but much natural talent, and a head full of ideas. If one +has ideas it is always possible to become a success, but they are +rarer even than waists measuring nineteen inches. And I had charm, +though you might not believe it now, for charm does not wear. But I +made my way up from the bottom, first as errand girl, at the age of +ten, and I made it, not by work, for I could never handle a needle, +but by ideas. They were once plentiful, and now they are so +scarce," she broke off with a sigh of resignation which seemed to +accept every fact of experience except the fact of age. "It was a +hard life, but it was life, after all. One is not put here to be +contented, or one would dread death too much for the purpose of +God." In spite of her uncompromising materialism, she was not +without an ineradicable streak of superstition which she would +probably have called piety.</p> +<p>"I am ready to begin at once—to-morrow," said Gabriella, +and she added without explanation, obeying, perhaps, an intuitive +feeling that to explain a statement is to weaken it, "and I should +like to be called by my maiden name while I am here—just Mrs. +Carr, if you don't mind."</p> +<p>To this request Madame agreed with effusion, if not with +sincerity. For her own part she would have preferred to speak of +her saleswoman as young Mrs. Fowler; but she reflected comfortably +that many of her patrons would know young Mrs. Fowler by sight at +least, and to the others she might conveniently drop a word or two +in due season. To drop a word or two would provide entertainment +throughout the length of a fitting; and, for the rest, the mystery +of the situation had its charm for the romantic Irish strain in her +blood. The prospect of securing both entertainment and mystery at +the modest expenditure of fifteen dollars a week impressed her as +very good business, for she combined in the superlative degree the +opposite qualities of romance and economy. To be sure, except for +the advertisement she afforded and the gossip she provided, young +Mrs. Fowler might not prove to be worth even her modest salary; but +there was, on the other hand, a remote possibility that she might +turn out to be gifted, and Madame would then be able to use her +inventiveness to some purpose before the gifted one discovered her +value. In any case, Madame was at liberty to discharge her with a +day's notice, and her salary would hardly be increased for three +months even should she persist in her eccentricity and develop a +positive talent for dressmaking. And if young Mrs. Fowler could do +nothing else, Madame reflected as they parted, she could at least +receive customers and display models with an imposing, even an +aristocratic, demeanour.</p> +<p>To receive Madame's customers and display Madame's models were +the last occupations Gabriella would have chosen had she been able +to penetrate Madame's frivolous wig to her busy brain and detect +her prudent schemes for the future; but the girl was sick of her +dependence on George's father, and, in the revolt of her pride, she +would have accepted any honest work which would have enabled her to +escape from the insecurity of her position. Of her competence to +earn a living, of her ability to excel in any work that she +undertook, of the sufficiency and soundness of her resources, she +was as absolutely assured as she had been when she entered the +millinery department of Brandywine & Plummer. If Madame, +starting penniless, had nevertheless contrived, through her native +abilities, to support three husbands and six children, surely the +capable and industrious Gabriella might assume smaller burdens with +the certainty of moderate success. It was not, when one considered +it, the life which one would have chosen, but who, since the world +began, had ever lived exactly the life of his choice? Many women, +she reflected stoically, were far worse off than she, since she +started not only with a modicum of business experience (for surely +the three months with Brandywine & Plummer might weigh as that) +but with a knowledge of the world and a social position which she +had found to be fairly marketable. That Madame Dinard would have +accepted an unknown and undistinguished applicant for work at a +salary of fifteen dollars a week she did not for an instant +imagine. This inadequate sum, she concluded with a touch of ironic +humour, represented the exact value in open market of her marriage +to George.</p> +<p>In the front room, where a sparse mid-winter collection of hats +ornamented the scattered stands, she stopped for a few minutes to +inspect, with a critical eye, the dingy array. "I wonder what makes +them buy so many they can't sell?" she said half aloud to the model +at which she was gazing. "Nobody would wear these +hats—certainly nobody who could afford to buy Parisian +models. I could design far better hats than these, I myself, and if +I were the head of the house I should never have accepted any of +them, no matter who bought them. I suppose, after all, it's the +fault of the buyer, but it's a waste—it's not economy."</p> +<p>Lifting a green velvet toque trimmed with a skinny white ostrich +feather from the peg before which she was standing, she surveyed +the august French name emblazoned in gold on the lining. +"Everything isn't good that comes from Paris," she thought, with a +shrug which was worthy of Madame at her best. "Why, I wonder, can't +Americans produce 'ideas' themselves? Why do we always have to +depend on the things the French send over to us? Half the hats and +gowns Madame has aren't really good, and yet she makes people pay +tremendous prices for things she knows are bad and undistinguished. +All that ought to be changed, and if I ever succeed, if I ever +catch on, I am going to change it." An idea, a whole flock of +ideas, came to her while she stood there with her rapt gaze on the +green velvet toque, which nobody had bought, and which she knew +would shortly be "marked down," august French name included, from +forty to fifteen and from fifteen to five dollars. Her constructive +imagination was at work recreating the business, and she saw it in +fancy made over and made right from the bottom—she saw +Madame's duplicity succeeded by something of Brandywine & +Plummer's inflexible honesty, and the flimsy base of the structure +supplanted by a solid foundation of credit. For she had come often +enough to Dinard's to discern the slipshod and unsystematic methods +beneath the ornate and extravagant surface. Her naturally quick +powers of observation had detected at a glance conditions of which +the elder Mrs. Fowler was never aware. To sell gowns and hats at +treble their actual value, to cajole her customers into buying what +they did not want and what did not suit them, to give inferior +goods, inferior workmanship, inferior style wherever they would be +accepted, and to get always the most money for the least possible +expenditure of ability, industry, and honesty—these were the +fundamental principles, Gabriella had already discovered, beneath +Madame's flourishing, but shallow-rooted, prosperity. Brandywine +& Plummer did not carry Parisian models; their shop was not +fashionable in the way that the establishment of a New York +dressmaker and milliner must be fashionable; but the standard of +excellence in all things excepting style was far higher in the old +Broad Street house in the middle 'nineties than it was at Madame +Dinard's during the early years of the new century. Quality had +been essential in every hat that went from Brandywine & +Plummer's millinery department; and Gabriella, deriving from a +mother who worked only in fine linen, rejected instinctively the +cheap, the tawdry, and the inferior. She had heard a customer +complain one day of the quality of the velvet on a hat Madame had +made to order; and pausing to look at the material as she went out, +she had decided that the most prosperous house in New York could +not survive many incidents of that deplorable sort. To be sure, +such material would not have been supplied to Mrs. Pletheridge, or +even to the elder Mrs. Fowler, who, though Southern, was always +particular and very often severe; but here again, since this cheap +hat had been sold at a high price, was a vital weakness in Madame's +business philosophy.</p> +<p>On the whole, there were many of Madame's methods which might be +improved; and when Gabriella passed through the ivory and gold +doorway into the street, she had convinced herself that she was +preëminently designed by Nature to undertake the necessary +work of improvement. The tawdriness she particularly +disliked—the trashy gold and ivory of the decorations, the +artificial rose-bushes from which the dust was never removed, the +sumptuous velvet carpets which were not taken up in the summer.</p> +<p>While she was crossing the street a man joined her; and glancing +up as soon as she was clear of the traffic, she saw that it was +Judge Crowborough. In the last seven years her dislike for him had +gradually disappeared, and though she had never found him +attractive, she had grown to accept the general estimate of his +character and ability. A man so gifted ought not to be judged as +severely as poorer or less actively intelligent mortals; and as +long as other men did not judge him, she felt no inclination to +usurp so unfeminine a prerogative. He had always been kind to her, +and she understood now from his manner that he meant to be still +kinder. It occurred to her at once that he knew of George's +infatuation for Florrie, and that he was chivalrously extending to +George's wife a sympathy which he would probably have withheld in +such circumstances from his own. Had it been possible she would +have liked to explain to him that in her case his sympathy was not +needed; but she realized, with resentment, that one of her most +galling burdens would be the wasted pity which her unfortunate +situation would inspire in the friends of the family. Social +conventions made it impossible for her to tell the world, including +Judge Crowborough, that George's infidelity was a matter of slight +importance to her, since it struck only at her pride, not at her +heart. Her pride, it is true, had suffered sharply for an hour; but +so superficial was the wound that the distraction of seeking work +had been almost sufficient to heal it.</p> +<p>"A most extraordinary day for January," remarked the judge as +they reached a corner. "You hardly need your furs, the air is so +mild."</p> +<p>Overhead small, birdlike clouds drifted in flocks across a sky +of changeable brightness, and the wind, blowing past the tray of a +flower vendor at the corner, was faintly scented with violets. It +was one of those rare days when happiness seems as natural as the +wind or the sunlight, when the wildest dreams appear not too wild +to come true in reality, when one hopes by instinct and believes, +not with the reason, but with the blood. To Gabriella, forgetting +her humiliation, it was a day when life for the sake of the mere +act of living—when life, in spite of disappointment and loss +and treachery and shame, was enough to set the heart bounding with +happiness. For she was one of those who loved life, not for what it +brought to her of pleasure, but for what it was in itself.</p> +<p>"Yes, it is a lovely afternoon," she answered, and added +impulsively: "It is good to be alive, isn't it?" She had forgotten +George, but even if she had remembered him, it would have made +little difference. For six years, not for a few hours, George had +been lost to her; and in six years one has time to forget almost +anything.</p> +<p>The judge's answer to this was a look which penetrated like a +flash of light into her brain. By this light she read all that he +thought of her, and she saw that he was divided between admiration +of her spirit and an uneasy suspicion of its perfect propriety. +Tier offence, she knew, was that, being by all the logic of facts +an unhappy wife, she should persist so stubbornly in denying the +visible evidence of her unhappiness. Had her denial been merely a +pretence, it would, according to his code, have appeared both +natural and womanly; but the conviction that she was sincere, that +she was not lying, that she was not even tragically "keeping up an +appearance," increased the amazement and suspicion with which he +had begun to regard her. He walked on thoughtfully at her side, +fingering the end of his long yellowish-gray moustache, and bending +his sleepy gaze on the pavement. When he was thinking, he always +looked as if he were falling asleep, and he seldom made a remark, +even to a woman, without thinking it over. Into his small +steel-gray eyes, surrounded by purplish and wrinkled puffs of skin, +there crept the cautious and secretive look he wore at directors' +meetings, while a furtive smile flickered for an instant across his +loose mouth under the drooping ends of his moustache. His ungainly +body, with its curious suggestion of over-ripeness, of waning +power, straightened suddenly as if in reaction from certain +destructive processes within his soul. Though he was only just +passing his prime, he had lived so rapidly that he bore already the +marks of age in his face and figure.</p> +<p>"Yes, it's good to be alive," he assented, for there was nothing +in either his philosophy or his experience to contradict this +simple statement. "I've always maintained, by the way, that +happiness is the chief of the virtues."</p> +<p>For an instant Gabriella looked at the sky; then turning her +candid eyes to his, she answered: "Happiness and courage. I put +courage first—before everything."</p> +<p>Her gaze dropped, but not until she had seen his look change and +the slightly cynical smile—the smile of one who has examined +everything and believes in nothing—fade from his lips. She +had touched some chord deep down within him of which he had long +ago forgotten even the existence—some echoed harmony of what +had been perhaps the living faith of his youth.</p> +<p>"You're a gallant soul," he said briefly, and she wondered what +it was that he knew, what it was that he was keeping back.</p> +<p>At the corner where they parted, he stood for a few moments, +holding her hand in his big, soft grasp while he looked down on +her. The suspicion and the cynicism had gone from his face, and she +understood all at once why people still trusted him, still liked +him, notwithstanding his reputation, notwithstanding even his +repulsiveness. He was all that—he was immoral, he was +repulsive—but he was something else also—he was +human.</p> +<p>When she entered the house her first feeling was that the old +atmosphere had returned, the old suspense, the old waiting, the old +horror of impending calamity. A nervous dread made her hesitate to +mount the steps, to go to her room, to inquire in a natural voice +for the children. It was imaginary, of course, she assured herself, +but it was very vivid as long as it lasted. Then she noticed that +the usual order of the hall was disturbed, and when she rang, +Burrows came, with a hurried, apologetic manner, after keeping her +waiting. Mrs. Fowler's fur scarf hung on the massive oak post of +the staircase; the cards in the little tray on the hail table were +scattered about; and the petals of a yellow chrysanthemum were +strewn over the carpet.</p> +<p>Burrows, instead of explaining the confusion, appeared +embarrassed when she questioned him, and spurred by a sharp +foreboding, she ran up the stairs to her mother-in-law's +sitting-room. At her entrance a trembling voice wailed in a tone of +remonstrance:</p> +<p>"Oh, Gabriella, have you been out?"</p> +<p>"Yes, I've been out. Mamma, what is the matter?"</p> +<p>"I looked for you everywhere. Archibald has been here, but he +has just gone out again. I have never seen him so deeply +moved—so—so indignant—" Mrs. Fowler broke off, +bit her lip nervously, and paused while she tried to swallow her +sobs. Her hat lay on a chair at her side, and in her hands she held +a pair of half-soiled white gloves, which she smoothed out on her +knee, as if she were hardly aware of what she was doing. In her +blue eyes, so like George's, there was an agonizing terror and +suspense. Her usually florid face was pale to the lips; and this +pallor appeared to accentuate the dark, faintly lined shadows +beneath her eyes and the grayness of her rigidly waved hair.</p> +<p>"Courage!" said Gabriella in a whisper to herself, and aloud she +asked gently: "Dear mamma, what is it? Don't be afraid. I can bear +it."</p> +<p>"Archibald has ordered George out of the house. He—George, +I mean—had given him his promise not to see Florrie again, +and it seems that he—he broke it. There has been a dreadful +scene. I never imagined that Archibald could be so angry. He was +terrible—and he is ill anyway and in great trouble about his +financial affairs. I have been worried to death about him for +weeks. He says things are going so badly downtown that he can't +stave off the crash any longer, and +now—this—this—" She broke down utterly, burying +her convulsed face in her hands, which even in the instant of +horror and tragedy, Gabriella noticed, had been manicured since the +morning. "George has gone—we think he has gone off with +Florrie," she cried, "and he—he will never come back as long +as Archibald lives."</p> +<p>She was not thinking of Gabriella. True to the deepest instincts +of her nature, she thought first of her son, then of her husband. +It was not that she did not care for her daughter-in-law, did not +sympathize; but the fact remained that Gabriella was only George's +wife to her, while George was flesh of her flesh, bone of her bone, +soul of her soul. Though her choice was not deliberate, though it +was unconscious and instinctive—nevertheless, she had chosen. +At the crucial moment instinct had risen superior to reason, and +she had chosen, not with her judgment, but with every quivering +nerve and fibre of her being. Gabriella was right, but George was +her son; and had it been possible to secure George's happiness by +sacrificing the right to the wrong, she would have made that +sacrifice without hesitation, without scruple, and without +regret.</p> +<p>"There's his father now," she whispered, lifting her disfigured +face. "Oh, Gabriella, I believe it will kill me!"</p> +<p>While Gabriella stood there waiting for George's father to +enter, and listening to his slow, deliberate tread on the stairs, +the heavy, laborious tread of a man who is uncertain of his +strength, she remembered vividly, as if she were living it over +again, the night she had waited by her fire to tell George that his +first child was to be born. Many thoughts passed through her mind, +and at last these thoughts resolved themselves into a multitude of +crowding images—all distinct and vivid images of George's +face. She saw his face as she had first seen and loved it, with its +rich colouring, its blue-gray eyes, like wells of romance she had +once thought, its look of poetry and emotion which had covered so +much that was merely commonplace and gross. She saw him as he had +looked at their marriage, as he had looked, bending over her after +her first child was born, and then she saw him as he had parted +from her that morning—flushed, sneering, a little coarsened, +but still boyish, still charming. Well, it was all over now. It had +been over so long that she had even ceased to regret it—for +she was not by nature one of the women who could wear mourning for +a lifetime.</p> +<p>The door opened: Archibald Fowler came in very slowly; and the +first sight of his face brought home to her with a shock the +discovery that he was the one of them who had suffered most. He +looked an old man; his gentle scholar's face had taken an ashen +hue; and his eyes were the eyes of one who has only partially +recovered from the blow that has prostrated him.</p> +<p>"My dear child," he said; "my dear daughter," and laid his hand +on her shoulder.</p> +<p>She clung to him, feeling a passionate pity, not for herself, +but for him. "You have too much to bear," she murmured caressingly. +"You mustn't take it like this. You must try to get over it. For +all our sakes you must try to get over it." The irony of it +all—that she should be consoling her husband's father for her +husband's desertion of her—did not appear to her until long +afterwards. At the time she thought only that she—that +somebody—must make the tragedy easier for him to bear.</p> +<p>"Come and sit down, Archibald," said Mrs. Fowler pleadingly. +"Let me give you a glass of sherry and a biscuit; you are too tired +to talk."</p> +<p>There was the old devotion in her manner, but there was also a +new deference. For the first time in thirty years of marriage he +had shown his strength to her, not his gentleness; for the first +time he had opposed his will to hers in the cause of justice, and +he had conquered her. In spite of her anguish, something of the +romantic expectancy of her first love had returned to her heart and +it showed in her softened voice, in her timid caresses, in her +wistful eyes, which held a pathetic and startled brightness. He had +triumphed in honour; and if her defeat had not involved George, she +could almost have gloried in the completeness of her surrender.</p> +<p>He sat down with the air of a man who is not entirely awake to +his surroundings; and his wife, after ordering the sherry, hovered +over him with the touching solicitude of one who is living for the +moment in the shadow of memory. While he sipped the wine, he waited +until Burrows' footsteps had passed down the staircase, and then +said with his usual quietness:</p> +<p>"There is something else, Evelyn, that I kept back. I couldn't +tell you while you were so worried about George, but there is +something else—"</p> +<p>She caught the words from him eagerly, with a gesture almost of +relief.</p> +<p>"You mean it has come at last. I suspected it, and, oh, +Archibald, I don't care—I don't care!"</p> +<p>"There were several failures to-day in Wall Street, and—" +He broke off as if he were too tired to go on, and added slowly +after a moment: "I am too old to begin again. I'd like to go back +home—to go back to the South for my old age. Yes, I'm +old."</p> +<p>But his wife was on her knees beside him, with her arms about +his neck and her face hidden on his breast. "I don't care, I never +cared," she said in a voice that was almost exultant. "We can be +happy on so little—happier than we've ever been in our +lives—just you and I to grow old together. We can go home to +Virginia—to some small place and be happy. Happiness costs so +little."</p> +<p>Slipping away, Gabriella went into the hail, and passing her +room, noiselessly pushed open the door of the nursery, where the +children were sleeping. A night lamp was burning in one corner +under a dark shade, and the nurse's knitting, a pile of white yarn, +was lying on the table in the circle of green light, which was as +soft as the glimmer of a glow-worm in a thicket. In their two +little beds, separated by a strip of white rug, the children were +sleeping quietly, with a wonderful freshness, like the dew of +innocence, on their faces. Frances lay on her back, very straight +and prim even in sleep, with the sheet folded neatly under her +dimpled chin, her hands clasped on her breast, and her golden curls +spread in perfect order over the lace-trimmed pillow. Her miniature +features, framed in the dim gold of her hair, had the trite +prettiness of an angel on a Christmas card; and beside her ethereal +loveliness there was something gnome-like in the dark sturdiness of +Archibald, who slept on his side, with his fists pressed tightly +under the pillow, and the frown produced by near-sightedness still +wrinkling his forehead. Though he was not beautiful, he showed +already the promise of character in his face, and his personality, +which was remarkably developed for a child of his age, possessed a +singular charm. He was the kind of child people describe as "unlike +other children." His temperament was made up of surprises, and this +quality of unexpectedness inspired in his mother a devotion that +was almost tragic in its intensity. Never had she loved the normal +Frances Evelyn as she loved Archibald.</p> +<p>As she looked down on them, sleeping so peacefully in the green +light, a wave of sadness swept over her, and she thought of them +suddenly as fatherless, impoverished, and unprotected, dependent on +her untried labour for their lives and their happiness. Then, +before the anxiety could take possession of her mind, she put it +from her, and whispered, "Courage!" as she turned away and went out +of the room.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IIIa" id="CHAPTER_IIIa"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> +<h3>WORK</h3> +<p>They had planned the future so carefully that there was a +pitiless irony in the next turn of the screw—for when they +tried to awaken Archibald Fowler in the morning, he did not stir, +and they realized presently, with the rebellious shock such +tragedies always bring, that he had died in the night—that +all that he had stood for, the more than thirty years of work and +struggle, had collapsed in an hour. When the first grief, the first +excitement, was over, and life began to flow quietly again in its +familiar currents, it was discovered that the crash of his fortune +had occurred on the day of his son's flight and disgrace, and that +the two shocks, coming together, had killed him. While they sat in +the darkened house, surrounded by the funereal smell of crape, the +practical details of living seemed to matter so little that they +scarcely gave them a thought. Not until weeks afterwards, when +Patty and Billy had sailed for France, and Mrs. Fowler, shrouded in +widow's weeds, had gone South to her old home, did Gabriella find +strength to tear aside the veil of mourning and confront the sordid +actuality. Then she found that the crash had buried everything +under the ruins of Archibald Fowler's prosperity—that nothing +remained except a bare pittance which would insure his widow only a +scant living on the impoverished family acres. For the rest there +was nothing, and she herself was as poor as she had been in Hill +Street before her marriage.</p> +<p>Walking back from the station after bidding her mother-in-law a +tearful and tender good-bye, she tried despairingly to gather her +scattered thoughts and summon all her failing resources; but in +front of her plans there floated always the pathetic brightness of +Mrs. Fowler's eyes gazing up at her from the heavy shadow of the +crape veil she had lifted. So that was the end—a little love, +a little hope, a little happiness, and then separation and death. +Effort appeared not only futile, but fantastic, and yet effort, she +knew, must be made if she were to ward off destitution. She must +recover her cheerfulness, she must be strong, she must be +confident. Alone, penniless, with two children to support, she +could not afford to waste her time and her energy in useless +regret. Whatever it cost her, she must keep alive her fighting +courage and her belief in life. She had youth, health, strength, +intelligence, resourcefulness on her side; and she told herself +again that there were thousands of women living and fighting around +her who were far worse off than she. "What others have done, I can +do also, and do better," she murmured aloud as she walked rapidly +back to Dinard's.</p> +<p>In the long front room the crowded mid-winter sale was in +progress, and the six arrogant young women, goaded into a fleeting +semblance of activity, were displaying dilapidated "left over" +millinery to a throng of unfashionable casual customers. Madame, +herself, scorned these casual customers, but her scorn was as water +unto wine compared with the burning disdain of the six arrogant +young women. They sauntered to and fro with their satin trains +trailing elegantly over the carpet, with their fashionable curves +accentuated as much as it was possible for pride to accentuate +them, with their condescending heads turning haughtily above the +high points of their collars. As Gabriella entered she saw the +tallest and the most scornful of them, whose name was Murphy, +insolently posing in the green velvet toque before a jaded hunter +of reduced millinery, who shook her plain, sensible head at the hat +as if she wished it to understand that she heartily disapproved of +it.</p> +<p>Madame was not visible, but Gabriella found her a little later +in the workroom, where she was volubly elucidating obscure points +in business morality to the forewoman. Of all the women employed in +the house, this particular forewoman was the only one who appeared +to Gabriella to be without pretence or affectation. She was an +honest, blunt, capable creature, with a face and figure which +permanently debarred her from the showrooms, and a painstaking +method of work. There was no haughtiness, no condescension, about +her. She had the manner of one who, being without fortuitous aids +to happiness, is willing to give good measure of ability and +industry in return for the bare necessaries of existence. "She is +the only genuine thing in the whole establishment," thought +Gabriella while she watched her.</p> +<p>If Miss Smith, the forewoman, had been in ignorance of the +failure and death of Archibald Fowler, she would probably have read +the announcement in Madame's face as she watched her welcome the +wife of his son. There was nothing offensive, nothing unkind, +nothing curt; but, in some subtle way, the difference was +emphasized between the eccentric daughter-in-law of a millionaire +and an inexperienced young woman who must work for her living. For +the welcome revealed at once to the observant eyes of Miss Smith +the significant detail that Madame's role had changed from the +benefited to the benefactor. And, as if this were not enough for +one morning's developments, it revealed also that Gabriella's +fictitious value as a saleswoman was beginning to decline; for +Madame was disposed to scorn the sort of sensational advertisement +which the newspapers had devoted of late to the unfortunate +Fowlers. At one moment there had been grave doubt in Madame's mind +as to whether or not she should employ young Mrs. Fowler in her +respectable house; then, after a brief hesitation, she had shrewdly +decided that ideas were worth something even when lacking the +support of social position and financial security. There were +undoubtedly possibilities in Gabriella; and disgrace, Madame +concluded cheerfully, could not take away either one's natural +talent or one's aristocratic appearance. That the girl had +distinction, even rare distinction, Madame admitted while she +nodded approvingly at the severe black cloth gown with its collar +and cuffs of fine white crape. The simple arrangement of her hair, +which would have ruined many a pretty face, suited the ivory pallor +of Gabriella's features. Mourning was becoming to her, Madame +decided, and though she was not beautiful, she was unusually +charming.</p> +<p>"She has few good points except her figure, and yet the whole is +decidedly picturesque," thought Madame as impersonally as if she +were criticising a fashion plate. "Very young men would hardly care +for her—for very young men demand fine complexions and +straight noses—but with older men who like an air, who admire +grace, she would be taking, and women, yes, women would undoubtedly +find her imposing. But she is not the sort to have followers," she +concluded complacently.</p> +<p>"Shall I go to the workroom?" asked Gabriella in a businesslike +voice when she had taken off her hat, "or do you wish me at the +sale?"</p> +<p>Her soul shrank from the showrooms, but she had determined +courageously that she would not allow her soul to interfere with +her material purpose, and her purpose was to learn all that she +could and to make herself indispensable to Madame. Only by +acquiring a thorough knowledge of the business and making herself +indispensable could she hope to succeed. And success was not merely +desirable to her; it was vital. It meant the difference between +food and hunger for her children.</p> +<p>"Miss Smith will find something for you to do this morning," +replied Madame, politely, but without enthusiasm. "If there is a +rush later on in the millinery, I will send for you to help +out."</p> +<p>In the old days, when Dinard's was a small and exclusive house +in one of the blocks just off Fifth Avenue, Madame would have +scorned to combine the making of gowns and hats in a single +establishment; but as she advanced in years and in worldly +experience, she discovered that millinery drew the unwary passer-by +even more successfully than dressmaking did. Then, too, hats were +easy to handle; they sold for at least four or five times as much +as they actually cost; and so, gradually, while she was still +unaware of the disintegrating processes within, Madame's principles +had crumbled before the temptation of increasing profits. A lapse +of virtue, perhaps, but Madame, who had been born an O'Grady, was +not the first to discover that one's virtuous principles are apt to +modify with one's years. The time was when she had despised false +hair, having a natural wealth of her own, and now, with a few thin +gray strands hidden under her golden wig, she had become morally +reconciled to necessity. "It is a hard world, and one lives as one +must," was her favourite maxim.</p> +<p>On the whole, however, having a philosophic bent of mind, she +endeavoured to preserve, with rosy cheeks and golden hair, several +other cheerful fictions of her youth. The chief of these, the +artless delusion that, in spite of her obesity, her wig and her +rouge, she still had power to charm the masculine eye, offered to +her lively nature a more effective support than any virtuous +principle could have supplied. A perennial, if ridiculous, coquetry +sweetened her days and added sprightliness to the gay decline of +her life. Being frankly material, she had confined her energies to +the two unending pursuits of men and money, and having captured +four husbands and acquired a comfortable bank account, she might +have been content, had she been as discreet as she was provident, +to rest on her substantial achievements. But the trouble with both +men and money, when considered solely as rewards to enterprise, is +that the quest of them is inexhaustible. One's income, however +large, may reasonably become larger, and there is no limit to the +number of husbands a prudent and fortunate woman may collect. And +so age, which is, after all, a state of mind, not a term of years, +was rendered harmless to Madame by her simple plan of refusing to +acknowledge that it existed. This came of keeping one's head, she +sometimes thought, though she never put her thought into +words—this and all things else, including financial security +and the perpetual pursuit of the elusive and lawless male. For at +sixty-two she still felt young and she believed herself to be +fascinating.</p> +<p>But Gabriella, patiently stitching bias velvet bands on the brim +of a straw hat for the early spring trade, felt that she was +sustained neither by the pleasures of vanity nor by the sounder +consolations of virtue. Her philosophy was quite as simple, if not +so material, as Madame's. Human nature was divided between the +victors and the victims, and the chief thing was not to let oneself +become a victim. Her theory, like those of greater philosophers, +was rooted not in reason, but in character, and she believed in +life with all the sanguine richness of her blood. Of course it was +a struggle, but she was one of those vital women who enjoy a +struggle—who choose any aspect of life in preference to the +condition of vegetative serenity. Unhappiness, which is so largely +a point of view, an attitude of mind, had passed over her at a time +when many women would have been consecrated to inconsolable misery. +She was penniless, she was unloved, she was deserted by her +husband, she had lost, in a few weeks, her friends, her home, and +her family, and she faced the future alone, except for her +dependent and helpless children—yet in spite of these things, +though she was thoughtful, worried, and often anxious, she realized +that deep down in her the essential core of her being was not +unhappy. When she had tried and failed, and lost her health and her +children—if such sorrows ever came to her, then there would +be time enough for unhappiness. Now, she was only twenty-seven; the +rich, wonderful world surrounded her; and this world, even if she +put love out of her life, was brimming over with beauty. It was +good to be alive; it was good to watch the crowd in the street, to +see the sunlight on the pavement, to taste the air, to feel the +murmurous currents of the city flow around her as she walked home +in the twilight. It was good to earn her bread and to go back in +the evening to the joyful shouts of two well and happy children. +She saw it all as an adventure—the whole of life—and +the imperative necessity was to keep to the last the ardent heart +of the true adventurer. While she stitched with flying fingers, +there passed before her the pale sad line of the victims—of +those who had resigned themselves to unhappiness. She saw her +mother, anxious, pensive, ineffectual, with her widow's veil, her +drooping eyelids, and her look of mournful acquiescence, as of one +who had grown old expecting the worst of life; she saw poor Jane, +tragic, martyred, with the feeble virtue and the cloying sweetness +of all the poor Janes of this world; and she saw Uncle Meriweather +wearing his expression of worried and resentful helplessness, as if +he had been swept onward against his will by forces which he did +not understand. All these people were victims, and from these +people she had sprung. Their blood was her blood; their traditions +were her traditions; their religion was her religion; even their +memories were her memories. But something else, which was not +theirs, was in her nature, and this something else had been born in +the instant when she revolted against them. Perhaps the fighting +spirit of her father—of that father who had gone out like a +flame in his youth had battled on her side when she had turned +against the inertia and decay which had walled in her girlhood.</p> +<p>In the afternoon Madame summoned her into the showrooms, and she +assisted the exhausted young women at the sale of slightly damaged +French hats to the unfashionable purchasers who preferred to pay +reasonable prices. While she served them, which she did with a +cheerfulness, an interest, and an amiability that distinguished her +from the other saleswomen, she wondered how they could have so +little common sense as to allow themselves to be deluded by the +French labels on the soiled linings? She could have made a better +hat in two hours than any one of those she sold at the reduced +price of ten dollars; yet even the dingiest of them at last found a +purchaser, and she saw the green velvet toque, which had been +rejected by the sensible middle-aged woman in the morning, finally +pass into the possession of a hard-featured spinster. What amazed +her, for she had a natural talent for dress, was the infallible +instinct which guided the vast majority of these customers to the +selection of the inappropriate. A few of them had taste, or had +learned from experience what they could not wear; but by far the +larger number displayed an ignorance of the most elementary +principles of dress which shocked and astonished Gabriella. The +obese and middle-aged winged straight as a bird toward the +coquettish in millinery; the lean and haggard intuitively yearned +for the picturesque; the harsh and simple aspired to the severely +smart. Yet beneath the vain misdirection of impulses there was some +obscure principle of attraction which ruled the absurdity of the +decisions. Each woman, Gabriella discovered after an attentive hour +at the sale, was dressing not her actual substance, but some +passionately cherished ideal of herself which she had stored in a +remote and inaccessible chamber of her brain.</p> +<p>In all of the tedious selections Gabriella assisted with the +pleasant voice, the ready sympathy, and the quick understanding +which had made her so popular when she had worked for the old shop +in Broad Street. The truth was that human nature interested her +even in its errors, and her pleasant manners were simply the +outward manifestation of an unaffected benevolence.</p> +<p>"I shouldn't mind going there if they were all like that one," +remarked a customer, who had bought three hats, in the hearing of +Madame as she went out; "but some of them are so disagreeable you +feel like slapping their faces. Once last winter I had that tall +girl with red hair—the handsome, stuck-up one, you +know—and I declare she was so downright impertinent that I +got straight up and walked out without buying a thing. Then I was +so angry that I went down to Paula's and paid seventy-five dollars +for this hat I've got on. It was a dreadful price, of course, but +you'll do anything when you're in a rage."</p> +<p>"Do you know the name of this one? I'd like to remember it."</p> +<p>"Yes, it's Carr. I asked for her card. C-a-r-r. I think she's a +widow."</p> +<p>From her retreat behind one of the velvet curtains Madame +overheard this conversation, and a few minutes later she stopped +Gabriella on her way out, and said amiably that it would not be +necessary for her to leave the showroom to-morrow.</p> +<p>"I believe you can do better there than in the workroom," she +added, "and, after all, that is really very important—to tell +people what they want. It is astounding how few of them have the +slightest idea what they are looking for."</p> +<p>"But I want to get that hat right. I left it unfinished, and I +don't like to give up while it is wrong," replied Gabriella, not +wholly pleased by the command.</p> +<p>But Madame, of a flightier substance notwithstanding her +business talents, waved aside the remark as insignificant and +without bearing upon her immediate purpose.</p> +<p>"I am going to try you with the gowns," she said resolutely; "I +want to see if you catch on there as quickly as you did with the +hats—I mean with the sale, of course, for your work, I'm +sorry to say, has been rather poor so far. But I'll try you with +the next customer who comes to place a large order. They are always +so eager for new suggestions, and you have suggestions of a sort to +make, I am sure. I can't quite tell," she concluded uncertainly, +"whether or not your ideas have any practical value, but they sound +well as you describe them, and to talk attractively helps; there is +no doubt of that."</p> +<p>It was closing time, and Miss Fisher, one of the skirt fitters, +came up, in her black alpaca apron with a pair of scissors +suspended by red tape from her waist, to ask Madame a question. As +Mrs. Bydington had not kept her appointment, was it not impossible +to send her gown home as they had promised?</p> +<p>"Oh, it makes no difference," replied Madame blandly, for she +was in a good humour. "She'll come back when she is ready. The next +time she is here, by the way, I want her to see Mrs. Fowler—I +mean Mrs. Carr. She has worn out every one else in the place, and +yet she is never satisfied; but I'd like her to take that pink +velvet from Gautier, because nobody else is likely to give the +price." The day was over and Madame's blandness was convincing +evidence of her satisfaction.</p> +<p>As Gabriella passed through the last showroom, where the +disorder of the sale was still visible, she saw Miss Murphy, the +handsomest and the haughtiest of the young women, wearily returning +the few rejected hats to the ivory-tinted cases.</p> +<p>"You are glad it is over, I know," she remarked sympathetically, +less from any active interest in Miss Murphy's state of feeling +than from an impulsive desire to establish human relations with her +fellow saleswoman. If Miss Murphy would have it so, she preferred +to be friendly.</p> +<p>"I am so tired I can hardly stand on my feet," replied Miss +Murphy, piteously. Her pretty rose-leaf skin had faded to a dull +pallor; there were heavy shadows under her eyes; her helmet of +wheaten-red hair had slipped down over her forehead, and even her +firmly corseted figure appeared to have grown limp and yielding. +Without her offensive elegance she was merely a pathetic and rather +silly young thing.</p> +<p>"I'll help you," said Gabriella, taking up several hats from a +chair. "The others have gone, haven't they?"</p> +<p>"They got out before I'd finished waiting on that middle-aged +frump who doesn't know what she wants any more than the policeman +out there at the corner does. She's made me show her all we've got +left, and after she'd tried them all on, she said they're too high, +and she's going to think over them before she decides. She's still +waiting for something, and my head's splitting so I can hardly see +what I'm doing." With a final surrender of her arrogance, she grew +suddenly confidential and childish. "I'm sick enough to die," she +finished despairingly, "and I've got a friend coming to take me to +the theatre at eight o'clock."</p> +<p>"Well, run away. I'll attend to this. But I'd try to rest before +I went out if I were you."</p> +<p>"You're a perfect peach," responded Miss Murphy gratefully. "I +said all along I didn't believe you were stuck up and +snobbish."</p> +<p>Then she ran out, and Gabriella, after surveying the customer +for a minute, selected the most unpromising hat in the case, and +presented it with a winning smile for the woman's inspection.</p> +<p>"Perhaps something like this is what you are looking for?" she +remarked politely, but firmly.</p> +<p>The customer, an acidulous, sharp-featured, showily dressed +person—the sort, Gabriella decided, who would enjoy haggling +over a bargain—regarded the offered hat with a supercilious +and guarded manner, the true manner of the haggler.</p> +<p>"No, that is not bad," she observed dryly, "but I don't care to +give more than ten dollars."</p> +<p>"It was marked down from thirty," replied Gabriella, and her +manner was as supercilious and as guarded as the other's. There +were women, she had found, who were impressed only by insolence, +and, when the need arose, she could be quite as insolent as Miss +Murphy. Unlike Miss Murphy, however, she was able to distinguish +between those you must encourage and those you must crush; and this +ability to draw reasonable distinctions was, perhaps, her most +valuable quality as a woman of business.</p> +<p>"I don't care to pay more than ten dollars," reiterated the +customer in a scolding voice. Rising from her chair, she fastened +her furs, which were cheap and showy, with a defiant and jerky +movement, and flounced out of the shop.</p> +<p>That disposed of, Gabriella put on her coat, which she had taken +off again for the occasion, and went out into the street, where the +night had already fallen. After her long hours in the overheated +air of the showrooms, she felt refreshed and invigorated by the +cold wind, which stung her face as it blew singing over the +crossings. Straight ahead through the grayish-violet mist the +lights were blooming like flowers, and above them a few stars shone +faintly over the obscure frowning outlines of the buildings. Fifth +Avenue was thronged, and to her anxious mind there seemed to be +hollowness and insincerity in the laughter of the crowd.</p> +<p>At the house in East Fifty-seventh Street, from which she would +be moving the next day, she found Judge Crowborough awaiting her in +the dismantled drawing-room, where packing-cases of furniture and +pictures lay scattered about in confusion. In the dreadful days +after Archibald Fowler's death, the judge had been very kind, and +she had turned to him instinctively as the one man in New York who +was both able and willing to be of use to her. Though he had never +attracted her, she had been obliged to admit that he possessed a +power superior to superficial attractions.</p> +<p>"I dropped in to ask what I might do for you now?" he remarked +with the dignity of one who possesses an income of half a million +dollars a year. "It's a pity you have to leave this house. I +remember when Archibald bought it—somewhere back in the +'seventies—but I suppose there's no help for it, is +there?"</p> +<p>"No, there's no help." She sat down on a packing-case, and he +stood gazing benevolently down on her with his big, soft hands +clasped on the head of his walking-stick and his overcoat on his +arm. "I've rented three rooms in one of the apartments of the old +Carolina over on the West Side near Columbus Avenue. The rest of +the apartment is rented to art students, I believe, and we must all +use the same kitchen and the same bath-tub," she added with a +laugh. "Of course it isn't luxury, but we shan't mind very much as +soon as we get used to it. I couldn't be much poorer than I was +before my marriage."</p> +<p>"But the children? You've got to have the children looked +after."</p> +<p>"I've been so fortunate about that," her voice was quite +cheerful again. "There's a seamstress from my old home—Miss +Polly Hatch—who has known me all my life, and she is coming +to sleep in a little bed in my room until we can afford to rent an +extra bedroom. As long as she has to work at home anyhow, she can +very easily look after the children while I am away. They are good +children, and as soon as they are big enough I'll have to send them +to school—to the public school, I'm afraid." This, because of +Fanny's violent opposition, was a delicate point with her. She felt +that she should like to start the children at a private school, but +it was clearly impossible.</p> +<p>"The boy won't be big enough for a year or two, will he?" He was +interested, she saw, and this unaffected interest in her small +affairs moved her almost to tears.</p> +<p>"I wanted him to go to kindergarten, but, of course, I cannot +afford it. He is only four and a half, and I'm teaching him myself +in the evenings. Already he can read very well in the first +reader," she finished proudly.</p> +<p>For a minute the judge stared moodily down on her. His sagging +cheeks took a pale purplish flush, and he bit his lower lip with +his large yellow teeth, which reminded Gabriella of the tusks of a +beast of prey. Then he laid his overcoat and his stick carefully +down on a packing-case, and held out his hand.</p> +<p>"I'm going now, and there's one thing I want to ask +you—have you any money?"</p> +<p>It was out at last, and she looked up composedly, smiling a +little roguishly at his embarrassment.</p> +<p>"I have six hundred dollars in bank for a rainy day, and I am +making exactly fifteen dollars a week."</p> +<p>"But you can't live on it. Nobody could live on it even without +two children to bring up."</p> +<p>She shook her head. "Oh, Judge Crowborough, how little you rich +men really know! I've got to live on it until I can do better, and +I hope that will be very soon. If I am worth anything now, in three +months I ought to be worth certainly as much as twenty-five dollars +a week. In a little while—as soon as I've caught on to the +business—I'm going to ask for a larger salary, and I think I +shall get it. Twenty-five dollars a week won't go very far, but you +don't know how little some people can live on even in New +York."</p> +<p>"As soon as the six hundred dollars go you'll be headed straight +for starvation," he protested, sincerely worried.</p> +<p>"Perhaps, but I doubt it."</p> +<p>"How much do you have to pay for your rooms?"</p> +<p>"Twenty-five dollars a month. It isn't much of a place, you see, +as far as appearances go. Fortunately, I have a little furniture of +my own which Mrs. Fowler had given me."</p> +<p>His embarrassment had passed away, and he was smiling now at the +recollection of it.</p> +<p>"Well, you're a brick, little girl," he said, "and I like your +spirit, but, after all, why can't you put your pride in your +pocket, and let me lend you a few thousands? You needn't borrow +much—not enough to keep a carriage—but you might at +least take a little just to show you aren't proud—just to +show you'll be friends. It seems a downright shame that I should +have money to throw away, and you should be starting out to pinch +and scrape on fifteen dollars a week. Fifteen dollars a week! Good +Lord, what are we coming to?"</p> +<p>She was not proud, and she wanted to be friends, but she shook +her head obstinately, though she was still smiling. "Not +now—not while I can help it—but if I ever get in +trouble—in real trouble—I'll remember your offer. If +the children fall ill or I lose my place, I'll come to you in a +minute."</p> +<p>"Honour bright? It's a promise?"</p> +<p>"It's a promise."</p> +<p>"And you'll let me keep an eye on you?"</p> +<p>She laughed with the natural gaiety which he found so +delightful. "You may keep two eyes on me if you will!"</p> +<p>He had already reached the door when, turning suddenly, he said +with heavy gravity: "You don't mind my asking what you're going to +do about George, do you?</p> +<p>"No, I don't mind. As soon as I can afford it, I shall get my +freedom, but everything costs, you know, even justice."</p> +<p>"I could help you there, couldn't I?"</p> +<p>From the gratitude in her eyes he read her horror of the +marriage which still bound her. "You could—and, oh, if you +would, I'd never, never forget it," she answered.</p> +<p>Then they parted, and he went out into the cold, with a strange +warmth like the fire of youth at his heart, while she ran eagerly +up the uncarpeted stairs to the nursery.</p> +<p>The trunks were packed, the boxes were nailed down, and the two +children were playing shipwreck while they ate a supper of bread +and milk at a table made from the bare top of a packing-case. +Several days before the nurse had left without warning, and Miss +Polly sat now, in hat and mantle, on one of the little beds which +would be taken down the next day and sent over to the apartment on +the West Side.</p> +<p>"I've been to the Carolina and unpacked the things that had +come," she said at Gabriella's entrance. "Those rooms ain't so bad +as New York rooms go; but it does seem funny, don't it, to cook in +the same kitchen with a lot of strangers you never laid eyes on +befo'? I br'iled some chops for the children right alongside of an +old maid who had come all the way up from New Orleans to study +music—imagine, at her age! Why, she couldn't be a day under +fifty! And on the other side there was the mother of a girl who's +at the art school, or whatever you call it, where they teach you +paintin'. They are from somewhere up yonder in New England and +their home folks had sent 'em a pumpkin pie. She gave me a slice of +it, but I never did think much of pumpkin. It can't hold a candle +to sweet potato pudding, and I wouldn't let the children touch it +for fear it might set too heavy in the night. I ain't got much use +for Yankee food, nohow."</p> +<p>"I hope the place is perfectly sanitary," was Gabriella's +anxious rejoinder. "The front room gets some sunshine in the +afternoon, doesn't it?"</p> +<p>"It's a horrid street. I don't want to live there," wailed +Fanny, who had rebelled from the beginning against her fallen +fortunes. "I got my white shoes dirty, and there were banana peels +all about. A man has a fruit-stand in the bottom of our house. +Don't let's go there to live, mother."</p> +<p>"You'll have to wear black shoes now, darling, and you mustn't +mind the fruit-stand. It will be a good place to buy oranges."</p> +<p>"I like it," said Archibald stoutly. "I like to slide on banana +peels, and I like the man. He has black eyes and a red handkerchief +in his pocket. Will you buy me a red handkerchief, mamma? He has a +boy, too. I saw him. He can skate on roller skates, and the boy has +a dog and the dog has a black ear. May I have roller skates for my +birthday, and a dog—a small one—and may I ask the boy +up to play with me?"</p> +<p>"But the boy is ugly and so is the dog. I hate ugly people," +complained Fanny.</p> +<p>"I like ugly people," retorted Archibald, glowering, not from +anger, but from earnestness. "Ugly people are nicer than pretty +ones, aren't they, mamma? Pang is nicer than Fanny."</p> +<p>He was always like that even as a baby, always on the side of +the unfortunate, always fighting valiantly for the under dog. With +his large head, his grotesque spectacles, and his pouting lips, he +bore a curious resemblance to a brownie, yet when one observed him +closely, one saw that there was a remarkable blending of strength +and sweetness in his expression.</p> +<p>The next day Miss Polly finished the moving, and at six o'clock +Gabriella went home in the Harlem elevated train to the grim, +weather-beaten apartment house on the upper West Side. The +pavements, as Fanny had scornfully observed, were not particularly +clean; the air, in spite of the sharp wind which blew from the +river, had a curiously stagnant quality; and the rumble of the +elevated road, at the opposite side of the house, reached her in a +vibrating undercurrent which was punctuated now and then by the +staccato cries of the street. The house, which had been built in a +benighted and spacious period, stood now as an enduring refuge for +the poor in purse but proud in spirit. A few studios on the roof +were still occupied by artists, while the hospitable basement +sheltered a vegetable market, a corner drug-store, a fruit-stand, +and an Italian bootblack. Within the bleak walls, from which the +stucco had peeled in splotches, the life of the city had ebbed and +flowed for almost half a century, like some deep wreck-strewn +current which bore the seeds of the future as well as the driftwood +of the past on its bosom. One might never have set foot outside +those gloomy doors and yet have seen the whole of life pass as in a +vivid dream through the dim halls, lighted by flickering gas and +carpeted in worn strips of brown carpet. And once inside the +apartments one might have found, sometimes, cheerfulness, beauty of +line and colour, and a certain spaciousness which the modern +apartment house, with its rooms like closets, its startling +electricity, and its more hygienic conditions of living, could not +provide. It was because she could find space there that Gabriella, +guided by Miss Polly, had rented the rooms.</p> +<p>She passed the drug-store and the fruit-stand, entered the +narrow hail, where a single gas-jet flickered dimly beside the door +of the elevator, and after touching the bell, stood patiently +waiting. After a time she rang again, and presently, with +deliberate ease and geniality, the negro who worked the elevator +descended slowly, with a newspaper in his hand, and opened the door +for her.</p> +<p>"Good evening, Robert," she said pleasantly, for he also was +from Virginia, and the discovery of the bond between them had given +Gabriella a feeling of confidence. Like Miss Folly, she had never +become entirely accustomed to white servants.</p> +<p>The ropes moved again, the elevator ascended perilously to the +fifth floor, and Gabriella walked quickly along the hall, and +slipped her latchkey into the keyhole of the last apartment. As the +door opened, a woman in worn black came out and spoke to her in +passing. She was the old maid of Miss Folly's narrative, and her +face, ardent, haggard, with the famished look which comes from a +starved soul, gazed back at Gabriella with a touching expression of +admiration and envy. There were spots of vivid colour in her +cheeks, and this brightness, combined with her gray hair, gave her +a theatrical and artificial appearance.</p> +<p>"I have been playing to your little boy, Mrs. Carr," she said +with the manner which Miss Polly had described as "flighty." "He +came into my room when he heard the piano, and it was a real +pleasure to play for him."</p> +<p>"You are very good," returned Gabriella, wondering vaguely who +she was, for she was obviously the kind of woman people wondered +about. "I hope Archibald didn't make himself troublesome."</p> +<p>"Oh, no, I enjoyed him. My name is Danton. I am Miss Danton," +she added effusively, "and I'm so glad you have come into this +apartment. My room is the one next to yours."</p> +<p>Then she fluttered off, with her look of spiritual hunger, and +Gabriella closed the door and went on to her rooms, which were at +the opposite end of the hail from the kitchen. On the way she +passed the pretty art student, who was coming from the bathroom, +with a freshly powdered face and a pitcher of water in her hand, +and again she was obliged to stop to hear news of the children.</p> +<p>"I'm so glad to have your little girl here. I want to paint her. +I'm just crazy about her face," said the girl, whose name she +learned afterwards was Rosy Plover. Though she was undeniably +pretty, and had just powdered her face with scented powder, she had +a slovenly, unkempt appearance which Gabriella, from that moment, +associated with art students. "If she'd only dress herself +properly, she'd be a beauty," she thought, with the aversion of one +who is an artist in clothes. She herself, after her long, hard day, +was as neat and trim as she had been in the morning. Her severe +black suit was worn with grace, and hung perfectly; her crape +collar was immaculately fresh; her mourning veil fell in charming +folds over her hat brim. "It's a pity some one can't tell her," she +mused, as she smiled and hurried on to the doubtful seclusion of +her own end of the apartment.</p> +<p>With the opening of the door, the children fell rapturously into +her arms, and while she took off her hat and coat, Miss Polly laid +the table for supper in front of the ruddy glow of the fire. On the +fender a plate of buttered toast was keeping warm, a delicious +aroma of coffee scented the air, and a handful of red carnations +made a cheerful bit of colour in the centre of the white +tablecloth. It was a pleasant picture for a tired woman to gaze on, +and the ruddy glow of the fire was reflected in Gabriella's heart +while she enfolded her children. After a day in Madame's hothouse +atmosphere, it was delightful to return to this little centre of +peace and love, and to feel that its very existence depended upon +the work of her brain and hands. The children, she realized, had +never loved her so dearly. In better days, when she was rarely +separated from them for more than a few hours at a time, they had +seemed rather to take her care and her presence for granted; but +now, after an absence of nine hours, she had become a delight and +an enchantment, something to be looked forward to and longingly +talked about through the whole afternoon.</p> +<p>"Mother, you've been away forever," said Fanny, folding her veil +for her and putting away her furs.</p> +<p>"Are you going every day just like this for ever and ever?</p> +<p>"Every day, darling, but I'm here every night. Shall I run back +to the kitchen and broil the chops, Miss Polly?"</p> +<p>But the chops were already broiled, for Miss Polly had finished +her sewing early, and she had beaten up two tiny cups of custard +for the children.</p> +<p>"It's nicer than nursery suppers, isn't it, Fanny?" asked +Archibald a little later while he ate his bread and milk from a +blue bowl. "Mother, I like being poor. Let's stay poor always."</p> +<p>A phrase of Mrs. Fowler's, "happiness costs so little," floated +through Gabriella's mind as she poured Miss Folly's coffee out of +the tin coffee pot. She was so tired that her body ached; her feet +were smarting and throbbing from the long standing; and her eyes +stung from the cold wind and the glare of the elevated train; but +she knew that in spite of these discomforts she was not +unhappy—that she was, indeed, far happier than she had been +for the past six years in the hushed suspense of her +father-in-law's house. When she had carried the supper things back +to the sink in the kitchen, had taught the children their lessons, +heard their prayers, and put them to bed, she repeated the words to +herself while she sat sewing beside the lamp in front of the +comforting glow of the fire, "After all, happiness costs so +little."</p> +<p>The next morning, and on every morning throughout the winter, +she was up by six o'clock, and had taken in the baker's rolls and +the bottle of milk from the outer door before Miss Polly or the +children were stirring. Then, having dressed quickly, she ran back +to the kitchen and made the coffee and boiled the eggs while the +other lodgers were still sleeping. Sometimes the mother of one of +the art students would join her over the gas range, but usually her +neighbours slept late and then darted through the hall in kimonos, +with tumbled hair, to a hurried breakfast at the kitchen table.</p> +<p>Her life was so busy that there was little time for anxiety, and +less for futile and painful dwelling upon the past. To get through +the day as best she could, to start the children well and in a good +humour, to make herself useful, if not indispensable, to Madame, to +return with a mind clear and fresh enough to give Fanny and +Archibald intelligent lessons, to sew on their clothes or her own +until midnight, and then to drop into bed, with aching limbs and a +peaceful brain, too tired even to dream—these things made the +life that she looked forward to, week after week, month after +month, year after year. It was a hard life, as Miss Polly often +remarked, but hard or soft, her strength was equal to it, her +health was good, her interest in her work and in her children never +flagged for a minute. Only on soft spring days, coming home in the +dusk, she would sometimes pass carts filled with hyacinths, and in +a wave the memory of Arthur and of her first love would rush over +her. Then she would see Arthur's face, gentle, protective, tender, +as it had looked on that last evening, and for an instant her lost +girlhood and her girlhood's dream would envelop her like the +fragrance of flowers. At such moments she thought of this love as +tenderly as a mother might have thought of the exquisite dead face +of an infant who had lived only an hour. Though it was over, though +it bore no part, with its elusive loveliness, in her practical +plans for the future, this dream became gradually, as the years +passed, the most radiant and vital thing in her life. Though it was +so vague as to be without warmth, it was as vivid and as real as +light. The knowledge that in the past she had known perfect love, +even though in her blindness she had thrust it aside, was a balm +which healed her wounds and gave her courage to go on, friendless +and alone, into the loveless stretch of the future. There was +hardly a minute of her day for the next three years which was not +sweetened by this hyacinth-scented dream of the past, there was +hardly an hour of her drudgery which was not ennobled and +irradiated by the splendour of this love that she had lost.</p> +<p>Of George—even of George as the father of her +children—she rarely thought. He had dropped out of her life +like any other mistake, like any other illusion, and she was too +sanguine by nature, too buoyant, too full of happiness and of +energy, to waste herself on either mistakes or illusions. During +the months when she had waited for her freedom she had resolutely +put the thought of him out of her mind, and when at last her +divorce was granted, she dismissed the fact as completely as if it +had not changed the entire course of her life. The past was over, +and only that part of it should live which contributed sweetness +and beauty to the present—only that part of it which she +could use in the better and stronger structure of the future. +Whatever living meant in the end, she told herself each morning as +she started out to her work, it must mean, not resignation, not +inertia, but endeavour, enterprise, and courage.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IVa" id="CHAPTER_IVa"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> +<h3>THE DREAM AND THE YEARS</h3> +<p>In one of the small fitting-rooms, divided by red velvet +curtains on gilt rods from the long showrooms of Madame Dinard, a +nervous group, comprising the head skirt fitter, the head waist +fitter, Miss Bellman, the head saleswoman, and Madame herself, +stood disconsolately around the indignant figure of Mrs. Weederman +Pletheridge, who, attired in one of Madame's costliest French +models, was gesticulating excitedly in the centre of four standing +mirrors. For three years Mrs. Pletheridge had lived in Paris, and +her return to New York, and to the dressmaking establishments of +Fifth Avenue, was an event which had shaken Dinard's, if not the +fashionable street in which it stood, to its foundations.</p> +<p>"I don't know what is the matter with it," she said fussily, +"but it doesn't suit me, and yet it looked so well in the hand. I +wonder if I could wear it if you were to take out some of this +fulness, and change the set of the sleeves? The fashions this +spring are perfectly hopeless."</p> +<p>"Why, it suits you to perfection, Madame. Just a stitch or two +like this—and this—and it will look as if it were +designed for you by Worth. Is it not so, Miss Bellman? Don't you +think it is wonderful on Madame?"</p> +<p>Miss Bellman, having learned her part, agreed effusively, and +then each of the fitters, as she was appealed to in turn, +contributed an enraptured assent to the discussion. The price of +the gown was a thousand dollars, and Mrs. Pletheridge's favourable +decision was worth exactly that much in terms of money to Dinard's. +As the season had been scarcely a brisk one, Madame was +particularly anxious to have her more extreme models taken off her +hands. "It was unpacked only yesterday," she lied suavely, "and no +one else has had so much as a glimpse of it."</p> +<p>"I can't imagine what is the matter with it," Mrs. Pletheridge +sighed dejectedly, while she regarded her ample form with a +resentful and critical gaze. As long as one had nothing else to +worry about, Madame reflected without sympathy, one might find +cause for positive distress in the fact that a gown appeared to +better advantage in the hand than on one's person. The +truth—and the truth, as sometimes happens, was the last thing +Mrs. Pletheridge cared to admit—was that she had grown too +stout to wear pronounced fashions.</p> +<p>"Nothing could be more charming," insisted Madame with increased +effusion, "but if you are in doubt, let us ask the opinion of Mrs. +Carr. She has the true eye of the artist—a wonderful eye. I +don't know whether you remember Mrs. Archibald Fowler or not?" she +added as the skirt fitter sped in search of Gabriella; "this is her +daughter-in-law. Her husband ran away with another woman about +three years ago. It made a great sensation at the time, and his +wife got a divorce from him afterwards. Ever since then she has +been in my establishment."</p> +<p>No, Mrs. Pletheridge did not remember Mrs. Fowler; but, having +had a notorious amount of trouble with her own husbands, she was +amiably disposed toward the unfortunate daughter-in-law of the lady +she couldn't remember. Thirty years ago, as a pretty, vulgar, +kind-hearted girl, she had captured with a glance the eldest son of +the newly rich Pletheridge, who had, perhaps, inherited his +grandfather's genial admiration for chambermaids; but, to-day, +after a generation of self-indulgence, her prettiness had +coarsened, her vulgarity had hardened, and her kind heart had +withered, through lack of cultivation, to the size of a cherry. +And, from having had everything she wanted for so long, she had at +last reached that melancholy state of mind when she could think of +nothing more to want.</p> +<p>A brisk step crossed the room outside, the curtains were parted +with a commanding movement, and Gabriella joined the anxious group +surrounded by the four mirrors.</p> +<p>"Did you send for me, Madame?" she asked, and waited, grave, +attentive, and perfectly composed, with her hand, the small, strong +hand of the Carrs, on the curtain. Her hair was brushed severely +back from her candid forehead, and though her figure had grown +somewhat heavier and less girlish in line, she still wore her plain +black dress and white collar with an incomparable distinction. +Through all the hardship and suffering of the last three years she +had kept her look of bright intelligence, of radiant energy. In +dress and manner she was the successful woman of business, but she +was the woman of business with something added. Though she spoke in +a matter-of-fact tone, her voice had a vibrating quality; though +she wore only the plainest clothes, her grace, her good-breeding, +her indefinable charm, softened the severity.</p> +<p>"Mrs. Pletheridge is uncertain about this gown," explained +Madame, "but I tell her that it suits her to perfection, as well as +if it had been designed for her by Worth. Do you not agree with me, +Mrs. Carr? You have, as I said to her, the true eye of the +artist."</p> +<p>Without changing her position or moving a step into the room, +Gabriella attentively regarded the gown and the wearer. From the +mirror Mrs. Pletheridge stared back at her ill-humouredly, with a +spiteful gleam in her small black eyes between the carefully +darkened lids.</p> +<p>"I can't imagine what is the matter with it," she reiterated, as +if she were repeating a sad refrain, and her manner was as insolent +as Miss Murphy's had been to the casual customer.</p> +<p>For an instant Gabriella returned her look with the steady gaze +of one who, having achieved the full courage of living, has +attained also a calm insensibility to the shafts of arrogance. +Three years ago she would have flinched before Mrs. Pletheridge's +disdain, but in those three years she had passed beyond the +variegated tissue of appearances to the bare structure of +life—she had worked and wept and starved and +suffered—and to-day her soul was invulnerable against even +more destructive weapons than the contempt of a plutocrat. Perhaps, +too, though she assured herself that she was without snobbishness, +there was a secret satisfaction in the knowledge that one of her +ancestors had been a general under Washington while the early +Pletheridges were planting potatoes in a peasant's patch in +Ireland. Her dignity was more assured than Madame's; for she was +perfectly aware of a fact to which Madame was blind, and this was, +that, in spite of her position in the social columns of the +newspapers and her multitudinous possessions, Mrs. Pletheridge was +not, and could never be, a lady. While Gabriella stood there these +thoughts flashed recklessly through her mind; yet she answered +Madame's question as frankly and honestly as if the woman they were +staring at with such intentness had not been the tragic vulgarian +she was.</p> +<p>"I think the gown doesn't suit her at all," she said quietly to +Madame, who made a horrified face at her over the sumptuous +shoulder of Mrs. Pletheridge. "There is too much of it, too much +billowy lace everywhere." She did not add that the coral and silver +brocade gave Mrs. Pletheridge a curious resemblance to an overblown +prize hollyhock.</p> +<p>Madame's horrified face changed, as if under a spell, to one of +abject despair; and a menacing frown convulsed the puffy features +of Mrs. Pletheridge, while she burst out of her gorgeous sheath +with a petulant haste which expressed her inward perturbation +better than words could have done. For a minute one could have +heard a flower drop in the fitting-room; then the offended customer +spoke, and her words, when she found them, were not lacking in +either force or effectiveness. "No, there's no use trying on +anything else, I have an appointment at Cambon's." Cambon was +Dinard's hated and wholly incompetent rival; and until this +illuminating instant Madame had never suspected that her particular +Mrs. Pletheridge had ever entered the high white doors of Cambon's +establishment.</p> +<p>"But, surely, we have something else. There is a lovely Doucet +model—in white and silver—"</p> +<p>But no, Mrs. Pletheridge would have none of the lovely model. +"Give me my skirt at once," she commanded haughtily, bending her +opulent bosom and holding the lacy frills of her petticoat together +while Agnes, the youngest and the gentlest of the assistants, knelt +at her feet with her dress skirt held invitingly open on the floor. +As she inserted the toe of her exquisitely shod foot into the +opening, she remarked maliciously: "It is impossible to find decent +clothes in New York—one might as well give up trying. Paris +dressmakers send you only their failures." And, having crushed +Madame to silence, she finished her dressing, fastened her black +lace veil with a flying swallow in diamonds, flung her feather boa +over her shoulders, and taking up her gold chain bag, studded with +rubies, marched out of the establishment with all the pomp and +impressiveness of a military parade.</p> +<p>"I've lost her. She will never come back," moaned Madame, and +burst into tears.</p> +<p>"But she couldn't possibly have worn that gown. She would have +found it out as soon as she got home," replied Gabriella +reassuringly, though her heart was almost as heavy as Madame's.</p> +<p>It was all her fault, of course, as Madame, recovering her voice +as she lost her temper, began immediately to tell her. It was all +her fault, and yet how could she have stood there and lied to the +woman in cold blood because Madame expected it of her as a part of +her work? That she had infuriated Madame and imperilled her +position she realized perfectly; but, realizing this, she still +felt that she could not have told Mrs. Pletheridge that the gown +was becoming to her. "There are times when one has to be honest no +matter what happens," she thought rebelliously, while she went back +to the workroom. Had Madame discharged her on the spot she would +not have been surprised, and it was with a sensation of relief that +she presently saw the forewoman measuring a dose of aromatic +spirits of ammonia, and heard that the crisis was passing. A little +later, when she went into the showroom with a hat for Miss Bellman, +she encountered Madame bonneted, cloaked, panting, with moist eyes +and raddled cheeks, preparing to take a slow airing in a hansom. As +she was assisted into the vehicle by Miss Murphy and the driver, +Madame pressed her beringed hand to her forehead with a despairing +gesture; then the driver cracked his whip, the horse started, and +the hansom disappeared up Fifth Avenue.</p> +<p>"What under the sun did you do to her?" inquired Miss Murphy, +holding her wheaten-red pompadour down in the wind. "I declare I +thought at first it was murder!"</p> +<p>"I told her the truth, when she asked me, that was all."</p> +<p>"Well, I never! Now what, in the name of goodness, possessed +you?"</p> +<p>"I had to. I don't see how I could have kept from it."</p> +<p>"Good gracious! There're always ways, but what sort of truth was +it? You see, it's been so long since I've met one," she explained +airily, "that I don't even know what they're like."</p> +<p>"It was about Mrs. Pletheridge's gown—the one she wanted +her to buy, you know. I told her it didn't suit her. And it +didn't—you know it didn't," she concluded emphatically.</p> +<p>"Of course it didn't, but I don't see why you had to go and tell +her."</p> +<p>"She asked me. They both asked me, and if I'd lied she wouldn't +have believed me. You can't fool people so outrageously, and I +wouldn't if I could. It isn't honest, and it isn't good +business."</p> +<p>"Anything is good business that gets by," remarked Miss Murphy, +who had a philosophy. "I must go indoors or this wind will blow all +my puffs away."</p> +<p>She departed breezily; and Gabriella, returning to the workroom, +spent her afternoon patiently stitching flat garlands of flowers on +the brim of a hat. When she left the house at six o'clock the April +weather was so lovely that she decided to walk all the way home; +and while she moved rapidly with the crowd in Fifth Avenue, she +considered anxiously the possible disastrous results of Madame's +anger. Between her and absolute want there stood only her salary, +and she had deliberately—she realized now how deliberate her +reply had been—undermined that thin and insecure protection. +Though she was now earning as much as thirty dollars a week, an +illness of a year ago, when she had been obliged to stop work for +several months, had exhausted the remains of the modest nest egg +with which she had started; and to lose her place, she knew, would +mean either starvation or beggary. There was no one, with the +exception of Cousin Jimmy, of whom she could beg, and to beg of him +would be a tacit confession that she had failed as a breadwinner. +In Mrs. Carr's last letter Charley had appeared in a new light as a +reformed character, a devoted attendant at church, and an +enthusiastic convert to the prohibition party; and Gabriella had +gathered from her mother's pious rambling that, like other sinners +who have outlived temptation, he was devoting his middle years to a +violent crusade against the moderate indulgences of the abstemious. +But Charley, she felt, was out of the question. She would die +before she would stoop to ask help of a man she had despised as +heartily as she had once despised Charley. She must sink or swim by +her own strength, not by another's.</p> +<p>"I wonder why I did it?" she asked herself again, and again she +could not answer the question. She felt that she might have lied +had it been merely a lie and not a test of courage before her; but +she could not lie simply because she was afraid of speaking the +truth. In every character there is one supreme vice or virtue which +strikes the deepest root and blossoms most luxuriantly, and in the +character of Gabriella this virtue was courage. At the crucial +moments of life some primordial instinct prompted her to fight, not +to yield. "I ought to have been evasive, I suppose," she thought +regretfully. "But how could I have been?" There were instants, she +had discovered, when wisdom surrendered to the more militant +virtues.</p> +<p>When she reached home she found Fanny, who was fretfully +recovering from influenza, lying on the sofa in the living-room, +with Miss Polly busily stitching at her side, while Archibald, +excited by a strenuous afternoon with the son of the Italian fruit +dealer, was kneeling before the window, making mysterious signs to +a group of yellow-haired German children in the apartment house on +the opposite side of the street. Both children were eagerly +expecting their mother, and as soon as she entered they grew +animated and cheerful.</p> +<p>She kissed and cuddled them, and listened sympathetically to +their excited stories of the day, and of Dr. French, who had been +to see Fanny, and who had waited as long as he could.</p> +<p>"He's going to take us for a drive to-morrow, mother, and we're +to sit in the carriage while he goes in to pay his calls, and then +he's to show us the river and we're to stop somewhere to have +tea."</p> +<p>"Did he stay long?" asked Gabriella of Miss Folly.</p> +<p>"For more than an hour," replied Miss Folly, and commented +shrewdly after a minute: "It looks to me as if there was more in +that young man than you can see on the surface, Gabriella."</p> +<p>A blush tinged Gabriella's cheek, but she shook her head almost +indignantly. "Oh, there's nothing of that kind," she answered +emphatically, and rose to take off her hat and prepare supper.</p> +<p>Since her illness of a year ago, when she had summoned the +strange young doctor who had once been the assistant of the +Fowlers' family physician, she had grown to feel a certain +dependence upon Dr. French as the only useful friend who was left +to her. He was a thin, gray-eyed, fair-haired young man, who +practised largely among the poor, from choice rather than from +necessity, since Dr. Morton had given him an excellent start in +life. His pale, ascetic face had attracted Gabriella from their +first meeting; there was the flamelike enthusiasm of the visionary +in his eyes; and he had, she thought, the most beautiful and +sympathetic hands she had ever seen. Even Fanny, who was usually +impervious to sensitive impressions, felt the charm of his touch +when he stroked her forehead or placed his long, delicate fingers +on her wrist. From that first visit he had been a source of comfort +and strength to Gabriella; but of late she had felt moments of +uneasiness when she was with him. Was it possible, she asked +herself now, as she went back to the kitchen to stew the oysters +Miss Polly had bought for supper, that the kindly doctor was +misinterpreting the simple and unaffected nature of her friendship? +For herself she felt that she had put the reality of love out of +her life, and that if the emotion existed for her at all, it +existed only as a dream and a regret. She enshrined the memory of +Arthur in something of the sentimental worship which Mrs. Carr had +consecrated to Gabriel after she had lost him. It was an exquisite +consolation to her to feel that if things had been otherwise, she +might have loved a man with the whole of her nature—with both +body and spirit; there were even moments in the spring of the year, +when, softened by the caressing air and the scent of hyacinths, she +felt that she did so love a memory; but beyond this her feeling was +as bodiless and ethereal as the vague image to which it was +dedicated. And yet this gentle regret was all that she wanted of +love.</p> +<p>In the kitchen she found Miss Danton, the musical spinster, +making her scant supper of tea and toast on the gas-range. Though +the hectic flush still burned in Miss Danton's cheeks, the famished +look in her eyes seemed to have devoured all the strength of her +body, and she moved like one who has run to the point of exhaustion +and is about to drop to the ground. Long ago Gabriella had heard +her story, and she understood now that the yearning in her face was +the yearning for life, which she had rejected in her youth, and +which, in middle-age, had eluded her. As a young girl, aflame with +temperament, she had sacrificed herself to a widowed father and a +family of little brothers and sisters in a small town in the South. +For thirty years she had fought down her dreams and her impulses; +for thirty years she had cooked, washed, ironed, and sewed, until +the children had all grown up and married, and her father, after a +long illness, had died in her arms. On her fifty-second birthday +her freedom had come—freedom not only from cares and +responsibilities, but from love, from duty, from the constant daily +thought that she was necessary to some one who depended on her. At +fifty-three, with broken health and a few thousand dollars brought +from the sale of the old home, she had come to New York to study +music as she had dreamed of doing when she was young. And the +tragedy of it was that she had a gift, she had temperament, she had +genuine artistic feeling.</p> +<p>"When I remember the way I used to cook for the children," she +remarked while she measured a teaspoonful of green tea into a +little Japanese tea-pot, "why, I'd think nothing of roasting a +turkey when we had one at Christmas or Thanksgiving, and now, I +declare, it seems too much trouble to do more than make a pot of +tea. Sometimes I don't even take the trouble to toast my +bread."</p> +<p>"You ought to eat," replied Gabriella, briskly. "When one gets +run down, one never looks at life fairly." True to her fundamental +common sense, she had never underestimated the importance of food +as a prop for philosophy.</p> +<p>"I'd never eat if I could help it," rejoined Miss Danton, with +the abhorrence of the aesthetic temperament for material details. +"It's queer the thoughts I have sometimes," she added irrelevantly +as she sat down before the kitchen table, and poured out a cup of +tea. "I don't know what's come over me, but I'd give anything on +earth—if it wasn't wicked I'd almost give my soul—to be +your age and to be starting to live my life. I never had any life. +It wasn't fair. I never had any," she repeated bitterly, dropping a +lump of sugar into her cup.</p> +<p>"Well, I've had my troubles, too," observed Gabriella, busily +stirring the oysters.</p> +<p>"You've had them and you'll have others. It doesn't +matter—nothing really matters as long as you're young. It's +all a part of the game, trouble and everything +else—everything except old age and death. I'm getting +old—I'm getting old, and I began too late, and that's the +worst that can happen to a woman. Do you know I never had a love +affair in my life," she pursued bitterly after a moment. "I never +had love, or pleasure, or anything but work and duty—and now +it's too late. It's too late for it all," she finished, rising to +take her toast from the oven.</p> +<p>"Poor thing, she exaggerates so dreadfully," thought Gabriella. +"I believe it comes from drinking too much green tea"; and she +resolved that she would never touch green tea as long as she lived. +Like most women whose love had ended not in unfulfilment, but in +satiety and bitterness, she was inclined to deny the supreme +importance of the passion in the scheme of life. As a deserted wife +and the mother of two children, she felt that she could live for +years without the desire, without even the thought of romantic love +in her mind. "I wonder why I, who have known and lost love, should +be so much freer from that obsession than poor Miss Danton, who has +never been loved in her life?" she asked herself while she carried +the supper tray down the long hall and into the living-room.</p> +<p>Some hours later, when the children were asleep, and Gabriella +sat darning Archibald's stockings beside the kerosene lamp, she +described to Miss Polly the scene with Madame and Mrs. +Pletheridge.</p> +<p>"I don't know how it will end. She may discharge me to-morrow," +she deliberated, as she cut off a length of black darning cotton, +and bent over to thread her needle. "I wonder what I ought to +do?"</p> +<p>"Well, now, ain't that exactly like you, Gabriella," scolded +Miss Polly; "but when you come to think of it," she conceded after +a minute or two, "I reckon we're all made like that in the +beginning. Why, I remember way back yonder in the 'seventies how I +was always tryin' to persuade a woman with a skinny figure not to +wear a cuirass basque and a woman with a stout figure not to put on +a draped polonaise. I got to know better presently, and you will, +too, before you've been at it much longer. They all think they can +look like fashion plates—the skinniest and the stoutest +alike—and there ain't a bit of use tryin' to undeceive 'em. +The last thing a woman ever sees straight is her figure."</p> +<p>"I can't help feeling," demurred Gabriella, forsaking the moral +issue for the argument of mere expediency, "that honesty is good +business."</p> +<p>"Well, it ain't," retorted Miss Polly sharply. "It may be good +religion and good behaviour, but there's one thing it certainly +ain't, and that is good business. How many of these rich men we +read about in the papers do you reckon spend their time settin' +around and bein' honest? Mind you I ain't sayin' I'd lie or steal +myself, Gabriella, but I'm poor, and what I'm sayin' is that when +you feel that way about it, you're as likely to stay poor as +not."</p> +<p>But the next day, life, with one of those startling surprises +which defy philosophy and make drama, confirmed the most illogical +of Gabriella's assumptions. Madame, coming in late, with a blotched +face and puffy eyelids, had dispatched her to the workroom, and she +was sitting before one of the long tables, embroidering azure beads +on a black collar, when Agnes darted through the door and jerked +the needle out of her hand.</p> +<p>"Madame is asking for you. Come as quick as you can!" she cried +excitedly, and sped back again to the shelter of the artificial +rose-bushes at the end of the hall.</p> +<p>Rising hurriedly, and brushing the scraps of silk from her cloth +skirt as she walked, Gabriella followed the sound of Madame's +wheedling voice, and found herself, as she parted the curtains of a +fitting-room, in the opulent presence of Mrs. Pletheridge.</p> +<p>"Yes, as I told you, we trust implicitly to Mrs. Carr's eye. She +has the true eye of the artist," Madame simpered fawningly as she +entered. "Did you send for me?" asked Gabriella, business-like and +alert on the threshold.</p> +<p>"Good morning, Mrs. Carr! I told Madame Dinard that I wanted you +to wait on me. I want some one who tells me the truth," explained +Mrs. Pletheridge so graciously that Gabriella would hardly have +recognized her. Something—sleep, pleasure, or pious +meditation—had altered overnight not only her temper but even +the fleshly vehicle of its uncertain manifestations. Her features +appeared to have adjusted themselves to the size of her face, and +she spoke quite affably, though still with her manner of addressing +an inferior.</p> +<p>"I want you to show me something that will really suit me," she +said. "I think the grayish-green cloth from Blandin might be copied +in silver, but I should like you to see it on me. I know you will +tell me what you really think." Her voice faltered and deepened to +a note of pathos.</p> +<p>"Poor woman," thought Gabriella, "it must be hard for her to get +people to tell her what they really think," and she added +exultantly while she went for the gowns: "If I satisfy her now, I +am saved with Madame!"</p> +<p>When she returned, with the green cloth in one hand and a +charming lavender crêpe tea-gown in the other, she approached +Mrs. Pletheridge with the manner of intelligent sympathy, of serene +and smiling competence, which had made her so valuable to Madame as +a saleswoman. She had the air not only of seeking to please, but of +knowing just how to go about the difficult matter of pleasing. With +the eye of an artist in dress, she analyzed Mrs. Pletheridge's +possibilities; and softening here and there her pronounced +features, succeeded presently in producing a charming and +harmonious whole. By the time a dozen gowns were tried on and their +available points discussed and criticised in detail, Mrs. +Pletheridge had given the largest order ever received by the house, +and was throwing out enthusiastic hints of an even greater +munificence in the future. She left at last in a thoroughly good +humour not only with Dinard's, but with her own rejuvenated +attractions; and Gabriella, exhausted but triumphant, watched Agnes +gather up the French models from chairs and sofas and carry them +back to the obscurity of the closets. In her heart there was both +peace and rejoicing because her belief in life had been justified. +In spite of Madame, in spite of Miss Polly, in spite of experience, +the day had proved that it was, after all, "good business" to be +honest. Though she was still in debt, though she was still +compelled to scrimp and save over market bills, nevertheless she +felt that her work had progressed beyond the experimental stages, +and that her place at Dinard's was secured until some better +opening appeared. For that morning at least she had made herself +indispensable to Madame. For years, she knew, Madame had striven +fawningly for the exclusive patronage of Mrs. Pletheridge, and she, +Gabriella, had attained it, without loss of pride or self-respect, +by a few words of honest and sensible criticism. She had applied +her intelligence to the situation, and her intelligence had served +Dinard's more successfully than Madame's duplicity had done.</p> +<p>At home she found Dr. French, who had just brought the delighted +children back from their drive. When she thanked him, she saw that +there was a glow of pleasure in his rather delicate face, and that +this glow lent an expression of ecstasy to his dark-gray +eyes—the eyes of a mystic and a dreamer. "I wonder how he +ever became a physician," she thought. "He is more like a +priest—like a priest of the Middle Ages." But aloud she only +said: "You have done them a world of good. Fanny has got some of +her colour back already, and that means an appetite for +supper."</p> +<p>"We had tea," broke in Archibald, with enthusiasm, "but it was +really milk, and we had cake, but it was really bread and butter." +He looked so well and vigorous that Gabriella called the doctor's +attention to the animation in his face. "If only he didn't have to +wear glasses," she said. "I'm so afraid it will interfere with his +love of sports. His ambition is to be captain of a football team +and to write poetry."</p> +<p>"It's a queer combination," responded the doctor, smiling his +slightly whimsical smile. He was rather short, with an almost +imperceptible limp, and he had, as he put it, "never gone in for +sports." "There's so much else when one comes to think of it," he +added, pausing, with his hat in his hand, at the door; "there are +plenty of ways of having fun even without football." Then he turned +away from the children, and said directly to Gabriella:</p> +<p>"Will you come out with me to-morrow? It is Sunday."</p> +<p>"And leave the children?" she asked a little blankly.</p> +<p>"And leave the children!" He was laughing, but it occurred to +her suddenly, for the first time, that her maternal raptures were +beginning to bore him. For a year she had believed that his +interest in her was mainly a professional interest in the children; +and now she was confronted with the disturbing fact that he wanted +to be rid of the children for a few hours at least, that he +evidently saw in her something besides the overwhelming force of +her motherhood.</p> +<p>"But I never leave them on Sunday. It is the only day I have +with them," she answered.</p> +<p>"Don't go, mother! You mustn't go!" cried Fanny, and clung to +her.</p> +<p>"Oh, very well," returned Dr. French, dismissing the subject +with irritation. "But you look pale, and I thought the air might do +you good."</p> +<p>He went away rather abruptly, while Gabriella stood looking at +Miss Polly in regret and perplexity. "I hope I didn't hurt his +feelings by declining," she said; and then, as the children raced +into the nursery to take off their coats, she added slowly, "He +couldn't expect me to go without them."</p> +<p>"If you want to know what I think," replied Miss Polly flatly, +"it is that he's just sick to death of the children. You've stuck +them down his throat until he's had as much of them as he can +swallow."</p> +<p>For a moment Gabriella considered this ruefully.</p> +<p>"You don't honestly believe that he's interested in me in that +way?" she demanded in a horrified whisper.</p> +<p>"I don't know but one way in which a man's ever interested in a +woman," retorted Miss Polly. "It's either that way or it's none at +all, as far as I can see. But if I was you, honey, I'd drop him a +little encouragement now and then, just to keep up his spirits. Men +ain't no mo' than flesh and blood, after all" and it's natural that +he shouldn't be as crazy about the children as you are."</p> +<p>"But why should I encourage him? Even if you are right, I +couldn't marry him. I could never marry again."</p> +<p>"I'd like to know why not, if you get a chance? You're free +enough, ain't you?"</p> +<p>"Yes, it isn't that—but I couldn't."</p> +<p>"You ain't hankerin' after George, are you, Gabriella?"</p> +<p>"After George? No!" responded Gabriella with so sincere an +accent that Miss Polly jumped.</p> +<p>"Well, I'm glad you ain't," observed the seamstress soothingly +as she stooped to pick up her sewing. "I shouldn't think he was +worth hankerin' after, myself, but you've looked kind of peaked and +thin this spring, so I've just been wonderin'."</p> +<p>"I never loved George. It was madness, nothing else," returned +Gabriella, and she really believed it.</p> +<p>"Well, your thinkin' it madness now don't mean it wan't love ten +years ago," commented Miss Polly, with the shrewdness of a detached +and observant spinster.</p> +<p>"I suppose you're right," admitted Gabriella thoughtfully. +Though she had not mentioned Arthur, her mind was full of him, and +she was perfectly convinced that she had loved him all her +life—even during her brief period of "madness." It was a +higher love, she felt, so much higher, indeed, that it had been too +spiritual, too ethereal, to take root in the earthly soil from +which her passion for George had sprung. But, if it were not love, +why was it that every faint stirring of her emotions revived the +memory so poignantly? Why was it that Miss Polly's sentimental +interpretation of the doctor's interest evoked the image of +Arthur?</p> +<p>"No, I never think of George—never," she repeated, and her +fine, pure features assumed an expression of sternness. "But I +shan't marry again," she went on after a pause in which Miss +Polly's sewing-machine buzzed cheerfully over its work. "I've had +enough of marriage to last me for one lifetime."</p> +<p>The machine stopped, and Miss Polly, snipping the thread as she +came to the end of a seam, turned squarely to answer. "Don't you be +too sure about that, honey. You may have had enough to last you for +ten years or so, but wait till you've turned forty, and if the +hankerin' for love don't catch you at forty, you may begin to +expect it somewhere around fifty. Why, just look at that poor +piano-playin' old maid in there. Wouldn't you think she'd have done +with it? Well, she ain't—she ain't, and you ain't either, for +that matter, I don't care how hard you argue!"</p> +<p>"There are ten happy years ahead of me anyhow!" rejoined +Gabriella, with a ringing laugh—the laugh, as Dr. French had +once remarked, of a woman who is sound to the core. She had +triumphed over the past, and was not afraid, she told herself +valiantly, of the future.</p> +<p>At the beginning of July the children went with Miss Polly to +the country, and Gabriella, after seeing them off, turned back +alone to begin a long summer of economy and drudgery. In order to +keep Fanny and Archibald out of town she was obliged to deny +herself every unnecessary comfort—luxuries she had given up +long ago—and to stay at Dinard's, in Madame's place, through +the worst weeks of the year, when the showroom was deserted except +for an occasional stray Southerner, and even the six arrogant young +women were away on vacations. Even if she had had the chance, the +money for a trip would have been lacking, and to fill Madame's +conspicuous place gave her, she realized, a certain importance and +authority in the house. There was opportunity, in a small way, to +work out some of her ideas of system and order, and there was +sufficient time to think out a definite and practical plan for the +future. Her aim from the first had been, not only to catch on, but +to master the details of the business, and she knew that, in spite +of Madame's sporadic attempts to keep her in her place, she was +gradually making herself felt—she was slowly impressing her +individual methods upon the establishment. Madame was no longer +what she once was, and the business was showing it. She was getting +old, she was growing tired, and her naturally careless methods of +work were fastening upon her. In the last years she had offered +less and less resistance to her tendency to let go, to leave loose +ends ungathered, to allow opportunities to slip out of her grasp, +to be inexact and unsystematic. There was urgent need of a strong +hand at Dinard's, if the business was to be kept from running +gradually downhill, and Gabriella became convinced, as the days +passed, that hers was the only hand in the house strong enough to +check the perilous descent to failure. Her plans were made, her +scheme arranged, but, as Madame was both jealous and suspicious, +she saw that she must move very cautiously.</p> +<p>There were times—since this is history, not +romance—when her spirits flagged and her strength failed her. +The heat of the summer was intense, and the breathless days dragged +on interminably into the breathless nights. When her work was over +she would wait until the last of her fellow-workers had gone home, +and then walk across to Sixth Avenue and take the Harlem elevated +train for her deserted rooms, which appeared more desolate, more +ugly than ever because the children were absent. In the lonely +kitchen—for Miss Danton and the art students were all +away—she would eat her supper of bread and tea, which she +drank without cream because it was more economical; and then, +lighting her lamp, she would sew or read until midnight. Sometimes, +when it was too hot for the lamp, and she found it impossible to +work by the flickering gas, she would sit by her window and look +down on the panting humanity in the street below—on the small +shopkeepers seated in chairs on the sidewalk, on the little son of +the Italian fruiterer playing with his dog, on the three babies of +the Jewish tobacco merchant, sprawling in the door of the tiny shop +which was pressed like a sardine between a bakery and a dairy. She +was alone in the apartment, and there were late afternoons when the +grim emptiness of the rooms seemed haunted, when she shrank back in +apprehensive foreboding as she turned her key in the lock, when the +profound silence within preyed on her nerves like an obsession. On +these days she dreaded to go down the long hail to the kitchen, +where the fluttering clothes-lines on fire-escapes at the back of +the next apartment house offered the only suggestion of human +companionship in the unfriendly wilderness of the city. The sight +of the children's toys, of Fanny's story books, of Archibald's +roller skates, moved her to tears once or twice; and when this +happened she caught herself up sharply and struggled with the +vague, malignant demon of melancholy.</p> +<p>"Whatever comes, I must not lose my courage," she told herself +at such times. "If I lose my courage I shall have nothing +left."</p> +<p>Then she would put on her hat, and go down into the street, +where the unwashed children swarmed like insects over the +pavements, and the air was as hot and parched as the air of a +desert. If the mother of the Jewish babies sat on her doorstep, she +would stop for a little talk with her about the heat and the health +of the children, and the increasing price of whatever one happened +to buy in the market, or, perhaps, if the fruit stall still kept +open, she would ask after the Italian's little boy, and stop to pat +Archibald's friend, the white mongrel with the black ear. She had +left her acquaintances when she left Fifty-seventh Street, and, +with the exception of Judge Crowborough, who telephoned +occasionally to inquire if she needed assistance, she was without +friends in New York. Patty wrote often from Paris, but Billy was +happy with his work, and they said nothing of returning to America. +In the whole city, outside of Dinard's, she knew only Dr. French, +and from him she had had no word or sign for several months.</p> +<p>It was on one of these depressing evenings, while she was +boiling an egg in the kitchen, that the ringing of the door-bell +reverberated with an uncanny sound through the empty apartment. +Spurred by an instinctive fear of a telegram, she ran to open the +door, and found Dr. French standing in the dimly lighted hail, with +the negro Robert grinning cheerfully at his back.</p> +<p>"I am so glad," she said, "so glad," and her voice shook in +spite of the effort she made.</p> +<p>"I've been thinking about you all summer," he explained, "and +the other day I passed you in the street as you were coming from +work. You are not looking well. Is it the heat?"</p> +<p>"No, it isn't the heat. I think it is the loneliness. You see it +is so different not having the children to come back to in the +afternoon, and when I get lonely I see things in false proportions. +This apartment has been like a grave to me all summer."</p> +<p>She led the way into the living-room, where her sewing, a blue +cambric frock she was scalloping for Fanny, was lying on the chair +by the window. "Things are all upset. I hope you won't mind," she +added apologetically while she folded the dress and laid it aside, +"but nothing seems to matter when I sit here all by myself."</p> +<p>"What are you doing?"</p> +<p>"Oh, I work all day. There is really very little to do except +plan for the autumn, and I like that. Madame is in Paris, and I am +in charge of the place."</p> +<p>"And in the evenings?"</p> +<p>She laughed with recovered spirit. "In the evening I sew and +read and mope."</p> +<p>"Well, we must change all that," he said, with a tenderness +which brought tears to her eyes. "Why can't you come out with me +somewhere to dinner?"</p> +<p>Three years ago, when she was first separated from George, she +would have evaded the suggestion; but to-night, at the end of the +long summer, she caught eagerly at the small crumb of pleasure.</p> +<p>"Oh, I'd love to! Only wait until I put out the stove and tidy +my hair."</p> +<p>"I want to see what you have to eat," he remarked in his +whimsical tone, as he followed her back into the kitchen. "Only an +egg!"</p> +<p>"It is so hot. I wasn't hungry, but I am now," she replied +gaily, her thin face flushing to beauty. After her loneliness there +was a delight in being cared for, in being scolded. "But for the +mistake I made this might happen to me always," she thought, and +her mind went back to Arthur.</p> +<p>When she came out of her room, wearing a fresh linen blouse, +with her hair smoothly brushed, and her eyes sparkling with +pleasure, he was gazing abstractedly down into the street, and she +was obliged to speak twice to him before he heard her and turned. +At last he broke away, almost with an effort, from his meditation, +and when he looked at her she saw that there was the mystic gleam +in his eyes—the light as of a star shining through +clouds—which attracted her so strongly. The thought flashed +through her vague impressions, "He loves me. I may win him by a +smile, by a word, by a look," and, for a minute, she rested on the +certainty with an ineffable sense of peace, of ease, of deep inward +rejoicing. "Love is everything. There is nothing worth while except +love," she thought; and love meant to her then, not passion, not +even romance, but comfort, tenderness, and the companionship that +sweetens the flat monotony of daily living. Then, beneath the +beauty and sweetness of the vision, she felt the vein of iron in +her soul as she had felt it whenever she struggled to escape the +sterner issues of life. The face of Arthur rose in her memory, +tender, wistful, protecting, and young with the eternal youth of +desire. No, love was not for her again. Not for the second time +would she betray the faith of her Dream.</p> +<p>They dined at a little French restaurant, where the green-shaded +lights, festooned with grape leaves, shed a romantic pallor over +their faces, and the haunting refrains of an Italian love song +stirred the buried ghosts in their hearts. The doctor made her +drink a glass of champagne; and after her frugal meals and the +weakening effect of the heat and the loneliness, the sparkle of the +wine, mingling with the music and the lights, sent a sudden rush of +joy through her veins. Her courage came back to her, not in slow +drops, but in a radiant flood, which pervaded her being. After the +lonely months there was delight in the clasp of a friend's hand, in +the glance of a friend's eye, in the sound of a friend's voice +speaking her name. Life appeared divinely precious at the instant; +and by life she meant not happiness, not even fulfilment, but the +very web, the very texture and pattern of experience.</p> +<p>"You're better already," he said, with a solicitude that was +more intoxicating than wine to her. "How I wish I'd known all +summer that you were here. I might have done something to make you +happy, and now I've missed my chance."</p> +<p>"I don't think I've ever been so happy as I am to-night," she +answered simply, and then after a pause she let fall word by word, +"After all, it takes so little to make me happy."</p> +<p>"One can tell that to look at you. You have the air of +happiness. I noticed it the first moment I saw you. And yet you +have not had an easy life. There must have been terrible hours for +you in the past."</p> +<p>"No, I haven't had an easy life, but I love it. I mean I love +living."</p> +<p>"I know, I understand," he said softly. "It is the true American +spirit—optimism springing out of a struggle. Do you know you +have always made me think of the American spirit at its +best—of its unquenchable youth, its gallantry, its +self-reliance—"</p> +<p>They walked back slowly through the hot, close streets, and sat +for an hour beside her window-sill on which a rose geranium was +blooming in an earthen pot. Now and then a breeze entered warily, +stealing the fragrance from the rose geranium, and rippling the +dark, straying tendrils of Gabriella's hair. By the dim light she +saw the wistful pallor of his face, and his blue eyes, with their +exalted look, which moved her heart to an inexpressible +tenderness.</p> +<p>"You are so different from other physicians," she said in +perplexity, "I can't think of you as one, no matter how hard I try. +All the others I have known, even old Dr. Walker, were +materialists."</p> +<p>"Well, I got in some way. There are fools in every school, I +suppose. But if it's any comfort to you, they've done their best to +get rid of me. They don't like my theories." When he talked of his +work he seemed all at once another man to her, and she discerned +presently, while she listened to his earnest voice, that he was one +of the men whose emotional natures are nourished by an abstract and +impersonal passion—by the passion for science, for truth in +its concrete form. After all, he was a mystic only in his eyes. +Beneath his dreamer's face he was a scientist to the last drop of +his blood, to the last fibre of his being. "He can't be hurt deeply +through the heart," she thought; "only through the mind."</p> +<p>"I've wondered about you all summer," he repeated presently, +"and yet I kept away—partly, I suppose, because I was +thinking too much of you."</p> +<p>At his change of tone from the impersonal to the tender all the +frozen self-pity in her heart seemed to melt suddenly, threatening +in its overflow the very foundations of her philosophy. The +temptation to yield utterly, to rest for a while not on her +strength, but on his, assailed her with the swiftness and the +violence of a spiritual revulsion. For an instant she surrendered +to the uncontrollable force of this desire; then she drew quickly +back while the world about her—the room, the window, the bare +skeleton of the elevated road, the street, and even the rose +geranium blooming on the sill—became as remote and impalpable +as a phantom.</p> +<p>"It has been a long summer," she heard herself saying from a +distance in a thin and colourless voice.</p> +<p>"And you suffered?"</p> +<p>"Sometimes, but I'm interested in my work, and I've been +thinking and planning all summer."</p> +<p>For a moment he was silent, and though she did not look at him, +she could feel his intense gaze on her face. The breeze, scented +with rose geranium, touched her forehead like the healing and +delicate stroke of his fingers.</p> +<p>"You are still so young, so vital, not to have something else in +your life," he went on presently in a voice so charged with feeling +that her eyes filled while she listened to it.</p> +<p>"I have had love, and I have my children."</p> +<p>"But you will love again? You will marry again some day?"</p> +<p>She shook her head, hearing, above the street cries and the +muffled rumble of the elevated train, a voice that said: "I shall +never give you up, Gabriella!" To her weakened nerves there +appeared, with the vividness of an hallucination, the memory of +Arthur as he had looked in her school-days when she had first loved +him; and in this hallucination she saw him, not as he was in +reality, but divinely glorified and enkindled by the light her +imagination had created around him.</p> +<p>"No, I shall never love again, I shall never love again," she +answered at last, while a feeling of exultation surged through +her.</p> +<p>"You mean," his voice shook a little, "that your husband still +holds you?"</p> +<p>"My husband? No, I never think of my husband."</p> +<p>"Is there some one else?"</p> +<p>Before answering she looked up at him, and by his face she knew +that her reply would cost her his friendship. She wanted his +friendship—at the moment she felt that she would gladly give +a year of her life for it. It meant companionship instead of +loneliness, it meant plenty instead of famine. Yet only for an +instant, only while she stopped to draw breath, did she hesitate. +"Women must learn to be honourable," she found herself thinking +suddenly with an extraordinary intensity.</p> +<p>"Yes, there is some one else—there has always been some +one else," she said, driven on by an impulsive desire for full +confession, for absolute candour. "When I met George I was engaged +to another man, and I have loved that man all my life."</p> +<p>She had confessed all, she told herself; and the remarkable part +was that she really believed her confession—she was honestly +convinced that she had spoken only the truth. Her soul, like the +soul of Cousin Jimmy, sheltered a romantic strain which demanded +that one supreme illusion should endure amid a world of +disillusionment. Because she was obliged to believe in something or +die, she had built her imperishable Dream on the flame-swept ruins +of her happiness.</p> +<p>"He must be a big man if he can fill a life like yours," said +Dr. French.</p> +<p>"I don't know why I told you," she faltered; "I have never told +any one else. It is my secret."</p> +<p>"Well, it is safe with me. Don't be afraid."</p> +<p>For the few minutes before he rose to go they talked +indifferently of other things. She had lost him, she knew, and +while she held his hand at parting, she felt a sharp regret for +what was passing out of her life—for the one chance of love, +of peace, of a tranquil and commonplace happiness. But beneath the +regret there was a hidden spring of joy in her heart. At the +instant of trial she had found strength to be true to her +Dream.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_Va" id="CHAPTER_Va"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> +<h3>SUCCESS</h3> +<p>"I declare you're real pretty to-night, honey," remarked Miss +Polly from the floor, where she knelt pinning up the hem of a black +serge skirt she was making for Gabriella. "Some days you're +downright plain, and then you flame out just like a lamp. Nobody +would ever think to look at you that you'd be thirty-seven years +old to-morrow." For it was the evening before Gabriella's birthday, +and she was at the end of her thirty-sixth year.</p> +<p>"I feel young," she answered brightly, "and I feel happy. The +children are well, and I've had all the success I could ask. Some +day I'm going to own Madame's business, Miss Polly."</p> +<p>"I reckon she's gettin' mighty old, ain't she?"</p> +<p>"She gave up the work years ago, and I believe she'd be glad to +sell out to me to-morrow if I had the money.</p> +<p>"I wish you had. It would be nice for you to be at the head, now +wouldn't it?" rejoined Miss Polly, speaking with difficulty through +a mouthful of pins.</p> +<p>"Yes, I wish I had, but I've thought and thought, and I don't +see how I could borrow enough. I've sometimes thought of asking +Judge Crowborough to invest some money in the business. It would be +investing, the returns are so good."</p> +<p>"He'd do it in a minute, I expect. He always set a lot of store +by you, didn't he?"</p> +<p>"He used to, but somehow I hate to ask favours."</p> +<p>"You were always a heap too proud. Don't you remember how you'd +never eat the other children's cake when you were a child unless +you had some of your own to offer 'em?"</p> +<p>Gabriella laughed. "No, I don't remember, but it sounds like me. +I was horrid."</p> +<p>"There was always a hard streak somewhere down in you, and you +don't mind my sayin' that you ain't gettin' any softer, Gabriella. +There are times now when your mouth gets a set look like your Aunt +Becky Bollingbroke's. You don't recollect her, I 'spose, but she +never married."</p> +<p>"Well, I married," Gabriella flippantly reminded her; "so it +can't be that."</p> +<p>Though the hard work of the last ten years had left its visible +mark upon her, and she looked a little older, a little tired, a +little worn, experience had added a rare spiritual beauty to her +face, and she was far handsomer than she had been at twenty. The +rich sprinkling of silver in the heavy waves of hair over her ears +framed the firm pale oval of her face with a poetic and mysterious +darkness, and gave depth and softness to her brilliant eyes. For +the struggle, which had stolen her first freshness and left faintly +perceptible lines in her expressive face, had not robbed her of the +eyes and the heart of a girl.</p> +<p>"I don't count George, somehow," retorted Miss Polly. "That +wan't like marryin' a real man, you know, and, when all's said and +done, a lone woman gets mighty hard and dried up."</p> +<p>"But I can't marry when there's nobody to marry me," laughed +Gabriella. "I haven't seen a man for seven years except in the +street or occasionally in the shop. Men have either passed me by +without seeing me or they have wanted to sell me something."</p> +<p>At the sound of the children's voices she slipped out of the +serge skirt, and began hurriedly fastening the old black silk gown +she wore at dinner. Through all the years of toil and self-denial +she had preserved a certain formality of living, a gracious ease of +manner, which she kept for the evenings with her children. Cares +were thrust away then, to be taken up again as soon as Fanny and +Archibald were in bed, and no matter how hard the day had been, she +was always cheerful, always gay and light-hearted for the dinner +hour by the fireside. Not often had she been too poor to buy a +handful of flowers for the table, and never once, except during her +illness, had she come home too tired to change to the black silk +gown, which she had turned and made from bishop sleeves to small +ones, and from "dropped" shoulders to high ones, for the last six +or seven years. The damask on the table was darned and mended, but +it was always spotlessly fresh. In winter the fire was made up +brightly in the evenings; in summer the room was deliciously +scented with rose geranium and heliotrope from the box in the +window. For ten years she had not had a holiday; she had worked +harder than a man, harder than any servant, for she had worked from +dawn until midnight; but into her hard life she had instilled a +quality of soul which had enabled her to endure the strain without +breaking. "No life is so hard that you can't make it easier by the +way you take it," she had said to herself in the beginning; and +remembering always that courage is one of the eternal virtues, she +had disciplined her mind as well as her body to firmness and +elasticity of fibre. "Nobody, except myself, is ever going to make +me happy," she would repeat over and over again when the day was +wearying and the work heavy. "I want to be happy. I have a right to +be happy, but it depends on myself."</p> +<p>This indestructible belief in her "right to happiness" supported +her through the hardest hours of her life, and diffused an +invigorating atmosphere not only in her home, but even in her long +working hours at Dinard's. The children grew and strengthened in +its bracing air; Miss Polly quickly responded to it; the women in +the workroom breathed it in as if it were the secret of health, and +even Madame showed occasional signs that she was not entirely +impervious to its vital and joyous influence. It was not always +easy for Gabriella to keep the light in her eyes and the faith in +her heart. There were days when both seemed to fail her, when, with +aching body and depressed mind, she felt that she could not look +beyond the immediate suffering minute, when she told herself +despairingly that she had lost everything in losing her courage. +But bad days passed as irrevocably as good ones; and left her, when +they were over, with her strong soul unshaken, and her philosophy +of happiness still undestroyed. Like other human beings, she found +that her moods were largely controlled by her physical health.</p> +<p>"Oh, mother dear, I went down to meet you, and I missed you by +just five minutes," said Fanny, kissing her cheek. "I wanted you to +go with me to look at the house in London Terrace. Miss Polly and I +are crazy about it."</p> +<p>"I know," said Gabriella tenderly, while she feasted her eyes on +her daughter.</p> +<p>The old apartment house in which they had spent the last ten +years would be torn down in the summer, and Fanny and Miss Folly +had devoted the past week to an exhaustive hunt for a home.</p> +<p>"Then you'll look at it to-morrow, won't you, mother?" urged +Fanny. "We can get the upper rooms and they are larger than these. +There is a little yard in front, with an elm tree and a rose-bush, +and plenty of space for flowers."</p> +<p>"I can't recall the house exactly," said Gabriella thoughtfully. +"It must be in a row, isn't it? I have a vague recollection of some +old houses, with fronts of stuccoed pilasters, and rather nice +yards. But West Twenty-third Street is too far away, dear. I don't +like the neighbourhood. Wouldn't you rather be in Park Avenue?" Her +ignorance of New York, though she had lived there seventeen years, +amazed Fanny, who was a true child of the city.</p> +<p>"Carlie Herndon lives in that row, mother"—Carlie Herndon, +the daughter of a distinguished and unpopular novelist, was Fanny's +best friend for the moment—"and I could always go out with +her in the evening."</p> +<p>"It isn't the location I should have liked, Fanny," said +Gabriella, weakly yielding, as she always yielded to her daughter; +"but if you really fancy the house, I'll try to look at it on my +way home to-morrow. One has to be very careful about the plumbing +in these old houses. I insist upon good plumbing. After that, you +may have what you want."</p> +<p>"Oh, it has brand new bathrooms, Mrs. Mallon told me so, and +she's lived there until a year ago. And if you had only seen the +new apartments we looked at, mother, nothing on the East Side that +would have held us under twenty-five hundred a year, and even at +that the bedrooms were no bigger than closets, and you'd have to +have electric light all day in the bathroom. We searched +everywhere, didn't we, Miss Polly?"</p> +<p>"West Twenty-third Street is mighty far out of the way, honey," +observed Miss Polly cautiously.</p> +<p>"Oh, but I'd have Carlie, and she's my best friend," persisted +Fanny, with caressing obstinacy.</p> +<p>"Well, we'll see, precious," said Gabriella, while she assured +herself that if Fanny cost her every penny she had, at least the +child was worth what she spent on her. To a superficial observer, +Fanny would probably have appeared merely an attractive girl, of +Jane's willowy type, with something of Jane's trite prettiness of +feature; but to Gabriella, who suffered from a maternal obliquity +of vision, she seemed both brilliant and beautiful. Of course she +was selfish, but this selfishness, as long as it was clothed in her +youth and loveliness, was as inoffensive as the playfulness of a +kitten. Her face was round and shallow, with exquisite colouring +which veiled the flatness and lack of character in her features. +Above her azure eyes her hair, which was not plentiful, but fine +and soft, and as yellow as ripe corn, broke in a shining mist over +her forehead. All her life, by being what she was, she had got, +without effort, everything that she wanted. She had got dolls when +she wanted dolls; she had got Miss Ludwell's expensive school when +she wanted an expensive private school; she would get the house in +West Twenty-third Street to-morrow, and when she began to want +love, she would get it as easily and as undeservedly as she got +everything else. She was very expensive, but, like the flowers on +the table and the spotless damask and the lace in Gabriella's +sleeves, she was one of her mother's luxuries to be paid for by +additional hours of work and thought.</p> +<p>"Wasn't Archibald with you?" inquired Gabriella, while she +pushed the chairs into place and tidied the room.</p> +<p>"He stopped at the library. There's his ring now. I'll open the +door."</p> +<p>She ran out, and Gabriella, with the tablecloth in her hand, +stood waiting for Archibald to enter. In her eager expectancy, in +the wistful brightness of her eyes, in the tender quivering of her +lips, she was like a girl who is awaiting a lover. Every evening, +after her day's work, she greeted her son with the same passionate +tenderness. Never had it lessened, never, even when she was most +discouraged, had she failed to summon her strength and her +sweetness for this beatific end to the day. For Archibald was more +than a son to her. As he grew older their characters became more +perfectly adjusted, and the rare bond of a deep mental sympathy +held them together. Fanny loved her as a spoiled child loves the +dispenser of its happiness; but in Archibald's devotion there was +something of the worship of a man for an ideal.</p> +<p>Flushed and hungry, the boy came in, and after kissing her +hurriedly, ran off to wash his face and hands before dinner. When +he came back the table was laid, with a bunch of lilacs in a cut +glass vase over the darned spot in the tablecloth, and Miss Polly +was bringing in the old-fashioned soup tureen, which had belonged +to Gabriella's maternal grandmother.</p> +<p>"If you don't sit right straight down everything will be cold," +said Miss Polly severely, for this was her customary manner of +announcing dinner. Every night for ten years she had threatened +them with a cold dinner while she served them a hot one.</p> +<p>With a child on either side of her, Gabriella sat down, and +ladled the soup out of the old china tureen. It was her consecrated +hour—the single hour of her toiling day that she dedicated to +personal happiness; and because it was her hour, her life had +gradually centred about it as if it were the divine point of her +universe—the pivot upon which her whole world revolved. +Nothing harsh, nothing sordid, nothing sad, ever touched the sacred +precincts of her twilight hour with her children.</p> +<p>"I can beat any boy at school running, mother," said Archibald, +watching his plate of soup hungrily as it travelled toward him. "If +my eyes won't let me be captain of a football team, I'm going to +become the champion runner in America. I bet I can, if I try."</p> +<p>"I shouldn't wonder, dear. It's good for you, too. I never saw +you look better."</p> +<p>He was a tall, thin boy, with a muscular figure, and thick brown +hair, which was always rumpled. Through his ugly spectacles his +eyes showed large, dark, and as beautifully soft as a girl's. His +mind was remarkably keen and active, and there was in his carriage +something of Gabriella's capable and commanding air, as if, like +her, he embodied those qualities which compel acknowledgment. +Though she had never admitted it even to herself, he was her +favourite child.</p> +<p>When dinner was over she had the children to herself—to +the gracious, unhurried self she gave them—until ten o'clock. +Then their books were put away, and after she had kissed them +good-night, and tucked the covers about them, she came back to the +living-room, and sat down to her sewing with Miss Polly. The ease +and cheerfulness dropped from her at the approach of midnight, and +while the two women bent over their needles they talked of their +anxieties, and planned innumerable and intricate ways of +economy.</p> +<p>"Fanny's school costs so much, and, of course, she must have +clothes. All the other girls dress so expensively."</p> +<p>"You spend three times as much on her as you do on +Archibald."</p> +<p>"I know," her voice melted to the mother note, "but Archibald is +different. He is a man, and he will make his way in the world. +Then, too, his expenses will be trebled next year when he goes off +to school, and after that, of course, will come college. I don't +believe anything or anybody can keep Archibald back," she went on +proudly. "Do you know he talks already of going to work in a +shipping office in order to help me?"</p> +<p>"It's a pity about his eyes."</p> +<p>"There's nothing wrong except near-sightedness, but he'll have +to wear glasses all his life."</p> +<p>For a minute Miss Polly stitched almost furiously, while her +small weatherbeaten face, with its grotesque features, was visited +by an illumination that softened and ennobled its ugliness. From +living entirely in the lives of others, she had attained the +spiritual serenity and detachment of a saint as well as the saint's +immunity from the intenser personal forms of suffering. Long habit +had accustomed her to think of herself only in connection with +somebody's need of her, and beyond this she hardly appeared as an +individual existence even in her own secret reflections. As far as +it is possible to achieve absolute unselfishness in a world planned +upon egoistic principles Miss Polly had achieved it; and the result +was that she was almost perfectly happy.</p> +<p>"Fanny seems right set on goin' down to Twenty-third Street, +don't she?" she inquired, after an interval of musing.</p> +<p>"It's all because Carlie lives in the row, and by next year, +after we've had all the trouble of moving, she'll find another +bosom friend and want to go to Park Avenue."</p> +<p>"It's a real comfortable sort of house, more like Richmond than +New York, and I reckon we could get flowers to grow there just +about as well as they did in Hill Street."</p> +<p>"I don't like having those O'Haras on the lower floor. If they +are loud and common, it might be very disagreeable."</p> +<p>"There ain't but one, a man, and he's hardly ever there, the +caretaker's wife told me. She said he was almost always in the +West, and anyway his lease is up next year, and he thinks he'll +give up his rooms. She says he has made piles of money in mines +somewhere out West, and he only keeps those rooms because they used +to belong to a man who picked him out of the street when he was a +little boy selling newspapers. That caretaker's wife seems to be a +mighty kind-hearted creature, but she talks as if she was never +goin' to stop."</p> +<p>"I think I could afford to take an apartment in Park Avenue," +returned Gabriella, dismissing the name of O'Hara; "but, of course, +I want to save as much as I can in order to invest in the business. +If it wasn't for that, I could stop scraping and pinching. I can't +bear, though, to think of leaving nothing for the children when I +die."</p> +<p>"Go away from here, honey. The idea of your talkin' about dyin'! +You look healthier than you ever did in your life, only you're +gettin' that set look again about your mouth."</p> +<p>"I wonder if I'm growing hard," said Gabriella, stopping to +glance in the mirror. "I suppose that's the problem of life for the +working woman—not to grow hard." In some ways, she realized, +Miss Polly was right. She was a handsome woman, as Madame +occasionally informed her; but she was no longer shrinking, she was +no longer alluringly feminine. To dress smartly for Dinard's was a +part of her work, and she had grown quite indifferent to having men +turn and stare after her in the street or when she entered a +restaurant. But the men who stared never spoke to her as they did +to Fanny when she was alone. They regarded her admiringly, but she +aroused neither disrespect nor the protective instinct in their +minds. Only when she smiled her face grew as young as her eyes, and +with the powdering of silver on her hair, gave her a look of +radiance and charm; but at other times, when she was grave or +preoccupied with the management of Dinard's, the "set look" that +Miss Polly dreaded hardened her mouth.</p> +<p>"I wish you could go easier now for a while," resumed the little +seamstress, after a pause which she had filled with vague +speculations about Gabriella's sentimental prospects. "I just hate +like anything to see you wearing yourself out. Of course I'd like +you to own part of the business, and I can't help thinkin' that the +judge could get you the money as easy as not. It ain't as if you +couldn't pay him the interest regular, is it?" she pursued with the +financial helplessness of a woman who has never thought in terms of +figures. "You couldn't be doin' any better, could you? There ain't +anybody can run the business as well as you do, I don't care who +'tis."</p> +<p>"I sometimes think," returned Gabriella deliberately, while she +draped a lace bertha on a white silk frock she was making for +Fanny, "that I will try to borrow the money."</p> +<p>"It couldn't hurt, could it?"</p> +<p>"No, I don't suppose it could hurt."</p> +<p>Her eyes were on the lace, which she was adjusting over the +shoulder, and Miss Polly followed her gaze with a look which was +not entirely approving.</p> +<p>"There ain't a bit of sense in your wearin' yourself out over +that child," said the seamstress presently, with so sharp an accent +that Gabriella glanced up quickly from her work. "It was just the +way Mrs. Spencer started Florrie, and it ain't right."</p> +<p>"Florrie!" exclaimed Gabriella, startled, and she added slowly, +"I wonder what has become of her? I haven't thought of her for +years."</p> +<p>"It was a mean trick she played you, Gabriella. I'd never have +believed it of Florrie if I hadn't been there to see it with my own +eyes."</p> +<p>"Yes, it was mean," assented Gabriella, but there was no anger +in her voice. She had left the past so far behind her that its +disappointments and its cruelties had become as dim and shadowy to +her imagination as if they had been phantoms of the mind instead of +actual events through which she had lived.</p> +<p>"Well, I'm glad she didn't spoil your life for you, honey."</p> +<p>"No, she didn't spoil my life. Don't I look happy? And Madame +told me to-day that my figure was distinguished. Now, when a +woman's life is spoiled her figure and her complexion are the first +things to show it."</p> +<p>"Of course you ain't gettin' slouchy, I don't mean anything like +that. But I hate to see you workin' your fingers to the bone and +bringin' lines around your eyes when you ought to be taken care of. +I don't hold with women workin' unless they're obliged to."</p> +<p>"But I'm obliged to. How on earth could I take care of the +children if I didn't work?"</p> +<p>For a minute there was an austere silence while Miss Polly +reflected grimly that Gabriella Mary—she thought of her as +"Gabriella Mary" in moments of disapprobation"—was gettin' +almost as set as her ma."</p> +<p>"You could marry," she said flatly at last, stopping to press +down the hem she had turned with the blunted nail of her thumb. "Of +course your ma would be dead against it, but there ain't any reason +in the world why you shouldn't go back home and marry Arthur +Peyton, as you ought to have done seventeen years ago."</p> +<p>Though Gabriella laughed in reply, there was no merriment in the +sound, and a look of sadness crept into the eyes she turned away +from the sharp gaze of the little seamstress.</p> +<p>"You've forgotten that I haven't seen him for seventeen years," +she answered.</p> +<p>"That don't make any difference in his sort, and you know it. He +ain't ever married anybody else, and he ain't goin' to. The +faithfulness that ought to be spread over the whole sex gets stored +up in a few, and he's one of 'em."</p> +<p>"He has never written to me. No, he must have got over it," +responded Gabriella, with an impassioned emphasis, "and, besides, +even if he cared, I don't want to marry again. My children are +enough for me."</p> +<p>"It won't look that way next year when both the children are +away at school, and when they once break away from your apron +strings they're the sort that will go the way they want to and look +out for their own happiness. You won't have much of Archibald while +he's at school and college, and Fanny will marry befo' she's twenty +just as sure as you live. Why, she's already got her head full of +beaux. Have you noticed that picture of an actor she keeps on her +bureau?"</p> +<p>"Yes" admitted Gabriella anxiously, "I've noticed it, but when I +asked her about it, she only laughed."</p> +<p>After this the conversation dropped, and the two women put away +their work for the might; but hours later, while Miss Polly lay in +her hard little bed wondering if it would be possible to "fix" +things between Gabriella and Arthur, the stern heroine of her +romance wept a few tender tears on her pillow.</p> +<p>In the morning, with the tears still ready to spring at a touch, +Gabriella read a letter from her mother, which he had found, beside +the baker's rolls, at the door.</p> +<div class="blockquot"> +<p><i>Richmond, Thursday</i>.</p> +<p>DEAR CHILD:</p> +<p>As the others are all out to-night, and I have finished the mat +I was crocheting, I thought I would send you a letter to reach you +on your birthday instead of the telegram from the family. I am so +thankful to hear that you keep well and happy and that Fanny has +quite recovered from her cold. It was thoughtful of you to send the +check, and I shall find it very useful, though Jane refuses to let +me pay any board since Charley has inherited such a large income +from his brother Tom. I sent you all the papers about the dreadful +accident on the River road in which poor Tom and his wife were +killed, but you haven't heard yet that Tom left his new house in +Monument Avenue—they had only just moved into it—and +almost all of his property to Charley. Of course, this will make a +great difference in our manner of living; but just now none of us +can think of anything except poor Tom and Gertrude, to whom we were +all so deeply attached. No amount of money could in any way soften +the blow of their loss, and the accident has given me such a horror +of automobiles, though both Charley and Jane tell me this is very +foolish.</p> +<p>To turn to more cheerful subjects, I can't begin to tell you how +much the last photograph of Fanny has been admired. She is such a +lovely girl, almost as pretty, we think, as Jane used to be when +she first grew up, and I'm sure there could be no higher praise +than that. You pleased me by saying that Archibald is like his +grandfather, even if he isn't so handsome, and that he has a strong +character. Good looks aren't nearly so important in a man as they +are in a woman, and, you know, I don't think that men are as +handsome to-day as they used to be when I was a girl. They have +lost something—I can't make out just what it is.</p> +<p>Charley and Jane are at the Prohibition meeting. It is the first +time they have gone anywhere since the accident, but we all felt +that Tom and Gertrude would have wanted them to go for the sake of +the cause. I don't suppose you, would recognize Charley now if you +were to meet him. He is entirely changed, and I believe our new +minister is the reason for it, though Jane likes to think that her +influence reclaimed him. But, you remember, neither you nor I ever +thought that Jane went about reforming Charley in the right way; +and even now, though I wouldn't hurt dear Jane's feelings for +anything in the world, I am afraid she nags Charley and the +children too much. Of course, she means it for the best. No one +could look at the dear child without realizing what a beautiful +character she is.</p> +<p>But the change in Charley is really remarkable, and he won't +allow a drop of alcohol to come into the house—not even as +medicine. I can't help feeling sorry for poor old Uncle +Meriweather, who despises grape juice and misses his mint julep +when he comes to dine on Sunday; but Charley forbids Jane to make +him a julep; and I suppose he is right since he says it is a matter +of principle. Even Jane, however, thinks dear Charley is going a +little too far when he refuses to let me have the sherry and egg +the doctor ordered. However, I tell Jane that, since Charley feels +so strongly about my taking it, she must not try to persuade him +against his convictions. Dr. Darrow doesn't know that I stopped the +sherry when Charley found out I was buying it. Perhaps the plain +eggs will do me quite as much good. Anyhow, I wouldn't let my +health stand in the way of Charley's salvation.</p> +<p>Margaret has gone out to a concert, and you would never guess +who came to take her. I said to her when she was starting, "Well, +I'm going to sit straight down and write your Aunt Gabriella that +you've gone out with her old sweetheart." But doesn't it make you +realize how time flies when you think of Arthur Peyton's paying +attention to Jane's daughter? Of course, it isn't anything +serious—everybody knows that he has never recovered from his +feeling for you—but last winter he took Margaret to two +germans and to any number of plays. I believe Jane would be really +pleased if he were to take a fancy to Margaret, but I don't think +there is the faintest chance of it, for his Cousin Lizzie told me +last winter that she couldn't mention your name in his presence. +She says his faithfulness is perfectly beautiful, and she ought to +know for she has lived with him ever since his mother's death. Of +course, he has never accomplished very much in his profession. +Chancy says all the men downtown look upon him as a failure; but, +then, he is such a perfect gentleman, and, as I tell Charley and +Jane, one can't have everything. How different your life would have +been, my dear daughter, if you had listened to the prayers of your +mother, and married a gentle Christian character like Arthur +Peyton.</p> +<p>But I mustn't let my thoughts run away with me. Of course, even +if your heart had not been broken, it would be impossible for you +to think of another man as long as your husband is living. No pure +woman could do that, and when people tell me about divorced women +who remarry, I always maintain that they are not what my mother and +I would call "pure women." I would rather think of you nursing your +broken heart forever in solitude than that you should put such a +blot upon your character and the name of the Carrs. Of course, you +were right to divorce George after he forsook you for +Florrie—even his mother tells everybody that you were +right—but the thought of a second marriage would, I know, be +intolerable to your refined and sensitive nature. After all, he is +still your husband in the sight of God, and I said this to Miss +Lizzie Peyton when we were talking of Arthur.</p> +<p>It is almost eleven o'clock, and I must stop and undress. Kiss +the dear children, and remember me kindly to Miss Polly.</p> +<p>Your loving MOTHER.</p> +</div> +<p>As she refolded the letter Gabriella stood for an instant with +her dreaming gaze on the delicate Italian handwriting on the +envelope.</p> +<p>"It's amazing how wide the gulf is between the generations," she +thought, not without humour. "I believe mother thinks of George +oftener than I do, and I'd marry Arthur to-morrow if he wanted me +to—except for the children."</p> +<p>Then, as Archibald rushed into the room, she caught him in her +arms, and held him hungrily to her bosom.</p> +<p>"My darling, you want to keep your mother, don't you?"</p> +<p>"I jolly well do. What's the trouble, mother? I believe it's all +that sitting up over Fanny's old dresses. Why don't you make +something pretty for yourself?"</p> +<p>"She has to have things, and you love me just as well without +them, don't you?"</p> +<p>"But I want you to have them, too. I like you to look pretty, +and you are pretty."</p> +<p>"Then I can look pretty in plain clothes, can't I?"</p> +<p>"I tell you what I am going to do," he hesitated a minute, +knitting his heavy brows over his spectacles, which looked so odd +on a boy. "Next summer when school is over I'm going to work and +make some money so you can have a velvet dress in the +autumn—a black velvet dress with lace on it—lots of +lace—and a hat with feathers."</p> +<p>"You foolish boy!" laughed Gabriella. "Do you think for an +instant I'd let you?" Her voice was gay, but when he had broken +away from her clasp, and was racing along the hail for his school +books, she turned aside to wipe the tears from her eyes.</p> +<p>"It's wrong, but I love, him more than I love Fanny," she said. +"I love him more than all the rest of the world.".</p> +<p>An hour later, sitting beside an Italian labourer in an elevated +train, she tried hard to keep her mind on the day's work and on the +morning paper, which she held open before her—for in adopting +a business life she had adopted instinctively a man's businesslike +habits. A subtle distinction divided her from the over-dressed +shopgirls around her as completely as her sex separated her from +the portly masculine breadwinner in the opposite seat. Her tailored +suit of black serge, with its immaculate white collar and cuffs, +had an air of charming simplicity, and the cameolike outline of her +features against the luminous background of the window-pane was the +aristocratic racial outline of the Carrs. In the whirlpool of +modern business she still preserved the finer attributes which +Nature had bred in her race. The bitter sweetness of the mother's +inheritance, grafted on the hardy stock of the Carr character, had +flavoured without weakening the daughter's spirit, and, though few +of the men in the train glanced in the direction of Gabriella, the +few who noticed her in her corner surmised by intuition that she +possessed not only the manner, but the heart of a lady. She was not +particularly handsome, not particularly young, and her charm was +scarcely the kind to flash like a lantern before the eye of the +beholder. To the portly breadwinner she was probably a nice-looking +American business woman, nothing more; to the Italian labourer she +was, doubtless, a lady with a pleasant face, who would be polite if +you asked her a question; and to the other passengers she must have +appeared merely a woman reading her newspaper on her way down to +work. Her primal qualities of force, restraint, and capability were +the last things these superficial observers would have thought of; +and yet it was by these qualities that she must succeed or fail in +her struggle for life.</p> +<p>When she reached Dinard's she found Miss Smith, the only woman +in Madame's employ who was ever punctual, ill-humouredly poking the +spring hats out of the cases. Miss Smith, who excelled in the +cardinal virtues, manifested at times a few of those minor +frailties by which the cardinal virtues are not infrequently +attended. Her one pronounced fault was a bad temper, and on this +particular morning that fault was conspicuous. As she carried the +hats from the cases to the window, which she was decorating with +the festive millinery of the spring, she looked as if she were +resisting an impulse to throw Madame's choicest confections at the +jovial figure of the traffic policeman. Gabriella, who was used to +what she called the "peculiarities" of the forewoman, said "good +morning" with her bright amiability, and hurried back to the dim +regions where she changed from her street suit to the picturesque +French gown which she wore in the showroom. When she came out again +Miss Smith had finished ornamenting the white pegs in the window, +and was vigorously upbraiding a messenger boy who had delivered a +parcel at the wrong door.</p> +<p>"You are always so prompt," remarked Gabriella cheerfully, as +she arranged the hats in the front room. Her rule of business +conduct was simple, and consisted chiefly of the precept that +whatever happened she must keep her temper. Never once, never even +in Madame's most trying moments, had she permitted herself to +appear angry, and her strict adherence to this resolution had +established her in an enviable position of authority. Obeying +unconsciously some inherited strain of prudence in her nature, she +had sacrificed her temper on the solid altar of business +expediency.</p> +<p>"Somebody has to be on time, I guess," replied Miss Smith +snappishly. "I'd like to know who would be here if I wasn't?"</p> +<p>She was a thin, soured, ugly little woman, with an extraordinary +capacity for work, and an excess of nervous vitality bordering on +hysteria. Gabriella, who knew something of her story, was aware of +the self-sacrificing goodness of her private life, and secure in +her own unclouded cheerfulness, could afford to smile tolerantly at +the waspish sting.</p> +<p>"It's a pity we can't get more system here," she observed, for +Miss Smith, she knew, was no tale-bearer. "The waste of time and +misdirected energy are appalling. The business would be worth three +times as much to anybody who could give her whole attention to it, +but, as Madame is forever telling us, her health keeps her from +really overlooking things."</p> +<p>"I wonder why she doesn't sell out?" asked Miss Smith, suddenly +good-humoured and interested. "There's a lot in it for the right +person, and it isn't in nature that she can hold on much longer. If +I could find the money, I'd buy it and cut down expenses until I +made a big profit. It would be easy enough." Then she added, while +she slammed the ivory-tinted door of a case: "I wish you could run +the house, Mrs. Carr. You are so pleasant to work with. Nothing +ever seems to depress you."</p> +<p>"It would be nice, wouldn't it?" responded Gabriella promptly, +and as she said the words, she decided that she would try to borrow +the money from Judge Crowborough. For three months she had been +struggling to bring herself to the point of asking his +help—or at least his advice—and now, in a flash, +without argument or discussion, she had settled the question. "It's +a simple business proposition—a promising investment," she +thought. "I'll ask him to get the money for me at a fair +interest—to get me enough anyhow to give me control of the +business. The worst he can do is to refuse," she concluded, with a +kind of forlorn optimism; "at least he can't kill me."</p> +<p>Making a hurried excuse, she went back to the telephone, and +calling up the judge, asked for an appointment in his office at +five o'clock. From his surprised response she inferred his +curiosity, and from his hearty acquiescence, she gathered that his +surprise was not an unpleasant one. "At five o'clock, then. It is +so good of you. There is a little matter of business. Yes, I know +how kind you are, and of course your advice is invaluable. I can't +think of anybody else on earth I can ask. Oh, thank you. Yes, at +five o'clock. I shan't be late and I promise to keep you but a +minute. Good-bye. What? Oh, yes, I'll come straight from +Dinard's."</p> +<p>His voice, eager and friendly over the telephone, had given her +confidence, and when she went back to the showroom, where the +saleswomen were assembling, she was already planning the +interview.</p> +<p>At eleven o'clock Madame, who never arrived earlier, was seen +descending from a hansom, and a few minutes later she waddled, +wheezing, asthmatic, and infirm of joints, through the ivory and +gold doorway. Like some fantastically garlanded Oriental goddess of +death, her rouged and powdered face nodded grotesquely beneath the +flowery wreath on her hat. The indestructible youth of her spirit, +struggling valiantly against the inert weight of the flesh, had +squeezed her enormous figure into the curveless stays of the +period, and had painted into some ghastly semblance of health the +wrinkled skin of her cheeks. For underneath the decaying mockery of +Madame's body, the indomitable soul of Madame still fought the +everlasting battle of mind against matter, of the immaterial +against the material elements.</p> +<p>"There was no use my trying to get here any sooner," she began +in an apologetic tone when she was face to face with Gabriella +behind the red velvet curtains of her private office. "My asthma +was so bad all night, I had to doze sitting up, and I didn't get +any sound sleep until daybreak. If I don't begin to mend before +long I'll have to give up, that's all there is to it. There ain't +any use my trying to hold on much longer. I'm too sick to think +about fighting, and sometimes I don't care what becomes of the +business. I want to go to some high place in Europe where I can get +my breath, and I'm going to stay there, I don't care what happens. +There ain't any use my trying to hold on," she repeated +disconsolately.</p> +<p>Gabriella's opportunity had come, and she grasped it with the +quickness of judgment which had enabled her to achieve her moderate +success.</p> +<p>"I believe I could carry on this business," she said, and her +quiet assurance impressed Madame's turbulent temper. With a brief +return of her mental alertness, the old woman studied her +carefully.</p> +<p>"I don't want any responsibility. I want to be rid of the whole +thing," she said after a pause.</p> +<p>Gabriella nodded comprehendingly. "I believe I could carry it on +successfully," she repeated. "Your customers like me. I think I +understand how the business ought to be run. I have been here ten +years, and I feel perfectly confident that I could make it +successful."</p> +<p>"I've had offers—good offers," observed Madame warily, for +she was incapable of liberating herself at the age of seventy-two +from the lifelong suspicion that some one was taking advantage of +her, that something was being got from her for nothing, "and, of +course, I was only joking about having to stop work," she added, "I +am retiring from choice, not from necessity."</p> +<p>"I understand," agreed Gabriella quietly.</p> +<p>"But I should like you to have the name," pursued Madame "A +little money would be necessary, of course—perhaps you might +buy a half interest—that would be simple. You could make a +big success of it with your social position and your wealthy +acquaintances. Surely you can find some one who is ready to make +such a splendid investment?"</p> +<p>"Perhaps," admitted Gabriella, as quietly as before. Unlike +Madame, who, being an incurable idealist, had won her victories not +by accepting but by evading facts, Gabriella was frankly skeptical +about the practical value of either her social position or her +wealthy acquaintances. Neither possession impressed her at the +moment as marketable, except in the vivid imagination of Madame, +and her social position, at least, was constructed of a very thin +and unsubstantial fabric. Guided by the prudent streak in her +character, she rested her hope not upon incorporeal possessions, +but upon the solid bodies of her patrons that must be clothed. Her +imposing acquaintances would avail her scarcely more, she +suspected, than would the noble ghost of that ancestor who was a +general in the Revolution. What she relied on was the certainty +that she knew her work, and that Madame's customers from the +greatest to the least, from Mrs. Pletheridge to poor Miss Peterson, +who bought only one good gown a year, admitted the thoroughness of +her knowledge. She had got on by learning all that there was to +learn about the details of the work, and she stood now, secure and +unassailable, on the foundation of her achievement. In ten years +she had fulfilled her resolution—she had made herself +indispensable. By patience, by hard work, by self-control, by +ceaseless thought, and by innumerable sacrifices, she had made +herself indispensable; and the result was that, as Madame weakened, +she had grown steadily stronger. Without her Dinard's would have +dropped long ago to the position of a second-rate house, and she +was aware that Madame understood this quite as clearly as she did. +For whatever Madame's executive ability may have been in the past, +it had dwindled now to the capricious endeavours of a chronic +invalid—of an aging invalid, notwithstanding her desperate +struggle for youth. Half as much energy as Madame had spent +resisting Nature might have won for her a sanctified memory had it +been directed toward the practice of piety, or a tablet of +imperishable granite had it been devoted to as tireless a pursuit +of art or science. To her battle against age she had brought the +ambition of a conqueror and the devotion of a martyr; and at the +last, even to-day, there was a superb defiance in her refusal to +acknowledge defeat, in her demand that her surrender should be +regarded as a capitulation.</p> +<p>"In a day or two I hope to be able to discuss my plan with you," +said Gabriella, and she could not keep the softness of pity out of +her voice. So this was what life came to, after all? For an instant +she felt the overwhelming discouragement which is the portion of +those who approach life not through vision, but through outward +events, who seek a solution not in the deeper consciousness of the +spirit, but in the changing surface of experience. Then, even +before her glance had left Madame's golden head, her natural +optimism regained control of her mind, and she told herself stoutly +that if this was Madame's present, then it followed logically that +Madame must have had a past, and that past must have been an +agreeable one. It was inconceivable that she should defy the laws +of God for the sake of a prolongation of tragedy.</p> +<p>"It is a splendid investment," croaked the old woman in the +midst of Gabriella's painful reflections. "The house was never more +flourishing."</p> +<p>The ruling principle which decreed that Gabriella should keep +her temper had disciplined her not less thoroughly in the habit of +holding her tongue. The house was in a flourishing condition; but +she remembered how fragile and thinly rooted had been its showy +prosperity, when she had entered it; and had she cared to confound +Madame utterly, she might have reminded her of that unwritten +history of the past ten years in which the secret episode of Mrs. +Pletheridge occurred. For Gabriella was not inclined to underrate +her own efficiency, and her confidence was supported by the +knowledge that if she left Dinard's the most fashionable of +Madame's clientele would follow her.</p> +<p>"You'll never have such another opportunity—not if you +live to be a hundred. At your age I should have jumped at the +idea," persisted Madame.</p> +<p>"So should I," responded Gabriella merrily, "if I were sure of +landing on my feet."</p> +<p>"You'll always land on your feet—you're that sort. You've +got push, and it's push that counts most in business. A woman may +have all the brains in the world, but without push she might as +well give up the struggle. That was what brought me up in spite of +four husbands and six children," pursued Madame, while she took out +a small flask from one of the drawers of her desk and measured out, +as she remarked in parenthesis, "a little stimulant." "Yes, I had a +great success in my line, and if I could only have kept clear of +men, I might have saved a fortune to retire on in my old age. But I +had a natural taste for men, and they were the ruin of me. As soon +as I lost one husband and managed to get on a bit, another would +come, and I couldn't resist him. I never could resist marriage; +that was the undoing of me as a woman of business."</p> +<p>"Four husbands, and yet you were remarkably successful," +observed Gabriella, because it was the only thing with a cheerful +sound she could think of to utter, and an intermittent cheerful +sound was all that Madame required from a listener when she was +under the enlivening influence of brandy.</p> +<p>"But think what I might have done with my talent if I had +remained a widow, as you have done. It was my misfortune to attract +men whether I wanted to or not," wheezed Madame, wiping her eyes; +"some women are like that."</p> +<p>"So I have heard," murmured Gabriella, seeing that Madame paused +for the note of encouragement.</p> +<p>"I don't suppose that has been your trouble, for there's a +stand-offishness about you that puts men at a distance, and they +don't like to be put at a distance. Then, though your figure is +very fine for showing off models, it isn't exactly the kind that +men lean to. If you'd fatten up it might be different, but that +would spoil you for the clothes, and that, after all, is more +important. It's strange, isn't it?" she croaked, with an alcoholic +chuckle, "how partial men are to full figures even after they have +gone out of fashion?"</p> +<p>And with this wonder still ringing in her ears, Gabriella turned +away, to attend a customer, who demanded, in cool defiance of man +and nature, to be transformed into a straight silhouette.</p> +<p>Gabriella had not seen Judge Crowborough for several years, and +her first impression, when she entered his office at five o'clock, +was one of surprise at his ugliness. Though he had changed but +little since their first meeting at Mrs. Fowler's dinner, the years +had softened her memory of his appearance, and she had skilfully +persuaded herself that one should not judge a man by a repelling +exterior, which, after all, might cover a great deal of goodness. +After George's flight and Archibald Fowler's death he had been very +kind to her. "I don't know what I should have done without him at +that time," she thought now, as she stood with his big, soft hand +clasping hers and his admiring fishy eyes on her face. "No, it is +impossible to judge by appearances, and all men think well of him, +all men respect him," she concluded, feeling suddenly +reassured.</p> +<p>"It's been a long time—it must be nearly' three +years—since I saw you," he remarked, with flattering +geniality, "and you look younger than ever."</p> +<p>"Hard work keeps me young, then. I work very hard." Her charming +smile flashed like an edge of light on her lips, and lent glow and +fervor to her pale face beneath the silver-brightened cloud of her +hair. She read his admiration in the bold gaze he fastened upon +her, and though she was without coquetry, she was conscious that +her vanity was agreeably soothed.</p> +<p>"What is it? Dressmaking?" He was obviously interested.</p> +<p>"Yes—dresses and hats. Hats are rather my specialty. I +manage things now almost entirely at Dinard's. Have you ever heard +of the house?"</p> +<p>He nodded. "I remember. That's where you went after Archibald +died, wasn't it?" His memory amazed her. What a mind for trifles he +had! What a wonderful man he was for his years!</p> +<p>"Yes, I've been there ever since. I've done well as things go, +but, of course, it has been hard. It has been a hard life."</p> +<p>"And you never came to me. I wanted to help you. I'd have done +anything I could to make it easier for you, but you were so proud. +You'd have got on twice as well if you had given up your +pride."</p> +<p>The telephone rang, and while he answered it, she watched his +broad, slouching back, his swelling paunch overflowing now above +the stays he wore to reduce it, the coarsened flesh of his neck, +bulging above the edge of his collar, and the shining, baldness on +the top of his head, which gave an appearance of commanding +intellect to his empurpled forehead. How hideous he was, how +revolting, and yet what a power! A face like his on a woman would +have condemned her to isolation and misery, but, so far as one +could judge, it had scarcely interfered with his happiness. His +mental force had risen superior to his face, to his paunch, to his +whole repulsive appearance. Greater than Madame because of his sex, +he had achieved a triumph over the corporeal mass of his body which +she, fortified and abetted by a hundred cosmetics and +manipulations, could never attain. Where Madame relied on futile +artificial aids in her battle against decay, he hurled the +tremendous power of his personality, and ugliness became at once as +insignificant as immorality in his life. "One can't judge him by +the standards of other men," thought Gabriella, using a remembered +phrase of Fifty-seventh Street.</p> +<p>Judge Crowborough was still talking earnestly into the +telephone, and she gathered vaguely that his earnestness related to +a donation he had promised his church. "Raise two hundred thousand, +and I'll double it," he said abruptly, and hung up the receiver. +"We want a new organ—something really fine, you know," he +observed casually as he turned back to Gabriella. "We are +moving—everything is moving up, and the church has to keep +step with the age. You can't keep progress out of religion any more +than you can out of business—not that I'm in favour of +modernism or any of that stuff—but we've got to keep moving." +He spoke with conviction, and there was no doubt that he sincerely +believed himself to be an important factor in the religious +movement of his country. Then his tone changed to one of intimate +friendliness and he asked: "Have you heard any music this winter? +If I'd only known about you, I'd have sent you tickets to the +opera."</p> +<p>"The children go sometimes," she answered. That he should +imagine her buying opera tickets for herself, with the children +needing every penny she made, seemed to her ridiculous; but rich +men were always like that, she reflected a little scornfully.</p> +<p>"If I'd only remembered about you," he murmured, and turning +heavily in his chair, he added authoritatively: "Now tell me about +it. Tell me the whole thing straight through. I am going to help +you."</p> +<p>She told him rapidly, and while she talked a sense of perfect +peace and security enveloped her. It was so long since she had been +able to ask advice of a man; it was so long since anybody bigger +and stronger than she had undertaken to adjust her perplexities. +The past returned to her as a dream, and she felt again that +absolute reliance on the masculine ability to control events, to +ease burdens, to remove difficulties, which had visited her in her +childhood when Cousin Jimmy appeared in the front parlour in Hill +Street. "It's wonderful how men manage things," she thought. "It's +wonderful being a man. Everything is so simple for men."</p> +<p>"Well, don't worry a minute longer. It's all as easy as—as +possible," observed the great man serenely when she had finished. +"From what you tell me it looks as if it were a pretty good +investment to begin with, and there are plenty of people around +looking for ways to invest money. I'm looking for ways myself, when +it comes to that," he proclaimed, with a paternal smile as he sank +back on the luxurious leather cushions of his chair.</p> +<p>"You are so good," she responded gratefully, "so good"; and she +was speaking sincerely.</p> +<p>With his casual gaze, which seemed to turn inward, fixed on the +ceiling above her head, he invited her confidence by a few +perfectly chosen expressions of comprehension and sympathy. The +acuteness and activity of his mental processes delighted her while +he questioned her. After the slovenly methods of Madame, after the +loose reasoning and the muddled thinking of all the women she met +in the course of her work, there was a positive pleasure in +following the exactness and inflexibility of his logic. His +reasoning was orderly, neat, elastic, without loose ends or tangled +skeins to unravel, and she felt again, while she listened to him, +the confidence which had come to her as soon as she entered his +office. He was efficiency incarnate, and from her childhood up she +had respected efficiency. In an hour, in less time than it had +taken her to tell her story, he had lifted the weight from her +shoulders, had mastered the details of Madame's intricate problems, +and had outlined the terms by which Gabriella could accept the old +woman's offer without placing herself under financial obligations. +Her pride, he had discerned at a glance, shrank from obligation, +and he was as alert to save her pride as he was to make a good +bargain with Madame.</p> +<p>"It's a good thing. It's good business. Don't think I'm losing +for a minute," he said as she rose to go, and she felt that some +secret delicacy, the last feeling she would have attributed to him, +was prompting his words.</p> +<p>"I can't tell you what a relief it is to talk to you," she said, +holding out her hand while she hesitated between the desk and the +door. "I can't even begin to tell you how grateful I am. I haven't +had any one to advise me since I left Richmond, and it is such a +comfort"</p> +<p>"Well, I'll give you the best advice in my power. I'll give you +the very best," he replied as frankly as if he were discussing his +gift to the church. "What's more, I'll think it over a bit while +I'm at the Hot Springs, and talk to you about it when I come back. +I suppose I can always get you on the telephone, can't I?"</p> +<p>His manner was still casual and business-like, and it did not +change by so much as a shade when he moved a step nearer and put +his arm about her waist. If he had taken down his hat or lighted a +cigar, he would probably have performed either action with the same +air of automatic efficiency; and she realized, in the very instant +of her amazement, that his manner was merely an authoritative +expression of his power. What astonished her most in the incident, +after all, was not the judge's share in it, but the vividness and +coolness of her own mental impressions. She was not frightened, she +was not even disturbed, she was merely disgusted. Never before had +she understood so clearly the immeasurable distance that divided +the Gabriella of seventeen years ago from the Gabriella who +released herself calmly from the appalling clasp of the casual and +business-like old man. To the Gabriella who had loved George such +an episode would have appeared as an inconceivable horror. Now, +with her worldly wisdom and her bitter knowledge of love, she found +herself regarding the situation with sardonic humour. The +stupendous, the incredible vanity of man!—she reflected +disdainfully. Was there ever a man too ugly, too repulsive, or too +old to delude himself with the belief that he might still become +the object of passion?</p> +<p>"Now you've spoiled it," she said shortly, but without +embarrassment. "Now you've spoiled it." She put the case to him +plainly, the Gabriella who would have blushed and trembled and wept +seventeen years ago.</p> +<p>"But I meant nothing," he said, genuinely disturbed. "I assure +you I am truly sorry if I have offended you. It was nothing—a +mere matter of—" the word "habit," she knew, hovered on his +lips, though he did not utter it, and broke off inconclusively.</p> +<p>So there had not been even the excuse of emotion about it. He +had embraced her as instinctively, as methodically, as he might +have switched on the electric light over his desk. Here again she +was brought to a stop before an overwhelming realization of the +fundamental differences between man and woman. To think of woman +behaving like that merely because it had become a matter of +habit!</p> +<p>"I always liked you, you know," he said abruptly, with a sincere +emphasis.</p> +<p>"Well, there are different ways of liking," she rejoined coldly, +"and I happen not to care for this way."</p> +<p>"If you don't like it, I'll never do it again," he promised, +almost humbly. "I'll be a good friend to you, honestly I will. I'll +treat you as if you were—you were—"</p> +<p>"A gentleman," finished Gabriella, and smiled in spite of +herself. After all, what was the use of resenting the facts of +life? What was the use of reproaching the mud that spattered over +one's clothes?</p> +<p>"Well, that's a bargain. I'll treat you as a gentleman." There +was a fine quality about the man; she could not deny it.</p> +<p>"I'll forgive you then and forget it." It was the tolerant +Gabriella who spoke—the Gabriella of disillusioning +experience and a clear vision of life—not the impassioned +idealist of the 'nineties. When all was said, you had to take men +and things as you found them. That was philosophy, and that was +also "good business." It was foolish to apply romantic theories to +the positive actuality.</p> +<p>"Well, you <i>are</i> a gentleman," exclaimed the judge, with +facetiousness. "That's why I always liked you, I suppose. You're +straight and you're honest and there's no nonsense about you."</p> +<p>If he had only known! She thought of the romantic girl of the +'nineties, of her buoyant optimism, her childlike ignorance, her +violent certainties, and of her triumphant, "I can manage my life!" +If he had only known how she had "muddled things" at the beginning, +would he have said that she had "no nonsense about her?"</p> +<p>In the subway, a little later, clinging to a dirty strap, with a +blackened mechanic in the seat before her, a box of tools at her +feet, and a garlic-scented charwoman jolting against her shoulder, +she was overcome by a sudden cloud of despondency. Her courage, her +hopefulness, her philosophy, seemed to melt like frost in her +thoughts, leaving behind only a sodden sense of loss, of emptiness, +of defeat. "I've had a mean life," she said to herself resentfully. +"I've had a mean life. What has ever happened to me that was worth +while? What have I ever had except hard work and disappointment? I +am thirty-seven years old. My youth is going, and I have nothing to +show for it but ten years of dressmaking. The best of my life is +over, and when I look back on it, it is only a blank." It was as if +the interview with the great man she had just left had completed +the desolating retrospect of a lifetime. Was there nothing but +disenchantment ahead of her? Was life merely the dropping of +illusion after illusion, the falling of petals at the first touch +from a flower that is beginning to fade? "Yes, nothing has ever +happened to me that was worth while," she repeated, forgetting her +children for the moment. Then, because the heavy air stifled her, +she left the car and turned into West Twenty-third Street where the +lights were coming out softly in the spring twilight. Though it was +too late to go over the house Fanny wanted, it occurred to her that +she might look at the outside of it before she took the Harlem +elevated train at one of the West Side stations. The walk would do +her good and perhaps blow away the disquieting recollections of her +encounter with Judge Crowborough. Not until her mood changed, she +determined, would she go back to the children.</p> +<p>At the corner she bought a bunch of lilacs because a man held +them out to her temptingly when she approached, and as she buried +her face in the blossoms, she said resolutely: "No, I haven't had a +mean life. It can't be mean unless I think it so, and I +won't—I won't. After all, it isn't the kind of life you have, +but the way you think about it that matters."</p> +<p>The air was deliciously mild; streaks of pale gold lingered +above the grim outlines of the buildings; and the wild, sweet +spirit of spring fluttered like an imprisoned creature in the gray +streets of the city. It was May again, and the pipes of Pan were +fluting the ancient songs in the ancient racial fields of the +memory. There was a spring softness in the fleecy white of the +clouds, in the flowing gold of the sunset, in the languorous kiss +of the breeze, in the gentle rippling waves of the dust on the +pavement. For years she had been so tranquil, and now suddenly, at +the flitting touch of the spirit of spring, she knew that youth was +slipping, slipping, and that with youth, went romance, enchantment, +adventure. It was slipping from her, and she had never really held +it. She had had only the second-rate; she had missed the best +always—the best of life, the best of love, the best of +endeavour and achievement. She had missed the finer reality. From +somewhere, from the past or the present, from the dream or the +actuality, her young illusions and her young longings rushed over +her, driven by the fragrance of the lilacs, which was stinging her +blood into revolt. Only an instant the revolt lasted, but in that +instant of vision nothing mattered in life except romance, +enchantment, adventure.</p> +<p>"Yes, I've missed life," she thought, and the regret was still +in her mind when one of those miracles which in our ignorance we +call accidents occurred. Out of the lilac-scented twilight, out of +the wild, sweet spirit of spring, a voice said in her ear, "Alice, +you waited!"</p> +<p>Turning quickly, she had a vivid impression of height, breadth, +bigness, of roughened dark red hair, of gray eyes so clean that +they looked 'as if they had been washed by the sea. Then the voice +spoke again: "I beg your pardon. It was a mistake." And the next +instant she was alone in the street.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIa" id="CHAPTER_VIa"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> +<h3>DISCOVERIES</h3> +<p>"Who is Alice?" she wondered on her way home, "and for whom was +she waiting?" A shopgirl perhaps, and he was, probably—not a +clerk in a shop—he looked more like a mechanic—but +hardly a gentleman. Not, at any rate, what her mother or Jane would +call a gentleman—not the kind of gentleman that George was, +or Charley Gracey, for instance. He was doubtless devoid of those +noble traditions by and through which, her mother had always told +her, a gentleman was made out of a man—the traditions which +had created Arthur and Cousin Jimmy as surely as they had created +George and Charley. "I wonder what tradition really amounts to?" +she thought, while she stood on the rear platform of a Harlem +train, grasping the handle of the door as the car swung round a +curve. "All my life, I have been getting farther away from +it—a woman has to, I suppose, when she works—and if I +get away from it myself how can I honestly hold to it for men, who, +according to mother, can't be gentlemen without it?" Then reverting +to her first question, she resumed musingly: "Who <i>is</i> Alice? +It would be rather amusing to be Alice for one evening, and to find +out what it means to be loved by a man like that, even if he isn't +a gentleman. He was, I think, the cleanest creature I ever saw, and +it wasn't just the cleanness of soap and water—it went deeper +than that. It was the cleanness of the winds and the sea—as +if his eyes had been washed by the sea. I wonder who Alice is? A +common little shopgirl probably from Sixth Avenue, with padded hair +and painted lips, and smelling of cheap powder. That's just the +kind of girl to fascinate a big, strong, simple creature like that +Yes, of course, Alice is cheap and tawdry and vulgar, with no +substance to her mind." She tried to think of Arthur, but her +mental image of him had become as thin and unsubstantial as a +shadow.</p> +<p>When she reached the apartment, Fanny rushed into her arms, and +inquired breathlessly if she had taken the house?</p> +<p>"We went down again to look at it, mother, and we like it even +better than ever. It will be so lovely to live next door to Carlie. +We can tango every evening, and Carlie knows a lot of boys who come +in to dance because the floor is so good."</p> +<p>Her cheeks flushed while she talked, and, for the moment, she +lost entirely her resemblance to Jane, who was never animated, +though she made a perpetual murmurous sound. Unlike Jane, Fanny was +vivacious, pert, and, for her years, extraordinarily sophisticated. +Already she dressed with extreme smartness; already she was +thinking of men as of possible lovers; and already she was +beginning, in her mother's phrase, "to manage her life." Her trite +little face, in its mist of golden hair, which she took hours to +arrange, still reminded one of the insipid angel on a Christmas +card; but in spite of the engaging innocence of her look, she was +prodigiously experienced in the beguiling arts of her sex. Almost +from the cradle she had had "a way" with men; and her "way" was as +far superior in finesse to the simple coquetry of Cousin Pussy as +the worldliness of Broadway was superior to the worldliness of Hill +Street. From her yellow hair, which she wore very low over her +forehead and ears, to her silk stockings of the gray called "London +smoke," which showed coquettishly below her "hobble" skirt, and +above the flashing silver buckles on her little pointed shoes of; +patent leather, Fanny was as uncompromisingly modern in her +appearance as she was in her tastes or her philosophy. Her mind, +which was small and trite like her face, was of a curiously +speculative bent, though its speculations were directed mainly +toward the by-paths of knowledge which Gabriella, in her busy life, +had had neither the time nor the inclination to explore. For Fanny +was frankly interested in vice with the cool and dispassionate +interest of the inquiring spectator. She was perfectly aware of the +social evil; and unknown to Gabriella she had investigated, through +the ample medium of the theatre and fiction, every dramatic phase +of the traffic in white slaves. Her coolness never deserted her, +for she was as temperamental as a fish, and, for all the sunny +white and gold of her surface, she had the shallow restlessness of +a meadow brook. At twelve years of age she had devoted herself to +music and had planned an operatic career; at fourteen, she had +turned to literature, and was writing a novel; and a year later, +encouraged by her practical mother, she had plunged into the +movement for woman suffrage, and had marched, in a white dress and +carrying a purple banner, through an admiring crowd in Fifth +Avenue. To-day, after a variable period, when she had dabbled in +kindergarten, wood engraving, the tango, and settlement work, she +was studying for the stage, and had fallen in love with a +matinée idol. Gabriella, who had welcomed the wood engraving +and the kindergartening and had been sympathetically, though +impersonally, aware of the suffrage movement, just as she had been +aware many years before of the Spanish War, was deeply disturbed by +her daughter's recent effervescence of emotion.</p> +<p>"I suppose she'll get over it. She gets over everything," she +had said to Miss Polly, drawing painful comfort from the +shallowness and insincerity of Fanny's nature, "but something +dreadful might happen while she is in one of her moods."</p> +<p>"Not with Fanny," Miss Polly had replied reassuringly. "Fanny +knows more already than you and I put together, and she's got about +as much red blood as a lemon. She ain't the sort that things happen +to, so don't you begin to worry about her. She's got mighty little +sense, that's the gospel truth, but the little she's got has been +sharpened down to a p'int."</p> +<p>"I can't help feeling that she hasn't been well brought up. I +did what I could, but she needed more time and care than I could +give her. It wasn't, of course, as if I'd chosen to neglect her. I +have been obliged to work or she would have starved."</p> +<p>"Oh, well, I wouldn't bother about that. It's like wishing +chickens back in the shell after they're hatched—there ain't +a particle of use in it. If you ask me what I think—then, I'd +say that Fanny would be just exactly what she is if you'd raised +her down yonder in Virginia. Her father's in her as well as you, +and it seems to me that she grows more like him every day that she +lives. Now, Archibald is your child, anybody can tell that at a +glance. It's queer, ain't it how the boys almost always seem to +take after the mother?"</p> +<p>"But Charley has a splendid daughter. Think of his +Margaret."</p> +<p>"Of course, there ain't any rule that works out every time; but +you know, I'll always take up for Mr. Charley if it's with the last +breath I draw. It ain't always the woman that gets the worst of +marriage, though to hear some people talk you'd think it was +nothin' but turkey and plum puddin' for men. But it ain't, I don't +care who says so, and if anybody but a saint could have married +Jane without takin' to drink, I'd like to have seen him try it, +that's all."</p> +<p>That was three weeks ago, and to-night, while Fanny rattled on +about the house in West Twenty-third Street, her mother watched her +with a tolerant affection in which there was neither admiration nor +pride. She was not deluded about Fanny's character, though the +maternal mote in her eye obscured her critical vision of her +appearance. But, notwithstanding the fact that she thought Fanny +beautiful, she was clearly aware that the girl had never been, +since she left the cradle, anything but a source of anxiety; and +for the last week or two Gabriella had been more than usually +worried about her infatuation for the matinée idol. In spite +of Miss Polly's assurances that Fanny was too calculating for rash +adventures, Gabriella had spent several sleepless nights over the +remote possibility of an entanglement, and her anxiety was +heightened by the fact that the child told her nothing. They were +so different that there was little real sympathy between them, and +confidences from daughter to mother must spring, she knew, from +fulness of sympathy. "I wonder if she ever realizes how hard I have +worked for her?" she thought. "How completely I've given up my +life?" And there rose in her thoughts the wish that her children +could have stayed children forever. "As long as they were little, +they filled my life, but as soon as they get big enough for other +things, they break away from me—even Archibald will change +when he goes away to school, next year, and I shall never have him +again as he is now." At the very time, she knew, when she needed +them most—when middle-age was approaching—her children +were failing her not only as companions, but as a supreme and vital +reason for living. If they could have stayed babies, she felt that +she should have been satisfied to go on forever with nothing else +in her life; but in a little while they would grow up and begin to +lead their own intense personal lives, while she, having outlived +her usefulness, would be left with only her work, with only +dressmaking and millinery for a life interest. "Something is wrong +with me," she thought sternly; "the visit to the judge must have +upset me. I don't usually have such wretched thoughts in the +evening."</p> +<p>"Did you bring me your school report, darling?" she asked.</p> +<p>Yes, Fanny had brought it, and she drew it forth reluctantly +from the pages of a novel. It was impossible to make her study. She +was as incapable of application as a butterfly. "I thought you were +going to do better this month, Fanny," said Gabriella +reproachfully.</p> +<p>"Oh, mother dear, I want to leave school. I hate it! Please let +me begin to study for the stage. You know you always said the study +of Shakespeare was improving."</p> +<p>They were in the midst of the argument when Archibald came in, +and he showed little sympathy with Fanny's dramatic ambition.</p> +<p>"The stage? Nonsense! What you want is to get safely married," +he remarked scornfully, and Gabriella agreed with him. There was no +doubt in her mind that for some women, and Fanny promised to be one +of these, marriage was the only safeguard. Then she looked at +Archibald, strong, sturdy, self-reliant, and clever; and she +realized, with a pang, that some day he also would marry—that +she must lose him as well as Fanny.</p> +<p>"I've had a letter from Pelham Forest, dear," she +said—Pelham Forest was a school in Virginia—"and I am +making up my mind to let you go there next autumn."</p> +<p>"And then to the University of Virginia where Grandfather +went?"</p> +<p>"Yes, and then to the University of Virginia."</p> +<p>Though she tried to speak lightly, the thought of the coming +separation brought a pang to her heart.</p> +<p>"Well, I'd rather work," said Archibald stoutly. "I don't want +to go away to school. I'd a long sight rather start in with a +railroad or a steamship company and make my way up."</p> +<p>"But, darling, I couldn't bear that. You must have an education. +It's what I've worked for from the beginning, and when you've +finished at the university, I want to send you abroad to study. If +only Fanny would go to college, too, I'd be so happy."</p> +<p>"Don't you waste any money on Fanny's education," retorted +Archibald, "because it isn't worth it. What we ought to do is to +get to work and let you take a rest. The first money I make, I'm +going to spend on giving you pretty clothes and a rest."</p> +<p>"I don't want to rest, dear," replied Gabriella, with a laugh. +"I'm not an old lady yet, you silly boy." How ridiculous it was +that he always spoke of her work as if it were a hardship—a +burden from which she must be released at the first opportunity. +That was so like Cousin Jimmy, a survival, she supposed, from the +tradition of the South. Unlike Fanny, whose horizon was bounded by +her personal inclinations, Archibald seemed never to think of +himself, never to put either his comfort or his career before his +love for his mother. To attempt to shape Fanny's character was like +working in tissue paper, but there was stout substance in +Archibald. Gabriella had tried hard—she told herself over and +over again that she had tried as hard as she could—with both +of her children; and with one of them at least she felt that she +had succeeded. There was, she knew, the making of a splendid man in +her son; and his very ugliness, which had been so noticeable when +he was a child, was developing now into attractiveness. For it was +the ugliness of strength, not of weakness, and there was no trace +in his nature of the self-indulgence which had ruined his +father.</p> +<p>"But I don't want to go to college, mother dear," protested +Fanny, who always addressed Gabriella as "dear" when she was about +to become intractable; "I want to go on the stage."</p> +<p>"You are not to see another play, except when I take you, for a +whole year. Remember what I tell you, Fanny!" replied Gabriella +sternly. Not Mrs. Carr herself, not Cousin Becky Bollingbroke, of +sanctified memory, could have regarded an actress's career with +greater horror than did the advanced and independent Gabriella. Any +career, indeed, appeared to her to be out of the question for Fanny +(a girl who couldn't even get on a street car without being spoken +to), and of all careers the one the stage afforded was certainly +the last she would have selected for her daughter.</p> +<p>"I'll remember," responded Fanny coolly, and Gabriella knew in +her heart that the girl would disobey her at the first opportunity. +It was impossible to chaperon her every minute, and Fanny, +unchaperoned, was, in the realistic phrase of her brother, "looking +for trouble."</p> +<p>"I'll send her to boarding-school next year," Gabriella +determined; and she reflected gloomily that with Fanny and, +Archibald both away, she might as well be a bachelor woman.</p> +<p>"Well, children, you're both going away next winter," she said +positively. "I can't look after you, Fanny, and make your living at +the same time, so I shall send you to boarding-school. What do you +say to Miss Bradfordine's?"</p> +<p>"That's up on the Hudson, mother. I don't want to go out of New +York." Fanny was genuinely alarmed at last.</p> +<p>"The farther away from New York the better, my daughter."</p> +<p>"What will you do here all alone with Miss Polly?</p> +<p>"Oh, we'll do very well," answered Gabriella with cheerful +promptness; "you need not worry about me."</p> +<p>"If I'm good this summer, will you change your mind, +mother?"</p> +<p>"Try being good, and see." Though Gabriella spoke sweetly, it +was with the obstinate sweetness of Mrs. Carr. One thing she had +resolved firmly in the last quarter of an hour: Fanny should go +away to boarding-school next September.</p> +<p>"Ain't you goin' to walk in the suffrage parade this year, +Fanny?" inquired Miss Polly, who always thought it necessary to +interrupt an argument between Gabriella and her daughter.</p> +<p>"I haven't anything to wear," replied Fanny pettishly. Her brief +interest in "votes for women" had evaporated with the entrance of +the matinée idol into her life.</p> +<p>"There's a lovely white gown just in from Paris I'll get for +you," said Gabriella pleasantly. She was tired, for she had had a +trying day; but long ago, when her children were babies, she had +determined that she would never permit herself to speak sharply to +them. In Fanny's most exasperating humours, Gabriella tried to +remember her own youthful mistakes, tried to be lenient to George's +faults which she recognized in the girl's character.</p> +<p>"As if anybody needed to be dressed up to march!" exclaimed +Archibald scornfully, and he added: "She's always acting, isn't +she, mother?"</p> +<p>"Hush, dear, you mustn't tease your sister," Gabriella +admonished the boy, though her voice when she spoke to him was +attuned to a deeper and softer note.</p> +<p>"If you make me go to boarding-school next year, I don't care +whether you take the rooms in Twenty-third Street or not," said +Fanny sullenly, for, in spite of her fickle temperament, there was +a remarkable tenacity in her thwarted inclinations.</p> +<p>"Very well. I'll look at the house and decide to-morrow." As the +servant came in to lay the table, Gabriella dismissed the subject +of Fanny's school, and opened the book—it chanced to be a +volume of Browning—which she was reading aloud to the +children.</p> +<p>"I am really worried about Fanny," she said to Miss Folly at +midnight, while she lingered in the living-room before going to +bed. "I honestly don't know what to make of her, and I feel, +somehow, that she is one of my failures."</p> +<p>"Well, you can't expect everything to go the way you want it. +Did you see the judge?"</p> +<p>"Yes, I saw him, but it was no use." Her visit to Judge +Crowborough appeared to her perturbed mind as a piece of headstrong +and extravagant folly, and she dismissed it from her thoughts as +she had dismissed heavier burdens in the past. "Men simply won't +treat Women in business as they treat men, and I don't see unless +human nature changes, how it is to be helped. But what about the +house in Twenty-third Street? Do you think I ought to look at +it?"</p> +<p>"It was the most homelike place we saw, by a long way. There +ain't many places in New York where you can have a flower-bed in +the front yard."</p> +<p>"Do you think Fanny will be happy there? A year before this +stage mania seized her, you know, she was wild to move to Park +Avenue."</p> +<p>"Well, you know I've got a suspicion," Miss Folly dropped her +voice to a whisper. "Of course it ain't nothin' but a suspicion, +for she never opens her mouth about it to me, but I've got a right +smart suspicion that that young actor she is so crazy about lives +somewhere down there in that neighbourhood, and she thinks she +could watch him go by in the street. I don't believe, you know, +that she's ever so much as spoken to him in her life."</p> +<p>"It's impossible!" exclaimed Gabriella, for this revelation of +Miss Polly's discernment was astonishing to her; "but if that's the +case," she added gravely, "I oughtn't to think of moving into the +house."</p> +<p>"Oh, well, I don't know that he's anywhere very near, and +Fanny's goin' to be at boarding-school for a year or two and away +with Jane at the White Sulphur in the summers. She won't be there +much anyhow, will she?"</p> +<p>"Not much, but how I shall miss her—and, of course, if I +miss her, I'll miss Archibald even more, because he gives me no +anxiety. It's odd," she finished abruptly, "but I've been depressed +all day. I suppose my birthday has something to do with it."</p> +<p>"You ain't often like that, Gabriella. I never saw anybody keep +in better spirits than you do."</p> +<p>"I'm happy, but the spring makes me restless. I feel as if I'd +missed something I ought to have had."</p> +<p>"All of us feel that way at times, I reckon, but it don't last, +and we settle down comfortably after a while to doin' without what +we haven't got. And you've been mighty successful, honey. You've +succeeded in everything you undertook except marriage."</p> +<p>"Yes, except my marriage."</p> +<p>"Well, I reckon things happen and you can't do 'em over again," +observed the little seamstress, with the natural fatalism of the +"poor white" of the South.</p> +<p>As she undressed and got into bed, Gabriella told herself +cheerfully that there was, indeed, no need to worry over things +that you couldn't change after they happened. From the open window +a shaft of light fell on her mirror, and while she watched it, she +tried to convince her rebellious imagination that she was perfectly +satisfied, that life had given her all that she had ever desired. +"I have more than most women anyhow," she insisted, weakening a +little. "I've accomplished what I undertook, and by the time I'm +fifty, if things go well, I may become a rich woman. I'll be able +to give Fanny everything that she wants, and if she hasn't married, +we can go abroad every summer, and Archibald can join us in +Switzerland or the Tyrol. About Archibald, at least, I can feel +perfectly easy. He is the kind of boy to succeed. He is strong, he +hasn't a weakness, and I am sure there isn't a brighter boy in the +world." Around the shaft of light in the mirror a stream of sparks, +like tiny comets, began to form and quiver back and forth as if +they were flying. "It's a pity the judge can't help me, but it +wouldn't do. I'd never forget what happened to-day, and you can +never tell when trouble like that is coming. I'll either make +Madame give me half the profits for managing the business or I'll +go to Blakeley & Grymn at a salary of ten thousand a year. She +won't let me go, of course, because she knows I'd take two thirds +of her customers with the. Then I'll invest all I can save in the +business until finally I am able to buy it entirely—" An +elevated train passed the corner, and while the rumble died slowly +in the distance, she found herself thinking of Arthur. "How +different my life might have been if I had only stayed true to him. +That's the happiest lot that could fall to a woman, to be loved by +a man as faithful and tender as Arthur." For a few minutes she lay, +without thought, watching the lights quiver and dance in the +mirror, and listening to the faint rumble of the elevated train far +up the street. Then, just as she was falling asleep, a question +flashed out of the flickering lights into her mind, and she started +awake again. "I wonder who Alice is?" she said aloud to the +night.</p> +<p>Several weeks, later, at the end of a busy day, Gabriella stood +in front of the house in London Terrace, watching her furniture as +it passed across the pavement and up the flagged walk into the +hail. The yard was neglected and overgrown with dandelions and +wire-grass; but an old rose-bush by the steps was in full bloom, +and already Miss Polly was surveying the tangled weeds with the eye +of a destroyer.</p> +<p>"I declare I'm just hungerin' for flowers," she said wistfully, +following the dining-room table as far as the foot of the steps +where Gabriella stood. "The very first thing in the morning before +I get breakfast, I'm goin' to sow some mignonette and nasturtium +seeds in that border along the wall, and fix some window boxes with +clove pinks and sweet alyssum in 'em like your ma used to have in +summer. I reckon that's why I was so set on this place from the +first. It looks more like Richmond in old times than it does like +New York."</p> +<p>Beyond the grass and weeds, over which Gabriella was gazing, the +street was so quiet for the moment that it might have been one of +those forgotten squares in Richmond (she had never called them +blocks) where needy gentlewomen still practised "light +housekeeping" in the social twilight of the last century. Now and +then a tired man or woman slouched by from work; once a newsboy +stopped at the gate to shout the name of his paper in belligerent +accents; and a few wagons or a clanging car passed rapidly in the +direction of Broadway. From the corner of Ninth Avenue the elevated +road, which seemed to her at times the only permanent thing in her +surroundings, still roared and rumbled its disturbing undercurrent +in her life.</p> +<p>"I think we shall be quite comfortable here," she said, watching +the last piece of furniture pass through the door. "Where are the +children?" The air had the rich softness of summer, and the roving +fragrance from the old garden rose-bush by the steps awakened a +strange homesickness in her heart—that mysterious +homesickness which the spring gives us for places we have never +seen.</p> +<p>"The children are upstairs fixing their rooms," replied Miss. +Polly, stooping to pluck up a weed by the roots. "I reckon I'd +better go and tell Minnie to begin gettin' dinner, hadn't I?"</p> +<p>"Yes, I'll come in presently. I hate to leave the air and the +roses."</p> +<p>"I wish we had the whole house, Gabriella."</p> +<p>"It would be ever so much nicer, because I'm afraid the man on +the first floor is dreadfully common. I don't like the look of that +golden-oak hatrack in the hail."</p> +<p>"Well, men never did have much taste. Think of the things your +Cousin Jimmy would admire if Miss Pussy didn't tell him not to. Do +you recollect that paper in your parlour at home? Now Mr. Jimmy +thought that paper downright handsome. I've heard him say so."</p> +<p>"It was dreadful, but, do you know, I designed a gown last +winter in peacock blue like that paper, and it was a tremendous +success. Poor mother, I wish she could have seen it—peacock +blue with an embossed border."</p> +<p>"You may laugh about it now, but I don't believe your mother +minded it much. People in old times didn't let things get on their +nerves the way they do to-day."</p> +<p>She went indoors to attend to the dinner table; and as Gabriella +turned back to the steps, she heard the gate slam and a man's voice +exclaim heartily: "I'll see you about it to-morrow." Then a figure +came rapidly up the walk—a large, free figure, with a buoyant +swing, which awoke a trivial and fleeting association in her +memory. Without noticing her, the man stooped for an instant beside +the rose-bush, plucked a bud, and held it to his nostrils as he +turned to the steps. His voice, singing a snatch of ragtime which +she recognized without recalling the name of it, rang out, gay and +powerful, as he approached her.</p> +<p>"I've seen him somewhere. Who can he be?" she thought, and then +swiftly, as in a blaze of light, she remembered the May afternoon +in West Twenty-third Street, and "Alice," whom she had wondered +about and forgotten. She had again a vivid impression of bigness, +of freshness, and of gray eyes that, reminded her vaguely of the +colour of a storm on the sea.</p> +<p>"Good evening!" he remarked with impersonal friendliness as he +passed her; and from the quality of his voice she inferred, as she +had done on that May afternoon, that he was without culture, +probably without education.</p> +<p>He went inside; the door of his front room opened and shut, and +after a minute or two the snatch of ragtime floated merrily through +his window. If there was anything on earth she disliked, she +reflected impatiently, it was a comic song.</p> +<p>"He isn't a gentleman. I was right, he is common," she thought +disdainfully, as she went indoors and ascended the stairs. "And he +may make it very disagreeable for us if he insists on bringing +common people into the houses" There was a vague impression in her +mind that the males of the lower classes were invariably noisy.</p> +<p>"I saw the man on the first floor as I came up," she remarked to +Miss Folly. "I hope he isn't going to be an annoyance."</p> +<p>"Mrs. Squires says he's never in evenings. He gets all his meals +out except breakfast, and she fixes that for him. She told me he +was hardly ever here unless he was eatin' or sleepin', so I don't +reckon he'll bother us?"</p> +<p>"Well, I'm glad of that, because he isn't the kind of person I'd +like the children to see anything of. You can tell that he is quite +common."</p> +<p>"What does he look like? Is he rough?"</p> +<p>"Oh, no, he is good looking enough—a fine animal. I +suppose he's handsome in a way, and he was dressed very carefully, +but, of course, he isn't a gentleman." For the second time this +stranger had made her feel that she had missed something in life, +and she felt almost that she hated him.</p> +<p>"Oh, well, I don't reckon it will hurt us to pass him in the +hall," replied Miss Polly soothingly, "as long as he don't bring in +any diseases."</p> +<p>The next day they settled comfortably in the upper rooms and, as +far as sound or movement went, the floor below might have been +tenanted by the dead. When she went out Gabriella passed the +dreadful hatrack of golden-oak in the lower hail; and after a day +or two she noticed that it held a collection of soft felt hats, two +overcoats of good cut and material, and an assortment of +gold-headed walking-sticks, which appeared never to be used. Though +she tried to ignore the presence of the hatrack, there was an +aggressive masculinity about it which revived in her the almost +forgotten feeling of having "a man in the house." The mere +existence of a man—of an unknown man—on the first +floor, altered the character not only of the lower hail, but of the +entire house; it was, she felt instinctively, a different place +from a house occupied by women alone. She had seen so little of men +in the last ten years that she had almost forgotten their +distinguishing characteristics, and the scent of tobacco stealing +through the closed door of the front room downstairs came as a +fresh surprise when she passed Out in the morning. "I suppose I'm +getting old maidish," she thought. "That comes of leading a +one-sided life. Yes, I am getting into a groove." And she +determined that she would go out more in the evenings and try to +take an interest in the theatre and the new dances. But even while +she was in the act of resolving, she realized that when her hard +day's work was over, and she came home at six o'clock, she was too +tired; too utterly worn out, for anything except dinner and bed. +There was still the cheerful hour with the children (that she had +kept up in the busiest seasons); but when the question of going out +was discussed at dinner, she usually ended by sending the children +to a lecture or a harmless play with Miss Polly. "When you work as +hard as I do, there isn't much else for you in life," she concluded +regretfully, and there swept over her, as on that May afternoon, a +sense of failure, of dissatisfaction, of disappointment. Youth was +slipping, slipping, and she had missed something.</p> +<p>At such moments she thought sadly of her life, of its +possibilities and its significance. It ought in the nature of +things, she felt, to mean so much more than it had meant; it ought +to have been so much more vital, so much more satisfying and +complete. As it was, she could remember of it only scattered ends, +frayed places, useless beginnings, and broken promises. With how +many beliefs had she started, and now not one of them remained with +her—well, hardly one of them! The dropping of illusion after +illusion—that was what the years had brought to her as they +passed; for she saw that she had always been growing farther and +farther away from tradition, from accepted opinions, from the +dogmas and the ideals of the ages. The experience and the wisdom of +others had failed her at the very beginning.</p> +<p>At the end of the week, when she and Miss Polly were watering +seeds in the yard one afternoon at sunset, the man from the first +floor came leisurely up the walk, and removing a big black cigar +from his mouth, wished them "good evening" as he passed.</p> +<p>"Good evening," responded Gabriella coolly. She had resolved +that there should be no interchange of unnecessary civilities +between the first floor and the upper storeys. "One can never tell +how far men of that class will presume," she thought sternly.</p> +<p>"Don't you think he's good lookin', honey?" inquired Miss Polly +in a whisper when O'Hara had entered the house with his latchkey +and closed the door after him.</p> +<p>"Is he? I didn't look at him."</p> +<p>"You wouldn't think he'd ever had a day's sickness in his life. +I reckon he's as big as your Cousin Micajah Berkeley was. You don't +recollect, him, do you?"</p> +<p>"He died before I was born. Are those wisps of gray green, in +the border, pinks, Miss Polly?"</p> +<p>"Clove pinks like your ma used to raise. It ain't the right time +to set 'em out, but I sent all the way down to Richmond for 'em. +I'm goin' to get a microphylla rose, too, in the fall. Do you +reckon it would grow up North, Gabriella?"</p> +<p>"Well, we might try, anyhow. Where are the children?"</p> +<p>"Fanny's over at Carlie's, an' Archibald said he was goin' to +the gymnasium befo' dinner. He's just crazy about gettin' as strong +as the man on the first floor. He was punching a ball this mornin', +and Archibald saw him. I never knew the boy to take such a sudden +fancy."</p> +<p>"When did he speak to him?" asked Gabriella, and her tone had a +touch of asperity so unusual that Miss Polly exclaimed in +astonishment: "For goodness sake, Gabriella, what has come over +you? Do you feel any sort of palpitations? Shall I run after the +harts-horn?"</p> +<p>"No, I'm not ill, but I don't like Archibald to pick up +acquaintances I know nothing about."</p> +<p>"I reckon if you're goin' to sample all Archibald's +acquaintances, you'll have a job on your hands. You ain't gone an' +taken a dislike to Mr. O'Hara for nothin', have you?"</p> +<p>"Oh, no, but I have to be careful about the children. Suppose he +should begin speaking to Fanny?" She had been vividly aware of the +man as he passed, and the sensation had provoked her. "If it wasn't +for Alice, I shouldn't have given him another thought," she told +herself savagely. "Imagine me at my age blushing because a strange +man spoke to me in the street!"</p> +<p>"You needn't worry about his admirin' Fanny," replied Miss +Polly, in her matter-of-fact manner, while she lifted the green +watering-pot. "He was on the steps when she set out for school this +mornin', an' he didn't notice her any more than he did me. Fanny +ain't the sort he takes notice of, I could see that in a +minute."</p> +<p>"Then he must be blind." There was a resentful sound in +Gabriella's voice. "It embarrasses me when I get on a street car +with her because the men stare so."</p> +<p>"Well, he didn't stare. But it's a mighty good thing that all +men haven't got the same kind of eyes, ain't it? What I could never +make out was why men ever marry women who haven't got curly hair, +an' yet they do it every day—they go right straight out an' +do it with their wits about 'em."</p> +<p>The front door opened suddenly, and the man came out again, and, +descended the walk with the springy step Gabriella had noticed at +their first meeting. Notwithstanding his size, he moved with the +lightness and agility of a boy, and without looking at him she +could see, as she bent over the flower-bed, that he had the look of +exuberant vitality which accompanies perfect physical condition. +Without meaning to, without knowing why she did it, she glanced up +quickly and met his eyes.</p> +<p>"So you are making a garden?" he remarked, and stopped beside +the freshly turned flower-bed. Against the gray twilight the red of +his hair was like a dark flame, and the vivid colour appeared to +intensify the sanguine glow in his face, the steady gaze of his +eyes, and the cheerful heartiness of his voice.</p> +<p>"He is cyclonic," she said to herself. "Yes, that is the +word—he is cyclonic—but he isn't a gentleman."</p> +<p>"It's a pity to let the yard run to waste," she responded, with +an imperiousness which took Miss Polly's breath away, though it +left the irrepressible O'Hara still buoyantly gay and kind.</p> +<p>"Now it takes a woman to think of that," he observed with an +off-hand geniality which she felt was directed less toward herself +than toward an impersonal universe. "I like to look at that old +rose-bush when it is in bloom, but the idea"—(he pronounced +it idee)—"of planting anything would never have occurred to +me."</p> +<p>Gabriella's lips closed firmly, while she sprinkled the earth +with an air of patient finality which made Miss Polly think of Mrs. +Carr on one of her neuralgic days.</p> +<p>"What's that stringy looking grass over there?" pursued the man, +undismayed by her manner.</p> +<p>"Clove pinks." Nothing, she told herself indignantly, could +persuade her to encourage the acquaintance of a man who +mispronounced his words so outrageously.</p> +<p>"And here?" He pointed to the flower-bed she was watering.</p> +<p>"Mignonette and nasturtium seeds."</p> +<p>"When will they come up?"</p> +<p>"Very soon if they're watered."</p> +<p>"And they'll bloom about July, I guess?"</p> +<p>"They ought to bloom all summer. In the autumn, if we have room, +we're going to plant some dahlias, and a row of hollyhocks against +the house. By next summer the yard will look much better."</p> +<p>"By George!" he exclaimed abruptly, and after a minute or two: +"Do you know, I can remember the first time I ever saw a +flower—or the first time I took notice of one, anyway. It was +red—a red geranium. There was a whole cart of 'em, and that's +why I noticed 'em, I expect. But a red geranium is a Jim-dandy +flower, ain't it?"</p> +<p>To this outburst Gabriella made no reply. Her will had hardened +with the determination not to be drawn into conversation, and while +he waited with his eager gray eyes—so like the alert, wistful +eyes of a great dog—on her profile, she began carelessly +plucking up spears of grass from the flower-bed.</p> +<p>For a minute he waited expectantly; then, as she did not look +up, he remarked, "So long!" in a voice of serene friendliness, and +went on to the gate. He had actually said "So long" to her, +Gabriella, and he had said it with a manner of established +intimacy!</p> +<p>"Well, what do you think of that?" she demanded scornfully of +Miss Polly when he had disappeared up the street.</p> +<p>"I reckon he don't know any better, honey. You don't learn much +about manners in a mine, I 'spose, and when he ain't down in a +mine, Mrs. Squires says he's building railroads across deserts. She +says he ain't ever had anything, education or money, that he didn't +pick up for himself, and you oughtn't to judge him as you do some +others you've known. Anyway, she says he's made a big pile of +money."</p> +<p>"I believe you're taking up for him, Miss Polly. Has he +bewitched you?"</p> +<p>"I don't like to see you hard, Gabriella. You're almost always +so tolerant. It ain't like you to sit in judgment."</p> +<p>"I am not sitting in judgment, but I don't see why I'm obliged +to be friendly with a strange man who says 'idee.' It would be bad +for the children."</p> +<p>"Mrs. Squires has known him for thirty years—he's +forty-five now—and she says it's a miracle the way he's come +up. He was born in a cellar."</p> +<p>"I dare say he has a great deal of force, but you must admit +that blood tells, Miss Polly."</p> +<p>"I never said it didn't, Gabriella—only that there's much +more credit to a man that comes up without it."</p> +<p>"Oh, I'll admire him all you please," retorted Gabriella, "if +you'll promise to keep him away from the children."</p> +<p>Though she spoke sharply, the sharpness was directed not to Miss +Polly, but to herself—to her own incomprehensible +childishness. The man interested her; already she had thought of +him daily since she first came to the house; already she had begun +to wonder about him, and she realized that she should wonder still +more because of what Miss Polly had told her. When he had +approached her in the yard, she had been vaguely disturbed, vaguely +thrilled by the strangeness and the mystery surrounding him; she +had been subtly aware of his nearness before she heard his step, +and turning, found his eyes fixed upon her. Her own weakness in not +controlling her curiosity, in recurring, in spite of her determined +resolve to that first meeting, in allowing a coarse, rough +stranger—yes, a coarse, rough, uneducated stranger, she +insisted desperately—to hold her attention for a +minute—the incredible weakness of these things goaded her +into a feeling of positive anger. For ten years there had been no +men in her life, and now at thirty-seven, when she was almost +middle-aged, she was beginning to feel curious about the history of +the first good-looking man she encountered—about a mere +robust, boisterous embodiment of masculinity. "What difference can +it make to me who Alice is?" she demanded indignantly. "What +possible difference?" She forced herself to think tenderly of +Arthur; but during the last few months the image of Arthur had +receded an immeasurable distance from her life. His remoteness and +his unreality distressed her; but try as she would, she could not +recall him from the gauzy fabric of dreams to the tangible +substance of flesh.</p> +<p>"It isn't that I care for myself," she said to Miss Polly +abruptly, as if she were defending herself against an unspoken +accusation. "I am a working woman, and a working woman can't afford +to be snobbish—certainly a dressmaker can't—but I must +look after my children. That is an imperative duty. I must see that +they form friendships in their own class."</p> +<p>But life, as she had already discovered, has a sardonic manner +of its own in such crises. That night she planned carefully, lying +awake in the darkness, the subterfuges and excuses by which she +would keep Archibald away from O'Hara, and the very next afternoon +when she came home from work she found confusion in the street, a +fire engine at the corner, and, on the steps of her home, the boy +clinging rapturously to the hand of the man.</p> +<p>"You ought to have been here, mother," cried Archibald in tones +of ecstatic excitement. "We had a fire down the street in that +apartment house—and before the firemen came Mr. O'Hara went +in and got out a woman and some children who had been overcome by +smoke. He had to lower them from a fire-escape, and he got every +one of them out before the engine could get here. I saw it all. I +was on the corner and saw it all.</p> +<p>"I hope Mr. O'Hara wasn't hurt," remarked Gabriella, but her +voice was not enthusiastic.</p> +<p>"To hear the kid run on," responded O'Hara, overpowered by +embarrassment, "you'd think I'd really done something, wouldn't +you? Well, it wasn't anything. It was as easy as—as eating. +Now, I was caught down in a mine once in Arizona—"</p> +<p>"Tell me about it. Mother, ask him to tell you about it," +entreated Archibald. The boy was obviously consumed with curiosity +and delight. Gabriella had never seen him so enthusiastic, so swept +away by emotion. Already, she suspected, he had fallen a victim to +the passion of hero worship, and O'Hara—the man who spoke of +"idees"—was his hero! "I shall have to be careful," she +thought. "I shall have to be very careful or Archibald will come +under his influence."</p> +<p>"Well, I guess I must be going along," remarked O'Hara, a little +nervously, for he was evidently confused by her imperious manner. +"A fellow is expecting me to dinner over at the club."</p> +<p>"But I want to hear about the mine. Mother, make him tell us +about the mine!" cried Archibald insistently.</p> +<p>"I'll tell you another time, sonny. We'll get together some day +when your mother don't want you, and we'll start off on a regular +bat. How would you like that?"</p> +<p>"When?" demanded the boy eagerly. His fear of losing O'Hara +showed in the fervour with which he spoke, in the frantic grasp +with which he still clung to his hand. It occurred to Gabriella +suddenly that she ought to have thrown Archibald more in the +companionship of men, that she had kept him too much with women, +that 'she had smothered him in her love. This was the result of her +selfish devotion—that he should turn from her to the first +male creature that came into his life!</p> +<p>Her heart was sore, but she said merely: "That is very kind of +you, Mr. O'Hara, but I'm afraid I mustn't let my boy go off on a +regular bat without me."</p> +<p>"Oh, yes, I may, mother. Say I may," interrupted Archibald with +rebellious determination.</p> +<p>"Well, we'll see about it when the time comes." She turned her +head, meeting O'Hara's gaze, and for an instant they looked +unflinchingly into each other's eyes. In her look there was +surprise, indignation, and a suspicion of fear—why should he, +a stranger, come between her and her son?—and in his steady +gaze there was surprise, also, but it was mingled, not with +indignation and fear, but with careless and tolerant amusement. She +knew from his smile that he was perfectly indifferent to her +resentment, that he was even momentarily entertained by it, and the +knowledge enraged her. The glance he gave her was as impersonal as +the glance he gave Miss Polly or the rose-bush or the street with +its casual stream of pedestrians. It was the glance of a man who +had lived deeply, and to whom living meant action and achievement +rather than criticism or philosophy. He would not judge her, she +understood, simply because his mind was not in the habit of +judging. His interest in her was merely a part of his intense, +zestful interest in life. She shared with Miss Polly and Archibald, +and any chance object that attracted his attention for an instant, +the redundant vitality of his inquiring spirit. "No wonder he has +worked his way up with all that energy," she reflected. "No wonder +he has made money." His face, with its clear ruddiness, was the +face of a man who has breathed strong winds and tasted the sharp +tang of sage and pine; and she noticed again that his deep gray +eyes had the unwavering look of eyes that have watched wide +horizons of sea or desert. There was no suggestion of the city +about him, though his clothes were well cut, and she was quick to +observe, followed the latest styles of Fifth Avenue. "Yes, he is +good looking," she admitted reluctantly. "There is no question +about that, and he has personality, too—of a kind." His hat +was in his hand—a soft hat of greenish-gray felt—and +her eye rested for a moment on his uncovered head with its thick +waves of red hair, a little disordered as if a high wind had +roughened them. "If he only had breeding or education, he might be +really worth while," she added, almost approvingly.</p> +<p>When he spoke again O'Hara ignored Gabriella, and turned his +alert questioning glance on the little seamstress. Fanny had +sauntered up the walk to join the group—Fanny in all the +glory of her yellow curls, and her "debutante slouch "—and he +bowed gravely to her without the faintest change of expression. If +he admired Fanny's beauty and pitied Miss Polly's plainness, there +was no hint of it in the indifferent look he turned from the girl +to the old woman.</p> +<p>"The next time you're planting things," he said earnestly, "I +wish you'd set out a red geranium. I saw a cart of 'em go by in the +street this morning and I had half a mind to buy a pot or two for +the yard. If I get some, will you put 'em out?"</p> +<p>"Why, of course, I will. I'll be real glad to," responded Miss +Polly, agreeably flattered by his request. "Is there any special +place you want me to plant them?"</p> +<p>"Anywhere I can see 'em from the window. I'd like to look at 'em +while I eat my breakfast. And while we are about it, wouldn't it be +just as well to set out a whole bed of 'em?" he asked with a +munificent gesture which included in one comprehensive sweep the +weeds, the walk, the elm tree, the blossoming rose-bush, and the +freshly turned flower-borders. The large free movement of his arm +expressed a splendid scorn of small things, of little makeshifts, +of subterfuges and evasions.</p> +<p>"Don't you think it would cut up the yard too much to make +another bed?" asked Gabriella, inspired by the whimsical demon of +opposition. It was true that she had no particular fondness for red +geraniums; but if Miss Polly had expressed, on her own account, a +desire to plant the street with them, she would never have thought +of objecting.</p> +<p>"Well, the yard ain't much to brag of anyhow," replied Miss +Polly with that careful penetration which never sees below the +surface of things. "To tell the truth I've always had a sort of +leanin' toward geraniums myself—especially rose geraniums. I +don't know why on earth," she concluded with animated wonder, "I +never thought of putting rose geraniums in that window box along +with the sweet alyssum. They would have been the very things and +they don't take so much watering."</p> +<p>"That's a bargain, then," said O'Hara, with his ringing laugh +which made Gabriella smile in spite of herself. Then, after shaking +hands with each one of the group, he went down the walk and passed +with his vigorous stride in the direction of Broadway.</p> +<p>When the gate had closed, and his large figure had vanished in +the distance, Gabriella said sternly: "Archibald, you must not lose +your head over strangers. We know nothing on earth about Mr. O'Hara +except that he lives in this house."</p> +<p>"Oh, but, mother, he was splendid at the fire! You ought to have +seen him holding a girl by one arm out of the window. He was as +brave as a fireman, everybody said so, didn't they, Miss +Polly?"</p> +<p>"Men of that sort always have courage," observed Gabriella +contemptuously, and despised herself for the remark. What was the +matter with her this afternoon? Why did this man arouse in her the +instinct of combativeness, the fever of opposition? Was it all +because she suspected him of a vulgar intrigue with a shopgirl? And +why had she decided so positively that Alice was vulgar? Certainly, +she, a dressmaker, should be the last to condemn shopgirls as +vulgar.</p> +<p>"I declare, I can't begin to make you out, Gabriella," said Miss +Polly uneasily. "I never heard you talk about folks bein' common +before. It don't sound like you."</p> +<p>"Well, he is common, you know," protested Gabriella, with a +strange, almost tearful violence. "Why did he have to shake hands +with us all—with each one of us, even Fanny, when he went +away? We'd hardly spoken to him."</p> +<p>"I don't know what's come over you," observed the seamstress +gloomily. "I reckon I'm common, too, so I don't notice it. But I +must say I like the way he spoke about geraniums. He showed a real +nice feelin'."</p> +<p>The words were hardly out of her mouth before Gabriella had +caught her in her arms. "I know I'm horrid, dear Miss Polly," she +said penitently, "but I don't like Mr. O'Hara."</p> +<p>"Then I shouldn't see any more of him than I was obliged to, +honey, and there ain't a bit of use in Archibald's goin' with him +if you don't want him to."</p> +<p>"I don't like to forbid him. Of course, I know nothing against +the man—it is only a feeling."</p> +<p>"Well, feelin's are mighty queer things sometimes," remarked +Miss Polly, scoring a triumph which left the indignant Gabriella at +her mercy; "and when I come to think of it; I don't recollect that +yours have always been such good judges of folks."</p> +<p>The geraniums arrived in a small cart the next morning, but +O'Hara did not appear, and for several weeks, though Gabriella +glanced suspiciously at the hatrack each morning when she passed +through the hail, there was no sign of life in his rooms. Then one +afternoon he reappeared as suddenly as he had vanished, and she +found Archibald with him in the yard when she came home at six +o'clock. That the boy would be her difficulty, she knew by +instinct, for he had been seized by one of those unaccountable +romantic fancies to which the young of the race are disposed. +Though the sentiment was certainly far less dangerous than Fanny's +passion for the, matinée idol, since it revealed itself +principally as a robust and wholly masculine ambition to follow in +the footsteps of adventure, Gabriella fought it almost as fiercely +as she had fought Fanny's incipient love affair.</p> +<p>"He is making Archibald rough," she said to Miss Polly, after a +fortnight of unavailing opposition to the new influence in +Archibald's life. "Until we came here," she added despondently, +"Archibald loved me better than anything in the world, and now he +seems to think of nothing but this man."</p> +<p>"It looks to me as if it was mighty good for the child, honey. +You can't keep a boy tied to your apron-strings all the time. +Archibald needs a father the same as other boys, and if he hasn't +got one, he's either goin' to break loose or he's goin' to become a +mollycoddle. You don't want to make a mollycoddle of him, do +you?"</p> +<p>"Of course not," answered Gabriella honestly, for, in spite of +her strange fits of unreasonableness, she was still sensible enough +in theory. "I've tried hard to keep him manly—not to spoil +him, you know that as well as I do. And it isn't that I object to +his making friends. I'd give anything in the world if he could know +Arthur. If it had been Arthur," she went on gently, "I should have +been glad to have him come first. I shouldn't have cared a bit if +he had loved Arthur better than me."</p> +<p>"You oughtn't to talk like that, Gabriella, for you know just as +well as can be that Archibald don't love anybody better than he +loves you. As far as I can make out though, Mr. O'Hara sets him a +real good example. I don't see that he's doin' the child a particle +of harm, and I don't believe you see it either. To be sure you +don't think much of football, but it's a long ways better than +loafin' round with nothin' to do, and this boy scout business that +Archibald talks so much about sounds all right to me. Now, he never +would have thought a thing about that except for Mr. O'Hara."</p> +<p>"Yes, that's all right. I approve of that, but I can't help +hating to see a stranger get so strong an influence over my son. It +isn't fair of him."</p> +<p>"Then why don't you tell him to stop it. I believe he'd be +sensible about it, and if I was you, I'd have it every bit out with +him."</p> +<p>"If it doesn't stop, I'll find some way of showing him that I +object to the friendship. But, after all, it may be only a fancy of +Archibald's. Anyhow, I'll wait a while before I take any step."</p> +<p>At the beginning of August Gabriella sent the children to the +country with Miss Polly, and sailed, on a fast boat, for a brief +visit to the great dress designers of Paris. Ever since Madame's +age and infirmities had forced her to relinquish this annual trip, +Gabriella had taken her place, and all through the year she looked +forward to it as to the last of her youthful adventures. On her +last visit, Billy and Patty had been in Switzerland; but this +summer they met her at Cherbourg; and she spent several brilliant +days with them before they flitted off again, and left her to the +doubtful consideration of dressmakers and milliners. Patty, who +appeared to grow younger and lovelier with each passing year, came +to her room the evening before they parted, and asked her in a +whisper if she had heard of George or Florrie in the ten years +since their elopement?</p> +<p>"Not a word—not a single word, darling. I haven't heard +his name mentioned since I got my divorce."</p> +<p>"You didn't know, then, that Florrie left him six months after +they ran away?"</p> +<p>"No, I didn't know. Does he ever write to you?"</p> +<p>"Not to me, but mother hears from him every now and then when he +wants money badly. Of course she doesn't have much to send him, but +she gives him every penny she can spare. A year ago she had a +letter from some doctor in New Jersey telling her that he was +treating George for the drink habit, and that he needed to be kept +somewhere for treatment for several months. We sent her the money +she needed, Billy and I, but in her next letter she said that +George had escaped from the hospital and that she hadn't heard of +him since. That must have been about six months ago."</p> +<p>"It's dreadful for his mother," observed Gabriella, with vague +compassion, for she felt as if Patty were speaking of a stranger +whose face she was incapable of visualizing in her memory. In the +last ten years she had not only forgotten George, but she had +forgotten as completely the Gabriella who had once loved him. +Though it was still possible for her to revoke the hollow images of +the past, she could not restore to these images even the remotest +semblance of reality and passion. It was as if some nerve—the +sentimental nerve—had atrophied. She could remember George as +she remembered the house in Fifty-seventh Street or her +wedding-gown which Miss Polly had made; she could say to herself, +"I loved him when I married him," or, "It was in such a year that +he left me"; but the empty phrases awoke no responsive echoes in +her heart; and it would have been impossible to imagine a woman +less crushed or permanently saddened by the wreck of her happiness. +"I suppose it's hard work that keeps me from thinking about the +past," she reflected while she watched Patty's beautiful face +framed by the pale gold of her hair. "I suppose it's work that has +driven everything else out of my thoughts."</p> +<p>"Have you any idea what became of Florrie?" she asked, moved by +a passing curiosity.</p> +<p>"She left George for a very rich man she met in London. I +believe he had a wife already, but things like that never stood in +Florrie's way."</p> +<p>"It's queer, isn't it, because she really has a kind heart."</p> +<p>"Yes, she is kind-hearted when you don't get in her way, but she +was born without any morality just as some people are born without +any sense of smell or hearing. I know several women over here who +are like that—American women, too—and, do you know, +they are all surprisingly successful. Nobody seems to suspect their +infirmity, least of all the men who become their victims."</p> +<p>"I sometimes think," observed Gabriella cynically, "that men +like women to be without feeling. It saves them so much +trouble."</p> +<p>The next day Patty fluttered off like a brilliant butterfly, and +Gabriella began to suffer acute homesickness for the house in +Twenty-third Street and her children. Not once during her stay in +Paris did the thought of O'Hara enter her mind; and so completely +had she ceased to worry about his friendship for Archibald that it +was almost a shock to her when, after landing one September +afternoon, she drove up to the gate and found the man and the boy +standing together beside a flourishing border of red geraniums, +which appeared almost to cover the yard.</p> +<p>"Oh, look, Ben, there's mother!" cried Archibald; and turning +quickly, the two came to meet her.</p> +<p>"My darling, I thought you were still in the country," said +Gabriella, kissing her son.</p> +<p>"We've been here almost a week.. The place closed, so we decided +to come back to town. It's much nicer here," replied Archibald +eagerly. He looked sunburned and vigorous, and it seemed to +Gabriella that he had grown prodigiously in six weeks.</p> +<p>"Why, you look so much taller, Archibald!" she exclaimed, +laughing with happiness, "or, perhaps, I've been thinking of you as +a little boy." Then, while her manner grew formal, she held out her +hand to O'Hara. "How do you do, Mr. O'Hara?"</p> +<p>He was standing bareheaded in the faint sunshine, and while her +eyes rested on his dark red hair, still moist and burnished from +brushing, his tanned and glowing face, and on the tiny flecks of +black in the clear gray of his eyes, she was startled by a +sensation of strangeness and unreality as if she were looking into +his face for the first time.</p> +<p>"Oh, we're well. I've been playing with Archibald. Did you have +a good crossing?"</p> +<p>"It was smooth enough, but I got so impatient. I wanted to be +with the children."</p> +<p>"Well, I went once, and I was jolly glad to get back again. +There was nothing to do over there but loaf and lie around."</p> +<p>There would be nothing else for him, of course, she reflected; +and she wondered vaguely if he had ever entered a picture gallery? +What would Europe offer to a person possessing neither culture nor +a passion for clothes?</p> +<p>The driver had placed her bags inside the gate; and O'Hara took +charge of them as if it were the most natural thing in the world to +carry for a fellow tenant. Upstairs in the sitting-room he put his +burden down, unfastened the straps, and commented upon the leather +of a bag she had bought in Paris.</p> +<p>"I'd like to have a grip like that myself. Is there anything +else I can help about?"</p> +<p>"No, thank you." She was embracing Fanny, and she did not glance +at him as she responded: "You are very kind, but my trunks are +arranged for."</p> +<p>At this he went without a word, and Gabriella began a joyous +account of her trip to the children.</p> +<p>"Year after next, if you work hard with your French, you may +both go with me. Then you'll be big enough to look after each other +while I am with the dressmakers."</p> +<p>"Oh, tell me about the dressmakers, mother. What did you bring +me?" urged Fanny, prettily excited by the thought of her gifts. "I +need dreadfully some dancing frocks. Carlie has a lovely one her +mother has just bought for her."</p> +<p>"I have all your autumn dresses, darling; everything you can +possibly need at Miss Bradfordine's."</p> +<p>Fanny's eager face grew suddenly fretful. "Am I really to go +away to school, mother?"</p> +<p>"Really, precious, both you and Archibald. Think of your poor +lonely mother." Breaking off with a start she glanced inquiringly +about the room, and turned a hurt look on Miss Polly. "Why, where +is Archibald? I thought he was in the room."</p> +<p>"I reckon he must have gone down after Mr. O'Hara. They had just +got back from a ball game, and I 'spose they felt like talking +about it. He'll be up again in a minute, because Mr. O'Hara goes +out at six o'clock."</p> +<p>"But I've just come home." Her lip trembled. "I should think +Archibald would rather be with me."</p> +<p>"Oh, he won't stay, and you'll have him all the evening. +Archibald is just crazy about gettin' you back."</p> +<p>Taking off her hat, a jaunty twist of black velvet from Paris, +Gabriella went into her bedroom and changed to a gown of clear blue +crape, which she took out of the new bag. When she came out again, +with her arms filled with Fanny's gifts, there was a flush in her +usually pale face, and her eyes were bright with determination.</p> +<p>"I put these in my bag, Fanny, so you wouldn't have to wait for +the trunks. Try on this little white silk."</p> +<p>"Oh, mother, you look so sweet in that blue gown!"</p> +<p>"I got it for almost nothing, dear, but the colour is lovely." +Turning restlessly away, she walked to the window and stood looking +over Miss Polly's window box down on the brilliant border of red +geraniums.</p> +<p>"Has Archibald come upstairs yet, Miss Polly?"</p> +<p>"Not yet, but he'll be up directly. Don't you worry."</p> +<p>For an instant Gabriella hesitated; then crossing the room with +a resolute step, she turned, with her hand on the knob, and looked +back at the startled face of the little seamstress, who was +fastening Fanny's white gown.</p> +<p>"Well, I'm going after him," she said sternly; "I am going +straight downstairs to find him."</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIIa" id="CHAPTER_VIIa"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> +<h3>READJUSTMENTS</h3> +<p>For a minute Gabriella stood outside the door of what had once +been the drawing-room of the house, while she listened attentively +to the sound of animated voices within. Then suddenly Archibald's +breezy laugh rang out into the hail, and raising her hand from the +knob, she knocked softly on the white-painted panel of the +door.</p> +<p>"Come in!" called O'Hara's voice carelessly; and Gabriell +entered and imperatively held out her hand to her son, who was +standing by the window.</p> +<p>"Come, Archibald, I want you," she said gravely. "You went off +without seeing your gifts." She had invaded the sitting-room of a +strange man, but her purpose was a righteous one, and there was no +embarrassment in her manner.</p> +<p>"Oh, mother, are they upstairs? I'll run up and see them!" +cried, Archibald delightedly. "I thought they were all in the +trunks."</p> +<p>Darting past her in a flash, he bounded up the staircase, while +Gabriella stood facing O'Hara, who had risen and thrown away his +cigar at her entrance. The room was still fragrant with tobacco; +there was a light cloud of smoke over the mignonette in the window +box, and beyond it, she could see the dim foliage of the elm tree +waving over the flagged walk to the gate. With an eye trained to +recognize the value of details, she saw that the sitting-room was +furnished with the same deplorable taste which had selected the +golden-oak hatrack and the assortment of ornamental walking-sticks. +The woodwork had been stained to match the oak of the barbarous +writing-table, which held a distorted bronze lamp, with the base +composed of a heavily draped feminine figure, a massive desk set, +also of bronze, a pile of newspapers, a dictionary, and several +dull-looking books with worn covers and dog's eared pages. She +noticed that the chairs were all large and solid, with deep arms +and backs upholstered in red leather, which looked as if it would +never wear out, that the rug was good, and that, except for a few +meretricious oil paintings on the greenish walls, the room was +agreeably bare of decoration. After her first hesitating glance, +she surmised that a certain expensive comfort was the end sought +for and achieved, and that in the furnishing beauty had evidently +been estimated in figures.</p> +<p>"Mr. O'Hara," she began firmly, "I wish you would not take my +son away from me."</p> +<p>He did not lower his gaze, and she saw, after an instant in +which he appeared merely surprised, a look of amusement creep into +his expressive eyes. Within four walls, in his light summer +clothes, with the gauzy drift of tobacco smoke over his head, he +looked larger and more irrepressibly energetic than he had done out +of doors.</p> +<p>"I am sorry you feel that way," he returned very slowly after a +pause. Already she had discovered that he had great difficulty with +his words except when he was stirred by excitement into +self-forgetfulness. At other times he seemed curiously +inarticulate, and she saw now that, while she waited for his +answer, he was groping about in his mind for a suitable phrase in +which to repel her accusation.</p> +<p>"I appreciate your interest in him," she resumed smoothly, "but +he is with you too much. I do not know you. I know nothing in the +world about you."</p> +<p>"Well—" Again he hesitated as if over an impediment in his +speech. Then, finding with an effort the words he needed, he went +on more easily: "If there's anything you'd like to know, I guess +you can ask me."</p> +<p>She frowned slightly, and leaving the door moved resolutely to +the writing-table, where she stopped with her hand on the pile of +newspapers. Against the indeterminate colour of the walls her head, +with its dark, silver-powdered hair, worn smooth and close after +the Parisian fashion, showed as clear and fine as an etching. In +her blue summer gown she looked almost girlish in spite of the +imperious dignity of her carriage; and from her delicate head to +her slender feet, she diffused an air of fashion which perplexed +and embarrassed him, though he was unaware of the conscious art +which produced it.</p> +<p>"The only thing I'd like to know about you," she answered, "is +why you have taken so sudden a fancy to my son?"</p> +<p>At this he laughed outright, with a boyish zest which dispelled +the oppressive formality of her manner. He was completely at his +ease again, and while he ran his hand impatiently through his hair, +he answered frankly:</p> +<p>"Well, you see, when it comes to that, I didn't take any sudden +fancy, as you call it—I didn't take any fancy at all—it +was the other way about. The boy is a nice boy—a bully good +boy, anybody can see that—and I like boys, that's all. When +he began trotting round after me, we got to be chums in a way, but +it would have been the same with any other boy who had come to the +house—especially," he added with a clean blow given straight +from the shoulder, "if he'd been a decent chap that a parcel of +women were making into a muff."</p> +<p>For a minute anger, righteous anger, kept her silent; then she +responded with stateliness: "I suppose I have a right to decide how +my son shall be brought up?"</p> +<p>He met her stern gaze with a smile; and in the midst of her +resentment she was distinctly aware of the impeccable honesty of +his judgment. The peculiar breeziness she had always thought of as +"Western" sounded in his voice as he answered:</p> +<p>"By George, I'm not so sure that you have!"</p> +<p>Before his earnestness she felt her anger melt slowly away. The +basic reasonableness of her character—her passion to +investigate experience, to examine facts, to search for +truth—this temperamental attitude survived the superficial +wave of indignation which had swept over her.</p> +<p>"So you think I am making a mistake with Archibald?" she asked +quietly; and growing tired of standing, she sank instinctively into +one of the capacious leather-covered chairs by the table. "But the +question is—are you able to judge?"</p> +<p>"Well, I'm a man, and I hate to see a boy coddled. It's going to +be devilish hard on the kid when he grows up."</p> +<p>"Perhaps you're right"—her manner had grown +softer—"and because I've thought of this, I am going to send +him away to school this autumn—in a few weeks. Much as it +will hurt me to part with them, I am going to send both of my +children away from me. I have made the arrangements."</p> +<p>Insensibly the note of triumph had crept into her voice. By the +simple statement of her purpose she had vindicated her motherhood +to this man. She stood clear now of his aspersions on her wisdom +and her devotion.</p> +<p>"I don't know much about girls," he replied, seating himself on +the opposite side of the table, where the green light from the +shaded lamp fell directly on his features. "I can't remember ever +noticing one until I grew up, and then I was afraid to death of +them, particularly when they were young—but I've been a boy, +and I know all about boys. There isn't a blooming thing you could +tell me about boys!" he concluded with animation.</p> +<p>"And you think that all boys are alike?"</p> +<p>"More or less under the skin. Of course some are washed and some +are dirty—I was dirty—but they're all boys, every last +one of them, and all boys are just kids. With the first money I +made out West, I started a lodging-house for them—the dirty +ones—down in the Bowery," he added. "They can get a wash and +a supper and a night's lodging in a bed with real sheets any night +in the year."</p> +<p>She was suddenly interested. "Do you care for boys just because +you were a boy yourself?" she asked.</p> +<p>"Because I was such a God-forsaken little chap, I guess. You +were never down in a cellar, I suppose, the kind of cellar people +live in? Well, I was born in one, and my father had killed himself +the week before because he was ill with consumption, and couldn't +get work. He'd been a teamster, and he lost his job when he came +down with pneumonia, and after they let him out of the hospital, he +looked such a scarehead that nobody would employ him. After he +died, my mother struggled on somehow, taking in washing or +scrubbing floors—God knows how she managed it!—and by +the time I was five, and precious big for my age, I was in the +street selling papers. I used to say I was seven when anybody asked +me, but I wasn't more than five; and I remember as plain as if it +was yesterday, the way mother used to take me to a corner of +Broadway, and put a bundle of papers in my arms, and how I used to +hang on to the coppers when the bigger boys tried to get 'em away +from me. Sometimes I'd get an extra dime or nickel, and then we'd +have Irish stew or fried onions for supper. After my mother died, +when I was about eight, I still kept on selling papers because I +didn't know what else to do, but I didn't have any place to sleep +then so I used to crawl into machine shops or areas (he said +'aries') or warehouses, when the watchmen weren't looking. In +summer I'd sometimes hide under a bush in the park, and the +policeman would never see me until I slipped by him in the morning. +There was one policeman I hated like the devil, and I used to swear +that I'd get even with him if it took me all the rest of my life." +For a moment he paused, brooding complacently. "I did get even with +him, too," he added, "and it didn't take me more than twenty +years."</p> +<p>"You never forget anything?"</p> +<p>"Forget?" he laughed shortly. "When you find a thing I forget, +it'll be so small you'll have to put on spectacles to recognize +it!"</p> +<p>She nodded comprehendingly. "And after that?"</p> +<p>"After that they caught me and sent me to school, and I learned +to read and write and do sums—I always had a wonderful head +for figures—but after school I went on selling papers so I'd +have something to eat—-"</p> +<p>The door burst open, and Archibald rushed in to show the evening +clothes Gabriella had brought him from Paris.</p> +<p>"They are jolly, mother! May I keep them on?"</p> +<p>"If you like, dear, but they'll have to be altered a little. The +coat doesn't quite fit across the shoulders."</p> +<p>"You're a dandy, kid, a regular dandy," observed O'Hara, with +humorous gravity.</p> +<p>After a few moments Archibald rushed off again, and Gabriella +made an uncertain movement to follow him. "I must go," she said, +without rising, and added abruptly: "So you got on in spite of +everything?"</p> +<p>"Right you are!" He leaned back in his chair and regarded her +with benevolent optimism. "You can always get on if the stuff is in +you. I meant to get on, and a steam engine couldn't have kept me +back. It's the gospel truth that I believe I came into the world +meaning to get out of that cellar, and it was the same thing with +areas and ash-bins. I knew all the time I wasn't going to keep +grubbing a living out of an ash-bin. I was always growing, shooting +up like one of those mullein stalks out there, and eating? Great +Scott! I used to eat so much when I was a kid that mother starved +herself near to death so as to give me a square meal. By the time I +was twelve I had grown so fast that I got a job at cleaning the +streets—my first job from the city. But I never went hungry. +As far as I recollect I never went hungry except the time I beat my +way out to Chicago—"</p> +<p>Without moving, without lowering her eyes from his face, +Gabriella listened, while she clasped and unclasped the hands in +her lap. There is a personality that compels attention, and she +realized for the first time that O'Hara possessed it. A new vision +of life had opened suddenly before her, and she felt, with the +illuminating intensity of a religious conversion, that the world +she had been living in was merely a fiction. In spite of her +experience she had really known nothing of life.</p> +<p>"Yes, a lot of 'em went hungry, but I never did," he resumed in +a tone of frank congratulation. "Sometimes, of course, I'd go +without supper or breakfast, but that was nothing—that was +not being really hungry, you know. I always managed, even when I +was at school, to make enough to keep satisfied. What I minded +most," he added musingly, "was not having a regular place to go +home to at night, and that's why I started that lodging-house. When +you've slept in holes and on benches, and under freight cars, and +hidden away in machine shops, you know there's nothing on God's +earth—not a blessed thing—that can take the place of a +real sure enough bed with real sure enough sheets and pillow cases +on it."</p> +<p>"But how did you come out of it? How did you succeed? For you +have succeeded beyond your dreams, haven't you?"</p> +<p>"Beyond my dreams?" He threw back his big, bright head, laughing +happily. "Did any man alive ever succeed beyond his dreams? Why, I +used to dream of being President, and I guess I shan't be President +this side of the Great Divide, shall I? But I made money, if that's +what you mean. Why, I have a million to-day to every dollar I had +when I was twenty. Do you mind my smoking? I can't talk unless I've +got hold of a cigar."</p> +<p>While he struck a match, she noticed with surprise how very neat +and orderly he was about the ashes of his cigars, which lay in an +exact gray heap in the massive bronze ash-tray. What a pity, she +thought, moved by a feeling of compassion, that he had had no +advantages!</p> +<p>"I'll tell you how I got on," he pursued after a minute, leaning +forward with the cigar in his hand—it was a good cigar, she +knew from the smell of it. "Do you see this room?"—he glanced +proudly about him—"do you know why I keep this place even +when I am in the West?" She shook her head, and he went on with a +kind of half-ashamed, whimsical tenderness: "Well, a man lived here +once you never heard of—a common Irishman—just a common +Irish politician—the Tammany sort, just the sort the +newspapers are so down on. I guess he wasn't strong on civic +morality as they call it, and the social conscience and all the +other new-fashion catchwords, but he found me out there in the snow +one night selling newspapers without any overcoat, and he brought +me in and gave me one of his. He was a little fellow—not big +as the Irish usually grow—and I could wear his clothes, +though I wasn't thirteen at the time. The coat wasn't an old one, +either," he explained with retrospective complacency; "no, sirree, +he had just bought it, and he made me take it off after I'd tried +it on and sit down at the table in that back room there—it's +all just as he left it—and eat supper with him—the best +supper I ever had in my life before or since, you may take my word +for it. Then when I'd finished he gave me a dollar and told me to +go out and rent a bed—" He broke off, glanced about the room +with the pride of ownership, and added softly: "Who'd ever have +thought on that night that this place would one day belong to +me?"</p> +<p>"Did you see him again?"</p> +<p>"After that he never lost sight of me. He got me a room, he sent +me to school—not that he thought much of education, the +more's the pity—and when I was through with school he got me +into the Mechanics' Institute, and gave me a job at engineering. +But the job was too small for me, and so was New York—there +ain't room enough here to get on without stepping on somebody's +toes—and when I was twenty I set out to beat my way to +Chicago, and went clean out to Arizona. That's a long +story—I'll tell you that some day, for I've been everything +on earth you can be in order to keep alive, and done pretty much +everything you can do with two hands that will earn you a square +meal. I've cut corn and ploughed fields, and greased wheels, and +chopped wood, and mended machinery, and cleaned the snow away, and +once out in some little town in Arizona, I even dug a grave because +the sexton was down with pneumonia. I've been brakesman, and +freightman, and, after that, freight agent. That was just before I +struck it rich in Colorado. I was one of the first men at Bonanza +City, and when I went there with the railroad—I was on the +very first train that ever ran there—the whole town was just +a row of miners' shacks near the foot of old Bonanza. It's the +richest mineral streak in the State, and yet twenty-five years ago, +before the C.A. & F.W. tapped it, there wasn't even a saloon +out there at Bonanza. City. When you wanted a drink—and that +didn't worry me, for I haven't tasted anything but water since I +was twenty-five—you had to go all the way to Olympia to get +it; and what was worse, all the ore had to go to Olympia, too, on a +little no account branch road to be shipped over the main line. +Well, as soon as I discovered Bonanza City I said that had to +change, and it did change. I guess I did as much to make that town +as any man out there, and to-day I own about two thirds of it. I've +got a house on Phoenix Avenue, and I gave the town a church and a +theatre and the ground for a library. We've got one of the +handsomest churches in the State," he proclaimed with his +unconquerable optimism, "and we've just begun growing. Why, in ten +years more Bonanza City will be in the race with Denver."</p> +<p>"And what about your friend?" she asked, finding it difficult to +become enthusiastic over the most progressive town in Colorado, a +State which she always pictured imaginatively as a kind of rocky +desert, inhabited by tribes of gregarious invalids, which one +visited for the sake of the scenery or the climate, when one had +exhausted the civilized excitements of Europe.</p> +<p>"I am coming back to him," he responded with a manner of genial +remonstrance. "You just give me time. But I'd honestly like you to +see Bonanza City. Why, it would take your breath away if I told you +it hadn't even begun to grow twenty years ago. You people in New +York don't know what progress means. Why, out there in Bonanza City +we do things while you're thinking about doing them. But to come +back to Barney—that was his name, Barney +McGoldrick—after I made my pile out of Bonanza, I used to +strike here once in a while to see how he was getting along, and +when he died I took these rooms just as he left 'em. There wasn't a +chick or a child to come after him, but he had a string of +pensioners as long as the C.A. & F.W. His money—it must +have been half a million—all went to charity, but I kept on +in the rooms."</p> +<p>"What kind of man was he?" she asked, sincerely interested.</p> +<p>"What kind?" He pondered the question with deep puffs of his +cigar. "Well, do you know, I don't believe, to save my life, I +could tell you. The more you know of men, and of women, too, for +they're all alike, the more you understand, somehow, that you can't +judge unless you've been right in the other man's +place—unless you know exactly what they've had to pull up +against and how hard they have pulled. Now, if I was drawing my +last breath, and you asked me what I thought of Barney McGoldrick, +I'd be obliged to answer that he was the best man I ever knew, +though there are others in this town, I guess, and the newspapers +among 'em, who would tell you that he was—" He broke off +abruptly, and she waited without speaking, until he solaced himself +with his cigar, and went on less boisterously: "It's a downright +shame, isn't it, that the same man can't manage to corner all the +virtues. I can't explain how it is, but I've noticed that the +virtues don't seem able to work along peaceably in one another's +company, for if they did, I guess we'd have pure saints or pure +sinners instead of the mixed lot we've got to make a world out of. +I've seen a man who wouldn't have lied or stolen to save his wife +from starving, and who was the first in the pew at church every +Sunday, grind the flesh and blood out of his factory girls until +they were driven into the streets, or crush the very life out of +the little children he put to work in his mills. Yes, and I've seen +a tombstone over him with 'I know that my Redeemer liveth' carved +an inch deep in the marble. Well, Barney wasn't like that, but he +had his weaknesses, and they were the kind people don't raise +marble tombstones over. I never had a taste for politics myself, +but it seems to be like any other weakness, and to drag a man a +little lower down if it once gets too strong a hold on him. It's +all right, of course, if you keep it in moderation, but there's +precious few chaps, particularly if it's in their blood, and +they're Irish, who can keep the taste under control. Barney was the +most decent man to women I ever knew. He wouldn't have hurt one for +a million dollars, in a factory or out of it, and he was faithful +to his old wife up to the day of her death and long after. He +grieved for her till he died, and I don't believe any woman ever +asked his help without getting it. His private life was absolutely +clean, but his public morality—well, I guess that wasn't +exactly spotless. At any rate, they had an +investigation—there was a committee of citizens appointed to +sit in judgment on his record. The chairman was a pillar of the +church and a public benefactor; he had led every political reform +for a generation; and I happened to know that he kept two +mistresses up somewhere in the Bronx, and his wife, who was old and +ugly, wore herself to a shadow because he neglected her. Mark you, +I'm not upholding Barney, but, good Lord! ain't it queer how easy +men get off when they just sin against women and not against men or +against the State?"</p> +<p>"It's all queer." She rose from the leather chair, and held out +her hand. "I'm glad I came in, Mr. O'Hara. Some day you must tell +me the rest."</p> +<p>"The rest?" His embarrassment had descended upon him, and he was +awkwardly stammering for words, with her cool hand in his grasp. As +long as his enthusiasm had lasted he had talked fluently and +naturally, swept away from his self-consciousness; but with the +return of the formal amenities he became as ill at ease and shy as +a boy. "There ain't anything more except that we're building a +railroad out there, and I'm going back to finish it next spring if +I'm alive."</p> +<p>The September breeze entered from the dim stretch of yard, under +the waving elm boughs, and in an instant the room was filled with +the fragrance of mignonette.</p> +<p>"But you won't be if you never get your dinner," she retorted, +as she smiled brilliantly. Then, turning quickly, she crossed the +threshold, and went down the hall to the staircase.</p> +<p>She was tremendously excited, and while she mounted the stairs +she felt that she had not been so alive, so filled with energy +since her girlhood in Richmond. It was as if a closed door into the +world had been suddenly flung open, and she knew that she had +passed beyond the narrow paths of convention into the sunny roads +and broad fields of vision. In a moment of enlightenment she saw +deeper and farther than she had ever dreamed of seeing before. "It +teaches one not to judge," she thought, with a stab of +self-reproach, "it teaches one not to judge others until one really +knows." Twice before to-night, on the day when she resolved for the +sake of Jane's children to go to work, and again on the June +evening when George returned to her, she had felt this sudden +quickening of life, this magical sense of the unexplored mystery +and beauty of the world that surrounded her. But she had been very +young then, and on that June evening she had been deeply in love. +To-night, she assured herself, there was no touch of personal +romance. In some inexplicable way the talk with O'Hara had renewed +her broken connection with her Dream, and she felt closer in +sympathy to Arthur than she had been able to feel for months. No, +this awakening was utterly different from the awakening of love, +for it shed its illumination not on a single person, but on the +whole of humanity. O'Hara had moved her, not as a man, but as a +force—a force as impersonal as the wind or the sea, which had +swept her intellect away from its anchorage in the deeps of +tradition. She had thought herself free, but she understood now +that she had never really broken away—that in spite of her +struggles to escape, the past had still held her. To-night it was +more than an awakening, it was a conversion through which she was +passing, and she knew she could never again believe as she had +believed a few hours ago, that she could never judge again as +unintelligently as she had judged yesterday. "So that is a man's +world," and then with a rush of impulse: "What a mean little life I +have been living—what a mean little life!" For she really +knew nothing of life except dressmaking; she was familiar with no +part of it except the way to Dinard's. She had been living a little +life, with little standards, little creeds, little compromises. And +yet, though the personality of O'Hara had enlarged her vision of +the world, it had not altered her superficial view of the man. She +still saw him outwardly at least without the glamour of +romance—she still thought of him as boisterous, uneducated, +slangy—but she was beginning almost unconsciously to +distinguish between the faults of manner and the faults of +character; she was beginning to be tolerant.</p> +<p>From Fanny's open door a humming voice floated out to her, and +going inside, she found the girl, in a new frock, practising a +dance step before the mirror. "This is the lame duck, mother, but +it's different from the one we danced last year."</p> +<p>"Yes, dear, it's very pretty." Stopping before the +dressing-table, Gabriella frowned on the photograph of a young man +in a silver frame—a young man with a fascinating smile and +inane features.</p> +<p>"Fanny, where did you get this?"</p> +<p>"Oh, mother, I didn't mean you to see it. I meant to put it +away."</p> +<p>"Where did you get it?"</p> +<p>"He sent it to me. I wrote and asked him for it, and it has his +autograph. Isn't he handsome? That's just the way he looked in +'Stolen Sweets' last winter."</p> +<p>"Well, he looks like a calf, I think," returned Gabriella +severely. "I suppose you may keep it out until you get tired of it, +but please try to be sensible, Fanny." Though she spoke jestingly, +she was secretly disturbed by the discovery of the photograph. "If +she were not pretty, it wouldn't matter," she thought, "but she is +so pretty that almost any man might be tempted to begin a +flirtation. Thank Heaven, she didn't take a fancy to Mr. O'Hara. +That would have been a calamity." For, in spite of the fact that +she had become personally reconciled to O'Hara, she was as firmly +resolved as ever to keep Fanny out of his sight. "You know so many +nice boys, dear," she resumed after a minute, "that I think you +might be content to let actors alone."</p> +<p>"But boys are so stupid, mother." Fanny's tone was withering in +its disdain. "They are wrapped up in sports, and I despise +sports."</p> +<p>"Then you oughtn't to tease them as you do. You're too young to +have fancies."</p> +<p>"I am sixteen."</p> +<p>"Well, that is much too young for anything of that sort. I like +you to have boy friends, but I don't like you to be foolish. What +has become of that attractive boy, Carlie's brother? He doesn't +come here any more, and I'm afraid you've hurt his feelings."</p> +<p>"Oh, mother," hummed Fanny to the music of the lame duck as she +practised before the mirror, "how can you really hurt a man?"</p> +<p>The next morning when Gabriella, in a Parisian gown of black +taffeta and one of the absurdly small hats of the autumn, started +for Dinard's, she found herself thinking, not of Fanny's +flirtation, but of her long talk with O'Hara. She cast a friendly +glance on the golden-oak hatrack as she passed—for O'Hara had +risen in her regard since she had discovered that he had not +selected the furniture on the first floor—and then stopping +for a few moments on the front steps, she closed her eyes, and +inhaled the fragrance of the mignonette in the window box. The yard +was brilliant in the early sunshine; and at the gate she saw the +wife of the caretaker, who had looked after the flowers in her +absence. Detaining the woman by a gesture, she joined her in the +street, and the two started together to walk the long blocks that +stretched to Fifth Avenue.</p> +<p>"You are going home early to-day, Mrs. Squires."</p> +<p>"Yes, ma'am; it's Johnny's birthday and I promised to take him +up to the Bronx. Mr. O'Hara had his breakfast at seven, and I got +through earlier than usual. He is so tidy that there ain't much to +do except to dust around a little."</p> +<p>She was a neat, red-faced woman, in rusty mourning for a child +she had lost in the early summer, and while she talked, Gabriella +felt an irresistible impulse to question her about O'Hara. "She has +known him for thirty years, and I can find out more from her than I +could discover for myself in six months," she thought; but she only +said indifferently:</p> +<p>"You've worked at this house a long time, haven't you?"</p> +<p>"For thirty years—ever since I came here at eighteen as +housemaid to Mr. McGoldrick. My husband was coachman for Mr. +McGoldrick, you know—he drove the prettiest pair of bays in +New York—and that was how I met him. When we married, Mr. +McGoldrick set us up, and John drove his carriage for him as long +as he lived. I often wonder what the old gentleman would think of +everybody having automobiles. They were just beginning to come into +fashion when he died."</p> +<p>"You knew Mr. O'Hara then?"</p> +<p>"Oh, yes, he was a great deal with Mr. McGoldrick. After he went +West we didn't see much of him for a time—that was while he +was making his money. Then he came back and brought his wife to a +place here to be treated—"</p> +<p>"His wife?"</p> +<p>"Didn't you know? She died a few years ago, but before that he +used to keep her with some doctor over on Long Island, and he went +regularly to see her every Sunday afternoon as long as she +lived."</p> +<p>"What was the matter?"</p> +<p>"Drugs. Drugs and drink, too, they said, though I never knew for +certain about that. But they couldn't do anything with her. They +tried all the cures anybody ever heard of, and she went back every +time. No sooner would one thing fail, however, than Mr. O'Hara +would hear of something or other over in Europe, and make them +begin trying it. Finally for the last ten or twelve years she was +quite out of her mind—clean crazy they said, and didn't know +anybody. But he still went to see her every Sunday when he was +staying in town, and he still made the doctors go on trying new +things. He never gave up till the very last. Mr. McGoldrick used to +say of him that he was the sort that would go on hoping in +hell."</p> +<p>"Who was she? Where did he meet her?"</p> +<p>"God only knows. He never would say much about her even to Mr. +McGoldrick, but John always stuck it out that she was never the +right sort in the beginning, and that Mr. O'Hara got tangled up +with her somewhere in a mining town out West, and couldn't get out. +I've heard she was a chambermaid or a barmaid or something in a +miners' hotel, but I don't know, and nobody else knows, for Mr. +O'Hara never opened his mouth about her. All we know positive is +that she must have been a drug fiend long before he ever married +her, and that he stuck to her for better or for worse until she +died and was buried. Some men are like that, you know, a few of +'em. When a thing once belongs to 'em, no matter what it is or how +little it's worth, they'll go through fire and water for the sake +of it—and it makes no difference whether it's a woman or a +railroad or a dog or a mine. They've got the sense of +responsibility like a disease. You see, Mr. O'Hara is that sort, +and you might as well try to turn a steam roller as to start to +reason him out of a notion. It would have been as easy as talking +for him to have got a divorce. Time and again Mr. McGoldrick used +to go after him about it, and talk himself hoarse; but it didn't do +any good, not a particle. Instead of getting free out there in the +West where it was easy, he kept on lugging that crazy woman back +and forth, trying to cure her long after everybody else had given +up hope and was wishing that she was dead."</p> +<p>"Well, I suppose he loved her."</p> +<p>"No, ma'am, that's the funny part, but it didn't look like love +to me—not like what men call love, anyway. If it had been +love, it would have worn itself out long ago. Who on earth could +love a crazy, yellow, shrieking, cursing creature like that? I saw +her sometimes when he'd send me to take things down to her, and I +tell you it wasn't love—not man's love, anyhow—that +made him do what he did."</p> +<p>"Then it must have been something finer even than love," +Gabriella acquiesced after a moment. "It's strange, when we come to +think of it, how often we find spirituality in places where we'd +never expect it to be."</p> +<p>"I don't know that I'd call Mr. O'Hara spiritual exactly," +replied Mrs. Squires thoughtfully. "I don't believe he ever puts +his foot inside a church, and I've heard him swear when he got +ready till you'd expect the roof to drop in on you, but when you +come to think of it," she concluded, "I guess there's a good deal +of religion floating around outside of walls."</p> +<p>At the next corner they parted, and as the caretaker stopped to +shake hands with Gabriella and thank her for a birthday present for +Johnny, she added nervously: "I hope I haven't said anything that I +oughtn't to have said, Mrs. Carr. Mr. O'Hara has been as good as +gold to me, and I shouldn't like him to hear I'd been talking about +him."</p> +<p>"He shan't hear, I promise you"; and while Mrs. Squires hurried, +reassured, to her home in Sixth Avenue, Gabriella walked briskly +with the crowd which was streaming along Twenty-third Street into +Broadway.</p> +<p>A week ago she would scarcely have noticed the people about her. +For ten years she had gone every morning to her work through the +streets, and she had felt herself to be as aloof from the masses as +the soaring skyscraper at the corner of Broadway. The psychology of +the crowd had not touched her; even when she walked with it, when +she made a part of it, she had felt herself to be detached from its +purposes.</p> +<p>To-day, however, a change had come over her, and she was happy +with a large and impersonal happiness which seemed to belong less +to herself than to the throng which surged about her and gathered +her in. Her little standards, her little creeds, had become a part +of the larger standards and creeds of humanity. In Broadway, moving +onward with the other workers who were returning to the day's work, +she was aware of an invisible current of joy which flowed from the +crowd into her thoughts and through her thoughts back again into +the crowd. For the first time she was feeling and thinking in +unison with the multitude.</p> +<p>That night, when she sat alone with Miss Polly, she said to her +suddenly:</p> +<p>"I believe I was wrong to wish Archibald not to see anything of +Mr. O'Hara. Yesterday we had a long talk, and I think he must have +some very fine traits."</p> +<p>"Maybe," replied Miss Polly, a little snappishly. "I never could +see what set you so against him, Gabriella."</p> +<p>"Oh, he is dreadfully slangy, and, of course, he isn't educated. +I suppose if I mentioned Hamlet to him, he'd think I was talking +about some town in Oklahoma."</p> +<p>"Well, I reckon he's been his own Hamlet," retorted Miss Polly; +"and knowing about Hamlet don't make a man, anyhow. George knew all +about Hamlet, but it didn't make him easy to live with."</p> +<p>"Yes, that's just it. What did George's advantages do for him? I +used to think it was love that mattered most," she said musingly +after a pause, "and then, when love failed, I began to think it was +culture. But I see now that it is something else. Do you ever +wonder what the essential thing really is, Miss Polly?"</p> +<p>"No, I never wonder," responded Miss Polly tartly, "but when you +stew it down to the bones, I reckon it's just plain character."</p> +<p>"Yes, if you can't have both culture and character, of course +character is the more important. But think how much that man might +have made of the university training that was wasted on George." +While she spoke there came back to her in snatches a conversation +she had had with an Englishman on the boat last summer, and she +remembered that he had alluded to Judge Crowborough as "a man of +the broadest culture." Surely the "broadest culture" must include +character, and yet she could feel even now the casual and +business-like clasp of the judge, she could see again the admiring +gleam in his small, fishy eyes. "After all, I suppose it is a kind +of spiritual consciousness that makes character," she said aloud, +"and you can't train that into a man if he isn't born with it."</p> +<p>"It seems to me that Mr. O'Hara has done mighty well, all things +considered," pursued Miss Polly, and she inquired suspiciously: +"Did Mrs. Squires ever tell you anything about his marriage?"</p> +<p>"I met her this morning on my way to work, and she told me about +it."</p> +<p>"Well, what do you make of it? Don't it beat anything you ever +heard?"</p> +<p>"It does. There's not the slightest doubt of it. And, do you +know," Gabriella went on hurriedly, "that story made a remarkable +impression on me—I've been thinking about it ever since. It +made me see everything differently, and I've even asked myself if I +had enough patience with George. If I wasn't too hard and +intolerant with him in the beginning?"</p> +<p>"I shouldn't worry about that, honey, because I don't believe it +would have made any difference if you'd been gentler. It's the +stuff in a man, I reckon, that counts more than the way a woman +handles him. You couldn't have saved George any more than that +other woman could ruin the man downstairs."</p> +<p>"Perhaps not." Rising from her chair, Gabriella drew the pins +from the smooth, close coil of her hair. "But I see things so +differently since I had that talk with Mr. O'Hara. I am glad to +have him for a friend," she added generously, "but of course I +still feel the same about Fanny. I hope he won't begin to notice +Fanny."</p> +<p>"Well, he won't. He ain't thinkin' about it. I declare, +Gabriella," the little woman went on with a change of tone, "your +head don't look much bigger than a pincushion with your hair fixed +that way. It makes you seem mighty young, but there ain't many +women that could stand it."</p> +<p>"It's the fashion in Paris. I have to be smart. Do you suppose +many people guess that I wear extreme styles," she added +laughingly, "because they are so hard to sell?"</p> +<p>"You certainly do look well in 'em. I never saw anybody with +more natural style. Why, you can put on those slouchy things +without a piece of corset and look as if you'd just stepped out of +a fashion plate."</p> +<p>"When you aren't pretty, you're obliged to be smart."</p> +<p>"Well, of course you never had the small features and pink and +white colouring that Jane had; but you always had a way of your own +even as a girl, and you're handsomer now than you ever were in your +life. If you were to ask Mr. O'Hara, I bet you he'd say you were a +heap better lookin' than Fanny."</p> +<p>A gasp broke from Gabriella, and she turned from the mirror to +stare blankly at the seamstress. "Mr. O'Hara! Why, what in the +world made you think of him?"</p> +<p>But Miss Polly had grown suddenly impenetrable. "Oh, nothin'," +she responded evasively; "I've just seen him look at you both when +you were together."</p> +<p>Gabriella laughed brightly. "Oh, he looks at everything. I never +saw such eyes."</p> +<p>There was the note of accomplishment, of success, in her voice, +and she brushed her fine, soft hair with long, vigorous strokes +which had in them something of this same quality of unwavering +confidence. To look at her as she sat, relaxed yet dominant, before +the glass, was to recognize that she was a woman who had achieved +the purpose of her life, who had succeeded in whatever she had +undertaken. Not a great purpose, perhaps—there were hours +when her purpose seemed to her to be particularly trivial—but +still, great or small, she had accomplished it. She was not only +directing Dinard's now—she <i>was</i> Dinard's. Without her +the business would collapse like a house of cards, and it was +because she knew this, because Madame also knew this, that she had +been able to perfect the arrangements she had planned that May +afternoon after her depressing visit to Judge Crowborough. For she +managed the house of Dinard's now by an arrangement which gave her +one third of the profits; and in the last six months, since this +scheme had gone into effect, the business had grown tremendously in +certain directions. The millinery department, for instance, which +Madame had once treated with such supercilious disdain, had become +to-day the most fashionable hat shop in Fifth Avenue. The work was +hard, but the returns were wonderful; and with a strange gloating, +she told herself that she was making money—always more money +for the children. "When Fanny finishes school year after next, +we'll take a large apartment in Park Avenue, and spend every summer +in Europe," she concluded.</p> +<p>In the morning she rather expected to see O'Hara, but a month +passed before she met him one evening in October, when she came +home late from work. The autumn rains had come and gone, destroying +the fugitive bloom of Miss Polly's flower-beds, and scattering the +leaves of the elm tree in a moist, delicately tinted carpet over +the grass. An hour ago the sun had set in a purple cloud, and +beneath the electric lights, which shone through the fog with a wan +and spectral glimmer, the dark outlines of the city assumed an +ominous vagueness. There was no light in the house; and the +deserted yard, silvered from frost and strewn with dead leaves, +which lay in wind-drifts along the flagged walk, had the haunted +aspect of a place where youth and happiness have passed so recently +that the fragrance of them still lingers.</p> +<p>"Archibald went off to school without telling you good-bye," she +said in a friendly voice. "He was much disappointed."</p> +<p>Stopping in the walk, he looked at her with unaffected +surprise.</p> +<p>"Why, I thought that was what you wanted!"</p> +<p>She met this quite honestly. "Not after I talked to you."</p> +<p>"What in thunder did I say to change your opinion of me?" The +strong west wind blowing around him and lifting the roughened red +hair from his forehead, appeared to lessen by contrast the breezy +animation of his manner.</p> +<p>"It wasn't anything you said," she answered simply. "I found out +you were different from what I thought, that is all."</p> +<p>"Then you must have thought something!" he laughed aloud.</p> +<p>"I was afraid at first that you might have a bad influence over +Archibald."</p> +<p>"Oh, the kid!" His mirth was as irrepressible as his energy.</p> +<p>"You see I have to be very careful," she went on gently. "I want +to do my best by him."</p> +<p>At this he turned on her with sudden earnestness. "You can't do +your best by being too careful—take my word for it. If you +want him to be a man, don't begin by making a mollycoddle of him. +Let him rough it a bit, or it will be twice as hard for him when he +grows up."</p> +<p>"But I do—I do. I am sending him away from me. Isn't that +right?"</p> +<p>"You bet it is. Let him learn his own strength. I've lived among +men ever since I was born, and I tell you, nine times out of ten, +the boy who is tied to his mother's apron-strings, loses his grip +when he is turned out into the world. At the first knock-down he +goes under."</p> +<p>Instinctively she flinched. If only he wouldn't!</p> +<p>"After he leaves school of course he will go to the university," +she said.</p> +<p>"That's right," he agreed emphatically, and pursued a little +wistfully: "Now, that's what I was cheated out of, and there've +been times when I'd have given my right arm to have been through +college instead of having to keep my mouth shut and then run home +and look up the meaning of things in an encyclopædia. It's a +handicap, not knowing things. Nobody who hasn't had to get along in +spite of, it knows what a darned handicap it is!"</p> +<p>"But you read, don't you?"</p> +<p>"Not much. Never had time to form the habit. But I've read +Shakespeare—at least I've read Julius Cæsar six times," +he explained. "I had it in the desert once where there wasn't a +newspaper for two months. And I've read the Kings, too—most +of 'em."</p> +<p>"But not Hamlet?" She was smiling as she looked from him into +the street.</p> +<p>He shook his head with a laugh. "Too much meandering in that. I +don't like talk unless it is straight."</p> +<p>Though he was upon the most distant terms of acquaintance with +the English language, it occurred to her that he probably possessed +a knowledge of men and things which no university training could +have given him.</p> +<p>"It is wonderful," she remarked, touched to sympathy by his +confession, "that you should have succeeded."</p> +<p>"Oh, any man could have done it—any man, that is, who +loved a fight as much as I do. It was half luck and half bulldog +grip, I suppose. When I once get my grip on a thing, I'll hold on +no matter what happens. There ain't the power this side of Kingdom +Come that could make me let go if I don't want to."</p> +<p>She thought of his wife, of his losing fight against the craving +for morphine, and she replied very gently: "If you hadn't been a +good fighter, I suppose you would have been beaten long ago."</p> +<p>"So long ago," he retorted with jovial humour, "that you +wouldn't have known me."</p> +<p>An impulse of curiosity urged her to an utterly irrelevant +response. "I wonder if you have known many women?" She felt that +she should like to hear his story from him, there in the deserted +yard; but when he answered her, he revealed a personal reticence +worthy of the aristocratic traditions of Mrs. Carr. "Oh, I haven't +had time for them," he replied indifferently.</p> +<p>"Perhaps there aren't so many in Bonanza City?"</p> +<p>"Oh, there're plenty," he rejoined gaily, "if you take the +trouble to look for them."</p> +<p>"And you didn't?" They had entered the house, and she spoke +merrily as she crossed to the staircase.</p> +<p>"Well, the sort I found didn't take my fancy, you see!" he +tossed back playfully from his door.</p> +<p>Her foot was on the lowest step, when, hesitating with a +birdlike movement, she looked at him over her right shoulder.</p> +<p>"Well, that's a pity. A woman could have told you a good many +things," she observed.</p> +<p>"For instance?" He was still jesting.</p> +<p>Poised for flight, she gazed back at him, challenging his +eyes.</p> +<p>"Oh, not to collect gold-headed walking-sticks, not to believe +in golden-oak, and not to be so extravagantly—slangy."</p> +<p>As she ran up the staircase, a burst of laughter followed her in +the midst of which she distinguished the retort: "Well, I own to +the slang, but I inherited the oak, and the sticks were all given +me—by women."</p> +<p>The temptation to fling back, "of a sort?" came to her; but she +conquered it as she passed demurely into the sitting-room, where +Miss Polly was reading the afternoon paper before an open fire. "I +mustn't get too friendly," she told herself, reprovingly. "It is +better to keep up a certain formality." And she determined that at +the next meeting she would be dignified and aloof.</p> +<p>But the next meeting did not occur until January, for O'Hara +went West the following day, and for more than two months Miss +Polly and Gabriella were alone in the house. Though she was working +doubly hard at Dinard's, the loneliness of the winter evenings +after the Christmas holidays were over became almost intolerable to +Gabriella; and the bleak month of January stretched ahead of her in +an interminable prospect of cold and gloom. For the past ten years +the children had absorbed her life, after her working hours, so +entirely that the parting from them had been an unbearable wrench, +and had left her with an aching feeling as if an arm had been cut +away. She had had little time to make friends; the streets of the +city isolated her as completely as if they had been spaces of +uninhabited wilderness; and, except for her casual remarks to Miss +Polly, she had lived from day to day without speaking a word that +was not directly concerned with the management or the sales of +Dinard's. Since her divorce, obeying perhaps some inherited +tradition, she had avoided men almost instinctively; and even if +she had cared to make friends among them, her life was so narrow +that it would have been almost impossible for her to do so. When +she was not too tired, she still read as widely as she could; but +at thirty-seven books had become but a poor substitute for the more +robust human activities. As the theatres and the lecture rooms +offered the only opportunities of relaxation and amusement, she +went twice a week, accompanied by the little seamstress, who +appeared to thrive on self-sacrifice, to see a play that was +noticed in the papers, or to listen to explanatory descriptions of +the scenery of South America or the grievances of the oppressed +natives of Asia.</p> +<p>"You mustn't let yourself mope, honey," urged Miss Polly, one +snowy morning in January, when Gabriella was putting on a fur coat, +cut in the latest fashion, which had been left on her hands after +the mid-winter sales. "The children had to go sooner or later, and +it's just as well it happened while you are young enough to get +over it. A boy never stays at home anyway, and you know I always +told you Fanny was the sort to marry before she is out of her +teens."</p> +<p>"Oh, I'm not moping, but of course I can't help missing them. +The house seems so empty."</p> +<p>"It's obliged to be empty with only us two women in it. I +declare I got such a creepy feelin' about burglars last night that +I kept wishin' Mr. O'Hara would hurry up and come home. Mrs. +Squires says she was expectin' him all last week, but he didn't +turn up, so she is kind of lookin' for him to-day."</p> +<p>"Is she?" Gabriella's voice was charged with sincere +thankfulness. Merely to know that there was a man on the first +floor afforded a sense of security; and an occasional meeting with +him would make, she was aware, a trivial diversion from the +monotony of her existence. The loneliness of the winter had driven +her like a storm-swept bird back to the enduring refuge of her +Dream; but, after all, the flesh and blood presence of O'Hara could +not seriously interfere with the tender and pensive visions her +memory spun of the past. Every morning, standing beside her window +and gazing on the bleak street and the bare elm boughs, she thought +of Arthur and of her first love, with a pious and reverent +mind—for they occupied in her day the hour and mood which her +mother, belonging to a more orthodox generation, piously dedicated +to "Daily Strength for Daily Need." But never for an instant would +it have occurred to the granddaughter of that sanctified snob, +Bartholomew Berkeley, who despised the lower orders and fraternized +with the Deity in his pulpit every Sabbath, that the red-blooded +and boisterous O'Hara—the man of force and slang—could +by any accident usurp the sacred shrine where the consecrated +relics of her first love reposed. Before the whirlwind of O'Hara's +energy, she would congratulate herself that her Arthur, with the +milder fluid of the Peytons in his veins, would never allow himself +to be carried away by his impulses.</p> +<p>"Well, I'm glad he's coming back, if it's only to protect us," +she said, while she fastened her fur coat. "I wonder what he has +been doing out West all this time?"</p> +<p>"Makin' money, I reckon. They say he makes so much he don't know +what to do with it."</p> +<p>"We could teach him, couldn't we? But he ought to marry and let +his wife spend it for him. Only," she concluded carelessly, "I +suppose he'd select some dizzy chorus girl who would bring him to +ruin. Men of his kind always pick out chorus girls, don't +they?"</p> +<p>"I thought 'twas the other sort that did that," observed Miss +Polly, fresh from the perusal of the Sunday newspapers; "Dukes and +society men and the sons of millionaires."</p> +<p>"Perhaps. Maybe they're all alike," and taking up her umbrella, +Gabriella started bravely out into the storm.</p> +<p>At six o'clock, when she struggled back along Twenty-third +Street, the wind had changed, and the storm driving furiously down +the long blocks caught her in a whirl of blinding snowflakes. In +the swirling whiteness of the distance, the black outlines of the +city appeared remote and shadowy, while the waning lights, which +shone like dim moons at the crossing, revealed the ghostly figures +of a few struggling pedestrians.</p> +<p>The gate was open, and she had almost reached it, when the +lurching form of a man, emerging suddenly from the storm, was flung +against her with such violence that she fell back for support on +the icy railing of the yard. Then, as the obscure figure, drawing +away from her with a staggering motion, began fumbling blindly at +the gate, she caught sight of a ghastly face, which looked as if it +had been stricken by an incurable illness. The man wore no +overcoat; a knitted muffler was wrapped tightly about his neck; and +she saw that the hands fumbling at the gate were red and trembling +from cold.</p> +<p>Steadying herself against the fence, she drew her purse from her +muff, and she had already taken out a piece of silver, when she +heard her name called in a voice which sounded vaguely familiar, +though it awoke no immediate associations in her mind.</p> +<p>"Gabriella! My God! I was looking for you, Gabriella!"</p> +<p>With the money still in her hand, she stooped to look into his +face.</p> +<p>"You don't know me. I'm George," he said in an angry voice as if +he were about to burst into tears. "I'm George, but you don't know +me."</p> +<p>The storm drove him against her, and he clung weakly to her arm, +crying softly in a terrified whimper like a child that is awaking +from a horrible nightmare. Though she did not realize that he was +dying, not of disease, but of drink, the thought shot through her +mind: "So this is George. So this is what George has come +to—George who took everything that he wanted!"</p> +<p>"Where are you going?" she asked, for the shock had restored him +to some poor semblance of sanity.</p> +<p>"I was looking for you. I heard you lived down here, and I knew +you'd take me in. I've been ill—I'm ill enough to die, and +they turned me out of the hotel. There was a woman who stole +everything I had. She stole it and ran off in the night, damn +her!"</p> +<p>He shivered violently while he spoke, and she saw a glassy look +creep into his eyes and over his face, as if his features had been +frozen in an instant of terror. Panic seized her lest he should die +there in the street, and she grasped his arm almost roughly as if +she would shake him back into life. As she supported him his teeth +began to rattle, not as the teeth of the living chatter from fear, +but as the teeth of a dead man might rattle when he is jolted in +his coffin. For a minute she felt the madness of her panic pass +from her pulses to her brain, and her terror of him turned her as +cold as the sleet-covered iron railing against which she leaned. A +cowardly impulse tempted her to desert him and run for her life, to +seek shelter behind bolted doors, to leave him there alone to +freeze to death at her gate.</p> +<p>"Gabriella, I'm afraid," he whined, clinging to her arm. "I'm +afraid, Gabriella. You can't let go of me!"</p> +<p>An unspeakable loathing swept over her; his very touch seemed +contamination; and while she turned toward the gate, she knew that +every fibre of her flesh, every quiver of her nerves, revolted +against the thing she was doing. But something stronger than her +flesh or her nerves—the vein of iron in her +soul—decided the issue.</p> +<p>"Come in with me, and I'll take care of you," she said. "There +is the step. Don't stumble. Here, steady yourself with the +umbrella. We are almost there now." Her voice was cold and hard; +but the words were those she might have used to Archibald had she +been leading him in out of the storm.</p> +<p>Still whimpering and stumbling, George clung to her with his +desperate clutch, while she dragged him up the short walk, which +was deep in snow, to the six steps, which appeared to her to reach +upward into eternity. As she approached the house, a light shone +out suddenly in one of the windows and a sense of safety, of +perfect security descended upon her, for she knew that it was the +red glimmer of O'Hara's fire. With the sensation, she heard again +her mother's voice speaking above the storm: "Gabriella, we'll send +immediately for your Cousin Jimmy Wrenn!" So, in the old days of +her childhood, Cousin Jimmy had brought her this feeling of relief +in the midst of distress.</p> +<p>Opening the door with her latchkey, she dragged George into the +hall, where her thankful eyes fell on O'Hara's overcoat, from which +the water was, still dripping. For an instant she was tempted to +call to him; then checking the impulse, she went on to the +staircase, which she ascended with difficulty because George's legs +seemed to give way when he tried to lift them to a step. At last, +after what she felt to be an eternity, they reached the upper +floor, and she pushed her burden into Archibald's room, where he +fell like a log on the hearthrug. The sound of his fall shook the +house, and when Miss Polly came running in, with a cry of alarm, +Gabriella almost expected to see O'Hara behind her. But O'Hara did +not come, and before the seamstress could recover from the +palpitations the shock had produced, George was on his feet again, +and was staring blankly, as if fascinated, at the reflection of the +electric light in the mirror.</p> +<p>"It's George," Gabriella explained in a harsh voice. "I found +him in the street. He was looking for me, and I couldn't leave him +to freeze. I think he's either drunk or ill. I don't know which it +is, but it sounds like pneumonia."</p> +<p>"God have mercy!" exclaimed Miss Polly, which was quite as lucid +as she ever became in a crisis. Her face had turned blue, she was +trembling with terror, and the violence of her palpitations almost +exceeded the painful sounds in George's chest. "If there was only a +man we could send for," she wailed hysterically. "Oh, Gabriella, if +there was only a man!"</p> +<p>"Well, there's the doctor," replied Gabriella shortly. "You'd +better telephone for him at once. Get the nearest one. I think his +name is McFarland."</p> +<p>"And a nurse? You'll want a nurse, won't you?"</p> +<p>"I'll want anything I can get, and I'll want it quickly. There, +hurry, while I find a bathrobe of Archibald's. He's wet +through—soaking wet. He must have been out all day in the +storm."</p> +<p>Miss Polly vanished into the dimness of the hall, and after a +few minutes Gabriella heard her fluttering voice demanding a +telephone number as if she were still supplicating the Deity.</p> +<p>"Take off your wet clothes while I get you a drink and some hot +blankets!" said Gabriella when she had found one of Archibald's +bathrobes in the closet. It occurred to her that George was really +incapable of undressing himself, but she felt that she would rather +die than touch him again. The loathing which had overpowered her +outside in the storm became stronger in the close air of the house. +"I can't touch him. I don't care what happens I can't touch him," +she told herself, while she placed the flannel robe on the rug, and +hurried back to the kitchen. Her whole body was benumbed and +chilled, not from cold, but from disgust, yet her mind was almost +unnaturally active, and she found herself thinking over and over +again: "So this is the man I loved, this is the man I married +instead of Arthur!"</p> +<p>When she came back with a cup of broth and some hot blankets, +she found George in the flannel gown of Archibald's, with his wet +clothes on the floor at his feet, from which he had forgotten to +remove his shoes. He drank the soup greedily, while Miss Polly +lighted the wood-fire she had laid in the open grate.</p> +<p>"The heat's comin' up all right in the radiator," she said, "but +I thought a blaze might make him more comfortable."</p> +<p>"Yes, it's better," replied Gabriella sternly, while she stooped +to unlace George's boots. There was no compassion in her heart, and +it seemed to her, while she struggled with the wet lacing, that the +fumes of whiskey spread contagion and disease over the room. She +was not only hard and bitter—she felt that she loathed him +with unspeakable loathing.</p> +<p>"I declare, Gabriella, I believe he has gone deranged!" Miss +Polly cried out sharply, dropping the poker and starting to her +feet in an erratic impulse of flight.</p> +<p>With the flannel gown clutched tightly to his chest, where the +dull rattling sounds went on unceasingly, George was staring in +fascinated intensity at the reflection of the electric light in the +mirror. Then suddenly, with a scream of terror, he lifted the poker +Miss Polly had dropped, and flung it over Gabriella's head in the +direction of the dressing-table. At the noise of breaking glass, +Gabriella rose from her knees, and said in the hard, quiet voice +she had used ever since the first shock of the meeting:</p> +<p>"If you are afraid, lock yourself in your room, Miss Polly. I am +going downstairs for Mr. O'Hara."</p> +<p>Without waiting for a response, she ran out into the hall and +down the staircase, while her eyes clung to the comforting glimmer +of light under the drawing-room door. As her feet touched the +lowest step, the door opened quickly, and O'Hara stood on the +threshold.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIIIa" id="CHAPTER_VIIIa"></a>CHAPTER +VIII</h2> +<h3>THE TEST</h3> +<p>"I knew something was wrong," he said, emerging, big and +efficient, from the firelight, "and I was just coming up." Before +she could answer she felt his warm grasp on her hands, and it +seemed to her suddenly that it was not only her hands he enfolded, +but her agonized and suffering mind.</p> +<p>"There's a man up there—" she faltered helplessly. "I was +once married to him long ago—oh, long ago. Just now I found +him in the street and he seems to be out of his mind. We are +frightened."</p> +<p>But he seemed not to hear her, not to demand an explanation, not +even to wait to discover what she wanted. Already his long stride +was outstripping her on the staircase, and while she followed more +slowly, pausing now and then to take breath, she realized +thankfully that the situation had passed completely away from her +power of command. As Miss Polly's strength to hers, so was her +strength to O'Hara's.</p> +<p>Faint, despairing moans issued from Archibald's room as she +reached the landing; and going inside, she saw George wrestling +feebly with O'Hara, who held him with one hand while with the other +he waved authoritative directions to Miss Polly.</p> +<p>"Get the bed ready for him, with plenty of hot blankets. He's +about at the end of his rope now. It's a jag, but it's more than a +jag, too. If I'm not mistaken he's in for a case of pneumonia."</p> +<p>Miss Polly, hovering timidly at a safe distance, held out the +blankets and the hot water bottles, while O'Hara carried George +across the room to the bed, and then covered him warmly. When he +turned to glance about his gaze fell on Gabriella, and he remarked +bluntly: "You'd better get out. You aren't wanted."</p> +<p>"But I am obliged to be here. It is my business, not yours," she +replied, while a sensation of sickness passed over her.</p> +<p>For a moment he regarded her stubbornly, "Well, I don't know +whose business it was a minute ago," he rejoined, "but it's mine +now. I am boss of this particular hell, and you're going to keep +out of it. I guess I know more about D.T. than you and Miss Polly +put together would know in a thousand years."</p> +<p>She was very humble. In the sweetness of her relief, of her +security, she would have submitted cheerfully not only to slang, +but to downright profanity. It was one of those unforgettable +instants when character, she understood, was more effective than +culture. Even Arthur would have appeared at a disadvantage beside +O'Hara at that moment.</p> +<p>"I think I ought to help you," she insisted.</p> +<p>"Well, I think you oughtn't. Out you go! I guess I know what I'm +up against."</p> +<p>Before she could protest, before she could even resist, he had +pushed her out into the hail, and while she still hesitated there +at the head of the staircase, the door opened far enough to allow +the huddled figure of Miss Polly to creep through the crack. Then +the key turned in the lock; and O'Hara's voice was heard pacifying +George as he might have pacified a child or a lunatic. After a few +minutes the shrieks stopped suddenly; the door was unlocked again +for a minute, and there floated out the reassuring words:</p> +<p>"Don't stand out there any longer. It's as right as right. I've +got him buffaloed!"</p> +<p>"What does he mean?" inquired Gabriella helplessly of the +seamstress.</p> +<p>"I don't know, but I reckon it's all right," responded Miss +Polly. "He seems to know just what to do, and anyhow the doctor'll +be here in a minute. It seems funny to give him whiskey, don't it, +but that was the first thing Mr. O'Hara thought of."</p> +<p>"I suppose his heart was weak. He looked as if he were dying," +answered Gabriella. "He asked for more whiskey, didn't he?"</p> +<p>"Yes; I'm goin' right straight to get it. Oh, Gabriella, ain't a +man a real solid comfort sometimes?"</p> +<p>Without replying to this ejaculation, Gabriella went after the +whiskey, and when she came back with the bottle in her hand, she +found the doctor on the landing outside the locked door. He was a +stranger to her, and she had scarcely begun her explanation when +O'Hara called him into the room.</p> +<p>"The sooner you take a look at him the better." Everything was +taken out of her hands—everything, even her explanation of +George's presence in her apartment.</p> +<p>As there was nothing more for her to do, she went back to the +sitting-room, where a fire burned brightly, and began to talk to +Miss Polly.</p> +<p>"I don't know what I should have done if he hadn't been here," +she said.</p> +<p>"Who? Mr. O'Hara? Well, it certainly was providential, honey, +when you come to think of it."</p> +<p>The door of Archibald's room opened and shut, and the doctor +came down the hall to the telephone. They heard him order medicines +from a chemist near-by; and then, after a minute, he took up the +receiver, and spoke to a nurse at the hospital. At first he gave +merely the ordinary directions, but at the end of the conversation +he said sharply in answer to a question: "No, there's no need of a +restraining sheet. He's too far gone to be violent. It is only a +matter of hours."</p> +<p>His voice stopped, and Gabriella went out to him. "Will you tell +me what you think, Doctor?" she asked.</p> +<p>"Is he your husband?" He had a blank, secretive face, with light +eyes, and a hard mouth—so different, she thought from the +poetic face of Dr. French.</p> +<p>"I divorced him ten years ago."</p> +<p>He looked at her searchingly. "Well, he may last until morning, +but it is doubtful. His heart has given out."</p> +<p>"Is there anything I can do?"</p> +<p>"No. Morphine is the only thing. We are going to try camphorated +oil, but there is hardly a chance—not a chance." He turned to +go back into the room, then stopped, and added in the same tone of +professional stoicism: "The nurse will be here in half an hour, and +I shall wait till she comes."</p> +<p>When Gabriella went back to the sitting-room, Miss Polly was +weeping. "I followed you and heard what he said. Oh, Gabriella, +ain't life too awful!"</p> +<p>"I'll be glad when the nurse comes," answered Gabriella with +impatience. Emotionally she felt as if she had turned to stone, and +she had little inclination to explore the trite and tangled paths +of Miss Polly's philosophy.</p> +<p>The nurse, a stout, blond woman in spectacles, arrived on the +stroke of the half-hour, and after talking with her a few minutes, +the doctor took up his bag and came to tell Gabriella that he would +return about daybreak. "I've given instructions to the nurse, and +Mr. O'Hara will sit up in case he is needed, but there is nothing +to do except keep the patient perfectly quiet and give the +hypodermics. It is too late to try anything else."</p> +<p>"May I go in there?"</p> +<p>"Well, you can't do any good, but you may go in if you'd +rather."</p> +<p>Then he went, as if glad of his release, and after Gabriella had +prevailed upon Miss Folly to go to bed, she changed her street +dress for a tea-gown, and threw herself on a couch before the fire +in the sitting-room. An overpowering fatigue weighed her down; the +yellow firelight had become an anodyne to her nerves; and after a +few minutes in which she thought confusedly of O'Hara and Cousin +Jimmy, she let herself fall asleep.</p> +<p>When she awoke a man was replenishing the fire, and as she +struggled drowsily back into consciousness, she realized that he +was not Cousin Jimmy, but O'Hara, and that he was placing the lumps +of coal very softly in the fear of awaking her.</p> +<p>"Hallo, there!" he exclaimed when he turned with the scuttle +still in his hand; "so you're awake, are you?"</p> +<p>She started up. "I've been asleep!" she exclaimed in +surprise.</p> +<p>"You looked like a kid when I came in," he responded cheerfully, +and she reflected that even the presence of death could not shadow +his jubilant spirit. "I went back to the kitchen to make some +coffee for the nurse and myself, and I thought you might like a +cup. It's first-rate coffee, if I do say it. Two lumps and a little +cream, I guess that's the way. I rummaged in the icebox, and found +a bottle of cream hidden away at the back. That was right, wasn't +it?"</p> +<p>A strange, an almost uncanny feeling of reminiscence, of vague +yet profound familiarity, was stealing over her. It all seemed to +have happened before, somewhere, somehow—the slow awakening +to the large dark form in the yellow firelight, O'Hara's sudden +turning to look at her, his exuberance, his sanguine magnetism, and +even the cup of coffee he made and brought to her side. She felt +that it was the most natural thing in the world to awake and find +him there and to drink his coffee.</p> +<p>"It's good," she answered; "I had no dinner, and I am very +hungry."</p> +<p>"I thought you'd be. That's why I brought a snack with it." He +was cutting a chicken sandwich on the tray he had placed under the +green shaded light, and after a minute he brought it to her and +held the cup while she ate. A nurse could not have been gentler +about the little things she needed; yet she knew that he was rough, +off-hand, careless—she could imagine that he might become +almost brutal if he were crossed in his purpose. She had believed +him to be so simple; but he was in reality, she saw, a mass of +complexities, of actions and reactions, of intricacies and +involutions of character.</p> +<p>"I don't know what I should have done if you hadn't been here," +she said gratefully while she ate the sandwich and he sat beside +her holding her cup. "But I'm so unused to being taken care of," +she added with a trembling little laugh, "that I don't quite know +how to behave."</p> +<p>"Oh, you would have got on all right," he rejoined carelessly; +"but I'm glad all the same that I was here."</p> +<p>She motioned toward the hall. "Has there been any change?"</p> +<p>"No, there won't be until morning. He'll last that long, I +think. We're giving him a hypodermic every four hours, but it +really ain't any good, you know. It is merely professional." For a +minute he was silent, watching her gravely; then recovering his +casual manner, he added: "I shouldn't let it upset me if I were +you. Things happen that way, and we've got to take them +standing."</p> +<p>She shook her head. "I'm not upset. I'm not feeling it in the +least. Somehow, I can't even realize that I ever knew him. If you +told me it was all a dream, I should believe you."</p> +<p>"Well, you're a plucky sort. I could tell that the first minute +I saw you."</p> +<p>"It's not pluck. I don't feel things, that's all. I suppose I'm +hard, but I can't help it."</p> +<p>"Hard things come useful sometimes; they don't break."</p> +<p>"Yes, I suppose if I'd been soft, I should have broken long +ago," she replied almost bitterly.</p> +<p>After putting the plate and cup aside, he sat down by the table, +and gazed at her attentively for a long moment. "Well, you look as +soft as a white rose anyhow," he remarked with a curiously +impersonal air of criticism.</p> +<p>A rosy glow flooded her face. It was so long since any man had +commented upon her appearance that she felt painfully shy and +displeased.</p> +<p>"All the same I've had a hard life," she returned with +passionate earnestness. "I married when I was twenty, and seven +years later my husband left me for another woman."</p> +<p>"The one in there?"</p> +<p>She shuddered, "Yes, the one in there."</p> +<p>"The darn fool!" he exclaimed briefly.</p> +<p>"There was a divorce, and then I had my two children to support +and educate. Because I had a natural talent for dressmaking, I +turned to that, and in the end I succeeded. But for ten years I +never heard a word of the man I married—until—I met him +downstairs—in the street."</p> +<p>"And you brought him in?"</p> +<p>"What else could I do? He was dying."</p> +<p>"Do you know what he was doing out there?"</p> +<p>"He was looking for me, I think. He thought. I would take him +in."</p> +<p>"Well, it's strange how things work out," was his comment after +a pause. "There's something in it somewhere that we can't see. It's +impossible to reason it out or explain it, but life has a way of +jerking you up at times and making you stand still and think. I +know I'm putting it badly, but I can't talk—I never could. +Words, don't mean much to me, and yet I know—I know—" +He hesitated, and she watched his thought struggle obscurely for +expression. "I know you can't slip away from things and be a +quitter, no matter how hard you try. Life pulls you back again and +again till you've learned to play the game squarely."</p> +<p>He was gazing into the fire with a look that was strangely +spiritual on his face, which was half in shadow, half in the +transfiguring glow of the flames. For the second time she became +acutely aware of the hidden subtleties beneath his apparent +simplicity.</p> +<p>"I've felt that myself often enough," he resumed presently in a +low voice. "I've been pulled up by something inside of me when I +was plunging ahead with the bit in my teeth, and it's been just +exactly as if this something said: 'Go steady or you'll run amuck +and bu'st up the whole blooming show.' You can't talk about it. It +sounds like plain foolishness when you put it into words, but when +it comes to you, no matter where you are, you have to stand still +and listen."</p> +<p>"And is it only when you are running amuck that you hear it?" +she asked.</p> +<p>"No, there've been other times—a few of them. Once or +twice I've had it come to me up in the Rockies when there didn't +seem more than a few feet between me and the sky, and then there +was a time out on the prairie when I was lost and thought I'd never +get to the end of those darned miles of blankness. Well, I've had a +funny road to travel when I look back at it."</p> +<p>"Tell me about some of the women you knew in the West." An +insatiable curiosity to hear the truth about his marriage seized +her; but no sooner had she yielded to it than she felt an impulsive +regret. What right had she to pry into the hidden sanctities of his +past?</p> +<p>A frown contracted his forehead, but he said merely: "Oh, there +wasn't much about that," and she felt curiously baffled and +resentful. "I think I'll go and take a look in there," he added, +rising and walking softly in the direction of the room at the end +of the hall.</p> +<p>He was gone so long that Gabriella, crushing down the revolt of +her nerves, went to the door, and opening it very gently, looked +cautiously into the room. The window was wide open to the night, +where the snow was still falling, and beside the candlestand at the +head of the bed the nurse was filling a hypodermic syringe from a +teaspoon. By the open window O'Hara stood inhaling the frosty air; +and Gabriella crossed the floor so silently that he did not notice +her presence until he turned to watch the nurse give the +injection.</p> +<p>Then he said in a whisper: "You'd better go out. You can't do +any good." But she made an impatient gesture of dissent, and +stopping between the bed and the wall, waited while the nurse bared +George's arm and inserted the point of the needle. He was lying so +motionless that she thought at first that he was already dead; but +presently he stirred faintly, a shiver ran through the thin arm on +the sheet, and a low, half-strangled moan escaped from his lips. +Had she come upon him in a hospital ward, she knew that she should +not have recognized him. He was not the man she had once loved; he +was not the father of her children; he was only a stranger who was +dying in her house. She could feel nothing while she looked down at +him. When she tried to remember her young love she could recall but +a shadow. That, too, was dead; that, too, had not left even a +memory.</p> +<p>As she bent there above him she made an effort to remember what +he had once been, to recall his face as she had first seen it, to +revive the burning radiance of that summer when they had been +lovers. But a gray veil of forgetfulness wrapped the past; and her +mind, when she tried to bring back the emotions of seventeen years +ago, became vacant. For so long she had stoically put the thought +of that past out of her life, that when she returned to it now, she +found that only ashes remained. Then a swift stab of pity pierced +her heart like a blade, and she saw again, not George her lover, +not George her husband, but the photograph Mrs. Fowler had shown +her of the boy in velvet clothes with the wealth of curls over his +lace collar. So it was that boy who lay dying like a stranger in +the bed of his son!</p> +<p>She turned hurriedly and went out without speaking, without +looking back when she opened the door.</p> +<p>"If one could only understand it," she said aloud as she entered +the sitting-room; and then, with a start of surprise, she realized +that O'Hara had followed her. "You walked so softly I didn't hear +you," she explained.</p> +<p>"The rugs are thick, and I have on slippers. My boots were +soaking when I came in, and I'd just taken them off when you +called."</p> +<p>They sat down again in front of the fire; and while she stared +silently at the flames, with her chin on her hand and her elbow on +the arm of the chair, he burst out so unexpectedly that she caught +her breath in a gasp:</p> +<p>"You didn't know that I was married, too, did you?" His words, +and even more than his words, his voice, filled with suppressed +emotion, awoke her from her reverie in which she had been dreaming +of Arthur.</p> +<p>She smiled evasively, remembering her promise to Mrs. +Squires.</p> +<p>He hesitated again, and then spoke with an effort. "Well, it was +hell!" he said grimly.</p> +<p>"I know"—she was very gentle, full of understanding and +sympathy—"but you went through it bravely."</p> +<p>"I stuck to her." His hand clenched while he answered. Then, +after a pause in which she watched him struggle against some savage +instinct for secrecy, he added quietly: "If she were alive to-day, +I'd be sticking to her still."</p> +<p>"You must have loved her." It was all she could think of to say, +and yet the words sounded trite and canting as soon as she had +uttered them.</p> +<p>Lifting his head quickly, he made a contemptuous gesture of +dissent. "No, it wasn't that. I never loved her, except, perhaps, +just at the first. But there's something that comes before love, I +guess. I don't know what it is, but there's something. It may be +just plain doggedness, but after I married her there wasn't +anything on top this earth that could have made me give up and let +go. As soon as I found what I was up against—it was +morphine—I knew I'd either got to fight it out or be a +quitter, and I've never been a quitter. Until she got so bad she +had to be shut up I kept a home for her out there in Colorado, and +I lived with her in hell as long as she wasn't too bad to be out of +a hospital. Then I brought her on here and we found a private place +down on Long Island where she stayed till she died—"</p> +<p>"And you still saw her?"</p> +<p>"Except when I was out West, and that's where I was most of the +time, you know. My work was out there, and there's nothing like +hell behind you to keep you running. I made piles of money those +years. That's all I ever cared for about money—just making +it. I'd fight the devil to get it, but after I've once got it, I'll +give it to the first fool who comes begging. But the getting of it +is great."</p> +<p>"How long did it last?"</p> +<p>"My marriage? Going on eighteen years. She was down on Long +Island for the last ten of them."</p> +<p>"Then you lived with her eight. Was she +always—always-"</p> +<p>"Took it before I ever married her, and I found it out in a +month. She wasn't so much to blame as you might think," he pursued +thoughtfully. "You see she had a tough time of it, and she was +little and weak, and everything was against her. She came out West +first to teach school, and then she got mixed up with some skunk of +a man who pretended to marry her when he had a wife living in +Chicago, and after that I guess she went on taking a dope just to +keep up her spirits and ease the pain of some spinal trouble she'd +had since she was a child. There was nothing bad in her—she +was just weak—and I began to feel sorry for her, and so I did +it. If I had it to do over again, I'm not so sure I'd act +differently. She was a poor little creature that didn't have any +man to look after her, and I was just muddling along anyway, +thinking about money. Heaven knows what would have become of her if +I hadn't happened along when I did."</p> +<p>He had lifted his head toward the light, while he ran his hand +through his hair, and again she saw the look, so like spiritual +exaltation, transfigure his face. Before this man, who had sprung +from poverty and dirt, who had struggled up by his own force, +overcoming and triumphing, fighting and winning, fighting and +holding, fighting and losing, but always fighting—before this +man, who had been born in a cellar, she felt suddenly humbled. +Without friends, without knowledge, except the bitter knowledge of +the streets, he had fought his fight, and had kept untarnished a +certain hardy standard of honour. Beside this tremendous +achievement she weighed his roughness, his ignorance of books and +of the superficial conventions, and she realized how little these +things really mattered—how little any outside things mattered +in the final judgment of life. She thought of George, dying a +drunkard's death in the room at the end of the hail—of George +whose way had been smoothed for him from birth, who had taken +everything that he had wanted.</p> +<p>"I wish there was something I could do for you—something +to help you," she said impetuously. "But I never saw any one who +seemed to need help so little."</p> +<p>His face brightened, and she saw that her words had brought a +touching wistfulness into his eyes.</p> +<p>"Well, if you'd let me come and talk to you sometimes" he +answered shyly. "There're a lot of things I'd like to talk to you +about—things I don't know, things I do know, and things I +half know."</p> +<p>From the brilliant look she turned on him, he understood that he +must have given her pleasure, and she saw the smile return to his +face.</p> +<p>"I'll tell you everything I know and welcome," she replied +readily; "but that isn't much. Better than that, I'll read to +you."</p> +<p>"If you don't mind, I think I'd rather you'd just talk." Then he +rose with one of his abrupt movements, "I'd better look in again +now. The nurse might want something."</p> +<p>"I feel that you oughtn't to stay up," urged Gabriella, rising +as he turned away from her. "You have done all you can."</p> +<p>His only response was an impatient negative gesture, and without +looking at her, he crossed the room quickly and went out into the +hall. Hardly a minute had passed, and she was still standing where +he had left her, when he returned and said in a whisper:</p> +<p>"He is going now—very quietly. Will you come?"</p> +<p>She shook her head, crying out sharply: "No! no!" Then before +something in his face her opposition melted swiftly away, and she +added: "Yes, I'll come. He might like to have some one by him who +knew him as he used to be."</p> +<p>"After all, he got the worst of it, poor devil!" he answered +gently as he opened the door.</p> +<p>By a miracle of memory her resentment was swept out of her +thoughts, and she was conscious of an infinite pity. In George's +face, while she watched it, there flickered back for an instant the +glory of that enchanted spring when she had first loved him. Of his +brilliant promise, his ardent youth, there remained only this +fading glimmer in the face of a man who was dying. And it seemed to +her suddenly that she saw embodied in this wreck of youth and love +all the inscrutable mystery not of death, but of life. Her tears +fell quickly, and while they fell O'Hara's grasp enfolded her +hand.</p> +<p>"It's over now. The best thing that could happen to him has +happened," he said, and the touch of his hand was like the touch of +life itself, consoling, strengthening, restoring.</p> +<p>In the days that followed it was as if the helpful spirit of +Cousin Jimmy had returned to her in the unfamiliar character of +O'Hara. The ghastly details of George's burial were not only taken +out of her hands, she was hardly permitted to know even that they +were necessary. All explanations were made, not by her, but by +O'Hara; and when they returned together from the cemetery, +Gabriella brought with her a feeling that she had been watching +something that belonged to O'Hara laid in the earth. But when she +tried to thank him, she found that he was apparently unaware that +he had done anything deserving of gratitude.</p> +<p>"Oh, that's nothing. Anybody would have done it," he remarked, +and dismissed the subject forever.</p> +<p>For a week after this she did not see him again; and then one +Saturday afternoon, when she was leaving Dinard's, they met by +chance and walked home together. It was the first time she had been +in the street with him, and she was conscious of feeling absurdly +young and girlish—she, the mother of a daughter old enough to +have love affairs! A soft flush—the flush of +youth—tinted her pale cheek; her step, which so often dragged +wearily after the day's work, was as buoyant as Fanny's; and her +low, beautiful laugh was as gay as if she were not burdened by +innumerable anxieties. As they passed a shop window, her reflection +flashed back at her, and she thought happily: "Yes, it is true, you +are better looking at thirty-seven, Gabriella, than you were at +twenty."</p> +<p>"Shall we walk down?" asked O'Hara, and added: "So that was your +shop? I am glad that I saw it. But what do you do there all +day?"</p> +<p>She laughed merrily. "Put in pins and take them out again. +Design, direct, scold, and flatter. We are getting in the spring +models now, and it's very exciting."</p> +<p>He glanced down at her figure, noting, as if for the first time, +the narrowness at the feet, the large loose waist, and the +bunchiness around the hips.</p> +<p>"Did you make that?" he inquired.</p> +<p>"This coat? Oh, no; it came from Paris. It was left on my +hands," she explained, "or I shouldn't be wearing it. I wear only +what people won't buy, you know."</p> +<p>"No, I didn't know," he returned abstractedly, and she observed +humorously after a minute that he was not thinking of her because +he was thinking so profoundly about her clothes. It was his way, +she had discovered, to concentrate his mind intensely upon the +object before him, no matter how trivial or insignificant it might +appear. He seemed never to have learned how to divide either his +interest or his attention.</p> +<p>"If you could make what you wanted," he remarked, "I should +think you'd make them more comfortable. Are you going to wear those +hobble skirts this spring?"</p> +<p>"They'll be narrow at the feet but very bunchy at the +top—doesn't that sound delightful? I am making a white +taffeta for Fanny that has five or six yards of perfectly good +material puffed out in the most ridiculous way at the back over a +petticoat of silver lace."</p> +<p>Her spirits felt so light, so effervescent, that she wanted to +jest, to laugh, to talk nonsense interminably; and after his first +moments of bewilderment, when he appeared still unable to detach +his mind from his business, he entered gaily and heartily into her +mood. His perplexities once disposed of, he gave himself entirely +to the enjoyment of the walk with her, and she noticed for the +first time his boyish delight in the simplest details of life. With +the simplicity of a man to whom large pleasures are unknown, he +threw himself whole-heartedly into the momentary diversion of small +ones. Every person in the crowd, she discovered, excited his +interest, and his humour bubbled over at the most insignificant +things—at the grimace of a newsboy who offered him a paper, +at the absurd hat worn by a woman in a motor car, at the expression +of disgusted solemnity on the face of a servant in livery, at the +giggles of an over-dressed girl who hung on the arm of an anemic +and exhausted admirer. Never before had she encountered such +vitality, such careless, pure, and uncalculating joy of life. There +was a tonic quality in his physical presence, and while she walked +at his side down Fifth Avenue she felt as if she were swept onward +by one of the health-giving, pine-scented winds of Colorado. And +she told herself reassuringly that only a man who had lived +decently could have kept himself so extraordinarily young and +exuberant at forty-five.</p> +<p>The shop windows, particularly those displaying men's shirtings, +enchanted him; and he stopped a moment before each one, while she +yielded as obligingly as she might have yielded to a fancy of +Archibald's, though she was aware that her son would have scorned +to look into a window.</p> +<p>"It's so seldom I get out on the Avenue, that's why I like it, I +suppose," he remarked while they were surveying a festive +arrangement of pink madras.</p> +<p>She smiled up at him, and her smile, gay as it was, held a touch +of maternal solicitude. Notwithstanding his bigness and his success +and his forty-five years, there was something appealingly boyish +about him.</p> +<p>"It would be so easy to get out, wouldn't it?" she asked as they +walked on again.</p> +<p>"Well, there ain't much fun when you are by yourself."</p> +<p>"But you know plenty of people."</p> +<p>"Oh, yes, I know people enough in a business way, but that don't +mean having friends, does it? Of course, I've men friends scattered +everywhere," he added. "The West is full of 'em, but it's funny +when you come to think of it—" He broke off, hesitated an +instant, and then went on again: "It's funny, but I don't believe. +I ever had a woman friend in my life—I mean a friend who +wasn't just the wife of some man I knew in business."</p> +<p>The confession touched her, and she answered impulsively: "Well, +that's just what I want to be to you—a good friend."</p> +<p>He laughed, but his eyes shone as he looked down on her. "If +you'd only take the trouble."</p> +<p>"It won't be any trouble—not a bit of it. After your +goodness to me, how could I help being your friend?"</p> +<p>Lifting her eyes she would have met his squarely while she +spoke, but he was not looking at her—he appeared, indeed, to +be looking almost obstinately away from her.</p> +<p>"There wasn't anything in what I did," he responded in a barely +audible voice, and she understood that he was embarrassed by her +gratitude.</p> +<p>"But there was something in it—there was a great deal in +it," she insisted. It was so easy to be natural with a man, so easy +to be candid and sincere when there was no question of sentiment, +and, she thought almost gratefully of the elusive and mysterious +Alice. The faintest suggestion of romance would have spoiled things +in the beginning; but thanks to the hidden Alice, she might be as +kind and frank as she pleased. Besides, she was nearly +thirty-eight, and a woman of thirty-eight might certainly be +trusted to make a friend of a man of forty-five.</p> +<p>With this thought, over which the memory of Arthur brooded +benevolently, in her mind, she said warmly: "It will make so much +difference to me, too, having a real friend in New York."</p> +<p>He turned to her with a start. "Do you mean that I could make a +difference to you?"</p> +<p>"The greatest difference, of course," she rejoined brightly, +eager to convince him of his importance in her life. "I can't tell +you—you would never understand how lonely I get at times, and +now with the children away it is worse than ever—the +loneliness, I mean, and the feeling that there isn't anybody one +could turn to in trouble."</p> +<p>For a minute he appeared to ponder this deeply. "Well, you could +always come to me if you needed anything," he answered at last, and +she felt intuitively that for some reason he was distrustful either +of himself or of her. "I am not here very much of my time, but +whenever I am, I am entirely at your service."</p> +<p>"But that's only half of it." She was determined to reassure +him. "A friendship can't be one-sided, can it? And it isn't fair +when you give everything, that I should give nothing."</p> +<p>His scruples surrendered immediately to her argument. "You give +everything—you give happiness," he said—a strange +speech certainly from the twilight lover of Alice. However, as she +reasoned clearly after her first perplexity, men were often strange +when one least expected or desired strangeness. At thirty-seven, +whatever else life had denied her, she felt that it had granted her +a complete understanding of men; and it was out of this complete +understanding that she observed brightly after a minute:</p> +<p>"Well, if you feel that way, we are obliged to be friends." At +least she would prove by her frankness that she was not one of +those foolish women who are always taking things seriously.</p> +<p>"Yes, you give happiness. You scatter it, all over the place," +he went on, groping an instant after the right words.</p> +<p>"Cousin Jimmy used to say," she laughed back, "that I had a +sunny temper."</p> +<p>"That's it—that's what I meant," he replied eagerly; and +she was impressed again by his utter inability to make light +conversation. When he was once started, when he had lost himself in +his subject, she knew that he could speak both fluently and +convincingly; but she realized that he simply couldn't talk unless +he had something to say. In order to put him at his ease again, she +remarked with pleasant firmness: "Do you know there is something +about you that reminds me of my Cousin Jimmy. It gives me almost a +cousinly feeling for you."</p> +<p>She had the air of expecting him to be interested, but he met it +with the rather vague interrogation: "Cousin Jimmy?"</p> +<p>"The cousin who always came to our help when we were in trouble. +We used to say that if the bread didn't rise, mother sent for +Cousin Jimmy."</p> +<p>Though he laughed readily enough, she could see that his +attention was still wandering. "I never had a cousin," he returned +after a pause, "or a relation of any sort, for that matter."</p> +<p>His voice was curiously distant, and she was conscious of a +slight shock, as if she had run against one of the hard places in +his character. "Well, I've done my best," she thought impatiently. +"If he doesn't want to be friends he needn't be." Then, with a +change of manner, she observed flippantly: "Sometimes one's +relatives are useful and sometimes they're not." Really, he was +impossibly heavy except in a crisis; and one could scarcely be +expected to produce crises in order to put him thoroughly at his +ease.</p> +<p>As he made no response to her trite remark, she, also, fell +silent, while they turned into Twenty-third Street, and began the +long walk to Ninth Avenue. Once or twice, glancing inquiringly into +his face, which wore a preoccupied look, she wondered if he were +thinking of Alice. Then, as the silence became suddenly oppressive, +she ventured warily in the effort to dispel it: "I hope you are not +disturbed about anything?"</p> +<p>"Disturbed?" He turned to her with a start. "No, I was only +wondering if you knew how much your friendship would mean to +me."</p> +<p>It was out at last, and confirmed once more in her knowledge of +men, she retorted gaily: "How can I know if you won't take the +trouble to tell me?" After all, she reflected cheerfully, the +education she had derived from George and Judge Crowborough, though +lacking in the higher branches, was fundamentally sound. All men +were alike in one thing at least—they invariably disappointed +one's expectations.</p> +<p>"I've been trying to tell you for a quarter of an hour," he +answered, "and I didn't know how to put it."</p> +<p>"But at last you didn't have to put it at all," she said +laughingly; "it simply put itself, didn't it?"</p> +<p>"I am still wondering," he persisted gravely.</p> +<p>"Wondering if I know?" She spoke in the sweetly practical tone +of one who is firmly resolved not to permit any nonsense. "Yes, I +do know—that is, I know there are ways in which I might be +useful to you."</p> +<p>"For instance?"</p> +<p>"Well, there are some little—some very little things I +might tell you if we were friends—real friends," she made +this plain, "just as two men might be."</p> +<p>"But the very last things two men would tell each other," he was +laughing now, "are the little things—the things about slang +and walking-sticks and oak furniture."</p> +<p>So he hadn't forgotten! The recollection of her impertinence +confused her, and she hastened to make light of it by protesting +gaily: "I was only joking. Of course, you didn't take that +seriously."</p> +<p>"I don't know how much more seriously," he replied emphatically, +"I could have taken it."</p> +<p>"But you haven't thought of it since?"</p> +<p>"What would you say if I told you I hadn't thought of anything +else?"</p> +<p>"Then I wish I hadn't said it." She was obviously worried by his +admission. "It was horrid of me—perfectly horrid. I ought to +have been ashamed of myself. I had no right to criticise you, and +you have been so heavenly kind."</p> +<p>"After that"—he appeared to be hammering the idea into her +mind—"I was so grateful I'd have done almost anything. Do you +know," he burst out with evident emotion, "that was the first +criticism—I mean downright honest criticism—I've ever +had in my life. Nobody—that is nobody who knew—ever +thought enough of me before to tell me where I was wrong."</p> +<p>It was all a pathetic mistake, she saw, but she saw also that it +was impossible for her to explain it away. She could not tell him +the ugly truth that she had been merely laughing at him when he had +believed, in his beautiful simplicity, that she was speaking as a +friend. Though she felt ashamed, humbled, remorseful, there was +nothing that she could say now which would not hurt him more than +the original misunderstanding had done.</p> +<p>In her desire to atone as far as possible, she remarked +recklessly: "I only wish I could be of some real help to you."</p> +<p>"You can," he answered frankly. "You can let me come to see you +sometimes before I go West again."</p> +<p>"You are going back in the spring?"</p> +<p>He laughed happily, drawing himself erect with a large, free +movement as if he needed to stretch his limbs. "I can't stand more +than six months of the East, and I've been here a year now, off and +on. After a time I begin to want air. I want to breathe."</p> +<p>"Yet you lived here once."</p> +<p>"A sort of life, yes, but that don't count."</p> +<p>"What does count with you, I wonder?" She was smiling up at him, +and as they passed under a street light her eyes shone with a misty +brightness through her veil of dotted net.</p> +<p>For a minute he thought over her question. "I guess fighting +does," he answered at last. "Getting on in spite of hard knocks, +and smashing things that stand in your way. I like the feeling that +comes after you've put through a big deal or got the better of the +desert or the mountains. I got joy in Arizona out of my first +silver mine; but I didn't get the joy exactly out of the silver. I +don't suppose you understand."</p> +<p>"Oh, yes, I do. I understand perfectly. It's the pure spirit of +adventure. Whenever we do a thing for the sake of the struggle, not +for the thing itself, it's pure adventure, isn't it?"</p> +<p>"Well, I like money," he said with the air of being entirely +honest. "I'm not a romantic chap, don't think that about me. I care +a lot about money, only after I've made it, somehow, I never know +what to do with it. All I want for myself is a place to sleep and a +bite to eat—I'm not over-particular what it is—and +clothes to wear, good clothes, too—but I don't give a hang +for motor cars except to go long distances in when there are no +trains running."</p> +<p>It was the commonplace problem, worked out in intricate detail, +of the newly rich, of the uncultivated rich, of the rich whose +strenuously active processes of enrichment had permanently closed +all other highways to experience. Seventeen years ago the Gabriella +of Hill Street would have had only disdain for the newly rich and +their problems; but life, which had softened her judgment and +modified her convictions, had completely reversed her inherited +opinion of such a case as O'Hara's. Though he was as raw as unbaked +brick, she was penetrating enough to discern that he was also as +genuine; and, so radically had events altered her point of view, +that at thirty-seven she found genuine rawness more appealing than +superficial refinement. George had wearied her of the sham and the +superficial, of gloss without depth, of manner without substance, +of charm without character.</p> +<p>"But there is so much that you might do to help," she said +presently. "After all, money is power, isn't it?"</p> +<p>"Misused power too often," he answered. "Of course, you can +always build lodging-houses and tenements and hospitals; but when +you come squarely down to facts, I've never in my life tried to +help a man by giving him money that I haven't regretted it. Why, +I've ruined men by helping to make their way too easy at the +start."</p> +<p>"Perhaps you're right," she admitted; "I don't know much about +it, I confess; but I should have been spared a great deal of +suffering if I had had something to start with when I was obliged +to make my living."</p> +<p>"That's different." His voice had grown gentle in an instant. "I +can't think of your ever having had a hard time. You seem so +strong, so successful, so happy."</p> +<p>If she had answered straight from her heart, Gabriella would +have retorted frankly: "A good deal of that is in the shape of my +face and the way I dress," but instead of speaking sincerely, she +remarked with impersonal cheerfulness: "Oh, well, happiness, like +everything else, is mainly a habit, isn't it? I cultivated the +habit of happiness at the most miserable time of my life, and I've +never quite lost it."</p> +<p>"But I don't like to think of your ever having worried," he +protested.</p> +<p>Of her ever having worried! Was he becoming dangerously +sentimental or was it merely a random spark of his unquenchable +Western chivalry?</p> +<p>Though she told herself emphatically again that she was not +falling in love with O'Hara, though she was perfectly faithful in +her heart to the memory of Arthur, still she was vividly aware with +every drop of her blood, with every beat of her pulses, of the man +at her side. And through her magnetic sense of his nearness there +flowed to her presently a deeper and clearer perception of the +multitudinous movements of life which surrounded her—of the +variable darkness out of which lights flashed and gigantic +spectacular outlines loomed against a dim background of sky, of the +vague shapes stirring, swarming, creating there in the darkness, +and always of the pitiless, insatiable hunger from which the city +had sprung. For the first time, flowing like a current from the +mind of the man beside her, there came to her an understanding of +her own share in the common progress of life—for the first +time she felt herself to be not merely a woman who lived in a city, +but an integral part of that city, one cell among closely packed +millions of cells. Something of the responsibility she felt for her +own children seemed to spread out and cover the city lying there in +its dimness and mystery.</p> +<p>"But I don't like to think of your ever having worried," he +repeated.</p> +<p>"Oh, it's over now," she returned, severely matter-of-fact. "It +took me years to make my way, but I've made it at last, and I may +settle down to a comfortable middle-age without the dread of the +poorhouse to spur me into activity. My business is doing very well; +our custom has doubled in the last two or three years."</p> +<p>"But wasn't it a tough pull at one time?"</p> +<p>"It was hard; but what isn't? Of course, when I was obliged to +work from nine till six and then come home to cook the children's +dinner and teach them their lessons, I used to be tired out by the +end of the day—but that lasted only a few years: five or six +at the most—and now I can afford to let Fanny wear imported +gowns when she goes out to parties."</p> +<p>Though she spoke gaily, making a jest of her struggle, she saw +the gravity of his face deepen until his features looked almost +wooden.</p> +<p>"And through it all you kept something that so many other women +seem to lose when they work for a living," he said. "You've kept +your—your charm."</p> +<p>Again she found herself on the point of exclaiming frankly: +"heaven knows I've tried to!"—and again, checking herself, +she proceeded cautiously: "I've never understood why charm should +be merely a hothouse flower."</p> +<p>"I suppose it does depend a good deal upon a sunny temper," he +rejoined in his blindness.</p> +<p>They had reached the gate, and stopping him when he would have +entered, she said with the directness of a man: "So we're friends, +and you're coming to see me?"</p> +<p>"Yes, I'm coming," he replied gravely. Then, standing beside the +gate, he watched her while she went up the walk and opened the door +with her key.</p> +<p>Upstairs, with her knitting on her lap and her feet on the +fender, Miss Polly looked up to observe: "You're late, Gabriella. +You must have walked all the way."</p> +<p>"Yes, I walked all the way. Mr. O'Hara joined me."</p> +<p>"Where did you run across him?"</p> +<p>"Just as I left the shop. He was walking down Fifth Avenue."</p> +<p>"Do you reckon he was waitin' outside?"</p> +<p>"Oh, no, he said he had been up to Fifty-ninth Street on +business."</p> +<p>"Well, the walk certainly did you good. You are bloomin' like a +rose."</p> +<p>"The air was delicious, and I really like talking to Mr. O'Hara. +He is quite interesting after you get over the first impression, +and he isn't nearly so ignorant about things as I imagined. He has +thought a great deal even if he hasn't read very much. It's +wonderful, isn't it, what the West can do with a man? Now, if he'd +stayed in New York he would have been merely impossible, but +because he has lived out of doors he has achieved a certain +distinction. I can understand a woman falling in love with him just +because of his force and his bigness. They are the qualities a +woman likes most, I think."</p> +<p>"He must have made a great deal of money."</p> +<p>"Yes, he's rich, and that's a good thing. I like money +tremendously, though I used to think that I didn't. I wonder if he +had been poor if I should have liked him quite so much?" she asked +herself honestly.</p> +<p>"I don't 'spose you could ever—ever bring yourself to +think of him, honey? It would be a mighty good thing in some +ways."</p> +<p>Gabriella, being in a candid mood, pondered the question without +subterfuge or evasion. "Of course I've passed the sentimental age," +she answered. "If Mr. O'Hara had been poor, I suppose I should +never have thought of him; but his money does make a difference. It +stands for success, achievement, and ability, and I like all those +qualities. Then he is rough in many ways, but he isn't a bit +vulgar. He has genuine character. There is absolutely no pretence +about him."</p> +<p>"You could catch him in a minute," replied Miss Polly hopefully, +animated by the inveterate match-making instinct of her class.</p> +<p>Gabriella laughed merrily. "Oh, yes, I might capture him if I +went questing for him. I am not a child. But put that out of your +head forever, Miss Polly. I have given him clearly to understand +that there must be no nonsense, though, for the matter of that, I +doubt if he needed the warning. There is an Alice."</p> +<p>"I reckon it would take more than an Alice to stand in the way +if you wanted him," insisted the little seamstress, possessed by an +obstinate conviction that fate could provide no happiness apart +from marriage.</p> +<p>"Perhaps. But you see I don't want him." Gabriella had become +perfectly serious, and to Miss Polly's amazement a hint of +petulance showed in her manner. "Everything of that kind was over +for me long ago. I never think of love now, and if I did there +wouldn't be but one—but one—"</p> +<p>"I know, honey," agreed Miss Polly, suddenly softened, "and I'd +give anything on earth if you and Arthur could come together +again."</p> +<p>"It wouldn't be any use. I made my choice, and I have had to +abide by it. He could never forgive me—". She stopped as if +she were choking, and Miss Polly said sympathetically:</p> +<p>"Well, I wish he had a chance to, that's all. Why don't you run +down to Richmond for a few days this spring to see your folks? Your +ma and all would be so glad to see you, and it ain't as if you had +the children to keep you back. The thing that worries me," she +added with feeling, "is the thought of your spendin' the summer +here without the children. If Archibald goes to camp from school +and Fanny joins Jane at the White Sulphur Springs as soon as her +school is out, you won't have them at all, will you?"</p> +<p>"No, but they will be happy; that is the only thing that +matters."</p> +<p>"It seems all wrong to me. What do you get out of life, +honey?"</p> +<p>"What do any of us get out of it, dear little Miss Polly, except +the joy of triumphing? It's overcoming that really matters, nothing +else, and it is the same thing to you and to me that it is to the +man downstairs. I am happy because in my little way I stood the +test of struggle, and so are you, and so is Mr. O'Hara."</p> +<p>"But you're young yet, and it ain't natural for you to live as +you're doin'. Lots of women marry when they're older than you +are."</p> +<p>"Oh, yes, if they want to—"</p> +<p>For a minute the little seamstress rattled her newspaper while +she looked at her without replying. Then, after folding the paper, +and removing her spectacles, she asked grimly: "Can you look me in +the eyes, Gabriella, and tell me that you ain't still hankerin' +after Arthur?"</p> +<p>The blush of a girl made the business-like Gabriella appear as +young and as piquantly feminine as her daughter.</p> +<p>"No, Miss Polly, I cannot," she answered with incomparable +directness; "I have loved Arthur all my life."</p> +<p>"That's just what I thought all along, and yet you went off and +married somebody else." Excited by the unexpected confession, Miss +Polly was quivering with sympathy.</p> +<p>In that supreme instant of self-revelation Gabriella answered +this accusation as if it had been uttered by her remorseful +conscience. "But that wasn't love," she said slowly; "it was my +youth craving experience; it was my youth reaching after the +unknown, the untried, the undiscovered. We all go questing for +adventure one way or another, I suppose, but it was not the +reality."</p> +<p>"I wonder what is," said Miss Polly in a whisper; "I wonder what +is, Gabriella?"</p> +<p>"That," replied Gabriella softly, "is what I am still trying to +discover."</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IXa" id="CHAPTER_IXa"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> +<h3>THE PAST</h3> +<p>It was the morning of Gabriella's thirty-eighth birthday, and +she was standing, with her hat on, before the window of her +sitting-room, gazing with dreaming eyes at the young leaves on the +elm tree. The day's work was ahead of her, but for a little while, +standing there by the open window, she gave herself, with a sense +of pleasure, of abandonment, to the rare luxury of regret. Out of +her whole year it was the one day when, for a few hours, she +permitted herself to think sadly of the past and the future, when +she cherished in her heart something of the gentle melancholy of +her mother's retrospective philosophy.</p> +<p>In the street, beyond the narrow yard, where the grass lay like +a veil, there was a curious deadening of sounds, as if the traffic +had become suddenly muffled in the languorous softness of spring. +Out of this imaginary stillness floated the sharp twittering of +sparrows and the bright laugh of a child at play in one of the +neighbouring yards. Above the grim outlines of the city the sky +shone divinely clear and blue, flecked by a single cloud, soft as +an eagle's feather, which drifted in a mist of light above the +horizon. The city, beneath that azure sky, borrowed the transparent +brightness of an object that is imprisoned in crystal. White magic +had transformed it for an hour, and the street, the houses, the +shining elm tree, and the distant frowning brows of the +skyscrapers, all seemed as unreal as the vivid yet impalpable +images in a dream. And into this world of crystal there drifted, +like the essence of spring, the dreamy fragrance from the window +box filled with white hyacinths.</p> +<p>While she stood there Gabriella thought pensively of many +things. She thought of the day's work before her, of the gown she +was designing for Mrs. Pletheridge, of Fanny's latest lover, the +brother of a schoolmate, of the clothes she should send the child +to the White Sulphur Springs, of her mother, and of Jane's eldest +daughter, Margaret; and then very slowly, with the scent of the +hyacinths drowning all merely prosaic memories, she began to think +hopelessly and tenderly of Arthur Peyton. She thought of him as he +had looked on the day when she had told him of her engagement of +the sympathetic expression in his eyes, and of his beautiful +manner, which she had felt at the time she could never forget. +Well, after eighteen years she had not forgotten it. Compared with +Arthur, all other men seemed to her as unreal as shadows. "How +could Miss Polly imagine that I'd think of Ben O'Hara after a love +like that?" she reflected indignantly.</p> +<p>And then, perhaps because for a shadow he was so solidly +substantial, she became aware that O'Hara's image was trespassing +upon the hallowed soil of her reverie. To be sure, she had seen a +great deal of him since George's death, when he had been so +wonderfully considerate and helpful. Scarcely a day had passed +since then that he had not brightened by some reminder of his +friendship. They had spent long evenings together; and +occasionally, accompanied by the delighted Miss Polly, they had +gone to dinner at a restaurant and later to a concert or a play. +That he had been almost too kind it was impossible for her to deny; +but she had tried her best to repay him—she had, when one +came to the point, done as much as she could to remedy the defects +of his education. At first she had given zest, sympathy, eagerness, +to her self-appointed task of making him over; then, as the months +went by, a sense of doubt, of discouragement, of approaching +failure, had tempered her enthusiasm, and at last she had realized +that her work, except in the merest details, had been ineffectual +and futile. The differences, which she had regarded as superficial, +were, in reality, fundamental. It was impossible to make him over +because he was so completely himself. He stood quite definitely for +certain tendencies in democracy, and by no ingenious manipulation +could she twist him about until he presented the sham appearance of +moving in the opposite direction. For the logic of her failure was +perfectly simple—he couldn't see, however hard he tried, the +things she wanted him to look at. The difficulty was far deeper +than a mere matter of finish, or even of education—for it +was, after all, not one of manner, but of material. Day by day she +had realized more clearly that the problem confronting them was one +which involved their different standards of living and their +individual philosophies. The things which she regarded as essential +were to him only the accidental variations of life. He had lived so +long in touch with the basic realities—with vast spaces and +the stark aspect of desert horizons, with droughts, and winds, and +the unquenchable pangs of thirst and hunger, with the vital issues +of birth and death in their most primitive forms—he had lived +so long in touch with the simplest and most elemental forces of +Nature, that his spirit, as well as his vision, had adjusted itself +to a trackless and limitless field of view. No, what he was now he +must remain, since to change him, except in trivial details, was +out of her power.</p> +<p>And of course he had his virtues—she would have been the +last to deny him his virtues. Whenever she applied the touchstone +of character, she realized how little alloy there was in the pure +gold of his nature. He was truthful, he was generous, he was brave, +kind, and tolerant; but his virtues, like his personality, were +large, flamboyant, and without gradations of colour. Custom had not +pruned their natural luxuriance, nor had tradition toned down the +violence of their contrasts. They were experimental, not +established virtues, as obviously the expression of the man himself +as was his uncultivated preference for red geraniums. For he +possessed, she admitted, a sincerity such as she had not believed +compatible with human designs—certainly not with human +achievement. According to the code of the sheltered half of her +sex—according to the inflexible code of her mother and +Jane—he was not a gentleman. He lacked breeding, he lacked +taste, he lacked the necessary education of schools; but in other +ways, in ways peculiarly his own, she was beginning dimly to +realize that he possessed qualities immeasurably larger than any +superficial lack in his nature. In balance, moderation, +restraint—in all the gracious attributes with which Arthur +was endowed in her memory, in all the attributes she had +particularly esteemed in the past—she understood that O'Hara +would undoubtedly fall below her inherited standards. But, failing +in these things, he had been able to command her respect by the +sheer force of his character. Though he had, as he had confessed to +her, gone down into hell, she could not talk to him for an hour +without recognizing that he had never lost a natural chivalry of +mind beside which the cultivated chivalry of manner appeared as +exotic as an orchid in a hothouse. Even Arthur, she was aware, +would have lied to her for her own good; but she would have trusted +O'Hara to speak the truth to her at any cost. In this, as well as +in his practical efficiency, and his crude yet vital optimism, he +embodied, she felt, the triumphs and the failures of American +democracy—this democracy of ugly fact and of fine ideals, of +crooked deeds and of straight feeling, of little codes and of large +adventures, of puny lives and of heroic deaths—this democracy +of the smoky present and the clear future. "If this is our raw +material to-day," she thought hopefully, "what will the finished +and signed product of to-morrow be?"</p> +<p>"Gabriella, ain't these lovely?"</p> +<p>Whirling out of the sunshine, she saw Miss Polly holding a +rustic basket of primroses and cowslips. "Mr. O'Hara wants to know +if he may speak to you for a minute before you go out?"</p> +<p>"Oh, yes, I'm not in a hurry this morning." Then Miss Polly +disappeared and an instant later the vacant space in the doorway +was filled exuberantly by O'Hara.</p> +<p>"I wanted to be the first to wish you a happy birthday," he +began, a little shyly, a little awkwardly, though his face was +flushing with pleasure.</p> +<p>"The flowers are wonderful!" For a minute, while she answered +him, he seemed to be a part of the unreal intense brightness of the +world outside—of that magic world where the elm tree and the +grass and the sunny street were all imprisoned in crystal. He +diffused a glowing consciousness of success, a sanguine faith in +the inherent goodness of experience. For, as she had discovered +long ago, O'Hara was one of those who stood not for the elimination +of struggle, but for the complete acceptance of life. He had sprung +out of ugliness, he had lived intimately with evil; and yet more +than any one she had ever known, he seemed to her to radiate the +simple, uncalculating joy of living. He was the strongest person +she knew, as well as the happiest. He had never evaded facts, never +feared a risk, never shirked an issue, never lacked the hardy, +adventurous courage of battle. In his own words, life had never +"found him a quitter."</p> +<p>He stood in front of her now, fresh, smiling, robust, with his +look of suddenly arrested energy, and the dark red of his hair, +which was still moist from his bath, striking a vivid note against +the cool grays and blues of the background. The sunshine, falling +through the open window, warmed the ruddy tan of his face, and made +his eyes like pools of clear light in which the jubilant spirit of +the spring was reflected. "After all, it isn't what one does, it is +what one is, that matters," she thought while she looked at him. +"At the end, as Miss Polly said, it is character, not +circumstances, that counts."</p> +<p>"I've been all over New York this morning looking for that +basket," he said. Though he had been so eager to make light of his +services to her in her trouble, she was amused from time to time by +a childlike vanity which prompted him to impress her with the value +of small attentions; and this she was swift to recognize as the +opposite of Arthur's delicacy. It was the only littleness she had +observed in O'Hara so far—this reluctance to hide his smaller +lights under a bushel—and in its place, it was amusing. Here +was an obvious instance where nature unassisted by training +appeared to fall short.</p> +<p>"They couldn't be lovelier if you'd gone all over the world," +she responded sincerely.</p> +<p>Before answering her he hesitated a moment, and she watched +pityingly the struggle he was making toward an impossible +self-expression. The thing he wanted to say, the thing struggling +so pathetically in the inarticulateness of his feeling, would not, +she knew, be uttered in words.</p> +<p>"You are the first woman I ever wanted to send flowers to," he +said presently; and added with abject infelicity: "It's strange, +isn't it?"</p> +<p>"Yes, it's strange," she assented pleasantly. Though his words +were ineffectual, she was aware suddenly of a force before which +she felt a vague impulse of flight. Now, if ever, she understood +that she must keep their relations as superficial as she had always +meant them to be—that she must cling with all her strength to +the comfortable surface of appearances. "But you haven't had many +women friends, have you?"</p> +<p>"I've wanted to give other things," he went on hurriedly; "but +not flowers. I never thought of flowers until I met you."</p> +<p>"That's nice for me." She was growing nervous, and in her +nervousness she precipitated the explosion by venturing rashly: +"But there's Alice, too, isn't there, to like them?" Her voice was +firm and friendly. Once for all she intended him to understand how +aloof she stood from any sentimental advances.</p> +<p>"Alice?" For an instant his response hung fire, enveloped in a +fog of perplexity. Then, with an air of dispelling the cloud, he +made a vigorous gesture of denial, and moved nearer to her with the +swiftness and directness of a natural force. "Why, Alice was you! +You were Alice all the time!" he exclaimed energetically.</p> +<p>"You mean—" She checked herself in alarm, paralyzed the +next instant by the tremendous, unexpected blow of her +discovery.</p> +<p>"So you thought there was somebody else!" The delight in his +face kept her silent, amazed, incapable of explanation. His arm was +still outstretched, as if he were brushing aside the last flimsy +barrier between them, and his voice, with its unrestrained and +radiant joy, stirred some faintly quivering echoes in the secret +depths of her being. It was as if the jubilant spirit of spring had +flowered suddenly in his look.</p> +<p>"There wasn't anybody else." He came still nearer, and she stood +there, startled, incredulous, powerless either to retreat or to +prevent the inevitable instant that was approaching. "At least, +there wasn't anybody I ever knew named Alice except a school +teacher when I was a kid. She was good and she was pretty like you, +and I used to dream about her after school, and every evening at +dusk I would go out of my way to speak to her in Sixth Avenue. Once +she told me that she'd wait for me to grow up and get rich so I +could marry her, and after I went out to Arizona I used to think +about her a lot. When I came on you suddenly, standing there in the +dusk with your hands full of lilacs, it all came back to me because +you, looked like her, with your dark hair and your tall +slenderness. Then before I knew what I was, doing I called you by +her name. I oughtn't to have done it," he finished ecstatically, +"but I'm jolly glad now that I did."</p> +<p>So he also, the man of action and of enterprise, he, the worker +and the adventurer, so he also cultivated his garden of dreams!</p> +<p>"I didn't know—I didn't know—" she found herself +murmuring faintly in protest.</p> +<p>"But you know now!" His voice rang out exultantly, and, though +she felt that the thing she feared and dreaded was coming upon her, +she still stood there without moving a step, without lifting a +hand, mesmerized, enchanted, by the force of the man. "You know +now," he repeated. "You know now, Gabriella, and you knew all +along."</p> +<p>It was true. In spite of her surprise, in spite of her +shrinking, in spite of her evasion, she confessed it in her heart. +She had known all the time. Something deep down in her, something +secret and profound and clairvoyant, had discerned the truth from +the beginning.</p> +<p>"No! no!" she cried out sharply, for, mistaking her silence, he +had stooped to her with the directness which impelled all his +movements, which so easily brushed aside and discarded intervening +encumbrances, and had kissed her on the lips.</p> +<p>For an instant, in the merciless tenderness of his arms, her +resistance melted from her. Beneath the crash of the storm she did +not think, she did not struggle, she did not murmur. Her +consciousness seemed suspended, and with her consciousness, her +memory, her judgment, even her passionate unshaken loyalty to the +love of her youth. Then, after the moment of weakness, of passive +submission, it was as if her soul and body caught fire at a flash, +and a quiver of anger ran through her, enkindling her glance and +nerving her spirit.</p> +<p>"But I do not love you! I never meant that I loved you!" she +cried.</p> +<p>At her words his arms dropped to his sides, and he stood as if +turned to stone, with only his questioning eyes and the vivid red +of his hair seeming alive. There was no need now for her to +struggle. At her first movement to escape he had released her and +drawn to a distance.</p> +<p>"You don't love me?" he stammered. "Why, I saw it. I've seen it +for weeks. I see it now in your face."</p> +<p>"You see nothing—nothing." She denied it bitterly. "I +liked you as a friend. I did not think of this. I never suspected +it. I don't love you. I don't love you in the least."</p> +<p>He was very still. The jubilant spirit of the spring had ebbed +away from his look, and even in the height of her anger she was +struck by the change in his face.</p> +<p>"I don't believe you," he said gravely after a minute. "I don't +believe you."</p> +<p>"You must believe me. I don't love you. I have never thought of +you except as a friend. I have loved another man all my life."</p> +<p>Her voice rose accusingly, triumphantly, and so fervent was her +look that she might have been repeating a creed. It was as if she +hoped by convincing him to persuade her own rebellious heart of the +truth she proclaimed.</p> +<p>Now at last he understood. She had been lucid enough even for +the crystalline lucidity of his thought.</p> +<p>"I am sorry. I made a mistake," he said quietly, and after the +exultant note of a few moments ago there was a dull level of +flatness in his voice. "I am sorry. There don't seem to be anything +else that I can say or do, but—but it wouldn't have happened +if I had understood—" He paused, looked at her closely for a +minute, and then added stubbornly, with an echo of the old +confidence in his tone: "I still don't believe it."</p> +<p>"It is true, nevertheless." She was trembling with indignation, +and this indignation, in spite of her natural fairness, was not +directed against herself, against her own blindness and folly. +Though she knew that she was to blame, she was furious, not with +herself, but with O'Hara. He had insulted her, and she resolved +bitterly that she would never forgive him. Even now, whenever she +was silent, she could still feel his kiss on her mouth, and the +vividness of the sensation stung her into passionate anger. She was +no longer the reasonable and competent Gabriella, who had so +successfully "managed her life"; she was primitive woman in the +grip of primitive anger; and balance, moderation, restraint, had +flown from her soul. The very mystery of her feeling, its +complexity, its suddenness, its remorselessness—these +emotions worked together to deepen the sense of insult, of injury, +with which she burned.</p> +<p>"It is true, and you have no right to doubt it. You have no +right." She caught her breath sharply, and then went on with +inexcusable harshness: "Even if there hadn't been any one else, I +should never—I could never in the world—"</p> +<p>Her loss of self-control gave him an advantage, which he was +either too generous or too stupid to perceive. "Well, forget all +about it. I am going now," he answered quietly.</p> +<p>While she watched him moving away from her, she was conscious of +an inexplicable longing to stab him again more deeply before she +lost him forever. It was intolerable to her that he should leave +her while she was still indignant, that he should evade her just +resentment by the natural cowardice of flight.</p> +<p>"I can't forget it," she said; "how can you expect me to?"</p> +<p>For an instant he seemed on the point of smiling. Then, turning, +at the door, he walked back to where she was standing, and said +gravely: "When I came in here it was to ask you to marry me, and, +if it's the last word I ever speak, I thought you +understood—that you knew how I felt. I was even fool enough +to think you would be willing to marry me. That's all I can say. I +haven't any other excuses."</p> +<p>For the second time he went to the door, opened it, and then +turning quickly, came back again. "I am not the sort to change, and +I shan't change about this. You are a free woman, and if you ever +feel that you made a mistake, if you ever want me or need me, you +can just come to me. I shan't stop caring for you, and if you +choose to come, I'll be waiting. I believed you were meant for me +when I first saw you—and I believe it now. In spite of all +you say, I am going to keep on believing it—"</p> +<p>He went out, closing the door softly, and five minutes later, +feeling extraordinarily young, she watched him pass through the +gate, and walk as buoyantly as ever in the direction of Broadway. +While she looked after him she wondered suddenly why novelists +always dropped their heroines as soon as they passed twenty-seven? +"If I'd been in a play, they'd have put me in the background, +dressed in lavender, and made me look on and do fancywork," she +thought humorously, "but this is real life, and I've just had a +real love scene on my thirty-eighth birthday. He couldn't have been +more romantic if I'd been Fanny," she mused with an agreeable +complacency. "It's only in books and plays that people stop falling +in love when they pass the twenties. I don't believe they ever stop +in real life. I believe it goes on forever." And glancing at the +glass, she added truthfully: "I want love more to-day than I wanted +it when I was twenty—and so does Ben O'Hara."</p> +<p>A sensation of stifling, as if her throat were closing together, +oppressed her suddenly, and picking up her hand-bag, she ran +downstairs and out of the house.</p> +<p>By the time she reached Broadway her anger had ebbed, but the +oppression, the feeling that she was being slowly smothered, was +still in her throat and bosom. After all, seen in the sober light +of reason, why had she been so indignant? There had been a +misapprehension; he had thought that she was in love with him, and +thinking so, he had kissed her. That was the case plainly stated; +and what was there in this to send a burning, rush of anger to her +heart? What was there in this that had made her turn and insult +him? For the first time in her life she had lost her temper without +cause, and had raged, she told herself sternly, like a fury. And +beneath her rage she had been conscious always of some vague, +incomprehensible disloyalty to Arthur—of a feeling of, +humiliation, of self-reproach, which appeared ridiculous when she +remembered that she had been kissed against her will and without +warning. But, in spite of this, she knew intuitively, with a +knowledge deeper than reason, that the glory of her Dream had paled +in the moment when she lay in O'Hara's arms.</p> +<p>A subtle change had come over the spirit of spring since she had +left the elm tree and the emerald veil of the grass. It was no +longer jubilant, but languorous, wistful, haunting, as if it +eternally pursued, through the fugitive seasons, an immortal and +ineffable beauty. The enchanted crystal had been shattered in an +instant, and she saw life now, not imprisoned in magical sunshine, +but gray, sordid, monotonous, as utterly hopeless as the faces +thronging in Broadway. Yet not many months ago she had seen in +these, same faces the inward hope, the joy in sadness, the gaiety +in disappointment, which had brightened the world for her. Then she +had been aware of an invisible current flowing from the crowd to +herself; but to-day this shining current was broken or turned +aside, and she felt detached, adrift, and distrustful of the +future. That mental correspondence with the mood of the crowd, with +the life of the city, which had come to her first on the brilliant +morning in September, and then again when she walked home with +O'Hara in the winter's dusk—which had released a new faculty +in her soul, and had given her a fresh perception of human +responsibilities—this had deserted her so utterly that she +could barely remember its miraculous visitation. Then her personal +life had seemed to become a part of the life of the street, of the +sky, of the mysterious city outlined against the gray background of +dusk. To-day she walked alone and without sympathy through the +crowd. Her feet dragged, and she felt dully that she had lost her +share in both the street and the sky. The very faces of the men and +women around her—those lethargic foreign faces which crowded +out the finer American type—awoke in her the sensation of +hopeless revolt which one feels before the impending destruction of +higher forms by masses of inert and conscienceless matter. She +thought gloomily: "I have lost the vision—there is no hope +either for me or for America except in the clear vision of the +future." And while she spoke there passed over her the vague +feeling of loss, of something missing, as if a precious possession +had slipped from her grasp.</p> +<p>Her morning's work was unusually trying, and at one o'clock, +when she put on her hat before going out to lunch, she asked +herself dejectedly: "What can be the matter with me? Before I go +home I'll take a taxicab and drive up Riverside for an hour. If +only the children were here, I should not feel so depressed." She +remembered regretfully that Archibald and Fanny would be away all +summer; and then from thinking of her children, she passed by +almost insensible degrees of despondency to meditating pensively +about Arthur Peyton. What a wreck, what an inconceivably stupid +wreck she had made of her happiness!</p> +<p>As she entered the outer showroom on her way to the street, she +heard the voice of Miss Murphy attuned to a cooing pitch, and +glancing around a little, painted cabinet, filled with useless +ornaments, which stood in the centre of the floor, she beheld a +dazzling head of reddish gold before one of the elaborately +decorated French mirrors. While she advanced the red-gold waves, +worn with extreme flatness over a forehead of pearly whiteness, +were submerged for a minute in the smallest and roundest hat in the +shop, and from a fashionable figure, reminding her vaguely of an +ambulatory dressmaker's model, there issued a high, fluting note of +delighted ejaculation.</p> +<p>"This is just exactly what I've been looking all over New York +for! Now, isn't it too funny for anything that I should have found +it right here the very minute I came in?" As Gabriella's face +flashed back from the mirror the fashionable figure sprang suddenly +to life, and the voice, still fluting delightedly, exclaimed:</p> +<p>"Why, Gabriella! Where on earth did you come from?"</p> +<p>For a minute sheer amazement kept Gabriella clinging helplessly +to the ridiculous cabinet, from the top of which an artificial +rose-bush seemed to shower artificial pink petals down on her head. +Then, recovering herself, with a sharp effort of will, she went +forward a few steps beyond the shelter of the cabinet, and said +composedly:</p> +<p>"How do you do, Florrie? I did not recognize you at first."</p> +<p>For it was Florrie herself, Florrie in the flesh, Florrie, +glowing, sparkling, prosperous, victorious. Her figure, conforming +to the latest mode, had lost its pinched protuberances, and was +long, slender, sinuous in its perfection of line. Beneath the small +round hat, her hair, glossy with brilliantine, was like melted gold +in the large loose waves which revealed the rosy tips of her ears. +She was thirty-nine, and she looked scarcely a day over +twenty-five. The peach-blossom texture of her skin was as unlined +by care or pain as if she had spent the last ten years immured in a +convent; for in this case, at least, Gabriella realized while she +looked at her, the retribution which awaits upon sinners had been +tardy in its fulfilment.</p> +<p>As she moved toward her, without noticing the friendly hand that +Florrie held out, Gabriella was conscious of an ironical +inclination to laugh. Though she felt no bitter personal resentment +against Florrie—for, after all, Florrie had not been able to +hurt her—there struggled in her bosom an indignation more +profound, more moving, than any merely personal emotion could be. +Her resentment was directed not against Florrie, but against some +abstract destiny which had permitted Florrie to have her way +without paying the price. For on the pinnacle of a destructive +career, unsinged by the conflagration she had so carelessly +started, Florrie was poised securely, crowned, triumphant, +rejoicing. On her dazzling height, successful and happy, she was as +far removed as one could imaginably be from the repentant Magdalen +of tradition. The memory of George's face as it looked in death, +floated before the austere mental vision of Gabriella, and she +reflected grimly that tradition was not always the mirror of life. +For in this one case at least, the man, not the woman, had been the +victim of natural law, and Florrie, fool though she was, had shown +herself at the hour of requital to be stronger than fate. By that +instinctive wisdom, which is so much older, so much truer than +civilization, she had triumphed over the ordination of life. In +refusing to suffer she had blunted every weapon with which Nature +might have punished her in the end. Not by virtue, since she had +none, but by pure insensibility, she had escaped the wages of sin. +She was a sensualist whose sensuality, hard, metallic, glittering, +encased her like armour.</p> +<p>At Gabriella's approach Miss Murphy fluttered off cooingly in +the direction of a fresh customer, and only the festively garlanded +French mirror witnessed the meeting of the two who had been +schoolgirls together. Swift as an arrow there shot through +Gabriella's mind, "I wonder what Ben O'Hara would think of her?" +Then she checked the dangerous flight of her fancy, for she +remembered that O'Hara's thoughts about anything no longer +concerned her.</p> +<p>"Are you buying a hat?" inquired Florrie curiously.</p> +<p>"No, I belong here. I am Madame Dinard."</p> +<p>"You don't mean it! I never should have believed it! The idea of +your being a dressmaker. That's why you look so smart, I suppose. +You're the smartest thing I've seen anywhere, but you look older, +Gabriella."</p> +<p>"Well, you don't." It was perfectly true. Except for the gaudy +decorations and the twanging accents of the arrogant young women, +Gabriella might have imagined herself in the last century +atmosphere of Broad Street in the middle 'nineties.</p> +<p>"I must tell you about the things I use." Florrie was always +generous. "But, I declare if I'd known this place was yours, I'd +have got my hats here ages ago. Of course I knew it was dreadfully +swell, but I thought the prices were beyond anything."</p> +<p>"They are," responded Gabriella with business-like brevity, +while she glanced about for the flitting Miss Murphy.</p> +<p>"Look here, Gabriella, I hope you don't bear me any malice," +Florrie burst out solicitously, for her frankness, like her +sensuality, was elemental in its audacity. "You oughtn't to if you +know what I saved you from," she proceeded convincingly. "Anyway, +we were chums long before either of us ever thought about a man, +and I didn't really do you a bit of harm. It wasn't as if you cared +about George, was it?"</p> +<p>"No, it wasn't as if I'd cared about him." Gabriella was +answering the appeal as truthfully as if Florrie had been the most +excellent of her sex. "You didn't harm me in any way—not in +any way," she repeated with firmness.</p> +<p>"That's just the way I told mother you'd look at it. I knew you +were always so broad-minded even as a girl. Then there isn't any +reason we shouldn't be friends just as we used to be."</p> +<p>Gabriella shook her head, polite but implacable in her refusal. +"It isn't what you did to me, Florrie," she answered gently, "it's +what you are that I can't forgive. I can imagine that a good woman +might do almost anything—might even run off with another +woman's husband, but you aren't good. You wouldn't be good if you'd +spent your life in a convent."</p> +<p>A quick flush—the flush of temper—stained the pearly +whiteness of Florrie's skin. "Oh, of course, if you don't want to," +she retorted, a little shrilly, though she tried to subdue her +rebellious voice to the pitch of Fifth Avenue. "I only thought that +being a working woman, you wouldn't have so very many friends, and +you might get lonely. I had seats at the opera every night last +winter, and time and again I'd have been glad to have given them to +you. Then, too, I might have been able to bring you some custom. I +know any number of rich women who don't think anything of paying a +thousand dollars for a dress—"</p> +<p>Her insolence was so evidently the result of anger that +Gabriella, without interrupting the flow, waited courteously until +she paused.</p> +<p>"No, you cannot do anything for me, Florrie." Though Gabriella's +voice was crisp and firm, her face looked suddenly older, and +little lines, stamped by weariness and regret, appeared at the +corners of her still brilliant eyes. "I don't wish you any harm," +she went on more softly. "If you were in trouble I'd do what I +could for you, but somehow I don't seem able to forgive you for +being what you are. Would you like to look at anything else?" she +inquired in her professional tone. "Miss Murphy is waiting to show +you some hats."</p> +<p>Her cheeks were burning when she passed out of the ivory and +gold door, saluted deferentially by the attendant in livery. "The +effrontery!" she thought, "the barefaced effrontery!" and then, as +her eyes fell on Florrie's trim little electric coupé beside +the curb, she exclaimed mentally, recalling George's animated +perplexity about the pearl necklace, "I wonder how in the world she +does it?"</p> +<p>The meeting with Florrie appeared to her, as she walked home +that afternoon, to be the last touch needed to push her into a +state of utter despondency. The oppressive languor of the day had +exhausted her strength, and when she left Dinard's she felt too +indifferent, too spiritless even for the drive in the Park. It was +still light when she got out of the stage at Twenty-third Street, +and while she strolled listlessly down the blocks on the West Side, +she had again that curious sensation of smothering which had come +to her after her talk with O'Hara.</p> +<p>At the corner of Sixth Avenue a young Italian, with the face of +a poet, was roasting peanuts in a little kerosene stove beside a +flickering torch which enkindled the romantic youth in his eyes. +Farther away some ragged children were dancing to the music of a +hand-organ, which ground out a melancholy waltz; and from a tiny +flower stall behind the stand of a bootblack there drifted the +intense sweetness of hyacinths. An old negro, carrying a basket of +clothes, passed her in the middle of the block, and she thought: +"That might have been in Richmond—that and the hand-organ and +the perfume of hyacinths." A vision of Hill Street floated before +her—the long straight street, with the sudden drop of ragged +hill at the end; the old houses, with crumbling porches and +countless signs: "Boarders Wanted" in the windows between the +patched curtains; the irregular rows of tulip poplar, elm, or +sycamore trees throwing their crooked shadows over the +cobblestones; the blades of grass sprouting along the edges of the +brick pavement—the vision of Hill Street as she remembered it +twenty years ago in her girlhood; and then the image of her +mother's face gazing out beneath the creamy blossoms and the dark +shining leaves of the old magnolia tree. "Everything must have +changed, I'd hardly recognize it," she thought. "Nobody we know +lives on that side now, mother says. Yes, it has been a long time." +She sighed, and then a little laugh broke from her lips, as she +remembered that Charley, who had recently been West on a business +trip, had brought home the good news that Richmond was as +progressive as Denver. "At least it seems so to Charley," Mrs. Carr +had hastened to add, "but you know how proud Charley is of all our +newness. He says there is not a street in the West that looks +fresher or more beautiful than Monument Avenue, and I am sure that +is a great comfort. Cousin Jimmy says it shows what the South can +do when it tries."</p> +<p>"I'd like to go back," mused Gabriella, walking more and more +slowly. "I haven't been home for eighteen years, and I am +thirty-eight to-day." With the fugitive sweetness of the hyacinths +there rushed over her again the feeling that life was slipping, +slipping, and that she was missing something infinitely precious, +something infinitely desirable. It was the panic of fleeting youth, +of youth unsatisfied, denied, and still insatiable.</p> +<p>As she entered the gate she saw that O'Hara's windows were dark, +and while a sigh of relief escaped her, she felt a swift +contraction of her throat as if she had become suddenly paralyzed +and was unable to swallow. "I hope he has gone," she said to +herself in a whisper. "If he has gone, everything will be so much +easier." But even to herself she could not explain what it was that +would be made easier. Her relief was so vague that when she +endeavoured to put it into words it seemed to dissolve and +evaporate.</p> +<p>Miss Polly was watering the flowers in the window box, and +turning, with the green watering-pot in her hand, she stared at +Gabriella in silence for a minute before she exclaimed anxiously: +"Mercy on us, Gabriella, what on earth, is the matter?"</p> +<p>"Nothing. I've had a hard day, and I'm tired."</p> +<p>"Well, you lie right straight down as soon as you take off your +hat. I declare you look ten years older than you did this +morning."</p> +<p>"I have seen Florrie for a minute."</p> +<p>"I reckon that was enough to upset anybody. Did she say she was +sorry?"</p> +<p>"Sorry! She looked as if she had never been sorry for anything +in her life. She was handsomer than ever—don't you remember +how much you always admired her figure?—and she didn't look a +day over twenty-five. I don't believe she has ever known what it is +to feel a regret."</p> +<p>"Well, you just wait, honey," responded Miss Polly consolingly, +"you just wait. She'll be punished yet as sure as you're born."</p> +<p>"Oh, I'm not waiting for that. I don't wish her to be punished. +Why should I? She is what she is."</p> +<p>"Do you s'pose she knows about George?"</p> +<p>"I doubt it. She didn't speak of his death. She is quite capable +of forgetting that she ever knew him, and if she does, think of +him, it is probably as a man who betrayed her innocence. You may be +sure she has twisted it all about until every shred of the blame +rests on somebody else. Florrie isn't the only woman who is made +like that, but I believe," she reasoned it out coolly, "that it is +her way of keeping her youth."</p> +<p>Miss Polly had put down the watering-pot, and she came presently +with a bottle of camphor to the sofa where Gabriella was lying. +"Are you sure you wouldn't like me to rub your head?" she inquired. +"Dinner will be ready in a minute, but I shouldn't change my dress +if I were you."</p> +<p>Gabriella rose slowly to a sitting position, and then stood up +while she pushed the camphor away. "I hate the smell of it," she +answered; "it makes me think of one of Jane's attacks. And, +besides, I don't need it. There is nothing in the world the matter +with me." A moment later, to Miss Polly's unspeakable amazement, +she sank down again, flung her arms over the back of the sofa, and +burst into tears.</p> +<p>"Well, I never!" ejaculated Miss Polly, rooted to the spot. +"Well, I never!" In the ten years she had lived with Gabriella she +had never seen her cry—not even after George's +flight—and she felt as if the solid ground on which she stood +had crumbled without warning, and left her insecurely balanced in +space. "Something certainly must be wrong, for it ain't like you to +give way. Are you real sure you ain't got a pain somewhere?"</p> +<p>Shaking her head, and swallowing her sobs with an effort, +Gabriella rose to her feet. "I'm just tired out, that's all," she +said, strangely humble and deprecating.</p> +<p>"You must have been working too hard. It ain't right." For a +minute or two the little seamstress brooded anxiously; then guided +by an infallible instinct, she added decisively: "It's been a long +time since you've seen your ma, and she's gettin' right smart +along. Why don't you run down home for a few days while the flowers +are blooming?"</p> +<p>A change passed over Gabriella's face, and drying her eyes, she +looked down on Miss Polly with a lovely enigmatical smile.</p> +<p>"I wonder if I might?" she said doubtfully.</p> +<p>"There ain't any earthly reason why you shouldn't. To-morrow's +Friday, and they can get along without you at Dinard's perfectly +well till the first of the week."</p> +<p>"Oh, yes, they can get along. I was only wondering"—a +faint breeze stole in through the window, wafting toward her the +scent of wet flowers—"I was only wondering"—her eyes +grew suddenly radiant, and lifting her arms, she made a gesture as +of one escaping from bondage—"I was only wondering if I might +go to-morrow," she said.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_Xa" id="CHAPTER_Xa"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> +<h3>THE DREAM AND THE REALITY</h3> +<p>At the upper station a little group stood awaiting her, and as +the train pulled slowly to the platform, Gabriella distinguished +her mother's pallid face framed in the hanging crape of her veil; +Jane, thin, anxious, anæmic, with her look of pinched +sweetness; Chancy, florid, portly, and virtuously middle-aged, and +their eldest daughter Margaret, a blooming, beautiful girl. +Alighting, Gabriella was embraced by Mrs. Carr, who shed a few +gentle tears on her shoulders.</p> +<p>"Gabriella, my child, I thought you would never come back to +us," she lamented; "and now everything is so changed that you will +hardly recognize it as home."</p> +<p>"Well, if she can find a change that isn't for the better, I +hope she'll point it out and let me make a note of it," boasted +Charley, with hilarity. "I tell you what, Gabriella, my dear, we're +becoming a number one city. Everything's new. We haven't left so +much as an old brick lying around if we could help it. If you were +to go back there to Hill Street, you'd scarcely know it for the +hospitals and schools we've got there, and as for this part of the +town—well, I reckon the apartment houses will fairly take +your breath away. Apartment houses! Well, that's what I call +progress—apartment houses and skyscrapers, and we've got +them, too, down on Main Street. I'll show them to you to-morrow. +Yes, by George, we're progressing so fast you can hardly see how we +grow. Why, there wasn't a skyscraper or an apartment house in the +city when you left here, and precious few hospitals. But +now—well, I'll show you! We're the hospital city of the +South, and more than that, we're becoming a metropolis. Yes, that's +the word—we're becoming a metropolis. If you don't believe +me, just watch as we go up Franklin Street to Monument Avenue. I +suppose you thought of us still as a poor folksy little Southern +city, with a lot of ground going to waste in gardens and green +stuff. Well, you just wait till you see Monument Avenue. It's the +handsomest boulevard south of Washington. It's all new, every brick +of it. There's not a house the whole way up that isn't as fresh as +paint, and the avenue is just as straight as if you'd drawn it with +a ruler—"</p> +<p>But the change in the city, Gabriella reflected while she +embraced Jane, was as nothing compared to the incredible change in +Charley himself. Middle-age had passed over him like some fattening +and solidifying process. He was healthy, he was corpulent, he was +prosperous, conventional, and commonplace. If Gabriella had been +seeking, with Hogarthian humour, to portray the evils of torpid and +self-satisfied respectability, she could scarcely have found a +better picture of the condition than Charley presented. And the +more Charley expanded, the more bloodless and wan Jane appeared at +his side. Her small, flat face with its yellowish and unhealthy +tinge, its light melancholy eyes, and its look of lifeless and +inhuman sanctification, exhaled the dried fragrance of a pressed +flower. So disheartening was her appearance to Gabriella that it +was a relief to turn from her to the freshness of Margaret, +handsome, athletic, with cheeks like roses and the natural grace of +a young animal.</p> +<p>"Oh, Aunt Gabriella, I hadn't any idea you were like this!" +cried the girl with naïve enthusiasm.</p> +<p>"You thought of me as gray-haired and wearing a bonnet and +mantle?"</p> +<p>"No, not that, but I didn't dream you were so handsome. I +thought mother was the beauty of the family. But what a wonderful +dress you have on! Are they wearing all those flounces around the +hips?"</p> +<p>"There is no doubt about it, you are getting a lot better +looking as you grow older," observed Charley, with genial +pleasantry.</p> +<p>"She keeps herself up. There is a great deal in that," remarked +Jane, and the speech was so characteristic of her that Gabriella +tossed back gaily:</p> +<p>"Well, I'm not old, you know. I am only thirty-eight."</p> +<p>"She married so young," said Mrs. Carr mournfully. "I hope none +of your girls will marry young, Jane. Gabriella must be a warning +to them and to clear little Fanny."</p> +<p>"But you married young, mother, and so did I," replied Jane, a +trifle tartly.</p> +<p>For some incommunicable reason Jane's sweetness had become +decidedly prickly. Charley's reformation had left her with the hurt +and incredulous air of a missionary whose heathen have been +converted under his eyes by a rival denomination: and obeying an +entirely natural impulse, she appeared ever so slightly, and in the +most refined manner possible to revenge herself on the other +members of her family. Though she had of late devoted her attention +to the Associated Charities and the Confederate Museum, neither of +these worthy objects provided so agreeable an opportunity for the +exercise of her benevolent instincts as did the presence of a +wayward husband in the household. For there could be no question of +the thoroughness of Charley's redemption. The very cut of his +clothes, the very colour of his necktie, proclaimed a triumph, for +the prohibition party.</p> +<p>At last they were packed tightly in the touring car, and +Charley, after imparting directions with the manner of a man who +regards himself as the fount of wisdom, began expounding the noisy +gospel of progress to Gabriella. Mrs. Carr, who had never been +active, and was now over seventy, was visibly excited by the +suddenness with which she had been whisked from the platform, and +while they shot away from the station, she clutched her crape veil +despairingly to the sides of her face, and fixed her blank and +terrified stare on her son-in-law. After a whispered conference +with Jane, Gabriella discovered that her mother was less afraid of +an accident than she was of fresh air. "She's afraid of neuralgia," +whispered Jane, "but the doctor says the air can't possibly do her +any harm."</p> +<p>In Franklin Street the trees were in full leaf, and the charming +vista through which Gabriella looked at the sunset, softened +mercifully the impending symbols of the ironic Spirit of Progress. +It was modern; it was progressive; yet there was the ancient +lassitude of spring in the faint sunshine; and the women passing +under the vivid green of the elms and maples moved with a flowing +walk which one did not see in Fifth Avenue. On the porches, too, +groups were assembled in chairs after the Southern fashion, while +children, in white frocks and gay sashes, accompanied by negro +nurses wheeling perambulators, made a spring pageant in the parks. +Though the gardens had either disappeared or dwindled to mere +emerald patches of grass, a few climbing roses, of modern +varieties, lent brightness and fragrance to the solid, if +undistinguished, architecture of the houses.</p> +<p>"That's the finest apartment house in the city!" exclaimed +Charley, with enthusiasm. "Looks pretty tall, doesn't it? But it's +nothing to the height of some of the buildings downtown. As for +changes—well, I hope Jane will take you on Broad Street +to-morrow, and then you'll see what we're doing. Why, there's not a +shop left there now where you used to deal. Brandywine's—you +recollect old Brandywine & Plummer's, don't you?—isn't +there any longer. Got a new department store, with a restaurant and +a basement in the very spot where it used to be. Look sharp now, +we're coming to a hospital. That belongs to Dr. Browning. You don't +remember Dr. Browning. After your day, I reckon. He's a young chap, +but he's got his hospital like all the rest, and every bed +filled—he told me so yesterday. But they've all got their +hospitals. Darrow—you recollect Darrow who used to be old Dr. +Walker's assistant—well, he's got his, too, just around the +corner on the next street. They say he cuts up more people than any +man in the South except Spendlow—".</p> +<p>"I miss the old-fashioned flowers," said Gabriella to her mother +in one of Charley's plethoric pauses. "The microphylla roses and +snowballs."</p> +<p>"Everybody is planting crimson ramblers and hydrangeas now," +responded Mrs. Carr, with something of her son-in-law's pride in +the onward movement of her surroundings.</p> +<p>"Here are the monuments!" cried Charley, who had treated each +apartment house or hospital as if it were a bright, inestimable +jewel in the city's crown. "You don't see many streets finer than +this in New York, do you?"</p> +<p>"It looks very pretty and attractive," answered Gabriella, as +they swung dangerously round a statue, and then started in a race +up the avenue, "but I miss the shrubs and the flowers."</p> +<p>"Oh, there are flowers enough. You just wait till you get on a +bit. We've got some urns filled with hydrangeas, that queer new +sort between blue and pink. But what do you want with shrubs? All +they're good for is to get in your way whenever you want to look +out into the street. Mrs. Madison was telling me only yesterday +that she cut down the lilac bushes in her front yard because they +kept her from recognizing the people in motor cars. Look at that +house now, that's one of the finest, in the city. Rushington built +it—he made his money in fertilizers, and the one next with +the green tiles belongs to Hanly, the tobacco trust fellow, you +know, and this whopper on the next square is where Albertson lives. +He made his pile out of railroad stocks—he's one of the +banking firm of Albertson, Jacobstein, Moss & Company. Awfully +clever fellows, but too tricky for me, I give them a wide berth +when I go out to do business—"</p> +<p>"But where are the old people—the people I used to +know?"</p> +<p>"Oh, they're scattered about everywhere, but they haven't got +most of the money. A lot of 'em live up here, and a lot are down in +Franklin Street in the same old houses."</p> +<p>"Tell me about Cousin Jimmy."</p> +<p>"He's up here, too. Pussy planned that red brick house with the +green shutters next door to us. I reckon Jimmy is about as +prosperous as is good for him, but he's getting on. He must be over +seventy now. He has a son who is a chip of the old block, and his +youngest daughter was the prettiest girl who ever came out here. +Margaret will tell you about her."</p> +<p>"And the Peytons?" Her voice trembled, and she looked hastily +away from the keen eyes of Margaret.</p> +<p>"They are still in the old home—at least Arthur lives +there with his Cousin Nelly. You know Mrs Peyton died about nine or +ten years ago?"</p> +<p>"Yes, I heard it."</p> +<p>"She was getting on, but it was a great loss to Arthur. Somehow, +I could never make up my mind about Arthur. He was bright enough as +a young chap, and we used to think he would have a brilliant +future; but when the time came, he never seemed to catch on. He +wasn't progressive, and he has never amounted to much more than he +did when he left college. What I say about him is that he had the +wrong ideas—Yes, Jane, I mean exactly what I say, he had the +wrong ideas. He doesn't know what he is driving at. No progress, no +push, no punch in him."</p> +<p>"Why, Charley," murmured Mrs. Carr reproachfully, while Jane, +recovering her nagging manner with an accession of spirit, +remonstrated feelingly: "Charley, you really must be more careful +what you say."</p> +<p>"Oh, fudge!" retorted Charley, with playful rudeness. "You see +she's at it still, Gabriella," he pursued, winking audaciously. "If +it isn't one thing, it's another, but she wouldn't be satisfied +with perfection. Well, here we are. There are the hydrangeas. I +hope you're pleased."</p> +<p>"I declare, those waste papers have blown right back again on +the grass, and I had them picked up the last thing before I left," +said Jane in a tone of annoyance.</p> +<p>"Never mind the papers; Gabriella isn't looking for papers," +returned Charley, while he helped Mrs. Carr out of the motor and up +the steps. "So here you are, mother, and the air didn't kill +you."</p> +<p>"I may have neuralgia to-morrow. You never can tell," replied +Mrs. Carr. "I shouldn't worry about the papers, Jane. Nobody can +help the way they blow about. I want Gabriella to see the children +the first thing."</p> +<p>As they entered the house Jane's children, a flock of five girls +and two boys, fluttered up to be introduced, and among them +Gabriella discovered the composed baby of Jane's tragic flight. It +seemed an age ago, and she felt not thirty-eight, but a +thousand.</p> +<p>After dinner Charley, who had eaten immoderately, unfolded the +evening paper under the electric lamp in the library, and dozed +torpidly while the girls plied their aunt with innumerable +questions about New York and the spring fashions. "It will be +lovely to have Fanny with us at the White Sulphur. I know her +clothes will be wonderful," they chirped happily, clustering +eagerly about the sofa on which Gabriella was sitting. Jane's +children, deriving from some hardy stock of an earlier generation, +were handsome, vigorous, optimistic in blood and fibre, and so +uncompromisingly modern that Gabriella wondered how Mrs. Carr, with +her spiritual neuralgia and her perpetual mourning, had survived +the unceasing currents of fresh air with which they surrounded +her.</p> +<p>"Yes, things have changed. It is the age," thought Gabriella; +and presently, when Cousin Jimmy and Cousin Pussy came in to +welcome her, she repeated: "Yes, it is the age. There is no +escaping it."</p> +<p>"Why, my dear child, you are looking splendidly," trilled Cousin +Pussy, with her old delightful manner and her flattering vision so +different from Florrie's. She was still trim, plump, and rosy, +though her hair was now snow white and her pretty face was covered +with cheerful wrinkles. "You're handsomer than you ever were in +your life, and the dash of gray on your temples doesn't make you +look, a day older—not a day. Some people turn gray so very +young. I remember Cousin Becky Bollingbroke's hair was almost white +by the time she was thirty-five. It runs like that in some +families. But you look just as girlish as ever. It's wonderful, +isn't it, Cousin Fanny, the way the women of this generation stay +girls until they are fifty? I don't believe you'll ever look any +older, Gabriella, than you do now. Of course, I suppose your +business has something to do with it, but if I met you for the +first time, it would never cross my mind that you were a day over +twenty-five."</p> +<p>"Well, well, so little Gabriella went to New York and became a +dressmaker," observed Jimmy, who was seldom original, "and she's +the same Gabriella, too. I always said, you know, that she was the +sort you could count on."</p> +<p>Age, though it had not entirely passed him by, had, on the +whole, treated him with great gentleness. He was a remarkably +handsome old man, with a distinguished and courtly presence, a head +of wonderful white hair, which looked as if it had been powdered, a +ruddy unwrinkled face, and the dark shining eyes of the adventurous +youth he had never lost.</p> +<p>"Of course, she couldn't have been a dressmaker here where +everybody knows her," purred Cousin Pussy, with her arm about +Gabriella, "but in New York it is different, and they tell me that +even titled women are dressmakers in London."</p> +<p>"Well, she has pluck," declared Cousin Jimmy, as he had declared +eighteen years ago at the family council. "There's nothing like +pluck when it comes to getting along in the world."</p> +<p>Then they sat down in Jane's library, which, contained most of +the things Gabriella associated with the old parlour in Hill +Street, and Cousin Pussy asked if Gabriella had found many +changes.</p> +<p>"A great many. Everything, looks new to me except this room. The +only thing I miss here is the horsehair sofa."</p> +<p>"I keep that in the back hall," said Jane. "The town does look +different up here, but the Peytons' house is just as you remember +it—even the scarlet sage is in the garden. Miss Nelly plants +it still every summer."</p> +<p>A lovely light shone in Gabriella's eyes, and Cousin Pussy +watched it tenderly, while a smile hovered about the corners of her +shrewd though still pretty mouth.</p> +<p>"It has been such a disappointment that Arthur hasn't done more +in his profession," she said presently, "but, as I was saying to +Mr. Wrenn only the other day, I have always felt that dear +Gabriella was to blame for it."</p> +<p>"The trouble with Arthur," observed Charley, awaking truculently +from his doze, "is that he's got the wrong ideas. When a man has +the wrong ideas in these days, he might as well go out and hang +himself."</p> +<p>"Well, I don't know that I'd call his ideas wrong exactly," +reasoned Cousin Jimmy, with the judicial manner befitting the best +judge of tobacco in Virginia; "I shouldn't call them wrong, but +they're out of date. They belong to the last century."</p> +<p>"I always say that dear Arthur is a perfect gentleman of the old +school," remonstrated Mrs. Carr, meekly obstinate. "There aren't +many of them left now, so I tell myself regretfully whenever I see +him."</p> +<p>"And there'll be fewer than ever by the time you Suffragists get +your rights," remarked Charley, with bitterness, while Mrs. Carr, +incensed by the word, which she associated with various +indelicacies, stared at him with an indignant expression.</p> +<p>"Charley, be careful what you say," nagged Jane acridly from her +corner. "Now that so many of our relatives have gone in for +suffrage, you mustn't be intolerant."</p> +<p>"I cannot help it, Jane. I shall never knowingly bow to one even +if she is related to me," announced Mrs. Carr more assertively than +Gabriella would have believed possible.</p> +<p>"Well, for my part, Cousin Fanny, I can't feel that it hurts me +to bow to anybody," said Pussy, with her unfailing kindness of +heart. "Why, I even bowed to Florrie Spencer last winter. I wanted +to cut her, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it when I met +her face to face. I hope you don't mind, dear," she whispered to +Gabriella. "I suppose I oughtn't to have mentioned her, but I +forgot."</p> +<p>"Oh, it doesn't matter in the least," responded Gabriella +cheerfully. "I bowed to her myself the day before I left New +York."</p> +<p>Though she tried to be independent, to be advanced and resolute, +she felt the last eighteen years receding slowly from her +consciousness. The family point of view, the family soul, had +enveloped her again, and, in spite of her experience and her +success, she seemed inwardly as young and ignorant as on the +evening when she broke her engagement to Arthur. The spirit of the +place had defeated her individual endeavour. Except for the wall +paper of pale gray, and the Persian rugs on the floor, Jane's +library might have been the old front parlour in Hill Street, and +it was as if the French mirror, the crystal candelabra, the +rosewood bookcases, with their diamond-shaped panes lined with +fluted magenta silk, the family portraits, the speckled engravings +of the Burial of Latané and of the groups of amiable +children feeding chickens and fish—it was as if these +inanimate objects exuded a spiritual anodyne which enfeebled the +will. Across the hall, in the modern pink and gray drawing-room, +the five girls were playing bridge with several young men whom +Gabriella remembered as babies, and the sounds of their voices +floated to her now and then as thinly as if they had come out of a +phonograph. "There is nothing better than peace, after all," she +thought, while her, eyes rested tenderly on the simple, +affectionate face of Cousin Jimmy. "Goodness and peace, these +things are really worth while."</p> +<p>Then the telephone rang gently, and after a minute Margaret, who +had gone to answer it, came in with a roguish smile on her lips. +"Aunt Gabriella, Mr. Peyton wishes to come to-morrow at five," she +said; and the roguish smile flitted from her lips to the lips of +Cousin Pussy, and from Cousin Pussy to each sympathetic and +watchful face in the group.</p> +<p>"You may say what you please," argued Charley, still truculent, +"the whole trouble with Arthur is that he has got the wrong +ideas."</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>At five o'clock the next day the family crowded into the touring +car for an excursion, and left Gabriella in a deserted house to +receive the lover of her girlhood. Before going Mrs. Carr had +embraced her sentimentally; Charley had dropped one of his broad +jokes on the subject of the reunion; Jane had murmured sweetly that +there was no man on earth she admired as much as she did Arthur; +and the girls had effusively complimented Gabriella on her +appearance. Even Willy, the baby of eighteen years ago, had +prophesied with hilarity that "Old Arthur Peyton wasn't coming for +nothing." One and all they appeared to take her part in the romance +for granted; and while she waited in the drawing-room, gazing +through the interstices of Jane's new lace curtains into the +avenue, where beyond the flying motor cars the grassy strip in the +middle of the street was dappled with shadows, she wondered if she +also were taking Arthur's devotion for granted. She had not seen +him for eighteen years, and yet she was awaiting him as expectantly +as if he were still her lover. Would his presence really quiet this +strange new restlessness in her heart—this restlessness which +had come to her so suddenly after her meeting with Florrie? Was it +true that her youth was slipping from her before she had grasped +all the happiness that life offered? Or was it only the stirring of +the spring winds, of the young green against the blue sky, of the +mating birds, of the roving, provocative scents of flowers, of the +checkered light and shade on the grassy strip under the maples? Was +it all these things, or was it none of them, that awoke this +longing, so vague and yet so unquenchable, in her heart?</p> +<p>A car stopped in the street outside, the bell rang, and she +watched the figure of a trim mulatto maid flit through the hall to +the door. An instant later Arthur's name was announced, and +Gabriella, with her hands in his clasp, stood looking into his +face. It had been eighteen years since they parted, and in those +eighteen years she had carried his image like some sacred talisman +in her breast.</p> +<p>"How little you've changed, Gabriella," he said after a moment +of silence in which she told herself that he was far better +looking, far more distinguished than she had remembered him. "You +are larger than you used to be, but your face is as girlish as +ever."</p> +<p>"And I have two children nearly grown," she replied with a +trembling little laugh; "a daughter who is already thinking of the +White Sulphur."</p> +<p>They sat down in the pink chairs on the gray carpet, and leaned +forward, looking into each other's faces as tenderly as they had +done when they were lovers.</p> +<p>"It's hard to believe it," he answered a little stiffly, in his +dry and gentle voice, which held a curious note of finality, of +failure. For the first time, while he spoke, she let her eyes rest +frankly upon him, and there came to her, as she did so, a vivid +realization of the emptiness and aimlessness of his life. He looked +handsomer than ever; he looked stately and formal and impressive; +but he looked old—though he was only forty-five—he +looked old and ineffectual and acquiescent. The fighting strength, +such as it was, had gone out of him, and the stamp of failure was +on him, from his high, pale, intellectual forehead, where the fine +brown hair had retreated to the crown of his head, to his narrow +features, and his relaxed slender limbs, with their slow and +indolent movements. He was one of those, she felt intuitively, who +had stood aloof from the rewards as well as from the strains of the +struggle, who had withered to the core, not from age, but from an +inherent distrust of all effort, of all endeavour. For his +immobility went deeper than any physical habit: it attacked, like +an incurable malady, the very fibre and substance of his nature. +With his intellect, his training, his traditions, she discerned, +with a flash of insight, that he had failed because he lacked the +essential faith in the future. He had lost, not because he had +risked, but because he had hesitated, not because he had loved +ease, but because he had feared effort. For fear of a misstep, he +had not dared to go forward; from dread of pain, he had refused the +opportunity of happiness. She knew now why he had never come to +her, why he had let her slip from his grasp. All that was a part of +his failure, of his distrust of life, of his profound negation of +spirit.</p> +<p>"Yes, it is hard," she assented; and there came over her like a +sudden sense of discomfort, of physical hardship, the knowledge +that, in the very beginning, she was trying to make conversation. +Meeting his sympathetic smile—the smile that still delighted +the impressionable hearts of old ladies—she told herself +obstinately, with desperate determination, that she was not +disappointed, that he was just as she had remembered him, dear and +lovable and kind and conventional. When she recalled what he had +been at twenty-seven, it appeared inevitable to her that at +forty-five he should have settled a little more firmly into the +mould of the past, that his opinions should have crystallized and +imprisoned his mind immovably in the centre of them.</p> +<p>She told him what she could about Archibald and +Fanny—about her choice of schools, her maternal pride in +Archibald's intellect and Fanny's appearance, her hopeful plans for +the future—and he listened attentively, with his manner of +slightly pompous consideration, while he passed one of his long +narrow hands over his forehead. When she had finished her vivacious +recital, he began to talk slowly and gravely about himself, with +the tolerant and impersonal detachment of one who has reduced life +to a gesture, a manner. "I wonder if he has ever really cared about +anything—even about me?" she questioned, after a minute; but +while the thought was still in her mind, he mentioned his mother's +name, and it was impossible to doubt the sincerity of his sorrow +and his tenderness. "I have seemed only half alive since I lost +her," he said; and the words were like a searchlight which flashed +over his character and illumined its obscurities. Did his whole +attitude of immobility and negation result from the depth and the +intensity of his feeling, from the exquisite reticence and +sensitiveness of his soul?</p> +<p>"I know, I know," she murmured in a voice of sympathy. After +all, she was not disappointed in him. He was as tender, as +chivalrous, as noble as she had believed him to be. The Dream was +true; and yet in spite of its truthfulness, it seemed to evaporate +slowly while she sat there in Jane's pink satin chair and looked +out at the sunlight. Only the restlessness, the inappeasable +longing in her heart had not changed. Looking across the hall into +the library she could see the old French mirror reflecting the +bronze candelabra, with crystal pendants, and the thought flitted +into her brain: "It is all real. I am here, talking to Arthur. It +is every bit true." But her words failed to convince her, and she +had a curious sensation of vagueness and thinness, as if their low, +gentle voices were issuing from shadows.</p> +<p>"I should like to show you some of our improvements," he said +presently, with a faintly perceptible ripple of animation. "I +wonder if you would care to come out in my car? We might go up +Monument Avenue into the country."</p> +<p>The idea was delightful, she told him with convincing +enthusiasm; and while she ran upstairs to put on her hat, he went +out to the car, which was standing in front of the house. So +preoccupied was he with his reflections, that when Gabriella +appeared, he started almost as if he had forgotten that he was +waiting for her.</p> +<p>The air was as soft and fragrant as summer; the grassy strip +under the young maples was diapered with sunlight, and an edge of +rosy gold was tinting the far horizon. As they sped up the avenue +Arthur pointed out the houses to her as possessively as Charley had +done the afternoon before, and in the pride with which he told her +the cost of them she recognized an admirable freedom from envy or +bitterness. If, he had not achieved things, his attitude seemed to +say, it was because he had never been in the race, because he had +preferred to stand aside and enjoy the reposeful entertainment of +the spectator.</p> +<p>The avenue, which swept on indefinitely after the houses had +stopped, dwindled at last to two straight and narrow walks binding +the town to the country with bands of concrete. The pines had +fallen in blackened ruins, and where Gabriella remembered thickets +of wildflowers there were masses of red clay furrowed by cart +wheels.</p> +<p>"You see, we're developing all this property now," observed +Arthur, in a gratified tone as they whirled past an old field +intersected by a concrete walk which informed the curious that it +was "Arlington Avenue." "Honeysuckle Lane has gone, too, and we're +grading a street there now in front of the old Berkeley place."</p> +<p>"The growth has been wonderful," said Gabriella, a little +pensively; "but do you remember how lovely Honeysuckle Lane used to +be? That's where we went for wild honeysuckle in the spring."</p> +<p>"Oh, we'll find plenty of honeysuckle farther out. I gathered a +big bunch of it for Cousin Nelly yesterday."</p> +<p>For a while they sped on in silence. Arthur was intent on the +wheel, and Gabriella could think of nothing to say to him that she +had not said in Jane's drawing-room. When at last they left the +desolation of improvement, and came out into the natural country, +the sun was already low, and the forest of pines along the glowing, +horizon was like an impending storm. Once Arthur stopped, and they +got out to gather wild honeysuckle by the roadside; then with the +sticky, heavily scented blossoms in her lap, they went on again +toward the sunset, still silent, still separated by an impalpable +barrier. "He is just what I thought he would be," she thought +sadly. "He is just where I left him eighteen years ago, and yet it +is different. In some inexplicable way it is different from what I +expected." And she told herself that the fault was her +own—that she had changed, hardened, and become hopelessly +matter-of-fact—that she had lost her youth and her +sentiment.</p> +<p>Suddenly, as if the action had been forced upon him by the +steady pressure of some deep conviction, some inner necessity, +Arthur turned his face toward her, and asked gently: "Gabriella, do +you ever think of the past?"</p> +<p>Facing the rosy sunset, his features looked wan and colourless, +and she noticed again that he seemed to have dried through and +through, like some rare fruit that has lain wrapped in tissue paper +too long.</p> +<p>She looked at him with wistful and sombre eyes. Now that the +desired moment had come, she felt only that she would have given +her whole future to escape before it overtook her, to avoid the +inevitable, crowning hour of her destiny.</p> +<p>"I think of it very often," she answered truthfully, while she +buried her face in the intoxicating bloom of the honeysuckle.</p> +<p>"Do you remember my telling you once that I'd never give you +up—that I'd never stop caring?"</p> +<p>"Yes, I remember—but, oh, Arthur, you mustn't—" She +sat up with a start, gazing straight ahead into the rose and gold +of the afterglow. From the deserted road, winding flat and +dun-coloured in the soft light, she heard another voice—the +strong and buoyant voice of O'Hara—saying: "I'm not the sort +to change—" and then over again, "I'm not the sort to +change—"</p> +<p>"I suppose it's too late," Arthur went on, with his patient +tenderness. "Things usually come too late for me or else I miss +them altogether. That's been the way always—and now—" +With his left hand he made a large, slow, commemorative +gesture.</p> +<p>"You're the best—the kindest—" An urgent desire +moved her to stop him before he put into words the feeling she +could see in his face. Though she knew that it was but the ghost of +a feeling, the habit of a desire, which had become interwoven with +his orderly and unchangeable custom of life, she realized +nevertheless that its imaginary vividness might cause him great +suffering. A vision of what might have been eighteen years +ago—of their possible marriage—rose before her while +she struggled for words. How could her energetic nature have borne +with his philosophy of hesitation, her imperative affirmation of +life with his denial of effort, her unconquered optimism with his +deeply rooted mistrust of happiness?</p> +<p>There was beauty in his face, in his ascetic and over-refined +features, in his sympathetic smile and his cultured voice; but it +was the beauty of resignation, of defeat nobly borne, of a spirit +confirmed in the bitter sweetness of renouncement. "It would make +an old woman of me to marry him," she thought, "an old, patient, +resigned woman."</p> +<p>"Most things have slipped by me," he resumed presently, while +they raced down a long hill toward the black pines and the fading +red of the afterglow. In a marshy pond near the roadside frogs were +croaking, while from the darkening fields, encircled with webs of +mist, there floated the mingled scents of freshly mown grass, of +dewy flowers, of trodden weeds, of ploughed earth, of ancient +mould—all the fugitive and immemorially suggestive odours of +the country at twilight. And at the touch of these scents, some +unforgotten longing seemed to stir in her brain as if it had slept +there, covered by clustering memories, from another lifetime. She +wanted something with an unbearable intensity; the vague and +elusive yearning for happiness had become suddenly poignant and +definite. In that instant she knew unerringly that she was in love +not with a dream, but with a fact, that she was in love not with +Arthur, but with O'Hara. For days, weeks, months, she had been +blindly groping toward the knowledge; and now, in a flash of +intuition, it had come to her like one of those discoveries of +science, which baffle investigators for years, and then +miraculously reveal themselves in a moment of insight. Her first +antagonism, her injustice, her unreasonable resentments and +suspicions, she recognized now, in the piercing light of this +discovery, as the inexplicable disguises of love. And she was not +old—she was not even middle-aged—she was as young as +Fanny, as young as the eternal, ageless spirit of romance, of +adventure. This was life in her pulses, in her brain, in her +heart—life, not pale, not bitter sweet, but sparkling, +glowing, bubbling like wine.</p> +<p>At the foot of the long hill Arthur turned the car, and they +flew back between the dim fields where the croaking of frogs +sounded louder in the darkness. Ahead of them the lights of the car +flitted like golden moths over the dust of the road, and in the +sky, beyond the thin veil of mist, the stars were shining over the +city. Spring, which possessed the earth, bloomed in Gabriella's +heart with a wonderful colour, a wonderful fragrance. She was young +again with the imperishable youth of magic, of enchantment. To +love, to hope, to strive, this was both romance and adventure.</p> +<p>"Is it too late, then, Gabriella?" asked Arthur, after a long +silence, and in his voice there was the sound of suffering +acquiescence.</p> +<p>"I'm afraid it is, dear Arthur," she answered softly, and they +did not speak again until the lights blazed over them, and they ran +into Monument Avenue. After all, it was too late. What could she +have added to the answer she had given him?</p> +<p>When they reached the house, he did not come in with her, and +tears stained her face while she went slowly up the steps, and +stood beside Jane's hydrangeas with her hand on the bell. Then, as +the door opened quickly, she saw her mother waiting, with an eager, +expectant look, at the door of the library, and heard her excited +voice murmur: "Well, dear?"</p> +<p>"We had a lovely drive, mother. Arthur is just as I remembered +him, except that he has grown so much older."</p> +<p>A disappointed expression crossed Mrs. Carr's face. "Is that +all?" she asked regretfully.</p> +<p>Gabriella laughed happily. "That is all—only I found out +exactly what I wanted to know."</p> +<p>For the rest of the week she devoted herself to her mother with +a solicitude which aroused in the brain of that melancholy lady +serious apprehensions of a hastening decline; and when her visit +was over, she packed her trunks, with girlish, delicious thrills of +happiness, and started back to New York.</p> +<p>"Do you really think I am failing so rapidly, Gabriella?" Mrs. +Carr inquired anxiously while they waited for the train on the +platform of the upper station.</p> +<p>"Failing? Why, no, mother. You look splendidly," Gabriella +assured her, a little surprised, a little startled. "Why should you +ask me such a thing?"</p> +<p>"Oh, nothing, dear. I had a fancy," murmured Mrs. Carr meekly; +and then as the train rushed into view, she kissed her daughter +reproachfully, and stood gazing after her until the last coach and +the last white jacket of the dining-car attendants vanished in the +smoky sunshine of the distance.</p> +<p>Through the long day, lying back in her chair, with her eyes on +the flying green landscape, Gabriella thought of the discovery she +had made while she was driving with Arthur. The restlessness, the +uncertainty, the vague yet poignant longing for an indefinite good, +had passed out of her happy and exultant heart. In obedience to the +law of her nature, which decreed that she should move swiftly and +directly toward the end of her destiny, she was returning to O'Hara +as resolutely, as unswervingly, as she had fled from him.</p> +<p>"It's strange how little I've ever understood, how little I've +ever known myself," she thought, staring vacantly at a severe +spinster, with crimped hair and a soured expression, who sat before +the opposite window. "I've gone on in the dark, making mistakes and +discoveries from the very beginning, undoing and doing over again, +creating illusions and then destroying them—always moving, +always changing, always growing in new directions. A year ago I'd +have laughed at the idea that I could love any man but +Arthur—that of all men I could love Ben O'Hara; and to-day I +know that he is the future for me—that he is the beginning +again of my youth. A year ago I thought only how I might change +him, how I might make him over, and now I realize that I shall +never change him, that I shall never make him over, and that it +doesn't really matter. It isn't the vital thing. The vital thing is +character, and I wouldn't change that if I could. For the rest, I +shall probably always wish him different in some ways, just as I +wish myself different. I'd like to have him more like Arthur on the +surface, just as I'd like to have myself more like Fanny. I'd like +to give him Arthur's manner just as I'd like to give myself Fanny's +complexion. But it isn't possible. He will always be what he is +now, and, after all, it is what he is—it is not something +else that I want—"</p> +<p>With a glimmer of the clairvoyant insight which had come to her +on the country road, she understood that O'Hara was for her an +embodied symbol of life—that she must either take him or +leave him completely and without reserve or evasion. He was not an +ideal. In the love she felt for him there was none of the +sentimental glamour of her passion for George. She saw his +imperfections, but she saw that the man was bigger than any +attributes, that his faults were as nothing compared to the +abundance of his virtues, and that, perfect or imperfect, the +tremendous fact remained that she loved him.</p> +<p>In the opposite chair, the severe spinster had taken a strip of +knitted silk out of her bag, and was working industriously on a +man's necktie of blue and gray. From her intent and preoccupied +look, from the nervous twitching of her thin lips, the close +peering of her near-sighted eyes, through rimless glasses which she +wore attached by a gold chain to her hair, she might have found in +the act of knitting a supreme consolation for the inexorable +denials of destiny. "I wonder if it satisfies her, just knitting?" +thought Gabriella. "Has she submitted like Arthur to chance, to the +way things happen when one no longer resists? Is she really +contented merely to knit, or is she knitting as a condemned +prisoner might knit while he is waiting for the scaffold?" And +while she watched the patient fingers, she added: "One must either +conquer or be conquered, and I will never be conquered."</p> +<p>It was eight o'clock when she reached New York, and as she drove +the short distance to West Twenty-third Street she began to wonder +when she should see O'Hara, and what she should say to him. In the +end she decided that she would wait for a chance meeting, that she +would let it happen when it would without moving a step or lifting +a hand. Before many days they would be obliged to meet in the yard +or the hall, and some obscure, consecrated tradition of sex, some +secret strain of her mother's ineradicable feminine instinct, +opposed the direct and sensible way. "As soon as I meet +him—and in the end I shall surely meet him—everything +will be right," she thought, with her eyes on the streets where the +spring multitude of children were swarming. And from this multitude +of children, of young, ardent, and adventurous life, there seemed +to emanate a colossal and irresistible will—the will to be, +to live, to love, to create, and to conquer.</p> +<p>The taxicab turned swiftly into Twenty-third Street, and while +it stopped beside the pavement, she saw that Mrs. Squires was +standing, with her arms on the gate, staring into the street. As +Gabriella alighted, the woman came forward and said, with +suppressed emotion, while she wiped her eyes on the back of her +hand: "You came just a minute too late to say good-bye to Mr. +O'Hara."</p> +<p>"Good-bye? But where has he gone?"</p> +<p>"He has gone to Washington to-night. To-morrow he is starting to +the West."</p> +<p>"When is he coming back? Did he tell you?"</p> +<p>At this Mrs. Squires broke down. "He ain't ever coming back, +that's what I'm crying for. He's given up his rooms, and his +furniture all went to the auction yesterday. He says he's going to +live out in Colorado or Wyoming for the rest of his life, and he +didn't even tell me where I could write to him. It's a great loss +to me, Mrs. Carr. I'd got used to him and his ways, and when you've +once got used to a man, it ain't easy to give him up."</p> +<p>She sobbed audibly as she finished; and it seemed to Gabriella +that a lifetime of experience passed in the instant while she stood +there, with her pulses drumming in her ears, her throat contracting +until she struggled for breath, and the lights of the city swimming +in a nebulous blur before her eyes. Yet in that instant, as in +every crisis of her life, she turned instinctively to action, to +movement, to exertion, however futile. While she walked across the +pavement to the waiting cab, for the crowning and ultimate choice +of her life, she abandoned forever the authority and guide of +tradition. Tradition, she knew, bade her sit and wait on destiny +until she withered, like Arthur, to the vital core of her nature; +but something mightier than tradition, something which she shared +with the swarming multitude of children in the streets—the +will to live, to strive, and to conquer—this had risen +superior to the empty rules of the past. With her hand on the door +of the taxicab, she spoke rapidly to the driver: "Drive back to the +station as fast as you can, there is not a minute to lose."</p> +<p>When the cab started, she leaned forward, with her hands clasped +on her knees, and her eyes on the street, where the children were +playing. Because of the children, they drove very slowly, and once, +when the traffic held them up for a few minutes, she felt an +impulse to scream. Suppose she missed him, after all! Suppose she +lost him in the station! Suppose she never saw him again! And +beside this possibly it seemed to her that all the other suffering +of her life—George's desertion, her humiliation, her struggle +to make a living for her children, the loneliness of the long +summers, her poverty and hunger and self-denial—that all +these things were merely superficial annoyances. "If we don't go +on, I shall die," she said aloud suddenly; "if we don't go on, I +shall die," and when at last the cab started again, she heard the +words like an undercurrent beneath the innumerable noises of the +street, "If we don't go on, I shall die."</p> +<p>The taxicab stopped; a porter ran forward to take her bag, and +while she thrust the money into the driver's hand, she heard her +voice coolly and calmly giving directions.</p> +<p>"I must catch the next train to Washington."</p> +<p>"Have you got your ticket, Miss?"</p> +<p>She stared back at him blankly. Though she saw his lips moving, +it was impossible for her to distinguish the words because she was +still hearing in a muffled undercurrent the roar of the +streets.</p> +<p>"Have you got your ticket?" They were passing through the +station now, and he explained hurriedly: "You can't go through the +gate without a ticket."</p> +<p>She drew out her purse, and panic seized her afresh while she +waited before the window behind a bald-headed man who counted his +change twice before he would move aside, and let her step into his +place. Then, when the ticket was given to her, she turned and ran +after the porter through the gate and down the steps to the +platform. As she ran, her eyes wavered to the long platform, and +the little groups gathered beside the waiting train, which seemed +to shake like a moving black and white picture.</p> +<p>"Suppose I miss him, after all! Suppose I never see him again!" +she thought, and all that was young in her, all that was vital and +alive, strained forward as her feet touched the platform. Except +for several coloured porters and a woman holding a child by the +hand, the place was deserted. Then a man stepped quickly out of one +of the last coaches, and by his bigness and the red of his hair, +she knew that it was O'Hara. At the first sight of him the panic +died suddenly in her heart, and the old peace, the old sense of +security and protection swept over her. Her face, which had been +lowered, was lifted like a flower that revives, and her feet, which +had stumbled, became the swift, flying feet of a girl. It was as if +both her spirit and her body sprang toward him.</p> +<p>At the sound of his name, he turned and stood motionless, as if +hardly believing his vision.</p> +<p>"I came back because I couldn't help it," she said.</p> +<p>But he was always hard to convince, and he waited now, still +transfixed, still incredulous.</p> +<p>"I came back because I wanted you more than anything else," she +added.</p> +<p>"You came back to me?" he asked, slowly, as if doubting her.</p> +<p>"I came back to you. I wanted you," she repeated, and her voice +did not quaver, her eyes did not drop from his questioning gaze. It +was all so simple at last; it was all as natural as the joyous +beating of her heart.</p> +<p>"And you'll marry me now—to-night?"</p> +<p>It was the ultimate test, she knew, the test not only of her +love for O'Hara, but of her strength, her firmness, her courage, +and of her belief in life. The choice was hers that comes to all +men and women sooner or later—the choice between action and +inaction, between endeavour and relinquishment, between affirmation +and denial, between adventure and deliberation, between youth and +age. One thought only made her hesitate, and she almost whispered +the words:</p> +<p>"But the children?"</p> +<p>He laughed softly. "Oh, the children are always there. We're not +quitters," and in a graver tone, he asked for the second time: +"Will you come with me now—to-night, Gabriella?"</p> +<p>At the repeated question she stretched out her hands, while she +watched the light break on his face.</p> +<p>"I'll come with you now—anywhere—toward the future," +she answered.</p> +<p>THE END</p> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14571 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/14571-h/images/001.jpg b/14571-h/images/001.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..de82097 --- /dev/null +++ b/14571-h/images/001.jpg diff --git a/14571-h/images/002.png b/14571-h/images/002.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ae00e53 --- /dev/null +++ b/14571-h/images/002.png |
