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diff --git a/old/14571.txt b/old/14571.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a3bc4d3 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/14571.txt @@ -0,0 +1,16175 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Life and Gabriella, by Ellen Glasgow + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Life and Gabriella + The Story of a Woman's Courage + +Author: Ellen Glasgow + +Release Date: January 3, 2005 [EBook #14571] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE AND GABRIELLA *** + + + + +Produced by Rick Niles, Charlie Kirschner and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + + + + + + + +LIFE AND +GABRIELLA + +THE STORY OF A WOMAN'S COURAGE + +BY +ELLEN GLASGOW + + + +FRONTISPIECE +BY +C. ALLAN GILBERT + +GARDEN CITY NEW YORK + +DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY +1916 + + + + +CONTENTS + + +BOOK FIRST--THE AGE OF FAITH + +CHAPTER PAGE + I. Presents a Shameless Heroine 3 + II. Poor Jane 30 + III. A Start in Life 61 + IV. Mirage 90 + V. The New World 122 + VI. The Old Serpent 148 + VII. Motherhood 176 + +BOOK SECOND--THE AGE OF KNOWLEDGE + + I. Disenchantment. 211 + II. A Second Start in Life 241 + III. Work 274 + IV. The Dream and the Years 300 + V. Success 331 + VI. Discoveries 368 + VII. Readjustments 406 + VIII. The Test 444 + IX. The Past 476 + X. Dream and the Reality 501 + + + + +BOOK FIRST + +THE AGE OF FAITH + + + + +CHAPTER I + +PRESENTS A SHAMELESS HEROINE + + +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. + +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. + +"Oh, my poor child, what are we going to do?" asked Mrs. Carr in a +resigned voice as she returned to her hemming. + +"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. + +"But one can always do something if it's only to scream," rejoined +Gabriella with spirit. + +"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." + +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." + +"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." + +"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?" + +"Oh, mother, I couldn't. It would kill me to have everybody know I'm +unhappy!" wailed Jane, breaking down. + +"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. + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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?" + +"I--I can't think," gasped Jane, "but you may if you want to, mother." + +"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." + +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. + +"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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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. + +"You won't go to the dance to-night, will you, Gabriella?" inquired Mrs. +Carr nervously. + +"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." + +"I'll never, never go back," chanted Jane with feverish passion. + +"But I thought Arthur Peyton was coming for you," said Mrs. Carr. "He +will be so disappointed." + +"Oh, he'll understand--he'll have to," replied Gabriella carelessly. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +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." + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +"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!" + +"Oh, mother, I can't possibly see them! I feel as if it would kill me!" +cried Jane in desperation. + +"Give her the camphor, mother," said Gabriella with grim humour as she +went to open the door. + +"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. + +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. + +"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?" + +"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. + +"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. + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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--" + +"Making love to the dressmaker," pursued Jimmy, whose righteous anger +refused to be turned aside from its end. + +"Don't you think, Cousin Fanny," whispered Pussy, "that Gabriella had +better leave the room?" + +"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?" + +"They are playing in the laundry," replied Gabriella reassuringly. "I +told Dolly not to let them go out of her sight." + +"She knows so much already for her age," murmured Mrs. Carr +apologetically to Pussy. + +"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." + +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. + +"Gabriella in the room?" he repeated in perplexity. "Why, you'd better +go, hadn't you, Gabriella? Oughtn't she to go, Pussy?" + +"Just as you think best, dear, but it seems to me--" + +"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." + +"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." + +"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?" + +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. + +"Oh, it doesn't matter about Gabriella. She knows everything," said +Jane, with the prickly sweetness of suffering virtue. + +"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. + +"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--" + +"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." + +"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?" + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"I can't go back to him now! I can never, never go back to him again!" +intoned Jane with passionate energy. + +"No, God bless her, she shan't go back," declared Jimmy, as profoundly +stirred as Gabriella. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +"You are a dear child, Gabriella," it said; "but how in the world could +you help Jane by going into a store?" + +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 ŕ 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. + +"You are a dear child," she repeated, biting her fresh lips; "but how +will you help Jane by going into a store?" + +"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." + +"Oh, Gabriella, not in a store! It would kill mother!" cried Jane, with +the prophetic wail of Cassandra. + +"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?" + +"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." + +"But not in a shop, my dear," protested Uncle Meriweather in the precise +English of his youth. + +"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." + +"I shouldn't encourage her if I were you, Mr. Wrenn," said Cousin Pussy, +almost forgetting to be indirect. + +"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?" + +"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." + +"But I can't teach, I don't know enough, and, besides, I'd hate it," +protested Gabriella. + +"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." + +"What about plain sewing?" asked Pussy in her ready way. "Couldn't you +learn to make those new waists all the girls are wearing?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"Sophy makes all the lampshades that anybody wants, and, besides, she +gets orders from the North--she told me so yesterday." + +"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." + +"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?" + +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. + +"Gabriella isn't trying to earn church money. You're out gunning for a +living, aren't you, Ella?" he inquired. + +"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?" + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"And we'd really rather that you'd earn less and keep in your own +station of life," said Pussy decisively. + +"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." + + + + +CHAPTER II + +POOR JANE + + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Yo' beau done come, Miss Ella. Ain't you gwine?" + +"No, I'm not going to the party, Marthy, but ask him to wait just a +minute." + +"He's settin' over yonder in de parlour wid his overcoat on." + +"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. + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +"Gabriella, aren't you going?" he asked reproachfully as the girl +entered. + +"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. + +"Left Charley? That's bad, isn't it?" asked Arthur doubtfully. + +"I feel so sorry for her, Arthur. It must be terrible to have love end +like that." + +"But she isn't to blame. Everybody knows that she has forgiven him again +and again." + +"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." + +For the first time a shadow appeared in Arthur's clear eyes. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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. + +"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." + +"In a store?" repeated Arthur slowly, and she saw the muscles of his +mouth tighten and grow rigid. + +"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." + +"But couldn't you work just as well in your home, darling? + +"People don't pay anything for home work. You must see what I mean, +Arthur." + +"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." + +"I couldn't," said Gabriella, shaking her head. "Don't urge me, Arthur." + +"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. + +"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." + +"But I'll work for them, Gabriella. I'll do anything on earth rather +than see you ordered about by old Brandywine." + +"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." + +"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. + +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. + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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--" + +"Is it George Fowler?" + +She bowed her head, and, though she did not blush, her eyes grew +radiant. + +"And you have known him less than a year?" + +Again she bowed her head without speaking. What was there, after all, +that she could say in justification of her behaviour? + +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. + +The generalization was not without interest for Gabriella. + +"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. + +"But you've got used to the thought, I suppose?" + +"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." + +"And he knows nothing about it?" + +"Oh, no. I told him I was engaged to you, and then he went away." + +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. + +"And if he came back would you marry him?" he asked. + +Before replying she sat for a minute gazing down on her folded hands and +weighing each separate word of her answer. + +"I should try not to, Arthur," she said at last, "but--but I am not sure +that I should be able to help it." + +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. + +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: + +"Gabriella, is that you?" + +"Yes, Mother, do you want anything?" + +"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?" + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Has Arthur gone?" asked Mrs. Carr in a voice that sounded as if she +were running. + +"Yes. Did you want him, mother?" + +"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." + +"Have you given her the digitalis?" + +"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." + +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. + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"You can't see her now. The doctor is with her," she whispered. "I'll +make a light in here and you can wait." + +"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!" + +"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." + +"I'm sorry for that," he said, suddenly smitten with gravity. "Is she +really so bad?" + +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." + +"I suppose it isn't any worse than other attacks," answered Gabriella, +"but you know what they are like." + +"Yes, I know," replied Charley. "Oh, Lord, don't I?" + +"She asked mother to send for you," continued Gabriella. "She wants you +to know that she has forgiven you." + +"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!" + +"If I were she," retorted Gabriella crushingly, "I would never speak to +you again until the day of my death." + +"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--" + +"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?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"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!" + +"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." + +"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--" + +"I believe--I really believe you have been drinking," interrupted +Gabriella with cold disgust. "Suppose Jane were to die?" + +"She won't die. She'll be all right as soon as she has forgiven me." + +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. + +"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." + +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!" + +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." + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +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." + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +"Jane had one of her heart attacks," answered the girl. "I'm so sorry we +waked you." + +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. + +"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." + +"Yes, I'll let you know, thank you. I hope we didn't disturb Miss +Jemima." + +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. + +"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. + +"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." + +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." + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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?" + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"It isn't any better. I don't expect it to be any better." + +"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." + +"Don't worry about me, dear. Think of poor Jane." + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +"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." + +"And about Charley, too, I suppose," suggested Gabriella maliciously. + +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. + +"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: + +"My one comfort, Gabriella, is the thought that Arthur Peyton loves you. +There couldn't be anybody more unlike Charley." + +"There couldn't be," agreed Gabriella mildly, for she felt that another +blow would prostrate her mother. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +A START IN LIFE + + +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. + +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." + +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. + +"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. + +"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. + +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. + +"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?" + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +"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." + +"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?" + +"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?" + + +"No, let her alone," replied Florrie impatiently. "Is this any better +than the Leghorn?" + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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. + +"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." + +"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?" + +"I understood that she was obliged to," rejoined Miss Lancaster, with +the weary amiability of her professional manner. + +"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?" + +"I'm sure I don't know, mother. He paid her a great deal of attention, +but you never can tell about men." + +"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?" + +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." + +"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?" + +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. + +"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." + +"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: + +"Why, there is Gabriella! Won't you get her for us, Miss Lancaster?" + +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. + +"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?" + +"Well, not exactly pretty, but she has an interesting face. It is so +full of life." + +"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. + +"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--" + +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." + +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: + +"I didn't know Mr. Fowler had come back. I haven't seen him for ages." + +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." + +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. + +"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--" + +"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." + +"But, Florrie, I haven't told a soul except Gabriella, and I know she +wouldn't repeat a thing that I said to her." + +"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." + +"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." + +"Oh, it doesn't matter in the least, Mrs. Spencer," said Gabriella +hastily, "only there isn't a word of truth in it." + +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." + +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. + +At Gabriella's entrance she glanced up, and remarked cheerfully: "My +feet were killing me. I just had to take off my shoes." + +"They do get dreadfully tired," assented Gabriella in the tone of +sympathetic intimacy she had caught from the other girls. + +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. + +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. + +"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?" + +Her eyes questioned Miss Lancaster, who moved a step nearer the window +as she held the bolt of ribbon toward the daylight. + +"Well, we'd better look at it again in the morning. You are in a hurry, +Miss Carr?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"Yes, you have an eye for colour," she repeated gently; "if you could +only learn to sew, you might command a most desirable position." + +"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." + +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." + +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. + +"She's a remarkable girl," observed Mr. Brandywine, with his paternal +manner. "I hope she is beginning to feel at home with us." + +"I believe she'd feel at home anywhere," replied Miss Meason, "and she's +obliged to get on. There's no doubt of it." + +"A pleasant face, too. Not exactly pretty, I suppose, but you would call +it a pleasant face." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +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." + +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. + +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. + +"It's too late for your ma to be workin', Gabriella. You'd better stop +her." + +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?" + +"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." + +Miss Polly, who had the composed and efficient bearing of a machine, +shook her head discouragingly as she opened the gate and passed out. + +"I reckon she's set for good and all," she remarked emphatically, and +went on her way. + +"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." + +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. + +"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. + +"Not Cousin Jimmy?" asked the girl lightly. + +"No, you could never guess, if you guessed all night." + +"Not Charley Gracey surely? I wouldn't speak to him for the world." + +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. + +"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?" + +"George Fowler! Has he been here?" asked Gabriella, and her voice +quivered like a harp. + +"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." + +"Did George ask when I'd be at home?" inquired Gabriella. + +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. + +"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. + +"He didn't ask where I was?" + +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! + +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?" + +"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. + +"Let me thread your needle, mother. It is too late to work, anyway. You +will ruin your eyesight." + +"I have never considered my eyesight, Gabriella." + +"I know you haven't, and that's why you ought to begin." + +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. + +"Will you light the gas, Gabriella?" + +"Don't work any more to-night, mother. It is almost supper time." + +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. + +"Don't you feel as if you could eat a chop to-night, mother?" + +"I haven't been able to swallow a morsel all day, Gabriella." + +"I've saved you a little cream. Shall I make you a toddy?" + +"I don't want it. Drink it yourself, dear." + +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. + +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. + +"Marthy has brought the lamp, mother. Why don't you move over to the +table?" + +"I can see perfectly, thank you, Gabriella." + +"I hate to see you working. Let me finish those buttonholes." + +"I'd rather get through them myself, dear." + +"Have you seen Jane to-day?" + +"No." + +"Has Cousin Pussy been here?" + +"No." + +"Did you get out for a walk?" + +"No." + +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: + +"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." + +"I told you all about it, mother. I told you I found I was mistaken." + +"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." + +"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--" + +"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." + +"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." + +"There are worse things than work," replied Mrs. Carr in a tone which +implied that Gabriella had brought them upon her. + +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." + +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. + +"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. + +"It can't be a visitor before supper, can it, Gabriella?" + +"I think not, mother, but I shouldn't run away if I were you." + +"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. + +"I knew something would happen," she thought wildly, as she went forward +to meet him. + +"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! + +"Florrie told me this morning that you had come back," she answered +coldly, as she held out her hand. + +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. + +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. + +"I know I've come at an awkward hour, but I simply couldn't go by after +I saw you." + +"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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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?" + +"Yes, I guessed it," she answered simply, and all the softness, the +sweetness, the beauty of her feeling passed into her voice. + +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. + +"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?" + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +MIRAGE + + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +"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. + +"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?" + +"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." + +"You will live with dear Jane, will you not? Poor child, what a blessing +you will be to her." + +"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?" + +Mrs. Peyton's loving gaze enfolded not only her visitor, but the house +and the dreamy garden where frost was already blighting the flowers. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"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!" + +"If it had been God's will, I suppose I must have borne it, Lydia, but I +felt as if it was killing me." + +"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. + +"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. + +"How happy it must make you," murmured the other. "There is nothing in +life I'd rather see than my Arthur happily married." + +"I always thought that he and Gabriella were made for each other, but +one never can tell--" + +"That must be Gabriella now," said Mrs. Peyton as the bell rang. "Is she +coming for you?" + +"Yes, Cousin Jimmy was to bring her, and then drive me out to Hollywood. +Isn't that Arthur's voice talking to her?" + +"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. + +"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. + +"I wanted you to know first of all," said Gabriella. + +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. + +"She must be over head and ears in love," she thought; and the next +minute, "I wonder how it will end?" + +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: + +"That's a pretty dress, my dear. I never saw you look better." + +"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." + +"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." + +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." + +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. + +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: + +"She looked very happy, dear boy. You and I must pray for her +happiness." + +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. + +"She is obliged to be happy. It is her nature," answered Arthur, for his +disposition was hardly less perfect than his manner. + +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. + +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. + +"George!" she called, and went swiftly toward him. + +He turned, threw away the cigar in his hand, and held open the gate +while she entered. + +"There's a jolly little beggar up in the poplar," he said; "I've been +watching him for ten minutes." + +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. + +"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. + +"You are sweet enough to eat this morning," he said as he kissed her. + +"I told Mrs. Peyton that you didn't know whether I was pretty or ugly," +she answered merrily. + +"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." + +She looked at him with luminous eyes. + +"I've got you," she answered in a whisper; "that's all--nothing else on +earth matters. I want nothing but love." + +"But you let me go away for six months. I could never understand that." + +"I had to, George. I couldn't be mean even for you, could I?" + +"Well, I don't know." His gaze dwelt on her moodily. "Sometimes I wonder +if you haven't too much conscience in your body?" + +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. + +"I believe you are going to cry, darling. Don't be so serious," he said, +laughing. + +"But you know--tell me you know that I love you." + +"Of course I know it. Am I blind or a fool?" + +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!" + +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. + +"Promise to love me always, George, as you do now," she said, +passionately trying to make the fugitive joy immortal. + +"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. + +"Swear it!" + +"I swear it. Now, are you satisfied?" + +"I don't believe it. I'll never believe that you love me as much as I +love you. Nobody could." + +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. + +"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. + +"You know I would, George. I'd give up the whole world for you. I'd beg +my bread with you by the roadside." + +"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." + +"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?" + +"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." + +"And is she happy?" There was eagerness in Gabriella's voice, for she +was sure that she should love Patty. + +"Oh, yes, Patty is happy, but mother isn't. It's rough on mother." + +"I think she ought to have told your mother before she married." + +"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?" + +"And is she really so beautiful?" + +"Ripping," said George; "simply ripping." + +"I know I shall love her. Is she dark or fair?" + +"I never thought about it, but she's a towering beauty--something +between dark and fair, I suppose. She has golden hair, you know." + +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." + +"Yes, you would. It would be rotten." + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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." + +"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." + +"She told me that leaving Richmond was like death to her." + +"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." + +"Well, of course, if we live at home--" + +"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." + +"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. + +"It isn't that, dear, you know it isn't that." + +Taking a letter from his pocket, he drew a sheet of blue note paper, +closely interlined, from the envelope, and handed it to her. + +"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. + +Leaning forward until the light fell on the paper, she read with +trembling lips: + + My Dear Son: + + 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. + + 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. + + Your loving mother, + + EVELYN FOWLER. + +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. + +"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. + +"It isn't that, George. Love has nothing to do with it. It is a question +of right." + +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. + +"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. + +"Do you mean always to put your mother before me?" he asked +passionately, after a minute. + +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. + +"I adore you, Gabriella," he said. + +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. + +"How can you hurt me so, George?" she asked with reproachful tenderness. + +"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. + +"You frighten me," she whispered. "I was just beginning to believe that +you really meant it." + +"Oh, lovers always quarrel. There's nothing in that." + +"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?" + +"Of course not, Goosey. It never has lasted, has it?" + +"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. + +"And I'm not really stubborn, dear. Tell me that I'm not really +stubborn." + +"You darling! I was only teasing you." + +"I'll do anything on earth for you that I can, George." + +"I know you will, dearest, and you don't honestly care more for your +family, do you?" + +"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?" + +He kissed her throat where a loosened strand of dark hair had fallen +against the whiteness. + +"Will you do what I ask, Gabriella?" + +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. + +"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. + +"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." + +"If it were anything else, George." + +"But it isn't anything else. It is just that I want you to myself--all +to myself, after we are married." + +"Don't ask me, dearest. If you only knew how it makes me suffer." + +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. + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +"I am only asking you to do what is best for us both, Gabriella." + +"But how can it be best for me to become an ungrateful child, George?" + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +"So you're going to take the old lady to New York with you, Gabriella?" + +"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." + +"Well, what about our friend Charley? Do you think you could get on any +better with Charley for a son-in-law?" + +"You oughtn't to joke about it, Cousin Jimmy. It is too serious for +joking." + +"I beg your pardon, Cousin Fanny--but where is George, Gabriella? I +thought he was to meet you here." + +"He had to go just before you came. Don't you think mother is looking +well?" + +"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." + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +"Cousin Jimmy means well, but he has a most unfortunate manner at +times," observed Mrs. Carr. + +"What is the matter, Gabriella? Have you a headache?" + +"Oh, no, but the sunshine is so strong." + +"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." + +"I'm sure it isn't hurt, mother. George broke the leaves when he was +looking out of the window." + +"I thought he was going to stay for dinner. Did you make the jelly and +syllabub?" + +"I made it, but he wouldn't stay." + +"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?" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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." + +"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." + +"Well, there isn't anything else so interesting when you're young. You +used to think so yourself, sister Amelia." + +Standing gaunt and black, with the tea kettle held out stiffly before +her, Miss Amelia turned her tragic face on her sister. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +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?" + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +Wiping her eyes on the ruffle of the sofa pillow, she sat up and faced +him, while her pride hardened again. + +"Gabriella, I have come back." + +"I see you have," she answered coldly, and choked over a sob. + +"What are you crying about, Gabriella?" + +"I--I have a headache." + +"Have you thought about me at all to-day?" + +"A little." + +He laughed softly, the laugh of a conqueror. + +"I'm glad at least that I didn't give you the headache." + +"You didn't. I had it anyway." + +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. + +"Have you thought it over, Gabriella?" + +She nodded. To save her life, she felt, she could not utter a word +without sobbing. + +"And you have absolutely and finally decided to have your way?" + +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. + +"O George!" she cried suddenly, and held out her arms to him. + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE NEW WORLD + + +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." + +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!" + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"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. + +"I hope your mother will like me," she said nervously after a minute. + +"I'll be sorry for her if she doesn't." + +"Do I look nice?" + +"Of course you do. I never saw you when you didn't." + +"I feel so dreadfully untidy. I never tried to dress in a sleeping-car +before." + +"It did rock, didn't it?" + +"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. + +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. + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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 _Times_, 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. + +"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 _Times_. 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"Remember, dear, that Judge Crowborough is coming to dinner." + +"I'll remember. Is there any one else?" + +"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." + +"I shan't forget, but I may be a little late getting home. Good-bye, my +dear, until evening." + +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." + +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?" + +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. + +"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." + +"Can't the doctor do anything for him?" + +"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." + +Her bright smile was still on her lips, but Gabriella noticed that she +pushed her buttered roll away as if she were choking. + +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. + +"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?" + +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. + +"I want to talk to you, mamma," she said, and her manner was a caress. + +"You love George very much, dear?" asked Mrs. Fowler so suddenly that +Gabriella looked at her startled. + +For a minute the girl could not speak. "Oh, yes; oh, yes," she answered +presently, and choked over the words. + +"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. + +"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?" + +"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." + +"But we shouldn't need much. I am sure I could manage just with what +George makes--no matter how little it is." + +For an instant Mrs. Fowler looked at her thoughtfully. + +"You could, but George couldn't," she answered. + +"You mean he is extravagant?" + +"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." + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"But where are you going, Gabriella? I thought you had decided to live +with us?" + +"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." + +"I see, I see," murmured Mrs. Fowler, as if she were thinking of +something else. "Well, that will all come right, dear, I hope." + +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." + +"They are so unlike," answered Gabriella, and the next day when she +remembered the admission, she wondered how it had slipped from her. + +"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." + +"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. + +"Yes, it's the best thing, after all, in marriage," answered the older +woman; "it's the thing that wears." + +"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." + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +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? + +"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." + +"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." + +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." + +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." + +"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. + +"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." + +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!" + +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. + +"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? + +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. + +"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. + +"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." + +"I've never seen any portraits of living people--only of ancestors," +said Gabriella, "and I am so much interested." + +"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." + +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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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. + +"And this is Gabriella," she added, holding out her arms. "What a +darling you are to come so soon, Gabriella." + +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. + +"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?" + +"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." + +"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" + +"I believe there is a stable, but it won't bother us--we're too high," +replied Patty. + +"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." + +"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?" + +"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." + +"And a much better son, too, than George ever was?" asked Patty slyly. + +"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?" + +"She looks like the snow queen in them. Does it matter what I wear +to-night? Who is coming?" + +"Nobody you will care about--only Judge and Mrs. Crowborough and Colonel +Buffington." + +"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." + +"Hush, Patty. You mustn't corrupt Gabriella." + +"If the judge doesn't, I shan't, mamma." + +"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." + +"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?" + +"Yes, we must go. Come, Gabriella, or you won't have time to get into +your trunks before dinner." + +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!" + +"To think that all Patty's beauty should have been thrown away," said +Mrs. Fowler suddenly. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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." + +Glancing at the clock again, she saw that it was a quarter of eight, and +still George had not come. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE OLD SERPENT + + +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. + +"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. + +"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!" + +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? + +"Did you enjoy yourself?" she asked cheerfully. Tell me about it." + +"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. + +"Then you had better hurry, dear. Dinner is at eight, and you have only +a minute." + +"You go down and tell them not to wait. I was detained downtown, but it +won't take me a second to dress." + +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. + +"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. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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?" + +"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." + +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?" + +"He got home so late that he wasn't ready for dinner. He'll be down in a +minute." + +"It's a bad habit. He oughtn't to be late. Now, I haven't been late for +dinner for twenty years." + +"I'm afraid he doesn't pay much attention to time. I'll try to change +him." + +"You won't. No woman alive ever changed a man's habits. All you can do +is to hide them." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"'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.' + +"Hi! Marse Beverly,' said the old rascal, 'whar you gwine?" + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"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?" + +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. + +"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. + +"Well, I've learned something of life to-night," thought Gabriella while +she watched her. + +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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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. + +"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." + +"That's the girl he told me about," said Gabriella. "Was he ever +interested in her?" + +"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: + +"I know," she said gaily, "you never marry the people your family pick +out for you." + +"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." + +"He looks as if he were worth it," admitted Gabriella. + +"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?" + +"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. + +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. + +"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." + +Upstairs in her room a little later Gabriella said to George: "Patty was +telling me about the girl your mother wanted you to marry." + +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. + +"I wish you'd talk to me, George. It is so annoying to be grunted at." + +"Well, what do you want?" he replied amiably enough. "Patty is a regular +sieve, you know. Never tell her a secret." + +"Did you ever like that girl--really?" + +"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." + +"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?" + +"Um--humph," he was grunting again. + +"Wasn't she terribly common?" + +"Um--humph." + +"Wasn't she vulgar?" + +"Rather. They all are." + +"And fast?" + +"Regular streak of lightning." + +Then it was that Gabriella arrived at an understanding of masculine +nature. "You never can tell what men will like," she concluded. + +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. + +"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. + +"You've been hearing too much gossip to-night," he rejoined gaily. "Take +care what you listen to." + +"Don't joke, dear. I wish you would tell me things." + +"There isn't anything to tell, is there?" + +"Is your father very rich?" + +"Not very. Did you think you were marrying a millionaire?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"They wanted you to put it off?" + +"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." + +"But you never told me." + +"You bet I didn't. If I had, as likely as not, you would be Gabriella +Mary Carr at this minute." + +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. + +"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." + +"Oh, that's all right--there's plenty of time," he responded irritably. +"Only you mustn't make mountains out of molehills." + +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. + +"I am so sleepy," she said, stifling a yawn, "that I feel as if I could +cry." + +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. + +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: + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Oh, well, he gets what he asks for," retorted George indifferently, +"and that's more than the rest of us can say." + +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. + +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." + +"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. + +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? + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"George!" she called in a strangled voice, and waited, standing, for him +to enter. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +MOTHERHOOD + + +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. + +"Did you tell him, dear?" she asked, arranging a handful of red roses in +a little alabaster vase on the desk. + +No, Gabriella had not told him. She felt now that she should never be +able to tell him, but all she said was: + +"I didn't get a chance. How lovely those roses are." + +Mrs. Fowler set the vase where the gray light fell on it, and then +turning with empty hands from the desk, asked gently: + +"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. + +"I couldn't tell him last night," replied Gabriella; "he was sick all +night." + +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. + +"Gabriella," said Mrs. Fowler suddenly, after she had watched her a +moment, "did anything happen last night?" + +"Happen? No, what could have happened?" + +"At what time did George come in?" + +"About one o'clock. I sat up for him." + +"Was--was anything the matter with him? Was he in any way different?" + +"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. + +"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. + +"I want to help you," she said, "and I can't if you keep things back." + +"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. + +"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." + +"His things are all in here and he would come in to get them; that would +wake me." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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. + +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: + +"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." + +"Did he drink then?" + +"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?" + +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. + +"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?" + +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." + +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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"You seem so hard, Gabriella," said Mrs. Fowler. "Is it because you are +young? Young people never make allowances." + +The taste of bitterness rose to Gabriella's lips. + +"I suppose I am hard," she answered, "and I am going to stay so. There +is safety in hardness." + +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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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?" + +Gabriella shook her head. "I don't care what you say to him." + +"Do you feel able to come down to lunch?" + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + MY DEAR DAUGHTER: + + 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. + + 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. + + 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. + + 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. + + 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. + + With love to George and a dozen kisses for my precious little + grandchild, + + Your devoted mother, + FANNY CARR. + + 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"That's a good fire," he observed, stopping on the hearth-rug. "I don't +wonder you hate to go out." + +"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. + +"Has she been well?" + +"She is always well. I haven't had a day's anxiety about her since she +was born." + +"But she isn't very old yet." Already little Frances was supplying +conversational material to her parents. + +"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." + +"Can't you tell me instead?" + +"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." + +"That was all right, wasn't it?" He was plainly nervous. + +"At the time I thought I couldn't do differently, but now--" + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +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." + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"You were talking last night about buying a horse," she replied. + +He frowned resentfully, and she immediately regretted her words. By +speaking the truth she had defeated her purpose. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +"Then I can't help my mother even if it's a matter of life and death?" +she asked. + +"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--" + +Again her impetuous spirit--dangerous gift!--flashed out recklessly in +defence of the truth. + +"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. + +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. + +"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." + +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: + +"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: + +"Wasn't George upstairs before lunch? I thought I heard his voice." + +"Yes, but he said he had an engagement at the club." + +"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." + +"I didn't tell George. Perhaps you had better telephone him." + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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?" + +"No, no, dear, take your walk. I am so glad the storm is over. It will +be a lovely afternoon." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"How much might I get for these? I have worn them only a few times. They +do not suit me," she said. + +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. + +"The stones alone are worth that," he added, "and, of course, they will +have to be reset before we can sell them." + +"May I have the check now?" + +"Shall we send it to you by mail?" + +"No, I must have it now. I want it this afternoon--immediately." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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: + +"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." + +"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. + +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. + +"She's the peartest baby I ever saw," remarked Miss Polly with pride. +"Wouldn't yo' ma dote on her?" + +"Wouldn't she? But how did you leave mother and Jane and the children? +The baby must be a big boy now." + +"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." + +"How in the world will she take care of it? I suppose Charley is just +the same?" + +"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." + +"She doesn't seem to have done much with Charley." + +"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." + +"It's such a pity, but I suppose nothing will change her. Tell me about +mother." + +"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." + +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. + +"I am so anxious about mother," said Gabriella. "Did she tell you she +was going to Florida?" + +"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'." + +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. + +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. + +"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! + +"I never saw her look handsomer," said Gabriella, "that white and silver +gown is very becoming." + +"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." + +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. + +"Yes, Patty is lovely," she answered, thinking, as she reflected upon +the eccentricities of love, how much too good he was for his wife. + +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. + +"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?" + +"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. + +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 naďve, 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. + +"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.'" + +After she had gone, adoringly wrapped up by Algernon, Patty turned to +her mother with a little malicious grimace: + +"I know it's horrid to say she's dreadful, mamma, but she really is." + +"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." + +"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." + +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." + + + + +BOOK SECOND + +THE AGE OF KNOWLEDGE + + + + +CHAPTER I + +DISENCHANTMENT + + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"But I never sew! I haven't had a needle in my hand for twenty +years--no, not for thirty," protested Madame. + +"Then I mustn't give up hope. If I ever have to earn my living, I'll +come to you, Madame." + +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?" + +To all of which Madame agreed, as she bowed them out, with her +ingratiating professional manner. + +"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?" + +"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." + +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. + +"But you enjoy it so much when you have it." + +"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." + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"It wouldn't have suited George," observed George's wife with an +inflection of irony. + +"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." + +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. + +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: + +"You'll never be able to break his will, Gabriella. He is unmanageable." + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +"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." + +"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." + +George looked up interested, from his breakfast. + +"Florrie coming, is she?" he remarked. "Well, she's great fun. I wonder +if she has her eye on anybody now?" + +"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." + +"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. + +"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." + +"As if a man ever loved a woman because of her character!" remarked Mrs. +Fowler, from the security of her experience. + +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. + +"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--" + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"I'd love to see the babies, darling," she said; "I'm just crazy about +babies." + +"They are out in the Park. I'm so sorry. Perhaps they are coming in now, +I hear the door-bell." + +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. + +"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?" + +"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. + +"A house? Well, that's even better," replied George. "I've no use for +apartments, have I, Gabriella?" + +His effrontery was incredible! That he should joke about his broken +promise before Florrie amazed Gabriella even after her disillusioning +experience with him. + +"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. + +"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. + +Five minutes later when George came back from putting Florrie into her +hansom, he remarked carelessly: + +"She's got a figure all right." + +"Yes, she looks beautiful in black. No wonder she won't leave it off." + +"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." + +"I never heard much about it. Mrs. Spencer must give her something." + +"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?" + +"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. + +"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." + +"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. + +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. + +"I wonder," said George with a suddenness that startled her out of her +musing--"I wonder if it can be Winston Camp!" + +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?" + +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?" + +"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." + +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." + +"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?" + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +"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? + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"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. + +"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?" + +"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?" + +"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?" + +"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--" + +"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. + +"I understand now. Don't tell any more, Fanny," said Gabriella. "Now, +Archibald dear, will you stop crying and be good?" + +"Am," replied Archibald sullenly, twisting out of her hands. + +"Am what, darling?" + +"Am good." + +"Well, will you stop crying?" + +"Have." + +"Then what do you want? Shall we go back and look for the poor boy?" + +"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--" + +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. + +"Yes, Gabriella is out. I saw her a minute ago on her way to the Park +with the children." + +"Well, somebody ought to tell her, mother. I think it is perfectly +outrageous to keep her in ignorance. Everybody is talking about it." + +"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--" + +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!" + +"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--" + +"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." + +"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. + +"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--" + +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. + +"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--" + +"But, you see, I don't love George," answered Gabriella, and her awful +words seemed to reverberate through the horrified silence that +surrounded her. + +"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--" + +"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. + +"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--" + +"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. + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"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--" + +"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. + +"Gabriella, you don't--you can't--" she repeated wildly. + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"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--" + +"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. + +"Gabriella, you don't--you can't--" she repeated wildly. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +A SECOND START IN LIFE + + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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--" + +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. + +"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. + +"Don't want to run," replied Archibald with beaming good humour. In his +passion for brevity he eliminated pronouns whenever it was possible. + +"But Fanny is waiting for you." + +"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." + +"Don't you want to go back to the Park, Archibald? You must finish your +walk." + +"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. + +"Perhaps. You might take him an apple and a penny." + +He stood gravely considering the plan, with one hand in his mother's and +one on Miss Polly's knee. + +"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." + +"But Pang isn't a nurse, dear. There, now, run to Fanny. Miss Polly +lives so far away she can't stay very long." + +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?" + +"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?" + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"Mother thinks Archibald is going to be very much like him. She saw him +in the mountains last summer." + +"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?" + +"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. + +"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?" + +"Was she with George?" asked Gabriella indifferently. + +"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." + +"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. + +"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." + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +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 jardiničres, 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. + +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. + +"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?" + +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. + +"But you have worked--you have supported yourself," insisted Gabriella +with firmness. + +"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. + +"Yet you have been successful. You have built up a good business. The +work has repaid you." + +"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!" + +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. + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"A most extraordinary day for January," remarked the judge as they +reached a corner. "You hardly need your furs, the air is so mild." + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +"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." + +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." + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +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: + +"Oh, Gabriella, have you been out?" + +"Yes, I've been out. Mamma, what is the matter?" + +"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. + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"There's his father now," she whispered, lifting her disfigured face. +"Oh, Gabriella, I believe it will kill me!" + +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. + +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. + +"My dear child," he said; "my dear daughter," and laid his hand on her +shoulder. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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: + +"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--" + +She caught the words from him eagerly, with a gesture almost of relief. + +"You mean it has come at last. I suspected it, and, oh, Archibald, I +don't care--I don't care!" + +"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." + +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." + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +WORK + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +"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?" + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"Do you know the name of this one? I'd like to remember it." + +"Yes, it's Carr. I asked for her card. C-a-r-r. I think she's a widow." + +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. + +"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." + +"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. + +But Madame, of a flightier substance notwithstanding her business +talents, waved aside the remark as insignificant and without bearing +upon her immediate purpose. + +"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." + +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? + +"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. + +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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"I'll help you," said Gabriella, taking up several hats from a chair. +"The others have gone, haven't they?" + +"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." + +"Well, run away. I'll attend to this. But I'd try to rest before I went +out if I were you." + +"You're a perfect peach," responded Miss Murphy gratefully. "I said all +along I didn't believe you were stuck up and snobbish." + +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. + +"Perhaps something like this is what you are looking for?" she remarked +politely, but firmly. + +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. + +"No, that is not bad," she observed dryly, "but I don't care to give +more than ten dollars." + +"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. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +"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?" + +"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." + +"But the children? You've got to have the children looked after." + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +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. + +"I'm going now, and there's one thing I want to ask you--have you any +money?" + +It was out at last, and she looked up composedly, smiling a little +roguishly at his embarrassment. + +"I have six hundred dollars in bank for a rainy day, and I am making +exactly fifteen dollars a week." + +"But you can't live on it. Nobody could live on it even without two +children to bring up." + +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." + +"As soon as the six hundred dollars go you'll be headed straight for +starvation," he protested, sincerely worried. + +"Perhaps, but I doubt it." + +"How much do you have to pay for your rooms?" + +"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." + +His embarrassment had passed away, and he was smiling now at the +recollection of it. + +"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?" + +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." + +"Honour bright? It's a promise?" + +"It's a promise." + +"And you'll let me keep an eye on you?" + +She laughed with the natural gaiety which he found so delightful. "You +may keep two eyes on me if you will!" + +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? + +"No, I don't mind. As soon as I can afford it, I shall get my freedom, +but everything costs, you know, even justice." + +"I could help you there, couldn't I?" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"I hope the place is perfectly sanitary," was Gabriella's anxious +rejoinder. "The front room gets some sunshine in the afternoon, doesn't +it?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"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?" + +"But the boy is ugly and so is the dog. I hate ugly people," complained +Fanny. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +"Mother, you've been away forever," said Fanny, folding her veil for her +and putting away her furs. + +"Are you going every day just like this for ever and ever? + +"Every day, darling, but I'm here every night. Shall I run back to the +kitchen and broil the chops, Miss Polly?" + +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. + +"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." + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE DREAM AND THE YEARS + + +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. + +"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." + +"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?" + +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." + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +"But, surely, we have something else. There is a lovely Doucet model--in +white and silver--" + +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. + +"I've lost her. She will never come back," moaned Madame, and burst into +tears. + +"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. + +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. + +"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!" + +"I told her the truth, when she asked me, that was all." + +"Well, I never! Now what, in the name of goodness, possessed you?" + +"I had to. I don't see how I could have kept from it." + +"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." + +"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. + +"Of course it didn't, but I don't see why you had to go and tell her." + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"Did he stay long?" asked Gabriella of Miss Folly. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"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. + +"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. + +"Well, I've had my troubles, too," observed Gabriella, busily stirring +the oysters. + +"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. + +"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. + +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. + +"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?" + +"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." + +"I can't help feeling," demurred Gabriella, forsaking the moral issue +for the argument of mere expediency, "that honesty is good business." + +"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." + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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!" + +When she returned, with the green cloth in one hand and a charming +lavender crępe 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. + +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." + +"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." + +"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: + +"Will you come out with me to-morrow? It is Sunday." + +"And leave the children?" she asked a little blankly. + +"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. + +"But I never leave them on Sunday. It is the only day I have with them," +she answered. + +"Don't go, mother! You mustn't go!" cried Fanny, and clung to her. + +"Oh, very well," returned Dr. French, dismissing the subject with +irritation. "But you look pale, and I thought the air might do you +good." + +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." + +"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." + +For a moment Gabriella considered this ruefully. + +"You don't honestly believe that he's interested in me in that way?" she +demanded in a horrified whisper. + +"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." + +"But why should I encourage him? Even if you are right, I couldn't marry +him. I could never marry again." + +"I'd like to know why not, if you get a chance? You're free enough, +ain't you?" + +"Yes, it isn't that--but I couldn't." + +"You ain't hankerin' after George, are you, Gabriella?" + +"After George? No!" responded Gabriella with so sincere an accent that +Miss Polly jumped. + +"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'." + +"I never loved George. It was madness, nothing else," returned +Gabriella, and she really believed it. + +"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. + +"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? + +"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." + +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!" + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +"Whatever comes, I must not lose my courage," she told herself at such +times. "If I lose my courage I shall have nothing left." + +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. + +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. + +"I am so glad," she said, "so glad," and her voice shook in spite of the +effort she made. + +"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?" + +"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." + +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." + +"What are you doing?" + +"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." + +"And in the evenings?" + +She laughed with recovered spirit. "In the evening I sew and read and +mope." + +"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?" + +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. + +"Oh, I'd love to! Only wait until I put out the stove and tidy my hair." + +"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!" + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"No, I haven't had an easy life, but I love it. I mean I love living." + +"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--" + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"It has been a long summer," she heard herself saying from a distance in +a thin and colourless voice. + +"And you suffered?" + +"Sometimes, but I'm interested in my work, and I've been thinking and +planning all summer." + +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. + +"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. + +"I have had love, and I have my children." + +"But you will love again? You will marry again some day?" + +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. + +"No, I shall never love again, I shall never love again," she answered +at last, while a feeling of exultation surged through her. + +"You mean," his voice shook a little, "that your husband still holds +you?" + +"My husband? No, I never think of my husband." + +"Is there some one else?" + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"He must be a big man if he can fill a life like yours," said Dr. +French. + +"I don't know why I told you," she faltered; "I have never told any one +else. It is my secret." + +"Well, it is safe with me. Don't be afraid." + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +SUCCESS + + +"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. + +"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." + +"I reckon she's gettin' mighty old, ain't she?" + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +"He'd do it in a minute, I expect. He always set a lot of store by you, +didn't he?" + +"He used to, but somehow I hate to ask favours." + +"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?" + +Gabriella laughed. "No, I don't remember, but it sounds like me. I was +horrid." + +"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." + +"Well, I married," Gabriella flippantly reminded her; "so it can't be +that." + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +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." + +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. + +"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." + +"I know," said Gabriella tenderly, while she feasted her eyes on her +daughter. + +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. + +"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." + +"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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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?" + +"West Twenty-third Street is mighty far out of the way, honey," observed +Miss Polly cautiously. + +"Oh, but I'd have Carlie, and she's my best friend," persisted Fanny, +with caressing obstinacy. + +"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. + +"Wasn't Archibald with you?" inquired Gabriella, while she pushed the +chairs into place and tidied the room. + +"He stopped at the library. There's his ring now. I'll open the door." + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +"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." + +"I shouldn't wonder, dear. It's good for you, too. I never saw you look +better." + +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. + +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. + +"Fanny's school costs so much, and, of course, she must have clothes. +All the other girls dress so expensively." + +"You spend three times as much on her as you do on Archibald." + +"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?" + +"It's a pity about his eyes." + +"There's nothing wrong except near-sightedness, but he'll have to wear +glasses all his life." + +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. + +"Fanny seems right set on goin' down to Twenty-third Street, don't she?" +she inquired, after an interval of musing. + +"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." + +"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." + +"I don't like having those O'Haras on the lower floor. If they are loud +and common, it might be very disagreeable." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"It couldn't hurt, could it?" + +"No, I don't suppose it could hurt." + +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. + +"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." + +"Florrie!" exclaimed Gabriella, startled, and she added slowly, "I +wonder what has become of her? I haven't thought of her for years." + +"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." + +"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. + +"Well, I'm glad she didn't spoil your life for you, honey." + +"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." + +"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." + +"But I'm obliged to. How on earth could I take care of the children if I +didn't work?" + +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." + +"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." + +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. + +"You've forgotten that I haven't seen him for seventeen years," she +answered. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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?" + +"Yes" admitted Gabriella anxiously, "I've noticed it, but when I asked +her about it, she only laughed." + +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. + +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. + + _Richmond, Thursday_. + + DEAR CHILD: + + 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. + + 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. + + 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. + + 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. + + 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. + + 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. + + It is almost eleven o'clock, and I must stop and undress. Kiss the + dear children, and remember me kindly to Miss Polly. + + Your loving MOTHER. + +As she refolded the letter Gabriella stood for an instant with her +dreaming gaze on the delicate Italian handwriting on the envelope. + +"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." + +Then, as Archibald rushed into the room, she caught him in her arms, and +held him hungrily to her bosom. + +"My darling, you want to keep your mother, don't you?" + +"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?" + +"She has to have things, and you love me just as well without them, +don't you?" + +"But I want you to have them, too. I like you to look pretty, and you +are pretty." + +"Then I can look pretty in plain clothes, can't I?" + +"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." + +"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. + +"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.". + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +"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?" + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +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." + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +Gabriella's opportunity had come, and she grasped it with the quickness +of judgment which had enabled her to achieve her moderate success. + +"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. + +"I don't want any responsibility. I want to be rid of the whole thing," +she said after a pause. + +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." + +"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." + +"I understand," agreed Gabriella quietly. + +"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?" + +"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. + +"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. + +"It is a splendid investment," croaked the old woman in the midst of +Gabriella's painful reflections. "The house was never more flourishing." + +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. + +"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. + +"So should I," responded Gabriella merrily, "if I were sure of landing +on my feet." + +"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." + +"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. + +"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." + +"So I have heard," murmured Gabriella, seeing that Madame paused for the +note of encouragement. + +"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?" + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"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. + +"What is it? Dressmaking?" He was obviously interested. + +"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?" + +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! + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +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." + +"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. + +"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." + +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." + +"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. + +"You are so good," she responded gratefully, "so good"; and she was +speaking sincerely. + +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. + +"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. + +"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" + +"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?" + +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? + +"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. + +"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. + +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! + +"I always liked you, you know," he said abruptly, with a sincere +emphasis. + +"Well, there are different ways of liking," she rejoined coldly, "and I +happen not to care for this way." + +"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--" + +"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? + +"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. + +"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. + +"Well, you _are_ 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." + +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?" + +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. + +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." + +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. + +"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!" + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +DISCOVERIES + + +"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 _is_ 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. + +When she reached the apartment, Fanny rushed into her arms, and inquired +breathlessly if she had taken the house? + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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?" + +"But Charley has a splendid daughter. Think of his Margaret." + +"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." + +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." + +"Did you bring me your school report, darling?" she asked. + +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. + +"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." + +They were in the midst of the argument when Archibald came in, and he +showed little sympathy with Fanny's dramatic ambition. + +"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. + +"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." + +"And then to the University of Virginia where Grandfather went?" + +"Yes, and then to the University of Virginia." + +Though she tried to speak lightly, the thought of the coming separation +brought a pang to her heart. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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. + +"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." + +"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. + +"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." + +"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. + +"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?" + +"That's up on the Hudson, mother. I don't want to go out of New York." +Fanny was genuinely alarmed at last. + +"The farther away from New York the better, my daughter." + +"What will you do here all alone with Miss Polly? + +"Oh, we'll do very well," answered Gabriella with cheerful promptness; +"you need not worry about me." + +"If I'm good this summer, will you change your mind, mother?" + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"As if anybody needed to be dressed up to march!" exclaimed Archibald +scornfully, and he added: "She's always acting, isn't she, mother?" + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +"Well, you can't expect everything to go the way you want it. Did you +see the judge?" + +"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?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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?" + +"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." + +"You ain't often like that, Gabriella. I never saw anybody keep in +better spirits than you do." + +"I'm happy, but the spring makes me restless. I feel as if I'd missed +something I ought to have had." + +"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." + +"Yes, except my marriage." + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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. + +"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?" + +"Yes, I'll come in presently. I hate to leave the air and the roses." + +"I wish we had the whole house, Gabriella." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"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. + +"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. + +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. + +"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. + +"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." + +"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?" + +"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." + +"What does he look like? Is he rough?" + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"Is he? I didn't look at him." + +"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?" + +"He died before I was born. Are those wisps of gray green, in the +border, pinks, Miss Polly?" + +"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?" + +"Well, we might try, anyhow. Where are the children?" + +"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." + +"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?" + +"No, I'm not ill, but I don't like Archibald to pick up acquaintances I +know nothing about." + +"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?" + +"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!" + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"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. + +"He is cyclonic," she said to herself. "Yes, that is the word--he is +cyclonic--but he isn't a gentleman." + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +"What's that stringy looking grass over there?" pursued the man, +undismayed by her manner. + +"Clove pinks." Nothing, she told herself indignantly, could persuade her +to encourage the acquaintance of a man who mispronounced his words so +outrageously. + +"And here?" He pointed to the flower-bed she was watering. + +"Mignonette and nasturtium seeds." + +"When will they come up?" + +"Very soon if they're watered." + +"And they'll bloom about July, I guess?" + +"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." + +"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?" + +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. + +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! + +"Well, what do you think of that?" she demanded scornfully of Miss Polly +when he had disappeared up the street. + +"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." + +"I believe you're taking up for him, Miss Polly. Has he bewitched you?" + +"I don't like to see you hard, Gabriella. You're almost always so +tolerant. It ain't like you to sit in judgment." + +"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." + +"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." + +"I dare say he has a great deal of force, but you must admit that blood +tells, Miss Polly." + +"I never said it didn't, Gabriella--only that there's much more credit +to a man that comes up without it." + +"Oh, I'll admire him all you please," retorted Gabriella, "if you'll +promise to keep him away from the children." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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. + +"I hope Mr. O'Hara wasn't hurt," remarked Gabriella, but her voice was +not enthusiastic. + +"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--" + +"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." + +"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." + +"But I want to hear about the mine. Mother, make him tell us about the +mine!" cried Archibald insistently. + +"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?" + +"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! + +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." + +"Oh, yes, I may, mother. Say I may," interrupted Archibald with +rebellious determination. + +"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. + +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. + +"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?" + +"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?" + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +"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. + +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." + +"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?" + +"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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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'." + +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." + +"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." + +"I don't like to forbid him. Of course, I know nothing against the +man--it is only a feeling." + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"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?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +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? + +"Not a word--not a single word, darling. I haven't heard his name +mentioned since I got my divorce." + +"You didn't know, then, that Florrie left him six months after they ran +away?" + +"No, I didn't know. Does he ever write to you?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"Have you any idea what became of Florrie?" she asked, moved by a +passing curiosity. + +"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." + +"It's queer, isn't it, because she really has a kind heart." + +"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." + +"I sometimes think," observed Gabriella cynically, "that men like women +to be without feeling. It saves them so much trouble." + +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. + +"Oh, look, Ben, there's mother!" cried Archibald; and turning quickly, +the two came to meet her. + +"My darling, I thought you were still in the country," said Gabriella, +kissing her son. + +"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. + +"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?" + +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. + +"Oh, we're well. I've been playing with Archibald. Did you have a good +crossing?" + +"It was smooth enough, but I got so impatient. I wanted to be with the +children." + +"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." + +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? + +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. + +"I'd like to have a grip like that myself. Is there anything else I can +help about?" + +"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." + +At this he went without a word, and Gabriella began a joyous account of +her trip to the children. + +"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." + +"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." + +"I have all your autumn dresses, darling; everything you can possibly +need at Miss Bradfordine's." + +Fanny's eager face grew suddenly fretful. "Am I really to go away to +school, mother?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"But I've just come home." Her lip trembled. "I should think Archibald +would rather be with me." + +"Oh, he won't stay, and you'll have him all the evening. Archibald is +just crazy about gettin' you back." + +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. + +"I put these in my bag, Fanny, so you wouldn't have to wait for the +trunks. Try on this little white silk." + +"Oh, mother, you look so sweet in that blue gown!" + +"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. + +"Has Archibald come upstairs yet, Miss Polly?" + +"Not yet, but he'll be up directly. Don't you worry." + +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. + +"Well, I'm going after him," she said sternly; "I am going straight +downstairs to find him." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +READJUSTMENTS + + +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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"Oh, mother, are they upstairs? I'll run up and see them!" cried, +Archibald delightedly. "I thought they were all in the trunks." + +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. + +"Mr. O'Hara," she began firmly, "I wish you would not take my son away +from me." + +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. + +"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. + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"The only thing I'd like to know about you," she answered, "is why you +have taken so sudden a fancy to my son?" + +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: + +"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." + +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?" + +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: + +"By George, I'm not so sure that you have!" + +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. + +"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?" + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"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. + +"And you think that all boys are alike?" + +"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." + +She was suddenly interested. "Do you care for boys just because you were +a boy yourself?" she asked. + +"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." + +"You never forget anything?" + +"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!" + +She nodded comprehendingly. "And after that?" + +"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---" + +The door burst open, and Archibald rushed in to show the evening clothes +Gabriella had brought him from Paris. + +"They are jolly, mother! May I keep them on?" + +"If you like, dear, but they'll have to be altered a little. The coat +doesn't quite fit across the shoulders." + +"You're a dandy, kid, a regular dandy," observed O'Hara, with humorous +gravity. + +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?" + +"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--" + +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. + +"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." + +"But how did you come out of it? How did you succeed? For you have +succeeded beyond your dreams, haven't you?" + +"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." + +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! + +"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?" + +"Did you see him again?" + +"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." + +"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. + +"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." + +"What kind of man was he?" she asked, sincerely interested. + +"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?" + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +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." + +"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. + +"Fanny, where did you get this?" + +"Oh, mother, I didn't mean you to see it. I meant to put it away." + +"Where did you get it?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"But boys are so stupid, mother." Fanny's tone was withering in its +disdain. "They are wrapped up in sports, and I despise sports." + +"Then you oughtn't to tease them as you do. You're too young to have +fancies." + +"I am sixteen." + +"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." + +"Oh, mother," hummed Fanny to the music of the lame duck as she +practised before the mirror, "how can you really hurt a man?" + +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. + +"You are going home early to-day, Mrs. Squires." + +"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." + +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: + +"You've worked at this house a long time, haven't you?" + +"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." + +"You knew Mr. O'Hara then?" + +"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--" + +"His wife?" + +"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." + +"What was the matter?" + +"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." + +"Who was she? Where did he meet her?" + +"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." + +"Well, I suppose he loved her." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +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." + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +That night, when she sat alone with Miss Polly, she said to her +suddenly: + +"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." + +"Maybe," replied Miss Polly, a little snappishly. "I never could see +what set you so against him, Gabriella." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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?" + +"No, I never wonder," responded Miss Polly tartly, "but when you stew it +down to the bones, I reckon it's just plain character." + +"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." + +"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?" + +"I met her this morning on my way to work, and she told me about it." + +"Well, what do you make of it? Don't it beat anything you ever heard?" + +"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?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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?" + +"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." + +"When you aren't pretty, you're obliged to be smart." + +"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." + +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?" + +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." + +Gabriella laughed brightly. "Oh, he looks at everything. I never saw +such eyes." + +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 _was_ 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. + +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. + +"Archibald went off to school without telling you good-bye," she said in +a friendly voice. "He was much disappointed." + +Stopping in the walk, he looked at her with unaffected surprise. + +"Why, I thought that was what you wanted!" + +She met this quite honestly. "Not after I talked to you." + +"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. + +"It wasn't anything you said," she answered simply. "I found out you +were different from what I thought, that is all." + +"Then you must have thought something!" he laughed aloud. + +"I was afraid at first that you might have a bad influence over +Archibald." + +"Oh, the kid!" His mirth was as irrepressible as his energy. + +"You see I have to be very careful," she went on gently. "I want to do +my best by him." + +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." + +"But I do--I do. I am sending him away from me. Isn't that right?" + +"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." + +Instinctively she flinched. If only he wouldn't! + +"After he leaves school of course he will go to the university," she +said. + +"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 encyclopćdia. 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!" + +"But you read, don't you?" + +"Not much. Never had time to form the habit. But I've read +Shakespeare--at least I've read Julius Cćsar 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." + +"But not Hamlet?" She was smiling as she looked from him into the +street. + +He shook his head with a laugh. "Too much meandering in that. I don't +like talk unless it is straight." + +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. + +"It is wonderful," she remarked, touched to sympathy by his confession, +"that you should have succeeded." + +"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." + +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." + +"So long ago," he retorted with jovial humour, "that you wouldn't have +known me." + +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. + +"Perhaps there aren't so many in Bonanza City?" + +"Oh, there're plenty," he rejoined gaily, "if you take the trouble to +look for them." + +"And you didn't?" They had entered the house, and she spoke merrily as +she crossed to the staircase. + +"Well, the sort I found didn't take my fancy, you see!" he tossed back +playfully from his door. + +Her foot was on the lowest step, when, hesitating with a birdlike +movement, she looked at him over her right shoulder. + +"Well, that's a pity. A woman could have told you a good many things," +she observed. + +"For instance?" He was still jesting. + +Poised for flight, she gazed back at him, challenging his eyes. + +"Oh, not to collect gold-headed walking-sticks, not to believe in +golden-oak, and not to be so extravagantly--slangy." + +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." + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"Oh, I'm not moping, but of course I can't help missing them. The house +seems so empty." + +"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." + +"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. + +"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?" + +"Makin' money, I reckon. They say he makes so much he don't know what to +do with it." + +"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?" + +"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." + +"Perhaps. Maybe they're all alike," and taking up her umbrella, +Gabriella started bravely out into the storm. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Gabriella! My God! I was looking for you, Gabriella!" + +With the money still in her hand, she stooped to look into his face. + +"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." + +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!" + +"Where are you going?" she asked, for the shock had restored him to some +poor semblance of sanity. + +"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!" + +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. + +"Gabriella, I'm afraid," he whined, clinging to her arm. "I'm afraid, +Gabriella. You can't let go of me!" + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"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!" + +"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." + +"And a nurse? You'll want a nurse, won't you?" + +"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." + +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. + +"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!" + +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. + +"The heat's comin' up all right in the radiator," she said, "but I +thought a blaze might make him more comfortable." + +"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. + +"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. + +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: + +"If you are afraid, lock yourself in your room, Miss Polly. I am going +downstairs for Mr. O'Hara." + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE TEST + + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +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." + +"But I am obliged to be here. It is my business, not yours," she +replied, while a sensation of sickness passed over her. + +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." + +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. + +"I think I ought to help you," she insisted. + +"Well, I think you oughtn't. Out you go! I guess I know what I'm up +against." + +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: + +"Don't stand out there any longer. It's as right as right. I've got him +buffaloed!" + +"What does he mean?" inquired Gabriella helplessly of the seamstress. + +"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." + +"I suppose his heart was weak. He looked as if he were dying," answered +Gabriella. "He asked for more whiskey, didn't he?" + +"Yes; I'm goin' right straight to get it. Oh, Gabriella, ain't a man a +real solid comfort sometimes?" + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +"I don't know what I should have done if he hadn't been here," she +said. + +"Who? Mr. O'Hara? Well, it certainly was providential, honey, when you +come to think of it." + +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." + +His voice stopped, and Gabriella went out to him. "Will you tell me what +you think, Doctor?" she asked. + +"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. + +"I divorced him ten years ago." + +He looked at her searchingly. "Well, he may last until morning, but it +is doubtful. His heart has given out." + +"Is there anything I can do?" + +"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." + +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!" + +"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. + +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." + +"May I go in there?" + +"Well, you can't do any good, but you may go in if you'd rather." + +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. + +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. + +"Hallo, there!" he exclaimed when he turned with the scuttle still in +his hand; "so you're awake, are you?" + +She started up. "I've been asleep!" she exclaimed in surprise. + +"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?" + +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. + +"It's good," she answered; "I had no dinner, and I am very hungry." + +"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. + +"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." + +"Oh, you would have got on all right," he rejoined carelessly; "but I'm +glad all the same that I was here." + +She motioned toward the hall. "Has there been any change?" + +"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." + +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." + +"Well, you're a plucky sort. I could tell that the first minute I saw +you." + +"It's not pluck. I don't feel things, that's all. I suppose I'm hard, +but I can't help it." + +"Hard things come useful sometimes; they don't break." + +"Yes, I suppose if I'd been soft, I should have broken long ago," she +replied almost bitterly. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"The one in there?" + +She shuddered, "Yes, the one in there." + +"The darn fool!" he exclaimed briefly. + +"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." + +"And you brought him in?" + +"What else could I do? He was dying." + +"Do you know what he was doing out there?" + +"He was looking for me, I think. He thought. I would take him in." + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"And is it only when you are running amuck that you hear it?" she asked. + +"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." + +"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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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! + +She turned hurriedly and went out without speaking, without looking back +when she opened the door. + +"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. + +"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." + +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: + +"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. + +She smiled evasively, remembering her promise to Mrs. Squires. + +He hesitated again, and then spoke with an effort. "Well, it was hell!" +he said grimly. + +"I know"--she was very gentle, full of understanding and sympathy--"but +you went through it bravely." + +"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." + +"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. + +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--" + +"And you still saw her?" + +"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." + +"How long did it last?" + +"My marriage? Going on eighteen years. She was down on Long Island for +the last ten of them." + +"Then you lived with her eight. Was she always--always-" + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +His face brightened, and she saw that her words had brought a touching +wistfulness into his eyes. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"I feel that you oughtn't to stay up," urged Gabriella, rising as he +turned away from her. "You have done all you can." + +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: + +"He is going now--very quietly. Will you come?" + +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." + +"After all, he got the worst of it, poor devil!" he answered gently as +he opened the door. + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +"Oh, that's nothing. Anybody would have done it," he remarked, and +dismissed the subject forever. + +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." + +"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?" + +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." + +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. + +"Did you make that?" he inquired. + +"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." + +"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. + +"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?" + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +"It would be so easy to get out, wouldn't it?" she asked as they walked +on again. + +"Well, there ain't much fun when you are by yourself." + +"But you know plenty of people." + +"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." + +The confession touched her, and she answered impulsively: "Well, that's +just what I want to be to you--a good friend." + +He laughed, but his eyes shone as he looked down on her. "If you'd only +take the trouble." + +"It won't be any trouble--not a bit of it. After your goodness to me, +how could I help being your friend?" + +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. + +"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. + +"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. + +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." + +He turned to her with a start. "Do you mean that I could make a +difference to you?" + +"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." + +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." + +"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." + +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: + +"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. + +"Yes, you give happiness. You scatter it, all over the place," he went +on, groping an instant after the right words. + +"Cousin Jimmy used to say," she laughed back, "that I had a sunny +temper." + +"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." + +She had the air of expecting him to be interested, but he met it with +the rather vague interrogation: "Cousin Jimmy?" + +"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." + +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." + +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. + +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?" + +"Disturbed?" He turned to her with a start. "No, I was only wondering if +you knew how much your friendship would mean to me." + +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. + +"I've been trying to tell you for a quarter of an hour," he answered, +"and I didn't know how to put it." + +"But at last you didn't have to put it at all," she said laughingly; "it +simply put itself, didn't it?" + +"I am still wondering," he persisted gravely. + +"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." + +"For instance?" + +"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." + +"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." + +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." + +"I don't know how much more seriously," he replied emphatically, "I +could have taken it." + +"But you haven't thought of it since?" + +"What would you say if I told you I hadn't thought of anything else?" + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +In her desire to atone as far as possible, she remarked recklessly: "I +only wish I could be of some real help to you." + +"You can," he answered frankly. "You can let me come to see you +sometimes before I go West again." + +"You are going back in the spring?" + +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." + +"Yet you lived here once." + +"A sort of life, yes, but that don't count." + +"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. + +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." + +"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?" + +"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." + +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. + +"But there is so much that you might do to help," she said presently. +"After all, money is power, isn't it?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +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." + +"But I don't like to think of your ever having worried," he protested. + +Of her ever having worried! Was he becoming dangerously sentimental or +was it merely a random spark of his unquenchable Western chivalry? + +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. + +"But I don't like to think of your ever having worried," he repeated. + +"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." + +"But wasn't it a tough pull at one time?" + +"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." + +Though she spoke gaily, making a jest of her struggle, she saw the +gravity of his face deepen until his features looked almost wooden. + +"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." + +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." + +"I suppose it does depend a good deal upon a sunny temper," he rejoined +in his blindness. + +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?" + +"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. + +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." + +"Yes, I walked all the way. Mr. O'Hara joined me." + +"Where did you run across him?" + +"Just as I left the shop. He was walking down Fifth Avenue." + +"Do you reckon he was waitin' outside?" + +"Oh, no, he said he had been up to Fifty-ninth Street on business." + +"Well, the walk certainly did you good. You are bloomin' like a rose." + +"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." + +"He must have made a great deal of money." + +"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. + +"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." + +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." + +"You could catch him in a minute," replied Miss Polly hopefully, +animated by the inveterate match-making instinct of her class. + +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." + +"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. + +"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--" + +"I know, honey," agreed Miss Polly, suddenly softened, "and I'd give +anything on earth if you and Arthur could come together again." + +"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: + +"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?" + +"No, but they will be happy; that is the only thing that matters." + +"It seems all wrong to me. What do you get out of life, honey?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"Oh, yes, if they want to--" + +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?" + +The blush of a girl made the business-like Gabriella appear as young and +as piquantly feminine as her daughter. + +"No, Miss Polly, I cannot," she answered with incomparable directness; +"I have loved Arthur all my life." + +"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. + +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." + +"I wonder what is," said Miss Polly in a whisper; "I wonder what is, +Gabriella?" + +"That," replied Gabriella softly, "is what I am still trying to +discover." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE PAST + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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?" + +"Gabriella, ain't these lovely?" + +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?" + +"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. + +"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. + +"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." + +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." + +"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. + +"They couldn't be lovelier if you'd gone all over the world," she +responded sincerely. + +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. + +"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?" + +"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?" + +"I've wanted to give other things," he went on hurriedly; "but not +flowers. I never thought of flowers until I met you." + +"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. + +"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. + +"You mean--" She checked herself in alarm, paralyzed the next instant by +the tremendous, unexpected blow of her discovery. + +"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. + +"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." + +So he also, the man of action and of enterprise, he, the worker and the +adventurer, so he also cultivated his garden of dreams! + +"I didn't know--I didn't know--" she found herself murmuring faintly in +protest. + +"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." + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +"But I do not love you! I never meant that I loved you!" she cried. + +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. + +"You don't love me?" he stammered. "Why, I saw it. I've seen it for +weeks. I see it now in your face." + +"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." + +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. + +"I don't believe you," he said gravely after a minute. "I don't believe +you." + +"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." + +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. + +Now at last he understood. She had been lucid enough even for the +crystalline lucidity of his thought. + +"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." + +"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. + +"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--" + +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. + +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. + +"I can't forget it," she said; "how can you expect me to?" + +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." + +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--" + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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! + +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. + +"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: + +"Why, Gabriella! Where on earth did you come from?" + +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: + +"How do you do, Florrie? I did not recognize you at first." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Are you buying a hat?" inquired Florrie curiously. + +"No, I belong here. I am Madame Dinard." + +"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." + +"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. + +"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." + +"They are," responded Gabriella with business-like brevity, while she +glanced about for the flitting Miss Murphy. + +"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?" + +"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. + +"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." + +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." + +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--" + +Her insolence was so evidently the result of anger that Gabriella, +without interrupting the flow, waited courteously until she paused. + +"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." + +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?" + +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. + +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." + +"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. + +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. + +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?" + +"Nothing. I've had a hard day, and I'm tired." + +"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." + +"I have seen Florrie for a minute." + +"I reckon that was enough to upset anybody. Did she say she was sorry?" + +"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." + +"Well, you just wait, honey," responded Miss Polly consolingly, "you +just wait. She'll be punished yet as sure as you're born." + +"Oh, I'm not waiting for that. I don't wish her to be punished. Why +should I? She is what she is." + +"Do you s'pose she knows about George?" + +"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." + +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." + +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. + +"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?" + +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. + +"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?" + +A change passed over Gabriella's face, and drying her eyes, she looked +down on Miss Polly with a lovely enigmatical smile. + +"I wonder if I might?" she said doubtfully. + +"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." + +"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. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE DREAM AND THE REALITY + + +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, anćmic, 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. + +"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." + +"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--" + +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. + +"Oh, Aunt Gabriella, I hadn't any idea you were like this!" cried the +girl with naďve enthusiasm. + +"You thought of me as gray-haired and wearing a bonnet and mantle?" + +"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?" + +"There is no doubt about it, you are getting a lot better looking as you +grow older," observed Charley, with genial pleasantry. + +"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: + +"Well, I'm not old, you know. I am only thirty-eight." + +"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." + +"But you married young, mother, and so did I," replied Jane, a trifle +tartly. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +"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--". + +"I miss the old-fashioned flowers," said Gabriella to her mother in one +of Charley's plethoric pauses. "The microphylla roses and snowballs." + +"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. + +"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?" + +"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." + +"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--" + +"But where are the old people--the people I used to know?" + +"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." + +"Tell me about Cousin Jimmy." + +"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." + +"And the Peytons?" Her voice trembled, and she looked hastily away from +the keen eyes of Margaret. + +"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?" + +"Yes, I heard it." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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. + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +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. + +"A great many. Everything, looks new to me except this room. The only +thing I miss here is the horsehair sofa." + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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. + +"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." + +"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. + +"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." + +"Oh, it doesn't matter in the least," responded Gabriella cheerfully. "I +bowed to her myself the day before I left New York." + +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." + +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. + +"You may say what you please," argued Charley, still truculent, "the +whole trouble with Arthur is that he has got the wrong ideas." + + * * * * * + +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? + +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. + +"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." + +"And I have two children nearly grown," she replied with a trembling +little laugh; "a daughter who is already thinking of the White Sulphur." + +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. + +"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. + +"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. + +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? + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"Oh, we'll find plenty of honeysuckle farther out. I gathered a big +bunch of it for Cousin Nelly yesterday." + +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. + +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?" + +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. + +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. + +"I think of it very often," she answered truthfully, while she buried +her face in the intoxicating bloom of the honeysuckle. + +"Do you remember my telling you once that I'd never give you up--that +I'd never stop caring?" + +"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--" + +"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. + +"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? + +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." + +"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. + +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. + +"Is it too late, then, Gabriella?" asked Arthur, after a long silence, +and in his voice there was the sound of suffering acquiescence. + +"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? + +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?" + +"We had a lovely drive, mother. Arthur is just as I remembered him, +except that he has grown so much older." + +A disappointed expression crossed Mrs. Carr's face. "Is that all?" she +asked regretfully. + +Gabriella laughed happily. "That is all--only I found out exactly what I +wanted to know." + +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. + +"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. + +"Failing? Why, no, mother. You look splendidly," Gabriella assured her, +a little surprised, a little startled. "Why should you ask me such a +thing?" + +"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. + +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. + +"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--" + +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. + +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." + +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. + +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." + +"Good-bye? But where has he gone?" + +"He has gone to Washington to-night. To-morrow he is starting to the +West." + +"When is he coming back? Did he tell you?" + +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." + +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." + +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." + +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. + +"I must catch the next train to Washington." + +"Have you got your ticket, Miss?" + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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. + +At the sound of his name, he turned and stood motionless, as if hardly +believing his vision. + +"I came back because I couldn't help it," she said. + +But he was always hard to convince, and he waited now, still transfixed, +still incredulous. + +"I came back because I wanted you more than anything else," she added. + +"You came back to me?" he asked, slowly, as if doubting her. + +"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. + +"And you'll marry me now--to-night?" + +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: + +"But the children?" + +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?" + +At the repeated question she stretched out her hands, while she watched +the light break on his face. + +"I'll come with you now--anywhere--toward the future," she answered. + + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Life and Gabriella, by Ellen Glasgow + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE AND GABRIELLA *** + +***** This file should be named 14571.txt or 14571.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/5/7/14571/ + +Produced by Rick Niles, Charlie Kirschner and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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