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diff --git a/18004.txt b/18004.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e4d1632 --- /dev/null +++ b/18004.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6505 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Told in a French Garden, by Mildred Aldrich + +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: Told in a French Garden + August, 1914 + +Author: Mildred Aldrich + +Release Date: March 16, 2006 [EBook #18004] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TOLD IN A FRENCH GARDEN *** + + + + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Sankar Viswanathan, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + TOLD IN + A FRENCH GARDEN + + AUGUST, 1914 + + + + BY + _Mildred Aldrich_ + + _Author of_ + _"A Hilltop on the Marne"_ + + + + + BOSTON + SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY + 1916 + + + Copyright, 1916 + BY MILDRED ALDRICH + + + + +TO + +F. E. C. + + +a prince of comrades and a royal +friend, whose quaint humor +gladdened the days of my early +struggle, and whose unfailing +faith inspired me in later days +to turn a smiling face to Fate + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER + INTRODUCTION + How We Came into the Garden + + I THE YOUNGSTER'S STORY + It Happened at Midnight--The + Tale of a Bride's New Home + + II THE TRAINED NURSE'S STORY + The Son of Josephine--The Tale + of a Foundling + + III THE CRITIC'S STORY + 'Twas in the Indian Summer--The + Tale of an Actress + + IV THE DOCTOR'S STORY + As One Dreams--The Tale of + an Adolescent + + V THE SCULPTOR'S STORY + Unto This End--The Tale of a + Virgin + + VI THE DIVORCEE'S STORY + One Woman's Philosophy--The + Tale of a Modern Wife + + VII THE LAWYER'S STORY + The Night Before the Wedding--The + Tale of a Bride-Elect + +VIII THE JOURNALIST'S STORY + In a Railway Station--The Tale + of a Dancer + + IX THE VIOLINIST'S STORY + The Soul of the Song--The Tale + of a Fiancee + + X EPILOGUE + Adieu--How We Went Out of + the Garden + + + + +TOLD IN A FRENCH GARDEN + +INTRODUCTION + +HOW WE CAME INTO THE GARDEN + + +It was by a strange irony of Fate that we found ourselves reunited for +a summer's outing, in a French garden, in July, 1914. + +With the exception of the Youngster, we had hardly met since the days +of our youth. + +We were a party of unattached people, six men, two women, your humble +servant, and the Youngster, who was an outsider. + +With the exception of the latter, we had all gone to school or college +or dancing class together, and kept up a sort of superficial +acquaintance ever since--that sort of relation in which people know +something of one another's opinions and absolutely nothing of one +another's real lives. + +There was the Doctor, who had studied long in Germany, and become an +authority on mental diseases, developed a distaste for therapeutics, +and a passion for research and the laboratory. There was the Lawyer, +who knew international law as he knew his Greek alphabet, and hated a +court room. There was the Violinist, who was known the world over in +musical sets,--everywhere, except in the concert room. There was the +Journalist, who had travelled into almost as many queer places as +Richard Burton, seen more wars, and followed more callings. There was +the Sculptor, the fame of whose greater father had almost paralyzed a +pair of good modeller's hands. There was the Critic, whose friends +believed that in him the world had lost a great romancer, but whom a +combination of hunger and laziness, and a proneness to think that +nothing not genius was worth while, had condemned to be a mere +breadwinner, but a breadwinner who squeezed a lot out of life, and who +fervently believed that in his next incarnation he would really be +"it." Then there was "Me," and of the other two women--one was a +Trained Nurse, and the other a Divorcee, and--well, none of us really +knew just what she had become, but we knew that she was very rich, and +very handsome, and had a leaning toward some sort of new religion. As +for the Youngster--he was the son of an old chum of the Doctor--his +ward, in fact--and his hobby was flying. + +Our reunion, after so many years, was a rather pretty story. + +In the summer of 1913, the Doctor and the Divorcee, who had lost sight +of one another for twenty years, met by chance in Paris. Her +ex-husband had been a college friend of the Doctor. They saw a great +deal of one another in the lazy way that people who really love +France, and are done sightseeing, can do. + +One day it occurred to them to take a day's trip into the country, as +unattached people now and then can do. They might have gone out in a +car--but they chose the railroad, with a walk at the end--on the +principle that no one can know and love a country who does not press +its earth beneath his feet,--the Doctor would probably have said, "lay +his head upon its bosom." By an accident--they missed a train--they +found themselves at sunset of a beautiful day in a small village, and +with no possible way of getting back to Paris that night unless they +chose to walk fifteen miles to the nearest railway junction. After a +long day's tramp that seemed too much of a good thing. + +So they looked about to find a shelter for the night. The village--it +was only a hamlet--had no hotel, no cafe, even. Finally an old peasant +said that old Mother Servin--a widow--living a mile up the road--had a +big house, lived alone, and could take them in,--if she wanted to,--he +could not say that she would. + +It seemed to them worth trying, so they started off in high spirits to +tramp another mile, deciding that, if worse became worst--well--the +night was warm--they could sleep by the roadside under the stars. + +It was near the hour when it should have been dark--but in France at +that season one can almost read out of doors until nine--when they +found the place. With some delay the gate in the stone wall was +opened, and they were face to face with the old widow. + +It was a long argument, but the Doctor had a winning way, and at the +end they were taken in,--more, they were fed in the big clean +kitchen, and then each was sheltered in a huge room, with cement +floor, scrupulously clean, with the quaint old furniture and the queer +appointments of a French farmhouse. + +The next morning, when the Doctor threw open the heavy wooden shutters +to his window, he gave a whistle of delight to find himself looking +out into what seemed to be a French Paradise--and better than that he +had never asked. + +It was a wilderness. Way off in the distance he got glimpses of broken +walls with all kinds of green things creeping and climbing, and +hanging on for life. Inside the walls there was a riot of +flowers--hollyhocks and giroflees, dahlias and phlox, poppies and huge +daisies, and roses everywhere, even climbing old tree trunks, and +sprawling all over the garden front of the rambling house. The edges +of the paths had green borders that told of Corbeil d'Argent in +Midwinter, and violets in early spring. He leaned out and looked along +the house. It was just a jumble of all sorts of buildings which had +evidently been added at different times. It seemed to be on half a +dozen elevations, and no two windows were of the same size, while +here and there an outside staircase led up into a loft. + +Once he had taken it in he dressed like a flash--he could not get out +into that garden quickly enough, to pray the Widow to serve coffee +under a huge tree in the centre of the garden, about the trunk of +which a rude table had been built, and it was there that the Divorcee +found him when she came out, simply glowing with enthusiasm--the +house, the garden, the Widow, the day--everything was perfect. + +While they were taking their coffee, poured from the earthen jug, in +the thick old Rouen cups, the Divorcee said: + +"How I'd love to own a place like this. No one would ever dream of +building such a house. It has taken centuries of accumulated needs to +expand it into being. If one tried to do the thing all at once it +would look too on-purpose. This place looks like a happy combination +of circumstances which could not help itself." + +"Well, why not? It might be possible to have just this. Let's ask the +Widow." + +So, when they were sitting over their cigarettes, and the old woman +was clearing the table, the Doctor looked her over, and considered +the road of approach. + +She was a rugged old woman, well on toward eighty, with a bronzed, +weather-worn face, abundant coarse gray hair, a heavy shapeless +figure, but a firm bearing, in spite of her rounded back. As far as +they could see, they were alone on the place with her. The Doctor +decided to jump right into the subject. + +"Mother," he said, "I suppose you don't want to sell this place?" + +The old woman eyed him a moment with her sharp dark eyes. + +"But, yes, _Monsieur_," she replied. "I should like it very well, only +it is not possible. No one would be willing to pay my price. Oh, no, +no one. No, indeed." + +"Well," said the Doctor, "how do you know that? What is the price?--Is +it permitted to ask?" + +The old woman hesitated,--started to speak--changed her mind, and +turned away, muttering. "Oh, no, _Monsieur_,--it is not worth the +trouble--no one will ever pay my price." + +The Doctor jumped up, laughing, ran after her, took her by the arm, +and led her back to the table. + +"Now, come, come, Mother," he remarked, "let us hear the price at any +rate. I am so curious." + +"Well," said the Widow, "it is like this. I would like to get for it +what my brother paid for it, when he bought it at the death of my +father--it was to settle with the rest of the heirs--we were eight +then. They are all dead but me. But no, no one will ever pay that +price, so I may as well let it go to my niece. She is the last. She +doesn't need it. She has land enough. The cultivator has a hard time +these days. It is as much as I can do to make the old place feed me +and pay the taxes, and I am getting old. But no one will ever pay the +price, and what will my brother think of me when the _bon Dieu_ calls +me, if I sell it for less than he paid? As for that, I don't know what +he'll say to me for selling it at all. But I am getting old to live +here alone--all alone. But no one will ever pay the price. So I may as +well die here, and then my brother can't blame me. But it is lonely +now, and I am growing too old. Besides, I don't suppose _you_ want to +buy it. What would a gentleman do with this?" + +"Well," said the Doctor, "I don't really know what a _gentleman +would_ do with it," and he added, under his breath, in English, "but I +know mighty well what this fellow _could_ do with it, if he could get +it," and he lighted a fresh cigarette. + +The keen old eyes had watched his face. + +"I don't suppose _you_ want to buy it?" she persisted. + +"Well," responded the Doctor, "how can a poor man like me say, if you +don't care to name your price, and unless that price is within +reason?" + +After some minutes of hesitation the old woman drew a deep breath. +"Well," she said, with the determination of one who expected to be +scoffed at, "I won't take a _sou_ less than my brother paid." + +"Come on, Mother," said the Doctor, "what _did_ your brother pay? No +nonsense, you know." + +"Well, if you must know--it was FIVE THOUSAND FRANCS, and I +can't and won't sell it for less. There, now!" + +There was a long silence. + +The Doctor and his companion avoided one another's eyes. After a +while, he said in an undertone, in English: "By Jove, I'm going to buy +it." + +"No, no," remonstrated his companion, her eyes gazing down the garden +vista to where the wistaria and clematis and flaming trumpet flower +flaunted on the old wall. "I am going to have it--I thought of it +first. I want it." + +"So do I," laughed the Doctor. "Never wanted anything more in all my +life." + +"For how long," she asked, "would a rover like you want this?" + +"Rover yourself! And you? Besides what difference does it make how +_long_ I want it--since I want it _now_? I want to give a +party--haven't given a party since--since Class Day." + +The Divorcee sighed. Still gazing down the garden she said quietly: +"How well I remember--ninety-two!" + +Then there was another silence before she turned to him suddenly: "See +here--all this is very irregular-so, that being the case--why +shouldn't we buy it together? We know each other. Neither of us will +ever stay here long. One summer apiece will satisfy us, though it is +lovely. Be a sport. We'll draw lots as to who is to have the first +party." + +The Doctor waved the old woman away. Her keen eyes watched too +sharply. Then, with their elbows on the table, they had a long and +heated argument. Probably there were more things touched on than the +garden. Who knows? At the end of it the Divorcee walked away down that +garden vista, and the old woman was called and the Doctor took her at +her word. And out of that arrangement emerged the scheme which +resulted in our finding ourselves, a year later, within the old walls +of that French garden. + +Of course a year's work had been done on the interior, and Doctor and +Divorcee had scoured the department for old furniture. Water had been +brought a great distance, a garage had been built with servants' +quarters over it--there were no servants in the house,--but the look +of the place, we were assured, had not been changed, and both Doctor +and Divorcee declared that they had had the year of their lives. Well, +if they had, the place showed it. + +But, as Fate would have it, the second night we sat down to dinner in +that garden, news had come of the assassination of Franz +Ferdinand-Charles-Louis Joseph-Marie d'Autriche-Este, whom the tragic +death of Prince Rudolphe, almost exactly twenty-four years and six +months earlier to a day, had made Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary--and +the tone of our gathering was changed. From that day the party +threatened to become a little Bedlam, and the garden a rostrum. + +In the earlier days it did not make so much difference. The talk was +good. We were a travelled group, and what with reminiscences of people +and places, and the scandal of courts, it was far from being dull. But +as the days went on, and the war clouds began to gather, the +overcharged air seemed to get on the nerves of the entire group, and +instead of the peaceful summer we had counted upon, every one of us +seemed to live in his own particular kind of fever. Every one of us, +down to the Youngster, had fixed ideas, deep-set theories, and +convictions as different as our characters, our lives, our callings, +and our faiths. We were all Cosmopolitan Americans, but ready to +spread the Eagle, if necessary, and all of us, except the Violinist, +of New England extraction, which means really of English blood, and +that _will_ show when the screws are put on. We had never thought of +the Violinist as not one of us, but he was really of Polish origin. +His great-grandfather had been a companion of Adam Czartoriski in the +uprising of 1830, and had gone to the States when the amnesty was not +extended to his chief after that rebellion, Poland's last, had been +stamped out. + +As well as I can remember it was the night of August 6th that the +first serious dispute arose. England had declared war. All our male +servants had left us except two American chauffeurs, and a couple of +old outside men. Two of our four cars, and all our horses but one had +been requisitioned. That did not upset us. We had taken on the wives +of some of the men, among them Angele, the pretty wife of one of the +French chauffeurs, and her two-months-old baby into the bargain. We +still had two cars, that, at a pinch, would carry the party, and we +still had one mount in case of necessity. + +The question arose as to whether we should break up and make for the +nearest port while we could, or "stick it out." It had been finally +agreed not to evacuate--_yet_. One does not often get such a chance to +see a country at war, and we were all ardent spectators, and all +unattached. I imagine not one of us had at that time any idea of +being useful--the stupendousness of it all had not dawned on any of +us--unless it was the Doctor. + +But after the decision of "stick" had been passed unanimously, the +Critic, who was a bit of a sentimentalist, and if he were anything +else was a Norman Angel-lite, stuck his hands in his pockets, and +remarked: "After all, it is perfectly safe to stay, especially now +that England is coming in." + +"You think so?" said the Doctor. + +"Sure," smiled the Critic. "The Germans will never cross the French +frontier this time. This is not 1870." + +"Won't they, and isn't it?" replied the Doctor sharply. + +"They never can get by Verdun and Belfort." + +"Never said they could," remarked the Doctor, with a tone as near to a +sneer as a good-natured host can allow himself. "But they'll invade +fast enough. I know what I am talking about." + +"You don't mean to tell me," said the Critic, "that a nation like +Germany--I'm talking now about the people, the country that has been +the hot bed of Socialism,--will stand for a war of invasion?" + +That started the Doctor off. He flayed the theorists, the people who +reasoned with their emotions and not their brains, the mob that looked +at externals, and never saw the fires beneath, the throng that was +unable to understand anything outside its own horizon, the mass that +pretended to read the history of the world, and because it changed its +clothes imagined that it had changed its spirit. + +"Why, I've lived in Germany," he cried. "I was educated there. I know +them. I have the misfortune to understand them. They'll stick together +and Socialism go hang--as long as there is a hope of victory. The +Confederation was cemented in the blood of victory. It can only be +dissolved in the blood of defeat. They are a great, a well-disciplined, +and an obedient people." + +"One would think you admired them and their military system," remarked +the Critic, a bit crest-fallen at the attack. + +"I may not, but I'll tell you one sure thing if you want a good circus +you've got to train your animals. The Kaiser has been a corking +ringmaster." + +Of course this got a laugh, and though both Critic and Journalist +tried to strike fire again with words like "democracy" and +"civilization," the Doctor had cooled down, and nothing could stir him +again that night. + +Still the discord had been sown. I suppose the dinner-table talk was +only a sample of what was going on, in that month, all over the world. +It did not help matters that as the days went on we all realized that +the Doctor had been right--that France was to be invaded, not across +her own proper frontier, but across unprotected Belgium. This seemed +so atrocious to most of us that indignation could only express itself +in abuse. There was not a night that the dinner-table talk was not +bitter. You see the Doctor did not expect the world ever to be +perfect--did not know that he wanted it to be--believed in the +struggle. On the other hand the Critic, and in a certain sense the +Journalist, in spite of their experiences, were more or less Utopian, +and the Sculptor and the Violinist purely spectators. + +No need to go into the details of the heated arguments. They were only +the echo of what all the world,--that had cradled itself into the +belief that a great war among the great nations had become, for +economic as well as humanitarian reasons, impossible,--were, I +imagine, at this time saying. + +As nearly as I can remember it was on August 20th that the climax +came. Liege had fallen. The English Expedition had landed, and was +marching on Belgium. A victorious German army had goose-stepped into +defenseless Brussels, and was sweeping out toward the French frontier. +The French advance into Alsace had been a blunder. + +The Doctor remarked that "the English had landed twelve days too +late," and the Journalist drew a graphic, and purely imaginary, +picture of the pathos of the Belgians straining their eyes in vain to +the West for the coming of the men in khaki, and unfortunately he let +himself expatiate a bit on German methods. + +The spark touched the Doctor off. + +"By Jove," he said, "all you sentimentalists read the History of the +World with your intellects in your breeches pockets. War is not a game +for babies. It is war--it is not sport. You chaps think war can be +prevented. All I ask you is--why hasn't it been prevented? In every +generation that we know anything about there have been some pretty +fine men who have been of your opinion--Erasmus for one, and how many +others? But since the generations have contented themselves with +talking, and not talked war out of the problem, why, I can't see, for +my part, that Germany's way is not as good as any. She is in to win, +and so are all the rest of them. Schools of War are like the Schools +of Art you chaps talk so much about--it does not make much difference +what school one belongs to--the only important thing is making good." + +"One would think," said the Journalist, "that you _liked_ such a war." + +"Well, I don't even know that I can deny that. I would not +deliberately _choose_ it. But I am willing to accept it, and I am not +a bit sentimental about it. I am not even sure that it was not needed. +The world has let the Kaiser sit twenty-five years on a throne +announcing himself as 'God's anointed.' His pretensions have been +treated seriously by all the democracies of the world. What for? +Purely for personal gain. We have come to a pass where there is little +a man won't do--for personal gain. The business of the world, and its +diplomacy, have all become so complicated and corrupt that a large +percentage of the brains of honest mankind are little willing to touch +either. We need shaking up--all of us. If nothing can make man realize +that he was not born to be merely happy and get rich, or to have a +fine old time, why, such a complete upheaval as this seems to me to be +necessary, and for me--if this war can rip off, with its shrapnel, the +selfishness with which prosperity has encrusted the lucky: if it can +explode our false values with its bombs: if it can break down our +absurd pretensions with its cannon,--all I can say is that Germany +will have done missionary work for the whole world--herself included." + +Before he had done, we were all on our feet shouting at him, all but +the Lawyer, who smiled into his coffee cup. + +"Why," cried the Critic, in anger, "one would think you held a brief +for them!" + +"I do NOT," snapped the Doctor, "but I don't dislike them any +more than I do--well," catching himself up with a laugh, "lots of +other people." + +"And you mean to tell me," said the gentle voice of the Divorcee at +his elbow, "that you calmly face the idea of the hundreds of +thousands of men,--well and strong to-day--dead to-morrow,--the +thought of the mothers who have borne their sons in pain, and bred +them in love, only to fling them before the cannon?" + +"For what, after all, _are_ we born?" said the Doctor. "_Where_ we +die, or _when_ is a trifle, since die we must. But _why_ we die and +_how_ is vital. It is not only vital to the man that goes--it is vital +to the race. It is the struggle, it is the fight, which, no matter +what form it takes, makes life worth living. Men struggle for money. +Financiers strangle one another at the Bourse. People look on and +applaud, in spite of themselves. That is exciting. It is not +uplifting. But for men just like you and me to march out to face death +for an idea, for honor, for duty, that very fact ennobles the race." + +"Ah," said the Lawyer, "I see. The Doctor enjoys the drama of life, +but he does not enjoy the purely domestic drama." + +"And out of all this," said the Trained Nurse, in her level voice, +"you are leaving the Almighty. He gave us a world full of beauty, full +of work, full of interest, and he gave us capacities to enjoy it, and +endowed us with emotions which make it worth while to live and to +die. He gave us simple laws--they are clear enough--they mark sharply +the line between good and evil. He left us absolutely free to choose. +And behold what man has made of it!" + +"I deny the statement," said the Doctor. + +"That's easy," laughed the Journalist. + +"I believe," said the Doctor, impatiently, "that no good comes but +through evil. Read your Bible." + +"I don't want to read it with _your_ eyes," replied the Journalist, +and marched testily down the path toward the house. + +"Well," snapped the Doctor, "if I read it with _yours_, I should call +on the Almighty to smite this planet with his fires and send us +spinning, a flaming brand through space, to annihilation--the great +scheme would seem to me a failure--but I don't believe it is." And off +he marched in the other direction. + +The Lawyer shrugged his shoulders, and suppressed, as well as he +could, a smile. The Youngster, leaning his elbows on his knees, +recited under his breath: + + "And as he sat, all suddenly there rolled, + From where the woman wept upon the sod, + Satan's deep voice, 'Oh Thou unhappy God.'" + +"Exactly," said the Lawyer. + +"What's that?" asked the Violinist. + +"Only the last three lines of a great little poem by a little great +Irishman named Stephens--entitled 'What Satan Said.'" + +"After all," said the Lawyer, "the Doctor is probably right. It all +depends on one's point of view." + +"And one's temperament," said the Violinist. + +"And one's education," said the Critic. + +Just here the Doctor came back,--and he came back his smiling self. He +made a dash down the path to where the Journalist was evidently +sulking, went up behind him, threw an arm over his shoulder, and led +him back into the circle. + +"See here," he said, "you are all my guests. I am unreasonably fond of +you, even if we can't see Life from the same point of view. Man as an +individual, and Man as a part of the Scheme are two different things. +I asked you down here to enjoy yourselves, not to argue. I +apologize--all my fault--unpardonable of me. Come now--we have decided +to stay as long as we can--we are all interested. It is not every +generation that has the honor to sit by, and watch two systems meet +at the crossroads and dispute the passage to the Future. We'll agree +not to discuss the ethics of the matter again. If the men marching out +there to the frontier can agree to face the cannon--and there are as +many opinions there as here--surely we can _look on_ in silence." + +And on that agreement we all went to bed. + +But on the following day, as we sat in the garden after dinner, our +attempts to "keep off the grass" were miserably visible. They cast a +constraint on the party. Every topic seemed to lead to the forbidden +enclosure. It was at a very critical moment that the Sculptor, sitting +cross-legged on a bench, in a real Alma Tadema attitude, filled the +dangerous pause with: + +"It was in the days of our Lord 1348 that there happened in Florence, +the finest city in Italy--" + +And the Violinist, who was leaning against a tree, touched an +imaginary mandolin, concluding: "A most terrible plague." + +The Critic leaped to his feet. + +"A corking idea," he cried. + +"Mine, mine own," replied the Sculptor. "I propose that what those +who, in the days of the terrible plague, took refuge at the Villa +Palmieri, did to pass away the time, we, who are watching the war +approach--as our host says it will--do here. Let us, instead of +disputing, each tell a story after dinner--to calm our nerves,--or +otherwise." + +At first every one hooted. + +"I could never tell a story," objected the Divorcee. + +"Of course you can," declared the Journalist. "Everybody in the world +has one story to tell." + +"Sure," exclaimed the Lawyer. "No embargo on subjects?" + +"I don't know," smiled the Doctor. "There is always the Youngster." + +"You go to blazes," was the Youngster's response, and he added: "No +war stories. Draw that line." + +"Then," laughed the Doctor, "let's make it tales of our own, our +native land." And there the matter rested. Only, when we separated +that night, each of us carried a sealed envelope containing a +numbered slip, which decided the question of precedence, and it was +agreed that no one but the story-teller should know who was to be the +evening's entertainer, until story-telling hour arrived with the +coffee and cigarettes. + + + + +I + +THE YOUNGSTER'S STORY + +IT HAPPENED AT MIDNIGHT + +THE TALE OF A BRIDE'S NEW HOME + + +The daytimes were not ever very bad. Short-handed in the pretty +garden, every one did a little work. The Lawyer was passionately fond +of flowers, and the Youngster did most of the errands. The Sculptor +had found some clay, and loved to surprise us at night with a new +centre piece for the table, and the Divorcee spent most of her time +tending Angele's baby, while the Doctor and the Nurse were eternally +fussing over new kinds of bandages and if ever we got together, it was +usually for a little reading aloud at tea-time, or a little music. The +spirit of discussion seemed to keep as far away before the lights were +up as did the spirit of war, and nothing could be farther than that +_appeared_. + +The next day we were unusually quiet. + +Most of us kept in our rooms in the afternoon. There were those +stories to think over, and that we all took it so seriously proved how +very much we had been needing some real thing to do. We got through +dinner very comfortably. + +There was little news in the papers that day except enthusiastic +accounts of the reception of the British troops by the French. It was +lovely to see the two races that had met on so many battle +fields--conquered, and been conquered by one another--embracing with +enthusiasm. It was to the credit of all of us that we did not make the +inevitable reflections, but only saw the humor and charm of the thing, +and remembered the fears that had prevented the plans of tunnelling +the channel, only to find them humorous. + +The coffee had been placed on the table. The Trained Nurse, as usual, +sat behind the tray, and we each went and took our cup, found a +comfortable seat in the circle under the trees, where a few yellow +lanterns swung in the soft air. + +Then the Youngster pulled a white head-band with a huge "Number One" +on it, out of his pocket, placed it on his head after the manner of +the French Conscripts, struck an attitude in the middle of the +circle, drew his chair deftly under him, and with the air of an +experienced monologist began: + + * * * * * + +Not so very many years ago there was a pretty wedding at Trinity +Church in Boston. It was quite the sort of marriage Bostonians believe +in. The man was a rising lawyer, rather a sceptic on all sorts of +questions, as most of us chaps pride ourselves on being, when we come +out of college. They were married in church to please the Woman. What +odds did it make? + +Before they were married they had decided to live outside the city. +She wanted a garden and an old house. He did not care where they lived +so long as they lived together. Very proper of him, too. They spent +the last year of their engaged life, the nicest year of some girls' +lives, I have heard--in hunting the place. What they finally settled +on was an old colonial house with a colonnaded front, and a round +tower at each end, standing back from the road, and approached by a +wide circular drive. It was large, substantial, with great +possibilities, and plenty of ground. It had been unoccupied for many +years, and the place had an evil report, and, at the time when they +first saw it, appeared to deserve it. + +He had looked it over. The situation was healthy. It was convenient to +the city. He could make it in his car in less than forty-five minutes. +They saw what could be done with the place, and did not concern +themselves with _why_ other people had not cared to live there. +Architects, interior decorators, and landscape gardeners were put to +work on it, and, even before the wedding, the place was well on toward +its habitable stage. + +Then they were married, and, quite correctly, went abroad to float in +a gondola on the Grand Canal--together; to cross the Gemmi--together; +to stroll about Pompeii and cross to Capri--together; and then ravage +antiquity shops in Paris--together. They returned in the early days of +a glorious September. The house was ready for its master and mistress +to lay the touch of their personality on it, and put in place the +trophies of their Wedding Journey. + +The evil look the house once had was gone. + +A few old trees had been cut down round it to let in the glorious +autumn sun all over the house, and when, on their first morning, after +a good sound, well-earned sleep, they took their coffee on the terrace +off the breakfast room, under a yellow awning, they certainly did not +think, if they ever had, of the mysterious rumors against the house +which had been whispered about when they first bought it. To them it +seemed that they had never seen a gayer place. + +But on the second night, just as the Woman was putting her book aside, +and had a hand stretched out to shut off the light, she stopped--a +carriage was coming up the drive. She sat up, and listened for the +bell. It did not ring. After a few moments--as there was absolutely no +sound of the carriage passing--she got up, and gently pushed the +shutter--her room was on the front--there was nothing there, so, +attaching no importance to it, she went quietly to bed, put out her +light, just noticing as she did so, that it was midnight, and went to +sleep. In the morning, the incident made so little impression on her, +that she forgot to even mention it. + +The next night, by some queer trick of memory, just as she went to +bed, the thing came back to her, and she was surprised to find that +she had no sleep in her. Instead of that she kept looking at the +clock, and just before twelve, cold chills began to go down her back, +when she heard the rapid approach of a carriage--this time she was +conscious that her hearing was so keen that she knew there were two +horses. She listened intently--no doubt about it--the carriage had +stopped at the door. + +Then there was a silence. + +She was just convincing herself that there must be some sort of echo +which made it appear that a team passing in the road had come up the +drive--when she was suddenly sure that she heard a hurried step in the +corridor--it passed the door. Now she was naturally a very +unimaginative person, and had never had occasion to know fear. So, +after a bit, she put out her light, saying to herself that a belated +servant was busy with some neglected work--nothing more likely--and +she went to sleep. + +Again the morning sunlight, the Man's gay companionship, the hundreds +of delightful things to do, wiped out that bad quarter of an hour, +and again it never occurred to her to mention it. + +The next night the remembrance came back so vividly after the Man had +gone to his room, that she regretted she had not at least asked him if +he had heard a carriage pass in the night. Of course she was sure that +he had not. He was such a sound sleeper. Besides, it was not +important. If he had, he would not have been nervous about it. Still, +she could not sleep, and, just before the dining room clock began to +chime midnight--she had never heard it before, and that she heard it +now was a proof of how her whole body was listening--again came the +rapid tread of running horses. This time every hair stood up on her +head, and before she could control herself, she called out toward the +open door: "Dearest, are you awake?" + +Almost before she had the words out he was standing smiling in the +doorway. It was all right. + +"Did you _think_ you heard a carriage come up the driveway?" she +asked. + +"Why, yes," he replied, "but I didn't." + +"Listen! Is there some one coming along the corridor?" + +He crossed the room quietly, opened the door, and turned on the light. +"No, dear. There is no one there." + +"Hadn't you better ring for your man, and have him see if any of the +servants are up?" + +He sat down on the edge of the bed, and laughed heartily. + +"See here, dear girl," he said, "you and I are a pair of healthy +people. We have happened to hear a noise which we can't explain. Be +sure that there is rational explanation. You're not afraid?" + +"Well, no, I really am not," she declared, "but you cannot deny that +it is strange. Did you hear it last night?" + +"Go on, now, with your cross-examination," he said. "Let's go to +sleep. At any rate the exhibition is over for to-night." + +The fourth night they did not speak in the night any more than they +had in the daytime. But the next day they had a long conversation, the +gist of which was this: That they had bought the place, that except +for fifteen minutes at midnight, the place was ideal. They were both +level-headed, neither believed in anything super-natural. Were they to +be driven out of such a place by so harmless a thing as an +unexplained noise? They could get used to it. After a bit it would no +more wake them up,--such was the force of habit--than the ticking of +the clock. To all this they both agreed, and the matter was dropped. + +For ten days they did not mention it, but in all those ten days a sort +of crescendo of emotion was going on in her. At first she began to +think of it as soon as bed-time approached; then she felt it intruding +on her thoughts at the dinner table; then she was unable to sleep for +an hour or two after the fifteen minutes had passed, and, finally, one +night, she fled into his room to find him wide awake, just before +dawn, and to confess that the shadow of midnight was stretched before +and after until it was almost a black circle round the twenty-four +hours. + +She knew it was absurd. She had no intention of being driven out of +such a lovely place--BUT-- + +"See here, dear," he said. "Let's break our rule. We neither of us +want company, but let's, at least, have a big week ender, and perhaps +we can prove to ourselves that our nerves are wrong. One thing is +sure, if you are going to get pale over it, I'll burn the blooming +house down before we'll live in it." + +"But you mind it yourself?" + +"Not a bit!" + +"But you are awake." + +"Of course I am, because I know that you are." + +"Do you mean to say that if I slept you wouldn't notice it?" + +"On my honor--I should not." + +"You are a comfort," she ejaculated. "I shall go right to sleep." And +off she went, and did go to sleep. + +All the same, in the morning, he insisted on the house-party. + +"Let me see our list," he said. "Let us have no students of occult; no +men who dabble in laboratory spiritualism; just nice, live, healthy +people who never heard of such things--if possible. You can find +them." + +"You see, dear," she explained, "it would not trouble me if I heard it +and you did not--but--" + +"Oh, fudge!" he laughed. "Just now I should be sure to hear anything +you did, I suppose." + +"You old darling," she replied, "then I don't care for it a bit." + +"All the same we'll have the house-party." + +So the following Saturday every room in the house was occupied. + +At midnight they were all gathered in the long drawing room opening on +the colonnade, and, when the hour sounded, some one was singing. The +host and hostess heard the running horses, as usual, and they were +conscious that one or two people turned a listening ear, but evidently +no one saw anything strange in it, and no comment was made. It was +after one when they all went up to their rooms, so that evening passed +off all right. + +But on Sunday night two of the younger guests had gone to sit on the +front terrace, and the older people were walking, in the moonlight, in +the garden at the back. The sweet little girl, who was having her hand +held, got up properly when she heard the carriage coming, and went to +the edge of the terrace to see who was arriving at midnight. She had a +fit of nerves as the invisible vehicle and its running horses seemed +about to ride over her. She ran in, trembling with fear, to tell the +tale, and of course every one laughed at her, and the matter would +have been dropped, if it had not happened that, just at that moment a +very pale gentleman came stumbling out of the house with the statement +that he wanted a conveyance "to take him back to town," that "he +refused to sleep in a haunted house," that he "had encountered an +invisible person running along the corridor to his room," in fact the +footsteps had as he put it "passed right through him." + +The host broke into laughter, but he took the bull by the horns--the +facts, as he knew them, were safer than the tales which he knew would +run over the city if he attempted to deny things. + +"See here, my good people," he said, "there is a little mystery here +that we can't explain. The truth is, there _is_ a story about this +house. It used to belong to the president of a well-known railroad. +That was twenty-five years ago. They say that one night, when he was +driving from a place he had up country, his team was run into at a +railway crossing five miles from here--one of those grade crossings +that never ought to have been--and he was killed and his horses came +home at midnight. 'They say' that the people who lived here after that +declared that the horses have come home every midnight since. Now, +there's the story. They don't do any harm. It only takes them a few +minutes. They don't even trample the driveway, so why not?" + +"All the same, I want to go back to town," said the frightened guest. + +"I would stay the night, if I were you," said the host. "They won't +come again until to-morrow." + +All the same, when morning came, every one skipped, and as the last of +them drove away, the Woman put her hand through the Man's arm, and +smiled as she said: "It's all over. I don't mind a bit. When I heard +you saying last night, 'They don't even trample the driveway, so why +not?' I said to myself, 'Why not?' indeed." + +"Good girl," he replied. "I'll bet my top hat you grow to be proud of +them." + +I don't know that they ever did, but I do know that they still live +there. I went to school with the son, and whenever any one bragged, he +used to say, "Well, we've _always_ had a ghost. You ain't got that!" + +The Youngster threw his lighted cigarette into the air, ran under it, +caught it between his lips, and made a bow, as the Doctor broke into a +roar of laughter. + +"I know that old house," he said. "Jamaica Pond. But see here, +Youngster, your idea of ghosts is terribly illogical. It was the _man_ +who was killed, not the _horses_. The wrong part of the team walked." + +"You _are_ particular," replied the Youngster. "The man did not come +back, and the horses did. I can't split hairs when it's a ghost story. +I feel afraid that I have missed my vocation, and that flights in the +imagination are more in my line than flights in the air. I don't know +what you think. _I_ think it's a mighty good story. I say, Journalist, +do you think I could sell that story? I've never earned a dollar in my +life." + +"Well," laughed the Journalist, "a dollar is just about what you would +get for it." + +"If I had been doing that story," said the Critic, "I should have +found a logical explanation for it." + +"Of course you would," said the Youngster. "I know one of a haunted +house on St. James Street which had an explanation." + +But the Doctor cut him short with: "Come now, you've done your stunt. +No more stories to-night. Off to bed. You and I are going to take a +run to Paris to-morrow." + +"What for?" + +"Tell you to-morrow." + +As every one began to move toward the house, the Violinist remarked, +"I was thinking of running up to Paris myself to-morrow. Any one else +want to go with me?" The Journalist said that he did, and the party +broke up. As they strolled toward the house the Lawyer was heard +asking the Youngster, "What were the steps in the corridor?" + +"Well," replied the Youngster, "I suppose on the night that the team +came home there must have been great excitement in the house--every +one running to and fro and--" + +But the Journalist's shout of laughter stopped him. + +The Youngster eyed him with shocked surprise. + +"By Jupiter!" cried the Journalist. "That is the darnedest ghost story +I ever heard. Everything and everybody walked but the dead man--even +the carriage." + +"That isn't _my_ fault," said the Youngster, indignantly. + + + + +II + +THE TRAINED NURSE'S STORY + +THE SON OF JOSEPHINE + +THE TALE OF A FOUNDLING + + +The house was very quiet next day. All the men, except the Critic and +the Sculptor, had made an early and hurried run to Paris. So we saw +little of each other until we gathered for dinner, and the +conversation was calm--in fact subdued. + +The Doctor was especially quiet. No one was really gay except the +Youngster. He talked of what he had seen in Paris--the silent +streets--the moods of the women--the sight of officers in khaki flying +about in big touring cars--and no one asked what had really taken them +to town. + +The Trained Nurse and I had walked to the nearest village, but we +brought back little in the way of news. The only interesting thing we +saw was _Monsieur le Cure_ talking to a handsome young peasant woman +in the square before the church. We heard her say, with a sob in her +throat, "If my man does not come back, I'll never say my prayers +again. I'll never pray to a God who let this thing happen unless my +man comes back." + +"She will, just the same," said the Lawyer. "One of the strangest +features of such a catastrophe is that it steadies a race, especially +the race convinced that it has right on its side." + +"It goes deeper than that," said the Journalist. "It strikes millions +with the same pain, and they bear together what they could not have +faced separately." + +"True," remarked the Doctor, "and that is one reason why I have always +mistrusted the effort of people outside the radius of disaster to help +in anyway, except scientifically." + +"That is rather a cruel idea," commented the Trained Nurse. + +"Perhaps. But I believe organized charity even of that sort is usually +ineffective, and weakens the race that accepts it. I believe victims +of such disaster are healthier and come out stronger for facing it, +dying, or surviving, as Fate decrees." + +"Keep off the grass," cried the Youngster. "I brought back a car full +of books." The hint was taken, and we talked of books until the coffee +came out. + +As usual, the Trained Nurse sat behind the pot, and when we were all +served, she pushed the tray back, folded her strong capable white +hands on the edge of the table, and said quietly: + +"_Messieurs et Mesdames_"-- + +We lit our cigarettes, and she began: + + * * * * * + +It was the first year after I left home and took up nursing. I had a +room at that time in one of the Friendly Society refuges on the lower +side of Beacon Hill. It was under the auspices of an Episcopal High +Church in the days of Father Hall, and was rather English in tone. +Indeed its matron was an Englishwoman--gentle, round-faced, +lace-capped, and very sympathetic. I was very fond of her. I had, as a +seamstress, a neat little girl named Josephine. + +Josephine was a tiny creature, all grey in tone, with mouse-colored +hair. She was a foundling. She had not the least notion who her people +were. Her first recollections were of the orphan asylum where she was +brought up. In her early teens she had been bound out to a +dressmaker, who had been kind to her, and, when her first employer +died, Josephine, who had saved a little money, and longed for +independence, began to go out as a seamstress among the women she had +grown to know in the dressmaking establishment, and went to live at +one of the Christian Association homes for working girls. + +Every one knows what those boarding houses are--two or three hundred +girls of all ages, from sixteen up, of all temperaments. All girls +willing to submit to control; girls with their gay days and their +tragic, girls of ambition, and girls with faith in the future, as well +as girls of no luck, and girls with their simple youthful romances. + +Every one loved Josephine. + +She was by nature a little lady, dainty in her ways, industrious, +unrebellious, always ready to help the other girls about their +clothes, and a model of a confidant. Every one told her their little +troubles, every one confided their little romances. They were sure of +a good listener, who never had any troubles or romances of her own to +confide. + +I don't know how old Josephine was at that time. She might have been +twenty-five, looked younger, but was perhaps older. She was so tiny, +and such a mouse of a thing that she seemed a child, but for her +energy, and her capacity for silence. + +It was, I fancy, three years after I first knew her that she one +evening confided to a group of her intimate friends, as they sat +together over their sewing, that she was engaged to be married. There +was a great excitement. Little lonely Josephine, so discreet, who had +sympathized with the romances of so many of her comrades, had a +romance of her own. Such a hugging and kissing as went on, you never +saw, unless you have seen a crowd of such girls together. Every one +was full of questions, and there were almost as many tears shed as +questions asked. + +He was a carpenter, Josephine told them. She had known him ever since +she was with the dressmaker who took her out of the asylum. He lived +in Utica, New York. He had a good job, and they were to be married as +soon as she could get ready. + +So Josephine set to work with her nimble fingers to make her +trousseau. During the years she had worked for me, the Matron at the +Friendly Society, and many of its patrons had come to know and love +dear little Josephine, and in our house there was almost as much +excitement over the news as there was at the Association at the South +End. All the girls set to work to make something for little Josephine. +Every one for whom she had worked gave her something. One lady gave +her black silk for a frock. All the girls sewed a bit of underwear for +her. She had sheets and table linen, and all sorts of dainty things +which her girl friends loved to count over, and admire in the evening +without the least bit of envy. By the time Spring came Josephine had +to buy a new trunk to pack her things away in. + +Then she told us all that she was going to Utica to be married. What +was the use of his spending his money to come east for her, and pay +his expenses back? That seemed reasonable, and the day was fixed for +her departure. + +Her trunks were packed. + +She took a night train so that we could all go to the station to see +her off, and I am sure that the crowd who saw us kissing her good-bye +are not likely to forget the scene. + +Then the girls went home chattering about "dear little Josephine." + +In due time came a letter from a place near Utica, where she was, she +said, on her little "wedding trip," and "very happy," and "he" sent +his love, and it was signed with her new name, and she would send us +her address as soon as she was settled. + +Time went by--some months. Then she did send an address, but she did +not write often, and when she did, she said little but that she was +happy. + +As nearly as I can remember, it was a year and a half after she left +that news came that Josephine had a son. By that time a great many of +the girls she had known were gone. Changes come fast in such a place. +But there was great rejoicing, and those who had known her found time +to make something for dear little Josephine's baby, and the sending of +the things kept up the interest in her for some months. + +Then the letters ceased again. + +I can't be sure how long it was after that that I received a letter +from her. She told me that her husband was dead, that she never really +had taken root in Utica, and now that she was alone, with her baby to +support, she longed to come back to Boston, and asked my advice. Did I +think she could take up her old work? + +I took the letter at once to the Matron of the Friendly Society--I +happened to be resting between two cases--and we decided that it was +safe. At least between us we could help her make the trial. + +A few months later she came, and we went to the station to meet her. I +could not see that she had changed a bit. She did not look a day +older, and the bouncing baby she carried in her arms was a darling. + +Of course she could not go back to the Association. That was not for +married women. But we found her a room just across the street, and in +no time, she dropped right back into the place she had left. Every +morning she took the baby boy to the _creche_ and every night she took +him home, and a better cared-for, better loved, more wisely bred +youngster was never born, nor a happier one. Every one loved him just +as every one loved Josephine. + +There I thought Josephine's story ended, and so far as she was +concerned, it did. + +But when the baby was six years old, and forward for his age, the +Matron of the Friendly Society came into my room one day, when I was +there to take a longer rest than usual, after a very trying case, and +told me that she was in great distress. A friend of hers, who had been +her predecessor, and was now the Matron of an Orphan Asylum in New +York State, was going to the hospital to have a cataract removed from +her eye, and had written to ask her to come and take her place while +she was away. She begged me to replace her at the Friendly Society +while she was gone. As her assistant was a capable young woman, and my +relations with every one were pleasant I was only too glad to consent. +She had always been so good to me. + +She was gone a month. + +On her return I noticed that she was distressed about something. I +taxed her with it. She said it was nothing she felt like talking +about. But one evening when Josephine had been sewing for me, after +she was gone, the Matron, who had been in my room, got up, and closed +the door after her. + +"I've really got to tell you what is on my mind," she said. "And I am +sure that you will look on it as a confidence. You know the asylum +where I have been is not far from Utica, where Josephine went when she +was married. Well, one day, about a fortnight after I got there, I had +occasion to look up the record of a child in the books, and my +attention was attracted by a name the same as Josephine's. The +coincidence struck me, and I read the record that on a certain day, +which as near as I could calculate, must have been a year after +Josephine left, a person of her name, written down as a widow, a +member of the Orthodox Church, had adopted a male child a few months +old. I was interested. I did not suspect anything, but I asked the +assistant matron if she remembered the case. She did, clearly. She +said the woman was a dear little thing, who had come there shortly +before, a young widow, a seamstress. She was a lonely little thing, +and some one connected with the asylum had given her work, which she +had done so well that she soon had all she needed. She had been +employed in the asylum, and loved children as they did her. The child +in question was the son of a woman who had died at its birth, from the +shock of an accident which had killed the father. It took a fancy to +Josephine, and she wanted to adopt it. The committee took the matter +up. The clergyman spoke well of her, as did every one, and they all +decided that she was perfectly able to care for it. So she took the +child. All of a sudden, one day, Josephine went, as she had come. +There was no mystery about it. She told the clergyman that she was +homesick for her old friends, and had gone east, and would write, and +she always has. + +"Of course I was puzzled. There was no doubt in my mind that it was +our little Josephine. Naturally I was discreet. Luckily. I spoke of +her to several people who remembered her, and they all called her +'dear little Josephine' just as we had. I talked of her with the +clergyman and his wife. I asked questions that were too natural to +rouse suspicions, when I told them that I knew her, that the baby was +the dearest and happiest child I knew, and what do you suppose I found +out, more by inference than facts?" + +No need to ask me. Didn't I know? + +Josephine had never been married. There had never been any "He." It +all seemed so natural. It did not shock me, as it had the Matron, and +I was glad she had told no one but me. Dear little Josephine! Sitting +there in the Association without family, with no friends but her +patrons, and those girls whose little romances went on about her! No +romances ever came her way. So she had made one all of her own. I +proved to the Matron easily that what she had discovered by accident +was not her affair, that to keep Josephine's secret was a virtue, and +not a sin. I was sure of that, for, as I watched her afterwards, I +knew that Josephine had played her part in her dream romance so well, +that she no longer remembered that it was not true. She had forgotten +she had not really borne the child she carried so lovingly in her +arms. + + * * * * * + +"Is that all?" asked the Journalist. + +"That is all," replied the Trained Nurse. + +"By Jove," said the Doctor, "that is a good story. I wish I had told +it." + +"Thank you, Doctor," laughed the Trained Nurse. "I thought it was a +bit in your line." + +"But fancy the cleverness of the little thing to do all the details up +so nicely," said the Lawyer. "She dovetailed everything so neatly. +But what I want to know is whether she planned the baby when she +planned the make-believe husband?" + +"I fancy not," replied the Nurse. "One thing came along after another +in her imagination, quite naturally." + +"Poor little Josephine--it seems to me hard luck to have had to +imagine such an every day fate," sighed the Divorcee. + +"Don't pity her," snapped the Doctor. "Poor little Josephine, indeed! +Lucky little Josephine, who arranged her own romance, and risked no +disillusion. There have been cases where the joys of the imagination +have been more dangerous." + +"You are sure she had no disillusion?" asked the Critic. + +"I am," said the Nurse. + +"And her name was Josephine?" asked the Divorcee. + +"It was not, and Utica was not the town," replied the Nurse. + +"Perhaps her disillusion is ahead of her," said the Journalist. "'Say +no man'--or woman either--'is happy until the day of his death.'" + +"She _is_ dead," said the Nurse. + +"I told you she was lucky little Josephine," ejaculated the Doctor. + +"And she died without telling the boy the truth?" asked the +Journalist. + +"The truth?" repeated the Nurse. "I've told you that she had forgotten +it. No woman was ever so loved by a son. No mother ever so grieved +for." + +"Then the son lives?" asked the Doctor. + +The Nurse smiled quietly. + +"Good-night," said the Doctor. "I am going to bed to dream of that. It +is a pity some of the rest of us childless slackers had not done as +well as Josephine. She took her risk. She was lucky." + +"She did," replied the Nurse, "but she did not realize anything of +that. She was too simple, too unanalytic." + +"I wonder?" said the Critic. + +"You need not, I know." Her eyes fell on the Lawyer, and she caught a +laugh in his eye. "What does that mean?" she asked. + +"Well," said the Lawyer, "I was only thinking. She was religious, that +dear little Josephine?" + +"At least she always went to church." + +"I know the type," said the Violinist, gently. "Accepted what she was +taught, believed it." + +"Exactly," said the Lawyer, "that is what I was getting at. Well then, +when her son meets her _au dela_--he will ask for his father--" + +"Or," interrupted the Violinist, "his own mother will claim him." + +"Don't worry," laughed the Critic. "It's dollars to doughnuts that she +was 'dear little Josephine' to all the Heavenly Host half an hour +after she entered the 'gates of pearl.' Don't look shocked. That is +not sacrilegious. It is intentions--motives, that are immortal, not +facts. Besides--" + +"Don't push that idea too far," interrupted the Doctor from the door. + +"Don't be alarmed. I was only going to say--there are Ik Marvels _au +dela_--" + +"I knew that idea was in your head. Drop it!" laughed the Doctor. + +"Anyway," said the Violinist, "if Life is but a dream, she had a +pretty one. Good night." And he went up to bed, and we all soon +followed him, and I imagine not one of us, as we looked out into the +moonlit air, thought that night of war. + + + + +III + +THE CRITIC'S STORY + +'TWAS IN THE INDIAN SUMMER + +THE TALE OF AN ACTRESS + + +The next day, just as we were sitting down to dinner, the news came +that Namur had fallen. The German army had marched singing into the +burning town the afternoon before. The Youngster had his head over a +map almost all through dinner. The Belgians were practically pushed +out of all but Antwerp, and the Germans were rapidly approaching the +natural defences of France running from Lille to Verdun, through +Valenciennes, Mauberge, Hirson and Mezieres. + +Things were beginning to look serious, although we still insisted on +believing that the Germans could not break through. One result of the +march of events was that we none of us had any longer the smallest +desire to argue. Theories were giving way to the facts of every day, +but in our minds, I imagine, we were every one of us asking, "How +long CAN we stay here? How long will it be wise, even if we +are permitted?" But, as if by common consent, no one asked the +question, and we were only too glad to sit out in the garden we had +all learned to love, and to talk of anything which was not war, until +the Critic moved his chair into the middle of the circle, and began +his tale. + +"Let me see," he remarked. "I need a property or two," and he pulled +an envelope out of his pocket and laid it on the table, and, leaning +his elbows on it, began: + + * * * * * + +It was in the Autumn of '81 that I last saw Dillon act. + +She had made a great success that winter, yet, in the middle of the +season, she had suddenly disappeared. + +There were all kinds of newspaper explanations. + +Then she was forgotten by the public that had enthusiastically +applauded her, and which only sighed sadly, a year later, on hearing +of her death, in a far off Italian town,--sighed, talked a little, and +forgot again. + +It chanced that a few years later I was in Italy, and being not many +miles from the town where I heard that she was buried, and a trifle +overstrung by a few months delicious, aimless life in that wonderful +country, I was taken with a sentimental fancy to visit her grave. + +It was a sort of pilgrimage for me, for I had given to Dillon my first +boyish devotion. + +I thought of her, and to remember her was to recall her rare charm, +her beauty, her success, after a long struggle, and the unexpected, +inexplicable manner in which she had abandoned it. It was to recall, +too, the delightful evenings I had spent under her influence, the +pleasure I had had in the passion of her "Juliet," the poetic charm of +her "Viola"; the graceful witchery of her "Rosalind"; how I had smiled +with her "Portia"; laughed with her "Beatrice"; wept with her +"Camille"; in fact how I had yielded myself up to her magnetism with +that ecstatic pleasure in which one gets the best joys of every +passion, because one does not drain the dregs of any. + +I well remembered her last night, how she had disappeared, how she had +gone to Europe, how she had died abroad,--all mere facts known in +their bareness only to the public. + +It was hard to find the place where she was buried. But at last I +succeeded. + +It was in a humble churchyard. The grave was noticeable because it was +well kept, and utterly devoid of the tawdry ornamentation inseparable +from such places in Italy. It was marked by a monument distinctly +unique in a European country. It was a huge unpolished boulder, over +which creeping green vines were growing. + +On its rough surface a cross was cut, and underneath were the words: + + "Yesterday This Day's Madness did prepare, + To-morrow's Silence, Triumph or Despair." + +Below that I read with stupefaction, + + "Margaret Dillon and child," + +and the dates + +"January, 1843" +"July 25, 1882." + +In spite of the doubts and fancies this put into my mind, I no sooner +stood beside the spot where the earth had claimed her, than all my old +interest in her returned. I lingered about the place, full of +romantic fancies, decorating her tomb with flowers, as I had once +decorated her triumphs, absorbed in a dreamy adoration of her memory, +and singing her praise in verse. + +It was then that I learned the true story of her disappearance, +guessed at that of her death, as I did at the identity of the young +Dominican priest, who sometimes came to her grave, and who finally +told me such of the facts as I know. I can best tell the story by +picturing two nights in the life of Margaret Dillon, the two following +her last appearance on the stage. + +The play had been "Much Ado." + +Never had she acted with finer humor, or greater gaiety. Yet all the +evening she had felt a strange sadness. + +When it was all over, and friends had trooped round to the stage to +praise her, and trooped away, laughing and happy, she felt a strange, +sad, unused reluctance to see them go. + +Then she sat down to her dressing table, hurriedly removed her +make-up, and allowed herself to be stripped of her stage finery. Her +fine spirits seemed to strip off with her character. She shivered +occasionally with nervousness, or superstition, and she was strangely +silent. + +All day she had, for some inexplicable reason, been thinking of her +girlhood, of what her life might have been if, at a critical moment, +she had chosen a woman's ordinary lot instead of work,--or if, at a +later day, she had yielded to, instead of resisted, a great +temptation. All day, as on many days lately, she had wondered if she +regretted it, or if, the days of her great triumph having passed,--as +pass they must,--she should regret it later if she did not yet. + +It was probably because,--early in the season as it was--she was +tired, and the October night oppressed her with the heat of Indian +Summer. + +Silently she had allowed herself to be undressed, and redressed in +great haste. But before she left the theatre she bade every one "good +night" with more than her usual kindliness, not because she did not +expect to see them all on Monday,--it was a Saturday night,--but +because, in her inexplicably sad humour, she felt an irresistible +desire to be at peace with the world, and a still deeper desire to +feel herself beloved by those about her. + +Then she entered her carriage and drove hurriedly home to the tiny +apartment where she lived quite alone. + +On the supper table lay a note. + +She shivered as she took it up. It was a handwriting she had been +accustomed to see once a year only, in one simple word of greeting, +always the same word, which every year in eighteen had come to her on +New Year's wherever she was. + +But this was October. + +She sat perfectly still for some minutes, and then resolutely opened +the letter, and read: + + "Madge:--I am so afraid that my voice coming to you, not + only across so many years, but from another world, may shock + you, that I am strongly tempted not to keep my word to you, + yet, judging you by myself, I feel that perhaps this will be + less painful than the thought that I had passed forgetful of + you, or changed toward you. You were a mere girl when we + mutually promised, that though it was Fate that our paths + should not be the same, and honorable that we should keep + apart, we would not pass out of life, whatever came, without + a farewell word,--a second saying 'good-bye.'" + + "It is my fate to say it. It is now God's will. Before it + was yours. It is eighteen years since you chose my honor to + your happiness and mine. To-day you are a famous woman. That + is the consolation I have found in your decision. I + sometimes wonder if Fame will always make up to you for the + rest. A woman's way is peculiar--and right, I suppose. I + have never changed. My son has been a second consolation, + and that, too, in spite of the fact that, had he never been + born, your decision might have been so different. He is a + young man now, strangely like what I was, when as a child, + you first knew me, and he has always been my confidant. In + those first days of my banishment from you I kept from + crying my agony from the housetops by whispering it to him. + His uncomprehending ears were my sole confessional. His + mother cared little for his companionship, and her + invalidism threw him continually into my care. I do not know + when he began to understand, but from the hour he could + speak he whispered your name in his prayers. But it was only + lately that, of himself, he discovered your identity. The + love I felt for you in my early days has grown with me. It + has survived in my heart when all other passions, all + prides, all ambitions, long ago died. I leave you, I hope, a + good memory of me--a man who loved you more than he loved + himself, who for eighteen years has loved you silently, yet + never ceased to grieve for you. But I fear that I have + bequeathed to my son, with the name and estate of his + father, my hopeless love for you. If, by chance, what I fear + be true,--if, when bereft of me, he seeks you out, as be + sure he will,--deal gently with him for his father's sake. + + "There was an old compact between us, dear. I mention it now + only in the hope that you may not have forgotten--indeed, + in the certainty that you have not. I know you so well. + Remember it, I beg of you, only to ignore it. It was made, + you know, when one of us expected to watch the passing of + the other. This is different. If this reminds you of it, it + reminds you only to warn you that Time cancels all such + compacts. It is my voice that assures you of it. + +"FELIX R." + +Underneath, written in letters, like, yet so unlike, were the words, +"My father died this morning. F. R." and an uncertain mark as though +he had begun to add "Jr." to the signature, and realized that there +was no need. + +The letter fell from her hands. + +For a long time she sat silent. + +Dead! She had never felt that he could die while she lived. A +knowledge that he was living,--loving her, adoring her hopelessly--was +necessary to her life. She felt that she could not go on without it. +For eighteen years she had compared all other men, all other emotions +to him and his love, to find them all wanting. + +And he had died. + +She looked at the date of the letter. He would be resting in that tomb +she remembered so well, before she could reach the place; that spot +before which they had often talked of Death, which had no terrors for +either of them. + +She rose. She pushed away her untouched supper, hurriedly drank a +glass of wine, and, crossing the hall to her bedroom, opened a tiny +box that stood locked upon her dressing table. She took from it a +picture--a miniature. It was of a young man not over twenty-five. The +face was strong and full of virile suggestion, even in a picture. The +eyes were brown, the lips under the short mustache were firm, and the +thick, short, brown hair fell forward a bit over the left temple. It +was a handsome manly face. + +The picture was dated eighteen years before. It hardly seemed possible +that eighteen years earlier this woman could have been old enough to +stir the passionate love of such a man. Her face was still young, her +form still slender; her abundant hair shaded deep gray eyes where the +spirit of youth still shone. But she belonged, by temperament and +profession, to that race of women who guard their youth marvellously. + +There were no tears in her eyes as she sat long into the morning, +and, with his pictured face before her, reflected until she had +decided. + +He had kept his word to her. His "good bye" had been loyally said. She +would keep hers in turn, and guard his first night's solitude in the +tomb with her watchful prayers. She calculated well the time. If she +travelled all day Sunday, she would be there sometime before midnight. +If she travelled back at once, she could be in town again in season to +play Monday; not in the best of conditions, to be sure, for so hard a +role as "Juliet," but she would have fulfilled a duty that would never +come to her again. + + * * * * * + +It was near midnight, on Sunday. + +The light of the big round harvest moon fell through the warm air, +which scarcely moved above the graves of the almost forgotten dead in +the country churchyard. The low headstones cast long shadows over the +long grass that merely trembled as the noiseless wind moved over it. + +A tall woman in a riding dress stood beside the rough sexton at the +door of the only large tomb in the enclosure. + +He had grown into a bent old man since she last saw him, but he had +recognized her, and had not hesitated to obey her. + +As he unlocked and pushed back the great door which moved easily and +noiselessly, he placed his lantern on the steps, and telling her that, +according to a family custom, there were lights inside, he turned +away, and left her, to keep his watch near by. + +No need to tell her the family customs. She knew them but too well. + +For a few moments she remained seated on the step where she had rested +to await the opening of the door, on the threshold of the tomb of the +one man among all the men she had met who had stirred in her heart a +great love. How she had loved him! How she had feared that her love +would wear his out! How she had suffered when she decided that love +was something more than self-gratification, that even though for her +he should put aside the woman he had heedlessly married years before, +there could never be any happiness in such a union for either of them. +How many times in her own heart she had owned that the woman would not +have had the courage shown by the girl, for the girl did not realize +all she was putting aside. Yet the consciousness of his love, in +which she never ceased to believe, had kept her brave and young. + +She rose and slowly entered the vault. + +The odor of flowers, the odor of death was about it. + +She lifted the lantern from the ground, and, with it raised above her +head, approached the open coffin that rested on the catafalque in the +centre of the tomb and mounted the two steps. She was conscious of no +fear, of no dread at the idea of once more, after eighteen years, +looking into the face of the man she had loved, who had carried a +great love for her into another world. But as she looked, her eyes +widened with fright. She bent lower over him. No cry burst from her +lips, but the hand holding the lantern lowered slowly, and she tumbled +down the two steps, and staggered back against the wall, where, behind +lettered slides, the dead Richmonds for six generations slept their +long sleep together. Her breast heaved up and down, as if life, like a +caged thing, were striving to escape. Yet no sound came from her +colorless lips, no tears were in her widened eyes. + +The realizing sense of departed years had reached her heart at last, +and the shock was terrible. With a violent effort she recovered +herself. But the firm step, the fearless, hopeful face with which she +had approached the coffin of her dead lover were very different from +the blind manner in which she stumbled back to his bier, and the hand +which a second time raised the lantern trembled so that its wavering +light shed an added weirdness on the still face, so strange to her +eyes, and stranger still to her heart. + +He had been a young man when they parted. To her he had remained +young. Now the hair about the brows was thin and white, the drooping +mustache that entirely concealed the mouth was grizzled; lines +furrowed the forehead, outlined the sunken eyes, and gave an added +thinness to the nostrils. She bent once more over the face, to her +only a strange cold mask. A painful fascination held her for several +minutes, forcing her to mark how love, that had kept her young, proud, +content in its very existence, had sapped his life, and doubled his +years. + +The realization bent her slender figure under a load of self-reproach +and self-mistrust. She drooped lower and lower above the sad, dead +face until she slid to the ground beside him. Heavy tearless sobs +shook her slight frame as it stretched its length beside the dead love +and the dead dream. The ideal so long treasured in her soul had lost +its reality. The present had wiped out the past as a sponge wipes off +a slate. + +If she had but heeded his warning, and refrained from coming until +later, she would have escaped making a stranger of him forever. Now +the sad, aged face, the dead, strange face which she had seen but five +minutes before, had completely obscured in her memory the long-loved, +young face that had been with her all these years. The spirit whose +consoling presence she had thought to feel upholding her at this +moment made no sign. She was alone in the world, bereft of her one +supporting ideal, alone beside the dead body of one who was a stranger +alike to her sight and her emotions; alone at night in an isolation as +unexpected as it was terrible to her, and which chilled her senses as +if it had come to oppress her forever. + +The shadows which she had not noticed before, the dark corners of the +tomb, the motionless gleam of the moon as it fell through the open +door, and laid silently on the floor like light stretched dead, the +low rustle of the wind as if Nature restlessly moved in her sleep, +came suddenly upon her, and brought her--fear. She held her breath as +she stilled her sobs to realize that she alone lived in this city of +the Dead. The chill of fright crept along the surface of her body, +which still vibrated with her storm of grief. + +She seemed paralyzed. She dared not move. + +Every sense rallied to her ears in dread. + +Suddenly she heard her name breathed: "Margaret!" + +It was whispered in a voice once so familiar to her ears, a voice that +used to say, "Madge." + +She raised herself on her elbow. + +She dared not answer. + +She hardly dared breathe. + +She was afraid in every sense, and yet she hungered for another sound +of that loved voice. Every hour of its banishment was regretted at +that moment. There seemed no future without it. + +Every nerve listened. + +At first she heard nothing but the restless moving of the air, which +merely emphasized her loneliness, then she caught the pulsation of +slow regular breathing. + +She started to her feet. + +She snatched up the lantern and quickly mounted to the bier. She +looked sharply down into the dead face. + +Silent, with its white hair, and worn lines, it rested on its white +pillows. + +No sound came from the cold still lips. + +Yet, while her eyes were riveted on them, once more the longed-for +voice breathed her name. "Margaret!" + +It came from behind her. + +She turned quickly. + +There in the moonlit doorway, with a sad, compassionate smile on his +strong, young face--as if it were yesterday they had parted--stood the +man she remembered so well. + +Her bewildered eyes turned from the silent, unfamiliar face among the +satin cushions, to the living face in the moonlight,--the young, brown +eyes, the short, brown hair falling forward over the left temple, the +erect, elastic figure, the strong loving hands stretching out to her. + +She was so tired, so heart sick, so full of longing for the love she +had lost. + +"Felix," she sobbed, and, blindly groping to reach what she feared +was a hallucination, she stumbled down the steps, and was caught up in +the arms flung wide to catch her, and which folded about her as if +forever. She sighed his name again, upon the passionate young lips +which had inherited the great love she had put aside so long before. + + * * * * * + +As the last words died away, the Critic drew himself up and laughed. + +He had told the story very dramatically, reading the letter from the +envelope he had called a "property," and he had told it well. + +The laugh broke the spell, and the Doctor echoed it heartily. + +"All right, old man," said the Critic, "you owed me that laugh. You're +welcome." + +"I was only thinking," said the Doctor, his face still on a broad +grin, "that we have always thought you ought to have been a novelist, +and now we know at last just what kind of a novelist you would have +been." + +"Don't you believe it," said the Critic, "That was only +improvisatore--that's no sample." + +"Ho, ho! I'll bet you anything that the manuscript is up in your +trunk, and that you have been committing it to memory ever since this +idea was proposed," said the Doctor, still laughing. + +"No, _that_ I deny," replied the Critic, "but as I am no _poseur_, I +will own that I wrote it years ago, and rewrote it so often that I +never could forget it. I'll confess more than that, the story has been +'declined with thanks' by every decent magazine in the States and in +England. Now perhaps some one will tell me why." + +"I don't know the answer," said the Youngster, seriously, "unless it +is 'why not?'" + +"I shouldn't wonder if it were sentimental twaddle," sighed the +Journalist, "but I don't _know_." + +"I noticed," expostulated the Critic, "that you all listened, +enthralled." + +"Oh," replied the Doctor, "that was a tribute to your personal charm. +You did it very well." + +"Exactly," said the Critic, "if editors would let me read them my +stories, I could sell them like hot cakes. I never believed that Homer +would have lived as long as he has, if he had not made the reputation +of his tales by singing them centuries before any one tried to read +them. Now no one _dares_ to say they bore him. The reading public, and +the editors who cater to it, are just like some stupid theatrical +managers I know of, who will never let an author read a play to them +for fear that he may give the play some charm that the fool theatrical +man might not have felt from mere type-written words on white or +yellow paper. By Jove, I know the case of a manager who once bought +the option on a foreign play from a scenario provided by a clever +friend of mine--and paid a stiff price for it, too, and when he got +the manuscript wrote to the chap who did the scenario--'Play +dashety-dashed rot. If it had been as good as your scenario, it would +have gone.' And, what is more, he sacrificed the tidy five thousand he +had paid, and let his option slide. Now, when the fellow who did the +scenario wrote: 'If you found anything in the scenario that you did +not discover in the play, it is because I gave you the effect it would +have behind the footlights, which you have not the imagination to see +in the printed words,' the Manager only replied 'You are a nice chap. +I like you very much, but you are a blanketty-blanketty fool.'" + +"Which was right?" asked the Journalist. + +"The scenario man." + +"How do you know?" + +"How do I know? Why simply because the play was produced later--ran +five years, and drew a couple of million dollars. That's how I know." + +"By cricky," exclaimed the Youngster, "I believe he thinks his story +could earn a million if it had a chance." + +"I don't say 'no,'" said the Critic, yawning, "but it will never get a +chance. I burned the manuscript this morning, and now being delivered +of it, I have no more interest in it than a sparrow has in her last +year's offspring." + +"The trouble with you is that you haven't any patience, any staying +power. That ought to have been a three volume novel. We would have +heard all about their first meeting, their first love, their +separation, his marriage, her _debuts_, etc., etc.," declared the +Journalist. + +"Oh, thunder," said the Doctor. "I think there was quite enough of it. +Don't throw anything at me--I liked it--I liked it! Only I'm sorry she +died." + +"So am I," said the Critic. "That really hurt me." + +"Because," said the Doctor, shying away toward the door, "I should +have liked to know if the child turned out to be a genius. That kind +do sometimes," and he disappeared into the doorway. + +"Anyhow," said the Critic, "I am going to wear laurels until some one +tells a better--and I'd like to know why the Journalist looks so +pensively thoughtful?" + +"I am trying to recall who she was--Margaret Dillon." + +"Don't fret--she may be a 'poor thing,' but she is all 'mine own'--a +genuine creation, Mr. Journalist. I am no reporter." + +"Ah? Then you are more of a sentimentalist than I even dared to +dream." + +"Don't deny it," said the Critic, as he rose and yawned. "So I am +going to bed to sleep on my laurels while I may. Good night." + +"Well," called the Sculptor after him, as he sauntered away, "as one +of our mutual friends used to say 'The Indian Summer of Passion +scorches.'" + +"But, alas!" added the other, "it does not _always_ kill." + +"Witness--" began the Journalist, but the Critic cut him short. + +"As you love me--not that famous list of yours including so many of +the actresses we all know. I can't bear THAT to-night. After +all the French have a better phrase for it--'La Crise de quarante +ans.'" + +The Nurse and Divorcee had been very quiet, but here they locked +hands, and the former remarked that they prepared to withdraw: + +"That is our cue to disappear--and you, too, Youngster. These men are +far too wise." + +So we of the discussed sex made a circle with our clasped hand about +the Youngster and danced him into the house. The last I saw of the +garden that night, as I looked out of my window toward the northeast, +with "Namur" beating in my head, the five men had their heads still +together, but whether "the other sex" was getting scientifically torn +to bits, or they, too, had Namur in their minds I never knew. + + + + +IV + +THE DOCTOR'S STORY + +AS ONE DREAMS + +THE TALE OF AN ADOLESCENT + + +The next day was very peaceful. We were becoming habituated to the +situation. It was a Sunday, and the weather was warm. There had been +no real news so far as we knew, except that Japan had lined up with +the Allies. The Youngster had come near to striking fire by wondering +how the United States, with her dislike for Japan, would view the +entering into line of the yellow man, but the spark flickered out, and +I imagine we settled down for the story with more eagerness than on +the previous evening, especially when the Doctor thrust his hands into +his pockets and lifted his chin into the air, as if he were in the +tribune. More than one of us smiled at his resemblance to Pierre Janet +entering the tribune at the _College de France_, and the Youngster +said, under his breath, "A _Clinique_, I suppose." + +The Doctor's ears were sharp. "Not a bit," he answered, running his +keen brown eyes over us to be sure we were listening before he began: + + * * * * * + +In the days when it was thought that the South End was to be the smart +part of Boston, and when streets were laid out along wide tree shaded +malls, with a square in the centre, in imitation of some quarters of +London,--for Boston was in those days much more English in appearance +than it is now,--there was in one of those squares a famous private +school. In those days it was rather smart to go to a private school. +It was in the days before Boston had much of an immigrant quarter, +when some smart families still lived in the old Colonial houses at the +North End, and ministers and lawyers and all professional men sent +their sons and their daughters to the public schools, at that time +probably the best in the world. + +At this private school, there was, at the time of which I speak, what +one might almost call a "principal girl." + +She was the daughter of a rich banker--his only daughter. The gods all +seemed to have been very good to her. She was not only a really +beautiful girl, she was, for her age, a distinguished girl,--one of +the sort who seemed to do everything better than any one else, and +with a lack of self-consciousness or pretension. Every one admired +her. Some of her comrades would have loved her if she had given them +the chance. But no one could ever get intimate with her. She came and +went from school quite alone, in the habit of the American girl of +those days before the chaperon became the correct thing. She was +charming to every one, but she kept every one a little at arm's +length. Of course such a girl would be much talked over by the other +type of girl to whom confidences were necessary. + +As always happens in any school there was a popular teacher. She +taught history and literature, and I imagine girls get more intimate +with such a teacher than they ever do with the mathematics. + +Also, as always happens, there was a "teacher's pet," one of those +girls that has to adore something, and the literature teacher, as she +was smart and good looking, was as convenient to adore as anything +else,--and more adjacent. + +Of course "teacher's pet" never has any secrets from the teacher, and +does not mean to be a sneak either. Just can't help turning herself +inside out for her idol, and when the heart of a girl of seventeen +turns itself inside out, almost always something comes out that is not +her business. That was how it happened that one day the literature +teacher was told that the "Principal Girl" was receiving wonderful +boxes of violets at the school door, and "Don't you know ONE +DAY she was seen by a group of pupils who happened to be going +home, and were just behind her, getting into a closed carriage and +driving away from the corner of the street!" + +Now the literature teacher did not, as a rule, encourage such +confidences, but this time it seemed useful. She liked the Principal +Girl--admired her, in fact. She was terribly shocked. She warned her +pet to talk to no one else, and then she went at once to the clergyman +who was at the head of the school. She knew that he felt responsible +for his pupils, and this had an unpleasant look. He took the pains to +verify the two statements. Then there was but one thing to do--to lay +the matter before the parents of the girl. + +Now, as so often happens in American families, the banker and his wife +stood in some awe of their daughter. There was not that confidence +between them which one traditionally supposes to exist between parents +and children. I imagine that there is no doubt that the adolescent +finds it much easier to confide in some one other than the parents who +would seem to be her proper confidants. + +At any rate the banker and his wife were simply staggered. They dared +not broach the subject to the Principal Girl, and in their distress +turned to the family lawyer. As they were too cowardly to take his +first advice--perhaps they were afraid the daughter would lie, they +sometimes do in the best regulated families,--it was decided to put a +discreet person "on the job," and discover first of all what was +really going on. + +The result of the investigation was at first consoling, and then +amazing. + +They discovered that the bunches of violets were ordered at a smart +down town florist by the girl herself, and by her order delivered at +the school door by a liveried messenger boy, who, by her orders, +awaited her arrival. As for the closed carriage, that she also bespoke +herself at a smart livery stable where she was known. When she entered +it, she was at once driven to the Park Street station, where she +bought a round trip ticket to Waltham. There she walked to the river, +hired a boat, rowed herself up stream, tied her boat at a wooden bank, +climbed the slope, and sat there all the afternoon, sometimes reading, +and sometimes merely staring out at the river, or up at the sky. At +sunset she rowed back to the town, returned to the city, and walked +from the station to her home. + +This all seemed simple enough, but it puzzled the father, it made him +unquiet in his mind. Why all this mystery? Why--well, why a great many +things, for of course the Principal Girl had to prepare for these +absences, and, although the little fibs she told were harmless +enough--well, why? The literature teacher, who had been watching her +carefully, had her theory. She knew a lot about girls. Wasn't she once +one herself? So it was by her advice that the family doctor was taken +into the family confidence, chiefly because neither father nor mother +had the pluck to tackle the matter--they were ashamed to have their +daughter know that she had been caught in even a small deception--it +seemed so like intruding into her intimate life. + +There are parents like that, you know. + +The doctor had known the girl since he ushered her into the world. If +there were any one with whom she had shown the slightest sign of +intimacy, it was with him. Like all doctors whose associations are so +largely with women, and who are moderately intelligent and +temperamental, he knew a great deal about the dangers of the +imagination. No one ever heard just what passed between the two. One +thing is pretty sure, he made no secrets regarding the affair, and at +the end of the interview he advised the parents to take the girl out +of school, take her abroad, keep her active, present her at courts, +show her the world, keep her occupied, interest her, keep her among +people whether she liked it or not. + +The literature teacher counted for something in the affair, and I +imagine that it was never talked over between the parents and +daughter, who soon after left town for Europe, and for three years +were not seen in Boston. + +When they _did_ return, it was to announce the marriage of the +Principal Girl to the son of the family lawyer, a clever man, and a +rising politician. + +Relations between the literature teacher and the Principal Girl had +never wholly broken off, so ten years after the school adventure it +happened one beautiful day in early September that the teacher was a +guest at the North Shore summer home of the Principal Girl, now the +mother of two handsome boys. + +That afternoon at tea, sitting on the verandah, watching the white +sails as the yachts made for Marblehead harbor, and the long line of +surf beating against the rugged rocks beyond the wide pebbly beach on +which the dragging stones made weird music, the literature teacher, +supposing the old story to be so much ancient history that it could, +as can so many of the incidents of one's teens, be referred to +lightly, had the misfortune to mention it. To her horror, the +Principal Girl gave her one startled look, and then rolled over among +the cushions of the hammock in which she was swinging, and burst into +a torrent of tears. + +When the paroxysm had passed, she sat up, wiped her eyes in which, +however, there was no laughter, and said passionately: + +"I suppose you think me the most ungrateful woman in the world. I know +only too well that to many women my position has always appeared +enviable. Poor things, if they only knew! Of course, my husband is a +good man. In all ways I do him perfect justice. He is everything that +is kind and generous--only, alas, he is not the lover of my dreams. My +children are nice handsome boys, but they are the every day children +of every day life. I dreamed another and a different life in which my +children were oh, so different, and beside which the life I try to +lead with all the strength I have is no more like the life I dreamed +than my boys are like my dream children. If you think it has not taken +courage to play the part I have played, I am sorry for your lack of +insight." + +And she got up, and walked away. + +It was as well, for, as the literature teacher told the doctor +afterward, it was one notch above her experience, and she absolutely +could have found no word to say. When the Wife came back to the +hammock, ten minutes later, the cloud was gone from her face, and she +never mentioned the subject again. And you may be sure that the +literature teacher never did. She always looked upon the incident as +her worst moment of tactlessness. + + * * * * * + +"Bully, bully!" exclaimed the Lawyer, "Take off your laurels, Critic, +and crown the Doctor!" + +"For that little tale," shouted the Critic. "Never! That has not a bit +of literary merit. It has not one rounded period." + +"The Lawyer is a realist," said the Sculptor. "Of course that appeals +to him." + +"If you want my opinion, I consider that there is just as much +imagination in that story as in the morbid rigmarole you threw at us +last night," persisted the Lawyer. + +"Why," declared the Critic, "I call mine a healthy story compared with +this one. It is a shocking tale for the operating room--I mean the +insane asylum." + +"All right," laughed the Doctor, "then we had all better go inside the +sanitarium walls at once." + +"Do you presume," said the Journalist, "to pretend that this is a +normal incident?" + +"I am not going into that. I only claim that more people know the +condition than dare to confess it. It is after all only symbolic of +the duality of the soul--or call it what you like. It is the +embodiment of a truth which no one thinks of denying--that the spirit +has its secrets. Imagination plays a great part in most of our +lives--it is the glory that gilds our facts--it is the brilliant +barrier which separates us from the beasts, and the only real thing +that divides us into classes, though, of course, it does not run +through the world like straight lines of latitude and longitude, but +like the lines of mean temperature." + +"The truth is," said the Lawyer, "if the Principal Girl had been +obliged to struggle for her living, the fact that her imagination did +not run at any point into her world of realities would not have been +dangerous." + +"Naturally not," said the Doctor, "for she would have been a great +novelist, or a poor one, and all would have been well, or not, +according to circumstances." + +"All the same," persisted the Critic, "I think it a horrid story +and--" + +"I think," interrupted the Doctor, "that you have a vicious mind, +and--" Here the Doctor cast a quick look in the direction of the +Youngster, who was stretched out in a steamer chair and had not said a +word. + +"All right," said the Trained Nurse, "he is fast asleep." And so he +was. + +"Just as well," said the Doctor, "though it does not speak so well for +the story as it might." + +"Well," laughed the Journalist, "you have had a double success, +Doctor. You have been spontaneously applauded by the man of law, and +sent the man of the air to _faire dodo_. I reckon you get the +laurels." + +"Don't you be in such a hurry to award the palm," protested the +Sculptor. "There are some of us who have not spoken yet. I am going to +put some brilliant touches on mine before I give my star performance." + +"What's that about stars?" yawned the Youngster, waking up slowly. + +"Nothing except that you have given a very distinguished and +unexpected star performance as a sleeper," said the Doctor. + +"I say!" he exclaimed, sitting up. "By Jove, is the story of the +Principal Girl all told? That's a shame. What became of her?" + +"You'll never know now," said the Doctor. + +"Besides," said the Critic, "you would not understand. You are too +young." + +"Well, I like your cheek." + +"After all," said the Journalist, "it is only another phase of the +Dear Little Josephine, and I still think that is the banner story." + +"Me, too," said the Doctor, as we went into the house. + +And I thought to myself, "I can tell a third phase--the tragic--when +my turn comes," and I was the only one who knew that my story would +come last. + + + + +V + +THE SCULPTOR'S STORY + +UNTO THIS END + +THE TALE OF A VIRGIN + + +It was on August 26th that we were first sure that the Allied forces +and the German army had actually come in contact. It seemed impossible +for us to realize it, but, in the afternoon the Doctor, the Lawyer, +and the Youngster took one of the cars, and made a run to the +northeast. The news they brought back did not at all coincide with the +hopeful tone of the morning papers. In fact it was not only evident +that the fall of Namur had been followed almost immediately by that of +Mons and Charleroi, but that the German hordes were well over the +French frontier, and advancing rapidly, and the Allied armies simply +flying before them. + +The odd part was, that though the Youngster said that they had only +run out fifty miles, they had heard the guns, and "the Doctor +thinks," he added, under his breath, "that we may be able to stick it +out to the last day of the month. Anyway, I advise you girls to look +over your kits. We may fly in a hurry--such of us as must fly." + +However, we managed to get through dinner quite gaily. We simply could +not realize the menace, and the Doctor evidently meant that we should +not. He was in gayer spirits than he had been since the days of the +great discussions, and after the few facts he had brought back were +given us, he kept the talk on other matters, until the Sculptor, who +had been lying back in his chair, blowing smoke rings in the air, +stretched himself into his most graceful position, and called +attention even to his pose, before he threw his cigarette far from him +with a fine gesture, settled his handsome head into his clasped hands, +and began: + + * * * * * + +I had been ten years abroad. + +In all that time I had been idle, prosperous, and wretched. + +Every time Fate wrenched my heart with one of her long thin pitiless +hands, she recompensed me with what the world calls "good luck." +Every hope I had cherished failed me. Every faith I had harbored +deserted me. Every venture in which neither heart nor soul was +concerned flourished and flaunted its success in the face of the +world, where I was considered a very fortunate man. + +In the ten years of my exile I had travelled much, had been in contact +with all kinds of people, had served some, and tried in vain to be +concerned for them while I served. If it had been my fate to make no +friends, it was within my choice to be never alone. + +I had that in my memory which I hoarded, and yet with which I would +not allow myself to be deliberately alone. The most terrible hours of +my life were those when, toward morning, the rest of the world--all +the world save me--having no past to escape, no enticing phantom to +flee, went peacefully off to bed, and I was left alone in the night to +drug memory, fight off thought, outwit imagination by any means that I +might--and some of them were desperate enough. + +Ten years had passed thus. + +Another tenth of August had come round! + +Only a man who has but one anniversary in his life, the backward and +forward shadows of which make an unbroken circle over the whole year, +can appreciate my existence. One cannot escape such a date. You may +never speak of it. You may forswear calendars, abjure newspapers, +refuse to date a letter; you may even lose days in a drunken stupor. +Still there is that in your heart and your brain which keeps the +reckoning. The hour will strike, in spite of you, when the day comes +round on the dial of the year. + +I had been living for some time in a city far distant from my native +land. Half the world stretched on either side between me and the spot +I tried to forget, and which floated forever, like a vision, between +me and reality. + +I had remained longer than usual in this city, for the simple reason +that it was the hot season, and while the natives could stand it by +day, visitors, unused to the heat, were forced to sleep by day and +wander abroad by night, a condition that made it possible for me to +feel my fellowmen about me nearly the entire twenty-four hours. + +It was night. + +I was sitting alone on the balcony of my room, looking down on to the +crowded bridges of the city where throngs were passing, and filled my +eyes and mind. + +It was the very hour at which I had last seen her. There was no clock +in sight--I always guarded against that in selecting my room. I had +long ceased to carry a watch. + +Yet I knew the hour. + +I had been sitting there for hours watching the crowd. I had not been +drinking. I had long ago abandoned that. No stimulant could blur the +fixed regret, no narcotic numb my full sense of it. Sleep, whether I +rose to it, or fell to it--only brought me dreams of her. Desperate +nourishing of a great misery, in a nature that resented it, even while +cherishing it, had made me a conscious monomaniac. Fate had thwarted +me, and distorted me. I had become jealous and morbid, bitterly +reviling my hurt, but violently preventing its healing. + +There was a moon--just as there had been that night, only now it fell +on a many bridged river across which were ghostly cypress trees, +rising along the hillside to a strangely outlined church behind ruined +fortifications. I was wondering, against my will, at what hour that +moon rose over the distant New England village, which came before me +in a vision that wiped out the wooded heights of reality. + +Suddenly all the pain dropped away from me. + +I drew a long breath in amazement. + +Where was the weight under which I had staggered, mentally, all these +years? Whence came the peace that had so suddenly descended upon me? +In an instant it had passed, and I could only remember my bitter mood +of ten years as if it had been a dream that I had lived so long +unconsoled by that great healer, Time. + +As the torturing jealousy dropped from me, a gentle sadness took its +place. In an instant my mind was made up. I would go back. + +This idea, which had never come to me in ten years, seemed now +perfectly natural. I would return at once to that far off village +where, for a brief hour, I had dwelt in a "Fool's Paradise," through +which my way had lain but a brief span, and where I had passed, like +the fabled bird, that "floats through Heaven, but cannot light." + + * * * * * + +I remember but little of the journey home, save that it was long, and +that I slept much. But whether it was months or years I never knew. I +seemed to be making up what I had lost in ten years. Time occupied +itself in restoring the balance I had taken so much pains to upset. + +It was night when I reached the place at last. + +I found it as I had left it. Had a magic sleep settled there it could +not have been less changed. + +I was recognized in the small bare office of the one tavern. I felt +that my sudden appearance surprised no one. But I did not wonder why. + +Oddly enough, I never asked a question. I had not even questioned +myself as to what I expected to find. Years afterward I was convinced, +in reviewing the matter, that my soul had known from the first. + +I dined alone, quite calmly, after which I stepped out into the +starlight. I turned up the hill, and struck into the familiar road I +had so often travelled in the old days. It led toward the river, and +along the steep bank of the rapid noisy stream. The chill wind of an +early autumn night moaned sadly in the tall trees, and the dead leaves +under my feet rustled a sad accompaniment to my thoughts, which at +last, unhooded, flew back to the past. + +Below rushed the river, whose torrent had ever been an accompaniment +to all my recollections of her--as inseparable from them as the color +of her eyes, or the tones of her voice. + +I could not but contrast my present calm with the mad humor in which I +had last rushed down the slope I was so quietly climbing. As I went +forward, I began to ask myself, "Why?" I could not answer that, but I +began to hurry. + +Suddenly I stopped. + +The moon had emerged above the trees on the opposite side of the +river. It struck and illumined something white above me. I was +standing exactly where I had stood on that fatal tenth of August, so +many years before. + +I came to my senses as if by an electric shock. + +At last everything was clear to me. At last I understood whence had +gone all my vanity and jealousy. At last I understood the spell of +peace that had settled on me in that moonlit tenth of August, in that +far off city. + +My burden had passed through the Valley of the Shadow of Death with +her--for I was standing at the door of her tomb! + +I did not question. I knew, I comprehended. + +In no other way could I have found such calm. + +Though I flung myself on the shining marble steps that led in the +moonlight up to the top of the knoll where the tomb stood, I had no +tears to shed. + +The present floated still further away. + +Even the rush of the torrent died out of my ears. + +Once more it seemed to me that lovely day in May when we three had +marched, shoulder to shoulder, down the city street--that spring day +in the early sixties, when the North was sending her flower to fight +for a united country. + +Again I felt the warm sunshine on my head. + +Once more I heard the ringing cheers, saw the floating flags, and the +faces of women who wept as well as women who smiled in the throngs +that lined the street. + +Just as in all my life it had been his emotions and his enthusiasms +that led me, it was his excitement that impelled me forward at this +moment. His was the hand that in my school days, at college, in our +Bohemian days abroad, had swept my responsive nature as a master hand +strikes a harp, and made harmonies or discords at his will--or, I +should say, according to his mood. + +I used to think in those days that he never willfully wronged any one, +but I had to own also that he never deliberately sacrificed himself +for any one. And, if I were the victim of his temperament, he was no +less so. But he was an artist. I was not. All things either good or +bad were merely material to him. With me it was different. + +He and I were alone in the world. But beside us marched, that May +morning, with the glory of youth on his handsome but weak face, one +whose "baptism of fire" was to make him a hero, who had else been +remembered a coward. + +The story of the girl he had wronged, and fear of whom had even +reconciled his family to his enlisting, was common property, and had +been for several seasons. There was a child, too, a little daughter, +fondly loved, but unacknowledged, the fame of whose childish beauty +many a heedless voice had already sung. + +He, poor youngster, looked on his all that morning. + +Once more I saw the flag draped house where his mother waved a brave +farewell to him. + +But there was another later picture in my mind. Again I heard the +blare of the band before us as it flung its satire of "The Girl I Left +Behind Me," into the spring air. I saw once more in my mind the child, +with her floating red gold curls, raised above the crowd on the +shoulders of tall men. Her eyes were too young for tears--and for that +matter, tears came to her but seldom in later years--and the lips that +shouted "bood-bye" smiled, unconscious of bravery, as she swung her +hat with its symbolic colors above her shining head. + +That was the picture that three of us carried to the front. + +We left him--all his errors redeemed by a noble death--with his face +turned up to the stars, as silent, as mysterious as they, after our +first battle. + +From the horrors of that night we two came away bound by an oath to +care for that child. + + * * * * * + +Again my memory shifted to the days that found her a woman. Fair, +beautiful, dainty, her father's daughter in looks, but inheriting from +a rare mother a peculiar strength of character, a moral force rarely +found with such a temperament and such beauty. + +We had aided to raise her as became the child of her father, whose +story she knew as soon as she was able to understand, but she knew it +from the lips of the brave mother, who cherished his memory. Until she +was a woman grown it was I, however, who, of her two self-appointed +guardians, had watched over her. Children did not interest him. + +He had married some years before that time, married well with an eye +to a calm comfortable future, as became an artist who could not be +hampered by the need of money. + +Indeed, it was not until he knew that I was to marry her that he +really looked at her. + +And I, with all my experience of him, simply because I was never able +to understand the dual nature, failed at that fatal hour when we stood +together beside our protegee to apply to the situation the knowledge +that years of experience should have taught me. + +I was so bound up in my own feelings that I failed to remember that, +until then, I had never had a great emotion that his nature had not +acted as a lens in the kindling. + +Then, too, there was a dense sense of the conventional--a logical +enough birthright--in my make-up. I, who had known him so long, so +well, seemed, nevertheless, when he married, to have fancied there was +some hocus-pocus in the ceremony, which should make a definite change +in a man's character, as well as a presumable change in his way of +life. + +It must have been that there, in the open, at the foot of the knoll, I +slept, as one does the first night after a long awaited death, when +the relief that pain is passed, and suspense ended, deadens grief. +She was no longer in this world of torture. That helped me. + + * * * * * + +The next I knew, it was the sun, and not the moon which was shining on +me. + +The wind had stilled its sobbing in the trees. + +Only the rushing of the river sounded in my ears. + +I rose slowly, and mounted the steps. + +A tiny white marble mosque of wonderful beauty--for he who erected it +was one of the world's great artists, whose works will live to glorify +his name and his art when all his follies shall have been +forgotten--stood in a court paved with marble. + +It was encircled with a low coping of the whitest of stone. Over this +low wall vines were already growing, and the woodbine that was mingled +with it was stained with those glorious tints in which Nature says to +life, "Even death is beautiful." + +The wide bronze doors on either side were open. + +I accepted the fact without even wondering why--or asking myself who, +in opening them, had discovered my presence! + +I entered. + +For a brief time I stood once more within the room where she lay. + +An awful peace fell on my soul, as if her soul had whispered in the +words we had so often read together: + + "I lie so composedly + Now in my bed--" + +I knew at last, as I gazed, that all her life, and all mine, as well, +had been to his profit. That out of this, too, he had wrought some of +his greatness. + +The interior of the vault was of red marble, and, such of chiselling +as there was done, seemed wonderful to me even in my frame of mind. I +took it all in, through unwilling, though fascinated eyes. + +I have never seen it since. I can never forget it. + +Yet art is, and always has been, so much to me, that I could not help, +even in my strangely wrought-up mental condition, comprehending and +admiring his scheme and the masterly manner in which he had worked it +out. + +At my feet, as I stood on the threshold, was an elaborate scroll +engraved on the stone and surrounded with a wreath of leaves, that +vied with the tombs of the old world. As I gazed at it, and read the +gothic letters in which it was set forth that this monument was +erected in adoration of this woman, how well I remembered the day when +we had crouched together over those stones in the crypt at Certosa, to +admire the chiselling of Donatello which had inspired this. + +There was a space left for the signature of the artist, which would, I +knew, some day be written there boldly enough! + +In the centre stood the sarcophagus. + +I felt its presence, though my eyes avoided it. + +Above, on the wall, were the words borne along by carved angels: + + "My love she sleeps: Oh, may her sleep + As it was lasting, so be deep." + +And I seemed to hear her voice intone the words as I had heard them +from her lips so many times. + +And then my eyes fell--on her! Aye! On her, stretched at full length +in her warm and glorious tomb. For above her mortal remains slept her +effigy wrought with all the skill of a great art. + +I had feared to look upon it, but having looked, I felt that I could +never tear myself away from its peace and loveliness. + +The long folds of the drapery fell straight from the small, round +throat to the tiny unshod feet, and so wonderfully was it wrought, +that it seemed as if the living beautiful flesh of the slender body +was still quick beneath it. The exquisite hands that I knew so +well--so delicate, and yet so strong--were gently crossed upon her +breast, and her arms held a long stemmed lily, emblem of purity, and +it looked to me there like a martyr's palm. + +Perhaps it was the pale reflection from the red walls, but the figure +seemed too real to be mere stone! + +I forgot the irony of the fact that I was merely seeing her through +his eyes--the eyes of the man who had robbed me. I felt only her +presence. I fell on my knees. I flung my arms across the beautiful +form--no colder to my embrace than had been the living woman! As I +recoiled from the death-like touch, my eyes fell on the words carved +on the face of the sarcophagus, and once more, it was like the voice +that was hushed in my ears. + + "I pray to God that she may lie + Forever with unopened eye + While the dim sheeted ghosts go by." + +"Amen," I said, with all my heart, to the words he had carved above +her, for what, after the fever of such a life, could be so welcome to +her as dreamless, eternal silence, in which there would be no more +passion, no more struggling, no more love? + +And, if I wished with all my soul, that the great surprise of death +might, for her, have been peace and silence, did I not bar myself as +well as him from the hope of Heaven? + +How long I stood there, with hungry eyes devouring the marble effigy +of her I so loved--now tortured by its fidelity, now punished by its +coldness--I never knew. + +Sometimes I noticed the changing of the light, the shifting of the +shadows, as the sun swung steadily upward, but it was a subconscious +observation which did not recall me to myself and the present. + +Back, back turned my thoughts to the past. + +Here, where she now lay in her gorgeous tomb, had then stood an arbor, +and below had roared the rushing river. + +It was the night of our wedding. + +Then, as now, on this very spot, I had looked down on that fair pale +face, and then it had given me back a gaze as lifeless as this. + +I had missed my bride from the little throng in the quaint house +beyond. I had stolen out to seek her. Instinctively I had turned to +the old arbor above the river, where her hours of meditation had +always been passed. + +It was there I had found her as a child, when I came to bring her +father's dying message. It was there I had asked her to become my +wife. It was there we three had first stood together. + +For a week before the wedding she had been in a strange mood, +tearless, but nervous, and sad! Still, it had not seemed to me an +unnatural mood in such a woman, on the eve of her marriage. + +Fate is ironical. + +I remembered that I was serenely happy as I sped up the hill in search +of her, and so sure that I knew where to find her. Light scudding +clouds crossed the track of the moon, which, with a broadly smiling +face, rolled up the heavens at a spinning pace, now appearing, now +disappearing behind the flying clouds. + +I was humming gaily as I strode along the narrow path. Nothing tugged +at my heart strings to warn me of approaching sorrow. There was no +signal in all nature to prepare me for the end in a complete shipwreck +of all my dreams. The peace about me gave no hint of its cynicism. +Nothing, either within or without, hinted that my hours of happiness +and content were running out rapidly to the last sand! + +I had reached the shallow steps that led up the knoll to the arbor! + +At that moment the clouds were swept off from the face of the moon, +and the white light fell full on her. + +But she was not alone. She rested in the arms of my friend, as, God +help me, she had never rested in mine--in an abandon that was only too +eloquent. + +What was said? + +Who but God knows that now? + +What do men like us, who have thought themselves one in all things, +until one love rends them asunder, say at such a time? As for me, I +cannot recall a word! + +I did not even see his face. + +I think he saw mine no more. + +We seemed to see into the soul of each other, through the very heart +of that frail woman between us, that slender creature in the bridal +dress, who sank down before us, as if the colliding passions of two +strong men had killed her. + +It was he who raised her up. His hands placed her in my arms. No need +to say that she was blameless. I knew all that. + +It was only Fate after all, that I blamed, yet the fatalist is human. +He suffers in living like other men--sometimes more, because he +refuses to struggle in the clutches of Chance! + +As I gazed down into her white face, I heard the steps of my friend, +even above the roaring of the river, as he strode down the hillside, +out of my life! And I know not even to-day which was the bitterest +grief, the loss of my faith in being loved, or the passing from my +heart of that man! + +Of the pain of the night that followed, only the silence and our own +hearts knew. + +Love and passion are so twinned in some hours of life that one cannot +distinguish in himself the one from the other. + +Into my keeping "to have and to hold," the law had given this +beautiful woman, "until death should us part." I loved her! But, out +of her heart, at once stronger and weaker than mine, my friend had +barred me. + +It is not in hours like these, that all men can be sane. + +I thought of what might have been, if they had not met that night, and +my ignoble side craved ignorance of that Chance, or the brutality to +ignore it. + +I looked down into that cold face as I laid her from the arms that had +borne her down the hill--laid her on what was to have been her nuptial +couch--and closed the door between us and all the world. + +We were together--alone--at last! + +I had dreamed of this hour. Here was its realization. I watched the +misery of remembrance dawn slowly on her white face. I pitied her as I +gazed at her, yet my whole being cried out in rage at its own pity. On +her trembling lips I seemed to see his kisses. In her frightened eyes +I saw his image. The shudder that shook her whole body as her eyes +held mine, confessed him--and that confession kept me at bay. + +All that night I sat beside her. + +What mad words I uttered a merciful nature never let me recall. + +In the chill dawn I fled from her presence. + +The width of the world had lain between us, me--and this woman whom I +had worshipped, of whom a consuming jealousy had made ten years of my +life a mad fever, which only her death had cured. Saner men have +protested against the same situation that ruined me--and yet, even in +my reasoning moments, like this, I knew that to have rebelled would +have been to have forced a tragic climax before the hour at which Fate +had fixed it. + + * * * * * + +When something--I know not what--recalled me again to the present, I +found that I had sat by her a day, as, on our last meeting, I watched +out the night. The sun, which had sent its almost level rays in at the +east door of the tomb when I entered, was now shining in brilliant +almost level rays in at the west. + +The day was passing. + +A shadow fell from the opposite door. I became suddenly conscious of +his presence, and, once more, across her body, I looked into my +friend's eyes. + +Between us, as on that dreadful night, she was stretched! + +But she was at peace. + +Our colliding emotions might rend us, they could never again tear at +her gentle heart. That was at rest. + +Over her we stood once more, as if years had not passed--years of +silence. + +Above the woman we had both loved, we two, who had stood shoulder to +shoulder in battle, been one in thought and ambition until passion +rent us asunder, met as we parted, but she was at peace! + +We had severed without farewells. + +We met without greetings. + +We stood in silence until he waved me to a broad seat behind me, and +sank into a similar niche opposite. + +We sat in the shadow. + +She lay between us in the level light of the setting sun, which fell +across her from the wide portal, and once more our eyes met on her +face, but they would not disturb her calm. + +His influence was once more upon me. + +In the silence--for it was some time before he spoke, and I was +dumb--my accursed eye for detail had taken in the change in him. Yet I +fancied I was not looking at him. I noted that he had aged--that this +was one of the periods in him which I knew so well--when a passion +for work was on him, and the fever and fervor of creation trained him +down like a race-horse, all spirit and force. I noted that he still +wore the velveteens and the broad hat and loose open collar of his +student days. + +Sitting on either side of the tomb he had built to enshrine her, on +carved marble seats such as Tuscan poets sat on, in the old days, to +sing to fair women, with our gaze focussed on the long white form +between us--ah, between us indeed!--his voice broke the long silence. + +He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and the broad brim of his +soft hat swept the marble floor with a gentle rhythmic swish, as it +swung idly from his loosened grasp. I heard it as an accompaniment to +his voice. + +His eyes never once strayed from her face. + +"You think you are to be pitied," he said. "You are wrong! No one who +has not sinned against another needs pity. I meant you no harm. +Fate--my temperament, your immobility, the very gifts that have made +me what I am were to blame--if blame there were. Every one of us must +live out his life, according to his nature. I, as well as you! + +"When, on this very spot where we last parted, you told me that you +loved her, I swear to you, if need be, that I rejoiced. I was glad +that she would have you to make the future smooth for her. Later I +grew to envy you. It was for your safety, as well as mine and hers, +that I decided to see neither of you again until she had been some +time your wife. No word of love, no confidence of any kind, had ever +passed between us. When I wrote you that I should not be here to see +you married, and when not even your reproaches could move me, I had +already engaged my passage on a sailing ship bound for the Azores. I +had planned to put a long uncertain voyage between you and any +possibility that I might mar your chances for happiness, for the +nearer the day came, the more--in spite of myself--I resented it! + +"My good intentions were thwarted by--Fate. + +"For some reason, forgotten and unimportant, the Captain deferred +lifting anchor for a whole week. I called myself unpretty names for +thinking that I could not even see her without danger. I despised +myself for the judgment that accused me of being such a scamp as to +think I would do anything to rob her of the protection and safety you +could give her, and I could not, and an egoist for being possessed +with the idea that I could if I would. + +"Suddenly I felt quite sure of myself. + +"Yet I had meant to see her without being seen, when I hurried so +unexpectedly down here on your wedding night. I fancied I only longed +to see what a lovely bride she would make--she who as a child, a girl, +a maiden, had been in your eyes the most exquisite creature you had +ever known; she whom I had avoided for years, because I, of all men, +could least afford to take a place in her life! I longed to see those +eyes, still so pure, under her bridal veil. + +"I came in secret! I saw her--and all prudence fled out of me, leaving +but one instinct. + +"Was it my fault that, alone, she fled from the house? That, with her +veil thrown over her arm, she ran directly by me, like a sprite in the +moonlight, to this spot? + +"The rest you know. + +"It is not you who need pity! + +"You have the pain of an imperishable loyalty in your soul. It is like +a glory in your face, in spite of all you have suffered. As I look at +you, it seems but yesterday that all was well between us. + +"I lost much in losing you. + +"Nor am I sure that you were right to go! But that was for your own +nature to decide. In your place I should have fought Fate, I expected +you to do it. + +"I loved her first, because she satisfied my eyes. I loved her the +more that she was denied to me! Yet I knew always that this love was +not in me what it was in you. With me it was, like many other emotions +of a similar sort--a sentiment that would pass. I tried to think +otherwise. But I had awakened her heart, and you, to whom the law had +given her, were gone! + +"I waited long for your return, or for some sign. + +"You neither came nor spoke. + +"I argued that something must be done. I owed it to her to offer her +my protection. + +"I came back here. I met her on this very spot. I said to her, 'You +are alone in the world--your mother has married--she has other +children. I have saddened your life with my love. Let me at least help +to cheer it again. You need affection. Here it is--in my arms!' + +"And, while I waited for her answer, I prayed with all my soul that +she might deny me. + +"God bless her! She did! I turned away from her with a glad heart, and +in that heart I enshrined this woman, who, loving me, had denied me. +There I set up her image, pure and inviolate. Two long years I stayed +away from her, and as I worked, I worshipped her, and out of that +worship I wrought a great thing. + +"With time, however, her real image grew faint within me. Other +emotions, other experiences seemed to blur and dim it. In spite of +myself, I returned here. Once more I stood on this spot, within the +gaze of her deep eyes. I began to believe that a love everlasting, all +enduring, had been given me! But still it was passion that pleaded for +possession, and still it was self-knowledge that looked on in fear. + +"Passion bade me plead: 'You love me! You need me! Come to me!' And +fear kept my heart still, in dread of her consent. + +"But she looked up into my face with eyes that seemed to widen under +mine, and simply whispered, 'My mother.' The heart that knew and +understood now all that sad history seemed to feel that her act might +re-open the mother's old wound; that the verdict 'like mother, like +daughter' would turn virtue back to sin again. + +"Once more I went out into the world with a light heart! Her virtue, +her strength, seemed to be mine. I went back to my work with renewed +spirit, back to my life with no new self-reproach. + +"But once more I swung round the circle. With a perversity that, +dreading success, and conscious of fear, yet longs to strive for what +it dreads to win, I returned to her again. The death of her mother was +my new excuse. + +"She came to me--here, as usual. But this time she came leading by the +hand her little sister, and I felt her armored against me even before +I spoke. + +"You, who used to believe in a merciful God, can you explain to me why +he has left in the nature of man, created--so you believe--in His own +image--that impulse to destroy that which he loves? I loved her for +exactly what she was. I loved her because she had the courage to +resist me. Yet from each denial so ardently desired, so thankfully +received, my soul sprang up strengthened in desire. Safe above me I +worshipped her. Once in my arms, I knew, only too well, that even that +love would pass as all other emotions had done. I knew I should put +her aside, gently if I could, urgently, if I must, and pass on. That +is my Fate! Everything that enters my life leaves something I +need--and departs! For what I have not, I hunger. What I win soon +wearies me. It is the price life exacts for what it gives me. + +"So, when August of this year came round, I found myself once more +standing here. + +"Ten years had passed since we stood here with her between us--ten +years that had laid their richest gifts on her beauty. This time she +was indeed alone. As I looked into her face, I somehow thought of +Agamemnon's fair daughter doomed to die a virgin. You can see my +'Iphigenia' in the spring, if you chance to be in Paris. + +"This time, self-knowledge deserted me. The past was forgotten. The +future was undreaded. The passion in my heart spoke without reserve +or caution! I no longer said: 'You need me! You love me!' I cried out: +'I can no longer live without you!' I no longer said, 'Come to me!' I +pleaded, 'Take me to your heart. There, where my image is, let me rest +at last. I have waited long, be kind to me.' + +"I saw her sway toward me as once before she had done. It was too late +to look backward or forward. I had conquered. In my weakness I +believed it was thus ordained--that I deserved some credit for waiting +so long. + +"Yet, when she left me here alone, having promised, with downcast eyes +that avoided mine, to place her hand in mine, and walk boldly beside +me down the forbidden path of the world, I fell down on the spot her +feet had pressed, and wept bitterly, as I had never done before in all +my life. Wept over the shattered ideal, the faith I had so wilfully +torn down, the miserable victory of my meanest self. + +"I thought the end was come. Fate was merciful to me, however! + +"I had myself fixed the following Thursday as the day for our +departure. As I dated a letter to her that night my mind +involuntarily reckoned the days, and I was startled to find that +Thursday fell on that fatal tenth of August. + +"I had not thought I could be so tortured in my mind as I was by the +dread that she should notice the dire coincidence. + +"She did! + +"The hour that should have brought her to me, brought a note instead. +It was dated boldly 'August tenth.' It was without beginning or +signature. It said--I can repeat every word--'Of the two roads to +self-destruction open to me, I have chosen the one that will, in the +end, give the least pain to you. I love you. I have always loved you +since I was a child. I do not regret anything yet! Thank God for me +that I depart without ever having seen a look of weariness in the eyes +that gazed so lovingly into mine when we parted, and thank Him for +yourself that you will never see a look of reproach in mine. I know no +time so fitting to say a long farewell for both of us as +this--Farewell, then.' + +"I knew what I should find when I went up the hill. + +"The doctors said 'heart disease.' She had been troubled with some +such weakness. I alone knew the truth! As I had known myself, she had +known me! + +"You think you suffer--you, who might, but for me, have made her +happy, as such women should be, in a world of simple natural joys! My +friend, loss without guilt is pain--but it is not without the balm of +virtuous compensation. You have at least a right to grieve. + +"But I! I am forced to know myself. To feel myself borne along in +spite of myself; and to realize that she who should have worn a crown +of happy womanhood, lies there a sacrifice, to be bewailed like +Jepthah's one fair daughter; and to sit here in full dread of the +ebbing of even this great emotion, knowing too well that it will pass +out of my life when it shall have achieved its purpose, leaving only +as evidence _this_--another great work, crystalized into immortality +in everlasting stone. I know that I cannot long hold it here in my +heart. The day will come--perhaps soon--when I shall stand outside +that door, and recognize this as my work, and be proud of it, without +the power to grieve, as I do now; when I shall approve my own +handiwork, and be unable to mourn for her who was sacrificed to +achieve it. What is your pain to mine?" + +And I saw the hot tears drop from his eyes. I saw them fall on the +marble floor, and they watered the very spot where his name was so +soon to spring up in pride to confess his handiwork. + +I looked on her calm face. I knew she did not regret her part! I rose, +and, without a word, I passed out at the wide door, and, without +looking back, I passed down the slope in the dusk, and left them +together--the woman I had loved, and the friend I had lost! + + * * * * * + +As his voice died away, he sat upright quickly, threw a glance about +the circle, and, with another fine gesture said: "_Et voila_!" + +The Doctor was the only one to really laugh, though a broad grin ran +round the circle. + +"Well," remarked the Doctor, who had been leaning against a tree, and +indulging in shrugs and an occasional groan, which had not even +disconcerted the story teller, "I suppose that is how that very great +man, your governor, did the trick. I can see him in every word." + +"That is all you know about it," laughed the Sculptor. "That is not a +bit how the governor did it. That is how I should have done it, had I +been the governor, and had the old man's chances. I call that an ideal +thing to happen to a man." + +"Not even founded on fact--which might have been some excuse for +telling it," groaned the Critic. "I'd love to write a review of that +story. I'd polish it off." + +"Of course you would," sneered the Sculptor. "That's all a critic is +for--to polish off the tales he can't write. I call that a nice +romantic, ideal tale for a sculptor to conceive, and as the Doctor +said the other night, it is a possible story, since I conceived it, +and what the mind of mortal can conceive, can happen." + +"The trouble," said the Journalist, "with chaps like you, and the +Critic, is that your people are all framework. They're not a bit of +flesh and blood." + +"I'd like to know," said the Sculptor, throwing himself back in his +chair, "who has a right to decide that?" + +"What I'd like to know," said the Youngster, "is, what did she do +between times? Of course he sculpted, and earned slathers of money. +But she--?" + +"Oh, ouch--help!" cried the Sculptor. "Do I know?" + +"Exactly!" answered the Critic, "and that you don't sticks out in +every line of your story." + +"Goodness me, you might ask the same thing about Leda, or Helen of +Troy." + +"Ha! Ha!" laughed the Doctor. "But we know what they did!" + +"A lot you do. It is because they are old classics, and you accept +them, whereas my story is quite new and original--and you were +unprepared for it, and so you can't appreciate it. Anyway, it's my +first-born story, and I'll defend it with my life." + +Only a laugh replied to the challenge, and the attitude of defense he +struck, as he leaped to his feet, though the Journalist said, under +his breath, "It takes a carver in stone to think of a tale like that!" + +"But think," replied the Doctor, "how much trouble some women would +escape if they kept on saying A B C like that--for the A B C is +usually lovely--and when it was time to X Y Z--often terrible, they +just slipped out through the 'open door.'" + +"On the other hand, they _risk_ losing heaps of fun," said the +Journalist. + +"What I like about that story," said the Lawyer, "is that it is so +aristocratic. Every one seems to have plenty of money. They all three +do just what they like, have no duties but to analyze themselves, and +evidently everything goes like clockwork. The husband enjoys being +morbid, and has the means to be gloriously so. The sculptor likes to +carve Edgar Allan Poe all over the place, and the fair lady is able to +gratify the tastes of both men." + +"You can laugh as much as you please," sighed the Sculptor, "I wish it +had happened to me." + +"Well," said the Doctor, "you have the privilege of going to bed and +dreaming that it did." + +"Thank you," answered the Sculptor. "That is just what I am going to +do." + +"What did I tell you last night?" said the Doctor, under his breath, +as he watched the Sculptor going slowly toward the house. "Bet he has +been telling that tale to himself under many skies for years!" + +"I suppose," laughed the Journalist, "that the only reason he has +never built the tomb is that he has never had the money." + +"Oh, be fair!" said the Violinist. "He has not built the tomb because +he is not his father. The old man would have done it in a minute, only +he lacked imagination. You bet he never day-dreamed, and yet what +skill he had, and what adventures! He never saw anything but the facts +of life, yet how magnificently he recorded them." + +"It is a pity," sighed the Violinist, "that the son did not seek a +different career." + +"What difference does it make after all?" remarked the Doctor. "One +never knows when the next generation will step up or down, and, after +all, what does it matter?" + +"It is all very well for you to talk," said the Critic. + +"I assure you that the great pageant would have been just as +interesting from any other point of view. It has been a great +spectacle,--this living. I'm glad I've seen it." + +"Amen to that," said the Divorcee. "I only hope I am going to see it +again--even though it hurts." + + + + +VI + +THE DIVORCEE'S STORY + +ONE WOMAN'S PHILOSOPHY + +THE TALE OF A MODERN WIFE + + +As I look back, I remember that the next night was one of the most +trying of the week. + +As we came down to dinner we all had visions of the destruction of +Louvain, and the burning of the famous library. It is hard enough to +think of lives going out; still, as the Doctor was so fond of saying, +"man is born to die, and woman, too," but that the great works of men, +his bequest to the coming generations, should be wantonly destroyed, +seemed even more horrible, especially to those who love beauty, and +the idea of the charred leaves of the library flying in the air above +the historic city of catholic culture, made us all feel as if we were +sitting down to a funeral service rather than a very good dinner. + +Matters were not made any gayer because Angele, who was waiting on +table, had rings round her eyes, which told of sleepless nights. And +why? We were mere spectators. We had been interested to dispute and +look on. But she knew that somewhere out there in the northeast her +man was carrying a gun. + +Yet all about us the country was so lovely and so tranquil, horses +were walking the fields, and, even as we sat at dinner, we could hear +the voices and the heavy feet of the peasant women as they went home +from their work. The garden had never been more beautiful than it was +that evening, with the silver light of the moon through the trees, and +the smell of the freshly watered earth and flowers. + +We had no doubt who was to contribute the story. The Divorcee was +dressed with unusual care for the role, and carried a big lace bag on +her arm, and, as she leaned back in her chair, she pulled one of the +big old fashioned candles in its deep glass toward her, and said with +a nervous laugh: + +"I shall have to ask you to let me read my story. You know I am not +accustomed to this sort of thing. It is really my very 'first +appearance,' and I could not possibly tell it as the rest of you more +experienced people can do," and she took the manuscript out of her +lace bag, and, settling herself gracefully, unrolled it. The Youngster +put a stool under her pretty feet, and the Doctor set a cushion behind +her back, while the Journalist, with a laugh, poured her a glass of +water, and the Violinist ceremoniously leaned over, and asked, "Shall +I turn for you?" + +She could not help laughing, but it did not make her any the less +nervous, or her voice any the less shaky as she began: + + * * * * * + +It was after dinner on one of those rare occasions when they dined +alone together. + +They were taking coffee in Mrs. Shattuck's especial corner of the +drawing-room, and she had just asked her husband to smoke. + +She was leaning back comfortably in a nest of cushions, in her very +latest gown, with a most becoming light falling on her from the tall, +yellow-shaded lamp. + +He was facing her--astride his chair, in a position man has loved +since creation. + +He was just thinking that his wife had never looked handsomer, finer, +in fact, in all her life--quite the satisfactory, all-round, +desirable sort of a woman a man's wife ought to be. + +She was wondering if he would ever be any less attractive to all women +than he was now at forty-two--or any better able to resist his own +power. + +As she put her coffee cup back on the tiny table at her elbow, he +leaned forward, and picked up a book which lay open on a chair near +him, and carelessly glanced at it. + +"Schopenhauer," and he wrinkled his brows and glanced half whimsically +down the page. "I never can get used to a woman reading that +stuff--and in French, at that. If you took it up to perfect your +German there would be some sense in it." + +Mrs. Shattuck did not reply. When a moment later, she did speak it was +to ignore his remark utterly, and ask: + +"The _Kaiser Wilhelm_ got off in good season this morning--speaking of +German things?" + +"Oh, yes," was the indifferent reply, "at ten o'clock, quite +promptly." + +"I suppose she was comfortable, and that you explained why I could not +come?" + +"Certainly. One of your beastly head-aches. She understood." + +"Thank you." + +Shattuck yawned lazily, and changed the subject, which did not seem to +interest him. + +"Do you mean to say," he asked, still turning the leaves of the book +he held, "that this pleases you?" + +"Not exactly." + +"Well, amuses you? Instructs you, if you like that better?" + +"No, I mean to say simply--since you insist--that he speaks the truth, +and there are some--even among women--who must know the truth and +abide by it." + +"Well, thank Heaven," said the man, pulling at his cigar, "that most +women are more emotional than intelligent--as Nature meant them to +be." + +Mrs. Shattuck examined her daintily polished nails, rubbed them +carefully on the palm of her hand, as women have a trick of doing, and +then polished them on her lace handkerchief, before she said, "Yes, it +is a pity that we are not all like that,--a very great pity--for our +own sakes. Yet, unluckily, some of us _will_ think." + +"But the thinking woman is so rarely logical, so unable to take life +impersonally, that Schopenhauer does her no good. He only fills her +mind with errors, mistrust, unhappiness." + +"You men always argue that way with women--as if life were not the +same for us as for you. Pass me the book. I wager that I can open it +at random, and that you cannot deny the truth of the first sentence I +read." + +He passed her the book. + +She took it, laid it open carelessly on her knees, bending the covers +far back that it might stay open, and she gave her finger tips a final +rub with her handkerchief before she looked at the page. She paused a +bit after she glanced at it, then picked up the book and read: +"'_L'homme est par Nature porte a l'inconstance dans l'amour, la femme +a la fidelite. L'amour de l'homme baisse d'une facon sensible a partir +de l'instant ou il a obtenu satisfaction: il semble que toute autre +femme ait plus d'attrait que celle qu'il possede._'" + +She laid the book down, but she did not look at him. + +"Rubbish," was his remark. + +"Yes, I know. You men always find it so easy to say 'rubbish' to all +natural truths which you prefer not to discuss." + +"Well, my dear Naomi, it seems to me that if you are to advocate +Schopenhauer, you must go the whole length with him. The fault is in +Nature, and you must accept it as inevitable, and not kick against +it." + +"I don't kick against Nature--as you put it--I kick against +civilization, which makes laws regardless of Nature, which +deliberately shuts its eyes to all natural truths in regard to the +relations of men to women,--and is therefore forced to continually +wink to avoid confessing its folly." + +"Civilization seems to me to have done the best it could with a very +difficult problem. It has not actually allowed different codes of +morals to men and women, and it may have had to wink on that account. +Right there, in your Schopenhauer, you have a primal reason, that is, +if you chose to follow your philosopher to the extent of actually +believing that Nature has deliberately, from the beginning, protected +women against that sin of which so much is made, and to which she has, +as deliberately, for economic reasons of her own, tempted men." + +"I do believe it, truly." + +"You are no more charitable toward my sex than most women are. Yet +neither your teacher nor you may be right. A theoretic arguer like +Schopenhauer makes good enough reading for calm minds, but he is bad +for an emotional temperament, and, by Jove, Naomi, he was a bad +example of his own philosophy." + +"My dear Dick, I am afraid I read Schopenhauer because I thought what +he writes long before I ever heard of him. I read him because did I +not find a clear logical mind going the same way my mind will go, I +might be troubled with doubts, and afraid that I was going quite +wrong." + +"Well, the deuce and all with a woman when she begins to read stuff +like that is her inability to generalize. You women take everything +home to yourselves. You try to deduct conclusions from your own lives +which men like Schopenhauer have scanned the centuries for. The +natural course of your life could hardly have provided you with the +pessimism with which--I hope you will pardon my remark, my dear--you +have treated me several times in the past few months. Chamfort and +Schopenhauer did that. But these are not subjects a man discusses +easily with his wife." + +"Indeed? Then that is surely an error of civilization. If a man can +discuss such matters more easily with a woman who is not his wife, it +is because there is no frankness in marriage. Dick, did it ever occur +to you that a man and woman, strongly attracted toward one another, +might live together many years without understanding each other?" + +"God forbid!" + +"How easily you say that!" + +"I have heard that most women think they are not understood, but I +never reflected on the matter." + +"You and I have not troubled one another much with our doubts and +perplexities." + +"You and I have been very happy together--I hope." There was a little +pause before the last two words, as if he had expected her to +anticipate them with something, and there was a half interrogative +note in his voice. She made no response, so he went on, "I've surely +not been a hard master--and I hope I've not been selfish. I know I've +not been unloving." + +"And I hope you've not suffered many discomforts on my account. I +think, as women go, I am fairly reasonable--or I have been." + +For some reason Shattuck seemed to find the cigar he was smoking most +unsatisfactory. Either it had been broken, or he had unconsciously +chewed the end--a thing which he detested--and there was a pause while +he discarded the weed, and selected a fresh one. He appeared to be +reflecting as he lighted it, and if his mind could have been read, it +would have probably been discovered that he was wondering how it had +happened that the conversation had taken this turn, and mentally +cursing his own stupidity in making any remarks on the Schopenhauer. +He was conscious all the time that his wife was looking rather +steadily at him, and he knew that at least a conventional reply was +expected of him. + +"My dear girl," he said, "I look back on ten very satisfactory years +of married life. You have been a model wife, a charming companion--and +if occasionally it has occurred to me--just lately--that my wife has +developed rather singular, to say the least, unflattering ideas of +life, why, you have such a brilliant way of putting it, that I am more +than half proud that you've the brains to hold such ideas, though +they are a bit disconcerting to me as a husband. I suppose the +development is logical enough. You were always, even as a girl, +inclined to making footnotes. I suppose their present daring is simply +the result of our being just a little older than we used to be. I +suppose if we did not outgrow our illusions, the road to death would +be too tragic." + +For a moment she made no reply. Then, as if for the first time owning +to the idea which had long been uppermost in her mind, she said +suddenly: "The truth of the matter is, that I really believe marriage +is foolish. I do believe that no man ever approached it without +regretting that civilization had made it necessary, and that many men +would escape, at the very last moment, if women did not so rigidly +hold them to their promises, and if, between two ridiculous positions, +marriage having been pushed nearest, had not become desperately +inevitable." + +"How absurd, Naomi, when you see the whole procession of men +walking,--according to their dispositions--calmly or eagerly to their +fate every day." + +"Nevertheless, I think the pre-nuptial confessions of a majority of +men of our class, would prove that what I say is true." + +"Are you hinting that it was true in your case?" + +"Perhaps." + +Shattuck gave an amused laugh. "Do you mean to say that you kept me to +the point?" + +"Not exactly. At that time I had an able bodied father who would have +had to be dealt with. Besides, a man does not own up even to +himself--not always--when he finds himself face to face with the +inevitable. I am not speaking of what men talk about in such cases, or +of what they do, but of what they feel,--of the fact that, in too many +instances, Nature not having meant men for bondage, after they have +passed the Rubicon to that spot from which the code of civilized honor +does not permit them to turn back, they usually have a period of +regret, and are forced to make a real effort to face the Future,--to +go on, in fact." + +The smile had died out of Shattuck's face and he said quite seriously: +"As far as we are concerned, Naomi, I have very different +recollections of the whole affair." + +"Have you? And yet, months before we were married, I knew that it +would not have broken your heart if the wedding had not come off at +all." + +"My dear, the modern heart does not break easily in this age. We are +schooled to meet the accidents of life with some philosophy." + +"And yet to have lost you then, would have killed me." + +Shattuck looked at her sharply, with, one might almost have said, a +new interest, but she was no longer looking at him. She went on, +hurriedly: "You loved me, of course. I was of your world. I was a +woman that other men liked, and therefore a desirable woman. I was of +good family--altogether your social equal, in fact, quite the sort of +woman it became you to marry. I pleased you--and I loved you." + +"Thank you, my dear," he said. "In ten years, I doubt if you have ever +made so frank a declaration as that--in words." He was wondering, if, +after all, she were going to develop into an emotional woman, and his +heart gave a quick leap at the very thought--for there are hours when +a woman who runs too much to head has a man at a cruel disadvantage. + +"Things are so much harder, so much more complex for a woman," she +went on. + +"For the protection of the community?" + +"Perhaps. Still, it is not always pleasant to be a woman,--and yet +think; a woman whose reason has been mistakenly developed at the +expense of her capacity to enjoy being a woman, and who is forced at +the same time to encounter the laws of Nature, and pay at the same +time, the penalty of being a woman, and the penalty of knowledge. For, +just so surely as we live, we must encounter love.--" + +"You might take it out," interrupted the husband, "in feeling +flattered that it takes so much to conquer such as you." + +"So we might, but that, once conquered, neither man nor Nature has any +further use for us, and regret, like art, is long. Not even you can +deny," she exclaimed, sitting up in some excitement, and letting her +cushions fall in a mess all about her, "that life is very unfair to +women." + +"Well, I don't see that. Physically it is a little rough on you, but +there are compensations." + +"I have never been able to discover them. Love itself is hard on a +woman. It seems to stir a man's faculties healthily. They seem the +stronger and more fit for it. It does not seem to uproot a man's whole +being. Does it serve women in that way?" + +"I bear witness that it makes some of you deucedly handsome. And I +have heard that it makes some of you--good." + +"Yes, as chastisement does. No, Life seems to have adjusted matters +between men and women very badly, very unjustly." + +"And yet, as this life is the only one we know we must adjust +ourselves to it as we find it." + +"No, no. We had better have accepted the thing as Nature gave it to +us. We came into this world like beasts--why aren't we content to live +like beasts, and make no pretenses? Women would have nothing to expect +then, and there'd be no such thing as broken hearts. In spite of all +the polish of civilization, man is simply bent on conquest. Woman is +only one phase of the chase to him--a chase in which every active +virile man is occupied from his cradle to his grave. You are the +conquerors. We are simply the conquered." + +Shattuck tried to make his voice light, as he said: "Not always +unhappy ones, I fancy." + +"I suppose all men flatter themselves that way, and argue that +probably the Sabine women preferred their fate to no fate at all." + +"Don't be bitter on so old and impersonal a topic, Naomi. It is the +law of life that one must give, and one must take. That the emotions +differ does not prove that one is better than the other." + +Shattuck took a turn up and down the long room, not quite at ease with +himself. + +Mrs. Shattuck seemed to be thinking. As he passed her, he stopped, +picked up her cushions, and re-arranged them about her, with an idle +caress by the way, a kiss gently dropped on the inside of her white +wrist. + +She followed his every movement with a strange speculative look in her +eyes, almost as if he were some new and strange animal that she was +studying for the first time. + +When she spoke again, it was to go on as if she had not been +interrupted, "It seems to me that man comes out of a great passion +just as good as new, while a woman is shattered--in a moral +sense--and never fully recovers herself." + +Shattuck's back was toward her when he replied. "Sorry to spoil any +more illusions, dear child, but how about the long list of men who are +annually ruined by it? The men in the prisons, the men who kill +themselves, the men who hang for it?" + +"Those are crimes. I am not talking of the criminal classes, but of +the world in which normal people live." + +"Our set," he laughed, "but that is not the whole world, alas!" + +"I know that men--well bred, cultivated, refined, even honorable +men,--seem to be able to repeat every emotion of life. A woman scales +the heights but once. Hence it must depend, in the case of women +capable of deep love--on the men whether the relation into which +marriage betrays them be decent or indecent. What I should like to be +able to discover is--what provision does either man or civilization +propose to make for the woman whom Fate, in wanton irony, reduces, +even in marriage, to the self-considered level of the girl in the +street?" + +There was amazement--even a foreboding--on Shattuck's face as he +paused in his walk, and, for the first time speaking anxiously +ejaculated, "I swear I don't follow you!" + +She went on as if she had not been interrupted, as if she had +something to say which had to be said, as if she were reasoning it out +for herself: "Take my case. I don't claim that it is uncommon. I do +claim that I was not the woman for the situation. I was an only child. +My father's marriage had not been happy. I was brought up by a +disappointed man on philosophy and pessimism." + +"Old sceptics, and modern scoffers. I remember it well." + +"Before I was out of my teens, I had imbibed a mistrust for all +emotions. Perhaps you did not know that? You may have thought, because +they were not all on the outside, that I had none. My poor father had +hoped, with his teachings, to save me from future misery. He had +probably thought to spare me the commonplace sorrows of love. But he +could not." + +"There is one thing, my child, that the passing generation cannot do +for its heirs--live for them--luckily. Why, you might as well forbid a +rose to blossom by word of mouth, as try to thwart nature in a +beautiful healthy woman." + +"It seems to me that to bring up a woman as I was brought up only +prepares her to take the distemper the quicker." + +"I do not remember that of you. But I do know that no woman was ever +wooed as hotly as you were--or ever--I swear it--more ardently +desired. No woman ever led a man the chase you led me. If ever in +those days you were as anxious for my love as you have said you were +this evening, no one would have guessed it, least of all I." + +"My reason had already taught me that mine was but the common fate of +all women: that life was demanding of me the usual tribute to +posterity: that the sweetness of the emotion was Nature's trick to +make it endurable. But according to Nature's eternal plan, my heart +could not listen to my head--it beat so loud when you were by, it +could not hear, perhaps. But there was something of my father's +philosophy left in me, and when I was alone it would speak, and be +heard, too. Even when I believed in you--because I wanted to--and half +hoped that all my teaching was wrong, I made a bargain with myself. I +told myself, quite calmly, that I knew perfectly well all the +possibilities of the future. That if I went forward with you, I went +forward deliberately with open eyes, knowing what, logically, I might +expect to find in the future. Ignorance--that blissful comfort of so +many women,--was denied me. Still, the spell of Nature was upon me, +and for a time I dreamed that a depth of passionate love like mine, a +life of loyal devotion might wrap one man round, and keep him +safe--might in fact, work a miracle--and make one polygamous man +monogamous. But, even while that hope was in my heart, reason rose up +and mocked it, bidding me advance into the Future at my peril. I did +it, but I made a bargain with myself, I agreed to abide the +consequences--and to abide them calmly." + +"And during all those days when I supposed we were so near +together--you showed me nothing of this that was in your heart." + +"Men and women know very rarely anything of the great struggles that +go on in the hearts of one another. Besides, I knew how easily you +would reply--naturally. We are all on the defensive in this life. It +was with things deeper than words that I was dealing--the things one +_does_--not says. Even in the early days of our engagement I knew that +I was not as essential to you as you were to me. Life held other +interests for you. Even the flattery of other women still had its +charm for you. Young as I was, I said to myself: 'If you marry this +man--with your eyes open--blame yourself, not him, if you suffer.' I +do believe that I have been able to do that." + +Shattuck was astride his chair again, his elbows on the back, his chin +in his hands. He no longer responded. Words were dangerous. His lips +were pressed close together, and there was a long deep line between +his eyes. + +"My love for you absorbed every other emotion of my life. But I seemed +to lack some of the qualities that aid to reconcile other wives to +life. I seemed to be without mother-love. My children were dear to me +only because they were yours. The maternal passion, which in so many +women is the absorbing emotion of life, was denied me. My children +were to me merely the tribute to posterity which Life had demanded of +me as the penalty of your love--nothing more. I must be singularly +unfitted for marriage, because, when the hour came in which I felt +that I was no longer your wife, your children seemed no longer mine. +They merely represented the next generation--born of me. I know that +this is very shocking. I have become used to it,--and, it is the +truth. I have not blamed you, I could not--and be reasonable. No man +can be other than Nature plans or permits, but how I have pitied +myself! I have been through the tempest alone. In spite of reason,--in +spite of philosophy--I have suffered from jealousy, from shame, from +rage, from self contempt. But that is all past now." + +She had not raised her voice, which seemed as without feeling as it +was without emphasis. She carefully examined her handkerchief corner +by corner, and he noticed for the first time how thin her hands had +become. + +"Naturally," she went on in that colorless voice, "my first impulse +was to be done with life. But I could not bring myself to that, much +as I desired it. It would have left you such a wretched memory of me. +You could never have pardoned me the scandal--and I felt that I had +at least the right to leave you a decent recollection of me." + +Shattuck's head fell forward on his arms.--The idea of denial or +protest did not occur to him. + +The steady voice went monotonously on. "I could not bear to humble you +in the eyes of others even by forcing you to face a scandal. I could +not bear to humble you in your own eyes by letting you suspect that I +knew the truth. I could not bring myself to disturb the outward +respectability of your life by interrupting its outward calm. To be +absolutely honest--though I had lost you, I could not bring myself to +give you up,--as I felt I must, if I let any one discover--most of all +you--what I knew. So, like a coward, I lived on, becoming gradually +accustomed to the idea that my day was past, but knowing that the +moment I was forced to speak, I would be forced to move on out of your +life. Singularly enough, as I grew calm, I grew to respect this other +woman. I could not blame her for loving you. I ended by admiring her. +I had known her so well--she was such a proud woman! I looked back at +my marriage and saw the affair as it really was. I had not _sold_ +myself to you exactly--I had loved you too much to bargain in that +way; nevertheless, the marriage had been a bargain. In exchange for +your promise to protect and provide for me,--to feed me, clothe me, +share your fortune with me, and give me your name, I had given you +myself,--openly sanctioned by the law, of course--I was too great a +coward to have done it otherwise, in spite of the fact that the law +gives that same permission to almost any one who asks for it." + +"Naomi," he groaned from his covered mouth, "what ghastly philosophy." + +"Isn't that the marriage law? How much better am I after all than the +poor girl in the street, who is forced to it by misery? To be sure, I +believe there is some farcical phrase in the bargain about promising +to love none other,--a bare-faced attempt to outwit Nature,--at which +Nature laughs. Yet this other woman, proud, high-minded, unselfish, +hitherto above reproach, had given herself for love alone--with +everything to lose and nothing to gain. I have come to doubt myself. I +have had my day. For years it was an enviable one. No woman can hope +for more. What right have I to stand in the way of another woman's +happiness? A happiness no one can value better than I, who so long +wore it in security. I bore my children in peace, with the divine +consolation of your devotion about me. What right have I to deny +another woman the same joy?" + +Shattuck sprang to his feet. + +"It's not true!" he gasped. "It's not true!" + +The woman never even raised her eyes. She went on carefully inspecting +the filmy bit of lace in her hands. + +"It _is_ true," she replied. "Never mind how I discovered it. I know +it. That is why she has gone abroad alone. I did not speak until I had +to. I am a coward, but not enough of one to bear the thought of her +alone in a foreign country with mind and emotions clouded. I may be +cowardly enough to wish that I had never found it out,--I am not +coward enough to keep silent any longer." + +A torrent of words rushed to the man's lips, but he was too wise to +make excuses. Yet there were excuses. Any fair-minded judge would have +said so. But he knew better than to think that for one moment they +would be excuses in the mind of this woman. Besides, the first man's +excuse for the first sin has never been viewed with much respect under +the modern civilization. + +He felt her slowly rise to her feet, and when he raised his head to +look at her--not yet fully realizing what had happened to him--all +emotion seemed to have become so foreign to her face, that he felt as +if she were already a stranger to him. + +She took a last look round the room. Her eyes seemed to devour every +detail. + +"I shall find means to give you your freedom at once." + +"You will actually leave me--go away?" + +"Can we two remain together now?" + +"But your children?" + +"Your children, Dick--I have forgotten that I have any. I have had my +life. You have still yours to live." + +She swept by him down the long room, everything in which was so +closely associated with her. Before she reached the door, he was +there--and his back against it. She stopped, but she did not look at +him. If she could have read the truth in his face, it would have told +her that she had never been loved as she was at that moment. All that +she had been in her loyalty, her nobility, was so much a part of this +man's life. What, compared to that, were petty sins, or big ones? He +saw the past as a drowning man sees the panorama of his existence. Yet +he knew that everything he could say would be powerless to move her. + +It was useless to remind her of their happy years together. They could +never be happy again with this between them. It would be equally +useless to tell her that this other woman had known, but too well, +that he would never desert his wife for her. Had he not betrayed her? + +Of what use to tell her how he had repented his folly, that he could +never understand it himself? There were the facts, and Nature, and his +wife's philosophy against him. + +And he had dared be gay the moment the steamer slid into the channel! +Was that only this morning? It seemed to be in the last century. + +She approached, and stretched her hand toward the door. + +He did not move. + +"Don't stop me," she pleaded. "Don't make it any harder than it is. +Let me take with me the consolation of a decent life together--a +decent life decently severed." + +He made one last appeal--he opened his arms wide to her. + +She shrank back with a shudder, crying out that he should spare her +her own contempt--that he should leave her the power to seek +peace--and her voice had such a tone of terror, as she recoiled from +him, that he felt how powerless any protest would be. + +He stepped aside. + +Without looking at him she quickly opened the door and passed out. + + * * * * * + +The Divorcee nervously rolled up her manuscript. + +The usual laugh was not forthcoming. No one dared. Men can't +rough-house that kind of a woman. + +After a moment's silence the Critic spoke up. "You were right to +_read_ that story. It is not the sort of thing that lends itself to +narrating. Of course you might have acted it out, but you were wise +not to." + +"I can't help it--got to say it," said the Journalist: "What a horrid +woman!" + +The Divorcee looked at him in amazement. "How can you say that?" she +exclaimed. "I thought I had made her so reasonable. Just what all +women ought to be, and what none of us are." + +"Thank God for that," said the Journalist. "I'd as lief live in a +world created and run by George Bernard Shaw as in one where women +were like that." + +"Come, come," interrupted the Doctor, who had been eyeing her profile +with a curious half amused expression, all through the reading: "Don't +let us get on that subject to-night. A story is a story. You have +asked, and you have received. None of you seem to really like any +story but your own, and I must confess that among us, we are putting +forth a strange baggage." + +"On the contrary," said the Critic, "I think we are doing pretty well +for a crowd of amateurs." + +"You are not an amateur," laughed the Journalist, "and yours was the +worst yet." + +"I deny it," said the Critic. "Mine had real literary quality, and a +very dramatic climax." + +"Oh, well, if death is dramatic--perhaps. You are the only one up to +date who has killed his heroine." + +"No story is finished until the heroine is dead," said the Journalist. +"This woman,--I'll bet she had another romance." + +"Did she?" asked the Critic of the Divorcee, who was still nervously +rolling her manuscript in both hands. + +"I don't know. How should I? And if I did I shouldn't tell you. It +isn't a true story, of course." And she rose from her chair and walked +away into the moonlight. + +"Do you mean to say," ejaculated the Violinist, who admired her +tremendously, "that she made that up in the imagination she carries +around under that pretty fluffy hair? I'd rather that it were +true--that she had picked it up somewhere." + +As we began to prepare to go in, the Doctor looked down the path to +where the Divorcee was still standing. After a moment's hesitation he +took her lace scarf from the back of her chair, and strolled after +her. The Sculptor shrugged his shoulders with such a droll expression +that we all had to smile. Then we went indoors. + +"Well," said the Doctor, as he joined her--she told me about it +afterwards--"was that the way it happened?" + +"No, no," replied the Divorcee, petulantly. "That is not a bit the way +it happened. That is the way I wish it had happened. Oh, no. I was +brought up to believe in the proprietary rights in marriage, and I did +what I thought became a womanly woman. I asserted my rights, and made +a common or garden row." + +The Doctor laughed, as she stamped her foot at him. + +"Pardon--pardon," said he. "I was only going to say 'Thank God.' You +know I like it best that way." + +"I wish I had not told the old story," she said pettishly. "It serves +me quite right. Now I suppose they've got all sorts of queer notions +in their heads." + +"Nonsense," said the Doctor. "All authors, you know, run the risk of +getting mixed up in their romances--think of Charlotte Bronte." + +"I'm not an author, and I am going to bed,--to repent of my folly," +and she sailed into the house, leaving the Doctor gazing quizzically +after her. Before she was out of hearing, he called to her: "I say, +you haven't changed a bit since '92." + +She heard but she did not answer. + + + + +VII + +THE LAWYER'S STORY + +THE NIGHT BEFORE THE WEDDING + +THE TALE OF A BRIDE-ELECT + + +The next day we all hung about the garden, except the Youngster, who +disappeared on his wheel early in the day, and only came back, hot and +dusty, at tea-time. He waved a hand at us as he ran through the garden +crying: "I'll change, and be with you in a moment," and leapt up the +outside staircase that led to the gallery on which his room opened, +and disappeared. + +I found an opportunity to go up the other staircase a little +later--the Youngster was an old pet of mine, and off and on, I had +mothered him. I tapped at the door. + +"Can't come in!" he cried. + +"Where've you been?" + +"Wait there a minute--and mum--. I'll tell you." + +So I went and sat in the window looking down the road, until he came, +spick and span in white flannels, with his head not yet dried from the +douching he had taken. + +"See here," he whispered, "I know you can keep a secret. Well, I've +been out toward Cambrai--only sixty miles--and I am tuckered. There +was a battle there last night--English driven back. They are only two +days' march away, and oh! the sight on the roads. Don't let's talk of +it." + +In spite of myself, I expect I went white, for he exclaimed: "Darn it, +I suppose I ought not to have told you. But I had to let off to some +one. I don't want to tell the Doctor. In fact, he forbade my going +again." + +"Is it a real German victory?" I asked. + +"If it isn't I don't know what you'd call it, though such of the +English as I saw were in gay enough spirits, and there was not an +atmosphere of defeat. Fact is--I kept out of sight and only got stray +impressions. Go on down now, or they'll guess something. I'm not going +to say a word--yet. Awful sorry now I told you. Force of habit." + +I went down. I had hard work for a few minutes to throw the impression +off. But the garden was lovely, and tea being over, we all busied +ourselves in rifling the flowerbeds to dress the dinner table. If we +were going in two days, where was the good of leaving the flowers to +die alone? I don't suppose that it was strange that the table +conversation was all reminiscent. We talked of the old days: of +ourselves when we were boys and girls together: of old Papanti, and +our first Cotillion, of Class Days, and, I remembered afterward, that +not one of us talked of ourselves except in the days of our youth. + +When the coffee came out, we looked about laughing to see which of the +three of us left was to tell the story. The Lawyer coughed, tapped +himself on his chest, and crossed his long legs. + + * * * * * + +It was a cold December afternoon. + +The air was piercing. + +There had been a slight fall of snow, then a sudden drop in the +thermometer preceded nightfall. + +Miss Moreland, wrapped in her furs, was standing on a street corner, +looking in vain for a cab, and wondering, after all, why she had +ventured out. + +It was somewhat later than she had supposed, and she was just +conventional enough, in spite of her pose to the exact contrary, to +hope that none of her friends would pass. She knew her set well enough +to know that it would cause something almost like a scandal if she +were seen out alone, on foot, on the very eve of her wedding day, when +all well bred brides ought to be invisible--repenting their sins, and +praying for blessings on the future in theory, but in reality, fussing +themselves ill over belated finery. + +She had had for some years a number of poor protegees in the lower end +of the city, which she had been accustomed to visit on work of a +charitable nature begun when she was a school girl. She had found work +enough to do there ever since. + +It was work of which her father, a hard headed man of business, +strongly disapproved, although he was ready enough to give his money. +Jack was of her father's mind. She realized that when she returned +from the three years' trip round the world, on which she was starting +the day after her wedding, she would have other duties, and she knew +it would be harder to oppose Jack,--and more dangerous--than it had +been to oppose her father. + +In this realization there was a touch of self-reproach. She knew, in +her own heart, that she would be glad to do no more work of that sort. +Experience had made her hopeless, and she had none of the spiritual +support that made women like St. Catherine of Sienna. But, if +experience had robbed her of her illusions, she knew, too, that it had +set a seal of pain on all the future for her. She could never forget +the misery she had seen. So it had been a little in a desire to give +one more sop to her conscience, that she had dedicated her last +afternoon to freedom to her friends in the very worst part of the +town. + +If her mother had remained at home, she would never have been allowed to +go. All the more reason for returning in good season, and here it was +dark! Worse still, the trip had been in every way unsuccessful. She had +turned her face homeward, simply asking herself, as she had done so many +times before, if it were "worth while," and answered the question once +more with: "Neither to me nor to them." She had already learned, though +too young for the lesson, that each individual works out his own +salvation,--that neither moral nor physical growth ever works from the +surface inward. Opportunity--she could perhaps give that in the future, +but she was convinced that those who may give of themselves, and really +help in the giving, are elected to the task by something more than the +mere desire to serve. In her case the gift of her youth and her +illusions had done others no real good, and had more or less saddened +her life forever. If she were to really go on with the work, it would +only be by giving up the world--her world,--abandoning her life, with +its luxury, its love, everything she had been bred to, and longed for. +She did not feel a call to do that, so she chose the existence to which +she had been born; the love of a man in her own set,--but the shadow of +too much knowledge sat on her like a shadow of fear. + +She was impatient with herself, the world, living,--and there was no +cab in sight. + +She looked at her watch. Half past four. + +It was foolish not to have driven over, but she had felt it absurd, +always, to go about this kind of work in a private carriage, and +to-day she could not, as she usually did, take a street car for fear +of meeting friends. They thought her queer enough as it was. + +An impatient ejaculation escaped her, and like an echo of it she heard +a child's voice beside her. + +She looked down. + +It was a poor miserable specimen. At first she was not quite sure +whether it were boy or girl. + +Whimpering and mopping its nose with a very dirty hand, the child +begged money for a sick mother--a dying mother--and begged as if not +accustomed to it--all the time with an eye for that dread of New +England beggars, the man in the blue coat and brass buttons. + +Miss Moreland was so consciously irritated with life that she was +unusually gentle. She stooped down. The child did not seem six years +old. The face was not so very cunning. It was not ugly, either. It was +merely the epitome of all that Miss Moreland tried to forget--the +little one born without a chance in the world. + +With a full appreciation of the child's fear of the police,--begging +is a crime in many American towns--she carefully questioned her, +watching for the dreaded officer herself. + +It was the old story--a dying mother--no father--no one to do +anything--a child sent out to cunningly defy the law, but it seemed to +be only for bread. + +Obviously the thing to do was to deliver the child up to the police. +It would be at once properly cared for, and the mother also. + +But Miss Moreland knew too much of official charity to be guilty of +that. + +The easiest thing was to give her money. But, unluckily, she belonged +to a society pledged not to give alms in the streets, and her sense of +the power of a moral obligation was a strong notion of duty, which had +descended to her from her Puritan ancestors. There was one thing left +to do. + +"Do you know Chardon Street?" she asked. + +The child nodded. + +There was a flower shop on the corner. She led the child across to it, +entered, and asked for an envelope. She wrote a few lines on a card, +enclosed it and sealed the envelope. Then she went out to the +side-walk again with the child. Stooping over her she made sure that +the little one really did know the street. "It isn't far from here," +she said. "Give that to any one there, and somebody will go right home +with you to see your mother, to warm you, you poor little mite, and +feed you, and make you quite happy." + +She did not explain, and the child would not have understood, that she +vouched for a special donation for the case as a sort of commemorative +gift. The sum was large--it was a quixotic sort of salve to a sick +conscience which told her that she ought to go herself. + +The child, still sobbing, turned away, and drearily started up the +hill. She did not go far, however. Miss Moreland had her misgivings on +that point. And, just as she was about to draw a breath of relief, +convinced that, after all, she would go, the girl stopped deliberately +in the shadow of a tree, and sat down on the snow-covered curbstone. + +No need to ask what the trouble was. The poor are born with a horror +of organized charity. It obliges them to be looked over in all their +misery; it presumes a worthiness, or its pretence, which they resent +almost as much as they do the intrusion of the visiting committee. +This disinclination is as old as poverty, and is the rock ahead of all +organized charity. Its exemplification was very trying to Miss +Moreland at that moment, and the crouching figure was exasperating. + +She pursued the child. She pulled her rather roughly to her feet. It +was so provoking to have her sit down in the cold, and to so personify +all that she wanted so ardently,--it was purely selfish, she knew +that,--to put out of her mind. There seemed but one thing to do: go +with the child. + +She knew that if she did not, she would not sleep that night, nor +smile the next day--and that seemed so unfair to others. Besides, it +was not yet so very late. + +Bidding the child hurry, she followed her up the hill, and down the +other side to a part of the city with which she was not familiar. + +The child cried quietly all the way. + +Miss Moreland was too vaguely uncomfortable to talk to her, as they +hurried along. + +It was in front of a dark house that they finally stopped, and went up +the stone steps into a hall so dark that she was obliged to take the +child's dirty cold hands in hers to be sure of the way. + +Perhaps it was a foolish distaste for the contact, combined with her +frame of mind, which prevented her from noticing facts far from +trifles, which came back to her afterward. + +She groped her way up the uncarpeted stairs, and followed her still +whimpering guide along what seemed an upper corridor, stumbled on what +she immediately knew was the sill of a door, lurched forward as the +child let go of her hand, and, before she recovered her balance, the +door closed behind her. + +She called to the child. No answer. + +She felt for the door, found it--it was locked. + +She was in perfect darkness. + +A terrible wave of sickness passed over her and left her trembling and +weak. + +All she had ever heard and found it difficult to believe, coursed +through her mind. + +The folly of it all was worse. Fifteen minutes before all had been +well with her--and now--! + +Through all her terror one idea was strong within her. She must keep +her head, she must be calm, she must be alertly ready for whatever +happened. + +The whole thing had seemed so simple. The crying child had been so +plausible! Yet--to enter a strange dark house, in an unknown part of +the city! How absurd it was of her! And that--after noticing--as she +had--that, cold as the halls were and uncarpeted, there was neither +smell of dirt nor humanity in the air! + +While all these thoughts pursued one another through her mind she +stood erect just inside the door. + +She really dared not move. + +Suddenly a fear came to her that she might not be alone. For a moment +that fear dominated all other sensations. She held her breath, in a +wild attempt to hear she knew not what. + +It was deathly still! + +She backed to the door, and began cautiously feeling her way along the +wall. Inch by inch, she crept round the room, startled almost to +fainting at each obstacle she encountered. + +It was a large room with an alcove--a bedroom. There was but little +furniture, one door only, two windows covered with heavy drapery, the +windows bolted down, and evidently shuttered on the outside. + +When she returned to the door, one thing was certain, she was alone. +The only danger she need apprehend must come through that one door. + +Yet she pushed a chair against the wall before she sat down to +wait--for what? Ah, that was the horror of it! Was it robbery? There +was her engagement ring, a few ornaments like her watch, and very +little money! Yet, as she had seen misery, even that might be worth +while. But was this a burglar's method? A ransom? That was too +mediaeval for an American city. If neither, then what? + +She had but one enemy in the world, her Jack's best friend, or at +least, he was his best friend until the days of her engagement. But he +was a gentleman, and these were the days when men did not revenge +themselves on women who frankly rejected the attentions they had never +encouraged. It was weak, she knew it, to even remember the words he +had said to her when she had refused to hear the man she was to marry +slandered by his chum--still she wished now that she had told Jack, +all the same. + +If she could only have a light! There was gas, but no matches. To sit +in the dark, waiting, she knew not what, was maddening. + +Then a new terror came over her. Suppose she should fall asleep from +fatigue and exhaustion, and the effect of the dark? + +It seemed days that she sat there. + +She knew afterward that it was only five hours and a half, but that +five hours and a half were an eternity--three hundred and thirty +minutes, each one of which dragged her down, like a weight, into the +black abyss of the unknown; three hundred and thirty minutes of +listening to the labored beating of her own heart--it was an age, +after all! + +Only once did she lose control of herself. She imagined she heard +voices in the hall--that some one laughed--was there still laughter in +the world? In spite of herself, she rushed to the door, and pounded on +it. This was so useless that she began to cry hysterically. Yet she +knew how foolish that was, and she stumbled back to her chair, sank +into it, and calmed herself. She would not do that again. + +What was her mother thinking? Poor mama! What would Jack say, when, +at eleven o'clock, he ran in from his bachelor's dinner--his +last--which he was giving to a few friends? What would her father say? +He had always prophesied some disaster for her excursions into the +slums. + +Her imagination could easily picture the mad search that would be +made--but who could find a trace of her? + +The blackness, the fear, the dread, were doing their work! She was +numb! She began to feel as if she were suspended in space, as if +everything had dropped away from her, as if in another instant she +would fall--and fall--and fall--. + +Suddenly she heard a laugh in the hall again--this time there was no +mistake about it, for it was followed by several voices. Some one +approached the door. + +A key was inserted and turned in the lock. + +She started to her feet, and steadied herself! + +The door swung open quickly--some one entered. By the dim light in the +hall behind, she saw that it was a man--a gentleman in evening +clothes, with a hat on the back of his head, and a coat over his arm. + +But while her alert senses took that in, the door closed again--the +man had remained inside. + +The thought of making a dash for the door came to her, but it was too +late. + +She heard the scratching of a match--a muttered oath at the darkness +in a thick voice--then a sudden flood of light blinded her. + +She drew her hands quickly across her eyes, and was conscious that the +man had flung his hat and coat on the bed before he turned to face +her. + +In a moment all her fear was gone. + +She stumbled weakly as she ran toward him, crying hysterically, "Jack, +dear Jack, how did you find me? I should have gone mad if you had been +much later! Take me home! Take me home--" + +Had Miss Moreland fainted, as a well-conducted girl of her class ought +to have done, this would have been a very different kind of a story. + +Unluckily, or luckily, according as one views life--in the relief of +his presence, all danger of that fled. Unluckily for him, also, the +appearance of his bride-elect in such an unexpected place was so +appalling to him that his nerve failed him entirely. Instead of +clasping her in his arms as he should have done, he had the decency +to recoil, and cover his face instinctively from her eyes. + +Miss Moreland stopped as if turned to stone. + +She was conscious at first of but one thing--he had not expected to +find her there. He had not come to seek her. Then, for what? + +A sudden flash illumined her ignorance, and behind it she grasped at +the vague accusation her other suitor had tried to make to her +unwilling ears. + +Her outstretched hands fell to her sides. + +He still leaned against the wall, where the shock had flung him. The +exciting fumes of the wine he had drunk too recklessly evaporated, and +only a dim recollection remained in his absolutely sobered brain of +the idiotic wager, the ugly jest, the still more contemptible bravado +that had sent him into this hell. + +He did not attempt to speak. + +When her strained voice said: "Take me home, please," he started and +the fear that had been on her face was now on his. A hundred dangers, +of which she did not dream, stood between that room and a safe exit in +which she should not be seen, and that much of this wretched +business--which he understood now only too well--miscarry. + +He started for the door. "Stay here," he said. "You are perfectly +safe," and he went out, and closed and locked the door behind him. + +For the man who plotted without, and the woman who sat like a stone +within that room, the next half hour were equally horrible. But time +was no longer measured by her! + +She never remembered much more of that evening. She had a vague +recollection that he came back. She had a remembrance that he had +helped her stand--given her a glass of water--and led her down the +uncarpeted stairs out into the street. Then she was conscious that she +walked a little way. Then that she had been helped into a carriage, +and then she had jolted and jolted and jolted over the pavings, always +with his pale face opposite, and she knew that his eyes were full of +pity. Then everything seemed to stop, but it was only the carriage +that had come to a standstill. She was in front of her own door. + +A voice said in her ear, "Can you stand?" And she knew she was on the +steps. She heard the bell ring, but before her mother could catch her +in her arms as she fell, she heard the carriage door bang, and he was +gone forever. + +All that night she lay and tossed and wept and raved, and longed in +her fever to die. + +And all night, he walked the streets marvelling at himself, at Nature, +and at Civilization, between which he had so disastrously fallen, and +wondering to how many men the irremediable had ever happened before. + +And the next morning, early, messengers were flying about with notices +of the bride's illness.--Miss Moreland's wedding was deferred by brain +fever. + +When she recovered, her hair was white, and she had lost all taste for +matrimony, but she had found instead that desire for anything rather +than personal existence, which made her the ardent, self-abnegating +worker for the welfare of the downtrodden that the world knew her. + + * * * * * + +There was a moment of surprised silence. + +Some one coughed. No one laughed. Then the Journalist, always ready +to leap into a breach, gasped: "Horrible!" + +"Getting to be a pet word of yours," said the Lawyer. + +The Violinist tried to save the situation by saying gently: "Well, I +don't know. It is the commonest of all situations in a melodrama. So +why fuss?" + +The Trained Nurse shrugged her shoulders. "I know that story," she +said. + +"You do not," snapped the Lawyer. "You may know _a_ story, but you +never heard that one." + +"All right," she admitted. "I am not going to add footnotes, don't be +alarmed." + +"You don't mean to say that is a true story?" ejaculated the Divorcee. + +"As for me," said the Critic, "I don't believe it." + +"No one asked you to," replied the Lawyer. "It is only another case of +the Doctor's pet theory--that whatever the mind of mortal mind can +conceive, can come to pass." + +"I suppose also that it is a proof of another of his pet theories. +Scratch civilized man, and you find the beast." + +The Doctor was lying back in his chair. He never said a word. Somehow +the story seemed a less suggestive topic of conversation than usual. + +"The weather is going to change," said the Doctor. "There's rain in +the air." + +"Well, anyway," said the Journalist, as we gathered up our belongings +and prepared to shut up for the night, "the Youngster's ghost story +was a good night cap compared to that." + +"Not a bit of it," said the Critic. "There's the foundation of a bully +melodrama in that story, and I'm not sure that it isn't the best one +yet--so full of reserves." + +"No imagination, all the same," answered the Critic. "As realistic in +subject, if not in treatment, as Zola." + +"Now give us some shop jargon," laughed the Lawyer. "You've not really +treated us to a true touch of your methods yet." + +"I only do that," laughed the Critic, "when I'm getting paid for it. +After all, as the Violinist remarked, the situation is a favorite one +in melodrama, from the money-coining 'Two Orphans' down. The only +trouble is, the Lawyer poured his villain and hero into one mould. The +other man ought to have trapped her, and the hero rescued her. But +that is only the difference between reality and art. Life is +inartistic. Art is only choosing the best way. Life never does that." + +"Pig's wrist," said the Doctor, and that settled the question. + + + + +VIII + +THE JOURNALIST'S STORY + +IN A RAILWAY STATION + +THE TALE OF A DANCER + + +On Friday night, just as we were finishing dinner--we had eaten +inside--the Divorcee said: "It may not be in order to make the remark, +but I cannot help saying that it is so strange to think that we are +sitting here so quietly in a country at war, suffering for nothing, +very little inconvenienced, even by the departure of all the men. The +field work seems to be going on just the same. Every one seems calm. +It is all most unexpected and strange to me." + +"I don't see it that way at all," said the Journalist. "I feel as if I +were sitting on a volcano, knowing it was going to erupt, but not +knowing at what moment." + +"That I understand," said the Divorcee, "but that is not exactly what +I mean. I meant that, in spite of _that_ feeling which every one +between here and Paris must have, I see no outward signs of it." + +"They are all about us just the same," remarked the Doctor, "whether +you see them or not. Did it ever happen to you to be walking in some +quiet city street, near midnight, when all the houses were closed, and +only here and there a street lamp gleamed, and here and there a ray of +light filtered through the shuttered window of some silent house, and +to suddenly remember that inside all these dark walls the tragedies of +life were going on, and that, if a sudden wave of a magician's wand +were to wipe away the walls, how horrified, or how amused one would +be?" + +"Well," said the Lawyer, "I have had that idea many times, but it has +come to me more often in some hotel in the mountains of Switzerland. I +remember one night sitting on the terrace at Murren, with the Jungfrau +rising in bridal whiteness above the black sides of the +Schwarze-Monch, and the moon shining so brightly over the slopes, that +I could count any number of isolated little chalets perched on the +ledges, and I never had the feeling so strongly of life going on with +all its joys and griefs and crimes, invisible, but oppressive." + +"I am afraid," said the Doctor, "that there is enough of it going on +right here--if we only knew it. I had an example this afternoon. I was +walking through the village, when an old woman called to me, and asked +if I were the doctor from the old Grange. I said I was, and she begged +me to come in and see her daughter-in-law. She was very ill, and the +local doctor is gone. I found a young, very pretty girl, with a tiny +baby, in as bad a state of hysteria as I ever saw. But that is not the +story. That I heard by degrees. It seems the father-in-law, a veteran +of 1870, now old, and nearly helpless, is of good family, but married, +in his middle age, a woman of the country. They had one son who was +sent away to school, and became a civil engineer. He married, about +two years ago, this pretty girl whom I saw. She is Spanish. He met her +somewhere in Southern Spain, and it was a desperate love match. The +first child was born about six weeks before the war broke out. Of +course the young husband was in the first class mobilized. The young +wife is not French. She doesn't care at all who governs France, so +that her man were left her in peace. I imagine that the old father +suspected this. He had never been happy that his one son married a +foreigner. The instant the young wife realized that her man was +expected to put love of France before love of her, she began to make +every effort to induce him to go out of the country. To make a long +story short, the son went to his mother, whom he adored, made a clean +breast of the situation, and proposed that, to satisfy his wife, he +should start with her for the Spanish frontier, finding means to have +her brother meet them there and take her home to her own people. He +promised to make no effort to cross the frontier himself, and gave his +word of honor to be with his regiment in time. He knew it would not be +easy to do, and, in case of accident, he wished his mother to be able +to explain to the old veteran. But the lad had counted without the +spirit that is dominant in every French woman to-day. The mother +listened. She controlled herself. She did not protest. But that night, +when the young couple were about to leave the house, carrying the +sleeping baby, they found the old man, pistol in hand, with his back +against the door. The words were few. The veteran stated that his son +could only pass over his dead body--that if he insisted, he would +shoot him before he would allow him to pass: that neither wife nor +child should leave France. It was in vain that the wife, on her knees, +pleaded that she was not French--that the war did not concern +her--that her husband was dearer to her than honor--and so forth. The +old man declared that in marrying his son she became French, though +she was a disgrace to the name, that her son was a born Frenchman; +that she might go, and welcome, but that she would go without the +child, and, of course, that ended the argument. The next morning the +baby was christened, but the tale had leaked out. I suppose the +Spanish wife had not kept her ideas absolutely to herself--and the son +joined his regiment. The Spanish wife is still here, but, needless to +say, she is not at all loved by her husband's family, who watch her +like lynxes for fear she will abduct the child, and she has developed +as neat a case of hysterical mania of persecution as I ever +encountered. So you see that even in this quiet place there are +tragedies behind the walls. But I seem to be telling a story out of my +turn!" + +"And a forbidden war story, at that," said the Youngster. "So to +change the air--whose turn is it?" + +The Journalist puffed out his chest. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, +as he rose to his feet, and struck, the traditional attitude of a +monologist, "I regret to inform you that you will be obliged to have a +taste of my histrionic powers. I've got to act out part of this +story--couldn't seem to tell it in any other form." + + * * * * * + +"Dora!" + +A slender young woman turned at the word, so sharply spoken over her +shoulder, and visibly paled. + +She was strikingly attractive, in her modish tailor frock, and her +short tight jacket of Persian lamb, with its high, collar of grey fur +turned up to her ears. + +Her singularly fair skin, her red hair, her brown eyes, with dark +lashes, and narrowly pencilled eyebrows that were almost black, gave +her a remarkable look, and at first sight suggested that Nature had +not done it all. But a closer observation convinced one that the +strange combination of such hair and such eyebrows was only one of +those freaks by which Nature now and then warns the knowing to beware +even of marvellous beauty. In this case it stamped a woman as one +who--by several signs--might be identified by the initiated as one of +those, who, without reason or logic, spring now and again from most +unpromising soil! + +She had walked the entire length of the station from the wide doors on +the street side to the swing doors at the opposite end which gave +entrance to the tracks. + +As she passed, no man had failed to turn and look after her, as, with +her well hung skirts just clearing the wet pavement, she stepped +daintily over the flagging, and so lightly that neither boots nor +skirt were the worse for it. One sees women in Paris who know that +art, but it is rare in an American. + +She must have been long accustomed to attracting masculine eyes, and +no wonder, for when she stepped into the place she seemed to give a +color to the atmosphere, and everything and everybody went grey and +commonplace beside her. + +It was a terrible night in November. + +The snow was falling rapidly outside, and the wind blew as it can blow +only on the New England coast. + +It was the sort of night that makes one forced to be out look forward +lovingly to home, and think pityingly of the unfortunate, while those +within doors involuntarily thank God for comfort, and hug at whatever +remnant of happiness living has left them. + +The railway station was crowded. + +The storm had come up suddenly at the close of a fair day. It was the +hour, too, at which tradespeople, clerks, and laborers were returning +home to the suburbs, and at which the steamboat express for New York +was being made up--although it was not an encouraging night for the +latter trip. + +The pretty young woman with the red hair had looked through the door +near the tracks, and glanced to the right, where the New York express +should be. The gate was still closed. She was much too early! For a +second she hesitated. She glanced about quickly, and the look was not +without apprehension. It was evident that she did not see the man who +was following her, and who seemed to have been waiting for her near +the outer door. He did not speak, nor attract her attention in any +way. The crowd served him in that! + +After a moment's hesitation, she turned toward the ladies' waiting +room, and just as she was about to enter, the man behind addressed +her--and the word was said so low that no one near heard it--though, +by the start she gave, it might have been a pistol shot. + +"Dora!" + +She stood perfectly still. The color died out of her face; but only +for an instant. She looked alarmed, then perplexed, and then she +smiled. She was evidently a young woman of resources. + +The man was a stalwart handsome fellow of his class--though it was +almost impossible to guess what that was save that it was not that +which the world labels by exterior signs "gentleman." He might easily +have been some sort of a mechanic. He was certainly neither a clerk +nor the follower of any of the unskilled professions. He was surely +countrybred, for there was a largeness in his expression as well as +his bearing that spoke distinctly of broad vistas and exercise. He was +tall and broad-shouldered. He stood well on his feet, hampered as +little by his six feet of height and fourteen stone weight as he was +by the size of his hands. One would have easily backed him to ride +well and shoot straight, though he probably never saw the inside of +what is called a "drawing-room." + +There was the fire of a mighty emotion in his deep-set eyes. There +were signs of a tremendous animal force in his square chin and thick +neck, but it was balanced well by his broad brow and wide-set eyes. He +seemed at this moment to hold himself in check with a rigid +stubbornness that answered for his New England origin, and Puritan +ancestry! Indeed, at the moment he addressed the woman, but for his +eyes, he might have seemed as indifferent as any of the stone figures +that upheld the iron girders of the roof above him! + +Still smiling archly she moved forward into the waiting room and, +passing through the dense crowd that hung about the door, crossed the +room to an open space. + +Without a word the man followed. + +The room was dimly lighted. The crowd that surged about them, coming +and going, and sometimes pressing close on every side, seemed not to +note them. And, if they had, they would have seen nothing more +remarkable than an extremely pretty young woman conversing quietly +with a big fellow in a reefer and long boots--a rig he carried well. + +"Dora!" he said again, and then had to pause to steady his voice. + +Dora wet her red lips with the pointed tip of her tiny tongue; +swallowed nervously once or twice, before she spoke. She was now +facing him, and still smiling. + +He kept his eyes fixed on her face. He did not respond to the smile. +His eyes were tragic. He seemed to be seeking something in her face as +if he feared her mere words would not help him. + +"Why, Zeke," she said at last, when she realized that he could not get +beyond her name, "I thought you had gone home an hour ago! Why didn't +you take the 5.15 train?" + +"I changed my mind! To tell you the truth, I heard that you were in +town this afternoon. I have been watching for you--for some time." + +"Well, all I can say is--you are foolish. Where's the good for you +fretting yourself so? I can take care of myself." + +"I can't get used to you being about in the city streets alone." + +"How absurd!" + +"I have been absurd a great many times of late--in your eyes. Our +ideas don't seem to agree any more." + +"No, Zeke, they don't!" + +"Why speak to me in that tone, Dora? Don't do it!" + +He looked over her head, as if to be sure of his hold on himself. He +was ghastly white about his smooth-shaven, thick lips. Both hands were +thrust deep into his reefer pockets. + +"What's come to you, Zeke?" she asked nervously. His was not exactly +the face one would see unmoved! + +He answered her without looking at her. It was evident he did not dare +just yet. "Nothing much, I reckon. I've been a bit down all day. I +really don't know why, myself. I've had a queer presentiment, as if +something were going to happen. As if something terrible were coming +to me." + +"Well, I'm sorry. You've no occasion to feel like that, I'm sure." + +"All right, if you say so. What train shall we take?" + +He stretched out one hand to take the small bag she carried. + +She shrank back instinctively, and withdrew the bag. He must have felt +rather than seen the movement, it was so slight. + +His hand fell to his side. + +Still, he persisted. + +"I'm dead done up, Dora. I need my dinner, come on!" + +"Then you'd better take the 6.00 train. You've just time," she said +hurriedly. + +"All right. Come on!" + +He laid his hand on her shoulder with a gesture that was entreating. +It was the first time he had touched her. A frightened look came into +her eyes. He did not see it, for he was still avoiding her face. It +was as if he were afraid of reading something there he did not wish to +know. + +Her red lips had taken on a petulant expression--that of one who hated +to be "stirred up." In a childish voice--which only thinly veiled an +obstinate determination--she pouted: "I'm not going--yet." + +The words were said almost under her breath, as if she were fearful of +their effect on him, yet was determined to carry her point. + +But the man only sighed deeply as he replied: "I thought your dancing +lessons were over. I hoped I was no longer to spend my evenings alone. +Alone! Looking round at the things that are yours, and among which I +feel so out of place, except when you are there to make me forget. +God! What damnable evenings I've spent there--feeling as if you were +slipping further and further out of my life--as if you were gone, and +I had only the clothes you had worn, an odor about me somewhere to +convince me that I had not dreamed you! Sometimes that faint, +indistinct, evasive scent of you in the room has almost driven me out +of my head. I wonder I haven't killed you before now--to be sure of +you! I'm afraid of Hell, I suppose, or I should have." + +The woman did not look at all alarmed. Indeed there was a light in her +amber eyes that spoke of a kind of gratification in stirring this +young giant like that--this huge fellow that could so easily crush +her--but did not! She knew better why than he did--but she said +nothing. + +With his eyes still fixed on space--after a pause--he went on: "I was +fool enough to believe that that was all over, at last, that you had +danced to your heart's content, and that we were to begin the old +life--the life before that nonsense--over again. You were like my old +Dora all day yesterday! The Dora I loved and courted and married back +there in the woods. But I might have known it wasn't finished by the +ache I had here," and he struck himself a blow over the heart with his +clenched fist, "when I waked this morning, and by the weight I've +carried here all day." And he drew a deep breath like one in pain. + +The woman looked about as if apprehensive that even his passionate +undertone might have attracted attention, but only a man by the +radiator seemed to have noticed, and he had the air of being not quite +sober enough to understand. + +There was a long pause. + +The woman glanced nervously at the clock. + +The man was again staring over her head. + +It was quarter to six. Her precious minutes were flying. She must be +rid of him! + +"See here, Zeke, dear," she said, in desperation, speaking very +rapidly under her breath--no fear but he would hear--"the truth is, +that I'm not a bit better satisfied with our sordid kind of life than +I was a year ago, when we first discussed it. I'm awfully sorry! You +know that. But I can't change--and there is the whole truth! It's not +your fault in one way--and yet in one way it is. God knows you have +done everything you could, and more some ways than you ought. But, +unluckily for you, gratifying me was not the way to mend the situation +for yourself. It is cruel--but it is the truth! If a man wants to keep +a woman of my disposition attached to him, he'd do far better to beat +her than over-educate her, and teach her all the beauties of freedom. +He should keep her ignorant, rather than cultivate her imagination, +and open up the wonders of the world to her. It's rough on chaps like +you, that with all your cleverness you've no instinct to set you right +on a point like this--but it is lucky for women like me--at times! You +were determined to force all this out of me, so you may as well hear +the whole brutal truth. I'm sick of our stupid ways of life--I have +been sick of it for a long time. I've passed all power to pretend any +longer. I have learned that there is a great and beautiful world +within the reach of women who are clever enough and brave enough to +grasp at an opportunity, without looking forward or back. I want to +walk boldly to this. I'm not afraid of the stepping-stones! This is +really all your fault. When you married me, five years ago, I was only +sixteen, and very much in love with you. Now, why didn't you make me +do the housework and drudge as all the other women on the farms about +yours did? I'd have done it then, and willingly, even to the washing +and scrubbing. I had been working in a cotton mill. I didn't know +anything better than to drudge. I thought that was a woman's lot. It +didn't even seem terrible to me. But no--you set yourself to amuse me. +You brought me way up to town on a wedding journey. For the first time +in my life I saw there idle women in the world, who wore soft clothes +and were always dressed up. You bought me finery. I was clever and +imitative. I pined for all the excitement and beauty of city life when +we were back on the farm, in the life you loved. I cried for it, as a +child cries for the moon. I never dreamed of getting it. And you +surprised me by selling the farm, and coming nearer the town to live. +Just because I had an ear for music, and could pick out tunes on the +old melodeon, I must have a piano and take lessons. Just because my +music teacher happened to be French and I showed an aptitude for +studying, that must be gratified. Can you really blame me if I want to +see more of the wide world that opened up to me? Did you really think +French novels and music were likely to make a woman of my lively +imagination content with her lot as wife of a mechanic--however +clever?" + +The man looked down at her as if stunned. Arguments of that sort were +a bit above the reasoning of the simple masculine animal, who seemed +to belong to that race which comprehends little of the complex +emotions, and looks on love as the one inevitable passion of life, and +on marriage as its logical result and everlasting conclusion. + +It was probable at this moment that he completed his alphabet in the +great lesson of life--and spelled out painfully the awful truth, that +not all the royal service of worship and love in a man's heart can +hold a woman. + +There was something akin to a sob in his throat as he replied: "You +were so young--so pretty! I could not bear to think that you should +soil your hands for me! I wanted to make up to you for all the +hardships and sorrows of your childhood. I dreamed of being mother and +father as well as husband to you. I thought it would make you happy to +owe everything to me--as happy as it made me to give. I would +willingly have carried you every step of your life, rather than you +should have tired your feet. Is that a sin in a woman's eyes?" + +A whimsical smile broke over the woman's face. It quivered on her red +lips for just a breath, as if conscious how ill-timed it was. "I +really like to tire my feet," she murmured, and she pointed the toe of +her tiny boot, as if poised to dance, and looked down on it with +evident admiration. + +The man caught his breath sharply. + +"It's that damned dancing that has upset you, Dora!" + +"Sh! Don't swear! I do like dancing! I have always told you so. It was +you who first admired it. It was you who let me learn." + +"You were my wife! I thought that meant everything to you that it +meant to me. I loved your beauty because it was yours; your pleasures +because they gave you pleasure. All my ideas of right and wrong in +marriage which I learned in my father's honest house bent to your +desires and happiness." + +She looked nervously at the clock. Ten minutes to six. + +"Dora--for God's sake look at me! Dora--you're not leaving me?" + +It was an almost inarticulate cry, as of a man who had foreseen his +doom, and only protested from some unconquerable instinct to struggle! + +She patted his clenched hand gently. + +It was plainly evident that she hated the sight of suffering, and +hated more not having her own way, and was possessed by a refined kind +of cowardice. + +"Don't make a row, there's a dear boy! It is like this: I am going +over to New York, just for a few weeks. I would have told you +yesterday, only I hated spoiling a nice day. It was a nice day?--with +a scene. You'll find a nice long letter at home--it's a sweet one, +too--telling you all about it. Don't take it too hard! I am going to +earn fifty dollars a week--just fancy that--and don't blame me too +much!" + +He didn't seem to hear! He hung his head--the veins in his forehead +swelled--there were actually tears in his eyes--and the mighty effort +he made to restrain a sob was terrible--and six feet of American +manhood, as fine a specimen of the animal as the soil can show, +animated by a spirit which represented well the dignity of toil and +self-respect, stood bowed down with ungovernable grief and shame +before a merely ornamental bit of femininity. + +Fate had simply perpetrated another of her ghastly pleasantries! + +The woman was perplexed--naturally! But it was evidently the sight of +her work, and not the work, itself, that pained her. + +"Don't cut up so rough, Zeke, please don't," she went on. "I'm very +fond of you--you know that--but I detest the odor of the shop, and it +is so easy for us both to escape it." + +He shrank as if she had struck him. + +Instinctively he must have remembered the cotton mill from which he +took her. A man rarely understands a woman's faculty for +forgetting--that is to say, no man of his class does. + +"Doesn't it seem a bit selfish of you," she went on, "to object to my +earning nearly three times what you can--and so easily--and prettily?" + +"I wanted you to be happy with what I could give you." + +"Well, I'm sorry, but I'm not. No use to fib about it! It is too late. +Your notions are so queer." + +"I suppose it is queer to love one woman--and to love her so that +laboring for her is happiness! I suppose you do find me a queer chap, +because I am not willing that my wife--flesh of my flesh--should +flaunt herself, half dressed, to excite the admiration of other +men--all for fifty dollars a week!" + +"See here, Zeke, you are making too much of this! If it is the +separation you can't stand--why come, too! I'll soon enough be getting +my hundred a week, and more. That is enough for both of us. You can be +with me, if that is what you mind!" + +"If that is what I mind? You know better than that! Am I such a cur +that you think, if there were no other reason, I'd pose before the +world as the husband of a woman who owes nothing to him--as if I +were--" + +She interrupted him sharply. + +"What odds does it make--tell me that--which of us earns the money? To +have it is the only important thing!" + +The man straightened up--and squared his broad shoulders. A strange +change came over him. + +He laid his heavy hand on her shoulder, and, for the first time, he +spoke with a disregard for self-control, although he did not raise his +voice. + +"Look at me, Dora, and be sure I mean what I say. Leave me to-day, and +don't you ever come back to me. It may kill me to live without you. +Well, better that than--than the other! I married you to live with +you--not merely to have you! I've been a faithful husband to you! I +shall remain that while I live. I never denied you anything I could +get for you! But this I will not put up with! I thought you loved +me--even if you were sometimes vain, and now and then cruel. If you're +ill--if you disappoint yourself, I'll be ready to take care of you--as +I promised. But don't never dare to come back to me otherwise! Unless +you're in want and homeless, unless you can't live, but by the labor +of my hands, I'll never sleep under the same roof with you again. +Never!" + +"What nonsense, Zeke! Of course I'll come back! You won't turn me +away! I only want to see a little of the world, to get a few of the +things you can't give me--no blame to you, either!" + +He did not seem to hear her. + +Almost as if speaking to himself, he went on: "I've feared for some +time you didn't love me. I didn't want to believe it. I was a coward. +I shut my eyes. I took what you gave me--I daren't think of +this--which has come to me! I dared not! God punishes idolatry! He has +punished mine. Be sure you're not making a mistake, Dora! There may be +other men will admire you, my girl--will any of them love you as I do? +There's never a minute I'm not conscious of you, sleeping or waking. +Think again, Dora, before you leave me!" + +"I can't, Zeke. I've signed a contract. I couldn't reconsider if I +wanted to. It's just seven minutes to train time. Kiss me--there's a +dear lad--and don't row me any more!" + +She raised herself on tip toes and approached her red lips to his +face--lips of an intense color to go with the marked pallor of the +rest of the face, and which surely were never offered to him in vain +before--but he was beyond their seduction at last. + +"You've decided?" he said. + +"Of course!" + +"All right! Good-bye, then! You promised to cleave to me through thick +and thin 'till death did us part.' I'll have no halfway business," and +he turned on his heel, and without looking back he pushed his way +through the crowd, which chatted and fussed and never even noted the +passing of a broken heart. + +The pretty creature watched him out of sight. + +There was a humorous pout on her lips. But she seemed so sure of her +man! He would come back, of course--when she called him--if she ever +did! Probably she liked him better at that moment than she had liked +him in two years. He had opposed her. He had defied her power over +him. He had once more become a man to conquer--if she ever had time! + +But just now there was something more important. That train! It was +three minutes to the schedule time. + +As he disappeared into the crowd she drew a breath of relief, and +hurried out of the waiting room and pushed her way to the platform, +along which she hurried to the parlor car, where she seated herself +comfortably, as if no man with a broken life had been set down that +day against her record. + +To be sure, she could not quite rid herself of thoughts of his face, +but the recollection rather flattered her, and did not in the least +prevent her noticing the looks of admiration with which two men on the +opposite side of the car were regarding her. + +Once or twice she glanced out of the window, apparently alternately +expecting and dreading to see her stalwart husband come sprinting down +the platform for the kiss he had refused. + +He didn't come! + +She was relieved as the train started--yet she hated to feel he could +really let her go like that! + +She never guessed at the depth of suffering she had brought him. How +could she appreciate what she could never feel? She never dreamed that +as the train pulled out into the storm he stood at the end of the +station, and watched it slowly round the curve under the bridge and +pass out of sight. No one was near to see him turn aside, and rest his +arms against the brick wall, to bury his face in them, and sob like a +child, utterly oblivious of the storm that beat upon him. + + * * * * * + +And he sat down. + +"Come on," yelled the Youngster, "where's the claque?" And he began to +applaud furiously. + +"Oh, if there is a claque, the rest of us don't need to exert +ourselves," said the Lawyer, indolently. + +"But I say," asked the Youngster, after the Journalist had made his +best bow. "I AM disappointed. Was that all?" + +"My goodness," commented the Doctor, as he lighted a fresh cigar. +"Isn't that enough?" + +"Not for _me_," replied the Youngster. "I want to know about her +_debut_. Was she a success?" + +"Of course," answered the Journalist. "That sort always is." + +"And I want to know," insisted the Youngster, "what became of him?" + +"Why," ejaculated the Sculptor, "of course he cut his big brown +throat!" + +"Not a bit of it," said the Critic. "He probably went up to New York, +and hung round the stage door." + +"Until she called in the police, and had him arrested as a common +nuisance," added the Lawyer. + +"I'll bet my microscope he didn't," laughed the Doctor. + +"And you won't lose your lens," replied the Journalist. "He never did +a blooming thing--that is, he didn't if he existed." + +"Oh, my eyes," said the Youngster. "I am disappointed again. I thought +that was a simon-pure newspaper yarn--one of your reporter's +dodges--real journalese!" + +"She is true enough," answered the Journalist, "and her feet are true, +and so is her red hair, and, unless she is a liar, and most actresses +are, so is he and her origin, but as for the way she cut him +out--well, I had to make that up. It is better than any of the six +tales she told as many interviewers, in strict secrecy, in the days +when she was collecting hearts and jewels and midnight suppers in New +York." + +"Is she still there?" asked the Youngster, "because if she is, I'll go +back and take a look at Dora myself--after the war!" + +"Well, Youngster," laughed the Journalist, "it will have to be 'after +the war,' as you will probably have to go to Berlin to find her." + +"That's all right!" retorted the Youngster. "I _am_ going--with the +Allied armies." + +We all jumped up. + +"No!" cried the Divorcee. "No!!" + +"But I am. Where's the good of keeping it secret? I enlisted the day I +went to Paris the first time--so did the Doctor, so did the Critic, +and so did _he_, the innocent looking old blackguard," and he seized +the Journalist by both shoulders and shook him well. "He thought we +wouldn't find it out." + +"Oh, well," said the Journalist, "when one has seen three wars, one +may as well see one more.--This will surely be my last." + +"Anyway," cried the Youngster, "we'll see it all round--the Doctor in +the Field Ambulance, me in the air, the Critic is going to lug +litters, and as for the Journalist--well, I'll bet it's secret service +for him! Oh, I know you are not going to tell, but I saw you coming +out of the English Embassy, and I'll bet my machine you've a ticket +for London, and a letter to the Chief in your pocket." + +"Bet away," said the Critic. + +"What'd I tell you--what'd I tell you? He speaks every God-blessed +language going, and if it wasn't that, he'd tell fast enough." + +"Never mind," said the Trained Nurse, "so that he goes somewhere--with +the rest of us." + +"You--YOU?" exclaimed the Divorcee. + +"Why not? I was trained for this sort of thing. This is my chance." + +"And the rest of us?" + +The Doctor intervened. "See here, this is forty-eight hours or more +earlier than I meant this matter to come up. I might have known the +Youngster could not hold his tongue." + +"I've been bursting for three days." + +"Well, you've burst now, and I hope you are content. There is nothing +to worry about, yet. We fellows are leaving September 1st. The roads +are all clear, and it was my idea that we should all start for Paris +together early next Tuesday morning. I don't know what the rest of you +want to do, but I advise _you_," turning to the Divorcee, "to go back +to the States. You would not be a bit of good here. You may be there." + +"You are quite right," she replied sadly. "I'd be worse than no good. +I'd need 'first aid,' at the first shot." + +"I'm going with her," said the Sculptor. "I'd be more useless than she +would." And he turned a questioning look at the Lawyer. + +"I must go back. I've business to attend to. Anyway, I'd be an +encumbrance here. I may be useful there. Who knows?" + +As for me, every one knew what I proposed to do, and that left every +one accounted for except the Violinist. He had been in his favorite +attitude by the tree, just as he had been on that evening when it had +been proposed to "tell stories," gazing first at one and then at +another, as the hurried conversation went on. + +"Well," he said, finding all eyes turned on him, "I am going to London +with the Journalist--if he is really going." + +"All right, I am," was the reply. + +"And from London I shall get to St. Petersburg. I have a dream that +out of all this something may happen to Poland. If it does, I propose +to be there. I'll be no good at holding a gun--I could never fire one. +But if, by some miracle, there comes out of this any chance for the +'Fair Land of Poland' to crawl out, or be dragged out, from under the +feet of the invader--well, I'll go _home_--and--and--" + +He hesitated. + +"And grow up with the country," shouted the Youngster. "Bully for +you." + +"I may only go back to fiddle over the ruins. But who knows? At all +events, I'll go back and carry with me all that your country had done +for three generations of my family. They'll need it." + +"Well," said the Doctor, "that is all settled. Enough for to-night. +We'll still have one or two, and it may be three days left together. +Let us make the most of them. They will never come again." + +"And to think what a lovely summer we had planned," sighed the +Divorcee. + +"Tush!" ejaculated the Doctor. "We had a lovely time all last year. As +for this summer, I imagine that it has been far finer than what we +planned. Anyway, let us be thankful that it was _this_ summer that we +all found one another again." + +"Better go to bed," cried the Critic; "the Doctor is getting +sentimental--a bad sign in an army surgeon." + +"I don't know," remarked the Trained Nurse; "I've seen those that were +more sentimental than the Journalist, and none the worse for it." + + + + +IX + +THE VIOLINIST'S STORY + +THE SOUL OF THE SONG + +THE TALE OF A FIANCEE + + +On Saturday most of the men made a run into Paris. + +It had finally been decided as best that, if all went well, we should +leave for Paris some time the next day. There were steamer tickets to +attend to. There were certain valuables to be taken up to the Bank. +The Divorcee had a trunk or two that she thought she ought to send in +order that we might start with as little luggage as possible, so both +chauffeurs were sent up to town with baggage, and orders to wait +there. The rest of us had been busy doing a little in the way of +dismantling the house. The unexpected end of our summer had come. It +was sad, but I imagine none of us were sorry, under the circumstances, +to move on. + +It was nearly dinner time when the cars came back, almost together, +and we were surprised to see the Doctor going out to the servants' +quarters instead of joining us as he usually did. In fact, we did not +see him until we went into the dining room for dinner. + +As he came to the head of the table, he said: "My good people, we will +serve ourselves as best we can with the cook's aid. We have no +waitress to-night. But it is our last dinner. A camp under marching +orders cannot fuss over trifles." + +"Where is Angele?" asked the Divorcee. "Is she ill?" And she turned to +the door. + +"Come back!" said the Doctor, sharply. "You can't help her now. Better +leave her alone!" + +As if by instinct, we all knew what had happened. + +"Who brought the news?" some one asked. + +"They gave it to me at the _Mairie_ as I passed," replied the Doctor, +"and the _garde champetre_ told me what the envelope contained. He +fell at Charleroi." + +"Poor Angele," exclaimed the Trained Nurse. "Are you sure I could not +help her?" + +"Sure," said the Doctor. "She took it as a Frenchwoman should. She +snatched the baby from its cradle, and held it a moment close to her +face. Then she lifted it above her head in both hands, and said, +almost without a choke in her throat, _'Vive la France, quand +meme!_'--and dropped. I put them on the bed together, she and the boy. +She was crying like a good one when I left her. She's all right." + +"Poor child--and that tiny baby!" exclaimed the Divorcee, wiping her +eyes. + +"Fudge," said the Doctor. "She is the widow of a hero, and the mother +of the hero's son. Considering what life is, that is to be one of the +elect of Fate. She'll go through life with a halo round her head, and, +like most of the French women I have seen, she'll wear it like a +crown. It becomes us, in the same spirit, to partake of the food +before us. This life is a wonderful spectacle. If you saw an episode +like that in a drama, at the theatre, you would all cheer like mad." + +We knew he was right. + +But the Youngster could not help adding, "That's twice--two days +running, that the Doctor has told a story out of his turn, and both +times he outraged the consign, for both times it was a war story." + +That seemed to break the ice. We talked more or less war during +dinner, but this time there were no disputes. Still I think we were +glad when the cook trotted in with the trays, and with our elbows on +the table, we turned toward the Violinist, who leaned against the high +back of his chair, and with his long white hands resting on the carved +arms, and his eyes on the ceiling--an attitude that he did not change +during the narrative, began: + + * * * * * + +It was in the early eighties that I returned from Germany to my native +land, and settled myself and my violin in the city of my birth. + +I was not rich as my countrymen judge wealth, but, in my own +estimation, I was well to do. I had enough to live without labor, and +was, therefore, able to devote myself to my art without considering +too closely the recompense. + +In addition to that, I was still young. + +I had more love for my chosen mistress--Music--than the Goddess had +for me, for, while she accepted my worship with indulgence, she wasted +fewer gifts on me than fell to the lot of many a less faithful +follower. + +Still, I was happy and content in my love for her, and only needed her +to keep me so until, a year after my return, I met one woman, loved +her, and begged her to share with my music, my heart, and its +adoration. + +That satisfied her, since, in her own love for the same art, she used +to assure me that she possessed, by proxy, that other half of myself +which I still dedicated to the Muse. + +Perhaps it was the vibrant spirit of this woman which seemed musical +to me, and which I so ardently loved, for she appeared to have a +veritable violin soul. Her face was often the medium through which I +saw the spirit of the music I was playing, as it sang in gladness, +sobbed in sadness, thrilled in passion along the strings of my Amati. + +I knew that I never played so well as when her face was before me. I +felt that if ever I approached my dreams in achievement, it would be +her soul that inspired me. So like was she, in my fancy, to a musical +instrument, that I used to tell her, when the wind swept across her +burnished hair, that the air was full of melody. And when she looked +especially ethereal--as she did at times--I would catch her in my +arms, and bid her tell me, on peril of her life, what song was hidden +in her heart, that I might teach it to my violin, and die great. Yet, +remarkable as it seems to me still, the Spirit of Music that surely +dwelt within her, dwelt there a dumb prisoner. It had no audible +voice, though I was not alone in feeling its presence in her eyes, on +her lips, in her spiritual charm. + +She had a voice that was melody itself, yet she never sang. I always +fancied her hands were a musician's hands, yet she never played. This +was the more singular as her mother had been a great singer, and her +father, while he had never risen above the desk of _chef d'orchestre_ +in a local playhouse, was no mean musician. + +Often, when the charm of her spirit was on me, I would pretend to +weave a spell about her, and conjure the spirit that was imprisoned in +the heart that was mine, to come forth from the shrine he was so +impudently usurping. + +Ah, those were the days of my youth! + +We had been betrothed but a brief time when Rodriguez, for some +seasons a European celebrity, made his first appearance in our city. + +I had heard most of the great violinists of that time, had known some +of them well, had played with many of them, as I did later with +Rodriguez, but I had never chanced to see or hear him. + +His fame had, however, preceded him. The newspapers were full of him. +Faster even than the tales of his genius had travelled the tales of +his follies--tales that out-Don-Juaned the famous rake of tradition. + +However little credence one gives to such reports--mad stories of a +scandalous nature--these repeated episodes of excesses, only tolerated +in the conspicuous, do color one's expectations. I suppose that, being +young, I expected to see a man whose face would bear the brand of his +errors as well as the stamp of his genius. + +That was not Rodriguez's fate. Whatever the temperamental struggle had +been, he was "take him for all in all," the least disappointing famous +man that my experience had ever shown me. He was more virile than +handsome, and no more aesthetic to look at than he was ascetic. At +that time he was on the sunny side of forty, and not yet at the zenith +of his great career. His face was fine, manly, and sympathetic. His +brow was broad, his eyes deep-set and widely spaced, but very heavy +lidded. The mouth and chin were, I must own, too delicate and +sensitive for the rest of the face. His dark hair, young as he was, +had streaks of grey. In bearing he was so erect, so sufficient, that +he seemed taller than he was. If he had the vanity which so often goes +with his kind of temperament, it was most cleverly concealed. Safe in +the dignified consciousness of his unquestioned gifts, secure in his +achievements, he had a winning gentleness, and an engaging manner +difficult to resist. + +But for a singular magnetic light in his eyes, which belied the calm +of his bearing, when he chanced to raise the heavy lids full on +one--they usually drooped a little--but for a sensitive quiver along +the too full lips, as if they still trembled from the caress of +genius--the royal accolade of greatness--he might have looked to me, +as he did to many, more the diplomat than the artist. + +It would be useless for me to analyse his command of his instrument. +I could not. It would be superfluous for me to recount his triumphs. +They are too recent to have been forgotten. Both tasks have, moreover, +been done better than I could do either. + +This I can do, however, bear witness to the glowing wings of hope, of +longing, of aspiration which his singing violin lent to hearts +oppressed by commonplace every-day cares, to the moments of courage, +of re-awakened endeavor which he inspired in his fellowmen, to the +marvellous magnetism of his playing which seemed for the moment to +restore to a soul-weary world its illusions, and to strike off the +fetters of despondency which bind mortality to earth. + +It was not alone the musically intelligent who felt this, for his +playing had a universal appeal. Thorough musicians marvelled at and +envied him his mastery of the details of his art, but it seemed to me +that those who knew least of its technique were equally open to his +influence. + +I don't presume to explain this. I merely record it. There were those +who analysed the fact, and explained it on the ground of animal +magnetism. For myself, I only know that, as the magic music which +Hunold Singref played in the streets of Hamelin, whispered in the ears +of little children words of promise, of happiness, of comfort that +none others could hear, so, to the emotional heart, Rodriguez's violin +spoke a special message. + +The man who sets the faces of the throng upward, and lights their eyes +with the magic fire of hope, has surely not lived in vain, whatever +personal offerings he may have made on the altar of his genius to keep +alive the eternal spark. It cannot be denied that Art has fulfilled +some part of its mission on earth, if, but for one hour, thousands, +marshalled by its music, as the children of Israel by the pillar of +flame, have looked above the dull atmosphere where pain and loss and +sorrow are, to feel in themselves that divine longing which is +ecstasy, that soaring of the spirit which, in casting off fear and +rising above doubt, can cry out in joy, "Oh, blessed spark of +Hope--this soul which can so rise above sorrow, so mount above the +body, must be immortal. This which can so cast off care cannot die!" + +All the great acts of life, and all the great arts, are purely +emotional. I know that modern cults deny this, and work to see +everything gauged by reason. But thus far musicians and painters, +preachers and orators all approach their goal by the road to the +emotions--if they hope to win the big world. Patriotism, +fidelity--love of country, like love of woman--are emotions, and it +would puzzle logicians, I am afraid, to be sure that these emotions, +at times sublime, might not be as sensual as some of Rodriguez's +critics found his music. + + * * * * * + +The series of concerts he gave was very exhausting to me, owing to the +novelty of some of his programs, and the constant rehearsals. The +final concert found me quite worn out. + +During the latter part of the evening I had been too weary to even +raise my eyes to the balcony in front of me, where, from my position +among the first violins, I could see the fair face of my beloved. + +The evening had been a great triumph, and when it was all over the +audience was quite mad with enthusiasm. It was one of Rodriguez's +inviolable rules to play a program exactly as announced, and never to +add to it. In the month he had been in town, the public had learned +how impossible it was to tempt him away from his rule. But Americans +are persistent! + +Again and again he had mounted the steps to the platform, and calmly +bowed his thanks, while long drawn cheers surged through the noise of +hand-clapping, as strains on the brass buoy up the melody. I lost +count of the number of times he had ascended and descended the little +flight of steps which led, behind a screen, from the artist's room to +the stage, when, having turned in my seat to watch him, as he came up +and bowed, and walked off again, I saw him, as he stood behind the +screen, gazing directly over our heads, suddenly raise his violin to +his ear and slowly draw the bow across the strings. + +Almost before we could realize what had happened, he crossed the +stage, stepped to his stand, and drew his bow downward. + +The applause died sharply on the crest of a crescendo, and left the +air trembling. There was a sudden hush. A few sank back in their +seats, but most of them remained standing where they were, just as we +behind him were suddenly fixed in our positions. + +I have since heard a deal of argument as to the use and power of +music as the voice of thought. I was not then--and I am not now--of +that school which holds music to be a medium to transmit anything but +musical ideas. So, of the effect of Rodriguez's music on my mind, or +the possibility that, for some occult reason, I was for the moment _en +rapport_ with him, as after events forced me to believe, I shall enter +into no discussion. I am merely going to record, to the best of my +ability, my thoughts, as I remember them. I no more presume to explain +why they came to me, than I do to analyse my trust in immortality. + +As he drew his bow downward, as the first chord filled my ears, +everything else faded away. + +There was the merest prelude, and then the theme, which appeared, +disappeared and re-appeared again and again to be woven about every +emotion, at once developed and dominated me. + +I seemed at first to hear its melody in the fresh morning air, where +it soared upward above the gentle breezes, mingling in harmony with +the matins of the birds and the softly rustling trees. Hopeful as +youth, careless as the wind, it sang in gladness and in trust. Then I +heard the same melody throb under the noonday glow of summer. Its tone +was broadened and sweetened, but still brave and pure, when all else +in Nature, save its clear voice, seemed sensuous. I saw gardens in a +riot of color; felt love at its passionate consummation, ere the light +seemed to fade slowly toward the sunset hour. The world was still +pulsing with color, but the grey of twilight was slowly enwrapping it. +Then the simple melody soared above the day's peacefullest hour, firm +in promise on the hushed air. In the mystery of night which followed, +when black clouds snuffed out the torches of heaven, when the silence +had something of terror even for the brave, that same steadfast loving +hopeful theme moved on, consoling as trust in immortality. Through +youth to maturity, and on to age, it sang with the same reiterant, +subduing, infallible loyalty--the crystallized melody of all that is +spiritual in love, in adoration, in passion. + +As it died away into the distance, as if its spirit, barely audible, +were translated to the far off heavenly host, I strained my hearing to +catch that "last fine sound" that passed so gently one "could not be +quite sure where it and silence met," and for the first and last time +in my life I had known all that a violin can do. + +For a moment the hush was wonderful. + +Rodriguez stood like a statue. His bow still touched the strings. Yet +there was no sound that one could hear, though his own fine head was +still bent, as though he, too, listened. + +He gently dropped his bow--he smiled--we all came back to earth +together. + +Then such a scene followed as beggars description. + +But he passed hurriedly out of sight, and no amount of tumult could +induce him to even show himself again. + +Slowly, reluctantly, the audience dispersed, still murmuring. The +musicians picked up their traps, and wildly or soberly according to +their temperaments, began to dispute. It was everywhere the same +topic--the unknown work that Rodriguez had so marvellously played. + +As for me--as he played, I seemed to be in the very heart of the +melody, singing it too, as his violin sang it. As the song soared +upward, my heart was filled with longing, with pain, with joy, with +regret. As it gradually died into silence a mist seemed to pass from +before my eyes, and I became suddenly conscious of the sweet face of +my beloved, growing more and more distinct, until, as the last note +died away, I was fully conscious that the music had passed between us, +like a cloud, to obscure my sight utterly, and to recede as slowly, +leaving her face before me. + +I knew afterward, that, to all appearances, I had been gazing directly +into her face all the time. + +Through it all I had a vague sense that what he played was not new to +me. It seemed like something I had long known and tried to say, but +could not. + +In a daze, I left the stage. Silently I put my violin in its case, +pulled on my great coat, and turned up the collar about my face. I was +sure I was haggard, and I did not wish her to remark it. I knew that I +should find her waiting in the corridor with her father. + +Just as I passed out of the artists' room, I was surprised to see +Rodriguez standing there in conversation with her, and her father. He +was, however, just leaving them, and did not see me. + +I knew that her father had known him in Vienna, when the now great +violinist was a mere lad, and I had heard that he forgot no one, so +the sight gave me a merely momentary surprise. + +As I joined her, and we stepped out into the night together, I could +not help wondering if Rodriguez had noticed her sensitive violin face, +as I tried to get a look into her eyes. I remembered afterward that, +so wrapped was I in my own emotions, and so sure was I of her +sympathy, that I neither noted nor asked how the music had affected +her. + +It was bitterly cold. We walked briskly, and parted at the door. + +As I look back, I realize how much an egoist an emotional man can be, +and in good faith be unconscious of it. + +The day after the concert was Saturday--a day on which I rarely saw +her, as it was my habit to spend all Sunday with her. I was always +somewhat an epicure in my moral nature. I liked to pet my +inclinations, as I have seen good livers whet their appetites, by +self-denial. + +All day I was restless and depressed. + +At the piano, with my violin in my hand, it was still that same +haunting melody that bewitched my fingers. Whatever I essayed led me, +unconsciously, back to the same theme; and whenever that _motif_ fell +from my fingers her face appeared before my eyes so distinctly that I +would have to dash my hand across them to wipe away the impression +that it was the real face that was before me. Afterward, when I was +calmer, I knew that this was nothing singular since, whether I had +ever reflected on the fact or not, she was rarely from my mind. + +As I played that melody over and over again, it puzzled me more and +more. I could find nowhere within my memory anything that even +reminded me of it. Yet I was vaguely familiar with it. + +When evening came on I was more restless than ever. By nine o'clock I +found it impossible to bear longer with my own company, and I started +out. I had no destination. Something impelled me toward the Opera +House, though I cared little for opera as a rule, that is, opera as we +have it in America--fashionable and Philistine. + +I entered the auditorium--the opera was "Faust"--just in season to +hear the last half of the third act. + +As the sensuous passionate music swelled in the sultry air of the dark +garden at Nuremburg, I listened, moved by it as I always am--when I +cannot see the over-dressed, lady-like Marguerite that goes a-starring +in America. My eyes wandered restlessly over the audience. Suddenly +there was a rushing, like the surging of waters, in my ears, which +drowned the music, and I saw Rodriguez sitting carelessly in the front +of a stage box. His eyes were fixed on me, and I thought there was an +expression of relief in them. + +Shocked that the unexpected sight of the man should have such an +effect on me, I pulled myself together with an effort. The sound of +the waters receded, the music rushed back, leaving me amazed at a +condition in myself which should have rendered me so susceptible, in +some subconscious way, to the undoubted magnetism of the man whose +violin had so affected me the night before, and so haunted me all day, +and in regard to whose composition I had an ill-defined, but +insistent, theory which would intrude into my mind. + +In vain I turned my eyes to the stage. I could not forget his +presence. Every few minutes my glance, as if drawn by a magnet, would +turn in his direction, and as often as that happened, whether he were +leaning back to speak to some one hidden by the curtain, or watching +the house, or listening intently to the music, I never failed to find +that his eyes met mine. + +I sat through the next act in this condition. Then I could stand it no +longer. I felt that I might end by making myself objectionable, and +that, after all, it was far wiser to be safe at home, than sitting in +the theatre where I occupied myself in staring at but one person. + +I made my way slowly up the aisle and into the foyer, and had nearly +reached the outer lobby, when I suddenly felt sure that he was near. + +I looked up! + +Yes, there he was, and he was looking me directly in the face again. +An odd smile came into his eyes. He nodded to me as he approached, +and, with a quaint shake of the head, said: "I just made a wager with +myself. I bet that if I encountered you in the lobby, without actually +seeking you, and you saw me, I'd speak to you--and ask a favor of you. +I am going to win that wager." + +He did not seem to expect me to answer him. He simply turned beside +me, thrust his arm carelessly through mine, and moved with me toward +the exit. + +"Let us step outside a moment," he said. It was easy to understand +why. The hero of the night before could not hope to pass unnoted. + +He stepped into the street. + +It was a moonlit night. I remember that distinctly. + +He lighted his cigarette, and held his case toward me. I shook my +head. I had no desire to smoke. + +We walked a few steps together in silence before he said: "I am trying +to frame a most unusual request so that it may not seem too fantastic +to you. It is more difficult than writing a fugue. The truth is--I +have gotten myself into a bit of a fix--and I want to guard against +its turning into something worse than that. I need some man's +assistance to extricate myself." + +I probably looked alarmed. Those forebears of mine will intrude when I +am taken by surprise. He saw it, and said, quickly: "It is nothing +that a man, willing to be of service to me, need balk at; nothing, in +fact, that a chivalrous man would not be glad to do. You may not +think very well of me afterward, but be sure you will never regret the +act. I was in sore need of a friend. There was none at hand--if such +as I ever have friends. Suddenly I saw you. I remembered your violin +as I heard it behind me last night--an Amati, I fancy?" + +I nodded assent. + +"A beautiful instrument. I may some day ask you to let me try it--you +and I can never be quite strangers after to-night." + +He paused, pounded the side-walk with his stick, impatiently, as if +the long preamble made him as nervous as it did me. Then, looking me +in the face, he said rapidly: "This is it. When I leave the box, after +the next act, do you follow me. Stay by me, no matter what happens. +Stick to me, even though I ask you to leave me, so long as there is +any one with me. Do more--stay by me, until, in your room or mine, you +and I sit down together, and--well, I will explain what must, until +then, seem either mad or ridiculous. Is that clear?" + +I assured him that it was. + +"Agreed then," he said. + +By this time we were back at the door. The whole thing had not taken +five minutes. We re-entered the theatre, and walked hurriedly through +the lobby to the foyer. As we were about to separate, he laid a hand +on either of my shoulders, and with a whimsical smile, said: "I'll +dare swear I shall try to give you the slip."--The smile died on his +lips. It never reached his eyes. "Don't let me do it. After the next +act, then," and, with a wave of his hand, he disappeared. + +I thought I was ridiculous enough when he had gone, and I realized +that I had promised to follow this man, I did not know where, I did +not know with whom, I did not know why. + +It was useless for me to go back into the auditorium. I could not +listen to the music. In spite of myself, I kept approaching the +entrance opposite the box, and peering through the glass, like a +detective. I knew I was afraid that he would keep his word and try to +give me the slip. I never asked myself what difference it would make +to me if he did. I simply took up the strange unexplained task he had +given me as if to me it were a matter of life or death. + +Even before the curtain fell, I had hurried round the house and +placed myself with my back to the door, so that I could not miss him +as he passed, and yet had no appearance of watching him. It was well +that I did, for in an instant the door opened. He came out and passed +me quickly, followed by a tall slender woman in a straight wrap that +fell from her head to the ground, and the domino-like hood which +completely concealed her face. + +As he drew her hand through his arm, he looked back at me, over his +shoulder. His eyes met mine. They seemed to say, "Is it you, old +True-penny?" But he merely bent his head courteously and with his lips +said, "Come!" I felt sure that he shrugged his shoulders resignedly, +as he saw that I kept my word, and followed. + +At the door he found his carriage. He assisted his companion in. Then +in the gentlest manner he said in my ear, as he stood aside for me to +enter, "In with you. My honor is saved, but repentance dogs its +heels." + +To the lady he said, "This is the friend whom you were kind enough to +permit me to ask for supper." + +She made no reply. + +I uncovered my head to salute her, murmuring some vague phrase of +thanks, which was, I am sure, inaudible. Then Rodriguez followed, and +took his place beside me on the front seat. + +As the door banged I could have sworn that the lady, whose face was +concealed behind the falling lace of her hood, as if by a mask, spoke. + +He thought so, too, for he leaned forward as if to catch the words. +Evidently we were mistaken, for he received no response. He murmured +an oath against the pavements and the noise, and turned a smiling face +to me--and I? Why, I smiled back! + +As we rattled over the pavings, through the lighted streets, no one +spoke. The lady leaned back in her corner. Opposite her Rodriguez +hummed "Salve! dimora" and I beside him, sat strangely confused and +inert, still as if in a dream. + +I had not even noted the direction we were taking, until I found that +we had stopped in front of a French restaurant, one of the few +Bohemian resorts the town boasted. + +Rodriguez leaped out, assisted the lady, and I followed. + +Just as we reached the top of the stairs, as I was about to follow +them into one of the small supper rooms, like a flash, as if I were +suddenly waking from a dream into conscious, with exactly the same +sensation I have experienced many and many a morning when struggling +back to life from sleep, I realized that the slender figure before me +was as familiar as my own hand. + +As the door closed behind us, I called her by name--and my voice +startled even myself. + +She threw back the hood of her cape and faced me. + +Rodriguez had heard, too. He wheeled quickly toward us, as nearly +broken from his self-control as a man so sure of himself could be. + +Under the flash of our eyes the color surged up painfully in her pale +face. There was much the same expression in our eyes, I +fancy,--Rodriguez's and mine--but I felt that it was at his face she +gazed. + +I have never known how far it is given to woman to penetrate the +mysteries of human nature, for she is gifted, it seems to me, with a +dissimulation in which she wraps herself, as with an impenetrable veil +of outward innocence, and ignorance, from our less acute perception +and ruder knowledge. + +There were speeches enough that it would have become a man in my +position to make. I knew them all. But--I said nothing. Some instinct +saved me; some vague fore-knowledge made me feel--I knew not why--that +there was really nothing for me to say at that moment. + +For fully a minute none of us moved. + +Rodriguez recovered himself first. I cannot describe the peculiar +expression of his eyes as he slowly turned them from her face to mine. +So bound up was he in himself that I was confident that he did not yet +suspect more than that she and I had met before. What was in her mind +I dared not guess. + +He composedly crossed to her. He gently unfastened her heavy wrap, +carefully lifted it from her shoulders. He pushed a high backed chair +toward her, and, with a smile, forced her to sit--she did look +dangerously white. She sank into it, and wearily leaned her pretty +head back, as if for support, and I noticed that her slender hands, as +they grasped either arm of the chair, trembled, in spite of the grip +she took to steady herself. I felt her whole body vibrate, as a +violin vibrates for a moment after the bow leaves the strings. + +"It is a strange chance that you two should know each other," he said, +"and very well, too, if I may judge from your manner of addressing +her?" + +I moved to a place behind her chair, and laid my hand on it. "This +lady is my affianced wife," I replied. + +He did not change color. For an instant not a muscle moved. He did not +stir a step from his place before the fire, where he stood, with his +gaze fixed on her face. For one instant he turned his widely opened +eyes on me--brief as the glance was, I felt it was critical. Then his +lids quivered and drooped completely over his eyes, absolutely veiling +the whole man, and, to my amazement, he laughed aloud. + +But even as he did so, he spread his hands quickly toward us as if to +apologize, and ghastly as the comment was, grotesque even, as it all +seemed, I think we both understood. He hardly needed to say, "Pardon +me," as he quickly recovered his strong hold on himself. + +The next instant he was again standing erect before the fire, with his +hands thrust deep into his pockets, and his voice was absolutely calm +as he turned toward me and said, with a smile under his half lowered +heavy lids, "I promised you, when I asked you to accompany me, that +before we slept to-night I would explain my singular request. I hardly +thought that I should have to do it, whether I would or not, under +these circumstances. Indeed, it appears that you have the right to +demand of me the explanation I so flippantly offered you an hour ago. +I am bound to own that, had I dreamed that you knew this lady--that a +relation so intimate existed between you--I should surely never have +done of my own will this which Fate has presumed to do for me. What +can I say to you two that will help or mend this--to you, my fellow +musician, who were willing to stand my friend in need, without +question; and to the woman you love, and to whom I owe an eternal +debt--that we may have no doubts of one another in the future? I +cannot make excuses well, even if I have the right to. I only hope we +are all three so constituted that we may be able to feel that for a +little we have been outside common causes and common results, and that +you may listen to an explanation which may seem strange, pardon me, +and part from me without resentment, being sure that I shall suffer, +and yet be glad." + +The face against the high-backed chair was very pale. She closed her +eyes. His gaze was on her. He marked the change, I was sure. He thrust +his hands still deeper into his pockets, as if to brace himself, and +went on. "Last night her pure eyes looked into mine. I had seen her +face before me night after night, never dreaming who she was. I had +always played to her, and it had seemed to me at times as if the music +I made was in her face. I could see nothing else. I seemed to be +looking through her amber eyes, down, down into her deep beautiful +soul, and my soul reached out toward her, with a sudden knowledge of +what manhood might have been had all womanhood been pure; of what life +might have been with one who could know no sin. + +"It was only her face that I saw, as I stood waiting the end of the +applause. I seemed to be gazing between her glorious eyes, as to tell +the truth, I had more than once gazed in my dreams in the past month. +I had already written the song that seeing her face had sung in my +heart. It was with an irresistible longing, an impulse stronger than +my will, to say to her just what her face had said to me,--though she +might never know it was said to her--that I went back to the stage. +Almost before I realized it, I was there. I felt the vibrant soul of +my violin as I laid my cheek against it, and I saw the same spirit +tremble behind the eyes of the fair face above me, as one sees a +reflection tremble under the wind rippled water. The first chord +throbbed on the air in response to it. Then I played what she had +unconsciously inspired in me. It was in her eyes, where never +swerving, immortal loyalty shone, that I read the deathless theme. Out +of her nature came the inspiration. To her belongs the honor. I +know--no one better, that as I played last night, I shall never play +again; just as I realize that _what_ I played last night my own nature +could never of itself have created. It was she who spoke, it was not +I. Let him who dares, try to explain that miracle." + +She rose from her chair and moved toward him, and as she moved, she +swayed pitifully. + +He did not stir. + +It was I who caught her as she stumbled, and I held her close in my +arms. After a moment, she relaxed a little, and her head drooped +wearily on my shoulder. He lowered his lids, and I felt that every +nerve in his well controlled body quivered with resentment. + +He motioned to entreat her to sit down again. She shook her head, and, +when he went on, again, he for the first time addressed himself +directly to her. "It was chance that set you across my path last +night--you and your father. I recognized him at once. I knew your +mother well. I can remember the day on which you were born, I was a +lad then. Your mother was one of my idols. Why, child, I fiddled for +you in your cradle. At the moment I realized who you were, you were so +much a part of my music that you only appealed to me through that. But +when I left you, I carried a consciousness of you with me that was +more tangible. I had held your hand in mine. I feel it there still. + +"I went directly to my room, alone. I sat down immediately to +transcribe as much of what I had played as possible while it was +fresh in my mind. As I wrote I was alone with you. But as the spirit +of the music was imprisoned, I knew that you were becoming more and +more a material presence to me. When I slept, it was to dream of you +again--but, oh, the difference! + +"I should have been grateful to you for the inspiration that you had +been to me--and I was! But it had served its purpose. They tell me I +never played like that before. I feel I never shall again. But the end +of an emotion is never in the spirit with me. + +"I started out this afternoon to find you, oblivious of the fact that +I should have left town. I had the audacity to tell myself that I +should be a cad if I departed without thanking the sweet daughter of +your mother for her share in making me great. I had the presumption to +believe in myself. It seemed natural enough to your good father that +'a whimsical genius,' as he called me, should be allowed the caprice +of even tardily looking up his boyhood's acquaintance. He received me +nobly, was proud that you should see I remembered him--and simply made +no secret of it. + +"Though I knew what you had seemed to me, I little realized that the +child of true, fine musical spirits had a nature strung like my +Strad--fine, clear, true, matchless, as well as inspiring. I spent a +beautiful afternoon with you. I cannot better explain than by saying +that to me it was like such a day as I have sometimes had with my +violin. I call them my holy-days, and God knows I try to keep them +holy,--though after too many of them follow a St. Michael and the +Dragon tussle--and I mean no discredit to the Archangel, either. + +"The honest old father, proud to trust his daughter to me,--in his +kind heart he always considered me a most maligned man,--went off to +the play and his Saturday night club. He told me that. + +"We were alone together. It was then that I began to think that I +could probably play on her nature as I did on my violin, and then, +with a player's frenzy, to realize that I had been doing it from the +first; that we had vibrated in harmony like two ends of a chord. Then +I saw no more the spirit behind her eyes. I saw only the beautiful +face in which the color came and went, the burnished hair so full of +golden lights, on which I longed to lay my hand--the sensitive red +lips--and the angel and the demon rose up within me, and looked one +another in the face, and I heard the one fling the truth at the other, +which even the devil no longer cared to deny--Ah, forgive me!--" + +In his egoism of self-analysis and open confession, I am sure he did +not realize how far he was going, until she buried her face in her +hands. + +Then he stepped across the room and stood before me as she rested her +face in her hands against my breast. + +"It was not especially clever--the last struggle against myself. I had +never known such a woman before. I suppose if I had, I should have +tortured her to death to strike new chords out of her nature,--and +wept at my work! I had not the courage to tear myself abruptly away. I +suggested an hour of the opera--I gave her the public as a +protector--and they sang 'Faust.' It was then that, knowing myself so +well, I looked out into the auditorium and saw you! It was Providence +that put you in my way. I thought it was accident. I am sure I need +say no more?" + +I shook my head. + +He leaned over her a moment. He gently took her hands from her face. +Her eyelids trembled. For one brief moment she opened her eyes to his. + +"You have given me one sweet day," he murmured. "Some part of your +soul has called its music out of mine. That offspring of a miraculous +sympathy will live immortal when all else of our two lives is +forgotten. Remember to-day as a dream--and me as a shadow there--" he +stopped abruptly. I felt her head fall forward. She had swooned. + +Together we looked into the beautiful colorless face. + +I loved music as I loved light. I was an artist myself. A great +musician--and this man was one--was to me the greatest achievement of +Art and Living. + +I did not refuse the hand he held out. I buried mine in it. + +I did not smile nor mistrust, nor misunderstand the tears in his eyes, +nor despise him because I knew they would soon enough be dry. I did +not doubt his sincerity when he said, "I have never done so bitter a +thing as say 'good-bye' to this--though I know but too well such are +not for me." + +He bent over her, as if he would take her in his arms. + +She was unconscious. I felt tempted to put her there. I knew I loved +her as he could never love--yet I pitied him the more for that. + +"Tell her," he whispered, "tell her, when she shall have forgotten +this--as I hope she will--that for this hour at least I loved her; +that losing her I am liable to love her long,--so we shall never meet +again. I shall never cease to be grateful to the Providence that threw +you in my way--after to-night. To-night I could curse it and my +conscience with a right good will." With an effort he straightened +himself. "You can afford to forgive me," he said, "for I--I envy you +with all my heart."--And he was gone. + +I heard his voice as he spoke to the waiter outside. I listened to his +step as he descended the stairs. He had passed out of our life +forever. + +That was years ago. + +She has long been dead. + +He was not to blame if the sunshine that danced in music out of the +eyes of the woman I loved never quite came back again. We were, all +the same, happy together in our way. + +He was not to blame if it was written in the big book of Fate that it +should be his heart, and not mine, that should read the song she bore +in her soul. + +Something must be sacrificed for Art. We sacrificed our first +illusions--and the Song he read will sing on when even Rodriguez is +but a tradition. + + + + +X + +EPILOGUE + +ADIEU + +HOW WE WENT OUT OF THE GARDEN + + +The last word had hardly been uttered when the Youngster, who had been +fidgeting, leaped to his feet. + +"Hark!" he cried. + +We all listened. + +"Cannon," he yelled, and rushed out to the big gate, which he tore +open, and dashed into the road. + +There was no doubt of it. Off to the north we could all hear the dull +far-off booming of artillery. + +We followed into the garden. + +The Youngster was in the middle of the road. As we joined him he bent +toward the ground, as if, Indian-like, he could hear better. "Hush," +he said in a whisper, as we all began to talk. "Hush! I hear horses." + +There was a dead silence, and in it, we could hear the pounding of +horses' hoofs in the valley. + +"Better come in out of the rain," said the Doctor, and we obeyed. Once +inside the gate the Doctor said, "Well, I reckon it is to-morrow at +the latest for us. The truth of the matter is: I kept something from +you this evening. The village was drummed out last night. As this road +is being kept clear, no one passed here, and as we were ready to start +at a moment's notice, I made up my mind to have one more evening. +However, we've time enough. They can't advance to-night. Too wet. No +moon. Come on into the house." + +He closed and locked the big gate, but before we reached the house, +there was a rush of horsemen in the road--then a halt--the Youngster +opened the gate before it was called for. Two mounted men in Khaki +rode in, stopped short at the sight of the group, saluted. + +"Your house?" asked one, as he slid from his saddle and leaned against +his horse. + +"Mine," said the Doctor, stepping forward. + +"You are not proposing to stay here?" + +"No, we are leaving in the morning." + +"Got any conveyances?" + +"Two touring cars." + +"Good. You don't mind my proposing that you go before daylight, do +you?" + +"Not a bit," replied the Doctor, "if it is necessary." + +"That's for you to decide," said the other officer. "We are going to +set up a battery in this garden. Awfully sorry, you know, but it can't +be helped." + +The Youngster, who had remained at the gate, came back, and whispered +in my ear, "They are coming. It's the English still retreating. By +Jove, it looks as if they would get to Paris!" + +"How many are there of you?" asked the senior officer. + +"Ten," replied the Doctor. + +"Eleven," corrected the Divorcee. "I shall take Angele and the baby." +And she started on a run for the garage. + +"Perhaps," said the Doctor, looking through the open gate, where the +weary soldiers were beginning to straggle by, "perhaps it will not be +necessary for all of us to go." And he went close to the officers, and +drew his papers from his pocket. There was a hurried whispered +conversation, in which the Critic and the Journalist joined. When it +was over, the Doctor said, "I understand," and returned to our group. + +"Well, good friends," he said, "it really _is_ farewell to the garden! +The Critic and I are going to stay a bit. We are needed. The Youngster +will drive one car, and the Lawyer the other. Get ready to start by +three,--that will be just before daylight--and get into the house, all +of you. You are in the way here!" + +Everybody obeyed. + +We had less than three hours to get together necessary articles and +all the time there was the steady marching of feet in the road, where +what servants we had were standing with water and such small help as +could be offered a tired army, and bringing in for first aid such of +the exhausted men as could be braced up. + +Long before we were ready, we heard the rumble of the artillery and +the low commands of the officers. In spite of ourselves, we looked out +to see the gray things being driven into the gate, and down toward the +hillside. + +"Oh," groaned the Divorcee, "right over the flower beds!" + +"Bother it all, don't look out," shouted the Youngster from his room. +"That's just like a woman! Be a sport!" And he dashed down the hall. +We had just time to see that he had "put that uniform on." He was +going into the big game, and he was dressed for the part. In a certain +sense, all the men were, when we at last, bags in hand, gathered in +the dining room, so we were not surprised to find the Nurse in her +hospital rig, with a white cap covering her hair, and the red cross on +her arm. We knew at once that she was remaining behind with the Doctor +and the Critic. + +The cars were at the door. Angele, with her baby in her arms, was +sitting in one. + +"Come on," said the Doctor, "the quicker you are out of this the +better." + +And, almost without a word, like soldiers under orders, we were packed +into the two cars. The Youngster, the Lawyer, and the two officers +stood together with their heads bent over a map. + +"Better take a side road," said the officer, "until you get near to +Meaux, then take the route de Senlis. It will lead you right over the +hill into the Meaux, then you will find the _route nationale_ free. +Cross the Marne there, and on into Paris by the forest of Vincennes." + +"Let the Lawyer lead," said the Doctor, "and be prudent, Youngster. +You know where a letter will reach me. See that the girls get off +safely!" He shook hands all round. The cars shot out of the gate, +tooted for a passage through the straggling line of tired men in +Khaki, took the first turn to get out of the way, and shot down the +hill to the river. + +"Well," said the Youngster, who was driving our car, with the +Violinist beside him, "I think we behaved fine, and, by Jove, how I +hate to go just now! But I have to join day after to-morrow, and I +suppose it will be a long time before I see anything as exciting as +this. Bother it. Well, you were amazed at the calmness only +yesterday!" + +No one replied. We were all busy with our own thoughts, and with +"playing the game." In silence we crossed the first bridge. Day was +just breaking as we mounted the hill on the other side. Suddenly the +Youngster put on the brake. + +"Here," he said to the Violinist, "take the wheel a moment. I must +look back." + +Just as he spoke there was a tremendous explosion. + +"Bomb," he cried, as he got out his glass, and, standing on the +running board, looked back. "They've got it," he yelled. "Look!" + +We all piled out of the car, and ran to the edge of the hill. From +there we could look back and just see the dear old house standing on +the opposite height in its walled garden. + +There was another explosion, and a puff of smoke seemed to rise right +out of the middle of the garden, where the old tree stood, under which +we had dined so many evenings. + +For a few minutes we stood in silence. + +It was the gentle voice of the Violinist that called us back. "Better +get on," he said. "We can do nothing now but obey orders," and quietly +we crawled back and the car started on. + +We did not speak again until we ran up to the gates of Paris, and +stopped to have our papers examined for the last time. Then I said, +with a laugh: "And only think! I did not tell my story at all!" + +"That's so," said the Youngster. "What a shame. Never mind, dear, you +can tell the whole story!"--And I have. + + +THE END + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Told in a French Garden, by Mildred Aldrich + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TOLD IN A FRENCH GARDEN *** + +***** This file should be named 18004.txt or 18004.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/0/0/18004/ + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Sankar Viswanathan, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +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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