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+Project Gutenberg's The Butterfly House, by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Butterfly House
+
+Author: Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
+
+Illustrator: Paul Julian Meylan
+
+Release Date: April 12, 2006 [EBook #18158]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BUTTERFLY HOUSE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jeff Kaylin and Andrew Sly
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "You must steal in and not wake anybody"]
+
+
+The Butterfly House
+
+By
+
+Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
+
+  Author of
+  "A Humble Romance," "A New England Nun,"
+  "The Winning Lady," etc.
+
+  With illustrations by
+  Paul Julien Meylan
+
+New York
+Dodd, Mead and Company
+1912
+
+
+
+
+
+Chapter I
+
+
+Fairbridge, the little New Jersey village, or rather city (for it had
+won municipal government some years before, in spite of the protest
+of far-seeing citizens who descried in the distance bonded debts out
+of proportion to the tiny shoulders of the place), was a misnomer.
+Often a person, being in Fairbridge for the first time, and being
+driven by way of entertainment about the rural streets, would
+inquire, "Why Fairbridge?"
+
+Bridges there were none, except those over which the trains thundered
+to and from New York, and the adjective, except to old inhabitants
+who had a curious fierce loyalty for the place, did not seemingly
+apply. Fairbridge could hardly, by an unbiassed person who did not
+dwell in the little village and view its features through the rosy
+glamour of home life, be called "fair."  There were a few pretty
+streets, with well-kept sidewalks, and ambitious, although small
+houses, and there were many lovely bits of views to be obtained,
+especially in the green flush of spring, and the red glow of autumn
+over the softly swelling New Jersey landscape with its warm red soil
+to the distant rise of low blue hills; but it was not fair enough in
+a general way to justify its name. Yet Fairbridge it was, without
+bridge, or natural beauty, and no mortal knew why. The origin of the
+name was lost in the petty mist of a petty past.
+
+Fairbridge was tragically petty, inasmuch as it saw itself great. In
+Fairbridge narrowness reigned, nay, tyrannised, and was not
+recognised as such. There was something fairly uncanny about
+Fairbridge's influence upon people after they had lived there even a
+few years. The influence held good, too, in the cases of men who
+daily went to business or professions in New York. Even Wall Street
+was no sinecure. Back they would come at night, and the terrible,
+narrow maelstrom of pettiness sucked them in. All outside interest
+was as naught. International affairs seemed insignificant when once
+one was really in Fairbridge.
+
+Fairbridge, although rampant when local politics were concerned, had
+no regard whatever for those of the nation at large, except as they
+involved Fairbridge. Fairbridge, to its own understanding, was a
+nucleus, an ultimatum. It was an example of the triumph of the
+infinitesimal. It saw itself through a microscope and loomed up
+gigantic. Fairbridge was like an insect, born with the conviction
+that it was an elephant. There was at once something ludicrous, and
+magnificent, and terrible about it. It had the impressiveness of the
+abnormal and prehistoric. In one sense, it _was_ prehistoric. It was
+as a giant survivor of a degenerate species.
+
+Withal, it was puzzling. People if pinned down could not say why, in
+Fairbridge, the little was so monstrous, whether it depended upon
+local conditions, upon the general population, or upon a few who had
+an undue estimation of themselves and all connected with them. Was
+Fairbridge great because of its inhabitants, or were the inhabitants
+great because of Fairbridge? Who could say? And why was Fairbridge so
+important that its very smallness overwhelmed that which, by the
+nature of things, seemed overwhelming? Nobody knew, or rather, so
+tremendous was the power of the small in the village, that nobody
+inquired.
+
+It is entirely possible that had there been any delicate gauge of
+mentality, the actual swelling of the individual in his own
+estimation as he neared Fairbridge after a few hours' absence, might
+have been apparent. Take a broker on Wall Street, for instance, or a
+lawyer who had threaded his painful way to the dim light of
+understanding through the intricate mazes of the law all day, as his
+train neared his loved village. From an atom that went to make up the
+motive power of a great metropolis, he himself became an entirety. He
+was It with a capital letter. No wonder that under the circumstances
+Fairbridge had charms that allured, that people chose it for suburban
+residences, that the small, ornate, new houses with their perky
+little towers and aesthetic diamond-paned windows, multiplied.
+
+Fairbridge was in reality very artistically planned as to the sites
+of its houses. Instead of the regulation Main Street of the country
+village, with its centre given up to shops and post-office, side
+streets wound here and there, and houses were placed with a view to
+effect.
+
+The Main Street of Fairbridge was as naught from a social point of
+view. Nobody of any social importance lived there. Even the
+physicians had their residences and offices in a more aristocratic
+locality. Upon the Main Street proper, that which formed the centre
+of the village, there were only shops and a schoolhouse and one or
+two mean public buildings. For a village of the self-importance of
+Fairbridge, the public buildings were very few and very mean. There
+was no city hall worthy of the name of this little city which held
+its head so high. The City Hall, so designated by ornate gilt letters
+upon the glass panel of a very small door, occupied part of the
+building in which was the post-office. It was a tiny building, two
+stories high. On the second floor was the millinery shop of Mrs.
+Creevy, and behind it the two rooms in which she kept house with her
+daughter Jessy.
+
+On the lower floor was the post-office on the right, filthy with the
+foot tracks of the Fairbridge children who crowded it in a noisy
+rabble twice a day, and perpetually red-stained with the shale of New
+Jersey, brought in upon the boots of New Jersey farmers, who always
+bore about with them a goodly portion of their native soil. On the
+left, was the City Hall. This was vacant except upon the first Monday
+of every month, when the janitor of the Dutch Reformed Church, who
+eked out a scanty salary with divers other tasks, got himself to
+work, and slopped pails of water over the floor, then swept, and
+built a fire, if in winter.
+
+Upon the evenings of these first Mondays the Mayor and city officials
+met and made great talk over small matters, and with the labouring of
+a mountain, brought forth mice. The City Hall was closed upon other
+occasions, unless the village talent gave a play for some local
+benefit. Fairbridge was intensely dramatic, and it was popularly
+considered that great, natural, histrionic gifts were squandered upon
+the Fairbridge audiences, appreciative though they were. Outside
+talent was never in evidence in Fairbridge. No theatrical company had
+ever essayed to rent that City Hall. People in Fairbridge put that
+somewhat humiliating fact from their minds. Nothing would have
+induced a loyal citizen to admit that Fairbridge was too small game
+for such purposes. There was a tiny theatre in the neighbouring city
+of Axminister, which had really some claims to being called a city,
+from tradition and usage, aside from size. Axminister was an ancient
+Dutch city, horribly uncomfortable, but exceedingly picturesque.
+Fairbridge looked down upon it, and seldom patronised the shows (they
+never said "plays") staged in its miniature theatre. When they did
+not resort to their own City Hall for entertainment by local talent,
+they arrayed themselves in their best and patronised New York itself.
+
+New York did not know that it was patronised, but Fairbridge knew.
+When Mr. and Mrs. George B. Slade boarded the seven o'clock train,
+Mrs. Slade, tall, and majestically handsome, arrayed most elegantly,
+and crowned with a white hat (Mrs. Slade always affected white hats
+with long drooping plumes upon such occasions), and George B., natty
+in his light top coat, standing well back upon the heels of his shiny
+shoes, with the air of the wealthy and well-assured, holding a belted
+cigar in the tips of his grey-gloved fingers, New York was most
+distinctly patronised, although without knowing it.
+
+It was also patronised, and to a greater extent, by little Mrs.
+Wilbur Edes, very little indeed, so little as to be almost symbolic
+of Fairbridge itself, but elegant in every detail, so elegant as to
+arrest the eye of everybody as she entered the train, holding up the
+tail of her black lace gown. Mrs. Edes doted on black lace. Her
+small, fair face peered with a curious calm alertness from under the
+black plumes of her great picture hat, perched sidewise upon a
+carefully waved pale gold pompadour, which was perfection and would
+have done credit to the best hairdresser or the best French maid in
+New York, but which was achieved solely by Mrs. Wilbur Edes' own
+native wit and skilful fingers.
+
+Mrs. Wilbur Edes, although small, was masterly in everything, from
+waving a pompadour to conducting theatricals. She herself was the
+star dramatic performer of Fairbridge. There was a strong feeling in
+Fairbridge that in reality she might, if she chose, rival Bernhardt.
+Mrs. Emerston Strong, who had been abroad and had seen Bernhardt on
+her native soil, had often said that Mrs. Edes reminded her of the
+great French actress, although she was much handsomer, and so moral!
+Mrs. Wilbur Edes was masterly in morals, as in everything else. She
+was much admired by the opposite sex, but she was a model wife and
+mother.
+
+Mr. Wilbur Edes was an admired accessory of his wife. He was so very
+tall and slender as to suggest forcible elongation. He carried his
+head with a deprecatory, sidewise air as if in accordance with his
+wife's picture hat, and yet Mr. Wilbur Edes, out of Fairbridge and in
+his law office on Broadway, was a man among men. He was an exception
+to the personal esteem which usually expanded a male citizen of
+Fairbridge, but he was the one and only husband of Mrs. Wilbur Edes,
+and there was not room at such an apex as she occupied for more than
+one. Tall as Wilbur Edes was, he was overshadowed by that immaculate
+blond pompadour and that plumed picture hat. He was a prime favourite
+in Fairbridge society; he was liked and admired, but his radiance was
+reflected, and he was satisfied that it should be so. He adored his
+wife. The shadow of her black picture hat was his place of perfect
+content. He watched the admiring glances of other men at his
+wonderful possession with a triumph and pride which made him really
+rather a noble sort. He was also so fond and proud of his little twin
+daughters, Maida and Adelaide, that the fondness and pride fairly
+illuminated his inner self. Wilbur Edes was a clever lawyer, but love
+made him something bigger. It caused him to immolate self, which is
+spiritually enlarging self.
+
+In one respect Wilbur Edes was the biggest man in Fairbridge; in
+another, Doctor Sturtevant was. Doctor Sturtevant depended upon no
+other person for his glory. He shone as a fixed star, with his own
+lustre. He was esteemed a very great physician indeed, and it was
+considered that Mrs. Sturtevant, who was good, and honest, and portly
+with a tight, middle-aged portliness, hardly lived up to her husband.
+It was admitted that she tried, poor soul, but her limitations were
+held to be impossible, even by her faithful straining following of
+love.
+
+When the splendid, florid Doctor, with his majestically curving
+expanse of waistcoat and his inscrutable face, whirred through the
+streets of Fairbridge in his motor car, with that meek bulk of
+womanhood beside him, many said quite openly how unfortunate it was
+that Doctor Sturtevant had married, when so young, a woman so
+manifestly his inferior. They never failed to confer that faint
+praise, which is worse than none at all, upon the poor soul.
+
+"She is a good woman," they said. "She means well, and she is a good
+housekeeper, but she is no companion for a man like that."
+
+Poor Mrs. Sturtevant was aware of her status in Fairbridge, and she
+was not without a steady, plodding ambition of her own. That utterly
+commonplace, middle-aged face had some lines of strength. Mrs.
+Sturtevant was a member of the women's club of Fairbridge, which was
+poetically and cleverly called the Zenith Club.
+
+She wrote, whenever it was her turn to do so, papers upon every
+imaginable subject. She balked at nothing whatever. She ranged from
+household discussions to the Orient. Then she stood up in the midst
+of the women, sunk her double chin in her lace collar, and read her
+paper in a voice like the whisper of a blade of grass. Doctor
+Sturtevant had a very low voice. His wife had naturally a strident
+one, but she essayed to follow him in the matter of voice, as in all
+other things. The poor hen bird tried to voice her thoughts like her
+mate, and the result was a strange and weird note. However, Mrs.
+Sturtevant herself was not aware of the result. When she sat down
+after finishing her papers her face was always becomingly flushed
+with pleasure.
+
+Nothing, not even pleasure, was becoming to Mrs. Sturtevant. Life
+itself was unbecoming to her, and the worst of it was nobody knew it,
+and everybody said it was due to Mrs. Sturtevant's lack of taste, and
+then they pitied the great doctor anew. It was very fortunate that it
+never occurred to Mrs. Sturtevant to pity the doctor on her account,
+for she was so fond of him, poor soul, that it might have led to a
+tragedy.
+
+The Zenith Club of Fairbridge always met on Friday afternoons. It was
+a cherished aim of the Club to uproot foolish superstitions, hence
+Friday. It did not seem in the least risky to the ordinary person for
+a woman to attend a meeting of the Zenith Club on a Friday, in
+preference to any other day in the week; but many a member had a
+covert feeling that she was somewhat heroic, especially if the
+meeting was held at the home of some distant member on an icy day in
+winter, and she was obliged to make use of a livery carriage.
+
+There were in Fairbridge three keepers of livery stables, and
+curiously enough, no rivalry between them. All three were natives of
+the soil, and somewhat sluggish in nature, like its sticky red shale.
+They did not move with much enthusiasm, neither were they to be
+easily removed. When the New York trains came in, they, with their
+equally indifferent drivers, sat comfortably ensconced in their
+carriages, and never waylaid the possible passengers alighting from
+the train. Sometimes they did not even open the carriage doors, but
+they, however, saw to it that they were closed when once the
+passenger was within, and that was something. All three drove
+indifferent horses, somewhat uncertain as to footing. When a woman
+sat behind these weak-kneed, badly shod steeds and realised that
+Stumps, or Fitzgerald, or Witless was driving with an utter
+indifference to the tightening of lines at dangerous places, and also
+realised that it was Friday, some strength of character was doubtless
+required.
+
+One Friday in January, two young women, one married, one single, one
+very pretty, and both well-dressed (most of the women who belonged to
+the Fairbridge social set dressed well) were being driven by Jim
+Fitzgerald a distance of a mile or more, up a long hill. The slope
+was gentle and languid, like nearly every slope in that part of the
+state, but that day it was menacing with ice. It was one smooth glaze
+over the macadam. Jim Fitzgerald, a descendant of a fine old family
+whose type had degenerated, sat hunched upon the driver's seat, his
+loose jaw hanging, his eyes absent, his mouth open, chewing with slow
+enjoyment his beloved quid, while the reins lay slackly on the rusty
+black robe tucked over his knees. Even a corner of that dragged
+dangerously near the right wheels of the coupe. Jim had not
+sufficient energy to tuck it in firmly, although the wind was sharp
+from the northwest.
+
+Alice Mendon paid no attention to it, but her companion, Daisy Shaw,
+otherwise Mrs. Sumner Shaw, who was of the tense, nervous type, had
+remarked it uneasily when they first started. She had rapped
+vigorously upon the front window, and a misty, rather beautiful blue
+eye had rolled interrogatively over Jim's shoulder.
+
+"Your robe is dragging," shrieked in shrill staccato Daisy Shaw; and
+there had been a dull nod of the head, a feeble pull at the dragging
+robe, then it had dragged again.
+
+"Oh, don't mind, dear," said Alice Mendon. "It is his own lookout if
+he loses the robe."
+
+"It isn't that," responded Daisy querulously. "It isn't that. I don't
+care, since he is so careless, if he does lose it, but I must say
+that I don't think it is safe. Suppose it got caught in the wheel,
+and I know this horse stumbles."
+
+"Don't worry, dear," said Alice Mendon. "Fitzgerald's robe always
+drags, and nothing ever happens."
+
+Alice Mendon was a young woman, not a young girl (she had left young
+girlhood behind several years since) and she was distinctly beautiful
+after a fashion that is not easily affected by the passing years. She
+had had rather an eventful life, but not an event, pleasant or
+otherwise, had left its mark upon the smooth oval of her face. There
+was not a side nor retrospective glance to disturb the serenity of
+her large blue eyes. Although her eyes were blue, her hair was almost
+chestnut black, except in certain lights, when it gave out gleams as
+of dark gold. Her features were full, her figure large, but not too
+large. She wore a dark red tailored gown; and sumptuous sable furs
+shaded with dusky softness and shot, in the sun, with prismatic
+gleams, set off her handsome, not exactly smiling, but serenely
+beaming face. Two great black ostrich plumes and one red one curled
+down toward the soft spikes of the fur. Between, the two great blue
+eyes, the soft oval of the cheeks, and the pleasant red fullness of
+the lips appeared.
+
+Poor Daisy Shaw, who was poor in two senses, strength of nerve and
+money, looked blue and cold in her little black suit, and her pale
+blue liberty scarf was horribly inadequate and unbecoming. Daisy was
+really painful to see as she gazed out apprehensively at the dragging
+robe, and the glistening slant over which they were moving. Alice
+regarded her not so much with pity as with a calm, sheltering sense
+of superiority and strength. She pulled the inner robe of the coupe
+up and tucked it firmly around Daisy's thin knees.
+
+"You look half frozen," said Alice.
+
+"I don't mind being frozen, but I do mind being scared," replied
+Daisy sharply. She removed the robe with a twitch.
+
+"If that old horse stumbles and goes down and kicks, I want to be
+able to get out without being all tangled up in a robe and dragged,"
+said she.
+
+"While the horse is kicking and down I don't see how he can drag you
+very far," said Alice with a slight laugh. Then the horse stumbled.
+Daisy Shaw knocked quickly on the front window with her little,
+nervous hand in its tight, white kid glove.
+
+"Do please hold your reins tighter," she called. Again the misty blue
+eyes rolled about, the head nodded, the rotary jaws were seen, the
+robe dragged, the reins lay loosely.
+
+"That wasn't a stumble worth mentioning," said Alice Mendon.
+
+"I wish he would stop chewing and drive," said poor Daisy Shaw
+vehemently. "I wish we had a liveryman as good as that Dougherty in
+Axminister. I was making calls there the other day, and it was as
+slippery as it is now, and he held the reins up tight every minute. I
+felt safe with him."
+
+"I don't think anything will happen."
+
+"It does seem to me if he doesn't stop chewing, and drive, I shall
+fly!" said Daisy.
+
+Alice regarded her with a little wonder. Such anxiety concerning
+personal safety rather puzzled her. "My horses ran away the other
+day, and Dick went down flat and barked his knees; that's why I have
+Fitzgerald to-day," said she. "I was not hurt. Nobody was hurt except
+the horse. I was very sorry about the horse."
+
+"I wish I had an automobile," said Daisy. "You never know what a
+horse will do next."
+
+Alice laughed again slightly. "There is a little doubt sometimes as
+to what an automobile will do next," she remarked.
+
+"Well, it is your own brain that controls it, if you can run it
+yourself, as you do."
+
+"I am not so sure. Sometimes I wonder if the automobile hasn't an
+uncanny sort of brain itself. Sometimes I wonder how far men can go
+with the invention of machinery without putting more of themselves
+into it than they bargain for," said Alice. Her smooth face did not
+contract in the least, but was brooding with speculation and thought.
+
+Then the horse stumbled again, and Daisy screamed, and again tapped
+the window.
+
+"He won't go way down," said Alice. "I think he is too stiff. Don't
+worry."
+
+"There is no stumbling to worry about with an automobile," said
+Daisy.
+
+"You couldn't use one on this hill without more risk than you take
+with a stumbling horse," replied Alice. Just then a carriage drawn by
+two fine bays passed them, and there was an interchange of nods.
+
+"There is Mrs. Sturtevant," said Alice. "She isn't using the
+automobile to-day."
+
+"Doctor Sturtevant has had that coachman thirty years, and he doesn't
+chew, he drives," said Daisy.
+
+Then they drew up before the house which was their destination, Mrs.
+George B. Slade's. The house was very small, but perkily pretentious,
+and they drove under the porte-cochere to alight.
+
+"I heard Mr. Slade had been making a great deal of money in cotton
+lately," Daisy whispered, as the carriage stopped behind Mrs.
+Sturtevant's. "Mr. and Mrs. Slade went to the opera last week. I
+heard they had taken a box for the season, and Mrs. Slade had a new
+black velvet gown and a pearl necklace. I think she is almost too old
+to wear low neck."
+
+"She is not so very old," replied Alice. "It is only her white hair
+that makes her seem so."  Then she extended a rather large but well
+gloved hand and opened the coupe door, while Jim Fitzgerald sat and
+chewed and waited, and the two young women got out. Daisy had some
+trouble in holding up her long skirts. She tugged at them with
+nervous energy, and told Alice of the twenty-five cents which
+Fitzgerald would ask for the return trip. She had wished to arrive at
+the club in fine feather, but had counted on walking home in the
+dusk, with her best skirts high-kilted, and saving an honest penny.
+
+"Nonsense; of course you will go with me," said Alice in the calmly
+imperious way she had, and the two mounted the steps. They had
+scarcely reached the door before Mrs. Slade's maid, Lottie, appeared
+in her immaculate width of apron, with carefully-pulled-out bows and
+little white lace top-knot. "Upstairs, front room," she murmured, and
+the two went up the polished stairs. There was a landing halfway,
+with a diamond paned window and one rubber plant and two palms, all
+very glossy, and all three in nice green jardinieres which exactly
+matched the paper on the walls of the hall. Mrs. George B. Slade had
+a mania for exactly matching things. Some of her friends said among
+themselves that she carried it almost too far.
+
+The front room, the guest room, into which Alice Mendon and Daisy
+Shaw passed, was done in yellow and white, and one felt almost sinful
+in disturbing the harmony by any other tint. The walls were yellow,
+with a frieze of garlands of yellow roses; the ceiling was tinted
+yellow, the tiles on the shining little hearth were yellow, every
+ornament upon the mantel-shelf was yellow, down to a china
+shepherdess who wore a yellow china gown and carried a basket filled
+with yellow flowers, and bore a yellow crook. The bedstead was brass,
+and there was a counterpane of white lace over yellow, the muslin
+curtains were tied back with great bows of yellow ribbon. Even the
+pictures represented yellow flowers or maidens dressed in yellow. The
+rugs were yellow, the furniture upholstered in yellow, and all of
+exactly the same shade.
+
+There were a number of ladies in this yellow room, prinking
+themselves before going downstairs. They all lived in Fairbridge;
+they all knew each other; but they greeted one another with the most
+elegant formality. Alice assisted Daisy Shaw to remove her coat and
+liberty scarf, then she shook herself free of her own wraps, rather
+than removed them. She did not even glance at herself in the glass.
+Her reason for so doing was partly confidence in her own appearance,
+partly distrust of the glass. She had viewed herself carefully in her
+own looking-glass before she left home. She believed in what she had
+seen there, but she did not care to disturb that belief, and she saw
+that Mrs. Slade's mirror over her white and yellow draped dressing
+table stood in a cross-light. While all admitted Alice Mendon's
+beauty, nobody had ever suspected her of vanity; yet vanity she had,
+in a degree.
+
+The other women in the room looked at her. It was always a matter of
+interest of Fairbridge what she would wear, and this was rather
+curious, as, after all, she had not many gowns. There was a certain
+impressiveness about her mode of wearing the same gown which seemed
+to create an illusion. To-day in her dark red gown embroidered with
+poppies of still another shade, she created a distinctly new
+impression, although she had worn the same costume often before at
+the club meetings. She went downstairs in advance of the other women
+who had arrived before, and were yet anxiously peering at themselves
+in the cross-lighted mirror, and being adjusted as to refractory
+neckwear by one another.
+
+When Alice entered Mrs. Slade's elegant little reception-room, which
+was done in a dull rose colour, its accessories very exactly
+matching, even to Mrs. Slade's own costume, which was rose silk under
+black lace, she was led at once to a lady richly attired in black,
+with gleams of jet, who was seated in a large chair in the place of
+honour, not quite in the bay window but exactly in the centre of the
+opening. The lady quite filled the chair. She was very stout. Her
+face, under an ornate black hat, was like a great rose full of
+overlapping curves of florid flesh. The wide mouth was perpetually
+curved into a bow of mirth, the small black eyes twinkled. She was
+Mrs. Sarah Joy Snyder, who had come from New York to deliver her
+famous lecture upon the subject: "Where does a woman shine with more
+lustre, at home or abroad?"
+
+The programme was to be varied, as usual upon such occasions, by
+local talent. Leila MacDonald, who sang contralto in the church
+choir, and Mrs. Arthur Wells, who sang soprano, and Mrs. Jack Evarts,
+who played the piano very well, and Miss Sally Anderson, who had
+taken lessons in elocution, all had their parts, besides the
+president of the club, Mrs. Wilbur Edes, who had a brief address in
+readiness, and the secretary, who had to give the club report for the
+year. Mrs. Snyder was to give her lecture as a grand climax, then
+there were to be light refreshments and a reception following the
+usual custom of the club.
+
+Alice bowed before Mrs. Snyder and retreated to a window at the other
+side of the room. She sat beside the window and looked out. Just then
+one of the other liverymen drove up with a carriage full of ladies,
+and they emerged in a flutter of veils and silk skirts. Mrs. Slade,
+who was really superb in her rose silk and black lace, with an artful
+frill of white lace at her throat to match her great puff of white
+hair, remained beside Mrs. Snyder, whose bow of mirth widened.
+
+"Who is that magnificent creature?" whispered Mrs. Snyder with a gush
+of enthusiasm, indicating Alice beside the window.
+
+"She lives here," replied Mrs. Slade rather stupidly. She did not
+quite know how to define Alice.
+
+"Lives here in this little place? Not all the year?" rejoined Mrs.
+Snyder.
+
+"Fairbridge is a very good place to live in all the year," replied
+Mrs. Slade rather stiffly. "It is near New York. We have all the
+advantages of a great metropolis without the drawbacks. Fairbridge is
+a most charming city, and very progressive, yes, very progressive."
+
+Mrs. Slade took it rather hardly that Mrs. Snyder should intimate
+anything prejudicial to Fairbridge and especially that it was not
+good enough for Alice Mendon, who had been born there, and lived
+there all her life except the year she had been in college. If
+anything, she, Mrs. Slade, wondered if Alice Mendon were good enough
+for Fairbridge. What had she ever done, except to wear handsome
+costumes and look handsome and self-possessed? Although she belonged
+to the Zenith Club, no power on earth could induce her to discharge
+the duties connected herewith, except to pay her part of the
+expenses, and open her house for a meeting. She simply would not
+write a paper upon any interesting and instructive topic and read it
+before the club, and she was not considered gifted. She could not
+sing like Leila MacDonald and Mrs. Arthur Wells. She could not play
+like Mrs. Jack Evarts. She could not recite like Sally Anderson.
+
+Mrs. Snyder glanced across at Alice, who looked very graceful and
+handsome, although also, to a discerning eye, a little sulky, and
+bored with a curious, abstracted boredom.
+
+"She is superb," whispered Mrs. Snyder, "yes, simply superb. Why does
+she live here, pray?"
+
+"Why, she was born here," replied Mrs. Slade, again stupidly. It was
+as if Alice had no more motive power than a flowering bush.
+
+Mrs. Snyder's bow of mirth widened into a laugh. "Well, can't she get
+away, even if she was born here?" said she.
+
+However, Mrs. George B. Slade's mind travelled in such a circle that
+she was difficult to corner. "Why should she want to move?" said she.
+
+Mrs. Snyder laughed again. "But, granting she should want to move, is
+there anything to hinder?" she asked. She wasn't a very clever woman,
+and was deciding privately to mimic Mrs. George B. Slade at some
+future occasion, and so eke out her scanty remuneration. She did not
+think ten dollars and expenses quite enough for such a lecture as
+hers.
+
+Mrs. Slade looked at her perplexedly. "Why, yes, she could I
+suppose," said she, "but why?"
+
+"What has hindered her before now?"
+
+"Oh, her mother was a helpless invalid, and Alice was the only child,
+and she had been in college just a year when her father died, then
+she came home and lived with her mother, but her mother has been dead
+two years now, and Alice has plenty of money. Her father left a good
+deal, and her cousin and aunt live with her. Oh, yes, she could, but
+why should she want to leave Fairbridge, and--"
+
+Then some new arrivals approached, and the discussion concerning
+Alice Mendon ceased. The ladies came rapidly now. Soon Mrs. Slade's
+hall, reception-room, and dining-room, in which a gaily-decked table
+was set, were thronged with women whose very skirts seemed full of
+important anticipatory stirs and rustles. Mrs. Snyder's curved smile
+became set, her eyes absent. She was revolving her lecture in her
+mind, making sure that she could repeat it without the assistance of
+the notes in her petticoat pocket.
+
+Then a woman rang a little silver bell, and a woman who sat short but
+rose to unexpected heights stood up. The phenomenon was amazing, but
+all the Fairbridge ladies had seen Miss Bessy Dicky, the secretary of
+the Zenith Club, rise before, and no one observed anything remarkable
+about it. Only Mrs. Snyder's mouth twitched a little, but she
+instantly recovered herself and fixed her absent eyes upon Miss Bessy
+Dicky's long, pale face as she began to read the report of the club
+for the past year.
+
+She had been reading several minutes, her glasses fixed firmly (one
+of her eyes had a cast) and her lean, veinous hands trembling with
+excitement, when the door bell rang with a sharp peremptory peal.
+There was a little flutter among the ladies. Such a thing had never
+happened before. Fairbridge ladies were renowned for punctuality,
+especially at a meeting like this, and in any case, had one been
+late, she would never have rung the bell. She would have tapped
+gently on the door, the white-capped maid would have admitted her,
+and she, knowing she was late and hearing the hollow recitative of
+Miss Bessy Dicky's voice, would have tiptoed upstairs, then slipped
+delicately down again and into a place near the door.
+
+But now it was different. Lottie opened the door, and a masculine
+voice was heard. Mrs. Slade had a storm-porch, so no one could look
+directly into the hall.
+
+"Is Mrs. Slade at home?" inquired the voice distinctly. The ladies
+looked at one another, and Miss Bessy Dicky's reading was unheard.
+They all knew who spoke. Lottie appeared with a crimson face, bearing
+a little ostentatious silver plate with a card. Mrs. Slade adjusted
+her lorgnette, looked at the card, and appeared to hesitate for a
+second. Then a look of calm determination overspread her face. She
+whispered to Lottie, and presently appeared a young man in clerical
+costume, moving between the seated groups of ladies with an air not
+so much of embarrassment as of weary patience, as if he had expected
+something like this to happen, and it had happened.
+
+Mrs. Slade motioned to a chair near her, which Lottie had placed, and
+the young man sat down.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter II
+
+
+Many things were puzzling in Fairbridge, that is, puzzling to a
+person with a logical turn of mind. For instance, nobody could say
+that Fairbridge people were not religious. It was a church going
+community, and five denominations were represented in it;
+nevertheless, the professional expounders of its doctrines were held
+in a sort of gentle derision, that is, unless the expounder happened
+to be young and eligible from a matrimonial point of view, when he
+gained a certain fleeting distinction. Otherwise the clergy were
+regarded (in very much the same light as if employed by a railroad)
+as the conductors of a spiritual train of cars bound for the Promised
+Land. They were admittedly engaged in a cause worthy of the highest
+respect and veneration. The Cause commanded it, not they. They had
+always lacked social prestige in Fairbridge, except, as before
+stated, in the cases of the matrimonially eligible.
+
+Dominie von Rosen came under that head. Consequently he was for the
+moment, fleeting as everybody considered it, in request. But he did
+not respond readily to the social patronage of Fairbridge. He was,
+seemingly, quite oblivious to its importance. Karl von Rosen was
+bored to the verge of physical illness by Fairbridge functions. Even
+a church affair found him wearily to the front. Therefore his
+presence at the Zenith Club was unprecedented and confounding. He had
+often been asked to attend its special meetings but had never
+accepted. Now, however, here he was, caught neatly in the trap of his
+own carelessness. Karl von Rosen should have reflected that the
+Zenith Club was one of the institutions of Fairbridge, and met upon a
+Friday, and that Mrs. George B. Slade's house was an exceedingly
+likely rendezvous, but he was singularly absent-minded as to what was
+near, and very present minded as to what was afar. That which should
+have been near was generally far to his mind, which was perpetually
+gathering the wool of rainbow sheep in distant pastures.
+
+If there was anything in which Karl von Rosen did not take the
+slightest interest, it was women's clubs in general and the Zenith
+Club in particular; and here he was, doomed by his own lack of
+thought to sit through an especially long session. He had gone out
+for a walk. To his mind it was a fine winter's day. The long,
+glittering lights of ice pleased him and whenever he was sure that he
+was unobserved he took a boyish run and long slide. During his walk
+he had reached Mrs. Slade's house, and since he worked in his
+pastoral calls whenever he could, by applying a sharp spur to his
+disinclination, it had occurred to him that he might make one, and
+return to his study in a virtuous frame of mind over a slight and
+unimportant, but bothersome duty performed. If he had had his wits
+about him he might have seen the feminine heads at the windows, he
+might have heard the quaver of Miss Bessy Dicky's voice over the club
+report; but he saw and heard nothing, and now he was seated in the
+midst of the feminine throng, and Miss Bessy Dicky's voice quavered
+more, and she assumed a slightly mincing attitude. Her thin hands
+trembled more, the hot, red spots on her thin cheeks deepened.
+Reading the club reports before the minister was an epoch in an
+epochless life, but Karl von Rosen was oblivious of her except as a
+disturbing element rather more insistent than the others in which he
+was submerged.
+
+[Illustration: He was doomed by his own lack of thought to sit
+through an especially long session]
+
+He sat straight and grave, his eyes retrospective. He was constantly
+getting into awkward situations, and acquitting himself in them with
+marvellous dignity and grace. Even Mrs. Sarah Joy Snyder, astute as
+she was, regarded him keenly, and could not for the life of her tell
+whether he had come premeditatedly or not. She only discovered one
+thing, that poor Miss Bessy Dicky was reading at him and posing at
+him and trembling her hands at him, and that she was throwing it all
+away, for Von Rosen heard no more of her report than if he had been
+in China when she was reading it. Mrs. Snyder realised that hardly
+anything in nature could be so totally uninteresting to the young man
+as the report of a woman's club. Inasmuch as she herself was devoted
+to such things, she regarded him with disapproval, although with a
+certain admiration. Karl von Rosen always commanded admiration,
+although often of a grudging character, from women. His utter
+indifference to them as women was the prime factor in this; next to
+that his really attractive, even distinguished, personality. He was
+handsome after the fashion which usually accompanies devotion to
+women. He was slight, but sinewy, with a gentle, poetical face and
+great black eyes, into which women were apt to project tenderness
+merely from their own fancy. It seemed ridiculous and anomalous that
+a man of Von Rosen's type should not be a lover of ladies, and the
+fact that he was most certainly not was both fascinating and
+exasperating.
+
+Now Mrs. George B. Slade, magnificent matron, as she was, moreover
+one who had inhaled the perfume of adulation from her youth up, felt
+a calm malice. She knew that he had entered her parlour after the
+manner of the spider and fly rhyme of her childhood; she knew that
+the other ladies would infer that he had come upon her invitation,
+and her soul was filled with one of the petty triumphs of petty
+Fairbridge.
+
+She, however, did not dream of the actual misery which filled the
+heart of the graceful, dignified young man by her side. She
+considered herself in the position of a mother, who forces an
+undesired, but nevertheless, delectable sweet upon a child, who gazes
+at her with adoration when the savour has reached his palate. She did
+not expect Von Rosen to be much edified by Miss Bessy Dicky's report.
+She had her own opinion of Miss Bessy Dicky, of her sleeves, of her
+gown, and her report, but she had faith in the truly decorative
+features of the occasion when they should be underway, and she had
+immense faith in Mrs. Sarah Joy Snyder. She was relieved when Miss
+Bessy Dicky sat down, and endeavoured to compose her knees, which by
+this time were trembling like her hands, and also to assume an
+expression as if she had done nothing at all, and nobody was looking
+at her. That last because of the fact that she had done so little,
+and nobody was looking at her rendered her rather pathetic.
+
+Miss Bessy Dicky did not glance at the minister, but she,
+nevertheless, saw him. She had never had a lover, and here was the
+hero of her dreams. He would never know it and nobody else would ever
+know it, and no harm would be done except very possibly, by and by, a
+laceration of the emotions of an elderly maiden, and afterwards a
+life-long scar. But who goes through life without emotional scars?
+
+After Miss Bessy Dicky sat down, Mrs. Wilbur Edes, the lady of the
+silver bell, rose. She lifted high her delicate chin, her perfect
+blond pompadour caught the light, her black lace robe swept round her
+in rich darkness, with occasional revelations of flower and leaf, the
+fairly poetical pattern of real lace. As she rose, she diffused
+around her a perfume as if rose-leaves were stirred up. She held a
+dainty handkerchief, edged with real lace, in her little left hand,
+which glittered with rings. In her right, was a spangled fan like a
+black butterfly. Mrs. Edes was past her first youth, but she was
+undeniably charming. She was like a little, perfect, ivory toy, which
+time has played with but has not injured. Mrs. Slade looked at her,
+then at Karl von Rosen. He looked at Mrs. Wilbur Edes, then looked
+away. She was most graceful, but most positively uninteresting.
+However, Mrs. Slade was rather pleased at that. She and Mrs. Edes
+were rival stars. Von Rosen had never looked long at her, and it
+seemed right he should not look long at the other woman.
+
+Mrs. Slade surveyed Mrs. Edes as she announced the next number on the
+programme, and told herself that Mrs. Edes' gown might be real lace
+and everything about her very real, and nice, and elegant, but she
+was certainly a little fussy for so small a woman. Mrs. Slade
+considered that she herself could have carried off that elegance in a
+much more queenly manner. There was one feature of Mrs. Edes' costume
+which Mrs. Slade resented. She considered that it should be worn by a
+woman of her own size and impressiveness. That was a little wrap of
+ermine. Now ermine, as everybody knew, should only be worn by large
+and queenly women. Mrs. Slade resolved that she herself would have an
+ermine wrap which should completely outshine Mrs. Edes' little
+affair, all swinging with tails and radiant with tiny, bright-eyed
+heads.
+
+Mrs. Edes announced a duet by Miss MacDonald and Mrs. Wells, and sat
+down, and again the perfume of rose leaves was perceptible. Karl von
+Rosen glanced at the next performers, Miss MacDonald, who was very
+pretty and well-dressed in white embroidered cloth, and Mrs. Wells,
+who was not pretty, but was considered very striking, who trailed
+after her in green folds edged with fur, and bore a roll of music.
+She seated herself at the piano with a graceful sweep of her green
+draperies, which defined her small hips, and struck the keys with
+slender fingers quite destitute of rings, always lifting them high
+with a palpable affectation not exactly doubtful--that was saying too
+much--but she was considered to reach limits of propriety with her
+sinuous motions, the touch of her sensitive fingers upon piano keys,
+and the quick flash of her dark eyes in her really plain face. There
+was, for the women in Fairbridge, a certain mischievous fascination
+about Mrs. Wells. Moreover, they had in her their one object of
+covert gossip, their one stimulus to unlawful imagination.
+
+There was a young man who played the violin. His name was Henry
+Wheaton, and he was said to be a frequent caller at Mrs. Wells', and
+she played his accompaniments, and Mr. Wells was often detained in
+New York until the late train. Then there was another young man who
+played the 'cello, and he called often. And there was Ellis
+Bainbridge, who had a fine tenor voice, and he called. It was
+delightful to have a woman of that sort, of whom nothing distinctly
+culpable could be affirmed, against whom no good reason could be
+brought for excluding her from the Zenith Club and the social set. In
+their midst, Mrs. Wells furnished the condiments, the spice, and
+pepper, and mustard for many functions. She relieved to a great
+extent the monotony of unquestioned propriety. It would have been
+horribly dull if there had been no woman in the Zenith Club who
+furnished an excuse for the other members' gossip.
+
+Leila MacDonald, so carefully dressed and brushed and washed, and so
+free from defects that she was rather irritating, began to sing, then
+people listened. Karl von Rosen listened. She really had a voice
+which always surprised and charmed with the first notes, then ceased
+to charm. Leila MacDonald was as a good canary bird, born to sing,
+and dutifully singing, but without the slightest comprehension of her
+song. It was odd too that she sang with plenty of expression, but her
+own lack of realisation seemed to dull it for her listeners. Karl von
+Rosen listened, then his large eyes again turned introspective.
+
+Mrs. Edes again arose, after the singing and playing ladies had
+finished their performance and returned to their seats, and announced
+a recitation by Miss Sally Anderson. Miss Anderson wore a light
+summer gown, and swept to the front, and bent low to her audience,
+then at once began her recitation with a loud crash of emotion. She
+postured, she gesticulated. She lowered her voice to inaudibility,
+she raised it to shrieks and wails. She did everything which she had
+been taught, and she had been taught a great deal. Mrs. Sarah Joy
+Snyder listened and got data for future lectures, with her mirthful
+mouth sternly set.
+
+After Sally Anderson, Mrs. Jack Evarts played a glittering thing
+called "Waves of the Sea."  Then Sally Anderson recited again, then
+Mrs. Wilbur Edes spoke at length, and with an air which commanded
+attention, and Von Rosen suffered agonies. He laughed with sickly
+spurts at Mrs. Snyder's confidential sallies, when she had at last
+her chance to deliver herself of her ten dollar speech, but the worst
+ordeal was to follow. Von Rosen was fluttered about by women bearing
+cups of tea, of frothy chocolate, plates of cake, dishes of bonbons,
+and saucers of ice-cream. He loathed sweets and was forced into
+accepting a plate. He stood in the midst of the feminine throng, the
+solitary male figure looking at his cup of chocolate, and a slice of
+sticky cake, and at an ice representing a chocolate lily, which
+somebody had placed for special delectation upon a little table at
+his right. Then Alice Mendon came to his rescue.
+
+She deftly took the plate with the sticky cake, and the cup of hot
+chocolate, and substituted a plate with a chicken mayonnaise
+sandwich, smiling pleasantly as she did so.
+
+"Here," she whispered. "Why do you make a martyr of yourself for such
+a petty cause? Do it for the faith if you want to, but not for thick
+chocolate and angel cake."
+
+She swept away the chocolate lily also. Von Rosen looked at her
+gratefully. "Thank you," he murmured.
+
+She laughed. "Oh, you need not thank me," she said. "I have a natural
+instinct to rescue men from sweets."  She laughed again maliciously.
+"I am sure you have enjoyed the club very much," she said.
+
+Von Rosen coloured before her sarcastic, kindly eyes. He began to
+speak, but she interrupted him. "You have heard that silence is
+golden," said she. "It is always golden when speech would be a lie."
+
+Then she turned away and seized upon the chocolate lily and pressed
+it upon Mrs. Joy Snyder, who was enjoying adulation and good things.
+
+"Do please have this lovely lily, Mrs. Snyder," she said. "It is the
+very prettiest ice of the lot, and meant especially for you. I am
+sure you will enjoy it."
+
+And Mrs. Sarah Joy Snyder, whose sense of humour deserted her when
+she was being praised and fed, and who had already eaten bonbons
+innumerable, and three ices with accompanying cake, took the
+chocolate lily gratefully. Von Rosen ate his chicken sandwich and
+marvelled at the ways of women.
+
+After Von Rosen had finished his sandwiches and tea, he made his way
+to Mrs. Snyder, and complimented her upon her lecture. He had a
+constitutional dislike for falsehoods, which was perhaps not so much
+a virtue as an idiosyncrasy. Now he told Mrs. Snyder that he had
+never heard a lecture which seemed to amuse an audience more than
+hers had done, and that he quite envied her because of her power of
+holding attention. Mrs. Snyder, with the last petal of her chocolate
+lily sweet upon her tongue, listened with such a naivete of
+acquiescence that she was really charming, and Von Rosen had spoken
+the truth. He had wondered, when he saw the eagerly tilted faces of
+the women, and heard their bursts of shrill laughter and clapping of
+hands, why he could not hold them with his sermons which, he might
+assume without vanity, contained considerable subject for thought, as
+this woman, with her face like a mask of mirth, held them with her
+compilation of platitudes.
+
+He thought that he had never seen so many women listen with such
+intensity, and lack of self-consciousness. He had seen only two pat
+their hair, only one glance at her glittering rings, only three
+arrange the skirts of their gowns while the lecture was in progress.
+Sometimes during his sermons, he felt as if he were holding forth to
+a bewildering sea of motion with steadily recurrent waves, which
+fascinated him, of feathers, and flowers, swinging fur tails, and
+kid-gloved hands, fluttering ribbons, and folds of drapery. Karl von
+Rosen would not have acknowledged himself as a woman-hater, that
+savoured too much of absurd male egotism, but he had an under
+conviction that women were, on the whole, admitting of course
+exceptions, self-centered in the pursuit of petty ends to the extent
+of absolute viciousness. He disliked women, although he had never
+owned it to himself.
+
+In spite of his dislike of women, Von Rosen had a house-keeper. He
+had made an ineffectual trial of an ex-hotel chef, but had finally
+been obliged to resort to Mrs. Jane Riggs. She was tall and strong,
+wider-shouldered than hipped. She went about her work with long
+strides. She never fussed. She never asked questions. In fact, she
+seldom spoke.
+
+When Von Rosen entered his house that night, after the club meeting,
+he had a comfortable sense of returning to an embodied silence. The
+coal fire in his study grate was red and clear. Everything was in
+order without misplacement. That was one of Jane Riggs' chief
+talents. She could tidy things without misplacing them. Von Rosen
+loved order, and was absolutely incapable of keeping it. Therefore
+Jane Riggs' orderliness was as balm. He sat down in his Morris chair
+before his fire, stretched out his legs to the warmth, which was
+grateful after the icy outdoor air, rested his eyes upon a plaster
+cast over the chimney place, which had been tinted a beautiful hue by
+his own pipe, and sighed with content. His own handsome face was rosy
+with the reflection of the fire, his soul rose-coloured with complete
+satisfaction. He was so glad to be quit of that crowded assemblage of
+eager femininity, so glad that it was almost worth while to have
+encountered it just for that sense of blessed relief.
+
+Mrs. Edes had offered to take him home in her carriage, and he had
+declined almost brusquely. To have exchanged that homeward walk over
+the glistening earth, and under the clear rose and violet lights of
+the winter sunset, with that sudden rapturous discovery of the
+slender crescent of the new moon, for a ride with Mrs. Edes in her
+closed carriage with her silvery voice in his ear instead of the keen
+silence of the winter air, would have been torture. Von Rosen
+wondered at himself for disliking Mrs. Edes in particular, whereas he
+disliked most women in general. There was something about her feline
+motions instinct with swiftness, and concealed claws, and the half
+keen, half sleepy glances of her green-blue eyes, which irritated him
+beyond measure, and he was ashamed of being irritated. It implied a
+power over him, and yet it was certainly not a physical power. It was
+subtle and pertained to spirit. He realised, as did many in
+Fairbridge, a strange influence, defying reason and will, which this
+small woman with her hidden swiftness had over nearly everybody with
+whom she came in contact. It had nothing whatever to do with sex. She
+would have produced it in the same degree, had she not been in the
+least attractive. It was compelling, and at the same time irritating.
+
+Von Rosen in his Morris chair after the tea welcomed the intrusion of
+Jane Riggs, which dispelled his thought of Mrs. Wilbur Edes. Jane
+stood beside the chair, a rigid straight length of woman with a white
+apron starched like a board, covering two thirds of her, and waited
+for interrogation.
+
+"What is it, Jane?" asked Von Rosen.
+
+Jane Riggs replied briefly. "Outlandish young woman out in the
+kitchen," she said with distinct disapproval, yet with evident
+helplessness before the situation.
+
+Von Rosen started. "Where is the dog?"
+
+"Licking her hands. Every time I told her to go, Jack growled. Mebbe
+you had better come out yourself, Mr. Von Rosen."
+
+When Von Rosen entered the kitchen, he saw a little figure on the
+floor in a limp heap, with the dog frantically licking its hands,
+which were very small and brown and piteously outspread, as if in
+supplication.
+
+"Mebbe you had better call up the doctor on the telephone; she seems
+to have swooned away," said Jane Riggs. At the same time she made one
+long stride to the kitchen sink, and water. Von Rosen looked aghast
+at the stricken figure, which was wrapped in a queer medley of
+garments. He also saw on the floor near by a bulging suitcase.
+
+"She is one of them pedlars," said Jane Riggs, dashing water upon the
+dumb little face. "I rather guess you had better call up the doctor
+on the telephone. She don't seem to be coming to easy and she may
+have passed away."
+
+Von Rosen gasped, then he looked pitifully at the poor little figure,
+and ran back to his study to the telephone. To his great relief as he
+passed the window, he glanced out, and saw Doctor Sturtevant's
+automobile making its way cautiously over the icy street. Then for
+the first time he remembered that he had been due at that time about
+a matter of a sick parishioner. He opened the front door hurriedly,
+and stated the case, and the two men carried the little unconscious
+creature upstairs. Then Von Rosen came down, leaving the doctor and
+Martha with her. He waited in the study, listening to the sounds
+overhead, waiting impatiently for the doctor's return, which was not
+for half an hour or more. In the meantime Martha came downstairs on
+some errand to the kitchen. Von Rosen intercepted her. "What does
+Doctor Sturtevant think?" he asked.
+
+"Dunno, what he thinks," replied Martha brusquely, pushing past him.
+
+"Is she conscious yet?"
+
+"Dunno, I ain't got any time to talk," said Martha, casting a flaming
+look at him over her shoulder as she entered the kitchen.
+
+Von Rosen retreated to the study, where he was presently joined by
+the doctor. "What is it?" asked Von Rosen with an emphasis, which
+rendered it so suspicious that he might have added: "what the devil
+is it?" had it not been for his profession.
+
+Sturtevant answered noiselessly, the motion of his lips conveying his
+meaning. Then he said, shrugging himself into his fur coat, as he
+spoke, "I have to rush my motor to see a patient, whom I dare not
+leave another moment, then I will be back."
+
+Von Rosen's great Persian cat had curled himself on the doctor's fur
+coat, and now shaken off, sat with a languid dignity, his great
+yellow plume of a tail waving, and his eyes like topazes fixed
+intently upon Sturtevant. At that moment a little cry was heard from
+the guest room, a cry between a moan and a scream, but unmistakably a
+note of suffering. Sturtevant jammed his fur cap upon his head and
+pulled on his gloves.
+
+"Don't go," pleaded Von Rosen in a sudden terror of helplessness.
+
+"I must, but I'll break the speed laws and be back before you know
+it. That housekeeper of yours is as good as any trained nurse, and
+better. She is as hard as nails, but she does her duty like a
+machine, and she has brains. I will be back in a few minutes."
+
+Then Sturtevant was gone, and Von Rosen sat again before his study
+fire. There was another little note of suffering from above. Von
+Rosen shuddered, rose, and closed his door. The Persian cat came and
+sat in front of him, and gazed at him with jewel-like eyes. There was
+an expression of almost human anxiety and curiosity upon the animal's
+face. He came from a highly developed race; he and his forbears had
+always been with humans. At times it seemed to Von Rosen as if the
+cat had a dumb knowledge of the most that he himself knew. He reached
+down and patted the shapely golden head, but the cat withdrew, curled
+himself into a coil of perfect luxuriousness, with the firelight
+casting a warm, rosy glow upon his golden beauty, purred a little
+while, then sank into the mystery of animal sleep.
+
+Von Rosen sat listening. He told himself that Sturtevant should be
+back within half an hour. When only ten minutes had passed he took
+out his watch and was dismayed to find how short a time had elapsed.
+He replaced his watch and leaned back. He was always listening
+uneasily. He had encountered illness and death and distress, but
+never anything quite like this. He had always been able to give
+personal aid. Now he felt barred out, and fiercely helpless.
+
+He sat ten minutes longer. Then he arose. He could reach the kitchen
+by another way which did not lead past the stairs. He went out there,
+treading on tiptoe. The cat had looked up, stretched, and lazily
+gotten upon his feet and followed him, tail waving like a pennant. He
+brushed around Von Rosen out in the kitchen, and mewed a little,
+delicate, highbred mew. The dog came leaping up the basement stairs,
+sat up and begged. Von Rosen opened the ice box and found therein
+some steak. He cut off large pieces and fed the cat and dog. He also
+found milk and filled a saucer.
+
+He stole back to the study. He thought he had closed all the doors,
+but presently the cat entered, then sat down and began to lick
+himself with his little red rough tongue. Von Rosen looked at his
+watch again. The house shook a little, and he knew that the shaking
+was caused by Jane Riggs, walking upstairs. He longed to go upstairs
+but knew that he could not, and again that rage of helplessness came
+over him. He reflected upon human life, the agony of its beginning;
+the agony, in spite of bravery, in spite of denial of agony, the
+agony under the brightest of suns, of its endurance; the agony of its
+end; and his reflections were almost blasphemous. His religion seemed
+to crumble beneath the standing-place of his soul. A torture of
+doubt, a certainty of ignorance, in spite of the utmost efforts of
+faith, came over him. The cat coiled himself again and sank into
+sleep. Von Rosen gazed at him. What if the accepted order of things
+were reversed, after all? What if that beautiful little animal were
+on a higher plane than he? Certainly the cat did not suffer, and
+certainly suffering and doubt degraded even the greatest.
+
+He looked at his watch and saw that Sturtevant had been gone five
+minutes over the half hour. He switched off the electric light, and
+stood in his window, which faced the street down which the doctor in
+his car must come. He realised at once that this was more endurable.
+He was doing what a woman would have done long before. He was
+masculine, and had not the quick instinct to stand by the window and
+watch out, to ease impatience. The road was like a broad silver band
+under the moon. The lights in house windows gleamed through drawn
+shades, except in one house, where he could see quite distinctly a
+woman seated beside a lamp with a green shade, sewing, with regular
+motions of a red, silk-clad arm. Von Rosen strained his eyes, and
+saw, as he thought, a dark bulk advancing far down the street. He
+watched and watched, then noted that the dark bulk had not moved. He
+wondered if the motor had broken down. He thought of running out to
+see, and made a motion to go, then he saw swiftly-moving lights pass
+the dark bulk. He thought they were the lights of the motor, but as
+they passed he saw it was a cab taking someone to the railroad
+station. He knew then that the dark bulk was a clump of trees.
+
+Then, before he could fairly sense it, the doctor's motor came
+hurtling down the street, its search-lights glaring, swinging from
+side to side. The machine stopped, and Von Rosen ran to the door.
+
+"Here I am," said Sturtevant in a hushed voice. There was a sound
+from the room above, and the doctor, Von Rosen and nurse looked at
+each other. Then Von Rosen sat again alone in his study, and now, in
+spite of the closed door, he heard noises above stairs. Solitude was
+becoming frightful to him. He felt all at once strangely young, like
+a child, and a pitiful sense of injury was over him, but the sense of
+injury was not for himself alone, but for all mankind. He realised
+that all mankind was enormously pitiful and injured, by the mere fact
+of their obligatory existence. And he wished more than anything in
+the world for some understanding soul with whom to share his sense of
+the universal grievance.
+
+But he continued to sit alone, and the cat slept in his golden coil
+of peace. Then suddenly the cat sat up, and his jewel eyes glowed. He
+looked fixedly at a point in the room. Von Rosen looked in the same
+direction but saw nothing except his familiar wall. Then he heard
+steps on the stairs, and the door opened, and Jane Riggs entered. She
+was white and stern. She was tragic. Her lean fingers were clutching
+at the air. Von Rosen stared at her. She sat down and swept her
+crackling white apron over her head.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter III
+
+
+When Margaret Edes had returned home after the Zenith Club, she
+devoted an hour to rest. She had ample time for that before dressing
+for a dinner which she and her husband were to give in New York that
+evening. The dinner was set for rather a late hour in order to enable
+Margaret to secure this rest before the train-time. She lay on a
+couch before the fire, in her room which was done in white and gold.
+Her hair was perfectly arranged, for she had scarcely moved her head
+during the club meeting, and had adjusted and removed her hat with
+the utmost caution. Now she kept her shining head perfectly still
+upon a rather hard pillow. She did not relax her head, but she did
+relax her body, and the result, as she was aware, would be
+beautifying.
+
+Still as her head remained, she allowed no lines of disturbance to
+appear upon her face, and for that matter, no lines of joy. Secretly
+she did not approve of smiles, more than she approved of tears. Both
+of them, she knew, tended to leave traces, and other people,
+especially other women, did not discriminate between the traces of
+tears and smiles. Therefore, lying with her slim graceful body
+stretched out at full length upon her couch, Margaret Edes' face was
+as absolutely devoid of expression as a human face could well be, and
+this although she was thinking rather strenuously. She had not been
+pleased with the impression which Mrs. Sarah Joy Snyder had made upon
+the Zenith Club, because Mrs. Slade, and not she, had been
+instrumental in securing her valuable services. Mrs. Edes had a
+Napoleonic ambition which was tragic and pathetic, because it could
+command only a narrow scope for its really unusual force. If Mrs.
+Edes had only been possessed of the opportunity to subjugate Europe,
+nothing except another Waterloo could have stopped her onward march.
+But she had absolutely nothing to subjugate except poor little
+Fairbridge. She was a woman of power which was wasted. She was
+absurdly tragic, but none the less tragic. Power spent upon petty
+ends is one of the greatest disasters of the world. It wrecks not
+only the spender, but its object. Mrs. Edes was horribly and
+unworthily unhappy, reflecting upon Mrs. Sarah Joy Snyder and Mrs.
+Slade. She cared very much because Mrs. Slade and not she had brought
+about this success of the Zenith Club, with Mrs. Snyder as
+high-light. It was a shame to her, but she could not help it, because
+one living within narrow horizons must have limited aims.
+
+If only her husband had enough money to enable her to live in New
+York after the manner which would have suited her, she felt capable
+of being a leading power in that great and dreadful city. Probably
+she was right. The woman was in reality possessed of abnormal nerve
+force. Had Wilbur Edes owned millions, and she been armed with the
+power which they can convey, she might have worked miracles in her
+subtle feminine fashion. She would always have worked subtly, and
+never believed her feminine self. She understood its worth too well.
+She would have conquered like a cat, because she understood her
+weapons, her velvet charm, her purr, and her claws. She would not
+have attempted a growling and bulky leap into success. She would have
+slid and insinuated and made her gliding progress almost
+imperceptible, but none the less remorseless.
+
+But she was fated to live in Fairbridge. What else could she do?
+Wilbur Edes was successful in his profession, but he was not an
+accumulator, and neither was she. His income was large during some
+years, but it was spent during those years for things which seemed
+absolutely indispensable to both husband and wife. For instance,
+to-night Wilbur would spend an extravagant sum upon this dinner,
+which he was to give at an extravagant hotel to some people whom Mrs.
+Edes had met last summer, and who, if not actually in the great swim,
+were in the outer froth of it, and she had vague imaginings of future
+gain through them. Wilbur had carried his dress suit in that morning.
+He was to take a room in the hotel and change, and meet her at the
+New York side of the ferry. As she thought of the ferry it was all
+Mrs. Edes could do to keep her smooth brow from a frown. Somehow the
+ferry always humiliated her; the necessity of going up or down that
+common, democratic gang plank, clinging to the tail of her fine gown,
+and seating herself in a row with people who glanced askance at her
+evening wrap and her general magnificence.
+
+Poor Mrs. Edes was so small and slight that holding up magnificence
+and treading the deck with her high-heeled shoes was physically
+fatiguing. Had she been of a large, powerful physique, had her body
+matched her mind, she might not have felt a sense of angry
+humiliation. As it was, she realised that for her, _her_, to be
+obliged to cross the ferry was an insult at the hands of Providence.
+But the tunnel was no better, perhaps worse,--that plunged into
+depths below the waters, like one in a public bath. Anything so
+exquisite, so dainty, so subtly fine and powerful as herself, should
+not have been condemned to this. She should have been able to give
+her dinners in her own magnificent New York mansion. As it was, there
+was nothing for her except to dress and accept the inevitable.
+
+It was as bad as if Napoleon the Great had been forced to ride to
+battle on a trolley car, instead of being booted and spurred and
+astride a charger, which lifted one fore-leg in a fling of scorn. Of
+course Wilbur would meet her, and they would take a taxicab, but even
+a taxicab seemed rather humiliating to her. It should have been her
+own private motor car. And she would be obliged to descend the stairs
+at the station ungracefully, one hand clutching nervously at the tail
+of her gorgeous gown, the other at her evening cloak. It was
+absolutely impossible for so slight a woman to descend stairs with
+dignity and grace, holding up an evening cloak and a long gown.
+
+However, there would be compensations later. She thought, with
+decided pleasure, of the private dining-room, and the carefully
+planned and horribly expensive decorations, which would be eminently
+calculated to form a suitable background for herself. The flowers and
+candle-shades were to be yellow, and she was to wear her yellow
+chiffon gown, with touches of gold embroidery, a gold comb set with
+topazes in her yellow hair, and on her breast a large, gleaming stone
+which was a yellow diamond of very considerable value. Wilbur had
+carried in his suit case her yellow satin slippers, her gold-beaded
+fan, and the queer little wrap of leopard skin which she herself had
+fashioned from a rug which her husband had given her. She had much
+skill in fashioning articles for her own adornment as a cat has in
+burnishing his fur, and would at any time have sacrificed the
+curtains or furniture covers, had they met her needs.
+
+She would not be obliged--crowning disgrace--to carry a bag. All she
+would need would be her little case for tickets, and her change
+purse, and her evening cloak had pockets. The evening cloak lay
+beside the yellow chiffon gown, carefully disposed on the bed, which
+had a lace counterpane over yellow satin. The cloak was of a creamy
+cloth lined with mink, a sumptuous affair, and she had a tiny mink
+toque with one yellow rose as head covering.
+
+She glanced approvingly at the rich attire spread upon the bed, and
+then thought again of the dreadful ferry, and her undignified hop
+across the dirty station to the boat. She longed for the days of
+sedan chairs, for anything rather than this. She was an exquisite
+lady caught in the toils of modern cheap progress toward all her
+pleasures and profits. She did not belong in a democratic country at
+all unless she had millions. She was out of place, as much out of
+place as a splendid Angora in an alley. Fairbridge to her instincts
+was as an alley; yet since it was her alley, she had to make the best
+of it. Had she not made the best of it, exalted it, magnified it, she
+would have gone mad. Wherefore the triumph of Mrs. Slade in
+presenting Mrs. Sarah Joy Snyder seemed to her like an affair of
+moment. For lack of something greater to hate and rival, she hated
+and rivalled Mrs. Slade. For lack of something big over which to
+reign, she wished to reign over Fairbridge and the Zenith Club. Mrs.
+Slade's perfectly-matched drawing-room took on the semblance of a
+throne-room, in which she had seen herself usurped.
+
+Then she thought of the young clergyman, even as he was thinking of
+her. She knew perfectly well how he had been trapped, but she failed
+to see the slightest humour in it. She had no sense of humour. She
+saw only the additional triumph of Mrs. Slade in securing this rather
+remarkable man at the Zenith Club, something which she herself had
+never been able to do. Von Rosen's face came before her. She
+considered it a handsome face, but no man's face could disturb her.
+She held her virtue with as nervous a clutch as she held up her fine
+gown. To soil either would be injudicious, impolitic, and she never
+desired the injudicious and impolitic.
+
+"He is a handsome man," she said to herself, "an aristocratic-looking
+man."  Then the telephone bell close beside her divan rang, and she
+took up the receiver carefully, not moving her head, sat up, and put
+her delicate lips to the speaking tube.
+
+"Hello," said a voice, and she recognised it as Von Rosen's although
+it had an agitated, nervous ring which was foreign to it.
+
+"What is it?" she said in reply, and the voice responded with
+volubility, "A girl, a young Syrian girl, is at my home. She is in a
+swoon or something. We cannot revive her. Is the doctor at home? Tell
+him to hurry over, please. I am Mr. von Rosen. Tell him to hurry. She
+may be dead."
+
+"You have made a mistake, Mr. von Rosen," said Mrs. Edes' thin voice,
+as thin and silvery as a reed. "You are speaking to Mrs. Wilbur Edes.
+My telephone number is 5R. You doubtless want Doctor Sturtevant. His
+number is 51M."
+
+"Oh, pardon," cried the voice over the telephone. "Sorry to have
+disturbed you, Mrs. Edes, I mistook--"
+
+The voice trailed into nothingness. There was a sharp ring. Mrs. Edes
+hung up her receiver. She thought slowly that it was a strange
+circumstance that Mr. von Rosen should have a fainting or dead young
+Syrian girl in his house. Then she rose from the divan, holding her
+head very stiffly, and began to dress. She had just enough time to
+dress leisurely and catch the train. She called on one of the two
+maids to assist her and was quite equipped, even to the little mink
+toque, fastened very carefully on her shining head, when there was a
+soft push at the door, and her twin daughters, Maida and Adelaide,
+entered. They were eight years old, but looked younger. They were
+almost exactly alike as to small, pretty features and pale blond
+colouring. Maida scowled a little, and Adelaide did not, and people
+distinguished them by that when in doubt.
+
+They stood and stared at their mother with a curious expression on
+their sharp, delicate little faces. It was not exactly admiration, it
+was not wonder, nor envy, nor affection, yet tinctured by all.
+
+Mrs. Edes looked at them. "Maida," said she, "do not wear that blue
+hair-ribbon again. It is soiled. Have you had your dinners?"
+
+"Yes, mamma," responded first one, then the other, Maida with the
+frown being slightly in the lead.
+
+"Then you had better go to bed," said Mrs. Edes, and the two little
+girls stood carefully aside to allow her to pass.
+
+"Good night, children," said Mrs. Edes without turning her
+mink-crowned head. The little girls watched the last yellow swirl of
+their mother's skirts, disappearing around the stair-landing, then
+Adelaide spoke.
+
+"I mean to wear red, myself, when I'm grown up," said she.
+
+"Ho, just because Jim Carr likes red," retorted Maida. "As for me, I
+mean to have a gown just like hers, only a little deeper shade of
+yellow."
+
+Adelaide laughed, an unpleasantly snarling little laugh. "Ho," said
+she, "just because Val Thomas likes yellow."
+
+Then the coloured maid, Emma, who was cross because Mrs. Edes'
+evening out had deprived her of her own, and had been ruthlessly
+hanging her mistress's gown which she had worn to the club in a wad
+on a closet hook, disregarding its perfumed hanger, turned upon them.
+
+"Heah, ye chillun," said she, "your ma sid for you to go to baid."
+
+Each little girl had her white bed with a canopy of pink silk in a
+charming room. There were garlands of rosebuds on the wallpaper and
+the furniture was covered with rosebud chintz.
+
+While their mother was indignantly sailing across the North River,
+her daughters lay awake, building air-castles about themselves and
+their boy-lovers, which fevered their imaginations, and aged them
+horribly in a spiritual sense.
+
+"Amy White's mother plays dominoes with her every evening," Maida
+remarked. Her voice sounded incredibly old, full of faint
+derisiveness and satire, but absolutely non-complaining.
+
+"Amy White's mother would look awfully funny in a gown like Mamma's,"
+said Adelaide.
+
+"I suppose that is why she plays dominoes with Amy," said Maida in
+her old voice.
+
+"Oh, don't talk any more, Maida, I want to go to sleep," said
+Adelaide pettishly, but she was not in the least sleepy. She wished
+to return to the air-castle in which she had been having sweet
+converse with Jim Carr. This air-castle was the abode of innocence,
+but it was not yet time for its building at all. It was such a little
+childish creature who lay curled up under the coverlid strewn with
+rosebuds that the gates of any air-castle of life and love, and
+knowledge, however innocent and ignorant, should have been barred
+against her, perhaps with dominoes.
+
+However, she entered in, her soft cheeks burning, and her pulse
+tingling, and saw the strange light through its fairy windows, and
+her sister also entered her air-castle, and all the time their mother
+was sailing across the North River toward the pier where her husband
+waited. She kept one gloved hand upon the fold of her gown, ready to
+clutch it effectually clear of the dirty deck when the pier was
+reached. When she was in the taxicab with Wilbur, she thought again
+of Von Rosen. "Dominie von Rosen made a mistake," said she, "and
+called up the wrong number. He wanted Doctor Sturtevant, and he got
+me."  Then she repeated the message. "What do you suppose he was
+doing with a fainting Syrian girl in his house?" she ended.
+
+A chuckle shook the dark bulk in its fur lined coat at her side. "The
+question is why the Syrian girl chose Von Rosen's house to faint in,"
+said he lightly.
+
+"Oh, don't be funny, Wilbur," said Margaret. "Have you seen the
+dining-room? How does it look?"
+
+"I thought it beautiful, and I am sure you will like it," said Wilbur
+Edes in the chastened tone which he commonly used toward his wife. He
+had learned long ago that facetiousness displeased her, and he lived
+only to please her, aside from his interest in his profession. Poor
+Wilbur Edes thought his wife very wonderful, and watched with delight
+the hats doffed when she entered the hotel lift like a little
+beruffled yellow canary. He wished those men could see her later,
+when the canary resemblance had altogether ceased, when she would
+look tall and slender and lithe in her clinging yellow gown with the
+great yellow stone gleaming in her corsage.
+
+For some reason Margaret Edes held her husband's admiration with a
+more certain tenure because she could not be graceful when weighed
+down with finery. The charm of her return to grace was a never-ending
+surprise. Wilbur Edes loved his wife more comfortably than he loved
+his children. He loved them a little uneasily. They were unknown
+elements to him, and he sometimes wished that he had more time at
+home, to get them firmly fixed in his comprehension. Without the
+slightest condemnation of his wife, he had never regarded her as a
+woman in whom the maternal was a distinguishing feature. He saw with
+approbation the charming externals with which she surrounded their
+offspring. It was a gratification to him to be quite sure that
+Maida's hair ribbon would always be fresh and tied perkily, and that
+Adelaide would be full of dainty little gestures copied from her
+mother, but he had some doubts as to whether his wonderful Margaret
+might not be too perfect in herself, and too engrossed with the
+duties pertaining to perfection to be quite the proper manager of
+imperfection and immaturity represented by childhood.
+
+"How did you leave the children!" he inquired when they were in their
+bedroom at the hotel, and he was fitting the yellow satin slippers to
+his wife's slender silk shod feet.
+
+"The children were as well as usual. I told Emma to put them to bed.
+Do you think the orchids in the dining-room are the right shade,
+Wilbur?"
+
+"I am quite sure. I am glad that you told Emma to put them to bed."
+
+"I always do. Mrs. George B. Slade is most unpleasantly puffed up."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Oh, because she got Mrs. Sarah Joy Snyder to speak to the club."
+
+"Did she do her stunt well?"
+
+"Well enough. Mrs. Slade was so pleased, it was really offensive."
+
+Wilbur Edes had an inspiration. "The Fay-Wymans," said he (the
+Fay-Wymans were the principal guests of their dinner party), "know a
+lot of theatrical people. I will see if I can't get them to induce
+somebody, say Lydia Greenway, to run out some day; I suppose it would
+have to be later on, just after the season, and do a stunt at the
+club."
+
+"Oh, that would be simply charming," cried Margaret, "and I would
+rather have it in the spring, because everything looks so much
+prettier. But don't you think it will be impossible, Wilbur?"
+
+"Not with money as an inducement."  Wilbur had the pleasant
+consciousness of an unusually large fee which was sure to be his own
+before that future club meeting, and he could see no better
+employment for it than to enable his adored wife to outshine Mrs.
+George B. Slade. When in New York engaged in his profession, Wilbur
+Edes was entirely free from the vortex of Fairbridge, but his wife,
+with its terrible eddies still agitating her garments, could suck him
+therein, even in the great city. He was very susceptible to her
+influence.
+
+Margaret Edes beamed at her husband as he rose. "That will make
+Marion Slade furious," she said. She extended her feet. "Pretty
+slippers, aren't they, Wilbur?"
+
+"Charming, my dear."
+
+Margaret was so pleased that she tried to do something very amiable.
+
+"That was funny, I mean what you said about the Syrian girl at the
+Dominie's," she volunteered, and laughed, without making a crease in
+her fair little face. She was really adorable, far more than pretty,
+leaning back with one slender, yellow-draped leg crossed over the
+other, revealing the glittering slippers and one silken ankle.
+
+"It does sound somewhat queer, a Syrian girl fainting in the
+Dominie's house," said Wilbur. "She could not have found a house
+where her sex, of any nationality, are in less repute."
+
+"Then you don't think that Alice Mendon--?"  There was a faint note
+of jealousy in Margaret's voice, although she herself had not the
+slightest interest in Dominie von Rosen or any man, except her
+husband; and in him only because he was her husband. As the husband
+of her wonderful self, he acquired a certain claim to respect, even
+affection, such as she had to bestow.
+
+"I don't think Alice Mendon would take up with the Dominie, if he
+would with her," responded Wilbur Edes hastily. Margaret did not
+understand his way of speaking, but just then she looked at herself
+in an opposite mirror, and pulled down one side of her blond
+pompadour a bit, which softened her face, and added to its
+allurement. The truth was Wilbur Edes, before he met Margaret, had
+proposed to Alice Mendon. Alice had never told, and he had not,
+consequently Margaret did not know. Had she known it would have made
+no difference, since she could not imagine any man preferring Alice
+to herself. All her jealousy was based upon the facts of her superior
+height, and ability to carry herself well, where she knew herself
+under many circumstances about as graceful as an Angora cat walking
+upon her hind legs. She was absolutely sure of her husband. The
+episode with Alice had occurred before he had ever even seen Herself.
+She smiled radiantly upon him as she arose. She was conscious of no
+affection for her husband, but she was conscious of a desire to show
+appreciation, and to display radiance for his delectation.
+
+"It is charming of you to think of getting Lydia Greenway to read,
+you dear old man," said she. Wilbur beamed.
+
+"Well, of course, I can not be sure, that is not absolutely sure, but
+if it is to be done, I will manage it," said he.
+
+It was at this very time, for radically different notes sound at the
+same time in the harmony or discord of life, that Von Rosen's
+housekeeper, Jane Riggs, stood before him with that crackling white
+apron swept over her face.
+
+"What is it?" asked Von Rosen, and he realised that his lips were
+stiff, and his voice sounded strange.
+
+A strange harsh sob came from behind the apron. "She was all bent to
+one side with that heavy suit case, as heavy as lead, for I hefted
+it," said Jane Riggs, "and she couldn't have been more than fifteen.
+Them outlandish girls get married awful young."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"And there was poor Jack lickin' her hands, and him a dog everybody
+is so scared of, and she a sinkin' down in a heap on my kitchen
+floor."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"She has passed away," answered Jane Riggs, "and--the baby is a boy,
+and no bigger than the cat, not near as big as the cat when I come to
+look at him, and I put some of my old flannels and my shimmy on him,
+and Doctor Sturtevant has got him in my darning basket, all lined
+with newspapers, the New York _Sun_, and the _Times_ and hot water
+bottles, and it's all happened in the best chamber, and I call it
+pretty goings on."
+
+Jane Riggs gave vent to discordant sobs. Her apron crackled. Von
+Rosen took hold of her shoulders. "Go straight back up there," he
+ordered.
+
+"Why couldn't she have gone in and fainted away somewhere where there
+was more women than one," said Jane Riggs. "Doctor Sturtevant, he
+sent me down for more newspapers."
+
+"Take these, and go back at once," said Von Rosen, and he gathered up
+the night papers in a crumpled heap and thrust them upon the woman.
+
+"He said you had better telephone for Mrs. Bestwick," said Jane. Mrs.
+Bestwick was the resident nurse of Fairbridge. Von Rosen sprang to
+the telephone, but he could get no response whatever from the Central
+office, probably on account of the ice-coated wires.
+
+He sat down disconsolately, and the cat leapt upon his knees, but he
+pushed him away impatiently, to be surveyed in consequence by those
+topaz eyes with a regal effect of injury, and astonishment. Von Rosen
+listened. He wondered if he heard, or imagined that he heard, a
+plaintive little wail. The dog snuggled close to him, and he felt a
+warm tongue lap. Von Rosen patted the dog's head. Here was sympathy.
+The cat's leap into his lap had been purely selfish. Von Rosen
+listened. He got up, and tried to telephone again, but got no
+response from Central. He hung up the receiver emphatically and sat
+down again. The dog again came close, and he patted the humble loving
+head. Von Rosen listened again, and again could not be sure whether
+he actually heard or imagined that he heard, the feeblest, most
+helpless cry ever lifted up from this earth, that of a miserable new
+born baby with its uncertain future reaching before it and all the
+sins of its ancestors upon its devoted head.
+
+When at last the door opened and Doctor Sturtevant entered, he was
+certain. That poor little atom of humanity upstairs was lifting up
+its voice of feeble rage and woe because of its entrance into
+existence. Sturtevant had an oddly apologetic look. "I assure you I
+am sorry, my dear fellow--" he began.
+
+"Is the poor little beggar going to live?" asked Von Rosen.
+
+"Well, yes, I think so, judging from the present outlook," replied
+the doctor still apologetically.
+
+"I could not get Mrs. Bestwick," said Von Rosen anxiously. "I think
+the telephone is out of commission, on account of the ice."
+
+"Never mind that. Your housekeeper is a jewel, and I will get Mrs.
+Bestwick on my way home. I say, Von Rosen--"
+
+Von Rosen looked at him inquiringly.
+
+"Oh, well, never mind; I really must be off now," said the doctor
+hurriedly. "I will get Mrs. Bestwick here as soon as possible. I
+think--the child will have to be kept here for a short time anyway,
+considering the weather, and everything."
+
+"Why, of course," said Von Rosen.
+
+After the doctor had gone, he went out in the kitchen. He had had no
+dinner. Jane Riggs, who had very acute hearing, came to the head of
+the stairs, and spoke in a muffled tone, muffled as Von Rosen knew
+because of the presence of death and life in the house. "The roast is
+in the oven, Mr. von Rosen," said she, "I certainly hope it isn't too
+dry, and the soup is in the kettle, and the vegetables are all ready
+to dish up. Everything is ready except the coffee."
+
+"You know I can make that," called Von Rosen in alarm. "Don't think
+of coming down."
+
+Von Rosen could make very good coffee. It was an accomplishment of
+his college days. He made some now. He felt the need of it. Then he
+handily served the very excellent dinner, and sat down at his
+solitary dining table. As he ate his soup, he glanced across the
+table, and a blush like that of a girl overspread his dark face. He
+had a vision of a high chair, and a child installed therein with the
+customary bib and spoon. It was a singular circumstance, but
+everything in life moves in sequences, and that poor Syrian child
+upstairs, in her dire extremity, was furnishing a sequence in the
+young man's life, before she went out of it. Her stimulation of his
+sympathy and imagination was to change the whole course of his
+existence.
+
+Meanwhile, Doctor Sturtevant was having a rather strenuous argument
+with his wife, who for once stood against him. She had her
+not-to-be-silenced personal note. She had a horror of the alien and
+unusual. All her life she had walked her chalk-line, and anything
+outside savoured of the mysterious, and terrible. She was
+Anglo-Saxon. She was what her ancestresses had been for generations.
+The strain was unchanged, and had become so tense and narrow that it
+was almost fathomless. Mrs. Sturtevant, good and benevolent on her
+chalk-line, was involuntarily a bigot. She looked at Chinese laundry
+men, poor little yellow figures, shuffling about with bags of soiled
+linen, with thrills of recoil. She would not have acknowledged it to
+herself, for she came of a race which favoured abolition, but nothing
+could have induced her to have a coloured girl in her kitchen. Her
+imaginations and prejudices were stained as white as her skin. There
+was a lone man living on the outskirts of Fairbridge, in a little
+shack built by himself in the woods, who was said to have Indian
+blood in his veins, and Mrs. Sturtevant never saw him without that
+awful thrill of recoil. When the little Orientals, men or women,
+swayed sidewise and bent with their cheap suitcases filled with
+Eastern handiwork, came to the door, she did not draw a long breath
+until she had watched them out of sight down the street. It made no
+difference to her that they might be Christians, that they might have
+suffered persecution in their own land and sought our doorless
+entrances of hospitality; she still realised her own aloofness from
+them, or rather theirs from her. They had entered existence entirely
+outside her chalk-line. She and they walked on parallels which to all
+eternity could never meet.
+
+It therefore came to pass that, although she had in the secret depths
+of her being bemoaned her childlessness, and had been conscious of
+yearnings and longings which were agonies, when Doctor Sturtevant,
+after the poor young unknown mother had been laid away in the
+Fairbridge cemetery, proposed that they should adopt the bereft
+little one, she rebelled.
+
+"If he were a white baby, I wouldn't object that I know of," said
+she, "but I can't have this kind. I can't make up my mind to it,
+Edward."
+
+"But, Maria, the child is white. He may not be European, but he is
+white. That is, while of course he has a dark complexion and dark
+eyes and hair, he is as white, in a way, as any child in Fairbridge,
+and he will be a beautiful boy. Moreover, we have every reason to
+believe that he was born in wedlock. There was a ring on a poor
+string of a ribbon on the mother's neck, and there was a fragment of
+a letter which Von Rosen managed to make out. He thinks that the poor
+child was married to another child of her own race. The boy is all
+right and he will be a fine little fellow."
+
+"It is of no use," said Maria Sturtevant. "I can't make up my mind to
+adopt a baby, that belonged to that kind of people. I simply can not,
+Edward."
+
+Sturtevant gave up the matter for the time being. The baby remained
+at Von Rosen's under the care of Mrs. Bestwick, and Jane Riggs, but
+when it was a month old, the doctor persuaded his wife to go over and
+see it. Maria Sturtevant gazed at the tiny scrap of humanity curled
+up in Jane Riggs' darning basket, the old-young face creased as
+softly as a rosebud, with none of its beauty, but with a compelling
+charm. She watched the weak motion of the infinitesimal legs and arms
+beneath the soft smother of wrappings, and her heart pained her with
+longing, but she remained firm.
+
+"It is no use, Edward," she said, when they had returned to Von
+Rosen's study. "I can't make up my mind to adopt a baby coming from
+such queer people."  Then she was confronted by a stare of blank
+astonishment from Von Rosen, and also from Jane Riggs.
+
+Jane Riggs spoke with open hostility. "I don't know that anybody has
+asked anybody to adopt our baby," said she.
+
+Von Rosen laughed, but he also blushed. He spoke rather stammeringly.
+"Well, Sturtevant," said he, "the fact is, Jane and I have talked it
+over, and she thinks she can manage, and he seems a bright little
+chap, and--I have about made up my mind to keep him myself."
+
+"He is going to be baptised as soon as he is big enough to be taken
+out of my darning basket," said Jane Riggs with defiance, but Mrs.
+Sturtevant regarded her with relief.
+
+"I dare say he will be a real comfort to you," she said, "even if he
+does come from such queer stock."  Her husband looked at Von Rosen
+and whistled under his breath.
+
+"People will talk," he said aside.
+
+"Let them," returned Von Rosen. He was experiencing a strange new joy
+of possession, which no possibility of ridicule could daunt. However,
+his joy was of short duration. The baby was a little over three
+months old, and had been promoted to a crib, and a perambulator, had
+been the unconscious recipient of many gifts from the women of Von
+Rosen's parish, and of many calls from admiring little girls. Jane
+had scented the danger. She came home from marketing one morning,
+quite pale, and could hardly speak when she entered Von Rosen's
+study.
+
+"There's an outlandish young man around here," said she, "and you had
+better keep that baby close."
+
+Von Rosen laughed. "Those people are always about," he said. "You
+have no reason to be nervous, Jane. There is hardly a chance he has
+anything to do with the baby, and in any case, he would not be likely
+to burden himself with the care of it."
+
+"Don't you be too sure," said Jane stoutly, "a baby like that!"
+
+Jane, much against her wishes, was obliged to go out that afternoon,
+and Von Rosen was left alone with the baby with the exception of a
+little nurse girl who had taken the place of Mrs. Bestwick. Then it
+was that the Syrian man, he was no more than a boy, came. Von Rosen
+did not at first suspect. The Syrian spoke very good English, and he
+was a Christian. So he told Von Rosen. Then he also told him that the
+dead girl had been his wife, and produced letters signed with the
+name which those in her possession had borne. Von Rosen was
+convinced. There was something about the boy with his haughty, almost
+sullen, oriental manner which bore the stamp of truth. However, when
+he demanded only the suit-case which his dead wife had brought when
+she came to the house, Von Rosen was relieved. He produced it at
+once, and his wonder and disgust mounted to fever heat, when that
+Eastern boy proceeded to take out carefully the gauds of feminine
+handiwork which it contained, and press them upon Von Rosen at
+exorbitant prices. Von Rosen was more incensed than he often
+permitted himself to be. He ordered the boy from the house, and he
+departed with strong oaths, and veiled and intricate threats after
+the manner of his subtle race, and when Jane Riggs came home, Von
+Rosen told her.
+
+"I firmly believe the young rascal was that poor girl's husband, and
+the boy's father," he said.
+
+"Didn't he ask to have the baby?"
+
+"Never mentioned such a thing. All he wanted was the article of value
+which the poor girl left here."
+
+Jane Riggs also looked relieved. "Outlandish people are queer," she
+said.
+
+But the next morning she rushed into Von Rosen's room when he had
+barely finished dressing, sobbing aloud like a child, her face
+rigidly convulsed with grief, and her hands waving frantically with
+no effort to conceal it.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IV
+
+
+The little Syrian baby had disappeared. Nobody had reckoned with the
+soft guile of a race as supple and silent as to their real intentions
+as cats. There was a verandah column wound with a massive wistaria
+vine near the window of the baby's room. The little nurse girl went
+home every night, and Jane Riggs was a heavy sleeper. When she had
+awakened, her first glance had been into the baby's crib. Then she
+sprang, and searched with hungry hands. The little softly indented
+nest was not warm, the child had been gone for some hours, probably
+had been taken during the first and soundest sleep of the household.
+Jane's purse, and her gold breast pin, had incidentally been taken
+also. When she gave the alarm to Von Rosen, a sullen, handsome Syrian
+boy was trudging upon an unfrequented road, which led circuitously to
+the City, and he carried a suit-case, but it was held apart, by some
+of the Eastern embroideries used as wedges, before strapping, and
+from that came the querulous wail of a baby squirming uncomfortably
+upon drawn work centre pieces, and crepe kimonas. Now and then the
+boy stopped and spoke to the baby in a lovely gentle voice. He
+promised it food, and shelter soon in his own soft tongue. He was
+carrying it to his wife's mother, and sullen as he looked and was,
+and thief as he was, love for his own swayed him, and made him
+determined to hold it fast. Von Rosen made all possible inquiries. He
+employed detectives but he never obtained the least clue to the
+whereabouts of the little child. He, however, although he grieved
+absurdly, almost as absurdly as Jane, had a curious sense of joy over
+the whole. Life in Fairbridge had, before birth and death entered his
+home, been so monotonous, that he was almost stupefied. Here was a
+thread of vital gold and flame, although it had brought pain with it.
+When Doctor Sturtevant condoled with him, he met with an unexpected
+response. "I feel for you, old man. It was a mighty unfortunate thing
+that it happened in your house, now that this has come of it," he
+said.
+
+"I am very glad it happened, whatever came of it," said Von Rosen.
+"It is something to have had in my life. I wouldn't have missed it."
+
+Fairbridge people, who were on the whole a good-natured set, were
+very sympathetic, especially the women. Bessy Dicky shed tears when
+talking to Mrs. Sturtevant about the disappearance of the baby. Mrs.
+Sturtevant was not very responsive.
+
+"It may be all for the best," she said. "Nobody can tell how that
+child would have turned out. He might have ended by killing Mr. von
+Rosen."  Then she added with a sigh that she hoped his poor mother
+had been married.
+
+"Why, of course she was since there was a baby," said Bessy Dicky.
+Then she rose hastily with a blush because Doctor Sturtevant's motor
+could be heard, and took her leave.
+
+Doctor Sturtevant had just returned from a call upon Margaret Edes,
+who had experienced a very severe disappointment, coming as it did
+after another very successful meeting of the Zenith Club at Daisy
+Shaw's, who had most unexpectedly provided a second cousin who
+recited monologues wonderfully. Wilbur had failed in his attempt to
+secure Lydia Greenway for Margaret's star-feature. The actress had
+promised, but had been suddenly attacked with a very severe cold
+which had obliged her to sail for Europe a week earlier than she had
+planned. Margaret had been quite ill, but Doctor Sturtevant gave her
+pain pellets with the result that late in the afternoon she sat on
+her verandah in a fluffy white tea gown, and then it was that little
+Annie Eustace came across the street, and sat with her. Annie was not
+little. Although slender, she was, in fact, quite tall and wide
+shouldered and there was something about her which seemed to justify
+the use of the diminutive adjective. Possibly it was her face, which
+was really small and very pretty, with perfect cameo-like features
+and an odd, deprecating, almost painfully humble expression. It was
+the face of a creature entirely capable of asking an enemy's pardon
+for an injury inflicted upon herself. In reality, Annie Eustace had
+very much that attitude of soul. She always considered the wrong as
+her natural place, and, in fact, would not have been comfortable
+elsewhere, although she suffered there. And yet, little Annie Eustace
+was a gifted creature. There was probably not a person in Fairbridge
+who had been so well endowed by nature, but her environment and
+up-bringing had been unfortunate. If Annie's mother had lived, the
+daughter might have had more spirit, but she had died when Annie was
+a baby, and the child had been given over to the tyranny of two
+aunts, and a grandmother. As for her father, he had never married
+again, but he had never paid much attention to her. He had been a
+reserved, silent man, himself under the sway of his mother and
+sisters. Charles Eustace had had an obsession to the effect that the
+skies of his own individual sphere would fall to his and his child's
+destruction, if his female relatives deserted him, and that they had
+threatened to do, upon the slightest sign of revolt. Sometimes
+Annie's father had regarded her wistfully and wondered within himself
+if it were quite right for a child to be so entirely governed, but
+his own spirit of yielding made it impossible for him to realise the
+situation. Obedience had been little Annie Eustace's first lesson
+taught by the trio, who to her represented all government, in her
+individual case.
+
+Annie Eustace obeyed her aunts, and grandmother (her father had been
+dead for several years), but she loved only three,--two were women,
+Margaret Edes and Alice Mendon; the other was a man, and the love was
+not confessed to her own heart.
+
+This afternoon Annie wore an ugly green gown, which was, moreover,
+badly cut. The sleeves were too long below the elbow, and too short
+above, and every time she moved an arm they hitched uncomfortably.
+The neck arrangement was exceedingly unbecoming, and the skirt not
+well hung. The green was of the particular shade which made her look
+yellow. As she sat beside Margaret and embroidered assiduously, and
+very unskilfully, some daisies on a linen centre-piece, the other
+woman eyed her critically.
+
+"You should not wear that shade of green, if you will excuse my
+saying so, dear," she remarked presently.
+
+Annie regarded her with a charming, loving smile. She would have
+excused her idol for saying anything. "I know it is not very
+becoming," she agreed sweetly.
+
+"Becoming," said Margaret a trifle viciously. She was so out of sorts
+about her failure to secure Lydia Greenway that she felt a great
+relief in attacking little Annie Eustace.
+
+"Becoming," said she. "It actually makes you hideous. That shade is
+impossible for you and why,--I trust you will not be offended, you
+know it is for your own good, dear,--why do you wear your hair in
+that fashion?"
+
+"I am afraid it is not very becoming," said Annie with the meekness
+of those who inherit the earth. She did not state that her aunt
+Harriet had insisted that she dress her hair in that fashion. Annie
+was intensely loyal.
+
+"Nobody," said Margaret, "unless she were as beautiful as Helen of
+Troy, should wear her hair that way, and not look a fright."
+
+Annie Eustace blushed, but it was not a distressed blush. When one
+has been downtrodden one's whole life, one becomes accustomed to it,
+and besides she loved the down-treader.
+
+"Yes," said she. "I looked at myself in my glass just before I came
+and I thought I did not look well."
+
+"Hideous," said Margaret.
+
+Annie smiled agreement and looked pretty, despite the fact that her
+hair was strained tightly back, showing too much of her intellectual
+forehead, and the colour of her gown killed all the pink bloom lights
+in her face. Annie Eustace had a beautiful soul and it showed forth
+triumphant over all bodily accessories, in her smile.
+
+"You are not doing that embroidery at all well," said Margaret.
+
+Annie laughed. "I know it," she said with a sort of meek amusement.
+"I don't think I ever can master long and short stitch."
+
+"Why on earth do you attempt it then?"
+
+"Everybody embroiders," replied Annie. She did not state that her
+grandmother had made taking the embroidery a condition of her call
+upon her friend.
+
+Margaret continued to regard her. She was finding a species of salve
+for her own disappointment in this irritant applied to another. "What
+does make you wear that hair ring?" said she.
+
+"It was a present," replied Annie humbly, but she for the first time
+looked a little disturbed. That mourning emblem with her father's and
+mother's, and a departed sister's hair in a neat little twist under a
+small crystal, grated upon her incessantly. It struck her as a
+species of ghastly sentiment, which at once distressed, and impelled
+her to hysterical mirth.
+
+"A present," repeated Margaret. "If anybody gave me such a present as
+that, I would never wear it. It is simply in shocking bad taste."
+
+"I sometimes fear so," said Annie. She did not state that her Aunt
+Jane never allowed her to be seen in public without that dismal
+adornment.
+
+"You are a queer girl," said Margaret, and she summed up all her mood
+of petty cruelty and vicarious revenge in that one word "queer."
+
+However, little Annie Eustace only smiled as if she had been given a
+peculiarly acceptable present. She was so used to being underrated,
+that she had become in a measure immune to criticism, and besides
+criticism from her adored Mrs. Edes was even a favour. She took
+another bungling stitch in the petal of a white floss daisy.
+
+Margaret felt suddenly irritated. All this was too much like raining
+fierce blows upon a down pillow.
+
+"Do, for goodness sake, Annie Eustace, stop doing that awful
+embroidery if you don't want to drive me crazy," said she.
+
+Then Annie looked at Margaret, and she was obviously distressed and
+puzzled. Her grandmother had enjoined it upon her to finish just so
+many of these trying daisies before her return and yet, on the other
+hand, here was Margaret, her adorable Margaret, forbidding her to
+work, and, moreover, Margaret in such an irritable mood, with that
+smooth brow of hers frowning, and that sweet voice, which usually had
+a lazy trickle like honey, fairly rasping, was as awe-inspiring as
+her grandmother. Annie Eustace hesitated for a second. Her
+grandmother had commanded. Margaret Edes had commanded. The strongest
+impulse of her whole being was obedience, but she loved Margaret, and
+she did not love her grandmother. She had never confessed such a
+horror to herself, but one does not love another human being whose
+main aim toward one is to compress, to stiffen, to make move in a
+step with itself. Annie folded up the untidy embroidery. As she did
+so, she dropped her needle and also her thimble. The needle lay
+glittering beside her chair, the thimble rolled noiselessly over the
+trailing fold of her muslin gown into the folds of Margaret's white
+silk. Margaret felt an odd delight in that. Annie was careless, and
+she was dainty, and she was conscious of a little pleasurable
+preening of her own soul-plumage.
+
+Margaret said nothing about the thimble and needle. Annie sat
+regarding her with a sort of expectation, and the somewhat mussy
+little parcel of linen lay in her lap. Annie folded over it her very
+slender hands, and the horrible hair ring was in full evidence.
+
+Margaret fixed her eyes upon it. Annie quickly placed the hand which
+wore it under the other. Then she spoke, since Margaret did not, and
+she said exactly the wrong thing. The being forced continually into
+the wrong, often has the effect of making one quite innocently take
+the first step in that direction even if no force be used.
+
+"I hear that the last meeting of the Zenith Club was unusually
+interesting," said little Annie Eustace, and she could have said
+nothing more hapless to Margaret Edes in her present mood. Quite
+inadvertently, she herself became the irritant party. Margaret
+actually flushed. "I failed to see anything interesting whatever
+about it, myself," said she tartly.
+
+Annie offended again. "I heard that Mrs. Sarah Joy Snyder's address
+was really very remarkable," said she.
+
+"It was simply a very stupid effort to be funny," returned Margaret.
+"Sometimes women will laugh because they are expected to, and they
+did that afternoon. Everything was simply cut and dried. It always is
+at Mrs. George B. Slade's. I never knew a woman so absolutely
+destitute of originality."
+
+Annie looked helplessly at Margaret. She could say no more unless she
+contradicted. Margaret continued. She felt that she could no longer
+conceal her own annoyance, and she was glad of this adoring audience
+of one.
+
+"I had planned something myself for the next meeting, something which
+has never been done," said she, "something new, and stimulating."
+
+"Oh, how lovely!" cried Annie.
+
+"But of course, like all really clever plans for the real good and
+progress of a club like ours, something has to come up to prevent,"
+said Margaret.
+
+"Oh, what?"
+
+"Well, I had planned to have Lydia Greenway, you know she is really a
+great artist, come to the next meeting and give dramatic
+recitations."
+
+"Oh, would she?" gasped Annie Eustace.
+
+"Of course, it would have meant a large pecuniary outlay," said
+Margaret, "but I was prepared, quite prepared, to make some
+sacrifices for the good of the club, but, why, you must have read it
+in the papers, Annie."
+
+Annie looked guiltily ignorant.
+
+"I really do not see how you contrive to exist without keeping more
+in touch with the current events," said Margaret.
+
+Annie looked meekly culpable, although she was not. Her aunts did not
+approve of newspapers, as containing so much information, so much
+cheap information concerning the evil in the world, especially for a
+young person like Annie, and she was not allowed to read them,
+although she sometimes did so surreptitiously.
+
+"It was in all the papers," continued Margaret, with her censorious
+air. "Lydia Greenway was obliged to leave unexpectedly and go to the
+Riveria. They fear tuberculosis. She sailed last Saturday."
+
+"I am so sorry," said Annie. Then she proceeded to elaborate her
+statement in exactly the wrong way. She said how very dreadful it
+would be if such a talented young actress should fall a victim of
+such a terrible disease, and what a loss she would be to the public,
+whereas all that Margaret Edes thought should be at all considered by
+any true friend of her own was her own particular loss.
+
+"For once the Zenith Club would have had a meeting calculated to take
+Fairbridge women out of their rut in which people like Mrs. Slade and
+Mrs. Sturtevant seem determined to keep them," returned Margaret
+testily. Annie stared at her. Margaret often said that it was the
+first rule of her life never to speak ill of any one, and she kept
+the letter of it as a rule.
+
+"I am so sorry," said Annie. Then she added with more tact. "It would
+have been such a wonderful thing for us all to have had Lydia
+Greenway give dramatic recitals to us. Oh, Margaret, I can understand
+how much it would have meant."
+
+"It would have meant progress," said Margaret. She looked imperiously
+lovely, as she sat there all frilled about with white lace and silk
+with the leaf-shadows playing over the slender whiteness. She lifted
+one little hand tragically. "Progress," she repeated. "Progress
+beyond Mrs. George B. Slade's and Mrs. Sturtevant's and Miss Bessy
+Dicky's, and that is precisely what we need."
+
+Annie Eustace gazed wistfully upon her friend. "Yes," she agreed,
+"you are quite right, Margaret. Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Sturtevant and
+poor Bessy Dicky and all the other members are very good, and we
+think highly of them, but I too feel that we all travel in a rut
+sometimes. Perhaps we all walk too much the same way."  Then suddenly
+Annie burst into a peal of laughter. She had a sense of humour which
+was startling. It was the one thing which environment had not been
+able to subdue, or even produce the effect of submission. Annie
+Eustace was easily amused. She had a scent for the humorous like a
+hound's for game, and her laugh was irrepressible.
+
+"What on earth are you laughing at now?" inquired Margaret Edes
+irritably.
+
+"I was thinking," Annie replied chokingly, "of some queer long-legged
+birds I saw once in a cage in a park. I really don't know whether
+they were ibises or cranes, or survivals of species, but anyway, the
+little long-legged ones all walked just the same way in a file behind
+a tall long-legged one, who walked precisely in the same way, and all
+of a sudden, I seemed to see us all like that. Only you are not in
+the least like that tall, long-legged bird, Margaret, and you are the
+president of the Zenith Club."
+
+Margaret surveyed Annie with cool displeasure. "I," said she, "see
+nothing whatever to laugh at in the Zenith Club, if you do."
+
+"Oh, Margaret, I don't!" cried Annie.
+
+"To my mind, the Zenith Club is the one institution in this little
+place which tends to advancement and mental improvement."
+
+"Oh, Margaret, I think so too, you know I do," said Annie in a
+shocked voice. "And my heart was almost broken because I had to miss
+that last meeting on account of grandmother's having such a severe
+cold."
+
+"The last meeting was not very much to miss," said Margaret, for
+Annie had again said the wrong thing.
+
+Annie, however, went on eagerly and unconsciously. She was only aware
+that she was being accused of disloyalty, or worse, of actually
+poking fun, when something toward which she felt the utmost respect
+and love and admiration was concerned.
+
+"Margaret, you know," she cried, "you know how I feel toward the
+Zenith Club. You must know what it means to me. It really does take
+me out of my little narrow place in life as nothing else does. I
+cannot tell you what an inspiration it really is to me. Oh, Margaret,
+you know!"
+
+Margaret nodded in stiff assent. As a matter of fact, she _did_ know.
+The Zenith Club of Fairbridge did mean very much, very much indeed,
+to little Annie Eustace. Nowhere else did she meet _en masse_ others
+of her kind. She did not even go to church for the reason that her
+grandmother did not believe in church going at all and wished her to
+remain with her. One aunt was Dutch Reformed and the other Baptist;
+and neither ever missed a service. Annie remained at home Sundays,
+and read aloud to her grandmother, and when both aunts were in the
+midst of their respective services, and the cook, who was intensely
+religious, engaged in preparing dinner, she and her old grandmother
+played pinocle. However, although Annie played cards very well, it
+was only with her relatives. She had never been allowed to join the
+Fairbridge Card Club. She never attended a play in the city, because
+Aunt Jane considered plays wicked. It was in reality doubtful if she
+would have been permitted to listen to Lydia Greenway, had that
+person been available. Annie's sole large recreation was the Zenith
+Club, and it meant, as she had said, much to her. It was to the
+stifled young heart as a great wind of stimulus which was for the
+strengthening of her soul. Whatever the Zenith Club of Fairbridge was
+to others, it was very much worth while for little Annie Eustace. She
+wrote papers for it, which were astonishing, although her hearers
+dimly appreciated the fact, not because of dulness, but because
+little Annie had written them, and it seemed incredible to Fairbridge
+women that little Annie Eustace whom they had always known, and whose
+grandmother and aunts they knew, could possibly write anything
+remarkable. It was only Alice Mendon who listened with a frown of
+wonder, and intent eyes upon the reader. When she came home upon one
+occasion, she remarked to her aunt, Eliza Mendon, and her cousin,
+Lucy Mendon, that she had been impressed by Annie Eustace's paper,
+but both women only stared and murmured assent. The cousin was very
+much older than Alice, and both she and her mother were of a placid,
+reflective type. They got on very well with Alice, but sometimes she
+had a queer weariness from always seeing herself and her own ideas in
+them instead of their own. And she was not in the least dictatorial.
+She would have preferred open, antagonistic originality, but she got
+a surfeit of clear, mirror-like peace.
+
+She was quite sure that they would quote her opinion of Annie
+Eustace's paper, but that did not please her. Later on she spoke to
+Annie herself about it. "Haven't you something else written that you
+can show me?"  She had even suggested the possibility, the
+desirability, of Annie's taking up a literary career, but she had
+found the girl very evasive, even secretive, and had never broached
+the subject again.
+
+As for Margaret Edes, she had never fairly listened to anything which
+anybody except herself had written, unless it had afforded matter for
+discussion, and the display of her own brilliancy. Annie's
+productions were so modestly conclusive as to apparently afford no
+standing ground for argument. In her heart, Margaret regarded them as
+she regarded Annie's personality, with a contempt so indifferent that
+it was hardly contempt.
+
+She proceeded exactly as if Annie had not made such a fervent
+disclaimer. "The Zenith Club is the one and only thing which lifts
+Fairbridge, and the women of Fairbridge, above the common herd," said
+she majestically.
+
+"Don't I know it? Oh, Margaret, don't I know it," cried the other
+with such feverish energy that Margaret regarded her wonderingly. For
+all her exploiting of the Zenith Club of Fairbridge, she herself,
+unless she were the main figure at the helm, could realise nothing in
+it so exceedingly inspiring, but it was otherwise with Annie. It was
+quite conceivable that had it not been for the Zenith Club, she never
+would have grown to her full mental height. Annie Eustace had a mind
+of the sequential order. By subtle processes, unanalysable even by
+herself, even the record of Miss Bessy Dicky started this mind upon
+momentous trains of thought. Unquestionably the Zenith Club acted as
+a fulminate for little Annie Eustace. To others it might seem, during
+some of the sessions, as a pathetic attempt of village women to raise
+themselves upon tiptoes enough to peer over their centuries of weedy
+feminine growth; an attempt which was as futile, and even ridiculous,
+as an attempt of a cow to fly. But the Zenith Club justified its
+existence nobly in the result of little Annie Eustace, if in no
+other, and it, no doubt, justified itself in others. Who can say what
+that weekly gathering meant to women who otherwise would not move
+outside their little treadmill of household labour, what uplifting,
+if seemingly futile grasps at the great outside of life? Let no one
+underrate the Women's Club until the years have proven its
+uselessness.
+
+"I am so sorry about Lydia Greenway," said Annie, and this time she
+did not irritate Margaret.
+
+"It does seem as if one were simply doomed to failure every time one
+really made an effort to raise standards," said Margaret.
+
+Then it was that Annie all unconsciously sowed a seed which led to
+strange, and rather terrifying results. "It would be nice," said
+little Annie, "if we could get Miss Martha Wallingford to read a
+selection from _Hearts Astray_ at a meeting of the club. I read a few
+nights ago, in a paper I happened to pick up at Alice's, that she was
+staying in New York at the Hollingsgate. Her publishers were to give
+her a dinner last night, I believe."
+
+Margaret Edes started. "I had not seen that," she said. Then she
+added in a queer brooding fashion, "That book of hers had an enormous
+sale. I suppose her publishers feel that they owe it to her to give
+her a good time in New York. Then, too, it will advertise _Hearts
+Astray_."
+
+"Did you like the book?" asked Annie rather irrelevantly. Margaret
+did not reply. She was thinking intently. "It would be a great
+feature for the club if we could induce her to give a reading," she
+said at length.
+
+"I don't suppose it would be possible," replied Annie. "You know they
+say she never does such things, and is very retiring. I read in the
+papers that she was, and that she refused even to speak a few words
+at the dinner given in her honour."
+
+"We might ask her," said Margaret.
+
+"I am sure that she would not come. The paper stated that she had had
+many invitations to Women's Clubs and had refused. I don't think she
+ought because she might be such a help to other women."
+
+Margaret said nothing. She leaned back, and, for once, her face was
+actually contracted with thought to the possible detriment of its
+smooth beauty.
+
+A clock in the house struck, and at the same time Maida and Adelaide
+raced up the steps, followed by gleeful calls from two little boys on
+the sidewalk.
+
+"Where have you been?" asked Margaret. Then she said without waiting
+for a reply, "If Martha Wallingford would come, I should prefer that
+to Lydia Greenway."
+
+Maida and Adelaide, flushed and panting, and both with mouths full of
+candy, glanced at their mother, then Maida chased Adelaide into the
+house, their blue skirts flitting out of sight like blue butterfly
+wings.
+
+Annie Eustace rose. She had noticed that neither Maida nor Adelaide
+had greeted her, and thought them rude. She herself had been most
+carefully trained concerning manners of incoming and outgoing. She,
+however, did not care. She had no especial love for children unless
+they were small and appealing because of helplessness.
+
+"I must go," she said. "It is six o'clock, supper will be ready."
+She glanced rather apprehensively as she spoke at the large white
+house, not two minutes' walk distant across the street.
+
+"How very delightful it is to be as punctual as your people are,"
+said Margaret. "Good-bye, Annie."  She spoke abstractedly, and Annie
+felt a little hurt. She loved Margaret, and she missed her full
+attention when she left her. She passed down the walk between
+Margaret's beautifully kept Japanese trees, and gained the sidewalk.
+Then a sudden recollection filled her with dismay. She had promised
+her grandmother to go to the post-office before returning. An
+important business letter was expected. Annie swept the soft tail of
+her muslin into a little crushed ball, and ran, her slender legs
+showing like those of a young bird beneath its fluff of plumage. She
+realized the necessity of speed, of great speed, for the post-office
+was a quarter of a mile away, and the Eustace family supped at five
+minutes past six, with terrible and relentless regularity. Why it
+should have been five minutes past instead of upon the stroke of the
+hour, Annie had never known, but so it was. It was as great an
+offence to be a minute too early as a minute too late at the Eustace
+house, and many a maid had been discharged for that offence, her plea
+that the omelet was cooked and would fall if the meal be delayed,
+being disregarded. Poor Annie felt that she must hasten. She could
+not be dismissed like the maid, but something equally to be dreaded
+would happen, were she to present herself half a minute behind time
+in the dining-room. There they would be seated, her grandmother,
+her Aunt Harriet, and her Aunt Jane. Aunt Harriet behind the silver
+tea service; Aunt Jane behind the cut glass bowl of preserves; her
+grandmother behind the silver butter dish, and on the table would be
+the hot biscuits cooling, the omelet falling, the tea drawing too
+long and all because of her. There was tremendous etiquette in the
+Eustace family. Not a cup of tea would Aunt Harriet pour, not a spoon
+would Aunt Jane dip into the preserves, not a butter ball would her
+grandmother impale upon the little silver fork. And poor Hannah, the
+maid, white aproned and capped, would stand behind Aunt Harriet like
+a miserable conscious graven image. Therefore Annie ran, and ran, and
+it happened that she ran rather heedlessly and blindly and dropped
+her mussy little package of fancy work, and Karl von Rosen, coming
+out of the parsonage, saw it fall and picked it up rather gingerly,
+and called as loudly as was decorous after the flying figure, but
+Annie did not hear and Von Rosen did not want to shout, neither did
+he want, or rather think it advisable, to run, therefore he followed
+holding the linen package well away from him, as if it were a
+disagreeable insect. He had never seen much of Annie Eustace. Now
+and then he called upon one of her aunts, who avowed her preference
+for his religious denomination, but if he saw Annie at all, she
+was seated engaged upon some such doubtfully ornamental or useful
+task, as the specimen which he now carried. Truth to say, he
+had scarcely noticed Annie Eustace at all. She had produced the
+effect of shrinking from observation under some subtle shadow of
+self-effacement. She was in reality a very rose of a girl, loving and
+sweet, and withal wonderfully endowed; but this human rose, dwelt
+always for Karl von Rosen, in the densest of bowers through which her
+beauty and fragrance of character could not penetrate his senses.
+Undoubtedly also, although his masculine intelligence would have
+scouted the possibility of such a thing, Annie's dull, ill-made garb
+served to isolate her. She also never came to church. That perfect
+little face with its expression of strange insight, must have aroused
+his attention among his audience. But there was only the Aunt Harriet
+Eustace, an exceedingly thin lady, present and always attired in rich
+blacks. Karl von Rosen to-day walking as rapidly as became his
+dignity, in pursuit of the young woman, was aware that he hardly felt
+at liberty to accost her with anything more than the greeting of the
+day. He eyed disapprovingly the parcel which he carried. It was a
+very dingy white, and greyish threads dangled from it. Von Rosen
+thought it a most unpleasant thing, and reflected with mild scorn and
+bewilderment concerning the manner of mind which could find amusement
+over such employment, for he divined that it was a specimen of
+feminine skill, called fancy work.
+
+Annie Eustace ran so swiftly with those long agile legs of hers that
+he soon perceived that interception upon her return, and not
+overtaking, must ensue. He did not gain upon her at all, and he began
+to understand that he was making himself ridiculous to possible
+observers in windows. He therefore slackened his pace, and met Annie
+upon her return. She had a letter in her hand and was advancing with
+a headlong rush, and suddenly she attracted him. He surrendered the
+parcel. "Thank you very much," said Annie, "but I almost wish you had
+not found it."
+
+[Illustration: "I almost wish you had not found it"]
+
+Von Rosen stared at her. Was she rude after all, this very pretty
+girl, who was capable of laughter. "You would not blame me if you had
+to embroider daisies on that dreadful piece of linen," said Annie
+with a rueful glance at the dingy package.
+
+Von Rosen smiled kindly at her. "I don't blame you at all," he
+replied. "I can understand it must be a dismal task to embroider
+daisies."
+
+"It is, Mr. von Rosen--" Annie hesitated.
+
+"Yes," said Von Rosen encouragingly.
+
+"You know I never go to church."
+
+"Yes," said Von Rosen mendaciously. He really did not know. In future
+he, however, would.
+
+"Well, I don't go because--" again Annie hesitated, while the young
+man waited interrogatively.
+
+Then Annie spoke with force. "I would really like to go
+occasionally," she said, "I doubt if I would always care to."
+
+"No, I don't think you would," assented Von Rosen with a queer
+delight.
+
+"But I never can because--Grandmother is old and she has not much
+left in life, you know."
+
+"Of course."
+
+"It is all very well for people to talk about firesides, and knitting
+work, and peaceful eyes of age fixed upon Heavenly homes," said
+Annie, "but all old people are not like that. Grandma hates to knit
+although she does think I should embroider daisies, and she does like
+to have me play pinocle with her Sunday mornings, when Aunt Harriet
+and Aunt Jane are out of the way. It is the only chance she has
+during the whole week you know because neither Aunt Harriet nor Aunt
+Jane approves of cards, and poor Grandma is so fond of them, it seems
+cruel not to play with her the one chance she has."
+
+"I think you are entirely right," said Von Rosen with grave
+conviction and he was charmed that the girl regarded him as if he had
+said nothing whatever unusual.
+
+"I have always been sure that it was right," said Annie Eustace, "but
+I would like sometimes to go to church."
+
+"I really wish you could," said Von Rosen, "and I would make an
+especial effort to write a good sermon."
+
+"Oh," said Annie, "Aunt Harriet often hears you preach one which she
+thinks very good."
+
+Von Rosen bowed. Suddenly Annie's shyness, reserve, whatever it was,
+seemed to overcloud her. The lovely red faded from her cheeks, the
+light from her eyes. She lost her beauty in a great measure. She
+bowed stiffly, saying: "I thank you very much, good evening," and
+passed on, leaving the young man rather dazed, pleased and yet
+distinctly annoyed, and annoyed in some inscrutable fashion at
+himself.
+
+Then he heard shouts of childish laughter, and a scamper of childish
+feet, and Maida and Adelaide Edes rushed past, almost jostling him
+from the sidewalk. Maida carried a letter, which her mother had
+written, and dispatched to the last mail. And that letter was
+destined to be of more importance to Von Rosen than he knew.
+
+As for Annie Eustace, whose meeting with Von Rosen had, after her
+first lapse into the unconsciousness of mirth, disturbed her, as the
+meeting of the hero of a dream always disturbs a true maiden who has
+not lost through many such meetings the thrill of them, she hurried
+home trembling, and found everything just exactly as she knew it
+would be.
+
+There sat Aunt Harriet perfectly motionless behind the silver tea
+service, and although the cosy was drawn over the teapot, the tea
+seemed to be reproachfully drawing to that extent that Annie could
+hear it. There sat Aunt Jane behind the cut glass bowl of preserved
+fruit, with the untouched silver spoon at hand. There sat her
+grandmother behind the butter plate. There stood Hannah, white capped
+and white aproned, holding the silver serving tray like a petrified
+statue of severity, and not one of them spoke, but their silence,
+their dignified, reproachful silence was infinitely worse than a
+torrent of invective. How Annie wished they would speak. How she
+wished that she could speak herself, but she knew better than to even
+offer an excuse for her tardiness. Well she knew that the stony
+silence which would meet that would be worse, much worse than this.
+So she slid into her place opposite her Aunt Jane, and began her own
+task of dividing into sections the omelet which was quite flat
+because she was late, and seemed to reproach her in a miserable,
+low-down sort of fashion.
+
+However, there was in the girl's heart a little glint of youthful
+joy, which was unusual. She had met Mr. Von Rosen and had forgotten
+herself, that is at first, and he had looked kindly at her. There was
+no foolish hope in little Annie Eustace's heart; there would be no
+spire of aspiration added to her dreams because of the meeting, but
+she tasted the sweet of approbation, and it was a tonic which she
+sorely needed, and which inspired her to self-assertion in a
+childishly naughty and mischievous way. It was after supper that
+evening, that Annie strolled a little way down the street, taking
+advantage of Miss Bessy Dicky's dropping in for a call, to slink
+unobserved out of her shadowy corner, for the Eustaces were fond of
+sitting in the twilight. The wind had come up, the violent strong
+wind which comes out of the south, and Annie walked very near the
+barberry hedge which surrounded Doctor Sturtevant's grounds, and the
+green muslin lashed against it to its undoing. When Annie returned,
+the skirt was devastated and Aunt Harriet decreed that it could not
+be mended and must be given to the poor Joy children. There were many
+of those children of a degenerate race, living on the outskirts of
+Fairbridge, and Annie had come to regard them as living effigies of
+herself, since everything which she had outgrown or injured past
+repair, fell to them. "There will be enough to make two nice dresses
+for Charlotte and Minnie Joy," said Aunt Harriet, "and it will not be
+wasted, even if you have been so careless, Annie."
+
+Annie could see a vision of those two little Joy girls getting about
+in the remnants of her ghastly muslin, and she shuddered, although
+with relief.
+
+"You had better wear your cross barred white muslin afternoons now,"
+said Aunt Harriet, and Annie smiled for that was a pretty dress. She
+smiled still more when Aunt Jane said that now as the cross-barred
+white was to be worn every day, another dress must be bought, and she
+mentioned China silk--something which Annie had always longed to
+own--and blue, dull blue,--a colour which she loved.
+
+Just before she went to bed, Annie stood in the front doorway looking
+out at the lovely moonlight and the wonderful shadows which
+transformed the village street, like the wings of angels, and she
+heard voices and laughter from the Edes' house opposite. Then
+Margaret began singing in her shrill piercing voice from which she
+had hoped much, but which had failed to please, even at the Zenith
+Club.
+
+Annie adored Margaret, but she shrank before her singing voice. If
+she had only known what was passing through the mind of the singer
+after she went to bed that night, she would have shuddered more, for
+Margaret Edes was planning a possible _coup_ before which Annie, in
+spite of a little latent daring of her own, would have been aghast.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter V
+
+
+The next morning Margaret announced herself as feeling so much better
+that she thought she would go to New York. She had several errands,
+she said, and the day was beautiful and the little change would do
+her good. She would take the train with her husband, but a different
+ferry, as she wished to go up town. Wilbur acquiesced readily. "It is
+a mighty fine morning, and you need to get out," he said. Poor Wilbur
+at this time felt guiltily culpable that he did not own a motor car
+in which his Margaret might take the air. He had tried to see his way
+clear toward buying one, but in spite of a certain improvidence, the
+whole nature of the man was intrinsically honest. He always ended his
+conference with himself concerning the motor by saying that he could
+not possibly keep it running, even if he were to manage the first
+cost, and pay regularly his other bills. He, however, felt it to be a
+shame to himself that it was so, and experienced a thrill of positive
+pain of covetousness, not for himself, but for his Margaret, when one
+of the luxurious things whirled past him in Fairbridge. He, it was
+true, kept a very smart little carriage and horse, but that was not
+as much as Margaret should have. Every time Margaret seemed a little
+dull, or complained of headache, as she had done lately, he thought
+miserably of that motor car, which was her right. Therefore when she
+planned any little trip like that of to-day, he was immeasurably
+pleased. At the same time he regarded her with a slightly bewildered
+expression, for in some subtle fashion, her face as she propounded
+the trifling plan, looked odd to him, and her voice also did not
+sound quite natural. However, he dismissed the idea at once as mere
+fancy, and watched proudly the admiring glances bestowed upon her in
+the Fairbridge station, while they were waiting for the train.
+Margaret had a peculiar knack in designing costumes which were at
+once plain and striking. This morning she wore a black China silk,
+through the thin bodice of which was visible an under silk strewn
+with gold disks. Her girdle was clasped with a gold buckle, and when
+she moved there were slight glimpses of a yellow silk petticoat. Her
+hat was black, but under the brim was tucked a yellow rose against
+her yellow hair. Then to finish all, Margaret wore in the lace at her
+throat, a great brooch of turquoise matrix, which matched her eyes.
+Her husband realised her as perfectly attired, although he did not in
+the least understand why. He knew that his Margaret looked a woman of
+another race from the others in the station, in their tailored
+skirts, and shirtwaists, with their coats over arm, and their
+shopping bags firmly clutched. It was a warm morning, and feminine
+Fairbridge's idea of a suitable costume for a New York shopping trip
+was a tailored suit, and a shirtwaist, and as a rule, the shirtwaist
+did not fit. Margaret never wore shirtwaists,--she understood that
+she was too short unless she combined a white skirt with a waist.
+Margaret would have broken a commandment with less hesitation than
+she would have broken the line of her graceful little figure with two
+violently contrasting colours. Mrs. Sturtevant in a grey skirt and an
+elaborate white waist, which emphasised her large bust, looked
+ridiculous beside this fair, elegant little Margaret, although her
+clothes had in reality cost more. Wilbur watched his wife as she
+talked sweetly with the other woman, and his heart swelled with the
+pride of possession. When they were on the train and he sat by
+himself in the smoker, having left Margaret with Mrs. Sturtevant, his
+heart continued to feel warm with elation. He waited to assist his
+wife off the train at Jersey City and realised it a trial that he
+could not cross the river on the same ferry. Margaret despised the
+tube and he wished for the short breath of sea air which he would get
+on the Courtland ferry. He glanced after her retreating black skirts
+with the glimpses of yellow, regretfully, before he turned his back
+and turned toward his own slip. And he glanced the more regretfully
+because this morning, with all his admiration of his wife, he had a
+dim sense of something puzzling which arose like a cloud of mystery
+between them.
+
+Wilbur Edes sailing across the river had, however, no conception of
+the change which had begun in his little world. It was only a shake
+of the kaleidoscope of an unimportant life, resulting in a different
+combination of atoms, but to each individual it would be a tremendous
+event partaking of the nature of a cataclysm. That morning he had
+seen upon Margaret's charming face an expression which made it seem
+as the face of a stranger. He tried to dismiss the matter from his
+mind. He told himself that it must have been the effect of the light
+or that she had pinned on her hat at a different angle. Women are so
+perplexing, and their attire alters them so strangely. But Wilbur
+Edes had reason to be puzzled. Margaret had looked and really was
+different. In a little while she had become practically a different
+woman. Of course, she had only developed possibilities which had
+always been dormant within her, but they had been so dormant, that
+they had not been to any mortal perception endowed with life.
+Hitherto Margaret had walked along the straight and narrow way,
+sometimes, it is true, jostling circumstances and sometimes being
+jostled by them, yet keeping to the path. Now she had turned her feet
+into that broad way wherein there is room for the utmost self which
+is in us all. Henceforth husband and wife would walk apart in a
+spiritual sense, unless there should come a revolution in the
+character of the wife, who was the stepper aside.
+
+Margaret seated comfortably on the ferry boat, her little feet
+crossed so discreetly that only a glimpse of the yellow fluff beneath
+was visible, was conscious of a not unpleasurable exhilaration. She
+might and she might not be about to do something which would place
+her distinctly outside the pale which had henceforth enclosed her
+little pleasance of life. Were she to cross that pale, she felt that
+it might be distinctly amusing. Margaret was not a wicked woman, but
+virtue, not virtue in the ordinary sense of the word, but straight
+walking ahead according to the ideas of Fairbridge, had come to drive
+her at times to the verge of madness. Then, too, there was always
+that secret terrible self-love and ambition of hers, never satisfied,
+always defeated by petty weapons. Margaret, sitting as gracefully as
+a beautiful cat, on the ferry boat that morning realised the
+vindictive working of her claws, and her impulse to strike at her
+odds of life, and she derived therefrom an unholy exhilaration.
+
+She got her taxicab on the other side and leaned back, catching
+frequent glances of admiration, and rode pleasurably to the regal
+up-town hotel which was the home of Miss Martha Wallingford, while in
+the city. She, upon her arrival, entered the hotel with an air which
+caused a stir among bell boys. Then she entered a reception room and
+sat down, disposing herself with slow grace. Margaret gazed about her
+and waited. There were only three people in the room, one man and two
+ladies, one quite young--a mere girl--the other from the resemblance
+and superior age, evidently her mother. The man was young and almost
+vulgarly well-groomed. He had given a glance at Margaret as she
+entered, a glance of admiration tempered with the consideration that
+in spite of her grace and beauty, she was probably older than
+himself. Then he continued to gaze furtively at the young girl who
+sat demurely, with eyes downcast beneath a soft, wild tangle of dark
+hair, against which some pink roses and a blue feather on her hat
+showed fetchingly. She was very well dressed, evidently a
+well-guarded young thing from one of the summer colonies. The mother,
+high corseted, and elegant in dark blue lines, which made only a
+graceful concession to age, without fairly admitting it, never
+allowed one glance of the young man's to escape her. She also saw her
+slender young daughter with every sense in her body and mind.
+
+Margaret looked away from them. The elder woman had given her costume
+an appreciative, and herself a supercilious glance, which had been
+met with one which did not seem to recognise her visibility. Margaret
+was not easily put down by another woman. She stared absently at the
+ornate and weary decorations of the room. It was handsome, but
+tiresome, as everybody who entered realised, and as, no doubt, the
+decorator had found out. It was a ready-made species of room, with no
+heart in it, in spite of the harmonious colour scheme and really
+artistic detail.
+
+Presently the boy with the silver tray entered and approached
+Margaret. The young man stared openly at her. He began to wonder if
+she were not younger than he had thought. The girl never raised her
+downcast eyes; the older woman cast one swift sharp glance at her.
+The boy murmured so inaudibly that Margaret barely heard, and she
+rose and followed him as he led the way to the elevator. Miss
+Wallingford, who was a young Western woman and a rising, if not
+already arisen literary star, had signified her willingness to
+receive Mrs. Wilbur Edes in her own private sitting-room. Margaret
+was successful so far. She had pencilled on her card, "Can you see me
+on a matter of importance? I am not connected with the Press," and
+the young woman who esteemed nearly everything of importance, and was
+afraid of the Press, had agreed at once to see her. Miss Martha
+Wallingford was staying in the hotel with an elderly aunt, against
+whose rule she rebelled in spite of her youth and shyness, which
+apparently made it impossible for her to rebel against anybody, and
+the aunt had retired stiffly to her bedroom when her niece said
+positively that she would see her caller.
+
+"You don't know who she is and I promised your Pa when we started
+that I wouldn't let you get acquainted with folks unless I knew all
+about them," the aunt had said and the niece, the risen star, had set
+her mouth hard. "We haven't seen a soul except those newspaper men,
+and I know everyone of them is married, and those two newspaper women
+who told about my sleeves being out of date," said Martha
+Wallingford, "and this Mrs. Edes may be real nice. I'm going to see
+her anyhow. We came so late in the season that I believe everybody in
+New York worth seeing has gone away and this lady has come in from
+the country and it may lead to my having a good time after all. I
+haven't had much of a time so far, and you know it, Aunt Susan."
+
+"How you talk, Martha Wallingford! Haven't you been to the theatre
+every night and Coney Island, and the Metropolitan and--everything
+there is to see?"
+
+"There isn't much to see in New York anyway except the people,"
+returned the niece. "People are all I care for anyway, and I don't
+call the people I have seen worth counting. They only came to make a
+little money out of me and my sleeves. I am glad I got this dress at
+McCreery's. These sleeves are all right. If this Mrs. Edes should be
+a newspaper woman, she can't make fun of these sleeves anyway."
+
+"You paid an awful price for that dress," said her aunt.
+
+"I don't care. I got such a lot for my book that I might as well have
+a little out of it, and you know as well as I do, Aunt Susan, that
+South Mordan, Illinois, may be a very nice place, but it does not
+keep up with New York fashions. I really did not have a decent thing
+to wear when I started. Miss Slocumb did as well as she knew how, but
+her ideas are about three years behind New York. I didn't know
+myself, how should I? And you didn't, and as for Pa, he would think
+everything I had on was stylish if it dated back to the ark. You
+ought to have bought that mauve silk for yourself. You have money
+enough; you know you have, Aunt Susan."
+
+"I have money enough, thanks to my dear husband's saving all his
+life, but it is not going to be squandered on dress by me, now he is
+dead and gone."
+
+"I would have bought the dress for you myself, then," said the niece.
+
+"No, thank you," returned the aunt with asperity. "I have never been
+in the habit of being beholden to you for my clothes and I am not
+going to begin now. I didn't want that dress anyway. I always hated
+purple."
+
+"It wasn't purple, it was mauve."
+
+"I call purple, purple, I don't call it anything else!"  Then the
+aunt retreated precipitately before the sound of the opening door and
+entrenched herself in her bedroom, where she stood listening.
+
+Margaret Edes treated the young author with the respect which she
+really deserved, for talent she possessed in such a marked degree as
+to make her phenomenal, and the phenomenal is always entitled to
+consideration of some sort.
+
+"Miss Wallingford?" murmured Margaret, and she gave an impression of
+obeisance; this charming elegantly attired lady before the Western
+girl. Martha Wallingford coloured high with delight and admiration.
+
+"Yes, I am Miss Wallingford," she replied and asked her caller to be
+seated. Margaret sat down facing her. The young author shuffled in
+her chair like a school girl. She was an odd combination of enormous
+egotism and the most painful shyness. She realised at a glance that
+she herself was provincial and pitifully at a disadvantage personally
+before this elegant vision, and her personality was in reality more
+precious to her than her talent.
+
+"I can not tell you what a great pleasure and privilege this is for
+me," said Margaret, and her blue eyes had an expression of admiring
+rapture. The girl upon whom the eyes were fixed, blushed and giggled
+and tossed her head with a sudden show of pride. She quite agreed
+that it was a pleasure and privilege for Margaret to see her, the
+author of _Hearts Astray_, even if Margaret was herself so charming
+and so provokingly well dressed. Miss Martha Wallingford did not hide
+her light of talent under a bushel with all her shyness, which was
+not really shyness at all but a species of rather sullen pride and
+resentment because she was so well aware that she could not do well
+the things which were asked of her and had not mastered the art of
+dress and self poise.
+
+Therefore, Martha, with the delight of her own achievements full upon
+her face, which was pretty, although untutored, regarded her visitor
+with an expression which almost made Margaret falter. It was probably
+the absurd dressing of the girl's hair which restored Margaret's
+confidence in her scheme. Martha Wallingford actually wore a frizzled
+bang, very finely frizzled too, and her hair was strained from the
+nape of her neck, and it seemed impossible that a young woman who
+knew no better than to arrange her hair in such fashion, should not
+be amenable to Margaret's plan. The plan, moreover, sounded very
+simple, except for the little complications which might easily arise.
+Margaret smiled into the pretty face under the fuzz of short hair.
+
+"My dear Miss Wallingford," said she, "I have come this morning to
+beg a favour. I hope you will not refuse me, although I am such an
+entire stranger. If, unfortunately, my intimate friend, Mrs.
+Fay-Wyman, of whom I assume that you of course know, even if you have
+not met her, as you may easily have done, or her daughter, Miss Edith
+Fay-Wyman, had not left town last week for their country house,
+Rose-In-Flower, at Hyphen-by-the-Sea, a most delightful spot. Mr.
+Edes and I have spent several week ends there. I am prevented from
+spending longer than week ends because I am kept at home by my two
+darling twin daughters. Mrs. Fay-Wyman is a sweet woman and I do so
+wish I could have brought her here to-day. I am sure you would at
+once fall madly in love with her and also with her daughter, Miss
+Edith Fay-Wyman, such a sweet girl, and--"  But here Margaret was
+unexpectedly, even rudely interrupted by Miss Wallingford, who looked
+at her indignantly.
+
+"I never fall in love with women," stated that newly risen literary
+star abruptly, "why should I? What does it amount to?"
+
+"Oh, my dear," cried Margaret, "when you are a little older you will
+find that it amounts to very much. There is a soul sympathy, and--"
+
+"I don't think that I care much about soul sympathy," stated Miss
+Wallingford, who was beginning to be angrily bewildered by her
+guest's long sentences, which so far seemed to have no point as far
+as she herself was concerned.
+
+Margaret started a little. Again the doubt seized her if she were not
+making a mistake, undertaking more than she could well carry through,
+for this shy authoress was fast developing unexpected traits.
+However, Margaret, once she had started, was not easily turned back.
+She was as persistently clinging as a sweet briar.
+
+"Oh, my dear," she said, and her voice was like trickling honey,
+"only wait until you are a little older and you will find that you do
+care, care very, very much. The understanding and sympathy of other
+women will become very sweet to you. It is so pure and ennobling, so
+free from all material taint."
+
+"I have seen a great many women who were perfect cats," stated Miss
+Martha Wallingford.
+
+"Wait until you are older," said Margaret again and her voice seemed
+fairly dissolving into some spiritual liquid of divine sweetness.
+"Wait until you are older, my dear. You are very young, so young to
+have accomplished a wonderful work which will live."
+
+"Oh, well," said Martha Wallingford, and as she spoke she fixed
+pitiless shrewd young eyes upon the face of the other woman, which
+did not show at its best, in spite of veil and the velvety darkness
+of hat-shadow. This hotel sitting-room was full of garish cross
+lights. "Oh, well," said Martha Wallingford, "of course, I don't know
+what may happen if I live to be old, as old as you."
+
+Margaret Edes felt like a photograph proof before the slightest
+attempt at finish had been made. Those keen young eyes conveyed the
+impression of convex mirrors. She restrained an instinctive impulse
+to put a hand before her face, she had an odd helpless sensation
+before the almost brutal, clear-visioned young thing. Again she
+shrank a little from her task, again her spirit reasserted itself.
+She moved and brought her face somewhat more into the shadow. Then
+she spoke again. She wisely dropped the subject of feminine
+affinities. She plunged at once into the object of her visit, which
+directly concerned Miss Martha Wallingford, and Margaret, who was as
+astute in her way as the girl, knew that she was entirely right in
+assuming that Martha Wallingford was more interested in herself than
+anything else in the world.
+
+"My dear," she said, "I may as well tell you at once why I intruded
+upon you this morning."
+
+"Please do," said Martha Wallingford.
+
+"As I said before, I deeply regret that I was unable to bring some
+well-known person, Mrs. Fay-Wyman, for instance, to make us
+acquainted in due form, but--"
+
+"Oh, I don't care a bit about that," said Martha. "What is it?"
+
+Margaret again started a little. She had not expected anything like
+this. The mental picture which she had formed of Martha Wallingford,
+the young literary star, seemed to undergo a transformation akin to
+an explosion, out of which only one feature remained intact--the
+book, "_Hearts Astray_."  If Miss Wallingford had not possessed a
+firm foundation in that volume, it is entirely possible that Margaret
+might have abandoned her enterprise. As it was, after a little gasp
+she went on.
+
+"I did so wish to assure you in person of my great admiration for
+your wonderful book," said she. Martha Wallingford made no reply. She
+had an expression of utter acquiescence in the admiration, also of
+having heard that same thing so many times, that she was somewhat
+bored by it. She waited with questioning eyes upon Margaret's face.
+
+"And I wondered," said Margaret, "if you would consider it too
+informal, if I ventured to beg you to be my guest at my home in
+Fairbridge next Thursday and remain the weekend, over Sunday. It
+would give me so much pleasure, and Fairbridge is a charming little
+village and there are really many interesting people there whom I
+think you would enjoy, and as for them--!"  Margaret gave a slight
+roll to her eyes--"they would be simply overwhelmed."
+
+"I should like to come very much, thank you," said Martha
+Wallingford.
+
+Margaret beamed. "Oh, my dear," she cried, "I can not tell you how
+much joy your prompt and warm response gives me. And--" Margaret
+looked about her rather vaguely, "you are not alone here, of course.
+You have a maid, or perhaps, your mother--"
+
+"My Aunt Susan is with me," said Miss Wallingford, "but there is no
+use inviting her. She hates going away for a few days. She says it is
+just as much trouble packing as it would be to go for a month. There
+is no use even thinking of her, but I shall be delighted to come."
+
+Margaret hesitated. "May I not have the pleasure of being presented
+to your aunt?" she inquired.
+
+"Aunt Susan is out shopping," lied Miss Martha Wallingford. Aunt
+Susan was clad in a cotton crepe wrapper, and Martha knew that she
+would think it quite good enough for her to receive anybody in, and
+that she could not convince her to the contrary. It was only recently
+that Martha herself had become converted from morning wrappers, and
+the reaction was violent. "The idea of a woman like this Mrs. Edes
+seeing Aunt Susan in that awful pink crepe wrapper!" she said to
+herself. She hoped Aunt Susan was not listening, and would not make a
+forcible entry into the room. Aunt Susan in moments of impulse was
+quite capable of such coups. Martha glanced rather apprehensively
+toward the door leading into the bedroom but it did not open. Aunt
+Susan was indeed listening and she was rigid with indignation, but in
+truth, she did not want to accompany her niece upon this projected
+visit, and she was afraid of being drawn into such a step should she
+present herself. Aunt Susan did dislike making the effort of a visit
+for a few days only. Martha had told the truth. It was very hot, and
+the elder woman was not very strong. Moreover, she perceived that
+Martha did not want her and there would be the complication of
+kicking against the pricks of a very determined character, which had
+grown more determined since her literary success. In fact, Aunt Susan
+stood in a slight awe of her niece since that success, for all her
+revolts which were superficial. Therefore, she remained upon her side
+of the door which she did not open until the visitor had departed
+after making definite arrangements concerning trains and meetings.
+Then Aunt Susan entered the room with a cloud of pink crepe in her
+wake.
+
+"Who was that?" she demanded of Martha.
+
+"Mrs. Wilbur Edes," replied her niece, and she aped Margaret to
+perfection as she added, "and a most charming woman, most charming."
+
+"What did she want you to do?" inquired the aunt.
+
+"Now, Aunt Susan," replied the niece, "what is the use of going over
+it all? You heard every single thing she said."
+
+"I did hear her ask after me," said the aunt unabashed, "and I heard
+you tell a lie about it. You told her I had gone out shopping and you
+knew I was right in the next room."
+
+"I didn't mean to have you come in and see a woman dressed like that
+one, in your wrapper."
+
+"What is the matter with my wrapper?"
+
+Martha said nothing.
+
+"Are you going?" asked her aunt.
+
+"You know that too."
+
+"I don't know what your Pa would say," remarked Aunt Susan, but
+rather feebly, for she had a vague idea that it was her duty to
+accompany her niece and she was determined to shirk it.
+
+"I don't see how Pa can say much of anything since he is in South
+Mordan, Illinois, and won't know about it, unless you telegraph,
+until next week," said Martha calmly. "Now, come along, Aunt Susan,
+and get dressed. I have made up my mind to get that beautiful white
+silk dress we looked at yesterday. It did not need any alteration and
+I think I shall buy that pearl and amethyst necklace at Tiffany's. I
+know Mrs. Edes will have an evening party and there will be
+gentlemen, and what is the use of my making so much money out of
+_Hearts Astray_ if I don't have a few things I want? Hurry and get
+dressed."
+
+"I don't see why this wrapper isn't plenty good enough for a few
+errands at two or three stores," said the aunt sulkily, but she
+yielded to Martha's imperative demand that she change her wrapper for
+her black satin immediately.
+
+Meantime Margaret on her way down town to the ferry was conscious of
+a slight consternation at what she had done. She understood that in
+this young woman was a feminine element which radically differed from
+any which had come within her ken. She, however, was determined to go
+on. The next day invitations were issued to the Zenith Club for the
+following Friday, from four to six, and also one to dinner that
+evening to four men and five women. She planned for Sunday an
+automobile ride; she was to hire the car from the Axminister garage,
+and a high tea afterward. Poor Margaret did all in her power to make
+her scheme a success, but always she had that chilling doubt of her
+power. Miss Martha Wallingford had impressed her as being a young
+woman capable of swift and unexpected movements. She was rather
+afraid of her but she did not confess her fear to Wilbur. When he
+inquired genially what kind of a girl the authoress was, she replied:
+"Oh, charming, of course, but the poor child does not know how to do
+up her hair."  However, when Martha arrived Thursday afternoon and
+Margaret met her at the station, she, at a glance, discovered that
+the poor child had discovered how to do up her hair. Some persons'
+brains work in a great many directions and Martha Wallingford's was
+one of them. Somehow or other, she had contrived to dispose of her
+tightly frizzed fringe, and her very pretty hair swept upward from a
+forehead which was both intellectual and beautiful. She was well
+dressed too. She had drawn heavily upon her royalty revenue. She had
+worked hard and spent a good deal during the short time since
+Margaret's call, and her brain had served her body well. She stepped
+across the station platform with an air. She carried no provincial
+bag--merely a dainty little affair mounted in gold which matched her
+gown--and she had brought a small steamer trunk.
+
+Margaret's heart sank more and more, but she conducted her visitor to
+her little carriage and ordered the man to drive home, and when
+arrived there, showed Martha her room. She had a faint hope that the
+room might intimidate this Western girl, but instead of intimidation
+there was exultation. She looked about her very coolly, but
+afterward, upon her return to East Mordan, Illinois, she bragged a
+good deal about it. The room was really very charming and rather
+costly. The furniture was genuine First Empire; the walls, which were
+hung with paper covered with garlands of roses, were decorated with
+old engravings; there was a quantity of Dresden ware and there was a
+little tiled bathroom. Over a couch in the bedroom lay a kimona of
+white silk embroidered with pink roses. Afterward Martha made cruel
+fun of her Aunt's pink crepe and made her buy a kimona.
+
+"Shall I send up my maid to assist you in unpacking, Miss
+Wallingford?" inquired Margaret, inwardly wondering how the dinner
+would be managed if the offer were accepted. To her relief, Martha
+gave her an offended stare. "No, thank you, Mrs. Edes," said she, "I
+never like servants, especially other peoples', mussing up my
+things."
+
+When Margaret had gone, Martha looked about her, and her mouth was
+frankly wide open. She had never seen such exquisite daintiness and
+it daunted her, although she would have died rather than admit it.
+She thought of her own bedroom at home in East Mordan, Illinois, with
+its old black walnut chamber set and framed photographs and chromos,
+but she maintained a sort of defiant pride in it even to herself. In
+Martha Wallingford's character there was an element partaking of the
+nature of whalebone, yielding, but practically unbreakable, and
+sometimes wholly unyielding. Martha proceeded to array herself for
+dinner. She had not a doubt that it would be a grand affair. She
+therefore did not hesitate about the white silk, which was a robe of
+such splendour that it might not have disgraced a court. It showed a
+great deal of her thin, yet pretty girlish neck, and it had a very
+long train. She had a gold fillet studded with diamonds for her
+hair--that hair which was now dressed according to the very latest
+mode--a mode which was startling, yet becoming, and she clasped
+around her throat the Tiffany necklace, and as a crowning touch, put
+on long white gloves. When she appeared upon the verandah where
+Margaret sat dressed in a pretty lingerie gown with Wilbur in a light
+grey business suit, the silence could be heard. Then there was one
+double gasp of admiration from Maida and Adelaide in their white
+frocks and blue ribbons. They looked at the visitor with positive
+adoration, but she flushed hotly. She was a very quick-witted girl.
+Margaret recovered herself, presented Wilbur, and shortly, they went
+in to dinner, but it was a ghastly meal. Martha Wallingford in her
+unsuitable splendour was frankly, as she put it afterward, "hopping
+mad," and Wilbur was unhappy and Margaret aghast, although apparently
+quite cool. There was not a guest besides Martha. The dinner was
+simple. Afterward it seemed too farcical to ask a guest attired like
+a young princess to go out on the verandah and lounge in a wicker
+chair, while Wilbur smoked. Then Annie Eustace appeared and Margaret
+was grateful. "Dear Annie," she said, after she had introduced the
+two girls, "I am so glad you came over. Come in."
+
+"It is pleasanter on the verandah, isn't it?" began Annie, then she
+caught Margaret's expressive glance at the magnificent white silk.
+They all sat stiffly in Margaret's pretty drawing-room. Martha said
+she didn't play bridge and upon Annie's timid suggestion of pinocle,
+said she had never heard of it. Wilbur dared not smoke. All that
+wretched evening they sat there. The situation was too much for
+Margaret, that past mistress of situations, and her husband was
+conscious of a sensation approaching terror and also wrath whenever
+he glanced at the figure in sumptuous white, the figure expressing
+sulkiness in every feature and motion. Margaret was unmistakably
+sulky as the evening wore on and nobody came except this other girl
+of whom she took no notice at all. She saw that she was pretty, her
+hair badly arranged and she was ill-dressed, and that was enough for
+her. She felt it to be an insult that these people had invited her
+and asked nobody to meet her, Martha Wallingford, whose name was in
+all the papers, attired in this wonderful white gown. When Annie
+Eustace arose to go, she arose too with a peremptory motion.
+
+"I rather guess I will go to bed," said Martha Wallingford.
+
+"You must be weary," said Margaret.
+
+"I am not tired," said Martha Wallingford, "but it seems to me as
+dull here as in South Mordan, Illinois. I might as well go to bed and
+to sleep as sit here any longer."
+
+When Margaret had returned from the guest room, her husband looked at
+her almost in a bewildered fashion. Margaret sank wearily into a
+chair. "Isn't she impossible?" she whispered.
+
+"Did she think there was a dinner party?" Wilbur inquired
+perplexedly.
+
+"I don't know. It was ghastly. I did not for a moment suppose she
+would dress for a party, unless I told her, and it is Emma's night
+off and I could not ask people with only Clara to cook and wait."
+
+Wilbur patted his wife's shoulder comfortingly. "Never mind, dear,"
+he said, "when she gets her chance to do her to-morrow's stunt at
+your club, she will be all right."
+
+Margaret shivered a little. She had dared say nothing to Martha about
+that "stunt."  Was it possible that she was making a horrible
+mistake?
+
+The next day, Martha was still sulky but she did not, as Margaret
+feared, announce her intention of returning at once to New York.
+Margaret said quite casually that she had invited a few of the
+brightest and most interesting people in Fairbridge to meet her that
+afternoon and Martha became curious, although still resentful, and
+made no motion to leave. She, however, resolved to make no further
+mistakes as to costume, and just as the first tide of the Zenith Club
+broke over Margaret's threshold, she appeared clad in one of her
+South Mordan, Illinois, gowns. It was one which she had tucked into
+her trunk in view of foul weather. It was a hideous thing made from
+two old gowns. It had a garish blue tunic reaching well below the
+hips and a black skirt bordered with blue. Martha had had it made
+herself from a pattern after long study of the fashion plates in a
+Sunday newspaper and the result, although startling, still half
+convinced her. It was only after she had seen all the members of the
+Zenith Club seated and had gazed at their costumes, that she realised
+that she had made a worse mistake than that of the night before. To
+begin with, the day was very warm and her gown heavy and clumsy. The
+other ladies were arrayed in lovely lingeries or light silks and
+laces. The Zenith Club was exceedingly well dressed on that day.
+Martha sat in her place beside her hostess and her face looked like a
+sulky child's. Her eye-lids were swollen, her pouting lips dropped at
+the corners. She stiffened her chin until it became double. Margaret
+was inwardly perturbed but she concealed it. The programme went on
+with the inevitable singing by Miss MacDonald and Mrs. Wells, the
+playing by Mrs. Jack Evarts, the recitation by Sally Anderson.
+Margaret had not ventured to omit those features. Then, Mrs.
+Sturtevant read in a trembling voice a paper on Emerson. Then
+Margaret sprang her mines. She rose and surveyed her audience with
+smiling impressiveness. "Ladies," she said, and there was an
+immediate hush, "Ladies, I have the pleasure, the exceeding pleasure
+of presenting you to my guest, Miss Martha Wallingford, the author of
+_Hearts Astray_. She will now speak briefly to you upon her motive in
+writing and her method of work."  There was a soft clapping of hands.
+Margaret sat down. She was quite pale. Annie Eustace regarded her
+wonderingly. What had happened to her dear Margaret?
+
+The people waited. Everybody stared at Miss Martha Wallingford who
+had written that great seller, _Hearts Astray_. Martha Wallingford
+sat perfectly still. Her eyes were so downcast that they gave the
+appearance of being closed. Her pretty face looked red and swollen.
+Everybody waited. She sat absolutely still and made no sign except
+that of her obstinate face of negation. Margaret bent over her and
+whispered. Martha did not even do her the grace of a shake of the
+head.
+
+Everybody waited again. Martha Wallingford sat so still that she gave
+the impression of a doll made without speaking apparatus. It did not
+seem as if she could even wink. Then Alice Mendon, who disliked
+Margaret Edes and had a shrewd conjecture as to the state of affairs,
+but who was broad in her views, pitied Margaret. She arose with
+considerable motion and spoke to Daisy Shaw at her right, and broke
+the ghastly silence, and immediately everything was in motion and
+refreshments were being passed, but Martha Wallingford, who had
+written _Hearts Astray_, was not there to partake of them. She was in
+her room, huddled in a chair upholstered with cream silk strewn with
+roses; and she was in one of the paroxysms of silent rage which
+belonged to her really strong, although undisciplined nature, and
+which was certainly in this case justified to some degree.
+
+"It was an outrage," she said to herself. She saw through it all now.
+She had refused to speak or to read before all those women's clubs
+and now this woman had trapped her, that was the word for it, trapped
+her.
+
+As she sat there, her sullenly staring angry eyes saw in large
+letters at the head of a column in a morning paper on the table
+beside her, "'_The Poor Lady_,' the greatest anonymous novel of the
+year."
+
+Then she fell again to thinking of her wrongs and planning how she
+should wreak vengeance upon Margaret Edes.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VI
+
+
+Martha Wallingford was a young person of direct methods. She scorned
+subterfuges. Another of her age and sex might have gone to bed with a
+headache, not she. She sat absolutely still beside her window, quite
+in full view of the departing members of the Zenith Club, had they
+taken the trouble to glance in that direction, and some undoubtedly
+did, and she remained there; presently she heard her hostess's tiny
+rap on the door. Martha did not answer, but after a repeated rap and
+wait, Margaret chose to assume that she did, and entered. Margaret
+knelt in a soft flop of scented lingerie beside the indignant young
+thing. She explained, she apologised, she begged, she implored Martha
+to put on that simply ravishing gown which she had worn the evening
+before; she expatiated at length upon the charms of the people whom
+she had invited to dinner, but Martha spoke not at all until she was
+quite ready. Then she said explosively, "I won't."
+
+She was silent after that. Margaret recognised the futility of
+further entreaties. She went down stairs and confided in Wilbur. "I
+never saw such an utterly impossible girl," she said; "there she sits
+and won't get dressed and come down to dinner."
+
+"She is a freak, must be, most of these writer people are freaks,"
+said Wilbur sympathetically. "Poor old girl, and I suppose you have
+got up a nice dinner too."
+
+"A perfectly charming dinner and invited people to meet her."
+
+"How did she do her stunt this afternoon?"
+
+Margaret flushed. "None too well," she replied.
+
+"Oh, well, dear, I don't see how you are to blame."
+
+"I can say that Miss Wallingford is not well, I suppose," said
+Margaret, and that was what she did say, but with disastrous results.
+
+Margaret, ravishing in white lace, sprinkled with little gold
+butterflies, had taken her place at the head of her table. Emma was
+serving the first course and she was making her little speech
+concerning the unfortunate indisposition of her guest of honour when
+she was suddenly interrupted by that guest herself, an image of sulky
+wrath, clad in the blue and black costume pertaining to South Mordan,
+Illinois.
+
+"I am perfectly well. She is telling an awful whopper," proclaimed
+this amazing girl. "I won't dress up and come to dinner because I
+won't. She trapped me into a woman's club this afternoon and tried to
+get me to make a speech without even telling me what she meant to do
+and now I won't do anything."
+
+With that Miss Wallingford disappeared and unmistakable stamps were
+heard upon the stairs. One woman giggled convulsively; another took a
+glass of water and choked. A man laughed honestly. Wilbur was quite
+pale. Margaret was imperturbable. Karl von Rosen, who was one of the
+guests and who sat behind Annie Eustace, looked at Margaret with
+wonder. "Was this the way of women?" he thought. He did not doubt for
+one minute that the Western girl had spoken the truth. It had been
+brutal and homely, but it had been the truth. Little Annie Eustace,
+who had been allowed to come to a dinner party for the first time in
+her life and who looked quite charming in an old, much mended, but
+very fine India muslin and her grandmother's corals, did not, on the
+contrary, believe one word of Miss Wallingford's.
+
+Her sympathy was all with her Margaret. It was a horrible situation
+and her dear Margaret was the victim of her own hospitality. She
+looked across the table at Alice Mendon for another sympathiser, but
+Alice was talking busily to the man at her right about a new book.
+She had apparently not paid much attention. Annie wondered how it
+could have escaped her. That horrid girl had spoken so loudly. She
+looked up at Von Rosen. "I am so sorry for poor Margaret," she
+whispered. Von Rosen looked down at her very gently. This little
+girl's belief in her friend was like a sacred lily, not to be touched
+or soiled.
+
+"Yes," he said and Annie smiled up at him comfortably. Von Rosen was
+glad she sat beside him. He thought her very lovely, and there was a
+subtle suggestion of something besides loveliness. He thought that
+daintily mended India muslin exquisite, and also the carved
+corals,--bracelets on the slender wrists, a necklace--resting like a
+spray of flowers on the girlish neck, a comb in the soft hair which
+Annie had arranged becomingly and covered from her aunt's sight with
+a lace scarf. She felt deceitful about her hair, but how could she
+help it?
+
+The dinner was less ghastly than could have been expected after the
+revelation of the guest of honour and the blank consternation of the
+host, who made no attempt to conceal his state of mind. Poor Wilbur
+had no society tricks. Alice Mendon, who was quite cognizant of the
+whole matter, but was broad enough to leap to the aid of another
+woman, did much. She had quite a talent for witty stories and a
+goodly fund of them. The dinner went off very well, while Martha
+Wallingford ate hers from a dinner tray in her room and felt that
+every morsel was sweetened with righteous revenge.
+
+The next morning she left for New York and Margaret did not attempt
+to detain her although she had a lunch party planned besides the
+Sunday festivities. Margaret had had a scene with Wilbur after the
+departure of the guests the previous evening. For the first time in
+her experience, the devoted husband had turned upon his goddess. He
+had asked, "Was it true, what that girl said?" and Margaret had
+laughed up at him bewitchingly to no effect. Wilbur's face was very
+stern.
+
+"My dear," said Margaret, "I knew perfectly well that if I actually
+asked her to speak or read, she would have refused."
+
+"You have done an unpardonable thing," said the man. "You have
+betrayed your own sense of honour, your hospitality toward the guest
+under your roof."
+
+Margaret laughed as she took an ornament from her yellow head but the
+laugh was defiant and forced. In her heart she bitterly resented her
+husband's attitude and more bitterly resented the attitude of respect
+into which it forced her. "It is the very last time I ask a Western
+authoress to accept my hospitality," said she.
+
+"I hope so," said Wilbur gravely.
+
+That night Karl von Rosen walked home with Annie Eustace. She had
+come quite unattended, as was the wont of Fairbridge ladies. That
+long peaceful Main Street lined with the homes of good people always
+seemed a safe thoroughfare. Annie was even a little surprised when
+Von Rosen presented himself and said, "I will walk home with you,
+Miss Eustace, with your permission."
+
+"But I live a quarter of a mile past your house," said Annie.
+
+Von Rosen laughed. "A quarter of a mile will not injure me," he said.
+
+"It will really be a half mile," said Annie. She wanted very much
+that the young man should walk home with her, but she was very much
+afraid of making trouble. She was relieved when he only laughed again
+and said something about the beauty of the night. It was really a
+wonderful night and even the eyes of youth, inhabiting it with fairy
+dreams, were not essential to perceive it.
+
+"What flower scent is that?" asked Von Rosen.
+
+"I think," replied Annie, "that it is wild honeysuckle," and her
+voice trembled slightly. The perfumed night and the strange presence
+beside her went to the child's head a bit. The two walked along under
+the trees, which cast etching-like shadows in the broad moonlight,
+and neither talked much. There was scarcely a lighted window in any
+of the houses and they had a delicious sense of isolation,--the girl
+and the man awake in a sleeping world. Annie made no further allusion
+to Miss Wallingford. She had for almost the first time in her life a
+little selfish feeling that she did not wish to jar a perfect moment
+even with the contemplation of a friend's troubles. She was very
+happy walking beside Von Rosen, holding up her flimsy embroidered
+skirts carefully lest they come in contact with dewy grass. She had
+been admonished by her grandmother and her aunts so to do and
+reminded that the frail fabric would not endure much washing however
+skilful. Between the shadows, her lovely face showed like a white
+flower as Von Rosen looked down upon it. He wondered more and more
+that he had never noticed this exquisite young creature before. He
+did not yet dream of love in connection with her, but he was
+conscious of a passion of surprised admiration and protectiveness.
+
+"How is it that I have never seen you when I call on your Aunt
+Harriet?" he asked when he parted with her at her own gate, a stately
+wrought iron affair in a tall hedge of close trimmed lilac.
+
+"I am generally there, I think," replied Annie, but she was also
+conscious of a little surprise that she had not paid more attention
+when this young man, who looked at her so kindly, called. Then came
+one of her sudden laughs.
+
+"What is it?" asked Von Rosen.
+
+"Oh, nothing, except that the cat is usually there too," replied
+Annie. Von Rosen looked back boyishly.
+
+"Be sure I shall see you next time and hang the cat," he said.
+
+When Annie was in her room unclasping her corals, she considered how
+very much mortified and troubled her friend, Margaret Edes, must
+feel. She recalled how hideous it had all been--that appearance of
+the Western girl in the dining-room door-way, her rude ways, her
+flushed angry face. Annie did not dream of blaming Margaret. She was
+almost a fanatic as far as loyalty to her friends was concerned. She
+loved Margaret and she had only a feeling of cold dislike and
+disapprobation toward Miss Wallingford who had hurt Margaret. As for
+that charge of "trapping," she paid no heed to it whatever. She made
+up her mind to go and see Margaret the very next day and tell her a
+secret, a very great secret, which she was sure would comfort her and
+make ample amends to her for all her distress of the night before.
+Little Annie Eustace was so very innocent and ignorant of the ways of
+the world that had her nearest and dearest been able to look into her
+heart of hearts, they might have been appalled, incredulous and
+reverent, according to their natures. For instance, this very good,
+simple young girl who had been born with the light of genius always
+assumed that her friends would be as delighted at any good fortune of
+hers as at their own. She fairly fed upon her admiration of Alice
+Mendon that evening when she had stepped so nobly and tactfully into
+the rather frightful social breach and saved, if not wholly, the
+situation.
+
+"Alice was such a dear," she thought, and the thought made her face
+fairly angelic. Then she recalled how lovely Alice had looked, and
+her own mobile face took on unconsciously Alice's expression.
+Standing before her looking-glass brushing out her hair, she saw
+reflected, not her own beautiful face between the lustrous folds, but
+Alice's. Then she recalled with pride Margaret's imperturbability
+under such a trial. "Nobody but Margaret could have carried off such
+an insult under her own roof too," she thought.
+
+After she was in bed and her lamp blown out and the white moon-beams
+were entering her open windows like angels, she, after saying her
+prayers, thought of the three, Margaret, Alice, and Karl von Rosen.
+Then suddenly a warm thrill passed over her long slender body but it
+seemed to have its starting point in her soul. She saw very
+distinctly the young man's dark handsome face, but she thought, "How
+absurd of me, to see him so distinctly, as distinctly as I see
+Margaret and Alice, when I love them so much, and I scarcely know Mr.
+von Rosen."  Being brought up by one's imperious grandmother and two
+imperious aunts and being oneself naturally of an obedient
+disposition and of a slowly maturing temperament, tends to lengthen
+the long childhood of a girl. Annie was almost inconceivably a child,
+much more of a child than Maida or Adelaide Edes. They had been
+allowed to grow like weeds as far as their imagination was concerned,
+and she had been religiously pruned.
+
+The next afternoon she put on her white barred muslin and obtained
+her Aunt Harriet's permission to spend an hour or two with Margaret
+if she would work assiduously on her daisy centre piece, and stepped
+like a white dove across the shady village street. Annie, unless she
+remembered to do otherwise, was prone to toe in slightly with her
+slender feet. She was also prone to allow the tail of her white gown
+to trail. She gathered it up only when her Aunt called after her. She
+found Margaret lying indolently in the hammock which was strung
+across the wide shaded verandah. She was quite alone. Annie had seen
+with relief Miss Martha Wallingford being driven to the station that
+morning and the express following with her little trunk. Margaret
+greeted Annie a bit stiffly but the girl did not notice it. She was
+so full of her ignorant little plan to solace her friend with her own
+joy. Poor Annie did not understand that it requires a nature seldom
+met upon this earth, to be solaced, under disappointment and failure,
+by another's joy. Annie had made up her mind to say very little to
+Margaret about what had happened the evening before. Only at first,
+she remarked upon the beauty of the dinner, then she said quite
+casually, "Dear Margaret, we were all so sorry for poor Miss
+Wallingford's strange conduct."
+
+"It really did not matter in the least," replied Margaret coldly. "I
+shall never invite her again."
+
+"I am sure nobody can blame you," said Annie warmly. "I don't want to
+say harsh things, you know that, Margaret, but that poor girl, in
+spite of her great talent, cannot have had the advantage of good
+home-training."
+
+"Oh, she is Western," said Margaret. "How very warm it is to-day."
+
+"Very, but there is quite a breeze here."
+
+"A hot breeze," said Margaret wearily. "How I wish we could afford a
+house at the seashore or the mountains. The hot weather does get on
+my nerves."
+
+A great light of joy came into Annie's eyes. "Oh, Margaret dear," she
+said, "I can't do it yet but it does look as if some time before long
+perhaps, I may be able myself to have a house at the seashore. I
+think Sudbury beach would be lovely. It is always cool there, and
+then you can come and stay with me whenever you like during the hot
+weather. I will have a room fitted up for you in your favourite white
+and gold and it shall be called Margaret's room and you can always
+come, when you wish."
+
+Margaret looked at the other girl with a slow surprise. "I do not
+understand," said she.
+
+"Of course, you don't. You know we have only had enough to live here
+as we have done," said Annie with really childish glee, "but oh,
+Margaret, you will be so glad. I have not told you before but now I
+must for I know it will make you so happy, and I know I can trust you
+never to betray me, for it is a great secret, a very great secret,
+and it must not be known by other people at present. I don't know
+just when it can be known, perhaps never, certainly not now."
+
+Margaret looked at her with indifferent interrogation. Annie did not
+realise how indifferent. A flood-tide of kindly joyful emotion does
+not pay much attention to its banks. Annie continued. She looked
+sweetly excited; her voice rose high above its usual pitch. "You
+understand, Margaret dear, how it is," she said. "You see I am quite
+unknown, that is, my name is quite unknown, and it would really
+hinder the success of a book."
+
+Margaret surveyed her with awakening interest. "A book?" said she.
+
+"Yes, a book! Oh, Margaret, I know it will be hard for you to
+believe, but you know I am very truthful. I--I wrote the book they
+are talking about so much now. You know what I mean?"
+
+"Not the--?"
+
+"Yes, _The Poor Lady_,--the anonymous novel which people are talking
+so much about and which sold better than any other book last week. I
+wrote it. I really did, Margaret."
+
+"You wrote it!"
+
+Annie continued almost wildly. "Yes, I did, I did!" she cried, "and
+you are the only soul that knows except the publishers. They said
+they were much struck with the book but advised anonymous
+publication, my name was so utterly unknown."
+
+"You wrote _The Poor Lady_?" said Margaret. Her eyes glittered, and
+her lips tightened. Envy possessed her, but Annie Eustace did not
+recognise envy when she saw it.
+
+Annie went on in her sweet ringing voice, almost producing the effect
+of a song. She was so happy, and so pleased to think that she was
+making her friend happy.
+
+"Yes," she said, "I wrote it. I wrote _The Poor Lady_."
+
+"If," said Margaret, "you speak quite so loud, you will be heard by
+others."
+
+Annie lowered her voice immediately with a startled look. "Oh," she
+whispered. "I would not have anybody hear me for anything."
+
+"How did you manage?" asked Margaret.
+
+Annie laughed happily. "I fear I have been a little deceitful," she
+said, "but I am sure they will forgive me when they know. I keep a
+journal; I have always kept one since I was a child. Aunt Harriet
+wished me to do so. And the journal was very stupid. So little
+unusual happens here in Fairbridge, and I have always been rather
+loath to write very much about my innermost feelings or very much
+about my friends in my journal because of course one can never tell
+what will happen. It has never seemed to me quite delicate--to keep a
+very full journal, and so there was in reality very little to write."
+Annie burst into a peal of laughter. "It just goes this way, the
+journal," she said. "To-day is pleasant and warm. This morning I
+helped Hannah preserve cherries. In the afternoon I went over to
+Margaret's and sat with her on the verandah, embroidered two daisies
+and three leaves with stems on my centre piece, came home, had
+supper, sat in the twilight with Grandmother, Aunt Harriet and Aunt
+Susan. Went upstairs, put on my wrapper and read until it was time to
+go to bed. Went to bed. Now that took very little time and was not
+interesting and so, after I went upstairs, I wrote my entry in the
+journal in about five minutes and then I wrote _The Poor Lady_. Of
+course, when I began it, I was not at all sure that it would amount
+to anything. I was not sure that any publisher would look at it.
+Sometimes I felt as if I were doing a very foolish thing: spending
+time and perhaps deceiving Grandmother and my aunts very wickedly,
+though I was quite certain that if the book should by any chance
+succeed, they would not think it wrong.
+
+"Grandmother is very fond of books and so is Aunt Harriet, and I have
+often heard them say they wished I had been a boy in order that I
+might do something for the Eustace name. You know there have been so
+many distinguished professional men in the Eustace family and they of
+course did not for one minute think a girl like me could do anything
+and I did not really think so myself. Sometimes I wonder how I had
+the courage to keep on writing when I was so uncertain but it was
+exactly as if somebody were driving me. When I had the book finished,
+I was so afraid it ought to be typewritten, but I could not manage
+that. At least I thought I could not, but after awhile I did, and in
+a way that nobody suspected, Aunt Harriet sent me to New York. You
+know I am not often allowed to go alone but it was when Grandmother
+had the grippe and Aunt Susan the rheumatism and Aunt Harriet had a
+number of errands and so I went on the Twenty-third Street ferry, and
+did not go far from Twenty-third Street and I took my book in my
+handbag and carried it into Larkins and White's and I saw Mr. Larkins
+in his office and he was very kind and polite, although I think now
+he was laughing a little to himself at the idea of my writing a book,
+but he said to leave the MSS. and he would let me hear. And I left it
+and, oh, Margaret, I heard within a week, and he said such lovely
+things about it. You know I always go to the post-office, so there
+was no chance of anybody's finding it out that way. And then the
+proof began to come and I was at my wits' end to conceal that, but I
+did. And then the book was published, and, Margaret, you know the
+rest. Nobody dreams who wrote it, and I have had a statement and oh,
+my dear, next November I am to have a check."  (Annie leaned over and
+whispered in Margaret's ear.)  "Only think," she said with a burst of
+rapture.
+
+Margaret was quite pale. She sat looking straight before her with a
+strange expression. She was tasting in the very depths of her soul a
+bitterness which was more biting than any bitter herb which ever grew
+on earth. It was a bitterness, which, thank God, is unknown to many;
+the bitterness of the envy of an incapable, but self-seeking nature,
+of one with the burning ambition of genius but destitute of the
+divine fire. To such come unholy torture, which is unspeakable at the
+knowledge of another's success. Margaret Edes was inwardly writhing.
+To think that Annie Eustace, little Annie Eustace, who had worshipped
+at her own shrine, whom she had regarded with a lazy, scarcely
+concealed contempt, for her incredible lack of wordly knowledge, her
+provincialism, her ill-fitting attire, should have achieved a triumph
+which she herself could never achieve. A cold hatred of the girl
+swept over the woman. She forced her lips into a smile, but her eyes
+were cruel.
+
+"How very interesting, my dear," she said.
+
+Poor Annie started. She was acute, for all her innocent trust in
+another's goodness, and the tone of her friend's voice, the look in
+her eyes chilled her. And yet she did not know what they signified.
+She went on begging for sympathy and rejoicing with her joy as a
+child might beg for a sweet. "Isn't it perfectly lovely, Margaret
+dear?" she said.
+
+"It is most interesting, my dear child," replied Margaret.
+
+Annie went on eagerly with the details of her triumph, the book sales
+which increased every week, the revises, the letters from her
+publishers, and Margaret listened smiling in spite of her torture,
+but she never said more than "How interesting."
+
+At last Annie went home and could not help feeling disappointed,
+although she could not fathom the significance of Margaret's
+reception of her astonishing news. Annie only worried because she
+feared lest her happiness had not cheered her friend as much as she
+had anticipated.
+
+"Poor Margaret, she must feel so very bad that nothing can reconcile
+her to such a betrayal of her hospitality," she reflected as she
+flitted across the street. There was nobody in evidence at her house
+at window or on the wide verandah. Annie looked at her watch tucked
+in her girdle, hung around her neck by a thin gold chain which had
+belonged to her mother. It yet wanted a full hour of supper time. She
+had time to call on Alice Mendon and go to the post-office. Alice
+lived on the way to the post-office, in a beautiful old colonial
+house. Annie ran along the shady sidewalk and soon had a glimpse of
+Alice's pink draperies on her great front porch. Annie ran down the
+deep front yard between the tall box bushes, beyond which bloomed in
+a riot of colour and perfume roses and lilies and spraying heliotrope
+and pinks and the rest of their floral tribe all returned to their
+dance of summer. Alice's imposing colonial porch was guarded on
+either side of the superb circling steps by a stone lion from over
+seas. On the porch was a little table and several chairs. Alice sat
+in one reading. She was radiant in her pink muslin. Alice seldom wore
+white. She was quite sensible as to the best combinations of herself
+with colours although she had, properly speaking, no vanity. She
+arranged herself to the best advantage as she arranged a flower in a
+vase. On the heavily carved mahogany table beside her was a blue and
+white India bowl filled with white roses and heliotrope and lemon
+verbena. Annie inhaled the bouquet of perfume happily as she came up
+the steps with Alice smiling a welcome at her. Annie had worshipped
+more fervently at Margaret Edes' shrine than at Alice's and yet she
+had a feeling of fuller confidence in Alice. She was about to tell
+Alice about her book, not because Alice needed the comfort of her joy
+but because she herself, although unknowingly, needed Alice's ready
+sympathy of which she had no doubt. Her interview with Margaret had
+left the child hurt and bewildered and now she came to Alice. Alice
+did not rise and kiss her. Alice seldom kissed anybody but she
+radiated kindly welcome.
+
+"Sit down, little Annie," she said, "I am glad you have come. My aunt
+and cousin have gone to New York and I have been alone all day. We
+would have tea and cake but _I_ know the hour of your Medes and
+Persians' supper approaches instead of my later dinner."
+
+"Yes," said Annie, sitting down, "and if I were to take tea and cake
+now, Alice, I could eat nothing and grandmother and my aunts are very
+particular about my clearing my plate."
+
+Alice laughed, but she looked rather solicitously at the girl. "I
+know," she said, then she hesitated. She pitied little Annie Eustace
+and considered her rather a victim of loving but mistaken tyranny. "I
+wish," she said, "that you would stay and dine with me to-night."
+
+Annie fairly gasped. "They expect me at home," she replied.
+
+"I know, and I suppose if I were to send over and tell them you would
+dine with me, it would not answer."
+
+Annie looked frightened. "I fear not, Alice. You see they would have
+had no time to think it over and decide."
+
+"Yes, I suppose so."
+
+"I have time to make you a little call and stop at the post-office
+for the last mail and get home just in time for supper."
+
+"Oh, well, you must come and dine with me a week from to-day, and I
+will have a little dinner-party," said Alice. "I will invite some
+nice people. We will have Mr. von Rosen for one."
+
+Annie suddenly flushed crimson. It occurred to her that Mr. von Rosen
+might walk home with her as he had done from Margaret's, and a
+longing and terror at once possessed her.
+
+Alice wondered at the blush.
+
+"I was so sorry for poor Margaret last night," Annie said with an
+abrupt change of subject.
+
+"Yes," said Alice.
+
+"That poor Western girl, talented as she is, must have been oddly
+brought up to be so very rude to her hostess," said Annie.
+
+"I dare say Western girls are brought up differently," said Alice.
+
+Annie was so intent with what she had to tell Alice that she did not
+realise the extreme evasiveness of the other's manner.
+
+"Alice," she said.
+
+"Well, little Annie Eustace?"
+
+Annie began, blushed, then hesitated.
+
+"I am going to tell you something. I have told Margaret. I have just
+told her this afternoon. I thought it might please her and comfort
+her after that terrible scene at her dinner last night, but nobody
+else knows except the publishers."
+
+"What is it?" asked Alice, regarding Annie with a little smile.
+
+"Nothing, only I wrote _The Poor Lady_," said Annie.
+
+"My dear Annie, I knew it all the time," said Alice.
+
+Annie stared at her. "How?"
+
+"Well, you did not know it, but you did repeat in that book verbatim,
+ad literatim, a sentence, a very striking one, which occurred in one
+of your papers which you wrote for the Zenith Club. I noticed that
+sentence at the time. It was this: 'A rose has enough beauty and
+fragrance to enable it to give very freely and yet itself remain a
+rose. It is the case with many endowed natures but that is a fact
+which is not always understood.'  My dear Annie, I knew that you
+wrote the book, for that identical sentence occurs in _The Poor Lady_
+on page one hundred forty-two. You see I have fully considered the
+matter to remember the exact page. I knew the minute I read that
+sentence that my little Annie Eustace had written that successful
+anonymous book, and I was the more certain because I had always had
+my own opinion as to little Annie's literary ability based upon those
+same Zenith Club papers. You will remember that I have often told you
+that you should not waste your time writing club papers when you
+could do work like that."
+
+Annie looked alarmed. "Oh, Alice," she said, "do you think anybody
+else has remembered that sentence?"
+
+"My dear child, I am quite sure that not a blessed woman in that club
+has remembered that sentence," said Alice.
+
+"I had entirely forgotten."
+
+"Of course, you had."
+
+"It would be very unfortunate if it were remembered, because the
+publishers are so anxious that my name should not be known. You see,
+nobody ever heard of me and my name would hurt the sales and the poor
+publishers have worked so hard over the advertising, it would be
+dreadful to have the sales fall off. You really don't think anybody
+does remember?"
+
+"My dear," said Alice with her entirely good-natured, even amused and
+tolerant air of cynicism, "the women of the Zenith Club remember
+their own papers. You need not have the slightest fear. But Annie,
+you wonderful little girl, I am so glad you have come to me with
+this. I have been waiting for you to tell me, for I was impatient to
+tell you how delighted I am. You blessed child, I never was more glad
+at anything in my whole life. I am as proud as proud can be. I feel
+as if I had written that book myself, and better than written it
+myself. I have had none of the bother of the work and my friend had
+it and my friend has the fame and the glory and she goes around among
+us with her little halo hidden out of sight of everybody, except
+myself."
+
+"Margaret knows."
+
+Alice stiffened a little. "That is recent," she said, "and I have
+known all the time."
+
+"Margaret could not have remembered that sentence, I am sure," Annie
+said thoughtfully. "Poor Margaret, she was so upset by what happened
+last night that I am afraid the news did not cheer her up as much as
+I thought it would."
+
+"Well, you dear little soul," said Alice, "I am simply revelling in
+happiness and pride because of it, you may be sure of that."
+
+"But you have not had such an awful blow as poor Margaret had," said
+Annie. Then she brightened. "Oh Alice," she cried, "I wanted somebody
+who loved me to be glad."
+
+"You have not told your grandmother and aunts yet?"
+
+"I have not dared," replied Annie in a shamed fashion. "I know I
+deceived them and I think perhaps grandmother might find it hard not
+to tell. She is so old you know, and she does tell a great deal
+without meaning and Aunt Susan likes to tell news. I have not dared,
+Alice. The publishers have been so very insistent that nobody should
+know, but I had to tell you and Margaret."
+
+"It made no difference anyway about me," said Alice, "since I already
+knew."
+
+"Margaret can be trusted too, I am sure," Annie said quickly.
+
+"Of course."
+
+Annie looked at her watch. "I must go," she said, "or I shall be
+late. Isn't it really wonderful that I should write a successful
+book, Alice?"
+
+"You are rather wonderful, my dear," said Alice. Then she rose and
+put her arms around the slender white-clad figure and held her close,
+and gave her one of her infrequent kisses. "You precious little
+thing," she said, "the book is wonderful, but my Annie is more
+wonderful because she can be told so and never get the fact into her
+head. Here is your work, dear."
+
+An expression of dismay came over Annie's face. "Oh, dear," she said,
+"I have only embroidered half a daisy and what will Aunt Harriet
+say?"
+
+"You have embroidered a whole garden as nobody else can, if people
+only knew it," said Alice.
+
+"But Alice," said Annie ruefully, "my embroidery is really awful and
+I don't like to do it and the linen is so grimy that I am ashamed.
+Oh, dear, I shall have to face Aunt Harriet with that half daisy!"
+
+Alice laughed. "She can't kill you."
+
+"No, but I don't like to have her so disappointed."
+
+Alice kissed Annie again before she went, and watched the slight
+figure flitting down between the box-rows, with a little frown of
+perplexity. She wished that Annie had not told Margaret Edes about
+the book and yet she did not know why she wished so. She was very far
+from expecting the results. Alice was too noble herself to entertain
+suspicions of the ignobility of others. Certainty she was obliged to
+confront, as she had confronted the affair of the night before. It
+was, of course, the certainty that Margaret had been guilty of a
+disgraceful and treacherous deed which made her uneasy in a vague
+fashion now and yet she did not for one second dream of what was to
+occur at the next meeting of the Zenith Club.
+
+That was at Mrs. Sturtevant's and was the great affair of the year.
+It was called, to distinguish it from the others, "The Annual
+Meeting," and upon that occasion the husbands and men friends of the
+members were invited and the function was in the evening. Margaret
+had wished to have the club at her own house, before the affair of
+Martha Wallingford, but the annual occasions were regulated by the
+letters of the alphabet and it was incontrovertibly the turn of the
+letter S and Mrs. Sturtevant's right could not be questioned. During
+the time which elapsed before this meeting, Margaret Edes was more
+actively unhappy than she had ever been in her life and all her
+strong will could not keep the traces of that unhappiness from her
+face. Lines appeared. Her eyes looked large in dark hollows. Wilbur
+grew anxious about her.
+
+"You must go somewhere for a change," he said, "and I will get my
+cousin Marion to come here and keep house and look out for the
+children. You must not be bothered even with them. You need a
+complete rest and change."
+
+But Margaret met his anxiety with irritation. She felt as if some
+fatal fascination confined her in Fairbridge and especially did she
+feel that she must be present at the annual meeting. Margaret never
+for one minute formulated to herself why she had this fierce desire.
+She knew in a horrible way at the back of her brain, but she kept the
+knowledge covered as with a veil even from herself.
+
+She had a beautiful new gown made for the occasion. Since she had
+lost so much colour, she was doubtful of the wisdom of wearing her
+favourite white and gold, or black. She had a crepe of a peculiar
+shade of blue which suited her and she herself worked assiduously
+embroidering it in a darker shade which brought out the colour of her
+eyes. She looked quite herself when the evening came and Wilbur's
+face brightened as he looked at her in her trailing blue with a
+little diamond crescent fastening a tiny blue feather in her golden
+fluff of hair.
+
+"You certainly do look better," he said happily.
+
+"I am well, you old goose," said Margaret, fastening her long blue
+gloves. "You have simply been fussing over nothing as I told you."
+
+"Well, I hope I have. You do look stunning to-night," said Wilbur,
+gazing at her with a pride so intense that it was almost piteous in
+its self-abnegation.
+
+"Is that your stunt there on the table?" he inquired, pointing to a
+long envelope.
+
+Margaret laughed carefully, dimpling her cheeks. "Yes," she said, and
+Wilbur took the envelope and put it into his pocket. "I will carry it
+for you," he said. "By the way, what is your stunt, honey? Did you
+write something?"
+
+"Wait, until you hear," replied Margaret, and she laughed carefully
+again. She gathered up the train of her blue gown and turned upon
+him, her blue eyes glowing with a strange fire, feverish roses on her
+cheeks. "You are not to be surprised at anything to-night," she said
+and laughed again.
+
+She still had a laughing expression when they were seated in Mrs.
+Sturtevant's flower-scented drawing-room, a handsome room, thanks to
+the decorator, who was young and enthusiastic. Margaret had duly
+considered the colour scheme in her choice of a gown. The furniture
+was upholstered with a wisteria pattern, except a few chairs which
+were cane-seated, with silvered wood. Margaret had gone directly to
+one of these chairs. She was not sure of her gown being exactly the
+right shade of blue to harmonise with the wisteria at close quarters.
+The chair was tall and slender. Margaret's feet did not touch the
+floor, but the long blue trail of her gown concealed that, and she
+contrived to sit as if they did. She gave the impression of a tall
+creature of extreme grace as she sat propping her back against her
+silvered chair. Wilbur gazed at her with adoration. He had almost
+forgotten the affair of Martha Wallingford. He had excused his
+Margaret because she was a woman and he was profoundly ignorant of
+women's strange ambitions. Now, he regarded her with unqualified
+admiration. He looked from her to the other women and back again and
+was entirely convinced that she outshone them all as a sun a star. He
+looked at the envelope in her blue lap and was sure that she had
+written something which was infinitely superior to the work of any
+other woman there. Down in the depths of his masculine soul, Wilbur
+Edes had a sense of amused toleration when women's clubs were
+concerned, but he always took his Margaret seriously, and the Zenith
+Club on that account was that night an important and grave
+organisation. He wished very much to smoke and he was wedged into an
+uncomfortable corner with a young girl who insisted upon talking to
+him and was all the time nervously rearranging her hair, but he had a
+good view of his Margaret in her wonderful blue gown, in her silver
+chair, and he was consoled.
+
+"Have you read _The Poor Lady_?" asked spasmodically the girl, and
+drove in a slipping hair-pin at the same time.
+
+"I never read novels," replied Wilbur absently, "haven't much time
+you know."
+
+"Oh, I suppose not, but that is such a wonderful book and only think,
+nobody has the least idea who wrote it, and it does make it so
+interesting. I thought myself it was written by Wilbur Jack until I
+came to a sentence which I could quite understand and that put him
+out of the question. Of course, Wilbur Jack is such a great genius
+that no young girl like myself pretends to understand him, but that
+is why I worship him. I tell Mamma I think he is the ideal writer for
+young girls, so elevating. And then I thought _The Poor Lady_ might
+have been written by Mrs. Eudora Peasely because she is always so
+lucid and I came to a sentence which I could not understand at all.
+Oh, dear, I have thought of all the living writers as writing that
+book and have had to give it up, and of course the dead ones are out
+of the question."
+
+"Of course," said Wilbur gravely, and then his Margaret stood up and
+took some printed matter from an envelope and instantly the situation
+became strangely tense. Men and women turned eager faces; they could
+not have told why eager, but they were all conscious of something
+unusual in the atmosphere and every expression upon those expectant
+faces suddenly changed into one which made them as a listening unit.
+Then Margaret began.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VII
+
+
+Wilbur Edes thought he had never seen his wife look as beautiful as
+she did standing there before them all with those fluttering leaves
+of paper in her hand. A breeze came in at an opposite window and
+Margaret's blue feather tossed in it; her yellow hair crisped and
+fluffed and the paper fluttered. Margaret stood for an appreciable
+second surveying them all with a most singular expression. It was
+compounded of honeyed sweetness, of triumph, and something else more
+subtle, the expression of a warrior entering battle and ready for
+death, yet terrible with defiance and the purpose of victory, and
+death for his foe.
+
+Then Margaret spoke and her thin silvery voice penetrated to every
+ear in the room.
+
+"Members of the Zenith Club and friends," said Margaret, "I take the
+opportunity offered me to-night to disclose a secret which is a
+source of much joy to myself, and which I am sure will be a source of
+joy to you also. I trust that since you are my friends and neighbours
+and associates in club work, you will acquit me of the charge of
+egotism and credit me with my whole motive, which is, I think, not an
+unworthy one coming to you in joy, as I would come in sorrow for your
+sympathy and understanding. I am about to read an extract from a book
+whose success has given me the most unqualified surprise and delight,
+knowing as I do that a reading by an author from her own work always
+increases the interest even though she may not be an able expositor
+by word of mouth of what she has written."
+
+Then Margaret read. She had chosen a short chapter which was in
+itself almost a complete little story. She read exceedingly well and
+without faltering. People listened with ever-growing amazement. Then
+Mrs. Jack Evarts whispered so audibly to a man at her side that she
+broke in upon Margaret's clear recitative. "Goodness, she's reading
+from that book that is selling so,--_The Poor Lady_--I remember every
+word of that chapter."
+
+Then while Margaret continued her reading imperturbably, the chorus
+of whispers increased. "That is from _The Poor Lady_, yes, it is. Did
+she write it? Why, of course, she did. She just said so. Isn't it
+wonderful that she has done such a thing?"
+
+Wilbur Edes sat with his eyes riveted upon his wife's face, his own
+gone quite pale, but upon it an expression of surprise and joy so
+intense that he looked almost foolish from such a revelation of his
+inner self.
+
+The young girl beside him drove hair pins frantically into her hair.
+She twisted up a lock which had strayed and fastened it. She looked
+alternately at Wilbur and Margaret.
+
+"Goodness gracious," said she, and did not trouble to whisper. "That
+is the next to the last chapter of _The Poor Lady_. And to think that
+your wife wrote it! Goodness gracious, and here she has been living
+right here in Fairbridge all the time and folks have been seeing her
+and talking to her and never knew! Did you know, Mr. Edes?"
+
+The young girl fixed her sharp pretty eyes upon Wilbur. "Never
+dreamed of it," he blurted out, "just as much surprised as any of
+you."
+
+"I don't believe I could have kept such a wonderful thing as that
+from my own husband," said the girl, who was unmarried, and had no
+lover. But Wilbur did not hear. All he heard was his beloved
+Margaret, who had secretly achieved fame for herself, reading on and
+on. He had not the slightest idea what she was reading. He had no
+interest whatever in that. All he cared for was the amazing fact that
+his wife, his wonderful, beautiful Margaret, had so covered herself
+with glory and honour. He had a slightly hurt feeling because she had
+not told him until this public revelation. He felt that his own
+private joy and pride as her husband should have been perhaps sacred
+and respected by her and yet possibly she was right. This public
+glory might have seemed to her the one which would the most appeal to
+him.
+
+He had, as he had said, not read the book, but he recalled with a
+sort of rapturous tenderness for Margaret how he had seen the posters
+all along the railroad as he commuted to the city, and along the
+elevated road. His face gazing at Margaret was as beautiful in its
+perfectly unselfish pride and affection, as a mother's. To think that
+his darling had done such a thing! He longed to be at home alone with
+her and say to her what he could not say before all these people. He
+thought of a very good reason why she had chosen this occasion to
+proclaim her authorship of the famous anonymous novel. She had been
+so humiliated, poor child, by the insufferable rudeness of that
+Western girl that she naturally wished to make good. And how modest
+and unselfish she had been to make the attempt to exalt another
+author when she herself was so much greater. Wilbur fully exonerated
+Margaret for what she did in the case of Martha Wallingford in the
+light of this revelation. His modest, generous, noble wife had
+honestly endeavoured to do the girl a favour, to assist her in spite
+of herself and she had received nothing save rudeness, ingratitude,
+and humiliation in return. Now, she was asserting herself. She was
+showing all Fairbridge that she was the one upon whom honour should
+be showered. She was showing him and rightfully. He remembered with
+compunction his severity toward her on account of the Martha
+Wallingford affair, his beautiful, gifted Margaret! Why, even then
+she might have electrified that woman's club by making the revelation
+which she had won to-night and reading this same selection from her
+own book. He had not read Martha Wallingford's _Hearts Astray_. He
+thought that the title was enough for him. He knew that it must be
+one of the womanish, hysterical, sentimental type of things which he
+despised. But Margaret had been so modest that she had held back from
+the turning on the search-light of her own greater glory. She had
+made the effort which had resulted so disastrously to obtain a lesser
+one, and he had condemned her. He knew that women always used
+circuitous ways toward their results, just as men used sledge-hammer
+ones. Why should a man criticise a woman's method any more than a
+woman criticise a man's? Wilbur, blushing like a girl with pride and
+delight, listened to his wife and fairly lashed himself. He was
+wholly unworthy of such a woman, he knew.
+
+When the reading was over and people crowded around Margaret and
+congratulated her, he stood aloof. He felt that he could not speak of
+this stupendous thing with her until they were alone. Then Doctor
+Sturtevant's great bulk pressed against him and his sonorous voice
+said in his ear, "By Jove, old man, your wife has drawn a lucky
+number. Congratulations."  Wilbur gulped as he thanked him. Then
+Sturtevant went on talking about a matter which was rather dear to
+Wilbur's own ambition and which he knew had been tentatively
+discussed: the advisability of his running for State Senator in the
+autumn. Wilbur knew it would be a good thing for him professionally,
+and at the bottom of his heart he knew that his wife's success had
+been the last push toward his own. Other men came in and began
+talking, leading from his wife's success toward his own, until Wilbur
+realised himself as dazzled.
+
+He did not notice what Von Rosen noticed, because he had kept his
+attention upon the girl, that Annie Eustace had turned deadly pale
+when Margaret had begun her reading and that Alice Mendon who was
+seated beside her had slipped an arm around her and quietly and
+unobtrusively led her out of the room. Von Rosen thought that Miss
+Eustace must have turned faint because of the heat, and was conscious
+of a distinct anxiety and disappointment. He had, without directly
+acknowledging it to himself, counted upon walking home with Annie
+Eustace, but yet he hoped that she might return, that she had not
+left the home. When the refreshments were served, he looked for her,
+but Annie was long since at Alice Mendon's house in her room. Alice
+had hurried her there in her carriage.
+
+"Come home with me, dear," she had whispered, "and we can have a talk
+together. Your people won't expect you yet."
+
+Therefore, while Karl von Rosen, who had gone to this annual meeting
+of the Zenith Club for the sole purpose of walking home with Annie,
+waited, the girl sat in a sort of dumb and speechless state in Alice
+Mendon's room. It seemed to her like a bad dream. Alice herself
+stormed. She had a high temper, but seldom gave way to it. Now she
+did. There was something about this which roused her utmost powers of
+indignation.
+
+"It is simply an outrage," declared Alice, marching up and down the
+large room, her rich white gown trailing behind her, her chin high.
+"I did not think her capable of it. It is the worst form of thievery
+in the world, stealing the work of another's brain. It is
+inconceivable that Margaret Edes could have done such a preposterous
+thing. I never liked her. I don't care if I do admit it, but I never
+thought she was capable of such an utterly ignoble deed. It was all
+that I could do to master myself, not to stand up before them all and
+denounce her. Well, her time will come."
+
+"Alice," said a ghastly little voice from the stricken figure on the
+couch, "are you sure? Am I sure? Was that from my book?"
+
+"Of course it was from your book. Why, you know it was from your
+book, Annie Eustace," cried Alice and her voice sounded high with
+anger toward poor Annie herself.
+
+"I hoped that we might be mistaken after all," said the voice, which
+had a bewildered quality. Annie Eustace had a nature which could not
+readily grasp some of the evil of humanity. She was in reality dazed
+before this. She was ready to believe an untruth rather than the
+incredible truth. But Alice Mendon was merciless. She resolved that
+Annie should know once for all.
+
+"We are neither of us mistaken," she said. "Margaret Edes read a
+chapter from your book, _The Poor Lady_, and without stating in so
+many words that she was the author, she did what was worse. She made
+everybody think so. Annie, she is bad, bad, bad. Call the spade a
+spade and face it. See how black it is. Margaret Edes has stolen from
+you your best treasure."
+
+"I don't care for that so much," said Annie Eustace, "but--I loved
+her, Alice."
+
+"Then," said Alice, "she has stolen more than your book. She has
+stolen the light by which you wrote it. It is something hideous,
+hideous."
+
+Annie gave a queer little dry sob. "Margaret could not have done it,"
+she moaned.
+
+Alice crossed swiftly to her and knelt beside her. "Darling," she
+said, "you must face it. It is better. I do not say so because I do
+not personally like Margaret Edes, but you must have courage and face
+it."
+
+"I have not courage enough," said Annie and she felt that she had
+not, for it was one of the awful tasks of the world which was before
+her: The viewing the mutilated face of love itself.
+
+"You must," said Alice. She put an arm around the slight figure and
+drew the fair head to her broad bosom, her maternal bosom, which
+served her friends in good stead, since it did not pillow the heads
+of children. Friends in distress are as children to the women of her
+type.
+
+"Darling," she said in her stately voice from which the anger had
+quite gone. "Darling, you must face it. Margaret did read that
+chapter from your book and she told, or as good as told everybody
+that she had written it."
+
+Then Annie sobbed outright and the tears came.
+
+"Oh," she cried, "Oh, Alice, how she must want success to do anything
+like that, poor, poor Margaret! Oh, Alice!"
+
+"How she must love herself," said Alice firmly. "Annie, you must face
+it. Margaret is a self-lover; her whole heart turns in love toward
+her own self, instead of toward those whom she should love and who
+love her. Annie, Margaret is bad, bad, with a strange degenerate
+badness. She dates back to the sins of the First Garden. You must
+turn your back upon her. You must not love her any more."
+
+"No, I must not love her any more," agreed Annie, "and that is the
+pity of it. I must not love her, Alice, but I must pity her until I
+die. Poor Margaret!"
+
+"Poor Annie," said Alice. "You worked so hard over that book, dear,
+and you were so pleased. Annie, what shall you do about it?"
+
+Annie raised her head from Alice's bosom and sat up straight, with a
+look of terror.
+
+"Alice," she cried, "I must go to-morrow and see my publishers. I
+must go down on my knees to them if necessary."
+
+"Do you mean," asked Alice slowly, "never to tell?"
+
+"Oh, never, never, never!" cried Annie.
+
+"I doubt," said Alice, "if you can keep such a matter secret. I doubt
+if your publishers will consent."
+
+"They must. I will never have it known! Poor Margaret!"
+
+"I don't pity her at all," said Alice. "I do pity her husband who
+worships her, and there is talk of his running for State Senator and
+this would ruin him. And I am sorry for the children."
+
+"Nobody shall ever know," said Annie.
+
+"But how can you manage with the publishers?"
+
+"I don't know. I will."
+
+"And you will have written that really wonderful book and never have
+the credit for it. You will live here and see Margaret Edes praised
+for what you have done."
+
+"Poor Margaret," said Annie. "I must go now. I know I can trust you
+never to speak."
+
+"Of course, but I do not think it right."
+
+"I don't care whether it is right or not," said Annie. "It must never
+be known."
+
+"You are better than I am," said Alice as she rang the bell, which
+was presently answered. "Peter has gone home for the night, Marie
+said," Alice told Annie, "but Marie and I will walk home with you."
+
+"Alice, it is only a step."
+
+"I know, but it is late."
+
+"It is not much after ten, and--I would rather go alone, if you don't
+mind, Alice. I want to get settled a little before Aunt Harriet sees
+me. I can do it better alone."
+
+Alice laughed. "Well," she said, "Marie and I will stand on the front
+porch until you are out of sight from there and then we will go to
+the front gate. We can see nearly to your house and we can hear if
+you call."
+
+It was a beautiful night. The moon was high in a sky which was
+perceptibly blue. In the west was still a faint glow, which was like
+a memory of a cowslip sunset. The street and the white house-front
+were plumy with soft tree shadows wavering in a gentle wind. Annie
+was glad when she was alone in the night. She needed a moment for
+solitariness and readjustment since one of the strongest
+readjustments on earth faced her--the realisation that what she had
+loved was not. She did not walk rapidly but lingered along the road.
+She was thankful that neither of her aunts had been to the annual
+meeting. She would not need to account for her time so closely.
+Suddenly she heard a voice, quite a loud voice, a man's, with a music
+of gladness in it. Annie knew instinctively whose it was, and she
+stepped quickly upon a lawn and stood behind a clump of trees. A man
+and woman passed her--Margaret Edes and her husband--and Wilbur was
+saying in his glad, loving voice, "To think you should have done such
+a thing, Margaret, my dear, you will never know how proud I am of
+you."
+
+Annie heard Margaret's voice in a whisper hushing Wilbur. "You speak
+so loud, dear," said Margaret, "everybody will hear you."
+
+"I don't care if they do," said Wilbur. "I should like to proclaim it
+from the housetops."  Then they passed and the rose scent of
+Margaret's garments was in Annie's face. She was glad that Margaret
+had hushed her husband. She argued that it proved some little sense
+of shame, but oh, when all alone with her own husband, she had made
+no disclaimer. Annie came out from her hiding and went on. The Edes
+ahead of her melted into the shadows but she could still hear
+Wilbur's glad voice. The gladness in it made her pity Margaret more.
+She thought how horrible it must be to deceive love like that, to
+hear that joyful tone, and know it all undeserved. Then suddenly she
+heard footsteps behind and walked to one side to allow whoever it was
+to pass, but a man's voice said: "Good evening, Miss Eustace," and
+Von Rosen had joined her. He had in truth been waiting like any
+village beau near Alice Mendon's house for the chance of her emerging
+alone.
+
+Annie felt annoyed, and yet her heart beat strangely.
+
+"Good evening, Mr. von Rosen," she said and still lingered as if to
+allow him to pass, but he slowed his own pace and sauntered by her
+side.
+
+"A fine evening," he remarked tritely.
+
+"Very," agreed Annie.
+
+"I saw you at the evening club," said Von Rosen presently.
+
+"Yes," said Annie, "I was there."
+
+"You left early."
+
+"Yes, I left quite early with Alice. I have been with her since."
+
+Annie wondered if Mr. von Rosen suspected anything but his next words
+convinced her that he did not.
+
+"I suppose that you were as much surprised as the rest of us,
+although you are her intimate friend, at Mrs. Edes' announcement
+concerning the authorship of that successful novel," said he.
+
+"Yes," said Annie faintly.
+
+"Of course you had no idea that she had written it?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Have you read it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What do you think of it? I almost never read novels but I suppose I
+must tackle that one. Did you like it?"
+
+"Quite well," said Annie.
+
+"Tell me what is it all about?"
+
+Annie could endure no more. "It will spoil the book for you if I tell
+you, Mr. von Rosen," said she, and her voice was at once firm and
+piteous. She could not tell the story of her own book to him. She
+would be as deceitful as poor Margaret, for all the time he would
+think she was talking of Margaret's work and not of her own.
+
+Von Rosen laughed. After all he cared very little indeed about the
+book. He had what he cared for: a walk home with this very sweet and
+very natural girl, who did not seem to care whether he walked home
+with her or not.
+
+"I dare say you are right," he said, "but I doubt if your telling me
+about it would spoil the book for me, because it is more than
+probable that I shall never read it after all. I may if it comes in
+my way because I was somewhat surprised. I had never thought of Mrs.
+Edes as that sort of person. However, so many novels are written
+nowadays, and some mighty queer ones are successful that I presume I
+should not be surprised. Anybody in Fairbridge might be the author of
+a successful novel. You might, Miss Eustace, for all I know."
+
+Annie said nothing.
+
+"Perhaps you are," said Von Rosen. He had not the least idea of the
+thinness of the ice. Annie trembled. Her truthfulness was as her
+life. She hated even evasions. Luckily Von Rosen was so far from
+suspicion that he did not wait for an answer.
+
+"Mrs. Edes reads well," he said.
+
+"Very well indeed," returned Annie eagerly.
+
+"I suppose an author can read more understandingly from her own
+work," said Von Rosen. "Don't you think so, Miss Eustace?"
+
+"I think she might," said Annie.
+
+"I don't know but I shall read that book after all," said Von Rosen.
+"I rather liked that extract she gave us. It struck me as out of the
+common run of women's books. I beg your pardon, Miss Eustace. If you
+were a writer yourself I could not speak so, but you are not, and you
+must know as well as I do, that many of the books written by women
+are simply sloughs of oversweetened sentiment, and of entirely
+innocent immorality. But that chapter did not sound as if it could
+belong to such a book. It sounded altogether too logical for the
+average woman writer. I think I will read it. Then after I have read
+it, you will not refuse to discuss it with me, will you?"
+
+"I do not think so," replied Annie tremulously. Would he never talk
+of anything except that book? To her relief he did, to her relief and
+scarcely acknowledged delight.
+
+"Are you interested in curios, things from Egyptian tombs, for
+instance?" he inquired with brutal masculine disregard of sequence.
+
+Annie was bewildered, but she managed to reply that she thought she
+might be. She had heard of Von Rosen's very interesting collection.
+
+"I happened to meet your aunt, Miss Harriet, this afternoon," said
+Von Rosen, "and I inquired if she were by any chance interested and
+she said she was."
+
+"Yes," said Annie. She had never before dreamed that her Aunt Harriet
+was in the least interested in Egyptian tombs.
+
+"I ventured to ask if she and her sister, Miss Susan, and you also,
+if you cared to see it, would come some afternoon and look at my
+collection," said Von Rosen.
+
+Nobody could have dreamed from his casual tone how carefully he had
+planned it all out: the visit of Annie and her aunts, the delicate
+little tea served in the study, the possible little stroll with Annie
+in his garden. Von Rosen knew that one of the aunts, Miss Harriet,
+was afflicted with rose cold, and therefore, would probably not
+accept his invitation to view his rose-garden, and he also knew that
+it was improbable that both sisters would leave their aged mother. It
+was, of course, a toss-up as to whether Miss Harriet or Miss Susan
+would come. It was also a toss-up as to whether or not they might
+both come, and leave little Annie as companion for the old lady. In
+fact, he had to admit to himself that the latter contingency was the
+more probable. He was well accustomed to being appropriated by elder
+ladies, with the evident understanding that he preferred them. He
+would simply have to make the best of it and show his collection as
+gracefully as possible and leave out the rose-garden and the
+delicious little tete-a-tete with this young rose of a girl and think
+of something else. For Karl von Rosen in these days was accustoming
+himself to a strange visage in his own mental looking-glass. He had
+not altered his attitude toward women but toward one woman, and that
+one was now sauntering beside him in the summer moonlight, her fluffy
+white garments now and then blowing across his sober garb. He was
+conscious of holding himself in a very tight rein. He wondered how
+long men were usually about their love-making. He wished to make love
+that very instant, but he feared lest the girl might be lost by such
+impetuosity. In all likelihood, the thought of love in connection
+with himself had never entered her mind. Why should it? Karl in love
+was very modest and saw himself as a very insignificant figure.
+Probably this flower-like young creature had never thought of love at
+all. She had lived her sweet simple village life. She had obeyed her
+grandmother and her aunts, done her household tasks and embroidered.
+He remembered the grimy bit of linen which he had picked up and he
+could not see the very slightest connection between that sort of
+thing and love and romance. Of course, she had read a few love
+stories and the reasoning by analogy develops in all minds. She might
+have built a few timid air castles for herself upon the foundations
+of the love stories in fiction, and this brought him around to the
+fatal subject again almost inevitably.
+
+"Do you know, Miss Eustace," he said, "that I am wishing a very queer
+thing about you?"
+
+"What, Mr. von Rosen?"
+
+"I am wishing, you know that I would not esteem you more highly, it
+is not that, but I am wishing that you also had written a book, a
+really good sort of love story, novel, you know."
+
+Annie gasped.
+
+"I don't mean because Mrs. Edes wrote _The Poor Lady_. It is not
+that. I am quite sure that you could have written a book every whit
+as good as hers but what I do mean is--I feel that a woman writer if
+she writes the best sort of book must obtain a certain insight
+concerning human nature which requires a long time for most women."
+Von Rosen was rather mixed, but Annie did not grasp it. She was very
+glad that they were nearing her own home. She could not endure much
+more.
+
+"Is _The Poor Lady_ a love story?" inquired Von Rosen.
+
+"There is a little love in it," replied Annie faintly.
+
+"I shall certainly read it," said Von Rosen. He shook hands with
+Annie at her gate and wanted to kiss her. She looked up in his face
+like an adorably timid, trustful little child and it seemed almost
+his duty to kiss her, but he did not. He said good-night and again
+mentioned his collection of curios.
+
+"I hope you will feel inclined to come and see them," he said,
+"with--your aunts."
+
+"Thank you," replied Annie, "I shall be very glad to come, if both
+Aunt Harriet and Aunt Susan do not. That would of course oblige me to
+stay with grandmother."
+
+"Of course," assented Von Rosen, but he said inwardly, "Hang
+Grandmother."
+
+In his inmost self, Von Rosen was not a model clergyman. He, however,
+had no reason whatever to hang grandmother, but quite the reverse,
+although he did not so conclude, as he considered the matter on his
+way home. It seemed to him that this darling of a girl was fairly
+hedged in by a barbed wire fence of feminine relatives.
+
+He passed the Edes' house on his way and saw that a number of the
+upper windows were still lighted. He even heard a masculine voice
+pitched on a high cadence of joy and triumph. He smiled a little
+scornfully. "He thinks his wife is the most wonderful woman in the
+world," he told himself, "and I dare say that a novel is simply like
+an over-sweetened ice-cream, with an after taste of pepper, out of
+sheer deviltry."  Had he known it, Margaret Edes herself was tasting
+pepper, mustard and all the fierce condiments known, in her very
+soul. It was a singular thing that Margaret had been obliged to
+commit an ignoble deed in order to render her soul capable of tasting
+to the full, but she had been so constituted. As Karl von Rosen
+passed that night, she was sitting in her room, clad in her white
+silk negligee and looking adorable, and her husband was fairly on his
+knees before her, worshipping her, and she was suffering after a
+fashion hitherto wholly uncomprehended by her. Margaret had never
+known that she could possibly be to blame for anything, that she
+could sit in judgment upon herself. Now she knew it and the knowledge
+brought a torture which had been unimaginable by her. She strove not
+to make her shrinking from her husband and his exultation--her
+terrified shrinking--evident.
+
+"Oh, Margaret, you are simply wonderful beyond words," said Wilbur,
+gazing up into her face. "I always knew you were wonderful, of
+course, darling, but this! Why, Margaret, you have gained an
+international reputation from that one book! And the reviews have
+been unanimous, almost unanimous in their praise. I have not read it,
+dear. I am so ashamed of myself, but you know I never read novels,
+but I am going to read my Margaret's novel. Oh, my dear, my
+wonderful, wonderful dear!"  Wilbur almost sobbed. "Do you know what
+it may do for me, too?" he said. "Do you know, Margaret, it may mean
+my election as Senator. One can never tell what may sway popular
+opinion. Once, if anybody had told me that I might be elected to
+office and my election might possibly be due to the fact that my wife
+had distinguished myself, I should have been humbled to the dust. But
+I cannot be humbled by any success which may result from your
+success. I did not know my wonderful Margaret then."  Wilbur kissed
+his wife's hands. He was almost ridiculous, but it was horribly
+tragic for Margaret.
+
+She longed as she had never longed for anything in her life, for the
+power to scream, to shout in his ears the truth, but she could not.
+She was bound hard and fast in the bands of her own falsehood. She
+could not so disgrace her husband, her children. Why had she not
+thought of them before? She had thought only of herself and her own
+glory, and that glory had turned to stinging bitterness upon her
+soul. She was tasting the bitterest medicine which life and the whole
+world contains. And at the same time, it was not remorse that she
+felt. That would have been easier. What she endured was
+self-knowledge. The reflection of one's own character under unbiased
+cross-lights is a hideous thing for a self-lover. She was thinking,
+while she listened to Wilbur's rhapsodies. Finally she scarcely heard
+him. Then her attention was suddenly keenly fixed. There were
+horrible complications about this which she had not considered.
+Margaret's mind had no business turn. She had not for a moment
+thought of the financial aspect of the whole. Wilbur was different.
+What he was now saying was very noble, but very disconcerting. "Of
+course, I know, darling, that all this means a pile of money, but one
+thing you must remember: it is for yourself alone. Not one penny of
+it will I ever touch and more than that it is not to interfere in the
+least with my expenditures for you, my wife, and the children.
+Everything of that sort goes on as before. You have the same
+allowance for yourself and the children as before. Whatever comes
+from your book is your own to do with as you choose. I do not even
+wish you to ask my advice about the disposal of it."
+
+Margaret was quite pale as she looked at him. She remembered now the
+sum which Annie had told her she was to receive. She made no
+disclaimer. Her lips felt stiff. While Wilbur wished for no
+disclaimer, she could yet see that he was a little surprised at
+receiving none, but she could not speak. She merely gazed at him in a
+helpless sort of fashion. The grapes which hung over her friend's
+garden wall were not very simple. They were much beside grapes.
+Wilbur returned her look pityingly.
+
+"Poor girl," he said, kissing her hands again; "she is all tired out
+and I must let her go to bed. Standing on a pedestal is rather
+tiresome, if it is gratifying, isn't it, sweetheart?"
+
+"Yes," said Margaret, with a weary sigh from her heart. How little
+the poor man knew of the awful torture of standing upon the pedestal
+of another, and at the same time holding before one's eyes that
+looking-glass with all the cross-lights of existence full upon it!
+
+Margaret went to bed, but she could not sleep. All night long she
+revolved the problem of how she should settle the matter with Annie
+Eustace. She did not for a second fear Annie's betrayal, but there
+was that matter of the publishers. Would they be content to allow
+matters to rest?
+
+The next morning Margaret endeavoured to get Annie on the telephone
+but found that she had gone to New York. Annie's Aunt Harriet
+replied. She herself had sent the girl on several errands.
+
+Margaret could only wait. She feared lest Annie might not return
+before Wilbur and in such a case she could not discuss matters with
+her before the next day. Margaret had a horrible time during the next
+six hours. The mail was full of letters of congratulation. A local
+reporter called to interview her. She sent word that she was out, but
+he was certain that he had seen her. The children heard the news and
+pestered her with inquiries about her book and wondering looks at
+her. Callers came in the afternoon and it was all about her book.
+Nobody could know how relieved she was after hearing the four-thirty
+train, to see little Annie Eustace coming through her gate. Annie
+stood before her stiffly. The day was very warm and the girl looked
+tired and heated.
+
+"No, thank you," she said, "I can not sit down. I only stopped to
+tell you that I have arranged with the publishers. They will keep the
+secret. I shall have rather a hard task arranging about the checks,
+because I fear it will involve a little deceit and I do not like
+deceit."
+
+Annie, as she spoke, looked straight at Margaret and there was
+something terrible in that clear look of unsoiled truth. Margaret put
+out a detaining hand.
+
+"Sit down for a minute, please," she said cringingly. "I want to
+explain?"
+
+"There is nothing whatever to explain," replied Annie. "I heard."
+
+"Can you ever forgive me?"
+
+"I do not think," said Annie, "that this is an ordinary offence about
+which to talk of forgiveness. I do pity you, Margaret, for I realise
+how dreadfully you must have wanted what did not belong to you."
+
+Margaret winced. "Well, if it is any satisfaction to you, I am
+realising nothing but misery from it," she said in a low voice.
+
+"I don't see how you can help that," replied Annie simply. Then she
+went away.
+
+It proved Margaret's unflinching trust in the girl and Annie's
+recognition of no possibility except that trust, that no request nor
+promise as to secrecy had been made. Annie, after she got home,
+almost forgot the whole for a time, since her Aunt Harriet, and Aunt
+Harriet was the sister who was subject to rose-colds, announced her
+determination to call at Mr. von Rosen's the next afternoon with
+Annie and see his famous collection.
+
+"Of course," said she, "the invitation was meant particularly for me,
+since I am one of his parishioners, and I think it will be improving
+to you, Annie, to view antiquities."
+
+"Yes, Aunt Harriet," said Annie. She was wondering if she would be
+allowed to wear her pale blue muslin and the turquoise necklace which
+was a relic of her grandmother's girlhood. Aunt Susan sniffed
+delicately.
+
+"I will stay with Mother," she said with a virtuous air.
+
+The old lady, stately in her black satin, with white diamonds
+gleaming on her veinous hands, glanced acutely at them. The next day,
+when her daughter Harriet insisted that the cross barred muslin was
+not too spoiled to wear to the inspection of curios, she declared
+that it was simply filthy, and that Annie must wear her blue, and
+that the little string of turquoise beads was not in the least too
+dressy for the occasion.
+
+It therefore happened that Annie and her Aunt Harriet set forth at
+three o'clock in the afternoon, Annie in blue, and her aunt in thin
+black grenadine with a glitter of jet and a little black bonnet with
+a straight tuft of green rising from a little wobble of jet, and a
+black-fringed parasol tilted well over her eyes. Annie's charming
+little face was framed in a background of white parasol. Margaret saw
+them pass as she sat on her verandah. She had received more
+congratulatory letters that day, and the thief envied the one from
+whom she had taken. Annie bowed to Margaret, and her Aunt Harriet
+said something about the heat, in a high shrill voice.
+
+"She is a wonderful woman, to have written that successful novel,"
+said Aunt Harriet, "and I am going to write her a congratulatory
+note, now you have bought that stationery at Tiffany's. I feel that
+such a subject demands special paper. She is a wonderful woman and
+her family have every reason to be proud of her."
+
+"Yes," said Annie.
+
+"It is rather odd, and I have often thought so," said Aunt Harriet,
+moving alongside with stately sweeps of black skirts, "that you have
+shown absolutely no literary taste. As you know, I have often written
+poetry, of course not for publication, and my friends have been so
+good as to admire it."
+
+"Yes, Aunt Harriet," said Annie.
+
+"I realise that you have never appreciated my poems," said Aunt
+Harriet tartly.
+
+"I don't think I understand poetry very well," little Annie said with
+meekness.
+
+"It does require a peculiar order of mind, and you have never seemed
+to me in the least poetical or imaginative," said her aunt in an
+appeased voice. "For instance, I could not imagine your writing a
+book like Mrs. Edes, and _The Poor Lady_ was anonymous, and anybody
+might have written it as far as one knew. But I should never have
+imagined her for a moment as capable of doing it."
+
+"No," said Annie.
+
+Then they had come to the parsonage and Jane Riggs, as rigid as
+starched linen could make a human being, admitted them, and presently
+after a little desultory conversation, the collection, which was
+really a carefully made one, and exceedingly good and interesting,
+was being displayed. Then came the charming little tea which Von
+Rosen had planned; then the suggestion with regard to the rose-garden
+and Aunt Harriet's terrified refusal, knowing as she knew the agony
+of sneezes and sniffs sure to follow its acceptance; and then Annie,
+a vision in blue, was walking among the roses with Von Rosen and both
+were saying things which they never could remember afterward--about
+things in which neither had the very slightest interest. It was only
+when they had reached the end of the pergola, trained over with
+climbers, and the two were seated on a rustic bench therein, that the
+conversation to be remembered began.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VIII
+
+
+The conversation began, paradoxically, with a silence. Otherwise, it
+would have begun with platitudes. Since neither Von Rosen nor Annie
+Eustace were given usually to platitudes, the silence was
+unavoidable. Both instinctively dreaded with a pleasurable dread the
+shock of speech. In a way this was the first time the two had been
+alone with any chance of a seclusion protracted beyond a very few
+minutes. In the house was Aunt Harriet Eustace, who feared a rose, as
+she might have feared the plague, and, moreover, as Annie comfortably
+knew, had imparted the knowledge to Von Rosen as they had walked down
+the pergola, that she would immediately fall asleep.
+
+"Aunt Harriet always goes to sleep in her chair after a cup of tea,"
+Annie had said and had then blushed redly.
+
+"Does she?" asked Von Rosen with apparent absent-mindedness but in
+reality, keenly. He excused himself for a moment, left Annie standing
+in the pergola and hurried back to the house, where he interviewed
+Jane Riggs, and told her not to make any noise, as Miss Eustace in
+the library would probably fall asleep, as was her wont after a cup
+of tea. Jane Riggs assented, but she looked after him with a long,
+slow look. Then she nodded her head stiffly and went on washing cups
+and saucers quietly. She spoke only one short sentence to herself.
+"He's a man and it's got to be somebody. Better be her than anybody
+else."
+
+When the two at the end of the pergola began talking, it was
+strangely enough about the affair of the Syrian girl.
+
+"I suppose, have always supposed, that the poor young thing's husband
+came and stole his little son," said Von Rosen.
+
+"You would have adopted him?" asked Annie in a shy voice.
+
+"I think I would not have known any other course to take," replied
+Von Rosen.
+
+"It was very good of you," Annie said. She cast a little glance of
+admiration at him.
+
+Von Rosen laughed. "It is not goodness which counts to one's credit
+when one is simply chucked into it by Providence," he returned.
+
+Annie laughed. "To think of your speaking of Providence as
+'chucking.'"
+
+"It is rather awful," admitted Von Rosen, "but somehow I never do
+feel as if I need be quite as straight-laced with you."
+
+"Mr. von Rosen, you have talked with me exactly twice, and I am at a
+loss as to whether I should consider that remark of yours as a
+compliment or not."
+
+"I meant it for one," said Von Rosen earnestly. "I should not have
+used that expression. What I meant was I felt that I could be myself
+with you, and not weigh words or split hairs. A clergyman has to do a
+lot of that, you know, Miss Eustace, and sometimes (perhaps all the
+time) he hates it; it makes him feel like a hypocrite."
+
+"Then it is all right," said Annie rather vaguely. She gazed up at
+the weave of leaves and blossoms, then down at the wavering carpet of
+their shadows.
+
+"It is lovely here," she said.
+
+The young man looked at the slender young creature in the blue gown
+and smiled with utter content.
+
+"It is very odd," he said, "but nothing except blue and that
+particular shade of blue would have harmonised."
+
+"I should have said green or pink."
+
+"They would surely have clashed. If you can't melt into nature, it is
+much safer to try for a discord. You are much surer to chord. That
+blue does chord, and I doubt if a green would not have been a sort of
+swear word in colour here."
+
+"I am glad you like it," said Annie like a school girl. She felt very
+much like one.
+
+"I like you," Von Rosen said abruptly.
+
+Annie said nothing. She sat very still.
+
+"No, I don't like you. I love you," said Von Rosen.
+
+"How can you? You have talked with me only twice."
+
+"That makes no difference with me. Does it with you?"
+
+"No," said Annie, "but I am not at all sure about--"
+
+"About what, dear?"
+
+"About what my aunts and grandmother will say."
+
+"Do you think they will object to me?"
+
+"No-o."
+
+"What is it makes you doubtful? I have a little fortune of my own. I
+have an income besides my salary. I can take care of you. They can
+trust you to me."
+
+Annie looked at him with a quick flush of resentment. "As if I would
+even think of such a thing as that!"
+
+"What then?"
+
+"You will laugh, but grandmother is very old, although she sits up so
+straight, and she depends on me, and--"
+
+"And what?"
+
+"If I married you, I could not, of course, play pinocle with
+grandmother on Sunday."
+
+"Oh, yes, you could. I most certainly should not object."
+
+"Then that makes it hopeless."
+
+Von Rosen looked at her in perplexity. "I am afraid I don't
+understand you, dear little soul."
+
+"No, you do not. You see, grandmother is in reality very good, almost
+too good to live, and thinking she is being a little wicked playing
+pinocle on Sunday when Aunt Harriet and Aunt Susan don't know it,
+sort of keeps her going. I don't just know why myself, but I am sure
+of it. Now the minute she was sure that you, who are the minister,
+did not object, she would not care a bit about pinocle and it would
+hurt her."
+
+Annie looked inconceivably young. She knitted her candid brows and
+stared at him with round eyes of perplexity. Karl von Rosen shouted
+with laughter.
+
+"Oh, well, if that is all," he said, "I object strenuously to your
+playing pinocle with your grandmother on Sunday. The only way you can
+manage will be to play hookey from church."
+
+"I need not do that always," said Annie. "My aunts take naps Sunday
+afternoons, but I am sure grandmother could keep awake if she thought
+she could be wicked."
+
+"Well, you can either play hookey from church, or run away Sunday
+afternoons, or if you prefer and she is able, I will drive your
+grandmother over here and you can play pinocle in my study."
+
+"Then I do think she will live to be a hundred," said Annie with a
+peal of laughter.
+
+"Stop laughing and kiss me," said Von Rosen.
+
+"I seldom kiss anybody."
+
+"That is the reason."
+
+When Annie looked up from her lover's shoulder, a pair of topaz eyes
+were mysteriously regarding her.
+
+"The cat never saw me kiss anybody," said Von Rosen.
+
+"Do you think the cat knows?" asked Annie, blushing and moving away a
+little.
+
+"Who knows what any animal knows or does not know?" replied Von
+Rosen. "When we discover that mystery, we may have found the key to
+existence."
+
+Then the cat sprang into Annie's blue lap and she stroked his yellow
+back and looked at Von Rosen with eyes suddenly reflective, rather
+coolly.
+
+"After all, I, nor nobody else, ever heard of such a thing as this,"
+said she. "Do you mean that you consider this an engagement?" she
+asked in astonishment.
+
+"I most certainly do."
+
+"After we have only really seen and talked to each other twice!"
+
+"It has been all our lives and we have just found it out," said Von
+Rosen. "Of course, it is unusual, but who cares? Do you?"
+
+"No, I don't," said Annie. They leaned together over the yellow cat
+and kissed each other.
+
+[Illustration: They leaned together over the yellow cat and kissed
+each other]
+
+"But what an absurd minister's wife I shall be," said Annie. "To
+think of your marrying a girl who has staid at home from church and
+played cards with her grandmother!"
+
+"I am not at all sure," said Von Rosen, "that you do not get more
+benefit, more spiritual benefit, than you would have done from my
+sermons."
+
+"I think," said Annie, "that you are just about as funny a minister
+as I shall be a minister's wife."
+
+"I never thought I should be married at all."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"I did not care for women."
+
+"Then why do you now?"
+
+"Because you are a woman."
+
+Then there was a sudden movement in front of them. The leaf-shadows
+flickered; the cat jumped down from Annie's lap and ran away, his
+great yellow plume of tail waving angrily, and Margaret Edes stood
+before them. She was faultlessly dressed as usual. A woman of her
+type cannot be changed utterly by force of circumstances in a short
+time. Her hat was loaded with wisteria. She wore a wisteria gown of
+soft wool. She held up her skirts daintily. A great amethyst gleamed
+at her throat, but her face, wearing a smile like a painted one, was
+dreadful. It was inconceivable, but Margaret Edes had actually in
+view the banality of confessing her sin to her minister. Of course,
+Annie was the one who divined her purpose. Von Rosen was simply
+bewildered. He rose, and stood with an air of polite attention.
+
+"Margaret," cried Annie, "Margaret!"
+
+The man thought that his sweetheart was simply embarrassed, because
+of discovery. He did not understand why she bade him peremptorily to
+please go in the house and see if Aunt Harriet were awake, that she
+wished to speak to Mrs. Edes. He, however, went as bidden, already
+discovering that man is as a child to a woman when she is really in
+earnest.
+
+When he was quite out of hearing, Annie turned upon her friend.
+"Margaret," she said, "Margaret, you must not."
+
+Margaret turned her desperate eyes upon Annie. "I did not know it
+would be like this," she said.
+
+"You must not tell him."
+
+"I must."
+
+"You must not, and all the more now."
+
+"Why, now?"
+
+"I am going to marry him."
+
+"Then he ought to know."
+
+"Then he ought not to know, for you have drawn me into your web of
+deceit also. He has talked to me about you and the book. I have not
+betrayed you. You cannot betray me."
+
+"It will kill me. I did not know it would be like this. I never
+blamed myself for anything before."
+
+"It will not kill you, and if it does, you must bear it. You must not
+do your husband and children such an awful harm."
+
+"Wilbur is nominated for Senator. He would have to give it up. He
+would go away from Fairbridge. He is very proud," said Margaret in a
+breathless voice, "but I must tell."
+
+"You cannot tell."
+
+"The children talk of it all the time. They look at me so. They
+wonder because they think I have written that book. They tell all the
+other children. Annie, I must confess to somebody. I did not know it
+would be like this."
+
+"You cannot confess to anybody except God," said Annie.
+
+"I cannot tell my husband. I cannot tell poor Wilbur, but I thought
+Mr. von Rosen would tell him."
+
+"You can not tell Mr. von Rosen. You have done an awful wrong, and
+now you can not escape the fact that you have done it. You cannot get
+away from it."
+
+"You are so hard."
+
+"No, I am not hard," said Annie. "I did not betray you there before
+them all, and neither did Alice."
+
+"Did Alice Mendon know?" asked Margaret in an awful voice.
+
+"Yes, I had told Alice. She was so hurt for me that I think she might
+have told."
+
+"Then she may tell now. I will go to her."
+
+"She will not tell now. And I am not hard. It is you who are hard
+upon yourself and that nobody, least of all I, can help. You will
+have to know this dreadful thing of yourself all your life and you
+can never stop blaming yourself. There is no way out of it. You can
+not ruin your husband. You can not ruin your children's future and
+you cannot, after the wrong you have done me, put me in the wrong, as
+you would do if you told. By telling the truth, you would put me to
+the lie, when I kept silence for your sake and the sakes of your
+husband and children."
+
+"I did not know it would be like this," said Margaret in her
+desperate voice. "I had done nothing worth doing all my life and the
+hunger to do something had tormented me. It seemed easy, I did not
+know how I could blame myself. I have always thought so well of
+myself; I did not know. Annie, for God's sake, let me tell. You can't
+know how keenly I suffer, Annie. Let me tell Mr. von Rosen. People
+always tell ministers. Even if he does not tell Wilbur, but perhaps
+he can tell him and soften it, it would be a relief. People always
+tell ministers, Annie."
+
+It seemed improbable that Margaret Edes in her wisteria costume could
+be speaking. Annie regarded her with almost horror. She pitied her,
+yet she could not understand. Margaret had done something of which
+she herself was absolutely incapable. She had the right to throw the
+stone. She looked at a sinner whose sin was beyond her comprehension.
+She pitied the evident signs of distress, but her pity, although
+devoid of anger, was, in spite of herself, coldly wondering.
+Moreover, Margaret had been guilty in the eyes of the girl of a much
+worse sin than the mere thievery of her book; she had murdered love.
+Annie had loved Margaret greatly. No, she loved her no longer, since
+the older woman had actually blasphemed against the goddess whom the
+girl had shrined. Had Margaret stolen from another, it would have
+made no difference. The mere act had destroyed herself as an image of
+love. Annie, especially now that she was so happy, cared nothing for
+the glory of which she had been deprived. She had, in truth, never
+had much hunger for fame, especially for herself. She did not care
+when she thought how pleased her lover would have been and her
+relatives, but already the plan for another book was in her brain,
+for the child was a creator, and no blow like this had any lasting
+power over her work. What she considered was Margaret's revelation of
+herself as something else than Margaret, and what she did resent
+bitterly was being forced into deception in order to shield her. She
+was in fact hard, although she did not know it. Her usually gentle
+nature had become like adamant before this. She felt unlike herself
+as she said bitterly:
+
+"People do not always tell ministers, and you cannot tell Mr. von
+Rosen, Margaret. I forbid it. Go home and keep still."
+
+"I cannot bear it."
+
+"You must bear it."
+
+"They are going to give me a dinner, the Zenith Club," said Margaret.
+
+"You will have to accept it."
+
+"I cannot, Annie Eustace, of what do you think me capable? I am not
+as bad as you think. I cannot and will not accept that dinner and
+make the speech which they will expect and hear all the
+congratulations which they will offer. I cannot."
+
+"You must accept the dinner, but I don't see that you need make the
+speech," said Annie, who was herself aghast over such extremity of
+torture.
+
+"I will not," said Margaret. She was very pale and her lips were a
+tight line. Her eyes were opaque and lustreless. She was in reality
+suffering what a less egotistical nature could not even imagine. All
+her life had Margaret Edes worshipped and loved Margaret Edes. Now
+she had done an awful thing. The falling from the pedestal of a
+friend is nothing to hurling oneself from one's height of self-esteem
+and that she had done. She stood, as it were, over the horrible body
+of her once beautiful and adored self. She was not actually
+remorseful and that made it all the worse. She simply could not evade
+the dreadful glare of light upon her own imperfections; she who had
+always thought of herself as perfect, but the glare of knowledge came
+mostly from her appreciation of the attitude of her friends and
+lovers toward what she had done. Suppose she went home and told
+Wilbur. Suppose she said, "I did not write that book. My friend,
+Annie Eustace, wrote it. I am a thief, and worse than a thief."  She
+knew just how he would look at her, his wife, his Margaret, who had
+never done wrong in his eyes. For the first time in her life she was
+afraid, and yet how could she live and bear such torture and not
+confess? Confession would be like a person ill unto death, giving up,
+and seeking the peace of a sick chamber and the rest of bed and the
+care of a physician. She had come to feel like that and yet,
+confession would be like a fiery torture. Margaret had in some almost
+insane fashion come to feel that she might confess to a minister, a
+man of God, and ease her soul, without more. And she had never been
+religious, and would have formerly smiled in serene scorn at her own
+state of mind. And here was the other woman whom she had wronged,
+forbidding her this one little possibility of comfort.
+
+She said again humbly, "Let me tell him, Annie. He will only think
+the more of you because you shielded me."
+
+But Annie was full of scorn which Margaret could not understand since
+her nature was not so fine. "Do you think I wish him to?" she said,
+but in a whisper because she heard voices and footsteps. "You cannot
+tell him, Margaret."
+
+Then Von Rosen and Aunt Harriet, whose eyes were dim with recent
+sleep, came in sight, and Harriet Eustace, who had not seen Margaret
+since the club meeting, immediately seized upon her two hands and
+kissed her and congratulated her.
+
+"You dear, wonderful creature," she said, "we are all so proud of
+you. Fairbridge is so proud of you and as for us, we can only feel
+honoured that our little Annie has such a friend. We trust that she
+will profit by your friendship and we realise that it is such a
+privilege for her."
+
+"Thank you," said Margaret. She turned her head aside. It was rather
+dreadful, and Annie realised it.
+
+Von Rosen stood by smiling. "I am glad to join in the
+congratulations," he said. "In these days of many books, it is a
+great achievement to have one singled out for special notice. I have
+not yet had the pleasure of reading the book, but shall certainly
+have it soon."
+
+"Thank you," said Margaret again.
+
+"She should give you an autograph copy," said Harriet Eustace.
+
+"Yes," said Margaret. She drew aside Annie and whispered, "I shall
+tell my husband then. I shall."
+
+Then she bade them good afternoon in her usually graceful way;
+murmured something about a little business which she had with Annie
+and flitted down the pergola in a cloud of wisteria.
+
+"It does seem wonderful," said Harriet Eustace, "that she should have
+written that book."
+
+Von Rosen glanced at Annie with an inquiring expression. He wondered
+whether she wished him to announce their engagement to her aunt. The
+amazing suddenness of it all had begun to daunt him. He was in
+considerable doubt as to what Miss Harriet Eustace, who was a most
+conservative lady, who had always done exactly the things which a
+lady under similar circumstances might be expected to do, who always
+said the things to be expected, would say to this, which must, of
+course, savour very much of the unexpected. Von Rosen was entirely
+sure that Miss Harriet Eustace would be scarcely able to conceive of
+a marriage engagement of her niece especially with a clergyman
+without all the formal preliminaries of courtship, and he knew well
+that preliminaries had hardly existed, in the usual sense of the
+term. He felt absurdly shy, and he was very much relieved when
+finally Miss Harriet and Annie took their leave and he had said
+nothing about the engagement. Miss Harriet said a great deal about
+his most interesting and improving collection. She was a woman of a
+patronising turn of mind and she made Von Rosen feel like a little
+boy.
+
+"I especially appreciate the favour for the sake of my niece," she
+said. "It is so desirable for the minds of the young to be improved."
+Von Rosen murmured a polite acquiescence. She had spoken of his
+tall, lovely girl as if she were in short skirts. Miss Harriet
+continued:
+
+"When I consider what Mrs. Edes has done," she said,--"written a book
+which has made her famous, I realise how exceedingly important it is
+for the minds of the young to be improved. It is good for Annie to
+know Mrs. Edes so intimately, I think."
+
+For the first time poor Annie was conscious of a distinct sense of
+wrath. Here she herself had written that book and her mind, in order
+to have written it, must be every whit as improved as Margaret Edes'
+and her Aunt Harriet was belittling her before her lover. It was a
+struggle to maintain silence, especially as her aunt went on talking
+in a still more exasperating manner.
+
+"I always considered Mrs. Wilbur Edes as a very unusual woman," said
+she, "but of course, this was unexpected. I am so thankful that Annie
+has the great honour of her friendship. Of course, Annie can never do
+what Mrs. Edes has done. She herself knows that she lacks talent and
+also concentration. Annie, you know you have never finished that
+daisy centre piece which you begun surely six months ago. I am quite
+sure that Mrs. Edes would have finished it in a week."
+
+Annie did lose patience at that. "Margaret just loathes fancy work,
+Aunt Harriet," said she. "She would never even have begun that centre
+piece."
+
+"It is much better never to begin a piece of work than never to
+finish it," replied Aunt Harriet, "and Mrs. Edes, my dear, has been
+engaged in much more important work. If you had written a book which
+had made you famous, no one could venture to complain of your lack of
+industry with regard to the daisy centre piece. But I am sure that
+Mrs. Edes, in order to have written that book of which everybody is
+talking, must have displayed much industry and concentration in all
+the minor matters of life. I think you must be mistaken, my dear. I
+am quite sure that Mrs. Edes has not neglected work."
+
+Annie made no rejoinder, but her aunt did not seem to notice it.
+
+"I am so thankful, Mr. von Rosen," said she, "that my niece has the
+honour of being counted among the friends of such a remarkable woman.
+May I inquire if Mrs. Edes has ever seen your really extraordinary
+collection, Mr. von Rosen."
+
+"No, she has not seen it," replied Von Rosen, and he looked annoyed.
+Without in the least understanding the real trend of the matter, he
+did not like to hear his sweetheart addressed after such a fashion,
+even though he had no inkling of the real state of affairs. To his
+mind, this exquisite little Annie, grimy daisy centre piece and all,
+had accomplished much more in simply being herself, than had Margaret
+Edes with her much blazoned book.
+
+"I trust that she will yet see it," said Miss Harriet Eustace.
+Harriet Eustace was tall, dull skinned and wide mouthed, and she had
+a fashion, because she had been told from childhood that her mouth
+was wide, of constantly puckering it as if she were eating alum.
+
+"I shall be of course pleased to show Mrs. Edes my collection at any
+time," said Von Rosen politely.
+
+"I hope she will see it," said Harriet, puckering, "it is so
+improving, and if anything is improving to the ordinary mind, what
+must it be to the mind of genius?"
+
+The two took leave then, Annie walking behind her aunt. The sidewalk
+which was encroached upon by grass was very narrow. Annie did not
+speak at all. She heard her aunt talking incessantly without
+realising the substance of what she said. Her own brain was
+overwhelmed with bewilderment and happiness. Here was she, Annie
+Eustace, engaged to be married and to the right man. The combination
+was astounding. Annie had been conscious ever since she had first
+seen him, that Karl von Rosen dwelt at the back of her thoughts, but
+she was rather a well disciplined girl. She had not allowed herself
+the luxury of any dreams concerning him and herself. She had not
+considered the possibility of his caring for her, not because she
+underestimated herself, but because she overestimated him. Now, she
+knew he cared, he cared, and he wanted to marry her, to make her his
+wife. After she had reached home, when they were seated at the tea
+table, she did not think of telling anybody. She ate and felt as if
+she were in a blissful crystal sphere of isolation. It did not occur
+to her to reveal her secret until she went into her grandmother's
+room rather late to bid her good night. Annie had been sitting by
+herself on the front piazza and allowing herself a perfect feast in
+future air-castles. She could see from where she sat, the lights from
+the windows of the Edes' house, and she heard Wilbur's voice, and now
+and then his laugh. Margaret's voice, she never heard at all. Annie
+went into the chamber, the best in the house, and there lay her
+grandmother, old Ann Maria Eustace, propped up in bed, reading a
+novel which was not allowed in the Fairbridge library. She had bidden
+Annie buy it for her, when she last went to New York.
+
+"I wouldn't ask a girl to buy such a book," the old lady had said,
+"but nobody will know you and I have read so many notices about its
+wickedness, I want to see it for myself."
+
+Now she looked up when Annie entered. "It is not wicked at all," she
+said in rather a disappointed tone. "It is much too dull. In order to
+make a book wicked, it must be, at least, somewhat entertaining. The
+writer speaks of wicked things, but in such a very moral fashion that
+it is all like a sermon. I don't like the book at all. At the same
+time a girl like you had better not read it and you had better see
+that Harriet and Susan don't get a glimpse of it. They would be set
+into fits. It is a strange thing that both my daughters should be
+such old maids to the bone and marrow. You can read it though if you
+wish, Annie. I doubt if you understand the wickedness anyway, and I
+don't want you to grow up straight-laced like Harriet and Susan. It
+is really a misfortune. They lose a lot."
+
+Then Annie spoke. "I shall not be an old maid, I think," said she. "I
+am going to be married."
+
+"Married! Who is going to marry you? I haven't seen a man in this
+house except the doctor and the minister for the last twenty years."
+
+"I am going to marry the minister, Mr. von Rosen."
+
+"Lord," said Annie's grandmother, and stared at her. She was a queer
+looking old lady propped up on a flat pillow with her wicked book.
+She had removed the front-piece which she wore by day and her face
+showed large and rosy between the frills of her night cap. Her china
+blue eyes were exceedingly keen and bright. Her mouth as large as her
+daughter Harriet's, not puckered at all, but frankly open in an
+alarming slit, in her amazement.
+
+"When for goodness sake has the man courted you?" she burst forth at
+last.
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Well, I don't know, if you don't. You haven't been meeting him
+outside the house. No, you have not. You are a lady, if you have been
+brought up by old maids, who tell lies about spades."
+
+"I did not know until this afternoon," said Annie. "Mr. von Rosen and
+I went out to see his rose-garden, while Aunt Harriet--"
+
+Then the old lady shook the bed with mirth.
+
+"I see," said she. "Harriet is scared to death of roses and she went
+to sleep in the house and you got your chance. Good for you. I am
+thankful the Eustace family won't quite sputter out in old maids."
+The old lady continued to chuckle. Annie feared lest her aunts might
+hear. Beside the bed stood a table with the collection of things
+which was Ann Maria Eustace's nightly requirement. There were a good
+many things. First was a shaded reading lamp, then a candle and a
+matchbox; there was a plate of thin bread and butter carefully folded
+in a napkin. A glass of milk, covered with a glass dish; two bottles
+of medicine; two spoons; a saucer of sugared raspberries; exactly one
+square inch of American cheese on a tiny plate; a pitcher of water,
+carefully covered; a tumbler; a glass of port wine and a bottle of
+camphor. Old Ann Maria Eustace took most of her sustenance at night.
+Night was really her happy time. When that worn, soft old bulk of
+hers was ensconsed among her soft pillows and feather bed and she had
+her eatables and drinkables and literature at hand, she was in her
+happiest mood and she was none the less happy from the knowledge that
+her daughters considered that any well conducted old woman should
+have beside her bed, merely a stand with a fair linen cloth, a glass
+of water, a candle and the Good Book, and that if she could not go
+immediately to sleep, she should lie quietly and say over texts and
+hymns to herself. All Ann Maria's spice of life was got from a hidden
+antagonism to her daughters and quietly flying in the face of their
+prejudices, and she was the sort of old lady who could hardly have
+lived at all without spice.
+
+"Your Aunt Harriet will be hopping," said the perverse old lady with
+another chuckle.
+
+"Why, grandmother?"
+
+"Harriet has had an eye on him herself."
+
+Annie gasped. "Aunt Harriet must be at least twenty-five years
+older," said she.
+
+"Hm," said the old lady, "that doesn't amount to anything. Harriet
+didn't put on her pearl breast-pin and crimp her hair unless she had
+something in her mind. Susan has given up, but Harriet hasn't given
+up."
+
+Annie still looked aghast.
+
+"When are you going to get married?" asked the old lady.
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Haven't settled that yet? Well, when you do, there's the white satin
+embroidered with white roses that I was married in and my old lace
+veil. I think he's a nice young man. All I have against him is his
+calling. You will have to go to meeting whether you want to or not
+and listen to the same man's sermons. But he is good looking and they
+say he has money, and anyway, the Eustaces won't peter out in old
+maids. There's one thing I am sorry about. Sunday is going to be a
+pretty long day for me, after you are married, and I suppose before.
+If you are going to marry that man, I suppose you will have to begin
+going to meeting at once."
+
+Then Annie spoke decidedly. "I am always going to play pinocle with
+you Sunday forenoons as long as you live, grandmother," said she.
+
+"After you are married?"
+
+"Yes, I am."
+
+"After you are married to a minister?"
+
+"Yes, grandmother."
+
+The old lady sat up straight and eyed Annie with her delighted china
+blue gaze.
+
+"Mr. von Rosen is a lucky man," said she. "Enough sight luckier than
+he knows. You are just like me, Annie Eustace, and your grandfather
+set his eyes by me as long as he lived. A good woman who has sense
+enough not to follow all the rules and precepts and keep good, isn't
+found every day, and she can hold a man and holding a man is about as
+tough a job as the Almighty ever set a woman. I've got a pearl
+necklace and a ring in the bank. Harriet has always wanted them but
+what is the use of a born old maid decking herself out? I always knew
+Harriet and Susan would be old maids. Why, they would never let their
+doll-babies be seen without all their clothes on, seemed to think
+there was something indecent about cotton cloth legs stuffed with
+sawdust. When you see a little girl as silly as that you can always
+be sure she is cut out for an old maid. I don't care when you get
+married--just as soon as you want to--and you shall have a pretty
+wedding and you shall have your wedding cake made after my old
+recipe. You are a good girl, Annie. You look like me. You are enough
+sight better than you would be if you were better, and you can make
+what you can out of that. Now, you must go to bed. You haven't told
+Harriet and Susan yet, have you?"
+
+"No, grandmother."
+
+"I'll tell them myself in the morning," said the old lady with a
+chuckle which made her ancient face a mask of mirth and mischief.
+"Now, you run along and go to bed. This book is dull, but I want to
+see how wicked the writer tried to make it and the heroine is just
+making an awful effort to run away with a married man. She won't
+succeed, but I want to see how near she gets to it. Good-night,
+Annie. You can have the book to-morrow."
+
+Annie went to her own room but she made no preparation for bed. She
+had planned to work as she had worked lately until nearly morning.
+She was hurrying to complete another book which she had begun before
+Margaret Edes' announcement that she had written _The Poor Lady_. The
+speedy completion of this book had been the condition of secrecy with
+her publishers. However, Annie, before she lit the lamp on her table
+could not resist the desire to sit for a minute beside her window and
+gaze out upon the lovely night and revel in her wonderful happiness.
+The night was lovely enough for anyone, and for a girl in the rapture
+of her first love, it was as beautiful as heaven. The broad village
+gleaming like silver in the moonlight satisfied her as well as a
+street of gold and the tree shadows waved softly over everything like
+wings of benediction. Sweet odours came in her face. She could see
+the soft pallor of a clump of lilies in the front yard. The shrilling
+of the night insects seemed like the calls of prophets of happiness.
+The lights had gone out of the windows of the Edes' house, but
+suddenly she heard a faint, very faint, but very terrible cry and a
+white figure rushed out of the Edes' gate. Annie did not wait a
+second. She was up, out of her room, sliding down the stair banisters
+after the habit of her childhood and after it.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IX
+
+
+Margaret Edes, light and slender and supple as she was, and moreover
+rendered swift with the terrible spur of hysteria, was no match for
+Annie Eustace who had the build of a racing human, being long-winded
+and limber. Annie caught up with her, just before they reached Alice
+Mendon's house, and had her held by one arm. Margaret gave a stifled
+shriek. Even in hysteria, she did not quite lose her head. She had
+unusual self-control.
+
+"Let me go," she gasped. Annie saw that Margaret carried a suit-case,
+which had probably somewhat hindered her movements. "Let me go, I
+shall miss the ten-thirty train," Margaret said in her breathless
+voice.
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"I am going."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Anywhere,--away from it all."
+
+The two struggled together as far as Alice's gate, and to Annie's
+great relief, a tall figure appeared, Alice herself. She opened the
+gate and came on Margaret's other side.
+
+"What is the matter?" she asked.
+
+"I am going to take the ten-thirty train," said Margaret.
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"To New York."
+
+"Where in New York?"
+
+"I am going."
+
+"You are not going," said Alice Mendon; "you will return quietly to
+your own home like a sensible woman. You are running away, and you
+know it."
+
+"Yes, I am," said Margaret in her desperate voice. "You would run
+away if you were in my place, Alice Mendon."
+
+"I could never be in your place," said Alice, "but if I were, I
+should stay and face the situation."  She spoke with quite
+undisguised scorn and yet with pity.
+
+"You must think of your husband and children and not entirely of
+yourself," she added.
+
+"If," said Margaret, stammering as she spoke, "I tell Wilbur, I think
+it will kill him. If I tell the children, they will never really have
+a mother again. They will never forget. But if I do not tell, I shall
+not have myself. It is a horrible thing not to have yourself, Alice
+Mendon."
+
+"It is the only way."
+
+"It is easy for you to talk, Alice Mendon. You have never been
+tempted."
+
+"No," replied Alice, "that is quite true. I have never been tempted
+because--I cannot be tempted."
+
+"It is no credit to you. You were made so."
+
+"Yes, that is true also. I was made so. It is no credit to me."
+
+Margaret tried to wrench her arm free from Annie's grasp.
+
+"Let me go, Annie Eustace," she said. "I hate you."
+
+"I don't care if you do," replied Annie. "I don't love you any more
+myself. I don't hate you, but I certainly don't love you."
+
+"I stole your laurels," said Margaret, and she seemed to snap out the
+words.
+
+"You could have had the laurels," said Annie, "without stealing, if I
+could have given them to you. It is not the laurels that matter. It
+is you."
+
+"I will kill myself if it ever is known," said Margaret in a low
+horrified whisper. She cowered.
+
+"It will never be known unless you yourself tell it," said Annie.
+
+"I cannot tell," said Margaret. "I have thought it all over. I cannot
+tell and yet, how can I live and not tell?"
+
+"I suppose," said Alice Mendon, "that always when people do wrong,
+they have to endure punishment. I suppose that is your punishment,
+Margaret. You have always loved yourself and now you will have to
+despise yourself. I don't see any way out of it."
+
+"I am not the only woman who does such things," said Margaret, and
+there was defiance in her tone.
+
+"No doubt, you have company," said Alice. "That does not make it
+easier for you."  Alice, large and fair in her white draperies,
+towered over Margaret Edes like an embodied conscience. She was
+almost unendurable, like the ideal of which the other woman had
+fallen short. Her mere presence was maddening. Margaret actually
+grimaced at her.
+
+"It is easy for you to preach," said she, "very easy, Alice Mendon.
+You have not a nerve in your whole body. You have not an ungratified
+ambition. You neither love nor hate yourself, or other people. You
+want nothing on earth enough to make the lack of it disturb you."
+
+"How well you read me," said Alice and she smiled a large calm smile
+as a statue might smile, could she relax her beautiful marble mouth.
+
+"And as for Annie Eustace," said Margaret, "she has what I stole, and
+she knows it, and that is enough for her. Oh, both of you look down
+upon me and I know it."
+
+"I look down upon you no more than I have always done," said Alice;
+but Annie was silent because she could not say that truly.
+
+"Yes, I know you have always looked down upon me, Alice Mendon," said
+Margaret, "and you never had reason."
+
+"I had the reason," said Alice, "that your own deeds have proved
+true."
+
+"You could not know that I would do such a thing. I did not know it
+myself. Why, I never knew that Annie Eustace could write a book."
+
+"I knew that a self-lover could do anything and everything to further
+her own ends," said Alice in her inexorable voice, which yet
+contained an undertone of pity.
+
+She pitied Margaret far more than Annie could pity her for she had
+not loved her so much. She felt the little arm tremble in her clasp
+and her hand tightened upon it as a mother's might have done.
+
+"Now, we have had enough of this," said she, "quite enough. Margaret,
+you must positively go home at once. I will take your suit-case, and
+return it to you to-morrow. I shall be out driving. You can get in
+without being seen, can't you?"
+
+"I tell you both, I am going," said Margaret; "I cannot face what is
+before me."
+
+"All creation has to face what is before. Running makes no
+difference," said Alice. "You will meet it at the end of every mile.
+Margaret Edes, go home. Take care of your husband, and your children
+and keep your secret and let it tear you for your own good."
+
+"They are to nominate Wilbur for Senator," said Margaret. "If they
+knew, if he knew, Wilbur would not run. He has always had ambition. I
+should kill it."
+
+"You will not kill it," said Alice. "Here, give me that suit-case, I
+will set it inside the gate here. Now Annie and I will walk with you
+and you must steal in and not wake anybody and go to bed and to
+sleep."
+
+"To sleep," repeated Margaret bitterly.
+
+"Then not to sleep, but you must go."
+
+The three passed down the moon-silvered road. When they had reached
+Margaret's door, Alice suddenly put an arm around her and kissed her.
+
+"Go in as softly as you can, and to bed," she whispered.
+
+"What made you do that, Alice?" asked Annie in a small voice when the
+door had closed behind Margaret.
+
+"I think I am beginning to love her," whispered Alice. "Now you know
+what we must do, Annie?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"We must both watch until dawn, until after that train to New York
+which stops here at three-thirty. You must stand here and I will go
+to the other door. Thank God, there are only two doors, and I don't
+think she will try the windows because she won't suspect our being
+here. But I don't trust her, poor thing. She is desperate. You stay
+here, Annie. Sit down close to the door and--you won't be afraid?"
+
+"Oh, no!"
+
+"Of course, there is nothing to be afraid of," said Alice. "Now I
+will go to the other door."
+
+Annie sat there until the moon sank. She did not feel in the least
+sleepy. She sat there and counted up her joys of life and almost
+forgot poor Margaret who had trampled hers in the dust raised by her
+own feet of self-seeking. Then came the whistle and roar of a train
+and Alice stole around the house.
+
+"It is safe enough for us to go now," said she. "That was the last
+train. Do you think you can get in your house without waking
+anybody?"
+
+"There is no danger unless I wake grandmother. She wakes very early
+of herself and she may not be asleep and her hearing is very quick."
+
+"What will she say?"
+
+"I think I can manage her."
+
+"Well, we must hurry. It is lucky that my room is away from the
+others or I should not be sure of getting there unsuspected. Hurry,
+Annie."
+
+The two sped swiftly and noiselessly down the street, which was now
+very dark. The village houses seemed rather awful with their dark
+windows like sightless eyes. When they reached Annie's house Alice
+gave her a swift kiss. "Good-night," she whispered.
+
+"Alice."
+
+"Well, little Annie?"
+
+"I am going to be married, to Mr. Von Rosen."
+
+Alice started ever so slightly. "You are a lucky girl," she
+whispered, "and he is a lucky man."
+
+Alice flickered out of sight down the street like a white moonbeam
+and Annie stole into the house. She dared not lock the door behind
+her lest she arouse somebody. She tip-toed upstairs, but as she was
+passing her grandmother's door, it was opened, and the old woman
+stood there, her face lit by her flaring candle.
+
+"You just march right in here," said she so loud that Annie shuddered
+for fear she would arouse the whole house. She followed her
+grandmother into her room and the old woman turned and looked at her,
+and her face was white.
+
+"Where have you been, Miss?" said she. "It is after three o'clock in
+the morning."
+
+"I had to go, grandmother, and there was no harm, but I can't tell
+you. Indeed, I can't," replied Annie, trembling.
+
+"Why can't you? I'd like to know."
+
+"I can't, indeed, I can't, grandmother."
+
+"Why not, I'd like to know. Pretty doings, I call it."
+
+"I can't tell you why not, grandmother."
+
+The old woman eyed the girl. "Out with a man--I don't care if you are
+engaged to him--till this time!" said she.
+
+Annie started and crimsoned. "Oh, grandmother!" she cried.
+
+"I don't care if he is a minister. I am going to see him to-morrow,
+no, to-day, right after breakfast and give him a piece of my mind. I
+don't care what he thinks of me."
+
+"Grandmother, there wasn't any man."
+
+"Are you telling me the truth?"
+
+"I always tell the truth."
+
+"Yes, I think you always have since that time when you were a little
+girl and I spanked you for lying," said the old woman. "I rather
+think you do tell the truth, but sometimes when a girl gets a man
+into her head, she goes round like a top. You haven't been alone, you
+needn't tell me that."
+
+"No, I haven't been alone."
+
+"But, he wasn't with you? There wasn't any man?"
+
+"No, there was not any man, grandmother."
+
+"Then you had better get into your own room as fast as you can and
+move still or you will wake up Harriet and Susan."
+
+Annie went.
+
+"I am thankful I am not curious," said the old woman clambering back
+into bed. She lit her lamp and took up her novel again.
+
+The next morning old Ann Maria Eustace announced her granddaughter's
+engagement at the breakfast table. She waited until the meal was in
+full swing, then she raised her voice.
+
+"Well, girls," she said, looking first at Harriet, then at Susan, "I
+have some good news for you. Our little Annie here is too modest, so
+I have to tell you for her."
+
+Harriet Eustace laughed unsuspiciously. "Don't tell us that Annie has
+been writing a great anonymous novel like Margaret Edes," she said,
+and Susan laughed also. "Whatever news it may be, it is not that,"
+she said. "Nobody could suspect Annie of writing a book. I myself was
+not so much surprised at Margaret Edes."
+
+To Annie's consternation, her grandmother turned upon her a long,
+slow, reading look. She flushed under it and swallowed a spoonful of
+cereal hastily. Then her grandmother chuckled under her breath and
+her china blue eyes twinkled.
+
+"Annie has done something a deal better than to write a book," said
+she, looking away from the girl, and fixing unsparing eyes upon her
+daughters. "She has found a nice man to marry her."
+
+Harriet and Susan dropped their spoons and stared at their mother.
+
+"Mother, what are you talking about?" said Harriet sharply. "She has
+had no attention."
+
+"Sometimes," drawled the old lady in a way she affected when she
+wished to be exasperating, "sometimes, a little attention is so
+strong that it counts and sometimes attention is attention when
+nobody thinks it is."
+
+"Who is it?" asked Harriet in rather a hard voice. Susan regarded
+Annie with a bewildered, yet kindly smile. Poor Susan had never
+regarded the honey pots of life as intended for herself, and thus
+could feel a kindly interest in their acquisition by others.
+
+"My granddaughter is engaged to be married to Mr. von Rosen," said
+the old lady. Then she stirred her coffee assiduously.
+
+Susan rose and kissed Annie. "I hope you will be happy, very happy,"
+she said in an awed voice. Harriet rose, to follow her sister's
+example but she looked viciously at her mother.
+
+"He is a good ten years older than Annie," she said.
+
+"And a good twenty-five younger than you," said the old lady, and
+sipped her coffee delicately. "He is just the right age for Annie."
+
+Harriet kissed Annie, but her lips were cold and Annie wondered. It
+never occurred to her then, nor later, to imagine that her Aunt
+Harriet might have had her own dreams which had never entirely ended
+in rainbow mists. She did not know how hardly dreams die. They are
+sometimes not entirely stamped out during a long lifetime.
+
+That evening Von Rosen came to call on Annie and she received him
+alone in the best parlour. She felt embarrassed and shy, but very
+happy. Her lover brought her an engagement ring, a great pearl, which
+had been his mother's and put it on her finger, and Annie eyed her
+finger with a big round gaze like a bird's. Von Rosen laughed at the
+girl holding up her hand and staring at the beringed finger.
+
+"Don't you like it, dear?" he said.
+
+"It is the most beautiful ring I ever saw," said Annie, "but I keep
+thinking it may not be true."
+
+"The truest things in the world are the things which do not seem so,"
+he said, and caught up the slender hand and kissed the ring and the
+finger.
+
+Margaret on the verandah had seen Von Rosen enter the Eustace house
+and had guessed dully at the reason. She had always thought that Von
+Rosen would eventually marry Alice Mendon and she wondered a little,
+but not much. Her own affairs were entirely sufficient to occupy her
+mind. Her position had become more impossible to alter and more
+ghastly. That night Wilbur had brought home a present to celebrate
+her success. It was something which she had long wanted and which she
+knew he could ill afford:--a circlet of topazes for her hair. She
+kissed him and put it on to please him, but it was to her as if she
+were crowned because of her infamy and she longed to snatch the thing
+off and trample it. And yet always she was well aware that it was not
+remorse which she felt, but a miserable humiliation that she,
+Margaret Edes, should have cause for remorse. The whole day had been
+hideous. The letters and calls of congratulation had been incessant.
+There were brief notices in a few papers which had been marked and
+sent to her and Wilbur had brought them home also. Her post-office
+box had been crammed. There were requests for her autograph. There
+were requests for aid from charitable institutions. There were
+requests for advice and assistance from young authors. She had two
+packages of manuscripts sent her for inspection concerning their
+merits. One was a short story, and came through the mail; one was a
+book and came by express. She had requests for work from editors and
+publishers. Wilbur had brought a letter of congratulation from his
+partner. It was absolutely impossible for her to draw back except for
+that ignoble reason: the reinstatement of herself in her own esteem.
+She could not possibly receive all this undeserved adulation and
+retain her self esteem. It was all more than she had counted upon.
+She had opened Pandora's box with a vengeance and the stinging things
+swarmed over her. Wilbur sat on the verandah with her and scarcely
+took his eyes of adoring wonder from her face. She had sent the
+little girls to bed early. They had told all their playmates and
+talked incessantly with childish bragging. They seemed to mock her as
+with peacock eyes, symbolic of her own vanity.
+
+"You sent the poor little things to bed very early," Wilbur said.
+"They did so enjoy talking over their mother's triumph. It is the
+greatest day of their lives, you know, Margaret."
+
+"I am tired of it," Margaret said sharply, but Wilbur's look of
+worship deepened.
+
+"You are so modest, sweetheart," he said and Margaret writhed. Poor
+Wilbur had been reading _The Poor Lady_ instead of his beloved
+newspapers and now and then he quoted a passage which he remembered,
+with astonishing accuracy.
+
+"Say, darling, you are a marvel," he would remark after every
+quotation. "Now, how in the world did you ever manage to think that
+up? I suppose just this minute, as you sit there looking so sweet in
+your white dress, just such things are floating through your brain,
+eh?"
+
+"No, they are not," replied Margaret. Oh, if she had only understood
+the horrible depth of a lie!
+
+"Suppose Von Rosen is making up to little Annie?" said Wilbur
+presently.
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Well, she is a nice little thing, sweet tempered, and pretty,
+although of course her mental calibre is limited. She may make a good
+wife, though. A man doesn't expect his wife always to set the river
+on fire as you have done, sweetheart."
+
+Then Wilbur fished from his pockets a lot of samples. "Thought I must
+order a new suit, to live up to my wife," he said. "See which you
+prefer, Margaret."
+
+"I should think your own political outlook would make the new suit
+necessary," said Margaret tartly.
+
+"Not a bit of it. Get more votes if you look a bit shabby from the
+sort who I expect may get me the office," laughed Wilbur. "This new
+suit is simply to enable me to look worthy, as far as my clothes are
+concerned, of my famous wife."
+
+"I think you have already clothes enough," said Margaret coldly.
+
+Wilbur looked hurt. "Doesn't make much difference how the old man
+looks, does it, dear?" said he.
+
+"Let me see the samples," Margaret returned with an effort. There
+were depths beyond depths; there were bottomless quicksands in a lie.
+How could she have known?
+
+That night Wilbur looked into his wife's bedroom at midnight.
+"Awake?" he asked in his monosyllabic fashion.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Say, old girl, Von Rosen has just this minute gone. Guess it's a
+match fast enough."
+
+"I always thought it would be Alice," returned Margaret wearily. Love
+affairs did seem so trivial to her at this juncture.
+
+"Alice Mendon has never cared a snap about getting married any way,"
+returned Wilbur. "Some women are built that way. She is."
+
+Margaret did not inquire how he knew. If Wilbur had told her that he
+had himself asked Alice in marriage, it would have been as if she had
+not heard. All such things seemed very unimportant to her in the
+awful depths of her lie. She said good-night in answer to Wilbur's
+and again fell to thinking. There was no way out, absolutely no way.
+She must live and die with this secret self-knowledge which abased
+her, gnawing at the heart. Wilbur had told her that he believed that
+her authorship of _The Poor Lady_ might be the turning point of his
+election. She was tongue-tied in a horrible spiritual sense. She was
+disfigured for the rest of her life and she could never once turn
+away her eyes from her disfigurement.
+
+The light from Annie Eustace's window shone in her room for two hours
+after that. She wondered what she was doing and guessed Annie was
+writing a new novel to take the place of the one of which she had
+robbed her. An acute desire which was like a pain to be herself the
+injured instead of the injurer possessed her. Oh, what would it mean
+to be Annie sitting there, without leisure to brood over her new
+happiness, working, working, into the morning hours and have nothing
+to look upon except moral and physical beauty in her mental
+looking-glass. She envied the poor girl, who was really working
+beyond her strength, as she had never envied any human being. The
+envy stung her, and she could not sleep. The next morning she looked
+ill and then she had to endure Wilbur's solicitude.
+
+"Poor girl, you overworked writing your splendid book," he said. Then
+he suggested that she spend a month at an expensive seashore resort
+and another horror was upon Margaret. Wilbur, she well knew, could
+not afford to send her to such a place, but was innocently, albeit
+rather shamefacedly, assuming that she could defray her own expenses
+from the revenue of her book. He would never call her to account as
+to what she had done with the wealth which he supposed her to be
+reaping. She was well aware of that, but he would naturally wonder
+within himself. Any man would. She said that she was quite well, that
+she hated a big hotel, and much preferred home during the hot season,
+but she heard the roar of these new breakers. How could she have
+dreamed of the lifelong disturbance which a lie could cause?
+
+Night after night she saw the light in Annie's windows and she knew
+what she was doing. She knew why she was not to be married until next
+winter. That book had to be written first. Poor Annie could not enjoy
+her romance to the full because of over-work. The girl lost flesh and
+Margaret knew why. Preparing one's trousseau, living in a love
+affair, and writing a book, are rather strenuous, when undertaken at
+the same time.
+
+It was February when Annie and Von Rosen were married and the wedding
+was very quiet. Annie had over-worked, but her book was published,
+and was out-selling _The Poor Lady_. It also was published
+anonymously, but Margaret knew, she knew even from the reviews. Then
+she bought the book and read it and was convinced. The book was
+really an important work. The writer had gone far beyond her first
+flight, but there was something unmistakable about the style to such
+a jealous reader as Margaret. Annie had her success after all. She
+wore her laurels, although unseen of men, with her orange blossoms.
+Margaret saw in every paper, in great headlines, the notice of the
+great seller. The best novel for a twelve-month--_The Firm Hand_.
+Wilbur talked much about it. He had his election. He was a Senator,
+and was quietly proud of it, but nothing mattered to him as much as
+Margaret's book. That meant more than his own success.
+
+"I have read that novel they are talking so much about and it cannot
+compare with yours," he told her. "The publishers ought to push yours
+a little more. Do you think I ought to look in on them and have a
+little heart-to-heart talk?"
+
+Margaret's face was ghastly. "Don't do anything of the sort," she
+said.
+
+"Well, I won't if you don't want me to, but--"
+
+"I most certainly don't want you to."  Then Margaret never had a day
+of peace. She feared lest Wilbur, who seemed nightly more incensed at
+the flaming notices of _The Firm Hand_ might, in spite of her
+remonstrances, go to see the publishers, and would they keep the
+secret if he did?
+
+Margaret continued to live as she had done before. That was part of
+the horror. She dared not resign from the Zenith Club. However, she
+came in time to get a sort of comfort from it. Meeting all those
+members, presiding over the meetings, became a sort of secret
+flagellation, which served as a counter irritation, for her tormented
+soul. All those women thought well of her. They admired her. The
+acute torture which she derived from her knowledge of herself, as
+compared with their opinion of her, seemed at times to go a little
+way toward squaring her account with her better self. And the club
+also seemed to rouse within her a keener vitality of her better self.
+Especially when the New Year came and Mrs. Slade was elected
+president in her stead. Once, Margaret would have been incapable of
+accepting that situation so gracefully. She gave a reception to Mrs.
+Slade in honour of her election, and that night had a little return
+of her lost peace. Then during one of the meetings, a really good
+paper was read, which set her thinking. That evening she played
+dominoes with Maida and Adelaide, and always after that a game
+followed dinner. The mother became intimate with her children. She
+really loved them because of her loss of love for herself, and
+because the heart must hold love. She loved her husband too, but he
+realised no difference because he had loved her. That coldness had
+had no headway against such doting worship. But the children
+realised.
+
+"Mamma is so much better since she wrote that book that I shall be
+glad when you are old enough to write a book too," Adelaide said once
+to Maida.
+
+But always Margaret suffered horribly, although she gave no sign. She
+took care of her beauty. She was more particular than ever about her
+dress. She entertained, she accepted every invitation, and they
+multiplied since Wilbur's flight in politics and her own reputed
+authorship. She was Spartan in her courage, but she suffered, because
+she saw herself as she was and she had so loved herself. It was not
+until Annie Eustace was married that she obtained the slightest
+relief. Then she ascertained that the friend whom she had robbed of
+her laurels had obtained a newer and greener crown of them. She went
+to the wedding and saw on a table, Annie's new book. She glanced at
+it and she knew and she wondered if Von Rosen knew. He did not.
+
+Annie waited until after their return from their short wedding
+journey when they were settled in their home. Then one evening,
+seated with her husband before the fire in the study, with the yellow
+cat in her lap, and the bull terrier on the rug, his white skin rosy
+in the firelight, she said:
+
+"Karl, I have something to tell you."
+
+Von Rosen looked lovingly at her. "Well, dear?"
+
+"It is nothing, only you must not tell, for the publishers insist
+upon its being anonymous, I--wrote _The Firm Hand_."
+
+Von Rosen made a startled exclamation and looked at Annie and she
+could not understand the look.
+
+"Are you displeased?" she faltered. "Don't you like me to write? I
+will never neglect you or our home because of it. Indeed I will not."
+
+"Displeased," said Von Rosen. He got up and deliberately knelt before
+her. "I am proud that you are my wife," he said, "prouder than I am
+of anything else in the world."
+
+"Please get up, dear," said Annie, "but I am so glad, although it is
+really I who am proud, because I have you for my husband. I feel all
+covered over with peacock's eyes."
+
+"I cannot imagine a human soul less like a peacock," said Von Rosen.
+He put his arms around her as he knelt, and kissed her, and the
+yellow cat gave an indignant little snarl and jumped down. He was
+jealous.
+
+"Sit down," said Annie, laughing. "I thought the time had come to
+tell you and I hoped you would be pleased. It is lovely, isn't it?
+You know it is selling wonderfully."
+
+"It is lovely," said Von Rosen. "It would have been lovely anyway,
+but your success is a mighty sweet morsel for me."
+
+"You had better go back to your chair and smoke and I will read to
+you," said Annie.
+
+"Just as if you had not written a successful novel," said Von Rosen.
+But he obeyed, the more readily because he knew, and pride and
+reverence for his wife fairly dazed him. Von Rosen had been more
+acute than the critics and Annie had written at high pressure, and
+one can go over a book a thousand times and be blind to things which
+should be seen. She had repeated one little sentence which she had
+written in _The Poor Lady_. Von Rosen knew, but he never told her
+that he knew. He bowed before her great, generous silence as he would
+have bowed before a shrine, but he knew that she had written _The
+Poor Lady_, and had allowed Margaret Edes to claim unquestioned the
+honour of her work.
+
+As they sat there, Annie's Aunt Susan came in and sat with them. She
+talked a good deal about the wedding presents. Wedding presents were
+very wonderful to her. They were still spread out, most of them on
+tables in the parlour because all Fairbridge was interested in
+viewing them. After a while Susan went into the parlour and gloated
+over the presents. When she came back, she wore a slightly disgusted
+expression.
+
+"You have beautiful presents," said she, "but I have been looking all
+around and the presents are not all on those tables, are they?"
+
+"No," said Annie.
+
+Von Rosen laughed. He knew what was coming, or thought that he did.
+
+"I see," said Aunt Susan, "that you have forty-two copies of Margaret
+Edes' book, _The Poor Lady_, and I have always thought it was a very
+silly book, and you can't exchange them for every single one is
+autographed."
+
+It was quite true. Poor Margaret Edes had autographed the forty-two.
+She had not even dreamed of the incalculable depths of a lie.
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's note:
+
+The following spelling inconsistencies were present in the original
+and were not corrected in this etext:
+
+wordly
+ensconsed/ensconced]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Butterfly House, by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
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